Then he called home-talked to his wife and kids. “I’m fine, Helen. I’m in no danger.”

STEPHEN HOPKINS SAT by himself in a pew in a small chapel behind the main altar. His head was buried in his hands. He was almost glad Caroline wasn’t around to see what had happened on account of her death. She was such a good soul, it would have hurt her deeply, and it wouldn’t have been an act with Caroline.

There were maybe thirty hostages scattered in the pews around him. He recognized a lot of the faces, well-known folks for the most part, the generous ones whom Caroline had gotten to do charity work and other good deeds.

He looked up at the three masked gunmen standing at the front of the chapel. The bastards were always alert. He’d been around a lot of soldiers, and that’s what they reminded him of. Soldiers? Was that what they were? Former military?

Did that make the motivation political? When the takeover started, his first thought was that it had to be Middle Eastern terrorists-but it was obvious these men were Americans. What the hell did they want? How could they be so brazen? So unafraid of death?

A short, muscular hijacker stepped into the center aisle and cleared his throat rather theatrically.

“Hi, everybody. I’m Jack. You can call my big, bad buddy over there Little John. Our sincerest apologies for detaining you like this. Anyone who needs to use a bathroom, just raise your hand, and you’ll be escorted. There’s food and water. Again, just raise your hand. Feel free to lie down in the pews or on the floor there in the back. If you cooperate, things will go smoothly. If you don’t, well, the consequences will be very unpleasant. The choice is yours.”

Who was this little twerp to lecture them like they were schoolchildren being held in detention? Stephen Hopkins stood up at the same time as the mayor of New York. The mayor sat back down.

“What’s this all about?” he said angrily. “What do you want with us? Why do you dishonor my wife?”

“Mr. President,” the hijacker said, smiling as he walked down the aisle. “That tone of voice will not do. I’m going out of my way to be polite. I sincerely urge you to do the same.”

Stephen Hopkins’s knuckles went white as he gripped the back of the pew in front of him. He wasn’t used to being spoken to like this by anyone. Not in a long, long time.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” he said. “You want decorum. Then would the gentleman in the ski mask deign to let the assembly know why he’s holding them hostage?”

A few hostages in the pews laughed nervously and sat up a little straighter.

The lead hijacker looked around at the group. He laughed, too. Then he leaned in and grabbed the former president by his full head of white hair.

“Why, why, why?” he said into his ear. “That was always your weakest side, Stevie-boy. You always had to intellectualize everything.”

“You son of a bitch,” Hopkins yelled, partly because of the pain. It felt like his hair was tearing out of his scalp. This small man, Jack, was very strong.

“Now you’re calling my mother a bitch?” Jack said. “Maybe you’ve gotten your ass kissed so much you forget that it can get kicked, too. Disrespect me again, asshole, and I’ll kick your guts out and make you eat ’em.”

Jack yanked the former president out into the aisle. Finally, he let go of his hair, and Hopkins sank to the floor.

The hijacker let out a deep breath and smiled at the other hostages.

“See that? There goes my temper,” Jack said. “Now you’ve seen my one weakness.”

After a long, thoughtful moment, he made a thumbing motion at the former president.

“Mr. President, you know what? You’ve been through enough today,” he said. “Why don’t you go home? You’re dismissed! Get him the hell out of my church.”

Two of the hijackers grabbed the former president roughly by his elbows and started shoving him quickly into the main part of the church, toward the front doors.

“Tell you the truth, though, Hopkins,” Jack called at the former president’s back. “After meeting you, I’m actually glad I voted for Nader. Both times.”

JOHN ROONEY, LA Times -proclaimed “film comic of the decade,” was praying. Seriously lapsed or not, he was baptized a Christian, and he was sitting as still as he could in his pew, silently saying the Lord’s Prayer to beat the band.

He stopped in midprayer when something small and sharp struck him in the side of the neck. When he looked down, he saw that there was a little wad of folded paper on the pew beside him. What the heck was this?

The paper ball was made from a page ripped out of a hymnal. In black ink, someone had written open me right over the musical notes.

Rooney palmed the note as he looked up at the hijackers guarding them. The biggest one-Little John, was it?-sat on the altar as if it were the hood of a car, and he yawned so wide that Rooney could see his back molars.

Rooney opened the note in his lap.

ROONEY-I’M IN THE ROW BEHIND YOU. SLOWLY SCOOTCH OVER INTO THE CENTER OF YOUR PEW SO WE CAN TALK. WHATEVER YOU DO, DON’T LET THE SCUM IN FRONT SEE YOU!-CHARLIE CONLAN

Rooney shoved the note into his pocket, at least until he could get rid of it. Over the course of the next few minutes, he slid over the polished ash wood of the pew.

When he was about halfway, a gravelly voice behind him whispered, “Jesus, Johnny. I said slowly, not glacially.”

“Sorry,” Rooney whispered back.

“You saw what they did to Hopkins?” Conlan said.

Rooney nodded grimly. “What do you think they want with the rest of us?” he said.

“Nothing good,” Conlan said. “I guarantee you. Thing that scares me is how surrounded by cops this church is. Only thing between these guys getting shot or going to jail for life is us.”

“What can we do about it, though?” Rooney said.

“Fight back,” Conlan said. “Todd Snow’s a row behind me. He’s talking to the tycoon, Xavier Brown, behind him. With you-it’s four.”

“To do what?” Rooney asked. “You saw what they did to Hopkins when he just opened his mouth.”

“We wait for now. Be patient. Pick our spot. Four of us can take one or two of these guys. We go from there. John, we may not have a choice.”

THE ELATION THAT New York Times reporter Cathy Calvin had felt at being released from the cathedral was quickly being burned away by her annoyance at having to wait on line with everybody else to be interviewed by the police. The NYPD had all the detainees corralled outside of Saks Fifth Avenue, and they weren’t letting anyone go until they’d been debriefed by one of four detectives sitting at a row of folding tables set up on the sidewalk.

Calvin noticed for the first time the news-van microwave towers beyond the blue-and-white sawhorses. They rose above the crowd like the masts of some invading armada.

Wait a second. What was she thinking? And complaining about? She was where everyone else was trying to get. Inside the ropes!

Calvin quickly calculated the strategic advantage of her position. She’d been in the cathedral before, during, and after the takeover. She was an eyewitness to the siege, which would make it her exclusive.

Then she spotted Carmella, the lingerie supermodel, three people back in line. Not super A-list, but a good start.

“Carmella? Hi. Cathy Calvin from the Times. You okay? Where were you when it happened? What did you see in there?”

“I vas near da front on da left,” the six-foot-two blonde said in her best Austrian American accent. “Poor Caroline’s casket had jus come past our pew. Zen Eberhard, my security man, vas shot right in his crotch vith a tear gas canister. Now I can’t find Eberhard anywhere. I keep texting his cell, but he von’t answer. Have you seen him?”