The Steel Kiss (Lincoln Rhyme 12)

"No, afraid not."

"Ah, well. I'll find something else to occupy your time. I think there are a few projects that aren't too boring."

"Well, boring or not, I'm happy to work on anything you have. And forgive the dangling modifier there."

He gave a chuckle. True, she'd just said that whether or not she was boring, she'd be happy to work on any project. Grammar, punctuation and syntax could be formidable opponents.

"Breakfast, Juliette?" Thom asked.

"I've eaten already. Thanks."

"Lincoln? What's it going to be?"

Rhyme was wheeling closer to the escalator unit. "I don't think any one piece would weigh more than a hundred pounds. Anybody could take it apart. But I suppose we should wait for--" His voice braked to a stop.

Thom was asking something once again.

Rhyme didn't hear a word.

"Lincoln?... What... Well, that's a fierce gaze. I was only asking what you wanted for breakfast."

He ignored the aide and wheeled closer yet to the scaffolding and examined the deadly access panel and, below it, the switch and servo motor operating the latch.

"What is the number one rule in engineering?" he whispered.

"I have no idea. What do you want for breakfast?"

He continued, rhetorically, "The answer is efficiency. Designs should have no more components--"

Archer finished his sentence, more or less: "--than are necessary to perform the intended function."

"Exactly!"

Thom said, "Fine, fine. Now. Pancakes, bagel, yogurt? All of the above?"

"Goddamn it." Though directed at himself, not his aide.

"What is it, Lincoln?" Archer asked.

He'd made a mistake. And nothing infuriated Lincoln Rhyme more than that. He pivoted and sped his chair forward to the nearest computer, on which he summoned the close-up pictures that Mel Cooper had taken of the interior of the escalator. Yes, he was right.

How the hell had he missed it?

In fact, he hadn't missed the critical fact at all. He'd noted, but unforgivably had not focused on, the very words he'd thought to himself: The switch wire ended in a plug inserted into one of the outlets on the side of the servo unit inside...

One of the outlets.

He explained now to Archer: "Look at the servo motor operating the latch. Right side."

"Ah," she said, a hint of disgust in her voice, as well. "It has two outlets."

"Right."

"We saw that. We looked right at it." Archer was shaking her head.

Rhyme scowled. "We sure did."

There was no reason to have a second outlet in the motor unless something--another switch, presumably--was plugged into it.