Guarantee, my ass . . .
One hundred thousand dollars . . . He should have known that something was going on when Brent had insisted on that huge sum, considering the shabby suit and threadbare argyle socks.
Dellray wondered whether the man had decided to settle in the Caribbean or South America on his windfall.
Chapter 46
"WE'VE HAD ANOTHER demand."
Grim Andi Jessen was staring out of Rhyme's flat-screen monitor, on a video conference call. Her blond hair stiff, oversprayed. Or perhaps she'd spent the night in the office and hadn't showered that morning.
"Another one?" Rhyme glanced at Lon Sellitto, Cooper and Sachs, all frozen in various places and attitudes around the lab.
The big detective tossed down half the muffin that he'd snagged from a plate Thom had brought in. "We just had an attack, and he's hitting us again?"
"He wasn't happy we ignored him, I suppose," Jessen said brittlely.
"What does he want?" Sachs asked, at the same time as Rhyme said, "I'd like the note here. ASAP."
Jessen answered Rhyme first. "I gave it to Agent McDaniel. It's on its way to you now."
"What's the deadline?"
"Six p.m."
"Today?"
"Yes."
"Jesus," Sellitto muttered. "Two hours."
"And the demand?" Sachs repeated.
"He wants us to stop all the DC--the direct current--transmission to the other North American grids for an hour, starting at six. If we don't he'll kill more people."
Rhyme asked, "What does that mean?"
"Our grid is the Northeastern Interconnection, and Algonquin's the big energy producer in it. If a power company in another grid needs supply, we sell it to them. If they're more than five hundred miles away, we use DC transmission, not AC. It's more cost effective. Usually it goes to smaller companies in rural areas."
"What's the, you know, significance of the demand?" Sellitto asked.
"I don't know why he's asking. It doesn't make any sense to me. Maybe his point is reducing cancer risk to people near the transmission lines. But I'd guess fewer than a thousand people in North America live near DC lines."
Rhyme said, "Galt isn't necessarily behaving rationally."
"True."
"Can you do it? Meet his demand?"
"No, we can't. It's impossible. It's just like before, with the grid in New York City, except worse. It would cut out service to thousands of small towns around the country. And there are direct feeds into military bases and research facilities. Homeland Security's saying to shut it down would be a national security risk. The Defense Department concurs."
Rhyme added, "And presumably you'd be losing millions of dollars."
A pause. "Yes. We would. We'd be in breach of hundreds of contracts. It would be a disaster for the company. But, anyway, the argument about complying is moot. We physically couldn't do this in the time he's given us. You don't just flip a wall switch with seven hundred thousand volts."
"All right," Rhyme said. "How did you get the note?"
"Galt gave it to one of our employees."