Step on a Crack by James Patterson, Michael Ledwidge Page A

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.

Chapter 43
    “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