“Is this how you wanted to spend your last moments? Imparting some kind of guilt?”
Cristos smiled, although his dark eyes stayed emotionless. “You should hold tightly to your family.”
“Is that a threat? Is somebody after my family?”
“No, Jack. I have spoken to no one. But sometimes we lose sight of what is precious to us.”
“Do you have family?”
Cristos paused. “I did.”
Jack didn’t respond. He had not thought of Cristos as anything but a murderer; his actions spoke nothing to the contrary. Jack wasn’t sure if he was being played or seeing a glimpse of the man’s soul.
“Is this what you wanted to see me about?
Cristos shook his head.
“What do you have to say, then?” Jack finally asked.
“Nothing is as it seems.” Cristos looked Jack directly in the eye and whispered, “Remember this, death is not always final, not always permanent; death is never the end.”
With Cristos’s words ringing in his ears, Jack watched through the plate-glass window as the man he had convicted of murder was strapped down to a black leather gurney. The room was small, covered with lime-green tiles and taken up by several medical monitors. Cristos’s Zenga suit jacket had been removed; the white sleeves on either arm were rolled up, exposing his thick forearms. Cristos lay on the gurney, staring straight up, his eyes focused elsewhere. There was no emotion on his face, no fear or anxiety in his body language. He appeared calm, as if awaiting a simple medical procedure.
Beside Jack in the viewing room, seated in the rows of chairs, were Peter Womack, Carter Dorran, the two grown children of the Bonsleys, members of a Pashir delegation who had flown in from Asia, and various members of the federal and state law-enforcement community. Not a word was spoken; a prayer-like silence had fallen over the room as if awaiting the start of some religious ceremony.
Within the execution chamber, two medical technicians entered and stood on either side of the gurney. Each swabbed Cristos’s arms, inserted a needle in a vein in each arm, and a saline drip commenced, ensuring a proper flow into Cristos’s system.
The lead technician, an overly tall and gaunt man, leaned over and unbuttoned, Cristos’s shirt, exposing his chest. And as the tech’s eyes fell on the condemned’s torso, so did every other eye in the room, and an almost collective gasp cried out. No one expected to see what Cristos had hidden under his fine suits, masked from the world. His burned and scarred skin was inhuman, like melted flesh from a horror film.
The technician quickly set back to work, affixing the heart monitor to Cristos’s mangled flesh, and checked the readout to ensure that it was working, surprised at the slow heartbeat of a man who was about to die.
At the subtle nod of his head, the two techs confirmed they were ready. They pressed a button on the wall and signaled the executioner.
In an adjacent room, unseen by all, sat a third technician before a console. The IV lines in Cristos’s arms ran into this room, terminating at a middle-aged man in a lab coat who sat at a coldly white, antiseptic desk. Before him were three syringes, each conspicuously labeled.
With a methodical nature, he picked up the first syringe, flicked his finger against the needle, and slipped it into the port in the IV line. The administered drug was sodium thiopental, a barbiturate and anesthetic agent.
Out in the execution room, Cristos’s eyes fell shut as the chemical flowed into his system, rendering him unconscious.
Back in the side room, the technician inserted the second syringe into the IV line. Pancuronium was a muscle relaxant that caused complete paralysis of the skeletal striated muscles, including the diaphragm and respiratory muscles, that would eventually cause death by asphyxiation if the third drug didn’t do its job.
And finally, the technician picked up the third syringe and injected it into the line. The potassium chloride acted quickly, and within two minutes, the heart monitor affixed to Cristos’s chest registered no heartbeat.
With little fanfare, before an audience of twenty including Jack Keeler, the medical examiner stepped into the room, read the monitor, laid his stethoscope to the deceased’s chest, and declared Nowaji Cristos dead.
CHAPTER 25
Jack sat parked at the North White Plains train station, the lot nearly empty on the Friday of a summer holiday weekend.
He and Mia had commuted from this station into Grand Central until a few years ago, when the demands of their jobs turned their schedules upside down and it became more practical to drive into the city.
A black Suburban pulled to the curb beside Jack, and he recognized it at once as the car that had pulled him over on the bridge the night before, the car that had taken Mia away.
Two men emerged from the front of the vehicle, dressed casually in sport jackets and slacks. Jack caught a glimpse of the driver’s shoulder holster.
The driver turned and opened the rear door. A moment passed before Nowaji Cristos, sitting in the back of the car, turned and looked directly at Jack. Jack couldn’t believe his eyes as he watched the man he had convicted and seen executed less than a year before emerge from the Suburban. His black hair in a ponytail, wearing jeans and black boots, he reached back into the car, pulled out a dark blue sportcoat, and threw it on. The man took a few steps forward, approaching like a bird of prey, his black eyes focused on Jack as if ready to pounce on his next meal.
Jack slowly emerged from the Audi.
“So glad you can join our team.” Cristos’s deep voice was thick with contempt. “Aaron and Donal will be joining us. I believe you have already met.”
The two men glared at Jack. Indeed, he knew them from the bridge. Donal, the oversized man who had pummeled Jack senseless, throwing him back into his car and sending him over the bridge, and Aaron, the skinny redhead who had struck Mia so hard and knocked her to the ground. Jack stared back at Aaron until he finally averted his eyes. No matter how the next hour unfolded, Jack swore to himself, that man would pay for what he did.
“Two dead men working together,” Cristos said. “I told you death is not always permanent.”
“How?” Jack said. “I saw you die.”
Cristos smiled, taunting him. “You have a beautiful wife, Jack. You should see how she cried when she learned of your death.”
“You son of a bitch,” Jack said through clienched teeth. “How do I know she’s alive?”
Cristos pulled out his cell phone and dialed. “Get the woman. Put her on the phone.”
Cristos handed Jack the cell.
“Mia?” Jack quietly asked.
“Oh, my God.” Mia’s voice cracked with anguish and relief. “You’re alive?”
“Mia-”
Aaron reached for the phone, snatching it from Jack’s hand.
“No!” Jack yelled, trying to pull the phone back.
“Let him talk.” Cristos stepped forward and stilled Aaron’s hand. “It may be the last time they ever speak.”
Cristos gave the phone back to Jack, indicating that he should get into the Suburban.
Jack took the phone back and climbed in as Cristos shut the door behind him.
“Are you hurt?” Jack said, doing everything to keep his emotions from spilling out.
“No, don’t worry about me. You were shot. I saw you go over the bridge into the river… That bastard showed me the newspaper…”
“How many times have I told you not to believe everything you read in the paper? And remember, it said we were both dead. You and I don’t go down that easy.”
“The girls…?”
“They’re fine. I checked. Do you know where you are?”