The burning wire lr-9

by Jeffery Deaver

  Rhyme corrected a typo and kept going.

  Click, click…

  Then he looked up and said softly, "The victims."

  "What?"

  Rhyme explained, "If the perp was just making a statement, like it seemed, he could have rigged a timed device-and not risked being nearby. We know he could have done that; we found the timer spring at one of the crime scenes. But he didn't. He was using a remote control and he was nearby when the victims died. Why?"

  Sellitto barked a laugh. "Goddamn, Linc. Andi and her brother were after somebody in particular. She was just making it look, you know, random. That's why the attacks happened before the deadlines."

  "Exactly!… Rookie, bring the whiteboards over here. Now!"

  He did.

  "The vics. Look at the vics."

  Luis Martin, assistant store manager.

  Linda Kepler, Oklahoma City, tourist.

  Morris Kepler, Oklahoma City, tourist.

  Samuel Vetter, Scottsdale, businessman.

  Ali Mamoud, New York City, waiter.

  Gerhart Schiller, Frankfurt, Germany, advertising executive.

  Larry Fishbein, New York City, accountant.

  Robert Bodine, New York City, attorney.

  Franklin Tucker, Paramus, New Jersey, salesman.

  "Do we know anything about the injured?"

  Sachs said she didn't.

  "Well, one of them might've been the intended victim too. We should find out. But what do we know about them, at least, the deceased?" Rhyme asked, staring at the names. "Is there any reason Andi would want any of them dead?"

  "The Keplers were tourists in town on a package tour," Sachs said. "Retired ten years ago. Vetter was the witness. Maybe that's why they killed him."

  "No, this was planned a month ago. What was the business?"

  Sachs flipped through her notebook. "President of Southwest Concrete."

  "Look 'em up, Mel."

  In a minute Cooper was saying, "Well, listen to this. Based in Scottsdale. General construction, with a specialty in infrastructure projects. On the website it says that Vetter was attending an alternative energy financing seminar at the Battery Park Hotel." He looked up. "Recently they've been involved in constructing the foundations for photovoltaic arrays."

  "Solar power." Rhyme's eyes continued to take in the evidence. He said, "And the victims in the office building? Sachs, call Susan Stringer and see if she knows anything about them."

  Sachs pulled out her phone and had a conversation with the woman. When she hung up she said, "Okay, she doesn't know the lawyer or the man who got on at the sixth floor. But Larry Fishbein was an accountant she knew a little. She overheard him complaining that there was something odd about the books of a company where he'd just done an audit. Some money was disappearing. And wherever it was, the place was really hot. Too hot to golf."

  "Maybe Arizona. Call and find out."

  Sellitto got the number of the man's firm from Sachs and called. He spoke for a few minutes and then disconnected. "Bingo. Fishbein was in Scottsdale. He got back Tuesday."

  "Ah, Scottsdale… Where Vetter had his company."

  McDaniel said, "What is this, Lincoln? I still don't see the motive."

  After a moment Rhyme said, "Andi Jessen's opposed to renewable energy, right?"

  Sachs said, "That's a little strong. But she's definitely not a fan."

  "What if she was bribing alternative energy companies to limit production or doing something else to sabotage them?"

  "To keep demand for Algonquin's power high?" McDaniel asked. A motive in his pocket, he seemed more on board now.

  "That's right. Vetter and Fishbein might've had information that would've sunk her. If they'd been murdered in separate incidents, just the two of them, the investigators might've wondered if there was a connection. But Andi arranged this whole thing to make it look like they were random victims so nobody'd put the pieces together. That's why the demands were impossible to comply with. She didn't want to comply with them. She needed the attacks to take place."

  Rhyme said to Sachs, "And get the names of the injured and check out their histories. Maybe one of them was a target too."

  "Sure, Rhyme."

  "But," Sellitto said with unusual urgency in his voice, "there's the third demand letter, the email. That means she still needs to kill somebody else. Who's the next victim?"

  Rhyme continued to type as quickly as he could on his keyboard. His eyes rose momentarily to the digital clock on the wall nearby. "I don't know. And we've got less than two hours to figure it out."

  Chapter 71

  DESPITE THE HORROR of Ray Galt's attacks, Charlie Sommers couldn't deny the exhilaration that now, well, electrified him.

  He'd taken a coffee break, during which he'd spent the time jotting diagrams for a possible invention (on a napkin, of course): a way to deliver hydrogen gas to homes for fuel cells. He was now returning to the main floor of the New Energy Expo in the Manhattan Convention Center on the West Side, near the Hudson River. It was filled with thousands of the most innovative people in the world, inventors, scientists, professors, the all-important investors too, each devoted to one thing: alternative energy. Creating it, delivering it, storing it, using it. This was the biggest conference of its sort in the world, timed to coincide with Earth Day. It brought together those who knew the importance of energy but knew too the importance of making and using it in very different ways from what we'd been used to.

  As Sommers made his way through the halls of the futuristic convention center-finished just a month or so ago-his heart was pounding like that of a schoolboy at his first science fair. He felt dizzy, head swiveling back and forth as he took in the booths: those of companies operating wind farms, nonprofits seeking backers to create microgrids in remote parts of Third World countries, solar power companies, geothermal exploration operations and smaller outfits that made or installed photovoltaic arrays, flywheel and liquid sodium storage systems, batteries, superconductive transport systems, smart grids… the list was endless.

  And utterly enthralling.

  He arrived at his company's ten-foot-wide booth at the back end of the hall.

  ALGONQUIN CONSOLIDATED POWER

  SPECIAL PROJECTS DIVISION

  THE SMARTER ALTERNATIVE TM

  Although Algonquin was probably bigger than the five largest exhibitors here put together, his company had bought only the smallest booth available for the new-energy show, and he was the only one manning it.

  Which was a pretty clear indication of how CEO Andi Jessen felt about renewables.

  Still, Sommers didn't care. Sure, he was here as a company representative, but he'd also come here to meet people and make contacts on his own. Someday-soon, he hoped-he'd leave Algonquin and spend all his time on his own company. He was very up front with his supervisors about his private work. Nobody at Algonquin had ever had a problem with what he did on his own time. They wouldn't be interested in the inventions he created at home anyway, things like the Sink-Rynicity water-saving system for kitchens, or the Volt-Collector, a portable box that used the motion of vehicles to create power and store it in a battery you could plug into a fixture in your house or office, thus reducing demand from your local company.

  The king of negawatts…

  Already incorporated, Sommers Illuminating Innovations, Inc., was his company's name and it consisted of himself, his wife and her brother. The name was a play on Thomas Edison's corporation, Edison Illuminating Company, the first investor-owned utility and the operator of the first grid.

  While he may have had a bit-a tiny bit-of Edison's genius, Sommers was no businessman. He was oblivious when it came to money. When he'd come up with the idea of creating regional grids so that smaller producers could sell excess electricity to Algonquin and other large power companies, a friend in the industry had laughed. "And why would Algonquin want to buy electricity when they're in the business of selling it?"

  "Well," Sommers replied, bl
inking in surprise at his friend's naivete, "because it's more efficient. It'll be cheaper to customers and reduce the risk of outages." This was obvious.

  The laugh in response suggested that perhaps Sommers was the naive one.

  Sitting down at the booth, he flicked on light switches and removed the BE BACK SOON sign. He poured more candy into a bowl. (Algonquin had vetoed hiring a model in a low-cut dress to stand in front of the booth and smile, like some of the exhibitors had.)

  No, the smiling was up to him and he grinned with a vengeance as he gestured people over and talked about power.

  During a lull, he sat back and gazed around him, wondering what Thomas Edison would have thought walking through these halls. Sommers had a feeling that the man would have been fascinated and delighted, but not amazed. After all, electrical generation and the grid hadn't changed significantly for 125 years. The scale was bigger, the efficiency better, but every major system in use nowadays had been around then.

  Edison would probably have gazed enviously at the halogen bulbs, knowing how hard it had been to find a filament that worked in his. And laughed to see the displays on micro-nuclear reactors, which could travel on barges to where they were needed (Edison had predicted in the 1800s that we would one day be using nuclear energy to power generators). He would also undoubtedly have been awed by the convention center building itself. The architect had made no attempt to hide the infrastructure; the beams, the walls, the ducts, even portions of the floor were gleaming copper and stainless steel.

  It was, Sommers considered, like being inside a huge switchgear array.

  The special project manager kept his guard up, though. There's a seamy side to invention. The creation of the lightbulb had been a fierce battle-not only technologically but legally. Dozens of people were involved in knock-down, drag-out battles for credit for-and the profit from-the lightbulb. Thomas Edison and England's Joseph Wilson Swan emerged as the victors but from a field littered with lawsuits, anger, espionage and sabotage. And destroyed careers.

  Sommers was thinking of this now because he'd seen a man in glasses and a cap not far from the Algonquin booth. He was suspicious because the guy had been lingering at two different booths nearby. One company made equipment for geothermal exploration, devices that would locate hot spots deep in the earth. The other built hybrid motors for small vehicles. But Sommers knew that someone interested in geothermal would likely have no interest in hybrids.

  True, the man was paying little attention to Sommers or Algonquin, but he could easily have been taking pictures of some of the inventions and mockups on display at the booth. Spy cameras nowadays were extremely sophisticated.

  Sommers turned away to answer a woman's question. When he looked back, the man-spy or businessman or just curious attendee-was gone.

  Ten minutes later, another lull in visitors. He decided to use the restroom. He asked the man in the booth next to his to keep an eye on things and then headed down a nearly deserted corridor to the men's room. One advantage of being in the cheaper, small-booth area was that you had the toilets largely to yourself. He stepped into a corridor whose stylish steel floor was embossed with bumps, presumably to simulate the flooring of a space station or rocket.

  When he was twenty feet away his cell phone started to ring.

  He didn't recognize the number-from a local area code. He thought for a moment then hit the IGNORE button.

  Sommers continued toward the toilet, noticing the shiny copper handle on the door and thinking, They sure didn't spare any expense here. No wonder it's costing us so damn much for the booth.

  Chapter 72

  "PLEASE," SACHS MUTTERED out loud, hovering over the speakerphone. "Charlie, pick up! Please!"

  She'd called Sommers just a moment before but the phone rang only once and then went to voice mail.

  She was trying again.

  "Come on!" Rhyme too said.

  Two rings… three…

  And finally, in the speaker, a click. "Hello?"

  "Charlie, it's Amelia Sachs."

  "Oh, did you call a minute ago? I was on my way-"

  "Charlie," she broke in, "you're in danger."

  "What?"

  "Where are you?"

  "In the convention center, about to… What do you mean, danger?"

  "Are you near anything metal, anything that could produce an arc flash or something that could be rigged with a hot line?"

  He gave an abrupt laugh. "I'm standing on a metal floor. And I was just about to open a bathroom door with a metal handle." Then the humor faded from his voice. "Are you saying they might be booby-trapped?"

  "It's possible. Get off the metal floor now."

  "I don't understand."

  "There's been another demand and a deadline. Six-thirty. But we think the attacks-the hotel, the elevator-don't have anything to do with the threats or demands. They're cover-ups to target certain people. And you might be one of them."

  "Me? Why?"

  "First of all, get someplace safe."

  "I'll go back to the main floor. It's concrete. Hold on." A moment later he said, "Okay. You know, I saw somebody here, watching me. But I don't think it was Galt."

  Rhyme said, "Charlie, it's Lincoln. We think Ray Galt was set up. He's probably dead."

  "Somebody else is behind the attacks?"

  "Yes."

  "Who?"

  "Andi Jessen. The man you saw might've been her brother, Randall. The evidence shows that they're working together."

  "What? That's crazy. And why'm I in danger?"

  Sachs continued, "Some of the people killed in the other attacks were involved in alternative energy production. Like you. We think that she may have been bribing renewable power companies to cut back generation, to keep up demand for Algonquin's electricity."

  There was a pause. "Well, it's true, one of my projects's been to consolidate regional grids so that they could be more self-sufficient-and start supplying juice to the big interconnections, like Algonquin. I guess that could be a problem for her."

  "Have you been to Scottsdale recently?"

  "I'm working on some solar farm projects near there, yes, among other places. California, it's wind farms and geothermal. Arizona is mostly solar farms."

  Sachs said, "I was thinking back to something you said when I met you at Algonquin. Why did she ask you to help me with the investigation?"

  He paused. "You're right. She could've asked a dozen people."

  "I think she was setting you up."

  Then he gasped and said, "Oh, Jesus."

  "What?" Rhyme asked.

  "Maybe it's not just me who's at risk. Think about it: Everybody here at the convention's a threat to Algonquin. The whole event's about alternative energy, microgrids, decentralization… Andi could see every exhibitor here as a threat, if she's that obsessed with Algonquin being the number-one energy provider in North America."

  "Is there somebody at Algonquin we can trust? Somebody to shut off power there? And not let Andi know?"

  "Algonquin doesn't run service here. Like some of the subway lines, the convention center makes its own juice. The plant's next to the building here. Should we evacuate the place?"

  "Would people have to go over a metal floor to get outside?"

  "Yes, most of them would. The front lobby and the loading docks are all steel. Not painted. Pure steel. And do you know how much electricity there is feeding in here? The load on a day like this is close to twenty million watts. Look, I can go downstairs, find the supply. Maybe I can pull the breakers. I could-"

  "No, we need to find out exactly what they're doing. And how they're doing it. We'll call as soon as we know more. Stay put!"

  Chapter 73

  SWEATING, FRANTIC, CHARLIE Sommers looked around him at the tens of thousands of visitors at the New Energy Expo, some hoping to make a fortune, some hoping to help, if not save, the planet, some here because it seemed like a fun idea to stop in for a while.

  Some were young, teenagers wh
o, like him years ago, would be inspired to take different courses in high school after seeing these exhibits. More science, less foreign language and history. And become the Edisons of their generations.

  They were all at risk.

  Stay put, the police had told him.

  Crowds jostled, carting colorful bags-the exhibitors' giveaways, with the company logos printed boldly: Volt Storage Technologies, Next Generation Batteries, Geothermal Innovations.

  Stay put…

  Except his mind was in a place his wife called "Charlie-think." It was spinning on its own, like a dynamo, like an electricity storage flywheel. Ten thousand RPM. Thinking of the electricity usage here in the convention center. Twenty megawatts.

  Twenty million watts.

  Watts equals volts times amps…

  Enough electricity, if channeled through this conductive superstructure, to electrocute thousands. Arc flashes, or just ground faults, the massive current surging through bodies, taking lives and leaving smoldering piles of flesh and clothing and hair.

  Stay put…

  Well, he couldn't.

  And, like any inventor, Sommers considered the practical details. Randall Jessen and Andi would have somehow secured the power plant. They couldn't risk that the police would call the maintenance staff and simply cut the supply. But there'd be a main line coming into this building. Probably like an area transmission line it would be carrying 138,000v. They would have cut into the line to electrify floors or stairways or doorknobs. The elevators again maybe.

  Sommers reflected:

  The attendees here couldn't avoid the juice.

  They couldn't protect themselves against it.

  So he'd have to cut its head off.

  There was no staying put.

  If he could find the incoming line before Randall Jessen ran the splice, Sommers could short it out. He'd run a cable from the hot line directly to a return. The resulting short circuit, accompanied by an arc flash as powerful as the one at the bus station the other morning, would pop breakers in the convention center power plant, eliminating the danger. The emergency lighting system would kick on but that was low voltage-probably from twelve-volt lead-calcium batteries. There'd be no risk of electrocution with that small supply. A few people would be stuck in the elevators, maybe there'd be some panic. But injuries would be minimal.