Jeffery Deaver - The burning wire

"I can see why you'd set up Vetter and Fishbein to make it look like Andi wanted them dead-they were involved in alternative energy projects in Arizona. They'd be logical victims. But why would the cartel want to kill Charlie Sommers? Wasn't his job developing alternative energy?"

"Sommers?" A nod at the generator. "I heard you mention him. And Bernie Wahl dimed him out when I delivered the second note. Wahl snitched on you too, by the way…"

"Because you threatened to, what? Electrocute his family?"

"Yes."

"I hardly blame him."

Logan continued, "But whoever this Sommers is, he's not part of the plan."

"But you sent Algonquin a third demand letter. That meant you had to kill somebody else. You don't have a trap at the convention center?" Rhyme looked confused.

"No."

Then he nodded with understanding. "Of course… me. I'm the next victim."

Logan paused, the wire taut in his hands. "That's right."

"You took on this whole assignment because of me."

"I get a lot of calls. But I've been waiting for a job that would bring me back to New York." Logan lowered his head. "You nearly caught me when I was here a few years ago-and you ruined that assignment. It was the first time that anyone's ever stopped me from fulfilling a contract. I had to return the fee… It wasn't the cash; it was the embarrassment. Shameful. And then you nearly caught me in England too. Next time… you might get lucky. That's why I took the job when Cavanaugh called me. I needed to get close to you."

Logan wondered why he'd chosen those words. He pushed the thought away, finished affixing the ground wire. He rose. "Sorry. But I have to do this," he apologized. Then poured water onto Rhyme's chest, soaking his shirt. It was undignified but he didn't have a choice. "Conductivity."

"And Justice For the Earth? Nothing to do with you either?"

"No. I never heard of them."

Rhyme was watching him. "So that remote control switch you've made? It's rigged downstairs in my circuit breaker panel?"

"Yes."

Rhyme mused, "Electricity… I've learned a lot about it in the past few days."

"I've been studying it for months."

"Galt taught you the Algonquin computer controls?"

"No, that was Cavanaugh. He got me the pass codes to the system."

"Ah, sure."

Logan said, "But I also took a course in SCADA and the Algonquin system in particular."

"Of course, you would have."

Logan continued, "I was surprised how fascinated I've become. I always belittled electricity."

"Because of your watchmaking?"

"Exactly. A battery and a mass-produced chip can equal the capability of the finest hand-made watches."

Rhyme nodded with understanding. "Electrical clocks seemed cheap to you. Somehow using battery power lessened the beauty of a watch. Lessened the art."

Logan felt excitement coursing through him. To engage in a conversation like this was enthralling; there were so few people who were his equal. And the criminalist actually knew what he was feeling! "Yes, yes, exactly. But then, working on this job, my opinion changed. Why is a watch that tells time by an oscillator regulated by a quartz crystal any less astonishing than one run by gears and levers and springs? In the end, it all comes down to physics. As a man of science, you'd appreciate that… Oh, and complications? You know what complications are."

Rhyme said, "All the bells and whistles they build into watches. The date, the phases of the moon, the equinox, chimes."

Logan was surprised. Rhyme added, "Oh, I've studied watchmaking too."

Close to you…

"Electronic watches duplicate all of those functions and a hundred more. The Timex Data Link. You know it?"

"No," Rhyme said.

"They're classics now-wristwatches that link to your computer. Telling the time is only one of a hundred things they can do. Astronauts have worn them to the moon."

Another look at the computer screen. No one was approaching the townhouse.

"And all this change, this modernity doesn't bother you?" Rhyme asked.

"No, it simply proves how integrated in our lives is the subject of time. We forget that the watchmakers were the Silicon Valley innovators of their day. Why, look at this project. What an impressive weapon-electricity. I shut down the entire city for a few days, thanks just to electricity. It's part of our nature now, part of our being. We couldn't live without it… Times change. We have to change too. Whatever the risks. Whatever we have to leave behind."

Rhyme said, "I have a favor."

"I've adjusted the circuit breakers in your service panel. They'll carry three times the load. It'll be fast. You won't feel anything."

"I never feel very much in any event," Rhyme said.

"I…" Logan felt as if he had committed a shameful faux pas. "I apologize. I wasn't thinking."

A demurring nod. "What I'm asking has to do with Amelia."

"Sachs?"

"There's no reason to go after her."

Logan had considered this and he now told Rhyme his conclusion. "No, I have no intention to. She'll have the drive to find me. The tenacity. But she's no match for me. She'll be safe."

And now Rhyme's smile was faint. "Thank you… I was going to say, Richard. You are Richard Logan, right? Or is that fake?"

"That's my real name." Logan glanced at the screen again. The sidewalk outside was empty. No police. None of Rhyme's associates returning. He and the criminalist were completely alone. It was time. "You're remarkably calm."

Rhyme replied, "Why shouldn't I be? I've been living on borrowed time for years. Every day it's a bit of surprise when I wake up."

Logan dug into his gear bag and tossed another coil of wire, containing Randall Jessen's fingerprints, onto the floor. He then opened a baggie and upended it, letting some of Randall's hairs flutter to the ground nearby. He used one of the brother's shoes to leave an impression in the spilled water. Then he planted more of Andi Jessen's blond hairs, along with some fibers from one of her suits, which he'd gotten from her closet at work.

He looked up and checked the electrical connections again. Why was he hesitating? Perhaps it was that Rhyme's death represented for him the end of an era. Killing the criminalist would be a vast relief. But it would also be a loss he'd feel forever. He supposed what he was experiencing now was what one felt making the decision to take a loved one off life support.

Close to you…

He slipped the remote control from his pocket, stood back from the wheelchair.

Lincoln Rhyme was studying him calmly. He sighed and said, "I guess that's about it, then."

Logan hesitated and his eyes narrowed, staring at Rhyme. There was something very different about the criminalist's tone as he'd spoken those words. His facial expression too. And the eyes… the eyes were suddenly a predator's.

Richard Logan actually shivered as he suddenly understood that that incongruous sentence, delivered so incongruously, was not directed toward him at all.

It was a message. To somebody else.

"What've you done?" Logan whispered, heart pounding. He stared at the small computer monitor. There was no sign that anybody was returning to the townhouse.

But… but what if they'd never left in the first place?

Oh, no…

Logan stared at Rhyme and then jammed his finger onto the two buttons of the remote control switch.

Nothing happened.

Rhyme said matter-of-factly, "As soon as you came upstairs one of our officers disconnected it."

"No," Logan gasped.

A creak sounded on the floor behind him. He spun around.

"Richard Logan, do not move!" It was that police detective they'd just been talking about, Amelia Sachs. "Keep your hands in view. If you move your hands you will be shot."

Behind her were two other men. Logan took them to be police too. One was heavy and wearing a wrinkled blue suit. The other, skinnier, was in shirtsleeves, wearing black-framed glasses.