Groza threw up his hands in desperation. “Times Square is across town, home of the skells, the city’s worst derelicts and losers. Theater district’s there, too. Port Authority Bus Terminal. We’re coming up on Grand Central Station.”
“Then he’s going to Grand Central,” I told Groza. “I’m sure of it. This is the way he wants it. In a train station!” Another cellar, a glorious one that went on for city blocks. The cellar of cellars.
Gary Soneji was already out of the bus and running on Forty-second street. He was headed toward Grand Central Station, headed toward home. He was still carrying the baby in one arm, swinging it loosely, showing us how little he cared about the child’s life.
Goddamn him to hell. He was on the homestretch, and only he knew what that meant.
Chapter 60
I MADE MY way down the crowded stone-and-mortar passageway from Forty-second Street. It emptied into an even busier Grand Central Station. Thousands of already harried commuters were arriving for work in the midtown area. They had no idea how truly bad their day was about to become.
Grand Central is the New York end for the New York Central, the New York, New Haven, and Hartford trains, and a few others. And for three IRT subway lines. Lexington Avenue, Times Square-Grand Central Shuttle, and Queens. The terminal covers three blocks between Forty-second and Forty-fifth Streets. Forty-one tracks are on the upper level and twenty-six on the lower, which narrows to a single four-track line to Ninety-sixth Street.
The lower level is a huge labyrinth, one of the largest anywhere in the world.
Gary’s cellar.
I continued to push against the densely packed rush-hour crowd. I made it through a waiting room, then emerged into the cavernous and spectacular main concourse. Construction work was in progress everywhere. Giant cloth posters for Pan Am Airlines and American Express and Nike sneakers hung down over the walls. The gates to dozens of tracks were visible from where I stood.
Detective Groza caught up with me in the concourse. We were both running on adrenaline. “He’s still got the baby.” he huffed. “Somebody spotted him running down to the next level.”
Leading a merry chase, right? Gary Soneji was heading to the cellar. That wouldn’t be good for the thousands of people crowding inside the building. He had a bomb, and maybe more than one.
I led Groza down more steep stairs, under a lit sign that said OYSTER BAR ON THIS LEVEL. The entire station was still under massive construction and renovation, which only added to the confusion. We pushed past crowded bakeries and delis. Plenty to eat here while you waited for your train, or possibly to be blown up. I spotted a Hoffritz cutlery shop up ahead. Maybe Hoffritz was where Soneji had purchased the knife he’d used in Penn Station.
Detective Groza and I reached the next level. We entered a spacious arcade, surrounded by more railway-track doorways. Signs pointed the way to the subways, to the Times Square Shuttle.
Groza had a two-way cupped near his ear. He was getting up-to-the-second reports from around the station. “He’s down in the tunnels. We’re close,” he told me.
Groza and I raced down another steep deck of stone steps. We ran side by side It was unbearably hot down below and we were sweating. The building was vibrating. The gray stone walls and the floor shook beneath our feet. We were in hell now, the only question was, which circle?
I finally saw Gary Soneji up ahead. Then he disappeared again. He still had the baby, or maybe it was just the pink-and-blue blanket puffed in his arms.
He was back in sight. Then he stopped suddenly. Soneji turned and stared down the tunnel. He wasn’t afraid of anything anymore. I could see it in his eyes.
“Dr. Cross,” he yelled. “You follow directions beautifully.”
Chapter 61
SONEJI’S DARK secret still worked, still held true for him: Whatever would make people intensely angry, whatever would make them inconsolably sad, whatever would hurt them — that’s what he did.
Soneji watched Alex Cross approaching. Tall and arrogant black bastard. Are you ready to die, too, Cross?
Right when your life seems so promising. Your young children growing up. And your beautiful new lover.
Because that’s what’s going to happen. You’re going to die for what you did to me. You can’t stop it from happening.
Alex Cross kept walking toward him, parading across the concrete train platform. He didn’t look afraid. Cross definitely walked the walk. That was his strength, but it was also his folly.
Soneji felt as if he were floating in space right now. He felt so free, as if nothing could hurt him anywhere. He could be exactly who he wanted to be, act as he wished. He’d spent his life trying to get here.
Alex Cross was getting closer and closer. He called out a question across the train platform. It was always a question with Cross.
“What do you want, Gary? What the hell do you want from us?”
“Shut your hole! What do you think I want?” Soneji shouted back. “You! I finally caught you.”
Chapter 62
I HEARD WHAT Soneji said, but it didn’t matter anymore. This thing between us was going down now. I kept coming toward him. One way or the other, this was the end.
I walked down a flight of three or four stone steps. I couldn’t take my eyes off Soneji. I couldn’t. I refused to give up now.
Smoke from the hospital fire was in my lungs. The air in the train tunnel didn’t help. I began to cough.
Could this be the end of Soneji? I almost couldn’t believe it. What the hell did he mean he finally caught me?
“Don’t anybody move. Stop! Not another step!” Soneji yelled. He had a gun. The baby. “I’ll tell you who moves, and who doesn’t. That includes you, Cross. So just stop walking.”
I stopped. No one else moved. It was incredibly quiet on the train platform, deep in the bowels of Grand Central. There were probably twenty people close enough to Soneji to be injured by a bomb.
He held the baby from the bus up high, and that had everybody’s attention. Detectives and uniformed police stood paralyzed in the wide doorways around the train tunnel. We were all helpless, powerless to do anything to stop Soneji. We had to listen to him.
He began to turn in a small, tight, frenzied circle. His body twirled around and around. A strange whirling dervish. He was clutching the infant in one arm, holding her like a doll. I had no idea what had become of the child’s mother.
Soneji almost seemed in a trance. He looked crazy now — maybe he was. “The good Doctor Cross is here,” he yelled down the platform. “How much do you know? How much do you think you know? Let me ask the questions for a change.”
“I don’t know enough, Gary,” I said, keeping my answer as low-key as possible. Not playing to the crowd, his crowd. “I guess you still like an audience.”
“Why yes, I do, Dr. Cross. I love an appreciative crowd. What’s the point of a great performance with no one to see it? I crave the look in all of your eyes, your fear, your hatred.” He continued to turn, to spin as if he were playing a theater-in-the-round. “You’d all like to kill me. You’re all killers, too!” he screeched.
Soneji did another slow spin around, his gun pointed out, the baby cradled in his left arm. The infant wasn’t crying, and that worried me sick. The bomb could be in a pocket of his trousers. It was somewhere. I hoped it wasn’t in the baby’s blanket.
“You’re back there in the cellar? Aren’t you?” I said. At one time I had believed Gary Soneji was schizophrenic. Then I was certain that he wasn’t. Right now, I wasn’t sure of anything.
He gestured with his free arm at the underground caverns. He continued to walk slowly toward the rear of the platform. We couldn’t stop him. “As a kid, this is where I always dreamed I would escape to. Take a big, fast train to Grand Central Station in New York city. Get away clean and free. Escape from everything.”
“You’ve done it. You finally won. Isn’t that why you led us here? To catch you?” I said.
“I’m n
ot done. Not even close. I’m not finished with you yet, Cross,” he sneered.
There was his threat again. It made my stomach drop to hear him talk like that. “What about me?” I called. “You keep making threats. I don’t see any action.”
Soneji stopped moving. He stopped backing toward the rear of the platform. Everyone was watching him now, probably thinking none of this was real. I wasn’t even sure if I did.
“This doesn’t end here, Cross. I’m coming for you, even from the grave if I have to. There’s no way you can stop this. You remember that! Don’t you forget now! I’m sure you won’t.”
Then Soneji did something I would never understand. His left arm shot up. He threw the baby high in the air. The people watching gasped as the child tumbled forward.
They sighed audibly as a man fifteen feet down the platform caught the baby perfectly.
Then, the infant started to cry.
“Gary, no!” I shouted at Soneji. He was running again.
“Are you ready to die, Dr. Cross?” he screamed back at me. “Are you ready?”
Chapter 63
SONEJI DISAPPEARED through a silver, metallic door at the rear of the platform. He was quick, and he had surprise on his side. Gunshots rang out — Groza fired — but I didn’t think Soneji had been hit.
“There’s more tunnels back there, lots of train tracks down here,” Groza told me. “We’re walking into a dark, dirty maze.”
“Yeah, well let’s go anyway,” I said. “Gary loves it down here. We’ll make the best of it.”
I noticed a maintenance worker and grabbed his flashlight. I pulled out my Glock. Seventeen shots. Groza had a .357 Magnum. Six more rounds. How many shots would it take to kill Soneji? Would he ever die?
“He’s wearing a goddamn vest,” Groza said.
“Yeah, I saw that.” I clicked the safety off the Glock. “He’s a Boy Scout — always prepared.”
I opened the door through which Soneji had disappeared, and it was suddenly as dark as a tomb. I leveled the barrel of the Glock in front of me and continued forward. This was the cellar, all right, his private hell on a very large scale.
Are you ready to die, Dr. Cross?
There’s no way you can stop it from happening.
I bobbed and weaved as best I could and the flashlight beam shook all over the walls. I could see dim light, dusty lamps up ahead, so I turned off the flash. My lungs hurt. I couldn’t breathe very well, but maybe some of the physical distress was claustrophobia and terror.
I didn’t like it in his cellar. This is how Gary must have felt when he was just a boy. Was he telling us that? Letting us experience it?
“Jesus,” Groza muttered at my back. I figured that he felt what I felt, disoriented and afraid. The wind howled from somewhere inside the tunnel. We couldn’t see much of anything up ahead.
You had to use your imagination in the dark, I was thinking as I proceeded forward. Soneji had learned how to do that as a boy. There were voices behind us now, but they were distant. The ghostly voices echoed off the walls. Nobody was hurrying to catch up with Soneji in the dark, dingy tunnel.
The brakes of a train screeched on the other side of the blackened stone walls. The subway was down here, just parallel to us. There was a stench of garbage and waste that kept getting worse the farther we walked.
I knew that street people lived in some of these tunnels. The NYPD had a Homeless Unit to deal with them.
“Anything there?” Groza muttered, fear and uncertainty in his voice. “You see anything?”
“Nothing.” I whispered. I didn’t want to make any more noise than we had to. I sucked in another harsh breath. I heard a train whistle on the other side of the stone walls.
There was dim light in parts of the tunnel. A scrim of garbage was underfoot, discarded fast-food wrappers, torn and grossly soiled clothing. I had already seen a couple of oversized rats scurrying alongside my feet, out food shopping in the Big Apple.
Then I heard a scream right on top of me. My neck and back stiffened. It was Groza! He went down. I had no idea what had hit him. He didn’t make another sound, didn’t move on the tunnel floor.
I whirled around. Couldn’t see anyone at first. The darkness seemed to swirl.
I caught a flash of Soneji’s face. One eye and half his mouth in dark profile. He hit me before I could get the Glock up. Soneji screamed — a brutal, primal yell. No recognizable words.
He hit me with tremendous power. A punch to the left temple. I remembered how incredibly strong he was, and how crazy he had become. My ears rang, and my head was spinning. My legs were wobbly. He’d almost taken me out with the first punch. Maybe he could have. But he wanted to punish me, wanted his revenge, his payback.
He screamed again — this time inches from my face.
Hurt him back, I told myself. Hurt him now, or you won’t get another chance.
Soneji’s strength was as brutal as it had been the last time we met, especially fighting in close like this. He had me wrapped in his arms and I could smell his breath. He tried to crush me with his arms. White lights flickered and danced before my eyes. I was nearly out on my feet.
He screamed again. I butted with my head. It took him by surprise. His grip loosened, and I broke away for a second.
I threw the hardest punch of my life and heard the crunch of his jaw. Soneji didn’t go down! What did it take to hurt him?
He came at me again, and I struck his left cheek. I felt bone crush under my fist. He screamed, then moaned, but he didn’t fall, didn’t stop coming after me.
“You can’t hurt me,” he gasped, growled. “You’re going to die. You can’t stop it from happening. You can’t stop this now.”
Gary Soneji came at me again. I finally raised the Glock, got it out. Hurt him, hurt him, kill him right now.
I fired! And although it happened fast, it seemed like slow motion. I thought I could feel the gunshot travel through Soneji’s body. The shot bulldozed through his lower jaw. It must have blown his tongue away, his teeth.
What remained of Soneji reached out to me, tried to hold on, to claw at my face and throat. I pushed him away. Hurt him, hurt him, kill him.
He staggered several steps down the darkened tunnel. I don’t know where he got the strength. I was too tired to chase him, but I knew I didn’t have to.
He fell toward the stone floor. He dropped like a deadweight. As he hit the ground, the bomb in his pocket ignited. Gary Soneji exploded in flames. The tunnel behind him was illuminated for at least a hundred feet.
Soneji screamed for a few seconds, then he burned in silence — a human torch in his cellar. He had gone straight to hell.
It was finally over.
Chapter 64
THE JAPANESE have a saying — after victory, tighten your helmet cord. I tried to keep that in mind.
I was back in Washington early on Tuesday, and I spent the whole day at home with Nana and the kids and with Rosie the cat. The morning started when the kids prepared what they called a “bubba-bath” for me. It got better from there. Not only didn’t I tighten my helmet cord, I took the damn thing off.
I tried not to be upset by Soneji’s horrible death, or his threat against me, I’d lived with worse from him in the past. Much worse. Soneji was dead and gone from all of our lives. I had seen him blown to hell with my own eyes. I’d helped blow him there.
Still, I could hear his voice, his warning, his threat at different times during my day at home.
You’re going to die. You can’t stop it from happening.
I’m coming for you, from the grave if I have to.
Kyle Craig called from Quantico to congratulate me and ask how I was doing. Kyle still had an ulterior motive. He tried to suck me into his Mr. Smith case, but I told him no. Definitely no way. I didn’t have the heart for Mr. Smith right now. He wanted me to meet his superagent Thomas Pierce. He asked if I’d read his faxes on Pierce. No.
That night I went to Christine’s house, and I kne
w I had made the right decision about Mr. Smith and the FBI’s continuing problems with the case. I didn’t spend the night because of the kids, but I could have. I wanted to. “You promised you’d be around until we were both at least in our eighties. This is a pretty good start,” she said when I was leaving for the night.
On Wednesday, I had to go to the office to start closing down the Soneji case. I wasn’t thrilled that I had killed him, but I was glad it was over. Everything but the blasted paperwork.
I got home from work around six. I was in the mood for another “bubba-bath,” maybe some boxing lessons, a night with Christine.
I walked in the front door of my house — and all hell broke loose.
Chapter 65
NANA AND the kids were standing before me in the living room. So was Sampson, several detective friends, neighbors, my aunties, a few uncles, and all of their kids. Jannie and Damon started the group yell on cue, “Surprise, Daddy! Surprise party!” Then everybody else in kingdom come joined in. “Surprise, Alex, surprise!”
“Who’s Alex? Who’s Daddy?” I played dumb at the door. “What the hell is going on here?”
Toward the back of the room I could see Christine, at least her smiling face. I waved at her, even as I was being hugged and pounded on the back and shoulders by all my best friends in the world.
I thought Damon was acting a little too respectful, so I swooped him up in my arms (this was probably the last year I would be able to do it) and we hollered assorted sports and war cries, which seemed to fit the party scene.
It’s not usually a very charitable idea to celebrate the death of another human being but, in this case, I thought a party was a terrific idea. It was an appropriate and fitting way to end what had been a sad and scary time for all of us. Somebody had hung a droopy, badly hand-painted banner over the doorway between the living room and dining area. The banner read: Congratulations, Alex! Better luck next lifetime, Gary S.!
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