Brit Hale’s room was only ten feet away. She wanted badly to talk to him, but she didn’t want him to see her this way, pale, hands shaking. Eyes watering in fear… My God, she’d pulled a seven three seven out of a wing-ice nosedive more calmly than this: looking into that dark corridor.

She stepped back into her room.

Did she hear footsteps?

She closed the door, returned to the bed.

More footsteps.

“Command mode,” Lincoln Rhyme instructed. The box dutifully came up on-screen.

He heard a faint siren in the distance.

And it was then that Rhyme realized his mistake.

Fire trucks…

No! I didn’t think about that.

But the Dancer did. Of course! He’d have stolen a fireman’s or medic’s uniform and was strolling into the safe house at this moment!

“Oh, no,” he muttered. “No! How could I be so far off?”

And the computer heard the last word of Rhyme’s sentence and dutifully shut off his communications program.

“No!” Rhyme cried. “No!”

But the system couldn’t understand his loud, frantic voice and with a silent flash the message came up, Do you really want to shut off your computer?

“No,” he whispered desperately.

For a moment nothing happened, but the system didn’t shut down. A message popped up. What would you like to do now?

“Thom!” he shouted. “Somebody… please. Mel!”

But the door was closed; there was no response from downstairs.

Rhyme’s left ring finger twitched dramatically. At one time he’d had a mechanical ECU controller and he could use his one working finger to dial the phone. The computer system had replaced that and he now had to use the dictation program to call the safe house and tell them that the Dancer was on his way there, dressed as a fireman or rescue worker.

“Command mode,” he said into the microphone. Fighting to stay calm.

I did not understand what you just said. Please try again.

Where was the Dancer now? Was he inside already? Was he just about to shoot Percey Clay or Brit Hale?

Or Amelia Sachs?

“Thom! Mel!”

I did not understand…

Why wasn’t I thinking better?

“Command mode,” he said breathlessly, trying to master the panic.

The command mode message box popped up. The cursor arrow sat at the top of the screen and, a continent away, at the bottom, was the communications program icon.

“Cursor down,” he gasped.

Nothing happened.

“Cursor down,” he called, louder.

The message came back: I did not understand what you just said. Please try again.

“Oh, goddamn…”

I did not understand…

Softer, forcing himself to speak in a normal tone, he said, “Cursor down.”

The glowing white arrow began its leisurely trip down the screen.

We’ve still got time, he told himself. And it wasn’t as though the people in the safe house were unprotected or unarmed.

“Cursor left,” he gasped.

I did not understand…

“Oh, come on!”

I did not understand…

“Cursor up… cursor left.”

The cursor moved like a snail over the screen until it came to the icon.

Calm, calm…

“Cursor stop. Double click.”

Dutifully, an icon of a walkie-talkie popped up on the screen.

He pictured the faceless Dancer moving up behind Percey Clay with a knife or garrote.

In as calm a voice as he could muster he ordered the cursor to the set-frequency box.

It seated itself perfectly.

“Four,” Rhyme said, pronouncing the word so very carefully.

A 4 popped up into the box. Then he said, “Eight.”

The letter A appeared in the second box.

Lord in heaven!

“Delete left.”

I did not understand…

No, no!

He thought he heard footsteps. “Hello?” he cried. “Is someone there? Thom? Mel?”

No answer except from his friend the computer, which placidly offered its contrarian response once again.

“Eight,” he said slowly.

The number appeared. His next attempt, “Three,” popped into the box without a problem.

“Point.”

The word point appeared.

Goddamn!

“Delete left.” Then, “Decimal.”

The period popped up.

“Four.”

One space left. Remember, It’s zero not oh. Sweat streaming down his face, he added the final number of the Secure Ops frequency without a glitch.

The radio clicked on.

Yes!

But before he could transmit, static clattered harshly and, with a frozen heart, he heard a man’s frantic voice crying, “Ten-thirteen, need assistance, federal protection location six.”

The safe house.

He recognized the voice as Roland Bell’s. “Two down and… Oh, Jesus, he’s still here. He’s got us, he’s hit us! We need -”

There were two gunshots. Then another. A dozen. A huge firefight. It sounded like Macy’s fireworks on the Fourth of July.

“We need -”

The transmission ended.

“Percey!” Rhyme cried. “Percey…”

On the screen came the message in simple type: I did not understand what you just said. Please try again.

A nightmare.

Stephen Kall, in ski mask and wearing the bulky fireman’s coat, lay pinned down in the corridor of the safe house, behind the body of one of the two U.S. marshals he’d just killed.

Another shot, closer, digging a piece out of the floor near his head. Fired by the detective with the thinning brown hair – the one he’d seen in the window of the safe house that morning. He crouched in a doorway, presenting a fair target, but Stephen couldn’t get a clean shot at him. The detective held automatic pistols in both his hands and was an excellent shot.

Stephen crawled forward another yard, toward one of the open doorways.

Panicked, cringey, coated with worms…

He fired again and the brown-haired detective ducked back into the room, called something on his radio, but came right back, firing coolly.

Wearing the fireman’s long, black coat – the same as thirty or forty other men and women in front of the safe house – Stephen had blown open the alley door with a cutting charge and run inside, expecting to find the interior a fiery shambles and the Wife and Friend – as well as half the other people inside – blown to pieces or badly wounded. But Lincoln the Worm had fooled him again. He’d figured out that the phone was booby-trapped. The only thing they hadn’t expected was that he’d hit the safe house again; they believed he was going for a transport hit. Still, when he burst inside he was met by the frantic fire from the two marshals. But they’d been stunned by the cutting charge and he’d managed to kill them.

Then the brown-haired detective charged around the corner firing both-handed, skimming two off Stephen’s vest, while Stephen himself danced one round off the detective’s and they fell backward simultaneously. More shooting, more near misses. The cop was almost as good a shot as he was.

A minute at the most. He had no more time than that.

He felt so wormy he wanted to cry… He’d thought his plan out as best he could. He couldn’t get any smarter than he’d been and Lincoln the Worm had still out-thought him. Was this him? The balding detective with the two guns?

Another volley from Stephen’s gun. And… damn… the brown-haired detective dove right into it, kept coming forward. Every other cop in the world would’ve run for cover. But not him. He struggled another two feet forward, then three. Stephen reloaded, fired again, crawling about the same distance toward the door of his target’s room.

You disappear into the ground, boy. You can make yourself invisible, you want to.

I want to, sir. I want to be invisible…

Another yard, almost to the doorway.

“This’s Roland Bell again!” the cop shouted into his microphone. “We need backup immediately!”