Jeffery Deaver - The burning wire

"That's right. We couldn't find anywhere he'd attack in the school. It's mostly carpet and-"

"But a job site makes no sense," Cavanaugh said, gesturing frantically toward it.

"Well, I was thinking… the girders, the metal."

"Who's there, Sachs?" Rhyme broke in.

"The operations director of Algonquin. He doesn't think the attack's going to be at the job site." She asked Cavanaugh, "Why not?"

"Look!" he said desperately, pointing to a cluster of workers standing nearby.

"What do you mean?"

"Their boots!"

She whispered, "Personal protective equipment. They'd be insulated."

If you can't avoid it, protect yourself against it…

Some were wearing gloves too and thick jackets.

"Galt would know they're in PPE," the operations man said. "He'd have to pump so much juice into the superstructure to hurt anybody that the grid'd shut down in this part of town."

Rhyme said, "Well, if it's not the school and it's not the job site, then what's his target? Or did we get it wrong in the first place? Maybe it's not there at all. There was another volcano exhibit."

Then Cavanaugh gripped her arm and gestured behind them. "The hotel!"

"Jesus," Sachs muttered, staring at the place. It was one of those minimalist, chic places filled with stark stone, marble, fountains… and metal. Lots of metal. Copper doors and steel stairs and flooring.

Nancy Simpson too turned to gaze at the building.

"What?" Rhyme asked urgently in her ear.

"It's the hotel, Rhyme. That's what he's attacking." She grabbed her radio to call ESU's chief. She lifted it to her mouth, as she and Simpson sprinted forward. "Bo, it's Amelia. He's going after the hotel, I'm sure of it. It's not the construction site. Get your people there now! Evacuate it!"

"Roger that, Amelia, I'll-"

But Sachs didn't hear the rest of his transmission. Or rather, whatever he said was lost completely to her as she stared through the hotel's massive windows.

Though it was before the deadline, one o'clock, a half dozen people inside the Battery Park Hotel stopped in their tracks. Their animated faces instantly went blank. They became doll faces, they were caricatures, grotesques. Spittle appeared in the corners of lips taut as ropes. Fingers, feet, chins began quivering.

Onlookers gasped and then screamed in panic at the otherworldly sight-humans turned to creatures out of a sick horror film, zombies. Two or three were caught with their hands on the push panels of revolving doors, jerking and kicking in the confined spaces. One man's rigid leg kicked through the door glass, which severed his femoral artery. Blood sprayed and smoked. Another man, young, student age, was gripping a large brass door to a function room, and bent forward, urinating and shivering. There were two others, their hands on the rails of the low steps to the lobby bar, frozen, shaking, as the life evaporated from their bodies.

And even outside, Sachs could hear an unearthly moan from deep in the smoldering throat of a woman, caught in midstep.

A heavy-set man plunged forward to save a guest-to push him away from the elevator panel the smoking victim's hand was frozen to. The good Samaritan may have believed he could body-slam the poor guy away from the panel. But he hadn't reckoned on the speed and the power of juice. The instant he contacted the victim he too became part of the circuit. His face twisted into a mass of wrinkles from the pain. Then the expression melted into that of an eerie doll and he began the terrible quivering too.

Blood ran from mouths as teeth cut into tongues and lips. Eyes rolled back into sockets.

A woman with her fingers around a door handle must have made particularly good contact; her back arched at an impossible angle, her unseeing eyes gazing at the ceiling. Her silver hair burst into flames.

Sachs whispered, "Rhyme… Oh, it's bad, real bad. I'll have to call back." She disconnected without waiting for a response.

Sachs and Simpson turned and began beckoning the ambulances forward. Sachs was horrified by the spectacle of arms and legs convulsing, muscles frozen, muscles quivering, veins rising, spittle and blood evaporating on faces from the blisteringly hot skin.

Cavanaugh called, "We've got to stop them from trying to get out. They can't touch anything!"

Sachs and Simpson ran to the windows and gestured people back from the doors, but everyone was panicked and continued to stream for the exits, stopping only when they saw the terrible scene.

Cut its head off…

She spun to Cavanaugh, crying, "How can we shut the current off here?"

The Operations VP looked around. "We don't know what he's rigged it to. Around here we've got subway lines, transmission lines, feeders… I'll call Queens. I'll cut everything off in the area. It'll shut down the Stock Exchange but we don't have any choice." He pulled out his phone. "But it'll take a few minutes. Tell people in the hotel to stay put. Not to touch anything!"

Sachs ran close to a large sheet of plate glass and gestured people back frantically. Some understood and nodded. But others were panicking. Sachs watched a young woman break free from her friends and race for the emergency exit door, in front of which lay the smoking body of a man who'd tried to exit a moment before. Sachs pounded on the window. "No!" she cried. The woman looked at Sachs but kept going, arms outstretched.

"No, don't touch it!"

The woman, sobbing, sped onward.

Ten feet from the door… five feet…

No other way, the detective decided.

"Nancy, the windows! Take 'em out!" Sachs drew her Glock. Checked the backdrop. And firing high, used six bullets to take out three of the massive windows in the lobby.

The woman screamed at the gunshots and dove to the ground just before she grabbed the deadly handle.

Nancy Simpson blew out the windows on the other side of the doors.

Both detectives leapt inside. They ordered people not to touch anything metal and began organizing the exodus through the jagged window frames, as smoke, unbelievably vile, filled the lobby.

BOB CAVANAUGH CALLED, "Power's off!"

Sachs nodded and directed emergency workers to the victims, then scanned the crowds outside, looking for Galt.

"Detective!"

Amelia Sachs turned. A man in an Algonquin Consolidated uniform was running in her direction. Seeing the dark blue outfit worn by a white male, she thought immediately that it might be Galt. The witness in the hotel had apparently reported that the suspect was nearby and the police had only a bad DMV picture of the attacker to identify him.

But as the man approached it was clear that he was much younger than Galt.

"Detective," he said breathlessly, "that officer there said I should talk to you. There's something I thought you should know." His face screwed up as he caught a whiff of the smoke from inside the hotel.

"Go on."

"I'm with the power company. Algonquin. Look, my partner, he's in one of our tunnels, underneath us?" Nodding toward Amsterdam College. "I've been trying to reach him, but he's not responding. Only, the radios're working fine."

Underground. Where the electric service was.

"I was thinking this Raymond Galt guy, maybe he was down there and Joey ran into him. You know. I'm worried about him."

Sachs called two patrolmen to join her. They and the Algonquin worker hurried to the school. "We have an easement through the basement. It's the best way to get down to the tunnel."

So that's how Galt had picked up the volcanic ash trace, slipping through the exhibit hall of the college. Sachs called Rhyme and explained what had happened. Then added, "I'm going tactical, Rhyme. He might be in the tunnel. I'll call you when I know something. You found anything else in the evidence that might help?"