The Cutting Edge (Lincoln Rhyme #14)(81)

He held it out for Rhyme to look at. Inside the bag was what appeared to be a typical white plastic thermostat housing along with some other metallic and plastic parts, none of which he recognized.

Turning it over, Geffen said, “There. See that hole? A timer opened a little spigot. Acid dripped out and melted the gas line. About ten minutes later, this part…” He touched a small gray box with two electrodes on it. “It would strike a spark. That would ignite both the gas and the solvent—it’s very flammable. Now, the delay was smart. It let the room build up with gas but not force all the air out.”

A room filled with gas only will sometimes not blow up. As with all fires, both air and fuel are required.

“We’ll take over, Bradley. Thanks.”

Geffen nodded and stepped out of the room. He moved stiffly, the result of an IED that detonated at a woman’s health clinic during the render-safe operation. (There was grim irony in the fanatics’ tactic: They’d planted the bomb between two buildings—the clinic and what they hadn’t realized was a church’s daycare center. If the structures hadn’t been evacuated, the daycare center would have sustained far more damage and injuries than the clinic.)

Cooper filled out the chain-of-custody card and began his analysis. He found no prints, and sent swabs out for DNA testing. He took a sample of the acid and ran it through the gas chromatograph. It would take some minutes for the results.

“Detonates by digital timer,” Cooper said as he examined the components with tweezers and a probe. “Battery life about two months.”

“It doesn’t look handmade,” Rhyme observed.

“No. Professionally assembled. Sold on the arms market, I’d imagine.”

“Any idea where it would’ve come from?”

“Nope. Nothing I’ve ever come across.” Cooper looked over the chromatograph/spectrometer. “Got the acid used to melt the line. Well, it’s not acid. It’s trichlorobenzene. Gas pipes are usually polyethylene and impervious to most acids. But benzene derivatives will melt them. And—”

“No. Can’t be.” Rhyme was staring at the evidence charts.

“What, Lincoln?”

What he was thinking seemed impossible. Or would have, if he hadn’t just learned about Unsub 47’s likely planting of the gas line IEDs.

“Get Lon back here. And do you have Edward Ackroyd’s number?”

“Somewhere.”

“Find it. I want him here. Now.”

“Sure.”

“Dial Sachs,” he commanded his phone.

She answered a minute later. “Rhyme.”

“I need you to run another scene, Sachs. Well, to be accurate, to run a scene you’ve run before but to look for something else.”

“Where?”

“It’s the geothermal site. The drilling shafts again.”

Where, he deduced, though she hadn’t mentioned it, she’d nearly been buried alive.

Sachs was silent.

There were plenty of competent evidence collection techs who could walk the grid and could probably find what he needed. But no one was better than Amelia Sachs. He wanted her, and only her.

“Sachs?”

“I’ll run it,” she said in a flat voice. “Tell me what I’m looking for.”





Chapter 40



Forty minutes later Sellitto and Ackroyd were in the parlor, along with Mel Cooper. Amelia Sachs was joining them, walking through the elegant archway that separated the hallway from the parlor.

Rhyme noted that she didn’t seem troubled to have revisited her near-burial ground. The hollow look on her face was gone completely and she wore the keen expression of a hunter. He noticed mud speckling her jeans.

Sellitto asked, “What’s this all about, Linc?”

“Let me try this out on you. Theory only. But let’s see. Whatever our unsub’s interest in diamonds is, he’s got another mission. He’s behind the earthquakes.”

Edward Ackroyd gave a brief laugh. “Behind the earthquakes? You mean…somehow he’s caused them?”

“Exactly.”

Sellitto said, “Better keep going on this one, Linc. Fill in the gaps. I see a lot of ’em.”

Rhyme was staring at the ceiling. His face knotted. “We…I should’ve thought better. Why would Forty-Seven go to the trouble to get a hard hat and go into the jobsite to buy a weapon from somebody? They’d meet in a bar or on the street somewhere. No, he needed access to the site itself.”

“Why?” the detective asked.

Rhyme looked at Sachs, who said, “I was just down to the site again. I found traces of RDX near several of the shafts.”

The main ingredient in C4 plastic explosive.

“At a construction site?” Sellitto asked. “C4’s never used commercially.”

It was a military explosive.

“And the site manager told me that one of his workers has gone missing. It was right after Unsub Forty-Seven was in the site. And there was a half ton of grout missing from the pallets in Area Seven.”

“Grout?” Cooper asked.

Rhyme explained, “It’s Forty-Seven’s plan. It’s why he’s here: planting gas line bombs and C4 charges to mimic earthquakes. Last week he placed the gas line IEDs in buildings near the geothermal site. Then he goes to the site, in his hard hat and vest, and meets the now-missing worker, who takes him to Area Seven. He drops C4 charges down some or all of the shafts, and the worker pours grout down them so that when the charges blow, you won’t hear the explosion. Then Forty-Seven ditches the empty shoulder bag and leaves—where we see him on the subway. Later that night, I’m guessing, he kills the worker and disposes of the body.”