Mixed feelings . . .
Part of which was a little guilt about enjoying himself. He was going to see Wicked, to see if it stacked up to the Phoenix version, and probably Billy Elliott, to see if it stacked up to the trailers of the movie. He was going to have dinner in Chinatown with two of the bankers he'd met that morning, one based here and one from Santa Fe.
Maybe there was a hint of infidelity about the whole enjoyment thing.
Of course, Ruth wouldn't've minded.
But still.
Vetter also had to admit he was feeling a little out of his element here. His company did general construction, specializing in the basics: foundations, driveways, platforms, walkways, nothing sexy, but necessary and oh-so-profitable. His outfit was good, prompt and ethical . . . in a business where those qualities were not always fully unfurled. But it was small; the other companies that were part of the joint venture were bigger players. They were more savvy about business and regulatory and legislative matters than he was.
The conversation at the lunch table kept slipping from the Diamondbacks and the Mets to collateral, interest rates and high-tech systems that left Vetter confused. He found himself looking out the windows again at a large construction site next to the hotel, some big office building or apartment going up.
As he watched, one worker in particular caught his eye. The man was in a different outfit--dark blue overalls and yellow hard hat--and was carrying a roll of wire or cable over his shoulder. He emerged from a manhole near the back of the job site and stood, looking around, blinking. He pulled out a mobile phone and placed a call. Then he snapped it closed and wandered through the site and, instead of leaving, walked toward the building next door to the construction. He looked at ease, walking with a bounce in his step. Obviously he was enjoying whatever he was doing.
It was all so normal. That guy in the blue could have been Vetter thirty years ago. He could have been any one of Vetter's employees now.
The businessman began to relax. The scene made him feel a lot more at home--watching the guy in the blue uniform and the others in their Carhartt jackets and overalls, carrying tools and supplies, joking with one another. He thought of his own company and the people he worked with, who were like family. The older white guys, quiet and skinny and sunburned all of them, looking like they'd been born mixing concrete, and the newer workers, Latino, who chatted up a storm and worked with more precision and pride.
It told Vetter that maybe New York and the people he was doing this deal with were in many ways similar to his world and those who inhabited it.
Relax.
Then his eyes followed the man in the blue overalls and yellow hard hat as he disappeared into a building across from the construction site. It was a school. Sam Vetter noted some signs in the window.
POGO STICK MARATHON FUNDRAISER.
MAY 1.
JUMP FOR THE CURE!
CROSS-GENDERED STUDENTS DINNER
MAY 3. SIGN UP NOW!
THE EARTH SCIENCES DEPARTMENT
PRESENTS
"VOLCANOES: UP CLOSE AND PERSONAL"
APRIL 20--MAY 15.
IT'S FREE AND IT'S FIERY!
OPEN TO THE PUBLIC.
Okay, he admitted, with a laugh, maybe New York is a little different from Scottsdale, after all.
Chapter 33
RHYME CONTINUED TO look over the evidence, trying desperately to find, in the seemingly unrelated bits of metal and plastic and dust that had been collected at the scenes, some connection to spark his imagination and help Sachs figure out where exactly Galt had rigged the deadly cable to the water line running through Morningside Heights and Harlem.
If that's in fact what he'd done.
Spark his imagination . . . Bad choice of word, he decided.
Sachs continued to search Morningside Park, looking for the spliced wire running from the transmission cable to the pipes. He knew she'd be uneasy--there was no way to find the wire except to get close to it, to find where it had been attached to the water pipes. He recalled the tone of her voice, her hollow eyes as she'd described the shrapnel from the arc flash yesterday, peppering Luis Martin's body.
There were dozens of uniformed officers from the closest precinct, clearing Morningside Park and the buildings in the vicinity of the water pipe project. But couldn't the electricity follow a cast-iron pipe anywhere? Couldn't it produce an arc flash in a kitchen a mile away?
In his own kitchen, where Thom was now standing at the sink?
Rhyme glanced at the clock on his computer screen. If they didn't find the line in sixty minutes they'd have their answer.
Sachs called back. "Nothing, Rhyme. Maybe I'm wrong. And I was thinking at some point the line has to cross the subway. What if he's rigged it to hit a car? I'll have to search there too."
"We're still on the horn with Algonquin, trying to narrow it down, Sachs. I'll call you back." He shouted to Mel Cooper, "Anything?"
The tech was speaking with a supervisor in the Algonquin control center. Following Andi Jessen's orders, he and his staff were trying to find if there had been any voltage fluctuation in specific parts of the line. This might be possible to detect, since sensors were spaced every few hundred feet to alert them if there were problems with insulation or degradation in the electric transmission line itself. There was a chance they could pinpoint where Galt had tapped into the line to run his deadly cable to the surface.
But from Cooper: "Nothing. Sorry."
Rhyme closed his eyes briefly. The headache he'd denied earlier had grown in intensity. He wondered if pain was throbbing elsewhere. There was always that concern with quadriplegia. Without pain, you never know what the rebellious body's up to. A tree falls in the forest, of course it makes a sound, even if nobody's there. But does pain exist if you don't perceive it?
These thoughts left a morbid flavor, Rhyme realized. And he understood too that he'd been having similar ones lately. He wasn't sure why. But he couldn't shake them.
And, even stranger, unlike his jousting with Thom yesterday at this same time of day, he didn't want any scotch. Was nearly repulsed by the idea.
This bothered him more than the headache.
His eyes scanned the evidence charts but they skipped over the words as if they were in a foreign language he'd studied in school and hadn't used for years. Then they settled on the chart again, tracing the flow of juice from power generation to household. In decreasing voltages.
One hundred and thirty-eight thousand volts . . .
Rhyme asked Mel Cooper to call Sommers at Algonquin.
"Special Projects."
"Charlie Sommers?"
"That's right."
"This is Lincoln Rhyme. I work with Amelia Sachs."
"Oh, sure. She mentioned you." In a soft voice he said, "I heard it was Ray Galt, one of our people. Is that true?"
"Looks that way. Mr. Sommers--"
"Hey, call me Charlie. I feel like I'm an honorary cop."
"Okay, Charlie. Are you following what's happening right now?"
"I've got the grid on my laptop screen right here. Andi Jessen--our president--asked me to monitor what's going on."
"How close are they to fixing the, what's it called? Switchgear in the substation where they had that fire?"
"Two, three hours. That line's still a runaway. Nothing we can do to shut it down, except turn off the switch to most of New York City. . . . Is there anything I can do to help?"
"Yes. I need to know more about arc flashes. It looks like Galt's spliced into a major line, a transmission level line, and hooked his wire to the water main, then--"
"But why're you asking about arcs?" Sommers wondered.
"Because," Rhyme said absently, "Galt's going to kill somebody with one in less than an hour."
"Oh, did Galt's note say something about an arc?"
Rhyme realized that it didn't. "No."
"So you're just assuming that's what he'd do."
Rhyme hated the word "assumption" and
all its derivatives. He was furious with himself, wondering if they'd missed something important. "Go on, Charlie."
"An arc is spectacular but it's also one of the least efficient ways to use electricity as a weapon. You can't control it very well, you're never sure where it's going to end up. Look at yesterday morning. I mean, Galt had a whole bus for a target and he missed. . . . You want to know how I'd kill somebody with electricity?"
Lincoln Rhyme said quickly, "Yes, I very much would," and tilted his head to the phone to listen with complete concentration.
Chapter 34
THOMAS EDISON INTRODUCED overhead transmission, those ugly towers, in New Jersey in 1883, but the first grid ran beneath the streets of Lower Manhattan, starting from his generating station on Pearl Street. He had a grand total of fifty-nine customers.
Some linemen hated the underground grid--the dark grid, as it was sometimes called--but Joey Barzan loved it down here. He'd been with Algonquin Power for only a couple of years but had been in the electrical trades for ten years, since he'd started working at eighteen. He'd worked private construction before joining the company, moving his way up from apprentice to journeyman. He was thinking of going on and becoming a master electrician, and he would someday, but for now he liked working for a big company.
And what bigger outfit could he find than Algonquin Consolidated, one of the top companies in the country?
A half hour earlier he and his partner had gotten a call from his troubleman that there'd been a curious fluctuation in power in the supply to a subway system near Wall Street.
A gauge in a nearby MTA substation reported that for a fraction of a second there'd been a dropout. Not enough to cause any disruption of subway service but enough to be concerned--considering the incident at the bus station early yesterday.
And, damn, an Algonquin employee was the one behind it. Ray Galt, a senior troubleman in Queens.
Barzan had seen arc flashes--everyone in the business had at one time or another--and the spectacle of the burning lightning, the explosion, the eerie hum was enough to make him promise himself he'd never take a chance with juice. PPE gloves and boots, insulated hot sticks, no metal on the job. A lot of people thought they could outthink juice.
Well, you can't. And you can't outrun it either.
Now--his partner up top briefly--Barzan was looking for anything that might've caused the current to dip. It was cool here and deserted, but not quiet. Motors hummed and subways shook the ground like earthquakes. Yep, he liked it here, among the cables and the smell of hot insulation, rubber, oil. New York city is a ship, with as much structure under the surface as above. And he knew all the decks as well as he knew his neighborhood in the Bronx.
He couldn't figure out what had caused the fluctuation. The Algonquin lines all seemed fine. Maybe--
He paused, seeing something that made him curious.
What is that? he wondered. Like all linemen, whether up top or in the dark grid, he knew his territory and at the dim end of the tunnel was something that wasn't right: A cable was spliced to one of the breaker panels feeding the subway system for no logical reason. And, instead of running down into the ground, to reach the subway, this went up and ran across the ceiling of the tunnel. It was well spliced--you judged a lineman's skill by how well he joined lines--so it'd been done by a pro. But who? And why?
He stood and started to follow it.
Then gasped in fright. Another Algonquin worker was standing in the tunnel. The man seemed even more surprised to run into somebody. In the dimness Barzan didn't recognize him.
"Hi, there." Barzan nodded. Neither shook hands. They were wearing PPE gloves, bulky--thick enough for live-wire work provided the rest of the dielectric was adequate.
The other guy blinked and wiped sweat. "Didn't expect anybody down here."
"Me either. You hear about the fluctuation?"
"Yeah." The man said something else but Barzan wasn't really listening. He was wondering what the guy was doing exactly, looking at his laptop--all linemen used these, of course, everything on the grid being computerized. But he wasn't checking voltage levels or switchgear integrity. On the screen was a video image. It looked like the construction site that was pretty much overhead. Like what you'd see from a security camera with good resolution.
And then Barzan glanced at the guy's Algonquin ID badge.
Oh, shit.
Raymond Galt, Senior Technical Service Operator.
Barzan felt his breath hiss from his lungs, recalling the supervisor that morning calling in all the linemen and explaining about Galt and what he'd done.
He now realized that the spliced cable was rigged to create another arc flash!
Be cool, he told himself. It was pretty dark down here and Galt couldn't see his face very well; he might've missed Barzan's surprised reaction. And the company and the police had made the announcement only a little while ago. Maybe Galt had been down here for the past couple of hours and didn't know the cops were looking for him.
"Well, lunchtime. I'm starving." Barzan started to pat his stomach and then decided that was overacting. "Better get back upstairs. My partner'll be wondering what I'm doing down here."
"Hey, take care," Galt said and turned back to the computer.
Barzan too turned to head toward the closest exit, stifling the urge to flee.
He should have given into it, he quickly realized.
The instant Barzan turned, he was aware of Galt reaching down fast and lifting something from beside him.
Barzan started to run but Galt was even faster and, glancing back, Barzan had only a brief image of a lineman's heavy fiberglass hot stick, swinging in an arc into his hard hat. The blow stunned him and sent him tumbling to the filthy floor.
He was focused on a line carrying 138,000v, six inches from his face, when the stick slammed into him once more.
Chapter 35
AMELIA SACHS WAS doing what she did best.
Perhaps not best.
But doing what she loved most. What made her feel the most alive.
Driving.
Pushing metal and flesh to its limits, speeding fast along city streets, seemingly impossible routes, considering the dense traffic, human and vehicular. Weaving, skidding. When you drove fast, you didn't ease the vehicle along the course, you didn't dance; you pounded the car through its moves, you slammed and jerked and slugged.
These were called muscle cars for a reason.
The 1970 model year 428 Ford Torino Cobra, heir to the Fairlane, pushed out 405 horsepower with a nifty 447 foot pounds of torque. Sachs had the optional four-speed transmission, of course, which she needed for her heavy foot. The shifter was tough and sticky and if you didn't get it right you'd have adjustments aplenty, which might include flushing gear teeth out of the reservoir. It wasn't like today's forgiving six-speed syncromeshes made for midlife-crisis businessmen with Bluetooths stuck into their ear and dinner reservations on their mind.
The Cobra wheezed, growled, whined; it had many voices.
Sachs tensed. She gave a touch of horn but before the sound waves made it to the lazy driver about to change lanes without looking, she was past him.
Sachs admitted that she missed her most recent car, a Chevy Camaro SS, the one she and her father had worked on together. It had been a victim of the perp in a recent case. But her father had reminded her it wasn't wise to put too much person into your car. It was part of you, but it wasn't you. And it wasn't your child or your best friend. The rods, wheels, the cylinders, the drums, the tricky electronics could turn indifferent or lazy and strand you. They could also betray and kill you, and if you thought the conglomeration of steel and plastic and copper and aluminum cared, you were wrong.
Amie, a car has only the soul you put into it. No more and no less. And never forget that.
So, yes, she regretted the loss of her Camaro and always would. But she now drove a fine vehicle that suited her. And that, incongruously, sported as a steering wheel ornament the
Camaro's insignia, a present from Pammy, who'd removed it reverently from the Chevy's corpse for Sachs to mount on the Ford.
Pound on the brake for the intersection, heel-toe downshift to rev match, check left, check right, clutch out and rip up through the gears. The speedometer hit fifty. Then kissed sixty, seventy. The blue light on the dashboard, which she hardly even saw, flashed as fast as a pounding heart.
Sachs was presently on the West Side Highway, venerable Route 9A, having made the transition from the Henry Hudson several miles behind her. Heading south, she streaked past familiar sights, the helipad, Hudson River Park, the yacht docks and the tangled entrance to the Holland Tunnel. Then with the financial center buildings on her right, she hurried on past the massive construction site where the towers had been, aware even at this frantic time that if ever a void could cast a shadow it was here.
A controlled skid angled the Cobra onto Battery Place, and Sachs flew east into the warren of lower Manhattan.
She had the tip of the ear bud inserted and a crackling sound interrupted her concentration as she deftly skidded around two cabs, noting the shocked expression below the Sikh's turban.
"Sachs!"
"What, Rhyme?"
"Where are you?"
"Almost there."
She lost rubber on all four tires as she made a ninety-degree turn and inserted the Ford between curb and car, one needle never below 45, the other never below 5,000.
She was making for Whitehall Street. Near Stone. Rhyme had had a conversation with Charlie Sommers, and it had yielded unexpected results. The Special Projects man had speculated that Galt might try something other than an arc flash; Sommers was betting the man would simply try to electrify a public area with enough voltage to kill passersby. He'd turn them into part of the circuit and run juice through them somehow. It was easier and more efficient, the man had explained, and you didn't need nearly as much voltage.
Rhyme had concluded that the fire in the uptown substation was really a distraction to keep them focused away from Galt's attack on the real location: probably downtown. He'd looked over the list of lava and volcano exhibits, and found the one that was the farthest away from Harlem, where everybody was looking: Amsterdam College. It was a community college specializing in office skills and associate degrees in the business professions. But their liberal arts division was having a show on geologic formations, including an exhibit about volcanoes.