Step On A Crack

Chapter 42

THE NEXT TIME I glanced up from the notes I was making on the negotiation with Jack, the command center’s small window to the outside had somehow become dark. The time had flown. Paul Martelli was busy talking on the phone beside me. Ned Mason was on the phone, too. A dozen or more other cops were working laptops, including Steve Reno.

I stood up and palmed the low ceiling as I stretched pretty close to my full six two.

The demands had been sent to the FBI’s New York headquarters downtown, at 26 Federal Plaza. The Bureau’s White Collar Crime Squad was crunching the numbers. The grand total of the ransom was nearly eighty million dollars.

It was a massive sum for one person to pay, but if you broke it down to the two and a half million or so for each hostage, it wasn’t that outrageous.

In fact, it was incredible how willing to pay these people seemed to be.

Celebrity spouses and family members were giving me the numbers of their financial people almost before I had a chance to explain who I was. More than one Hollywood talent agency I spoke to didn’t hesitate to put up the firm’s money for their lucrative clients. Three investment banks were working overtime organizing all the wire transfers.

One Beverly Hills lawyer actually asked for the hijackers’ number-to see if he could negotiate directly. Uh, Jack-Marv Begelman from California wants to talk with you.

It irked me, but I had to agree with what Jack had said before giving the demands. The fat cats were more than willing to buy their way out of trouble.

As I stepped outside the bus for some much-needed air, the first thing that hit me was the buzz-saw chattering of diesel generators. A half dozen portable crime scene light carts had been set up, and they illuminated the cathedral as if this were Times Square. For a second, the scene reminded me of another annoying NYC phenomenon: location shoots for movies-idling trailers, blocked-off streets, bright lights anywhere you looked.

Time to hit the catering van, I thought. See if I could keep some food down.

As I walked east along 50th, I could see that the sides of the cathedral were lit up, too. There should have been families strolling hand in hand down this block around now. Rosy-cheeked visitors from across the country and the world, sipping hot cocoa and smiling as they caught the candle glow from the famous stained-glass windows.

On the northwest corner of the Saks Fifth Avenue roof, I spotted a motionless FBI sniper.

The whole thing was totally insane.

What was even crazier was that these maniacs thought they were going to get away with it.

How? Every inch of the cathedral was being scoped out by snipers. Air traffic had been diverted, so even an unlikely helicopter escape couldn’t work. As Oakley, the HRT supervisor, had mentioned, the hundred-and-fifty-year-old church was built right on top of Manhattan bedrock. So there was no basement, no way to get out from underground.

I tried to convince myself that the hijackers hadn’t thought the grand finale through, that Jack had put their escape plan in the cross-that-bridge-when-we-come-to-it file.

But as I stood out on that cold, deserted street, all evidence pointed to the alternative. The boldness of their action, the confidence that we would do exactly as they said. It was looking more and more like the hijackers knew something about their exodus that we didn’t.

I was rubbing my hands for warmth when my cell phone rang.

I snatched the line to Jack, stiffening for the next ninety-mile-an-hour curveball that was more than likely heading straight for my forehead.

Then I realized it wasn’t the police cell ringing but my own personal one. I rolled my eyes when I saw that the number on my caller ID was my grandfather Seamus.

As if I didn’t have enough on my mind.