The Neat Man whistled softly-“O Come, All Ye Faithful,” a holiday favorite of his.

“You there, Jack?”

“Where else would I be? How’s it looking from your end?” Jack answered.

“When you sent out that first wave,” the Neat Man said with a smile, “they didn’t know whether to shit or go blind. Ditto with Hopkins. They’re still shaking their heads in disbelief.”

“That’s what I like to hear,” Jack said.

“How’d the interviews go with all our rich friends?”

“Real informative,” Jack said. “Question now is will law enforcement stay stunned and stumped for the amount of time we need to get this done?”

“From what I’ve seen so far,” the Neat Man said with a laugh, “they’ll be scratching their heads ’til next Christmas.”

“Pardon me for not chuckling along with you there, buddy,” Jack said coldly. “For some reason things don’t seem so funny on the side of the wall everyone’s pointing guns at.”

“We all have our part to play, Jack,” the Neat Man said. His partner in crime, Jack, was a born worrier. Not his most attractive quality.

“Yeah, well, if I was you, I’d make extra sure I didn’t screw up my lines,” Jack said with menace before disconnecting their private line.

THE NEXT TIME I glanced up from the notes I was making on the negotiation with Jack, the command center’s small window to the outside had somehow become dark. The time had flown. Paul Martelli was busy talking on the phone beside me. Ned Mason was on the phone, too. A dozen or more other cops were working laptops, including Steve Reno.

I stood up and palmed the low ceiling as I stretched pretty close to my full six two.

The demands had been sent to the FBI’s New York headquarters downtown, at 26 Federal Plaza. The Bureau’s White Collar Crime Squad was crunching the numbers. The grand total of the ransom was nearly eighty million dollars.

It was a massive sum for one person to pay, but if you broke it down to the two and a half million or so for each hostage, it wasn’t that outrageous.

In fact, it was incredible how willing to pay these people seemed to be.

Celebrity spouses and family members were giving me the numbers of their financial people almost before I had a chance to explain who I was. More than one Hollywood talent agency I spoke to didn’t hesitate to put up the firm’s money for their lucrative clients. Three investment banks were working overtime organizing all the wire transfers.

One Beverly Hills lawyer actually asked for the hijackers’ number-to see if he could negotiate directly. Uh, Jack-Marv Begelman from California wants to talk with you.

It irked me, but I had to agree with what Jack had said before giving the demands. The fat cats were more than willing to buy their way out of trouble.

As I stepped outside the bus for some much-needed air, the first thing that hit me was the buzz-saw chattering of diesel generators. A half dozen portable crime scene light carts had been set up, and they illuminated the cathedral as if this were Times Square. For a second, the scene reminded me of another annoying NYC phenomenon: location shoots for movies-idling trailers, blocked-off streets, bright lights anywhere you looked.

Time to hit the catering van, I thought. See if I could keep some food down.

As I walked east along 50th, I could see that the sides of the cathedral were lit up, too. There should have been families strolling hand in hand down this block around now. Rosy-cheeked visitors from across the country and the world, sipping hot cocoa and smiling as they caught the candle glow from the famous stained-glass windows.

On the northwest corner of the Saks Fifth Avenue roof, I spotted a motionless FBI sniper.

The whole thing was totally insane.

What was even crazier was that these maniacs thought they were going to get away with it.

How? Every inch of the cathedral was being scoped out by snipers. Air traffic had been diverted, so even an unlikely helicopter escape couldn’t work. As Oakley, the HRT supervisor, had mentioned, the hundred-and-fifty-year-old church was built right on top of Manhattan bedrock. So there was no basement, no way to get out from underground.

I tried to convince myself that the hijackers hadn’t thought the grand finale through, that Jack had put their escape plan in the cross-that-bridge-when-we-come-to-it file.

But as I stood out on that cold, deserted street, all evidence pointed to the alternative. The boldness of their action, the confidence that we would do exactly as they said. It was looking more and more like the hijackers knew something about their exodus that we didn’t.

I was rubbing my hands for warmth when my cell phone rang.

I snatched the line to Jack, stiffening for the next ninety-mile-an-hour curveball that was more than likely heading straight for my forehead.

Then I realized it wasn’t the police cell ringing but my own personal one. I rolled my eyes when I saw that the number on my caller ID was my grandfather Seamus.

As if I didn’t have enough on my mind.

“SEAMUS, I’M BUSY. What is it?” I greeted my grandfather. Not the warmest of salutations, maybe, but I wasn’t filled with Christmas cheer right at that moment. Besides, conversation to my grandfather, even at seventy-four years old, is a form of combat. If you don’t put yourself on the offensive immediately, he will eat you alive.

“Well, a fine good evening to you as well, young Micheál,” Seamus said. I knew I was in for it when my Hibernian forebear reverted to the Gaelic form of my name. My grandfather didn’t just kiss the Blarney Stone, family legend had it. He bit off a chunk and swallowed it. Daily.

“And an especially fine way of conversing with the man currently taking care of your flock of goslings,” he finished.

Flock of goslings, I thought, rolling my eyes. My grand-father could make Malachy or Frank McCourt eat his tweed cap. He was the biggest, most blustery stage Irishman alive. He’d come to this country in the forties at the age of twelve. Sixty-some years had passed since he’d set foot on the “old sod,” as he called it, but if you didn’t know him better, at any given moment you’d think he’d just put up the donkey after cutting turf from the bog.

He was constantly coming in to check on his great-grandkids, though. Underneath the mile-thick crust of blarney, thank God, actually lay a heart of pure gold.

“Where’s Mary Catherine?” I said.

“Is that her name, now? We weren’t formally introduced. Why didn’t you tell me you were adopting another child?”

I knew it. The lethal innuendo just beneath the surface. If you looked closely, you could see that Seamus’s tongue was really the blade of a slicing machine.

“That’s a good one, old man,” I said. “You must have been saving that one up all afternoon. Mary Catherine happens to be the au pair.”

“Au pair. Is that whatcher callin’m these days?” my grandfather said. “Be careful, young Micheál. Eileen, your grandmother, caught me talking to an au pair once on a street corner one Sunday in Dublin. She broke three of me ribs with a hurling stick.”

“ Dublin?” I said. “That’s funny. I thought Grandma Eileen was from Queens.”

As he began to stammer out an explanation, I explained to him the letter from Maeve’s mother and Mary Catherine’s mysterious arrival the night before.

“You’re the authority on all things Irish,” I said. “What do you make of it?”

“I don’t like it,” he said. “This young girl could be after something. Keep track of the silverware.”

“Gee, thanks for the heads-up, you suspicious old coot,” I finally said. “And speaking of the goslings, I don’t know when I’ll get a chance to get out of here, but you tell them to get their homework out of the way and to start their jobs. Their duties. They’ll know what you’re talking about.”