Exit Strategy. Jen J. Danna

him, but may not be successful for a few more hours.”

      “Maybe you should try a little harder to locate him. He might have a vested interest in what’s going on here.”

      Gemma’s gaze flicked to Garcia. From his slow smile, he’d heard the edge in the suspect’s voice as well, and the venom behind the words “vested interest.”

      “We’ll certainly do our best.”

      “Yeah, you do that.”

      Then they were listening to a dial tone.

      Garcia leaned back in his chair and grinned at Gemma. “That was a good call.”

      “It was subtle, but you decidedly unsettled him,” Taylor said. “He maintained the overwhelming majority of his control, but the frustration and disappointment leached through, if you were listening for it.”

      “And that buys us a little extra time.” Garcia looked up to find Kalani in the doorway. “Got something?”

      “Sanders is coming in,” she said. “He wants a face-to-face.”

      “Thought he might.” Standing, Garcia took off his headset. In the main room, the door banged open. “That’ll be him now. Lieutenant!”

      Two men stepped in to fill the vault doorway, Sanders in front and a tall, blond officer behind him. Gemma was surprised to recognize the second officer—Detective Sean Logan, a fellow trainee from her days in the police academy. They’d been rivals from day one, the star cadet and the woman trying to knock him off his throne, a challenge made harder because of her gender. Women had been a part of the NYPD for decades, but they still had to work that little bit harder to be considered equals. And when you were the third Capello in a single generation to go through the academy, it was even harder because every instructor had a story about a brother who was stronger or faster in any given task. But Gemma was smarter, and what anyone might have felt she lacked in strength and male aggression, she made up for in intuition and strategy—valuable tools in her current position.

      She’d been a thorn in Logan’s side all through the academy, just as he’d been in hers. And the one night they’d blown off some of that competitive steam in his bed was never acknowledged afterward by either of them. She didn’t need an entanglement when she was focused on clawing her way to the top of the class, and she imagined he felt the same. Still, more than a decade later, it was a night she’d never quite been able to forget.

      Both officers were in full SWAT gear, dressed all in black, carrying their tactical helmets, and sporting bulletproof vests with NYPD ESU emblazoned on them. They cross-carried Colt M4 Commando rifles slung across their chests, the barrel pointed to the floor, each securely holding the rifle with a hand on the pistol grip.

      Gemma met Logan’s eyes, and he gave her a brief nod.

      “I understand a threat has been made against the first deputy mayor.” Sanders didn’t bother with a greeting, but got right down to business. “We need to get eyes on what’s happening in the mayor’s office. I have a team ready to go in.”

      A slight tightening around Garcia’s mouth was his only sign of dissent. But just as he started to reply, the outside door banged open again and Mayor Rowland entered. A tall man with a tendency to portliness, his face was an unhealthy mottled pink. He yanked at his tie to loosen it as he stalked toward them. “What is going on? Why are my people still trapped with a madman?”

      Gemma exchanged glances with Taylor and McFarland. Someone had obviously updated the mayor, and it was going to be two against one with only Garcia fighting for a calm and patient approach to hostage extraction. Garcia had risen to lead the HNT because he was steady and logical in a crisis, and no hostage taker or senior officer ever saw him lose his cool. But Gemma suspected he was going to need every ounce of restraint to remain calm today in the face of such a high-profile hostage and while under a significant amount of outside pressure from both the city and NYPD brass.

      “Mr. Mayor, we’re very glad to see you,” said Garcia. “When we couldn’t get in touch with you, we were afraid you were still inside City Hall.”

      Rowland popped the top button of his shirt and wiped the sweat from his brow with the back of one hand. “My meeting with the state attorney general started considerably later than planned and then went for more than an hour, so I silenced my phone, knowing someone would come get me if I was needed. I had a new staffer with me, and I told him not to interrupt me for any reason. He actually took me literally. When this situation blew up, he stopped any calls from getting through to me. Finally word leaked through to the AG and I left right away.” He scowled. “Make that an ex-staffer. Now, what’s going on? Who’s still inside? How many people are holding them? When are you going in to get them out?”

      “We don’t have many details yet, sir. We know there’s one suspect, but don’t know if he has any accomplices. We don’t have visuals, so we don’t have a full count of the hostages, but officers are working with your staffers who made it to safety to determine who is unaccounted for. We’ve been in contact with the suspect and are starting negotiations. I highly recommend not moving to a tactical entry at this time due to the nature of the threat.”

      “Which is?”

      “The suspect has not outlined what he wants in exchange for the hostages. He has simply said he has a message for you.” Garcia turned to his officers. “Detective Taylor, read back the exact wording.”

      “Yes, sir. ‘Tell him his first deputy mayor is going to die, and it’s all his fault.’ That was at two thirty-seven p.m.”

      Rowland reached for the back of Garcia’s chair to steady himself. “He has Charles.”

      “Yes, sir.” Garcia pointed to the first-floor blueprint spread out on the table. “A number of security cameras were shot out less than a half hour ago. Based on the location of those cameras, we think he’s holed up with the hostages in one of your inner offices. The A-Team has not been able to get visuals through any of the first-floor windows, so it looks like he strategically chose an internal location.” He pointed to a conference room and an assistant’s office. “Possibly one of these two locations. Both rooms have phones, and both could pick up our incoming calls. He may have chosen the room based on how many people he’s taken hostage.”

      “So, if we go in,” Sanders interjected, “we know where we’re going and have a limited area to cover.”

      “If you go in,” Garcia countered, “he’ll simply follow through with his threat to kill Willan, because what does he have to lose?” Garcia swung back to face Rowland. “Mr. Mayor, we’ve bought ourselves some time because we told him we have no idea where you are, and he wants you to know what’s going on. He wants you to suffer with that knowledge. As long as he thinks you’re in the dark about Willan, he’s in a holding pattern, at least in the short term. That won’t last forever, but, in my opinion, he won’t kill anyone during this time. He’s going to wait for you to resurface. While we can’t see him, he also can’t see us, so he won’t know you’re back in touch, unless he has some other way of getting that information.”

      “You mean being in contact with someone on the outside?”

      “Yes.” Garcia turned to Gemma. “And that’s a problem. The FCC won’t let us shut down the cell towers in the area, but we can certainly isolate the landlines going into the building so we’re his only link to the outside world.”

      “I can set that up,” she said.

      “That would go a long way to furthering his isolation.” Garcia swung back to the A-Team officers. “You need to give us time. We’ve bought some by throwing him off guard. We don’t know who he is or why he’s doing this, but he sure as hell already has a plan in place. I bet Plan A was the mayor being in-house so he could deal with him directly. He’s now likely moved on to Plan B. But without the mayor, he’s left treading water. Let him tread a little longer. A suspect under pressure can be off guard and we may be able to learn more about him, and then use that leverage to steer