It too was dark. Like night . . . All the stars of evening.

She smelled a pungent chemical scent. From whatever had made the bang, she guessed. The hallway was deserted. There was slight motion at the end of the hall. A shadow from the stairwell. She looked at it. It wasn’t repeated.

Brit Hale’s room was only ten feet away. She wanted badly to talk to him, but she didn’t want him to see her this way, pale, hands shaking. Eyes watering in fear . . . My God, she’d pulled a seven three seven out of a wing-ice nosedive more calmly than this: looking into that dark corridor.

She stepped back into her room.

Did she hear footsteps?

She closed the door, returned to the bed.

More footsteps.

“Command mode,” Lincoln Rhyme instructed. The box dutifully came up on-screen.

He heard a faint siren in the distance.

And it was then that Rhyme realized his mistake.

Fire trucks . . .

No! I didn’t think about that.

But the Dancer did. Of course! He’d have stolen a fireman’s or medic’s uniform and was strolling into the safe house at this moment!

“Oh, no,” he muttered. “No! How could I be so far off?”

And the computer heard the last word of Rhyme’s sentence and dutifully shut off his communications program.

“No!” Rhyme cried. “No!”

But the system couldn’t understand his loud, frantic voice and with a silent flash the message came up, Do you really want to shut off your computer?

“No,” he whispered desperately.

For a moment nothing happened, but the system didn’t shut down. A message popped up. What would you like to do now?

“Thom!” he shouted. “Somebody . . . please. Mel!”

But the door was closed; there was no response from downstairs.

Rhyme’s left ring finger twitched dramatically. At one time he’d had a mechanical ECU controller and he could use his one working finger to dial the phone. The computer system had replaced that and he now had to use the dictation program to call the safe house and tell them that the Dancer was on his way there, dressed as a fireman or rescue worker.

“Command mode,” he said into the microphone. Fighting to stay calm.

I did not understand what you just said. Please try again.

Where was the Dancer now? Was he inside already? Was he just about to shoot Percey Clay or Brit Hale?

Or Amelia Sachs?

“Thom! Mel!”

I did not understand . . .

Why wasn’t I thinking better?

“Command mode,” he said breathlessly, trying to master the panic.

The command mode message box popped up. The cursor arrow sat at the top of the screen and, a continent away, at the bottom, was the communications program icon.

“Cursor down,” he gasped.

Nothing happened.

“Cursor down,” he called, louder.

The message came back: I did not understand what you just said. Please try again.

“Oh, goddamn . . . ”