Cathedral Read online

  The Deputy Commissioner looked up at him. “I hope there’s somebody around to accept it.” He looked back at the streets. “Almost every ranking officer in the New York Police Department is down there somewhere, cut off from communication, cut off from their command.” He turned to Langley. “This is the worst yet.”

  Langley shook his head. “I think the worst is yet to come.”

  * * *

  In the intersection at Fiftieth Street, Burke could see the bright orange sashes of men being led into a paddy wagon. Burke remembered the Irish saying: “If you want an audience, start a fight.” These Orangemen had wanted an audience, and he knew why; he knew, too, that they were not Orangemen at all but Boston Provos recruited to cause a diversion—dumb Micks with more courage than brains.

  The policewoman turned to him as she urged the horse on. “Who are those people with orange sashes?”

  “It’s a long story. Go on. Almost there—”

  Brian Flynn came down from the pulpit and faced Maureen Malone. “It’s been a damned long time, Maureen.”

  She looked at him and replied in an even voice, “Not long enough.”

  He smiled. “Did you get my flowers?”

  “I flushed them.”

  “You have one in your lapel.”

  Her face reddened. “So you’ve come to America after all, Brian.”

  “Yes. But as you can see, on my terms.” He looked out over the Cathedral. The last of the worshipers were jamming the center vestibule, trying to squeeze through the great bronze doors. Two Fenians, Arthur Nulty dressed as a priest and Frank Gallagher dressed as a parade marshal, stood behind them and urged them on through the doors, onto the packed steps, but the crowd began to back up into the vestibule. All the other doors had been swung closed and bolted. Flynn looked at his watch. This was taking longer than he expected. He turned to Maureen. “Yes, on my terms. Do you see what I’ve done? Within half an hour all of America will see and hear this. We’ll provide some good Irish theater for them. Better than the Abbey ever did.”

  Maureen saw in his eyes a familiar look of triumph, but mixed with that look was one of fear that she had never seen before. Like a little boy, she thought, who had stolen something from a shop and knows he might have to answer for his transgression very shortly. “You won’t get away with this, you know.”

  He smiled, and the fear left his eyes. “Yes, I will.”

  Two of the Fenians who had posed as police walked around the altar and descended the stairs that led down to the sacristy. From the open archway on the left-hand wall of the sacristy, they heard footsteps approaching in the corridor that led from the rectory. Excited voices came from a similar opening on the opposite wall that led to the Cardinal’s residence. All at once priests and uniformed policemen burst into the sacristy from both doors.

  The two Fenians drew the sliding gates out of the wall until they met with a loud metallic ring, and the people in the sacristy looked up the stairs. A uniformed sergeant called out, “Hey! Open those gates!” He advanced toward the stairs.

  The Fenians tied a chain through the scrolled brasswork and produced a padlock.

  The sergeant drew his pistol. Another policeman came up behind him and did the same.

  The Fenians seemed to pay no attention to the officers and snapped the heavy lock on the ends of the wrapped chain. One of them looked up, smiled, and gave a brief salute. “Sorry, lads, you’ll have to go round.” Both Fenians disappeared up the stairs. One of them, Pedar Fitzgerald, sat near the crypt door where he could see the gate. The other, Eamon Farrell, came around the altar and nodded to Flynn.

  Flynn turned to Baxter for the first time. “Sir Harold Baxter?”

  “That’s correct.”

  He stared at Baxter. “Yes, I’d enjoy killing you.”

  Baxter replied without inflection, “Your kind would enjoy killing anyone.”

  Flynn turned away and looked at the Cardinal. “Your Eminence.” He bowed his head, and it wasn’t clear if he was mocking or sincere. “My name is Finn MacCumail, Chief of the new Fenian Army. This church is now mine. This is my Bruidean. You know the term? My place of sanctuary.”

  The Cardinal seemed not to hear him. He asked abruptly, “Is this Cathedral on fire?”

  “That depends to a large extent on what happens in the next few minutes.”

  The Cardinal stared at him, and neither man flinched. The Cardinal finally spoke. “Get out of here. Get out while you can.”

  “I can’t, and I don’t want to.” He looked up at the choir loft over the main doors where Jack Leary, dressed as a colonial soldier, stood with a rifle. Flynn’s eyes dropped to the main doors nearly a block away. People still jammed the vestibule, and noise and light passed in through the open doors. He turned to Father Murphy, who stood next to him. “Father, you may leave. Hurry down the aisle before the doors close.”

  Murphy strode deliberately to a spot beside the Cardinal. “We are both leaving.”

  “No. No, on second thought, we may find a use for you later.” Flynn turned to Maureen again and moved closer to her. He spoke softly. “You knew, didn’t you? Even before you got the flowers?”

  “I knew.”

  “Good. We still know each other, don’t we? We’ve spoken over the years and across the miles, haven’t we, Maureen?”

  She nodded.

  A young woman dressed as a nun appeared at the altar rail holding a large pistol. In the front pew a bearded old man, apparently sleeping on the bench, rose, stretched, and came up behind her. Everyone watched as the two people ascended the steps of the altar sanctuary.

  The old man nodded to the hostages and spoke in a clear, vibrant voice. “Your Eminence, Father Murphy, Miss Malone, Sir Harold. I am John Hickey, fancifully code-named Dermot, in keeping with the pagan motif suggested by our leader, Finn MacCumail.” He made an exaggerated bow to Flynn. “I am a poet, scholar, soldier, and patriot, much like the original Fenians. You may have heard of me.” He looked around and saw the signs of recognition in the eyes of the four hostages. “No, not dead, as you can plainly see. But dead before the sun rises again, I’ll wager. Dead in the ruins of this smoldering Cathedral. A magnificent funeral pyre it’ll be, befitting a man of my rank. Oh, don’t look so glum, Cardinal, there’s a way out—if we all keep our senses about us.” He turned to the young woman beside him. “May I present our Grania—or, as she prefers her real name, Megan Fitzgerald.”

  Megan Fitzgerald said nothing but looked into the face of each hostage. Her eyes came to rest on Maureen Malone, and she looked her up and down.

  Maureen stared back at the young woman. She knew there would be a woman. There always was with Flynn. Flynn was that type of man who needed a woman watching in order to stiffen his courage, the way other men needed a drink. Maureen looked into the face of Megan Fitzgerald: high cheekboned, freckled, with a mouth that seemed set in a perpetual sneer, and eyes that should have been lovely but were something quite different. Too young, and not likely to get much older in the company of Brian Flynn. Maureen saw herself ten years before.

  Megan Fitzgerald stepped up to her, the big pistol swinging nonchalantly from her left hand, and put her mouth close to Maureen’s ear. “You understand that I’m looking for an excuse to kill you.”

  “I hope I find the courage to do something to give you one. Then we’ll see how your courage stands up.”

  Megan Fitzgerald’s body tensed visibly. After a few seconds she stepped back and looked around the altar, sweeping each person standing there with a cold stare and meeting Flynn’s look of disapproval. She turned, walked down from the altar, and then strode down the main aisle toward the center doors.

  Flynn watched her, then looked past her into the vestibule. The doors were still open. He hadn’t counted on the crowd being so large. If they couldn’t get thedoors closed and bolted soon, the police would force their way in and there would be a fire fight. As he watched, Megan passed into the vestibule and raised her pistol. He saw
the smoke flash from the upturned muzzle of her gun, then heard the report roll through the massive church and echo in and out of the vaults and side altars. A scream went up from the crowd in the vestibule, and their backs receded as they found a new strength and a more immediate reason to push through the crowd blocking the steps.

  Flynn watched Megan bring the gun down into a horizontal position and aim it at the opening. Nulty and Gallagher maneuvered around, and each took up a position behind the doors, pushing them against the last of the fleeing worshipers.

  Megan dropped to one knee and steadied her aim with both hands.

  Patrick Burke shouted to the policewoman, “Up the steps! Up to the front door!”

  Betty Foster spurred the horse up the steps where they curved around to Fifty-first Street, and moved diagonally through the crowd toward the center doors.

  Burke saw the last of the worshipers flee through the doors, and the horse broke into the open space between them and the portals. The policewoman reined the horse around and kicked its flanks. “Come on, Commissioner! Up! Up!”

  Burke drew his service revolver and shouted, “Draw your piece! Through the doors!”

  Betty Foster held the reins with her left hand and drew her revolver.

  A few yards from the portals the big bronze ceremonial doors—sixteen feet across, nearly two stories high, and weighing ten thousand pounds apiece— began closing. Burke knew they were pushed by unseen persons standing behind them. The dimly lit vestibule came into sight, and he saw a nun kneeling there. Behind her, the vast, deserted Cathedral stretched back a hundred yards, through a forest of stone columns, to the raised altar sanctuary where Burke could see people standing. A figure in bright red stood out against the white marble.

  The doors were half closed now, and the horse’s head was a yard from the opening. Burke know they were going to make it. And then … what?

  Suddenly the image of the kneeling nun filled his brain, and his eyes focused on her again. From her extended arm Burke saw a flash of light, then heard a loud, echoing sound followed by a sharp crack.

  The horse’s front legs buckled, and the animal pitched forward. Burke was aware of Betty Foster flying into the air, then felt himself falling forward. His face struck the granite step a foot from the doors. He crawled toward the small opening, but the bronze doors came together and shut in his face. He heard, above all the noise around him, the sound of the floor bolts sliding home.

  Burke rolled onto his back and sat up. He turned to the policewoman, who was lying on the steps, blood running from her forehead. As he watched, she sat up slowly.

  Burke stood and offered her his hand, but she got to her feet without his aid and looked down at her mount. A small wound on Commissioner’s chest ran with blood; frothy blood trickled from the horse’s open mouth and steamed in a puddle as it collected on the cold stone. The horse tried to stand but fell clumsily back onto its side. Betty Foster fired into his head. After putting her hand to the horse’s nostrils to make certain he was dead, she holstered her revolver. She looked up at Burke, then back at her horse. Walking slowly down the steps, she disappeared into the staring crowd.

  Burke looked out into the Avenue. Rotating beacons from the police cars cast swirling red and white light on the chaotic scene and across the façades of the surrounding buildings. Occasionally, above the general bedlam, Burke could hear a window smash, a whistle blow, a scream ring out.

  He turned around and stared at the Cathedral. Taped to one of the bronze ceremonial doors, over the face of St. Elizabeth Seton, was a piece of cardboard with handlettering on it. He stepped closer to read it in the fading light.

  THIS CATHEDRAL IS UNDER THE CONTROL

  OF THE IRISH FENIAN ARMY

  It was signed, FINN MACCUMAIL.

  Book IV

  The Cathedral: Siege

  Friendship, joy and peace! If the outside world only realized the wonders of this Cathedral, there would never be a vacant pew.

  —Parishioner

  CHAPTER 15

  Patrick Burke stood at the front doors of St. Patrick’s Cathedral, his hands in his pockets and a cigarette in his mouth. Lightly falling sleet melted on the flanks of the dead horse and ran in rivulets onto the icy stone steps.

  The crowds in the surrounding streets were not completely under control, but the police had rerouted the remainder of the marching units west to Sixth Avenue. Burke could hear drums and bagpipes above the roar of the mob. The two hundred and twenty-third St. Patrick’s Day Parade would go on until the last marcher arrived at Eighty-fourth Street, even if it meant marching through Central Park to get there.

  Automobile horns were blaring incessantly, and police whistles and sirens cut through the windy March dusk. What a fucking mess. Burke wondered if anyone out there knew that the Cathedral was under the control of gunmen. He looked at his watch—not yet five thirty. The six o’clock news would begin early and not end until this ended.

  Burke turned and examined the bronze ceremonial doors, then put his shoulder to one of them and pushed. The door moved slightly, then sprang back, closing. From behind the doors Burke heard a shrill alarm. “Smart sons of bitches.” It wasn’t going to be easy to get the Cathedral away from Finn MacCumail. He heard a muffled voice call out from behind the door. “Get away! We’re putting mines on the doors!”

  Burke moved back and stared up at the massive doors, noticing them for the first time in twenty years. On a righthand panel a bronze relief of St. Patrick stared down at him, a crooked staff in one hand, a serpent in the other. To the saint’s right was a Celtic harp, to his left the mythical phoenix, appropriated from the pagans, rising to renewed life from its own ashes. Burke turned slowly and started walking down the steps. “Okay, Finn or Flynn, or whatever you call yourself—you may have gotten in standing tall, but you won’t be leaving that way.”

  Brian Flynn stood at the railing of the choir loft and looked out over the vast Cathedral spread out over an area larger than a football field. Seventy towering stained-glass windows glowed with the outside lights of the city like dripping jewels, and dozens of hanging chandeliers cast a soft luminescence over the dark wooden pews. Rows of gray granite pillars reached up to the vaulted ceiling like the upraised arms of the faithful supporting the house of God. Flynn turned to John Hickey. “It would take some doing to level this place.”

  “Leave it to me, Brian.”

  Flynn said, “The first priority of the police is that mob out there. We’ve bought some time to set up our defense.” Flynn raised a pair of field glassess and looked at Maureen. Even at this distance he saw that her face was red, and her jaw was set in a hard line. He focused on Megan who had assembled three men and two women and was making an inspection of the perimeter walls. She had taken off the nun’s wimple, revealing long red hair that fell to her shoulders. She walked quickly, now peeling off her nun’s habit and throwing the black and white garments carelessly onto the floor until she was clad in only jeans and a T-shirt, which had a big red apple on it and the words I Love New York. She stopped by the north transept doors and looked up at the southeast triforium as she called out, “Gallagher!”

  Frank Gallagher, dressed in the morning coat and striped pants of a parade marshal, leaned over the balcony parapet and pointed his sniper rifle at her, taking aim through the scope. He shouted back, “Check!”

  Megan moved on.

  Flynn unrolled a set of blueprints and rested them on the rail of the choir loft. He tapped the plans of the Cathedral with his open hand and said, as though the realization had just come to him, “We took it.”

  Hickey nodded and stroked his wispy beard. “Aye, but can we keep it? Can we hold it with a dozen people against twenty thousand policemen?”

  Flynn turned to Jack Leary standing near the organ keyboard beside him. “Can we hold it, Jack?”

  Leary nodded slowly. “Twenty thousand, or twenty, they can only come in a few at a time.” He patted his modified M-14 rifle with attached scope.
“Anyone who survives the mines on the doors will be dead before he gets three paces.”

  Flynn looked closely at Leary in the subdued light. Leary looked comical in his colonial marching uniform and with his green-painted rifle. But there was nothing funny about his eyes or his expressionless voice.

  Flynn looked back over the Cathedral and glanced at the blueprints. This building was shaped like a cross. The long stem of the cross was the nave, holding the main pews and five aisles; the cross-arms were the transepts, containing more pews and an exit from the end of each arm. Two arcaded triforia, long, dark galleries supported by columns, overhung the nave, running as far as the transepts. Two shorter triforia began at the far side of the transepts and overlooked the altar. This was the basic layout of the structure to be defended.

  Flynn looked at the top of the blueprints. They showed the five-story rectory nestled in the northeast quadrant of the cross outside the Cathedral. The rectory was connected to the Cathedral by basement areas under the terraces, which did not appear on the blueprints. In the southeast quadrant was the Cardinal’s residence, also separated by terraces and gardens and connected underground. These uncharted connections, Flynn understood, were a weak point in the defense. “I wish we could have held the two outside buildings.”

  Hickey smiled. “Next time.”

  Flynn smiled in return. The old man had remained an enigma, swinging precipitantly between clownishness and decisiveness. Flynn looked back at the blueprints. The top of the cross was the rounded area called the apse. In the apse was the Lady Chapel, a quiet, serene area of long, narrow stained-glass windows. Flynn pointed to the blueprint. “The Lady Chapel has no outside connections, and I’ve decided not to post a man there—can’t spare anyone.”

  Hickey leaned over the blueprints. “I’ll examine it for hidden passages. Church architecture wouldn’t be church architecture, Brian, without hollow walls and secret doors. Places for the Holy Ghost to run about—places where priests can pop up on you unawares and scare the hell out of you by whispering your name.”