The Burning Wire

by Jeffery Deaver

  "Is Jamaica one?"

  "Yes."

  He realized too they'd been thinking of the numbers as five hundred seventy and three hundred seventy-nine. In fact, there was another way to refer to them. "Quick. Look up Lexus SUVs. Is there a model with a five seventy or a three seventy-nine in the designation?"

  This was even faster than the passport. "Let's see . . . Yep, the LX five-seventy. It's a luxury--"

  "Get me Luna on the phone. Now!" He didn't want to risk his own dialing, which would have taken some time and might have been inaccurate.

  He felt the sweat again but ignored it.

  "Si?"

  "Rodolfo! It's Lincoln Rhyme."

  "Ah, Captain--"

  "Listen to me! You are the target. The office building's a diversion! The package delivered to Logan? The rectangular images on the drawing? It was a diagram of the grounds of the Jamaican embassy, where you are right now. The rectangles are the blast barriers. And you drive a Lexus LX five-seventy?"

  "Yes . . . You mean, that was the five hundred seventy?"

  "I think so. And the Watchmaker was given a Jamaican passport to get into the compound. Is there a car parked nearby with three seven nine in the license plate?"

  "I don't . . . Why, yes. It's a Mercedes with diplomatic plates."

  "Clear the area! Now. That's where the bomb is! The Mercedes."

  He heard shouting in Spanish, the sound of footfalls, hard breathing.

  Then, a stunning explosion.

  Rhyme blinked at the startling noise that rattled the speakers of the phone.

  "Commander! Are you there? . . . Rodolfo?"

  More shouting, static, screams.

  "Rodolfo!"

  After a long moment: "Captain Rhyme? Hello?" The man was shouting--probably because he'd been partially deafened by the blast.

  "Commander, are you all right?"

  "Hello!"

  A hissing noise, moans, gasping. Shouts.

  Sirens and more shouting.

  Cooper asked, "Should we call--"

  And then "Que? . . . Are you there, Captain?"

  "Yes. Are you hurt, Rodolfo?"

  "No, no. No bad injuries. Some cuts, stunned, you know." The voice was gasping. "We climbed over barriers and got down on the other side. I see people cut, bleeding. But no one is dead, I think. It would have killed me and the officers standing beside me. How did you know?"

  "I'll go into that later, Commander. Where is the Watchmaker?"

  "Wait a moment . . . wait. . . . All right. At the explosion he fled. Arturo's men were distracted by the blast--as he planned, of course. Arturo said a car drove into the park and he got inside. They're moving south now. We have officers following him. . . . Thank you, Captain Rhyme. I cannot thank you enough. But now I must go. I will call as soon as we learn something."

  Inhaling deeply, ignoring the headache and the sweat. Okay, Logan, Rhyme was thinking, we've stopped you. We've ruined your plan. But we still don't have you. Not yet.

  Please, Rodolfo. Keep after him.

  As he was thinking this, his eyes strayed over the evidence charts in the Galt case. Maybe this would be the conclusion of both of the operations. The Watchmaker would be apprehended in Mexico, and Ray Galt, in an abandoned school near Chinatown.

  Then his eyes settled on one bit of evidence in particular: Chinese herbs, ginseng and wolfberry.

  And another listing, a substance that had been found in proximity to the herbs: Diesel fuel.

  Rhyme originally had thought that the fuel was from a possible site of an attack, a refinery perhaps. But it occurred to him now that diesel fuel would also run motors.

  Like in an electric generator.

  Then another thought occurred to him.

  "Mel, the call--"

  "Are you all right?"

  "I'm fine," Rhyme snapped.

  "You look flushed."

  Ignoring the comment, he instructed, "Find out the number of the cop who called in about Galt being in the school."

  The tech turned away and made a call. A few minutes later he looked up. "Funny. I got the number from Patrol. But it's out of service."

  "Give it to me."

  Cooper did, slowly. Rhyme typed it into a mobile phone database at the NYPD.

  It was listed as prepaid.

  "A cop with a prepaid mobile? And now out of service? No way."

  And the school was in Chinatown; that's where Galt had picked up the herbs. But it wasn't a staging area or where he was hiding out. It was a trap! Galt had run wires from a diesel-powered generator to kill whoever was searching for him and then, pretending to be a cop, he called in to report himself. Since the juice was off in the building, Sachs and the others wouldn't expect the electrocution danger.

  There's no power. It's safe. . . .

  He had to warn them. He started to press "Sachs" on the speed-dial panel on the computer. But just at that moment his nagging headache swelled to a blinding explosion in his head. Lights like electric sparks, a thousand electric sparks, flashed across his vision. Sweat poured from his skin as the dysreflexia attack began in earnest.

  Lincoln Rhyme whispered, "Mel, you have to call--"

  And then passed out.

  Chapter 60

  THEY MADE IT to the back of the school without being seen. Sachs and Pulaski were crouching, looking for entrances and exits, when they heard the first whimpers.

  Pulaski turned an alarmed face toward the detective. She held up a finger and listened.

  A woman's voice, it seemed. She was in pain, maybe held hostage, being tortured? The woman who'd spotted Galt? Someone else?

  The sound faded. Then returned. They listened for a long ten seconds. Amelia Sachs gestured Ron Pulaski closer. They were in the back of the school, smelling urine, rotting plasterboard, mold.

  The whimpering grew louder. What the hell was Galt doing? Maybe the victim had information he needed for his next attack. "No, no, no." Sachs was sure that's what the voice was saying.

  Or maybe Galt had slipped further from reality. Maybe he'd kidnapped an Algonquin worker and was torturing her, satisfying his lust for revenge. Maybe she was in charge of the long-distance transmission lines. Oh, no, Sachs thought. Could it be Andi Jessen herself? She sensed Pulaski staring at her with wide eyes.

  "No . . . please," the woman cried.

  Sachs hit TRANSMIT and radioed Emergency Service. "Bo . . . it's Amelia, K?"

  "Go ahead, K."

  "He's got a hostage here. Where are you?"

  "Hostage? Who?"

  "Female. Unknown."

  "Roger that. We'll be five minutes. K."

  "He's hurting her. I'm not going to wait. Ron and I're going in."

  "You have logistics?"

  "Just what I told you before. Galt's in the middle of the building. Ground floor. Armed with a forty-five ACP. Nothing's electrified here. The power's off."

  "Well, that's the good news, I guess. Out."

  She disconnected and whispered to Pulaski, pointing, "Now, move! We'll stage at the back door."

  The young officer said, "Sure. Okay." An uneasy glance into the shadows of the building, from which another moan floated out on the foul air.

  Sachs surveyed their route to the back door and loading dock. The crumbling asphalt was littered with broken bottles and papers and cans. Noisy to traverse, but they didn't have a choice.

  She gestured Pulaski forward. They began to pick their way over the ground, trying to be quiet, though they couldn't avoid crunching glass beneath their shoes.

  But as they approached, they had some luck, which Sachs believed in, even if Lincoln Rhyme did not. Somewhere nearby a noisy diesel engine rattled to life, providing good covering sound.

  Sometimes you do catch a break, Sachs thought. Lord knows we could use one now.

  Chapter 61

  HE WASN'T GOING to lose Rhyme.

  Thom Reston had his boss out of the Storm Arrow chair and into a near standing position, pinned against the wall
. In autonomic dysreflexia attacks, the patient should be kept upright--the books say sitting, but Rhyme had been in his chair when the vessels tightened en masse and the aide wanted to get him even more elevated, to force the blood back toward the ground.

  He'd planned for occurrences like this--even rehearsing when Rhyme wasn't around, since he knew his boss wouldn't have the patience for running mock emergencies. Now, without even looking, he grabbed a small vial of vasodilator medication, popped the cap with one thumb and slipped the delicate pill under Rhyme's tongue.

  "Mel, help me here," Thom said.

  The rehearsals didn't include a real patient; Thom's unconscious boss was presently 180 pounds of dead weight.

  Don't think about it that way, he thought.

  Mel Cooper leapt forward, supporting Rhyme while Thom hit speed-dial button one on the phone he always made sure was charged and that had the best signal of any he'd tested. After two brief rings he was connected, and in five long seconds he was speaking to a doctor in a private hospital. An SCI team was dispatched immediately. The hospital Rhyme went to regularly for specialized therapy and regular checkups had a large spinal cord injury department and two emergency response teams, for situations where it would take too long to get a disabled patient to the hospital.

  Rhyme had had a dozen or so attacks over the years, but this was the worst Thom had ever seen. He couldn't support Rhyme and take his blood pressure simultaneously, but he knew it was dangerously high. His face was flushed, he was sweating. Thom could only imagine the pain of the excruciating headache as the body, tricked by the quadriplegia into believing it needed more blood and quickly, pumped hard and constricted the vessels.

  The condition could cause death and, more troubling to Rhyme, a stroke, which could mean even more paralysis. In which case Rhyme might very well dust off his long-laid-to-rest idea of assisted suicide, which that damn Arlen Kopeski had brought up again.

  "What can I do?" Cooper whispered, the normally placid face dark with worry, slick with sweat.

  "We'll just keep him upright."

  Thom examined Rhyme's eyes. Blank.

  The aide snagged a second vial and administered another dose of clonidine.

  No response.

  Thom stood helpless, both he and Cooper silent. He thought of the past years with Rhyme. They'd fought, sometimes bitterly, but Thom had been a caregiver all his working life and knew not to take the anger personally. Knew not to take it at all. He gave as much as he got.

  He'd been fired by Rhyme and had quit in nearly equal measure.

  But he'd never believed the separation between the two of them would last more than a day. And it never had.

  Looking at Rhyme, wondering where the hell the medics were, he was considering: Was this my fault? Dysreflexia is frequently caused by the irritation that comes from a full bladder or bowel. Since Rhyme didn't know when he needed to relieve himself Thom noted the intake of food and liquid and judged the intervals. Had he gotten it wrong? He didn't think so, but maybe the stress of running the double case had exacerbated the irritation. He should have checked more often.

  I should've exercised better judgment. I should've been firmer. . . .

  To lose Rhyme would be to lose the finest criminalist in the city, if not the world. And to lose countless victims because their killers would go undetected.

  To lose Rhyme would be to lose one of his closest friends.

  Yet he remained calm. Caregivers learn this early. Hard and fast decisions can't be made in panic.

  Then the color of Rhyme's face stabilized and they got him into the wheelchair again. They couldn't have kept him up much longer anyway.

  "Lincoln! Can you hear me?"

  No response.

  Then a moment later, the man's head lolled. And he whispered something.

  "Lincoln. You're going to be all right. Dr. Metz is sending a team."

  Another whisper.

  "It's all right, Lincoln. You'll be all right."

  In a faint voice Rhyme said, "You have to tell her . . ."

  "Lincoln, stay still."

  "Sachs."

  Cooper said, "She's at the scene. The school where you sent her. She's not back yet."

  "You have to tell Sachs . . ." The voice faded.

  "I will, Lincoln. I'll tell her. As soon as she calls in," Thom said.

  Cooper added, "You don't want to disturb her now. She's moving in on Galt."

  "Tell her . . ."

  Rhyme's eyes rolled back in his head and he went out again. Thom angrily looked out the window, as if that would speed the arrival of the ambulance. But all he saw were people strolling by on healthy legs, people jogging, people bicycling through the park, none of them with an apparent care in the world.

  Chapter 62

  RON PULASKI GLANCED at Sachs, who was peeking through a window at the back of the school.

  She held up a finger, squinting and jockeying for position to try to get a better look at where Galt was. The whimpering was hard to hear from this vantage point since that diesel truck or engine was close, just on the other side of a fence.

  Then came a louder moan.

  Sachs turned back and nodded at the door, whispering, "We're going to get her. I want crossfire coverage. Somebody up, somebody down. You want to go through here or up the fire escape?"

  Pulaski glanced to their right, where a rusty metal ladder led up to a platform and an open window. He knew there was no chance they were electrified. Amelia had checked. But he really didn't want to go that way. Then he thought about his mistake at Galt's apartment. About Stanley Palmer, the man who might die. Who, even if he lived, might never be the same again.

  He said, "I'll go up."

  "You sure?"

  "Yes."

  "Remember, we want him alive if at all possible. If he's set another trap, it might have a timer on it and we'll need him to tell us where it is and when it's going to activate."

  Pulaski nodded. Crouching, he made his way over the filthy asphalt strewn with all sorts of garbage.

  Concentrate, he told himself. You've got a job to do. You're not going to get spooked again. You're not going to make a mistake.

  As he moved silently, he found he was, in fact, a lot less spooked than before. And then he wasn't spooked at all.

  Ron Pulaski was angry.

  Galt had gotten sick. Well, sorry. Well, too goddamn bad. Hell, Pulaski had had his head trauma, and he didn't blame anybody for it. Just like Lincoln Rhyme didn't sit around and mope. And Galt might very well be fine, all the new cancer treatments and techniques and everything. But here this whiny little shit was taking out his unhappiness on the innocent. And, Jesus Lord, what was he doing to that woman inside? She must've had information Galt needed. Or maybe she was a doctor who'd missed a diagnosis or something and he was getting revenge on her too.

  At this thought he moved a little more quickly. He glanced back and saw Sachs waiting beside a half-open door, Glock drawn and pointed down, extended in a combat grip.

  The anger growing, Pulaski came to a solid brick wall, where he couldn't be seen. He sped up further, heading toward the fire escape ladder. It was old and most of the paint had worn off, replaced by rust. He paused at the puddle of standing water surrounding the concrete around the base of the ladder. Water . . . electricity. But there was no electricity. And, anyway, there was no way to avoid the water. He sloshed through it.

  Ten feet away.

  Looking up, picking the best window to go through. Hoping the stairs and platform wouldn't clank. Galt couldn't be more than forty feet from them.

  Still, the sound of the diesel engine would cover up most squeaks.

  Five feet.

  Pulaski examined his heart and found its beat steady. He was going to make Lincoln Rhyme proud of him again.

  Hell, he was going to collar this sick bastard himself.

  He reached for the ladder.

  And the next thing he knew he heard a snap and every muscle in his body contr
acted at once. In his mind he was looking at all the light of heaven, before his vision dissolved to yellow then black.

  Chapter 63

  STANDING TOGETHER BEHIND the school, Amelia Sachs and Lon Sellitto watched the place being swept by ESU.

  "A trap," the lieutenant said.

  "Right," she replied grimly. "Galt hooked up a big generator in a shed behind the school. He started it and then left. It was connected to the metal doors and the fire escape."

  "The fire escape. That's the way Pulaski was going."

  She nodded. "Poor kid. He--"

  An ESU officer, a tall African American, interrupted them. "We've finished the sweep, Detective, Lieutenant. It's clean. The whole place. We didn't touch anything inside, like you asked."

  "A digital recorder?" she asked. "That's what I'm betting he used."

  "That's right, Detective. Sounded like a scene from a TV show or something. And a flashlight hanging by a cord. So it looked like somebody was holding it."

  No hostage. No Galt. Nobody at all.

  "I'll run the scenes in a minute."

  The officer asked, "There was no portable called it in?"

  "Right," Sellitto muttered. "Was Galt. Probably on a prepaid mobile, I'd bet. I'll check it."

  "And he just did this"--a wave at the school--"to kill some of us."

  "That's right," Sachs said somberly.

  The ESU officer grimaced and headed off to gather his team. Sachs had immediately called Rhyme to give him the news about the school. And about Ron Pulaski.

  But, curiously, the phone went right to voice mail.

  Maybe something had heated up in the case, or in the Watchmaker situation in Mexico.

  A medic was walking toward her, head down, picking his way through the trash; the yard behind the school looked like a beach after a garbage spill. Sachs walked forward to meet him.

  "You free now, Detective?" he asked her.

  "Sure."

  She followed him around to the side of the building, where the ambulances waited.

  There, sitting on a concrete stoop, was Ron Pulaski, head in his hands. She paused. Took a deep breath and walked up to him.

  "I'm sorry, Ron."

  He was massaging his arm, flexing his fingers. "No, ma'am." He blinked at his own formality. Grinned. "I should say, thank you."

  "If there'd been any other way, I would've done it. But I couldn't shout. I assumed Galt was still inside. And had his weapon."