The Coffin Dancer (Lincoln Rhyme 2)

"Wait there," he ordered Jodie.

Stephen plugged the headset back into the man's transceiver and listened. They were on the Special Operations channel and there must have been a dozen or so cops and agents, calling in as they searched different parts of the building.

He didn't have much time, but he had to slow them up.

Stephen led the dazed agent out into the yellow hallway.

He pulled out his knife again.

. . . Chapter Twenty

Hour 23 of 45

"Damn. Damn!" Rhyme snapped, flecking his chin with spittle. Thom stepped up to the chair and wiped it, but Rhyme angrily shook him away.

"Bo?" he called into his microphone.

"Go ahead," Haumann said from the command van.

"I think somehow he made us and's going to fight his way out. Tell your agents to form defensive teams. I don't want anybody alone. Move everybody into the building. I think--"

"Hold on . . . Hold on. Oh, no . . . "

"Bo? Sachs? . . . Anybody?"

But nobody answered.

Rhyme heard shouting voices through the radio. The transmission was cut off. Then staccato bursts: " . . . assistance. We've got a blood trail . . . In the office building. Right, right . . . no . . . downstairs . . . Basement. Innelman's not reporting in. He was . . . basement. All units move, move. Come on, move! . . . "

Rhyme called, "Bell, you hear me? Double up on the principals. Do not, repeat, do not leave them unguarded. The Dancer's loose and we don't know where he is."

Roland Bell's calm voice came over the line. "Got 'em under our wing. Nobody's getting in here."

An infuriating wait. Unbearable. Rhyme wanted to scream with frustration.

Where was he?

A snake in a dark room . . .

Then one by one the troopers and agents called in, telling Haumann and Dellray that they'd secured one floor after another.

Finally, Rhyme heard: "Basement's secure. But Jesus Lord there's a lot of blood down here. And Innelman's gone. We can't find him! Jesus, all this blood!"

"Rhyme, can you hear me?"

"Go ahead."

"I'm in the basement of the office building," Amelia Sachs said into her stalk mike, looking around her.

The walls were filthy yellow concrete and the floors were painted battleship gray. But you hardly noticed the decor of the dank place; blood spatter was everywhere, like a horrific Jackson Pollock painting.

The poor agent, she thought. Innelman. Better find him fast. Someone bleeding this much couldn't last more than fifteen minutes.

"You have the kit?" Rhyme asked her.

"We don't have time! All the blood, we've got to find him!"

"Steady, Sachs. The kit. Open the kit."