Bell . Stephen noted the name. So he’s not Lincoln the Worm.

The cop reloaded and continued to fire. A dozen shots, two dozen… Stephen could only admire his technique. This Bell would keep track of how many shots he’d fired from each gun and alternate reloading so he was never without a loaded weapon.

The cop parked a slug in the wall an inch from Stephen’s face, and Stephen returned a shot that landed just as close.

Crawling forward another two feet.

Bell glanced up and saw that Stephen had finally made it to the doorway of the darkened bedroom. Their eyes locked and, mock soldier though he was, Stephen Kall had seen enough combat to know that the string of rationality within this cop had snapped and he’d become the most dangerous thing there was – a skillful soldier with no regard for his own safety. Bell rose to his feet and started forward, firing from both guns.

That’s why they used.45s in the Pacific Theater, boy. Big slugs to stop those crazy little Japs. When they came at you they didn’t care about getting killed; they just didn’t want to get stopped.

Stephen lowered his head, tossed the one-second-delay flash bang at Bell, and closed his eyes. The grenade detonated with an astonishingly loud explosion. He heard the cop cry out and saw him stumble to his knees, hands over his face.

Stephen had guessed that because of the guards and Bell’s furious effort to stop him, either the Wife or the Friend was in this room. Stephen had also guessed that whoever it was would be hiding in the closet or under the bed.

He was wrong.

As he glanced into the doorway he saw the figure come charging at him, holding a lamp as a weapon and uttering a wail of fear and anger.

Five fast shots from Stephen’s gun. Head and chest hits, well grouped. The body spun around fast and flew backward to the floor.

Good job, Soldier.

Then more footsteps on the floor coming down the stairs. A woman’s voice. And more voices too. No time to finish Bell, no time to look for the other target.

Evacuate…

He ran to the back door and stuck his head outside, shouting for more firemen.

A half dozen of them ran up cautiously.

Stephen nodded them inside. “Gas line just blew. I’d get everybody out. Now!”

And he disappeared into the alley, then stepped into the street, dodging the Mack and Seagrave fire trucks, the ambulances, the police cars.

Shaken, yes.

But satisfied. His job was now two-thirds finished.

Amelia Sachs was the first to respond to the bang of the entry charge and the shouts.

Then Roland Bell’s voice from the first floor: “Backup! Backup! Officer down!”

And gunfire. A dozen sharp cracks, a dozen more.

She didn’t know how the Dancer’d done it and she didn’t care. She wanted only a fair glimpse of target and two seconds to sink half a clip of nine-millimeter hollow-points into him.

The light Glock in her hand, she pushed into the second-floor corridor. Behind her were Sellitto and Dellray and a young uniform, whose credentials under fire she wished she’d taken the time to learn. Jodie cowered on the floor, painfully aware he’d betrayed a very dangerous man who was armed and no more than thirty feet away.

Sachs’s knees screamed as she took the stairs fast, the arthritis again, and she winced as she leapt down the last three steps to the first floor.

In her headset she heard Bell’s repeated request for assistance.

Down the dark corridor, pistol close to the body, where it couldn’t be knocked aside (only TV cops and movie gangstas stick a gun out in front of them phallically before turning corners, or tilt a weapon on its side). Fast glance into each of the rooms she passed, crouching, below chest height, where a muzzle would be pointed.

“I’ll take the front,” Dellray called and vanished down the hallway behind her, his big Sig-Sauer in hand.

“Watch our backs,” Sachs ordered Sellitto and the uniform, caring not a bit about rank.

“Yes’m,” the young man answered. “I’m watching. Our backs.”

Puffing Sellitto was too, his head swiveling back and forth.

Static crinkled in her ear but she heard no voices. She tugged the headset off – no distractions – and continued cautiously down the corridor.

At her feet two U.S. marshals lay dead on the floor.

The smell of chemical explosive was strong and she glanced toward the back door of the safe house. It was steel but he’d blown it open with a powerful cutting charge as if it had been paper.

“Jesus, “ Sellitto said, too professional to bend down over the fallen marshals but too human not to glance in horror at their riddled bodies.

Sachs came to one room, paused at the door. Two of Haumann’s troops entered from the destroyed doorway.

“Cover,” she called and before anyone had a chance to stop her she leapt through the doorway fast.

Glock up, scanning the room.

Nothing.

No cordite smell either. There’d been no shooting here.

Back into the corridor. Heading toward the next doorway.

She pointed to herself and then into the room. The 32-E officers nodded.

Sachs spun around the doorway, ready to fire, the troopers right behind. She froze at the sight of the gun muzzle aimed at her chest.

“Lord,” Roland Bell muttered and lowered his weapon. His hair was mussed and his face was sooty. Two bullets had torn his shirt and streaked over his body armor.

Then her eyes took in the terrible sight on the floor.

“Oh, no…”

“Building’s clear,” a patrolman called from the corridor. “They saw him leave. He was wearing a fireman’s uniform. He’s gone. Lost in the crowd out front.”

Amelia Sachs, once again a criminalist and not a tactical officer, observed the blood spatter, the astringent scent of gunshot residue, the fallen chair, which might indicate a struggle and therefore would be a logical transfer point for trace evidence. The bullet casings, which she immediately noticed were from a 7.62-millimeter automatic.

She observed too the way the body had fallen, which told her that the victim had been attacking the attacker, apparently with a lamp. There were other stories the crime scene would tell and, for that reason, she knew she should help Percey Clay to her feet and lead her away from the body of her slain friend. But Sachs couldn’t do that. All she could do was watch the small woman with the squat unpretty face cradle Brit Hale’s bloody head, muttering, “Oh, no, oh, no…”

Her face was a mask, unmoving, untouched by tears.

Finally Sachs nodded to Roland Bell, who slipped his arms around Percey and led her out into the corridor, still vigilant, still clutching his own weapon.

Two hundred and thirty yards from the safe house.

Red and blue lights from the dozens of emergency vehicles flashed and tried to blind him but he was sighting through the Redfield telescope and was oblivious to anything but the reticles. He scanned back and forth over the kill zone.

Stephen had stripped off the fireman’s uniform and was dressed again as a late-blooming college student. He’d recovered the Model 40 from under the water tank, where he’d hidden it that morning. The weapon was loaded and locked. The sling was around his arm and he was ready to murder.

At the moment it wasn’t the Wife he was after.

And it wasn’t Jodie, the little faggot Judas.

He was looking for Lincoln the Worm. The man who’d out-thought him once again.

Who was he? Which of them?

Cringey.

Lincoln… Prince of Worms.

Where are you? Are you right in front of me now? In that crowd standing around the smoking building?

Was he that large lump of a cop, sweating like a hog?

The tall, thin Negro in the green suit? He looked familiar. Where had Stephen seen him before?