I knelt beside the soldier-a National Guardsman or reservist. I grabbed the Bic lighter from Zoya’s hand to take a cursory look at his face and chest. The man was dead.
“Let me in,” Zoya yelled to whoever was inside.
Keith Scully and his colleagues had obviously stationed someone outside the room where the trains were controlled. It appeared that Nik Blunt had killed him and taken whatever gun-whatever kind of weapon-the dead man had thought would protect him.
“Nobody’s coming in here,” a voice called back. “Who are you?”
“I’m-I’m-just a woman. Just-just-help me. What’s the difference?”
“I’m a prosecutor. I’m Alex Cooper,” I said. “I’m so glad you’re okay.”
“You got ID? You got a badge?”
“No, no, badge. But you can call the stationmaster. Call the police commissioner. They’ll tell you who I am.”
“Lady, we can’t call nobody. How the hell do I know who you are? Somebody was supposed to be outside this door keeping us safe. Sounds like he’s gone. We’re barricaded in here till I see the man I work for. All our furniture’s against the door, so don’t try anything.”
“The man guarding you is dead,” I said.
I didn’t know whether I was talking to Yolanda Figueroa’s boyfriend or not, but it wasn’t the time to break that sad piece of news to him.
“I’ve got a gun, lady. Locked, loaded, and perfectly legal. Try to get yourselves in here and you’re dead, too.”
Zoya started stumbling forward again, farther into the dark hallway, into what was unfamiliar territory for me.
I stood beside the man who’d been killed, unable to move.
Then I heard noise, remote but audible. Someone was playing with the lock that I’d jammed with the corkscrew, jimmying it, trying to force it open.
I reached up for one of the horizontal steam pipes and grasped on to it. It was so dark that I couldn’t even see Zoya, but there was only one direction in which I could move.
In ten or twelve steps, I could hear her breathing. I practically bumped into her, where she had stopped at an intersection in the narrow passageway.
I drew next to her and whispered in her ear, as softly as I could. “I think Nik’s going to be coming back this way. We won’t be able to talk. We can’t use your lighter.”
“How do you know he’s coming?” She was panicky, shaking like a leaf.
“There’s someone trying to get through that door on the landing we just left. If it was cops, they’d be calling out to us by now. They’d be offering help.”
“But you said-”
“We had to leave the position Mike sent us to, so the guys don’t know where we are anymore, Zoya. How can they help us till they do?”
“Well, I’m getting out. I’m getting out of here.”
“Where are you going? I’m trying to help you stay safe. There must be some hiding place you remember.”
She turned her back to me and started to walk briskly. It was too dark to run.
Zoya Blunt had no intention of answering me. She was simply trying to put as much distance as she could between her brother and herself.
She made a right turn at the intersection in the corridor. I had no choice but to follow her.
We must have taken another twenty or thirty steps. To my right was a series of doors-probably equipment closets. I slowed down to twist the knobs, but nothing gave.
Zoya Blunt stopped short just ahead of me. To her left were only two choices: a steel-framed door or a wooden staircase located at the bottom of a dozen steps.
I watched as without hesitation she chose the door.
I was practically on her back as she worked the handle. There was no lock.
Zoya pushed on the door and it swung open.
I looked out and gasped. She had stepped out onto the sloping roof of Grand Central Terminal, twenty stories above 42nd Street.
FORTY-SEVEN
Rain pelted my face as I froze in the doorway, half of me inside and half out. Thunder rolled overhead.
“You can’t do this, Zoya. You’ll fall!”
She sat down on the copper plates of the rooftop and started scooting sideways like a crab, heading to the west side of the building. Clearly neither she nor her brother shared my fear of heights.
I followed her progression with my eyes but was too paralyzed to copy her moves. The tiles were slippery from the storm. Zoya’s skirt ripped as she slid down to the edge of the roof, catching herself on the concrete trim that decorated the entire edge of the vast building.
Fear was a powerful motivator. She rolled onto her hip and clawed her way up the side of the incline, closer to the top, then continued to propel herself westward.
Zoya had left me behind. I understood why but didn’t know which way to go to save myself.
Nothing was moving below me on 42nd Street. Undoubtedly, the massive police operation had resulted in the closure of all traffic routes around the terminal.
There was a flash of light that stunned me for a few seconds. More lightning, I thought.
But when I picked my head up, there was a row of Emergency Service floodlights aimed at this side of the roof. Some were on the roadway, and others were directed straight ahead, on the Park Avenue Viaduct that encircled the building directly below me.
I ducked back inside, rain-soaked and confused. I stepped out of my wet sneakers and left them next to the door.
It suddenly occurred to me that there were police snipers in every office building on the opposite side of the street. If Nik Blunt had chosen to escape on foot, on any one of the streets or avenues, the sharpshooters would have been waiting for him. And of course, the rooftop was another possible route for someone as nimble as Blunt.
I closed the door and tried to think about my options.
Then I heard footsteps. It was neither pounding rain nor the sound of Zoya Blunt scrambling across the roof of the terminal.
The steps came from the corridor we had just traveled, and since no one was calling my name, I assumed the person approaching me was Nik Blunt.
I went down the short wooden staircase, wondering why Zoya-who clearly had played in this vast attic as a child-hadn’t taken this passage. I assumed it was because it did not lead out to the rooftop, which, to me, was a good thing.
At the bottom of the steps was an enclosure-also made of wood, somewhat decomposed and rotted out-which was probably original to the old building.
“Who are you?” It was Blunt’s voice. The same one I’d heard after he’d disposed of Yolanda’s body.
I took another two steps and was inside the shed, out of sight.
“I saw you peeking out from the landing. Guess nobody told you it was a bad night to be working late.”
I was relieved that the killer had no reason to know my name or my role in this manhunt and seemed unaware of his sister’s presence in the terminal.
I turned around to see where I was, whether entrapped in this wooden corral or if there was another way out.
My eyes became accustomed to the light and in front of me I could see the interior of a gigantic clock, the rear side of huge pieces of stained glass that fronted on 42nd Street.
The spectacular timepiece was, I knew, the largest clock ever made in the Tiffany Studios. It was part of the iconic statue Transportation that was Grand Central’s face to the world.
Blunt was getting closer. “I need you to take a walk with me,” he said. “Come on out, wherever you are.”
I knew the clock faced due south. Its center was bright blue, with painted rays of sunlight dancing around the dial. Each of the Roman numerals was also gilded against a deep-red circular background.
Blunt was playing with the knob on the door handle that led to the roof, the same exit Zoya had used.
I saw a small plaque on the wall of the clock room. Next to the numeral VI on the giant face, which was probably a dozen feet in diameter or more, were the words OPEN HERE. It must have been the way custodians could reach the exterior clock face for maintenance and repairs.