Step on a Crack (5 page)

I HAD NO IDEA what was going on yet, which was my usual state lately, since Maeve had gotten sick. I was still groggy when I took a quick head count and pulled our van away from the hunter-green awning of my building. It was eight forty-one, and I had exactly four minutes to get us to Holy Name on Amsterdam. Or there was going to be at least one kid from every grade in detention.

From the top of my building, you could probably “roof” my kids’ school on 97th with a Spalding, but anyone who’s familiar with morning rush hour in Manhattan will tell you that if you planned on going two blocks in four minutes, you were taking your chances.

I knew I could have let them walk. Julia and Brian and the older kids had proved themselves more than capable of looking out for the pip-squeaks. But I wanted to spend as much time as possible with them right now, wanted them to know they weren’t on their own.

That and the fact that recently I had a terrible need to have them with me at all times.

In fact, the only thing that had stopped me from writing out ten bogus sick notes to share my day off with them was Holy Name’s principal, Sister Sheilah. My butt already had enough memories of the principal’s bench to last it a lifetime.

I got them to the school’s corner on Amsterdam Avenue with seconds to spare. I hopped out and threw open the door of our family vehicle, a twelve-passenger Ford Super Duty van I had bought at a police auction. Minivans were for 2.2-kid-toting suburban soccer moms. My NYC Bennett Nation required heavy troop transport.

“Run!” I yelled as I pulled out children with both hands and deposited them on the sidewalk.

Shawna just made it in as Sister Sheilah was taking the hook off the oak door to shut and lock it. I could see the withered old nun scanning the street for me, her stern look cocked and ready to fire.

My tires barked as I dropped the Super D’s tranny into drive, punched the gas, and fled the scene.

I COULDN’T BELIEVE my nose when I finally got back to the apartment. It smelled like coffee. Good coffee. Strong coffee.

And that other smell. I didn’t want to jinx it, but I had a deep hunch that something was baking.

Mary Catherine was just pulling out a tray of muffins when I entered the kitchen.
Blueberry muffins
. I like blueberry muffins the way Homer Simpson likes doughnuts. A young lady like her couldn’t possibly have six muffins for breakfast, could she? Would she share one with me?

And the kitchen. It was sparkling. Every surface gleaming, every cereal bowl put away. Where was the
Clean Sweep
team?

“Mary Catherine?”

“Mr. Bennett,” Mary Catherine said, blowing a wisp of blond hair out of her face as she put the muffins on top of the stove. “Where is everyone? I thought I was Snow White entering the dwarves’ cottage when I came down this morning. Lots of little beds, but no sign of anyone.”

“The dwarves are at school,” I said.

Mary Catherine gave me a questioning look, similar to the one I’d just seen on Sister Sheilah.

“What time do they leave?” she asked.

“Around eight,” I said, unable to take my eyes off the steaming muffins on the stove.

“Then I start at seven, Mr. Bennett. Not nine. There’s no sense in me coming all this way to help out if you won’t let me.”

“I apologize. And the name is Mike, remember?” I said. “Are those…”

“For after breakfast. How do you like your eggs?” she said. “Mike.”

After
breakfast? I thought. I’d assumed they were breakfast. Maybe this au pair thing would work out.

“Over easy?” I said.

“Bacon or sausage?” she said.

No
maybe
about it, I thought with a smile and a shake of my head.

I was contemplating that win-win decision when I felt my cell phone vibrate. I looked at the caller ID. My boss. I closed my eyes and mentally willed his number off the screen. So much for my telepathic powers, I thought, feeling the phone jump in my hand like a freshly caught trout.

I was sorry it wasn’t a real fish.

I would have thrown it back.

I SHOOK MY HEAD again as I finally unfolded my phone and brought it up to my ear.

Calls at home from my boss, on my day off, meant one sure thing, I knew.

An express delivery of ill tidings was about to land in my lap.

“Bennett,” I said.

“Thank God,” my boss, Harry Grissom, said. Harry is the lieutenant detective in charge of my unit, the Manhattan North Homicide Squad. Being able to say you’re the go-to guy on the elite Manhattan North Homicide will get you a lot of respectful nods at most cop parties. Right then, though, I was more than willing to trade in every last one of them for a couple of fried eggs. And a nice fat blueberry muffin.

“You heard what just happened?” my boss said.

“Where? What?” I said, already thinking the worst. There must have been a distinct note of urgency in my voice because Mary Catherine turned from the sink. Post 9/11, for a lot of New Yorkers- New York cops, firemen, and EMTs especially-the next terror hit wasn’t a question of if but when.

“What the hell’s happened? What’s going on?” I asked.

“Slow down, Mike,” Harry said. “No explosions. Not yet at least. All I was told was, about ten minutes ago, at St. Patrick’s Cathedral, shots were fired. First Lady Caroline’s funeral was going on at the time, so it doesn’t sound too good.”

What felt like a door breach hit me full in the stomach. Shots fired at a state funeral? Inside St. Patrick’s? A short while ago? This morning?

“Terrorists?” I said. “From where?”

“I don’t think we know yet,” my boss said. “I do know that Manhattan South borough commander Will Matthews is on the scene, and he wants you down there ASAP.”

In what capacity? I wondered. I had been on the NYPD’s Hostage Negotiation Team before making the switch to Homicide.

And wasn’t I too fried already with my family crisis to take on a much larger one?

When it rains cats, it pours kittens too, I thought. Story of my life. I hoped this was just a run-of-the-mill barricade incident. Or better yet, maybe the borough commander needed me for a
simple
single murder. I could do barricades and murders. It was the “weapons of mass destruction” thing that made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.

“Does he need me for negotiating?” I asked my boss. “Or was there a homicide at the cathedral? Help me out here, Harry.”

“I was too busy getting screamed at to get a chance to ask,” my boss said. “I don’t think it’s because they ran out of altar boys, though. Just get your ass down there and find out everything you can. Then let me know what the hell is going on.”

“On my way,” I said, and hung up.

I went into my bedroom and threw on jeans, a sweatshirt, and my NYPD Windbreaker. The
Homicide
one.

I splashed cold water on my face and retrieved my service Glock from the closet safe.

Mary Catherine was waiting in the front hall with my travel coffee mug and a brown bag of muffins. Even with my mind and adrenaline racing, I noticed that Socky, who hates everyone except Maeve, Chrissy, and Shawna, was rubbing his whiskers on her ankles. Talk about hitting the ground running.

I was struggling to come up with appropriate words of thanks and pertinent household-running instructions, when she just opened the front door and said, “Go, Mike.”

THOUGH ONLY FIVE SEVEN, with his broken nose and violently frank way of looking at everybody, except
maybe
his mother, borough commander Will Matthews was about as pugnacious-looking an Irish cop as you could still find on the force. He looked like he’d just gone fourteen and a half bare-knuckle rounds when I found him standing on the sidewalk smack in front of the command center bus.

“Glad you could join us, Bennett,” he said.

“Yeah, well,” I said, “I hadn’t had a chance to see the tree yet anyway.”

Instead of chuckling, Matthews looked like he wanted to hit me with a billy club. So much for trying to lighten things up.

“I’m in no mood for stand-up, Bennett,” he said. “The mayor, the former president, the cardinal, several movie, music, and sports stars…
who else
? Eugena Humphrey, and about three thousand other VIPs are being held hostage inside by a dozen or more heavily armed, masked men. You follow me so far?”

It was hard to register what Will Matthews had just said to me. The mayor and the former president alone would have been mind-boggling, but all the rest?

The borough commander stared at me belligerently, waiting for me to pick my jaw up off the sidewalk before he continued his rant.

“We
don’t know
if the gunmen are terrorists. Preliminary reports from the law enforcement personnel who were just released from inside the church indicate that the lead hijacker, at least, is non-Arab. He spoke to the crowd, and I quote, ‘sounds white,’ unquote.

“These unidentified masked men took out thirty-one cops and about two dozen federal agents, including the former president’s Secret Service detail, with
nonlethal weapons
. Tear gas and rubber bullets and Tasers.

“There’s more. Twenty minutes ago, they opened the Fiftieth Street entrance doors and bum-rushed all of the cops and security personnel. There were a lot of broken noses and black eyes, but they could have gunned them down just as easy as let them go. So I guess we can be grateful for small mercies.”

I struggled to keep the shock and confusion off my face. It wasn’t that easy. The security must have been incredible, and it was taken out? Using nonlethal weapons?

“How can I help?” I asked.

“Excellent first question. Ned Mason, our top negotiator, is on his way. But he has a place upstate, in Orange County or some other ridiculous place. Newburgh, I think. I know you’re not in Hostage Negotiation anymore, but I needed our best option in case these guys call before he gets here.

“
Also
, as I recall, you’ve got a lot of media airtime under your belt. So I might need you to run interference with the locust swarm of press this thing is bringing. Steve Reno’s got the tactical lead. You can consult with him when he comes down off that bird, okay? Sit tight. Think about what to say to the press.”

I was following orders, “sitting tight,” staring across at the huge, stately church, beginning to try to figure out what kind of person or persons would pull this-when I heard a terrible commotion by the 50th Street barricade. Something bad was happening.
Now
!

Instinctually, I went for my gun as a shirtless blond man and a heavily made-up redheaded woman sprinted out from behind the barricade. What the hell? They made it across cleared-out Fifth Avenue and were running up the cathedral’s stairs when three ESU officers came out from behind the hearse-and tackled them.

The redhead’s wig flew off, revealing a crew cut. The blond kid was still smiling, and I saw that his drug-addled pupils were as big as dinner plates.

“One love! Transgender love!” the blond yelled as the cops carried him and the kicking transvestite right past the press at 51st Street.

I released a tense breath. Nothing to worry about. No suicide bombers. Just another performance of bizarre street theater, courtesy of New York City.

I saw Commander Will Matthews staring open-mouthed on the sidewalk beside me as I holstered my Glock. He took off his hat and rubbed at his stubbled head.

“You wouldn’t have a cigarette on you by any chance?” he said.

I shook my head. “Don’t smoke,” I said.

“Neither do I,” Will Matthews said, stepping away. “I thought I’d start.”

THE FBI ARRIVED in style about ten minutes later.

Four black-on-black Chevy Suburbans were let through the 49th Street barricade, and a fully armed tactical team poured out of the vehicles. Tall and gracefully quick, the black-uniformed commandos resembled a team of professional athletes. I wondered if they were part of the FBI’s famed Hostage Rescue Team. The current situation certainly called for it.

A middle-aged man with hair the color of his charcoal suit came up and shook my hand.

“Mike Bennett?” he said amicably. “Paul Martelli. Crisis Negotiation Unit. The special agent in charge sent us up from Twenty-six Fed to give you guys a hand if we can.”

The FBI’s CNU was at the cutting edge in hostage negotiation. Martelli, its head, was famous in negotiation circles. A book he’d written was pretty much the bible on the subject.

I usually bristle at the presence of Feds, but I had to admit, I was relieved that Martelli was here. I’d done some stand-offs in my three years in Hostage Negotiation, but nothing like this. Especially right now, given the sad state of my own emotions over Maeve and the kids. This situation was obviously off the chart in terms of importance and profile. Hell, I’d take all the help I could get.

“I see you guys got the communication and press angles taken care of,” Martelli said, looking around casually at the command center and the barricades. “Mike, who’s the primary negotiator?”

Even talking about trivial stuff, Martelli exuded tranquil confidence that was contagious. I could see why he was at the top of the game.

“Me for now,” I said. “They have me holding the fort until our top guy gets here. Then I switch to secondary. ESU lieutenant Steve Reno has the tactical lead. Commander Will Matthews, our team commander, has the final word.”

All crisis incidents required a strict chain of command. The negotiator can’t make decisions. He has to ask higher authorities before acting on hostage-taker’s demands. This buys time as well as engenders a bond between the hostage-taker and the negotiator. Also, there has to be someone there to make the final decision-to keep negotiating or to go tactical. Negotiators tended to want to keep talking. Tactical guys, to start shooting.

“Most important thing now, ” Martelli said with a half smile, “is to show patience. We have to burn some time. Time for us to set up. Let SWAT gather tactical intelligence. And time for whoever’s inside to cool off. Time dissipates pressure.”

I think I read that in a book, actually-Paul Martelli’s book.