Джеймс Паттерсон - NYPD Red 6

“I can get you the money,” Harris had said.

Maybe you can , Jamie thought. But what’s in it for you?

The answer became clear as soon as he entered the Brockways’ apartment. “Erin’s ratings were through the roof last night,” Brock said.

“She’s a megahit,” Anna added. “Mega, mega, mega. And the pregnancy bomb was the capper.”

“We want to do more shows,” Brock said. “We want you on camera. This thing can be the biggest hit that ZTV ever had.”

“This thing? ” Jamie said. “The pregnancy bomb? A madman is deciding whether my wife lives or dies, I don’t have any idea how to save her, and all you can talk about is how well this insanity is playing with your television audience?”

“Hey, hey, calm down,” Brock said. “We both love Erin.”

“She’s like a daughter to us,” Anna said.

“We called you over here because you’re trying to pull together the ransom money, and we have a solution.”

“A deal,” Anna corrected. “ZTV is willing to pay for more Erin videos.”

“You want more hostage videos?” Jamie yelled. “One wasn’t enough? You think people haven’t gotten their fill of watching her suffer?”

“That’s the point,” Brock said. “The whole goddamn world is emotionally invested in what happens to her next. Do you understand what kind of a magnet that is? Sponsors will pay through the nose to be part of this.”

“Now you’ve gotten to the heart of it!” Jamie said, pounding a fist into the palm of his hand. “It’s all about money, isn’t it?”

“You’re damn straight it’s about money!” Brock yelled. “And instead of shitting all over the idea, you should be thanking us, because you sure as hell aren’t going to come up with twenty-five million dollars by groveling to your mother.”

The words hit Jamie like a gut punch. He put both hands on the back of a chair to steady himself. “What did you say?”

“You heard me. Your mother didn’t show up at the wedding. She’s made no bones about the fact that she hates Erin, and she—”

“No! Not that. How did you come up with twenty-five million dollars? That’s exactly what the kidnapper is demanding, and the only people who know that number besides me are the kidnapper, my mother, and the cops. Where the hell did you get it from?”

Brockway looked at his wife. Anna folded her arms across her chest and scowled at him.

Jamie pulled the phone from his pocket. “Answer the fucking question or I will have a platoon of cops here in five minutes.”

“Erin called me,” Anna said.

Jamie sat down. “Erin … called you? When?”

“About an hour ago. I didn’t talk to whoever is holding her, but she said he was listening in. She told me how much money he wanted. I couldn’t believe it. And then she told me that you’d reached out to Veronica for help, and the bitch hadn’t even returned your calls. Is that true?”

Jamie looked down at the floor. He didn’t say a word, but Anna Brockway had her answer.

“Erin convinced the kidnapper that there was another way to get the money,” she said, “and that would be for me to negotiate a long-term contract with ZTV and ask for twenty-five million in advance. I said I would try, but I knew there was no way that would happen.

“As soon as I hung up, I talked to Brock. He came up with the idea of a series of specials. The centerpiece of each would be a new video from Erin. We’d intercut that with interviews from celebrities, commentary from police experts, a little bit of fan hysteria, and, of course, the anguished husband desperate to rescue his wife and their unborn child.”

“It would be appointment television,” Brock said. “Plus it’s right in Erin’s wheelhouse. It’s almost like a continuation of every reality show she’s ever done.”

“Right,” Jamie said. “Only instead of shopping for shoes on Rodeo Drive, she’d be chained to a radiator, sobbing her heart out.”

“Oh, Jamie, if you think that’s all she’s going to give us, you don’t know Erin Easton,” Anna said. “That girl can work an audience as if her life depended on it. And in this case, it does.”

“And you’d pay twenty-five million for a few videos like that?” Jamie said, looking at Brock.

“Are you crazy?” Brock said. “That’s the all-in price for the series. Twenty-five episodes. A million a pop.”

“Twenty-five videos? How are you going to handle the cops? That first video came in unannounced. The next time you’d be in collusion with the kidnapper. Aiding and abetting.”

“Oh, so now you’re a lawyer?” Brock said. “Listen to me, Jamie. Your mother’s not going to save Erin. The cops are not going to save Erin. You’re down to your last option. Yes or no?”

Ten minutes later Jamie Gibbs walked out of the building wondering if he’d made the right decision. He looked at his watch. He’d been gone less than an hour. Koprowski would still be parked outside his mother’s place.

He stepped to the curb to see if he could spot a cab.

“You need a ride?” a female voice said.

There was a car parked in front of the Brockways’ building. He looked in the window. Detective Kylie MacDonald was sitting behind the wheel. Her partner, Detective Jordan, came around the back of the car.

“Sir,” he said, opening the rear door. He smiled politely. But he didn’t look happy.

CHAPTER 41

IT WAS MY phone, wasn’t it?” Jamie said from the back seat. “That’s how you found me, right?”

Kylie made a left onto Eighth Avenue and headed uptown. Both of us stared straight ahead, neither of us saying a word.

Of course it was his phone. He knew we’d been monitoring it. He just didn’t know how well.

As soon as the call from Brockway came in to Jamie’s phone, TARU traced it. Had Brockway used his own cell phone, his number would have come up as one of Jamie’s regular callers. But Brockway wanted to go under the radar, so he’d used a burner.

Big mistake. That sent up a giant red flag. An incoming call from a throwaway phone practically screamed kidnapper . TARU immediately alerted me, and I called Koprowski, who told me Jamie was visiting his mother.

A minute later TARU called back to say Jamie—or at least his cell phone—was on the move.

Koprowski raced into the building to get eyes on his subject. By then, the elevator operator had taken Jamie to the basement, and he was on the run.

TARU tracked him as easily as air traffic control watches a jumbo jet cross the country. As soon as Jamie stopped moving, Benny Diaz gave us the address on West Forty-Eighth, and by the time Kylie and I got there, we had a printout of every tenant in the building.

The list was alphabetical. We stopped at B. Brockway, Harris and Anna .

Kylie waited in the car while I checked with the doorman.

“Yes, Officer,” he said. “Mr. Gibbs went upstairs to see Mr. Brockway about five minutes ago. Shall I ring up?”

“Don’t ring, and don’t say a word to him when he comes down,” I said. “I’ll take it from here.”

Ten minutes later Jamie came down, and I ushered him into the back seat of our car. He had every right to resist, but he didn’t. He was scared, confused, and so shocked to see us that he followed orders without a whimper.

Kylie drove north on Central Park West, then turned onto the Eighty-Sixth Street transverse. About halfway to the East Side, she did something very few motorists crossing the park ever do.

She turned into the parking lot of the Central Park Police Precinct and pulled into a space. The lot was filled with cop cars, and uniformed officers were walking in and out of the landmark nineteenth-century station house like extras on a movie set.