But she hadn’t, which was a very bad sign. D-Ray had already proved that he was a killer, and during the hours I’d spent talking to him, I’d sensed his rage rising and his control slipping. I was sure that all along he’d been getting higher on crack or meth or whatever, and by now he was half insane. He was clinging to a fantasy of escape, and he was ready to kill for it.

I had helped him build that fantasy, and I’d used every trick I knew to keep it going so we could get those people out of there alive – tried to create a bond, talked like a sympathetic friend, even told him my name. But I was out of both tricks and time.

I lowered the binoculars and scanned the scene outside the bus windows. Behind the sawhorses and the flashing lights of the gathered police vehicles, there were several news vans and maybe sixty or seventy spectators. Some were eating Chinese takeout or holding up cell phone cameras. There were school-age kids zipping around on Razor scooters. The crowd seemed anxious, impatient, like picnickers disappointed that the fireworks hadn’t started yet.

I turned away from them just as Joe Hunt, the Manhattan North borough commander, sagged back in the office chair beside me and let out a long, deflated breath.

“Just heard from ESU,” he said. “Snipers think they got a pretty good bead on him through one of the back windows.”

I didn’t say anything, but Joe knew what I was thinking. He stared at me with his almost sad, world-weary brown eyes.

“Kid or not, we’re dealing with a violent sociopath,” he went on. “We need to give this to Tactical while those poor people inside still have a chance. I’m calling in the Wells Fargo truck. I want you to get D-Ray back on the phone and tell him to watch for it. Then Con Ed’s going to cut the power, and the snipers will drop him with night vision.” Joe heaved himself to his feet and gave me a rough pat on the shoulder. “Sorry, Mike. You did better than anyone has any right to expect, but the kid flat-out refuses to live.”