“Joe?”
“Yeah … well, the architect was worth the wait—”
“Good. Very good. What time are you jumping off?”
Jumping off. His heart gave another leap, and he felt like there was ice water in his stomach. “About 5:35—give or take.”
“Can’t you move it up?”
Bellini’s voice had an insolent tone. “No!”
“I told you there are people trying to stop this rescue—”
“I don’t get involved in politics.”
Roberta Spiegel’s voice came on the line. “Okay, forget the fucking politicians. The bombs, Bellini—”
“Call me Joe.”
“You’re leaving the Bomb Squad damned little time to find and defuse the goddamned bombs, Captain.”
“Inspector!”
“Listen, you—” “You listen, Spiegel—why don’t you crawl around with the fucking dogs and help them sniff out the bombs? Brandy, Sally, and Robbie.” He turned to Burke and Langley and smiled, a look of triumph on his face.
Langley winced.
Bellini continued before she could recover, knowing there was no reason to stop now. “They’re short on dogs since your last fucking budget cuts, and they could use the help. You have your big nose into everything else.”
There was a long silence on the line, then Spiegel laughed. “All right, you bastard, you can say what you want now, but later—”
“Yeah, later. I’d give my left arm for a guaranteed later. We move at 5:35. That’s not negotiable—”
“Is Inspector Langley there?”
“Hold on.” He covered the mouthpiece. “You want to talk to the Dragon Lady?” Langley’s face flushed, and he hesitated before taking the phone from Bellini, who moved back to the conference table. “Langley here.”
Spiegel said, “Do you know where Schroeder is? His backup negotiator can’t locate him.”
Langley said, “He’s collapsed.”
“Collapsed?”
“Yeah, you know, like fell down, passed out.”
“Oh … well, get him inflated again and get him here to the state offices in Rockefeller Center. He has to do his hero act later.”
“I thought he was supposed to be the fall guy.”
She said, “No, you’re a little behind on this…. We’ve rethought that. He’s the hero now no matter what happens. He’s got lots of good press contacts.”
“Who’s the fall guy?”
She went on, “You see, there are no such things as victory or defeat anymore— there are only public relations problems—”
“Who’s the fall guy?”
Spiegel said, “That’s you. You won’t be alone, though … and you’ll come out of it all right. I’ll see to that.”
Langley didn’t answer.
She said, “Listen, Philip, I think you should be here during the assault.”
Langley’s eyebrows went up at the use of his first name. He noted that her voice was pleasant, almost demure. “Rescue, You have to call it a rescue, Roberta.” He winked at Burke.
Spiegel’s voice was a little sharper. “Whatever. We—I want you up here.”
“I think I’ll stay down here.”
“You get your ass up here in five minutes.”
He glanced at Burke. “All right.” He hung up and stared down at the phone. “This has been a screwy night.”
“Full moon,” said Burke. There was a lengthy silence, then Langley said, “Are you going in with Bellini?”
Burke lit a cigarette. “I think I should … to tidy up those loose ends … get hold of any notes the Fenians might have kept. There are secrets in that place … mysteries, as the Major said. And before Bellini starts blowing heads off … or the place goes up in smoke …”
Langley said, “Do what you have to do….” He forced a smile. “Do you want to change places with me and go hold Spiegel’s hand?”
“No thanks.”
Langley glanced nervously at his watch. “Okay … listen, tell Bellini to keep Schroeder locked in that room. At dawn we’ll come for Schroeder and parade him past the cameras like an Olympic hero. Schroeder’s in, Langley’s out.”
Burke nodded, then said, “That mounted cop … Betty Foster … God, it seems so long ago…. Anyway, make sure she gets something out of this … and if I don’t get a chance to thank her later … you can …”
“I’ll take care of it.” He shook his head. “Screwy night.” He moved toward the door, then turned back. “Here’s another one for you to work out when you get in there. We lifted the fingerprints off the glass that Hickey used.” He nodded toward the chair Hickey had sat in. “The prints were smudged, but Albany and the FBI say it’s ninety percent certain it was Hickey, and we’ve got a few visual identifications from people who saw him on TV—”
Burke nodded. “That clears that up—”
“Not quite. The Jersey City medical examiner did a dental check on the remains they exhumed and …” He looked at Burke. “Spooky … really spooky …”
Burke said quickly, “Come off it, Langley.”
Langley laughed. “Just kidding. The coffin was filled with dirt, and there was a note in there in Hickey’s handwriting. I’ll tell you what it said later.” He smiled and opened the door. “Betty Foster, right? See you later, Patrick.” He closed the door behind him.
Burke looked across the room. More than a dozen ESD leaders, completely clad in black, grouped in a semicircle around the table. Above them a wall clock ticked off the minutes. As he watched they all straightened up, almost in unison, like a football team out of a huddle, and began filing out the door. Bellini stayed behind, occupied with some detail. Burke stared at his black, hulking figure in the brightly lit room and was reminded of a dark rain cloud in a sunny sky.
Burke walked over to the conference table and pulled on a black turtleneck sweater, then slipped back into his flak jacket. He adjusted the green carnation he’d gotten from an ESD man who had passed out a basketful of them. Burke looked down at the blueprints and read the notations of squad assignments hastily scrawled across them. He said to Bellini, “Where’s the safest place I can be during the attack?”
Bellini thought a moment, then said, “Los Angeles.”
CHAPTER 57
Brian Flynn stood in the high pulpit, a full story above the main floor. He looked out at the Cathedral spread before him, then spoke into the microphone. “Lights.”
The lights began to go out in sections: the sanctuary, ambulatory, and Lady Chapel lights first, the switches pulled by Hickey; then the lights in the four triforia controlled by Sullivan, followed by the choir-loft lights, and finally the huge hanging chandeliers over the nave, extinguished from the electrical panels in the loft. The vestibules, side altars, and bookstore darkened last as Hickey moved through the Cathedral pulling the remaining switches.
A few small lights still burned, Flynn noticed. Lights whose switches were probably located outside the Cathedral. Hickey and the others smashed the ones that were accessible, the sound of breaking glass filling the quiet spaces.
Flynn nodded. The beginning of the attack would be signaled when the last lights suddenly went out, a result of the police pulling the main switch in the rectory basement. The police would expect a dark Cathedral where their infrared scopes would give them an overwhelming advantage. But Flynn had no intention of letting them have such an advantage, so every votive candle, hundreds and hundreds of them, had been lit, and they shimmered in the surrounding blackness, an offering of sorts, he reflected, an ancient comfort against the terrors of the dark and a source of light the police could not extinguish. Also, at intervals throughout the Cathedral, large phosphorus flares were placed to provide additional illumination and to cause the police infrared scopes to white out. Captain Joe Bellini, Flynn thought, had a surprise in store for him.
Flynn placed his hands on the cool Carrara marble of the pulpit balustrade and blinked to adjust his eyes to the dim light as he examined the
vast interior. Flickering shadows played off the walls and columns, but the ceiling was obscure. It was easy to imagine there was no roof, that the towering columns had been relieved of their burden and that overhead was only the night sky—an illusion that would be reality on the following evening.
The long black galleries of the triforia above, dark and impenetrable in the best of light, were nearly invisible now, and the only sense he had of anything being up there was the sound of rifles scraping against stone.
The choir loft was a vast expanse of blackness, totally shrouded from the murky light below as if a curtain had been drawn across the rail; but Flynn could feel the two dark presences up there more strongly than when he had seen them, as though they basked in blackness and flourished in the dark.
Flynn drew a long breath through his nostrils. The burning phosphorus exuded an overpowering, pungent smell that seemed to alter the very nature of the Cathedral. Gone was that strange musky odor, that mixture of stale incense, tallow, and something else that was indefinable, which he had labeled the Roman Catholic smell, the smell that never changed from church to church and that evoked mixed memories of childhood. Gone, finally gone, he thought. Driven out. And he was inordinately pleased with this, as though he’d won a theological argument with a bishop.
He lowered his eyes and looked over the flares and the dozens of racks of votive candles. The light seemed less comforting now, the candles burning in their red or blue glass like brimstone around the altars, and the brilliant white phosphorus like the leaping flames of hell. And the saints on their altars, he noticed, were moving, gyrating in obscene little dances, the beatific expressions on their white faces suddenly revealing a lewdness that he had always suspected was there.
But the most remarkable metamorphosis was in the windows, which seemed to hang in black space, making them appear twice their actual size, rising to dizzying heights so that if you looked up at them you actually experienced some vertigo. And above the soaring choir loft, atop the thousands of unseen brass pipes of the organ, sat the round rose window, which had become a dark blue swirling vortex that would suck you out of this netherworld of shadows and spirits—which was only, after all, the anteroom of hell—suck you, finally and irretrievably, into hell itself.
Flynn adjusted the microphone and spoke. He doubted his voice would break the spell of death, as she had said, and in any case he had the opposite purpose. “Ladies and gentlemen … brothers and sisters …” He looked at his watch. 5:14. “The time, as you know, has come. Stay alert … it won’t be much longer now.” He drew a short breath, which carried out through the speakers. “It’s been my great honor to have been your leader…. I want to assure you we’ll meet again, if not in Dublin, then in a place of light, the land beyond the Western Sea, whatever name it goes by … because whatever God controls our ultimate destiny cannot deny our earthly bond to one another, our dedication to our people….” He felt his voice wavering. “Don’t be afraid.” He turned off the microphone.
All eyes went from him to the doors. Rockets and rifles were at the ready, and gas masks hung loosely over chests where hearts beat wildly.
John Hickey stood below the pulpit and threw a rocket tube, rifle, and gas mask to Flynn. Hickey called out in a voice with no trace of fear, “Brian, I’m afraid this is goodbye, lad. It’s been a pleasure, and I’m sure we’ll meet again in a place of incredible light, not to mention heat.” He laughed and moved off into the half-shadows of the sanctuary.
Flynn slung the rifle across his chest, then broke the seal on the rocket and extended the tube, aiming it at the center vestibule.
His eyes became misty, from the phosphorus, he thought, and they went out of focus, the clear plastic aiming sight of the rocket acting as a prism in the dim candlelight. Colors leaped all around the deathly still spaces before him like fireworks seen at a great distance, or like those phantom battles fought in his worst silent nightmares. And there was no sound here either but the steady ticking of his watch near his ear, the rushing of blood in his head, and the faraway pounding of his chest.
He tried to conjure up faces, people he had known from the past, parents, relatives, friends, and enemies, but no images seemed to last more than a second. Instead, an unexpected scene flashed into his consciousness and stayed there: Whitehorn Abbey’s subbasement, Father Donnelly talking expansively, Maureen pouring tea, himself examining the ring. They were all speaking, but he could not hear the voices, and the movements were slow, as if they had all the time in the world. He recognized the imagery, understood that this scene represented the last time he was even moderately happy and at peace.
John Hickey stood before the Cardinal’s throne and bowed. “Your Eminence, I have an overwhelming desire,” he said matter-of-factly, “to slit your shriveled white throat from ear to ear, then step back and watch your blood run onto your scarlet robe and over that obscene thing hanging around your neck.”
The Cardinal suddenly reached out and touched Hickey’s cheek.
Hickey drew back quickly and made a noise that sounded like a startled yelp. He recovered and jumped back onto the step, pulled the Cardinal down from his throne, and pushed him roughly toward the sacristy stairs.
They descended the steps, and Hickey paused at the landing where Gallagher knelt just inside the doors of the crypt. “Here’s company for you, Frank.” Hickey prodded the Cardinal down the remaining stairs, pushing him against the gates so that he faced into the sacristy. He extended the Cardinal’s right arm and handcuffed his wrist to the bars.
Hickey said, “Here’s a new logo for your church, Your Eminence. Been a good while since they’ve come up with a new one.” He spoke as he cuffed the other extended arm go a bar. “We’ve had Christ on the cross, Saint Peter crucified upside down, Andrew crucified on an X cross, and now we’ve got you hanging on the sacristy gates of Saint Patrick’s. Lord, that’s a natural. Sell a million icons.”
The Cardinal turned his head toward Hickey. “The Church has survived ten thousand like you,” he said impassively, “and will survive you, and grow stronger precisely because there are people like you among us.”
“Is that a fact?” Hickey balled his hand into a fist but was aware that Gallagher had come up behind him. He turned and led Gallagher by the arm back to the open crypt doors. “Stay here. Don’t speak to him and don’t listen to him.”
Gallagher stared down the steps. The Cardinal’s outstretched arms and red robes covered half the grillwork. Gallagher felt a constriction in his stomach; he looked back at Hickey but was not able to hold his stare. Gallagher turned away and nodded.
Hickey took the staircase that brought him up to the right of the altar and approached Maureen and Baxter. They rose as he drew near.
Hickey indicated two gas masks that lay on the length of the pew that separated the two people. “Put those on at the first sign of gas. If there’s one thing I can’t stand, it’s the sight of a woman vomiting—reminds me of my first trip to Dublin— drunken whores ducking into alleys and getting sick. Never forgot that.”
Maureen and Baxter stayed silent. Hickey went on, “It may interest you to know that the plan of this attack was sold to us at a low price, and the plan doesn’t provide much for your rescue or the saving of this Cathedral.”
Baxter said, “As long as it provides for your death, it’s a fine plan.”
Hickey turned to Baxter. “You’re a vindictive bastard. I’ll bet you’d like to bash in another young Irishman’s throat, now you’ve got the hang of it and the taste for it.”
“You’re the most evil, twisted man I’ve ever met.” Baxter’s voice was barely under control.
Hickey winked at him. “Now you’re talking.” He turned his attention to Maureen. “Don’t let Megan or Leary shoot you, lass. Take cover between these pews and lie still in the dark. Very still. Here’s your watch back, my love. Look at it as the bullets are whistling over your head. Keep checking it as you stare up at the ceiling. Sometime between 6:03 and 6:04
you’ll hear a noise, and the floor will bounce ever so slightly beneath your lovely rump, and the columns will start to tremble. Out of the darkness, way up there, you will see great sections of ceiling falling toward you, end over end, as in slow motion, right onto your pretty face. And remember, lass, your last thoughts while you’re being crushed to death should be of Brian—or Harry … any man will do, I suppose.” He laughed as he turned away and walked toward the bronze plate on the floor. He bent over and lifted the plate.
Maureen called after him: “My last thought will be that God should have mercy on all our souls … and that your soul, John Hickey, should finally rest in peace.”
Hickey threw her a kiss, then dropped down the ladder, drawing the bronze plate closed over him.
Maureen sat back on the pew. Baxter stood a moment, then moved toward her. She looked up at him and put out her hand. Baxter took it and sat close beside her so that their bodies touched. He looked around at the flickering shadows. “I tried to picture how this would end … but this …”
“Nothing is ever as you expect it to be…. I never expected you to be …”
Baxter held her more tightly. “I’m frightened.”
“Me too.” She thought a moment, then smiled. “But we made it, you know. We never gave them an inch.”
He smiled in return. “No, we never did, did we?”
* * *
Flynn peered into the darkness to his right and stared at the empty throne, then looked out through the carved wooden screen to where the chancel organ keyboard stood on its platform beside the sanctuary. A candle was lit on the organ console, and for a moment he thought John Hickey was sitting at the keys. He blinked, and an involuntary noise rose in his throat. Pedar Fitzgerald sat at the organ, his hands poised over the keys, his body upright but tilted slightly back. His face was raised toward the ceiling as if he were about to burst into song. Flynn could make out the tracheal tube still protruding from his mouth, the white dead skin, and the open eyes that looked alive as the flame of the candle danced in them. “Hickey,” he said softly to himself, “Hickey, you unspeakable, filthy, obscene …” He glanced up into the choir loft but could not see Megan, and he concentrated again on the front doors.