Happy Birthday: A Novel Read online

  By eight o’clock that night, there was no doubt in anyone’s mind that the only way to free the hostages was not by negotiation with the terrorists, but by force. And the captain of the SWAT team didn’t want to wait much longer. Other members of the SWAT team and the New York police chief were going over maps of the building in detail, as Jack Adams listened. They were studying the air vents and crawl spaces closely. Even the architect of the building was on the scene. The CIA and FBI finally made an executive decision to send the SWAT teams in by nine o’clock, and the governor and president were being kept closely informed. The mayor was on the scene, along with assorted diplomats and a UN task force, and the whole country was watching. It was all too reminiscent of 9/11.

  A clumsy attempt by the terrorists to broadcast was made at 8:15, with hand-held cameras. They rambled on at length, and said they were going to blow up the building. You couldn’t see them clearly, but as the hand-held camera bounced crazily, you could see hostages in the background huddled together. The hostage-takers looked like a rough group. There were only six of them, but they appeared to have an arsenal of weapons that no one knew how they had gotten in.

  April looked intently at the screen when the message came on, but she didn’t see her mother. She had no idea if she was dead or alive by then. All they could do was wait to find out. Mike said nothing, but stood behind her and rubbed her shoulders. She looked up at him and thanked him. It had made a difference, having him there with her all day. Her staff didn’t quite know what to make of it. They all knew she didn’t have a boyfriend, but clearly there was some kind of bond between the well-known restaurant critic and their boss that they had never known about before. It was hard to believe that it was new to April too. But she’d been grateful for his company all day, and for his warning of what had just happened before it hit the news.

  By eight-thirty the plan to attack the hostage-takers was in place, although it was dangerous for all concerned, both liberators and hostages. It was almost inevitable that some people would get killed.

  All the buildings in the surrounding area had been evacuated hours before, and all traffic had been stopped in case the hostage-takers followed through on their threat to blow up the building. Only emergency vehicles and crisis units and eventually the military were on the scene, and a handful of advisers. Jack Adams was hanging in, talking to them whenever possible. No one was sure if he was there as a journalist, or just a very concerned person, with friends and co-workers in the building under siege. But because of who he was, they let him stick around. The CIA and SWAT teams chatted with him, and whenever appropriate, he joined in their discussions. He wanted to go in with one of the SWAT teams, but they declined. There was no way he could. It was a risk they couldn’t take. This was a tight, highly professional operation.

  And finally, the SWAT teams prepared to make their move. The electricity in the building had been cut off shortly before, and a few minutes before nine a group of forty highly trained men went in through the basement. Others had landed on the roof, and still others were crawling up the air vents in a carefully orchestrated strategic plan. The men were carrying oxygen tanks and wearing infrared goggles, had on bulletproof vests and the overalls of the SWAT team. They were carrying automatic rifles and machine guns as Jack watched them leave.

  It was nine minutes after nine when they reached the floor where the hostages were being held, gleaned from reports of the few people who had escaped, disappearing down back stairways while no one was looking. The few who got out did so only on a fluke, but had given them valuable information.

  The leading SWAT team had come up an air vent from a lower floor in total darkness, with suction devices on their gloves and shoes.

  They came out of the vent into an empty hallway, but they could hear voices nearby. The voices were speaking English, and by sheer luck, the men from the SWAT team found a room of sixty women, with only two men guarding them near the door. The lead marksmen of the SWAT team took the guards out instantly in silence, as the women watched in amazement, and miraculously no one screamed. They signed to the women as best they could not to make a sound, and to follow them. As quickly as possible, they were taken through three sets of doors, and led down two stairways, handed from man to man. Many of them had lost their shoes and were barefoot. All looked frightened but were brave, as they hurried down the stairs. They were all stunned that no one had stopped them, as their liberators wondered exactly where the male hostages were being held.

  Jack was standing in the lobby with one of the commando units waiting for news from upstairs, when the women came through a fire door and began running across the lobby, sobbing and in bare feet. No one had radioed to say they were on their way and that they had been freed. Most of the members of the SWAT team had stayed upstairs to find the men. And suddenly it was pandemonium as sixty women ran through the lobby and front doors of the building with a handful of men directing them, and the commandos in the lobby sprang into action to lend a hand, as did Jack. A woman near him stumbled, nearly fainting, and he picked her up and carried her outside. A reporter took his picture as he handed her to the nearest fireman and rushed back inside.

  The women were still coming down the stairs, and he suddenly saw Valerie emerge from the fire door, and she looked startled when she recognized him. He was heading toward her and several others, when they all heard a shot. No one knew where it had come from, and within seconds, all hell had broken loose.

  A lone sniper had come down another stairway when he found the women missing and opened fire on them. Two women dropped to the floor, and a commando was shot in the arm before anyone could react, and by then the sniper was darting through the crowd with a mask on his face. The commandos didn’t dare shoot at him, for fear of killing any of the women, who were screaming and running toward the doors.

  Jack had reached Valerie by then, who was kneeling next to a woman who had been shot in the head. And without thinking, Jack grabbed Valerie, pulled her to her feet, shielded her with his body, and led her to the doors, where a policeman pulled her out. Just as he did, four of the commandos took careful aim at the sniper and killed him on the spot. He lay in a pool of blood facedown on the marble floor near the two women he had killed.

  Jack was staring at the scene in disbelief as the faces of the women swirled around him, and he heard a man’s voice say something to him. The words he heard were a blur, as Jack saw legs around him and wondered what had happened, and as he did, everything went black. He passed out without a sound.

  The women were out of the building as the remaining commandos knelt over Jack. The sniper had shot him in the leg and hit an artery before the SWAT team took the sniper out. They had Jack on a gurney and rushed him to an ambulance, as Valerie and the other women were being tended to, covered with blankets, and shepherded into the hands of medical units that had been waiting for them for hours. Valerie saw the ambulance leave but didn’t register who was in it. She hadn’t seen Jack fall.

  In the lobby, firemen and police were covering the three bodies with tarps. It was a grisly scene, and the white marble floor was covered with blood.

  There was no further news from upstairs yet, but within seconds their radios came to life. The male hostages were safe. Three were killed during the operation to free them, and four had been shot before their rescuers arrived. In total, eleven people had died in the attack. It was more than anyone wanted, but better than they had feared. The remaining terrorists had tried to detonate a bomb, which the SWAT team had been able to deactivate immediately. It was a small, amateurish bomb, and all of the hostage-takers had been killed by the commandos. Their weapons had been rough and their plan crude but astonishingly effective.

  The men who had been taken hostage were brought downstairs, taken past the grisly scene in the lobby, and turned over to medical units, just as the women had been. Several units of the SWAT team were still upstairs checking for bombs.

  Valerie left the scene in a police car, with siren
screaming, as many of the vehicles in the area began to back up and leave. More police units were brought in for the clean-up, as Valerie borrowed a cell phone from one of the policemen to call April at the restaurant.

  April burst into tears the minute she heard her mother’s voice. She was sobbing incoherently in relief. Valerie said they had to be debriefed and examined at the hospital, and she would call her as soon as she got home. She didn’t think it would be for several hours. As she hung up, April melted into Mike’s arms.

  “She’s okay,” she said to him, blowing her nose in a tissue someone handed her. “She didn’t have time to tell me much else. She’ll call me later. I’m okay, if you want to go.” She looked at him apologetically, and he shook his head. He was staying till the bitter end. She called her father then to tell him that Valerie was okay, and he burst into tears too. The day had been agonizing beyond belief for them all. The tension had gone on for nearly twelve hours. It was hard to believe that six gunmen had taken over the network building, and that they had gotten in, while the whole free world watched what they were doing on broadcasts in every country.

  By eleven o’clock, it was confirmed that in total eleven people had been killed, all network employees, although their names hadn’t been released, until their families could be notified. The only one Valerie knew about for sure was her assistant Marilyn, who had been one of the two women the sniper shot in the lobby. Valerie had seen it happen. When April was talking to her father, Valerie was at Bellevue being examined, and Jack Adams was at New York–Presbyterian Hospital, in the trauma unit, critically injured.

  There was a rapid mention of it on the news, which April saw at the restaurant. The report said that Jack Adams had been shot at the end of the hostage situation, while helping the freed women from the building. A sniper had shot him and hit an artery in his leg. They identified him as the former NFL quarterback turned sportscaster and said he had been at the site all day, talking to the SWAT teams and other crisis units at the scene, and offering any assistance he could.

  The restaurant was closed by then, and April finally left her vigil in front of the television. She and Mike both looked exhausted and as though they’d been there themselves. She could only imagine how her mother felt and was still waiting for her call when she was allowed to leave the hospital. April wanted to go to her, but Valerie had said she couldn’t. It was too chaotic.

  Valerie finally called at 2:15 in the morning, and said that she was in a police car, on her way home to her apartment. It was over, the building was secure, the terrorists were dead. Eleven hostages had been killed, but it could have been infinitely worse. It had been terrible for all of them, but it wasn’t 9/11. Six amateur terrorists had actually taken over a network, and accomplished only chaos and death, and nothing for their cause. Even their own government was horrified by what they’d done.

  The network had already set up broadcast capability on other floors so they could resume programming in the morning, and get back to some semblance of normalcy, or at least the appearance of it.

  “I’ll be there in five minutes,” April promised her mother. She was going to spend the night with her and was grateful that that was possible. Valerie could just as easily have been one of the victims as the survivors. They all could. April was shaken to her core, and the only thing that had gotten her through it was Mike. “I don’t know how to thank you,” she said as she locked the restaurant and took a deep breath of cold air on the sidewalk. “This has been the worst day of my life … and the best … since she lived through it.” She couldn’t bear to think what would have happened if the terrorists had killed her mother. She was so relieved they hadn’t. “Thank you for being here, Mike.” He had been wonderful to her, and she had seen a side of him she couldn’t have imagined, and would never have seen otherwise. A side of humanity, tenderness, and compassion, so unlike his sometimes direct, cold, and aloof side.

  “I’m glad I could be here,” he said gently as he hailed a cab. He was exhausted too. “That’s too bad about Jack Adams,” he added as they shared a cab uptown. He was going to drop her off at her mother’s to spend the night. “He was my hero when I was a kid. I always wanted to be just like him. I hope he makes it. I’ve always heard he’s a good guy, and it sounds like he was a real hero, helping people out. He didn’t have to do that.” April nodded. All she could think of now was her mother, although she felt sorry for Jack Adams.

  Mike dropped her off at her mother’s building on Fifth Avenue, and he was taking the cab back downtown where he lived. April offered to pay for the cab, and he laughed at her.

  “I think I can manage it,” he said, teasing her. “You pay for our kid’s college education, I’ll take care of the cab.” She smiled shyly up at him at the mention of their unborn child. It was the first time the subject had come up all day. They had had other things on their minds.

  “That’s a deal,” she said, smiling at him. She wasn’t sure she’d have heard from him by then, if it wasn’t for her mother, and he wasn’t sure of it either. He needed time to think about what had happened, and what was facing them. He still hadn’t decided if he wanted to be part of it or not. But he had been happy to be there for her today. He couldn’t let her face this agony and terror alone, and she reached up and hugged him. “Thanks, Mike. You were a hero for me today, and whatever happens after this, I love you for it. I couldn’t have gotten through today without you.”

  “Just take it easy. Get some rest. And I know you probably won’t, but you should take the day off tomorrow. Today was one hell of a day.”

  “Yes, it was.” She nodded as he got back in the cab. She waved, and he drove off a minute later, as he laid his head back against the seat and closed his eyes. He had never been through anything this hard, and he admired April enormously for her calm grace and self-control.

  April walked into the building only moments after her mother had arrived. Valerie was still wearing the red slacks and sweater she’d worn for the show that day, and the slippers they’d given her in the hospital when she arrived without shoes on. She was still shaking when April put her arms around her, and she had a hospital blanket around her shoulders. She had never seen her mother look like that, disheveled, frightened, and so profoundly shaken.

  “I love you, Mom,” April said, crying as she held her. All Valerie could do now was nod and sob as her daughter held her. The terror of it had been awful, waiting to be shot or die in an explosion at any moment. She had been sure none of them would come out of it alive, and many of the experts on the scene agreed with her, although they hadn’t said that to the public. “Come on, let’s put you to bed,” April said as her mother just shook harder and expressed her sadness about Marilyn again.

  April led her into her bedroom, like a child, and undressed her. She tucked her into bed and turned off the lights, and lay beside her, still dressed, on top of the covers. She held her mother tight, and finally Valerie drifted off to sleep. They had given her a tranquilizer at the hospital, and April lay awake for hours, watching her and stroking her hair, so grateful that she had survived it. She couldn’t help thinking about Mike too, and their baby. At least she knew now that her baby had a decent father, he had a kind heart, even if he didn’t want children. Having almost lost her mother that day, the baby seemed like even more of a gift now. Destiny moved in strange ways. Her mother had been spared, while others died. And she was having a baby with a perfect stranger. All she knew as she hugged her mother that night was how relieved she was. And as the sky turned to pale gray on a cold December morning, April fell asleep peacefully beside her mother.

  Chapter 8

  Thanks to the pill they’d given her at the hospital, Valerie didn’t wake up the next morning until eleven. April had called the restaurant and told them that she wouldn’t be in until later, and she was sitting quietly in the kitchen, drinking a cup of tea and reading the paper, when her mother wandered in, in her nightgown, still looking pale and shaken. Pat and Maddie had alre
ady called early that morning to see how she was, and April promised to have her mother call them when she woke up.

  “How do you feel, Mom?” April asked her, still looking worried. But however she felt, she had survived it. That was all that mattered.

  “Like I lived through a nightmare,” she said as she sat down at the kitchen table and glanced at the paper. There were photographs on the front page of when the women had been freed and came running out of the building. There were other shots of when the male hostages had been brought out, looking panicked, with the SWAT team all around them. Valerie looked at a photograph of Jack Adams, and remembered his shielding her from the sniper to get her out of the lobby. There were details about his injuries, and the paper said he was still in critical condition, but stable for now.

  “It was a nightmare,” April confirmed, still shaken by it herself. “It was the longest day of my life, waiting to find out if you were alive.”

  “I’m sorry. How awful for you. Where were you?”

  “At the restaurant. I spent the whole day glued to the TV in the kitchen. Mike Steinman was with me. He called to warn me before the story broke. He heard it at the paper where he works. He came over, and stayed with me until we knew you were safe. He dropped me off here last night.”

  “Well, that’s an interesting development,” her mother said with a raised eyebrow. “I didn’t think you’d heard from him in a while.”