The Burning Wire (Lincoln Rhyme 9)

II

THE PATH OF LEAST RESISTANCE

"Someday, man will harness the rise and fall of the tides, imprison the power of the sun, and release atomic power."

--THOMAS ALVA EDISON,

ON THE FUTURE OF

PRODUCING ELECTRICITY

Chapter 25

EIGHT A.M.

Low morning light poured into the town house. Lincoln Rhyme blinked and maneuvered out of the blinding stream as he steered his Storm Arrow wheelchair out of the small elevator that connected his bedroom with the lab below.

Sachs, Mel Cooper and Lon Sellitto had assembled an hour earlier.

Sellitto was on the phone and said, "Okay, got it." He crossed through another name. He hung up. Rhyme couldn't tell if he'd changed clothes. Maybe he'd slept in the den or downstairs bedroom. Cooper had been home, at least for a time. And Sachs had slept beside Rhyme--for a portion of the night. She was up at five-thirty to keep reviewing employee files and narrowing the list of suspects.

"Where are we?" Rhyme now asked.

Sellitto muttered, "Just talked to McDaniel. They've got six and we've got six."

"You mean we're down to twelve suspects? Let's--"

"Uhm, no, Linc. We've eliminated twelve."

Sachs said, "The problem is that a lot of the employees on the list are senior. They didn't put their early careers on their resumes or all of the continuing education computer courses. We have to do a lot of digging to find out if they had the skill to manipulate the grid and rig the device."

"Where the hell's the DNA?" Rhyme snapped.

"Shouldn't be long," Cooper said. "They're expediting it."

"Expediting," was Rhyme's sour, muttered response. The new tests generally could be done in a day or two, unlike the old RFPL tests, which could take a week. He didn't understand why the results weren't back already.

"And nothing more about Justice For?"

Sellitto said, "Our people've been through all their files. McDaniel's too. And Homeland Security and ATF and Interpol. Nothing on them or Rahman. Zip. Fucking creepy, that cloud zone thing. Sounds like something out of a Stephen King novel."

Rhyme started to call the lab running the DNA analysis but just as he flicked a finger to the touch pad to make a call, the phone buzzed. He lifted an eyebrow and instantly hit ANSWER CALL.

"Kathryn. Morning. You're up early." It was 5 a.m. in California.

"A bit."

"Anything more?"

"Logan was spotted again--near where he'd been seen before. Now, I just talked to Arturo Diaz."

The law enforcer was up early too. A good sign.

"His boss is on the case now. The one I mentioned. Rodolfo Luna."

Luna was, it turned out, very senior indeed: the second in command of the Mexican Ministerial Federal Police, the equivalent of the FBI. Though burdened with the overwhelming task of running drug enforcement operations--and rooting out corruption in government agencies themselves--Luna had eagerly taken over the chance to apprehend the Watchmaker, Dance explained. A threat of another killing in Mexico wasn't much news, and hardly required someone as high up as Luna, but he was ambitious and he'd be thinking that his cooperation with the NYPD would pay dividends with Mexico's tenuous allies to the north.

"He's larger than life. Drives around in his own Lexus SUV, carries two guns . . . a real cowboy sort."