Cat and Mouse

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

    S ONEJI’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