The Cutting Edge (Lincoln Rhyme #14)(45)

But it was a fantasy as insubstantial as diamond dust.

“You’ll come home.”

As if there were any other options.

Vimal walked slowly to the door, his father behind him, saying firmly, “Son, I’m doing this because it’s best for you. You do understand that, I hope.”





Chapter 22



Amelia Sachs was in Cadman Plaza, at the subway station where their unsub had caught the train to Manhattan after ditching his hard hat and safety vest. She had been canvassing shops and restaurants nearby, those with a view of the subway entrance. The hour-long effort had been useless. No one remembered seeing anybody who’d pitched out the gear. This had not been unexpected.

It seemed that the construction site to which Unsub 47 had some connection wasn’t devoted to birthing yet another apartment or office building; it was a high-tech energy project.

She now surveyed the huge jobsite, surrounded by an eight-foot-high plywood wall. Before her was a large sign mounted on two wooden pillars.

Northeast Geo Industries

Harnessing the Earth’s Clean Warmth…

for You and Your Family



Below this was a small billboard, the background off-white with lettering in green script, as if fashioned out of vines. Paintings of leaves and tufts of grass were prominent. It all reeked of eco. The text explained that the earth was itself a huge solar collector, which absorbed energy from the sun and maintained a constant temperature, however cold or hot the surface. That energy could be tapped for use in heating and cooling buildings. The geothermal facility being constructed now would do just that, servicing hundreds of buildings in the area. Pipes would be sunk deep into the earth and a solution would be pumped through them. When it returned to the surface, the liquid would then pass through regulators to generate air-conditioning or heating.

It was basically a massive heat pump, the notice reported, of the sort that environmentally minded residents used in their houses.

Reducing fossil fuel use for heating and cooling…Seemed like a good idea to Sachs.

But not everybody thought so, apparently. Thirty or so protesters stood on the sidewalk holding posters against the drilling. A tall, lean man with frizzy gray hair—and matching beard—seemed to be in charge. From the posters and some lapel pins people wore, she noted that the movement was called One Earth. She wondered what their objections were. Geothermal seemed just another environmentally friendly process. Some of the posters, though, referred to fracking and poisoning the groundwater.

The lean man stepped in front of a flatbed, loaded with girders. He crossed his arms and stood his ground. The rest of the crowd cheered. Every time the truck driver blasted the man with his horn, the protesters exploded with catcalls and applause.

A job for a patrolman, but no patrolman was around.

Sachs walked into the street. “Sir.” She showed her badge. “Could you step out of the street?”

“And if I don’t? Are you going to arrest me?”

This was, of course, the last thing she wanted to do. It would involve a trip to the local precinct, as she no longer carried her citation book. But there was only one answer. “Yes.”

“You’re in their pocket. The city’s kissing their ass.” He nodded at the site.

“Sir, you don’t want to go to jail for this. Step out of the way.”

Without protest he did, and her impression was that he’d planned the tactic as a mosquito bite, a small irritation.

“Could I see some ID?”

He complied. He was Ezekiel Shapiro and lived in upper Manhattan.

She handed it back. “No disrupting traffic. And I hope that can you’ve got in your jacket is for home repair.”

It seemed to be spray paint. She’d noticed where graffiti had been scrubbed off the sign and the walls of the barrier.

“They’re fucking up everything, you know.” He looked at the site with wild eyes. “Everything.” He returned to the crowd and many of the people hugged him as if he’d just faced down an entire army.

Then Mother Earth left her thoughts and she got to work. She pulled a small evidence collection bag, red canvas, from the trunk of the Torino, parked nearby, and walked to the subway entrance where the CCTV had captured the unsub’s image. She turned, recalled the direction of his route, and found the trash bin where he’d disposed of the hard hat and vest. Not empty—that word would never apply to any trash receptacle in New York City—but it was empty enough to see those items weren’t inside.

She then spotted the likely gate he would have taken to leave the construction site. The large mesh panels were open and, as she’d hoped, some workers were here, despite its being Sunday. She showed her shield to a trim, vigilant man in a private security uniform, richly toned with a suntan that testified to the fine vacation he’d just taken. She asked if she could speak to the supervisor. He lifted a walkie-talkie and said a detective with the NYPD wanted to speak to him.

The clattering answer: “Uh, yeah. Hold on. Tell him I’ll be there in a minute.”

“Her.”

“What?”

“It’s a her. She’s a her,” the guard said, casting an awkward look her way.

“Oh. Her. A minute.”

Sachs looked over the site. The project—about three acres square, she guessed—wasn’t like most you see in the city, with the dark-red ironwork of skyscrapers latticing upward. This was more like what she guessed an oil rig operation would be. There were a number of drilling locations that measured about twenty feet wide, fifty long, surrounded by green six-foot-high fences; signs labeled them as Areas 1 through 12. Some of these were crowned with derricks rising about four stories high. Other green-fenced sites seemed closed. Maybe the drilling at those locations was completed.