Along Came a Spider (Alex Cross 1)

She sang “Winter Wonderland”—at a hundred and ten miles an hour on the open highway heading out of Washington. She wasn’t afraid of very much, but this time she was afraid.

CHAPTER 19

IN SOME PARTS of Washington and the nearby suburbs of Maryland and Virginia, house-by-house searches were conducted on Christmas morning. Police blue-and-whites toured the streets downtown. They loudly broadcasted over their PA systems:

“We are looking for Maggie Rose Dunne. Maggie is nine years old. Maggie has long blond hair. Maggie is four feet three inches tall and weighs seventy-two pounds. A substantial reward is offered for any information leading to Maggie’s safe return.”

Inside the house, a half-dozen FBI agents worked more closely than ever with the Dunnes. Both Katherine Rose and Tom Dunne were terribly shaken by Michael’s death. Katherine suddenly looked ten years older. We all waited for the next call from Soneji.

It had occurred to me that Gary Soneji was going to call the Dunnes on Christmas Day. I was beginning to feel as if I knew him a little. I wanted him to call, wanted him to start moving, to make the first big mistake. I wanted to get him.

At around eleven on Christmas morning, the Hostage Rescue Team was hurriedly called together in the Dunnes’ formal sitting room. There were close to twenty of us now, all at the mercy of the FBI for vital information. The house was buzzing. What had the Son of Lindbergh done?

We hadn’t been given much information yet. We did know that a telegram had been delivered to the Dunne house. It wasn’t being treated like any of the previous crank messages. It had to be Soneji.

FBI agents had monopolized the house phones for the past fifteen minutes or so. Special Agent Scorse arrived back at the house just before eleven-thirty, probably coming from his own family’s Christmas. Chief Pittman swept in five minutes later. The police commissioner had been called.

“This is getting to be a real bad deal. Being left in the dark all the time.” Sampson slouched against the room’s mantel. When Sampson slouches, he’s only around six feet seven. “The Fibbers don’t trust us. We trust them even less than we did at the get-go.”

“We didn’t trust the FBI in the beginning,” I reminded him.

“You’re right about that.” Sampson grinned. I could see myself reflected in his Wayfarers and I looked small. I wondered if the whole world looked tiny from Sampson’s vantage point. “Our boy send the Western Union?” he asked me.

“That’s what the FBI thinks. It’s probably just his way of saying Merry Christmas. Maybe he wants to be part of a family.”

Sampson peered at me over the tops of his dark glasses. “Thank you, Dr. Freud.”

Agent Scorse was working his way to the front of the room. Along the way, he picked up Chief Pittman. They shook hands. Good community relations at work.

“We received another message that appears to be from Gary Soneji,” Scorse announced as soon as he was in front of us. He had an odd way of stretching his neck and twisting his head from side to side when he was nervous. He did that a few times as he began to speak.

“I’ll read it to you. It’s addressed to the Dunnes….

‘Dear Katherine and Tom… How about ten million dollars? Two in cash. Rest in negotiable securities and diamonds. IN MIAMI BEACH!… M.R. doing fine so far. Trust me. TOMORROW’S big day… Have a merry… Son of L.’ ”

Within fifteen minutes of its arrival, the telegram had been traced to a

Western Union office on Collins Avenue in Miami Beach. FBI agents immediately descended on the office to interview the manager and clerks. They didn’t learn a thing—exactly the way the rest of the investigation had been going so far.

We had no choice but to leave for Miami immediately.

CHAPTER 20

THE HOSTAGE RESCUE TEAM arrived at Tamiami Airport in Florida at four-thirty on Christmas afternoon. Secretary Jerrold Goldberg had arranged for us to fly down in a private jet supplied by the Air Force.

A Miami police escort rushed us to the FBI office on Collins Avenue, near the Fountainbleu and other Gold Coast hotels. The Bureau office was only six blocks from the Western Union office where Soneji had sent the telegram.

Had he known that? Probably he had. That was how his mind seemed to work. Soneji was a control freak. I kept jotting down observations on him. There were already twenty pages in a notepad I kept in my jacket. I wasn’t ready to write a profile of Soneji since I had no information about his past yet. My notes were filled with all the right buzzwords, though: organized, sadistic, methodical, controlling, perhaps hypomanic.

Was he watching us scurry around Miami now? Quite possibly he was. Maybe in another disguise. Was he remorseful about Michael Goldberg’s death? Or was he entering a state of rage?

Private lines of emergency switchboard operators had already been set up at the FBI office. We didn’t know how Soneji would communicate from here on. Several Miami police officers were added to the team now. So were another two hundred agents from the Bureau’s large force in southern Florida. Suddenly, everything was rush, rush, rush. Hurry up and wait.

I wondered if Gary Soneji had any real idea about the state of chaos he was creating as his deadline approached. Was that part of his plan, too? Was Maggie Rose Dunne really okay? Was she still alive?

We would need some proof before the final exchange would be approved. At least we would ask Soneji for physical proof. M.R. fine so far. Trust me, he’d said. Sure thing, Gary.

Bad news followed us down to Miami Beach. The preliminary autopsy report on Michael Goldberg had been faxed to the Miami Bureau office. A briefing was held immediately after we arrived, in the FBI’s crisis room. We sat in a crescent arrangement of desks, each desk with its own video monitor and word processor. The room was unusually quiet. None of us really wanted to hear details about the little boy’s death.