Jeffery Deaver - The burning wire

"Where're the bodies?"

"Up the hall. I know we fucked up the scene in the elevator, Detective, but there was so much smoke, we didn't know what was going on. We had to clear it."

She told him that was all right. Checking on the conditions of victims is the first priority. Besides, nothing contaminates a crime scene like fire. A few emergency worker footprints would make little difference.

"How'd it work?" she asked the ESU officer.

"We aren't sure. The building supervisor said the car stopped just above the ground floor. Then smoke started. And the screams. By the time they got the car down to the main floor and the door opened, it was all over."

Sachs shivered at the thought. The molten metal disks were bad enough, but, being claustrophobic, she was even more troubled by the thought of those four people in a confined space filled with electricity… and one of them burning.

The ESU officer looked over his notes. "The vics were an editor of an arts magazine, a lawyer and an accountant on the eighth floor. A computer parts salesman from the sixth. If you're interested."

Sachs was always interested in anything that made the victims real. Partly this was to keep her heart about her, to make certain she didn't become callous because of what she encountered on the job. But partly it was because of what Rhyme had instilled in her. For a man who was pure scientist, a rationalist, Rhyme's talent as a forensic expert was also due to his uncanny ability to step into the mind of the perp.

Years ago, at the very first scene they'd worked, a terrible crime also involving death by a utility system-steam, in that case-Rhyme had whispered to her something that seated itself in her mind every time she walked the grid: "I want you to be him," he'd told her, speaking of the perp. "Just get into his head. You've been thinking the way we think. I want you to think the way he does."

Rhyme had told her that while he believed forensic science could be taught, this empathy was an innate talent. And Sachs believed the best way to maintain this connection-this wire, she thought now, between your heart and your skill-was never to forget the victims.

"Ready?" she asked Pulaski.

"I guess."

"We're going to do the grid, Rhyme," she said into the microphone.

"Okay, but do it without me, Sachs."

She was alarmed. Despite his protests to the contrary, Rhyme hadn't been well. She could tell easily. But it turned out that there was another reason he was signing off. "I want you to walk the grid with that guy from Algonquin."

"Sommers?"

"Right."

"Why?"

"For one thing, I like his mind. He thinks broadly. Maybe it's his inventor's side. I don't know. But beyond that, something's not right, Sachs. I can't explain it. I feel we're missing something. Galt had to have planned this out for a month, at least. But now it looks like he's accelerating the attacks-two in one day. I can't figure that out."

"Maybe," she suggested, "it's because we've gotten on to him faster than he hoped."

"Could be. I don't know. But if that's the case it also means he'd love to take us out too."

"True."

"So I want a fresh perspective. I've already called Charlie, and he's willing to help… Does he always eat when he talks on the phone?"

"He likes junk food."

"Well, when you're on the grid, make sure he's got something that doesn't crunch. Communications will patch you in, whenever you're ready. Just get back here ASAP with whatever you find. For all we know Galt's rigging another attack right now."

They disconnected. She glanced at Ron Pulaski, who was still clearly troubled.

I need you with us, Rookie…

She called him over. "Ron, the major scene's downstairs, where he probably rigged the wires and that device of his." She tapped her radio. "I'll be online with Charlie Sommers. I need you to run the elevator." Another pause. "And process the bodies too. There probably won't be much trace. His MO is he doesn't have any direct contact with the vics. But it needs to be done. Are you okay with that?"

The young officer nodded. "Anything you need, Amelia." Sounding painfully sincere. He was making amends for the accident at Galt's apartment, she guessed.

"Let's get to it. And Vicks."

"What?"

"In the kit. Vicks VapoRub. Put some underneath your nose. For the smell."

In five minutes she was online with Charlie Sommers, grateful that he was helping her in running the scene-to give "technical support," which he defined, in his irreverent way, as helping to "save her ass."

Sachs clicked on her helmet light and started down the stairs into the basement of the building, describing to Charlie Sommers exactly what she saw in the dank, filthy area at the base of the elevator shaft. She was linked to him only through audio, not video, as she usually was with Rhyme.

The building had been cleared by ESU, but she was very aware of what Rhyme had told her earlier-that Galt could easily have decided to start targeting his pursuers. She looked around for a moment, taking only a few detours to shine the light on shadows that had a vaguely human form.

They turned out to be only shadows that had a vaguely human form.

He asked, "You see anything bolted to the railings the elevator rides on?"

She focused again on her search. "No, nothing on the rails. But… there's a piece of that Bennington cable bolted to the wall. I'm-"

"Test the voltage first!"

"Was just going to say that."

"Ah, a born electrician."

"No way. After this, I'm not even going to change my car batteries." She swept with the detector. "It's zero."

"Good. Where does the line go?"

"On one end, to a bus bar that's dangling in the shaft. It's resting against the bottom of the elevator car. It's scorched where it's made contact. The other end goes to a thick cable that runs into a beige panel on the wall, like a big medicine cabinet. The Bennington wire is connected to a main line with one of those remote switches like at the last scene."

"That's the incoming service line." He added that an office building like this didn't receive electricity the way a residence did. It took in a much larger amount, like a street transformer: 13,800 volts, which was then stepped down for distribution to the offices. It was a spot network. "So the car would descend and hit the hot bus bar… But there has to be another switch somewhere, one that controls the power to the elevator. He needed to stop the car just before it got to the lobby. So the victims inside would hit the call button. Then the passenger's hand on the panel and his feet on the floor completed the circuit and electrocuted him and anybody who touched him or he was brushing up against."

Sachs looked around and found the other device. She told Sommers this.

He explained exactly how to dismantle the cables and what to look for. Before she removed any evidence, though, Sachs laid the numbers and photographed the scene. Then she thanked Sommers and told him that was all she needed for now. They disconnected and she walked the grid, including the entrance and exit routes-which turned out to be in all likelihood a door nearby that led to the alley. It had a flimsy lock and had recently been jimmied open. She took pictures of this too.

She was about to go upstairs and join Pulaski when she paused.

Four victims here in the elevator.

Sam Vetter and four others dead at the hotel, a number in the hospital. Luis Martin.

And fear throughout the city, fear of this invisible killer.

In her imagination she heard Rhyme say, "You have to become him."

Sachs rested the evidence by the stairs and returned to the base of the elevator shaft.

I'm him, I'm Raymond Galt…

Sachs had trouble summoning the fanatic, the crusader, since that emotion didn't jibe, in her mind, with the extreme calculation that the man had shown so far. Anybody else would just have taken a shot at Andi Jessen or firebombed the Queens plant. But Galt was going to these precise, elaborate lengths to use a very complicated weapon to kill.