Cathedral

by Nelson DeMille

  Harold Baxter grabbed Maureen and pulled her down beneath the clergy pews.

  Brian Flynn raised a rocket launcher and took aim from the pulpit.

  The rear door of the carrier dropped, and fifteen men of the 69th Regiment, led by Major Cole, scrambled over the door and began fanning out under the choir loft.

  Frank Gallagher was speaking to the Cardinal when the sound of the exploding doors rolled through the Cathedral. For a moment he thought the bombs beneath him had gone off, then he recognized the sound for what it was. His chest heaved, and his body shook so badly that his rifle fell from his hands. He lost control of his nerves as he heard the reports of rifle fire in the Cathedral behind him. He let out a high-pitched wail and ran down the sacristy steps, falling to his knees beside the Cardinal. He grabbed at the hem of the red robe, tears streaming from his eyes and snatches of prayer forming on his lips. “God … O God … Father … Eminence … dear God …”

  The Cardinal looked down at him. “It’s all right, now. There … there …”

  Colonel Logan rose quickly through the carrier hatch and rested his automatic rifle on the machine gun mount in front of him. He peered into the darkness as he scanned to his front, then saw a movement in the pulpit and zeroed in.

  The First Squad, including Bellini and Burke, had risen up in unison from behind the balustrade, rifles raised to their shoulders.

  Abby Boland saw the shadows appear along the ledge, black forms, eerie and spectral in the subdued light. She saw the tiny pinpoint flashes and heard the silencers cough like a roomful of old people clearing their throats. She screamed, “George!” Sullivan was intent on the transept doors opposite him but looked up when she screamed.

  The Third Squad had burst out of the attic and occupied Farrell’s triforium. They lined up along the parapet and searched the darkness for targets.

  Brian Flynn steadied the M-72 rocket as a burst of red tracers streaked out of the commander’s hatch of the carrier and cracked into the granite column behind him. He squeezed the detonator. The rocket roared out of the tube, sailed over the pews with a fiery red trail, and exploded on the sloping front of the armored carrier.

  The carrier belched smoke and flame through ruptured seams, and the driver was killed instantly. Logan shot up from the hatch, flames licking at his clothing, and nearly hit the overhang of the loft. His smoking body fell back toward the blazing carrier, spread-eagled like a sky diver, and disappeared in clouds of black smoke and orange flame.

  The First and Third ESD squads in the triforia were firing into the candlelit Cathedral, the operating mechanisms of their rifles slapping back and forth as the silencers wheezed, and spent brass piled up on the stone floors.

  Abby Boland stood rigid for a split second as the scream died in her throat. She got off a single shot, then felt something rip the rifle from her hands, and the butt rammed her face. She fell to the floor, picked up a rocket, and stood again.

  Sullivan fired a long automatic burst into Farrell’s triforium and heard a scream. He shifted his fire to the triforium where Gallagher had been, but a single bullet hit him squarely in the chest. He tumbled to the floor, landing on his bagpipes, which emitted a sad wail that pierced the noises in the Cathedral.

  Abby Boland saw him go down as she fired the rocket across the Cathedral.

  Bellini watched the trail of red fire illuminating the darkness. It came toward him with a noise that sounded like a rushing freight train. “Duck!”

  The rocket went high and exploded on the stonework above the triforium. The triforium shook, and the window above blew out of its stone mullions, sending thousands of pieces of colored glass raining down in sheets past the triforium to the sanctuary and pulpit below.

  Bellini’s squad rose quickly and poured automatic fire onto the source of the rocket.

  Abby Boland held a pistol extended in both hands and fired at the orange flashes as the stonework around her began to shatter. The loud pop of a grenade launcher rolled across the Cathedral, and the top of the balustrade in front of her exploded. Her arms flew up and splattered blood and pistol fragments across her face. She fell forward, half blinded, and her mangled hands clutched at the protruding staff of the Papal flag. In her disorientation she found herself hanging out over the floor below. A burst of fire tore into her arms, and she released her grip. Her body tumbled head over heels and crashed into the pews below with a sharp splintering sound.

  * * *

  Pedar Fitzgerald’s dead body took a half-dozen hits and lurched to and fro, then fell against the keyboard and produced a thundering dissonant chord that continued uninterrupted amid the shouting and gunfire.

  Flynn crouched in the pulpit, fired long bursts at Farrell’s triforium, then shifted his fire toward the vestibules where the men of the 69th Regiment had retreated from the burning carrier. Suddenly the carrier’s gasoline exploded. Flames shot up to the choir loft, and huge clouds of black smoke rose and curled around the loft. The National Guardsmen retreated back farther through the mangled doors onto the steps.

  Bellini leaned out of the triforium and sighted his rifle almost straight down and fired three shots in quick succession through the bronze pulpit canopy.

  Flynn’s body lurched, and he fell to his knees, then rolled over the pulpit floor. Bellini could see his body dangling across the spiral stairs. He took aim at the twitching form. Burke hit Bellini’s shoulder and deflected his shot. “No! Leave him.”

  Bellini glared at Burke for a second, then turned his attention to the choir loft. He saw a barely perceptible flash of light, the kind of muzzle fire that came from a combination silencer/flash suppressor and that could only be seen from head on. The light flashed again, but this time in a different place several yards away. Bellini sensed that whoever was in there was very good, and he had a very good perch, a vast sloping area completely darkened and obscured by rising smoke. Even as he watched he heard a scream from the end of the triforium, and one of his men fell back. He heard another moan coming from the opposite triforium. In a short time everyone was on the floor as bullets skimmed across the ledge of the balustrade a few feet above their heads. Burke sat with his back against the wall and lit a cigarette as the wood above him splintered. “That guy is good.”

  Bellini crouched across from him and nodded. “And he’s got the best seat in the house. This is going to be a bitch.” He looked at his watch. The whole thing, from the time Logan had hit the doors to this moment, had taken just under two minutes. But Logan was dead now, the National Guardsmen were nowhere to be seen, and he had lost some good people. The hostages might be dead, the people in the crawl space weren’t reporting, and someone in the choir loft was having a good day.

  Bellini picked up the field phone and called Fifth Squad in the corridor off the sacristy. “All the bastards are dead except one or two in the choir loft. You have to go for the Cardinal and the two hostages under the pews.”

  The squad leader answered, “How the hell do we rush that gate with the Cardinal hanging there?”

  “Very carefully. Move out!” He hung up and said to Burke, “The sniper in the choir loft isn’t going to be easy.”

  The ESD men from the Fifth Assault Squad moved out of the octagon rooms on both sides of the sacristy gate and slid quickly along the walls, converging on the Cardinal.

  The squad leader kept his back to the wall and peered carefully around the opening. His eyes met the Cardinal’s, and both men gave a start; then the squad leader saw a man kneeling at the Cardinal’s feet. Gallagher let out a surprised yell, and the squad leader did the same as he fired twice from the hip.

  Gallagher rocked back on his haunches and then fell forward. His smashed face struck the bars, and he rolled sideways, sliding down the Cardinal’s legs.

  The Cardinal stared down at Gallagher lying in a heap at his feet, blood rushing from his head over the steps. He looked at the squad leader, who was staring at Gallagher. The squad leader turned and looked up at the top landing, saw
no one, and gave a signal. ESD men with bolt cutters swarmed around the gates and severed the chain that tied them together. One of the men snapped the Cardinal’s handcuffs while another one opened the gate lock with a key. So far no one had spoken a word.

  The assault squad slid open the gates, and ten men ran up the stairs toward the crypt door.

  The Cardinal knelt beside Gallagher’s body, and a medic rushed out of a side corridor and took the Cardinal’s arm. “Are you okay?” The Cardinal nodded. The medic stared down at Gallagher’s face. “This guy don’t look so good, though. Come on, Your Eminence.” He tugged at the Cardinal’s arm as two uniformed policemen lifted the Cardinal, steering him toward the corridor that led back to his residence.

  One of the ESD men stood to the side of the crypt door and lobbed a gas canister down into the crypt. The canister popped, and two men wearing gas masks rushed in through the smoke. After a few seconds one of them yelled back, “No one here.”

  The squad leader took the field phone and reported, “Captain, sacristy gate and crypt secured. No ESD casualties, one Fenian KIA, Cardinal rescued.” He added impulsively, “Piece of cake.”

  Bellini replied, “Tell me that after you get up those stairs. There’s a motherfucker in the choir loft that can circumcise you with two shots and never touch your nuts.”

  The squad leader heard the phone click off. “Okay. Hostages under the pews— let’s move.” The squad split into two fire teams and began crawling up the opposite staircases toward the sanctuary.

  Maureen and Baxter stayed motionless beneath the clergy pews. Maureen listened to the sounds of striking bullets echoing through the Cathedral. She pressed her face close to Baxter’s and said, “Leary—maybe Megan—is still in the loft. I can’t tell who else is still firing.”

  Baxter held her arm tightly. “It doesn’t matter as long as Leary is still there.” He took her wrist and looked at her watch. “It’s 5:36. At 6:00 we run for it.”

  She smiled weakly. “Harry, John Hickey is a man who literally would not give you the right time of day. For all we know it’s 6:03 right now. Then again, my watch may be correct, but the bombs may be set for right now. Hickey does not play fair—not with us nor with Brian Flynn.”

  “Why am I so bloody naïve?”

  She pressed his arm. “That’s all right. People like Hickey, Flynn … me … we’re treacherous…. It’s as natural as breathing….”

  Baxter peered under the pews, then said, “Let’s run for it.”

  “Where? This whole end of the Cathedral will collapse. The doors are mined. Leary’s in the loft, and Gallagher is at the gate.”

  He thought a moment. “Gallagher owes you….”

  “I wouldn’t put myself at the mercy of any of them. We couldn’t reach those stairs anyway. I won’t be shot down by scum like Leary or Megan. I’m staying here.”

  “Then you’ll be blown up by John Hickey.”

  She buried her face in her hands, then looked up. “Over the back of the sanctuary, keeping the altar between us and the choir loft. Into the Lady Chapel—the windows are about fifteen feet from the floor. Climb the chapel altar—one of us boosts the other up. We won’t get that far, of course, but—”

  “But we’ll be heading in the right direction.”

  She nodded and began moving under the pews.

  The Fifth Assault Squad crouched on the two flights of steps behind the high altar. The squad leader peered around the south side of the altar and looked to his left at the bronze floor-plate. He turned to the right, put his face to the floor, and tried to locate the hostages under the clergy pews, but in the bad light and at the angle he was looking he saw no one. He raised his rifle and called softly, “Baxter? Malone?”

  They were both about to spring out toward the rear of the sanctuary but dropped to a prone position. Baxter called back, “Yes!”

  The squad leader said, “Steps are clear. Cardinal’s safe. Where is Father Murphy?”

  Maureen peered across the sanctuary floor to the stairwell thirty feet away. “Somewhere in the towers, I think.” She paused, then said, “Gallagher? The man who—”

  The squad leader cut her off. “The bomb under us hasn’t been found yet. You have to get out of there.”

  “What time is it?” Baxter asked.

  The squad leader looked at his digital watch. “It’s 5:46 and twenty seconds.”

  Maureen stared at the face of her watch. Ten minutes slow. “Bastard.” She reset it and called back. “Someone’s got to get the snipers in the loft before we can move.”

  The squad leader poked his head around the altar, looked up at the choir loft illuminated by candles and flares, and tried to peer into the blackness beyond. “He’s too far away for us to get him or for him to get you.”

  Baxter shouted with anger in his voice, “If that were so, we wouldn’t be here. That man is very good.”

  The squad leader said, “We’re sitting on a bomb, and so far as I’m concerned it could go off anytime.”

  Maureen called out to the squad leader, “Listen, two people planted the bombs, and they were down in the crawl space less than twenty minutes. They carried two suitcases.”

  The squad leader called back, “Okay—I’ll pass that on. But you have to understand, lady, that the Bomb Squad could blow it—you know? So you have to make a break.”

  Maureen called back, “We’ll wait.”

  “Well, we won’t.” The squad leader looked up at the triforium directly overhead where Bellini was, but saw no one at the openings. He called on the field phone. “Captain, Malone and Baxter are under the pews below you—alive.” He passed on the information about the bombs and added, “They won’t try to cross the sanctuary.” Bellini’s voice came over the line. “I don’t blame them. Okay, in thirty seconds everyone fires into the loft. Tell them to run for it then.”

  “Right.” He hung up and relayed the message to Maureen and Baxter.

  Maureen called back, “We’ll see—be careful—”

  The squad leader turned and shouted to his men on the opposite stairs. “Heavy fire into the loft!” The men moved up the steps and knelt on the floor, firing down the length of the Cathedral. The squad leader moved the remainder of his squad around the altar and opened fire as the two triforia began shooting. The sound of bullets crashing into stone and brass in the loft rolled back through the Cathedral. The squad leader shouted to Malone and Baxter. “Run!”

  Suddenly two rifles started firing rapidly from the choir loft with extreme accuracy. The ESD men on both sides of the altar began writhing on the cold sanctuary floor. Both teams pulled back to the staircases, dragging their wounded and leaving a trail of blood on the white marble.

  The squad leader swore loudly and peered around the altar. “Okay, okay, stay there!” He glanced quickly up at the choir loft and saw a muzzle flash. The marble in front of him disintegrated and hit him full in the face. He screamed, and someone grabbed his ankles, dragging him back down the stairs.

  Medics rushed up from the sacristy and began carrying away the wounded. The commo man cranked his field phone and reportd to Bellini in a shaky voice. “Hostages pinned down. This altar is the wrong end of a shooting gallery. We can’t help them.”

  The Fourth Assault Squad moved slowly through the dark crawl space, the squad leader scanning his front with an infrared scope. The two dogs and their handlers moved with him. Behind the advancing line of men moved Wendy Peterson and four men of the Bomb Squad.

  Every few yards the dogs strained at their leashes, and the Bomb Squad would uncover another small particle of plastic explosive without timers or detonators. The entire earth floor seemed to be seeded with plastic, and every colunm had a scrap of plastic stuck to it. A dog handler whispered to the impatient squad leader, “I can’t stop them from following these red herrings.”

  Wendy Peterson came up beside the squad leader and said, “My men will follow up on these dogs. Your squad and I have to move on—faster—to the other
side.”

  He stopped crawling, lay down an infrared scope, and turned his head toward her. “I’m moving like there were ten armed men in front of me, and that’s the only way I know how to move when I’m crawling in a black fucking hole … Lieutenant.”

  The Bomb Squad men hurried up from the rear. One of them called, “Lieutenant?”

  “Over here.”

  He came up beside her. “Okay, the mine on the corridor hatchway is disarmed, and we can get out of here real quick if we have to. The mine had a detcord running from it, and we followed it to the explosives around the main column on this side.” He paused and caught his breath. “We defused that big mother—about twenty kilos of plastic—colored and shaped to look like stone—simple clock mechanism— set to go at 6:03—no bullshit about that.” He held out a canvas bag and pressed it into Peterson’s hands. “The guts.”

  She hunched over and lit a red-filtered flashlight, emptying the contents of the bag on the floor. Alarm clock, battery pack, wires, and four detached electric detonators. She turned on the clock, and it ticked loudly in the still air. She shut it off again. “No tricks?”

  “No. We cut away all the plastic—no booby traps, no anti-intrusion devices. Very old techniques but very reliable, and top-grade plastic—smells and feels like that new C-5.”

  She picked off a clinging piece of plastic, kneading it between her thumb and forefinger, then smelled it.

  The squad leader watched her in the filtered light and was reminded of his mother making cookie dough, but it was all wrong. “Really good stuff, huh?”

  She switched off the light and said to the squad leader, “If the mechanism on the other one is the same, I’d need less than five minutes to defuse that bomb.”

  He said, “Good—now all you need is the other bomb. And I need about eight minutes to get the hell out of here and into the rectory basement. So at 5:55, no matter what’s coming down, I say adios.”

  “Fair enough. Let’s move.”

  He made no move but said, “I have to report the good news.” He picked up the field phone. “Captain, the north side of the crawl space is clear of bombs.”