Cathedral

by Nelson DeMille

  Father Murphy replied, “I wonder … don’t you think after this, the British … I mean …”

  Baxter said sharply, “No, I don’t.” He looked at his watch. “Thirty minutes and we go.”

  Maureen looked at him, then at Father Murphy. She said, “What Mr. Baxter means is that he, too, thinks they were probably considering a compromise after Hickey’s speech, but Mr. Baxter’s decided that he doesn’t want to be the cause of any compromise.”

  Baxter’s face reddened.

  Maureen continued. “It’s all right, you know. I feel the same way. I’m not going to be used by them like a slab of meat to be bartered for what they want.” She said in a quieter voice, “I’ve been used by them long enough.”

  Murphy looked at them. “Well … that’s fine for you two, but I can’t go unless my life is in actual danger. Neither can His Eminence.” He inclined his head toward the Cardinal, who sat looking at them from his throne. Murphy added, “I think we all ought to wait….”

  Maureen looked back at the Cardinal and saw by his face that he was struggling with the same question. She turned to Father Murphy. “Even if Hickey’s speech has moved the people out there toward a compromise, that doesn’t move Hickey toward a compromise—does it?” She leaned forward. “He’s a treacherous man. If you still believe he’s evil and means to destroy us, destroy himself, the Fenians, and this church, then we must try to get out of here.” She fixed her eyes on Murphy’s. “Do you believe that?”

  Murphy looked at the television screen. A segment of John Hickey’s speech was being replayed. The volume was turned low, and Hickey’s voice wasn’t audible over the organ. Murphy watched the mouth moving, the tears rolling down his face. He looked into the narrow eyes. Without the spellbinding voice the eyes gave him away.

  Father Murphy looked out over the sanctuary rail at Hickey playing the organ. Hickey’s head was turned toward them as he watched himself on television. He was smiling at his image, then turned and smiled, a grotesque smile, at Father Murphy. The priest turned quickly back to Maureen and nodded.

  Baxter looked up at the Cardinal’s throne; the Cardinal bowed his head in return. Baxter glanced at his watch. “We go in twenty-seven minutes.”

  Flynn rode the elevator to the choir practice room, then stepped out into the loft. He walked up behind Leary, who was leaning over the parapet watching the hostages through his scope. Flynn said, “Anything?”

  Leary continued to observe the four people on the sanctuary. At some point years ago he had realized that not only could he anticipate people’s movements and read their expression, but he could also read their lips. He said, “A few words. Not too clear. Hard to see their lips.” The hostages had reached a point in their relationships to each other where they communicated with fewer words, but their body language was becoming clearer to him.

  Flynn said, “Well, are they or aren’t they?”

  “Yes.”

  “How? When?”

  “Don’t know. Soon.”

  Flynn nodded. “Warning shots first, then go for the legs. Understand?”

  “Sure.”

  Flynn picked up the field phone on the parapet and called Mullins in the bell tower. “Donald, get away from the bells.”

  Mullins slung his rifle and pulled a pair of shooters’ baffles over his ears. He snatched up the field phone and quickly descended the ladder to the lower level.

  Flynn moved to a small keyboard beside the organ console and turned the switch to activate the nineteen keys that played the bells. He stood before the waist-high keyboard and turned the pages of bell music on the music desk, then put his hands over the big keys and joined with the chancel organ below.

  The biggest bell, the one named Patrick, chimed a thunderous B-flat, and the sound crashed through the bell tower, almost knocking Mullins off his feet.

  One by one the nineteen huge bells began tolling in their carillon, beginning at the first bell room where Mullins had been and running upward to a point near the top of the spire twenty-one stories above the street.

  In the attic a coffee cup fell off a catwalk rail. Arthur Nulty and Jean Kearney covered their ears and moved to the Madison Avenue end of the Cathedral. In the choir loft and triforia the bells resonated through the stonework and reverberated in the floors. In the south tower Rory Devane listened to the steady chiming coming from the opposite tower. He watched as the activity on the rooftops slowed and the movement in the streets came to a halt. In the cold winter air the slow rhythmical sounds of “Danny Boy” pealed through the dark canyons of Manhattan.

  The crowds around the police barricades began cheering, raising bottles and glasses, then singing. More people began moving outdoors into the avenues and side streets.

  Television coverage shifted abruptly from the press room of the Cathedral to the roofs of Rockefeller Center.

  In bars and homes all over New York, and all over the country, pictures of the Cathedral as seen from Rockefeller Center flashed across the screens, bathed in stark blue lighting. A camera zoomed in on the green and gold harp flag that Mullins had draped from the torn louvers.

  The sound of the bells was magnified by television audio equipment and transmitted with the picture from one end of the continent to the other. Satellite relays picked up the signal and beamed it over the world.

  Rory Devane slipped a flare into a Very pistol, pointed it up through the louvers, and fired. The projectile arched upward, burst into green light, then floated on a parachute, swinging like a pendulum in the breeze, casting an unearthly green radiance across the buildings and through the streets. Devane went to the eastward-facing louvers and fired again.

  Remote cameras located in the streets, bars, and restaurants began sending pictures of men and women singing, cheering, crying. A kaleidoscope of images flashed across video screens—bars, street crowds, the green-lit sky, close-ups of tight-lipped police, the bell tower, long shots of the Cathedral.

  The flares suddenly changed from the illumination type to signal flares, star bursts, red, white, blue, then the green, orange, and white of the Irish tricolor. The crowd reacted appropriately. All the while the rich, lilting melody of “Danny Boy” filled the air from the bell tower and filled the airwaves from televisions and portable radios.

  “O Danny Boy, the pipes, the pipes are calling

  From glen to glen, and down the mountain side,

  The summer’s gone, and all the roses falling,

  ’Tis you, ’tis you, must go and I must bide….”

  Finally, on each station, reporters after an uncommonly long period of silence began adding commentary to the scenes, which needed none.

  In the sanctuary the hostages watched the television in fascinated silence. Hickey played the organ with intense concentration, leading Flynn on the bells. Both men glanced at each other from time to time across the hundred yards that separated them.

  Hickey swung into “Danny Boy” for the third time, not wanting to break the spell that the bittersweet song had laid over the collective psyche of the Cathedral and the city. He laughed as tears rolled down his furrowed cheeks.

  * * *

  In the Cardinal’s residence and in the rectory the only sound was the pealing of the bells rolling across the courtyard and resonating from a dozen television sets into rooms filled with people.

  Burke stood in the Monsignor’s inner office, where the original Desperate Dozen had reassembled along with some additional members whom Burke had labeled the Anguished Auxiliaries.

  Schroeder stood to the side with Langley and Roberta Spiegel, who, Burke noticed, was becoming Langley’s constant companion.

  Langley stared at the screen and said, “If they’d had television on V-J day, this is what it would have looked like.”

  Burke smiled in spite of himself. “Good timing. Good theater … fireworks … really hokey, but Christ, it gets them every time.”

  Spiegel added, “And talk about your psychological disadvantages.”

&
nbsp; Major Martin stood in the rear of the room between Kruger and Hogan. He kept his head and eyes straight ahead and said in an undertone, “We’ve always underestimated the willingness of the Irish to make public spectacles of themselves. Why don’t they suffer in silence like civilized people?”

  The two agents looked at each other behind Martin’s back but said nothing.

  Martin glanced to either side. He knew he was in trouble. He spoke with a light tone in his voice. “Well, I suppose I’ve got to undo this—or perhaps in their typical Irish

  fashion they’ll undo themselves if—Oh, sorry, Hogan….”

  Douglas Hogan moved away from Martin.

  Monsignor Downes found his diary buried under Schroeder’s paperwork and drew it toward him, opening it to March 17.

  He wrote, 10:35 P.M. The bells tolled tonight, as they’ve tolled in the past to mark the celebration of the holy days, the ends of wars, and the deaths of presidents. He paused, then added, They tolled for perhaps the last time. And people, I think, sensed this, and they listened and they sang. In the morning, God willing, the carillon will ring out a glorious Te Deum—or if it is God’s will, they will ring no more. Monsignor Downes put aside his pen and closed the diary.

  Donald Mullins swung his rifle butt and smashed a hole in the thick, opaque glass of the lower section of the tower. He knocked out a dozen observation holes, the noise of the breaking glass inaudible through his shooters’ baffles and the chiming of the bells. Mullins slung his rifle and took a deep breath, then approached a broken window in the east side of the tower room and stared out into the cold night.

  He saw that Devane was alternating star bursts with parachute flares, and the clearing night sky was lit with colors under a bright blue moon. The anxiety and despair he had felt all evening suddenly vanished in the clarity of the night, and he felt confident about meeting his death here.

  CHAPTER 46

  Harold Baxter didn’t consult his watch. He knew it was time. In fact, he thought, they should have gone sooner, before the bells and the fireworks, before Hickey’s speech, before the Fenians had transformed themselves from terrorists to freedom fighters.

  He took a long last look around the Cathedral, then glanced at the television screen. A view from the tallest building of Rockefeller Center showed the cross-shape of the blue-lit Cathedral. In the upper left corner sat the rectory; in the right corner, the Cardinal’s residence. Within five minutes he would be sitting in either place, taking tea and telling his story. He hoped Maureen, the priest, and the Cardinal would be with him. But even if one or all of them were killed, it would be a victory because that would be the end of the Fenians.

  Baxter rose from the pew and stretched nonchalantly. His legs were shaking and his heart was pounding.

  Father Murphy rose and walked across the sanctuary. He exchanged quiet words with the Cardinal, then moved casually behind the altar and looked down the staircase.

  Pedar Fitzgerald sat with his back to the crypt door, the Thompson pointed down the stairs toward the sacristy gate. He was singing to himself.

  Father Murphy raised his voice over the organ. “Mr. Fitzgerald.”

  Fitzgerald looked up quickly. “What is it, Father?”

  Murphy felt a dryness in his throat. He looked across the stairwell for Baxter but didn’t see him. He said, “I’m … I’m hearing confessions now. Someone will relieve you if you want to—”

  “I’ve nothing to confess. Please leave.”

  Baxter steadied his legs, took a deep breath and moved. He covered the distance to the right side of the altar in three long strides and bounded down the steps in two leaps, unheard over the noise of the organ. Maureen was directly behind him.

  Father Murphy saw them suddenly appear on the opposite stairs and made the sign of the cross over Fitzgerald.

  Fitzgerald sensed the danger and spun around. He stared at Baxter flying toward him and raised his submachine gun.

  Father Murphy heard a shot ring out from the choir loft and dived down the stairs; he looked over his shoulder for the Cardinal but knew he wasn’t coming.

  Leary got off a single shot, but his targets were gone in less time than it took him to steady his aim from the recoil. Only the Cardinal was left, sitting immobile on his throne, a splash of scarlet against the white marble and green carnations. Leary saw Hickey climb across the organ and drop to the sanctuary beside the Cardinal’s throne. The Cardinal stood, placing himself in Hickey’s path. Hickey’s arm shot out and knocked the Cardinal to the floor. Leary placed the cross hairs over the Cardinal’s supine body.

  Flynn continued the song on the bells, not wanting to alert the people outside that something was wrong. He watched the sanctuary in the mirror. He called out, “That will be all, Mr. Leary.”

  Leary lowered his rifle.

  Baxter flew down the stairs, and his foot shot out, hitting Fitzgerald full in the face. Fitzgerald staggered back, and Father Murphy grabbed his arm from behind. Baxter seized the submachine gun and pulled violently. Fitzgerald wrenched the gun back.

  The sound of the chancel organ had died away, but the bells played on, and for a second they were the only sound in the Cathedral until the air was split by a burst of fire from the submachine gun. The muzzle flashed in Baxter’s face, and he was momentarily blinded. Pieces of plaster fell from the vaulted ceiling above, crashing over the sacristy stairs.

  Father Murphy yanked back on Fitzgerald’s arm but couldn’t break Fitzgerald’s grip on the gun. Maureen ducked around Baxter and jabbed her fingers into Fitzgerald’s eyes. Fitzgerald screamed, and Baxter found himself holding the heavy submachine gun. He brought the butt up in a vertical stroke but missed Fitzgerald’s groin and solar plexus, hitting him a glancing blow across the chest.

  Baxter swore, raised the butt again, and drove it horizontally into the young man’s throat. Father Murphy released Fitzgerald, and he fell to the floor. Baxter stood over the fallen man and raised the gun butt over Fitzgerald’s face.

  Maureen shouted, “No!” She grabbed Baxter’s arm.

  Fitzgerald looked up at them, tears and blood running from his unfocused eyes. Blood gushed from his open mouth.

  Brian Flynn watched Hickey and Megan moving across the sanctuary. Leary stood beside him, fingering his rifle and murmuring to himself. Flynn turned his attention back to the bells.

  The four people in the triforia had barely taken in what had happened in the last fifteen seconds. They stared down into the altar sanctuary and saw the Cardinal lying sprawled on the floor and Hickey and Megan approaching the two stairwells cautiously.

  Maureen held the Thompson, steadied herself, and pulled back on the trigger. A deafening burst of automatic fire flamed out of the muzzle and slammed into the padlock and chain.

  Murphy and Baxter crouched as bullets ricocheted back, cracking into the marble stairs and walls. Baxter heard footsteps on the sanctuary floor. “They’re coming.”

  Maureen fired a long second burst at the gate, then swung the gun up at the right-hand staircase, placed Hickey in her sight, and fired.

  Hickey’s body seemed to twitch, then he dropped back out of view.

  Maureen swung the gun around to the left and pointed it at Megan, who had stopped short on the first step, a pistol in her hand. Maureen hesitated, and Megan dived to the side and disappeared.

  Baxter and Murphy ran down the stairs and tore at the shattered chain and padlock. Hot, jagged metal cut into their hands, but the chain began dropping away in pieces, and the padlock fell to the floor.

  Maureen backed down the stairs, keeping the muzzle of the gun pointed up at the crypt door.

  Police officers in the side corridors were shouting into the empty sacristy.

  Baxter yelled to them. “Hold your fire! We’re coming out! Hold it!” He tore the last section of chain away and kicked violently at the gates. “Open! Open!”

  Father Murphy was pulling frantically on the left-hand gate, shouting, “No! They roll—!”

/>   Baxter lunged at the right gate and tried to slide it along its track into the wall, but both gates held fast.

  Flak-jacketed police began edging out into the sacristy.

  Maureen knelt on the bottom stair, keeping the gun trained on the landing above. She shouted, “What’s wrong?”

  Baxter answered, “Stuck! Stuck!”

  Murphy suddenly released the gate and straightened up. He grabbed at a black metal box with a large keyhole located where the gates joined and shook it. “They’ve locked it! The keys—they have the keys—”

  Maureen looked back at them over her shoulder. She saw that the gate had its own lock, and she hadn’t hit it even once. Baxter shouted a warning, and she spun around. She saw Hickey standing in front of the crypt door, his legs straddling Pedar Fitzgerald’s body. Maureen raised the gun.

  Hickey called down. “You can shoot me if you’d like, but that won’t get you out of here.”

  Maureen screamed at him, “Don’t move! Hands up!”

  Hickey raised his hands slowly. “There’s really no way out, you know.”

  She shouted, “Throw me the gate key!”

  He made an exaggerated shrug. “I think Brian has it.” He added, “Try shooting the lock out. Or would you rather use the last few rounds on me?”

  She swore at him, spun around, and faced the gates. She shouted to Baxter and Murphy. “Move back!” She saw the police in the sacristy. “Get away!”

  The police scattered back into the corridors. She pointed the muzzle at the boxlike lock that joined the gates and fired a short burst at point-blank range. The bullets ripped into the lock, scattering sparks and pieces of hot metal.

  Baxter and Murphy yelled out in pain as they were hit. A piece of metal grazed Maureen’s leg, and she cried out. She fired again, one round, and the rotating drum of.45-caliber bullets clicked empty. Murphy and Baxter seized the bars of the gates and pulled. The gates held fast.