The Burning Wire (Lincoln Rhyme 9)

Teams of agents and NYPD cops were deployed throughout the city, covering the convention center near the Hudson River, a parade downtown in Battery Park and this gathering in Central Park.

McDaniel's theory was that they'd misread the connection among Richard Logan, Algonquin Consolidated Power and JFTE, but it was likely that the group could have formed an alliance with, possibly, an Islamic fundamentalist cell.

A symbiotic construct.

A phrase that would give the agents plenty of ammunition for the next few months when they were out for drinks.

Conradt's own feeling, from years on the street, was that JFTE may have existed but it was just a bunch of cranks, of no threat to anybody. He strolled around casually, but all the while he was looking for people who fit the profile. Watching where their arms were in relation to their bodies, watching for certain types of backpacks, watching for a gait that might reveal if they were carrying a weapon or an IED. Watching for pale jaws that suggested a newly shaved beard, or a woman's absent touch to her hair, possibly indicating her ill ease at being in public without a hijab for the first time since she'd reached adolescence.

And always: watching the eyes.

So far Conradt had seen some devout eyes and oblivious eyes and curious eyes.

But none that suggested they were in the head of a man or woman who wanted to murder a large number of people in the name of a deity. Or in the name of whales or trees or spotted owls. He circulated for a while and finally eased up beside his partner, an unsmiling thirty-five-year-old, dressed in a long peasant skirt and a blouse as baggy and concealing as Conradt's shirt.

"Anything?"

A pointless question because she would have called him--and every other of the multitude of law enforcers here tonight--if she'd spotted "anything."

A shake of the head.

Pointless questions weren't worth answering aloud, in Barb's opinion.

Bar-bar-a, he corrected himself. As she'd corrected him when they first started working together.

"Are they here yet?" Conradt nodded at the stage set up at the south end of the Sheep Meadow, referring to the speakers scheduled to begin at six-thirty: the two senators who'd flown into the city from Washington. They'd been working with the President on environmental issues, sponsoring legislation that made the green libbers happy and half the corporations in America mad enough to wring their necks over.

A concert would follow. He couldn't decide if most people were here for the music or the speeches. With this crowd, it was probably evenly divided.

"Just got here," Barbara said.

They both scanned for a while. Then Conradt said, "That acronym's weird. Juf-tee. They should just call it JFTE."

"Juf-tee's not an acronym."

"What do you mean?"

Barbara explained, "By definition, to be an acronym, the letters themselves have to spell an actual word."

"In English?"

She gave what he thought was a condescending sigh. "Well, in an English-speaking country. Obviously."

"So NFL isn't an acronym?"

"No, that's initials. ARC--American Resource Council. That's an acronym."

Conradt thought: Barbara is a . . .

"How about BIC?" he asked.

"I suppose. I don't know about brand names. What does it stand for?"

"I forget."

Their radios clattered simultaneously and they cocked their heads. "Be advised, the visitors are at the stage. Repeat, the visitors are at the stage."

The visitors--a euphemism for the senators.