Cathedral

by Nelson DeMille

  Schroeder’s voice sounded surprised at the sudden expression of confidence. “Yes, sir. I’ll do that. You can talk to me.” Both men remained silent for a time, then Schroeder said, “Now I’d like to ask two favors of you.”

  Flynn smiled and flipped absently through the autobiography in front of him. “Go on.”

  “Well, for one thing, the jamming device is causing confusion in command and control, and we don’t want an incident to occur because of a lack of communication. Also, it’s causing interference with commercial radio and the sound portions of television broadcasts.”

  Flynn threw aside the book. “Can’t have that. I’ll think about it. What else?”

  “I’d like to say a few words to each of the hostages.”

  “Maybe after the press conference.”

  “All right. That’s fair. There is one other thing.”

  “There always is.”

  “Yes, well, since you and I are building a rapport—building confidence in each other—and I’m the only one talking to you, I wonder if you’d do the same for me. I mean, I spoke to Mr. Hickey before, and—”

  Flynn laughed and looked around, but Hickey wasn’t in sight. “John gave you a bit of a rough time, did he, Captain? He enjoys making unpleasant jokes. Well, just play along with him. He loves to talk—Irish, you know.”

  “Yes, but there could be a misunderstanding. You are the boss, and I want to keep my lines of communication open to you, and—”

  Flynn dropped the receiver into its cradle and looked through a book of sheet music. He wanted to find something unchurchly that would take his mind away from the Cathedral. Of all the godforsaken places he’d ever found himself in, no place seemed more oddly forsaken than the Cathedral at this moment. Yet others, he knew, felt the presence of a divine spirit here, and he understood that the emptiness he felt was totally within himself. He found “The Rose of Tralee,” turned the key into the organ, and played as he sang very softly.

  “The pale moon was rising above

  The green mountains,

  The sun was declining beneath

  The blue sea,

  As I strayed with my love to the

  Pure crystal fountain,

  That stands in the beauitful vale

  of Tralee….”

  Bert Schroeder looked for a long time at the dead speaker, folded his hands on the desk, and thought. Flynn talked about immunity, which showed he thought of a future, and by implication his desire to keep his crime from being compounded was strong. He had no intention of killing anyone, least of all himself. More importantly, Flynn was beginning to depend on him. That always happened. It was inevitable as he came to realize that Schroeder’s voice was the only one that mattered. Schroeder looked up. “I think I’m getting an angle on this guy.”

  Burke said, “It sounds like he has an angle on you.”

  Schroeder’s eyes narrowed, and he nodded reluctantly. “Yes, he seems to know something of my methods. I’m afraid the media has given my bureau too much coverage.” He added, “I never sought publicity.”

  “You mean your autobiography was unauthorized? Christ, you should have at least waited until you retired before you released it.” Burke smiled. “And now you’ve missed the big chapter. Catch it on the second printing. Talk to your agent about it.” Burke put a conciliatory tone in his voice. “Look, Bert, I don’t have all the answers, but—”

  Schroeder stood. “No, you don’t. And I’m tired of your sideline quarterbacking!”

  No one spoke. Burke stood and moved toward the door.

  Schroeder said, “Don’t go far. Flynn may want coffee later.”

  Burke turned and said, “Up to this point we’ve had double-crosses, incompetence, and some ordinary stupidity. And we’ve been damned lucky in spite of it. But if we don’t get our act together by dawn, we’re going to have a massacre, a desecration, and a lot of explaining to do.”

  Schroeder stared ahead and spoke placidly. “Just leave it to me.”

  CHAPTER 32

  Father Murphy walked across the sanctuary and stood before the Cardinal’s throne. “Your Eminence, I would like to make my confession.”

  The Cardinal nodded. “Take my hands.”

  Murphy felt the scrap of paper sticking to his palm. “No … I would like to go into the confessional.”

  The Cardinal stood. “We’ll go into the Archbishop’s sacristy.”

  “No …” Murphy felt a line of sweat collect on his brow. “They won’t let us. We can go into the confessional where I heard Miss Malone’s confession.”

  The Cardinal stared at him curiously, then nodded. “As you wish.” He came down from the throne and walked toward the rear of the sanctuary, then descended the side steps that led into the ambulatory. Father Murphy glanced back at Maureen and Baxter. They nodded encouragingly, and he followed the Cardinal.

  Leary leaned over the choir loft parapet, placed the cross hairs in front of the Cardinal’s face, and led him as he walked from right to left across his magnified picture. Everyone in the triforia began shouting warnings to the two priests, shouting at Leary who they knew was about to fire, shouting for Flynn or Hickey.

  The Cardinal seemed oblivious to the warnings. He stopped at the archway that led to the priests’ entrance to the confessional and waited for Father Murphy, who walked hesitantly across the ambulatory.

  Leary centered his cross hairs on the gold cross that hung over the Cardinal’s heart and took up the slack in the trigger.

  Flynn suddenly appeared in front of the two priests with his arms raised and looked into the balconies. The shouting stopped. Leary straightened his body and stood with his rifle resting in the crook of his arm. Even from this distance Flynn could see that Leary had that distinctive posture of a hunter who had just been denied his quarry, motionless, listening, watching. Flynn saw Megan appear in the loft and move beside Leary, speaking to him as though she were soothing his disappointment. Flynn turned to the two priests. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

  The Cardinal answered evenly, “I’m going to hear a confession.”

  Flynn spoke between clenched teeth. “Are you mad? You can’t come down from there without permission.”

  The Cardinal answered, “I don’t need your permission to go anywhere in this church. Please stand aside.”

  Flynn fought down the anger inside him. “Let me tell you two something. Those people up there have standing orders to shoot…. All right, four of them may not be priest killers, but the fifth man would kill you. He would shoot his mother if that’s what he’s contracted to do. Just as you took your vows, he has taken his.”

  The Cardinal’s face turned crimson; he began to speak, but Flynn cut him off. “That man has spent fourteen years as a sniper for a dozen different armies. By now he sees the world through cross hairs. His whole being is compressed into that solitary act. And he loves it—the sound of the gun, the recoil of the stock against his shoulder, the flash of the muzzle, the smell of burnt powder in his nostrils. It’s like a sexual act to him—can you two understand that?”

  Neither the Cardinal nor the priest answered. The Cardinal turned his head and looked up into the shadows of the choir loft, then turned back to Flynn. “It’s hard to believe such a man exists. You should be careful he doesn’t shoot you.” He stepped around Flynn and entered the wooden archway, then turned into the door of the confessional.

  Father Murphy glanced at Flynn, then pushed aside the curtain and entered the confessional.

  John Hickey stood some distance off near the Lady Chapel and watched silently.

  Murphy knelt in the dark enclosure and began, “Bless me, Father …” He peered through a space in the curtain and saw Flynn walking away. He spoke in whispered tones to the Cardinal, making a hasty confession, then broke off abruptly and said, “Your Eminence, I’m going to use the call buzzer to send a coded message.”

  The dark outline of the Cardinal’s profile behind the black screen staye
d motionless as though he hadn’t heard, then slowly the head nodded.

  Murphy drew the curtain gently over the doorjamb and pressed the button in a series of alerting signals. He looked closely at the paper in his hand and squinted in the darkness. He began:

  THIS IS FR. MURPHY.

  Suddenly a hand flew through the curtain and grabbed his wrist. Hickey’s voice filled the confessional. “While you’re in there, Padre, confess to using the confessional for treachery.” He flung the curtain aside, and Murphy blinked in the sudden light. Hickey snatched the paper out of the priest’s hand and pulled the curtain closed. “Go on, finish your damned confession. I’ll finish the message.”

  Murphy slumped against the screen and spoke softly to the Cardinal. “I’m sorry….”

  Hickey stood outside the booth and looked around. Flynn was gone. No one was paying any attention to him except Malone and Baxter on the sanctuary, who looked both angry and disheartened. Hickey smiled at them, then read the coded message, put his finger on the buzzer, and began to send. He repeated the salutation—.

  THIS IS FR. MURPHY IN CONFESSIONAL WITH CARDINAL.

  He continued, reproducing the halting wrist of a man who was sending for the first time. He modified the written message as he sent.

  ESTIMATE OF FENIAN STRENGTH: NO MORE THAN EIGHT GUNMEN. ONE IN EACH OF EAST TRIFORIA. NONE IN WEST TRIFORIA. NONE IN CHOIR LOFT. ONE MAN AT SACRISTY STAIRS WITH THOMPSON—ONLY AUTO WEAPON SEEN. ONE MAN IN EACH TOWER. FIELD PHONES MALFUNCTIONING. HOSTAGES MOVED TO CRYPT. SAFE FROM FIRE.

  He stopped and picked up the text of the message.

  MACCUMAIL IS BRIAN FLYNN. JOHN HICKEY, LIEUTENANT. MEGAN THIRD IN COMMAND.

  He improvised again.

  NO MINES ON DOORS. GAS MASKS ARE OLD TYPE, INEFFECTIVE FILTERS.

  He stopped and thought a moment. Then went on.

  FENIANS LOYAL TO HICKEY. WILL NOT NEGOTIATE IN GOOD FAITH. SUICIDAL TALK. BAXTER TO BE HANGED BEFORE DAWN DEADLINE AS AN EXAMPLE. DO WHAT YOU MUST. WE ARE NOT AFRAID. GOD BLESS YOU—FATHER MURPHY.

  Hickey took his finger off the buzzer and smiled. The people out there were a bit confused now … and frightened. Fright led to desperation. Desperation led to reckless acts. Hickey put himself in their place—discounting the possibility of negotiation, concerned over the hostages, underestimating the force holding the Cathedral. The police would submit a plan to take the Cathedral, and it would be accepted. And the politicians would have the message to justify that use of force. The police would burst through the doors, and they’d be met by explosions and an unexpected volume of killing fire.

  Hickey pictured it in his mind as he looked around the Cathedral. Shattered marble, crumbling statues, dark red blood running over the altars and floors, the dead lying draped over the pews. The attic would be set aflame, and the ceiling would fall into the nave, blowing their precious stained glass into the streets. He saw dying bodies writhing among the rubble and the flames. And when they thought it was over, long after the last shot had been fired, as the dawn streaked in through dusty shafts revealing the rescuers and medics moving through the ruins, then the time bombs would detonate, and the two main columns would tremble and shudder and collapse in a deafening roar of granite and marble, plaster and bronze, wood and concrete. The Cathedral would die, brick by brick, stone by stone, column by column, wall by wall…. And in years to come when people looked on the most magnificent ruin in America they would remember John Hickey’s last mission on earth.

  Maureen Malone sat very still in the pew and watched as Hickey sent his message. She turned to Harold Baxter. “Bastard!”

  Baxter looked away from Hickey. “Yes, well, that’s his prerogative, isn’t it? But, no harm done. Especially if the first message was received.”

  “I don’t think you understand,” she said. “The people outside still believe we control that signal. Hickey is not sending them a rude message or something of that sort. He’s reading from our message and sending a misleading intelligence report over our signatures.”

  Baxter looked at Hickey, and the comprehension of what she was saying came to him.

  “And God only knows what he’s telling them. He’s mad, you know. Flynn is a paragon of rationality compared to Hickey.”

  “Hickey is not mad,” said Baxter. “He’s something far more dangerous than mad.”

  She looked down at the floor. “Anyway, I’ll not apologize for trying.”

  “I’m not asking you to. But I think the next plan should be mine.”

  “Really?” She spoke with a frigid tone in her voice. “I don’t think we have the time to wait for either your plan or your much discussed right moment.”

  He answered without anger. “Just give me a few more minutes. I think I know a way out of here.”

  Burke walked into the Monsignor’s inner office, followed by Inspector Langley. A uniformed officer handed them each a copy of the decoded message. Burke sat on Schroeder’s desk and read the message. He looked around at the people present— Schroeder, Commissioner Rourke, Roberta Spiegel, and Bellini—the hard core of the Desperate Dozen, with Langley and himself added or subtracted as the situation changed.

  Captain Bellini looked up from his copy and spoke to Commissioner Rourke. “If this is accurate, I can take the Cathedral with an acceptable risk to my people. If the hostages are in the crypt, they have a fair chance of surviving … though I can’t guarantee that.” He looked at the message again. “They don’t seem to stand much chance with the Fenians anyway.” He stood. “I’ll need a few more hours to plan.”

  Burke thought of Maureen’s statement at the sacristy gate. Twelve gunmen. Now Murphy said eight. He looked across the room at Bellini. “And if it’s not accurate?”

  Bellini said, “How far off can they be? They’re heads-up people. Right? They can count. Look, I’m not real anxious to do this, but I feel a little better about it now.”

  Langley said, “We can’t discount the possibility that one or both of these messages are from the Fenians.” He looked at his copy and compared it to the earlier message, which he held in his hand. “I’m a little confused. Something is wrong here.” He looked up. “Bellini, as an intelligence officer, I’d advise you not to believe either of these.”

  Bellini looked distraught. “Well, where the hell does that put me? Square fucking one, that’s where.”

  Roberta Spiegel said, “Whether or not we believe either of these messages, everybody in the Cardinal’s residence and in the next room is reading this last message, and they will come to their own conclusions.” She looked at Rourke. “This justifies a preemptive attack, Commissioner. That’s what’s going through their minds out there.” She turned to Bellini. “Captain, be prepared to mount an attack at very short notice.”

  Bellini nodded distractedly.

  The door opened, and Monsignor Downes came into the office. “Did someone want to see me?”

  The five men looked at each other questioningly, then Roberta Spiegel said, “Yes, I asked to see you.”

  Downes remained standing.

  The Mayor’s aide thought a moment, then said, “Monsignor, neither the Mayor nor myself nor anyone wants to do anything that will harm this church or endanger the lives of the hostages. However—”

  The Monsignor’s body stiffened.

  “However, if the police and my office and the people in Washington decide that negotiation is no longer possible and that there is a clear and immediate danger to the hostages … will you and the diocese stand behind our decision to send in the Emergency Services Division?”

  Monsignor Downes stood motionless without answering.

  Spiegel said to Bellini, “Give the Monsignor a copy of that message.”

  Downes took the paper and read it, then looked at Roberta Spiegel. “I’ll have to check with the Vicar General. I cannot take the responsibility for this on my own.” He turned and left the room.

  Roberta Spiegel said, “Every time we uncover another layer of this problem I se
e how much we’ve underestimated Flynn. We’re sandbagged pretty badly all around, and as the time slips by it’s obvious that the easiest course of action is surrender— ours, not Flynn’s.”

  Langley said, “Even surrender is not so easy. We may give in, but that doesn’t mean Washington, London, or Dublin will.”

  Commissioner Rourke said to Bellini, “Captain, the only thing we can do unilaterally, without anyone’s permission except the Mayor’s, is to attack.”

  Bellini answered, “That’s always the easiest decision, sir—it’s the execution that gets a little sticky.”

  Schroeder spoke up. “I get the feeling you’ve given up on the negotiations.”

  Everyone looked at him. Burke said, “Captain, you’re still the best hope we’ve got. If there’s any middle ground between our capitulation and an attack, I’m sure you’ll find it. Brian Flynn said, however, that there was no middle ground, and I think he was telling us the truth. Dawn or dead.”

  Maureen watched Hickey as he spoke to the Cardinal and Father Murphy at the confessional. She said to Baxter, “He’s questioning them about the buzzer and about the first message.”

  Baxter nodded, then stood. “Let’s pace a bit and stretch our legs. We’ll talk.”

  They began walking across the altar sanctuary toward the throne, a distance of forty feet, then turned and walked back. As they walked, Baxter inclined his head. “Look over there—at the brass plate.”

  Maureen glanced to the right of the altar. Beyond the sacristy staircase was the large brass plate through which Hickey and Megan Fitzgerald had descended with the suitcases.