Where the hell had Gary Soneji gone? Where could he have disappeared to? I had the sinking feeling that I’d lost him again. I couldn’t stand any more of this.

Out on First Avenue, food vendors under colorful umbrellas stained with dirt were peddling gyros, hot dogs, and New York-style pretzels.

No Soneji anywhere.

I kept searching, frantically looking up and down the busy, noisy street. I couldn’t let him get away. I would never get another chance as good as this. There was an opening in the crowd. I could see for maybe half a block.

There he was!

Soneji was moving with a small clique of pedestrians headed north on the sidewalk. I started to go after him. Groza was still with me. We both had our weapons out. We couldn’t risk a shot in the crowds, though. Lots of mothers and children and elderly people, patients coming and going from the hospital.

Soneji peered to the left, the right, and then behind. He saw us coming. I was sure he’d seen me.

He was improvising his escape, a way out of the extreme and dangerous mess. The sequence of recent events showed deterioration in his thinking. He was losing his sharpness and clarity. That’s why he’s ready to die now. He’s tired of dying slowly. He’s losing his mind. He can’t bear it.

A Con Ed crew had blocked off half the intersection. Hard hats bobbed in the rain. Traffic was trying to maneuver around the roadwork, nonstop honkers everywhere.

I saw Soneji make a sudden break from the crowd. What the hell? He was running toward First Avenue, racing down the slippery street. He was weaving, running in a full sprint.

I watched as Gary Soneji spun quickly to his right. Do us all a favor, Go down! He ran along the side of a white and blue city bus that had stopped for passengers.

He was still slipping, sliding. He almost fell. Then he was inside the goddamn bus.

The bus was standing-room only. I could see Soneji frantically waving his arms, screaming orders at the other passengers. Jesus, God, he’s got a bomb on that city bus.

DETECTIVE GROZA staggered up beside me. His face was smudged with soot and his flowing black hair was singed. He signaled wildly for a car, waving both arms. A police sedan pulled up beside us and we jumped inside.

“You all right?” I asked him.

“I guess so. I’m here. Let’s go get him.”

We followed the bus up First Avenue, weaving in and out of traffic, siren full blast. We almost hit a cab, missed by inches, if that.

“You sure he’s got another bomb?”

I nodded. “At least one. Remember the Mad Bomber in New York? Soneji probably does. The Mad Bomber was famous.”

Everything was crazy and surreal. The rain was coming down harder, making loud bangs on the sedan’s roof.

“He has hostages,” Groza spoke into the two-way on the dash. “He’s on a city bus heading up First Avenue. He appears to have a bomb. The bus in an M-15. All cars stay on the bus. Do not intercept at this point. He has a goddamn bomb on the M-15 bus.”

I counted a half a dozen blue-and-whites already in pursuit. The city bus was stopping for red lights, but it was no longer picking up passengers. People standing in the rain, bypassed at stops, waved their arms angrily at the M-15. None of them understood how lucky they were that the bus doors didn’t open for them.

“Try to get close,” I told the driver. “I want to talk to him. Want to see if he’ll talk anyway. It’s worth a try.”

The police sedan accelerated, then weaved on the wet streets. We were getting closer. We were inching alongside the bright blue bus. A poster advertised the musical Phantom of the Opera in bold type. A real live phantom was on board the bus. Gary Soneji was back in the spotlight that he loved. He was playing New York now.

I had the side window of the car rolled down. Rain and wind attacked my face, but I could see Soneji inside the bus. Jesus, he was still improvising-he had somebody’s child, a bundle of pink and blue, cradled in his arm. He was screaming orders, his free arm swinging in angry circles.

I leaned as far as I could outside the car. “ Gary!” I yelled. “What do you want?” I called out again, fighting the traffic noise, the loud roar of the bus. “ Gary! It’s Alex Cross!”

Passengers inside the bus were looking out at me. They were terrified, beyond terror, actually.

At Forty-second Street and First, the bus made a sudden, sweeping left turn!

I looked at Groza. “This the regular route?”

“No way,” he said. “He’s making his own route up as he goes.”

“What’s on Forty-second Street? What’s up ahead? Where the hell could he be going?”

Groza threw up his hands in desperation. “ Times Square is across town, home of the skells, the city’s worst derelicts and losers. Theater district’s there, too. Port Authority Bus Terminal. We’re coming up on Grand Central Station.”

“Then he’s going to Grand Central,” I told Groza. “I’m sure of it. This is the way he wants it. In a train station!” Another cellar, a glorious one that went on for city blocks. The cellar of cellars.

Gary Soneji was already out of the bus and running on Forty-second street. He was headed toward Grand Central Station, headed toward home. He was still carrying the baby in one arm, swinging it loosely, showing us how little he cared about the child’s life.

Goddamn him to hell. He was on the homestretch, and only he knew what that meant.

I MADE MY way down the crowded stone-and-mortar passageway from Forty-second Street. It emptied into an even busier Grand Central Station. Thousands of already harried commuters were arriving for work in the midtown area. They had no idea how truly bad their day was about to become.

Grand Central is the New York end for the New York Central, the New York, New Haven, and Hartford trains, and a few others. And for three IRT subway lines. Lexington Avenue, Times Square-Grand Central Shuttle, and Queens. The terminal covers three blocks between Forty-second and Forty-fifth Streets. Forty-one tracks are on the upper level and twenty-six on the lower, which narrows to a single four-track line to Ninety-sixth Street.

The lower level is a huge labyrinth, one of the largest anywhere in the world.

Gary ’s cellar.

I continued to push against the densely packed rush-hour crowd. I made it through a waiting room, then emerged into the cavernous and spectacular main concourse. Construction work was in progress everywhere. Giant cloth posters for Pan Am Airlines and American Express and Nike sneakers hung down over the walls. The gates to dozens of tracks were visible from where I stood.

Detective Groza caught up with me in the concourse. We were both running on adrenaline. “He’s still got the baby.” he huffed. “Somebody spotted him running down to the next level.”

Leading a merry chase, right? Gary Soneji was heading to the cellar. That wouldn’t be good for the thousands of people crowding inside the building. He had a bomb, and maybe more than one.

I led Groza down more steep stairs, under a lit sign that said OYSTER BAR ON THIS LEVEL. The entire station was still under massive construction and renovation, which only added to the confusion. We pushed past crowded bakeries and delis. Plenty to eat here while you waited for your train, or possibly to be blown up. I spotted a Hoffritz cutlery shop up ahead. Maybe Hoffritz was 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.