The burning wire

"He did? Why didn't you tell me?"

"You said you didn't want to be disturbed while you were talking with Kathryn."

"Well, tell me now."

"He'll call back. Something about a case. A problem."

"Really?" The Watchmaker case receded somewhat at this news. Rhyme understood that there was another source of his bad mood: boredom. He'd just finished analyzing the evidence for a complicated organized crime case and was facing several weeks with little to do. So he was buoyed by the thought of another job. Like Sachs's craving for speed, Rhyme needed problems, challenges, input. One of the difficulties with a severe disability that few people focus on is the absence of anything new. The same settings, the same people, the same activities… and the same platitudes, the same empty reassurances, the same reports from unemotional doctors.

What had saved his life after his injury-literally, since he'd been considering assisted suicide-were his tentative steps back into his prior passion: using science to solve crimes.

You could never be bored when you confronted mystery.

Thom persisted, "Are you sure you're up for it? You're looking a little pale."

"Haven't been to the beach lately, you know."

"All right. Just checking. Oh, and Arlen Kopeski is coming by later. When do you want to see him?"

The name sounded familiar but it left a vaguely troubling flavor in his mouth. "Who?"

"He's with that disability rights group. It's about that award you're being given."

"Today?" Rhyme had a fuzzy recollection of some phone calls. If it wasn't about a case, he rarely paid much attention to the noise around him.

"You said today. You said you'd meet with him."

"Oh, I really need an award. What am I going to do with it? Paperweight? Does anybody you know ever use paperweights? Have you ever used a paperweight?"

"Lincoln, it's being given to you for inspiring young people with disabilities."

"Nobody inspired me when I was young. And I turned out all right." Which wasn't completely true-the inspiration part-but Rhyme grew petty whenever distractions loomed, especially distractions involving visitors.

"A half hour."

"Is a half hour I don't have."

"Too late. He's already in town."

Sometimes it was impossible to win against the aide.

"We'll see."

"Kopeski's not going to come here and cool his heels like some courtier waiting for an audience with the king."

Rhyme liked that metaphor.

But then all thoughts of awards, and royalty, vanished as Rhyme's phone blared and Detective Lieutenant Lon Sellitto's number showed up on caller ID.

Rhyme used a working finger on his right hand to answer. "Lon."

"Linc, listen, here's the thing." He was harried and, to judge from the surround-sound acoustics piping through the speaker, apparently driving somewhere quickly. "We may have a terrorist situation going on."

"Situation? That's not very specific."

"Okay, how's this? Somebody fucked with the power company, shot a five-thousand-degree spark at a Metro bus and shut down the electric grid for six square blocks south of Lincoln Center. That specific enough for you?"

Chapter 4

THE ENTOURAGE ARRIVED from downtown.

Homeland Security's representative was a typically young but senior officer, probably born and bred among the country clubs of Co

The Bureau was here too, of course, in the incarnation of a special agent whom Rhyme and Sellitto worked with frequently: Fred Dellray. FBI founder J. Edgar Hoover would have been dismayed at the African-American agent, only partly because his roots were clearly not in New England; rather, the consternation would come from the agent's lack of "Ninth Street Style," a reference to FBI headquarters in Washington, D.C. Dellray do

Dellray was accompanied by his newly named boss-assistant special agent in charge of the New York office of the FBI, Tucker McDaniel, who'd begun his career in Washington, then taken assignments in the Middle East and South Asia. The ASAC was compactly built with thick dark hair and a swarthy complexion, though with bright blue eyes that focused on you as if you were lying when you said, "Hi."

It was a helpful expression for a law enforcement agent and one that Rhyme affected himself as the occasion merited.

The NYPD's chief presence was stout Lon Sellitto, in a gray suit and, unusual for him, powder blue shirt. The tie-splotchy by design, not spillage-was the only unwrinkled article of clothing swathing the man. Probably a birthday present from live-in girlfriend Rachel or his son. The Major Cases detective was backed up by Sachs and Ron Pulaski, a blond, eternally youthful officer from Patrol, who was officially attached to Sellitto, but who unofficially worked mostly with Rhyme and Sachs on the crime scene side of investigations. Pulaski was in a standard dark blue NYPD uniform, T-shirt visible in the V at his throat.

Both of the feds, McDaniel and Noble, had heard about Rhyme, of course, but neither had met him and they exuded various degrees of surprise, sympathy and discomfort seeing the paralyzed forensic consultant, who tooled around the lab deftly in his wheelchair. The novelty and uneasiness soon wore off, though, as they usually did with all but the most ingratiating guests, and soon they were struck by the more bizarre presence here: a wainscoted, crown-molded parlor chockablock with equipment that a crime scene unit in a medium-sized town might envy.

After introductions, Noble took the point position, Homeland Security carting the bigger umbrella.

"Mr. Rhyme-"

"Lincoln," he corrected. Rhyme grew irritated when anyone deferred to him, and he considered the use of his surname a subtle way of patting him on the head and saying, Poor thing; sorry you're confined to a wheelchair for the rest of your life. So we'll be extra-special polite.

Sachs caught the weight behind his correction and rolled her eyes in a gentle arc. Rhyme tried not to smile.

"Sure, Lincoln, then." Noble cleared his throat. "Here's the scenario. What do you know about the grid-the electricity grid?"

"Not much," Rhyme admitted. He'd studied science in college but never paid much attention to electricity, other than electromagnetics' appearance in physics as one of the four fundamental forces in nature, along with gravity and the weak and the strong nuclear forces. But that was academic. On a practical level Rhyme's main interest in electricity involved making sure enough of it got pumped into the townhouse to power the equipment in his lab here. It was extremely thirsty and he'd twice had to have the place rewired to bring in additional amperage to support the load.

Rhyme was very aware too that he was alive and functioning now solely because of electricity: the ventilator that had kept oxygen pumping through his lungs right after the accident and now the batteries in his wheelchair and the current controlled by the touchpad and voice-activated ECU, his environmental control unit. The computer too, of course.

He wouldn't have had much of a life without wires. Probably no life at all.