Burke looked up. “Negotiator?” He laughed. “Poor Bert. This was going to be his perfect game…. He really wanted this one.” He lit a cigarette stub. “So”—he exhaled a stream of acrid smoke—“we attack—”
“No! We rescue! You have to call it a rescue operation now. You have to choose your words very carefully, because it’s getting very grim and none of them is saying what they mean anymore—they never did anyway—and they lie better than we do. Go on, they’re waiting for you.”
Burke made no move to leave. “And Martin told them I would produce Stillway!”
“Yes, complete with blueprints. That was news to me—how about you?”
“And he never mentioned Terri O’Neal?”
“No—should he?” Langley looked at his watch. “Does it matter anymore?” Burke stared out the window into Madison Avenue. “Martin killed Jack Ferguson, you know.”
Langley came up behind him. “No. The Fenians killed Jack Ferguson.”
Burke turned. “Lots of phony deals going down tonight.”
Langley shook his head. “Damned right. And Kline is passing out promotions like they were campaign buttons. Go get one. But you have to pay.”
Langley began pacing again. “You have to sign a statement saying you think everything Kline and Doyle do is terrific. Okay? Make them give you a captain’s pay. I’m going to be a chief inspector. And get out of ID. Ask for the Art Forgery Squad—Paris, London, Rome. Promise me you’ll visit Schroeder in Dubuque—”
“Get hold of yourself.”
Langley waved his arms. “Remember, Martin is in, Schroeder is out. Logan is in with Kline and Doyle but out with Bellini—are you following me? Watch out for Spiegel. She’s in rare form—what a magnificent bitch. The Fenians are lunatics, we’re sane…. Monsignor Downes blesses us all…. What else?” He looked around with wild darting eyes. “Is there a shower in this place? I feel slimy. You still here? Beat it!” Langley fell back on the bed. “Go away.”
Burke had never seen Langley become unglued, and it was frightening. He started to say something, then thought better of it and left.
* * *
Burke walked beside Roberta Spiegel up the stairs. He listened to her brisk voice as they moved. Martin was climbing silently behind him.
Burke opened the stairshed door and walked onto the flat rooftop of the rectory. A wind blew from the north, and frozen pools of water reflected the lights of the tall buildings around them. Spiegel dismissed a team of ESD snipers, turned up her coat collar, and moved to the west side of the roof. She put her hands on the low wrought-iron fence that ran around the roof’s perimeter and stared at the towering Cathedral rising across the narrow courtyard.
The streets below were deserted, but in the distance, beyond the barricades, horns blared, people sang and shouted, bagpipes and other instruments played intermittently. Burke realized it was after 4:00 A.M., and the bars had closed. The party was on the streets now, probably still a hundred thousand strong, maybe more, tenaciously clinging to the night that had turned magic for them.
Spiegel was speaking, and Burke tried to concentrate on her words; but he had no topcoat, and he was cold, and her words were blowing away in the strong wind. She concluded, “We’ve gotten our act together, Lieutenant, but before it comes apart, we’re going to move. And we don’t want any more surprises. Understand?”
Burke said, “Art Forgery Squad.”
Spiegel looked at him, momentarily puzzled, then said, “Oh … all right. Either that or shower orderly at the academy gym.” She turned her back to the wind and lit a cigarette.
Burke said, “Where’s Schroeder?”
Spiegel replied, “He understands we don’t want him out of our sight and talking to the press, so rather than suffer the indignity of a guard, he volunteered to stick with Bellini.”
Burke felt a vague uneasiness pass through him. He said, “And I’m the negotiator?”
Spiegel said, “In fact, yes. But for the sake of appearances, Schroeder is still on the job. He’s not without his political connections. He’ll continue his duties, with some modifications, of course, and later … he’ll go on camera.”
Martin spoke for the first time. “Captain Schroeder should actually go back to the sacristy and speak with Flynn again. We have to keep up appearances at this critical moment. Neither Flynn nor the press should sense any problem.”
Burke cupped his hands and lit a cigarette, looking at Martin as he did. Martin’s strategy was becoming clear. He thought about Schroeder hanging around Bellini, about Schroeder meeting Flynn again at the gate. He thought, also, that Flynn did not have fifty well-armed people, and therefore Schroeder was mistaken, stupid, or gullible, which seemed to be the consensus. But he knew Schroeder was none of these things When you have excluded the impossible, said Sherlock Holmes, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth. Schroeder was lying, and Burke was beginning to understand why. He pictured the face of a young woman, heard her voice again, and placed her at a promotion party five or six years before. Almost hesitantly he made the final connection he should have made hours ago. Burke said to Spiegel, “And Bellini’s working on a new plan of attack?”
Spiegel looked at him in the diffused light and said, “Right now Bellini and Logan are formulating plan B—escalating the response, as they say—based on the outside possibility that there is a powerful force in that Cathedral. They won’t go in any other way. But we’re counting on you to give us the intelligence we need to formulate a plan C, an infiltration of the Cathedral and surprise attack, using the hidden passages that many of us seem to believe exist. That may enable us to actually save some lives and save Saint Patrick’s.”
She looked out at the looming structure. Even from the outside it looked labyrinthine with its towers, spires, buttresses, and intricate stonework. She turned to Burke. “So, do you feel, Lieutenant Burke, that you’ve put your neck on a chopping block?”
“There’s no reason why my neck shouldn’t be where yours is.”
“True,” she said. “True. And yours is actually a little more exposed, since I understand you’re going in with Bellini.”
“That’s right. How about you?”
She smiled unpleasantly, then said, “You don’t have to go…. But it wouldn’t be a bad idea … if you don’t produce Stillway.”
Burke glanced at Martin, who nodded slightly, and said, “I’ll have him within … half an hour.”
No one spoke, then Martin said, “If I may make another suggestion … let’s not make too much of this architect business in front of Captain Schroeder. He’s overwrought and may inadvertently let something slip the next time he speaks with Flynn.”
There was a long silence on the rooftop, broken by the sounds of shoes shuffling against the frozen gravel and the wind rushing through the streets. Burke looked at Spiegel and guessed that she sensed Bert Schroeder had a real problem, was a real problem.
Spiegel put her hands in the pockets of her long coat and walked a few paces from Burke and Martin. For a few brief seconds she wondered why she was so committed to this, and it came to her that in those seven miserable years of teaching history what she had really wanted to do was make history; and she would.
Captain Joe Bellini rubbed his eyes and looked at the clock in the press conference room. 4:26A.M.The fucking sun is due at 6:03. In his half-sleep he had pictured a wall of brilliant sunlight moving toward him, coming to rescue him as it had done so many times in Korea. God, he thought, how I hate the sound of rifles in the night.
He looked around the room. Men slept on cots or on the floor, using flak jackets for pillows. Others were awake, smoking, talking in low tones. Occasionally someone laughed at something that, Bellini guessed, was not funny. Fear had a special stink of its own, and he smelled it strongly now, a mixture of sweat, tobacco, gun oil, and the breath from labored lungs and sticky mouths.
The blackboard was covered with colored chalk marks superimposed on a white outline of S
t. Patrick’s. On the long conference table lay copies of the revised attack plan. Bert Schroeder sat at the far end of the table, flipping casually through a copy.
The phone rang, and Bellini grabbed it. “ESD operations, Bellini.”
The Mayor’s distinctive nasal voice came over the line. “How are you holding up, Joe? Anxious to get rolling?”
“Can’t wait.”
“Good…. Listen, I’ve just seen your new attack plan…. It’s a little excessive, isn’t it?”
“It was mostly Colonel Logan’s, sir,” Bellini said.
“Oh … well, see that you tone it down.”
Bellini picked up a full soft-drink can in his big hand and squeezed it, watching the top pop off and the brown liquid run over his fingers. “Approved or disapproved?”
The Mayor let a long time go by, and Bellini knew he was conferring, looking at his watch. Kline came back on the line. “The Governor and I approve … in principle.”
“I thank you in principle.”
Kline switched to another subject. “Is he still there?”
Bellini glanced at Schroeder. “Like dog turd on a jogger’s sneakers.”
Kline forced a weak laugh. “Okay, I’m in the state offices in Rockefeller Center with the Governor and our staffs—”
“Good view.”
“Now, don’t be sarcastic. Listen, I’ve just spoken to the President of the United States.”
Bellini detected a note of self-importance in Kline’s tone.
“The President says he’s making definite progress with the British Prime Minister. He’s also making noises like he might federalize the guard and send in marshals… .” Kline lowered his voice in a conspiratorial tone. “Between you and me, Joe, I think he’s putting out a smokescreen … covering himself for later.”
Bellini lit a cigarette. “Who isn’t?”
Kline’s voice was urgent. “He’s under pressure. The church bells in Washington are already ringing, and there are thousands of people marching with candles in front of the White House. The British Embassy is being picketed—”
Bellini watched Schroeder stand and then walk toward the door. He said into the phone, “Hold on.” Bellini called to Schroeder, “Where you headed, Chief?”
Schroeder looked back at him. “Sacristy.” He walked out the door.
Bellini watched him go, then said into the phone, “Schroeder just went to make a final pitch to Flynn. Okay?”
Kline let out a long breath. “All right … can’t hurt. By the time he gets back you’ll be ready to move—unless he has something very solid, which he won’t.”
Bellini remembered that Schroeder had never had a failure. “You never know.”
There was a long silence on the line, then the Mayor said, “Do you believe in miracles?”
“Never actually saw one.” He thought, Except the time you got reelected. “Nope, never saw one.”
“Me neither.”
Bellini heard a click on the line, followed by a dial tone. He looked across the quiet room. “Get up! Off your asses! Battle stations. Move out!”
Bert Schroeder stood opposite Brian Flynn at the sacristy gate. Schroeder’s voice was low and halting as he spoke, and he kept looking back nervously into the sacristy. “The plan is a fairly simple and classical attack…. Colonel Logan drew it up…. Logan himself will hit the front doors with an armored carrier, and the ESD will hit all the other doors simultaneously with rams…. They’ll use scaling ladders and break through the windows…. It’s all done under cover of gas and darkness … everyone has masks and night scopes. The electricity will be cut off at the moment the doors are hit….”
Flynn felt the blood race through his veins as he listened. “Gas …”
Schroeder nodded. “The same stuff you used at the reviewing stands. It will be pumped in through the air ducts.” He detailed the coordination of helicopters, snipers on the roofs, firemen, and bomb disposal men. He added, “The sacristy steps”—he looked down as though realizing he was standing in the very spot— “they’ll be hit with steel-cut chain saws. Bellini and I will be with that squad…. We’ll go for the hostages … if they’re on the sanctuary …” He shook his head, trying to comprehend the fact that he was saying this.
“The hostages,” said Flynn, “will be dead.” He paused and said, “Where will Burke be?”
Schroeder shook his head, tried to go on, but heard his voice faltering. After some hesitation he slipped a sheaf of papers from his jacket and through the bars.
Flynn slid them under his shirt, his eyes darting between the corridor openings. “So there’s nothing that the famous Captain Schroeder can do to stop this?”
Schroeder looked down. “There never was…. Why didn’t you see that … ?”
Flynn’s voice was hostile. “Because I listened to you all night, Schroeder, and I think I half believed your damned lies!”
Schroeder was determined to salvage something of himself from the defeat and humiliation he had felt at the last confrontation. “Don’t put this on me. You knew I was lying. You knew it!”
Flynn glared at him, then nodded slightly. “Yes, I knew it.” He thought a moment, then said, “And I know you’re finally speaking the truth. It must be a great strain. Well, I can stop them at the doors … if, as you say, they haven’t discovered any hidden passages and they don’t have the architect—” He looked suddenly at Schroeder. “They don’t have him, do they?”
Schroeder shook his head. He drew himself up and spoke rapidly. “Give it up. I’ll get you a police escort to the airport. I know I can do that. That’s all they really want—they want you out of here!”
Flynn seemed to consider for a brief moment, then shook his head.
Schroeder pressed on. “Flynn—listen, they’re going to hit you hard. You’re going to die. Can’t you grasp that? You can’t delude yourself any longer. But all you have to do is say you’re willing to take less—”
“If I wanted less, I would have asked for less. No more hostage negotiating, please. God, how you go on. Talk about self-delusion.”
Schroeder drew close to the gate. “All right, I’ve done all I could. Now you release—”
Flynn cut him off. “If the details you’ve given me are accurate, I’ll send a signal to release your daughter.”
Schroeder grabbed at the bars. “What kind of signal? When? The phones will be cut off…. The towers will be under sniper fire—What if you’re … dead? Damn it, I’ve given you the plans—”
Flynn went on. “But if you’ve lied to me about any part of this, or if there should be a change in plans and you don’t tell me—”
Schroeder was shaking his head spasmodically. “No. No. That’s not acceptable. You’re not living up to your end.”
Flynn turned and walked up the stairs.
Schroeder drew his pistol and held it close against his chest. It wavered in his hand, the muzzle pointing toward Flynn’s back, but his hand shook so badly he almost dropped the gun. Flynn turned the corner and disappeared.
After a full minute Schroeder holstered the pistol, faced around, and walked back to the side corridor. He passed grim-faced men standing against the walls with slung rifles. He found a lavatory, entered it, and vomited.
CHAPTER 53
Burke stood alone in the small counting room close by the press room. He adjusted his flak jacket over his pullover and, after putting a green carnation in a cartridge loop, started for the door.
The door suddenly swung open, and Major Martin stood before him. “Hello, Burke. Is that what everyone in New York is wearing now?” He called back into the corridor, and two patrolmen appeared with a civilian between them. Martin smiled. “May I present Gordon Stillway, American Institute of Architects? Mr. Stillway, this is Patrick Burke, world-famous secret policeman.”
A tall, erect, elderly man stepped into the room, looking confused but otherwise dignified. In his left hand he held a briefcase from which protruded four tubes of rolled paper.
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Burke dismissed the two officers and turned to Martin. “It’s late.”
“Is it?” Martin looked at his watch. “You have fifteen full minutes to head off Bellini. Time, as you know, is relative. If you’re eating Galway Bay oysters, fifteen minutes pass rather quickly, but if you’re hanging by your left testicle, it drags a bit.” He laughed at his own joke. “Bellini is hanging by his testicle. You’ll cut him down—then hang him up there again after he’s spoken to Mr. Stillway.”
Martin moved farther into the small room and drew closer to Burke. “Mr. Stillway was kidnapped from his apartment by persons unknown and held in an empty loft not far from here. Acting on anonymous information, I went to the detectives in the Seventh Precinct and, voilà, Gordon Stillway. Mr. Stillway, won’t you have a seat?”
Gordon Stillway remained standing and looked from one man to the other, then said, “This is a terrible tragedy … but I’m not quite certain what I’m supposed to— ”
Martin said, “You, sir, will give the police the information they must have to infiltrate the Cathedral and catch the villains unawares.”
Stillway looked at him. “What are you talking about? Do you mean they’re going to attack? I won’t have that.”
Martin put his hand on Stillway’s shoulder. “I’m afraid you’ve arrived a bit late, sir. That’s not negotiable any longer. Either you help the police, or they go in there through the doors and windows and cause a great deal of death and destruction, after which the terrorists will burn it down and blow it up—or vice versa.”
Stillway’s eyes widened, and he let Martin maneuver him into a chair. Martin said to Burke, “You’d better hurry.”
Burke came toward Martin. “Why did you cut it this close?”
Martin took a step back and replied, “I’m sorry. I had to wait for Captain Schroeder to deliver the attack plans to Flynn, which is what he’s doing right now.”
Burke nodded. Bellini’s attack had to be canceled no matter what else happened. A new plan based on Stillway’s information, if he had any, would jump off so close to 6:03 that it would probably end in disaster anyway. But Martin had delivered Stillway and therefore would be owed a great favor by Washington. He looked at Martin. “Major, I’d like to be the first to thank you for your help in this affair.”