The Coffin Dancer (Lincoln Rhyme 2)

Forward again.

Nine miles . . . Eight . . .

Sweating like a rainstorm. She wiped her face. Blisters on the soft skin between her thumbs and index fingers.

Seven . . . Six . . .

"Five miles from touchdown, forty-five hundred feet. Airspeed two hundred ten knots."

"Gear down," Percey commanded.

Brad spun the wheel that manually lowered the heavy gear. He had gravity helping him, but it was nonetheless a major effort. Still, he kept his eyes glued to the instruments and recited, calm as an accountant reading a balance sheet, "Four miles from touchdown, thirty-nine hundred feet . . . "

She fought the buffeting of the lower altitude and the harsh winds.

"Gear down," Brad called, panting, "three green."

The airspeed dropped to one hundred eighty knots--about two hundred miles an hour. It was too fast. Way too fast. Without their reverse thrusters they'd burn up even the longest runway in a streak.

"Denver Approach, what's the altimeter?"

"Three oh nine eight," the unflappable ATC controller said.

Rising. Higher and higher.

She took a deep breath. According to the bomb, the runway was slightly less than five thousand feet above sea level. How accurate had the Coffin Dancer been when he'd made the detonator?

"The gear's dragging. Sink rate's twenty-six hundred."

Which meant a vertical speed of about thirty-eight miles per hour. "We're dropping too fast, Percey," Brad called. "We'll hit in front of the approach lights. A hundred yards short. Two, maybe."

ATC's voice had noticed this too: "Foxtrot Bravo, you have to get some altitude. You're coming in too low."

Back on the stick. The speed dropped. Stall warning. Forward on the stick.

"Two and a half miles from touchdown, altitude nineteen hundred feet."

"Too low, Foxtrot Bravo!" the ATC controller warned again.

She looked out over the silver nose. There were all the lights--the strobes of the approach lights beckoning them forward, the blue dots of the taxiway, the orange-red of the runway . . . And lights that Percey'd never seen before on approach. Hundreds of flashing lights. White and red. All the emergency vehicles.

Lights everywhere.

All the stars of evening . . .

"Still low," Brad called. "We're going to impact two hundred yards short."

Hands sweating, straining forward, Percey thought again of Lincoln Rhyme, strapped to his seat, himself leaning forward, examining something in the computer screen.

"Too low, Foxtrot Bravo," ATC repeated. "I'm moving emergency vehicles to the field in front of the runway."

"Negative that," Percey said adamantly.

Brad called, "Altitude thirteen hundred feet. One and a half miles from touchdown."

We've got thirty seconds! What do I do?

Ed? Tell me? Brit? Somebody . . .