Bone Song by John Meaney Page B

reaction to any part of the route.
    Shit.
    It was the entire operation that worried him. A killer could strike from anywhere.
    â€œLet's get going.”
    They slid out of the squad car.
    Whatever Commissioner Vilnar had said about keeping overtime payments down, there was only one way to stop the hit, and that was to ensure a visible presence. It would make two things clear: the killer would have to give up his (or her, or its) own life; and no one would be stealing the body afterward.
    There was an escalator formed of rising glass slats, their lev-runes solidly encased and glowing darkly. Levison stood on the step above Donal as they rose through a seven-story atrium.
    Donal scanned the crowds, soon spotting half a dozen men with fedoras tipped down over their eyes, hands in their overcoat pockets, standing at corners and pillars and other vantage points.
    â€œThey're all ours,” said Levison.
    â€œGood.”
    â€œBut you want I should take a walk later, right, boss, and check them out personally?”
    Donal glanced up at Levison. “I hate being predictable.”
    â€œI knew you'd say that.”
    â€œFuck off, Lev.”
    â€œAnd I also knew you'd—”
    â€œI mean it.”
    But Lev was grinning as they got off the escalator. They both knew he'd won that round.
    The flight arrived late. Thick, pale-gray fog was everywhere when the four-propeller Dagger Airlines plane came to a stand near the terminal building.
    Ground crew wheeled the steps into place and rolled out the long strip of crimson carpet. Reporters and photographers crowded as close as they could, held back by officers of the 1005th Precinct. Several local dignitaries, including Alderman Alexei Brown, were there to greet the diva.
    The props were rotating slowly, and finally they stopped, one by one.
    Magnesium bulbs popped white as the diva appeared at the open door and paused on the top step. From the small crowd's edge, Donal looked up and saw the triangular, fine features he recognized from the magazine articles he'd read during the week.
    He hadn't realized how beautiful Maria daLivnova was, but as she descended, a kind of iron elegance ruled every motion, and when she paused once more at the bottom of the steps, the sense of her presence was overwhelming. Her smile as she looked around was wide and white and shining with the message:
I'm full of joy being here.
    Her gaze passed over Donal without pausing.
    Expecting her to cavil at the arrangements had been one thing, but this was worse: her failure to recognize Donal's existence.
    But why should he care? This was work, the diva was a commodity to be protected, and if he had to step between her and an assassin's bullet, well, that was what he'd become a cop for, what they paid him to do.
    â€œWhat's it like to be in Tristopolis?” called out a reporter. He wore a dark hat and held his notepad and pen ready for the diva's reply.
    â€œNice fog you people have here.”
    There was a round of laughter among the reporters.
    After the handshakes, three black limousines with black windshields pulled up on the tarmac. The alderman's aides escorted the diva to the center limo. She got in and perched, half-sitting but with one stiletto-shoed foot on the crimson carpet outside, for a final round of bulb-popping photographs.
    Then she pulled her foot inside, an aide closed the door—and Donal let out a tiny breath. This was the first possible fixed ambush point, and they'd gotten through it. If everyone could just maintain highest-level vigilance, nerves strung taut for the next eighteen days, they would make it.
    Two weeks.
    At least the time would pass quickly, because there'd be no time to stop and rest. That was Donal's theory as he got into one of the cruisers that pulled up, while the remainder moved into formation before and after the limos.
    He looked back at the plane. The journalists were dispersing, the dignitaries were in the limos, and now the ordinary