Terri was still on her cell when I made the turn onto 106th Street, tires screeching.
“There it is,” I said. “Santa Cecilia.”
Inside, the church was about half full. Not quite the standing-room-only Wright had probably expected and wanted, but enough to make a statement.
The priest was reading, switching between Spanish and English. Behind him a huge crucifix, garishly colored; Christ’s flesh, pale yellow, striped with intense vermilion blood. Dozens of candles were burning and I could smell incense in the air. It brought to mind Maria Guerrero’s bótanica on a grander scale.
I scanned the room, but couldn’t find my grandmother. “I don’t see her,” I said, my panic escalating.
“We’ll find her if she’s here,” said Terri.
And what if she wasn’t? What then? I was no longer sure. Suppose Wright had made that drawing with the wrong number just to throw me off.
I started down the aisle looking for familiar faces, whispering the same question: “¿Has visto á Dolores Rodriguez?” I tried hard to keep the anxiety out of my voice. I didn’t want to start a panic.
No one seemed to have seen her, a few people voicing objection to my disturbance. “¡Silencio! ¡Silencio!”
A friend of hers worked her way out of a pew. She said my grandmother had promised to meet her at church, but had never shown up.
The priest stopped the service and the congregation went silent, everyone staring at me and Terri. I didn’t care. I got up on the altar and asked him if he’d seen my grandmother. He said no, told me I had to go, that I was ruining the service. I leaned toward him, and whispered, “You have to get everyone out of here.”
He looked at me as if I were crazy. “¿Por qué?”
The congregation was getting agitated, whispers swelling, a few people muttering, pointing at me.
The priest took hold of my shoulders, and said, “Debes ir,” that I should go.
I heard the distant whine of sirens.
“Backup is arriving,” said Terri. “I have to go out and meet them.” She turned to the priest and spoke very calmly. “In a few minutes there are going to be a lot of police here. I need you to ask your parishioners to leave. Do you understand?”
His face was filled with questions.
“Listen to her! ¡Escúchala!” I said.
There were doors on either side of the altar that led to the sacristy. I chose the one closest to me.
By the time Terri got outside, the scene had taken on movielike proportions: a caravan of cop cars, EMT, ambulances, sirens blaring, beacons flashing; behind them the Bomb Squad, two vans with a SWAT team; two of her own men, O’Connell and Perez; detectives and uniforms emptying out of cars, heading her way.
She was going to have to handle this. It was her case until the feds got here. She still had no idea if Wright was inside. If he wasn’t, she had just cost the NYPD a lot of money-and plenty of embarrassment. There was a TV news crew setting up across the street.
The local precinct captain reached her first, heavyset guy, face red, breathing heavily. “What’s going on?”
“First off,” she said, “get your men to cordon off the street-and get these people back.” She gestured at the locals who were crowding the sidewalk in front of the church. “And see what you can do to shut down that damn news van.”
The captain went into action and Terri felt the rush that accompanied power. She made her way to the SWAT team leader, a guy who looked like he’d stayed too long at the gym, overmuscled arms unable to lie flat against his sides. Behind him, his men were suiting up and Terri knew the sight of a dozen men carrying Mac-10 rifles would scare anyone. “I don’t want a panic,” she said. “But we have to get everyone out of the church. Give it a few minutes. The priest is asking everyone to leave quietly, and hopefully they will.”
I heard the sirens. If Wright was in the church, he could hear them too.
My pulse was racing, blood pounding in my ears, but I had to stay calm, had to think. Where would he go if he wanted to be concealed and still do the most damage?
The basement.
The verbal part of my brain shut down and I was all visual instinct.
I saw a staircase and took it.
57
The minute my grandmother saw me she started struggling, but he got hold of her and knocked her to the floor.
I aimed my gun. I wanted to kill him on the spot, but didn’t dare take a shot, not with explosives strapped to his chest and now a detonator in his hand.
Above her taped mouth my grandmother’s eyes were wide with terror.
I didn’t know if Wright had the guts to blow himself up but remembered Dr. Schteir’s profile of zealots-men who have no trouble flying airplanes into buildings and dying for what they believe in.
I needed to see what he was thinking. Maybe I could talk to him. Maybe.
“You did a good job of imitating my drawing style. Of setting me up,” I said. “The cops think it’s me. Not you. You can walk out of here and they’ll never know who you are. It will be me who goes down for the murders.”
Nothing.
“You can be free. Do you understand?”
Another long moment passed. He said nothing.
“I’ll help you get out of here, okay? Give me your mask. I can be you.”
“It’s too late.” His words came out muffled, suffocating under the mask. “I have orders.”
You know him. You’ve been inside his head. Think.
“Are you sure that’s what He wants? What if you’re wrong? What if you…make a mistake?”
“He makes no mistakes.”
“No, but…mortals do. And you’re mortal, aren’t you? Or do you think you’re a god?”
His body went rigid.
My grandmother’s lips were moving beneath the tape and I knew she was praying.
We were only six feet apart. I could hear him breathing, almost feel him thinking. I pictured his basement hideout, the newspaper accounts he’d pinned to the wall, and remembered again that he was proud of what he’d done.
“Let me be a witness to what you are about to do. Let me see you, the man who is cleansing the race in the name of God.”
He yanked the ski mask off so fast I flinched, my finger twitching on the trigger.
Everyone was out of the church. Everyone but Rodriguez, thought Terri. If he hadn’t found Wright he’d have been out by now.
“Give me your two best shooters,” she said to the SWAT team leader. “I don’t want to freak him out with the whole battalion.” Then she turned to Perez and O’Connell, and signaled them to follow.
I stared into the face I’d been drawing, come to life. Flesh stretched over muscle and bone, his eyes narrowed, staring back at me.