Hostage Taker (9 page)

“L
et’s see if I understand.” Henry scowled at Eve. “Getting your team back together has just cost me fifteen grand?”

“Not including the private helicopter from Boston. Or—”

He cut her off. “I don’t want to know. When do they get here?”

“I expect Eli and Mace within the hour. Once Haddox reaches the heliport, it’s a seventy-five-minute trip.”

“Just get the job done. Assuming you can.”

“Always appreciate the vote of confidence.”

Henry’s rigid smile contained an understanding that chilled her. “The fact that this Hostage Taker took control of the Cathedral at all has demonstrated superb planning. Yet he’s murdered a hostage and a negotiator. Most troubling of all, he’s made no demands.”

“Except to talk with me.”

“You know what this means.”

“He’s taking the kind of risks that suggest he’s willing to die in there—never mind who else goes with him.” She closed her eyes and thought yet again how the Vidocq Unit was designed exactly for these kinds of desperate situations. Sometimes it took a criminal to stop a monster.

And failing that, her team of ex-convicts was expendable—as Henry and the top brass had already proven.

No, she did not trust Henry and the FBI. Not anymore.

Henry turned to leave. “I have to go talk to a representative from the Church. Someone sent to be sure we mind our
P
’s and
Q
’s and don’t destroy any part of the Cathedral. Meanwhile, EMS says the boy is ready for you. His name is Luke Miller and he’s eleven years old. They got that from his passport. Because the kid himself? He isn’t talking.”

Six minutes later,
Eve was sitting across the table from a child.

The boy with the spiked hair had been brought to her by a protective senior agent with a sour face and a box of tissues. Luke Miller sat down, fidgeted uncomfortably, and stared at Eve with reproachful eyes.

He looked small—his thin frame swallowed whole by an oversized NY Yankees sweatshirt. And scared—his smoky gray eyes churned with fear and hurt. Complex emotions Eve would never fully understand. Her degree in psychology and advanced training in criminal profiling had taught her a good deal—and her own sense of empathy filled in the rest—but the truth of someone else’s pain would always be a mystery. Every person, she knew, experienced it uniquely.

But Eve could guess: Luke wanted this all to be over. He wanted to go home. Most of all, he wanted his mother. And right now, Eve probably symbolized everything that was getting in the way of all that.

EMS had given Luke a cursory medical check. It was their opinion that the boy had not been harmed while held hostage inside Saint Patrick’s Cathedral.

Not physically, anyway.

Running his passport number had turned up his mother’s name: Penelope Anne Miller. She had checked herself and Luke into the Holiday Inn Midtown two days earlier. A search of their room had turned up ticket stubs showing their recent activity. They’d toured Ellis Island. They’d seen
The Lion King.
They’d visited the dinosaurs at the American Museum of Natural History. Eventually, of course, they’d ended up at Saint Patrick’s.

Despite having no ID as of yet on the first victim, Eve at least knew it wasn’t the boy’s mother. Penelope Miller’s passport photo bore no resemblance to the woman shot and killed this morning.

Luke clutched an uneaten bag of peanut M&M’S—what some agent had scrounged up to help him feel more at ease. Eve had the harder task: finding the right words. Especially when there
were
no right words. Not for this situation.

Eve moved her chair so it was at a diagonal. She crossed her legs. Struck a conversational pose. “My name is Special Agent Eve Rossi. And I’m told you’re Luke Miller—come all the way from Sheffield, England. That’s South Yorkshire, right?”

Luke’s gaze flickered down.

“How old are you, Luke?”

Silence.

“Eleven?”

Nothing. Luke wasn’t talking.

Eve was the stepdaughter of a CIA spook, but she was also the child of a classical musician, and she had learned: Listening could be even more powerful than talking. To be a good listener, Eve knew you had to understand more than words. You had to observe. To pay attention to what excited people—or frightened them. To notice where they hesitated—as well as where they rushed ahead. To watch as a person revealed himself in hundreds of different ways. Hands. Eyes. Gestures. Expressions. Movements. Body language made it possible to figure out almost exactly what someone else wanted. Even if that person never uttered a word.

Now she watched as Luke ripped open the M&M’S bag and dumped its contents onto the table. He made one large pile of browns and yellows, reds and blues, oranges and greens. He shored up its sides until he had created an M&M’S mountain.

Luke began dividing the M&M’S by color into six separate piles. The brown pile was largest, followed by the yellow and red.

“The brown ones were always my least favorite,” Eve remarked casually. “But I’d eat them fast because there were so many of them. Did you know, scientific studies have shown: There
are
more brown M&M’S in every bag?”

Luke didn’t answer, but she noticed that his thin shoulders relaxed.

He separated the three smallest groups from the others. Orange, green, and blue circles were moved to his far left. Red and yellow partnered in the middle. Brown—the largest circle—stayed to the right.

Little. Medium. Big.

The tale of
Goldilocks and the Three Bears
flashed into Eve’s mind: Papa Bear, Mama Bear, and Baby Bear.

She was still only watching. But now she had a plan.

She’d never spent much time around children, so she didn’t pretend to understand them well. But she recognized something in Luke’s M&M’S game. Not just an affinity for patterns. A certain precision of thought. She had no idea if all kids organized their thinking this way—but she thought this kid might. Because when she was a child, she once had.

She had been seven years old when she irritated her mother by insisting that no, she did not have
Gym
on Tuesdays. What she had was
PE
—which her mind classified as an entirely different activity. Some children focused on the literal. Maybe that was just what was required.

“I understand you’re here with your mother.” Eve made it sound conversational. “I know she’s still inside the Cathedral. I’m going to get her out, but I could really use your help to do it faster. I believe you want to talk to me—but the man inside the Church threatened to hurt your mom if you did.”

Luke looked up, cautiously.

“If I have it right,” Eve suggested, “would you move one of your M&M’S toward me?”

She recognized his deer-caught-in-the-headlights expression for what it was: pure panic.

“He said you couldn’t talk. But I’ll bet he said nothing about M&M’S.”

Luke gnawed his lower lip. Then a look of determination crossed his pale face. He nudged a brown M&M across the table toward Eve.

“That’s great, Luke. I’m going to ask you some general questions. The answers will help me get your mom free. But I promise: You won’t have to say a single word. The man inside the Church will never trace your answers back to you
.
”

Luke nodded
.

“How many other hostages were with you inside? Did you notice? I bet you did. You could show me with individual M&M’s.”

No M&M’S moved.

Eve waited patiently.

Then Luke tapped his forefinger on the table, twice, and started moving the M&M’S one by one. Spreading them apparently haphazardly around the table.

“So everyone is held separately? Green for
yes,
red for
no,
yellow for
I don’t know.
”

A green M&M moved toward Eve.
Yes.

“Can you describe any of the other hostages?”

A yellow M&M slid toward Eve.
I don’t know.

“Is there a priest among the hostages?”

Yellow crossed the table.

“Did you see anyone helping the man who took you hostage?”

A red M&M came to Eve.
No.

“Tell me more about that man. Was he tall?”

Green.
Yes.

“Did you see his face?”

Red.
No.

When Eve felt they had built enough rapport, she asked the one question that would help her most. She wanted to know why the Hostage Taker had chosen
this
boy. The Hostage Taker was more than willing to kill. Yet with Luke, he had been willing to release.

Had it been random—because the boy was positioned nearest the main door?

Had it been tactical—because with his mother inside, the boy would be easily controlled?

Or was it a rare display of sympathy for a child?

Other answers would come soon enough. Given time, she would learn who was inside the Cathedral—and identify the Hostage Taker. But meanwhile, she would be negotiating with him. And if she knew the answer—
Why Luke?
—then she would have a much clearer idea of whom she was dealing with.

“Luke, I have one more question for you, but it’s not a yes-or-no answer. It’s your
opinion.
I want to know why you think the man inside the Cathedral decided to release you?”

Luke shuffled his sneakered feet.

“Whatever you believe, it’s just between you and me. I promise not to tell anyone else what you say. But I need your help, Luke, to get your mother out of there—and back to you—as fast as possible.”

Luke glanced toward the two computers Eve had been using earlier. The image of
Goldilocks and the Three Bears
flashed again into Eve’s mind.

“Maybe you’d like to write a story?” she suggested. “A tale about a monster who invaded a church?”

He seemed to silently debate how to respond.

Eve added, “It would be pure fiction. Just a story. Nothing that would break any promise you made. Because writing a story is different from talking about a hostage-taking, isn’t it?”

Luke slid off his chair. He walked over to the computer on the left.

“Yes, that one’s fine,” Eve assured him. “Let me close out my work and get into basic word processing.”

Fourteen minutes later—after
Luke had finished typing and the social worker had taken him to a nearby hotel with the promise of chocolate-chip ice cream—Eve read what the boy had written. His story was about a Wolfman who answered the door of a big church one evening wearing a priest’s robe. The Wolfman smiled, but he didn’t look friendly. The Queen didn’t notice, so the Prince followed her into the gray, ghostly place. It was empty. Closed for the night. The priest took them to the basement, because they’d made a special appointment to pray with the Saints. They didn’t notice when the Wolfman attacked. He hurt them and tied them up. Later, the Wolfman let the Prince go because the Prince was a good boy. A boy who wouldn’t dare disobey.

The story had all happened more or less as she expected—but for one detail.

The timing.

They had been assuming the crisis started in the early-morning hours. Sometime before the first victim was killed on the steps of Saint Patrick’s just before 7:09 a.m.

What if that was wrong? What if the whole thing started last night?

She put in a call to Information Technology and directed them to forward to her all street surveillance video starting the night before.

“Sure thing, Eve. Beginning what time?”

The agent talking with her was Tom Barrow. He had worked in IT since well before Eve joined the New York office—and she had always liked him. He was calm and steady, and he read technology data the way she did people: watching and listening from a thousand different angles.

So what time should she tell him to start searching? The Cathedral officially closed for the night at a quarter-to-nine. “Focus your efforts after eight p.m.,” she decided. “But scan the footage from the entire day. And if you notice any large materials being transported in, particularly any trucks or vans nearby, please send me that as well. And Tom?”

“Yeah.” His voice was distracted. He had already started work.

“I need this as quickly as you can get it.”

“Understood.” And he clicked off.

Time.

So often the negotiator’s advantage. Except here, the Hostage Taker acted as though he had all the time in the world. In fact, if Luke was right, the Hostage Taker had taken control of the Cathedral last night—but not bothered to reveal his presence until morning, near sunrise. Why?

Most troubling of all: He’d still made no demands other than to speak to Eve.

What did he want? How many people did he hold? How could they find out?

Those were the questions Eve was puzzling over when the phone trilled.

Not hers. Not the FBI’s.

The one Luke had been given by the Hostage Taker.