The Burning Wire

anything about the investigation?”
    “No, ma’am, he didn’t. I think all he cared about was getting the letter to Ms. Jessen right away. He couldn’t think of another way to do it except to stop an employee.”
    Rhyme had no more questions for him. He glanced to Sellitto, who shook his head.
    They thanked him, and Wahl moved off camera. Jessen looked up, nodding at somebody who’d come into the doorway. Then back to the camera for the video conference. “Gary Noble and I are meeting with the mayor. Then I’m doing a press conference. I’ll make that personal appeal to Galt. Do you think that’ll work?”
    No, Rhyme didn’t think it would work. But he said, “Anything you can do—even if it just buys us some time.”
    After they disconnected the call, Sellitto asked, “What wasn’t Wahl telling us?”
    “He got scared. Galt threatened him. He probably gave up some information. I’m not too worried. He was out of the loop pretty much. But whatever he spilled, frankly, we can’t worry about that now.”
    At that moment the doorbell rang. It was Tucker McDaniel and the Kid.
    Rhyme was surprised. The FBI agent would have known there was a pending press conference and yet here he was, not leveraging his way onto the podium. He’d yielded to Homeland Security so he could bring evidence to Rhyme in person.
    The ASAC’s stock rose slightly once more.
    After being briefed about Galt and his motive, the agent asked Pulaski, “And in his apartment you found no reference to Justice For or Rahman? Terrorist cells?”
    “No, nothing.”
    The agent looked disappointed but said, “Still, that doesn’t contradict a symbiosis construct.”
    “Which is?” Rhyme asked.
    “A traditional terror operation using a front man, with mutually aligned goals. They may not even like each other but they want the same thing in the end. An important aspect is that the professional terror cell keeps themselves completely isolated from the primary negative actor. And all communications is—”
    “Cloud?” Rhyme asked, the agent’s index dipping a bit now.
    “Exactly. They have to minimize any contact. Two different agendas. They want societal destruction. He wants revenge.” McDaniel nodded at the profile on the whiteboard. “What Parker Kincaid was saying. Galt didn’t use pronouns—didn’t want to give away any clue that he was working with somebody else.”
    “Eco or political/religious?”
    “Could be either.”
    It was hard to picture al-Qaida or the Taliban in league with an unstable employee bent on revenge because his company had given him cancer. Butan ecoterror group made some sense. They’d need somebody to help them get into the system. Rhyme would find it more credible, though, if there was some evidence to support that supposition.
    McDaniel added that he’d heard from the warrants people, who’d gotten the okay for T and C teams to go through Galt’s email and social networking accounts. Galt had emailed and posted comments in a number of places about his cancer and its relationship to high-power lines. But nothing in the hundreds of pages he’d written had given them any clues to where he was or what he might have in store.
    Rhyme was growing impatient at the speculation. “I’d like to see the note, Tucker.”
    “Sure.” The ASAC gestured at the Kid.
    Please, be chock-full of trace. Something helpful.
    In sixty seconds they were looking at the second demand letter.
    To Andi Jessen, CEO and Algonquin Consolidated Power and Light:
    You’ve made the decision to ignore my earlier request and that’s not acceptable. You could have responded to that reasonable request for a brownout but you didn’t, YOU have raised the stakes, no one else has. Your callousness and greed lead to the deaths this afternoon. You MUST show the people they do not need the drug that you’ve addicted them to. They can return to a PURER way of life. They don’t think they can but they can be shown the way. You will cease all high voltage DC transmission to the other North American Interconnections for one hour starting at 6 p.m. this evening. This is non-negotiable .
    Cooper began his analysis of the letter. Ten minutes later he said, “There’s nothing new, Lincoln. Same paper, same pen. Unsourceable. As far as trace goes, more jet fuel. That’s about it.”
    “Shit.” Like opening a beautifully wrapped box on Christmas morning and finding it empty.
    Rhyme noticed Pulaski in the corner. His head, with the