The Burning Wire

by Jeffery Deaver

  "I'm here, Rhyme." Sachs skidded the Torino to a stop in front of the school, leaving twin tails of black on the gray asphalt. She was out of the car before the tire smoke from the wheel wells had dissipated. The smell ominously reminded her of Algonquin substation MH-10 . . . and though she tried to avoid it, a repeat image of the black-and-red dots in the body of Luis Martin. As she jogged toward the school's entrance, she was, for once, thankful that a jolt of arthritic pain shot through her knees, partially taking her attention off the harsh memories.

  "I'm looking the place over, Rhyme. It's big. Bigger than I expected." Sachs wasn't searching a scene so she'd foregone the video uplink.

  "You've got eighteen minutes until the deadline."

  She scanned the six-story community college, from which students, professors and staff were leaving, quickly, uneasiness on their faces. Tucker McDaniel and Lon Sellitto had decided to evacuate the place. They hurried outside, clutching purses and computers and books, and moved away from the building. Almost everyone looked up at one point in their exodus.

  Always, in a post 9/11 world, looking up.

  Another car arrived, and a woman in a dark suit climbed out. It was a fellow detective, Nancy Simpson. She jogged up to Sachs.

  "What do we have, Amelia?"

  "Galt's rigged something in the school, we think. We don't know what yet. I'm going inside and looking around. Could you interview them"--a nod at the evacuees--"and see if anybody spotted Galt? You have his picture?"

  "On my PDA."

  Sachs nodded and turned to the front of the school once more, uncertain how to proceed, recalling what Sommers had said. She knew where a bomb might be set, where a sniper would position himself. But the threat from electricity could come from anywhere.

  She asked Rhyme, "What exactly did Charlie say Galt might rig?"

  "The most efficient way would be to use the victim like a switch. He'd wire door handles or stair railings with the hot source and then the floor with the return. Or the floor might just be a natural ground if it was wet. The circuit's open until the vic touches the handle or railing. Then the current flows through them. It wouldn't take much voltage at all to kill somebody. The other way is to just have somebody touch a live source with two hands. That could send enough voltage through your chest to kill you. But it's not as efficient."

  Efficient . . . sick word to use under the circumstances.

  Sirens chirped and barked behind her. Fire, NYPD Emergency Service Unit and medical personnel had begun to arrive.

  She waved a greeting to Bo Haumann, the head of ESU, a lean, grizzled former drill sergeant. He nodded back and began deploying his officers to help get the evacuees to safety and to form into tactical response teams, searching for Raymond Galt and any accomplices.

  Hesitating, then pushing on the glass portion of the door rather than the metal handle, she walked into the lobby of the school, against the crowd. She wanted to call out to everyone not to touch any metal but was afraid if she did that, she'd start a panic and people would be injured or killed in a crush. Besides, they still had fifteen minutes until the deadline.

  Inside there were plenty of metal railings, knobs, stairs and panels on the floor. But no visual clues about whether or not they were connected to a wire somewhere.

  "I don't know, Rhyme," she said uncertainly. "There's metal, sure. But most of the floor's carpeted or covered with linoleum. That's gotta be a bad conductor."

  Was he just going to start a fire and burn the place down?

  Thirteen minutes.

  "Keep looking, Sachs."

  She tried Charlie Sommers's noncontact current detector and it gave occasional indications of voltage but nothing higher than house current. And the source wasn't in the places that would be the most likely to kill or injure anyone.

  Through the window, a flashing yellow light caught her eye. It was an Algonquin Consolidated truck with a sign on the side, reading Emergency Maintenance. She recognized two of the four occupants, Bernie Wahl, the security chief, and Bob Cavanaugh, the Operations VP. They ran up to a cluster of officers, including Nancy Simpson.

  It was as she was looking through the plate glass at the three of them that Sachs noticed for the first time what was next door to the school. A construction site for a large high-rise. The crews were doing the ironwork, bolting and welding the girders into place.

  She looked back to the lobby but felt a slam in her gut. She spun back to gaze at the job site.

  Metal. The entire structure was pure metal.

  "Rhyme," she said softly, "I don't think it's the school at all."

  "What do you mean?"

  She explained.

  "Steel . . . Sure, Sachs, it makes sense. Try to get the workers down. I'll call Lon and have him coordinate with ESU."

  She pushed out the door and ran toward the trailer that was the general contractor's office for the high-rise construction. She glanced up at the twenty, twenty-five stories of metal that were about to become a live wire, on which easily two hundred workers were perched. And counted only two small elevators to carry them down to safety.

  The time was ten minutes until one p.m.

  Chapter 36

  "WHAT'S GOING ON?" Sam Vetter asked the waiter in the hotel dining room. He and his fellow lunchers were staring out the window at what seemed to be an evacuation of both the school and the construction site between the college and the hotel. Police cars and fire trucks were pulling up.

  "It's safe, isn't it?" a patron asked. "Here, I mean?"

  "Oh, yessir, very safe," the waiter assured.

  Vetter knew the man didn't have a clue what was safe and what wasn't. And being in the construction business, Vetter immediately checked out the ratio of emergency exits to occupancy.

  One of the businessmen at his table, the man from Santa Fe, asked, "You hear about that thing yesterday? The explosion at the power station? Maybe it's related to that. They were talking terrorists."

  Vetter had heard a news story or two, but only in passing. "What happened?"

  "Some guy doing something to the grid. You know, the electric company." The man nodded out the window. "Maybe he did the same thing at the school. Or the construction site."

  "But not us," another patron worried. "Not at the hotel."

  "No, no, not us." The waiter smiled and vanished. Vetter wondered which exit route he was presently sprinting down.

  People were rising and walking to the windows. From here the restaurant offered a good view of the excitement.

  Vetter heard: "Naw, it's not terrorists. It's some disgruntled worker. Like a lineman for the company. They showed his picture on TV."

  Then Sam Vetter had a thought. He asked one of his fellow businessmen, "You know what he looks like?"

  "Just he's in his forties. And is maybe wearing company overalls and a yellow hard hat. The overalls're blue."

  "Oh, my God. I think I saw him. Just a little while ago."

  "What?"

  "I saw a worker in blue overalls and a yellow hard hat. He had a roll of electrical cable over his shoulder."

  "You better tell the cops."

  Vetter rose. He started away, then paused, reaching into his pocket. He was worried that his new friends might think he was trying to stiff them for the bill. He'd heard that New Yorkers were very suspicious of people and he didn't want his first step into the world of big-city business to be marred by something like that. He peeled off a ten for his sandwich and beer, then remembered where he was and left twenty.

  "Sam, don't worry about it! Hurry."

  He tried to remember exactly where the man had climbed from the manhole and where he'd stood to make his phone call before walking into the school. If he could recall the time of the call, more or less, maybe the police could trace it. The cell company could tell them who he'd been talking to.

  Vetter hurried down the escalator, two steps at a time, and then ran into the lobby. He spotted a police officer, who was standing near the front desk.
/>
  "Officer, excuse me. But I just heard . . . you're looking for somebody who works for the electric company? That man who was behind that explosion yesterday?"

  "That's right, sir. Do you know anything about it?"

  "I think I might've seen him. I don't know for sure. Maybe it's not him. But I thought I should say something."

  "Hold on." The man lifted his bulky radio and spoke into it. "This is Portable Seven Eight Seven Three to Command Post. I think I've got a witness. Might've seen the suspect, K."

  "Roger." Clattering from the speaker. "Hold on, K. . . . All right, Seven Eight, send him outside. Stone Street. Detective Simpson wants to talk to him, K."

  "Roger. Seven Eight, out." Turning to Vetter, the cop said, "Go out the front doors and turn left. There's a detective there, a woman. Nancy Simpson. You can ask for her."

  Hurrying through the lobby, Vetter thought: Maybe if the man is still around they'll capture him before he hurts anybody else.

  My first trip to New York, and I might just make the newspapers. A hero.

  What would Ruth have said?

  Chapter 37

  "AMELIA!" NANCY SIMPSON shouted from the sidewalk. "I've got a witness. Somebody in the hotel next door." Sachs hurried up to Simpson, who said, "He's coming out to see us."

  Sachs, via the microphone, relayed this information to Rhyme.

  "Where was Galt seen?" the criminalist asked urgently.

  "I don't know yet. We're going to talk to the wit. In a second."

  Together, she and Simpson hurried to the entrance of the hotel to meet the wit. Sachs looked skyward at the steel superstructure of the building under construction. Workers were leaving fast. Only a few minutes remained until the deadline.

  Then she heard: "Officer!" A man's voice called from behind her. "Detective!"

  She turned and saw Algonquin vice president Bob Cavanaugh running toward her. The large man was breathing heavily and sweating as he pulled up. His expression said, Sorry, I forgot your name.

  "Amelia Sachs."

  "Bob Cavanaugh."

  She nodded.

  "I heard that you're clearing the construction site?"

  "That's right. We couldn't find anywhere he'd attack in the school. It's mostly carpet and--"

  "But a job site makes no sense," Cavanaugh said, gesturing frantically toward it.

  "Well, I was thinking . . . the girders, the metal."

  "Who's there, Sachs?" Rhyme broke in.

  "The operations director of Algonquin. He doesn't think the attack's going to be at the job site." She asked Cavanaugh, "Why not?"

  "Look!" he said desperately, pointing to a cluster of workers standing nearby.

  "What do you mean?"

  "Their boots!"

  She whispered, "Personal protective equipment. They'd be insulated."

  If you can't avoid it, protect yourself against it. . . .

  Some were wearing gloves too and thick jackets.

  "Galt would know they're in PPE," the operations man said. "He'd have to pump so much juice into the superstructure to hurt anybody that the grid'd shut down in this part of town."

  Rhyme said, "Well, if it's not the school and it's not the job site, then what's his target? Or did we get it wrong in the first place? Maybe it's not there at all. There was another volcano exhibit."

  Then Cavanaugh gripped her arm and gestured behind them. "The hotel!"

  "Jesus," Sachs muttered, staring at the place. It was one of those minimalist, chic places filled with stark stone, marble, fountains . . . and metal. Lots of metal. Copper doors and steel stairs and flooring.

  Nancy Simpson too turned to gaze at the building.

  "What?" Rhyme asked urgently in her ear.

  "It's the hotel, Rhyme. That's what he's attacking." She grabbed her radio to call ESU's chief. She lifted it to her mouth, as she and Simpson sprinted forward. "Bo, it's Amelia. He's going after the hotel, I'm sure of it. It's not the construction site. Get your people there now! Evacuate it!"

  "Roger that, Amelia, I'll--"

  But Sachs didn't hear the rest of his transmission. Or rather, whatever he said was lost completely to her as she stared through the hotel's massive windows.

  Though it was before the deadline, one o'clock, a half dozen people inside the Battery Park Hotel stopped in their tracks. Their animated faces instantly went blank. They became doll faces, they were caricatures, grotesques. Spittle appeared in the corners of lips taut as ropes. Fingers, feet, chins began quivering.

  Onlookers gasped and then screamed in panic at the otherworldly sight--humans turned to creatures out of a sick horror film, zombies. Two or three were caught with their hands on the push panels of revolving doors, jerking and kicking in the confined spaces. One man's rigid leg kicked through the door glass, which severed his femoral artery. Blood sprayed and smoked. Another man, young, student age, was gripping a large brass door to a function room, and bent forward, urinating and shivering. There were two others, their hands on the rails of the low steps to the lobby bar, frozen, shaking, as the life evaporated from their bodies.

  And even outside, Sachs could hear an unearthly moan from deep in the smoldering throat of a woman, caught in midstep.

  A heavyset man plunged forward to save a guest--to push him away from the elevator panel the smoking victim's hand was frozen to. The good Samaritan may have believed he could body-slam the poor guy away from the panel. But he hadn't reckoned on the speed and the power of juice. The instant he contacted the victim he too became part of the circuit. His face twisted into a mass of wrinkles from the pain. Then the expression melted into that of an eerie doll and he began the terrible quivering too.

  Blood ran from mouths as teeth cut into tongues and lips. Eyes rolled back into sockets.

  A woman with her fingers around a door handle must have made particularly good contact; her back arched at an impossible angle, her unseeing eyes gazing at the ceiling. Her silver hair burst into flames.

  Sachs whispered, "Rhyme . . . Oh, it's bad, real bad. I'll have to call back." She disconnected without waiting for a response.

  Sachs and Simpson turned and began beckoning the ambulances forward. Sachs was horrified by the spectacle of arms and legs convulsing, muscles frozen, muscles quivering, veins rising, spittle and blood evaporating on faces from the blisteringly hot skin.

  Cavanaugh called, "We've got to stop them from trying to get out. They can't touch anything!"

  Sachs and Simpson ran to the windows and gestured people back from the doors, but everyone was panicked and continued to stream for the exits, stopping only when they saw the terrible scene.

  Cut its head off . . .

  She spun to Cavanaugh, crying, "How can we shut the current off here?"

  The Operations VP looked around. "We don't know what he's rigged it to. Around here we've got subway lines, transmission lines, feeders. . . . I'll call Queens. I'll cut everything off in the area. It'll shut down the Stock Exchange but we don't have any choice." He pulled out his phone. "But it'll take a few minutes. Tell people in the hotel to stay put. Not to touch anything!"

  Sachs ran close to a large sheet of plate glass and gestured people back frantically. Some understood and nodded. But others were panicking. Sachs watched a young woman break free from her friends and race for the emergency exit door, in front of which lay the smoking body of a man who'd tried to exit a moment before. Sachs pounded on the window. "No!" she cried. The woman looked at Sachs but kept going, arms outstretched.

  "No, don't touch it!"

  The woman, sobbing, sped onward.

  Ten feet from the door . . . five feet . . .

  No other way, the detective decided.

  "Nancy, the windows! Take 'em out!" Sachs drew her Glock. Checked the backdrop. And firing high, used six bullets to take out three of the massive windows in the lobby.

  The woman screamed at the gunshots and dove to the ground just before she grabbed the deadly handle.

  Nancy Simpson blew
out the windows on the other side of the doors.

  Both detectives leapt inside. They ordered people not to touch anything metal and began organizing the exodus through the jagged window frames, as smoke, unbelievably vile, filled the lobby.

  Chapter 38

  BOB CAVANAUGH CALLED, "Power's off!"

  Sachs nodded and directed emergency workers to the victims, then scanned the crowds outside, looking for Galt.

  "Detective!"

  Amelia Sachs turned. A man in an Algonquin Consolidated uniform was running in her direction. Seeing the dark blue outfit worn by a white male, she thought immediately that it might be Galt. The witness in the hotel had apparently reported that the suspect was nearby and the police had only a bad DMV picture of the attacker to identify him.

  But as the man approached it was clear that he was much younger than Galt.

  "Detective," he said breathlessly, "that officer there said I should talk to you. There's something I thought you should know." His face screwed up as he caught a whiff of the smoke from inside the hotel.

  "Go on."

  "I'm with the power company. Algonquin. Look, my partner, he's in one of our tunnels, underneath us?" Nodding toward Amsterdam College. "I've been trying to reach him, but he's not responding. Only, the radios're working fine."

  Underground. Where the electric service was.

  "I was thinking this Raymond Galt guy, maybe he was down there and Joey ran into him. You know. I'm worried about him."

  Sachs called two patrolmen to join her. They and the Algonquin worker hurried to the school. "We have an easement through the basement. It's the best way to get down to the tunnel."

  So that's how Galt had picked up the volcanic ash trace, slipping through the exhibit hall of the college. Sachs called Rhyme and explained what had happened. Then added, "I'm going tactical, Rhyme. He might be in the tunnel. I'll call you when I know something. You found anything else in the evidence that might help?"

  "Nothing more, Sachs."

  "I'm going in now."

  She disconnected before he responded and she and the officers followed the worker to the door that led to the basement. The electricity was off in the building, but emergency lights glowed like red and white eyes. The worker started for the door.