Hostage Taker

by Stefanie Pintoff

  Eve’s body shook. Her head pounded. She was barely conscious of Haddox putting his arm around her, turning her away from the chaos on the steps, guiding her back to the MRU. All the while saying words she could not hear, but found to be comforting all the same.

  —

  When García felt he had enough air, he forced himself to leave the room—the secret chamber where he’d been able to stand and breathe freely—and reenter the tight, narrow passage. Crouched low again, he felt his back begin to throb.

  This time, he didn’t have to go far. He came to a wall.

  It was rough stone. He felt its jagged surface with his fingertips. No apparent opening.

  García studied it, looking for something out of the ordinary. A recessed area. A stone that protruded slightly more than the rest. A break in the pattern of the way stones were laid. Anything that didn’t quite belong.

  He searched for four minutes and twenty-six seconds. It felt like forever.

  Then he decided to put on the special glasses he had rejected earlier. Just to see if they changed his perspective.

  They immediately sharpened his vision. Made brighter what had before been shadowed in darkness. He revisited the wall again, this time with the aid of technology. Slowly, so as not to miss anything.

  That was when he found it—though it was so caked in sediment and dirt that he almost missed it. A thick steel-plate door in the shape of a circle with a handle. It looked just like the entrance to an old-fashioned bank vault.

  Except luckily there was no lock.

  García dug in his heels as he pulled it open. It was made of concrete behind the steel, about three feet thick. He grunted as he used all of his strength, straining his already tight back. It was one of the heaviest objects he’d handled in months. Its hinges groaned when it finally swung open.

  García peered into the opening. He saw nothing but darkness, and for an instant he panicked. Had he just encountered another tunnel? For all he knew, there was a whole maze of them.

  Then he focused his flashlight beam.

  It was a tiny room, the size of a closet. This time with a small black iron door in the shape of a square. It was about five feet high and four feet wide.

  García unhooked its rusty latch and pried it open.

  He got down on his knees. Eased his head carefully through the opening. And looked straight up into the dimly lit statue of Saint Andrew atop one of the fifteen altars that lined the periphery of Saint Patrick’s Cathedral.

  He had never seen a more beautiful sight.

  PART FIVE

  * * *

  HOUR 14

  9:03 p.m.

  More details are emerging about some of the individuals believed to be held, even now, inside Saint Patrick’s Cathedral. One of them is Monsignor Thomas DeAngelo, forty-seven years old, of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

  Monsignor DeAngelo comes to Saint Patrick’s every Christmas to help handle the extra confession load brought by holiday visitors. This year he is also substituting for the Cardinal and his staff, who have been away on a humanitarian mission, stopping by the Vatican before continuing on to Middle Eastern refugee camps.

  According to his parishioners at Saint Mary’s, Monsignor DeAngelo is a beloved leader. His large following have him in their prayers tonight. He has fought for equality, weathering rebukes from church leaders who objected to his advocacy for gay and lesbian rights—as well as his willingness to allow unordained guests, mostly women, to speak during Mass.

  Chapter 71

  García hesitated before entering the sanctuary. It was only natural: He knew the Cathedral was wired to the hilt. Filled with booby-traps designed to reduce the place to embers, ash, and stone ruins in the event of a breach. And García hadn’t survived the IEDs of Fallujah, making it home in one piece, only to die in the concrete jungle of Manhattan. At least the odds were low that the Hostage Taker knew about this particular access point.

  He checked his belt, making sure his favorite Randall #1 knife was within easy reach.

  He listened. He heard no footsteps. No movement. In fact, there was no sound at all except for the creaking of the floor-to-ceiling scaffolding that dominated the center of the Cathedral.

  He smelled only the faint scent of candles and the lingering perfume of incense.

  So he scooted into the building, bent over so as to fit through the door’s three-foot width. His knee joint cracked; the sound dully echoed around the stone walls and granite pillars. He cursed the noise—but mainly was annoyed at how, despite the fact that his body was a prime fighting machine, sometimes it still betrayed its age.

  He swiveled, his eyes focusing first on the aisle to his left, then on the Ambulatory to his right. All was dark inside the massive Cathedral. No candles. The chandeliers were unlit.

  He looked up. He was under a stained-glass window, which was shrouded by tarps and scaffolding. He crossed himself.

  All clear.

  “I’m in,” he whispered into his headset.

  He didn’t wait for a reply. He moved into the open. And prayed for the best.

  In a low crouch, he inched toward the Ambulatory, closing the access door behind him with a thud that was louder than he wanted. The noise echoed through the vast cavern created by soaring Gothic arches, though they eventually swallowed the sound. Iron on the inside, the door was sealed with marble on the outside. It disappeared into the wall that was part of the Altar of Saint Andrew.

  Normally his path would be lit with votive candles, but tonight he was grateful for the dark. Some unseen source from above bathed the marble walls with just enough light to cast an otherworldly glow. García was superstitious enough to believe it was a miracle of the Holy Spirit.

  Keeping low to the ground and close to the wall, García made his way around the first bend of the Ambulatory.

  He passed the altar of Saint Teresa.

  Crouched past the Archbishop’s Sacristy.

  García liked peace and quiet—but this was too quiet. He saw no hostages. He saw no Hostage Taker. The church had the same desperate feel he remembered from patrols in Fallujah—usually right before all hell broke loose and the mission turned to shit.

  To his left was the High Altar and Baldachin—the bronze canopied focal point of the Cathedral. This was the point where he knew he was most exposed, so he crept swiftly past it. Past Saint Elizabeth’s Altar. Toward his destination, immediately behind the High Altar.

  Not the Lady Chapel—the small area dedicated to the Virgin Mary.

  But the entrance to the Crypt.

  Before he descended the marble stairway that would take him there, he took one final glance down the long nave of the Cathedral. He could see all the way to the great choir loft and pipe organ, with its thousands of pipes soaring to the Rose Window above it.

  No hostages were visible. That didn’t mean they weren’t hidden among the pews, altars, nooks, and crannies of this great Cathedral.

  It was tempting to check.

  It was smarter to stick to his original plan. He didn’t want to save one life, only to jeopardize the larger goal.

  So García stayed low to the floor and far to the right and went down the stairs behind the High Altar and Baldachin.

  He descended one level and came to a landing with a green, glass-paneled door. It was the burial Crypt—a marble room where the Cathedral’s former Archbishops slept for eternity. He left it for now, continuing down to the foot of the stairway, beneath the foundations of the two rear support piers of the Cathedral.

  The Sacristy.

  García had a near-photographic memory for spatial organization. He had only to see a map or a blueprint once to remember its details. So when he saw the two open archways at the rear of the Sacristy, he knew exactly what they were.

  The one on his left led to the Rectory. The one on his right led to the Cardinal’s Residence.

  Two paths in and out.

  He went to the left—his default move when all else was equal.


  He had his Maglite in his left hand, his knife in his right. Both at the ready. He made his way through the dark void.

  Until he found a door—rigged up exactly as he had expected. He studied it with a determined stare—and hoped he remembered how to be creative about disarming it.

  —

  The FBI’s definition of a hostage-taking is quite simple: Agents are instructed to treat every crisis as a potential homicide.

  No matter that it was defeatist.

  It was also highly accurate.

  Losing another hostage when they couldn’t produce the real Luis Ramos didn’t lessen Eve’s guilt. It steeled her resolve.

  And García’s message encouraged her. She had a man on the inside. Arguably, her best man: a finely tuned fighting machine.

  The moment she received word, she found Henry Ma. The director was still attempting to placate Monsignor Geve—who feared he saw damage to the figure of Elizabeth Seton on the Cathedral’s central bronze doors—but wasn’t being permitted to inspect it. “I cannot allow you anywhere near an active crime scene,” Henry was saying.

  She pulled Henry just out of the Monsignor’s earshot.

  “I need you to stand down,” she explained. “Table any and all assault plans until you hear from me again.”

  “Sorry, Eve,” Henry responded in a tone that suggested he wasn’t. “Your negotiations have broken down—and time is of the ess—”

  She didn’t let him finish. “I’m three steps ahead of you. I’ve got García inside. I need all tactical divisions to stand down until I know exactly what is needed. If you do another end run, the blood and destruction will be on your hands.”

  She left before he could reply.

  Just as the Hostage Taker had demanded, she was back in charge.

  Chapter 72

  It 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.”

  Chapter 73

  Eli 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. Do
n’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.