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 not 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
