The Burning Wire

by Jeffery Deaver

--Cut by hand with hacksaw, new blade, broken tooth.

  --Two "split bolts," 3/4-inch holes in them.

  --Untraceable.

  --Distinctive tool marks on bolts.

  --Brass "bus" bar, fixed to cable with two 1/4-inch bolts.

  --All untraceable.

  --Boot prints.

  --Albertson-Fenwick Model E-20 for electrical work, size 11.

  --Metal grating cut to allow access to substation, distinctive tool marks from bolt cutter.

  --Access door and frame from basement.

  --DNA obtained. Sent out for testing.

  --Greek food, taramasalata.

  --Blond hair, 1 inch long, natural, from someone 50 or under, discovered in coffee shop across the street from substation.

  --Sent out for tox-chem screening.

  --Mineral trace: volcanic ash.

  --Not naturally found in New York area.

  --Exhibits, museums, geology schools?

  --Algonquin Control Center software accessed by internal codes, not outside hackers.

  UNSUB PROFILE

  * * *

  --Male.

  --40's.

  --Probably white.

  --Possibly glasses and cap.

  --Possibly with short, blond hair.

  --Dark blue overalls, similar to those worn by Algonquin workers.

  --Knows electrical systems very well.

  --Boot print suggests no physical condition affecting posture or gait.

  --Possibly same person who stole 75 feet of similar Bennington cable and 12 split bolts. More attacks in mind? Access to Algonquin warehouse where theft occurred with key.

  --Likely he is Algonquin employee or has contact with one.

  --Terrorist connection? Relation to Justice For [unknown]? Terror group? Individual named Rahman involved? Coded references to monetary disbursements, personnel movements and something "big."

  Chapter 16

  LOOMING.

  That was the word that came to mind as Amelia Sachs climbed out of her Torino Cobra in the parking lot of Algonquin Consolidated Power and Light in Astoria, Queens. The facility covered a number of blocks but it was anchored by a complicated, soaring building made of grim red and gray panels that rose two hundred feet into the air. The massive edifice dwarfed the employees now leaving at the end of the day, walking through dollhouse doorways in the panoramic sheets of the walls.

  Pipes evacuated the building in dozens of places and, as she'd expected, there were wires everywhere, only "wires" didn't quite suit. These were thick and inflexible cables, some insulated, some silver gray bare metal glistening under security lights. They must have carried hundreds of thousands of volts from the guts of the building through a series of metallic and, she supposed, ceramic or other insulated fittings, into even more complicated scaffoldings and supports and towers. They divided and ran in different courses, like bones extending from the arm to the hand to the fingers.

  Tilting her head back, she saw high above her the four towers of the smokestacks, also grimy red and sooty gray, blinking with warning lights bright in the hazy dusk. She'd been aware of the stacks for years, of course; no one who'd been to New York even once missed them, the dominant feature of the bland industrial shore of the East River. But she'd never been this close and they now captivated her, piercing the dull sky. She remembered, in winter, seeing exhaust of smoke or steam, but now there was nothing escaping except heat or invisible gas, distorting with ripples the smooth plain of the heavens above.

  Sachs heard some voices and looked over the parking lot to see a crowd of maybe fifty protesters standing in a large cluster. Posters were held aloft and there was a little amiable chanting, probably complaining about the big bad wolf of the oil-guzzling power company. They didn't notice that she'd arrived here in a car that used five times as much black gold as one of their Priuses.

  Underneath her feet she believed she could feel a rumbling like massive nineteenth-century engines groaning away. She heard a low hum.

  She closed the car door and approached the main entrance. Two guards were watching her. They were clearly curious about the tall redhead, curious about her arrival in an old ruddy muscle car, but they also seemed amused at her reaction to the building. Their faces said, Yeah, it's really something, isn't it? After all these years here you never get over it.

  Then, with her ID and shield flashed, their expressions became alert and--apparently expecting a cop, though not in this package--they ushered her immediately through the halls of what was the executive headquarters portion of Algonquin Consolidated.

  Unlike the slick office building in Midtown of a massive data mining company involved in a case she'd recently worked, Algonquin seemed like a museum diorama of life in the 1950s: blond wood furniture, framed gaudy photographs of the facility and transmission towers, brown carpet. The clothing of the employees--nearly all of them men--was ultra-conservative: white shirts and dark suits.

  They continued down the boring halls, decorated with pictures of magazines that featured articles about Algonquin. Power Age. Electricity Transmission Monthly. The Grid.

  The time was nearly six-thirty and yet there were dozens of employees here, ties loosened, sleeves rolled up, faces troubled.

  At the end of the corridor the guard delivered her to the office of A. R. Jessen. Although the drive here had been eventful--involving speeds close to seventy on one stretch of highway--Sachs had managed to do a bit of research. Jessen was not an Andy but an Andi, for Andrea. Sachs always made it a point to do homework like this, learn what she could about the principals. It was important in maintaining control of interviews and interrogations. Ron had assumed that the CEO was a man. She imagined how her credibility would have fallen had she arrived and asked for Mr. Jessen.

  Inside, Sachs paused just inside the doorway of the anteoffice. A secretary, or personal assistant, in a tight black tank top and wearing bold high heels, rose on precarious toes to dig into a filing cabinet. The blonde, in her early forties or late thirties, Sachs reckoned, was frowning, frustrated at being unable to find something her boss wanted.

  In the doorway to the main office stood an imposing woman with salt-and-pepper hair and wearing a severe brown suit and high-neck blouse. She frowned as she watched the file cabinet excavation and crossed her arms.

  "I'm Detective Sachs, I called earlier," she said when the dour woman turned her way.

  It was then that the younger woman plucked a folder from the cabinet and handed it to the older, then said, "I found it, Rachel. My mistake, I filed it when you were at lunch. If you could make five copies, I'd appreciate it."

  "Yes, Ms. Jessen," she said. And stepped to a copier.

  The CEO strode forward on the dangerous heels, looked up into Sachs's eyes and shook her hand firmly. "Come on inside, Detective," she said. "Looks like we have a lot to talk about."

  Sachs glanced over at the brown-suited assistant and followed the real Andi Jessen into her office.

  So much for homework, she reflected ruefully.

  Chapter 17

  ANDREA JESSEN SEEMED to catch on to the near faux pas. "I'm the second youngest and the only woman head of a major power company in the country. Even with me having the final say on hiring, Algonquin has a tenth the women as in most other big companies in the United States. It's the nature of the industry."

  Sachs was about to ask why Jessen had gone into the field when the CEO said, anticipating her, "My father was in the business."

  The detective nearly told her that she was a cop exclusively because of her own father, a "portable," or foot patrolman, with the NYPD for many years. But she refrained.

  Jessen's face was angular, with the slightest dusting of makeup. Wrinkles were present but subdued, radiating timidly from the corners of her green eyes and bland lips. Otherwise the skin was smooth. This was not a woman who got outside much.

  She in turn examined Sachs closely, then nodded toward her large coffee table, surrounded by office chairs. The det
ective sat while Jessen grabbed the phone. "Excuse me for a moment." Her manicured but unpolished nails clacked against the number pad.

  She called three different people--all about the attack. One, to a lawyer, the detective could tell, one to the public relations department or an outside PR firm. She spent most of the time on the third call, apparently making sure extra security personnel were on site at all the company's substations and other facilities. Jotting tiny notes with a gold-plated pencil, Jessen spoke in clipped tones, using staccato words with not a single filler like "I mean," or "you know." As Jessen rattled off instructions, Sachs took in the office, noting on the broad teak desk a picture of a teenage Andi Jessen and her family. She deduced from the series of photos of the children that Jessen had one brother, a few years younger. They resembled each other, though he was brown-haired and she blond. Recent pictures showed him to be a handsome, fit man in an army uniform. There were other pictures of him on travels, occasionally with his arm around a pretty woman, different in every shot.

  There were no pictures of Jessen with any romantic partners.

  The walls were covered with bookcases and pictures of old-time prints and maps that might have come out of a museum display about the history of power. One map was labeled The First Grid, and showed a portion of lower Manhattan around Pearl Street. She saw in legible script, Thomas A. Edison, and she guessed that was the inventor's actual signature.

  Jessen hung up and sat forward, elbows on her desk, eyes bleary but jaw and narrow lips firm. "It's been over seven hours since the . . . incident. I was hoping you'd have somebody in custody. I guess if you'd caught them," she muttered, "I would've had a phone call. Not a visit in person."

  "No, I'm here to ask you some questions about things that have come up in the investigation."

  Again a careful appraisal. "I've been talking with the mayor and the governor and the head of the FBI's New York office. Oh, Homeland Security too. I was expecting to see one of them, not a police officer."

  This wasn't a put-down, not intentionally, and Sachs took no offense. "NYPD is running the crime scene portion of the case. My questions have to do with that."

  "That explains it." Her face softened slightly. "Woman to woman, I get a bit defensive. I was thinking the big boys weren't taking me seriously." A faintly conspiratorial smile. "It happens. More than you'd think."

  "I understand that."

  "I imagine you do. A detective, hm?"

  "That's right." Then Sachs, feeling the urgency of the case, asked, "We get to those questions?"

  "Of course."

  The phone kept ringing, but according to Jessen's instructions to her PA, who'd returned to the anteoffice a moment ago, the unit chirped only once and fell silent as the woman fielded the calls.

  "First of all, just a preliminary matter. Have you changed the access codes to the grid software?"

  A frown. "Of course. That's the first thing we did. Didn't the mayor or Homeland Security tell you?"

  No, they hadn't, Sachs reflected.

  Jessen continued, "And we've put in an extra set of firewalls. The hackers can't get in any longer."

  "It's probably not hackers."

  Jessen cocked her head. "But this morning Tucker McDaniel was saying that it was probably terrorists. The FBI agent?"

  "We have more recent information."

  "How else could it have happened? Somebody from the outside was rerouting the supply and altering the circuit breakers at MH-Ten--the substation on Fifty-seventh Street."

  "But we're pretty sure he got the codes from the inside."

  "That's impossible. It has to be terrorists."

  "That's definitely a possibility and I want to ask you about that. But even if so, they were using an insider. An officer in our Computer Crimes division had a conversation with your IT people. He said there was no evidence of independent hacking."

  Jessen fell silent and examined her desk. She didn't seem happy--because of this news about the insider? Or because somebody in her company was talking to the police without her knowing? She jotted a note and Sachs wondered if it was to remind herself to reprimand the technology security man.

  Sachs continued, "The suspect was seen in an Algonquin uniform. Or at least blue coveralls that were very similar to what your employees wear."

  "Suspect?"

  "A man was spotted in a coffee shop around the time of the attack, across from the substation. He was seen with a laptop."

  "Did you get any details about him?"

  "White male, forties probably. Nothing else."

  "Well, about the uniform, you could buy one or make one."

  "Yes. But there's more. The cable he used to rig the arc flash? It was Bennington brand. That's what your company regularly uses."

  "Yes, I know. Most power companies do too."

  "Last week, seventy-five feet of Bennington cable, the same gauge, was stolen from one of your warehouses in Harlem, along with a dozen split bolts. They're used for splicing--"

  "I know what they're used for." The wrinkles in Jessen's face grew severe.

  "Whoever broke into the warehouse, he used a key to get in. He also got into the access tunnel under the substation through an Algonquin steam pipe manhole."

  Jessen said quickly, "Meaning he didn't use the electronic keypad to get into the substation?"

  "No."

  "So, there's some evidence that it's not an employee."

  "It's a possibility, like I said. But there's something else." Sachs added that they'd found traces of Greek food, suggesting a nearby connection.

  Seemingly bewildered at the extent of their knowledge, the CEO repeated with exasperation, "Taramasalata?"

  "There are five Greek restaurants within walking distance of your headquarters here. And twenty-eight within a ten-minute cab ride. And since the trace was fairly recent, it makes sense that he's a current employee or at least got the codes from a current employee. Maybe they met at a restaurant nearby."

  "Oh, please, there are plenty of Greek restaurants around the city."

  "Let's just assume the computer codes came from inside. Who'd have access to them?" Sachs asked. "That's really the threshold issue."

  "Very limited and very tightly controlled," she said fast, as if she were on trial for negligence. The line seemed rehearsed.

  "Who?"

  "I do. A half dozen senior staff. That's all. But, Detective, these're people who've been with the company for years. They wouldn't possibly do this. Inconceivable."

  "You keep the codes separate from the computers, I understand."

  A blink at this knowledge too. "Yes. They're set randomly by our senior control center supervisor. And kept in a safe file room next door."

  "I'd like names, and to find out if there's been any unauthorized access to that room."

  Jessen was clearly resistant to the idea that the perp was an employee, but she said, "I'll call our security director. He should have that information."

  "And I'll need the names of any workers in the past few months who were assigned to repair steam lines in that manhole across from the substation. It's in an alleyway about thirty feet north of the station."

  The CEO picked up the phone and asked her PA to summon two employees to her office. The request was polite. While some people in this position would have barked the order, Jessen remained in control and reasonable. Which, to Sachs, made her seem all the harder. It was the weak and insecure who blustered. Happened in the policing business all the time.

  Just a moment after she hung up, one of the men she'd asked to join them arrived. His office might've been next door to hers. He was a stocky, middle-aged businessman in gray slacks and a white shirt.

  "Andi. Anything new?"

  "A few things. Sit down." Then she turned to Sachs.

  "This is Bob Cavanaugh, senior VP of Operations. Detective Sachs."

  They shook hands.

  He asked Sachs, "Any headway? Any suspects?"

  Before the detective c
ould answer, Andi Jessen said stoically, "They think it's somebody inside, Bob."

  "Inside?"

  "That's what it's looking like," Sachs said, and explained what they'd learned so far. Cavanaugh too seemed dismayed that their company might possibly be harboring a traitor.

  Jessen asked, "Could you find out from Steam Maintenance who's been assigned to inspect the pipes down the manhole near MH-Ten?"

  "For how long back?"

  "Two, three months," Sachs said.

  "I don't know if we'll have the assignment sheets, but I'll see." He made the call and requested the information then he turned back to the women.

  Sachs said, "Now, let's talk a little more about the terrorist connection."

  "I thought you were accusing an employee."

  "It's not unusual for a terror cell to recruit an insider."

  "Should we look at Muslim employees?" Cavanaugh asked.

  "I was thinking of the protesters outside," Sachs said. "What about ecoterrorism?"

  Cavanaugh shrugged. "Algonquin's been criticized in the press for not being green enough." He said this delicately, not looking Jessen's way. This was apparently a familiar and tedious issue.

  Jessen said to Sachs, "We have a program for renewable energy. We're pursuing it. But we're being realistic about the subject, not wasting our time. It's politically correct to wave the renewables flag. But most people don't know the first thing about it." She waved her hand dismissively.

  Thinking of the severity of some ecoterror incidents in the recent past, Sachs asked her to elaborate.

  It was as if she'd pushed an ON button.

  "Hydrogen fuel cells, biofuels, wind farms, solar farms, geothermal, methane generation, ocean wave generators . . . You know how much they produce? Less than three percent of all the energy consumed in the country. Half the electrical service supply in the United States comes from coal. Algonquin uses natural gas; that's twenty percent. Nuclear's about nineteen. Hydro's seven percent.

  "Sure, the renewables will be growing but very, very slowly. For the next hundred years, they'll be a drop in the bucket of juice, if I can quote myself." The president was growing even angrier. "The startup costs are obscene, the gadgets to create the juice are ridiculously expensive and unreliable, and since the generators're usually located away from major load centers, transportation is another huge cost. Take solar farms. The wave of the future, right? Do you know they're one of the biggest users of water in the power business? And where are they located? Where there's the most sun and therefore the least water.