She laughed, playfully aimed it at him. Then lifted what he thought was a seductive eyebrow his way. Her phone buzzed and she glanced at the screen, answered. She had a brief conversation and hung up. "That was Bob Cavanaugh, the Operations vice president. He was the one checking out terrorist connections at the company branches around the region. No evidence of ecoterror groups threatening Algonquin or attacking their power plants. But there was a report of infiltration in one of the company's main Philadelphia substations. White male in his forties got inside. Nobody knows who he was or what he was doing there. No security tape and he got away before the police arrived. This was last week."

Race, sex and age… "That's our boy. But what did he want?"

"No other intrusions in the company's facilities."

Was the perp's mission to get information about the grid, the security in substations? Rhyme could only speculate and, accordingly, filed the incident away for the time being.

McDaniel got a phone call. He stared absently at the evidence chart whiteboards, then disconnected. "T and C's had more chatter about the Justice For terrorist group."

"What?" Rhyme asked urgently.

"Nothing big. But one thing interesting: they're using code words that've been used in the past for large-scale weapons. 'Paper and supplies' were the ones our algorithms isolated."

He explained that underground cells often did this. An attack in France was averted recently when chatter among known negatives included the words "gateau," "farine" and "beurre." French for "cake," "flour" and "butter." They really referred to a bomb and its ingredients: explosives and detonator.

"The Mossad's reported that Hezbollah cells sometimes use 'office supplies' or 'party supplies' for missiles or high explosives. Now, we also think that two people in addition to Rahman have been involved. Man and a woman, the computer's telling us."

Rhyme asked, "Have you told Fred?"

"Good idea." McDaniel pulled out his BlackBerry and made a speakerphone call.

"Fred, it's Tucker. You're on speaker at Rhyme's. You had any luck?"

"My CI's on it. Following up on some leads."

"Following up? Nothing more concrete than that?"

A pause. Dellray said, "I don't have anything more. Not yet."

"Well, T and C's found a few things." He updated the agent on the code words and the fact that a man and woman were likely involved.

Dellray said he'd report that to his contact.

McDaniel asked, "So he was willing to work within the budget?"

"That's right."

"I knew he would. These people'll take advantage of you if you let them, Fred. That's the way CIs work."

"Happens," Dellray said somberly.

"Stay in touch." McDaniel disconnected, stretched. "This damn cloud zone. We're not hoovering up nearly as much as we'd like."

Hoovering?

Sellitto tapped the stack of personnel files from Algonquin. "I'll go downtown. Get people started on them. Brother, it's going to be a long night." The time was now eleven-ten.

It was, Rhyme reflected. For him too. Particularly because there wasn't much for him to do at this point but wait.

Oh, how he hated waiting.

Eyes straying to the skimpy evidence boards, he thought: We're moving too damn slow.

And here we are, trying to find a perp who attacks with the speed of light.

– Male. -40's. -Probably white. -Possibly glasses and cap. -Possibly with short, blond hair. -Dark blue overalls, similar to those worn by Algonquin workers. -Knows electrical systems very well. -Boot print suggests no physical condition affecting posture or gait. -Possibly same person who stole 75 feet of similar Bennington cable and 12 split bolts. More attacks in mind? Access to Algonquin warehouse where theft occurred with key. -Likely he is Algonquin employee or has contact with one. -Terrorist connection? Relation to Justice For [unknown]? Terror group? Individual named Rahman involved? Coded 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. -Would have studied SCADA- Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition program. And EMP-energy management programs. Algonquin's is Enertrol. Both Unix-based. -To create arc flash would probably have been or currently is lineman, troubleman, licensed tradesman, generator construction, master electrician, military. Sixteen hours until Earth Day

"Someday, man will harness the rise and fall of the tides, imprison the power of the sun, and release atomic power." -THOMAS ALVA EDISON, ON THE FUTURE

Low morning light poured into the townhouse. Lincoln Rhyme blinked and maneuvered out of the blinding stream as he steered his Storm Arrow wheelchair out of the small elevator that connected his bedroom with the lab below.

Sachs, Mel Cooper and Lon Sellitto had assembled an hour earlier.

Sellitto was on the phone and said, "Okay, got it." He crossed through another name. He hung up. Rhyme couldn't tell if he'd changed clothes. Maybe he'd slept in the den or downstairs bedroom. Cooper had been home, at least for a time. And Sachs had slept beside Rhyme-for a portion of the night. She was up at five-thirty to keep reviewing employee files and narrowing the list of suspects.

"Where are we?" Rhyme now asked.

Sellitto muttered, "Just talked to McDaniel. They've got six and we've got six."

"You mean we're down to twelve suspects? Let's-"

"Uhm, no, Linc. We've eliminated twelve."

Sachs said, "The problem is that a lot of the employees on the list are senior. They didn't put their early careers on their resumes or all of the continuing education computer courses. We have to do a lot of digging to find out if they had the skill to manipulate the grid and rig the device."

"Where the hell's the DNA?" Rhyme snapped.

"Shouldn't be long," Cooper said. "They're expediting it."

"Expediting," was Rhyme's sour, muttered response. The new tests generally could be done in a day or two, unlike the old RFPL tests, which could take a week. He didn't understand why the results weren't back already.

"And nothing more about Justice For?"

Sellitto said, "Our people've been through all their files. McDaniel's too. And Homeland Security and ATF and Interpol. Nothing on them or Rahman. Zip. Fucking creepy, that cloud zone thing. Sounds like something out of a Stephen King novel."

Rhyme started to call the lab running the DNA analysis but just as he flicked a finger to the touchpad to make a call, the phone buzzed. He lifted an eyebrow and instantly hit ANSWER CALL.

"Kathryn. Morning. You're up early." It was 5 a.m. in California.

"A bit."

"Anything more?"

"Logan was spotted again-near where he'd been seen before. Now, I just talked to Arturo Diaz."

The law enforcer was up early too. A good sign.

"His boss is on the case now. The one I mentioned. Rodolfo Luna."

Luna was, it turned out, very senior indeed: the second in command of the Mexican Ministerial Federal Police, the equivalent of the FBI. Though burdened with the overwhelming task of running drug enforcement operations-and rooting out corruption in government agencies themselves-Luna had eagerly taken over the chance to apprehend the Watchmaker, Dance explained. A threat of another killing in Mexico wasn't much news, and hardly required someone as high up as Luna, but he was ambitious and he'd be thinking that his cooperation with the NYPD would pay dividends with Mexico's tenuous allies to the north.