Jeffery Deaver - The burning wire

He explained to her about Dr. Kopeski's bait and switch.

"No!"

Rhyme nodded. "No paperweight."

"You threw him out?"

"That was Thom. And a very fine job he did of it. But I don't want to talk about that now. We have work to do." He glanced at her shoulder bag. "So what do we have?"

Pulling several large files out, she said, "Got the list of people who had access to the Algonquin computer pass codes. And their resumes and employee files."

"What about disgruntled workers? Mental problems?"

"None that're relevant."

She gave more details of her meeting with Andi Jessen: There was no record of employees in the steam tunnel work area near the substation on Fifty-seventh Street. There had been no obvious terrorist threats but an associate was looking into the possibility. "Now, I spoke to somebody who works in the Special Projects Division-that's alternative energy, basically. Charlie Sommers. Good guy. He gave me the profile of the sort of person who could rig an arc flash. A master electrician, military electrician, a power company lineman or troubleman-"

"Now that's a job description for you," Sellitto remarked.

"It's really troubleshooter, a foreman basically. You need on-the-job experience to make one of these arc flashes happen. You can't just look it up on the Internet."

Rhyme nodded at the whiteboard and Sachs wrote her summary. She added, "As for the computer, you'd need to have classroom training or a fair amount of training on the job. That's pretty tricky too." She explained about the SCADA and EMP programs that the UNSUB would have to be competent in.

She added these details to the chart too.

Sellitto asked, "How many're on the list?"

"Over forty."

"Ouch," McDaniel muttered.

Rhyme supposed that one of the names on the list could be the perp's, and maybe Sachs or Sellitto could narrow it down to a more reasonable number. But what he wanted at the moment was evidence. Of which there was very little, at least little that was productive.

Nearly twelve hours had elapsed since the attack and they were no closer to finding the man who'd been in the coffee shop, or any other suspect.

The lack of leads was frustrating, but more troubling was a simple entry in the UNSUB's profile chart: Possibly same person who stole 75 feet of similar Bennington cable and 12 split bolts. More attacks in mind?

Was he rigging something right now? There'd been no warning about the bus attack. Maybe that was the MO for his crimes. Any moment the networks could report a story that perhaps dozens of people had been killed in a second arc flash explosion.

Mel Cooper made a copy of the list and they divided up the names. Sachs, Pulaski and Sellitto took half, McDaniel the rest, for his federal agents to follow up on. Sachs then looked through the personnel files she'd gotten at Algonquin and kept the ones that corresponded to the names they'd selected, gave the others to McDaniel.

"This Sommers, you trust him?" Rhyme asked.

"Yes. He checked out. And he gave me this." She whipped out a small black electronic device and pointed it toward a wire near Rhyme. She pressed a button and read a screen. "Hm. Two hundred forty volts."

"And how about me, Sachs? Am I fully charged?"

She laughed, playfully aimed it at him. Then lifted what he thought was a seductive eyebrow his way. Her phone buzzed and she glanced at the screen, answered. She had a brief conversation and hung up. "That was Bob Cavanaugh, the Operations vice president. He was the one checking out terrorist connections at the company branches around the region. No evidence of ecoterror groups threatening Algonquin or attacking their power plants. But there was a report of infiltration in one of the company's main Philadelphia substations. White male in his forties got inside. Nobody knows who he was or what he was doing there. No security tape and he got away before the police arrived. This was last week."

Race, sex and age… "That's our boy. But what did he want?"

"No other intrusions in the company's facilities."

Was the perp's mission to get information about the grid, the security in substations? Rhyme could only speculate and, accordingly, filed the incident away for the time being.

McDaniel got a phone call. He stared absently at the evidence chart whiteboards, then disconnected. "T and C's had more chatter about the Justice For terrorist group."

"What?" Rhyme asked urgently.

"Nothing big. But one thing interesting: they're using code words that've been used in the past for large-scale weapons. 'Paper and supplies' were the ones our algorithms isolated."

He explained that underground cells often did this. An attack in France was averted recently when chatter among known negatives included the words "gateau," "farine" and "beurre." French for "cake," "flour" and "butter." They really referred to a bomb and its ingredients: explosives and detonator.

"The Mossad's reported that Hezbollah cells sometimes use 'office supplies' or 'party supplies' for missiles or high explosives. Now, we also think that two people in addition to Rahman have been involved. Man and a woman, the computer's telling us."

Rhyme asked, "Have you told Fred?"

"Good idea." McDaniel pulled out his BlackBerry and made a speakerphone call.

"Fred, it's Tucker. You're on speaker at Rhyme's. You had any luck?"

"My CI's on it. Following up on some leads."

"Following up? Nothing more concrete than that?"

A pause. Dellray said, "I don't have anything more. Not yet."

"Well, T and C's found a few things." He updated the agent on the code words and the fact that a man and woman were likely involved.

Dellray said he'd report that to his contact.

McDaniel asked, "So he was willing to work within the budget?"

"That's right."

"I knew he would. These people'll take advantage of you if you let them, Fred. That's the way CIs work."

"Happens," Dellray said somberly.

"Stay in touch." McDaniel disconnected, stretched. "This damn cloud zone. We're not hoovering up nearly as much as we'd like."

Hoovering?

Sellitto tapped the stack of personnel files from Algonquin. "I'll go downtown. Get people started on them. Brother, it's going to be a long night." The time was now eleven-ten.

It was, Rhyme reflected. For him too. Particularly because there wasn't much for him to do at this point but wait.

Oh, how he hated waiting.

Eyes straying to the skimpy evidence boards, he thought: We're moving too damn slow.

And here we are, trying to find a perp who attacks with the speed of light.

– Male. -40's. -Probably white. -Possibly glasses and cap. -Possibly with short, blond hair. -Dark blue overalls, similar to those worn by Algonquin workers. -Knows electrical systems very well. -Boot print suggests no physical condition affecting posture or gait. -Possibly same person who stole 75 feet of similar Bennington cable and 12 split bolts. More attacks in mind? Access to Algonquin warehouse where theft occurred with key. -Likely he is Algonquin employee or has contact with one. -Terrorist connection? Relation to Justice For [unknown]? Terror group? Individual named Rahman involved? Coded references to monetary disbursements, personnel movements and something "big." -Algonquin security breach in Philadelphia might be related. -SIGINT hits: code word reference to weapons, "paper and supplies" (guns, explosives?). -Personnel include man and woman. -Would have studied SCADA- Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition program. And EMP-energy management programs. Algonquin's is Enertrol. Both Unix-based. -To create arc flash would probably have been or currently is lineman, troubleman, licensed tradesman, generator construction, master electrician, military. Sixteen hours until Earth Day