N.Y. SUBWAY BOMB . . . EXTORTION, TERROR SPREE CITED

Police say a suspect in yesterday's firebombing of a crowded New York City subway train planned an underground terror spree to extort money from the city's transit authority. The man, 49-year-old Edward Leary of nearby Scotch Plains, N.J., was arrested in his hospital bed early today after he was found badly burned two stops from the disaster site and police discovered bomb-making paraphernalia in his apartment. Investigators said Leary, an unemployed former computer technician, likely intended to have the bomb go off on the subway while it crossed an underwater tunnel from Manhattan to Brooklyn -- after he had disembarked. But the device -- made with two mayonnaise jars, gasoline, 9-volt batteries and a kitchen timer -- went off before he got away, engulfing the stopped train in flames and melting his own sneakers onto his feet. Leary and two others remained in critical condition this afternoon. Wednesday's incident was Leary's second attempt to cash in, police said, citing notes tak