don’t think he’s shooting hostages. They’re losing security feeds around the mayor’s office on the first floor. Looks like he’s taking out the cameras.”
“Which confirms the hostage taker is armed, and also tells us he’s a decent shot,” Gemma said.
Taylor set his pen down on his legal pad. “And he must have a significant supply of ammunition at hand if he feels free to spend that much of it disabling cameras.”
“It also confirms his approximate location,” said McFarland.
“Only if he’s the sole captor, and we don’t know that yet.” Garcia indicated the phone. “We know at least one suspect is there. Now we keep calling until we get him to answer the phone.”
They called, again and again, for five minutes with no response.
“This guy’s got nerves of steel,” Garcia said. “Assuming they haven’t pulled the cord out of the wall, most people would have already picked up the phone and screamed at me to shut it down. They’ll be nervous and jumpy and the constant ringing would only make it worse.”
“Tells us something about the person at the other end of the line,” Gemma said. “That could work both for and against us—a suspect who won’t snap and kill hostages because he’s on edge, but he’d also be happy to wait for a very long time to get what he wants.”
Garcia’s smile was calculating. “We can be patient too. We have food, and power, and freedom. At some point, he’s going to feel the walls closing in. Dial it again.”
One ring.
Two.
“You’re very persistent.” The voice on the other end of the line was calm and steady.
A familiar frisson of satisfaction shot through Gemma. Contact, finally. Now we have a chance to make progress.
“This is Lieutenant Tomás Garcia of the NYPD Hostage Negotiation Team. Who am I speaking with?”
“Look at that. A negotiator who gets right to the point.” He laughed. “I’m not going to make it that easy for you, Garcia.”
Gemma closed her eyes, concentrating on the single sense that could give a hint of who they were dealing with. It was a male voice, older, and slightly world-weary. He had an accent she quickly pegged as hailing from the Bronx from its flattened aw sounds, sharp initial consonants, and dropped final r’s. From the well-structured sentences, she deduced he was educated. But, most strikingly, he was deadly calm. The voice didn’t have a single waver or hesitation. She quickly jotted down her thoughts on the pad of paper.
“It’s not about making it easy for me. It’s about what you need. What can we do for you so you feel you can let your hostages go?”
“Oh, there are things I want. But not yet.”
Gemma focused her attention past the voice and into the room. The space beyond was so quiet you could hear a pin drop. If he had the hostages with him, he had terrified them into silence, possibly by threat. The room itself sounded small and furnished—there was no echo of high ceilings or bare walls and floors.
“How about what can we do for the people with you?” Garcia continued. “How many are there? Do they need food? Medical attention?”
The laugh that came over the line sent a shiver down Gemma’s spine. It was the sound of someone in complete control.
“Your fact-finding mission’s a failure, Garcia. I’m not telling you anything about the hostages.”
“There must be something you need. Something you want.”
“Sure, you can do one thing for me. You can pass on a message to the mayor.” The words were suddenly iced, the consonants biting like tiny daggers. “Tell him his first deputy mayor is going to die, and it’s all his fault.”
The line went dead.
CHAPTER 4
The room erupted with everyone speaking at the same time.
“Goddamn it!”
“This guy’s got balls of steel.”
“He doesn’t know where the mayor is.”
“When Sanders hears about this, he’ll be difficult to hold back.”
As the noise level rose, and it was clear no one else was focusing on what Gemma saw as the salient point, she slapped her hand down onto the tabletop hard enough for the sound to reverberate through the small room. Falling silent, everyone stared at her.
“He doesn’t know where the mayor is,” she repeated. “He doesn’t have him and clearly has no idea where he is or he’d deliver the message himself. So, where is Rowland?”
Garcia pushed his headset down to hang around his neck. “This is ridiculous. We’re working with our hands tied. Capello is right. We need to find out where Rowland is. He didn’t just evaporate. If he’s not in there”—Garcia jabbed a thumb in the direction of City Hall—“then he’s somewhere else. I don’t care if it’s a temp from the typing pool, someone has to know where the man running the city is.”
“There aren’t actually typing pools anymore, Lieutenant.”
If looks could kill, McFarland would be lying on the floor in a dismembered pile from the irritation burning in Garcia’s eyes. “Thanks for the tech lesson, McFarland. I actually already know that.” He swiveled toward the open doorway. “Sergeant Kalani!”
Ten seconds later, Kalani stepped into the doorway. “Lieutenant?”
“Is there any news on Rowland’s location?”
“No, sir.”
“The perp doesn’t have him. In fact, he doesn’t know where he is, because he wanted us to pass on a threat to First Deputy Mayor Willan’s life. We need to find Rowland and we need to get him in here. He may know this guy.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And have someone get me Sanders. Either on the phone or in person, but he needs to know about the threat to Charles Willan, and I can’t go out and find him myself.”
“Yes, sir.” Kalani left the vault.
Garcia drew in a slow breath and then huffed it out. “Okay, we don’t have much time, so let’s regroup. Give me your first impressions.”
“It was a short conversation, but he presents as older, so we’re not dealing with someone who’s twenty-five,” Gemma said. “Fully structured, likely first-language sentences, spoken in a Bronx accent. And I don’t think he’s in the mayor’s office, but in one of the side rooms. The space sounded too . . . small. And like there were no bare surfaces.”
“Like a window?” McFarland asked. “None of the snipers can see him, so that would make sense if there’s no window in the room. Totally internal.”
“That
