Exit Strategy

by Jen J. Danna

  Down below, in the catacombs, where the only occupants had already shuffled off this mortal coil. They would not be able to help her, but they also couldn’t get hurt.

  She eyed the inset, double wooden doors first at the top of one aisle, then the other. She remembered from a series of articles on the church’s renovations a few years earlier that they’d closed the old, external staircase down to the catacombs and built a new internal staircase for all-weather congregant and tour use. But which set of doors would take them down? They’d simply have to pick one and hope for the best, slipping through the doors when no one was watching. But for now, they needed to wait out the parishioners.

  Gemma glanced over at Boyle, whose gaze was passing over the congregants. “Come on,” she whispered. “Let’s sit down. We need to look like we belong here, and we need to wait until most, if not all, of them leave. Then we can decide what to do.” She grabbed his arm, tugging him down the main aisle.

  She slid into one of the back pews on the left-hand side, in a spot where she could watch the whole church. Clasping her hands in her lap, she let a wave of exhaustion wash over her. The exertions of the day were catching up with her—the stress of the negotiation, losing Willan, putting herself up in exchange for the hostages, the pressure to blend seamlessly into the subway station tour, and then the wild flight through the Lower East Side. The emotional weight of her most painful memories.

  She let herself give in to the fatigue for a moment.

  Just one moment to regain the strength she would need to stop Boyle, once and for all.

  CHAPTER 27

  Alex sprinted down Mott Street, his eyes fixed on the bulk of St. Patrick’s Old Cathedral, just up the block.

  He’d had the uniform drop him two blocks away in case Gemma and Boyle were somehow still out on the streets. If she was working to confine them in a closed building for a takedown, he didn’t want to cause Boyle to flee at the sight of an NYPD cruiser. This way, he could blend in, mostly—since he was running full tilt, even if he was in street clothes—and not set off any alarm bells. He might have a firearm under his gaudy Hawaiian shirt, and his shield and throat mic and earpiece for Gemma in his cargo shorts, but he was grateful his picnic garb marked him as a harmless tourist. The last thing they needed right now was someone in uniform.

  He dropped to a walk as he neared St. Patrick’s. He strode up the sidewalk to the tall wrought iron fence about thirty feet in front of the main doors to the church.

  Alex paused for a moment on the sidewalk, gazing through the gap of the open gate to the heavy church doors thrown open and the dim narthex beyond, remembering the many times he’d been here so long ago. Sitting with his mother on a hard pew so tall he could swing his legs, and her gentle hand on his knee to stay the motion. Music bursting from the organ pipes. The smell of incense and the smoke wafting from the swinging thurible. Finally being old enough to attend Midnight Mass at Christmas.

  This was a place of safety, for both himself and Gemma, and he could see why she’d come here. To draw strength from the familiar, as well as to strategically draw the upper hand. And in adding him to the mix, an even stronger hand.

  He crossed the wide stone walkway that stretched across the front of the church, flanked on both sides by shorter wrought iron fencing enclosing the church’s burial grounds. He stepped cautiously into the narthex, but the narrow space was empty. He moved forward, staying in the shadows behind one of the red velvet curtains, and peeked into the sanctuary. He spotted his sister immediately, sitting at the back beside an older man, and felt some of the stress slide off his shoulders. She was still wearing the outfit she’d worn to the picnic and her hair was a little more disarrayed than usual. But from the small slice of her face that was visible, she looked calm and in control.

  He had known she was uninjured fifteen minutes before, when Frankie had called. But in a situation like this, when circumstances could turn on a dime, fifteen minutes was an eternity where anything could happen. Seeing Gemma unharmed with his own eyes settled the jagged edges in his gut.

  They would take Boyle down here. The challenge was going to be in not turning it into yet another hostage situation. He scanned the room, taking in the other occupants, intuiting his sister was biding her time, waiting for people to leave. Which would happen soon, but what if Boyle got restless before that? Alex could possibly help there.

  Silently he pulled back from the doorway and left the sanctuary, knowing exactly what he needed to do. First off was to contact the command center—using Joe as a conduit in case anyone objected to an IAB rat calling the shots—and get the building surrounded. The fewer people inside the building, the better, to avoid the situation getting out of hand and Boyle becoming desperate. However, if Boyle got away from them, he wanted the A-Team on the surrounding rooftops to make the shot.

  Next, he needed a priest.

  Hopefully, not for Last Rites.

  CHAPTER 28

  Gemma didn’t hear the door open, but the flash of move- ment caught her eye. She glanced up, briefly registered a dark-haired man wearing a black cassock and cincture closing the doors on the left aisle, and went back to surreptitiously watching the occupants in the church with her head bowed.

  It took her three whole seconds to connect what she’d seen with what she knew. As the identity of the priest crystallized, her breath caught. She covered the sound with a cough and forced herself to breathe normally. And when she was sure Boyle’s attention was completely focused on the people around them, she glanced back up again, quickly finding the “priest” moving slowly through the sanctuary.

  Alex.

  Her message had gotten through. He’d understood and come. Now they were two against one, and for the first time since she’d walked into the subway station with Boyle, true hope for a successful conclusion rose. She waited patiently until he casually looked her way and made eye contact with her. He gave a tiny head bob, which looked more like penitence than an acknowledgment, and continued down the aisle.

  She was unsure at first of his motive as he approached the first parishioner, had a quiet word with her, and then moved on to the couple across the aisle. The parishioner stood, gathered her things, and started down the aisle toward them.

  He’s clearing everyone out. He’s making sure there isn’t anyone for Boyle to take hostage. Or to get hurt.

  “We need to move,” Boyle growled under his breath, his eyes fixed on Alex. “Looks like they’re getting ready to close down for the night, and I am not leaving this church.”

  “What’s your plan?”

  “Remember the crypts beneath this church?” His chuckle was dark. “What better place to hide until things cool off than with the dead? Stay into the night, leave before dawn. Disappear in the dark.”

  Perfect. But she couldn’t look too willing. “There are other places we could go.” Turning slightly, she cast her eyes up behind them to the balcony above them, where the massive gold pipes of the organ rose to the ceiling. “What about the organ loft?”

  His sneer was derisive. “Afraid of ghosts?”

  Gemma let herself recoil slightly, causing him to reach out to clamp an iron hand over her forearm.

  “You are. You’re going to have a very bad night then.” With his other hand, he pulled back his jacket, showing the butt of his SIG for her eyes only. “I suggest you come with me now or there’ll be trouble.” He looked up and over the sanctuary. “Maybe we’ll start with the holier-than-thou priest.”

  Ice-cold fear washed over Gemma. She’d drawn Alex into this because she needed help, and, together, the two of them could beat Boyle. But the thought that she might have brought her brother here to die wasn’t something she’d anticipated and it nearly stopped her cold. She purposely bolstered her tone with a bravado she didn’t feel. “No need for another notch in your belt. The catacombs it is.”

  Boyle looked over at the far side of the church. “Then lead the way. Go light one of those candles over there. That wi
ll put us close to that door on the far side from the priest. There are only two side doors out of here, so we’ve got a fifty-fifty chance. If this isn’t the way down to the catacombs, then we’ll double back to the other doors.”

  Gemma nodded and shot to her feet. She stepped past him back into the main aisle and then circled behind the last pew on the far side. Passing the paired, ten-foot-tall ornate wooden confessionals, she walked up the side aisle to where the Virgin Mary stood surrounded by candles, some already lit by congregants, their flames dancing in small glass holders. She selected a long wooden stick, its end already charred, and held it in a flame until it, too, burned bright. She lit a new candle, then gave the stick a few quick flicks to make sure the flame was extinguished before slipping it, charred end down, in the glass holder as Boyle joined her.

  She took a quick look over her shoulder, but Alex stood with his back to her, speaking to the last parishioner near the back of the church. Her gaze shifted quickly to Boyle as the blunt barrel of the gun in his pocket pressed against her side.

  “Now,” he said. “While no one’s looking.”

  She stole noiselessly down the aisle and pushed one of the two doors open to slip through, Boyle right behind her. Holding the handle, she seated the door silently back into place.

  They were in a small vestibule, a later addition to the original early-nineteenth-century construction, that ran along the side of the church, dropping into a set of stairs leading downward into darkness.

  They’d found the way to the catacombs.

  No longer needing to hide it, Boyle pulled his SIG Sauer from his holster, eschewing the more compact format of the Glock in his pocket for the power and damage potential of the 9mm. Boyle planted his free hand at the small of her back and gave her a push toward the stairs. She half trotted for a few steps and sent him a narrowed glare over her shoulder. “No need to get rough.”

  He raised his gun so she couldn’t miss his intent. “This isn’t a committee. Go. We need to be out of sight before anyone else comes down here.”

  Turning away from him, Gemma started down the steps. Newly built, the stair treads were quiet under her sneakers and in seconds she was at the bottom and passing through a doorway into the dim undercroft.

  Gemma had only a few seconds to observe everything in front of her, knowing this was going to be her chance to take him down with no civilians nearby. Even though Alex had his back to them as they left the sanctuary, she was confident he’d followed their movement. Which meant he’d be right behind them.

  The narrow undercroft filled the basement from one side of the church to the other. A flagstone floor stretched from the foundation to the chiseled fieldstone wall that separated the small gathering space from the catacombs themselves, once the original outer wall. The massive double doors to the catacombs, held in place by long decorative strap hinges that stretched nearly edge to edge, were thrown open, the darkness of the catacombs stretching beyond.

  Boyle followed behind her, pulling the door shut after him, quenching all the light from above. Now the only light came from the red EXIT sign hanging over the doorway, giving the room a creepy crimson glow. “There we go. Get used to the dark. If the place was empty, the lights would be off, so that’s how we’ll wait. I don’t want any light showing under the door attracting that priest’s attention and bringing him down here.”

  Gemma took in the gaping maw of the doors leading into the catacombs. There, in the more complete dark, she’d make her move.

  Like Logan had, she was counting on Boyle to underestimate her, even if only for the first second or two of the fight. Of course, she wasn’t dealing with a random street brawler while out on patrol; she was dealing with an NYPD cop. One who might have gone slightly to seed with his retirement and the loss of his son, but who would have defensive moves as an automatic reaction. And he was easily about sixty pounds heavier than she; she had her work cut out, she had no doubt. Not to mention the first thing she had to do was get the SIG out of his hand. Martial arts could only take her so far. The first thing to avoid was a bullet to the brain.

  But before that, she needed to make it far enough into the catacombs that if Alex followed them, the light from the open door wouldn’t be visible to announce his arrival.

  She stepped toward the doorway into the catacombs and made a show of pausing halfway there.

  Boyle’s hand landed on her shoulder and clamped on with an iron grip. “Keep going.”

  “I will. It’s just . . . you know... dead people.”

  “Dead people are the least of your concerns. Now move.” He pushed her forward.

  Gemma reached out a hand to the wall of the arched passage into the catacombs. Part of the original construction, the wall was easily three feet thick, built out of mortar and mismatched fieldstones. She paused, taking the moment to reinforce Boyle’s perception of her hesitancy, but also to review her memories of the catacombs’ layout.

  She’d been in them several times, but that was more than twenty-five years ago when the door in the front walkway off Mott Street had led to the centuries-old stone steps down to the catacombs. Still, these were in a historical landmark building; there was no way the footprint of the catacombs had been changed. Her one brief glimpse told her they’d refreshed the surface of the walls and redone the floor, but she was betting those would be the only changes. Closing her eyes, she drew a floor map in her head: A rectangular layout echoing the nave of the church above. There was a long central corridor, with sealed family crypts for up to a dozen members about every ten feet. Side offshoots at each end led to long corridors that ran parallel to the central pathway, each with more crypts running along the inner walls. At the far end was the original staircase, which ran up to the street level, but was now closed and abandoned in lieu of a safer entrance. Several open vaults held stone sarcophagus-style tombs and could provide niches in which to hide. The most renowned vault in the church, that of Thomas Eckert, the Civil War hero, was famously unsealed, but she was sure it would be locked and inaccessible.

  Take one of the side aisles and head toward the back of the catacombs.

  Keeping one hand on the wall, Gemma rounded the corner to the right, moving slowly forward in utter darkness, trusting her sense of touch more than anything else. The faint red glow from the bottom of the stairs quickly dissipated inside the catacombs; she might as well have had her eyes closed in the inky blackness. The wall here was polished and slick under her fingertips with periodic breaks, but was a flat surface, with no recesses, and stretched all the way along the corridor. When she judged they must have been almost to the far side, she put out her left hand in front of her, and a few more steps brought her palm against smooth plaster.

  They’d reached the crypts.

  Now she just needed to take them farther in. She purposely kept them against the right-hand wall, knowing he was holding on to her with his left hand, while his right hand held his gun. Their path kept his right hand close to the wall, something she planned to use to her advantage.

  It was impossible to know how far into the catacombs she’d taken him, but Gemma waited until she estimated they were at least halfway along the corridor, if not more.

  It was now or never. She had to trust that if she got into trouble, Alex would move in to help.

  She let her footsteps drag slightly, and then pretended to stumble in the dark. The move propelled her forward, down, and out from under Boyle’s grip, giving her enough room to pivot, weave her fingers together, and swing with all her might at where she calculated his right arm and hand would be.

  CHAPTER 29

  Her joined hands hit flesh, just before the jolt of slamming into the plaster wall ricocheted up her arms. Boyle’s grunt of pained surprise was followed by the satisfying sound of metal striking the stone floor and skittering away.

  He’d lost his hold on the gun, which was now somewhere on the floor in the dark.

  Finally a fair fight. Now she just had to keep his hands busy
enough he wouldn’t have the luxury of time or the freedom of movement to go after the Glock buried deep in his jacket pocket.

  She reached out for where she gauged his right elbow might be, touched the edge of his jacket, and recalculated, feeling a spurt of triumph when she found it on the second try. She hooked her hand behind his elbow, yanking him forward and toward her right side, tipping him off balance. Then she ducked under his arm and lunged forward, wrapping both arms around the backs of his thighs, halfway up from his bent knees, and lifted him. Already off step, Boyle completely lost his footing and toppled backward, going down hard on his back. Gemma just barely got her arms out from under him as he fell, but she let herself go down with him, and then was on him in an upper grappling mount.

  She had no weapon or handcuffs, and she was easily only two-thirds his weight. While she had no idea how much training he had, it wasn’t zero. But she was realistic. All she really needed to do was subdue him until Alex showed up. And if she couldn’t do that, then she needed to trap him in the catacombs until backup arrived.

  The basics of the art were so ingrained in her that instinct took over. Use leverage, timing, and energy efficiency to compensate for her smaller size. Immobilize, control, and exhaust him. Stay low in the mount, using her hips and legs to anchor herself to him. Minimize the distance between them to minimize any damage he could do.

  If she was right on top of him, he wouldn’t have room to pull back and undercut her, so she went low. She lay over him, using her hips to pin his down as she slipped her feet under his bent knees and hooked them around his shins. She planted both hands on the floor on either side of his head to brace herself. Boyle immediately tried to buck her off, but she stayed connected, so he grabbed her at the waist, his fingers digging deep with fury, and tried to lift her off. It would have worked as long as he was able to bench-press her full weight. But she slid her right arm under his head, jamming his skull against her shoulder, pushed off the floor with her left hand, and used her legs to lock them together, forcing him to bench-press their combined weight to move her. When that didn’t work, he tried to roll her in the opposite direction. She simply switched his head to her opposite shoulder and changed hand positions, jamming them in place on the floor.