The Burning Wire

gotten at Algonquin and kept the ones that corresponded to the names they’d selected, gave the others to McDaniel.
    “This Sommers, you trust him?” Rhyme asked.
    “Yes. He checked out. And he gave me this.” She whipped out a small black electronic device and pointed it toward a wire near Rhyme. She pressed a button and read a screen. “Hm. Two hundred forty volts.”
    “And how about me, Sachs? Am I fully charged?”
    She laughed, playfully aimed it at him. Then lifted what he thought was a seductive eyebrow his way. Her phone buzzed and she glanced at the screen, answered. She had a brief conversation and hung up. “That was Bob Cavanaugh, the Operations vice president. He was the one checking out terrorist connections at the company branches around the region. No evidence of ecoterror groups threatening Algonquin or attacking their power plants. But there was a report of infiltration in one of the company’s main Philadelphia substations. White male in his forties got inside. Nobody knows who he was or what he was doing there. No security tape and he got away before the police arrived. This was last week.”
    Race, sex and age . . . “That’s our boy. But what did he want?”
    “No other intrusions in the company’s facilities.”
    Was the perp’s mission to get information about the grid, the security in substations? Rhyme could only speculate and, accordingly, filed the incident away for the time being.
    McDaniel got a phone call. He stared absently at the evidence chart whiteboards, then disconnected. “T and C’s had more chatter about the Justice For terrorist group.”
    “What?” Rhyme asked urgently.
    “Nothing big. But one thing interesting: They’re using code words that’ve been used in the past for large-scale weapons. ‘Paper and supplies’ were the ones our algorithms isolated.”
    He explained that underground cells often did this. An attack in France was averted recently when chatter among known negatives included the words “ gâteau ,” “ farine ” and “ beurre .” French for “cake,” “flour” and “butter.” They really referred to a bomb and its ingredients: explosives and detonator.
    “The Mossad’s reported that Hezbollah cells sometimes use ‘office supplies’ or ‘party supplies’ for missiles or high explosives. Now, we also think that two people in addition to Rahman have been involved. Man and a woman, the computer’s telling us.”
    Rhyme asked, “Have you told Fred?”
    “Good idea.” McDaniel pulled out his BlackBerry and made a speakerphone call.
    “Fred, it’s Tucker. You’re on speaker at Rhyme’s. You had any luck?”
    “My CI’s on it. Following up on some leads.”
    “Following up? Nothing more concrete than that?”
    A pause. Dellray said, “I don’t have anything more. Not yet.”
    “Well, T and C’s found a few things.” He updatedthe agent on the code words and the fact that a man and woman were likely involved.
    Dellray said he’d report that to his contact.
    McDaniel asked, “So he was willing to work within the budget?”
    “That’s right.”
    “I knew he would. These people’ll take advantage of you if you let them, Fred. That’s the way CIs work.”
    “Happens,” Dellray said somberly.
    “Stay in touch.” McDaniel disconnected, stretched. “This damn cloud zone. We’re not hoovering up nearly as much as we’d like.”
    Hoovering?
    Sellitto tapped the stack of personnel files from Algonquin. “I’ll go downtown. Get people started on them. Brother, it’s going to be a long night.” The time was now eleven-ten.
    It was , Rhyme reflected. For him too. Particularly because there wasn’t much for him to do at this point but wait.
    Oh, how he hated waiting.
    Eyes straying to the skimpy evidence boards, he thought: We’re moving too damn slow.
    And here we are, trying to find a perp who attacks with the speed of light.
    UNSUB PROFILE
----
    —Male.
    —40’s.
    —Probably white.
    —Possibly glasses and cap.
    —Possibly with short, blond hair.
    —Dark blue overalls, similar to those worn by Algonquin workers.
    —Knows electrical systems very well.
    —Boot print suggests no physical condition affecting posture or gait.
    —Possibly same person who stole 75 feet of similar Bennington cable and 12 split bolts. More attacks in mind? Access to Algonquin warehouse where theft occurred with key.
    —Likely he is Algonquin employee or has contact with one.
    —Terrorist connection? Relation to