Jeffery Deaver - The burning wire

This was the letter I and the blank spaces from the package delivered to the Watchmaker at Mexico City airport.

Gold letters…

Little blue booklet…

The mysterious numbers…

"Mel," he said sharply. The tech's head snapped up at the urgency. "Is there any passport that has the letters CC on the cover? Issued in blue?"

A moment later Cooper looked up from the State Department archive. "Yes, as a matter of fact, there is. Navy blue with interlocking C's at the top. It's the Caribbean Community passport. There're about fifteen countries in-"

"Is Jamaica one?"

"Yes."

He realized too they'd been thinking of the numbers as five hundred seventy and three hundred seventy-nine. In fact, there was another way to refer to them. "Quick. Look up Lexus SUVs. Is there a model with a five seventy or a three seventy-nine in the designation?"

This was even faster than the passport. "Let's see… Yep, the LX five-seventy. It's a luxury-"

"Get me Luna on the phone. Now!" He didn't want to risk his own dialing, which would have taken some time and might have been inaccurate.

He felt the sweat again but ignored it.

"Si?"

"Rodolfo! It's Lincoln Rhyme."

"Ah, Captain-"

"Listen to me! You are the target. The office building's a diversion! The package delivered to Logan? The rectangular images on the drawing? It was a diagram of the grounds of the Jamaican embassy, where you are right now. The rectangles are the blast barriers. And you drive a Lexus LX five-seventy?"

"Yes… You mean, that was the five hundred seventy?"

"I think so. And the Watchmaker was given a Jamaican passport to get into the compound. Is there a car parked nearby with three seven nine in the license plate?"

"I don't… Why, yes. It's a Mercedes with diplomatic plates."

"Clear the area! Now. That's where the bomb is! The Mercedes."

He heard shouting in Spanish, the sound of footfalls, hard breathing.

Then, a stunning explosion.

Rhyme blinked at the startling noise that rattled the speakers of the phone.

"Commander! Are you there?… Rodolfo?"

More shouting, static, screams.

"Rodolfo!"

After a long moment: "Captain Rhyme? Hello?" The man was shouting-probably because he'd been partially deafened by the blast.

"Commander, are you all right?"

"Hello!"

A hissing noise, moans, gasping. Shouts.

Sirens and more shouting.

Cooper asked, "Should we call-"

And then "Que?… Are you there, Captain?"

"Yes. Are you hurt, Rodolfo?"

"No, no. No bad injuries. Some cuts, stunned, you know." The voice was gasping. "We climbed over barriers and got down on the other side. I see people cut, bleeding. But no one is dead, I think. It would have killed me and the officers standing beside me. How did you know?"

"I'll go into that later, Commander. Where is the Watchmaker?"

"Wait a moment… wait… All right. At the explosion he fled. Arturo's men were distracted by the blast-as he planned, of course. Arturo said a car drove into the park and he got inside. They're moving south now. We have officers following him… Thank you, Captain Rhyme. I cannot thank you enough. But now I must go. I will call as soon as we learn something."

Inhaling deeply, ignoring the headache and the sweat. Okay, Logan, Rhyme was thinking, we've stopped you. We've ruined your plan. But we still don't have you. Not yet.

Please, Rodolfo. Keep after him.

As he was thinking this, his eyes strayed over the evidence charts in the Galt case. Maybe this would be the conclusion of both of the operations. The Watchmaker would be apprehended in Mexico, and Ray Galt, in an abandoned school near Chinatown.

Then his eyes settled on one bit of evidence in particular: Chinese herbs, ginseng and wolfberry.

And another listing, a substance that had been found in proximity to the herbs: Diesel fuel.

Rhyme originally had though that the fuel was from a possible site of an attack, a refinery perhaps. But it occurred to him now that diesel fuel would also run motors.

Like in an electric generator.

Then another thought occurred to him.

"Mel, the call-"

"Are you all right?"

"I'm fine," Rhyme snapped.

"You look flushed."

Ignoring the comment, he instructed, "Find out the number of the cop who called in about Galt being in the school."

The tech turned away and made a call. A few minutes later he looked up. "Funny. I got the number from Patrol. But it's out of service."

"Give it to me."

Cooper did, slowly. Rhyme typed it into a mobile phone database at the NYPD.

It was listed as prepaid.

"A cop with a prepaid mobile? And now out of service? No way."

And the school was in Chinatown; that's where Galt had picked up the herbs. But it wasn't a staging area or where he was hiding out. It was a trap! Galt had run wires from a diesel-powered generator to kill whoever was searching for him and then, pretending to be a cop, he called in to report himself. Since the juice was off in the building, Sachs and the others wouldn't expect the electrocution danger.

There's no power. It's safe…

He had to warn them. He started to press "Sachs" on the speed-dial panel on the computer. But just at that moment his nagging headache swelled to a blinding explosion in his head. Lights like electric sparks, a thousand electric sparks, flashed across his vision. Sweat poured from his skin as the dysreflexia attack began in earnest.

Lincoln Rhyme whispered, "Mel, you have to call-"

And then passed out.

THEY MADE IT to the back of the school without being seen. Sachs and Pulaski were crouching, looking for entrances and exits, when they heard the first whimpers.

Pulaski turned an alarmed face toward the detective. She held up a finger and listened.

A woman's voice, it seemed. She was in pain, maybe held hostage, being tortured? The woman who'd spotted Galt? Someone else?

The sound faded. Then returned. They listened for a long ten seconds. Amelia Sachs gestured Ron Pulaski closer. They were in the back of the school, smelling urine, rotting plasterboard, mold.

The whimpering grew louder. What the hell was Galt doing? Maybe the victim had information he needed for his next attack. "No, no, no." Sachs was sure that's what the voice was saying.

Or maybe Galt had slipped farther from reality. Maybe he'd kidnapped an Algonquin worker and was torturing her, satisfying his lust for revenge. Maybe she was in charge of the long-distance transmission lines. Oh, no, Sachs thought. Could it be Andi Jessen herself? She sensed Pulaski staring at her with wide eyes.

"No… please," the woman cried.

Sachs hit TRANSMIT and radioed Emergency Service. "Bo… it's Amelia, K?"

"Go ahead, K."

"He's got a hostage here. Where are you?"

"Hostage? Who?"

"Female. Unknown."

"Roger that. We'll be five minutes. K."

"He's hurting her. I'm not going to wait. Ron and I're going in."

"You have logistics?"

"Just what I told you before. Galt's in the middle of the building. Ground floor. Armed with a forty-five ACP. Nothing's electrified here. The power's off."

"Well, that's the good news, I guess. Out."

She disconnected and whispered to Pulaski, pointing, "Now, move! We'll stage at the back door."

The young officer said, "Sure. Okay." An uneasy glance into the shadows of the building, from which another moan floated out on the foul air.

Sachs surveyed their route to the back door and loading dock. The crumbling asphalt was littered with broken bottles and papers and cans. Noisy to traverse, but they didn't have a choice.

She gestured Pulaski forward. They began to pick their way over the ground, trying to be quiet, though they couldn't avoid crunching glass beneath their shoes.