I knew those murdering bastards inside were watching—and I wanted them to see me, to hear what I had to say.
I looked out over the avenue-filling clutter of national network and worldwide press cameras and gazed dead ahead into the black lens of the camera in front of me.
“Within the past hour,” I said, “a rescue attempt was made to free the hostages. Gunfire was exchanged, and two men, an FBI agent and an NYPD ESU officer, were slain. Two other officers were wounded. Names will not be released until the families are notified.”
A concentrated wave of motion and sound swept through the newsies, starving wolves just tossed prime rib.
“Why was such a rash move authorized?” a male network reporter with chief-executive hair called out from the front ranks.
“The decisions of the on-scene command cannot be commented on in light of the ongoing situation,” I told him.
“In what part of the cathedral did the rescue attempt take place?” asked a pretty middle-aged female reporter behind him. She had a microphone in one hand and an open cell phone in the other.
“Again, tactics can’t be divulged at this juncture,” I said. It was scary, even to me, how calm I sounded. A few minutes before, I was in a firefight. Now I was as collected as Colin Powell doing a troop assessment. Whatever the reason, I was proud of myself. To let the scum inside see that they had gotten to us in the slightest degree would have been an insult to the fallen men.
“This is a difficult situation, ladies and gentlemen,” I continued. “I know everyone wants to know what’s going on, but now’s not the time for full disclosure. It runs contrary to our purpose. We want to extract the thirty-two hostages safely.”
“And the hostage-takers as well?” someone called from the back. “What about them?”
I looked steadily into the camera again. I could almost feel my eyes making contact with Jack’s inside.
“Of course,” I said. “Of course we do. We want this to be resolved peacefully.”
I ignored the barrage of shouted questions as I stepped down from behind the wheeled podium. I almost knocked down a tall brunette reporter as I tripped over a taped-down media cable alongside the curb.
“C’mon, Mike,” Cathy Calvin said. “Who are these guys? You have to tell us what they want. What’s their angle?”
“Why are you asking me?” I said, putting an almost cross-eyed, confused look on my face. “Don’t you read your own paper, Ms. Calvin? I don’t know nuttin’, remember?”
Chapter 69
I HAD ALREADY arrived back in the command center bus and was sitting calmly with the phone in my hand when it rang, and I almost dropped the damn thing. I was still boiling, but I knew how useless that emotion was now. Anger felt good, but it wasn’t working. What I had to do now, I knew, was to repair things, salvage the bloody mess somehow.
And most of all, I had to keep Jack talking instead of shooting.
“Mike here,” I said.
“YOU LYING SON OF A BITCH!” Jack screamed.
“Now, now, Jack,” I said. “There was a mix-up. A communication flub. I wasn’t told about the raid until after it happened.”
I wanted to be as honest as possible in order to reach some middle ground, but under the circumstances, it was impossible. Truth was, I’d just tried to kill Jack and his accomplices and was pissed that we’d failed.
But I had to distance myself from all that. Act like I was just a cog in a large wheel that I couldn’t control.
“And please, Jack,” I said. “You were the one who was asking for straight talk a little while ago. What did you expect? Blowing away a priest, tossing him out on the steps like a Hefty garbage sack, wasn’t going to have any consequences?”
“That was an accident! I told you!” Jack said. “One of you pricks killed my friend. He died in my arms.”
“And one of you guys killed two cops,” I said. “This is a dead-end game we’re playing, Jack. I thought you wanted money. Killing people isn’t going to get it for you. It’s only going to get my trigger-happy, now completely pissed-off fellow cops to come in there shooting. I mean, let’s face facts. If you force us to raid the church, in the end, you’re not going to make it. You made a mistake with the priest. I can see that now. And we made a mistake, too. Let’s put what’s happened behind us and get this thing back on track.”
I waited. Though I’d made it up on the spot, it was a decent argument. Anyway, we needed more time to regroup, think up a new strategy. The secret tunnel had seemed like our one good shot, but maybe there was another way. What we needed now was for the clock to kick back into slow.
“Only part of the track I’m putting this on from here is the third rail, you lying sack of shit,” Jack just about spat in my ear. “You screwed up, Mike, and now I’m going to punish you for it. Come to the front door and pick up the trash.”
Chapter 70
I HAD CLEARED the entrance of the bus and was running flat out across the street when the immense cathedral door began inching open again. I knew another victim was about to be ejected from the cathedral. Part of me wanted to believe I could save a life if I acted fast enough, but I knew better.