The Burning Wire

shadows that had a vaguely human form.
    They turned out to be only shadows that had a vaguely human form.
    He asked, “You see anything bolted to the railings the elevator rides on?”
    She focused again on her search. “No, nothing on the rails. But . . . there’s a piece of that Bennington cable bolted to the wall. I’m—”
    “Test the voltage first!”
    “Was just going to say that.”
    “Ah, a born electrician.”
    “No way. After this, I’m not even going to change my car batteries.” She swept with the detector. “It’s zero.”
    “Good. Where does the line go?”
    “On one end, to a bus bar that’s dangling in the shaft. It’s resting against the bottom of the elevator car. It’s scorched where it’s made contact. The other end goes to a thick cable that runs into a beige panel on the wall, like a big medicine cabinet. The Bennington wire is connected to a main line with one of those remote switches like at the last scene.”
    He explained exactly how to dismantle the cables and what to look for. Before she removed any evidence, though, Sachs laid the numbers and photographed the scene. Then she thanked Sommers and told him that was all she needed for now. They disconnected and she walked the grid, including the entrance and exit routes—which turned out to be in all likelihood a door nearby that led to the alley. It had a flimsy lock and had recently been jimmied open. She took pictures of this too.
    She was about to go upstairs and join Pulaski when she paused.
    Four victims here in the elevator.
    Sam Vetter and four others dead at the hotel, a number in the hospital. Luis Martin.
    And fear throughout the city, fear of this invisible killer.
    In her imagination she heard Rhyme say, “You have to become him.”
    Sachs rested the evidence by the stairs and returned to the base of the elevator shaft.
    I’m him, I’m Raymond Galt. . . .
    Sachs had trouble summoning the fanatic, the crusader, since that emotion didn’t jibe, in her mind, with the extreme calculation that the man had shown so far. Anybody else would just have taken a shot at Andi Jessen or firebombed the Queens plant. ButGalt was going to these precise, elaborate lengths to use a very complicated weapon to kill.
    What did it mean?
    I’m him. . . .
    I’m Galt.
    Then her mind went still and up bubbled the answer: I don’t care about motive. I don’t care why I’m doing this. None of that matters. All that’s important is to focus on technique, like focusing on making the most perfect splice or switch or connection I can to cause the most harm.
    That’s the center of my universe.
    I’ve become addicted to the process, addicted to the juice. . . .
    And with that thought came another: It’s all about angles. He had to get . . . I have to get the bus bar in just the right position to kiss the floor of the elevator car when it’s near the lobby but not yet there.
    Which means I have to watch the elevator in operation from all different perspectives down here to make sure the counterweight, the gears, the motor, the cables of the elevator don’t knock aside the bus bar or otherwise interfere with the wire.
    I have to study the shaft from all angles. I have to.
    On her hands and knees Sachs made a circuit of the filthy basement all around the base of the shaft—anywhere that Galt could have seen the cable and bar and contacts. She found no footprints, no fingerprints. But she did find places where the ground had been recently disturbed, and it was not unreasonable to think that he’d crouched there to examine his deadly handiwork.
    She took samples from ten locations and deposited them into separate evidence bags, marking them according to positions of the compass: “10' away, northwest.” “7' away, south.” She then gathered allthe other evidence and climbed painfully on her arthritic legs to the lobby.
    Joining Pulaski, Sachs looked into the interior of the elevator. It wasn’t badly damaged. There were some smoke marks—accompanied by that terrible smell. She simply couldn’t imagine what it would have been like to be riding in that car and suddenly have thirteen thousand volts race through your body. At least, she supposed, the vics would have felt nothing after the first few seconds.
    She saw that he’d laid the numbers and taken pictures. “You find anything?”
    “No. I searched the car too. But the panel hadn’t been opened recently.”
    “He rigged everything from downstairs. And