He had been shooting rifles since he was a boy in the deep, dark woods surrounding Princeton, New Jersey. During the past year, he’d done more shooting, more hunting, more practicing than ever before. He was primed and ready for this morning. Hell, he’d been ready for years.
Soneji sat on a metal folding chair and made himself as comfortable as he could. He pulled up a battleship gray tarp that blended into the background of the train terminal’s dark walls. He snuggled under the tarp. He was going to disappear, to be part of the scenery, to be a sniper in a very public place. In Union Station!
An old-fashioned-sounding train announcer was singing out the track and time for the next Metroliner to Baltimore, Wilmington, Philadelphia, and New York ’s Penn Station.
Soneji smiled to himself-that was his getaway train.
He had his ticket, and he still planned to be on it. No problem, just book it. He’d be on the Metroliner, or bust. Nobody could stop him now, except maybe Alex Cross, and even that didn’t matter anymore. His plan had contingencies for every possibility, even his own death.
Then Soneji was lost in his thoughts. His memories were his cocoon.
He had been nine years old when a student named Charles Whitman opened fire out of a tower at the University of Texas, in Austin. Whitman was a former Marine, twenty-five years old. The outrageous, sensational event had galvanized him back then.
He’d collected every single story on the shootings, long pieces from Time, Life, Newsweek, the New York Times, Philadelphia Inquirer, Times of London, Paris Match, Los Angeles Times, Baltimore Sun. He still had the precious articles. They were at a friend’s house, being held for posterity. They were evidence-of past, present, and future crimes.
Gary Soneji knew he was a good marksman. Not that he needed to be a crackerjack in this bustling crowd of targets. No shot he’d have to make in the train terminal would be over a hundred yards, and he was accurate at up to five hundred yards.
Now, I step out of my own nightmare and into the real world, he thought as the moment crystallized. A cold, hard shiver ran through his body. It was delicious, tantalizing. He peered through the Browning’s telescope at the busy, nervous, milling crowd.
He searched for the first victim. Life was so much more beautiful and interesting through a target scope.
Chapter 8
YOU ARE there.
He scanned the lobby with its thousands of hurrying commuters and summer vacation travelers. Not one of them had a clue about his or her mortal condition at that very moment. People never seemed to believe that something horrible could actually happen to them.
Soneji watched a lively brat pack of students in bright blue blazers and starched white shirts. Preppies, goddamn preppies. They were giggling and running for their train with unnatural delight. He didn’t like happy people at all, especially dumb-ass children who thought they had the world by the nuts.
He found that he could distinguish smells from up here: diesel fuel, lilacs and roses from the flower vendors, meat and garlic shrimp from the lobby’s restaurants. The odors made him hungry.
The target circle in his customized scope had a black site post rather than the more common bull’s-eye. He preferred the post. He watched a montage of shapes and motion and colors swim in and out of death’s way. This small circle of the Grim Reaper was his world now, self-contained and mesmerizing.
Soneji let the aiming post come to rest on the broad, wrinkled forehead of a weary-looking businesswoman in her early to mid-fifties. The woman was thin and nervous, with haggard eyes, pale lips. “Say good night, Gracie,” he whispered softly. “Good night, Irene. Good night, Mrs. Calabash.”
He almost pulled the trigger, almost started the morning’s massacre, then he eased off at the last possible instant.
Not worthy of the first shot, he thought, chastising himself for impatience. Not nearly special enough. Just a passing fancy. Just another middle-class cow.
The aiming post settled in and held as if by a magnet on the lower spine of a porter pushing an uneven load of boxes and suitcases. The porter was a tall, good-looking black-much like Alex Cross, Soneji thought. His dark skin gleamed like mahogany furniture.
That was the attraction of the target. He liked the image, but who would get the subtle, special message other than himself? No, he had to think of others, too. This was a time to be selfless.
He moved the aiming post again, the circle of death. There were an amazing number of commuters in blue suits and black wing tips. Business sheep.
A father and teenage son floated into the circle, as if they had been put there by the hand of God.
Gary Soneji inhaled. Then he slowly exhaled. It was his shooting ritual, the one he’d practiced for so many years alone in the woods. He had imagined doing this so many times. Taking out a perfect stranger, for no good reason.
He gently, very gently, pulled the trigger toward the center of his eye.
His body was completely still, almost lifeless. He could feel the faint pulse in his arm, the pulse in his throat, the approximate speed of his heartbeat.
The shot made a loud cracking noise, and the sound seemed to follow the flight of the bullet down toward the lobby. Smoke spiraled upward, inches in front of the rifle barrel. Quite beautiful to observe.
The teenager’s head exploded inside the telescopic circle. Beautiful. The head flew apart before his eyes. The Big Bang in miniature, no?
Then Gary Soneji pulled the trigger a second time. He murdered the father before he had a chance to grieve. He felt absolutely nothing for either of them. Not love, not hate, not pity. He didn’t flinch, wince, or even blink.
There was no stopping Gary Soneji now, no turning back.
Chapter 9
RUSH HOUR! Eight-twenty A.M. Jesus God Almighty, no! A madman was on the loose inside Union Station.
Sampson and I raced alongside the double lanes of stalled traffic that covered Massachusetts Avenue as far as the eye could see. When in doubt, gallop. The maxim of the old Foreign Legion.
Car and truck drivers honked their horns in frustration. Pedestrians were screaming, walking fast, or running away from the train station. Police squad cars were on the scene everywhere.
Up ahead on North Capitol I could see the massive, all-granite Union Station terminal with its many additions and renovations. Everything was somber and gray around the terminal except the grass, which seemed especially green.
Sampson and I flew past the new Thurgood Marshall Justice Building. We heard gunshots coming from the station. They sounded distant, muffled by the thick stone walls.
“It’s for goddamn real,” Sampson said as he ran at my side. “He’s here. No doubt about it now.”
I knew he would be. An urgent call had come to my desk less than ten minutes earlier. I had picked up the phone, distracted by another message, a fax from Kyle Craig of the FBI. I was scanning Kyle’s fax. He desperately needed help on his huge Mr. Smith case. He wanted me to meet an agent, Thomas Pierce. I couldn’t help Kyle this time. I was thinking of getting the hell out of the murder business, not taking on more cases, especially a serious bummer like Mr. Smith.
I recognized the voice on the phone. “It’s Gary Soneji, Dr. Cross. It really is me. I’m calling from Union Station. I’m just passing through D.C., and I hoped against hope that you’d like to see me again. Hurry, though. You’d better scoot if you don’t want to miss me.”
Then the phone went dead. Soneji had hung up. He loved to be in control.
Now, Sampson and I were sprinting along Massachusetts Avenue. We were moving a whole lot faster than the traffic. I had abandoned my car at the corner of Third Street.
We both wore protective vests over our sport shirts. We were “scooting,” as Soneji had advised me over the phone.