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"Who's behind it?" Rhyme's brow was furrowed, the eyes now darting over the evidence boards, as if he needed to know the answer to the puzzle before he died. "I can't figure that out."
Logan looked down at the man's gaunt face.
Pity . . .
He extracted a second wire and rigged it too to Rhyme. He'd connect this to the closest ground, the radiator.
Richard Logan never cared, on a moral level, why his clients wanted the victims dead, but he made a point of learning the motive because it helped him to plan his job and to get away afterward. So he'd listened with interest when it was explained to him why Andi Jessen had to be discredited and go to jail for a long, long time. He now said, "Andi is a threat to the new order. Her view--her very vocal view, apparently--is that oil and gas and coal and nuke are the only significant sources for energy and will be for the next hundred years. Renewables are a kid's toy."
"She's pointing out the emperor's new clothes."
"Exactly."
"So some ecoterror group is behind this, then?"
Logan grimaced. "Ecoterrorists? Oh, please. Bearded unwashed idiots who can't even burn down a ski resort construction site without getting caught in the act?" Logan laughed. "No, Lincoln. It's about money."
Rhyme seemed to understand. "Ah, sure . . . It doesn't matter that clean energy and renewables don't add up to much in the great scheme of things yet; there's still lots of profit to be made building wind and solar farms and regional grids and the transmission equipment."
"Exactly. Government subsidies and tax breaks too. Not to mention consumers who'll pay whatever they're billed for green power because they think they're saving the earth."
Rhyme said, "When we found Galt's apartment, his emails about the cancer, we were thinking that revenge never sits well as a motive."
"No, but greed's perennial."
The criminalist apparently couldn't help but laugh. "So a green cartel's behind this. What a thought." His eyes took in the whiteboards. "I think I can deduce one of the players . . . Bob Cavanaugh?"
"Good. Yes. He's the principal, in fact. How did you know?"
"He gave us information implicating Randall Jessen." Rhyme squinted. "And he helped us at the hotel in Battery Park. We might've saved Vetter. . . . But, sure, it didn't matter if you actually killed him or Fishbein, or anyone else for that matter."
"No. What was important was that Andi Jessen get arrested for the attacks. Discredited and sent to jail. And there was another motive: Cavanaugh was an associate of Andi's father, and never very happy he'd been passed over for the president and CEO spot by daddy's little girl."
"He can't be the only one."
"No. The cartel has CEOs from a half dozen alternative-energy equipment suppliers around the world, mostly in the United States, China and Switzerland."
"A green cartel." Rhyme shook his head.
"Times change," Logan said.
"But why not just kill her, Andi?"
"My very question," Logan said. "But there was an economic component. Cavanaugh and the others needed Andi out but also needed to have Algonquin's share price drop. The cartel is going to snap up the company."
"And the attack on the bus?"
"Needed to get everybody's attention." Logan felt a ping of regret. And he was comfortable confessing to Rhyme, "I didn't want anyone to die there. That passenger would have been okay if he'd gotten onto the bus instead of hesitating. But I couldn't wait anymore."
"I can see why you'd set up Vetter and Fishbein to make it look like Andi wanted them dead--they we
re involved in alternative energy projects in Arizona. They'd be logical victims. But why would the cartel want to kill Charlie Sommers? Wasn't his job developing alternative energy?"
"Sommers?" A nod at the generator. "I heard you mention him. And Bernie Wahl dimed him out when I delivered the second note. Wahl snitched on you too, by the way. . . ."
"Because you threatened to, what? Electrocute his family?"
"Yes."
