Cat & Mouse

Chapter 54

Paris, France

DR. ABEL Sante was thirty-five years old, with longish black hair, boyish good looks, and a beautiful girlfriend named Regina Becker, who was a painter, and a very good one, he thought. He had just left Regina ’s apartment, and was winding his way home on the back streets of the sixth arrondissement at around midnight.

The narrow streets were quiet and empty and he loved this time of day for collecting his thoughts, or sometimes for not thinking at all. Abel Sante was musing on the death of a young woman earlier today, a patient of his, twenty-six years old. She had a loving husband and two beautiful daughters. He had a perspective about death that he thought was a good one: Why should leaving the world, and rejoining the cosmos, be any scarier than entering the world, which wasn’t very scary at all.

Dr. Sante didn’t know where the man, a street person in a soiled gray jacket and torn, baggy jeans had come from. Suddenly the man was at his side, nearly attached to his left elbow.

“Beautiful,” the man said.

“I’m sorry, excuse me?” Abel Sante said, startled, coming out of his inner thoughts in a hurry.

“It’s a beautiful night and our city is so perfect for a late walk.”

“Yes, well it’s been nice meeting you,” Sante said to the street person. He’d noticed that the man’s French was slightly accented. Perhaps he was English, or even American.

“You shouldn’t have left her apartment. Should have stayed the night. A gentleman always stays the night-unless of course he’s asked to leave.”

Dr. Abel Sante’s back and neck stiffened. He took his hands from his trouser pockets. Suddenly he was afraid, very much so.

He shoved the street person away with his left elbow.

“What are you talking about? Why don’t you just get out of here?”

“I’m talking about you and Regina. Regina Becker, the painter. Her work’s not bad, but not good enough, I’m afraid.”

“Get the hell away from me.”

Abel Sante quickened his pace. He was only a block from his home. The other man, the street person, kept up with him easily. He was larger, more athletic than Sante had noticed at first.

“You should have given her babies. That’s my opinion.”

“Get away. Go!”

Suddenly, Sante had both fists raised and clasped tightly. This was insane! He was ready to fight, if he had to. He hadn’t fought in twenty years, but he was strong and in good shape.

The street person swung out and knocked him down. He did it easily, as if it were nothing at all.

Dr. Sante’s pulse was racing rapidly. He couldn’t see very well out of his left eye, where he’d been struck.

“Are you a complete maniac? Are you out of your mind?” he screamed at the man, who suddenly looked powerful and impressive, even in the soiled clothes.

“Yes, of course,” the man answered, “Of course I’m out of my mind. I’m Mr. Smith-and you’re next.”

Chapter 55

GARY SONEJI hurried like a truly horrifying city rat through the low dark tunnels that wind like intestines beneath New York ’s Bellevue Hospital. The fetid odor of dried blood and disinfectants made him feel sick. He didn’t like the reminders of sickness and death surrounding him.

No matter, though, he was properly revved for today. He was wired, flying high. He was Death. And Death was not taking a holiday in New York.

He had outfitted himself for his big morning: crisply pressed white pants, white lab coat, white sneakers; a laminated hospital photo ID around his neck on a beaded silver chain.

He was here on morning rounds. Bellevue. This was his idea of rounds anyway!

There was no way to stop any of this: his train from hell, his destiny, his last hurrah. No one could stop it because no one would ever figure out where the last train was headed. Only he knew that, only Soneji himself could call it off.

He wondered how much of the puzzle Cross had already pieced together. Cross wasn’t in his class as a thinker, but the psychologist and detective wasn’t without crude instincts in certain specialized areas. Maybe he was underestimating Dr. Cross, as he had once before. Could he be caught now? Perhaps, but it really didn’t matter. The game would continue to its end without him. That was the beauty of it, the evil of what he had done.

Gary Soneji stepped into a stainless-steel elevator in the basement of the well-known Manhattan hospital. A pair of porters shared the narrow car with him, and Soneji had a moment of paranoia. They might be New York cops working undercover.

The NYPD actually had an office on the main floor of the hospital. It was there under “normal” circumstances. Bellevue. Jesus, what a sensational madhouse this was. A hospital with a police station inside.

He eyed the porters with a casual and disinterested city-cool look. They can’t be policemen, he thought, Nobody could look that dumb. They were what they looked like-slow-moving, slow-thinking hospital morons.

One of them was pushing around a stainless-steel cart with two bum wheels. It was a wonder that any patient ever made it out of a New York City hospital alive. Hospitals here were run with about the same personnel standards as a McDonald’s restaurant, probably less.

He knew one patient who wasn’t going to leave Bellevue alive. The news reports said that Shareef Thomas was being kept here by the police. Well, Thomas was going to suffer before he left this so-called “vale of tears.” Shareef was about to undergo a world of suffering.

Gary Soneji stepped out of the elevator onto the first floor. He sighed with relief. The two porters went about their business. They weren’t cops. No, they were dumber and dumbest.

Canes, wheelchairs, and metal walkers were everywhere. The hospital artifacts reminded him of his own mortality. The halls on the first floor were painted off-white, the doors and radiators were a shade of pink like “old gum.” Up ahead was a strange coffee shop, dimly lit like a subway passageway. If you ate in that place, he thought to himself, they ought to lock you up in Bellevue!

As he walked from the elevator, Soneji caught his own reflection in a stainless-steel pilar. The master of a thousand faces, he couldn’t help thinking. It was true. His own stepmother wouldn’t recognize him now, and if she did, she would scream her bloody lungs out. She’d know he’d come all the way to hell to get her.

He walked down the corridor, singing very softly in a reggae lilt, “I shot the Shareef, but I did not shoot the dep-u-tee.”

No one paid him any mind. Gary Soneji fit right in at Bellevue.

Chapter 56

SONEJI HAD a perfect memory, so he would recall everything about this morning. He would be able to play it back for himself with incredible detail. This was true for all of his murders. He scanned the narrow, high-ceilinged hallways as if he had a surveillance camera mounted where his head was. His powers of concentration gave him a huge advantage. He was almost supernaturally aware of everything going on around him.

A security guard was riffing with young black males outside the coffee shop. They were all mental defectives for sure, the toy cops especially.

No threat there.

Silly baseball caps were bobbing everywhere. New Jork Janquis. San Francisco Jints. San Jose Sharks. None of the ballcap wearers looked as if they could play ball worth spit. Or harm, or stop him.

The Hospital Police Office was up ahead. The lights were out, though. Nobody home right now. So where were the hospital patrol cops? Were they waiting for him someplace? Why didn’t he see any of them? Was that the first sign of trouble?

At the inpatient elevator, a sign read: ID REQUIRED. Soneji had his ready. For today’s masquerade, he was Francis Michael Nicolo, R.N.

A framed poster was on the wall: PATIENTS’ RIGHTS AND RESPONSIBILITIES. Signs started out from behind fuzzy Plexiglas everywhere he looked. It was worse than a New York highway: RADIOLOGY, UROLOGY, HEMATOLOGY. I’m sick, too, Soneji wanted to yell out to the powers that be. I’m as sick as anybody in here. I’m dying. Nobody cares. Nobody has ever cared.

He took the central elevator to four. No problems so far, no hassles. No police. He got off at his stop, pumped to see Shareef Thomas again, to see the look of shock and fear on his face.

The hallway on four had a hollowed-out basement feel to it. Nothing seemed to absorb sound. The whole building felt as if it were made entirely of concrete.

Soneji peered down the corridor to where he knew Shareef was being kept. His room was at the far end of the building. Isolated for safety, right? So this was the high-and-mighty NYPD in action. What a joke. Everything was a joke, if you thought about it long and hard enough.

Soneji lowered his head and started to walk toward Shareef Thomas’s hospital room.

Chapter 57

CARMINE GROZA and I were inside the private hospital room waiting for Soneji, hoping that he would show. We had been here for hours. How would I know what Soneji looked like now? That was a problem, but we would take them one at a time.

We never heard a noise at the door. Suddenly it was swinging open. Soneji exploded into the room, expecting to find Shareef Thomas. He stared at Groza and me.

His hair was dyed silver-gray and combed straight back. He looked like a man in his fifties or early sixties-but the height was about right. His light blue eyes widened as he looked at me. It was the eyes that I recognized first.

He smiled the same disdainful dismissive smirk I’d seen so many times, sometimes in my nightmares. He thought he was so damn superior to the rest of us. He knew it.

Soneji said only two words: “Even better.”

“ New York Police! Freeze,” Groza barked a warning in an authoritative tone.

Soneji continued to smirk as if this surprise reception pleased him no end, as if he’d planned it himself. His confidence, his arrogance, was incredible to behold.

He’s wearing a bulletproof vest, my mind registered a bulge around his upper body. He’s protected. He’s ready for whatever we do.

There was something clasped tightly in his left hand. I couldn’t tell what. He’d entered the room with the arm half-raised.

He flipped a small green bottle in his hand toward Groza and me. Just the flip of his hand. The bottle clinked as it hit the wooden floor. It bounced a second time. Suddenly I understood…but too late, seconds too late.

“Bomb!” I yelled at Groza. “Hit the floor! Get down!”

Groza and I dove away from the bed and the caroming green bottle. We managed to put up sitting chairs as shields. The flash inside the room was incredibly bright, a splintered shock of white light with an afterglow of the brightest yellow. Then everything around us seemed to catch fire.

For a second or two. I was blinded. Then I felt as if I were burning up. My trousers and shoes were engulfed in flames. I covered my face, mouth, and eyes with my hands. “Jesus, God,” Groza screamed.

I could hear a sizzle, like bacon on a grill. I prayed it wasn’t me that was cooking. Then I was choking and gurgling and so was Groza. Flames burst and danced across my shirt, and through it all I could hear Soneji. He was laughing at us.

“Welcome to hell, Cross,” he said. “Burn, baby, burn.”

Chapter 58

GROZA AND I stripped the bed of blankets and sheets and beat out our burning trousers. We were lucky, at least I hoped we were. We smothered the flames. The ones on our legs and shoes.

“He wanted to burn Thomas alive,” I told Groza. “He’s got another firebomb. I saw another green bottle, at least one.”

We hobbled as best we could down the hospital corridor, chasing after Soneji. Two other detectives were already down outside, wounded. Soneji was a phantom.

We followed him down several twisting flights of back stairs. The sound of the footrace echoed loudly on the stairway. My eyes were watering, but I could see okay.

Groza alerted and clued in other detectives on his two-way. “Suspect has a firebomb! Soneji has a bomb. Use extreme care.”

“What the hell does he want?” the detective yelled at me as we kept moving. “What the hell’s he going to do now?”

“I think he wants to die,” I gasped. “And he wants to be famous. Go out with a bang. That’s his way. Maybe right here at Bellevue.”

Attention was what Gary Soneji had always craved. From his boyhood years, he’d been obsessed with stories of “crimes of the century.” I was sure that Soneji wanted to die now, but he had to do it with a huge noise. He wanted to control his own death.

I was wheezing and out of breath when we finally got to the lobby floor. Smoke had seared my throat, but otherwise I was doing okay. My brain was fuzzy and unclear about what to do next.

I saw a blur of hectic movement ahead, maybe thirty yards across the front lobby.

I pushed through the nervous crowd trying to exit the building. Word had spread about the fire upstairs. The flow of people in and out of Bellevue was always as steady as at a subway turnstile, and that was before a bomb went off inside.

I made it onto the stoop in front of the hospital. It was raining hard, gray and awful outside. I looked everywhere for Soneji.

A cluster of hospital staff and visitors were under the front awning, smoking cigarettes. They seemed unaware of the emergency situation, or maybe these workers were just used to them. The brick path leading away from the building was crowded with more pedestrians coming and going in the downpour. The umbrellas were blocking my vision.

Where the hell had Gary Soneji gone? Where could he have disappeared to? I had the sinking feeling that I’d lost him again. I couldn’t stand any more of this.

Out on First Avenue, food vendors under colorful umbrellas stained with dirt were peddling gyros, hot dogs, and New York-style pretzels.

No Soneji anywhere.

I kept searching, frantically looking up and down the busy, noisy street. I couldn’t let him get away. I would never get another chance as good as this. There was an opening in the crowd. I could see for maybe half a block.

There he was!

Soneji was moving with a small clique of pedestrians headed north on the sidewalk. I started to go after him. Groza was still with me. We both had our weapons out. We couldn’t risk a shot in the crowds, though. Lots of mothers and children and elderly people, patients coming and going from the hospital.

Soneji peered to the left, the right, and then behind. He saw us coming. I was sure he’d seen me.

He was improvising his escape, a way out of the extreme and dangerous mess. The sequence of recent events showed deterioration in his thinking. He was losing his sharpness and clarity. That’s why he’s ready to die now. He’s tired of dying slowly. He’s losing his mind. He can’t bear it.

A Con Ed crew had blocked off half the intersection. Hard hats bobbed in the rain. Traffic was trying to maneuver around the roadwork, nonstop honkers everywhere.

I saw Soneji make a sudden break from the crowd. What the hell? He was running toward First Avenue, racing down the slippery street. He was weaving, running in a full sprint.

I watched as Gary Soneji spun quickly to his right. Do us all a favor, Go down! He ran along the side of a white and blue city bus that had stopped for passengers.

He was still slipping, sliding. He almost fell. Then he was inside the goddamn bus.

The bus was standing-room only. I could see Soneji frantically waving his arms, screaming orders at the other passengers. Jesus, God, he’s got a bomb on that city bus.

Chapter 59

DETECTIVE GROZA staggered up beside me. His face was smudged with soot and his flowing black hair was singed. He signaled wildly for a car, waving both arms. A police sedan pulled up beside us and we jumped inside.

“You all right?” I asked him.

“I guess so. I’m here. Let’s go get him.”

We followed the bus up First Avenue, weaving in and out of traffic, siren full blast. We almost hit a cab, missed by inches, if that.

“You sure he’s got another bomb?”

I nodded. “At least one. Remember the Mad Bomber in New York? Soneji probably does. The Mad Bomber was famous.”

Everything was crazy and surreal. The rain was coming down harder, making loud bangs on the sedan’s roof.

“He has hostages,” Groza spoke into the two-way on the dash. “He’s on a city bus heading up First Avenue. He appears to have a bomb. The bus in an M-15. All cars stay on the bus. Do not intercept at this point. He has a goddamn bomb on the M-15 bus.”

I counted a half a dozen blue-and-whites already in pursuit. The city bus was stopping for red lights, but it was no longer picking up passengers. People standing in the rain, bypassed at stops, waved their arms angrily at the M-15. None of them understood how lucky they were that the bus doors didn’t open for them.

“Try to get close,” I told the driver. “I want to talk to him. Want to see if he’ll talk anyway. It’s worth a try.”

The police sedan accelerated, then weaved on the wet streets. We were getting closer. We were inching alongside the bright blue bus. A poster advertised the musical Phantom of the Opera in bold type. A real live phantom was on board the bus. Gary Soneji was back in the spotlight that he loved. He was playing New York now.

I had the side window of the car rolled down. Rain and wind attacked my face, but I could see Soneji inside the bus. Jesus, he was still improvising-he had somebody’s child, a bundle of pink and blue, cradled in his arm. He was screaming orders, his free arm swinging in angry circles.

I leaned as far as I could outside the car. “ Gary!” I yelled. “What do you want?” I called out again, fighting the traffic noise, the loud roar of the bus. “ Gary! It’s Alex Cross!”

Passengers inside the bus were looking out at me. They were terrified, beyond terror, actually.

At Forty-second Street and First, the bus made a sudden, sweeping left turn!

I looked at Groza. “This the regular route?”

“No way,” he said. “He’s making his own route up as he goes.”

“What’s on Forty-second Street? What’s up ahead? Where the hell could he be going?”

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 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 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 knew 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.!

Sampson led me into the backyard, where even more friends were waiting in ambush. Sampson had on baggy black shorts, a pair of combat boots, and his shades. He wore a beat-up Homicide cap and had a silver loop in one ear. He was definitely ready to party, and so was I.

Detectives from all around D.C. had come to offer their hearty congratulations, but also to eat my food and drink my liquor.

Succulent kabobs and racks of baby-back ribs were arranged beside homemade breads, rolls, and an impressive array of hotsauce bottles. It made my eyes water just to look at the feast. Aluminum tubs overflowed with beer and ale and soda pop on ice. There was fresh corn on the cob, colorful fruit salads, and summer pastas by the bowlful.

Sampson grabbed my arm tight, and hollered so I could hear him over the noise of joyful voices and also Toni Braxton wailing her heart out on the CD Player. “You party on, Sugar. Say hello to all your other guests, all your peeps. I plan to be here until closing time.”

“I’ll catch you later,” I told him. “Nice boots, nice shorts, nice legs.”

“Thank you, thank you, thank you. You got that son of a bitch, Alex! You did the right thing. May his evil, hair-bag ass burn and rot in hell. I’m just sorry I wasn’t there with you.”

Christine had taken a quiet spot in the corner of the yard under our shade tree. She was talking with my favorite aunt, Tia, and my sister-in-law, Cilla. It was like her to put herself last on the greeting line.

I kissed Tia and Cilla, and then reached out and gave Christine a hug. I held her and didn’t want to let go. “Thank you for coming here for all this madness,” I said. “You’re the best surprise of all.”

She kissed me, and then we pulled apart. I think we were overly conscious that Damon and Jannie had never seen us together. Not like this anyway.

“Oh shit,” I muttered. “Look there.”

The two little devil-demons were watching us. Damon winked outrageously, and Jannie made an okay sign with her busy and quick little fingers.

“They’re way, way ahead of us,” Christine said and laughed. “Figures, Alex. We should have known.”

“Why don’t you two head on up to bed?” I kidded the kids.

“It’s only six o’clock, Daddy!” Jannie yelped, but she was grinning and laughing and so was everybody else.

It was a wild, let-loose party and everybody quickly got into the spirit. The monkey of Gary Soneji was finally off my back. I spotted Nana talking to some of my police friends.

I heard what she was saying as I passed. It was pure Nana Mama. “There is no history that I know of that has led from slavery to freedom, but there is sure a history from the slingshot to the Uzi,” she said to her audience of homicide detectives. My friends were grinning and nodding their heads as if they understood what she was saying, where she was coming from. I did. For better or for worse, Nana Mama had taught me how to think.

On the lighter side there was dancing to everything, from Marsalis to hip-hop. Nana even danced some. Sampson ran the barbecue in the backyard, featuring hot-and-spicy sausages, barbecued chicken, and more ribs than you would need for a Redskins tailgate party.

I was called upon to play a few tunes, so I banged out “’S Wonderful,” and then a jazzy version of “Ja Da”-“Ja da, Ja da, Ja da, jing, jing, jing!”

“Here’s a stupid little melody,” Jannie hammed it up at my side, “but it’s so soo-thing and appealing to me.”

I grabbed some slow dances with Christine as the sun set and the night progressed. The fit of our bodies was still magical and right. Just as I remembered it from the Rainbow Room. She seemed amazingly comfortable with my family and friends. I could tell that they approved of her big time.

I sang along with a Seal tune as we danced in the moonlight. “No, we’re never going to survive-Unless-We get a little cra-azy.”

“Seal would be sooo proud,” she whispered in my ear.

“Mmm. Sure he would.”

“You are such a good, smooth dancer,” she said against my cheek.

“For a gumshoe and a flatfoot,” I said. “I only dance with you, though.”

She laughed, and then punched my side. “Don’t you lie! I saw you dancing with John Sampson.”

“Yes, but it didn’t mean anything. It was only for the cheap sex.”

Christine laughed and I could feel a small quiver in her stomach. It reminded me of how much life she had in her. It reminded me that she wanted kids, and that she ought to have them. I remembered everything about our night at the Rainbow Room, and afterward at the Astor. I felt as if I had known her forever. She’s the one, Alex.

“I have summer school in the morning,” Christine finally told me. It was already past midnight. “I brought my car. I’m okay. I’ve been drinking kiddie cocktails mostly. You enjoy your party, Alex.”

“You sure?”

Her voice was firm. “Absolutely. I’m fine. I’m cool. And I’m outta here.”

We kissed for a long time, and when we had to come up for air, we both laughed. I walked her out to her car. “Let me drive you home at least,” I protested as I stood with my arms around her. “I want to. I insist.”

“No, then my car would still be here. Please enjoy your party. Be with your friends. You can see me tomorrow, if you like. I’d like that. I won’t take no for an answer.”

We kissed again, and then Christine got in her car and drove away to Mitchellville.

I missed her already.

Chapter 66

I COULD STILL feel Christine’s body against me, smell her new Donna Karan perfume, hear the special music of her voice. Sometimes you just get lucky in life. Sometimes the universe takes care of you pretty good. I wandered back to the party taking place in my house.

Several of my detective friends were still hanging out, including Sampson. There was a joke going around about Soneji having “angel lust.” “Angel lust” was what they called cadavers at the morgue with an erection. The party was going there.

Sampson and I drank way too much beer, and then some B amp;B on the back porch steps-after everyone else was long gone.

“Now that was a hell of a party,” Two-John said. “The all-singing, all-dancing model.”

“It was pretty damn good. Of course, we are still standing. Sitting up anyway. I feel real good, but I’m going to feel pretty bad.”

Sampson was grinning and his shades were placed slightly crooked on his face. His huge elbows rested on his knees. You could strike a match on his arms or legs, probably even on his head.

“I’m proud of you, man. We all are. You definitely got the twenty-thousand-pound gorilla off your back. I haven’t see you smiling so much in a long, long while. More I see of Ms. Christine Johnson, the more I like her, and I liked her to begin with.”

We were on the porch steps, looking over Nana’s garden of wildflowers, her roses that bloomed so abundantly, and garden lilies, looking over the remains of the party, all that food and booze.

It was late. It was already tomorrow. The wildflower garden had been there since we were little kids. The smell of bonemeal and fresh dirt seemed particularly ageless and reassuring that night.

“You remember the first summer we met?” I asked John. “You called me watermelon-ass, which burned me, because it was complete bullshit. I had a tight butt, even then.”

“We tangled good in Nana’s garden, right in the brier patch over yonder. I couldn’t believe you would tangle with me. Nobody else would do that, still don’t. Even back then you didn’t know your limitations.”

I smiled at Sampson. He finally had taken off his shades. It always surprises me how sensitive and warm his eyes are. “You call me watermelon-ass, we’ll tangle again.”

Sampson continued to nod and grin. Come to think of it, I hadn’t seen him smiling so much in a long while. Life was good tonight. The best it had been in a while.

“You really like Ms. Christine. I think you’ve found yourself another special person. I’m sure of it. You’re down for the count, champ.”

“You jealous?” I asked him.

“Yeah, of course I am. Damn straight, Christine is all that and a bag of chips. But I would just fuck it up if I ever found somebody sweet and nice like that. You’re easy to be with, Sugar. Always have been, even when you had your little watermelon-ass. Tough when you have to be, but you can show your feelings, too. Whatever it is, Christine likes you a lot. Almost as much as you like her.”.

Sampson pushed himself up off the sagging back porch step, which I needed to replace soon.

“God willing, I’m going to walk on home. Actually, I’m going to Cee Walker’s house. The beautiful diva left the party a little early, but she was kind enough to give me a key. I’ll be back, pick up my car in the morning. Best not to drive when you can hardly walk.”

“Best not to,” I agreed. “Thanks for the party.”

Sampson waved good-bye, saluted, and then he went around the corner of the house, which he bumped on the way out.

I was alone on the back porch steps, staring out over Nana’s moonlit garden, smiling like the fool I can be sometimes, but maybe not often enough.

I heard Sampson call out. Then his deep laugh came from the front of the house.

“Good night, watermelon-ass.”

Chapter 67

I CAME FULLY awake, and I wondered what I was afraid of, what the hell was happening here. My first conscious fear was that I was having a heart attack in my own bed.

I was spacey and woozy, still flying high from the party. My heart was beating loudly, thundering in my chest.

I thought that I had heard a deep, low, pounding noise from somewhere inside the house. The noise was close. It sounded as if a heavy weight, maybe a club, had been striking something down the hallway.

My eyes weren’t adjusted to the darkness yet. I listened for another noise.

I was frightened. I couldn’t remember where I left my Glock last night. What could possibly make that heavy pounding sound inside the house?

I listened with all the concentration I could command.

The refrigerator purred down in the kitchen.

A distant truck changed gears on the mean streets.

Still, something about that sound, the pounding noise, bothered me a lot. Had there even been a sound? I wondered. Was it just the first warnings of a powerful headache coming on?

Before I realized what was happening, a shadowy figure rose from the other side of the bed.

Soneji! He’s kept his promise. He’s here in the house!

“Aaagghhgghh!” the attacker screamed and swung at me with a large club of some sort.

I tried to roll, but my body and mind weren’t cooperating. I’d had too much to drink, too much party, too much fun.

I felt a powerful blow to my shoulder! My whole body went numb. I tried to scream, but suddenly I had no voice. I couldn’t scream. I could barely move.

The club descended swiftly again-this time it struck my lower back.

Someone was trying to beat me to death. Jesus, God. I thought of the loud pounding sounds. Had he gone to Nana’s room first? Damon and Jannie’s? What was happening in our house?

I reached for him and managed to grab his arm. I yanked hard and he shrieked again, a high-pitched sound, but definitely a man’s voice.

Soneji? How could it be? I’d seen him die in the tunnels of Grand Central Station.

What was happening to me? Who was in my bedroom? Who was upstairs in our house?

“Jannie? Damon?-” I finally mumbled, tried to call to them. “Nana? Nana?”

I began scratching at his chest, his arms, felt something sticky, probably drawing blood. I was fighting with only one arm, and barely able to do that.

“Who are you? What are you doing? Damon! Damon!” I called out again. Much louder this time.

He broke loose and I fell out of the bed, face first. The floor came at me hard, struck, and my face went numb.

My whole body was on fire. I began to throw up on the carpet.

The bat, the sledgehammer, the crowbar, whatever in hell it was-came down again and seemed to split me in two. I was burning up with pain. Ax! Has to be ax!

I could feel and smell blood everywhere around me on the floor. My blood?

“I told you there was no way to stop me!” he screamed. “I told you.”

I looked up and thought I recognized the face looming above me. Gary Soneji? Could it possibly be Soneji? How could that possibly be? It couldn’t!

I understood that I was dying, and I didn’t want to die. I wanted to run, to see my kids one more time. Just one more look at them.

I knew I couldn’t stop the attack. Knew there was nothing I could do to stop this horror from happening.

I thought of Nana and Jannie, Damon, Christine. My heart ached for them.

Then I let God do His will.