Cathedral (36 page)

The light beams were actually passing over her intermittently, and she froze when they did. They didn't seem to be able to pick out her blackened features in the darkness. She noticed that the stone wall turned again, then ended. Brick wall ran from the stone at right angles, and she suspected the brick wall was not a stress-bearing foundation but a partition behind which the foundation had disappeared. She rose to a kneeling position, reached for the top of the wall, and discovered a small space near the concrete ceiling. She pressed her face to the space but saw no light, heard no noise, and felt no air. Yet she was certain she was close to finding a way out.

A voice called out. Gallagher's. "Maureen, please don't make us shoot you.

I know you spared my life-come on, then, be a good woman and let's all go back."

305

NELSON DE MILLE

Again she knew they wouldn't shoot, if not because of the explosives then for fear of a ricochet among all this stone. She was suddenly angry at their small lies. What kind of idiot did they think she was? Hickey might be an old soldier, but Maureen knew more about war than Megan or Gallagher would live to learn. She wanted to scream an obscenity at them for their patronizing attitude. Shemoved along the wall and felt it curve farther inward. She judged from the configuration of the horseshoe-shaped ambulatory that she was now below the bride's room or confessional. Suddenly her hand came into contact with dry wood. Her heart gave a small leap. She faced the wall and knelt in front of it. Her hands explored the wood, set flush into the brick. She felt a rusty latch and pulled on it. A pair of hinges squeaked sharply in the still air. The flashlight beams came toward her.

Hickey called to her. "You're leading us a merry chase, young lady. I hope you don't give your suitors as much trouble."

Maureen said under her breath, "Go to hell, you old bag of bones." She pulled slowly on the door. Cracks of light appeared around the edges, showing it to be about three feet square. She closed the door quickly, found a broken shard of brick, and threw it farther along the wall.

The light beams swung toward the noise. She pulled the door open a few inches and pushed her face to the small aperture. She blinked her eyes several times and focused on a fluorescent-lit hallway.

The hallway floor was about four feet below her-a beautiful floor, she thought, of white polished vinyl. The walls of the corridor were painted plasterboard; the ceiling a few feet above her head was white acoustical tile. A beautiful hallway, really. Tears ran down her face.

She swung the door fully open and rubbed her eyes, then pushed her bair away from her face. Something was wrong. . . . She put her hand out, and her fingers passed through a wire grill. A rat screen covered the opening.

306

Burke walked into the Monsignor's inner office and looked at Langley, the sole person present, staring out the window. Burke said, "Everybody quit?"

Langley turned,

Burke said, "Where's Schroeder?"

"Relieving himself . . . or throwing up, or something. Did you hear what happened-?"

"I was briefed. Damned fools in there are going to blow it. Everyone's all right?"

"Cardinal said so. Also, you missed two good showdowns-Schroeder versus Spiegel and Schroeder versus Bellini. Poor Bert. He's usually the fair-haired boy, too." Langley paused. "I think he's losing it."

Burke nodded. "Do you think it's him, or is it us . . . or is it that Flynn is that good?"

Langley shrugged. "All of the above."

Burke went to the sideboard and noticed there was very little left in the decanters. He said, "Why did God let the Irish invent whiskey, Langley?"

Langley knew the drill. "To keep them from ruling the world."

Burke laughed. "Right." His voice became contemplative. "I'll bet no Fenian has had a drink in forty-eight hours. Do you know a woman named Terri O'Neal?"

Langley concentrated on the name, then said, "No. I don't make it at all." He immediately regretted the common cop jargon and said, "I can't identify the name. Call the office."

307

NELSON DE MILLE

"I called from downstairs. Negative. But they're rechecking. How about Dan Morgan?"

"No. Irish?"

"Probably Northern Irish. Louise is going to call back."

"Who are these people?"

"That's what I asked you." He poured the remainder of the brandy and thought a moment. "Terri O'Neal . . . I think I have a face and a voice, but I just can't remember . . . ...

Langley said, "Flynn's asked for a television in there. In fact, you're supposed to deliver it to him." Langley looked at Burke out of the corner of his eye. "You two get along real well."

Burke considered the statement for a few seconds. In spite of the circumstances of their meeting, he admitted that Flynn was the type of man he could have liked-if Flynn were a cop, or if he, Burke, were IRA.

Langley said, "Call Flynn now."

Burke went to the phone. "Flynn can wait." He made certain the speakers in the other rooms were not on, then turned on the voice box on the desk so that Langley could monitor. He dialed the Midtown North Precinct. "Gonza-lez? Lieutenant Burke here. Do you have my man?" There was a long silence during which Burke found he was holding his breath.

"He's a prick," said Gonzalez. "Keeps screaming about police-state tactics and all that crap. Says he's going to sue us for false arrest. I thought you said he needed protection."

"Is he still there?"

"Yeah. He wants a ride to the Port Authority Terminal. I can't hold him a minute longer. If I get hit with a false arrest rap, I'm dragging you in with rne-"

"Put him on."

"My pleasure. Wait."

Burke turned to Langley while he waited. "Ferguson. He's onto something.

Terri O'Neal-Dan Morgan. Now he wants to run."

308

CATHEDRAL

Langley moved beside Burke. "Well, offer him some money to stick around."

"You haven't paid him for today yet. Anyway, there's not enough money around to keep him from running."

Burke spoke into the telephone. "Jack-"

Ferguson's voice came into the room, high-pitched and agitated. "What the hell are you doing to me, Pat? Is this the way you treat a friend? For God's sake, man-"

"Cut it. Listen, put me on to the people you spoke to about O'Neal and Morgan."

"Not a chance. My sources are confidential. I don't treat friends the way you do. The intelligence establishment in this country-"

"Save it for your May Day speech. Listen, Martin has double-crossed all of us. He was the force behind the Fenians. This whole thing is a ploy to make the Irish look bad-to turn American public opinion against the Irish struggle."

Ferguson didn't speak for a while, then said, "I figured that out."

Burke pressed on. "Look, I don't know how much information Martin fed you, or how much information about the police and the Fenians you had to give him in return, but I'm telling you now he's at the stage where he's covering his tracks. Understand?"

"I understand that I'm on three hit-lists-the Fenians', the Provos',-and Martin's. That's why I'm leaving town."

"You have to stick. Who is Terri O'Neal? Why was she kidnapped by a man named Morgan? Whose show was it? Where is she being held?"

"That's your problem."

"We're working on it, Jack, but you're closer to it. And we don't have much time. If you told us your sources-"

'NO.

Burke went on. "Also, while you're at it, see if you can get a line on Gordon Stillway, the resident architect of Saint Pat's. He's missing, too."

"Lot of that going around. I'm missing, too. Good-bye."

309

NELSON DE MILLE

"No! Stick with it."

"Why? Why should I risk my life any further?"

"For the same reasons you risked it all along-peace."

Ferguson sighed but said nothing.

Langley whispered, "Off er him a thousand dollars-no, make it fifteen hundred. We'll hold a benefit dance."

Burke said into the phone, "We'd like to exonerate all the Irish who had nothing to do with this, including your Officials and even the Provos.

We'll work with you after this mess is over and see that the government and the press don't crucify all of you." Burke paused, then said, "You and I as Irishmen'~--he remembered Flynn's attempt to claim kinship----"you and I want to be able to hold our heads up after this."

Burke glanced at Langley, who nodded appreciatively. Burke turned away.

Ferguson said, "Hold on." There was a long silence, then Ferguson spoke.

"How can I reach you later?"

Burke let out a breath. "Try to call the rectory. The lines should be clear later. Give the password leprechaun. . . . They'll put you through."

"Leper is more like it, Burke. Make it leper. All right. If I can't get through on the phone, I won't come to the rectory-the cordon is being watched by all sorts of people. If you don't hear from me, let's have a standing rendezvous. Let's say the zoo at one."

Burke said, "Closer to the Cathedral."

"All right. But no bars or public places." He thought. "Okay, that small park on Fifty-first-it's not far from YOU."

"It's closed after dark."

"Climb the gate!"

Burke smiled. "Someday I'm going to get a key for every park in this town."

Ferguson said, "Join the Parks Department. They'll issue one with your broom."

"Luck." Burke spoke to Gonzalez. "Let him go." He hung up and took a deep breath.

Langley said, "Do you think this O'Neal thing is important enough to risk his life?"

310

CATHEDRAL

Burke drained off the glass of brandy and grimaced. "How do people drink this stuff?"

G,Pat?"

Burke walked to the window and looke& out.

Langley said, "I'm not making any moral judgments. I only want to know If it's worth getting Jack Ferguson killed."

Burke spoke as if to himself. "A kidnapping is a subtle sort of thing, more complicated than a hit, more sinister in many ways-like hostage taking." He considered. "Hostage taking-that's a form of kidnapping.

Terri O'Neal is a hostage. . . ."

"Whose hostage?"

Burke turned and faced Langley. "I don't know."

"Who has to do what for whom to secure her release? No one has made any demands yet."

"Strange," agreed Burke.

"Really," said Langley.

Burke looked at Schroeder's empty chair. Schroeder's presence, in spite of everything, had been reassuring. He said half-jokingly, "Are you sure he's coming back?"

Langley shrugged. "His backup man is in another room with a phone, waiting like an understudy for the break of a lifetime . . . . .. Langley said, "Call Flynn."

"Later." He sat in Schroedees chair, leaned back, and looked at the lofty ceiling. A long crack ran from wall to wall, replastered but not yet painted. He had a mental image of the Cathedral in ruins, then pictured the Statue of Liberty lying on its side half submerged in the harbor. He thought of the Roman Coliseum, the ruined Acropolis, the flooded temples of the Nile. He said, "You know, the Cathedral itself is not that important. Neither are the lives of any of us. What's important is how we act, what people say and write about us afterward."

Langley looked at him appraisingly. Burke sometimes surprised him. "Yes, that's true, but you won't tell that to anybody today."

"Or tomorrow, if we're pulling bodies out of the rubble."

311

NELSON DE MILLE

John Hickey's voice came to Maureen from not very far off. "So, what have we here? What light through yonder window breaks, Maureen?" He laughed, then said sharply, "Move back from there or we'll shoot you."

Maureen cocked her elbow and drove it into the rat screen. The wire bent, but the edges stayed fixed to the wall. She pressed her face to the grill. To her left the hallway ended about ten feet away. On the opposite wall toward the end of the--passage were gray sliding doorselevator doors-the elevator that opened near the bride's room above. She drove her elbow into the grill again, and one side of the frame ripped loose from the plasterboard.

it

"Yes, yes . . . please . . .

She could hear them behind her, scurrying over the rubble-strewn ground like the rats they were, faster, coming at the light source. Then John Hickey came out of the dark. "Hands on your head, darlin'."

She turned and stared at him, holding back the tears forming in her eyes.

Hickey said, "Look at you. Your pretty knees are all scratched. And what's that dirt all over your face, Maureen? Camouflage? You'll be needing a good wash."

He ran his flashlight over her. "And your smart tweeds are turned inside out. Clever girl. Clever. And what is that around your neck?" He grabbed the nylon garrote and twisted it. "My, what a naughty girl you are." He gave the garrote another twist and held it until she began to choke.

"Once again, Maureen, you've shown me a small chink in our armor. What would we do without you?" He loosened the tension on the nylon and knocked her to the ground. His eyes narrowed into malignant slits. "I think I'll shoot you through the head and throw you into the corridor.

That'll help the police make the decision they're wrestling with." He seemed to consider, then said, "But, on the other hand, I'd like you to be around for the finale." He smiled a black, gaping smile. "I want you to see Flynn die or for him to see you die."

312

CATHEDRAL

In a clear flash of understanding she knew the essence of this old man's evil. "Kill me."

He shook his head. "No. I like you. I like what you're becoming. You should have killed Gallagher, though. You would have been firmly planted in the ranks of the damned if you had. You're only borderline now." He cackled.

Maureen lay on the damp earth. She felt a hand grab her long hair and pull her back across the floor into the darkness. Megan Fitzgerald knelt over her and put a pistol to her heart. "Your charmed life has come to an end, bitch."

Hickey called out, "None of that, Megan!"

Megan Fitzgerald shouted back. "You'll not stop me this time." She cocked the pistol.