Hostage Taker (12 page)

“Y
ou look like shite.”

Haddox smiled in spite of himself. He’d said those same exact words to Eve three months ago when they first met in a park outside FBI headquarters. She had been a stunner, despite looking all business and briefcase—there had been sharp intelligence in her hazel eyes and a complete absence of vanity in her tangled blond curls. He’d missed her. Probably because he hadn’t yet figured out what made this woman tick. “It’s grand seeing you again, too, luv. I figured it was only a matter of time before you’d come calling.”

Nothing changed on her face. “
I
didn’t come calling. This is about a case.”

Haddox quirked an eyebrow. “Huh. First time a
case
kept my mobile number on speed dial.”

“Lucky for you I don’t purge my contacts on a regular basis. Or it’s unlikely you’d be standing here at all—given you’d have two broken kneecaps. Now, take a seat.”

He preferred to stand. “What’d you have to give Jimmy Malone to save my mug?”

“Remember that saying: The enemy of my enemy is my friend? Turns out we had a common enemy—and I promised Malone the Feds would take care of that enemy. If he’d just give us one rogue Irishman with an ego too big for his shoulders.”

He’d forgotten how much he liked the sound of her voice. Warm and nuanced. “Sounds like I owe you one.”

“Only one?”

Mace and Eli had been watching them go back and forth like it was a volleyball match. Finally Mace broke in. “Damn, Eve—you’ve been even busier than I thought this morning.” He leaned past her and gave Haddox a fist bump, saying, “Relax, bro—she’s been radio silent with us, too. Right up ’til this morning.”

“Yeah,” Eli added glumly, “and I could’ve used something to do these past three months.”

“What are you sayin’—that you actually missed us?” Mace teased.

“Did a basketball hit you in the head and scramble your brains? All I’m saying is that I was bored. We still don’t think alike, work alike—or even like each other. Only butting heads with you guys beats sitting home, having no life.”

“So none of you stayed in the game?” Haddox was genuinely surprised. Not because Eli wasn’t right about Vidocq. They were all self-absorbed, half-cocked pains in the arse. But somehow, despite all that, the sum was greater than its parts. He couldn’t imagine them anywhere else than right here.

“Not worth it.” Eli shook his head. “Besides, Eve wasn’t in town.” He turned to her. “I heard you went everywhere—from Hong Kong to Copenhagen.”

“Don’t forget Rome,” Haddox chimed in. Wanting an explanation he knew he wouldn’t get.

She shot him an exasperated look. He supposed he deserved it.

“I wasn’t gonna work for some Fed asshole without Eve,” Mace reasoned.

“We worked for several Fed assholes before Eve,” Eli reminded him.

“Yeah, ’cause they all had a judge’s order saying they could put my ass back in jail. Then Henry disbanded Vidocq and we all got a free pass.”

“Look, Eve, we’re all here now, except for García—” Eli began.

Mace interrupted, “Yeah, what happened to Frankie? On an extended bender?”

Eve ignored him. “Before we can resolve this, what I really need is information. First, who is the Hostage Taker?” She pointed to the whiteboard, where she’d listed only four descriptors.
Unknown subject. Male voice.
Educated. Possible Brooklyn or Bronx native.
“I need identity. Background. And most important—motive.”

“What about surveillance cameras in the area? They must show something,” Haddox said.

“In the immediate vicinity of the Cathedral, they were disabled around six o’clock last night. We’re going through other footage within a fifteen-block radius. But without exactly knowing what we’re looking for, it’s like searching for a needle in a wheat field,” Eve replied.

“What did the security guards say?”

“The day guards from yesterday claim it was business as usual.” She filled him in on the rest. “Our guy emptied out Saint Patrick’s of all guards, bypassed the security system, and buttoned everything down tight—and in just one evening. We still haven’t determined the number of hostages inside. Definitely too much for one man.” Eve began pacing in front of the large whiteboard. “All that we really have at this point is his demand. He wants these five ‘witnesses.’ We don’t know why—it’s a crazy request—but they’re the key to this crisis.”

“Look,
witnesses
doesn’t sound too bad—but who the hell knows what this guy wants to do to them,” Mace insisted. “You can’t give him what he wants.”

“I don’t like it, either.” Eve stopped pacing. “Usually the Hostage Taker just wants to trade his hostages for something more valuable. A helicopter to go somewhere. A prisoner he needs released. TV time to spotlight his cause or his politics.”

“So what is he?” Eli asked. “Terrorist? Religious nut?”

“I vote religious nut,” Mace decided. “Eve said it: This was all super-
planned.
He picked Saint Patrick’s Cathedral for a reason. Wired it to explode to Kingdom Come. Plus, he’s talking to her about Popemobiles and posting Armageddon images involving this city.”

“Even his idea of ‘witnesses’ sounds religious,” Eli offered.

“We need to track them down and bring them here all the same. Interview them and figure out their connection—which may reveal what this Hostage Taker is really after. Plus, if they’re here, I can use their presence as a show of good faith. To buy more time.” Eve looked at each man on her team. “Bottom line, we need information. That’s the only thing that will give us the upper hand.”

“Mace, can you run the weapons angle? The Cathedral is rigged with military-grade explosives. Ask the right questions of the right people in the right places—and maybe we’ll get a lead on who might’ve recently accessed that kind of equipment.”

“No problemo.”
Mace was halfway out the door. He wasn’t built for sitting at a desk.

“Eli, you can start tracking the money trail the moment Mace gets a hit. Meanwhile, can you look into the stone carvings of New York’s destruction that are featured in the Hostage Taker’s video?”

Eli frowned. “They scare me. The fact they’re in stone? Makes them seem more important. Like they’re unchangeable.”

“Find out what their religious significance may be—and whether they’re part of Saint Patrick’s at all.”

“Got it.” Eli stood, stretching.

“Guess that leaves just you and me,” Haddox sat at the table, kicked the chair next to him out for Eve. “Partnering up. You know, like Fred and Ginger?”

“Astaire and Rogers?” She raised an eyebrow.

“People said she gave him sex appeal, he gave her class.”

“And she did everything he could, except backward and in heels. You still follow that eight-eighteen rule of yours?”

Haddox never made commitments more than eight hours, eighteen minutes in advance. That used to be how long he could stay inside a secure government database without being noticed. The habit had stuck: In his line of work, he preferred to stay on the move. “I’ll let you know in eight hours, nineteen minutes.” He flashed a smile again.

Eve ignored it. “Good. Because the Hostage Taker has only given us seven hours. And we have five hours, fifty-seven minutes left. I need you to do what you do best.” She handed him the Hostage Taker’s list. “Skip trace these five ‘witnesses’ he’s given us.”

“Witnesses?”

“The whole thing is nuts,” Eli muttered.

“No problem, luv. Not that I can’t handle it on my own, but I thought you intended to help?”

Eve slid a file in his direction. “I just got a message. Angus MacDonald regained consciousness at the hospital. And he has something to say.”

H
addox eased himself gingerly into the nearest chair. He was no longer wet, but his body was a mottled mess of bruises and abrasions from his near-death experience in Boston. He popped four Advil into his mouth, settled himself in front of the computer, and took a sip from his double espresso. It wasn’t bad—from Dean & Deluca in Rockefeller Center, courtesy of one of the dozens of NYPD officers securing Midtown. He tried to block out the racket from outside. Sirens blaring, helicopters chopping, officers shouting—so many noises created an almost deafening cacophony. He needed silence in his own mind in order to focus. The scribbled list of names Eve had given him was taped to the monitor. Everything he needed for now.

He let the screen refresh, ran through a series of password protocols, and called up an online directory managed by the FBI. One that drew from a multitude of different data sources.

Haddox hacked in to this directory all the time. But today would be the first time in months that he’d accessed it legitimately.

Then he considered the list.

He decided to begin with Alina Matrowski. First, because she was female—and, well, he liked women. Second, because her name was unique. Even in a city of more than eight million people, he doubted there was more than one Alina Matrowski.

She was a twenty-nine-year-old pianist pursuing a master’s degree at the Manhattan School of Music. Born in Moscow; immigrated to the United States with her parents when she was six. Her family remained in Falls Church, Virginia; she now lived only a block from her school, on Claremont Avenue and 121st Street. Her website boasted the usual array of recitals and performances—and she had begun forming a small studio of young students.

Why would the Hostage Taker want you as a witness, Alina?
No idea Haddox came up with made any sense. And when things didn’t make sense, he knew he didn’t have the whole story.

Haddox scanned all available documents in the database. She had no apparent tie to Saint Patrick’s Cathedral. She wasn’t Catholic. She wasn’t even Christian. According to the many papers her family had filed with the government over the years, her family background was Jewish. Although—based on a redaction of her father’s citizenship interview—it seemed the Matrowskis were “culturally Jewish.” They observed traditions of food and family, not Temple and prayers.

Maybe you had a connection to the Hostage Taker?
He’d never know ’til he asked her.

Alina’s home address and professional details offered a good start—but given their deadline, he needed to know where she was
now
, not at ten o’clock tonight when she might finally return home.

He found her cellphone number easily. Dialed. Listened to multiple rings, then a voicemail message. And clicked off.

That was okay. He had enough for now: Alina’s number and her wireless service provider. Like most people, she had a cellphone plan with a regular carrier—entitling her to a discounted upgrade every two years and a certain allotment of data and minutes every month.

Unlike Haddox.

His motto was “one and done.” Every day or two, depending on usage, he ran through a burner phone—a throwaway phone with a temporary, anonymous number. The choice of coke dealers, Russian gangsters, and people who just didn’t like having their movements tracked. Whether by the government or by someone like him.

Only once had Haddox ever made an exception to his rule. He’d yet to rid himself of the burner he’d been using in Rome. He’d tried—even going so far as to toss the damn thing in Saint Mark’s Square in Venice. But he’d immediately regretted it—and then spent a nasty fifteen minutes sorting through garbage, while fending off aerial assaults from the scores of pigeons that had laid a similar claim to the tourist scraps. The one person who had the number to that burner was Eve, and he’d found himself unable to sever the connection. Thinking of his last-minute rescue from Jimmy Malone, he decided maybe it was a good thing that he was a stupid sap.

It was amazing what you could learn about people just by accessing their cellphone records. Because what most people thought of as a cellphone was actually a tracker.

It didn’t matter that Alina hadn’t joined the generation that embraced check-ins with Facebook or Foursquare. Between built-in GPS technology and a proliferation of smartphone apps, her phone had captured a hoard of data beyond who she texted and called: what she ate and where she ate it, what she bought and where she bought it, the miles she walked, the books she read, the friends she emailed. When Haddox was tracing a mark, he used this data—and it was easy to figure out whether his target was a churchgoer or a gym rat, an alcoholic or a philanderer. Companies angling for marketing strategies called it “predictive modeling” when they used this data to forecast a person’s habits. Haddox just called it “doing his job.”

His fingers danced over the keys.

The computer hummed in front of him as he manipulated the data. Crafted a down-and-dirty algorithm to decipher his subject’s movements.

When it yielded information about Alina’s exact whereabouts, he would improvise.

Meaning he wouldn’t lie—he would just put a creative spin on the truth.

It came naturally. He was Irish, after all—he’d been taught from birth never to take too strict a view of the facts.

A
t the opposite end of the MRU, Eve sat forward in her chair and adjusted the brightness of the video feed on her monitor. She couldn’t afford the precious minutes it would take to visit the hospital in person. Even via the videoconference, Eve could tell that Angus MacDonald looked tired and weak in his hospital bed, surrounded by tubes and monitors. But he was alert.

“Mr. MacDonald, I’m glad you’re feeling better. I’m Eve Rossi, the special agent in charge of the situation at Saint Patrick’s. I know you’ve already told your story to another officer. But I’d like to hear it again, directly from you.”

So Angus told her everything, starting from the moment he stepped off the M4 bus in the pouring rain. He told her about the woman in the yellow raincoat who looked so distressed but refused to talk. About how he’d tried to reason with her, get her to go inside. About how the center bronze door had been locked. About the funny red light dancing on the woman’s head in the moment before she was shot.

Eyewitness testimony was often radically different from the forensic facts. Eve was pleasantly surprised when they actually corroborated each other. The ballistics report was on the table in front of her. The victim had been shot with a bullet considered standard for the M14 semiautomatic rifle—specifically, the M14s taken out of U.S. military storage after 9/11 and the advent of the War on Terror. The rifles had been rebuilt as precision semiautomatics for sniping use. Further analysis of the angle of entry would pinpoint the shooter’s exact location.

“There’s one thing I don’t understand about what you describe,” Eve said.

“What’s that?”

“Why would the woman you saw stand on the steps—and not make a run for it?”

Angus grunted skeptically. “You got me. Maybe the same reason she wouldn’t move out of the rain. People are strange. Sometimes there’s just no figuring them out.”

“Mr. MacDonald, I can tell you’re a thoughtful man. And based on our conversation now, it’s clear that you don’t miss much. Even if it’s just a guess, can you help me understand what you think happened?” Eve wanted to validate his emotions. To open his mind—and his memory—to possibilities he would otherwise hesitate to share.

He closed his eyes slowly and exhaled, clearly exhausted. “I knew something was wrong in there. I guess I was naïve thinking the cop could handle it.”

Eve’s fingers had been tracing the makeshift blueprints of Saint Patrick’s. They suddenly stopped. “What cop?”

Angus’s official report had not mentioned a police officer.

Angus opened his eyes again. “I saw him trying to talk sense into the woman. I was still a couple blocks away.”

“Did she respond to him?”

“Ignored him, best I can tell. Like she did me.”

“How did he respond to that?”

“I got the impression he was exasperated. No patience. So he went inside.”

“Did he call it in?” Eve made a few clicks at the keyboard to pull up all of the initial police reports once again. Maybe she had missed it.

Unlikely.

“I dunno. Don’t think he had time. Maybe he meant to, once he was in. It was raining cats and dogs.”

“What did he look like?”

“White, I think. About my height, so maybe six-foot-one.”

“Why did you think he was a cop?”

Angus shifted slightly. “He was wearing one of those NYPD rain slickers.”

Something anyone could buy on eBay,
Eve thought.

Then Angus added, “Plus, he moved like a cop. With authority. Like he’d dealt with wackos too many times. Like he was beat after a long shift. I think that’s why he wasn’t very patient with the woman.”

“And he definitely went inside the center bronze door?”

“Yeah. Guess he was the last one in before somebody locked it.”

The reality of it dawned slowly on Eve. They had so many unresolved questions about who was inside the Cathedral. It was a relief finally having one answer—even if it was incomplete. Despite the enormous odds stacked against them, maybe there was a cop inside.

A trained ally. One of the good guys.

But lacking patience. Not the right sort of temperament to be helpful at all.

And possibly disabled. Because a cop would surely have been a target. Who knew what had happened to him, once he went inside?