“Get every detective down here. Robbery, Special Victims, everyone! I want those released hostages identified and interviewed,” Commander Will Matthews barked at one of the assistant chiefs.

Then the doors of the cathedral began to close again. What was happening now?

Martelli patted me on the back.

“Nice work, Mike,” he said. “Textbook negotiating. You just saved thousands of lives.”

I appreciated the compliment, but I didn’t think what had just happened had much to do with me.

Maybe the strong-arm tactic Mason used had worked after all. Or they’d lost their nerve.

The whole thing was so utterly bizarre.

“Is it over?” Will Matthews asked. “Is that possible?”

There was a communal flinch around the room when the phone I was holding suddenly rang.

“My guess,” I said, “would be no.”

“MIKE,” JACK SAID. “How’s it hanging out there, buddy? People make it to safety okay? Nobody trampled to death, I hope.”

“No, Jack,” I said. “Everybody seems to be okay. Thanks for being reasonable.”

“I’m trying, Mike. Giving it my all. I thought I better clear up any misperceptions, though… now that we’ve tossed back the small fish, I’d like to talk about the whales we’re still holding on to.”

I glanced out the window and scanned the people who had been released. My God! He was right. Where was former president Hopkins? The mayor of New York? Eugena Humphrey? The A-list people were still inside. How many of them?

“To make it easier on everybody, we’re holding thirty-four hostages,” Jack said as if reading my mind. “Celebrities, of course, some tycoons, couple of politicians. Get me a fax number, and I’ll send you a list. Along with our requirements. Here’s where things can either get real simple or real complicated, Mike. The choice is entirely up to you guys.”

Things were starting to come into tighter focus now, I realized. It was a stunning kidnapping! The most amazing one ever attempted; nothing even came close to it.

“We’re holding all the chips, Mike. So far, no one’s been hurt. But if you guys want to take this personally and try to sneak in here and take us out, there’s gonna be a bloodbath like this country’s never seen. I mean, all that Mom and Pop Flyover have left is their celebrities. It’s the only friggin’ thing we export anymore. Movie stars and pop music, right? Give us what we want, Mike, and this ugly scene will go away. Face it. You’re outdone here.”

It was kind of incredible, but I felt relief. Criminals were horrible, kidnappers especially. But at least we weren’t dealing with terrorists, a mindless force out to kill as many people as possible. You had a shot of taking down people who wanted to come out of a situation alive.

“We want to resolve this thing as much as you do, Jack,” I said.

“That’s actually good to hear, Mike,” Jack said. “Music to my ears. Because I’m giving you and these fat cats the opportunity to haul your asses out of trouble the good old-fashioned American way. I’m going to let you buy your way out.”

JACK DISCONNECTED the second after I gave him the fax number that was handed to me by the communications sergeant. Paul Martelli took off his headphones and crossed the room. He sat down next to me. “You’re doing good, Mike. Cool heads prevail.”

“What’s your take on this guy, Paul?” I asked him. “First reaction, whatever.”

“Well, he’s obviously not mentally disturbed,” Martelli said. “And he sounds confident. Think about it from his side, his point of view. He’s in there surrounded by every cop in the tristate area, and he’s being a wiseass, cracking jokes. I get the feeling that he knows something we haven’t figured out yet. I just don’t know what it is. What does ‘Jack’ know that we don’t?”

I nodded. I had that same feeling; I just hadn’t put it into words. And I had no idea what Jack knew.

“We’re probably looking at a hard-core, extremely professional criminal,” Martelli went on. “Plus, some of his references sounded like he knows military tactics.”

“The thing he said about explosives on the windows and doors. You think it’s legit?”

“Looking at the way he’s handled himself so far, I’d say yeah, we have to consider that it’s a real threat. If we breach the building, he blows it up.”

I looked around for Ned Mason. He’d found a seat in the farthest corner of the room. With his failure still hanging heavy in the air, he looked like he was trying to make himself invisible.

“Ned. Tell me,” I said, “why do you think they let all those people go when they could have held on to them? Make any sense to you?”

Mason looked up, maybe surprised that anyone was still talking to him.

“Well, let’s see,” he said, standing and rejoining the group. “Logistics, for one thing. If you don’t need those extra hostages, why keep them around? They could get sick or hurt, and it would be your fault. Or worse, they could resist. Dispersing a crowd is one thing. Controlling one over a long period of time would be tricky. Plus, it follows a pattern that I’m seeing. They ejected the law enforcement people immediately because they knew they might try to fight back.”

Martelli nodded and said, “Also, maybe they thought letting out most of the people would look good for the cameras. You know, let the real people go. Only hold on to the rich. Like a Robin Hood thing. They’re playing to the crowd.”

“Bastards have the angles covered so far, don’t they?” Mason said. “The locale, Midtown Manhattan. How they punched holes through the security. They must have been planning this for months. Maybe years. One monster hit.”

Our coffee cups jumped as my fist hit the counter. That was it. What had been bothering me. I couldn’t believe it. The conclusion I’d come to sent a chill through me.

“This whole takedown was choreographed, right? No detail was overlooked. But how the hell can you plan to take over a state funeral without a body. Somehow, they killed Caroline Hopkins.”

GAZING THROUGH the frosted crystalline web of a giant snowflake on the fourth-floor picture window of Saks Fifth Avenue, the Neat Man chuckled down at the street.

Look at all the little assholes scurry, he thought. Replace the piped-in fa-la-la-la- la Christmas crap with some old-timey piano music, and you’d have a live-action version of the Keystone Kops down on Fifth.

Christ, this felt good, he thought. He held a mildly shaking hand out in front of his smiling face. He wouldn’t deny it anymore. He lived for this.

He scrolled through his ready store of violent fantasies. His all-time favorite was the one where he was standing in the middle of Grand Central Station during rush hour. All of a sudden, he would remove something from his jacket. Sometimes it was a samurai sword. Sometimes a chain saw. In his favorite, it was a flamethrower. Talk about shock and awe.

But the real thing was so much better than fantasy, he decided, peering down at the “authorities” and “crisis experts” trying to get up to speed in a hurry.

Now he had real power over real people.

The music suddenly stopped in the perfumed air of the department store. Now what?

“Due to a police emergency, Saks Fifth Avenue is closing. Please make your way to the nearest exit and please remain calm. You are in no danger.”

The Neat Man couldn’t hold back a smile.

Now they were playing his song.

He’d refined his dark urges, hadn’t he? Transformed them, made them work in his favor.

He was a master.

He removed a Wet-Nap from his pocket. His hands were still shaking a bit as he tore it open, but by the time he was done with his face, he was steady as a rock.