Hostage Taker (35 page)

M
ace stepped out of the stairwell and stopped in the absolute black. Listened before resuming course. Keeping his gun close at hand. He pulled out his Maglite and was about to shine it in front of him when he thought better of it.

He couldn’t see in the dark.

But no need to make himself a target. Better to avoid light until he knew he was alone.

He pushed the door open in front of him wider. It clicked. He froze and listened.

Nothing.

He took a step forward. There was enough light from a distant window to move faster. There was a stale scent of damp in the air—the legacy of the morning’s heavy rain and a closed-up room, unaccustomed to use.

Is anyone here now? Where is García?

The floor was dusty and mottled with footprints. Some recent. Different shapes and sizes.

Mace went right. Stayed in the shadows against the brick wall. Past the window. He could see writing in the windowpanes, made visible by the lights outside. Messages left by some of the firefighters when visiting the Cathedral for inspections. Before they died on 9/11. It was one of the issues the Church rep had been hassling Henry Ma about. In spite of the massive renovation being undertaken, the Church had refused to clean the panes. They were a treasure—as unique as the Rose Window, the guy had insisted.

Mace kept moving. He wasn’t going to find either the Hostage Taker or García hiding in all the dirt.

Mace cracked open another door separating the small room he’d entered from other parts of the attic.

Stopped. Listened. But there was no sound except for the whistle of air from yet another draft.

Where is the keening coming from? And the gunshot?

He saw nothing out of the ordinary. The area by the window was empty except for a box. He walked over to it and opened it. There were tools inside—small winches, covered in dust, that might service the bell apparatus. No one had touched them in weeks, if not months.

If two hundred men really did show up to work every day on the Cathedral’s multimillion-dollar restoration, they didn’t spend much time in the attic.

He moved toward a big window near the front of the attic. Someone had wiped this one’s panes clean. In fact, the lower-right pane was cracked, with a small section knocked out entirely. Glass fragments littered the floor.

Mace stared down Fifth Avenue. Snow was falling, blanketing the world below. It was beginning to cover the streetlights and vans. The MRU and other temporary units. The great shoulders of Atlas. He knew it even covered the big unlit tree at Rockefeller Center.

He didn’t have much more time.

Braced close to the wall, Mace surveyed the room. He could see only five feet ahead. He needed to check the area to the right. It was dark, framed by treacherous shadows.

One step. Then another.

He found a table with a paper plate littered with food. A half-eaten sandwich. Some chips. A full bottle of water.

Plenty of unfinished business.

The Hostage Taker’s hidey-hole.

Mace’s thirteen minutes
were up.

A phone was ringing somewhere, but not for Eve.

She couldn’t sit still. She was pacing back and forth, her emotions in a conflicted space between worry and guilt. Her mind trying to focus on strategy.

Haddox was in front of the computer screen, brainstorming a way to get digital eyes inside the Church. Their best shot had been García’s GPS-equipped glasses. But—in a careless move—it appeared he had discarded them in the Crypt.

Eli stared at Eve’s two phones—one her own, the other used to communicate with the Hostage Taker. Both remained perversely silent. “What are you guilty of?” he muttered. It wasn’t a question. Eli’s body was trembling and all semblance of confidence was gone out of him. “If I’d said something earlier…it’s all my fault.”

“Nothing’s your fault. García would still have gone in,” Eve finished for him. “He’s not afraid of risk. Besides, the fact he’s in trouble, inside that Cathedral, is on me. I arranged his release from the hospital. I authorized his exploration of the tunnels. And if Tactical has to breach now, the fact they have access at all is thanks to García.”

“You gotta give the order, Eve.” Eli shook his head, miserable. “Who knows what the hell’s happening in there! We don’t know García’s condition. What if Mace is down, too? Minutes count.”

“Well, I’m gobsmacked. Eli Cohen worried—about somebody else’s health and well-being,” Haddox teased.

“But apparently you’re thinking only about yourself. As usual,” Eli scolded.

“Me, worry about a six-foot-seven black Adonis and a lethal former Army Ranger? If anybody can take care of themselves, those blokes can.”

Eve and Eli just stared at him.

Haddox grinned. “You’re thinking that I really am a cold-hearted bastard. But maybe you don’t give me enough credit. Maybe I just figured something out. Something important.” He tilted the computer screen to show them.

Mace drew his
Glock. His heart hammered hard inside his chest. His muscles tensed, bracing for a fight, as he kept moving. Ahead of him, shadows swayed along an empty stretch of the wall.

All seemed quiet. Then there was a faint scraping.

He didn’t dare shine his flashlight beam.

Mace moved in silence, his broad shoulders just brushing the wall. His gun in his right hand, at waist level.

Seconds passed.

Mace stopped. Stared into the dark. The stone-and-brick utilitarian room had something odd in its corner. Instinctively, he hugged the wall.

Then he took four steps forward. The odd form was taking shape. The slight scraping noise was growing louder.

Even so, he almost cursed when he heard a faint moan.

Haddox was keeping
his eyes open. “You see that?” He went into the time-lapse record and pointed to a shadow along the Cathedral’s uppermost windows.

Eli squinted, then shook his head. “What am I supposed to see?”

“That.” Eve tapped the end of her pencil at a flash of red.

“I don’t have Superman X-ray vision,” Eli complained. “I can’t see what you’re seeing.”

“Let me try to zoom in.” Haddox refocused on the fragment of red. Slowly, it took better shape. It was a shadow.

Except shadows didn’t wear a lucky red bandana around their neck.

Whereas Frank García did.

Mace knew: Sometimes
offense was the best defense. Not just on the courts, but here in the uppermost reaches of Saint Patrick’s Cathedral.

He took a soft breath, and with his Glock ready in his right hand, he reached out his left. Grabbed his Maglite and shined it—right into the astonished face of Frank García and a hostage bound to a chair.

E
ve kept her focus trained on the video, watching. And listening—as though something in the silence itself might give her the answer she hoped for so desperately: the reassurance that García was fine.

She was distracted by the trill of the Hostage Taker’s phone.

When she answered, Sean sounded steadier. “Let’s try this one more time. I want to question all four witnesses at once. Bring them online. Tell them: It’s their last chance for redemption before all hell breaks loose.”

She counted to five, nice and slow, before she responded. If they had truly seen García’s red bandana, then he was close. Right in the Hostage Taker’s lair.

There was no longer any room for error.

Next to Eve,
Haddox was focused on a different problem. Something was not right.

He was poring over the notes Eli had left him about crimes the four witnesses may have seen. He didn’t leap to conclusions. He supposed that asking New Yorkers if they’d ever witnessed a crime was like asking an Irishman if he appreciated a pint of Guinness. But there were some odd discrepancies.

Among the four of them, they’d casually witnessed subway gropings, cellphone thefts, and a number of car accidents.

One incident caught Haddox’s attention. He wasn’t sure why. Not one of the four had described what they saw in exactly the same words. Of course, he knew witness testimony was notoriously unreliable. Human memory was an exceptionally fragile thing. Susceptible to prejudice. Riven with error. That was why the papers were filled with cases where DNA evidence exculpated people wrongfully convicted due to eyewitness testimony.

So Haddox didn’t focus on the differences—even though each of the four named a different location. A different date. A different time. And described a completely different scenario.

He concentrated on the similarities.

A crime had occurred in the subway station underground.

A woman had been hurt.

García was leaning
over the hostage. Mace recognized her from the steps of the Cathedral earlier in the day: The woman with cropped gray hair and the nasty scar on her left cheek. The one who wore men’s shoes.

She was bleeding. Moaning softly in pain. And García was covering the wound with his red bandana—the one he’d worn for luck since the operation began.

“What’s going on here?” Mace demanded. “She gonna be okay?”

“It’s only a scratch.” García tightened the bandana. Tied it off. “Do me a favor?”

“Go to hell,” Mace said, glaring. “I was actually worried about you, man. I heard a shot.”

“That would be the scratch. She thought
I
was the Hostage Taker coming for her and made threatening sounds. She startled me. My weapon went off. She got lucky.”

“Meaning you were trigger-happy.”

“Meaning you didn’t cover me like you promised. So I had to look out for myself.” García fixed him with a stony glare.

“Looks like we
all
got lucky.” Mace gazed down at the explosives García had already defused and removed. “You’re a damn fool. This is a danger zone, not target practice.” The hostage’s hands were shaking as Mace untied them.

She was dirty. Her wrists were bleeding, too.

“You okay?” Mace asked.

She managed to nod. He removed her blindfold and her gag. “The guy who did this to you. Is he around?”

She blinked, struggling to orient herself. She failed. She was either in shock or she didn’t understand the question.

Mace tried again. “Have you seen him pass by?”

She nodded. Mumbled something.

García grabbed the water bottle that was beside her and offered her a sip. She drank from it greedily.

“That way,” she croaked, tilting her head left. “I saw him headed that direction. Don’t know how long ago.” She pointed to her feet, which were still tied. “Can you please let me go? I gotta get out of here.”

Haddox’s eyes were
locked on the file on the screen in front of him. Was it possible he was finally staring at the elusive connection between Sean Sullivan and the five witnesses he had demanded?

It wasn’t filed under Sean Sullivan’s name—although in the file he was listed among the investigating officers. He had been summoned late to help manage the scene. He had worked crowd control. He had not interviewed the witnesses.

The information was far from perfect.

Haddox was pretty sure the witness listed as Anna Leigh was actually Cassidy Jones. She admitted to having used the name in the past as her stage name. She didn’t actually remember the incident. It was shortly after she first arrived in New York. She had delved into the party scene, she remembered, and might’ve been drunk that night.

He was also pretty sure that Louis Ramon was Luis Ramos. His name had been misspelled. That sort of thing happened all the time.

According to the report, all had been present when a subway mugging had gone bad. The victim had been severely injured, eventually dying three days later in the hospital. The mugger had never been caught.

Was this what Sean Sullivan wanted them to confess to?

What are you guilty of?
he’d asked each one.

Not observing enough? Not preventing the assault? Not giving the police enough information? Not caring enough?

Or simply being there?

It was impossible to know.

But Haddox did know this—and it was what he told Eve: If the witnesses hadn’t been able to give enough information to catch the perpetrator at the time, they didn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell of doing so now.

L
ast July, I was waiting for the Bronx-bound D train—the Sixth Avenue Express—at the Bryant Park stop. It was a Tuesday night, about half past ten. The city had been baking all day, so it was hotter than a sauna underground. The lights were bright and seemed to add to the heat.

I remember it vividly—as though I am there now.

I am sitting alone on a wooden bench at the south end of the platform, which is deserted except for seven people. Two passengers are to my left; five are to my right. There is a subway map above me, next to a series of posters touting various summer blockbusters. Ahead of me, on the column near the edge of the platform, are a series of weekend and evening service announcements about work that will disrupt the lives of thousands. New York’s subway system is well over a century old—and its tracks are in constant need of repair.

The waiting passenger closest to me is a Hispanic woman. She is built small and straight, less than five feet tall, and she looks overheated and bone tired. A battered leather bag is worn crossbody over her shoulders. She thinks about taking the seat next to me, but she’s too high-strung. She keeps leaning over the tracks to check for an approaching train.

About eight feet away from her is a man leaning against one of the columns. He isn’t relaxed; he’s just too tired to stand up. He is Hispanic, too—short, with coppery skin and dark hair. His leathery face is lined with exhaustion.

On the other side of me is a woman I immediately peg as Caribbean. She wears a colorful orange-and-yellow cloth over her hair; her long dress is in the same bold hues. She is humming to herself, and the supermarket bag draped over her wrist bulges with knitting needles and yarn.

All are impatient. Ready to be on their way.

The next waiting passenger is different. She is petite, with glossy black hair in a twist, and she’s dressed to the nines: black skirt, patent leather sandals, a strapless sequined top. She carries a tote bag with musical notes all over it. I guess that she’s bound for either Lincoln Center or Carnegie Hall.

About fifteen feet away, there’s another bench where a woman with curly platinum-blond hair is sitting. Her curves are tucked into a skin-tight red dress, but a pale blue waitress’s uniform pokes out of her bag. She wants to be Marilyn, but she’s stuck as Alice at Mel’s Diner, I decide.

The sixth waiting passenger is a man about thirty-five, dressed like he’s headed for the golf course, though he’s probably returning home from dinner. He is glued to his smartphone, though he looks up at regular intervals. He remains alert, aware of his surroundings.

The last passenger can’t stand still. He’s jittery, and I remember he’s wearing a skull ring with a diamond in each eye socket. He’s probably fortysomething, white, just shy of six feet tall and two hundred pounds. His jeans are ripped and he’s sweating through his red, white, and blue Captain America T-shirt. He zigzags past everyone, all the way to the end of the platform. His eyes are alert, taking in everyone. Noting their body language. Their clothes. The items they carry.

He turns back.

Walks past the guy with the smartphone. Past Marilyn Monroe and the dark-headed musician. Past the Caribbean woman and the tired Hispanic man. He stops one short pace away from the petite Hispanic woman.

He moves so quickly I almost don’t believe what I’m seeing. With one arm he pulls the woman against him; with the other, he yanks her leather bag over her head.

He is agile and smooth. Confident. Like he’s done this many times before.

So I get up and do my best to make sure he doesn’t do it again.

Before he takes his hand off the woman’s shoulders, I come up behind him.

“Give that back,” I say.

“Mind your own fuckin’ business.” He keeps hold of the woman. Seconds earlier, she was frozen still; now she is struggling against him.

“Right now.” I take another step closer.

The woman is saying, “Just take my money. Please let me go!” She whimpers in fear.

“You heard the lady. Let her go!” I’ve been home on leave for more than a year, but I’m still a Marine, and my training kicks in. I feint like I’m going to hit him, but I actually knee him hard in the gut and he staggers, falling. In that instant, I snatch the woman out of his arms. He regains his balance, but before he can rise, I launch my boot into the side of his head.

It is a solid hit. He seems unsteady and disoriented; I think he’s down for the count.

With the woman still sagging against me, I kick her bag out of his hands, launching it beyond his reach. He offers no resistance.

Hindsight is perfect, of course. Looking back, I see that my taking the bag was the act that set him off.

Suddenly his anger boils over and he is back on his knees, then up on his feet, charging like a bull. I block him with my left hook, but my action isn’t what the woman is expecting. She loosens her grip on my arm.

Spins away from us.

And teeters.

I watch, suddenly helpless, as she sways backward onto the track.

I cannot help.

Her mugger grabs me, smashing his fist into my face. The punch lands harder than I expect.

I struggle to break free of him—and cannot.

“HELP!” It may be the first time I’ve uttered the word in my life.

After several bloody minutes, he finishes pounding my face. He drives his knee into my ribs.

“HELP!” I say it again.

Bursts of pain flash through my body. Now I am screaming. Begging for help.

I see the others standing there. Gawking.

Finally, he shoves me down, hard—and I hear the sound of my own skull breaking.

Then he picks up the woman’s bag and saunters away.

No one stops him.

Afterward, they all
stand, frozen in place. Deaf to my pleas for help.

Ignoring my outstretched hand. Ignoring the half-dead woman on the tracks.

It’s like we have become invisible. Or they have been turned to stone.

Later, I learn: Twelve and a half minutes pass before anyone dials 911.

A Japanese tourist makes the call. Not one of the original five.

Don’t they know what they’re guilty of?

Am I the only one who cares about justice?

Today they’re all going to fucking pay attention. They’re going to notice me for the first time. Today people are going to thank me for what I’ve done.