Hostage Taker (26 page)

7 p.m. to 9 p.m.

We are continuing with our live coverage of the unfolding crisis at Saint Patrick’s Cathedral.

The time is a quarter past seven. In normal circumstances, the Tree Lighting ceremony at Rockefeller Center would be well under way.

Let’s listen in as Father Michael Ryan, who blessed the tree before it was cut down and brought to Rockefeller Center, leads a group of concerned friends and family in prayer, just beyond the police barricade that’s been established on Sixth Avenue and Fifty-first.

“H
ow did you find me?” Sean Sullivan demanded.

Eve focused on tuning out the background noise. Behind her, there was a commotion at Rockefeller Plaza. A news crew had broken past the police barricade. Officers with bullhorns were shouting at them to stay behind the perimeter; meanwhile a half-dozen SWAT team members had converged to stop them. A woman screamed as her camera was confiscated.

Above her head, a chopper circled.

At first Eve wondered what had become of the media blackout Henry had ordered.

Then she realized: The choppers overhead were FBI.

“How did
you
find
me
?” Eve answered Sean. “More important, why did you want me? There are plenty of other negotiators.”

“You’re a smart girl. I’m hoping you’ll figure out that answer soon.”

“Should be easy, now I know who you are.”

“Do you, Eve Rossi? Seems to me that all you know is a name. Maybe my date of birth. I’m sure right now, as we speak, your experts are pawing through my background. Figuring out where I went to school. What my teachers said. You’ll interview my commanding officers in both the police and the Marines. You’ll comb through my divorce papers. You’ll search for signs of a breakdown. For anything that will explain
this.
Explain
me.
”

“It’s what I do. I observe people; I catalog their behavior; I learn from their life experiences. It’s how I understand people—and I’m going to understand you, Sean.”

“Problem is: You’re going to find the obvious answers. And the answers are going to be wrong.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure.” Before, Eve had recognized the half-truth in what Sean had said. Now she recognized the lie. He hadn’t wanted to be identified so soon. So he was strategizing, playing her, trying to minimize the damage.

“Look, Eve: What I’ve done for a living isn’t so different from you. I’ve conducted hundreds of interviews. And something I learned: Most people notice the obvious, then make the wrong assumption.”

“I’m not most people.”

“Hear me out.” The note of desperation in his voice was new. Her heart quickened. “Let’s say you’re walking past a church. You see a man wearing filthy jeans. No shoes. There’s a vacant look in his eye. A shopping cart a few feet away from him. What do you immediately assume? That he’s homeless. Probably an addict. Maybe even mentally ill.”

Up until now, Sean’s communications had fallen into two categories: instructions and threats. For the first time, she had the sense he was about to say something that mattered. Her hopes soared. “Sounds like a valid assumption, most of the time.”

“Exactly.
Most
of the time. But what if he’s not homeless? What if he’s a middle-class man with a family who worries about him? What if he got lost on the way to his doctor’s office or the grocery store because he’s suffering from dementia? What if the shopping cart just happened to be there, left by some other guy?”

“I’d look at any small clues that might tell a different story. Maybe he was wearing a nice watch or a wedding ring. Maybe his dirty jeans were new.” Sometimes communication was less about exchanging words than matching emotions. In this case, hope for hope. What-if for what-if.

“Sure, but not everybody notices small details like that. We’re all subject to bias. Happened to me. I made a wrong assumption. I learned my lesson: The obvious solution is usually right, but not always. Definitely not now.”

Sometimes the best approach was the direct one. “Are you saying that what you’re doing here today has nothing to do with the Church?”

She allowed herself to hope—to
believe
—that he’d answer the question. Because they’d now experienced a moment of understanding. Because the day had disappeared and she was tired. Tired of being kept in the dark. Tired of struggling to make sense of what defied all logic.

He must have heard it in her voice. “I like talking with you, Eve, but I’m tired, too. And we’re wasting time. We have only two hours, forty-five minutes until the next stage of my operation. Starting
now.
”

“Okay, I’m listening.” Eve set her stopwatch as a precaution.

“You have my witnesses on-site.”

“I need to know what you want with them.”

“They’re here to witness God’s truth.”

“You’re making no sense. You and I both know that.”
And if your motive isn’t religious, then why the hell do you use phrases like this?

“How is Cassidy Jones?” he asked abruptly.

“She’s not happy to be here. She’d rather be home.”

“Working at that dead-end job?” he scoffed. “What about Vanderwert? I’ll bet he’s fit to be tied, being stuck here. He probably finds it worse than jury duty. Maybe I should see him first.”

“See him now, if you want. I’ll ask him to wave from the holding unit window.”

“That won’t convince me that he’s here.”

“He can send a smoke signal.”

“Get with the twenty-first century, Eve.” His slashing reply signaled his mood was shifting. Eve knew she was walking on emotional quicksand.

“I won’t risk his safety.”

“C’mon. I know you’ve installed a bulletproof shield around the perimeter.”

“So you’re saying you’d like the witness to stand behind the shield?”
No way was she doing that.

“Right in front of Atlas. Where I can see him.”

“We can set up a Skype connection. Is that twenty-first-century enough for you?”

“Sarcasm doesn’t become you, Eve.”

“Help me understand something, Sean. Why do you need these witnesses?”

“Why do people need anything—air to breathe, food to eat, water to drink?”

“Enough one-upmanship. A simple answer would be nice for a change.”

“I knew you’d have a term for it. That’s what psychologists do: They train you to put a fancy name on everything. Because if you can name it, you can understand it, right?”

He was trying to annoy her, to distract her from the dilemma at hand.

“Put Blair Vanderwert in front of Atlas,” he said. “You have four minutes—or Ethan Raynor will die, right in front of your eyes.”

“If I do as you ask, will you let me take Mr. Raynor into my custody?”

“I have to go, Eve. Always a pleasure chatting with you.”

The line went dead.

Eve hit
redial last call.
Her rings went unanswered.

He had been right about one thing. She was a psychologist by training—and that experience defined who she was. It gave her an eye for detail, an understanding of human behavior, and the ability to make reasonable leaps of logic.

But it wasn’t doing a damn thing to help her understand Sean Sullivan.

She looked up—beyond the scaffolding, above Saint Patrick’s spires—into the black void of the night sky. A big, wet snowflake fell on her nose. Followed by one on her forehead and another on her cheek. Suddenly snow was swirling all around her, coming down almost like confetti from the Cathedral itself.

I
t was during the third month of Stacy’s deployment that it happened. It was getting toward winter, and the rains had started. I’ve always liked rainy days—but I have never loved rain as much as I did in Afghanistan.

It tamped down the sand so we got fewer of those damn sandstorms.

It freed us from the perpetual trap of dirt and grime.

Stacy had gone with a small team on an adventure beyond the wire. They were investigating a village that may have been harboring a group of insurgents responsible for planting a round of IEDs on the road. They went house to house, searching.

Asking questions.

Gathering intelligence.

They were told to look for a man at the bazaar. And that’s where Stacy became separated from the rest of the group.

What I wanted to know then…what I want to know now…is how does a group of Marines—a group of tough, battle-hardened, take-no-shit Marines—manage to lose their interpreter in enemy territory?

I
t was snowing.

Not the dazzling display of illuminated snowflakes that normally lit the façade of Saks, but the real thing. Beautiful, thick, white flakes that made Saint Patrick’s look like something out of a fairy tale. And maybe it was—complete with a villain inside.

Outside, there was chaos. Shouts, and people running in all directions. Henry Ma was barking orders and federal agents and NYPD were getting into position. EMS had pulled back.

The buildings nearby remained dark. Empty. The goal was to see the sniper coming. Not give him an additional target.

For their plan to succeed, now the lights of Saint Patrick’s needed to be extinguished as well. Eve gave the command—and watched as the spotlights illuminating the Cathedral went black.

Inside the holding unit, Sean Sullivan’s photograph had been passed among the witnesses. They were shown two copies—one of him in full uniform, the other in casual clothes. Just to cover all bases, Eve made sure they were also shown photos of Paulie Corsillo. She had also sent the photos over to the hotel where Luke Miller—the only hostage to walk away so far—was being kept safe.

It didn’t matter. Not one of the witnesses remembered seeing either man before. And Luke was unsure.

“Are you ready?” Eve asked, Haddox behind her.

Her answer was the dance of his fingers on the keyboard and the hum of a video camera come to life. Haddox was in his element. Doing what he loved most.

Finally he said, “Showtime!”

“Blair, will you come over here?” Eve pointed to where the video camera was focused against a white wall. “The Hostage Taker is asking to meet you—”

He didn’t let her finish. He started babbling, voicing a dozen different concerns, but she made out
You promised I’d be safe.

“—so we’re setting up a virtual connection,” she explained, shouting him down. “My associate here is going to project a walking and talking image of you outside this building. Do you want to take a moment to compose yourself? There’s water in the interview room.”

Eli waited until the realtor was out of earshot. “I dunno, Eve. Somehow I don’t think a projection is going to satisfy this guy. He went to all this trouble. He’s gonna want the real thing—”

“This is as close to the real thing as we can get,” Haddox cut in. “Remember how a few years ago everyone was talking about how computer technology more or less resurrected Tupac Shakur from the dead to perform with Snoop Dogg and Dr. Dre at a music festival? Everybody called it a hologram—but it was actually a two-D projection against a transparent screen.”

“Sure,” Eli said. “Even people who don’t follow the music scene were talking about it. Some people thought it was totally awesome. Others said it was creepy.”

“Either way, it should work for us. The technique is a basic illusion based on Pepper’s ghost—a centuries-old theater trick. Onstage, the actor hides in a recessed area, faces a mirror, and his image is projected by a sheet of glass suspended above the stage. The rest is just lighting.”

“Okay, so how do you do that here?” Eli wanted to know.

“I use 3-D computer graphics to produce a reflection that is similar to a hologram. Remember my shopping list? Well, I now have everything we need—a video cam, a high-def projector, and a flat translucent screen.” He shot Eve a boyish smile. “I know; I surprise even myself sometimes.”

“You can do this live?” Eve asked Haddox.

“Have a little faith. I can do it live, prerecorded, upside-down—however you like it.”

“Do it. It’s certainly the only viable option we have. I won’t put innocent civilians in harm’s way.”

“What if he makes good on his threats?” Eli fretted.

“I believe this isn’t really about killing hostages or destroying the Cathedral. If we meet him halfway, I think I can convince him to compromise.”

“How can you say this isn’t about killing hostages, when so many have died?” Alina gave Eve an icy stare.

“Because he killed them as a means to an end. He’s not afraid to murder when he feels he must. He may even enjoy it—or see it as some kind of perverted act of justice. But it isn’t what he
wants.
”

“What do you think he really wants?” A muscle twitched in Blair’s jaw as he rejoined them.

“He wants you,” Eve answered. “Each one of you—for some reason I still don’t understand.”

She glanced at her stopwatch:
Fifty, forty-nine, forty-eight, forty-seven seconds to go.
“It’s possible he will want to talk with you,” Eve told Blair. “If he does, we’re right here. We’ll be recording the conversation and coaching you what to say. You won’t be alone, not for one second.”

“Now,” she told Haddox.

And a full-sized image of Blair Vanderwert appeared right next to the statue of Atlas across from the steps of Saint Patrick’s Cathedral.

The image appeared to stare directly at Ethan Raynor.

And despite the tremor of surprise that Eve detected, Ethan Raynor stared right back.