“What’s that sound?” he asked.
The driver ignored him. At the intersection of 27th Street, he blew the red light. The banging sound grew louder. It was accompanied by another sound. A voice.
“Somebody help me…”
The voice sounded Chinese. Carr looked at the driver’s license posted on the dashboard. Wei Lin. Only the man behind the wheel was clearly not Wei Lin.
“Who the hell are you?” Carr shouted at the driver.
At the intersection at 26th Street, a truck was stopped at the light. The driver swerved to avoid a collision, and went into the opposing lane. A city bus was coming right at them. The bus’s driver hit his horn. They were going to crash. The irony was not lost on Carr. His wife and daughter had died in a wreck, and now, so might he. But he didn’t want to die just yet. That would come later tonight, when he released the nerve agent. Remembering the instructions they gave on airplanes, he curled himself into a ball, and tucked his head in to his chest.
The bus sideswiped them. The crash was deafeningly loud. The cab pitched sideways, and began to roll. It did a complete revolution before landing upright in the middle of Seventh Avenue. The tires deflated, and it sank into the earth.
“I’m hurt bad,” said the voice in the trunk.
Carr quickly examined himself. He should have been dead as well. The impact that had taken his wife and daughter’s lives had been far less severe. Yet nothing on his body felt broken or even badly bruised except for the cut in his tongue.
“You’re insane,” he said to the driver.
The driver was slumped over the wheel. His head was twisted at an unnatural angle, his neck obviously broken. Carr snorted derisively.
“Serves you right,” he said.
The driver stirred, and snapped his head back into place. Before Carr’s disbelieving eyes, the dead man climbed out of the taxi, and came around to the passenger side. Throwing open the door, he reached in, and pried the knapsack from Carr’s hands.
“You won’t be needing that anymore,” the driver said.
Carr looked at the driver’s face. The skin was a violent purple, and his eyes had no life. Carr knew that the dead did not walk, or talk, or crash vehicles on busy city streets, and that this was a horrible illusion, courtesy of his poisoned mind.
People had started to gather around the cab. The driver pushed his way through them, and staggered away. Carr watched him leave, thinking surely he’d seen the Devil.
Then he broke down, and wept uncontrollably.
53
The West 30th Street heliport was located next to the Hudson River on the west side of Manhattan. The rain let up long enough for the FBI chopper to land. As Peter and Garrison jumped out, they were greeted by the female agent on Garrison’s team who’d arrested Snoop years ago, a no-nonsense blonde named Nan Perry, who spoke with a thick Boston accent. Perry briefed them as they crossed the asphalt with the rain whipping in their faces.
“Dr. Carr arrived at Penn Station on the four-forty-five from Hunters Point,” Perry said. “Although a gang of undercover NYPD detectives was waiting for him, Carr managed to escape by causing a riot outside the boarding gates. He got outside, and grabbed a cab. The cab got into an accident on Twenty-sixth Street, and Carr was apprehended.”
“So we got him,” Garrison said, sounding relieved.
“Yes. The doctor’s in custody,” Perry said.
The tension left Garrison’s face, and he looked like a normal person again.
“Ready for the bad news?” Perry said.
“What do you mean? What happened?” Garrison asked.
“The person driving the cab wasn’t the driver. It was an imposter, who hijacked the cab, and threw the driver in the trunk. Right after the accident, the imposter snatched Carr’s knapsack and took off. You know what they say. Only in New York.”
“Please tell me someone saw this person,” Garrison said pleadingly.
“We’ve gotten a couple of eyewitness accounts, most of them sketchy. Our thief was a six-foot-tall male. He was walking stiffly, and may have been hurt in the accident.”
A town car with tinted windows was parked at the curb, its engine spitting black fumes. They finished the conversation driving into Midtown.
“What shape is Carr in?” Garrison asked.
“He’s banged up, but there doesn’t appear to be anything physically wrong with him,” Perry replied, riding up front beside the driver.
“What about the guy in the trunk? Did he see anything?”
“He wasn’t so lucky. He died on the way to the hospital.”
Garrison blew out his cheeks. “When it rains, it pours. Where’s Carr now?”
“The police have him in a holding cell at Penn Station. A pair of detectives questioned him, but everything Carr says is nonsense. They can’t tell if it’s an act, or if there’s something seriously wrong with him.”
“What’s your gut telling you?”
“I think Carr’s flipped his wig,” Perry said. “We do know one thing for sure. The knapsack is loaded with enough Novichok to take down half the city. The recipe was in a hidden compartment in Carr’s wallet. There are a hundred variants of Novichok, and he chose the most deadly strain. He manufactured several pounds of it.”
Peter watched the passing scenery, the images from the seance still fresh in his mind. Wolfe wasn’t the Grim Reaper, it was Carr. How could the spirits have gotten it so wrong?
“What’s the NYPD doing to catch this guy?” Garrison asked.
“They’re conducting a manhunt,” Perry replied. “He got away on foot, so they think he’s still near Twenty-sixth Street, where the crash took place. The mayor’s been briefed on the crisis, and has decided not to shut down the city. He’s afraid it would cause widespread panic.”
“That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard,” Garrison said. “They have to shut down the city, until this guy is caught.”
“I’ve got his number if you’d like to call him,” Perry suggested.
“I’ll save my breath.”
They had reached Penn Station. The front entrance was blocked by police cruisers and unmarked police cars. Next door, a long line of people was wrapped around Madison Square Garden, waiting to see the Knicks play basketball. It occurred to Peter that not a single one of them had any notion of the danger they were in. Their lives might end tonight while watching some highly paid athletes throw a round ball through a hoop. He’d seen this coming on Friday night, and it was his duty to stop it.
“Let me talk to Carr. Maybe I can get into his head, and find out who stole the knapsack. If I gain his confidence, I can read his mind.”
“Can you read a crazy person’s mind?” Garrison asked, sounding skeptical.
It was a question that Peter did not have an answer to.
“I can try,” the young magician said.
“You’re on, hotshot.”
They sifted their way through the mob of police and entered Penn Station. The terminal was filled with news crews jostling with one another to get a story. Peter kept his head down, and tried to avoid being seen. Entering an elevator, they descended into the basement where the police station was housed. The car landed with a dull thud, and they got out.
Penn Station was a magnet for the city’s homeless, and the plastic chairs inside the station lobby were occupied by dispirited bag people. Garrison approached the booking area, holding his ID in front of his face. “I need to see Dr. Carr,” he announced.
“Carr’s being interrogated,” the desk sergeant replied.
“Don’t make me repeat myself,” Garrison told him.
The desk sergeant glared at them. Cops were fiercely territorial, and reacted unfavorably when their turf was encroached upon. Perry stepped between the two men, and batted her eyelashes.
“Please,” she said sweetly.
“What’s this about?” the desk sergeant asked.