Cathedral

by Nelson DeMille

  I stall and tarry,

  While you want to save Harry,

  But nevertheless fuck you aaa-lll.”

  Wendy Peterson put the stiletto back in its sheath and let out a long breath. “Let’s go.”

  The procession began making its way back toward the open hatch to the corridor, moving with an affected casualness that disguised the fact that they were retreating at top speed. No one looked back except Wendy Peterson, who glanced over her shoulder once or twice. Suddenly she began running in a crouch, past the moving line of men, toward the open hatch.

  John Hickey squeezed out of the tight space and sat down against the column footing, the mass of plastic explosive conforming to his back. “Oh … well …” He filled his pipe, lit it, and looked at his watch. 5:56. “My, it’s late….” He hummed a few bars of “An Irish Lullaby,” then sang softly to himself, “… too-ra-loo-ra-loo-ra, hush now don’t you cry….”

  The Sixth Squad leader climbed the iron rungs of the south spire alone, a nylon line attached to his belt. He moved quietly through the cold dark night to a point five feet below Rory Devane, who still clung to the arms of the cross. The ESD man drew his pistol. “Hey! Jesus! Don’t move, or I’ll blow your ass off.”

  Devane opened his eyes and looked down behind him.

  The squad leader raised his pistol. “You armed?”

  Devane shook his head.

  The squad leader got a clear look at Devane’s bloodied face in the city lights. “You’re really fucked up—you know that?”

  Devane nodded.

  “Come on down. Nice and easy.”

  Devane shook his head. “I can’t.”

  “Can’t? You got up there, you bastard. Now get down. I’m not hanging here all fucking day waiting for you.”

  “I can’t move.”

  The squad leader thought that about half the world was watching him on television, and he put a concerned expression on his face, then smiled at Devane good-naturedly. “You asshole. For two cents I’d jam this gun between your legs and blow your balls into orbit.” He glanced at the towering buildings of Rockefeller Center and flashed a resolute look for the telescopic cameras and field glasses. He took a step upward. “Listen, sonny boy, I’m coming up with a line, and if you pull any shit, I swear to God, motherfucker, you’re going to be treading air.”

  Devane stared down at the black-clad figure approaching. “You people talk funny.”

  The squad leader laughed and climbed up over the curve of the finial and wrapped his arms around the base of the cross. “You’re okay, kid. You’re an asshole, but you’re okay. Don’t move.” He circled around to the side and pulled himself up until his head was level with Devane’s shoulder, then reached out and looped a line around Devane’s torso. “You the guy who fired the flares?”

  Devane nodded.

  “Real performer, aren’t you, Junior? What else do you do? You juggle?” He tied the end of the long line to the top of the cross and spoke in a more solemn voice. “You’re going to have to climb a little. I’ll help you.”

  Devane’s mind was nearly numb, but something didn’t seem right. There was something incongruous about hanging twenty-eight stories above the most technologically advanced city in the world and being asked to climb, wounded, down a rope to safety. “Get a helicopter.”

  The squad leader glanced at him quickly.

  Devane stared down into the man’s eyes and said, “You’re going to kill me.”

  “What the hell are you talking about? I’m risking my goddamned life to save you—shithead.” He flashed a smile toward Rockefeller Center. “Come on. Down.”

  “No.”

  The squad leader heard a sound and looked up. A Fire Rescue helicopter appeared overhead and began dropping toward the spire. The helicopter dropped closer, beating the cold air downward. The squad leader saw a man in a harness edging out of the side door, a carrying chair in his hands. The squad leader hooked his arms over Devane’s on the cross and pulled himself up so that they were face to face, and he studied the young man’s frozen blue features. The blood had actually crystallized in his red hair and glistened in the light. The squad leader examined his throat wound and the large discolored mass on his forehead. “Caught some shit, did you? You should be dead—you know?”

  “I’m going to live.”

  “They’re stuffing some of my friends in body bags down there—”

  “I never fired a shot.”

  “Yeah…. Come on, I’ll help you into the sling.”

  “How can you commit murder—here?”

  The squad leader drew a long breath and exhaled a plume of fog.

  The Fire Rescue man was dangling about twenty feet above them now, and he released the carrying chair, which dropped on a line to within a few feet of the two men. The squad leader put his hands on Devane’s shoulders. “Okay, Red, trust me.” He reached up and guided the chair under Devane, strapped him in, then untied the looped rope. “Don’t look down.” He waved off the helicopter.

  The helicopter rose, and Devane flew away from the spire, swinging in a wide arc through the brightening sky. The squad leader watched as the line was reeled in and Devane disappeared into the helicopter. The squad leader turned and looked back at Rockefeller Center. People were leaning from the windows, civilians and police, and he heard cheering. Bits of paper began sailing from the windows and floated in the updrafts. He wiped his runny eyes and waved toward the buildings as he began the climb down from the cross. “Hello, assholes—spell my name right. Hi, Mom—fuck you, Kline—I’m a hero.”

  Burke ran down the spiral stairs of the south tower until he reached a group of Guardsmen and police on the darkened choir loft level Burke said, “What’s the situation?”

  No one answered immediately, then an ESD man said, “We sort of ran into each other in the dark.” He motioned toward a neat stack of about six bodies against the wall

  “Christ….” Burke looked across the tower room and saw a splintered door hanging loosely from its hinges.

  An ESD man said, “Stay out of the line of fire of that door.”

  “Yeah, I guessed that right away.”

  A short burst of rifle fire hit the door, and everyone ducked as the bullets ricocheted around the large room, shattering thick panes of glass. A National Guardsman fired a full magazine back through the door.

  The steady coughing of the sniper’s silencer echoed into the room, but Burke could not imagine what was left to fire at. He circled around the room and slid along the wall toward the door.

  Wendy Peterson ran to the top step of the sacristy stairs behind the altar. Her breathing came hard, and the wound on her heel was bleeding. She called back to the crypt landing where the two remaining ESD men stood. “Concussion grenade.”

  One of the men shrugged and threw up a large black canister.

  She edged out and glanced to her right. About thirty feet separated the hostages under the pews from the stairs. To her left, toward the rear of the sanctuary, five feet of floor separated her from the bullet-scarred bronze plate. How heavy, she wondered, was that plate? Which way did it hinge? Where was the handle? She turned back to the crypt landing. “The hostages?”

  One of the men answered, “We can’t help them. They have to make a break when they think they’re ready. We’re here in case they make it and are wounded … but they’re not going to make it. Neither are we if we hang around much longer.” He cleared his throat. “Hey, it’s 5:57—can those bombs go before 6:03?”

  She motioned toward the bronze plate. “What are my chances?”

  The man looked down at the blood-streaked stairs and unconsciously touched his ear, which had been nicked by a shot from the loft—a shot fired from over a hundred yards away through the dim lighting. “Your chances of getting to the plate are good—fifty-fifty. Your chances of opening it, dropping that grenade, waiting for it to go, then dropping in yourself, are a little worse than zero.”

  “Then we let the place go d
own?”

  He said, “No one can say we didn’t try.” He ran his foot across the sticky blood on the landing. “Cut out.”

  She shook her head. “I’ll hang around—you never know what might happen.”

  “I know what’s going to happen, Lieutenant, and this is not the place to be when it happens.”

  Two shots struck the bronze plate and ricocheted back toward the Lady Chapel. Another shot struck the plaster ceiling ten stories above. Peterson and the two ESD men looked up at the black expanse and dodged pieces of falling plaster. A second later one of the Cardinal’s hats that had been suspended over the crypt dropped to the landing beside one of the ESD men. The man picked it up and examined the tassled red hat.

  Leary’s voice bellowed from the loft. “Got a cardinal—on the wing—in the dark. God, I can’t miss! I can’t miss!”

  The ESD man threw the hat aside. “He’s right, you know.”

  Peterson said, “I’ll talk to the hostages. You might as well go.”

  One of the men bounded down the stairs toward the sacristy gates. The other climbed up toward Peterson. “Lieutenant”—he looked down at the bloody, soiled bandages wrapped around her bare foot—“it takes about sixty seconds to make it to the rectory basement….”

  “Okay.”

  The man hesitated, then turned and headed for the sacristy gates.

  Peterson sat down on the top step and called out to Baxter and Malone, “How are you doing?”

  Maureen called back, “Go away.”

  Peterson lit a cigarette. “It’s okay … we have time yet…. Anytime you’re ready… think it out.” She spoke to them softly as the seconds ticked away.

  Leary grazed a round over each of the four triforium balustrades, changed positions, fired at the statue of St. Patrick, moved laterally, picked out a flickering votive candle, fired, and watched it explode. He moved diagonally over the pews, then stopped and put two bullets through the cobalt blue window rising above the east end of the ambulatory. The approaching dawn showed a lighter blue through the broken glass.

  Leary settled back into a bullet-pocked pew near the organ pipes and concentrated on the sanctuary—the stairwell, the bronze plate, and the clergy pews. He flexed his arm, which had been hit by shrapnel, and rubbed his cheek where buckshot had raked the side of his face. At least two ribs had been broken by bullets where they had hit his flak jacket.

  Megan was firing at each of the tower doors, alternating the sequence and duration of each burst of automatic fire. She stood in the aisle a few feet below Leary and watched the two doors to her right and left farther down the loft. Her arms and legs were crusted with blood from shrapnel and buckshot, and her right shoulder was numb from a direct bullet hit. She suddenly felt shaky and nauseous and leaned against a pew. She straightened up and called back to Leary, “They’re not even trying.”

  Leary said, “I’m bored.”

  She laughed weakly, then replied, “I’m going to blast those pews and flush those two out. You nail them.”

  Leary said, “In about six minutes half the Cathedral will fall in on them … or I’ll get them if they make a break. Don’t spoil the game. Be patient.”

  She knelt in the aisle and raised her rifle. “What if the police get the bombs?”

  Leary looked at the sanctuary as he spoke. “I doubt they got Hickey…. Anyway, I’m doing what I was told—covering that plate and keeping those two from running.”

  She shouted as she took aim at the clergy pews. “I want to see her die—before I die. I’m going to flush them. You nail them. Ready?”

  Leary stared, down at Megan, her silhouette visible against the candlelight and flares below. He spoke in a low, contemplative voice. “Everyone’s dead, Megan, except Hickey and, I guess, Malone and Baxter. They’ll all die in the explosion. That leaves only you and me.”

  She spun around and peered up into the blackness toward the place from which his voice had come.

  He said, “You understand, I’m a professional. It’s like I said, I only do what I’m told—never more, never less—and Flynn told me to make especially sure of you and Hickey.”

  She shook her head. “Jack … you can’t…. Not after we …” She laughed. “Yes, of course…. I don’t want to be taken…. Brian knew that…. He did it for me. Go on, then. Quickly!”

  He raised a pistol, aimed at the dark outline, and put two bullets in rapid succession through her head. Megan’s body toppled back, and she rolled down the aisle, coming to rest beside the Guard sergeant she had killed.

  Burke stood in his stocking feet with his back to the wall just inside the tower door, a short, fat grenade launcher nestled in the bend of his elbow. He closed his eyes against the glare of the lights coming through the broken windows and steadied his breathing. The men in the tower room were completely still, watching him. Burke listened to the distant sound of a man and woman talking, followed by two pistol shots. He spun rapidly into the doorway and raced up the side aisle along the wall, then flattened himself in the sloping aisle about halfway up the loft. From farther back near the organ pipes came the sound of breathing. The breathing stopped abruptly, and a man’s voice said, “I know you’re there.”

  Burke remained motionless.

  The man said, “I see in the dark, I smell what you can’t smell, I hear everything. You’re dead.”

  Burke knew that the man was trying to draw him into a panic shot, and he was not doing a bad job of it. The man was good. Even in a close-in-situation like this he was very cool.

  Burke rolled onto his back, lifted his head, and looked out over the rail into the Cathedral. The cable that held the chandelier nearest the choir loft swayed slightly as it was being drawn up by the winch in the attic. The chandelier rose level with the loft, and Burke saw the Guardsman sitting on it, his rifle pointed into the loft. He looked, Burke thought, like live bait. Live ones, he wanted live ones. Burke’s muscles tensed.

  Leary fired, and the body on the chandelier jerked.

  Burke jumped to his feet, pointed the grenade launcher at the direction of the sound, and fired its single beehive round. The dozens of needle darts buzzed across the quiet loft, spreading as they traveled. There was a sharp cry, followed immediately by the flash of a rifle that Burke saw out of the corner of his eyes as he turned and dove for the floor. A powerful blow on the back of his flak jacket propelled him headfirst into the wall, and he staggered, then collapsed into the aisle. Another shot ripped through the pews and passed inches over his head.

  Burke lay still, aware of a pain in the center of his spine that began to spread to his arms and legs. Several more shots struck around him. The firing shifted to the doors, and Burke tried to crawl to another position but found that he couldn’t move. He tried to reach the pistol in his belt, but his arm responded in short, spastic motions.

  The firing shifted back toward him, and a round grazed his hand. His forehead was bleeding where he had crashed into the wall, and throbbing pains ran from his eyes to the back of his skull. He felt himself losing consciousness, but he could hear distinctly the sound of the man reloading his rifle. Then the voice said, “Are you dead, or do you just wish you were?”

  Leary raised his rifle, but the persistent stabbing pain in his right leg made him lower it. He sat down in the center aisle, rolled back his trouser leg, and ran his fingers over his shin, feeling the tiny entry hole where the dart had hit him. He brought his hand around to his calf and touched the exit wound, slightly larger, with a splinter of bone protruding from the flesh. “Ah … shit … shit …”

  He rose to his knee and emptied his rifle toward the doors and the side aisle, then ripped off his rubber mask and pulled the gas mask from around his neck. He tore off the long robe, using it to wipe his sniper rifle from end to end as he crawled down the center aisle. Leary placed the rifle in Megan’s warm hands, reached into the front pew, and retrieved another rifle. He rose and steadied himself on the edge of the pew and slid onto the bench. Leary called
out, “Martin! You out there?”

  There was a silence, then a voice called back from the choir practice room. “Right here, Jack. Are you alone?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Tell the police you’re surrendering.”

  “Right. Come out here—alone.”

  Martin walked briskly into the choir loft, turned on a flashlight, and made his way through the dark into the center aisle. He stepped over Megan’s body. “Hello, Jack.” He approached Leary and edged into the pew. “Here, let’s have that. That’s a good lad.” He took Leary’s rifle and pistol, then called out, “He’s disarmed.”

  ESD men began to move cautiously from both towers into the choir loft. Martin called to them. “It’s all right—this man is an agent of mine.” Martin turned to Leary and gave him a look of annoyance. “A bit early, aren’t you, Jack?”

  Leary spoke through clenched teeth. “I’m hit.”

  “Really? You look fine.”

  Leary swore. “Fitzgerald was starting to become a problem, and I had to do her when I had the chance. Then someone got into the loft, and I took a needle dart in the shin. Okay?”

  “That’s dreadful … but I don’t see anyone in here…. You really should have waited.”

  “Fuck you.”

  Martin shone his light on Leary’s shin. Like so many killers, he thought, Leary couldn’t stand much pain. “Yes, that looks like it might hurt.” He reached out and touched Leary’s wound.

  Leary let out a cry of pain. “Hey! God … that feels like there’s still a needle in there.”

  “Might well be.” Martin looked down at the sanctuary. “Malone and Baxter … ?”

  A policeman shouted from the side of the loft. “Stand up!”

  Leary placed his hands on the pew in front of him and stood. He said to Martin, “They’re both under the sanctuary pews there—”

  The lights in the loft went on, illuminating the sloping expanse of ripped pews, bullet-pocked walls, burnt lockers, and scarred aisles. The towering organ pipes shone brightly where they had been hit, but above the pipes the rose window was intact. Leary looked around and made a whistling sound. “Like walking in the rain without getting wet.” He smiled.