Step on a Crack (Michael Bennett 1)

Then she spotted Carmella, the lingerie supermodel, three people back in line. Not super A-list, but a good start.

“Carmella? Hi. Cathy Calvin from the Times. You okay? Where were you when it happened? What did you see in there?”

“I vas near da front on da left,” the six-foot-two blonde said in her best Austrian American accent. “Poor Caroline’s casket had jus come past our pew. Zen Eberhard, my security man, vas shot right in his crotch vith a tear gas canister. Now I can’t find Eberhard anywhere. I keep texting his cell, but he von’t answer. Have you seen him?”

Cathy Calvin looked at the towering model curiously. Maybe she was in shock. Hopefully, that was it.

“Um. I don’t think so,” Cathy said. “Rumor has it that not all of the hostages have been released. You know anything about that? What have you heard?”

“Hel-lo,” the blonde said. “Have you seen John Rooney? How about Laura Winston, or zat little slut Mercedes? Zey are still inside. Zee mayor is still inside. Deez hijackers have no taste. Vy else keep such losers and let me go?”

Vy else, indeed, Cathy Calvin thought, nodding as she carefully backed away from the model. This psycho woman was actually complaining that she wasn’t still inside. Even if the VIP room was under siege, she wanted in. Yeah, celebrities were normal. They were just like you and me.

Calvin turned away as a hush rolled through the crowd. She peered with the rest of the craning heads toward the cathedral.

Over the hood of a Sanitation Department dump truck, she could see the top of one of the cathedral’s main doors coming open again. Now what? She ran forward, hustling to get as close as she could to the hot breaking news.

And then, for the second or third time already this morning, the Times reporter couldn’t believe what she was seeing.

“Oh my God,” she whispered out loud.

Chapter 30

I WAS STILL in the command center bus, discussing negotiation strategy with Martelli and Maso

n, when the cathedral doors were flying open for the second time.

It felt like someone had dumped a tray of ice down the back of my shirt when I saw who it was coming out.

Jesus. What were they up to now?

A stunned-looking Stephen Hopkins came stumbling onto the flagstone plaza, and then the doors quickly closed behind him. They’d released Hopkins? But why?

Another completely unexpected move from the hijackers, I thought with a queasy feeling. It was great that they had released the former president, but the way in which they were doing things was all over the place, impossible to predict. Was that the idea? I doubted it.

A spontaneous, thunderous cheer ripped from both the police and the crowd of civilians beyond the barricades.

“Move in,” I heard Commander Will Matthews say. “Pick the president up. I repeat. Move in and get him out of there. Now!”

The words were hardly out of the borough commander’s mouth before half a dozen ESU cops nearly gang-tackled the former president and rushed him around the sanitation truck barricade at 50th Street.

I stood, just staring at the cathedral through the trailer window. The spooky gothic arches, the pale granite walls, the dark stained glass, and now Stephen Hopkins released unharmed.

How was I supposed to come up with a way to solve this thing? I thought of Maeve and my kids. I’m not usually one to make excuses, but didn’t I have enough on my plate? I needed another crisis?

Paul Martelli’s hand found my shoulder. “You’re doing the best with a horrible situation, Mike,” he said as if reading my mind. “It’s the losers inside who are responsible for this quagmire. Not us. Don’t forget that.”

“Hey, did you hear the one about the multiagency manhunt for the rabbit in the forest?” Ned Mason said from the corner of the trailer.

I looked up at him. I guess it was joke time.

“No,” I said politely.

“They sent the CIA in first, right?” Mason said. “CIA comes back, says their operatives report there is no rabbit and no forest. Then they send in the Friggin’ Blithering Idiots, and all of a sudden, the forest is on fire and they report that the rabbit had pyrotechnic tendencies and that they saw him with a Zippo. Know what happened when they sent the NYPD into the trees?”

“No, but I’m sure you’ll tell me,” I said with a weary attempt at a smile.

Mason just kept talking. He was even scarier than I remembered him being.