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Authors: Stefanie Pintoff
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laundering. Sentence: thirty-five years.
Expertise: Corporate financial systems and the clandestine movement of money.
Education: City University of New York, B.S. and Fordham University, MBA.
Personal
Family: Parents deceased. Estranged from extended family after coming out of the closet in March 1990. Remains in touch with sister, Elaine.
Spouse/Significant Other: New relationship with John Murphy, a tax attorney.
Religion: Nontraditional Jewish, devotee of the mysticisms of Kabbalah.
Interests: Comics and fantasy baseball.
Profile
Strengths: Enjoys the challenge of deciphering complex financial models.
Weaknesses: A loner who doesn’t bond well with others. Excessive preoccupation with his health (nondiagnosed hypochondria) compromises his abilities and work habits. History of depression. (In 2010, he was hospitalized for seven weeks following a failed suicide attempt.)
Notes: Isolated and misunderstood. Will attach himself to someone who understands him. His fundamental insecurity makes him vulnerable to the influence of more dominant personalities—including hostiles resorting to bribery or other coercion methods.
*Assessment originally prepared by SA Eve Rossi. Updated by ADIC Henry Ma. For internal use only.
Chapter 11
S earching the Midnight Mass uploads on YouTube yielded no results. But within the last seventy-two hours, five people had uploaded videos of the construction work at Saint Patrick’s Cathedral. Eve fast-forwarded through each, scanning footage of stained-glass cleaning and concrete repairs.
Nothing stood out as remarkable.
Am I just missing it? Is the Hostage Taker’s upload among footage I’ve already reviewed?
She desperately needed information if she was going to have any chance of defusing this situation.
She scanned videos uploaded for tourists coming to NYC. Still nothing.
Then Eve toggled through three YouTube videos of the Saint Patrick’s Cathedral choir in performance and finally found the video posted by the Hostage Taker.
—
The clip wasn’t long. Only three minutes, eighteen seconds in duration. She forced herself to watch it four times.
First, she focused on the wires.
Second, she focused on the detonators.
Then, she focused on the grainy figures who were doubtless the hostages.
The fourth time, she focused on the stone images. These were the most disturbing of all: stone sculptures that appeared to be part of a wall of the Cathedral. Except rather than depicting the usual saints or the Virgin Mary or even Saint Patrick, the sculptures showed the destruction of New York City itself.
The Brooklyn Bridge breaking in half.
People running in panic beneath the Stock Exchange.
The Statue of Liberty being swallowed up whole into the water.
Is this terrorism?
Impossible not to think so. After 9/11, almost anybody would.
Unless she didn’t understand the images carved into the stone. Was it possible these statues were a part of Saint Patrick’s that she had never noticed? That no one talked about?
The Hostage Taker’s message made Eve want to call another member of her former team—Frank García. A former Army Ranger, he was the one man who could possibly handle a Special Ops mission, given these particular challenges.
But a few clicks on the computer made it clear: García was not available. At least, not right now.
Divorce proceedings with Teresa had been contentious, and apparently he had threatened her. She obtained a restraining order against him—then agreed not to press charges if Frank would enter a program to treat his PTSD and alcohol dependency. He’d chosen one at New York–Presbyterian.
Eve felt a twinge of guilt, reading it all. She had known about García’s issues. The problem was: The same paranoia and hypervigilance that had cost García his family also made him extremely good at his job.
She couldn’t bring herself to dial after she closed García’s digital file. Now that she knew where to find him, she could afford to
Expertise: Corporate financial systems and the clandestine movement of money.
Education: City University of New York, B.S. and Fordham University, MBA.
Personal
Family: Parents deceased. Estranged from extended family after coming out of the closet in March 1990. Remains in touch with sister, Elaine.
Spouse/Significant Other: New relationship with John Murphy, a tax attorney.
Religion: Nontraditional Jewish, devotee of the mysticisms of Kabbalah.
Interests: Comics and fantasy baseball.
Profile
Strengths: Enjoys the challenge of deciphering complex financial models.
Weaknesses: A loner who doesn’t bond well with others. Excessive preoccupation with his health (nondiagnosed hypochondria) compromises his abilities and work habits. History of depression. (In 2010, he was hospitalized for seven weeks following a failed suicide attempt.)
Notes: Isolated and misunderstood. Will attach himself to someone who understands him. His fundamental insecurity makes him vulnerable to the influence of more dominant personalities—including hostiles resorting to bribery or other coercion methods.
*Assessment originally prepared by SA Eve Rossi. Updated by ADIC Henry Ma. For internal use only.
Chapter 11
S earching the Midnight Mass uploads on YouTube yielded no results. But within the last seventy-two hours, five people had uploaded videos of the construction work at Saint Patrick’s Cathedral. Eve fast-forwarded through each, scanning footage of stained-glass cleaning and concrete repairs.
Nothing stood out as remarkable.
Am I just missing it? Is the Hostage Taker’s upload among footage I’ve already reviewed?
She desperately needed information if she was going to have any chance of defusing this situation.
She scanned videos uploaded for tourists coming to NYC. Still nothing.
Then Eve toggled through three YouTube videos of the Saint Patrick’s Cathedral choir in performance and finally found the video posted by the Hostage Taker.
—
The clip wasn’t long. Only three minutes, eighteen seconds in duration. She forced herself to watch it four times.
First, she focused on the wires.
Second, she focused on the detonators.
Then, she focused on the grainy figures who were doubtless the hostages.
The fourth time, she focused on the stone images. These were the most disturbing of all: stone sculptures that appeared to be part of a wall of the Cathedral. Except rather than depicting the usual saints or the Virgin Mary or even Saint Patrick, the sculptures showed the destruction of New York City itself.
The Brooklyn Bridge breaking in half.
People running in panic beneath the Stock Exchange.
The Statue of Liberty being swallowed up whole into the water.
Is this terrorism?
Impossible not to think so. After 9/11, almost anybody would.
Unless she didn’t understand the images carved into the stone. Was it possible these statues were a part of Saint Patrick’s that she had never noticed? That no one talked about?
The Hostage Taker’s message made Eve want to call another member of her former team—Frank García. A former Army Ranger, he was the one man who could possibly handle a Special Ops mission, given these particular challenges.
But a few clicks on the computer made it clear: García was not available. At least, not right now.
Divorce proceedings with Teresa had been contentious, and apparently he had threatened her. She obtained a restraining order against him—then agreed not to press charges if Frank would enter a program to treat his PTSD and alcohol dependency. He’d chosen one at New York–Presbyterian.
Eve felt a twinge of guilt, reading it all. She had known about García’s issues. The problem was: The same paranoia and hypervigilance that had cost García his family also made him extremely good at his job.
She couldn’t bring herself to dial after she closed García’s digital file. Now that she knew where to find him, she could afford to
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