Logan had killed a number of people in his lengthy career as a professional. Most of them, if they were aware they were about to die, grew calm, as they understood the inevitability of what was about to happen. But Rhyme went even further. The criminalist now almost looked relieved. Perhaps that was what Logan saw in Rhyme's face: the symptoms of a terminal illness. Or maybe he'd just lost the will to live, given his condition. A fast death would be a blessing.
"Where's Galt's body?"
"The Burn--the boiler furnace at Algonquin Power. There's nothing left." Logan glanced at the laptop. Still all clear. He took out a length of Bennington medium-voltage cable and attached one end to the hot line in a nearby 220-volt outlet. He'd spent months learning all about juice. He felt as comfortable with it now as with the fine gears and springs of clocks and watches.
Logan felt in his pocket the weight of the remote control that would turn the power back on and send sufficient amperage into the criminalist to kill him instantly.
As he wound part of the cable around Rhyme's arm, the man said, "But if you bugged the generator you must've heard what we were saying before. We know Raymond Galt isn't the real perp, that he was set up. And we know that Andi Jessen wanted to kill Sam Vetter and Larry Fishbein. Whether or not it was her brother who rigged the traps or you, she'll still get collared and . . ."
Logan did no more than glance at Rhyme, on whose face appeared a look of both understanding and complete resignation. "But that's not what this is about, is it? That's not what this is about at all."
"No, Lincoln. It's not."
Chapter 77
A BIRD NOT on, but above, a wire.
Dangling in the air in the deepest subbasement of the convention center, Charlie Sommers was in an improvised sling exactly two feet away from a line carrying 138,000 volts, swathed in red insulation.
If electricity were water, the pressure in the cable in front of him would be like that at the bottom of the sea, millions of pounds per square inch, just waiting for any excuse to crush the submarine into a flat, bloody strip of metal.
The main line, suspended on insulated glass supports, was ten feet off the ground running from the wall across the basement to the convention center's own substation, at the far end of the dim space.
Because he couldn't touch both the bare wire and anything connected to the ground at the same time, he'd improvised a sling from fire hose, which he'd tied to a catwalk above the high-voltage cable. Using all his strength, he'd shimmied down the hose and had managed to slide into the crux of the sling. He fervently hoped that fire hoses were made exclusively of rubber and canvas; if the hose was, for some reason, reinforced with metal strands, then in a few minutes he would become a major player in a phase-to-ground fault and would turn into vapor.
Around his neck was a length of 1/0-gauge cable--what he'd borrowed from the booth next to Algonquin's. With his Swiss army knife Sommers was slowly stripping away the dark red insulation on it. When he was finished he would similarly strip away the protective coating from the high-voltage line, exposing the aluminum strands. And, with his unprotected hands, he'd join the two wires.
Then one of two things would happen. Either:
Nothing.
Or, a phase-to-ground fault . . . and vapor.
If the case of the former, he would then carefully extend the exposed end of the wire and touch it to a nearby return source--some iron girders connected to the convention center's foundation. The result would be a spectacular short that would blow the breakers in the center's power plant.
As for him, Charlie Sommers himself wouldn't be grounded, but voltage that high would produce a huge arc flash, which could easily burn him to death.
Knowing now that the deadline was meaningless and that Randall and Andi Jessen might trip the switchgear at any moment, he worked feverishly, slicing the bloodred insulation off the cable. The curled strips of dielectric fell to the floor beneath him and Sommers couldn't help but think they were like petals falling from dying roses in a funeral home after the mourners had returned home.
Chapter 78
RICHARD LOGAN WATCHED Lincoln Rhyme gazing out one of the large windows of the town house--in the direction of the East River. Somewhere out there the gray and red towers of Algonquin Consolidated Power presided over the grim riverfront. The smokestacks weren't visible from here but Logan supposed that on a cold day Rhyme could see the billowing exhaust rising over the skyline.
Shaking his head, the criminalist whispered, "Andi Jessen didn't hire you at all."
"No."
"She's the target, isn't she? You're setting her up."
"That's right."
Rhyme nodded at the gear bag at Logan's feet. "There's evidence in there implicating her and her brother. You're going to plant it here, as if Andi and Randall had killed me too. Just like you've been planting evidence all along. The trace from City Hall, the blond hair, the Greek food. You were hired by somebody to make it look like Andi was using Ray Galt to kill Sam Vetter and Larry Fishbein. . . . Why them?"
"It wasn't them particularly. The victims could have been anybody from the alternative energy conference at the Battery Park Hotel or from Fishbein's accounting firm. Anybody there might have information about some scam or another Andi Jessen wanted to cover up."
"Even though they didn't have any information."
"No. Nothing to do with Algonquin or Andi at all."