Jeffery Deaver - The burning wire

"Good. Now, if we've got the soap opera out of the way, maybe we can all get back to work." He looked at the digital clock: 3 p.m. Rhyme felt the time pressure humming like, well, electricity in a high-tension wire. They had the perp's identity, they had his address. But they had no solid leads to his whereabouts.

It was then that the doorbell rang.

Thom appeared a moment later with Tucker McDaniel, minus his underling. Rhyme knew immediately what he was going to say. Everybody in the room probably did.

"Another demand?" Rhyme asked.

"Yes. And he's really upped the ante this time."

"WHAT'S THE DEADLINE?" Sellitto asked.

"Six-thirty tonight."

"Gives us a little over three hours. What's he want?"

"This demand's even crazier than the first two. Can I use a computer?"

Rhyme nodded toward it.

The ASAC typed and in a moment the letter appeared on the screen. Rhyme's vision was blurred. He blinked into clarity and leaned toward the monitor. To Algonquin Consolidated Power and Light and CEO Andi Jessen:

At about 6 p.m. yesterday, a remote control switch routed current from a spot network distribution system at an office building at 235 W. 54th Street totaling 13,800 volts to the floor of the elevator which had a return line connected through the control panel in the car. When the car stopped before it got to the ground floor a passenger touched the panel to hit the alarm button, the circuit was closed and individuals inside died.

Twice I've asked you to show good faith by reducing output of supply. And twice you have refused. If you'd done what I reasonably requested you would never have brought such suffering into the lives of the people you call your customers. You wantonly disregarded my requests and somebody else paid the price for that.

In 1931 when Thomas A. Edison died, his coworkers respectfully requested that all the power in the city be shut off for sixty seconds to mark the passing of the man who had created the grid and brought light to millions. The city declined.

I am now making the same request-not out of respect for the man who CREATED the grid but for the people who are being DESTROYED because of it- those who are made sick from the power lines and from the pollution from burning coal and from radiation, those who lose their houses from the earthquakes caused by geothermal drilling and damming our natural rivers, those cheated by companies like Enron, the list is endless.

Only unlike 1931 I am insisting you shut down the entire Northeastern Interconnection for one day. Beginning at 6:30 p.m. today.

If you do this people will see that they do not need to use as much power as they do. They will see that it is their greed and gluttony that motivates them, which you are happy to play into. Why? For PROFITS of course.

If you ignore me this time, the consequences will be far, far greater than the small incidents of yesterday and the day before, the loss of life far worse. -R. Galt

McDaniel said, "Absurd. There'll be civil chaos, riots, looting. The governor and president are adamant. No caving in."

"Where's the letter?" Rhyme asked.

"What you're seeing there. It was an email."

"Who'd he send it to?"

"Andi Jessen-personally. And the company itself. Their security office email account."

"Traceable?"

"No. Used a proxy in Europe… He's going for a mass attack, it seems." McDaniel looked up. "Washington's involved now in a big way. Those senators-the ones working with the President on renewable energy-are coming to town early. They're going to meet with the mayor. The assistant director of the Bureau's coming in too. Gary Noble's coordinating everything. We've got even more agents and troops out on the streets. And the chief has mobilized a thousand more NYPD officers." He rubbed his eyes. "Lincoln, we've got the manpower and the firepower, but we need to know some idea of where to look for the next attack. What've you got? We need something concrete."

McDaniel was reminding Rhyme he'd let the criminalist take the case with the assurance that his condition wouldn't slow the investigation.

From entrance to exit…

Rhyme had gotten what he wanted-the investigation. And yet he hadn't found the man. In fact, the very condition that he'd assured McDaniel wasn't a problem had nearly gotten Sachs and Pulaski killed, along with a dozen ESU officers.

He gazed back to the agent's smooth face and predator's eyes and said evenly, "What I've got is more evidence to look at."

McDaniel hesitated then waved his hand in an ambiguous gesture. "All right. Go ahead."

Rhyme had already turned away to Cooper with a nod toward the digital recorder on which had been recorded the sounds of the "victim" moaning. "Audio analysis."

With gloved hands, the tech plugged the unit into his computer and typed. A moment later, reading the sine curves on the screen, he said, "The volume and signal quality suggest it was recorded from a TV program. Cable."

"Brand of the recorder?"

"Sanoya. Chinese." He typed some commands and then studied a new database. "Sold in about ten thousand stores in the country. No serial number."

"Anything more?"

"No prints on it or other trace, except more taramasalata."

"The generator?"

Cooper and Sachs went over it carefully, while Tucker McDaniel made phone calls and fidgeted in the corner. The generator turned out to be a Power Plus model, made by the Williams-Jonas Manufacturing Company, in New Jersey.

"Where'd this one come from?" Rhyme asked.

"Let's find out," Sachs said.

Two phone calls later-to the local sales office of the manufacturer and the general contractor that the company referred them to-revealed that it had been stolen from a job site in Manhattan. There were no leads in the theft, according to the local precinct. The construction project had no security cameras.

"Got some trace that's curious," Cooper announced. He ran it through the GC/MS. The machine hummed away.

"Getting something…" Cooper was bending forward over the screen. "Hmm."

This would normally have drawn an acerbic "What does that mean?" glance from Rhyme. But he still felt tired and shaken from the attack. He waited patiently for the tech to explain.

Finally: "Don't think I've seen it before. A significant amount of quartz and some ammonium chloride. Ratio's about ten to one."

Rhyme knew the answer instantly. "Copper cleaner."

"Copper wires?" Pulaski suggested. "Galt is cleaning them?"

"Good idea, Rookie. But I'm not sure." He didn't think electricians cleaned wires. Besides, he explained, "Mostly it's used for cleaning copper on buildings. What else, Mel?"

"Some stone dust you don't usually see in Manhattan. Architectural terra-cotta." Cooper was now looking into the eyepieces of a microscope. He added, "And some granules that look like white marble."

Rhyme blurted, "The police riots of fifty-seven. That's eighteen fifty-seven."

"What?" McDaniel asked.

"A few years ago. The Delgado case?"

"Oh, sure," Sachs said.

Sellitto asked, "Did we work it?"

Rhyme's grimace conveyed his message: It didn't matter who worked a case. Or when. Crime scene officers-hell, every officer on the force-had to be aware of all major cases in the city, present and past. The more you put into the brain, the more likely you were to make connections that solved your crime.

Homework…

He explained: A few years ago Steven Delgado, a paranoid schizophrenic, planned a series of murders to mimic deaths that occurred during the infamous New York City Police Riots of 1857. The madman picked the same locale as the carnage 150 years earlier: City Hall Park. He was captured after his first kill because Rhyme had traced him to an apartment on the Upper West Side, where he'd left trace that included copper cleaner, terra-cotta residue from the Woolworth building and white marble dust from the city courthouse, which was undergoing renovations, then as now.