Cat and Mouse

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

    C ARMINE 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

    G ROZA 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!