The Steel Kiss

Amelia Sachs entered the parlor, set down the evidence cartons gathered at her mother’s town house, and walked straight up to Juliette Archer. Threw her arms around the surprised woman, nearly dislodging the wrist strapped to the Storm Arrow’s armrest.

“I—” the woman began.

“Thank you. You saved my mother’s life.”

“We all did,” Archer said.

“But,” Rhyme said, “she’s the one who came up with the blackout strategy.”

“I don’t know how to thank you.”

A shrug, similar to the ones Rhyme was capable of.

Sachs looked from the intern to Rhyme. “You two make a good team.”

Rhyme, with typically little patience for the sentimental, or the irrelevant, asked Mel Cooper, “What’s the latest?” The tech was just hanging up the phone from a conversation with someone in the Traffic Division.

He explained that there had been no fatalities. The closest brush with death had been a doctor whose sedan crashed into the rear end of a Toyota and ruptured the gas tank. He and the other driver were inundated with fuel but pulled out by a passersby before the two cars vanished in flames. (To be doubly safe the doctor had stripped naked in the middle of the street, flinging his incendiary clothing away.)

A half-dozen people, however, had been badly injured.

Rhyme now called Rodney Szarnek to ask about the incident. “Any way to trace the signal?”

The computer cop went into a long explanation about cell towers, public Wi-Fi and VPNs.

“Rodney.”

“Sorry. The answer’s no.”

He disconnected. “One hell of a weapon,” Sachs said to Rhyme and Archer.

Sellitto, downtown, called and reported that everyone on the team—and their family members—was now under protective detail. “It’s UAC-prioritized,” he muttered.

Rhyme had given up trying to stay on top of New York City Police Department shorthand. “Which is?”

“It’ll be in place Until the Asshole is Caught,” Sellitto said.

Archer laughed.

Sachs and Cooper were unpacking evidence she’d collected from her mother’s house—the garden, the house itself and the steps across the street, where witnesses had seen a skinny worker taking a break, reading the paper, sipping coffee.

Rhyme looked around the parlor. “Where the hell’s the rookie?” he grumbled. “That other case?”

“That’s right.” Sachs was nodding. But offered nothing more.

“Somebody just find this Gutiérrez and shoot him, please.”

For some reason Sachs smiled at this. Rhyme was not amused.

Sachs itemized the evidence. “Not much. Wire, electricians’ tape on the circuit breaker panel. He rigged a lamp with this.” She held up a plastic bag with a small electric circuit board inside. “When he triggered it, two wires in the lamp crossed and that blew the breaker. It was to get Mom downstairs to the box. Ambient trace. Naturally, no friction ridges or hairs other than mine or Mom’s. Some fibers. He’s wearing flesh-colored cotton gloves.”

“You found copper bits earlier but now we have the actual wire,” Cooper said.

It was eight-gauge, according to the American wire gauge standard, about 0.128 inch in diameter.

Rhyme said, “Can carry pretty high voltage. What, Mel? Forty amps?”

“That’s right, at sixty degrees Celsius.”

“What about the manufacturer?”

There were, Rhyme could see, letters on the black insulation.

Cooper looked up the initials. “Hendrix Cable. Popular brand. Sold a lot of places.”

Rhyme scoffed. “Why don’t perps shop at unique stores?…  And he used a razor knife again to strip it?”

“Right.”

“And electricians’ tape?”

“Probably good quality,” the tech said, touching part of it with a steel needle probe. “Good adhesive, strong. Cheaper tape tends to have uneven coverage and it’s thin.”

“Burn a bit. See if we can get a brand name.”

After the gas chromatograph worked its magic, Cooper looked over the results and displayed them to the room on a monitor.

Archer said, “They seem generic. Aren’t those ingredients found in every brand of electrical tape?”

“Quantity,” Rhyme said. “Quantity is everything.”

Cooper explained further, “I’m running the amounts of each of those substances through a database. Micrograms make all the difference. It should give us an answer in…  Ah, here we go now. It’s one of these.”

On the screen:

Ludlum Tape and Adhesive

Conoco Industrial Products

Hammersmith Adhesives

“Good, good,” Rhyme muttered.

Sachs was examining the bag she’d held up earlier. The remote relay that had shorted out Rose’s lights. Cooper mounted the device on the reflecting stage of a low-power microscope. They examined the monitor. He said, “Antenna here.” He pointed. “Signal comes in and closes the switch here. It’s not an off-the-shelf switch. It’s a component part of something else. See? The base? He fatigued through the circuit board. Got a code number on it,” he announced. Rhyme hadn’t been able to see it.

Keeping his eyes on the monitor, Cooper touch-typed as fast as falling marbles. A moment later they turned to the screen.