Suddenly, from up on the balcony above us, a rifle barked! The flat crack of the weapon echoed off the train station’s thick walls. This was a shooting gallery with human targets.
A woman screamed inside the America restaurant. I saw her go down hard as if she’d slipped on ice. Then there were lots of moans from inside the cafi
The firing stopped again. What the hell was he doing up there?
“Let’s take him out before he goes off again,” I whispered to Sampson. “Let’s do it.”
Chapter 11
OUR LEGS pumping in unison, our breath coming in harsh rasps, Sampson and I climbed a dark marble stairway to the overhanging balcony. Uniformed officers and a couple of detectives were crouched in shooting positions up there.
I saw a detective from the train-station detail, which is normally a small-crimes unit. Nothing like this, nothing even close to dealing with a sharpshooting sniper.
“What do you know so far?” I asked. I thought the detective’s name was Vincent Mazzeo, but I wasn’t sure. He was pushing fifty and this was supposed to be a soft detail for him. I vaguely remembered that Mazzeo was supposed to be a pretty good guy.
“He’s inside one of those anterooms. See that door over there? The space he secured has no roof cover. Maybe we can get at him from above. What do you think?”
I glanced up toward the high gilded ceiling. I remembered that Union Station was supposed to be the largest covered colonnade in the United States. It sure looked it. Gary Soneji had always liked a big canvas. He had another one now.
The detective took something out of his shirt pocket. “I got a master key. This gets us into some of the antechambers. Maybe the room he’s in.”
I took the key. He wasn’t going to use it. He wasn’t going to play the hero. He didn’t want to meet up with Gary Soneji and his sharpshooter’s rifle this morning.