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The ASAC was hesitating, perhaps debating the wisdom of not presenting a united front. Still he said, "I would firmly recommend against it."
Andi Jessen said, "It's not even an issue. A citywide fifty percent decrease below offpeak load? It's not like turning a dimmer switch. It would throw off the load patterns throughout the Northeast Interconnection. We'd have dropouts and blackouts in dozens of places. And we've got millions of customers with on-off systems that'd shut down cold with that drop in power. There'd be data dumps and resets'd go to default. You can't just turn them back on again; it would take days of reprogramming, and a lot of data would be lost altogether.
"But worse, some of the life-critical infrastructure has battery or generator backup, but not all of it. Hospitals have only so much and some of those systems never work right. People will die as a result of it."
Well, thought Rhyme, the writer of the letter had one point right: Electricity, and Algonquin and the power companies, have indeed worked their way into our lives. We're dependent on juice.
"There you have it," said McDaniel. "It can't be done."
Sellitto grimaced. Rhyme looked toward Sachs. "Parker?"
She nodded, and scrolled through her BlackBerry to find the number and email of Parker Kincaid in Washington, D.C. He was a former FBI agent and now a private consultant, the best document examiner in the country, in Rhyme's opinion.
"I'll send it now." She dropped into a chair in front of one of the workstations, wrote
an email, scanned the letter then sent them on their way.
Sellitto snapped open his phone and contacted NYPD Anti-Terror, along with the Emergency Service Unit--the city's version of SWAT--and told them that another attack was planned for around 1 p.m.
Rhyme turned to the phone. "Ms. Jessen, Lincoln again. That list you gave Detective Sachs yesterday? The employees?"
"Yes?"
"Can you get us samples of their handwriting?"
"Everybody?"
"As many as you can. As soon as you can."
"I suppose. We have signed confidentiality statements from just about everybody. Probably health forms, requests, expense accounts."
Rhyme turned away from the phone and called, "Sachs! Is he there? Is Parker there? What's going on?"
She nodded. "He's at some function or something. I'm getting patched through."
Kincaid was a single father of two children, Robby and Stephanie, and he carefully balanced his personal and professional lives--his commitment to his kids was why he'd quit the FBI to become, like Rhyme, a consultant. But Rhyme knew too that for a case like this, Kincaid would get on board instantly and do what he could to help.
The criminalist turned back to the phone. "Ms. Jessen, could you scan them and send them to . . ." An eyebrow raised toward Sachs, who called out Parker Kincaid's email address.
"I've got it," Jessen said.
"Those are terms in the business, I assume?" Rhyme asked. " 'Rolling brownout,' 'shedding load,' 'service grid,' 'offpeak load.' "
"That's right."
"Does that give us any details about him?"
"Not really. They're technical aspects of the business but if he could adjust the computer and rig a flash arc device, then he'd know those too. Anybody in the power industry would know them."
"How did you get the letter?"
"It was delivered to my apartment building."
"Is your address public?"
"I'm not listed in the phone book but I suppose it wouldn't be impossible to find me."
Rhyme persisted, "How exactly did you receive it?"
