Jeffery Deaver - The burning wire

"Sachs?" Rhyme's voice startled her.

She didn't answer. Saw in her mind the hole in the pole, the deadly bits of molten steel, the holes in the young victim.

The lines are dead…

But what if she got her hand on the metal and somebody two or three miles away in a comfy little control room decided to make it undead? Hit a switch, not knowing about the search?

And where the fuck are those damn batteries?

"We need the evidence back here," Rhyme said.

"Right." She slipped a nylon cover over the end of her wrench so that any distinctive marks on her tools wouldn't transfer to the nuts or bolts and be confused with marks left by the perp's. She leaned forward and with only a moment of hesitation fitted the wrench onto the first bolt. With some effort she loosened it, working as quickly as she could, expecting to feel a searing burn at any moment, though she supposed with that much voltage she wouldn't feel anything at all as she was electrocuted.

The second fixture was undone a moment later and she pulled the cable free. Coiling it, she wrapped the wire in plastic sheeting. The bolts and nuts went into an evidence bag. She set these outside the substation door for Pulaski or the technicians to collect and returned to continue her search. Looking at the floor, she saw more footsteps that seemed to match what she thought were the UNSUB's.

Cocking her head.

"You're making me dizzy, Sachs."

She asked herself as much as Rhyme, "What was that?"

"You hear something?"

"Yes, can't you?"

"If I could hear it, I wouldn't be asking."

It seemed to be a tapping of some sort. She walked to the center of the substation and looked over the railing into darkness below.

Her imagination?

No, the sound was unmistakable.

"I do hear it," Rhyme said.

"It's coming from downstairs, the basement."

A regular beat. Not like a human sound.

A timed detonator? she wondered. And thought again about a booby trap. The perp was smart. He'd know that a crime scene team would spare no effort to search the substation. He'd want to stop them. She shared these thoughts with Rhyme.

He replied, "But if he'd put together a trap why hadn't he done it near the wire?"

They came to the same conclusion simultaneously but he voiced the thought: "Because there's some greater threat to him in the basement." Rhyme then pointed out, "If the power's off what's making the noise?"

"It doesn't sound like one-second intervals, Rhyme. It might not be a timer." She was gazing over the railing, careful not to touch the metal.

He said, "It's dark, I can't see much."

"I'm going to find out." And then she started down the spiral staircase.

The metal staircase.

Ten feet, fifteen, twenty. Random shafts of light from the halogens hit portions of the walls down here, but only the upper portions. Below that everything was murky, the smoke residue thick. Her breaths were shallow and she struggled not to choke. As she approached the bottom, two full stories below the main floor, it was hard to see anything; the miner's light reflected back into her eyes. Still, it was the only illumination she had; she swung her head, with the light, from side to side, taking in the myriad boxes and machinery and wires and panels covering the walls.

She hesitated, tapped her weapon. And stepped off the bottom of the stairs.

And gasped as a jolt pierced her body.

"Sachs! What?"

Sachs had missed the fact that the floor was covered in two feet of freezing brackish water. She couldn't see it with the smoke.

"Water, Rhyme. I wasn't expecting it. And look." She focused ten feet or so over her head at a pipe that was leaking.

That was the sound. Not a click, but dripping water. The idea of water in an electrical substation was so incongruous-and so dangerous-that it hadn't occurred to her that this could be the source of the noise.

"Because of the blast?"

"No. He drilled a hole, Rhyme. I can see it. Two holes. Water's also flowing down the wall-that's what's filling up the room."

Wasn't water as good an electrical conductor as metal? Sachs wondered.

And she was standing in a pool of it, right next to an array of wires and switches and connections above a sign: Danger: 138,000 volts

Rhyme's voice startled her. "He's flooding the basement to destroy evidence."

"Right."

"Sachs, what's that? I can't see it clearly. That box. The big one. Look to the right… Yes, there. What is it?"

Ah, finally.

"It's the battery, Rhyme. The backup battery."

"Is it charged?"

"They said it was. But I don't…"

She waded closer and looked down. A gauge on the battery showed that it was indeed charged. In fact, to Sachs, it looked like it was overcharged. The needle was past 100 percent. Then she remembered something else the Algonquin workers had said: not to worry because it was sealed with insulated caps.

Except that it wasn't. She knew what battery caps looked like and this unit had none. Two metal terminals, connected to thick cables, were exposed.

"The water's rising. It'll hit the terminals in a few minutes."

"Is there enough current to make one of those arc flashes?"

"I don't know, Rhyme."

"There has to be," he whispered. "He's using an arc to destroy something that'll lead us to him. Something he couldn't take with him or destroy when he was there. Can you shut the water off?"

She looked quickly. "No faucets that I can see… Hold on a minute."

Sachs continued to study the basement. "I don't see what he wants to destroy, though." But then she spotted it: Right behind the battery, about four feet off the ground, was an access door. It wasn't large-about eighteen inches square.

"That's it, Rhyme. That's how he got in."

"Must be a sewer or utility tunnel on the other side. But leave it. Pulaski can trace it from the street. Just get out."

"No, Rhyme, look at it-it's really tight. He'd have to squeeze through. It's got some good trace on it, has to. Fibers, hair, maybe DNA. Why else would he want to destroy it?"

Rhyme was hesitating. He knew she was right about preserving the evidence but didn't want her caught in another arc flash explosion.

She waded closer to the access door. But as she approached, a tiny wake rose from the disturbance of her legs and the waves nearly crested the battery.

She froze.

"Sachs!"

"Shhh." She had to concentrate. By moving a few inches at a time she was able to keep the waves below the top of the power source. But she could see she had no more than one or two minutes until the water hit the leads.

With a straight-bladed screwdriver she began to remove the frame holding the access door.

The water was now nearly to the top of the battery. Every time she leaned forward to get leverage to unscrew the paint-stuck hardware, another small tide rose and the murky water sloshed up onto the top of the battery before receding.

The battery's voltage was certainly smaller than the hundred-thousand-volt line that had produced the arc flash outside, but the UNSUB probably didn't need to cause that much damage. His point was to create a big enough explosion to destroy the access door and whatever evidence it contained.

She wanted the damn door.

"Sachs?" Rhyme whispered.

Ignoring him. And ignoring the image of the cauterized holes in the smooth flesh of the victim, the molten teardrops…

Finally the last screw came out. Old paint held the door frame in place. She jammed the tip of the screwdriver into the edge and slammed her hand onto the butt of the tool. With a crack, the metal came away in her hands. The door and frame were heavier than she'd thought and she nearly dropped it. But then she steadied herself, without sending a tsunami over the battery.

In the opening she saw the narrow utility tunnel that the suspect would have used to sneak into the substation.