Jeffery Deaver - The burning wire

"Well, lunchtime. I'm starving." Barzan started to pat his stomach and then decided that was overacting. "Better get back upstairs. My partner'll be wondering what I'm doing down here."

"Hey, take care," Galt said and turned back to the computer.

Barzan too turned to head toward the closest exit, stifling the urge to flee.

He should have given into it, he quickly realized.

The instant Barzan turned, he was aware of Galt reaching down fast and lifting something from beside him.

Barzan started to run but Galt was even faster and, glancing back, Barzan had only a brief image of a lineman's heavy fiberglass hot stick, swinging in an arc into his hard hat. The blow stunned him and sent him tumbling to the filthy floor.

He was focused on a line carrying 138,000v, six inches from his face, when the stick slammed into him once more.

AMELIA SACHS WAS doing what she did best.

Perhaps not best.

But doing what she loved most. What made her feel the most alive.

Driving.

Pushing metal and flesh to its limits, speeding fast along city streets, seemingly impossible routes, considering the dense traffic, human and vehicular. Weaving, skidding. When you drove fast, you didn't ease the vehicle along the course, you didn't dance; you pounded the car through its moves, you slammed and jerked and slugged.

These were called muscle cars for a reason.

The 1970 model year 428 Ford Torino Cobra, heir to the Fairlane, pushed out 405 horsepower with a nifty 447 foot pounds of torque. Sachs had the optional four-speed transmission, of course, which she needed for her heavy foot. The shifter was tough and sticky and if you didn't get it right you'd have adjustments aplenty, which might include flushing gear teeth out of the reservoir. It wasn't like today's forgiving six-speed syncromeshes made for midlife-crisis businessmen with Bluetooths stuck into their ear and dinner reservations on their mind.

The Cobra wheezed, growled, whined; it had many voices.

Sachs tensed. She gave a touch of horn but before the sound waves made it to the lazy driver about to change lanes without looking, she was past him.

Sachs admitted that she missed her most recent car, a Chevy Camaro SS, the one she and her father had worked on together. It had been a victim of the perp in a recent case. But her father had reminded her it wasn't wise to put too much person into your car. It was part of you, but it wasn't you. And it wasn't your child or your best friend. The rods, wheels, the cylinders, the drums, the tricky electronics could turn indifferent or lazy and strand you. They could also betray and kill you, and if you thought the conglomeration of steel and plastic and copper and aluminum cared, you were wrong.

Amie, a car has only the soul you put into it. No more and no less. And never forget that.

So, yes, she regretted the loss of her Camaro and always would. But she now drove a fine vehicle that suited her. And that, incongruously, sported as a steering wheel ornament the Camaro's insignia, a present from Pammy, who'd removed it reverently from the Chevy's corpse for Sachs to mount on the Ford.

Pound on the brake for the intersection, heel-toe downshift to rev match, check left, check right, clutch out and rip up through the gears. The speedometer hit fifty. Then kissed sixty, seventy. The blue light on the dashboard, which she hardly even saw, flashed as fast as a pounding heart.

Sachs was presently on the West Side Highway, venerable Route 9A, having made the transition from the Henry Hudson several miles behind her. Heading south, she streaked past familiar sights, the helipad, Hudson River Park, the yacht docks and the tangled entrance to the Holland Tunnel. Then with the financial center buildings on her right, she hurried on past the massive construction site where the towers had been, aware even at this frantic time that if ever a void could cast a shadow it was here.

A controlled skid angled the Cobra onto Battery Place, and Sachs flew east into the warren of lower Manhattan.

She had the tip of the ear bud inserted and a crackling sound interrupted her concentration as she deftly skidded around two cabs, noting the shocked expression below the Sikh's turban.

"Sachs!"

"What, Rhyme?"

"Where are you?"

"Almost there."

She lost rubber on all four tires as she made a ninety-degree turn and inserted the Ford between curb and car, one needle never below 45, the other never below 5,000.

She was making for Whitehall Street. Near Stone. Rhyme had had a conversation with Charlie Sommers, and it had yielded unexpected results. The Special Projects man had speculated that Galt might try something other than an arc flash; Sommers was betting the man would simply try to electrify a public area with enough voltage to kill passersby. He'd turn them into part of the circuit and run juice through them somehow. It was easier and more efficient, the man had explained, and you didn't need nearly as much voltage.

Rhyme had concluded that the fire in the uptown substation was really a distraction to keep them focused away from Galt's attack on the real location: probably downtown. He'd looked over the list of lava and volcano exhibits, and found the one that was the farthest away from Harlem, where everybody was looking: Amsterdam College. It was a community college specializing in office skills and associate degrees in the business professions. But their liberal arts division was having a show on geologic formations, including an exhibit about volcanoes.

"I'm here, Rhyme." Sachs skidded the Torino to a stop in front of the school, leaving twin tails of black on the gray asphalt. She was out of the car before the tire smoke from the wheel wells had dissipated. The smell ominously reminded her of Algonquin substation MH-10… and though she tried to avoid it, a repeat image of the black-and-red dots in the body of Luis Martin. As she jogged toward the school's entrance, she was, for once, thankful that a jolt of arthritic pain shot through her knees, partially taking her attention off the harsh memories.

"I'm looking the place over, Rhyme. It's big. Bigger than I expected." Sachs wasn't searching a scene so she'd foregone the video uplink.

"You've got eighteen minutes until the deadline."

She scanned the six-story community college, from which students, professors and staff were leaving, quickly, uneasiness on their faces. Tucker McDaniel and Lon Sellitto had decided to evacuate the place. They hurried outside, clutching purses and computers and books, and moved away from the building. Almost everyone looked up at one point in their exodus.

Always, in a post 9/11 world, looking up.

Another car arrived, and a woman in a dark suit climbed out. It was a fellow detective, Nancy Simpson. She jogged up to Sachs.

"What do we have, Amelia?"

"Galt's rigged something in the school, we think. We don't know what yet. I'm going inside and looking around. Could you interview them"-a nod at the evacuees-"and see if anybody spotted Galt? You have his picture?"

"On my PDA."

Sachs nodded and turned to the front of the school once more, uncertain how to proceed, recalling what Sommers had said. She knew where a bomb might be set, where a sniper would position himself. But the threat from electricity could come from anywhere.

She asked Rhyme, "What exactly did Charlie say Galt might rig?"

"The most efficient way would be to use the victim like a switch. He'd wire door handles or stair railings with the hot source and then the floor with the return. Or the floor might just be a natural ground if it was wet. The circuit's open until the vic touches the handle or railing. Then the current flows through them. It wouldn't take much voltage at all to kill somebody. The other way is to just have somebody touch a live source with two hands. That could send enough voltage through your chest to kill you. But it's not as efficient."