The Coffin Dancer (Lincoln Rhyme 2)

A moment later, through the radio, Percey heard the patch of a unicom call.

It was Lincoln Rhyme.

"Percey, can you hear me?"

"Loud and clear. That prick pulled a fast one, hm?"

"Looks like it. How much flying time do you have?"

"Hour forty-five minutes. About."

"Okay, okay," the criminalist said. A pause. "All right . . . Can you get to the engine from the inside?"

"No."

Another pause. "Could you somehow disconnect the whole engine? Unbolt it or something? Let it drop off?"

"Not from the inside."

"Is there any way you could refuel in midair?"

"Refuel? Not with this plane."

Rhyme asked, "Could you fly high enough to freeze the bomb mechanism?"

She was amazed at how fast his mind worked. These were things that wouldn't have occurred to her. "Maybe. But even at emergency descent rate--I'm talking nosedive--it'd still take eight, nine minutes to get down. I don't think any bomb parts'd stay very frozen for that long. And the Mach buffet would probably tear us apart."

Rhyme continued, "Okay, what about getting a plane in front of you and tethering some parachutes back?"

Her initial thought was that she would never abandon her aircraft. But the realistic answer--the one she gave him--was that given the stall speed of a Lear 35A and the configuration of door, wings, and engines, it was unlikely that anyone could leap from the aircraft without being killed.

Rhyme was again silent for a moment. Brad swallowed and wiped his hands on his razor-creased slacks. "Brother."

Roland Bell rocked back and forth.

Hopeless, she thought, staring down at the murky blue dusk.

"Lincoln?" Percey asked. "Are you there?"

She heard his voice. He was calling to someone in his lab--or bedroom. In a testy tone he was demanding, "Not that map. You know which one I mean. Well, why would I want that one? No, no . . . "

Silence.

Oh, Ed, Percey thought. Our lives have always followed parallel paths. Maybe our deaths will too. She was most upset about Roland Bell, though. The thought of leaving his children orphans was unbearable.

Then she heard Rhyme asking, "On the fuel you've got left, how far can you fly?"

"At the most efficient power settings . . . " She looked at Brad, who was punching in the figures.

He said, "If we got some altitude, say, eight hundred miles."

"Got an idea," Rhyme said. "Can you make it to Denver?"

. . . Chapter Thirty-three

Hour 36 of 45

"Airport elevation's fifty-one eighty feet," Brad said, reviewing the Airman's Guide of Denver International. "We were about that outside of Chicago and the thing didn't blow."