THE TWO OF US turned as a cop in a flapping NYPD Windbreaker roared in through the 49th Street cordon on a dusty black Suzuki 750.

“Any contact?” Ned Mason barked at me in greeting as he got off his bike.

I’d worked with Mason briefly before I had left the Negotiation Team. The intense sandy-haired cop was a triathlete 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.

“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 kingdom come. In fact, I’d seriously consider moving that NYPD helicopter off the roof if I were you. And I’d do it PDQ.”

I found Commander Will Matthews with my eyes and made a cutting motion toward the roof of the bus. Will Matthews spoke to one of his cop entourage, a radio crackled, and a couple of seconds later, the rotor thump of the helicopter began to fall away.

“Okay, Jack. I got my boss to move the helicopter back. Now, is everybody okay in there? I know we have some older folks who might need medical attention. There were reports of some gunfire. Has anybody been shot?”

“Not yet,” Jack said.

I ignored the provocative response for the time being. Once I bonded a little more, I would try to curtail the threats, get him to speak more reasonably, more calmly.

“You guys need food or water or anything?” I asked.

“We’re good for now,” Jack said. “At this point, I just want to lay two things on you that you need to start wrapping your mind around. You’re going to give us what we want, and we’re going to get away with this. Say it, Mike.”

“We’re going to give you what you want, and you’re going to get away with this,” I said without hesitation. Until we had more of an advantage, I needed to get him to accept me as quickly as possible. See me as someone who was willing to give him what he wanted anyway.

“Good boy,” Jack said. “I know it’s a little hard to compute, sitting where you’re sitting, Mike. A little hard to believe. So I just wanted to reach out and plant the seed there. Because it’s gonna happen. No matter how hard you try to resist. No matter how much you tough guys huff and puff. We’re going to get away with this.”

“My job is to make sure we all come out of this in one piece. Including you, Jack. I want you to believe that.”

“Aww, Mike, what a sweet thing to say. Oh, and don’t forget. It’s already over, okay? We win. Smell you later,” the hijacker said-and the line went dead on me.

“WHAT’S YOUR TAKE on these guys, Mike?” Mason suddenly found his voice again.

I was about to try to answer, but being the closest to the command center window, I was the first to see the movement at the front of the cathedral.

“Wait a second,” I said. “The doors are opening. The front door! Something’s going down.”

The crackle of frantic radio calls ricocheted through the cop-filled trailer like one of my kids’ dime-store bouncy balls.

At first I could only make out the dimness of the church’s interior. Then a man in a torn blue dress shirt appeared in the doorway. He was blinking in the pale sunlight as he stepped onto the flagstone plaza.

Who was this? What was happening?

“I have him,” I heard one of the snipers call over the police band.

“Hold fire!” Will Matthews called back.

A woman in a broken-heeled shoe hobbled out behind the man in the blue shirt.

“What the…,” Will Matthews said as a thin stream, then a flood of people started pouring out onto the cathedral’s front steps.

Hundreds, maybe a thousand people, were suddenly swarming out onto Fifth Avenue.

Were the hijackers letting everyone go? The other cops around me seemed as confused as I was.

We stared, silently watching the churchgoers scramble down the front steps. It was an unfathomable mob scene. Uniformed task force cops waded in immediately and guided the people south past the 49th Street barricade.