As Edward Kadesky sprinted the short distance from Lincoln Rhyme's apartment to the tent of the Cirque Fantastique he was thinking that with new codes and fire retardants, even the worst theater and circus tent fires proceed fairly slowly.

No, the real danger is the panic, the tons of human muscles, the stampede that tramples and tears and crushes and suffocates. Bones broken, lungs burst, asphyxiation . . .

Saving people in a circus disaster means getting them out of the facility without panic. Traditionally, to alert the clowns and acrobats and other hands that a fire has broken out the ringmaster would send a subtle signal to the bandleader, who then launched into the energetic John Philip Sousa march, "Stars and Stripes Forever." The workers were supposed to take up emergency stations and calmly lead the audience through designated exits (those employees who didn't simply, of course, abandon ship themselves).

The tune had been replaced over the years by far more efficient procedures for the evacuation of a circus tent. But if a gas bomb detonated, spreading burning liquid everywhere?

The crowd would sprint to the exits and a thousand people would die in the crush.

Edward Kadesky ran into the tent and saw twenty-six hundred people eagerly awaiting the opening of his show.

His show.

That was what he thought. The show he'd created. Kadesky had been a hawker in sideshows, a curtain bitch at second-tier theaters in third-tier cities, a payroll manager and ticket seller in sweaty regional circuses. He'd struggled for years to bring to the public shows that transcended the tawdry side of the business, the carny aspect of circuses. He'd done it once, with the Hasbro and Keller Brothers show—which Erick Weir had destroyed. Then he'd done it again with Cirque Fantastique, a world-renowned show that brought legitimacy, even prestige, to a profession that was so often disparaged by those who attended theater and opera, and ignored by those who watched E! and MTV.

Remembering the wave of searing heat from the Hasbro tent fire in Ohio. The flecks of ash like deadly, gray snow. The howl of the flames—the astonishing noise—as his show had lumbered to its death right in front of him.

There was one difference, though: three years ago the tent had been empty. Today thousands of men, women and children would be in the middle of the conflagration.

Kadesky's assistant, Katherine Tunney, a young brunette who'd risen high in the Disney theme park organization before coming to work with him, noticed his troubled gaze and instantly joined him. That was one of Katherine's big talents: sensing his thoughts almost telepathically. "What?" she whispered.

He told her what he'd learned from Lincoln Rhyme and the police. Her eyes began to sweep the circus tent, just like his, looking both for the bomb and at the victims.

"How do we handle it?" she asked tersely.

He considered this for a moment then gave her instructions. He added, "Then you leave. Get out."