Hostage Taker

by Stefanie Pintoff

  Thank you, Mr. Valdes. Our thoughts will be with you. It isn’t easy for any of us to watch, helpless to act, as this tragedy unfolds before our eyes…

  Chapter 46

  Three women and one man stood in a semicircle facing Eve in the temporary holding unit. Its warm overhead lights were the color of honey. So were the walls, painted a light hue with a slight pink overtone that a consultant claimed had a calming effect. Because most people inside this holding unit—criminal or not—tended to be on edge.

  These four were no exception.

  It didn’t help that the air was cold and drafty, and the tables and chairs were made of cheap plastic that attracted the chill and held it.

  Four chairs.

  Four people.

  None of them sitting down.

  The man was tapping his foot. He looked Eve up and down, evaluating. “Mind telling us what’s going on here?”

  Eve glanced at her notes quickly. Blair Vanderwert. The realtor. He was wearing a well-cut pressed suit and an immaculate white shirt. His tie was navy and red, and his dark blond hair was practically glued in place with gel.

  “Special Agent Eve Rossi. Thank you for coming.” She shook each of their hands in turn. Blair’s was warm and dry. The women’s were each icy cold.

  “Special Agent?” The woman who spoke up had a low, husky voice. She was wearing a dumbfounded expression and a white summer dress; she gave the impression of a woman who’d ended up in Milwaukee when she’d expected Miami. Cassidy Jones. “What does the FBI want with us?”

  “Yeah,” the realtor chimed in. “I mean, I thought I had a professional appointment. Then the Feds brought me in. But out there, it’s swarming with cops. What the hell is going on?”

  A shadow filled the doorway as the door opened. Haddox had changed his shirt. The new one matched his deep blue eyes and had no blood on it. He also smelled faintly of aftershave. Eve found that she liked it.

  “Have you been told what’s happened at Saint Patrick’s this morning?” Eve asked.

  A petite, dark woman removed her earbuds. Wearing a little black dress and ballet flats. Hair pulled back. Alina Matrowski. “This place is crawling with police and EMS and firemen. The news said there’ve been reports of a shooting. You have Midtown completely buttoned down under tight security, like this is the next 9/11, yet you bring us right into the middle of it all?”

  “We’re not idiots.” Another woman with a colorful red-and-green cloth on her head glared at them. Sinya Willis. Her accent was clipped. Caribbean. Jamaican.

  “Before I explain, I have a question that might sound odd: Do any of you know each other?”

  Blair said no immediately—with an almost imperceptible tone of disdain. The women shook their heads, with Cassidy saying, “You’re talking about before we met a few minutes ago, right?”

  “Have any of you seen each other before? Meaning you might recognize each other’s face, even if you never met?”

  There was a chorus of no’s.

  “I’m positive I’ve never seen a single one of these people before,” Sinya added emphatically.

  “Do any of you recognize this voice?” Eve pressed a button—and for thirteen seconds, the Hostage Taker’s words filled the room.

  All four witnesses stared at her, blank-faced.

  “What about this man? Do any of you recognize him?” Haddox stepped forward, clicked on the keyboard near Eve, and a facial composite of Luis Ramos—made by the staff sketch artist after talking with Haddox—flashed on the screen.

  “Never,” Alina said, her brow furrowed. The others agreed.

  “Is he the guy who shot people?” Cassidy asked.

  “No,” Haddox said. “His name came up. Just like each of yours.”

  It was exactly as Eve suspected. This would not be a search that moved forward in a straight line. It would go backward and sideways and at diagonals, probing their social connections and everyday habits. Figuring out if any of them shared the same dentist, shopped at the same grocer, prayed in the same church, or went to the same dog park.

  “The reason all of you are here is because you’re connected somehow,” Eve informed them. “And we need to figure out how.”

  “What do you mean, connected?” Blair demanded. “Like how all of humankind is connected? Like that Six Degrees of Separation with Kevin Bacon game?”

  “What are you talking about?” Alina interrupted.

  Cassidy turned to her. “You know the actor Kevin Bacon? There’s a game you can play: Link any actor to him through no more than six connections. You can even search any actor’s ‘Bacon number’ on Google.”

  “Huh.” Alina fingered her ear buds.

  “Why do you think we’re connected? And why do you care, if we are?” Cassidy wanted to know.

  “We believe you are each somehow connected to the shooter at Saint Patrick’s Cathedral this morning. He’s armed—and he’s killed innocent people,” Eve answered bluntly. “We don’t know who he is. But we have reason to believe all of you know him.”

  “Nonsense,” Blair said. The others chimed in with a round of denials: I definitely don’t know any murderer. Don’t know anyone who’d do something crazy like this.

  “Maybe you don’t know him well. Maybe he is a teller at a bank where you all deposit your checks. Maybe he’s the movie ticket usher where you all went to the movies. Maybe he sold you all a pair of shoes.”

  More denials. I don’t think I shop where he shops. I don’t like movies. I only buy shoes online.

  “None of you are Catholic?” Eve asked. “None of you regularly attend Mass—at Saint Patrick’s or elsewhere?”

  Another round of denials.

  “I think your information is wrong,” Sinya insisted.

  “Unfortunately, it’s not,” Eve said. “The shooter inside has taken hostages. He has issued only one demand: For you to come here as a ‘witness.’ He asked for each of you by name.”

  This time, no one spoke. They were speechless. Stunned.

  “What does this guy want from us?” Alina finally ventured.

  “Apparently, nothing more than your presence here as a witness.”

  “To what?” Blair asked. “Why would this nutjob want us?”

  “We don’t know,” Eve admitted. “But you should be aware: We will do nothing that in any way jeopardizes your safety.”

  “Are we safe here?” Cassidy cast a nervous glance around the holding unit.

  “Safe as houses,” Haddox said. “Safer than you’ve ever been in this city.” He rapped on the window of the unit. “Bulletproof. Bombproof. Fireproof. And hundreds of New York’s Finest to protect you outside.”

  “So we’re asking you to stay here. To answer our questions and help us figure this out.”

  “What do we get out of this?” Blair asked.

  Eve didn’t smile. “The satisfaction of knowing that you’re helping. Saving lives, by sharing what you know. And when it’s over, you’ll be the center of attention—if you want. Each of you will get your fifteen minutes of fame—because every news outlet in the world will be clamoring to talk with you.”

  “Even NBC?” Cassidy cast a glance toward Rockefeller Center.

  “Especially NBC,” Eve reassured her. “What’s really important is that each of you is our only connection to knowing the Hostage Taker inside. You may have met him without being really aware of who he is. If you can work with me—and help me figure out how you might have each crossed paths with him—I think I can identify him. Maybe even figure out what he’s doing in there.” She nodded toward the Cathedral.

  “What do you know about him?” Sinya crossed her arms across her chest.

  “Not much,” Eve admitted. “I’ve developed a profile. My best guess is that he’s middle-aged. He has an above average IQ, developed social skills, and substantial organizational skills. He has a security background: Military. Police. Maybe even prison guard. He knows this Cathedral intimately—which leads me to guess that he’s
Catholic, from the local area, and has spent significant time in the building over the years. He doesn’t just want to kill the victims he’s taken. He wants to destroy them on a public stage, with not just the world watching.” She looked from person to person. “With each of you watching. Witnessing, he calls it. That suggests a religious fixation.”

  They stared at Eve. But there were no questions, so she continued. “He lives alone or with an elderly parent. No one has reported him missing—or called with specific concerns—which means he is able to plot and execute his plans without interference from a spouse or partner. He may have been married in the past. I believe he has a child—or had one.”

  Still no questions.

  “He understands forensic procedure. What cops do. What negotiators do. How technology works. He has concealed himself by using multiple burner phones: some stolen from his victims and others prepaid. Ostensibly, his victims were random visitors to Saint Patrick’s Cathedral. Yet there are reasons why he might have wanted each of them dead. We don’t know who remains inside and how they play into his plans. Mainly, we’re unsure why he mentioned each of you by name. It appears you do not know each other. You never went to school together. You don’t share common friends. You don’t live in the same apartment building or even the same neighborhood. But something connects you—and makes you important to the guy inside that Cathedral.”

  They all kept staring at her. No one made a comment.

  “We have questionnaires for all of you,” Eve said.

  “I’ve designed a program that will cross-reference your answers and identify any patterns or similarities,” Haddox explained. “To make this as painless as possible.”

  “Let me get this straight,” Sinya demanded. “You just need information from us? Then we get to go home.”

  “That’s what I’m hoping,” Eve replied.

  She fixed Eve with a fierce stare. “Well, why didn’t you just say so?”

  Chapter 47

  Haddox looked at the clock. Seventy-eight minutes until deadline.

  Still no ID for the guy inside—or the hostages he was holding.

  Still no connection among the witnesses.

  Still no line on the Hostage Taker’s motive or end game.

  He didn’t have much. But he had the voice recording taken from Eve’s conversations with the Hostage Taker. Might as well try voice biometrics. His brand of it.

  Other Feds had already run the recording through the FBI Biometric Center of Excellence database. It hadn’t yielded a hit. In the years since 9/11, the Feds had developed an extensive database for law enforcement to use. It included biometric data ranging from palm prints and iris scans—to voice and facial recognition—to scars, marks and tattoos. His absence from that database only meant the Hostage Taker hadn’t yet been arrested—or left behind bio-data at a crime scene that was part of the Next Generation Identification system, or NGI.

  Haddox wasn’t surprised. The NGI was rife with errors and far from perfect. Recently, a poor bloke in Massachusetts had his driver’s license revoked because the government’s facial-recognition system screwed up and said the man wasn’t himself.

  So to be thorough, Haddox ran another standard industry program. It also came up empty. No surprise there, either. The telecommunications industry might estimate that fifty million customers had enrolled their voiceprints for authentication. Trading their voice fingerprint for faster customer service, or to replace a passcode, or for a bank to process a payment.

  But Haddox agreed with Eve: Their Hostage Taker had a background in security. This guy wasn’t the type to trade privacy for convenience.

  Fingers flying, Haddox brainstormed.

  He’d known a hacker in London who was on the cutting edge of this technology. The fellow had invented a creative fix—or so Haddox thought—for the failings of most software systems. Namely, the fact that a regular guy might speak in one accent—say, his educated London one—when he was being questioned at the police station. But he might revert back to his East London Cockney when he was with his mates at the local pub.

  Haddox remembered a good bit of what the British hacker had done.

  Plus, he had pretty decent instincts of his own.

  —

  García never made a big deal about goodbyes—so he was equally low-key about greetings. He walked into the MRU, acknowledged Eve and the team with a brief nod, and got right down to business. “I know how to get inside that Cathedral. Whenever you’re ready.”

  “Welcome back, Frankie.” Mace didn’t look up. The center table in the MRU had just been transformed into a smorgasbord of hot deli sandwiches, salads, and coffee. He couldn’t decide between the steak, pepper, and onion—or the chicken with melted cheese.

  “You know, I’m so happy to be away from the white coats, even Julius Mason can’t get under my skin today. But don’t test me, Mace. You never know when my happy juice is gonna wear out. In case you forgot, I don’t like being called Frankie.”

  “So talk to me. How do we get in?” Haddox asked, ignoring their banter.

  “Pull up the blueprints and I’ll show you.”

  Haddox pressed a series of buttons on the computer. A partial schematic projected onto the white board. “They’re incomplete,” he explained. “The result of the Cathedral being constructed in so many different phases over such a long period of time. There aren’t many surviving building documents—certainly no sketches, schematics, or blueprints from the early days. That’s hampered the restoration effort considerably—and now it’s slowing us down, too.”

  “There are rumors of a secret tunnel offering access to the Cathedral.” Eve frowned at the screen. “People are convinced it’s there. But just like the missing cornerstone, no one claims to know exactly where it is. There’s a Church representative here who may have an idea of where to try. But he’s not exactly cooperating.”

  “Don’t need him. I know exactly where to find it,” García said matter-of-factly. He noticed their looks of consternation—and took a moment to savor having the information advantage.

  “Since when did you become a construction expert?” Mace challenged. “Able to locate a passageway nobody’s been able to find for a century. You don’t know shit about this.”

  “You don’t know shit about me,” García retorted. He stalked to the window that faced the front of Saint Patrick’s. The world outside was dark, but spotlights designed to illuminate any movement the Hostage Taker might make were focused on its layers of scaffolding. It transformed the Church into a hulking iron structure—but García knew that underneath, it remained pure white marble stone and spires. An American Cathedral, built in the old traditions.

  His mind jumped over an ocean and past a handful of countries. “You know how I spent my thirteenth wedding anniversary?” he asked them.

  “If the answer involves anythin’ other than your wife, I understand how you ended up alone,” Haddox answered.

  “Thirteen’s his unlucky number,” Mace added. “So this story can’t be good.”

  García glared at them both. “It was when things were starting to go bad with Teresa. So my buddy Tony decided we should go out drinking in Hell’s Kitchen. He’d just started a new job, so he was flush with cash.”

  “Is this going anywhere useful?” Mace’s patience was running thin.

  “Put a cork in it, Mace.” Eve nodded at García to continue.

  “We’d downed too many shots of tequila when he decided he wanted to show me something. Tony called it the Bat Cave, ’cause it looked like something straight out of Gotham.” García paused long enough that they got the impression he was on a crazy tangent. “It was kind of like entering a different world, going inside this massive tunnel that runs through the heart of this city’s bedrock.”

  “What are you talking about?” Mace couldn’t help himself.

  “You’ve heard of the East Side Access project?”

  “You mean the Long Island Railroad extension?” Eli ask
ed.

  “Yeah. Almost six miles of brand-new tunnels being built under this city. Tony snuck me inside the main tunnel extension serving Grand Central. Runs from the Sixty-third Street Tunnel right down Park Avenue.”

  “Park is a whole ’nother block behind the rear of the Cathedral. How’s that help us?”

  “It’s close enough that the Church was pretty worried about the tunnel work causing damage to Saint Patrick’s—even an entire collapse,” García answered.

  “I repeat: How’s that help us?”

  “Sometimes when they’re drilling through bedrock with these monster machines, they create openings in the rock that maybe they don’t fully intend. Not big enough for a subway car…but plenty big enough for an average sort of guy. Tony took me into one of them. Guess where it went?”

  “We’re all ears, Frankie.” Mace took a bite of the steak-and-pepper sandwich he’d chosen.

  García frowned. “Not gonna ask again: Don’t call me that. He took me down a passage that went right to the air vent for the new East Side tunnel—the one that’s right on Fiftieth and Madison. Not far from the Lady Chapel in the rear of the Cathedral. And here’s the best part: It just kept right on going.”

  “How far?” Eve’s eyes went wide open.

  “What do you know about the Lady Chapel?”

  “I know it was an addition to the Cathedral by”—Eve paused to check her notes—“Charles Mathews. Not part of Renwick’s original plan. Work began in 1900 and finished in 1906. And—the last major renovation was in 1931, when the organ was added and the sanctuary was enlarged.”

  “It was built in the same old-school style as the main Cathedral,” García said. “The exterior wall is white marble. But it’s backed with brick and stone, with plenty of hollow spaces built in to prevent dampness and aid ventilation. A few of those are wider than others. Again, not big…but large enough for an average-sized man—”