Jeffery Deaver - The burning wire

"In any one of a hundred electrical supply stores in the area. Two hundred… Any serial numbers?"

Cooper examined them carefully. "No. Model numbers, that's all."

"Then you're out of luck."

Rhyme and Sachs thanked Sommers and they hung up.

Sachs and Cooper examined Galt's gear kit and the Algonquin overalls and hard hat. No notes or maps, nothing to indicate where he might be hiding out or what his next target might be. That didn't surprise them, since Galt had intentionally ditched the items and would know they'd been discovered.

Detective Gretchen Sahloff, from Crime Scene HQ, had collected samplars of Galt's fingerprints from his office and a thumbprint on file from Algonquin Human Resources. Cooper now examined all of the items collected, against these prints. He found only Galt's on the collected evidence. Rhyme was frustrated at this. Had they found others, that could have led them to a friend of Galt's or an accomplice or someone in the Justice For cell, if it was involved in the attacks.

Also Rhyme noted that the hacksaw and bolt cutter weren't in the bag, but this didn't surprise him. The kit was for smaller hand tools.

The wrench, however, was, and it had tool marks that were identical to those on the bolts at the substation on Fifty-seventh Street.

The crime scene team from the arson incident at the substation in Harlem arrived. They had very little. Galt had used a simple Molotov cocktail-a glass bottle filled with gasoline and a cloth rag stuck into the top. It had been thrown against the barred but open window and the burning gas had flowed inside, igniting rubber and plastic insulation. The bottle was for wine-there were no threads for a screw-top cap-and was manufactured by a glassworks that sold to dozens of wineries, which in turn sold to thousands of retail outlets. The label had been soaked off. Untraceable.

The gasoline was BP, regular grade, and the cloth was from a T-shirt. None of these items could be traced to a specific location, though a rat-tail file was found in Galt's gear bag with glass dust that could be associated with the bottle-from scoring it, so that it would be certain to break.

There was no security camera outside or in the substation.

A knock on the door sounded.

Thom went to open it and a moment later Ron Pulaski entered, with the evidence he'd gathered at Galt's apartment, several milk crates full of items, the bolt cutter and the hacksaw, along with a pair of boots.

Well, at last, Rhyme thought, irritated at the delay, though pleased at the arrival of the evidence.

Unsmiling, Pulaski looked at no one as he stacked up the evidence on the table. Then Rhyme noticed that his hand was shaking.

"Rookie, you all right?"

The young man, his back to them all, paused, looking down, hands on the table in front of him. Then he turned. Took a breath. "There was an accident at the scene. I hit somebody with my car. Somebody innocent, just happened to be there. He's in a coma. They think he might die."

THE YOUNG OFFICER told them what had happened.

"I just wasn't thinking. Or maybe I was thinking too much. I got spooked. I was worried Galt might've gotten to my car and rigged a trap or something."

"How could he have done that?" Rhyme asked.

"I don't know," Pulaski said emotionally. "I didn't remember I'd already started the engine. I turned the key again and the noise… well, it scared me. I guess my foot slipped off the brake."

"Who was he?"

"Just some guy, Palmer's his name. Works nights at a trucking company. He was taking a shortcut back from a grocery store… I hit him pretty hard."

Rhyme thought about the head injury that Pulaski himself had suffered. He'd be troubled by the fact that his carelessness had now seriously injured someone else.

"Internal Affairs's going to talk to me. They said the city'll probably be sued. They told me to contact the PBA about a lawyer. I…" Words failed him. Finally he repeated a bit manically, "My foot slipped off the brake. I didn't even remember putting the car in gear or starting it."

"Well, Rookie, blame yourself or not, but the point is, this Palmer's not a player in the Galt case, is he?"

"No."

"So deal with it after hours," Rhyme said firmly.

"Yessir, sure. I will. I'm sorry."

"So, what'd you find?"

He explained about the sheets he'd managed to tease out of Galt's printer. Rhyme complimented him on that-it was a good save-but the officer didn't even seem to hear. Pulaski continued, explaining about Galt's cancer and the high-tension wires.

"Revenge," Rhyme mused. "The old standby. An okay motive. Not one of my favorites. Yours?" He glanced at Sachs.

"No," she replied seriously. "Greed and lust're mine. Revenge's usually an antisocial personality disorder thing. But this could be more than revenge, Rhyme. From the demand note he's on a crusade. Saving the people from the evil energy company. A fanatic. And I still think we may find a terrorist connection."

Apart from the motive, though, and the evidence tying Galt to the crime scenes, Pulaski had found nothing that suggested his present whereabouts or where he might be going to attack next. This was disappointing but didn't surprise Rhyme; the attacks were obviously well planned and Galt was smart. He'd have known from the start that his identity might be learned and he would have made arrangements for a hideout.

Rhyme scrolled through numbers and placed a call.

"Andi Jessen's office," came the weary voice through the speakerphone.

Rhyme identified himself and a moment later was talking to the CEO of the power company. She said, "I just talked to Gary Noble and Agent McDaniel. There're five people dead, I heard. And more in the hospital."

"That's right."

"I'm so sorry. How awful. I've been looking at Ray Galt's employee file. His picture's up in front of me right now. He doesn't look like the kind of person who'd do something like this."

They never do.

Rhyme explained, "He's convinced he got cancer from working on the electric lines."

"Is that why he's doing this?"

"It seems. He's crusading. He thinks working on high-power lines is a big risk."

She sighed. "We've got a half dozen suits pending on the issue. High-voltage cables give off EMFs-electromagnetic fields. Insulation and walls shield the electrical field, but not the magnetic. There're arguments that that can cause leukemia."

Reading over the pages from Galt's printer, now scanned and up on the monitor in front of him, Rhyme said, "He also talks about the lines attracting airborne particles that can cause lung cancer."

"None of that's ever been proven. I dispute it. I dispute the leukemia thing too."

"Well, Galt doesn't."

"What does he want us to do?"

"I guess we won't know that until we get another demand note or he contacts you some other way."

"I'll make a statement, ask him to give himself up."

"It couldn't hurt." Though Rhyme was thinking that Galt had come too far simply to make a point and surrender. He had more retribution in mind, they had to assume.

Seventy-five feet of cable and a dozen split bolts. So far he'd used about thirty feet of the stolen wire.

As he disconnected, Rhyme noticed that Pulaski was on the phone, head down. The officer looked up and met his boss's eyes. He ended his call quickly-and guiltily-and walked over to the evidence table. He started to reach for one of the tools he'd collected and then froze, realizing he didn't have latex gloves on. He pulled on a pair, cleaned the rubber fingers and palm with the dog-hair roller. Then he picked up the bolt cutter.

A comparison of the tool marks showed that both it and the hacksaw were the same tools used to create the trap at the bus stop, and the boots were the same brand and size too.