The burning wire lr-9 Read online

  The meter jumped off the scale at 10,000v. Had the patrolman touched him, the juice would have streaked through him, through the officer and into the ground, killing them instantly.

  Sachs stepped back and turned up the volume on her radio to call Nancy Simpson and have her find Bob Cavanaugh and tell the operations director he needed to cut the head off another snake.

  Chapter 39

  RON PULASKI HAD managed to nurse Ray Galt's damaged computer printer back to life. And he was grabbing the hot sheets of paper as they eased into the output tray.

  The young officer pored over them desperately, searching for clues as to the man's whereabouts, accomplices, the location of Justice For… anything that might move them closer to stopping the attacks.

  Detective Cooper sent him a text, explaining that they hadn't successfully stopped Galt at a hotel downtown. They were still searching for the killer in the Wall Street area. Did Pulaski have anything that could help?

  "Not yet. Soon, I hope." He sent the message, turned back to the printouts.

  Of the eight remaining pages in the print queue, nothing was immediately relevant to finding and stopping the killer. But Pulaski did learn something that might become helpful: Raymond Galt's motive.

  Some of the pages were printouts of postings that Galt had made on blogs and online newsletters. Others were downloads of medical research, some very detailed and written by doctors with good credentials. Some were written by quacks in the language and tone of conspiracy theorists.

  One had been written by Galt himself and posted on a blog about environmental causes of serious disease. My story is typical of many. I was a lineman and later a troubleman (like a supervisor) for many years working for several power companies in direct contact with lines carrying over one hundred thousand volts. It was the electromagnetic fields created by the transmission lines, that are uninsulated, that led to my leukemia, I am convinced. In addition it has been proven that power lines attract aerosol particles that lead to lung cancer among others, but this is something that the media doesn't talk about.

  We need to make all the power companies but more important the public aware of these dangers. Because the companies won't do anything voluntarily, why should they? if the people stopped using electricity by even half we could save thousands of lives a year and make them (the companies) more responsible. In turn they would create safer ways to deliver electricity. And stop destroying the earth too.

  People, you need to take matters into your own hands! -Raymond Galt.

  So that was it. He was ill, he felt, because of companies like Algonquin. And he was fighting back in the time he had left. Pulaski knew the man was a killer, yet he couldn't help but feel a bit of sympathy for him. The officer had found liquor bottles, most of them at least half empty, in one of the cupboards. Sleeping pills too. And antidepressants. It was no excuse to kill anybody, but dying alone of a terminal disease and the people responsible for your death not caring? Well, Pulaski could understand where the anger came from.

  He continued through the printouts, but found only more of the same: rants and medical research. Not even emails whose addresses they might trace to see if they could find Galt's friends and clues to his whereabouts.

  He looked through them once more, thinking about Assistant Special Agent in Charge Tucker McDaniel's weird theory about cloud zone communications, looking for code words and secret messages that might be embedded in the text. Then he decided he'd wasted enough time on that and bundled up the printouts. He spent a few minutes bagging the rest of the evidence, collecting the trace and attaching chain-of-custody cards. Then he laid the numbers and photographed the entire site.

  When he was finished, Pulaski looked up the dim hallway to the front door and felt the uneasiness return. He started toward the door, noting again that both the knob and the door itself were metal. What's the problem? he asked himself angrily. You opened it to get inside an hour ago. Leaving on the latex exam gloves, he tentatively reached out and pulled the door open, then, with relief, he stepped outside.

  Two NYPD cops and an FBI agent were nearby. Pulaski nodded a greeting.

  "You hear?" the agent asked.

  Pulaski paused in the doorway of the apartment, then stepped farther away from the steel door. "About the attack? Yeah. I heard he got away. I don't know any details."

  "He killed five people. Would've been more but your partner saved a lot of them."

  "Partner?"

  "That woman detective. Amelia Sachs. Bunch were injured. Badly burned."

  Pulaski shook his head. "That's tough. That same way, the arc flash?"

  "I don't know. He electrocuted them, though. That's all I heard."

  "Jesus." Pulaski looked around the street. He'd never noticed how much metal there was on a typical residential block. A creepy feeling was flooding over him, the paranoia. There were metal posts and bars and rods everywhere, it seemed. Fire escapes, vents, pipes going into the ground, those metal sheets covering under-sidewalk elevators. Any one of them could be energized enough to send a charge right through you or to explode in a shower of metal shrapnel.

  Killed five people…

  Third-degree burns.

  "You okay there, Officer?"

  Pulaski gave a reflexive laugh. "Yeah." He wanted to explain his fear, but of course he didn't. "Any leads to Galt?"

  "No. He's gone."

  "Well, I gotta get this back to Lincoln Rhyme."

  "Find anything?"

  "Yeah. Galt's definitely the one. But I couldn't find anything about where he is now. Or what he's got planned next."

  The FBI agent asked, "Who's going to do surveillance?" He nodded at the apartment. "You want to leave some of your people here?"

  The implication being that the feds were perfectly happy to come along for the bust but since Galt wasn't here and probably wouldn't return-he must've heard on the news that they'd identified him-they didn't want to bother leaving their people on guard detail.

  "That's not my call," the young officer said. He radioed Lon Sellitto and told him what he'd found. The lieutenant would arrange for two NYPD officers to remain on site, though hidden, until an official undercover surveillance team could be put together, just in case Galt tried to sneak back.

  Pulaski then walked around the corner and into the deserted alleyway behind the building. He popped the trunk and loaded the evidence inside.

  He slammed it, and looked around uneasily.

  At all the metal, surrounded by metal.

  Goddamn it, stop thinking about that! He got into the driver's seat and started to insert the key into the steering column. Then he hesitated. The car had been parked here, up the alley, out of sight of the apartment in case Galt did come back. If the perp was still free, was there a chance he'd returned and rigged some kind of a trap on Pulaski's car?

  No, too far-fetched.

  Pulaski grimaced. He started the car and put it in reverse.

  His phone buzzed. He glanced at the screen. It was his wife, Jenny. He debated. No, he'd call her later. He slipped the phone away.

  Glancing out the window he saw an electrical service panel on the side of a building, three large wires running from it. Shivering at the sight, Pulaski gripped the key and turned it. The starter gave that huge grinding sound when the engine's already running. In panic, believing that he was being electrocuted, the young cop grabbed the door handle and yanked it open. His foot slipped off the brake and landed on the accelerator. The Crown Victoria screeched backward, tires skidding. He slammed on the brake.

  But not before there was a sickening thud and a scream and he caught a glimpse of a middle-aged man who'd been crossing the alley, carting a load of groceries. The pedestrian flew into the wall and collapsed on the cobblestones, blood streaming from his head.

  Chapter 40

  AMELIA SACHS WAS taking stock of Joey Barzan.

  "How you doing?"

  "Yeah. I guess."

  She wasn't sure what that meant and
didn't think he knew either. She glanced at the EMS medic who was bent over Barzan. They were still in the tunnel beneath the Battery Park Hotel.

  "Concussion, lost some blood." He turned to his patient, who was sitting unsteadily against the wall. "You'll be all right."

  Bob Cavanaugh had managed to find the source of the juice and shut down the line that Galt had used for the trap. Sachs had confirmed that the electrical supply was dead, using Sommers's current detector, and quickly-really quickly-undone the wire attached to the feeder line.

  "What happened?" she asked Barzan.

  "It was Ray Galt. I found him down here. He hit me with a hot stick, knocked me out. When I woke up he'd wired me to the line. Jesus. That was sixty-thousand volts, a subway feeder. If you'd touched me, if I'd rolled a few inches to the side… Jesus." Then he blinked. "I heard the sirens on the street. The smell. What happened?"

  "Galt ran some wires into the hotel next door."

  "God, no. Is anybody hurt?"

  "There are casualties. I don't know the details yet. Where'd Galt go?"

  "I don't know. I was out. If he didn't leave through the college, he had to go that way, through the tunnel." He cast his eyes to the side. "There's plenty of access to the subway tunnels and platforms."

  Sachs asked, "Did he say anything?"

  "Not really."

  "Where was he when you saw him?"

  "Right there." He pointed about ten feet away. "You can see where he rigged the line. There's some kind of box on it. I've never seen that before. And he was watching the construction site and the hotel on his computer. Like it was hooked into a security camera."

  Sachs rose and looked over the cable, the same Bennington brand as at the bus stop yesterday. No sign of the computer or hot stick, which she recalled Sommers telling her about-a fiberglass pole for live-wire work.

  Then Barzan said in a soft voice, "The only reason I'm alive now is that he wanted to use me to kill people, isn't that right? He wanted to stop you from chasing him."

  "That's right."

  "That son of a bitch. And he's one of us. Linemen and troublemen stick together. It's like a brotherhood, you know. We have to be. Juice is so dangerous." He was furious at the betrayal.

  Sachs rolled the man's hands, arms and legs for trace and then nodded to the medics. "He can go now." She told Barzan if he thought of anything else to give her a call and handed him a card. A medic radioed his colleague and said that the scene was clear and that they could bring the stretcher down the tunnel to evacuate the worker. Barzan sat back against the tunnel wall and closed his eyes.

  Sachs then contacted Nancy Simpson and told her what had happened. "Get ESU into the Algonquin tunnels for a half mile around. And the subways too."

  "Sure, Amelia. Hold on." Simpson came back on a moment later. "They're on their way."

  "What about our witness from the hotel?"

  "I'm still checking."

  Sachs's eyes were growing more accustomed to the dark. She squinted. "I'll get back to you, Nancy. I see something." She moved through the tunnel in the direction that Barzan indicated Galt probably had fled.

  About thirty feet away, sandwiched behind a grating in a small recess, she found a set of Algonquin dark blue overalls, hard hat and gear bag. She'd seen a flash of yellow from the safety hat. Of course, Galt would now know that everybody was looking for him, so he'd stripped off the outfit and hidden it here with the tool bag.

  She called back Simpson and asked her to contact Bo Haumann and ESU and let them know that Galt would be in different clothes. Then she donned latex gloves and reached forward to pull the evidence out from behind the metal.

  But then she stopped fast.

  Now, you have to remember that even if you think you're avoiding it, you could still be in danger.

  Sommers's words resounded in her head. She took the current detector and swept it over the tools.

  The needle jumped: 603 volts.

  Gasping, Sachs closed her eyes and felt the strength drain from her legs. She looked more carefully and saw a wire. It ran from the grating underground to the conduit behind which the evidence was stashed. She'd have to touch the pipe to pull the items out. The power was technically off in the tunnel but maybe this was a case of islanding or backfeed, if she remembered what Sommers had told her.

  How much amperage does it take to kill you?

  One tenth of one amp.

  She returned to Barzan, who gazed at her blearily, his bandaged head still resting against the tunnel wall.

  "I need some help. I need to collect some evidence, but there's still power in one of the lines."

  "What line?"

  "Up there. Six hundred volts. He's wired it to some conduit."

  "Six hundred? It's DC, backfeed from the third rail supply on the subway. Look, you can use my hot stick. See it there?" He pointed. "And my gloves. The best thing is to run another wire to a ground from the conduit. You know how to do that?"

  "No."

  "I'm in no shape to help you. Sorry."

  "That's okay. Tell me how to use the stick." She pulled on Barzan's gloves over the latex ones and took the tool, which ended with a clawlike attachment on the end, covered in rubber. It gave her some, but not a lot of, confidence.

  "Stand on the rubber mat and pull whatever you saw out one by one. You'll be fine… To be safe do it one-handed. Your right hand."

  Farthest from the heart…

  Which thudded furiously as she walked up to the recess, lay the Teflon sheets down and began slowly to collect the evidence.

  Pictured yet again young Luis Martin's torn body, the shivering creatures dying in the hotel lobby.

  Hated being distracted.

  Hated being up against an enemy she couldn't see.

  Holding her breath-though she didn't know why-she pulled out the overalls and hard hat. Then the gear bag. R. Galt was written in sloppy marker on the red canvas.

  Exhaling long.

  Finally she assembled and bagged the evidence.

  A crime scene technician from Queens had arrived with CS equipment suitcases in hand. Even though the scene was now vastly contaminated, Sachs dressed in the blue Tyvek jumpsuit and continued to run the scene like any other. She laid out the numbers, took pictures and walked the grid. Using Sommers's detector, she double-checked the lines and then quickly unbolted the Bennington cable and a square black plastic box that connected it to the main feeder line. Galt's wire ran to the steel girder of the hotel, which would carry the juice to energize the metal fixtures of the door handles, revolving doors and stair rails. She bagged everything she'd found, then took samples from where Galt had stood to mount the cable and where he'd attacked Joey Barzan.

  She looked again for the hot stick Galt had hit his fellow worker with but couldn't find it. Nor was there any sign of where he'd cut into any video feeds to use the school's or construction site's security cameras to look over the site of the attack, as Barzan had told her.

  After she'd finished bagging the evidence, she called Rhyme and gave him an update.

  "Get back here as soon as you can, Sachs. We need that evidence."

  "What'd Ron find?"

  "According to Lon, nothing spectacular. Hm. Wonder what's going on. He should be here by now." His impatience was obvious.

  "It'll just be a few minutes. I want to find that witness. Somebody having lunch apparently got a good look at Galt. I'm hoping he can tell us something specific."

  They disconnected and Sachs returned to the surface and found Nancy Simpson. The detective was in the hotel lobby, which was now largely empty. Sachs started for one of the revolving doors not sealed off with police tape but stopped. She turned and climbed through the shattered window.

  Simpson's hollow face revealed that she was still shaken. "Just talked to Bo. No idea where Galt got out of the system. With the power off he might've just walked down the subway tracks to Canal Street, got lost in Chinatown. Nobody knows."

  Sachs looked at whe
re blood and scorch marks stained the marble floors, outlining where the victims had been.

  "Final count?"

  "Five dead, looks like eleven injured, all seriously. Burns are mostly third degree."

  "You canvass?"

  "Yep. But nobody saw anything. Most of the guests who were here just vanished. They weren't even checking out." Simpson added that they had fled, with spouses, children, associates and suitcases in tow. The hotel staff had done nothing to stop them. Half the employees had left too, it seemed.

  "What about our witness?"

  "I'm trying to track him down. I found some people he was having lunch with. They said he saw Galt. That's why I'd really love to find him."

  "Who is he?"

  "His name's Sam Vetter. Was here from Scottsdale on business. His first trip to the city."

  A patrolman walked past. "Excuse me, I heard you mention the name Vetter?"

  "Right. Sam Vetter."

  "He came up to me in the lobby. Said he had some information about Galt."

  "Where is he?"

  "Oh, you didn't know?" the officer said. "He was one of the victims. Was in the revolving door. He's dead."

  Chapter 41

  AMELIA SACHS RETURNED with the evidence.

  Rhyme's eyes narrowed as she walked quickly into the townhouse. In her wake was a repulsive odor. Burned hair, burned rubber, burned flesh. Some crips believed they had an increased sense of smell because of their disability; Rhyme wasn't sure if this was true but in any case he had no problem detecting the stench.

  He looked over the evidence Sachs and a crime scene tech from Queens had carted in. The hungry itch to tackle the mysteries the clues might reveal filled him. As Sachs and Cooper laid it out, Rhyme asked, "ESU find where Galt got out of the tunnel?"

  "No sign of him. None at all." She looked around. "Where's Ron?"

  Rhyme said that the rookie still wasn't back. "I called, left a message. I haven't heard from him. The last he said he'd found Galt's motive but didn't go into it… What, Sachs?"