Step On A Crack

Chapter 89

I WENT BACK OUT to the communications desk in the outer office. The sergeant, who had been the lead tech guy since this thing began, nodded at me with anticipation. “What’s up, Mike? What now?”

“Can you ring me into the cathedral?” I said.

The sergeant blinked repeatedly, then nodded. He stood immediately, swept the paper off his desk, and flipped open a laptop.

“Give me a minute,” he said, which was about all it took.

“Yello,” Jack said as the sergeant handed me a phone.

“It’s Mike,” I said. “The money’s been wired.”

“All of it?” Jack said.

“All of it. You got what you wanted.”

“Let me see about that,” Jack said skeptically.

I could hear some key clicks in the background. They were checking up on the account from inside the cathedral. Wasn’t the Internet just the best?

“Mikey, me boyo. What a wonderful gift,” Jack finally said after a minute. “I’m about to explode with Christmas joy.”

“We fulfilled our part of the bargain,” I said, ignoring yet another of his wiseass comments. “We’ve done exactly what you wanted. Now you have to do your part. It’s time to let the hostages go.”

“All in due time, Mike,” Jack said calmly. “All in due time. The hostages will be released all right, but on our terms. What would be the point of getting shot like dogs after all this good work? You know what I’m saying? Here’s what we’re going to need. You got a pen?”

“Tell me,” I said.

“Okay. Here goes. In twenty minutes, I want eleven identical black sedans with dark tinted windows, gassed and ready, parked out front at the Fifth Avenue entrance. The doors will be left open, and the engines left running. Fifth Avenue will be cleared all the way to One thirty-eighth, and Fifty-seventh will be cleared river to river. It goes without saying that any effort to stop and detain us will result in a vast amount of death. If all our demands are met, the remaining hostages will be released unharmed.”

“Anything else?” I said.

“Nope, that’s it,” Jack said. “Arrivederci, Mikey. It’s been a real hoot.”

I almost couldn’t believe it when I heard a dial tone in my ear. That was it?

All they wanted was eleven cars? Where did they think they were going to drive? Mexico?

Behind me, I heard the borough commander speaking into his radio, telling the task force cops to clear Fifth and 57th and to block the side streets off. He got on another radio and told all the rooftop snipers to get ready.

“When they come out, we’ll take them down,” he said. “Anyone who has a clear line of sight has a green light.”

“Roger that,” came back one of the Delta Force guys.

“Oh, and I want GPS on those sedans,” Will Matthews told one of his captains.

“Bennett,” Will Matthews told me, “get up on the roof and into a helicopter, in case we have to pursue.”

Not exactly overjoyed about heights, I can’t say I was extremely psyched about that task, but I nodded okay.

As I stepped into the elevator headed to the roof, I couldn’t imagine how the hijackers were planning on getting five steps out of the cathedral without getting massacred. I hit the button for the top floor.

Guess we’ll find out soon enough.