The Burning Wire (Lincoln Rhyme 9)

--Dark green cotton heavy-duty clothing fiber.

--Containing trace of alternative jet fuel.

--Attack on military base?

--Dark brown cotton heavy-duty clothing fiber.

--Containing trace of diesel fuel.

--Containing additional Chinese herbs.

PROFILE

* * *

--Identified as Raymond Galt, 40, single, living in Manhattan, 227 Suffolk St.

--Terrorist connection? Relation to Justice For the Earth? Suspected ecoterror group. No profile in any U.S. or international database. New? Underground? Individual named Rahman involved. Also Johnston. Coded references to monetary disbursements, personnel movements and something "big."

--Algonquin security breach in Philadelphia might be related.

--SIGINT hits: code word reference to weapons, "paper and supplies" (guns, explosives?).

--Personnel include man and woman.

--Galt's relationship unknown.

--Cancer patient; presence of vinblastine and prednisone in significant quantities, traces of etoposide. Leukemia.

--Galt is armed with military 1911 Colt .45.

--Masquerading as maintenance man in dark brown overalls. Dark green, as well?

--Wearing tan leather gloves.

Cooper organized the evidence, and marked chain of custody cards, while Sachs was on the phone with Homeland Security about the risk to the ports in New York and New Jersey.

Rhyme and Susan Stringer found themselves alone. As he stared at the chart he was aware that the woman was looking him over closely. Uneasy, he turned toward her, trying to figure out how to get her to leave. She'd come, she'd helped, she'd met the celebrity crip. Time to get on with things.

She asked, "You're C4, right?"

This meant his injury was at the fourth cervical vertebra, four bones down in his spine from the base of the skull.

"Yes, though I've got a little motion in my hands. No sensation."

Technically his was a "complete" injury, meaning that he'd lost all sensory function below the site of the injury ("incomplete" patients can have considerable movement). But the hum

an body is quirky, and a few electric impulses escaped over the barricade. The wiring was faulty but not wholly severed.

"You're in good shape," she said. "Musclewise."

Eyes back on the whiteboards, he said absently, "I do range-of-motion exercises every day and functional electric stimulation to keep the tone up."

Rhyme had to admit that he enjoyed the exercise. He explained that he worked out on a treadmill and stationary bike. The equipment moved him, not the other way around, but it still built up muscles and seemed to have been responsible for the recent movement he'd regained in his right hand, whereas after the accident only his left ring finger worked.

He was in better shape now than before the injury.

He told her this and he could see from her face that she understood; she flexed. "I'd ask you to arm wrestle, but . . ."