Along came the spider

Chapter 89

RAN TO THE DEN and grabbed my revolver. I knew he had a plan-in case he had to escape. Every step lwould have been thought through a hundred times. He lived in his fantasies, not in the real world.

I thought that he would probably leave our house. Escape, so he could fight again. Was I beginning to think like him? I thought that I was. Scary.

The front door was wide open. I was on track. So far. Blood was smeared all over the carpet. Had he left a trail for me?

Where would Gary Soneji/Murphy go if something went wrong at our house? He would always have a backup plan. Where was the perfect place? The completely unexpected move? I was finding it hard to think with blood dripping from my side and left shoulder.

I reeled outside and into the early morning darkness and biting cold. Our street was as silent as it ever got. It was 4 A.M. I had only one idea where he might have gone.

I wondered if he thought I’d try to follow him. Was

485 he already expecting me? Was Soneji/Murphy still two jumps ahead of me again? So far, he always had been. I had to get ahead of him-just this once.

The Metro underground ran a block from our house on 5th Street. The tunnel was still being built, but a few neighborhood kids went down there to walk the four blocks over to Capitol Hill… underground.



I hobbled, and half ran, to the subway entrance. I was hurting, but I didn’t care. He’d come inside my house. He’d gone after my children.

I went downstairs into the tunnel. I drew my revolver from the shoulder holster I’d slung over my shirt. Every step I took put a ragged stitch in my side. Painfully, I began to walk the length of the tunnel in a low shooter’s crouch.

He could be watching me. Had he expected me to come here? I walked forward in the tunnel. It could be a trap. There were plenty of places for him to hide.

I made it all the way to the end. There was no sign of blood, anywhere. Soneji/Murphy wasn’t in the underground. He’d escaped some other way. He’d gotten away again.

As the adrenaline rush slowed, I felt weak and weary and disoriented. I climbed the stone stairs out of the underground.

Night people were coming and going from the Metro paper store and from Fox’s all-night diner. I must have been a sorry sight. Blood was spattered all over me. No one stopped, though. Not a single person. They had all seen too much of this ghoulish stuff in the nation’s capital. I finally stepped in front of a truck driver dropping off a bundle of Washington Posts. I told him I was a police officer. I was feeling a little high with the loss of blood. Slightly giddy now. “I didn’t do nothin’ wrong,” he said to me.

“You didn’t shoot me, motherf*cker?”

“No, sir. What’re you, crazy? You really a cop?”

I made him take me home in his paper-delivery truck. For the whole six-block ride, the man swore he’d sue the city.

“Sue Mayor Monroe,” I told him. “Sue Monroe’s ass bad.”

“You really a cop?” he asked me again. “You ain’t a cop.”

“Yeah, I’m a cop.”

Squad cars and EMS ambulances were already gathered at my house. This was my recurring nightmarethis very scene. Never before had the police and medics actually come to my house.

I Sampson was already there. He had a black leather jacket over a ratty old Baltimore Orioles sweatshirt. He wore a cap from the Hoodoo Gurus tour.



He looked at me as if I were crazy. Crimson and blue emergency lights twirled behind him. “Wuz up? You don’t look so good. You all right, man?” “Been stabbed twice with a hunting knife. Not as bad as the time we got shot over in Garfield.”

“Uh huh. Must look worse than it is. I want you to lie down here on the lawn. Lie down now, Alex.”

I nodded, and walked away from Sampson. I had to finish this. Somehow, it had to be over with.

The EMS people were trying to get me down on the lawn. Our tiny lawn. Or get me on their stretcher.

1 had another idea. The front door had been left wide open. He’d left the door to the house open. Why had he done that?

“Be right with you,” I said to the medics as I walked past them. “Hold that stretcher, though. II

People were yelling at me, but I pushed forward, anyway.

I moved silently and purposefully through the living room and into the kitchen. I opened the door that’s catty-cornered to our back door, and hurried downstairs.

I didn’t see anything in the basement. No movement. Nothing out of order. The cellar was my last good idea.

I walked over to a bin near the furnace where Nana dumps all the dirty laundry for the next washload. It’s the farthest corner of the basement from the stairs. No Soneji/Murphy in the dark basement.

S ampson came running down the cellar stairs. “He’s not here! Someone saw him downtown. He’s down around Dupont Circle.”

“He wants to make one more big play,” I muttered. “Son-of-a-bitch.” Son of Lindbergh.

Sampson didn’t try to stop me from going with him. He could see in my eyes that he couldn’t, anyway. The two of us hurried to his car. I figured I was all right. I’d drop if I wasn’t.

A young punk from the neighborhood looked at the sticky blood down the front of my shirt. “You dying, Cross? That be good.” He gave me my eulogy.

It took us ten minutes or so to get down to Dupont Circle. Police squad cars were parked everywhereflashing eerie red and blue in the dawn’s earliest light.



It was late in the night shift for most of these boys.

Nobody needed a madman on the loose in downtown Washington.

One more big play.

I Want to Be Somebody. During the next hour or so nothing happened-except that it got light out. Pedestrians began to appear around the circle. The traffic thickened as Washington opened up for business.

The early risers were curious and stopped to ask the police questions. None of us would tell them anything, except to “please keep moving along. Just keep walking, please. There’s nothing to see. ” Thank God.

An EMS doctor treated my wounds. There was more blood than actual damage. He wanted me to go straight to the hospital, of course. That could wait. One more big play. Dupont Circle? Downtown Washington, D.C.? Gary SonejilMurphy loved to play in the capital.

I told the EMS doc to back off, and he did. I hit him up for a couple of Percodan. They did the trick for the moment.

Sampson stood by my side, sucking on a cigarette. “You’re gonna just fall over,” he said to me. “You’ll just collapse. Like some big African elephant had a sudden heart attack. I was savoring my Percodan buzz. “Wasn’t a sudden heart attack,” I said to him. “Big African elephant got knifed a couple of times. Wasn’t an elephant, either. It was an African antelope. Graceful, beautiful, powerful beast.

I eventually started to walk back toward Sampson’s car.

“You got an idea?” he called after me. “Alex?”

“Yeah. Let’s ride, no good standing around here at Dupont Circle. He’s not going to start shooting up rushhour traffic.”

“You sure about that, Alex?” “I’m sure about it.”

We rode around downtown Washington until just before eight. It was getting hopeless. I was starting to get real sleepy in the car.

This big African antelope was about ready to fall over. Beads of sweat slipped across my eyebrows, dripping down my nose. I was trying to think like Gary Soneji/Murphy. Was he downtown now? Or had he already escaped from Washington?

A call came over the car radio at 7:58.



“Suspect spotted on Pennsylvania Avenue, near Lafayette Park. Suspect has an automatic weapon in his possession. Suspect is approaching the White House. All cars move in!”

One more big play. At least I finally had him figured out a little. He was less than two blocks from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue when they’d found him. That was two blocks from the White House.

I Want to Be Somebody.

They had him pinned down between a shoe-repair shop and a brownstone building full of law offices. He was using a parked Jeep Cherokee for cover.

There was another complication. He had hostages. He’d taken two young kids who had been on their way to school early that morning. The children looked to be eleven or twelve, about the same age Gary had been w hen his stepmother started locking him up. There was a boy and a girl. Shades of Maggie Rose and Michael Goldberg, almost two years before.

“I’m Divisional Chief Cross,” I said and got through the police barricades that were already set up across Pennsylvania Avenue.

The White House was clearly visible down the street. I wondered if the president was watching us on TV. At least one CNN news truck was already on the scene.

A couple of news-station helicopters moved in overhead. This was restricted air space near the White House, so they couldn’t get too close. Somebody said M. ayor Monroe was on his way. Gary had bigger prey in mind. He had demanded to see the president. Otherwise, he’d kill the two children.

Traffic on Pennsylvania Avenue and the intersecting streets was already backed up as far as I could see. Several drivers and other passengers were deserting their vehicles, leaving them on the street. Scores of them stayed to watch the spectacle, though. Millions now watched on television.

“You think he’s heading for the White House?” Sampson asked.

“I know a few states he’d probably carry,” I said.

I talked to the police SWAT team leader behind the barricades. I told him I thought Gary Soneji/Murphy was ready to go down in flames. He offered to light the match.

A negotiator was already at the scene. He was more than willing to hand over the honor to me. I was finally going to negotiate a settlement with Soneji/Murphy.

“We get the chance”-Sampson grabbed me and spoke very directly-” we’re going to pop him. Nothing tricky, Alex. “



“Tell that to him,” I said to Sampson. “But if you get the chance, hit him. Do him.”

I wiped my face several times on my sleeve. I was sweating bullets. I was also nauseated and dizzy. I had an electric bullhorn and I flicked the power on. The power was in my hands. I want to be somebody’ too. Was that true? Was that what it had finally come to? “This is Alex Cross,” I called out. A few wiseguys in the crowd cheered. Mostly, it got very quiet on the downtown D.C. street.

A burst of wild gunfire suddenly erupted across the street. Loud noise. Car windows blew out all over Pennsylvania Avenue. He did an amazing amount of damage in just a few seconds. Nobody was hurt that I could see. The two children were unharmed. Hi back at ya, Gary. Then a voice came from across the street. Gary’s voice.

He was shouting at me. It was just the two of ‘us. Was that what he wanted? His own High Noon in the middle of the capital. Live national TV coverage.

“Let me see you, Dr. Cross. Come on out, Alex. Show your pretty face to everybody.

“



“Why should I?” I spoke over the bullhorn to Soneji.

“Don’t even think about it,” Sampson whispered from behind me. “You do, I’ll shoot you myself.”

There was another explosion of gunfire from across the avenue. This one went on even longer than the first

Beirut. Cameras whirred and clicked everywhere. police sedan. Not too far, just enough to get killed.

“The TV stations are here, Gary,” I shouted. stand here. I’m gonna wind up as the big star. Slow

Soneji/Murphy started to laugh. His laughter went on

“You finally got me figured out?” he shouted at me. what I want?” think you’re dying. Otherwise”-l stopped to make this you wouldn’t have let us catch you again. stood up behind the bright red Jeep. Both children lay so far. like the allAmerican boy, just as he did in court. closer. the star.” He suddenly shifted his gun in my direction.

Gary Soneji/Murphy flew back in the direction of the scrambled up and ran away. Frontier Jtistice I sprinted as fast as I could across Pennsylvania Ave revolver was still aimed at Gary Murphy. He turned the He’d finished it for both of us. stream of bright red blood flowed steadily from his head still clutched in his hand. cameras clicking away



behind us. I touched his shoul Very carefully, I turned the body over. There was allAmerican boy again.’ He’d come to this party as

As I looked down, Gary’s eyes suddenly opened and slowly. voice. “Help me, Dr. Cross. Please help me.” asked him. Checkmate. HEN THE FATEFUL DAY finally arrived, I couldn’t to see anyone to talk about what was going to happen Jannie while they slept. Then I left the house around

I arrived at Lorton Federal Prison at three. The marcha moonlit sky. Some were singing protest songs from the ministers. A majority of the protesters were women, I

The execution chamber at Lorton was a small, ordiserved for the press. One was for official observers from and family of the prisoner. windows. At three-thirty in the morning, a prison offirevealed, strapped down on a hospital gurney. The arm. she became alert and seemed to tense as two technicians on a stainless-steei hospital tray. The insertion of the the execution by lethal injection was done correctly. and Gary Murphy for several months. I was on leavc this book, I had plenty of time for visits. workup reports. He spent most days lost in his complex back to the real one. that saved him from the possibility of death row. I was to listen. I was sure he was making up another plan. able to talk. She wasn’t surprised the state had gotten responsible for the death of the son of the secretary of had kidnapped Maggie Rose Dunne. They were respon pilot, Joseph Denyeau. very beginning. “But not enough to stop me. Something do the same thing today. I’d take that kind of chance It’s the age of greed. But not for you.”

“Somehow, I do. You are the Black Knight.” She said the marchers and other protesters angered her. differently about this.” Jezzie, but I felt bad. I didn’t want to be there at Lorton,

There was no one else at the window for Jezzie. Not not long after her arrest. Six weeks earlier, the former in front of his family. That had sealed Jezzie’s fate. left arm to several intravenous drips. The first drip, solution. be added to the intravenous. This was a barbiturate used a heavy dose of Pavulon would be added. This would

This drug relaxes the heart and stops its pumping. It

Jezzie found my face in her “friends” window. She to smile. She had bothered to comb her hair, which was and how we hadn’t gotten to say good-bye before she to leave the prison so badly, but I stayed. I had promised

In reality, it was nothing very graphic. Jezzie finally had been administered, but I had no way of knowing

She took a deep breath, and then I saw her tongue modern execution of a human being. That was the end



I left the prison and hurried to my car. I was a psycholcould take anything. I was tougher than anybody. Al—

My hands were jammed deeply into the pockets of my overcoat. In my right hand, so tightly clutched that

When I got to my car, an ordinary white envelope coat pocket, and didn’t bother to open it until I was on

Up close and personal. In my face.

Alex, before they pricked her? Did you shed a tear? bered.

Always, always would be. I’d told that to anyone willing to Gary Soneji/Murphy was responsible for his acts. I felt in Southeast. The families of his black victims ought to be on death row, it was Soneji/Murphy. of the guards. He’d gotten to somebody inside Lorton. More of his fantasies and mind games. more skilled manipulator. Gary or Jezzie? I knew both more of them than any other place on the planet. They genders. That’s the scariest thing of all.





After I got home

“-Ut’s Give Them Something to Talk About.” Janelle player. Next to Ray Charles, that is. They sat on the listen to the music, and let our bodies touch for several

Later, I headed down to St. A’s for lunch and such.


The End