Cathedral

by Nelson DeMille

  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 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 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 say—Jack, 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.

  * * *

  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 throughhis mind the way they always did when the call came—hostages—who? The Governor? 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 thi
s. 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.”

  CHAPTER 24

  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.

  Burke looked down into Madison Avenue. Streetlights illuminated the hundreds of police who, in the falling sleet, were clearing an area around the rectory. Police cars and limousines pulled up to the curb discharging police commanders and civilian officials. Lines were being brought in by the telephone company, and field phone wire was being strung by police to compensate for the lost radio communication. The machine was moving slowly, deliberately. Traffic was rolling; civilization, such as it was in New York, had survived another day.

  “Hello, Pat.”

  Burke spun around. “Langley. Jesus, it’s good to see someone who doesn’t have much more rank than I do.”

  Langley smiled. “You making the coffee and emptying the ashtrays?”

  “Have you been filled in?”

  “Briefly. What a fucking mess.” He looked around the Monsignor’s office. “It looks like Who’s Who in the East here. Has Commissioner Dwyer arrived yet?”

  “That’s not likely. He died of a heart attack.”

  “Christ. Nobody told me that. You mean that dipshit Rourke is in charge?”

  “As soon as he gets here.”

  “He’s right behind me. We put the chopper down in the courtyard of the Palace Hotel. Christ, you should have seen what it looked like from the air.”

  “Yeah. I think I would rather have seen it from the air.” Burke lit a cigarette. “Are we in trouble?”

  “We won’t be invited to the Medal Day ceremonies this June.”

  “For sure.” Burke tapped his ash on the windowsill. “But we’re still in the game.”

  “You, maybe. You got a horse shot out from under you. I didn’t have a horse shot out from under me. Any horses around?”

  “I have some information from Jack Ferguson we can use when we’re on the carpet.” He took Langley’s arm and drew him closer. “Finn MacCumail’s real name is Brian Flynn. He’s Maureen Malone’s ex-lover.”

  “Ah,” said Langley, “ex-lover. This is getting interesting.”

  Burke went on. “Flynn’s lieutenant is John Hickey.”

  “Hickey’s dead,” said Langley. “Died a few years ago…. There was a funeral … in Jersey.”

  “Some men find it more convenient to hold their funeral before their demise.”

  “Maybe Ferguson was wrong.”

  “He saw John Hickey in Saint Pat’s today. He doesn’t make mistakes.”

  “We’ll have the grave dug up.” Langley felt chilled and moved away from the window. “I’ll get a court order.”

  Burke shrugged. “You find a sober judge in Jersey tonight, and I’ll dig it up myself. Anyway, Hickey’s file is on the way, and Louise is checking out Brian Flynn.”

  Langley nodded. “Good work. The British can help us on Flynn.”

  “Right … Major Martin.”

  “Have you seen him?”

  Burke inclined his head toward the double doors.

  Langley said, “Who else is in there?”

  “Schroeder and some police commanders, federal types, and people from the British and Irish consulates.” As he spoke, Mayor Kline, Governor Doyle, and their aides went into the inner office.

  Langley watched them, then said, “Has Schroeder begun his dialogue yet?”

  “I don’t think so. I passed on MacCumail’s—Flynn’s—demands to him. He smiled and told me to wait outside. Here I am.”

  Deputy Police Commissioner Rourke hurried across the room and into the inner office, motioning to Langley to follow.

  Langley turned to Burke. “Listen for the sounds of heads rolling across the floor. You may be the next Chief of Intelligence—I have this vision of Patrick Burke captured for eternity in a bronze statue, on the steps of Saint Patrick’s, astride a horse with flaring nostrils, charging up—”

  “Fuck off.”

  Langley smiled and hurried off.

  Burke looked at the people milling about the room. The Speaker of the House of Representatives, past and present governors, senators, mayors, congressmen. It was a veritable Who’s Who in the East, but they looked, he thought, rather common and frightened at the moment. He noticed that all the decanters on the coffee table were empty, then fixed his attention on Monsignor Downes, still sitting behind his desk. Burke approached him. “Monsignor—”

  The Rector of St. Patrick’s Cathedral looked up.

  “Feeling better?”

  “Why didn’t the police know this was going to happen?”

  Burke resisted several replies, then said, “We should have known. It was all there if we had only.. ”

  Langley appeared at the double doors and motioned to Burke.

  Burke looked at the Rector. “Come with me.”

  “Why?”

  “It’s your church, and you have a right to know what’s going to happen to it. Your Cardinal and your priest are in there—”

  “Priests make people uncomfortable sometimes. They get in the way … unintentionally.”

  “Good. That may be what this group needs.”

  Monsignor Downes rose reluctantly and followed Burke into the inner office.

  In the big room about forty men and women stood or sat, their attention focused around the desk where Captain Bert Schroeder sat. Heads turned as Burke and Monsignor Downes came into the room.

  Mayor Kline rose from his chair and offered it to Downes, who flushed and sat quickly. The Mayor smiled at his own beneficence and good manners, then held his hands up for silence. He began speaking in his adenoidal voice that made everyone wince. “Are we all here? Okay, let’s begin.” He cleared his throat. “All right, now, we have all agreed that the City of New York is, under law, primarily responsible for any action taken in this matter.” He looked at his aide, Roberta Spiegel. She nodded, and he went on. “So, to avoid confusion, we will all speak to the perpetrators with one voice, through one man….” He paused and raised his voice as though introducing a speaker. “The NYPD Hostage Negotiator … Captain Bert Schroeder.”

  The effect of the Mayor’s delivery elicited some applause, which died away as it became apparent that it wasn’t appropriate. Roberta Spiegel shot the Mayor a look of disapproval, and he turned red. Captain Schroeder rose and half acknowledged the applause.

  Burke said softly to Langley, “I feel like a proctologist trapped in a room full of assholes.”

  Schroeder looked at the faces turned toward him and drew a deep breath. “Thank you, Your Honor.” His eyes darted around the room. “I am about to open negotiations with the man who calls himself Finn MacCumail, Chief of the Fenian Army. As you may know, my unit, since it was started by Captain Frank Bolz, has
concluded successfully every hostage situation that has gone down in this city, without the loss of a single hostage.” He saw people nodding, and the terror of what he was about to undertake suddenly evaporated as he pictured himself concluding another successful case. He put an aggressive tone in his voice. “And since there’s no reason to change tactics that have been so successful in criminal as well as political hostage situations, I will treat this as any other hostage situation. It will not be influenced by outside political considerations … but I do solicit your help and suggestions.” He looked into the crowd and read expressions ranging from open hostility to agreement.

  Burke said to Langley, “Not bad.”

  Langley replied, “He’s full of shit. That man is the most political animal I know.”

  Schroeder went on. “In order to facilitate my job I’d like this room cleared of everyone except the following.” He picked up a list written on Monsignor Downes’s stationary and read from it, then looked up. “It’s also been agreed that commanders of the field operations will headquarter themselves in the lower offices of the rectory. People connected with the negotiations who are not in this office with me will be in the Monsignor’s outer office. I’ve spoken to the Vicar General by phone, and he’s agreed that everyone else may use the Cardinal’s residence.”

  Schroeder glanced at Monsignor Downes, then went on. “Telephones are being installed in the residence and … refreshments will be served in His Eminence’s dining room. Voice speakers will be installed throughout both residences for paging and so that you may monitor my phone conversations with the perpetrators.”

  The room filled with noise as Schroeder sat down. The Mayor raised his hands for silence the way he had done so many times in the classroom. “All right. Let’s leave the Captain to do his job. Everyone, Governor, ladies and gentlemen— please clear the room. That’s right. Very good.” The Mayor went to the door and opened it.

  Schroeder mopped his brow and waited as the remaining people seated themselves. “All right. You know who I am. Everyone introduce themselves in turn.” He pointed to the sole woman present.