The Burning Wire (28 page)

Chapter 52

SUSAN STRINGER HAD
a pretty, heart-shaped face and a singsongy voice. Two adjectives stood out: pleasant and sweet.

Her eyes were quick, though, and lips taut, even when smiling, as befit somebody who had to maneuver her way through the streets of New York using only the power of her arms.

"An accessible townhouse on the Upper West Side. That's a rarity."

Rhyme gave her a smile in return--he was reserved. He had work to do, and very little of it involved witnesses; his comments to Sachs earlier about his interviewing Susan Stringer were, of course, facetious.

Still, she'd nearly been killed by Ray Galt--in a particularly horrible way--and might have some helpful information. And if, as Sachs had reported, she wanted to meet him in the process, he could live with that.

She nodded at Thom Reston with a knowing look about the importance of--and burdens upon--caregivers. He asked if there was anything she wanted and she said no. "I can't stay long. It's late and I'm not feeling too well." Her face had a hollow look; she'd undoubtedly be thinking of the terrible moments in the elevator. She wheeled closer to Rhyme. Susan's arms clearly worked fine; she was a paraplegic and would probably have suffered a thoracic injury, in her mid or upper back.

"No burns?" Rhyme asked.

"No. I didn't get a shock. The only problem was smoke--from the . . . from the men in the elevator with me. One caught fire." The last sentence was a whisper.

"What happened?" Sachs asked.

A stoic look. "We were near the ground floor when the elevator stopped suddenly. The lights went out, except for the emergency light. One of the businessmen behind me reached for the panel to hit the
HELP
button. As soon as he touched it he just started moaning and dancing around."

She coughed. Cleared her throat. "It was terrible. He couldn't let go of the panel. His friend grabbed him or he brushed against him. It was like a chain reaction. They just kept jerking around. And one of them caught fire. His hair . . . the smoke, the smell." Susan was whispering now. "Horrible. Just horrible. They were dying, right around me, they were dying. I was screaming. I realized it was some electrical problem and I didn't want to touch the metal hand rim of the chair or the metal door frame. I just sat there."

Susan shuddered. Then repeated, "I just sat there. Then the car moved down the last few feet and the door opened. There were dozens of people in the lobby, they pulled me out. . . . I tried to warn them not to touch anything but the electricity was off by then." She coughed softly for a moment. "Who is this man, Ray Galt?" Susan asked.

Rhyme told her, "He thinks he got sick from power lines. Cancer. He's out for revenge. But there may be an ecoterror connection. He might've been recruited by a group that's opposed to traditional power companies. We don't know yet. Not for sure."

Susan blurted, "And he wants to kill innocent people to make his point? What a hypocrite."

Sachs said, "He's a fanatic so he doesn't even register hypocrisy. Whatever
he
wants to do is good. Whatever stops him from doing what he wants is bad. Very simple universe."

Rhyme glanced at Sachs, who caught the cue and asked Susan, "You said there was something that might help us?"

"Yes, I think I saw him."

Despite his distrust of witnesses, Rhyme said encouragingly, "Go ahead. Please."

"He got onto the elevator at my floor."

"You think it was him? Why?"

"Because he spilled some water. Accidentally, it seemed, but now I know he did it on purpose. To improve the connection."

Sachs said, "The water that Ron found on the soles of their shoes. Sure. We wondered where that came from."

"He was dressed like a maintenance man with a watering can for the plants. He was wearing brown overalls. Kind of dirty. It seemed odd. And the building doesn't have plants in the hall and we don't in our office."

"There's still a team there?" Rhyme asked Sachs.

She said that there would be. "Fire, maybe. Not PD."

"Have them call the building manager, wake him up if they have to. See if they have a plant maintenance service. And check video security."

A few minutes later they had their answer: no plant waterers for the building or any of the companies on the eighth floor. And security cameras were only in the lobby, with wide-angle lenses uselessly showing "a bunch of people coming, a bunch of people going," one of the fire marshals reported. "Can't make out a single face."

Rhyme called up the DMV picture of Galt on the screen. "Is that him?" he asked Susan.

"Could be. He didn't look at us and I didn't look at him really." A knowing glance toward Rhyme. "His face wasn't exactly at eye level."

"Anything else you remember about him?"

"When he was walking toward the car and then when he first got in, he kept looking at his watch."

"The deadline," Sachs pointed out. Then added, "He set it off early, though."

"Only a few minutes," Rhyme said. "Maybe he was worried that somebody'd recognized him in the building. He wanted to finish up and get out. And he was probably monitoring Algonquin's electrical transmissions and knew the company wasn't going to shut down the juice by the deadline."

Susan continued, "He was wearing gloves. Tan gloves. They were leather. . . . Those
were
at eye level. And I remember them because I was thinking his hands must be sweating. It was hot in the car."

"Did the uniform have any writing on it?"

"No."

"Anything else?"

She shrugged. "Not that it's helpful, but he was rude."

"Rude?"

"When he got on the elevator he pushed past me. Didn't apologize or anything."

"He actually touched you?"

"Not me." She nodded down. "The chair. It was kind of a tight squeeze."

"Mel!"

The tech's head swiveled toward them.

"Susan," Rhyme asked. "Do you mind if we examine that spot on your chair?"

"No, not at all."

Cooper carefully looked over the side of the chair she indicated, using a magnifying glass. Rhyme couldn't see exactly what he found but the tech lifted away two items from bolts at joints in the upright pieces.

"What?"

"Fibers. One dark green and one brown." Cooper was examining them through the microscope, then turned to a computer database of similar fiber. "Cotton, heavy duty. Could be military, army surplus."

"Enough to test?"

"Plenty." The tech and Sachs ran a portion of each of the samples through the gas chromatograph/mass spectrometer.

Finally, as Rhyme waited impatiently, she called, "Got the results." A printout eased from the machine and Cooper looked it over.

"More aviation fuel on the green fiber. But something else. On the brown fiber there's diesel fuel. And more of those Chinese herbs."

"Diesel." Rhyme was considering this. "Maybe it's not an airport. Maybe it's a refinery he's after."

Cooper said, "That'd be one hell of a target, Lincoln."

It sure would. "Sachs, call Gary Nobel. Tell him to step up security in the ports. Refineries and tankers especially."

She grabbed the phone.

"Mel, add everything we've got so far to the chart."

CRIME SCENE: OFFICE BUILDING
AT 235 W. 54TH STREET

--Victims (deceased):

--Larry Fishbein, New York City, accountant.

--Robert Bodine, New York City, attorney.

--Franklin Tucker, Paramus, New Jersey, salesman.

--One friction ridge of Raymond Galt.

--Bennington cable and split bolts, same as at other scenes.

--Two hand-made remote relay switches:

--One to shut off power to elevator.

--One to complete circuit and electrify elevator car.

--Bolts and smaller wires connecting panel to elevator, not traceable.

--Victims had water on shoes.

--Trace:

--Chinese herbs, ginseng and wolfberry.

--Hairspring (planning on using timer, rather than remote for future attacks?).

--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. 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 human 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 . . ."

A genuine laugh from Rhyme's throat.

Then her face grew solemn and she glanced around to see if anyone else could hear. When it was clear none could she turned back, held his eyes and said, "Lincoln, do you believe in fate?"

Chapter 53

THERE IS A
certain camaraderie in the disabled world.

Some patients have the band of brothers attitude--It's us against them. Don't mess with us. Others take a more huggy approach: Hey, you ever need to cry on somebody's shoulder, I'm here for you. We're all in this together, friend.

But Lincoln Rhyme didn't have time for either. He was a criminalist who happened to have a body that didn't operate the way he would have liked. Like Amelia Sachs was a cop with arthritis and a love of fast cars and guns.

Rhyme didn't define himself by his disability. It was an afterthought. There were pleasant crips and witty ones and those who were insufferable pricks. Rhyme judged them one by one, as he did everybody else.

He thought Susan Stringer was a perfectly pleasant woman and respected her courage in coming here when she could have stayed home and nursed her wounds and exploited her trauma. But they had nothing in common other than a spinal cord injury, and Rhyme's mind was already back to the Galt case; he suspected Susan was soon to be disappointed that the famous gimp criminalist she'd come to see had little time for her.

And he sure as hell wasn't anybody to talk to about fate.

"No," he answered her, "probably not in the sense you mean."

"I'm referring to what seems to be coincidence actually could be events that were meant to happen."

He confirmed, "Then, no."

"I didn't think so." She was smiling. "But the good news for people like you is that there are people like me who
do
believe in fate. I think there's a reason I was in that elevator and I'm here now." The smile turned into a laugh. "Don't worry. I'm not a stalker." A whisper. "I'm not after a donation . . . or after your body. I'm happily married and I can see that you and Detective Sachs are together. It's not about that. It's solely about you."

He was about to . . . well, he wasn't sure
what
he was about to do. He simply wanted her to leave but didn't quite know how to engineer it. So he lifted a curious, and cautious, eyebrow.

She asked, "Have you heard about the Pembroke Spinal Cord Center, over on Lexington?"

"I think so. I'm not sure." He was forever getting information about spinal cord injury rehab and products and medical updates. He'd stopped paying much attention to the flood of material; his obsession with the cases he was running for the Bureau and the NYPD greatly limited his time for extracurricular reading, much less chasing around the country in search of new treatments.

Susan said, "I've been in several programs there. Some people in my SCI support group have too."

SCI support group. His heart sank. He saw what was coming.

But again, she was a step ahead. "I'm not asking you to join us, don't worry. You don't look like you'd be a good member." The eyes sparkled humorously in her heart-shaped face. "Of anything."

"No."

"All I'm asking tonight is that you hear me out."

"I can do that."

"Now, Pembroke is the D-day of spinal cord treatment. They do everything."

There were many promising techniques to help people with severe disabilities. But the problem was funding. Even though the injuries were severe, and the consequences lifelong, the reality was that when compared with other maladies, serious spinal cord problems were relatively rare. Which meant that government and corporate research money went elsewhere, to procedures and medicines that would help more people. So most of the procedures that promised significant improvements in patients' conditions remained experimental and unapproved in America.

And some of the results
were
remarkable. In research labs, rats with severed spinal cords had actually learned to walk again.

"They have a critical response unit, but that won't do us any good, of course."

The key to minimizing spinal cord damage is to treat the affected area immediately after the accident with medications that prevent swelling and future killing of the nerves at the site of the injury. But there's a very small window of opportunity to do that, usually hours or at the most days after the injury.

As veteran patients, Rhyme and Susan Stringer could take advantage only of techniques to
repair
the damage. But that always ran up against the intractable problem: Central nervous system cells--those in the brain and spinal cord--don't regenerate the way the skin on your finger does after a cut.

This was the battle that SCI doctors and researchers fought daily, and Pembroke was in the vanguard. Susan described an impressive array of techniques that the center offered. They were working with stem cells, doing nerve rerouting--using peripheral nerves (any nerve
outside
the spinal cord, which
can
regenerate)--and treating the injured areas with drugs and other substances to promote regeneration. They were even building noncellular "bridges" around the location of the injury to carry nerve impulses between the brain and the muscles.

The center also had an extensive prosthetics department.

"It was amazing," she told him. "I saw a video of this paraplegic who'd been implanted with a computer controller and a number of wires. She could walk almost normally."

Rhyme was staring at the length of the Bennington cable that Galt had used in the first attack.

Wires . . .

She described something called the Freehand system, and others like it, that involved implanting stimulators and electrodes in the arms. By shrugging your shoulders or moving your neck in a certain way, you could trigger coordinated movements of the arm and hands. Some quads, she explained, could even feed themselves.

"None of that bullshit quackery you see, doctors preying on the desperate." Susan angrily mentioned a doctor in China who'd pocket $20,000 to drill holes in patients' heads and spines to implant tissue from embryos. With, of course, no discernible effect--other than exposing the patient to risk of death, further injury and bankruptcy.

The people on the staff at Pembroke, she explained, were all from the top medical schools from around the world.

And the claims were realistic--that is, modest. A quad like Rhyme wouldn't be able to walk, but he could improve his lung functioning, perhaps get other digits to work and, most important, get back control of bowel and bladder. This would greatly help in reducing the risk of dysreflexia attacks--that skyrocketing of the blood pressure that could lead to stroke that could render him even more disabled than he was. Or kill him.

"It's helped me a lot. I think in a few years I'll be able to walk again."

Rhyme was nodding. He could think of nothing to say.

"I don't work for them. I'm not a disability rights advocate. I'm an editor who happens to be a paraplegic." This echo made Rhyme offer a faint smile. She continued, "But when Detective Sachs said she was working with you, I thought, Fate. I was meant to come tell you about Pembroke. They can help you."

"I . . . appreciate it."

"I've read about you, of course. You've done a lot of good for the city. Maybe it's time you did some good for yourself."

"Well, it's complicated." He had no idea what that meant, much less why he'd said it.

"I know, you're worried about the risk. And you should be."

True, surgery would be riskier for him, as a C4, than for her. He was prone to blood pressure, respiratory and infection complications. The question was balance. Was the surgery worth it? He'd nearly undergone an operation a few years ago but a case had derailed the procedure. He'd postponed any medical treatment of that sort indefinitely.

But now? He considered: Was his life the way he wished it to be? Of course not. But he was content. He loved Sachs, and she him. He lived for his job. He wasn't eager to throw all that away chasing an unrealistic dream.

Normally buttoned tight about his personal feelings, he nonetheless told Susan Stringer this, and she understood.

Then he surprised himself further by adding something he hadn't told many people at all. "I feel that I'm mostly my mind. That's where I live. And I sometimes think that's one of the reasons I'm the criminalist that I am. No distractions. My power comes from my disability. If I were to change, if I were to become, quote, normal, would that affect me as a forensic scientist? I don't know. But I don't want to take that chance."

Susan was considering this. "It's an interesting thought. But I wonder if that's a crutch, an excuse
not
to take the risk."

Rhyme appreciated that. He liked blunt talk. He nodded at his chair. "A crutch is a step up in my case."

She laughed.

"Thanks for your thoughts," he added, because he felt he ought to, and she fixed him with another of those knowing looks. The expression was less irritating now, though it remained disconcerting.

She backed away in the chair and said, "Mission accomplished."

His brow furrowed.

Susan said, "I found you two fibers you might not otherwise have." She smiled. "Wish it were more." Eyes back on Rhyme. "But sometimes it's the little things that make all the difference. Now, I should go."

Sachs thanked her and Thom saw her out.

After she'd left, Rhyme said, "This was a setup, right?"

Sachs replied, "It was
sort of
a setup, Rhyme. We needed to interview her anyway. When I called about arranging it, we got to talking. When she heard I worked with you she wanted to make her sales pitch. I told her I'd get her in to see the chairman."

Rhyme gave a brief smile.

Then it faded as Sachs crouched and said in a voice that Mel Cooper couldn't hear, "I don't want you any different than you are, Rhyme. But I want to make sure you're healthy. For me, that's all I care about. Whatever you choose is fine."

For a moment Rhyme recalled the title of the pamphlet left by Dr. Kopeski, with Die with Dignity.

Choices.

She leaned forward and kissed him. He felt her hand touching the side of his head with a bit more palm than made sense for a gesture of affection.

"I have a temperature?" he asked, smiling at catching her.

She laughed. "We
all
have temperatures, Rhyme. Whether you have a
fever
or not, I can't tell." She kissed him again. "Now get some sleep. Mel and I'll keep going here for a while. I'll be up to bed soon." She returned to the evidence she'd found.

Rhyme hesitated but then decided that he was tired, too tired to be much help at the moment. He wheeled toward the elevator, where Thom joined him and they began their journey upward in the tiny car. Sweat continued to dot his forehead and it seemed to him that his cheeks were flushed. These were symptoms of dysreflexia. But he didn't have a headache and he didn't feel the onset of the sensation that preceded an attack. Thom got him ready for bed and handled the evening detail. The blood pressure cuff and thermometer were handy. "Little high," he said of the former. As to the latter, Rhyme didn't, in fact, have a fever.

Thom executed a smooth transfer to get him into bed, and Rhyme heard in his memory Sachs's comment from a few minutes earlier.

We
all
have a temperature, Rhyme.

He couldn't help reflecting that clinically this was true. We all did. Even the dead.