The Burning Wire (14 page)

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 was 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.

The doctor eased down into the sighing leather chair. "Good coffee."

I'm so very pleased.
A cock of the head.

"You're a busy man, so I'll get to the point."

"I'd appreciate that."

"Detective Rhyme . . . Lincoln. Are you a religious man?"

The disability group must have a church affiliation; they might not want to honor a heathen.

"No, I'm not."

"No belief in the afterlife?"

"I haven't seen any objective evidence that one exists."

"Many, many people feel that way. So, for you, death would be equal to, say, peace."

"Depending on how I go."

A smile in the kind face. "I misrepresented myself somewhat to your aide. And to you. But for a good reason."

Rhyme wasn't concerned. If the man had pretended to be somebody else to get in and kill me, I'd be dead now. A raised eyebrow meant: Fine. Confess and let's move forward.

"I'm not with DRC."

"No?"

"No. But I sometimes say I'm with one group or another because my real organization sometimes gets me kicked out of people's homes."

"Jehovah's Witnesses?"

A chuckle. "I'm with Die with Dignity. It's a euthanasia advocacy organization based in Florida."

Rhyme had heard of them.

"Have you ever considered assisted suicide?"

"Yes, some years ago. I decided not to kill myself."

"But you kept it as an option."

"Doesn't everybody, disabled or not?"

A nod. "True."

Rhyme said, "It's pretty clear that I'm not getting an award for picking the most efficient way of ending my life. So what can I do for you?"

"We need advocates. People like yourself, with some public recognition factor. Who might consider making the transition."

Transition. Now there's a euphemism for you.

"You could make a video on YouTube. Give some interviews. We were thinking that someday you might decide to take advantage of our services. . . ." He withdrew from his briefcase a brochure. It was subdued and printed on nice card stock and had flowers on the front. Not lilies or daisies, Rhyme noticed. Roses. The title above the flora was "Choices."

He set it on the table near Rhyme. "If you'd be interested in letting us use you as a celebrity sponsor we could not only provide you with our services for free, but there'd be some compensation, as well. Believe it or not, we do okay, for a small group."

And presumably they pay up front, Rhyme thought. "I really don't think I'm the man for you."

"All you'd have to do is talk a bit about how you've always considered the possibility of assisted suicide. We'd do some videos too. And--"

A voice from the doorway startled Rhyme. "Get the fuck out of here!" He noticed Kopeski jump at the sound.

Thom stormed into the room, as the doctor sat back, spilling coffee as he dropped the cup, which hit the floor and shattered. "Wait, I--"

The aide, usually the picture of control, was red-faced. His hands were shaking. "I said out."

Kopeski rose. He remained calm. "Look, I'm having a conversation with Detective Rhyme here," he said evenly. "There's no reason to get upset."

"Out! Now!"

"I won't be long."

"You'll leave now."

"Thom--" Rhyme began.

"Quiet," the aide muttered.

The look from the doctor said, You let your assistant talk to you like that?

"I'm not going to tell you again."

"I'll leave when I've finished." Kopeski eased closer to the aide. The doctor, like many medical people, was in good shape.

But Thom was a caregiver, which involved getting Rhyme's ass into and out of beds and chairs and exercise equipment all day long. A physical therapist too. He stepped right into Kopeski's face.

But the confrontation lasted only a few seconds. The doctor backed down. "All right, all right, all right." He held his hands up. "Jesus. No need to--"

Thom picked up the man's briefcase and shoved it into his chest and led him out the door. A moment later the criminalist heard the door slam. Pictures on the wall shook.

The aide appeared a moment later, evidently mortified. He cleaned up the broken china, mopped the coffee. "I'm sorry, Lincoln. I checked. It was a real organization . . . I thought." His voice cracked. He shook his head, the handsome face dark, hands shaking.

As Rhyme wheeled back toward the lab he said, "It's fine, Thom. Don't worry. . . . And there's a bonus."

The man turned his troubled eyes toward Rhyme, to find his boss smiling.

"I don't have to waste time writing an acceptance speech for any goddamn award. I can get back to work."

Chapter 22

ELECTRICITY KEEPS US
alive; the impulse from the brain to the heart and lungs is a current like any other.

And electricity kills too.

At 9 p.m., just nine and a half hours after the attack at Algonquin substation MH-10, the man in the dark-blue Algonquin Consolidated overalls surveyed the scene in front of him: his killing zone.

Electricity and death . . .

He was standing in a construction site, out in the open, but no one paid him any attention because he was a worker among fellow workers. Different uniforms, different hard hats, different companies. But one thing tied them all together: Those who made a living with their hands were looked down on by "real people," the ones who relied on their services, the rich, the comfortable, the ungrateful.

Safe in this invisibility, he was in the process of installing a much more powerful version of the device he'd tested earlier at the health club. In the nomenclature of electrical service, "high voltage" didn't begin until you hit 70,000v. For what he had planned, he needed to be sure all the systems could handle at least two or three times that much juice.

He looked over the site of tomorrow's attack one more time. As he did he couldn't help but think about voltage and amperage . . . and death.

There'd been a lot of misreporting about Ben Franklin and that insane key-in-the-thunderstorm thing. Actually Franklin had stayed completely off damp ground, in a barn, and was connected to the wet kite string with a dry silk ribbon. The kite itself was never actually struck by lightning; it simply picked up static discharge from a gathering storm. The result wasn't a real bolt but rather elegant blue sparks that danced from the back of Franklin's hand like fish feeding at the surface of a lake.

One European scientist duplicated the experiment not long afterward. He didn't survive.

From the earliest days of power generation, workers were constantly being burned to death or having their hearts switched off. The early grid took down a number of horses, thanks to metal shoes on wet cobblestones.

Thomas Alva Edison and his famous assistant Nikola Tesla battled constantly over the superiority of DC, direct current (Edison), versus AC, alternating current (Tesla), trying to sway the public by horror stories of danger. The conflict became known as the Battle of the Currents and it made front-page news regularly. Edison constantly played the electrocution card, warning that anyone using AC was in danger of dying and in a very unpleasant way. It was true that it took less AC current to cause injury, though any type of current powerful enough to be useful could also kill you.

The first electric chair was built by an employee of Edison's, rather tactically using Tesla's alternating current. The first execution via the device was in 1890, under the direction not of an executioner but a "state electrician." The prisoner did die, though the process took eight minutes. At least he was probably unconscious by the time he caught fire.

And then there were always stun guns. Depending on who was getting shot and in what part of the body, they could be counted on for the occasional death. And the fear of everyone in the industry: arc flashes, of course, like the attack he'd engineered this morning.

Juice and death . . .

He wandered through the construction site, feigning end-of-day weariness. The site was now staffed by a skeleton crew of night-shift workers. He moved closer, and still no one noticed him. He was wearing thick-framed safety glasses, the yellow Algonquin hard hat. He was as invisible as electricity in a wire.

The first attack had made the news in a big way, of course, though the stories were limited to an "incident" in a Midtown substation. The reporters were abuzz with talk of short circuits, sparks and temporary power outages. There was a lot of speculation about terrorists but no one had found any connection.

Yet.

At some point, somebody would have to consider the possibility of an Algonquin Power worker running around rigging traps that resulted in very, very unpleasant and painful deaths, but that hadn't happened.

He now left the construction site and made his way underground, still unchallenged. The uniform and the ID badge were like magic keys. He slipped into another grimy, hot access tunnel and, after donning personal protective gear, continued to rig the wiring.

Juice and death.

How elegant it was to take a life this way, compared, say, with shooting your victim at five hundred yards.

It was so pure and so simple and so natural.

You could stop electricity, you could direct it. But you couldn't trick it. Once juice was created it would instinctively do whatever it could to return to the earth, and if the most direct way was to take a human life in the process, it would do so in, literally, a flash.

Juice had no conscience, felt no guilt.

This was one of the things he'd come to admire about his weapon. Unlike human beings, electricity was forever true to its nature.