Authors: Stefanie Pintoff
A
new image was projected onto the screen next to the giant bronze Atlas. The girl was a chestnut-haired teenager wearing black jeans with a sparkle design, a T-shirt that read
PEACE OUT,
and a crimson scarf. She was sitting on her knees.
Next to her, a series of screen shots—each a confession—began to rotate.
Each bore text that was superimposed on a different photo of her.
Each revealed a code linked to her cellphone number or email account.
I hate being a teenager. I don’t like mean girls, hormones, weird parents—or the way I look in the mirror.
Eve placed her phone on the table. It didn’t ring.
The next was superimposed on a close-up of her wrist. A photo the girl had taken herself.
I’ve been clean for ten days. Every time I want to cut, I remember I don’t want to have scars when Dad takes me to Miami for New Year’s.
“He’s going to call any second,” Haddox said.
They both stared at Eve’s phone. It didn’t ring.
The image rotated again. This one focused on the girl’s eyes.
I drew all over my old scars today. Mrs. Roth was right. It did relieve my urges.
The phone stayed silent.
A new rotation. Full face.
I relapsed. It was at school. I faked a smile after. So nobody noticed that I had been crying in pain just ten minutes before.
The phone didn’t ring.
“Dammit, where is he?” Eve muttered.
I am more scarred inside than my arm is outside.
The phone trilled.
Sean Sullivan was on the line. Eve braced for his reaction. “Who put you up to this?”
She listened to his breathing. It was rapid, indicating his elevated heart rate.
“What do you mean?”
“Where did you get these photos? Who gave them to you?”
There was no anger in his voice. Just naked panic. Eve had his full attention.
She was giving him only half of hers. Through her earpiece, she was listening to Mace and García’s progress. Waiting for word they’d made it past the camera.
“So you’ve never seen these images?” she asked Sean.
“Is this some kind of damn trick?”
“It’s disturbing material, I know. But your daughter shared it herself, online.”
“When?”
Eve looked at Haddox. He had been listening to the conversation. Now he held up two fingers.
“Within the last two weeks,” she said. “Over multiple Internet postings.”
“There’s no way anyone could know…Meaghan and I never…” There was raw pain in the statement.
Eve listened, slightly stunned. She thought:
I hear the ring of truth in his voice.
He’s not acting. He’s worried sick about his daughter.
Mace crouched his
basketball-player frame low and headed down the corridor linking the Rectory to the Cathedral. He spotted Frankie just as he approached the Sacristy entrance.
He’d been as good as his word: The door was disarmed and open.
Problem was: There was a hostage. Still wired to the hilt. Just sitting there with a blindfold covering his eyes—while García spoke to him in a hushed, hurried voice.
Mace had no time or patience for García to pussyfoot around. They had a Cathedral to take back.
He gave a brief nod to García.
“Let’s get you out of here,” he said to the hostage. He reached forward and tugged the bandana from the hostage’s eyes.
Revealing that he was a she. Specifically, a middle-aged woman with gray-streaked hair, now plastered to her face with sweat.
Mace looked down. She wore a wedding band and a funny string bracelet around her wrist. Her eyes were big blue round pools of confusion. She was still gagged—but she managed to make a high-pitched, moaning sound.
García pointed to her right hand, which clutched the pressure switch between her fingers and palm. “I was talking to her so she didn’t get startled and let go of that.”
“And I took her bandana off so she could see us tryin’ to help her.” Mace shook his head.
The hostage’s moans intensified. Mace ignored them. He told her, “Keep pressing hard on that switch ’til I say I’ve got it. Nod if you understand.”
The woman nodded.
Mace squeezed her fingers between his own. Inched the switch out of her fingers. Set it to
LOCK
position. Then bound it eight times around with a thick rubber band.
“Overkill.” García made the word sound like a synonym for
amateur.
Mace shrugged. “Makes me feel better. What about that?”
García had removed the woman’s explosive belt. With fast fingers, he neutralized the wires. Then set the device down by the gate. “Tactical can take it from here.”
Mace helped the woman to her feet as García unbound her legs. She wobbled three steps, then collapsed into his arms.
He started to remove her gag. Mace stopped him. “Don’t waste time. Tactical can handle that, too.”
García glanced nervously at the camera. Prayed Eve was doing a good job keeping the Hostage Taker distracted.
Mace caught the woman’s eye and pointed at the passageway. “Go that way to the end. Take the elevator up. You’ll find plenty of help waiting.”
Neither he nor García lingered to be sure she made it. They sprinted back up the stairs, toward the High Altar and the main Cathedral.
García was fast, but Mace’s strides were impressive.
“When’s the last time you were in this place?” García asked when Mace overtook him.
Mace grinned. “I just checked out the map.”
García grabbed him by the shoulder. “Then you’d better follow me. You always said book smarts are no match for street smarts.”
García crouched low
against the wall, not wanting to be a target. Cursing the fact that Mace was behind him—with lumbering footsteps that seemed to echo loudly against the stone. He’d declined additional help from Tactical, telling Eve that he’d rather be nimble. Too many cooks in the kitchen.
She’d insisted that Mace continue. Didn’t she realize the damn fool might get them both killed?
The rear of the High Altar was just above. García let his eyes rise to the vaulted ceiling, knowing they were completely vulnerable the moment they reached the altar.
It was the focal point of the Cathedral, crafted entirely of bronze. Its canopy rose almost sixty feet high, with decorated pillars and spires on its gabled roof.
The Redemption of Mankind,
García thought, looking at the statues surrounding him.
He made his way quickly around it. Paused by the window depicting the sacrifice of Abraham.
Eve thought it was just one man calling the shots. She had promised to distract him.
Eve could be wrong.
He turned to Mace. “I’m going up the scaffolding. Cover me.”
Then he crossed himself again. This time just for good luck.
M
ace watched Frank García disappear up the rails of the center scaffold. The guy was small but scrappy, and he moved fast. Mace gave him that much credit.
He took a moment to look around. The building was shaped exactly like a cross. He knew there were hostages scattered throughout, but all he saw from his current perspective was an ocean of wooden pews. And endless marble. He supposed it was what people called beautiful, but it felt cold to him. Too dark. Too deserted.
Something caught his eye in the balcony above the vestibule. He couldn’t tell if it was a noise—or a flash of light.
Frankie wanted to be covered. But the way Mace figured it, taking care of the motherfucker responsible for all this was the best coverage of all.
He started walking down the long nave of the Cathedral toward the front. He kept close to the center, where the shadows were deepest.
He felt like he was in a big stone cage.
One where his every footstep echoed.
So far, he saw nothing. No sign of life other than stray flashes of light that he supposed were from official activity outside.
Black. Yellow. Black again.
He supposed it was a crazy risk he was taking. But he wasn’t the type to stand around. Not when he could get something done.
Then he saw the movement again. Still felt his footsteps echoed too loudly, but he couldn’t physically move any quieter.
How to get upstairs?
He reached the vestibule by the entrance. Turned into the bell tower. Saw the elevator. No way was he going to be a sitting duck in a box. He looked harder and found stairs.
It took him thirty-three seconds to climb to the top. His eyes scanned the length of the choir loft.
Empty.
Just the massive organ, its pipes reaching up to the stained-glass Rose Window above.
Then a light flashed and he found the source of the movement.
There was a clock at the rear of the Choir Loft. Every 4.3 seconds, a flash of light hit its dial.
The clock chimed ten o’clock.
Somewhere above he heard a noise.
It sounded like the discharge of a weapon. It was followed by a muffled groan.
He looked out across the vast expanse of pews below.
Nothing.
García had been heading up the scaffolding. The sounds had come from above.
Mace was at the entrance of the choir loft in a flash. “Frankie?” he whispered.
“García?” Louder this time. “Are you okay?”
No answer.
Shit.
And he was supposed to have had Frankie’s back.
Mace had never liked the guy. Certainly had never felt responsible for him. Until now.
García might be a dysfunctional pain in the ass, but he was on
Mace’s
team—and Mace didn’t like seeing him targeted.
“García!” he called out again.
Tried reaching him on their shared channel. Then by phone. Finally by text.
Still no answer.
His chest tightened as he sent a message to Eve:
Shots fired. Possible man down.
Eve read Mace’s
message and shivered as reality shifted. She closed her eyes. Fought the overwhelming sense of helplessness. Then opened her eyes and messaged back:
Tactical support?
The reply came almost instantaneously.
Give me 13 minutes.
She shook her head. She knew Mace considered thirteen his lucky number. Frankie was superstitious and would consider it bad juju.
Careful.
Don’t be a hero,
she typed
.
Then caught herself thinking: Wasn’t that exactly what she wanted him to be?
Mace took seven
steps forward. Peered into the dim stairwell.
No movement. No sound. No sign of anyone there.
He knew that outside there was chaos and shouting, sirens and bullhorns, and the incessant noise from the circling choppers. But ten feet of stone and brick and cement formed a noise-proof barrier. Inside the Cathedral, a dark void had swallowed the Church whole. An eerie quiet prevailed.
He was sure the sound he’d heard was a gunshot.
Growing up on the meanest streets of Hunts Point, cops were always going by with sirens on account of people getting stabbed, windows getting broken, or guns going off. All sounds he wouldn’t ever forget.
He thought back to the map he’d seen. Maybe the Church had a fancier name for it, but the large area above was basically like an attic. Even though an attic was the place your aunt in Queens stored her Christmas ornaments and forgotten boxes. Far too ordinary for a grand Cathedral.
He checked his Glock. Zipped his coat a little higher.
Then entered the stairwell and started climbing.
He was feeling the cold. All that stone must trap it inside; it felt like with every step the temperature dropped another degree. And while he wasn’t a superstitious kind of guy, there was something about the stale musty air and slight stirring breeze that reminded him of old ghosts.
He continued up the dark stairs. One step, then another. Closer and closer to the top.
His boots were making too much noise. His breathing was becoming more labored—which was either nerves or something bad in the air, ’cause he was in top shape.
He sped up as much as he could, climbing higher and higher until he was almost at the top.
“Frankie?” he whispered. “You there?”
No one answered.
He stopped. Listened.
There it was again. A faint keening sound. It bounced from stone to stone, echoing in the frigid air, until it seemed it came from the Cathedral itself. No, Mace wasn’t a superstitious man. But right now, he felt surrounded by ghosts—and one of them was wailing in protest, already mourning a tragedy just about to happen.
Eve worried she
had gone too far. She had tried to protect García and Mace by distracting Sullivan. Trying to ensure he paid attention only to her—not whatever video surveillance he may have established. But it was always a risk. They had no real idea what kind of eyes and ears he had set up inside.
She wasn’t just responsible for four witnesses and a still unknown number of hostages inside Saint Patrick’s Cathedral. Two of her own men had put their lives at risk as well.
Was García down? Where was Mace?
It was too quiet. Just her—and the worries that taunted her. Telling her that six people had already died that day. That she’d sacrificed one of her own for nothing. That she’d never succeed. That she’d been wrong about Sean Sullivan and played the wrong hand. Just like she’d been wrong about Rusty Morris. She hadn’t been able to establish a connection with the chubby forty-six-year-old mechanic from Yonkers, either. He’d taken fourteen people hostage inside a deli in Queens. She had learned all about him, tried to convince him that she understood his problems, done her best to get inside his mind. But she had failed in talking him down. There had been a tactical assault. Seven people had died in a blaze of bullets. Two of them were children.
Was this going to end just as badly?
She had upset Sean Sullivan—probably more than he let on. When he signed off, he’d said he’d call back in five minutes.
Now nine minutes had passed.
The longest minutes of Eve’s life.