Jeffery Deaver - The burning wire

Efficient… sick word to use under the circumstances.

Sirens chirped and barked behind her. Fire, NYPD Emergency Service Unit and medical personnel had begun to arrive.

She waved a greeting to Bo Haumann, the head of ESU, a lean, grizzled former drill sergeant. He nodded back and began deploying his officers to help get the evacuees to safety and to form into tactical response teams, searching for Raymond Galt and any accomplices.

Hesitating, then pushing on the glass portion of the door rather than the metal handle, she walked into the lobby of the school, against the crowd. She wanted to call out to everyone not to touch any metal but was afraid if she did that, she'd start a panic and people would be injured or killed in a crush. Besides, they still had fifteen minutes until the deadline.

Inside there were plenty of metal railings, knobs, stairs and panels on the floor. But no visual clues about whether or not they were connected to a wire somewhere.

"I don't know, Rhyme," she said uncertainly. "There's metal, sure. But most of the floor's carpeted or covered with linoleum. That's gotta be a bad conductor."

Was he just going to start a fire and burn the place down?

Thirteen minutes.

"Keep looking, Sachs."

She tried Charlie Sommers's noncontact current detector and it gave occasional indications of voltage but nothing higher than house current. And the source wasn't in the places that would be the most likely to kill or injure anyone.

Through the window, a flashing yellow light caught her eye. It was an Algonquin Consolidated truck with a sign on the side, reading Emergency Maintenance. She recognized two of the four occupants, Bernie Wahl, the security chief, and Bob Cavanaugh, the Operations VP. They ran up to a cluster of officers, including Nancy Simpson.

It was as she was looking through the plate glass at the three of them that Sachs noticed for the first time what was next door to the school. A construction site for a large high-rise. The crews were doing the ironwork, bolting and welding the girders into place.

She looked back to the lobby but felt a slam in her gut. She spun back to gaze at the job site.

Metal. The entire structure was pure metal.

"Rhyme," she said softly, "I don't think it's the school at all."

"What do you mean?"

She explained.

"Steel… Sure, Sachs, it makes sense. Try to get the workers down. I'll call Lon and have him coordinate with ESU."

She pushed out the door and ran toward the trailer that was the general contractor's office for the high-rise construction. She glanced up at the twenty, twenty-five stories of metal that were about to become a live wire, on which easily two hundred workers were perched. And counted only two small elevators to carry them down to safety.

The time was ten minutes until one p.m.

"WHAT'S GOING ON?" Sam Vetter asked the waiter in the hotel dining room. He and his fellow lunchers were staring out the window at what seemed to be an evacuation of both the school and the construction site between the college and the hotel. Police cars and fire trucks were pulling up.

"It's safe, isn't it?" a patron asked. "Here, I mean?"

"Oh, yessir, very safe," the waiter assured.

Vetter knew the man didn't have a clue what was safe and what wasn't. And being in the construction business, Vetter immediately checked out the ratio of emergency exits to occupancy.

One of the businessmen at his table, the man from Santa Fe, asked, "You hear about that thing yesterday? The explosion at the power station? Maybe it's related to that. They were talking terrorists."

Vetter had heard a news story or two, but only in passing. "What happened?"

"Some guy doing something to the grid. You know, the electric company." The man nodded out the window. "Maybe he did the same thing at the school. Or the construction site."

"But not us," another patron worried. "Not at the hotel."

"No, no, not us." The waiter smiled and vanished. Vetter wondered which exit route he was presently sprinting down.

People were rising and walking to the windows. From here the restaurant offered a good view of the excitement.

Vetter heard: "Naw, it's not terrorists. It's some disgruntled worker. Like a lineman for the company. They showed his picture on TV."

Then Sam Vetter had a thought. He asked one of his fellow businessmen, "You know what he looks like?"

"Just he's in his forties. And is maybe wearing company overalls and a yellow hard hat. The overalls're blue."

"Oh, my God. I think I saw him. Just a little while ago."

"What?"

"I saw a worker in blue overalls and a yellow hard hat. He had a roll of electrical cable over his shoulder."

"You better tell the cops."

Vetter rose. He started away, then paused, reaching into his pocket. He was worried that his new friends might think he was trying to stiff them for the bill. He'd heard that New Yorkers were very suspicious of people and he didn't want his first step into the world of big-city business to be marred by something like that. He peeled off a ten for his sandwich and beer, then remembered where he was and left twenty.

"Sam, don't worry about it! Hurry."

He tried to remember exactly where the man had climbed from the manhole and where he'd stood to make his phone call before walking into the school. If he could recall the time of the call, more or less, maybe the police could trace it. The cell company could tell them who he'd been talking to.

Vetter hurried down the escalator, two steps at a time, and then ran into the lobby. He spotted a police officer, who was standing near the front desk.

"Officer, excuse me. But I just heard… you're looking for somebody who works for the electric company? That man who was behind that explosion yesterday?"

"That's right, sir. Do you know anything about it?"

"I think I might've seen him. I don't know for sure. Maybe it's not him. But I thought I should say something."

"Hold on." The man lifted his bulky radio and spoke into it. "This is Portable Seven Eight Seven Three to Command Post. I think I've got a witness. Might've seen the suspect, K."

"Roger." Clattering from the speaker. "Hold on, K… All right, Seven Eight, send him outside. Stone Street. Detective Simpson wants to talk to him, K."

"Roger. Seven Eight, out." Turning to Vetter, the cop said, "Go out the front doors and turn left. There's a detective there, a woman. Nancy Simpson. You can ask for her."

Hurrying through the lobby, Vetter thought: Maybe if the man is still around they'll capture him before he hurts anybody else.

My first trip to New York, and I might just make the newspapers. A hero.

What would Ruth have said?

"AMELIA!" NANCY SIMPSON shouted from the sidewalk. "I've got a witness. Somebody in the hotel next door." Sachs hurried up to Simpson, who said, "He's coming out to see us."

Sachs, via the microphone, relayed this information to Rhyme.

"Where was Galt seen?" the criminalist asked urgently.

"I don't know yet. We're going to talk to the wit. In a second."

Together, she and Simpson hurried to the entrance of the hotel to meet the wit. Sachs looked skyward at the steel superstructure of the building under construction. Workers were leaving fast. Only a few minutes remained until the deadline.

Then she heard: "Officer!" A man's voice called from behind her. "Detective!"

She turned and saw Algonquin vice president Bob Cavanaugh running toward her. The large man was breathing heavily and sweating as he pulled up. His expression said, Sorry, I forgot your name.

"Amelia Sachs."

"Bob Cavanaugh."

She nodded.

"I heard that you're clearing the construction site?"