“But it’s obviously still standing,” Mercer said.
“Obsolete but still standing,” I said. “What’s the date? Today’s date?”
“It’s Friday. October twentieth.”
“There’s your answer. The lighthouse is open to the public for one week a year every fall. One single week. The rest of the time it’s closed. I bet the kidnappers hit the last night of open season on Wednesday—the annual festival. Needed a place to stash their victim for a couple of days.”
“So they had Lonigan create a makeshift B and B inside the old fort for a couple of nights,” Mercer said. “There was enough activity on Liberty Island, with the concert tomorrow night, to make their comings and goings fit in unobtrusively, no matter what time of day or night they arrived—deliverymen, sound engineers, caterers, crews to erect tents.”
“Fort Washington and that rocky point at Jeffrey’s Hook is a comfort zone for Emmet Renner,” I said. “It’s isolated and remote. An easy place to break into, and no one around to disturb him. One of his playgrounds on the Hudson River. It’s a dark comfort zone for a dark killer.”
“What else do we need?” Mercer said, about to step on the gunwale and get on the boat.
But I pushed hard with both hands and the bow separated from the dock.
“You’re not coming with me, man. You’ve got better things to—”
“Don’t do this, Mike.”
“Throw me that rope,” I said.
“You’ve got the Lonigan kid.”
“Damn right I do. I swear I’ll take good care of him if you work the rest of this with the lieutenant like I need you to do,” I said. “Now, throw the goddamn rope.”
I had already drifted too far away for Mercer to jump onto the boat. He tossed the line to me.
The engine was idling ten feet off the end of the dock.
“As soon as I take off, you call Lieutenant Peterson. Tell him why I’m sure it’s Renner and that I think the red lighthouse is where he’s got Coop.”
“I’m dialing now,” Mercer said. “That much I knew.”
“Tell him no lights and sirens, okay? No John Wayne macho-commando operation at the fort,” I said. “I think I can surprise him from the water.”
“Dumbest of a lot of dumb things I’ve heard out of your mouth, Mike.”
“Peterson needs to get Emergency Services on the bridge. There are three or four paths that lead from the surrounding park area to the lighthouse itself. And an abandoned trail across a bridge built in the 1840s for the first railroads. Those would be the logical approaches cops might make because they’re pretty well covered by tree foliage—even at this time in the season.”
“Got it.”
“And the Harbor Unit, Mercer. They need to stay back till I give you some kind of sign.”
“With any luck they’ll be there before you will.”
It was just after six o’clock and the sun had set.
I switched on the starboard and port lights—green for starboard and red for port—so that I could run the boat safely in the channel without getting hit. I eased the boat away from Liberty Island and circled it once to say one more thing to Mercer.
“No shooting. There’s to be no shooting until we see that Coop is alive and well.”
From this point on, once Mercer made the call, I would have no control over any of the decisions being made. But I needed to think that I did.
I pulled back on the throttle and made my way across the river to go north. The water taxis appeared to be full of commuters. I crept along at eight or ten knots because of the traffic, despite my desire to race to Jeffrey’s Hook.
I hadn’t gotten farther than Battery Park City when my phone rang.
It was Vickee, calling from the press office at One Police Plaza.
“Game’s up, Mike,” she said. “The commissioner wants you to come in to headquarters stat.”
“Have you talked to Mercer?”
“He said he doesn’t know where you are.” Her voice was covered in a crisp layer of frost. “And I don’t believe him.”
Good man, I thought. Great friend.
“What’s changed?” I said. “Mercer’s not lying. Peterson sent me home.”
“There’s a ransom note, Mike.”
I gripped the steering wheel of the Intrepid. I thought I was going to be sick.
“What does it say? What’s the demand?”
“No demand yet. A note tucked under the windshield wiper of the district attorney’s car when his security detail went downstairs at six o’clock,” Vickee said. “‘Alexandra Cooper is alive’ is what it says. There’ll be video proof at ten P.M.”
I pulled on the throttle to ramp up my speed. “So why does Scully want me? Why does anyone think this is real?”
“He wants you here to protect you from yourself, Mike. From doing something stupid when we’ve just been offered a glimmer of hope,” she said. I’d never heard an edge in Vickee’s voice until just now. “There’s an inked fingerprint on the note next to Alex’s name. We’re checking it now against the prints in her DA’s employment file. Then we’ll know if this is for real.”
I heard the word fingerprint and I could only think of Westies bosses like Coonan and Renner who had kept fingers that they had cut off their victims. Another wave of nausea swept over me.
“I’ll see you at nine forty-five.”
I was cruising past a party boat with revelers celebrating on deck. I didn’t think the wake I was kicking up would disturb the large vessel. Speed seemed more important to me at this moment than safety.
“You’d better make it sooner than that, Mike,” Vickee said. “The commissioner is taking the story public in an hour. He’s holding a presser with Paul Battaglia. He knows he can’t sit on the story of Alex’s disappearance once the video goes viral, so he’s breaking the news himself.”
FORTY-SIX
I moved the needle up so that I was doing twenty knots, and then twenty-five. I was flying over the water at thirty-five knots, past the piers that held giant cruise ships. I had a distance of about one hundred city blocks to go.
I didn’t know this stretch of the river. It seemed to be a straight shot toward the bridge. I could mark my progress by landmarks: the tall lighted spire of Riverside Church near 125th Street and the circular dome of Grant’s Tomb. The huge sewage-treatment plant loomed ahead of me, so I checked behind me for other boats, then veered off to the center of the fast-running waterway.
Trains speeding past me on the railroad tracks that ran alongside the river from Penn Station to the north made it impossible to hear almost anything else except the roar of their engines. I checked the depth finder and had plenty of water beneath me for the draw of my boat.
As soon as the detail on the giant gray towers of the George Washington Bridge came clearly into sight, I cut back on the throttle and slowed the boat’s speed, gradually, to below ten knots. I cut off the running lights and let my eyes adjust to the blackness all around me, from the starless city sky to the swirling current beneath me.
If it was going to be possible to surprise Emmet Renner, then it would have to be by a stealth-like approach from the Hudson.
I knew there were giant rocks that surrounded Jeffrey’s Hook. They were the reason for the existence of the lighthouse, although much of the shoreline had been dynamited to clear the passage for vessels when the GW was built. I needed to be on high alert so that I didn’t drive the boat aground before finalizing a plan.
The red paint of the lighthouse reflected the brilliant lights, strung like a necklace, that covered the beams on the great bridge from east tower to west. The sturdy little building was only forty feet high, dwarfed by the six-hundred-foot rise of the steel beams above her.
I caught a break. The lower half of the Hudson River—as far upstate as Troy—was a tidal estuary. The tide was shifting and carrying me northward, taking me closer and closer to the bridge, with only the slightest amount of engine thrust.
I picked up my phone and speed-dialed Mercer.
“Where are you?” I asked.
“On a Harbor Unit boat. About to catch up to you.”
I turned around, keeping both hands on the wheel, and spotted the blue-and-white NYPD vessel about a hundred yards off my stern.
“You’ve got to stay back, Mercer. That’s all I’m asking. Stay back till I signal,” I said. “How about the lieutenant?”
“He was already on his way to Queens when I called, but he’s rushing a team into place.
“There’ll be two men in the girders of the bridge and a crew surrounding the park,” Mercer said. “And you ought to know that Peterson told Scully everything, including the fact you have your own hostage.”
“Damn it.”
“Since the commissioner knows, there’ll be a real plan in play within the hour. Can you hold off one more hour, Mike?”
I didn’t know how to answer. It wasn’t in me to wait.
“Mike?”
“Can you stay back and douse the lights?” I asked.
I looked around again and the NYPD launch had gone black.
“Thanks for that. Now, as soon as I go past the lighthouse,” I said, “I’ll be out of sight. Your crew can show you on the charts that it’s best for me to stay east after passing the main point of Jeffrey’s Hook.”
“Okay.”
“There’s a stretch of huge rocks there that stand out of the water. Some of them get covered up when the tide comes all the way in, but that’s why you won’t see me. I’ll pull in against those boulders,” I said. “If you guys are willing to stay back, then I’ll wait.”
“You got it, Mike,” Mercer said.
I not only had the current and tides with me. I also had an idea.
I moved the boat as quickly and quietly as she would go, navigating a path around the giant rocks.
Jeffrey’s Hook was the narrowest point between the New York and New Jersey shorelines in this stretch of the Hudson River. That’s why it had been chosen as the spot on which to anchor the enormous bridge.
It was for the very same reason that General George Washington selected Jeffrey’s Hook as the place to sink his chevaux-de-frise during the Revolutionary War, to try to create a blockade to prevent the British and Hessian soldiers from advancing upriver.
The boulders mined from above Fort Washington were sunk on the wooden chevaux, from riverbank to riverbank, by American soldiers, and the ships that had carried them across the water had later been moored in place above them. It was the only way to secure the position of those vessels and the heavy cargo they had lowered into the Hudson River to stop the enemy.
The massive iron hooks that once held the line of sunken boats in place looked like weapons of war themselves.
I had seen them often, as a kid. They had been buried deep in the boulders by soldiers who would soon after be captured.
They had always fascinated me—hooks the size of the cleats on this boat, forged and fired and bent into shape, looking like the long, arthritic fingers of a witch.
The Intrepid banged up against a couple of the rocks. It didn’t sound any worse than a wave crashing against them, buffered by the sound of another passing train.
I didn’t want to use the flashlight. Fortunately, the GW Bridge lights offered enough of an outline of the shore.
I knew exactly what I was looking for. There were three boulders, each separated from the next by about ten feet, which were on a spit of land called Ceder Point.
It was on that spit—a huge slab of rock—where the hooks were embedded deep into the schist.
I scanned the area as I tried to idle the boat in place. At the top of a crest there used to be a statue, I remembered. It was a distinctive shape, sort of resembling a snowman, with a round head and a stout belly and bottom. The Daughters of the American Revolution had commissioned it a century ago, with words marking the site: AMERICAN REDOUBT 1776.
I finally saw the stone snowman at the top of the rocky hill.
I held on to the bow rope and crawled off the boat, angled onto one of the boulders. I kicked off my shoes so that I didn’t slide back into the water.
It was only a matter of minutes until I found a pair of the Revolutionary-era rusted hooks.
My feet scraped against the rock as I climbed toward them. I was happy to feel patches of moss that made sticking to the surface easier.
When I got one hand on the first hook, I wound the rope around it. Then I reached it to the second hook and made the knot tighter and tighter. I tugged on the line and my little Intrepid seemed to be securely in place.
It was the first step in building my devil’s bridge.
FORTY-SEVEN
I sat down on the boulder and moved crab-like back to the boat. I stepped over the side of it and grabbed the metal frame that edged the canvas T-top to lower myself down.
I lifted the cover of the bench and looked down into the head.
Cormac Lonigan—my hostage—was exactly where I had left him.
I pulled him to his feet and told him to walk up the three small steps to the deck. The sock in his mouth would keep him quiet. There wasn’t much I had to worry about, but I made him get to his knees.
He was shivering with just his jockey shorts and long-sleeved shirt on.
I bent down in the storage space beyond the toilet. There were a few sets of waders and other boating clothes.
I climbed up next to Lonigan. “These will be too big for you, but they’ll be warmer,” I said.
I helped him pull on the one-piece black rubber overalls. He didn’t fight me. I didn’t dare remove his handcuffs, so I fastened the clasps over his shirt but decided against letting his hands free for long enough to put on an all-weather jacket.
I had no intention to kill the kid. I just wanted him to be my bait.
I walked to the stern to get the extra length of rope that was stowed there. I rolled up the legs of my chinos, almost to my knees. When I turned back to Lonigan, I could see him taking in the landscape. He must have recognized the bridge overhead but might have made no sense of the location.
I got back onto the boulder where we were anchored and told Lonigan to follow me.
He hesitated. He had no ability to speak, but his eyes were asking me Why?
“Gotta test the water,” I said. “In case we have to go for a swim.”
His head shook violently from side to side.
“Just sayin’, Cormac. Now, take a walk with me.”
He was off-balance from hours of being hunched up on the toilet with his hands behind his back. In addition, he had the bulky waders on, and their footed rubber overalls made walking difficult.
I held on to him to steady him on the slick surface, carrying the length of rope over my shoulder like a lariat.
We were thirty yards or so north of the red lighthouse and walking toward it. We were on much lower ground and hidden by the boulders, so it wouldn’t be possible for anyone to spot us. I couldn’t see signs of life from within, and I wasn’t sure that there were cops in place yet on the girders of the great gray bridge.
To our right, sticking up from the river like a series of large tombstones, was another outcropping of rocks.
I held on to Lonigan’s handcuffs, his back to me, and extended my right leg so that my foot dipped into the water.
“Ooooh,” I said. “Pretty nippy.” I tugged on the cuffs and pulled him so that his booted feet were standing on the base of one of the rocks, covered up to his ankles by the Hudson.
I talked to him as I laced one end of the thick nautical rope around the links of his handcuffs and then through the shoulder straps of his waders.
“What do you know about hypothermia?” I asked.
Lonigan couldn’t speak if he wanted to.
“I didn’t think so. It’s a dangerous thing, Cormac. Cold water accelerates its onset because body heat is usually lost twenty-five times faster in cold water. It gets to the core of your body,” I said, goi
ng about my business strapping the rope around the back side of the naturally made tombstone. “Gets the brain, the heart, the lungs—all the vital organs. And skinny people like you? Well, it tends to get to them faster.”
I kept my balance as I wrapped the rope around Lonigan’s body and then again around the vertical rock.
“Nobody wants you to live more than I do, kid. I’m needing you badly to make a trade, okay? For that woman you don’t know anything about, remember? The one your uncle snatched? So in water this cold—and remember, I put these waders on you for a reason—you’re good out here for two and a half hours.”
Cormac Lonigan closed his eyes.
“Now, it will get colder, because the tide’s coming in and the water will keep rising. Good thing you’re nice and tall. And holding still increases your survival time,” I said. “I took a course once at the Police Academy. A chance to train to be an Emergency Services cop. I got through all the crap about heights and elevator shafts and jaws of life. The one thing I couldn’t deal with? It was hypothermia. It was jumping into the frigid East River—like, doing it voluntarily—to save the ass of some drunken fool who had fallen in, who was kicking and screaming and flailing his arms, and more likely to drown by doing that. I gave up on the idea early on. More suited to dead bodies.”
I was knotting the rope at the rear of the rock. My toes were already ice-cold.
“But that’s when I learned how important it is, in the case of hypothermia, to keep a positive attitude.”
Lonigan’s head was hanging.
“Don’t blow me off when I’m talking to you, kid. I’m not joking with you. You need a will to live, and you need to keep as still as possible.”
Cormac Lonigan twisted in place. I thought it was as likely to remove himself from the sound of my voice as it might have been to try to break free.
“Squirming around like that won’t help you. If you get loose enough to slide into the river? Well, that’s my worst nightmare,” I said. “The thing about those chest-high waders is that they will fill right up to the top with water and just float you away with the current. Fast and furious as she goes. Most likely you’ll crack your head on a boulder before you freeze to death. So take my advice and hold as still as you can.”
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