Step On A Crack

Chapter 23

“WHAT’S YOUR TAKE on these guys, Mike?” Mason suddenly found his voice again.

I was about to try to answer, but being the closest to the command center window, I was the first to see the movement at the front of the cathedral.

“Wait a second,” I said. “The doors are opening. The front door! Something’s going down.”

The crackle of frantic radio calls ricocheted through the cop-filled trailer like one of my kids’ dime-store bouncy balls.

At first I could only make out the dimness of the church’s interior. Then a man in a torn blue dress shirt appeared in the doorway. He was blinking in the pale sunlight as he stepped onto the flagstone plaza.

Who was this? What was happening?

“I have him,” I heard one of the snipers call over the police band.

“Hold fire!” Will Matthews called back.

A woman in a broken-heeled shoe hobbled out behind the man in the blue shirt.

“What the…,” Will Matthews said as a thin stream, then a flood of people started pouring out onto the cathedral’s front steps.

Hundreds, maybe a thousand people, were suddenly swarming out onto Fifth Avenue.

Were the hijackers letting everyone go? The other cops around me seemed as confused as I was.

We stared, silently watching the churchgoers scramble down the front steps. It was an unfathomable mob scene. Uniformed task force cops waded in immediately and guided the people south past the 49th Street barricade.

“Get every detective down here. Robbery, Special Victims, everyone! I want those released hostages identified and interviewed,” Commander Will Matthews barked at one of the assistant chiefs.

Then the doors of the cathedral began to close again. What was happening now?

Martelli patted me on the back.

“Nice work, Mike,” he said. “Textbook negotiating. You just saved thousands of lives.”

I appreciated the compliment, but I didn’t think what had just happened had much to do with me.

Maybe the strong-arm tactic Mason used had worked after all. Or they’d lost their nerve.

The whole thing was so utterly bizarre.

“Is it over?” Will Matthews asked. “Is that possible?”

There was a communal flinch around the room when the phone I was holding suddenly rang.

“My guess,” I said, “would be no.”