Hostage Taker

by Stefanie Pintoff

  “Such as yourself,” Haddox interrupted.

  “I ain’t average,” García objected. “Tony found the way in. Said you followed the passage between the walls. Then there was a hidden panel.”

  “But you were with him?” Eve asked, confused.

  “Not the whole way.” García looked down. There was no good way to explain the problem. The claustrophobia. What it had felt like, being trapped in Fallujah.

  He had wanted to follow Tony through the narrow walls. But the farther they walked, the tighter the walls had closed in. Soon he had been struggling just to breathe. Fighting the heat that threatened to overpower him. Bombarded with the images he wanted to forget. Crumbled concrete. The stench of burnt flesh. The body parts everywhere.

  “But you trust this guy? You don’t think he was just pulling your leg?” Eli found his way to the food. He loaded up on salads, knishes, and a turkey-avocado sandwich.

  García looked Eli square in the eye. “He says he snuck all the way in and lit a candle for me in Saint Patrick’s Cathedral. It was the night of my thirteenth wedding anniversary. Tony wouldn’t lie to me.”

  “So do we need to bring in Tony?” Eli glanced at Eve.

  “Not an option, unless you brought someone who can wake the dead into Vidocq. But if he found the route, I can find it, too. I’ll use the same principles: Get us inside the walls, find the access panel door, and avoid the booby-traps this asshole has set for us.”

  There was a dry cough from the doorway. Monsignor Geve had decided to rejoin them. “Try not to take offense,” the Church representative said. “But what you’ve just described is impossible.”

  “Excuse me?” García locked his gaze.

  The Monsignor’s lips pinched in disapproval. “You’re discussing an assault entry into a national treasure that’s afforded the strictest landmark protection.”

  “I thought we were discussing a rescue operation,” Eve interposed coolly. “There are at least five hostages. Likely more.”

  Geve kept his eyes on García. “You mention the Lady Chapel in particular. You say it would be your point of entry to the Cathedral. It’s of particular importance.”

  “If we do it right, everything’s going to be fine, padre,” García said flatly.

  “Wait.” Monsignor Geve held up a hand. “There are seventy-one stained-glass windows within Saint Patrick’s. All of them masterpieces. You cannot risk the use of gunfire in the Cathedral.”

  “We cannot risk the continued massacre of innocent victims, Monsignor.” Eve straightened, crossing her arms.

  “What does he want? Can’t you just give him what he wants?” His tone scarcely concealed his irritation.

  “Unless the Church knows how to read minds, not an option,” Eve replied, her own irritation rising to the surface. “He still hasn’t told us what he’s after.”

  “Maybe instead of tunnels and walls, you should be thinking about that.”

  “Maybe you should be thinking about letting us do our job.” At six-foot-seven, Mace towered over the Monsignor.

  “The Rose Window is just one example of the priceless treasures in the Cathedral,” the priest persisted. “Charles Connick’s work depicts the faces of angels in the eight petals of the rose. I’m here to make sure you protect it—and other treasures like it.”

  “I’m not saying Saint Patrick’s isn’t an awesome place to pray,” García shot back, “but any Church—including this one—is for people. Right now, there’re people stuck inside whose lives are in big danger. What’s more important to you: Saving this building? Or saving the hostages with the bad luck to be stuck inside?”

  The Monsignor was trembling with anger. He was about to argue more, but then he changed his mind. “You people don’t understand. There must be another way.”

  HOUR 11

  6:18 p.m.

  We continue to monitor ongoing developments at Saint Patrick’s Cathedral. Meanwhile, we have Cliff Raymond on the line, a security expert at Broadwell International and former FBI agent.

  Mr. Raymond, tell us: How could something like this have happened?

  RAYMOND: Well, no one wants to hear this, but the unfortunate answer is that it’s easier than you’d think. Saint Patrick’s is what we call a soft target in security speak. As both a religious institution and a cultural landmark, it welcomes everyone—which, as we approach Christmas Eve, means about twenty-five thousand people a day. Saint Patrick’s has a full security detail—one of the best employed by a soft target. But the Cathedral’s primary job is to welcome everyone who visits—especially at Christmastime.

  Chapter 48

  Forty-two minutes ’til deadline.

  Eve organized the responses to the four questionnaires they had given the witnesses. Haddox was pursuing the same data quest through the more scientific filter of his computer program. Eve, on the other hand, divided the lives of each witness into four large quadrants on her computer screen. Inside each quadrant was a series of statements, time lines, phone numbers, addresses, and acquaintance lists. She tugged on a curl by her left temple. A bad habit that always helped her to concentrate.

  She was staring at the minutiae of four lives, tasked with building a different sort of picture than she usually created. She’d always had a good mind for finding small details, analyzing them, and weaving together certain patterns. When she was done, her creation resembled a spider’s web—with multiple strands coming together to form an intricate whole.

  Today, she felt she was staring at four separate webs. And she was searching for the single flyaway strand that would allow her spider to cross from one web to a completely different one. Some shared habit—or perhaps only a single experience—that linked one to another through the most fragile of connections.

  They were different ages and from different generations. Cassidy Jones was barely twenty-one years old, and Alina was twenty-nine. Blair Vanderwert was forty-five and Sinya had just turned sixty. Eve tried to imagine their lives, their routines, and the people they would have met.

  Cassidy grew up in Atlanta, where she became Miss Georgia Teen USA as a senior in high school. Following graduation, she moved to New York to become an actress, settling into a community of actors in Astoria, Queens. Cassidy was a party girl. Her days might be spent in and around Astoria, where she worked at the Utopia Diner. But she came into Manhattan most days, too—for auditions as needed, and for the bars and dance clubs at night. Her list of friends and recent boyfriends was a daunting one.

  Alina could not have been more different. She was quiet and hardworking, devoting hours of practice each day to her piano. She lived uptown in Washington Heights, in a tiny studio apartment overlooking the George Washington Bridge and the Palisades. She had cobbled together a career of playing chamber music and teaching students. But her work took her primarily to areas in and around Lincoln Center and Midtown West, where she was affiliated with one of the local private schools. She had a handful of close friends and no boyfriend.

  Blair Vanderwert had lived his entire life on Manhattan’s Upper East Side. He’d graduated from the Dalton School and Yale before entering his family’s real estate business. There was no real distinction between his work life and his social life; they fused at the endless society and charity events that he attended. He was always networking—but among a certain social set that didn’t seem to encompass or overlap with the worlds of the other witnesses.

  Sinya Willis was a live-in nanny whose main daily contacts were under the age of eight. She resided with the Abrams family. She went to the Baptist Church in her neighborhood every Sunday. She sang in the choir—and those choir practices formed the backbone of her social life. For work, she shuffled the three Abrams kids back and forth to dentist appointments and soccer practice, homework club and playdates.

  Haddox had reported that Luis Ramos’s life was lived in the shadows of Harlem. Ramos had come downtown to work as a day laborer whenever a contractor needed extra manpower. All cash, no paper trail.
No unnecessary friendships. No excursions.

  They lived in different worlds, but they were all typical New Yorkers in one respect: They had provincial routines. Eve had always thought it ironic that the largest city in America cultivated small-town habits better than any small town. But that was what happened when virtually every need anyone had could be satisfied within five blocks of home.

  How do you know them?

  She started an imaginary conversation with the Hostage Taker, trying to understand how he would have seen them. Why he would have chosen them. How they were bound together.

  Then it occurred to her: How was she ever going to do that, when she still didn’t understand the most basic question of all. Why had he insisted on her?

  A sound behind her startled her. She gasped, whirling.

  It was Haddox. “Just a quick question for you. I’ve got a list of everybody you’ve worked with at the FBI, including those who were in your training class at Quantico. Were you ever part of an interagency joint task force?”

  “You have a list of what?” That was the problem with Haddox. Normal boundaries meant nothing to him.

  “I live in a world of information, luv.”

  “Can you stop calling me luv?”

  “Maybe not altogether. Maybe just less often. Are you going to answer my question—or don’t you want to know why he chose you?”

  “I’ve worked closely with the NYPD in past hostage crises—but nothing sustained.”

  “That blows that theory, then. Guess he’s just a fan.” He stepped closer and peered at her computer screen. “We can’t figure out why he wants you or what connects them. Seems like he couldn’t have chosen a more random group of people. Makes me wonder: Is that the point?”

  “I’ve thought of that. That he’s chosen people at random to be witnesses. That he doesn’t actually have any past connection with any of them.”

  “But?”

  She shook her head. “This feels too personal to me. Even if he doesn’t know them well, they represent something important to him. I’ve got another idea that might help. You listened to my last conversation with him?”

  “Just ran it through the FBI’s biometric database. No hits.”

  “Good. Pull it off the database again. Skip to the section where he talks about a religious school teacher and an incident when he was eleven years old.”

  “You think his motive is as basic as his history with the Church?”

  “I wonder if we can identify the teacher. It sounded like he was a layperson—but that could’ve been a lie. Take what we know—our presumption that the Hostage Taker is local, that he is about thirty-five, and any other data we can glean. Then cross-check it against any child abuse cases that fit the timing. Use a Venn diagram–style approach to establish IDs for those who fit within the overlapping circles—and go from there.”

  “Aye, sure,” Haddox agreed. “I’ll need to design a scientific approach to make it work.”

  Eve shot him an exasperated look. “Haddox, it’s just data. Sometimes you have to look beyond the bits and bytes. Keep your eye on the human element.”

  “Without bits and bytes, we have no data patterns to make sense of.” Haddox started to turn away, then stopped. “By the way, I’ve decided: I won’t call you luv anymore.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Even though it suits you. Loosens you up a bit. So you may as well reconsider.”

  “Reconsider what?”

  “Having dinner.”

  “We still have work to do.”

  “But if we didn’t?”

  “You mean after the hostages are saved and the Cathedral is secure?”

  “Aye. It’s a date.”

  “I didn’t agree.” She wasn’t smiling.

  “You will when you see the brilliant idea I’ve had. I just need someone to do a little shopping.”

  “No cigarettes or Irish whiskey. You’re on Uncle Sam’s dime.”

  He ignored her—or seemed to. “This Hostage Taker has more secrets than anyone’s entitled to. Better get back to unraveling his motive.” She heard his steps, returning quickly to his own workstation.

  You’re one to complain about hidden motives, she longed to tell him. She settled for asking herself, What about your own?

  Chapter 49

  Sixteen minutes until deadline.

  Haddox listened to the recording of Eve’s conversation with the Hostage Taker and decided that she had been played. The Hostage Taker had spun a tug-at-the-heartstrings tale and gained Eve’s sympathy. Completely distracting her from the fact that he’d just that very morning murdered a priest.

  No, that wasn’t fair. Maybe Eve was playing the Hostage Taker as well. Acting as though she cared.

  Either way, Haddox kept coming back to the witnesses. Given that not one of them even went to a Catholic Church, he simply couldn’t buy Eve’s theory that anger over abuse cases was fueling this Hostage Taker. It felt too pat.

  And finding the single common thread linking the witnesses wasn’t working through the usual means. The human brain simply wasn’t capable of connecting the thousands of potential connections among five separate individuals. But his advanced diagnostics program was perfectly designed to uncover the answer.

  Sinya Willis was a rabid Mets fan. So was Cassidy’s latest boyfriend. Both regularly attended games. But Blair Vanderwert followed only the Yankees, and neither Alina Matrowski nor Luis Ramos was known to have an interest in baseball.

  Alina and Blair were both avid runners, active in New York Road Runners races and events. They had probably run together, time and again, without realizing it. But his practice runs took him down the FDR, while her preferred jogging paths were on the banks of the Hudson River. Cassidy practiced Pilates, Sinya found chasing three boys to be exercise enough, and Luis worked shifts so long he only slept between them.

  All but Luis and Sinya had served jury duty downtown. Blair and Alina had even been summoned during the same week two years ago. Blair had been chosen as an alternate in a civil case to determine liability for fire damage to a building. Alina had been dismissed after three days.

  They had granted Haddox permission to run a cross-search through their credit card and banking records. Sinya and Alina frequently shopped at the Harlem Fairway. Blair and Cassidy frequented the same indie multiplex on East Houston on the Lower East Side. Everyone but Alina had eaten at least once at the Madison Square Park Shake Shack. Everyone but Blair had visited the TD Bank branch in Times Square. But no one habit, activity, or transaction had yet been found to link all five witnesses.

  When something wasn’t working, Haddox’s solution was to try a different strategy. Tackle a different issue. So he turned his attention to the flip side of the problem: the Hostage Taker.

  When he ran a skip trace, his starting point was the name—and he used multiple data sources to create a path that inevitably led him to the individual he sought.

  Here he had the opposite problem. The living, breathing person he wanted was less than a hundred feet away from him. What he was missing was everything else. A name. An identity.

  He clicked away on his keyboard, fingers racing at his usual 120 words per minute. He pulled up the transcripts of Eve’s conversations with the Hostage Taker—which included both text and audio. He cobbled together a kludge, inelegant and clumsy but designed to do what was necessary.

  Haddox knew there were many flaws inherent to biometric technology—and especially voice biometric technology. He had already hit a brick wall using the FBI’s database. So he didn’t design his search to generate a specific ID. That would just be a recipe for crashing and burning. The technology wasn’t there yet—and those who pretended it was made embarrassing mistakes. Like when incomplete biometrics led law enforcement to falsely identify Richard Jewell as the Atlanta Olympics Bomber. Or when Brandon Mayfield was falsely accused of orchestrating the Madrid train bombings.

  Instead, Haddox’s kludge would search for patterns and pro
duce the most general of biometric profiles. A counterpart to Eve’s working psychological profile, based on the data that could be gleaned from her three brief conversations with the Hostage Taker.

  Eve had been convinced the Hostage Taker was a local man, given his comfort level with the Cathedral. So Haddox linked his program to a database run by a linguist at the University of Pennsylvania. That would allow for analysis of consonants and vowels, and generate possible regions where speakers used them in similar ways.

  He then connected to a linguist at the University of Virginia who did similar work, but focusing on word choice and phrasing rather than vowels and diphthongs.

  Eve believed the Hostage Taker had some background in law enforcement or security. A third linguist—this one at the University of Colorado—specialized in research on military and police slang.

  He used an old trick to minimize the static background of the audio.

  He let everything run. If he got lucky, these multiple data points—voice details, speech patterns, and key language choices—would work together and yield something they could use.

  Eight minutes until deadline. Seven o’clock. At the exact moment the world had expected to celebrate the lighting of the Rockefeller tree, a madman would be demanding his witnesses.

  Haddox stole a glance at Saint Patrick’s. Though the rest of Fifth Avenue had gone dark, the Cathedral was bathed in light. Its own floodlights, plus the spotlights brought in by the Feds that fully illuminated its exterior, transformed the Church into a shining beacon of light.

  It inspired him to do one more thing. He sent up a prayer to Saint Jude—the patron saint of lost causes and desperate cases.

  Chapter 50

  Four minutes until deadline.

  Mace had followed García into the equipment supply van, set up for the tactical teams readying themselves to breach the Cathedral. An operation certain to occur if Eve was unable to bring the situation to closure. Mace normally hated shopping, but this was different. He scooped up a laser-guided automatic weapon. Checked out its sight line, felt its weight in his hand. Even if he no longer made a living selling this shit, he still got a kick from checking it all out. Special operators always got the cutting-edge technology. Stuff that came straight out of the lab and had never been battle-tested. From there, it would eventually filter down to the regular guys in uniform and then make its way onto the street.