The Burning Wire

the trace and attaching chain-of-custody cards. Then he laid the numbers and photographed the entire site.
    When he was finished, Pulaski looked up the dim hallway to the front door and felt the uneasiness return. He started toward the door, noting again that both the knob and the door itself were metal. What’s the problem? he asked himself angrily. You opened it to get inside an hour ago. Leaving on the latex exam gloves, he tentatively reached out and pulled the door open, then, with relief, he stepped outside.
    Two NYPD cops and an FBI agent were nearby. Pulaski nodded a greeting.
    “You hear?” the agent asked.
    Pulaski paused in the doorway of the apartment, then stepped farther away from the steel door. “About the attack? Yeah. I heard he got away. I don’t know any details.”
    “He killed five people. Would’ve been more but your partner saved a lot of them.”
    “Partner?”
    “That woman detective. Amelia Sachs. Bunch were injured. Third-degree burns.”
    Pulaski shook his head. “That’s tough. That same way, the arc flash?”
    “I don’t know. He electrocuted them, though. That’s all I heard.”
    “Jesus.” Pulaski looked around the street. He’d never noticed how much metal there was on a typical residential block. A creepy feeling was flooding over him, the paranoia. There were metal posts and bars and rods everywhere, it seemed. Fire escapes,vents, pipes going into the ground, those metal sheets covering under-sidewalk elevators. Any one of them could be energized enough to send a charge right through you or to explode in a shower of metal shrapnel.
    Killed five people . .  .
    Third-degree burns .
    “You okay there, Officer?”
    Pulaski gave a reflexive laugh. “Yeah.” He wanted to explain his fear, but of course he didn’t. “Any leads to Galt?”
    “No. He’s gone.”
    “Well, I gotta get this back to Lincoln Rhyme.”
    “Find anything?”
    “Yeah. Galt’s definitely the one. But I couldn’t find anything about where he is now. Or what he’s got planned next.”
    The FBI agent asked, “Who’s going to do surveillance?” He nodded at the apartment. “You want to leave some of your people here?”
    The implication being that the feds were perfectly happy to come along for the bust but since Galt wasn’t here and probably wouldn’t return—he must’ve heard on the news that they’d identified him—they didn’t want to bother leaving their people on guard detail.
    “That’s not my call,” the young officer said. He radioed Lon Sellitto and told him what he’d found. The lieutenant would arrange for two NYPD officers to remain on site, though hidden, until an official undercover surveillance team could be put together, just in case Galt tried to sneak back.
    Pulaski then walked around the corner and into the deserted alleyway behind the building. He popped the trunk and loaded the evidence inside.
    He slammed it, and looked around uneasily.
    At all the metal, surrounded by metal.
    Goddamn it, stop thinking about that! He got into the driver’s seat and started to insert the key into the steering column. Then he hesitated. The car had been parked here, up the alley, out of sight of the apartment in case Galt did come back. If the perp was still free, was there a chance he’d returned and rigged some kind of a trap on Pulaski’s car?
    No, too far-fetched.
    Pulaski grimaced. He started the car and put it in reverse.
    His phone buzzed. He glanced at the screen. It was his wife, Jenny. He debated. No, he’d call her later. He slipped the phone away.
    Glancing out the window he saw an electrical service panel on the side of a building, three large wires running from it. Shivering at the sight, Pulaski gripped the key and turned it. The starter gave that huge grinding sound when the engine’s already running. In panic, believing that he was being electrocuted, the young cop grabbed the door handle and yanked it open. His foot slipped off the brake and landed on the accelerator. The Crown Victoria screeched backward, tires skidding. He slammed on the brake.
    But not before there was a sickening thud and a scream and he caught a glimpse of a middle-aged man who’d been crossing the alley, carting a load of groceries. The pedestrian flew into the wall and collapsed on the cobblestones, blood streaming from his head.

Chapter 40
    AMELIA SACHS WAS taking stock of Joey Barzan.
    “How you doing?”
    “Yeah. I guess.”
    She wasn’t sure what that meant and