To shoot the face in the window, to kill the worm.

Have to have to have to have to…

He was looking through the telescope, scanning the building’s windows. And there he was. Lincoln the Worm!

A shiver rippled through Stephen’s entire body.

Like the electricity he felt when his leg rubbed against Jodie’s… only a thousand times greater. He actually gasped in excitement.

For some reason Stephen wasn’t the least surprised to see that the Worm was crippled. In fact, this was how he knew the handsome man in a fancy motorized wheelchair was Lincoln. Because Stephen believed it would take an extraordinary man to catch him. Someone who wasn’t distracted by everyday life. Someone whose essence was his mind.

Worms could crawl over Lincoln all day long and he’d never even feel them. They could crawl into his skin and he’d never know. He was immune. And Stephen hated him all the more for his invulnerability.

So the face in the window during the Alexandria, Virginia, hit… it hadn’t been Lincoln.

Or had it?

Stop thinking about it! Stop! The worms’ll get you if you don’t.

The explosive rounds were in the clip. He chambered one, and scanned the room again.

Lincoln the Worm was speaking to someone Stephen couldn’t see. The room, on the first floor, seemed to be a laboratory. He saw a computer screen and some other equipment.

Stephen wrapped the sling around him, spot-welded the rifle butt to his cheek. It was a cool, damp evening. The air was heavy; it would sustain the explosive bullet easily. There was no need to correct; the target was only eighty yards away. Safety off, breathe, breathe…

Go for a head shot. It would be easy from here.

Breathe…

In, out, in, out.

He looked through the reticles, centered them on Lincoln the Worm’s ear as he stared at the computer screen.

The pressure on the trigger began to build.

Breathe. Like sex, like coming, like touching firm skin…

Harder.

Harder…

Then Stephen saw it.

Very faint – a slight unevenness on Lincoln the Worm’s sleeve. But not a wrinkle. It was a distortion.

He relaxed his trigger finger and studied the image through the telescope for a moment. Stephen clicked to a higher resolution on the Redfield telescope. He looked at the type on the computer screen. The letters were backwards.

A mirror! He was sighting on a mirror.

It was another trap!

Stephen closed his eyes. He’d almost given his position away. Cringey now. Smothering in worms, choking on worms. He looked around him. He knew there must be a dozen search-and-surveillance troopers in the park with Big Ears microphones just waiting to pinpoint the gunshot. They’d sight on him with M-16s mounted with Starlight scopes and nail him in a cross fire.

Green-lighted to kill. No surrender pitch.

Quickly but in absolute silence he removed the telescope with shaking hands and replaced it and the gun in the guitar case. Fighting down the nausea, the cringe.

Soldier…

Sir, go away, sir.

Soldier, what are you -

Sir, fuck you, sir!

Stephen slipped through the trees to a path and walked casually around the meadow, heading east.

Oh, yes, he was now even more certain than before that he had to kill Lincoln. A new plan. He needed an hour or two, to think, to consider what he was going to do.

He turned suddenly off the path, paused in the bushes for a long moment, listening, looking around him. They’d been worried he’d be suspicious if he noticed that the park was deserted, so they hadn’t closed the entrances.

That was their mistake.

Stephen saw a group of men about his age – yuppies, from the look of them, dressed in sweats or jogging outfits. They were carrying racquetball cases and backpacks and headed for the Upper East Side, talking loudly as they walked. Their hair glistened from the showers they’d just had at a nearby athletic club.

Stephen waited until they were just past, then fell in behind them, as if he were a part of the group. Offered one of them a big smile. Walking briskly, swinging the guitar case jauntily, he followed them toward the tunnel that led to the East Side.

Hour 34 of 45

DUSK SURROUNDED THEM.

Percey Clay, once again in the left-hand seat of the Learjet, saw the cusp of light that was Chicago in front of them.

Chicago Center cleared them down to twelve thousand feet.

“Starting descent,” she announced, easing back on the throttles. “ATIS.”

Brad clicked his radio to the automated airport information system and repeated out loud what the recorded voice told him. “Chicago information, Whiskey. Clear and forever. Wind two five oh at three. Temperature fifty-nine degrees. Altimeter thirty point one one.”

Brad set the altimeter as Percey said into her microphone, “Chicago Approach, this is Lear Niner Five Foxtrot Bravo. With you inbound at twelve thousand. Heading two eight zero.”

“Evening, Foxtrot Bravo. Descend and maintain one zero thousand. Expect vectors runway twenty-seven right.”

“Roger. Descend and maintain ten. Vectors, two seven right. Niner Five Foxtrot Bravo.”

Percey refused to look down. Somewhere below and ahead of them was the grave of her husband and his aircraft. She didn’t know if he’d been cleared to land on O’Hare’s runway 27 right, but it was likely that he had, and if so, ATC would’ve vectored Ed through exactly the same airspace she was now sailing through.

Maybe he’d started to call her right about here…

No! Don’t think about it, she ordered herself. Fly the aircraft.

In a low, calm voice she said, “Brad, this will be a visual approach to runway twenty-seven right. Monitor the approach and call all assigned altitudes. When we turn on final, please monitor airspeed, altitude, and rate of descent. Warn me of a sink rate greater than one thousand fpm. Go-around will be at ninety-two percent.”

“Roger.”

“Flaps ten degrees.”

“Flaps, ten, ten, green.”

The radio crackled, “Lear Niner Five Foxtrot Bravo, turn left heading two four zero, descend, and maintain four thousand.”

“Five Foxtrot Bravo, out of ten for four. Heading two four zero.”

She eased back on the throttle and the plane settled slightly, the grinding sound of the engines diminished, and she could hear the woosh of the air like a whisper of wind over bedsheets beside an open window at night.

Percey yelled back to Bell, “You’re about to have your first landing in a Lear. Let’s see if I can set her down without rippling your coffee.”

“In one piece’s all I’m asking for,” Bell said and cinched his seat belt tight as a bungee cord harness.

“Nothing, Rhyme.”

The criminalist closed his eyes in disgust. “I don’t believe it. I just don’t believe it.”

“He’s gone. He was there, they’re pretty sure. But the mikes didn’t pick up a sound.”

Rhyme glanced up at the big mirror he’d ordered Thom to prop up across the room. They’d been waiting for the explosive rounds to crash into it. Central Park was peppered with Haumann’s and Dellray’s tactical officers, just waiting for a gunshot.

“Where’s Jodie?” Rhyme asked.

Dellray snickered. “Hiding in the alley. Saw some car go by and spooked.”

“What car?” Rhyme asked.

The agent laughed. “If it was the Dancer, then he turned hisself into four fat Puerto Rican girls. Little shit said he won’t come out till somebody shuts off the streetlight in front of your building.”

“Leave him. He’ll come back when he gets cold.”

“Or to get his money,” Sachs reminded.

Rhyme scowled. He was bitterly disappointed that this trick too hadn’t worked.

Was it his failing? Or was there some uncanny instinct that the Dancer had? A sixth sense? The idea was repugnant to Lincoln Rhyme, the scientist, but he couldn’t discount it completely. After all, even the NYPD used psychics from time to time.