The burning wire lr-9

by Jeffery Deaver

  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."

  "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. Rh
yme 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.

  All three officers trained weapons on him.

  But Logan's eyes were on Amelia Sachs, who seemed the most eager to shoot. He realized that Rhyme had asked the question about Sachs to alert them that he was ready to say the magic words and spring the trap.

  I guess that's about it, then…

  But the consequence was that she would have heard Logan's comment about her, her inferior skills.

  Still, when she stepped forward to cuff him, it was with utmost professionalism, gently almost. Then she eased him to the floor with minimal discomfort.

  The heavy officer stepped forward and reached for the wires coiled around Rhyme.

  "Gloves, please," said the criminalist calmly.

  The big cop hesitated. Then pulled on latex gloves and removed the cables. He said into his radio, "It's clear up here. You can put the power back on."

  A moment later lights filled the room and, surrounded by the clicks of the equipment returning to life and the diodes flickering red, green and white, Richard Logan, the Watchmaker, was read his rights.

  Chapter 79

  IT WAS TIME for the heroics.

  Not generally the bailiwick of inventors.

  Charlie Sommers decided he had removed enough insulation from the lightweight cable so that he was ready to try for the short circuit.

  In theory this should work.

  The risk was that, in its desperation to get to the ground, the instant he moved it closer to the return, the massive voltage in the feeder line would arc to the cable then consume his body in a plasma spark. He was only ten feet above the concrete; Sommers had seen videos of arc flashes that were fifty feet in length.

  But he'd waited long enough.

  First step. Connect the cable to the main line.

  Thinking of his wife, thinking of his children-and his other children: the inventions he'd fathered over the years-he leaned toward the hot wire and with a deep breath touched the lightweight cable to it, using his hands.

  Nothing happened. So far, so good. His body and the wires were now at the same potential. In effect, Charlie Sommers was simply a portion of a 138,000v line.

  He worked the bare section of the cable around the far side of the energized line and caught the end underneath. He twisted it so there was tight contact.

  Gripping the insulated part of the lightweight cable, he eased back, in his unsure fire-hose swing, and stared at the place he'd decided to close the connection: a girder that rose to the ceiling but, more important for his purposes, descended deep into the earth.

  To which all juice had a primal instinct to return.

  The girder was about six feet away.

  Charlie Sommers gave a faint laugh.

  This was fucking ridiculous. The minute the exposed end of the other wire neared the metal beam, the current would anticipate the contact and lunge outward in a huge explosion of arc flash. Plasma, flame, molten metal drops flying at three thousand feet per second…

  But he saw no other choice.

  Now!

  Cut its head off…

  He began to feed the cable to the metal bar.

  Six feet, five, four…

  "Hey there! Charlie? Charlie Sommers?"

  He gasped. The end of the cable swung wildly but he reeled it in fast.

  "Who's there?" Sommers blurted before realizing that it might be Andi Jessen's brother, who'd come to shoot him.

  "It's Ron Pulaski. I'm that officer works with Detective Sachs."

  "Yes, what?" Sommers gasped. "What're you doing here?"<
br />
  "We've been trying to call you for a half hour."

  "Get out of here, Officer. It's dangerous!"

  "We couldn't get through. We called you right after you hung up speaking to Amelia and Lincoln."

  Sommers steadied his voice. "I don't have my goddamn phone. Look, I'm shutting down the power here, in the whole area. It's the only way to stop him. There's going to be a huge-"

  "He's already stopped."

  "What?"

  "Yessir, they sent me here to find you. To tell you that what they were saying on the phone was fake. They knew the killer was listening in and they couldn't tell you what they were really planning. We had to make him think we believed the attack was happening here. As soon as I left Lincoln's, I tried to call you. But we couldn't get through. Somebody said they saw you coming down here."

  Jesus Lord in heaven.

  Sommers stared at the cable dangling below him. The juice in the feeder cable could decide at any moment that it wanted to take a shortcut to get back home and Sommers would simply disappear.

  Pulaski called, "Say, what exactly're you doing up there?"

  Killing myself.

  Sommers retracted the cable slowly and then he reached into the enclosure and began undoing the connection with the main line, expecting-no, positive-that at any moment he would hear, very, very briefly, the arc flash hum and bang as he died.

  The process of unraveling the beast seemed to take forever.

  "Anything I can do, sir?"

  Yes, shut the hell up.

  "Um, just stay back and give me a minute, Officer."

  "Sure."

  Finally, the cable came away from the feeder line and Sommers dropped it to the floor. Then he eased out of the fire hose sling, hung for a moment, and tumbled to the ground on top of the cable. He collapsed in pain from the fall but stood and tested for broken bones. He sensed there was none.

  "What's that you were saying, sir?" Pulaski asked.

  He'd been repeating a frantic mantra: stay put, stay put, stay put…