Cathedral (21 page)

"All God's children, Mr. Baxter."

"I wonder."

"Come now."

There was a long silence, broken by Maureen Malone's voice as she crossed the sanctuary. "Let me assure you, Cardinal, that each one of these people was spawned in hell. I know. Some of them may seem like rational men and women to you-jolly good Irishmen, sweet talk, lilting brogues, and all that. Perhaps a song or poem later. But they're quite capable of murdering us all and burning your church."

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The three men looked silently at her.

She pointed to the two clerics. "It may be that you don't understand real evil, only abstract evil, but you've got Satan in the sanctuary right now."

She moved her outstretched band and pointed to Brian Flynn, who was mounting the steps into the sanctuary.

Flynn looked at them and smiled. "Did someone mention my name?"

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Burke moved closer to the stairway opening, drew a deep breath, and called out, "This is the police! I want to speak with Finn MacCumail!" He heard his words echo up the marble stairway.

A voice with a heavy Irish accent called back, "Stand at the gate-hands on the bars! No tricks. I've got a Thompson."

Burke moved into view of the stairway and saw a young man, a boy really, kneeling on the landing in front of the crypt door. Burke mounted the steps slowly and put his hands on the brass gate.

Pedar Fitzgerald pointed the submachine gun down the stairs. "Stand fast!" he called back up the stairs. "Get Finn! There's a fellow here wants a word with him!"

Burke studied the young man for a moment, then shifted his attention to the layout. The stairs split to the left and right at the crypt door landing. Above the crypt door was the rear of the altar, from which rose a huge cross of gold silhouetted against the towering ceiling of the Cathedral. It didn't look to him as if anyone could get through the gates and up those stairs without being cut to pieces by overhead fire.

He heard footsteps on the left-hand stairs, and a tall figure emerged and stood outlined against the eerie yellow light coming from the glass-paneled crypt doors. The figure passed beside the kneeling man and moved deliberately down the dimly lit marble stairs. Burke could not clearly see his features, but saw now that the man was wearing a white collarless shirt and black pants, the remains of a 183

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priest's suit. Burke said evenly, "Finn MacCumaiI?" To an Irishman familiar with Gaelic history, as he was, it sounded as preposterous as calling someone Robin Hood.

"That's right." The tall man kept coming. "Chief of the Fenians."

Burke almost smiled at this pomposity, but something in the man's eyes held him riveted.

Flynn stopped close to the gates and stared at Burke. "And to whom do I have the pleasure of speaking?"

"Chief Inspector Burke, NYPD, Commissioner's office." He met the stare of the man's deep, dark eyes, then looked down at his right hand and saw the large bronze ring.

Brian Flynn said, "I know who you are . . . Lieutenant. I have an Intelligence section too. That's a bit galling, isn't it? Well," he smiled,

"if I can be Chief of the Fenians, you can be a Chief Inspector, I suppose."

Burke remembered with some chagrin the first rule of hostage negotiating-never get caught in a lie. He spoke in a slow, measured cadence. "I said that only to expedite matters."

"Admirable reason to lie."

The two men were only inches apart, but the gates had the effect of lessening the intrusion into their zones of protected territory. Still, Burke felt uncomfortable but kept his hands on the brass bars. "Are the hostages all right?"

"For the time being."

"~Let me speak with them."

Flynn shook his head.

"There were shots fired. Who's dead?"

"No one."

"What is it you want?" Burke asked, though it didn't matter what the Fenians wanted, he thought, since they were not going to get it.

Flynn ignored the question. "Are you armed?"

"Of course. But I won't go against that Thompson."

"Some people would. Like Sergeant Tezik."

"He's been taken care of." Burke wondered how Flynn 184

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knew Tezik was crazy. He imagined that kindred spirits could recognize each other by the tone of their voices.

Flynn looked over Burke's shoulder at the sacristy corridors.

Burke said, "I've pulled them back."

Flynn nodded.

Burke said, "If you'll tell me what you want, I will see that your demands are passed directly to the top." He knew he was operating off his beat, but he knew also that he had to stabilize the situation until the Hostage Negotiator, Bert Schroeder, took over.

Flynn tapped his fingers on the bars, his bronze ring clanging against the brass in a nervous and., at the same time, unnerving way. "Why can't I speak directly to someone of higher rank?"

Burke thought he heard a mocking tone in his voice. "They are all out of communication. If you turn off the jamming device-"

Flynn laughed, then said abruptly, "Has anyone been killed?"

Burke felt his hands getting sticky on the bars. "Maybe in the riot . . .

Police Commissioner Dwyer . . . died of a heart attack." He added, "You won't be implicated in that-if you surrender now. You've made your point."

"I haven't even begun to make my point. Were those people on the horse injured?"

"No. Your men saw the policewoman from the towers. The man was me."

Flynn laughed. "Was it, now?" He thought a moment. "Well, that makes a difference."

"Why?"

"Let's just say that it makes it less likely that you are working for a certain English gentleman of my acquaintance." Flynn considered, then said,

"Are you wearing a transmitter? Are there listening devices in the corridors?"

"I'm not wearing a wire. I don't know about the corridors."

Flynn took a pencil-shaped microphone detector from 185

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his pocket and passed it over Burke's body. "I think I can trust you, even if you are an intelligence officer specializing in hunting Irish patriots like myself."

"I do my job."

"Yes. Too well." He looked at Burke with some interest. "The universal bloodhound. Dogged, nosy, sniffing about. Always wanting to know things.

I've known the likes of you in London, Belfast, and Dublin." He stared at Burke, then reached into his pocket and pushed a piece of paper through the gate. "You're as good as anyone, I suppose. Here is a list of one hundred and thirty-seven men and women held by the British in internment camps in Northern Ireland and England. I want these people released by sunrise. That's 6:03 A.m.-New York time. I want them flown to Dublin and granted amnesty by the British and Irish governments plus asylum in the south if they want it. The transfer will be supervised by the International Red Cross and Amnesty International. When I receive word from these two organizations that this is accomplished, we will give you back your Cathedral and release the hostages. If this is not done by sunrise, I will throw Sir Harold Baxter from the bell tower, followed by, in random order, the Cardinal, Father Murphy, and Maureen Malone. Then I will burn the Cathedral. Do you believe me, Lieutenant Burke?"

"I believe you."

"Good. It's important that you know that each of my Fenians has at least one relative in internment. It's also important you know that nothing is sacred to us, not church or priests, not human life or humanity in general."

"I believe you will do what you say you will do."

"Good. And you'll deliver not only the message but also the essence and spirit of what I'm saying. Do you understand that?"

"I understand."

"Yes, I think you do. Now, for ourselves, our purpose is to be reunited with our kin, so we'll not trade their imprisonment for ours. We want immunity from prosecution. We

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will walk out of here, motor to Kennedy Airport by means of our own conveyances, and leave New York for various destinations. We have passports and money and want nothing from you or your government except a laissez-passer. Understood?"

"Yes."

Flynn leaned nearer the bars so that his face was very close to Burke's.

"I know what's going through your mind, Lieutenant Burke-can we talk them out, or do we have to blow them out? I know that your government-and the NYPD-has a shining history of never having given in to demands made at gunpoint. That history will be rewritten before sunrise. You see, we hold all the cards, as you sayJack, Queen, King, Ace, and Cathedral."

Burke said, "I was thinking of the British government-"

"That, for a change, is Washington's problem, not mine."

"So it is."

"From now on, communicate with me only through the telephone extension on the chancel organ. I don't want to see anyone moving down here."

Burke nodded.

"And you'd better get your command structure established before some of your cowboys try something."

Burke said, "I'll see that they don't."

Flynn nodded. "Stay close, Lieutenant, I'll be wanting you later." He turned and mounted the steps slowly, then disappeared around the corner of the right-hand staircase.

Burke stared up at the kneeling man with the Thompson, and the man jerked the barrel in a motion of dismissal. Burke took his hands off the brass gate and stepped down the stairs and out of the line of sight of the staircase. He wiped his sweaty palms across his topcoat and lit a cigarette as he walked to the corridor opening.

He was glad he wouldn't - have to deal again with the man named Brian Flynn, or with the personality of Finn MacCumail, and he felt sorry for Bert Schroeder, who did.

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Captain Bert Schroeder stood with his foot on the rim of the fountain in Grand Army Plaza, smoking a short, fat cigar. A light sleet fell on his broad shoulders and soaked into his expensive topcoat. Schroeder watched the crowd slowly trailing away through the lamplit streets around him.

Some semblance of order had been restored, but he doubted if he would be able to pick up his daughter and make it to his family party.

The unit he had been marching with, County Tyrone, his mother's ancestral county, had dispersed and drifted off, and he stood alone now, waiting, fairly certain of the instinct that told him he would be called. He looked at his watch, then made his way to a patrol car parked on Fifth Avenue and looked in the window. "Any news yet?"

The patrolman looked up. "No, sir. Radio's still out."

Bert Schroeder felt a sense of anger at the undignified way the parade had ended but wasn't sure yet toward whom to direct it.

The patrolman added, "I think the crowd is thin enough for me to drive you someplace if you want."

Schroeder considered, then said, "No." He tapped a paging device on his belt. "This thing should still be able to receive a signal. But hang around in case I want you."

Schroeder's pager sounded, and he felt his heart pound in a conditioned response. He threw down his cigar and shut off the device.

The driver in the patrol car called out, "Somebody grabbed somebody, Captain. You're on."

Schroeder started to speak and found that his mouth was dry. "Yeah, I'm on."

"Give you a lift?"

"What! No . . . I have to . . . to call He tried to steady the pounding in his chest. He turned and looked up at the brightly lit Plaza Hotel on the far side of the square, then ran toward it. As he ran, a dozen possible scenarios flashed through his mind the way they always did when the call came-hostages-who? The Governor?

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The Mayor? Congressmen? Embassy people? But he pushed these speculations aside, because no matter what he imagined when the beeper sounded or the phone rang or the radio called his name, it always turned out to be something very different. All he knew for certain was that very shortly he would be bargaining hard for someone's life, or many lives, and he would do it under the critical eyes of every politician and police official in the city.

He bounded up the steps of the Plaza, ran through the crowded lobby, then down a staircase to the line of wall phones outside Trader Vic's. A large crowd was massed around the phones, and Schroeder pushed through and grabbed a receiver from a man's hand. "Police business! Move back!"

He dialed a special operator number and gave her a number in Police Plaza. He waited a long time for a ring, and while he waited he lit another cigar and paced around to the extent of the phone cord.

He felt like an actor waiting for the curtain, apprehensive over his rehearsed lines, panicky that the ad libs would be disastrous. His heart was beating out of control now, and his mouth went dry as his palms became wet. He hated this. He wanted to be somewhere else. He loved it.

He felt alive.

The phone rang at the other end, and the duty sergeant answered.

Schroeder said calmly, "What's up, Dennis?"

Schroeder listened in silence for a full minute, then said in a barely audible voice, "I'll be at the rectory in ten minutes."

He hung up and, after steadying himself against the wall, pushed away from the phones and mounted the steps to the lobby, his body sagging, his face blank. Then his body straightened, his eyes came alive, and his breathing returned to normal. He walked confidently out the front doors and stepped into the police car that had followed him.

The driver said, "Bad, Captain?"

"They're all bad. Saint Pat's rectory on Madison. Step on it."

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Monsignor Downes's adjoining offices were filling rapidly with people. Burke stood by the window of the outer office sipping a cup of coffee. Mayor Kline and Governor Doyle came in looking very pale, followed by their aides. Burke recognized other faces as they appeared at the door, somewhat hesitantly, as though they were entering a funeral parlor. In fact, he thought, as people streamed in and exchanged subdued greetings the atmosphere became more wakelike, except that everyone still wore topcoats and green carnations-and there were no bereaved to pay condolences to, though he noticed that Monsignor Downes came close to filling that role.