Jeffery Deaver - The burning wire

As he wound part of the cable around Rhyme's arm, the man said, "But if you bugged the generator you must've heard what we were saying before. We know Raymond Galt isn't the real perp, that he was set up. And we know that Andi Jessen wanted to kill Sam Vetter and Larry Fishbein. Whether or not it was her brother who rigged the traps or you, she'll still get collared and…"

Logan did no more than glance at Rhyme, on whose face appeared a look of both understanding and complete resignation. "But that's not what this is about, is it? That's not what this is about at all."

"No, Lincoln. It's not."

A BIRD NOT on, but above, a wire.

Dangling in the air in the deepest subbasement of the convention center, Charlie Sommers was in an improvised sling exactly two feet away from a line carrying 138,000 volts, swathed in red insulation.

If electricity were water, the pressure in the cable in front of him would be like that at the bottom of the sea, millions of pounds per square inch, just waiting for any excuse to crush the submarine into a flat, bloody strip of metal.

The main line, suspended on insulated glass supports, was ten feet off the ground running from the wall across the basement to the convention center's own substation, at the far end of the dim space.

Because he couldn't touch both the bare wire and anything connected to the ground at the same time, he'd improvised a sling from fire hose, which he'd tied to a catwalk above the high-voltage cable. Using all his strength, he'd shimmied down the hose and had managed to slide into the crux of the sling. He fervently hoped that fire hoses were made exclusively of rubber and canvas; if the hose was, for some reason, reinforced with metal strands, then in a few minutes he would become a major player in a phase-to-ground fault and would turn into vapor.

Around his neck was a length of 1/0-gauge cable-what he'd borrowed from the booth next to Algonquin's. With his Swiss army knife Sommers was slowly stripping away the dark red insulation on it. When he was finished he would similarly strip away the protective coating from the high-voltage line, exposing the aluminum strands. And, with his unprotected hands, he'd join the two wires.

Then one of two things would happen. Either:

Nothing.

Or, a phase-to-ground fault… and vapor.

If the case of the former, he would then carefully extend the exposed end of the wire and touch it to a nearby return source-some iron girders connected to the convention center's foundation. The result would be a spectacular short that would blow the breakers in the center's power plant.

As for him, well, Charlie Sommers himself wouldn't be grounded, but voltage that high would produce a huge arc flash, which could easily burn him to death.

Knowing now that the deadline was meaningless and that Randall and Andi Jessen might trip the switchgear at any moment, he worked feverishly, slicing the bloodred insulation off the cable. The curled strips of dielectric fell to the floor beneath him and Sommers couldn't help but think they were like petals falling from dying roses in a funeral home after the mourners had returned home.

RICHARD LOGAN WATCHED Lincoln Rhyme gazing out one of the large windows of the townhouse-in the direction of the East River. Somewhere out there the gray and red towers of Algonquin Consolidated Power presided over the grim riverfront. The smokestacks weren't visible from here but Logan supposed that on a cold day Rhyme could see the billowing exhaust rising over the skyline.

Shaking his head, the criminalist whispered, "Andi Jessen didn't hire you at all."

"No."

"She's the target, isn't she? You're setting her up."

"That's right."

Rhyme nodded at the gear bag at Logan's feet. "There's evidence in there implicating her and her brother. You're going to plant it here, as if Andi and Randall had killed me too. Just like you've been planting evidence all along. The trace from City Hall, the blond hair, the Greek food. You were hired by somebody to make it look like Andi was using Ray Galt to kill Sam Vetter and Larry Fishbein… Why them?"

"It wasn't them particularly. The victims could have been anybody from the alternative energy conference at the Battery Park Hotel or from Fishbein's accounting firm. Anybody there might have information about some scam or another Andi Jessen wanted to cover up."

"Even though they didn't have any information."

"No. Nothing to do with Algonquin or Andi at all."

"Who's behind it?" Rhyme's brow was furrowed, the eyes now darting over the evidence boards, as if he needed to know the answer to the puzzle before he died. "I can't figure that out."

Logan looked down at the man's gaunt face.

Pity…

He extracted a second wire and rigged it too to Rhyme. He'd connect this to the closest ground, the radiator.

Richard Logan never cared, on a moral level, why his clients wanted the victims dead, but he made a point of learning the motive because it helped him to plan his job and to get away afterward. So he'd listened with interest when it was explained to him why Andi Jessen had to be discredited and go to jail for a long, long time. He now said, "Andi is a threat to the new order. Her view-her very vocal view, apparently-is that oil and gas and coal and nuke are the only significant sources for energy and will be for the next hundred years. Renewables are a kid's toy."

"She's pointing out the emperor's new clothes."

"Exactly."

"So some ecoterror group is behind this, then?"

Logan grimaced. "Ecoterrorists? Oh, please. Bearded unwashed idiots who can't even burn down a ski resort construction site without getting caught in the act?" Logan laughed. "No, Lincoln. It's about money."

Rhyme seemed to understand. "Ah, sure… It doesn't matter that clean energy and renewables don't add up to much in the great scheme of things yet; there's still lots of profit to be made building wind and solar farms and regional grids and the transmission equipment."

"Exactly. Government subsidies and tax breaks too. Not to mention consumers who'll pay whatever they're billed for green power because they think they're saving the earth."

Rhyme said, "When we found Galt's apartment, his emails about the cancer, we were thinking that revenge never sits well as a motive."

"No, but greed's perennial."

The criminalist apparently couldn't help but laugh. "So a green cartel's behind this. What a thought." His eyes took in the whiteboards. "I think I can deduce one of the players… Bob Cavanaugh?"

"Good. Yes. He's the principal, in fact. How did you know?"

"He gave us information implicating Randall Jessen." Rhyme squinted. "And he helped us at the hotel in Battery Park. We might've saved Vetter… But, sure, it didn't matter if you actually killed him or Fishbein, or anyone else for that matter."

"No. What was important was that Andi Jessen get arrested for the attacks. Discredited and sent to jail. And there was another motive: Cavanaugh was an associate of Andi's father, and never very happy he'd been passed over for the president and CEO spot by daddy's little girl."

"He can't be the only one."

"No. The cartel has CEOs from a half dozen alternative-energy equipment suppliers around the world, mostly in the United States, China and Switzerland."

"A green cartel." Rhyme shook his head.

"Times change," Logan said.

"But why not just kill her, Andi?"

"My very question," Logan said. "But there was an economic component. Cavanaugh and the others needed Andi out but also needed to have Algonquin's share price drop. The cartel is going to snap up the company."

"And the attack on the bus?"

"Needed to get everybody's attention." Logan felt a ping of regret. And he was comfortable confessing to Rhyme, "I didn't want anyone to die there. That passenger would have been okay if he'd gotten onto the bus instead of hesitating. But I couldn't wait anymore."