Cathedral (18 page)

Pedar smiled. "We've handled them enough times."

She winked at him and climbed back up the stairs, sticking the pistol in the waistba-nd of her jeans. She moved close to him and touched his cheek lightly. "We're putting all we've got on this, Pedar. Tommy is in for life.

We could be dead or in an American prison for life. Mum is near dead for worry. None of us will see each other again if this goes badly."

Pedar Fitzgerald felt tears forming in his eyes but fought them back. He found his voice and said, "We've all put everything on Brian, Megan. Do you

. . . do you trust him . . . ? Can he do it, then?"

Megan Fitzgerald looked into her brother's eyes. "If he can't and we see he can't, then . . . you and I, Pedar . . . we'll take over. The family comes first." She turned and climbed up to the sanctuary, came around the attar, and looked at Maureen sitting in the pew. Their eyes met and neither looked away.

Flynn watched from the ambulatory, then called out, "Megan. Come take a walk with us."

Megan Fitzgerald turned away from Maureen and joined Flynn and Hickey as they began walking up the center aisle. "There are people in the sacristy corridors," she said.

Flynn nodded as he walked. "They won't do anything until they've established who we are and what we want. We've a little time yet."

When they reached the front door, Flynn ran his hands over the cold bronze ceremonial doors. "Magnificent. I'd

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like to take one with me." He examined the mines, then turned back and motioned around the Cathedral. "We've set up a perfect and very deadly cross fire from five long, concealed perches protected by stone parapets.

As long as we hold the high spots we can dominate the Cathedral. But if we lose the high ground and the fight takes place on the floor, it will be very difficult."

Hickey relit his pipe, "As long as there's no fighting in the bookstore."

Megan looked at him. "I hope you keep your sense of humor when the bullets start ripping through the smoke around your face."

He blew smoke toward her. "Lass, I've been shot at more times than you've had your period."

Flynn interrupted. "If you were a police commander, John, what would you do?"

Hickey thought a moment, then said, "I'd do what the British Army did in downtown Dublin in 1916. I'd call in the artillery and level the fucking place. Then I'd offer surrender terms."

"But this is not Dublin, 1916," said Flynn. "I think the people out there have to act with great restraint."

"You may call it restraint. I'd call it cunning. They'll eventually have to attack when they see we won't be talked out. But they'll do it without the big guns. More tactics, less gunpowder-gas, helicopters, concussion grenades that don't damage property. There's a lot available to them today." He looked around. "But we may be able to hold on."

Megan said, "We will hold on."

Flynn added, "We have gas masks, incidentally."

"Do you, now? You're a very thorough man, Brian. The old IRA was always going off half-cocked to try to grab the British lion's balls. And the lion loved it-Ioved feasting on IRA." He looked up at the triforia, then down at the deserted main floor. "Too bad, though, you couldn't find more men-"

Flynn interrupted. "They're a good lot. Each of them is worth twenty of the old-type ruffians."

"Are they, then? Even the women?"

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Megan stiffened and started to speak.

Flynn interjected, "Nothing wrong with women, you old bastard. I've learned that over the years. They're steady. Loyal."

Hickey glanced at the sanctuary where Maureen sat, then made an exaggerated pretense of looking away quickly. "I suppose many of them are." He sat at the edge of a pew and yawned. "Tiring business. Megan, lass, I hope you didn't think I included you when I spoke about women."

"Oh, go to hell." She turned and walked away.

Flynn let out a long breath of annoyance. "Why are you provoking her?"

Hickey watched her walk toward the altar. "Cold, cold. Must be like fucking a wooden icebox."

"Look, John-"

The telephone on the chancel organ beside the altar rang loudly, and everyone turned toward it.

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Brian Flynn put his hand on the ringing phone and looked at Hickey. "I was beginning to believe no one cared-one hears such stories about New York indifference."

Hickey laughed. "I can't think of a worse nightmare for an Irish revolutionary than to be ignored. Answer it, and if it's someone wanting to sell aluminum siding for the rectory, I suggest we just go home."

Flynn drew a deep breath and picked up the receiver. "MacCumail here."

There was a short silence, then a man's voice said, "Who?"

"This is Finn MacCumail, Chief of the Fenians. Who is this?"

The voice hesitated for a moment, then the man said, "This is Police Sergeant Tezik. Tactical Patrol Unit. I'm calling from the rectory. What the hell is going on in there?"

"Not much of anything at the moment."

"Why are the doors locked?"

"Because there are mines attached to each one. It's for your own protection, actually."

"Why . . . ?"

"Listen, Sergeant Tezik, and listen very closely. We have four hostages in here-Father Timothy Murphy, Maureen Malone, Sir Harold Baxter, and the Cardinal himself. If the police try to force their way in, the mines will explode, and if they keep coming, the hostages will be shot and the Cathedral will be set afire. Do you understand?"

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"Jesus Christ . . ."

"Get this message to your superiors quickly, and get a ranking man on the phone. Be quick about it, Sergeant Tezik."

"Yeah . . . all right. . . . Listen, everything's pretty screwed up here, so just take it easy. As soon as we get things sorted out, we'll have a police official on the phone with you. Okay?"

"Make it quick. And no nonsense or there will be a great number of dead people you'll have to answer for. No helicopters in the area. No armored vehicles on the streets. I have men in the towers with rockets and rifles. I've got a gun pointed at the Cardinal's head right now."

"Okay-take it easy. Don't---2'

Flynn hung up and turned to Hickey and Megan, who had joined them. "A TPU

sergeant-spiritual kin to the RUCs and the Gestapo. I didn't like the tone of his voice."

Hickey nodded. "It's their height. Gives them a sense of superiority."

He smiled. "Easier targets, though."

Flynn looked at the doors. "We caused a bit too much confusion. I hope they reestablish some chain of command before the hotheaded types start acting. The next few minutes are going to be critical."

Megan turned to Hickey and spoke quickly. "Do you want Sullivan to help you place the bombs?"

"Megan, love, I want you to help me. Run along and get what we need." He waited until Megan left, then turned to Flynn. "We have to make a decision now about the hostages-a decision about who kills which one."

Flynn looked at the Cardinal sitting straight on his throne, looking every inch a Prince of the Church. He knew it wasn't vanity or affectation he was observing but a product of two thousand years of history, ceremony, and training. The Cardinal would be not only a difficult bostage but a difficult man to make a corpse of. He said to Hickey, "It would be a hard man who could put a bullet into him."

Hickey's eyes, which normally twinkled with an old 161

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man's mischief, turned narrow and malevolent. "Well, I'll do him, if"-Hickey inclined his head toward Maureen"if you'll do her."

Flynn glanced at Maureen sitting in the clergy pews between Baxter and Father Murphy. He hesitated, then said, "Yes, all right. Go on and plant the bombs."

Hickey ignored him. "As for Baxter, anyone will kill. him. You tell Megan to do the priest. The little bitch should draw her first blood the hard way-not with Maureen."

Flynn looked at Hickey closely. It was becoming apparent that Hickey was obsessed with taking as many people with him as possible. "Yes," he said,

"that seems the way to handle it." He looked out over the vast expanse around him and said, more to himself than to Hickey, "God, how did we get in this place, and how can we get out?"

Hickey took Flynn's arm and pressed it tightly. "Funny, that's almost exactly what Padraic Pearse said when his men seized the General Post Office in Dublin, Easter Monday. I remember it very clearly. The answer then, as it is now, is that you got in with luck and blarney, but you'll not get out alive . . . ... He released Flynn's arm and slapped him on the back. "Cheer up, lad, we'll take a good number of them with us, like we did in 1916. Burn this place down while we're about it. Blow it up, too, if we get those bombs in place."

Flynn stared at Hickey. He might have to kill Hickey before I-Eckey got them all killed.

Megan Fitzgerald mounted the sanctuary, carrying two suitcases. She walked rapidly to the right side of the high altar, and placed them beside a bronze plate set into the marble floor, then lifted the plate.

John Hickey came up beside her and picked up the suitcases. "Go on."

Megan descended a shaky metal ladder, found a light chain, and pulled it.

Hickey climbed down and handed the suitcases to Megan, who placed them gently on the floor. They examined the unevenly excavated crawl space.

Build

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ing rubble, pipes, and ducts nearly filled the space around them, and it was difficult to move or to see clearly. Megan called out, "Here's the outer wall of the crypt."

Hickey called back, "Yes, and here's the wall of the staircase that continues down into the sacristy. Come along." Hickey turned on a flashlight and probed the area to his front as he moved, dragging one of the suitcases behind him.

They followed a parallel course to the descending staircase wall, hunching lower as they progressed. The dirt floor turned to Manhattan bedrock, and Hickey called out, "I see it up ahead." He crawled to a protruding mound from which rose the footing of a massive column. "Here it is. Come closer."

He played the light around the dark spaces. "See? Here's where they cut through the old foundation and footing to let the sacristy stairs pass through. If we dug down farther, we'd find the sacristy's subbasement. It's somewhat like the layout of a modern split-level home."

Megan was skeptical. "Damned confusing sort of place. The fire in the attic is much surer."

"Don't be getting cold feet, now, Megan. I'll not blow you UP."

"I'm only concerned with placing them properly."

"Of course." Hickey ran his hand over the column. "Now the story is that when they blasted the new stairs through the foundation in 1904 they weakened these flanking columns. In architectural terms, they're under stress. The old boy whose father worked on the blasting told me that the Irish laborers believed only God Almighty kept the whole place from collapsing when they set the dynamite. But God Almighty doesn't live here anymore, so when we plant this plastic and it blows, nothing will hold up the roof."

"And if it does hold up, will you be a believer then?"

"No. I'll think we didn't place the explosives properly." Hickey opened the suitcase and pulled out twenty white bricks wrapped in cellophane. He tore the cellophane from the white, putty-like substance and molded a brick into the

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place where the bedrock met the hewn and mortared stone of the column footing. Megan joined him, and they sculpted the bricks around the footing. He handed her the flashlight. "Hold this steady."

Hickey implanted four detonators, connected by wires to a battery pack, into the plastic. He picked up an alarm clock and looked at his watch.

"It's four minutes after six now. The clock doesn't know A.M. from P.m., so the most time I can give it is eleven hours and fifty-nine minutes."

He began turning the clock's alarm dial slowly counterclockwise, talking as he did. "So I'll set the alarm for five minutes after six-no, I mean three minutes after six." He laughed as he kept turning the dial. "I remember once, a lad in Galway who didn't understand that. At midnight he set the timer to go off at one minute after twelve, in what he thought would be the afternoon. British officer's club, I think it was. Yes, lunchtime, he thought. Anyway, at one minute past midnight . . . be was standing before his Maker, who must have wondered how he became so un-made." He laughed again as he joined the clock wire to the batteries.

"At least don't get us killed until we've set the one on the other side."

"Good point. Did I do that right? Well, I hope so." He pulled the clock switch, and the loud ticking filled the damp space. He looked at her. "And don't forget, my sharp little lass, only you and I know exactly where these are planted, which gives us some advantages and a bit of power with your friend, Mr. Flynn. Only you and I can decide if we want to give an extension of the deadline to meet our demands." He laughed as he pushed the clock into the ex plosives and molded the plastic around it. "But if the police have killed us before then, well, at three minutes after six which incidentally happens to be the exact time of sun rise-they'll get a message from us, directly from hell." He took some earth from the floor and pressed it into the white plastic. "There. That looks innocent, doesn't it? Give me a hand here." He spoke as he continued to camouflage the plastic explosives. "You're young. You don't want it to 164

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end so soon, I know, but you must have some sort of death wish to get mixed up in this. Nobody dropped you in through the roof. You people planned this for over a year. Wish I'd had a year to think about it. I'd be home now where I belong."

He picked up the flashlight and turned it onto her face. Her bright green eyes glowed back at him. "I hope you had a good look at this morning's sunrise, lass, because the chances are you'll not see another orie."

Patrick Burke moved carefully from under the portal of the bronze ceremonial doors and looked up at the north tower. The Cathedral's floodlights cast a blue-white brilliance over the recently cleaned stonework and onto the fluttering harp flag of green and gold, reminding Burke irreverently of a Disney World castle. Burke looked over the south tower. The louvers were torn open, and a man was looking down at him through a rifle scope. Burke turned his back on the sniper and saw a tall uniformed patrolman of the Tactical Patrol Unit hurrying toward him through the sleet.