She hit more keys. The symbol was no longer lit up and a message next to it said Disabled.
‘It seems that might be a good location to catch him,’ I said. ‘Why don’t we want him there behind the Cooper Union Building?’
‘Again,’ the commander said, ‘it’s too close to a crowded area, and should Gault duck back into the tunnel, he would be very deep inside it. Literally, in the bowels of the Bowery. A pursuit would be terribly dangerous and we might not catch him. My guess is he knows his way around down there even better than we do.’
‘All right,’ I said. ‘Then what happens?’
‘What happens is, since he can’t use his favorite emergency exit, he has two choices. He can pick another exit that’s farther north along the tracks. Or he can continue walking through the tunnels and surface at the Second Avenue platform.’
‘We don’t think he’ll pick another emergency exit,’ Commander Penn said. ‘It would place him above ground too long. And with a parade in progress, he’s going to know there will be a lot of cops out. So our theory is he will stay in the tunnels for as long as he can.’
‘Right,’ Lucy said. ‘It’s perfect. He knows the station has been temporarily closed. No one’s going to see him when he comes up from the tracks. And then he’s right there at the pharmacy – practically next door to it. He gets his money and goes back the same way he came.’
‘Maybe he will,’ I said. ‘And maybe he won’t.’
‘He knows about the parade,’ Lucy said adamantly. ‘He knows the Second Avenue station is closed. He knows the emergency exit he’s tampered with has been disabled. He knows everything we want him to know.’
I looked skeptically at her. ‘Please tell me how you can be so sure.’
‘I’ve worked it so I get a message the minute those files are accessed. I know all of them were and I know when.’ Anger flashed in her eyes.
‘Someone else couldn’t have?’
‘Not the way I rigged it.’
‘Kay,’ Commander Penn said. ‘There’s another big part of all this. Look over here.’ She directed my attention to the closed-circuit TV monitors set up on a long, high table. ‘Lucy, show her.’
Lucy typed, and the televisions came on, each showing a different subway station. I could see people walking past. Umbrellas were closed and tucked under arms, and I recognized shopping bags from Bloomingdale’s, Dean & DeLuca food market and the Second Avenue Deli.
‘It’s stopped raining,’ I said.
‘Now watch this,’ Lucy said.
She typed more commands, synchronizing closed-circuit TV with the computerized diagrams. When one was on-screen, so was the other.
‘What I can do,’ she explained, ‘is act as an air traffic controller, in a sense. If Gault does something unexpected, I will be in constant contact with the cops, the feds, via radio.’
‘For example, if, God forbid, he should break free and head deep into the system, along these tracks here’ – Commander Penn pointed to a map on screen – ‘then Lucy can apprise police by radio that there is a wooden barricade coming up on the right. Or a platform edge, express train tracks, an emergency exit, a passageway, a signal tower.’
‘This is if he escapes and we must chase him through the hell where he killed Davila,’ I said. ‘This is if the worst happens.’
Frances Penn looked at me. ‘What is the worst when you’re dealing with him?’
‘I pray we have already seen it,’ I said.
‘You know that Transit’s got a touch screen telephone system.’ Lucy showed me. ‘If the numbers are in the computer, you can dial anywhere in the world. And what’s really cool is 911. If it’s dialed above ground, the call goes to NYPD. If it’s dialed in the subway, it comes to Transit Police.’
‘When do you close Second Avenue station?’ I got up and said to Commander Penn.
She looked at her watch. ‘In a little less than an hour.’
‘Will the trains run?’
‘Of course,’ she said, ‘but they won’t stop there.’
20
The March Against Crime began on time with fifteen church groups and a miscellaneous contingent of men, women and children who wanted to take their neighborhoods back. The weather had worsened and snow blew on frigid winds that drove more people into taxis and the subways because it was too cold to walk.