Jeffery Deaver - The burning wire

Sachs was about to ask why Jessen had gone into the field when the CEO said, anticipating her, "My father was in the business."

The detective nearly told her that she was a cop exclusively because of her own father, a "portable," or foot patrolman, with the NYPD for many years. But she refrained.

Jessen's face was angular, with the slightest dusting of makeup. Wrinkles were present but subdued, radiating timidly from the corners of her green eyes and bland lips. Otherwise the skin was smooth. This was not a woman who got outside much.

She in turn examined Sachs closely, then nodded toward her large coffee table, surrounded by office chairs. The detective sat while Jessen grabbed the phone. "Excuse me for a moment." Her manicured but unpolished nails clacked against the number pad.

She called three different people-all about the attack. One, to a lawyer, the detective could tell, one to the public relations department or an outside PR firm. She spent most of the time on the third call, apparently making sure extra security personnel were on site at all the company's substations and other facilities. Jotting tiny notes with a gold-plated pencil, Jessen spoke in clipped tones, using staccato words with not a single filler like "I mean," or "you know." As Jessen rattled off instructions, Sachs took in the office, noting on the broad teak desk a picture of a teenage Andi Jessen and her family. She deduced from the series of photos of the children that Jessen had one brother, a few years younger. They resembled each other, though he was brown-haired and she blonde. Recent pictures showed him to be a handsome, fit man in an army uniform. There were other pictures of him on travels, occasionally with his arm around a pretty woman, different in every shot.

There were no pictures of Jessen with any romantic partners.

The walls were covered with bookcases and pictures of oldtime prints and maps that might have come out of a museum display about the history of power. One map was labeled The First Grid, and showed a portion of lower Manhattan around Pearl Street. She saw in legible script, Thomas A. Edison, and she guessed that was the inventor's actual signature.

Jessen hung up and sat forward, elbows on her desk, eyes bleary but jaw and narrow lips firm. "It's been over seven hours since the… incident. I was hoping you'd have somebody in custody. I guess if you'd caught them," she muttered, "I would've had a phone call. Not a visit in person."

"No, I'm here to ask you some questions about things that have come up in the investigation."

Again a careful appraisal. "I've been talking with the mayor and the governor and the head of the FBI's New York office. Oh, Homeland Security too. I was expecting to see one of them, not a police officer."

This wasn't a put-down, not intentionally, and Sachs took no offense. "NYPD is running the crime scene portion of the case. My questions have to do with that."

"That explains it." Her face softened slightly. "Woman to woman, I get a bit defensive. I was thinking the big boys weren't taking me seriously." A faintly conspiratorial smile. "It happens. More than you'd think."

"I understand that."

"I imagine you do. A detective, hm?"

"That's right." Then Sachs, feeling the urgency of the case, asked, "We get to those questions?"

"Of course."

The phone kept ringing, but according to Jessen's instructions to her PA, who'd returned to the anteoffice a moment ago, the unit chirped only once and fell silent as the woman fielded the calls.

"First of all, just a preliminary matter. Have you changed the access codes to the grid software?"

A frown. "Of course. That's the first thing we did. Didn't the mayor or Homeland Security tell you?"

No, they hadn't, Sachs reflected.

Jessen continued, "And we've put in an extra set of firewalls. The hackers can't get in any longer."

"It's probably not hackers."

Jessen cocked her head. "But this morning Tucker McDaniel was saying that it was probably terrorists. The FBI agent?"

"We have more recent information."

"How else could it have happened? Somebody from the outside was rerouting the supply and altering the circuit breakers at MH-Ten-the substation on Fifty-Seventh Street."

"But we're pretty sure he got the codes from the inside."

"That's impossible. It has to be terrorists."

"That's definitely a possibility and I want to ask you about that. But even if so, they were using an insider. An officer in our Computer Crimes division had a conversation with your IT people. He said there was no evidence of independent hacking."

Jessen fell silent and examined her desk. She didn't seem happy-because of this news about the insider? Or because somebody in her company was talking to the police without her knowing? She jotted a note and Sachs wondered if it was to remind herself to reprimand the technology security man.

Sachs continued, "The suspect was seen in an Algonquin uniform. Or at least blue coveralls that were very similar to what your employees wear."

"Suspect?"

"A man was spotted in a coffee shop around the time of the attack, across from the substation. He was seen with a laptop."

"Did you get any details about him?"

"White male, forties probably. Nothing else."

"Well, about the uniform, you could buy one or make one."

"Yes. But there's more. The cable he used to rig the arc flash? It was Bennington brand. That's what your company regularly uses."

"Yes, I know. Most power companies do too."

"Last week, seventy-five feet of Bennington cable, the same gauge, was stolen from one of your warehouses in Harlem, along with a dozen split bolts. They're used for splicing-"

"I know what they're used for." The wrinkles in Jessen's face grew severe.

"Whoever broke into the warehouse, he used a key to get in. He also got into the access tunnel under the substation through an Algonquin steam pipe manhole."

Jessen said quickly, "Meaning he didn't use the electronic keypad to get into the substation?"

"No."

"So, there's some evidence that it's not an employee."

"It's a possibility, like I said. But there's something else." Sachs added that they'd found traces of Greek food, suggesting a nearby connection.

Seemingly bewildered at the extent of their knowledge, the CEO repeated with exasperation, "Taramasalata?"

"There are five Greek restaurants within walking distance of your headquarters here. And twenty-eight within a ten-minute cab ride. And since the trace was fairly recent, it makes sense that he's a current employee or at least got the codes from a current employee. Maybe they met at a restaurant nearby."

"Oh, please, there are plenty of Greek restaurants around the city."

"Let's just assume the computer codes came from inside. Who'd have access to them?" Sachs asked. "That's really the threshold issue."

"Very limited and very tightly controlled," she said fast, as if she were on trial for negligence. The line seemed rehearsed.

"Who?"

"I do. A half dozen senior staff. That's all. But, Detective, these're people who've been with the company for years. They wouldn't possibly do this. Inconceivable."

"You keep the codes separate from the computers, I understand."

A blink at this knowledge too. "Yes. They're set randomly by our senior control center supervisor. And kept in a safe file room next door."

"I'd like names, and to find out if there's been any unauthorized access to that room."

Jessen was clearly resistant to the idea that the perp was an employee, but she said, "I'll call our security director. He should have that information."

"And I'll need the names of any workers in the past few months who were assigned to repair steam lines in that manhole across from the substation. It's in an alleyway about thirty feet north of the station."