The Burning Wire

by Jeffery Deaver

  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."

  Chapter 77

  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, 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.

  Chapter 78

  RICHARD LOGAN WATCHED Lincoln Rhyme gazing out one of the large windows of the town house--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."

  "I can see why you'd set up Vetter and Fishbein to make it look like Andi wanted them dead--they we
re 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 handmade 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 town house.

  "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 town house.

  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.

  A
ll 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 sling, 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.