Jeffery Deaver - The burning wire

"Pulaski? The coffee shop?"

"You were right. I've got some things here, sir."

A lifted eyebrow from the criminalist reminded the officer the appellation wasn't necessary. The criminalist was a retired captain of the NYPD. He didn't have any more right to a formal title or "sir" than anybody else on the street. And he'd been trying to break Pulaski of his wispy insecurities-they were due to youth, of course, but there was more to it: He'd sustained a serious head injury on the first case they'd worked together. It had nearly ended his career in law enforcement, but he'd stayed on the force, despite the injury and the resulting bouts of confusion and disorientation that occasionally still plagued him. (His determination to remain a cop had been inspired largely by Rhyme's decision to do the same.)

In furthering his cause to make Pulaski a top crime scene officer, one of the most important things Rhyme needed to instill was a bulletproof ego. You could have all the skills in the world but they were useless if you didn't have the balls to back them up. Before he died, he wanted to see Pulaski move up high in the ranks of Crime Scene in New York City. He knew it could happen.He had a brief image of a hope of his: Pulaski and Sachs running the unit together. Rhyme's legacy.

He thanked the CS technicians as they left with respectful nods and expressions that suggested they were memorizing what the lab looked like. Not many people made it over here from headquarters to see Rhyme in person. He occupied a special place in the hierarchy of the NYPD; there had been a recent turnover and the head of forensics had gone to Miami-Dade County. Several senior detectives were now running the operation until a permanent head could be appointed. There was even some talk of hiring Rhyme back to run Crime Scene once more.

When the deputy commissioner had called about this, Rhyme had pointed out that he might have a few problems with the JST-the NYPD job standard test portion of the requirements. The physical fitness exam required candidates to complete a timed obstacle course: sprint to a six-foot-high barrier and jump over it, restrain a fake bad guy, race up stairs, drag a 176-pound mannequin to safety and pull the trigger of a weapon sixteen times with one's dominant hand, fifteen with the other.

Rhyme demurred, explaining to the NYPD official who came to see him that he could never pass the test. He could probably clear only a five-foot barrier. But he was flattered by the interest.

Sachs returned downstairs, wearing jeans and a light blue sweater, tucked in, her hair washed and lightly damp, pulled back into a ponytail once more, bound with a black rubber band.

At that moment Thom went to answer the doorbell and another figure stepped into the doorway.

The slim man, whose retiring demeanor suggested he was a middle-aged accountant or shoe salesman, was Mel Cooper, in Rhyme's opinion one of the best forensic lab people in the country. With degrees in math, physics and organic chemistry, and a senior official in both the International Association for Identification and International Association of Blood Pattern Analysis, he was constantly in demand at Crime Scene headquarters. But, since Rhyme was responsible for kidnapping the tech from a job in upstate New York years ago and getting him to the NYPD, it was understood that Cooper would drop what he was doing and head to Manhattan if Rhyme and Sellitto were running a case and they wanted him.

"Mel, glad you were available."

"Hm. Available… Didn't you call my lieutenant and threaten him with all sorts of terrible things if he didn't release me from the Hanover-Sterns case?"

"I did it for you, Mel. You were being wasted on insider trading."

"And I thank you for the reprieve."

Cooper nodded a greeting to those in the room, knuckled his Harry Potter glasses up on his nose and walked across the lab to the examination table on silent, brown Hush Puppies shoes. Though by appearances the least athletic man Rhyme had ever seen, apart from himself, of course, Mel Cooper nonetheless moved with the grace of a soccer player, and Rhyme was reminded that he was a champion ballroom dancer.

"Let's hear the details," Rhyme said, turning to Sachs.

She flipped through her notes and explained what the power company field executive had told her.

"Algonquin Consolidated Power provides electricity-they call it 'juice'-for most of the area. Pennsylvania, New York, Connecticut, New Jersey."

"That's the smokestacks on the East River?"

"That's right," she said to Cooper. "Their headquarters is there and they have a steam and electricity generation plant. Now, what the Algonquin supervisor said was that the UNSUB could've broken into the substation at any time in the last thirty-six hours to rig the wire. The substations are generally unmanned. A little after eleven this morning he, or they, got into the Algonquin computers, kept shutting down substations around the area and rerouted all that electricity through the substation on Fifty-seven. When voltage builds up to a certain point, it has to complete a circuit. You can't stop it. It either jumps to another wire or to something that's grounded. Normally the circuit breakers in the substation would pop but the perp had reset them to take ten times the load, so it was sitting in that"-she pointed to the cable-"waiting to burst. Like a dam. The pressure built up and the juice had to go someplace.

"Here's how the grid works in New York. One of the workers drew this for me, and it was helpful." Sachs pulled out a piece of paper on which was a diagram. She stepped to a whiteboard and, with a dark blue marker, transferred the writing.

Power Generation Plant or Incoming Supply (345,000v) v (through high tension cables)

Transmission Substation (steps 345,000v down to 138,000v) v (through area transmission lines)

Area Substation (steps 138,000v down to 13,800v) v (through distribution feeder lines)

1. Spot networks in major commercial buildings (steps 13,800v down to 120/208v), or

2. Street-level transformers (steps 13,800v down to 120/208v) v (through incoming service lines)

Households and offices (120/208v)

Sachs continued, "Now, MH-Ten, the substation on Fifty-seven, is an area substation. The line coming in was high voltage. He could've rigged the cable anywhere on an area transmission line but that's real tricky, I guess, because the voltage is so high. So he was working on the output side of the area substation, where the voltage is only thirteen thousand eight hundred."

"Phew," Sellitto muttered. " 'Only.' "

"Then when it was rigged he set the circuit breakers higher and flooded the station with incoming juice."

"And it blew," Rhyme said.

She picked up an evidence bag containing teardrop-shaped bits of metal. "And then it blew," she repeated. "These were all over the place. Like shrapnel."

"What are they?" Sellitto asked.

"Molten droplets from the bus sign pole. Blew them everywhere. Nicked the concrete and went right through the sides of some cars. The vic was burned but that's not what killed him." Her voice grew soft, Rhyme noticed. "It was like a big shotgun blast. Cauterized the wounds." She grimaced. "That kept him conscious for a while. Take a look." A nod at Pulaski.

The officer plugged the flash cards into a nearby computer and created files for the case. A moment later photos popped up on the high-def monitors nearby. After years and years in the crime scene business, Rhyme was largely inured to even the most horrific images; these, though, troubled him. The young victim's body had been riddled by the dots of metal. There was little blood, thanks to the searing heat of the projectiles. Had the perp known that's what his weapon would do, sealing the punctures? Keeping his victims conscious to feel the pain? Was this part of his MO? Rhyme could understand now why Sachs was so troubled.