The burning wire lr-9

by Jeffery Deaver

  She'd spotted his name when Jessen had first mentioned him. She held his eye. "You're on the list."

  "Hm. You're sure you want to trust me?"

  "You were on conference call from ten-thirty until nearly noon today, when the attack happened, and you were out of town during the window when the perp could have gotten the computer codes. The key data shows you didn't log into the safe file room at any other time."

  Sommers was lifting an eyebrow.

  She tapped her BlackBerry. "That's what I was texting about on the way here. I had somebody in the NYPD check you out. So you're clean."

  She supposed she sounded apologetic for not trusting him. But Sommers said, his eyes sparkling, "Thomas Edison would have approved."

  "What do you mean?"

  "He said a genius is just a talented person who does his homework."

  Chapter 20

  AMELIA SACHS DIDN'T want to show Sommers the list itself; he might know some of the employees and be inclined to dismiss the possibility of their being suspects, or, on the other hand, he might call her attention to somebody simply because he thought they were otherwise suspicious.

  She didn't explain her reluctance but said simply she just wanted a profile of somebody who could have arranged the attack and used the computer.

  He opened a bag of Doritos, offered Sachs some. She declined and he chomped down a handful. Sommers didn't seem like an inventor. He seemed more like a middle-aged advertising copywriter, with his tousled hair and slightly untucked blue-and-white-striped shirt. Bit of a belly. His glasses were stylish, though Sachs suspected that on the frames were the words "Made in" preceding some Asian Rim country. Only up close could you see the wrinkles near his eyes and mouth.

  He washed the food down with soda and said, "First, rerouting the juice to get it to the substation on Fifty-seventh Street? That'll narrow things down. Not everybody who works here could do it. Not many people could at all, in fact. They'd need to know SCADA. That's our Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition program. It runs on Unix computers. He'd also probably have to know EMP-energy management programs. Ours is Enertrol. It's Unix-based too. Unix is a pretty complicated operating system. It's used in the big Internet routers. It's not like Windows or Apple. You couldn't just look up online how to do it. You'd need somebody who'd studied SCADA and EMP, taken courses in it or, at the very least, apprenticed in a control room for six months, a year."

  Sachs jotted notes, then asked, "And about the arc flash. Who'd know about rigging that?"

  "Tell me how he did it exactly."

  Sachs explained about the cable and the bus bar.

  He asked, "It was aimed out the window? Like a gun?"

  She nodded.

  Sommers went silent for a moment. He focused elsewhere. "That could've killed dozens of people… And the burns. Terrible."

  "Who could do it?" Sachs persisted.

  Sommers was looking off again, which he did a lot, she'd noticed. After a moment: "I know you're asking about Algonquin employees. But you ought to know that arc flashes are the first thing that all electricians learn about. Whether they're working as licensed tradesmen, in construction, for manufacturing companies, the army or navy… any field at all, as long as they're around electrical service lines with enough juice for arcs to be a problem, they'll learn the rules."

  "So you mean that anybody who knows how to avoid arcs or prevent them knows how to create them."

  "Exactly."

  Another note in her quick handwriting. Then she looked up. "But let's just talk for the moment about employees."

  "Okay, who here could rig something like that? There'd be live wire work involved, so it'd have to be somebody who is or has been a licensed master electrician in private contracting or been a lineman or a troubleman for a utility."

  "A what? Troubleman?"

  Sommers laughed. "Great job title, hm? Those're supervisors who arrange for the repairs when a line goes down or there's a short circuit or other problem. And remember that a lot of the senior people here have risen through the ranks. Just because they do energy brokerage now and sit behind a desk doesn't mean they can't rewire a three-phase service panel in their sleep."

  "And make an arc flash gun."

  "Exactly. So you should be looking for somebody with computer training in Unix control and energy management programs. And somebody with a career as a lineman or troubleman or in the contracting trades. Military too. Army, navy and air force produce a lot of electricians."

  "Appreciate this."

  A knocking on the door frame intruded. A young woman stood there with a large Redweld expanding envelope in her arms. "Ms. Jessen said you wanted these? From Human Resources?"

  Sachs took the resumes and employee files and thanked the woman.

  Sommers had dessert, a Hostess cupcake. Then its twin. He sipped more soda. "Want to say something."

  She lifted an eyebrow.

  "Can I give you a lecture?"

  "Lecture?"

  "Safety lecture."

  "I don't have much time."

  "It'll be quick. But it's important. I was just thinking, you're at a big disadvantage, going after this… what'd you call him?"

  "We say 'perp.' For 'Perpetrator.' "

  " 'Perp' sounds sexier. Say you're going after your usual perp. Bank robbers, hitmen… You know that they might have a gun or knife. You're used to that. You know how to protect yourself. You've got procedures on how to handle them. But electricity as a weapon or a booby trap… whole different ball game. The thing about juice? It's invisible. And it's all over the place. I mean, everywhere."

  She was recalling the bits of hot metal. The horrid round holes in Luis Martin's tan skin.

  Sachs had a scent memory of the scorch at the crime scene. She shivered in disgust.

  Sommers gestured toward a sign on his wall.

  REMEMBER NATIONAL FIRE PROTECTION

  ASSOCIATION GUIDELINE 70.

  READ IT, LEARN IT.

  NFPA 70 CAN SAVE YOUR LIFE!

  She felt an urgency to get on with the case but she also wanted to hear what he had to say. "I don't have much time, but please, go ahead."

  "First, you have to know how dangerous electricity is. And that means knowing about amperage, or current. You know what that is?"

  "I…" Sachs had thought she did, until she realized she couldn't define it. "No."

  "Let's compare an electric circuit to a plumbing system: water pumped through pipes. Water pressure is created by the pump, which moves a certain amount of water through the pipes at a certain speed. It moves more or less easily depending on the width and condition of the pipes.

  "Now, in an electrical system, it's the same thing. Except you have electrons instead of water, wires or some conductive material instead of pipes and a generator or battery instead of the pump. The pressure pushing the electrons is the voltage. The amount of electrons moving through the wire is the amps, or current. The resistance-called ohms-is determined by the width and nature of the wires or whatever the electrons're flowing through."

  So far, so good. "That makes sense. Never heard it put that way before."

  "Now we're talking about amps. Remember: the amount of moving electrons."

  "Good."

  "How much amperage does it take to kill you? At a hundred milliamps of AC current, your heart will fibrillate and you'll die. That's one tenth of one amp. Your typical Rite Aid hair dryer pulls ten amps."

  "Ten?" Sachs whispered.

  "Yes, ma'am. A hair dryer. Ten amps, which, by the way, is all you need for an electric chair."

  As if she weren't uneasy enough.

  He continued, "Electricity is like Frankenstein's monster-who was animated with lightning, by the way. It's stupid and it's brilliant. Stupid because once it's created it wants to do only one thing: Get back to the ground. Brilliant because it instinctively knows the best way to do that. It always takes the path of least resistance. You can grab on to a hundred-thousand-volt line but if i
t's easier for the electricity to get back through the wire, you're perfectly safe. If you're the best conductor to the ground…" His pointed nod explained the consequences.

  "Now, for your lesson. My three rules for dealing with juice: First, avoid it if at all possible. This guy is going to know you're after him and he might be rigging traps with live lines. Stay away from metal-handrails, doors and doorknobs, uncarpeted flooring, appliances, machinery. Wet basements, standing water. Have you ever seen transformers and switchgear on the street?"

  "No."

  "Yes, you have. But you're not aware of them because our city fathers hide and disguise them. The working parts of transformers're scary and ugly. In the city, they're underground or in innocuous buildings or neutral-painted enclosures. You could be standing right next to a transformer taking in thirteen thousand volts and not know it. So keep an eye out for anything that says Algonquin on it. And stay away if you can.

  "Now, you have to remember that even if you think you're avoiding it, you could still be in danger. There's something called 'islanding.' "

  "Islanding?"

  "Say the grid is down in some part of town, like happened today. You think all the circuits're dead, right? Of course you're safe. Well, maybe and maybe not. Andi Jessen would like Algonquin to be the only game in town, but we're not. Power nowadays is supplied through what's called distributed generation, where smaller energy producers pump juice into our grid. Islanding would happen when the Algonquin supply is offline but some smaller source is still supplying juice to the grid-an island of electricity in the void.

  "Then there's backfeed. You cut the breakers on a line and go to work. But the low-voltage lines downstream may start feeding juice back into the transformer-"

  Sachs understood. "And the transformer steps it back up."

  "Exactly. And the line you thought was dead is alive. Really alive."

  "With enough juice to hurt you."

  "Oh, yeah. And then there's induction. Even if you're sure you shut off the circuits-it's completely dead, and there's no islanding or backfeed possible-the wire you're working on can still become charged again with deadly voltage if there's another live wire nearby. That's because of induction. The current in one wire can energize another, even a dead one, if it's close enough.

  "So, rule one: Avoid the juice. What's rule two? If you can't avoid it, protect yourself against it. Wear PPE, personal protective equipment. Rubber boots and gloves and not those sissy little ones they wear on that CSI TV show. Thick, industrial, rubber work gloves. Use insulated tools or, even better, a hot stick. They're fiberglass, like hockey sticks, with tools attached to the end. We use them for working live lines.

  "Protect yourself," he repeated. "Remember the path-of-least-resistance rule. Human skin is a pretty poor conductor if it's dry. If it's wet, especially with sweat, because of the salt, resistance drops dramatically. And if you've got a wound or a burn, skin becomes a great conductor. Dry leather soles of your shoes are fairly good insulators. Wet leather's like skin-especially if you're standing on a conductive surface like damp ground or a basement floor. Puddles of water? Uh-oh.

  "So, if you have to touch something that could be live-say, opening a metal door-make sure you're dry and wearing insulated shoes or boots. Use a hot stick or an insulated tool if you can and use only one hand-your right since it's slightly farther from the heart-and keep your other hand in your pocket so you don't touch anything accidentally and complete a circuit. Watch where you put your feet.

  "You've seen birds sitting on uninsulated high-tension wires? They don't wear PPE. How can they roost on a piece of metal carrying a hundred thousand volts? Why don't we have roast pigeons falling from the skies?"

  "They don't touch the other wire."

  "Exactly. As long as they don't touch a return or the tower, they're fine. They have the same charge as the wire, but there's no current-no amps-going through them. You've got to be like that bird on the wire."

  Which, to Sachs, made her sound pretty damn fragile.

  "Take off all metal before you work with juice. Jewelry especially. Pure silver is the best conductor on earth. Copper and aluminum are at the top too. Gold isn't far behind. At the other end are the dielectrics-insulators. Glass and Teflon, then ceramic, plastics, rubber, wood. Bad conductors. Standing on something like that, even a thin piece, could mean the difference between life and death.

  "That's rule number two, protection." Sommers continued, "Finally, rule three: If you can't avoid juice and can't protect yourself against it, cut its head off. All circuits, big or small, have a way to shut them down. They all have switches, they all have breakers or fuses. You can stop the juice instantly by flipping the switch or the breaker off, or removing a fuse. And you don't even need to know where the breaker is to pop it. What happens if you stick two pieces of wire into the holes in a household outlet and touch the ends?"

  "The circuit breaker pops."

  "Exactly. You can do the same thing with any circuit. But remember rule number two. Protect yourself when you do that. Because at bigger voltages touching the two wires will produce one hell of a spark and it could be an arc flash."

  Sommers was on to another junk food course, pretzels. He washed down the noisy bite with more soda. "I could go on for an hour but those're the basics. You get the message?"

  "I do. This's really helpful, Charlie. I appreciate it."

  His advice sounded so simple but, though Sachs had carefully listened to everything Sommers had told her, she couldn't escape the fact that this particular weapon was still very alien to her.

  How could Luis Martin have avoided it, protected himself against it or cut the beast's head off? The answer was, he couldn't.

  "If you need me for anything else technical, just give me a call." He gave her two cell phone numbers. "And, oh, hold on… Here." He handed her a black plastic box with a button on the side and an LCD screen at the top. It looked like an elongated cell phone. "One of my inventions. A noncontact current detector. Most of them only register up to a thousand volts and you have to be pretty close to the wire or terminal for it to read. But this goes to ten thousand. And it's very sensitive. It'll sense voltage from about four or five feet away and give you the level."

  "Thanks. That'll be helpful." She gave a laugh, examining the instrument. "Too bad they don't make these to tell you if a guy on the street's carrying a gun."

  Sachs had been joking. But Charlie Sommers was nodding, a glaze of concentration on his face; he seemed to be considering her words very seriously. As he said good-bye to her, he shoved some corn chips into his mouth and frantically began drawing a diagram on a slip of paper. She noticed that a napkin was the first thing he'd grabbed.

  Chapter 21

  "LINCOLN, THIS IS Dr. Kopeski."

  Thom was standing in the doorway of the lab with a visitor.

  Lincoln Rhyme looked up absently. The time was now about 8:30 p.m. and, though the urgency of the Algonquin case was pulsing through the room, there was little he could do until Sachs returned from meeting the power company executive. So he'd reluctantly agreed to see the representative from the disability rights group giving Rhyme his award.

  Kopeski's not going to come here and cool his heels like some courtier waiting for an audience with the king…

  "Call me Arlen, please."

  The soft-spoken man, in a conservative suit and white shirt, a tie like an orange and black candy cane, walked up to the criminalist and nodded. No vestigial offer of a handshake. And he didn't even glance down at Rhyme's legs or at the wheelchair. Since Kopeski worked for a disability rights organization Rhyme's condition was nothing to him. An attitude that Rhyme approved of. He believed that we were all disabled in one way or another, ranging from emotional scar tissue to arthritis to Lou Gehrig's disease. Life was one big disability; the question was simple: What did we do about it? Rhyme rarely dwelt on the subject. He'd never been an advocate for disabled rights; that struck him as a diversion from his job. He wa
s a criminalist who happened to be able to move with less facility than most. He compensated as best he could and got on with his work.

  Rhyme glanced at Mel Cooper and nodded toward the den, across the foyer from the lab. Thom ushered Kopeski inside, with Rhyme following in his chair, and eased the pocket doors partially together. He disappeared.

  "Sit down, if you like," Rhyme said, the last clause offered to temper the first, hoping that the man would remain standing, get to business and get out. He was carrying a briefcase. Maybe the paperweight was in there. The doc could present it, get a photo and leave. The whole matter would be put to rest.

  The doctor sat. "I've followed your career for some time."

  "Have you?"

  "Are you familiar with the Disability Resources Council?"

  Thom had briefed him. Rhyme remembered little of the monologue. "You do some very good work."

  "Good work, yes."

  Silence.

  If we could move this along… Rhyme glanced out the window intently as if a new assignment were winging its way toward the townhouse, like the falcon earlier. Sorry, have to go, duty calls…

  "I've worked with many disabled people over the years. Spinal cord injuries, spina bifida, ALS, a lot of other problems. Cancer too."

  Curious idea. Rhyme had never thought about that disease being a disability, but he supposed some types could fit the definition. A glance at the wall clock, ticking away slowly. And then Thom brought in a tray of coffee and, oh, for Christ's sake, cookies. The glance at the aide-meaning this was not a fucking tea party-rolled past like vapor.

  "Thank you," Kopeski said, taking a cup. Rhyme was disappointed that he added no milk, which would have cooled the beverage so he could drink it, and leave, more quickly.

  "For you, Lincoln?"

  "I'm fine, thank you," he said with a chill that Thom ignored as effectively as he had the searing glance a moment ago. He left the tray and scooted back to the kitchen.