There was an instant hush in the crowd of law enforcement. The bell continued its ominous pealing as the police and emergency personnel we passed in the cordoned-off street either gaped, goggle-eyed, or stiffened in ramrod postures of respect.
Cold violently kneaded my stomach as I remembered how police and firemen stopped and stood in the same reverential way in the WTC rubble whenever a service member was brought out of the pile. I looked up at Rock Center’s glorious seventy-foot Christmas tree right after we laid the slain mayor on an EMS stretcher.
The hits just kept on coming, didn’t they?
Enough, I thought. What the hijackers had done was precedent-setting in the savage department, but I had to get myself beyond shock. It was time to put up the wall and focus. Get out ahead of this thing. Figure Jack out somehow.
Why the mayor? I thought, staring again at his badly tortured body.
Was Jack so overwrought by the death of one of his fellow hijackers that he’d chosen the mayor as the one victim who would make us the angriest? Or was the whole thing another ploy to push our buttons, to get us to react in a certain way? Was this murder actually a clue for us? Our first? Why did they pick Andrew Thurman as the one to die?
As I was trying to figure it out, a captain from Midtown North came down between the white wicker angels and rows of poinsettias and grabbed me. Borough Commander Will Matthews had moved the command center to an office in 630 Fifth, the Rockefeller Center building to the west, directly across from the cathedral. He wanted me to report there immediately.
I ran all the way, and I don’t know what I expected when I stepped into the boardroom of the second-floor office—but it wasn’t that Commander Will Matthews would be the lowest-ranking cop in the room.
Normally, I would have been a little rattled to receive NYPD Police Commissioner Daly’s curt nod of hello a second before Bill Gant’s, the special agent in charge of the FBI’s New York office. But my shock reserve was bone-dry that afternoon. I just nodded back at both of them.
“Afternoon, Detective,” the commissioner said.
He was tall, aristocratically handsome, and seemed more like a banker than a cop in his broad pinstripe navy suit. Some said, with his tailored clothes and his Columbia MBA, he was just another glory hound, far removed from the rank and file. This was the first time I’d gotten close enough to make any kind of judgment.
“We just heard about the … my God, I can’t believe I’m saying this … Andy’s … I mean, the mayor’s murder,” Daly stammered. He seemed genuinely upset, and that touched me. “You’ve been speaking to the individuals responsible. What do you think this is all about?”
“Frankly, sir,” I said, “I can’t get a bead on them. It looked like a straight-up money deal, at first. A group of professional criminals trying to pull off an audacious mass kidnapping.
“But then, for some unknown reason, they shot a priest. I guess you could chalk up shooting the tactical team officers to defense, but what they did to the mayor shows a great degree of rage. Maybe at first it was for money, but now, since they see how surrounded they are, they’re losing it.”
“Do you think all or a part of this might have had something to do with a personal grudge against the mayor?” Gant asked. With his basset-hound eye bags, the short FBI chief looked like the antonym of Daly. Pudgy and pale in a dark Sears single-breasted suit, Gant could have been a bartender at a funeral.
“I don’t know,” I said. “It’s possible.”
“You don’t know too much, do you?” Gant came right back at me.
“You think I volunteered for this detail?” I said, unclipping the crisis phone off my belt and sliding it across the boardroom table at him. “Be my guest, pal. Step right up. You guys sure showed ’em how it was done down in Waco.”
And minutes before, I’d thought I was in a place beyond anger. I guess not.
“I’m sorry,” Gant said, backing away from the crisis phone as if it might bite him. “That was a cheap shot.”
“Yes, it was,” the commissioner said, eyeing the FBI leader like he was looking for a soft place to hit him with a billy club. “Detective Bennett is going above and beyond in this case, and he’s staying on it. Is that clear?”
Screw what they said about the commissioner putting on airs, I thought, hiding a smile. They were wrong.
Gant looked taken aback, but he nodded agreement. A second later, Gant’s phone rang. He shot out of his chair and into the hall after he looked at the caller ID.
He came back a moment later with an even paler look on his face. “That was the director. He just got off the horn with the president. Military intervention has been authorized. Delta Force has been mobilized and is en route.”
Chapter 72
I WAS STILL trying to come to terms with what I’d just heard as I staggered out of the boardroom inside Rockefeller Center. I’d been on some big cases before, but this was the first time I’d heard war declared.
Just when I thought things couldn’t escalate any further, I saw that the whole of the command center operation had been moved into the hallway for more space. I spotted my fellow NYPD negotiator, Ned Mason, placing a sheet of computer paper up on a corkboard filled with them. The FBI negotiator, Paul Martelli, was on the phone at a desk beside him.
“So it’s true? Thurman is dead?” Mason asked. I’d noticed that he always needed to know what was going on, to be in the loop.
I nodded solemnly. “He was dead when they threw him out on the street.”
Mason looked like a brick had just hit him in the face as he nodded back.
“How could this be happening here?” Martelli said. He looked shocked, too. “Russia. Baghdad, maybe. But Midtown Manhattan? Jesus. Hasn’t this city been through enough?”
“Apparently not,” I said. “How’s the money-gathering going?”
“We’re getting there,” Mason said, gesturing toward the papers on the board. Each one indicated an individual hostage, their representative, and the amount of the ransom.
“I just got off the horn with Eugena Humphrey’s people in LA,” he said. “In addition to Eugena’s ransom, they’re going to put up the money for the two reverends inside as well.”
“That’s generous,” I said.
“If only the rest of them could be that cooperative,” Mason continued. “Rooney’s business manager refuses to release any money until he personally speaks with one of the hostage-takers. When I told him that was impossible, he hung up and is now refusing to take my calls. Can you believe it? It’s like he thinks he’s negotiating a contract instead of taking his client’s life out of danger. Oh, and one of Charlie Conlan’s kids has started legal action to block the transfer of any funds. The asshole’s argument is that maybe his father is already dead, and he’s refusing to put his inheritance in jeopardy.”
“Family values at work,” I said.
“You said it,” Martelli agreed.
“How much do we have collected so far?” I asked.
“Sixty-six million in escrow,” Mason said, after punching buttons on a desk calculator. “Another ten makes seventy-six, and we’ll be ready to wire it.”
“Did you subtract the mayor’s ransom?” I said.
Mason’s eyes widened as he looked up at me. “You’re right. Okay. Take away his three million, the total goes from seventy-six to seventy-three. Only seven million dollars to go.”
“Only,” I said. “You know you’ve been hanging out with the rich and famous too long when you use the word only before the words seven million dollars.”
“It’s like the man said,” Martelli added, putting the phone in the crook of his neck. “A million here, a million there. Pretty soon you’re talking real money.”
Chapter 73
JACK SAT ON THE STEPS of the high altar with his cell phone antenna clenched between his teeth. He’d quit smoking eight years before, but he was seriously considering starting up again. He’d known the operation would be stressful. He’d even
predicted the attempted breach.
But that was on paper. Actually dealing with it in real life, he thought, the blood pounding in his head as he scanned the surrounding jewel-colored windows for snipers, was a-whole-nother ball of wax.
Maybe I pushed it too far, he thought, gazing at the flag-covered casket of the First Lady in front of him. Maybe they’d storm the place now, celebrities or not. He’d wanted to make a statement with the mayor, but he wondered if he hadn’t gone a little over the top on that one, too.
The pathetic whimper Andrew Thurman had made when Jack slid the Ka-Bar into his back still echoed in his ears. The saints on the holy windows seemed to stare down at him sternly, their strange dead eyes brimming with a malevolent disapproval.
No, no, no, Jack thought with a violent sneer. No way could he even think about going soft now. He knew what he had to do, and he was doing it. Killing the mayor had been nothing. Part of a formula that would end with his getting very rich. Besides, the prick deserved it, he reminded himself.
There was a time when Jack had badly needed the mayor’s help and had been left twisting in the wind. Hizzoner had it coming, Jack thought with a nod.
And there would be more killing before this was over, Jack thought. No doubt about that.
“Jack? Come in,” came a voice from his radio.
“What now?” he answered.
“Come back to the chapel right now!” the radio said. “One of the fish has fallen and claims he can’t get up.”
Jack shook his head with a snort of disgust. His guys were great come ball-crushing time. They had guts and were loyal and obedient to a fault. But have them make a decision on their own about the tiniest shit, you were asking for a confirmed miracle.
He keyed the Motorola.
“On my way,” he said, getting to his feet.
Not again, Jack thought when he arrived at the rear chapel rail.
Another big shot was slabbed out on the marble floor.
Chapter 74
REAL ESTATE TYCOON Xavier Brown’s eyes were rolled way back in his head, his open silk shirt showing an expanse of snow-blind white belly. The talk show woman, Eugena, was sitting almost on top of him, compressing his chest with the heels of her hands, saying, “Hold on, hold on, Xavier.”
“What the hell did you do to him?” Jack said to Little John.
“Nothing,” Little John answered defensively. “That’s just it. Fatty got up, complained his arm was hurting him, and then boom, down he goes. Beached whale.”
Jack knelt next to the talk show lady. He had to admit, even given how much he despised these worthless, privileged wimps, it was a little weird. He was starting to respect some of them—like Eugena.
“How’s he looking?” he asked her.
“Very bad,” Eugena said, continuing CPR. “His pulse is very weak. If he doesn’t get to a hospital, he’ll die. No, I don’t know that for certain, but it’s what I think.”
“Damn,” Jack said, standing directly over Brown. Another snag. Potentially a very costly one. What to do to protect his investment?
Jack snatched up his phone and hit redial.
“Mike here,” came the detective’s voice. Jack had to admit the cop was good. They just sent out the mayor carved up like a Halloween pumpkin, and the cop sounded like a concierge at a four-star hotel. You know it, pal. The hijacker is always right.
“You got a problem,” Jack said. “Hot-shit honcho Xavier Brown’s stock has just taken a sudden nosedive. I think his ticker’s having trouble keeping up with all the fun and excitement. Tell you what, Mike, I’ll let him out of here before his aorta explodes, but you have to pay his ransom first.”
“We don’t have it all together yet, Jack,” the detective said. “You have to give us more time.”
More time, is it? Jack thought. Wonder why. To figure out another way in and take us out, perhaps? These dolts couldn’t help sticking to the dusty playbook, could they? No wonder he was going to get away with this.
“Go ahead and send his money first then,” Jack said. “Or then again, don’t. But tell his people they better decide quick. X. Brown is looking like the next time he makes it into the Wall Street Journal, it’s going to be on the Obit page. I’ll be watching the account. I see my money, I open the front door.”
“I’ll let them know,” the negotiator said.
“You do that,” Jack said.
It took five of his men to drag the heavy financier up the aisle toward the main entrance of the cathedral. His guys looked like a radical tree-hugging order of monks trying to save a manatee. Eugena Humphrey tagged along the whole way, even dropping down to give the tycoon CPR in the vestibule. She was turning out to be a pretty good chick.
He turned when one of his men called to him from one of the little security rooms off the main altar. A laptop sat on a beat-up desk before the man.
“They did it!” the gunman said with excitement. “They moved it already. The money is there.”
Jack smiled as he came over and looked at the screen. A three followed by six zeros was in the column next to their Costa Rican bank account number. By way of a half dozen Cayman Island, Isle of Man, and Swiss banks, untwisting the pretzel of dummy accounts and wire transfers would be impossible.
Three million. He was a millionaire.
Before he was forty, too.
He was almost giddy when he lifted his radio.
“Release the Fat Man,” he said.
Chapter 75
JACK WAS SO JUICED by the progress, he helped pass out lunch to the hostages himself. Actually, he took great pleasure in providing a cold Mickey D’s–only menu for the fussy celebrity gourmands. “Dah, dah, dot, dah, dah—I’m lovin’ it.”
He paused at the front of the chapel, staring out at his favorite captives. Funny, they didn’t look like they were ready for the red carpet anymore. Had to be a real bitch and a half, trying to face the day without their maids and personal trainers and lifestyle coaches. Pale and crumpled and baggy-eyed, munching on their fast food, they reminded him of something.
Oh, yeah, he remembered.
Human beings.
He took the microphone off its stand.
“Hey, everybody,” he said. “Finally, things are starting to break our way. Ransoms have begun rolling in. Won’t be long now. Hope all your stockings are hung over the chimney with care.”
Jack paused. His amplified sigh was almost wistful.
“Got to hand it to you as a whole, guys,” he said. “I really thought a bunch of soft celebrities like yourselves would freak out under the circumstances. But for the most part, you’ve proved me wrong. You held up better than expected, and for that, you should be proud. And I really do hope the authorities continue cooperating. You can take this experience with you and get on with your lives. And even if a couple more of you have to be eliminated, you can go down realizing how lucky you are to die in your prime. It’ll be James Dean, Marilyn Monroe, and you. You might have made yourselves stars, but think about it. A couple in the back of the head on the steps of St. Paddy’s? It’ll turn you into legends.”
As Jack stepped down from the pulpit, Eugena Humphrey stood.
“Sir,” she called out bravely, “may I communicate with you about something? Can we talk?”
Jack reached into his robe for his Taser, then stopped himself. There was a mesmerizing sincerity in the talk show host’s face that even he couldn’t deny was compelling.
“Make it snappy,” Jack finally said.
“Thank you,” Eugena said. She cleared her throat and looked directly into Jack’s eyes.
No wonder this lady was so successful, Jack thought, feeling the weight of her confidence and intensity. It was as if the two of them were together in a small, cozy room—instead of yelling at each other over guns and hostages.
“What I want to say is this,” Eugena said. “We’re all truly sorry if who we are and what our lifestyles are all about have hurt you in some way. I’ll be the first to admit
that I am sometimes consumed with things instead of other people’s feelings. But, honestly, after this ordeal, I do feel different. I’m going to enjoy the simple things in life again. I’ve learned from this experience, as I’m sure all of us have, and in some strange way, I’d actually like to thank you. But please, don’t kill anybody else. Because deep down, you’re right. We’re not special. We’re just people. Like you.”
Jack stood there, just staring at the woman. He would have thought it was impossible, but he almost felt guilty for a second. This stupid broad’s somewhat eloquent plea had almost unnerved him. He didn’t even watch her stupid show.
Jack was about to announce that whatever happened, she herself would be spared, when Little John, standing beside Eugena, drew his nine millimeter. He pressed the steel barrel to the talk show host’s cheek.
“That was really emotional,” Little John said, cocking the hammer with his thumb. “I’m crying so hard, I wet my panties. But you must have missed the e-mail about nobody giving a crap. Now, you either put a sock in it, or I’ll put a bullet in it. This isn’t your talk show, lady. This is our show.”
Jack called out to his compatriot, “Little John, I couldn’t have said it any better myself.”
Chapter 76
HOW COULD IT be Christmas Eve? I thought.
I stood on the corner of 50th Street and watched as snow began to fall, but not the soft, feathery flake variety. I flipped up my collar at the gritty bits of frozen rain that scoured at my face like sand tossed in a wind tunnel.
Over at the command center, I’d heard about a new problem for us to contend with. Along the lines of barricades, tourist crowds had gathered and were resisting being dispersed. Having been denied a peek at the Rock Center tree that had been cordoned off, they were content to stand around and gape at the unfolding spectacle.