Step on a Crack by James Patterson, Michael Ledwidge

and a health nut. A lot of people dismissed him as arrogant and obnoxious, but I knew him to be one of those quirky loner cops who succeeds more by meticulousness and the solitary power of his strong will than teamwork.
    “Not yet,” I said.
    I started to brief Mason, but an NYPD Communications Division sergeant popped his head out the door of the bus holding a cell phone above his head.
    “It’s them!” he said.
    Commander Will Matthews joined us as we all rushed inside the bus.
    “Write down everything I tell you to,” Mason said to me brusquely. “Don’t miss a word.”
    I could see by Mason’s cocky attitude that he hadn’t changed a bit.
    “Call came in to nine-one-one. We routed it to here,” a communications tech cop said, offering up the phone. “Who gets this? Which one of you guys?”
    Mason snatched the phone out of his hand as Will Matthews and Martelli and myself pulled on headsets so we could listen in.
    “Whoever you are,” Mason said into the phone, “listen closely. Listen to me.”
    Mason’s voice was powerful, his tone stark and very serious.
    “This is the United States Army. What you have done has gone beyond the bounds of governmental negotiation. The president of the United States has signed an executive order, and all normal channels have now been closed. In five minutes’ time, starting now, you will either release the hostages or you will be killed. The only guarantee I will give you is this: If you lay down your weapons right now and let everyone out, you walk away with your lives. This is your one and
only
chance to respond. Tell me now. Are these the last five minutes of your life?”
    Mason was making a very bold move, I knew. He was using a controversial strategy, originated by Army Intelligence to end a stand-off by basically scaring the living shit out of the hostage-taker. He’d just gone “all in” on the very first poker hand. If pressure was gasoline, Mason had just dropped a five-thousand-pound daisy cutter.
    “If this
asshole
,” a voice replied with equal starkness after a short pause, “isn’t
off
the line in five
seconds
, the former president joins his wife in the afterlife.
Five…
”
    I almost felt sorry for Mason when I saw the deep frown cross his face. It had been a risky bluff, one that had completely blown up on him. And it didn’t look like he had a backup plan.
    “Four,” the voice said.
    Commander Will Matthews stepped forward.
    “Mason!” he said.
    “Three.”
    Mason was clutching the phone; he didn’t seem to be breathing.
    And nobody else was doing anything either.
    “Two.”
    I had been a good negotiator, but I hadn’t done it in three years, and this was a precarious time to dip my toes back into the pool.
    But Ned Mason had just crashed and burned, and like it or not, rusty or not, as secondary negotiator, it was my job to step in.
    “One.”
    I stepped across the bus and pulled the phone out of Mason’s hand.

Chapter 22
    “HI,” I SAID CALMLY. “My name’s Mike. Sorry about the screwup. The person who spoke to you wasn’t authorized. Disregard everything he said. I’m the negotiator. We will not attack the cathedral. In fact, we don’t want anyone to get hurt. Again, I’m sorry for what just happened. Who am I speaking with, please?”
    “On account of the fact that I just jacked this cathedral and everyone in it,” the voice said, “why don’t you call me Jack?”
    “Okay, Jack,” I said. “Thanks for talking to me.”
    “No problemo,” Jack said. “Do me a favor, Mike, would you? You tell that soldier-of-fortune dickhead who was just on that before he goes Raid on Entebbe on our asses, I got news for him. We have
every
window and door and wall in this place rigged up to a whole lotta C-4 on a multipoint motion-detector laser trigger. He better not breach.
    “In fact, he better not let a pigeon shit in a three-mile radius of St. Paddy’s, or everybody on this block is going to be blown to thy will be done