Hostage Taker (33 page)

I
t was after nine o’clock. The Hostage Taker’s timetable was accelerating—and Eve still had no clue as to the end game.

Behind her, she heard the crack of a can of soda opening and smelled the odor of a fresh pizza delivery. Fortification for agents working around the clock. She hadn’t eaten in hours. She didn’t even turn around. There was no food or sustenance that could distract her from the loss of another hostage.

She focused on her computer screen, staring at the preliminary ID for the latest victim. Aiko Tanaka, age twenty-four. Her Japanese American family lived in Nashua, New Hampshire. A grad student in art history at New York University, which apparently also explained her presence in Saint Patrick’s Cathedral first thing that morning. According to her roommate, Aiko had a final paper due—and its topic had been the fusion of the modern into classical Gothic design.

Haddox took the seat beside Eve. He’d just poured two cups of coffee. He pushed one toward Eve. “I notice you take it black now.”

“People’s tastes change.” She sipped the coffee. It was so hot she almost spit it out.

Aiko Tanaka had a sealed juvenile record in her background. It would be invisible to any civilian looking. But no background information was ever hidden from the federal government.

“I remember the first time I met you outside FBI headquarters. You took two sugars. When did you start liking it bitter?”

“The day I was out of sugar—and too busy to get any. Turned out I didn’t need it.”

“An unnecessary complication?”

“Something like that.” She cast him a sideways glance. “Are we still talking about coffee?”

He took a sip from his own cup. “Were we ever?”

“The latest victim had a juvie record. Within the federal computer system, we can access it legitimately. But maybe you can get there faster than me?” She slid the keyboard toward him.

He glanced at the screen to orient himself. Then his fingers sped across the keyboard. If anything, moving faster than his usual 120 words per minute. “Are you okay?”

“Why wouldn’t I be?” she bristled.

“Terrible things have happened today. Shootings. Bombs. Lives lost. It’s enough to give anyone nightmares.”

“I don’t have nightmares. I have memories.”

“Memories are good. Nice little nostalgic details that stay in the back of your mind until you
want
them around.”

“What are you saying, Haddox?”

“I’m saying that every time a gun fires or a bomb explodes, you see him.”

“So what if I do?”

“I know you miss Zev. It’s normal to remember the dead. Not to see them walking among us.”

“You make it sound like I’ve gone crazy.”

“No more crazy than the rest of us.” He slid the keyboard back to her. “There’s your file.”

She tilted the computer screen upward. “Let’s see…high school senior. Age seventeen. Driving home from a football game with her boyfriend. Car drifted into the guardrail after crossing two lanes. It rolled over. The boyfriend died. Tanaka spent six days in the hospital and was released. Had a few drinks. Perhaps one too many. Fell asleep at the wheel—and was charged with
motor vehicle homicide by reckless operation.
”

“So three hostages dead,” Haddox began. “Three hostages with arrest records—and major moral lapses in their pasts. Almost as if he’s administering his own form of justice.”

“Don’t forget about Sergeant Martinez, the NYPD negotiator who preceded me.”

“With no brushes with the law that we are aware of. No morality issues.”

“Martinez didn’t do as he asked. Neither did the SWAT agents.”

“So has he taken the Cathedral to play God? Dispensing judgment to those who’ve sinned?”

“In front of witnesses he’s—” Eve stopped.

“Eve?”

She didn’t reply.

“What?”

“We searched Sean Sullivan’s background thoroughly, right?”

“ ’Course.”

“His testimony in John Timothy Nielsen’s trial?”

“With a fine-tooth comb.”

“His police and military service? Including all his arrest records?”

“Definitely.”

“Would the search you ran pick up any witnesses? Maybe as a victim of a crime? Or, literally, as a witness to one?”

“If they produced a formal witness statement, then sure.”

“And if they didn’t—or appeared less formally?”

“I see where you’re going. I can try changing the search parameters. It might be faster just to ask them.”

“Start with Cassidy,” Eve suggested. “And Haddox—ask carefully.”

E
li had ignored three phone calls and seven texts from John. He didn’t want to lie—and he certainly couldn’t compromise what was now an extremely sensitive federal case. As much as it pained him, that meant he couldn’t talk now. Not with Georgianna Murphy still unaccounted for.

They had found her phone. It was live again and easily traced to Allie Horne, an upperclass student at Georgie’s school. Allie claimed she had found it near Georgie’s locker the day before yesterday. Shortly after lunch. Right around the time Georgie had vanished. Allie planned to give it to the school secretary to put in the lost and found. She swore she just hadn’t gotten around to it yet.

“Did you know who the phone belonged to?” Eli had asked.

“Yeah,” she admitted sheepishly. “I don’t know Georgie—she’s two grades below me—but her name was all over it.”

“Was there anything else near the phone when you found it?”

“Some papers. No name on them, though. Could’ve been anybody’s.” In the background, Eli had heard a Christmas carol and Allie’s mother calling her to finish up her homework.

“One more question: Did you see
Kinky Boots
on Broadway last night?”

“Wow. I’m not even going to ask how you figured that out. My dad took me. It was a birthday present.”

“Okay. Follow my instructions carefully, Allie. A federal agent is going to swing by to pick the phone up. Don’t touch it anymore. Not to dial, text, or anything else. You’re in enough trouble right now. Don’t dig a deeper hole,” Eli choked the words out. All the saliva in his mouth had turned to dust. He still didn’t know whether Georgie was in the Cathedral or not.

How old is she?
he’d asked John.

Thirteen.

That’s old enough to find her way home, isn’t it?

If you think that, you don’t know the first thing about Georgie,
John had warned.

That was the last time they had spoken. And in the silence, Eli missed him.

Mace looked at
the blueprints, trying to make sense of where he was headed. They showed his current location—the five-story Rectory on Madison Avenue—behind the Cathedral and separated from it by terraces and gardens. Next door to him was the Cardinal’s Residence.

Both buildings were connected to the Cathedral by underground passages leading to the Sacristy and then the Crypt. But these corridors were not marked on the map.

All office staff—who used the underground corridors regularly—had been evacuated. Mace had spoken to a longtime secretary who’d given him confusing directions. Basically, he’d have to go down the Rectory stairs to an elevator, which would then take him all the way to the basement. From there, he’d go down another short staircase and enter a passageway. Follow that, and he’d eventually reach the marble Sacristy. The entrance to the Cathedral. Sealed off and wired for detonation since the crisis began.

The only way through would be from the inside. And that’s where García came in. Meanwhile, those agents and officers who would provide tactical support—a mix of FBI, NYPD, and Homeland Security—were beginning to gather in both residences.

Setting up the staging area.

Checking their equipment: Weapons. Communications. Cameras. Location systems. Explosives containment lockers.

Watching them, Mace decided he wasn’t going to wait around any longer. García had to have made it to the Sacristy by now. Maybe all that marble and concrete was interfering with their communications. Military technology notwithstanding.

He wasn’t worried about the booby-traps. He knew about weapons and explosives. Nothing was going to take him by surprise and blow him to Kingdom Come.

I
came home a month after Stacy was killed. I’d been given medical leave—which was what they called it when you suffered psychological trauma, but not so bad that you couldn’t go back to work in a few weeks.

That was fine with me.

I am never one to stay home sick. Excuses are for the weak.

Eventually, I figured out how to make it through the day without blaming myself for Stacy’s murder. But Muna blamed me enough for both of us. I hadn’t been good enough for Stacy before our wedding. I hadn’t protected Stacy overseas. I was a failure, through and through.

I lasted seventeen days in the same house with my mother-in-law. The same house Stacy and I had once shared. I couldn’t live with the bitch.

I wasn’t like Stacy, who had been able to shrug off every slight and insult the world offered.

Still, I knew Stacy would want Muna taken care of.

So once a week, I bring her groceries.

I pick up and refill her medications.

I make sure she has clothes to wear.

I’m still terrible at ignoring her insults. But now I close the door to the basement, where I keep her breathing in a five-foot-square cell. And I take satisfaction in the thought: She probably wishes she were dead.

Shortly around the same time, I developed blue car syndrome. You know how once you buy a blue car, suddenly you notice blue cars everywhere? After Stacy was murdered, I saw the indifference and apathy all around me.

It had probably been there before.

Except now—my eyes are open.

G
arcía had never officially worked as a sapper, but that didn’t matter. Anyone who spent more than a single tour of duty in the Middle East learned how to deal with an IED. Even if the soldier in question wasn’t part of the Explosive Ordnance Disposal Unit.

You needed just two skills.

The first was flexibility—for the simple reason that IEDs were by definition
improvised.
Created by different minds and taking all kinds of different forms. Sure, most of them were buried in the roads where convoys of troops traveled. But García had seen them in cars and radios and cellphones. Some were strapped to suicide bombers themselves.

Some had dangerous chemicals inside. Some were hidden in children’s toys. It helped to be able to think creatively about all the possible ways the bad guys wanted you dead.

The second skill was the use of all the senses. Sure, robots or water cannons were great if you were in the right circumstances—a nonpopulated area where you didn’t care if the device blew up. But where prudence was required, nothing beat the five senses. Sight—to identify what you were dealing with. Smell—to determine whether chemicals were involved. Taste—to identify the type of chemical. Hearing—to make sure one of the motherfuckers wasn’t going to come up from behind and shoot. And finally, a soft touch—for disabling the detonator.

García had both these skill sets in spades.

He also had a healthy sense of perspective. People had been defusing bombs for years, since well before World War I. Before there were robots or bomb suits or explosive lockers. Sure, it was better not to do it manually. But there was nothing magical about it. You just needed a method and a clear head.

He stared at the door. On the other side was Mace. He took a soft breath. Paused for a moment to appreciate the challenge he was going to tackle.

And froze.

His eyes had followed the wire.

It led to a spot about seven feet from the door. There, almost obscured in the dark void, García saw the hostage.

He or she was bound in a chair: hands and feet tied, a bandana over her eyes, explosives around her waist, a switch gripped between her fingers and the palm of her right hand. There was a wire leading to the door García needed to disarm.

As if he needed even higher stakes.

There was also something else.

It was just ahead and above him. A small device mounted above the hostage, pointing downward. Every 3.5 seconds, it emitted a blue electronic visual signal.

A security camera.

Part of the Cathedral’s system—which he
thought
had been disabled? Or a device planted by the Hostage Taker?

He had no idea. But surely Haddox could figure it out.

García stepped back into the shadows.

And since he didn’t want the hostage or the camera to hear him speaking, he typed a message into his phone.

G
arcía’s headset vibrated and suddenly Haddox’s voice was in his ear. “Just listen, don’t talk. I’ve confirmed that the camera in the Rectory corridor is
not
part of the Cathedral’s security system. That means the Hostage Taker installed it—and while I have the capability to disable it by taking down all data service in the vicinity, Eve and I are concerned that could trigger a chain reaction detonating the explosives. At a minimum, it would alert the Hostage Taker to the intrusion. But Eve thinks she can distract Sullivan. Make him look outside. Long enough for you to disarm the door. Free the hostage. Let Mace inside. Then, together, you need to track down and neutralize this bastard.”

“What if he checks his camera? What if there’s another asshole, whose job is to watch the video? The hostage will blow,” García whispered.

“No risk, no reward, right? Guess you’d better move fast once I give the all-clear.”

Eli sat across
from Cassidy Jones, feeling inadequate for the task at hand. It was true that he had a great eye for details. He could find the patterns that told hidden stories. But he did that by analyzing data, not talking with people. Especially not women. Even if the woman in question was a ringer for his long-ago idol, Marilyn.

He’d tried to break the ice by telling her that. She hadn’t appreciated the comparison.

Cassidy drummed her fingers against her knee. Eli felt her stress, her burning desire to get the hell out of there.

No, he definitely wasn’t a people person.

But Haddox—who’d originally planned to handle this conversation—had been called to help García. It was all up to him.

“So we’ve confirmed that you have no arrest record,” he told her. “You’ve never served as a witness in a trial. You’ve had no dealings that you remember with the police. But I need to ask: Have you ever witnessed a crime—even if it didn’t lead to making a formal report?”

“I used to witness Art Dexter steal candy from Mr. Lloyd’s shop when we were in middle school. I never told on him—and when Mr. Lloyd went out of business later, I felt really bad. I’m sure the penny candies Art took would’ve made no difference, but still…”

“That was in Atlanta, right?” Eli made the notation in her file. “What about since you came to New York?”

She sat up straighter. “Just a couple Fridays ago, I reported something weird at the movie theater. I was out with a group of my friends, and one of them—Alexis—always has to sit in the center seat. I got stuck at the end of the row, next to a single empty aisle seat. I fought with Alexis about it and asked her to just move over one. Since it was a popular movie, I didn’t want some weirdo coming to sit next to me.”

“Yeah, I can see that.” Except Eli was thinking about all the times he’d gone to the movies alone. And
he’d
been the weirdo in the lone aisle seat.

“What happened was worse. A guy came by and asked if the seat was taken. I said no, and he dropped his gym bag in the seat. Then he left. I assumed he went to get popcorn or use the bathroom or check if there was a better seat elsewhere.”

“Then what happened?”

“He never came back. We watched the ads and then the previews, and when the movie started, I poked the bag. There was something hard inside. So we went to security and reported it. I don’t know what happened after.”

“Did you finish the movie?”

“Only after security said it was safe.”

“So there wasn’t an actual crime?”

Cassidy studied him with disappointed eyes. “Not officially.”

“Sure,” Eli said. He highlighted the notes he’d just taken. Pressed
delete.

“If there’d been a weapon in that bag, I assume they’d have evacuated the whole building. It was still
weird.
”

This was going nowhere fast.

“Anything else since you’ve been in New York?”

She furrowed her brow. “Let me think a minute.”

Inside the holding
unit, there came a sound of a chair falling over and cans and silverware tumbling to the ground. The witnesses were arguing among themselves, with Blair raging between the desks. Alina Matrowski stepped in front of him, stabbing her finger in his direction. “It’s fine if you want to risk your life, but I’ll be damned if you risk mine.”

Blair responded with a chilly stare. “You saw how that protective barrier worked. Agent Rossi was standing there, and she was fine. Seems to me there’s not much risk, but a huge payoff.”

“You don’t know that. I won’t risk an injury. My hands—my fingers—are my livelihood,” Alina spat.

“As are my looks,” Cassidy piped up. “I don’t want to risk it.”

“Don’t you want to go home?” Sinya Willis fixed her with an icy stare. “I say we all calm down and do what needs to be done.”

“And what needs to be done, exactly?” Cassidy asked. She righted the toppled chair. Picked up a Coke can and tossed it into the garbage.

“We need to end this thing.” Sinya crossed her arms. “They’re saying the Hostage Taker wants to ask us something when we’re
together.
”

At the opposite end of the room, Eve and Haddox were discussing strategy.

Haddox seemed amused by the clash of personalities. “They have a point. Switch up the game and we might wrap things up.” He made it sound optimistic and perfectly logical, all at once.

“We’ll continue to use video feed,” Eve said. “Just like before.”

“We need to distract him
now.
Physical bodies outside would help do that.”

“They’re my responsibility.”

“So are Mace and García.”

“You’ve already given me my backup plan: his daughter.”

“Whom you know nothin’ about.”

“I’ll use her to get under his skin.”

“You don’t even know: She may be in there, right beside him.”

“And if she is, I’ll figure it out—just from the way he handles himself talking about her.”

“That’s just brilliant.” Haddox shook his head. “A man’s daughter doesn’t strike me as the sort of thing you bluff about.”

“I have to distract him. Figure out what he
wants
to talk about right now—whether that’s witnesses or hostages or priests or his daughter. What do
you
think will grab his attention?”

Haddox pulled a new pack of Marlboros out of his shirt pocket. He leaned against the table with a
NO SMOKING
sign above it. Pulled out a smoke and rolled it between his fingers. “I think I have the perfect idea. Just about foolproof.”

Haddox settled in
front of the computer screen; Eve took the chair next to him. He knew exactly what needed to be done. That didn’t mean he couldn’t also have some fun. He found the site, flexed his hands together, and then let his fingers fly.

He needed something original. Because what’s never been seen before has the greatest power to shock.

So he bypassed all the traditional sites.

His search engine of choice was ICREACH. This was the NSA’s baby, Big Brother crossed with Google. Perfect for the task at hand. Law enforcement loved it because its 850 billion bits of metadata allowed you to truly know your subject: track their movements, map their friends, and reveal their religious or political beliefs. All you needed was a single piece of data: A phone number. An email address. A Twitter account.

Today Haddox wanted it for one simple reason: It was a repository of forgotten data. Even mining data from apps like Snapchat or Whisper. Places where messages ostensibly self-destructed within moments of being shared.

He devoted four and a half minutes to finding the perfect file. When he uncovered it, he felt like a heartless bastard.

He enlarged it on the screen, angled it toward Eve. “What do you think?”

Her eyes were locked on the screen. “If it doesn’t hold his attention, then I don’t know what will. I just hate the idea of it.”

“Hate it more than the death of another innocent victim?” Haddox waited. “Didn’t think so. I’ll put it on-screen. Wait thirty seconds. Then green-light Mace and García.”

The moment he
received the signal from Haddox, García took out his tools and began methodically disarming the detonator.

He worked quickly but cautiously. Found the wires forming the circuit.

Closed his eyes. Said a hasty prayer. Ran a finger over the detonator and tasted it—to be sure there were no chemical components.

There wasn’t any magical how-to formula for disarming a detonator. Each one was unique—the product of its maker’s imagination. So García spent the better part of three minutes, thirty-one seconds determining what this bomb’s maker had done.

García was impressed. It was sophisticated work. And familiar—so probably developed in Afghanistan, if not Iraq.

He identified the first wire.

And there wasn’t any rhyme or reason to the wire colors, either. It was a matter of sequence, not color.

He identified the second wire.

Guys in the field tended to practice with detonators containing only one color wire. It kept their skills sharp.

He identified the third wire.

So it actually helped to be a little bit colorblind—which García always was where explosives were concerned.

He identified the fourth wire—and took out his wire cutters.

Seventeen minutes later, he had completely finished. He wiped the beads of sweat from his forehead. Swung open the door.