Cathedral (54 page)

"Confessions are being heard, George."

Sullivan shook his head without looking up and lit a cigarette. His mind seemed to be elsewhere. Flynn nudged him and indicated the empty triforium across the transept. "You'll have to cover Gallagher's sectors."

Sullivan looked up. "Why doesn't Megan go up there?"

Flynn didn't answer the question, and Sullivan didn't press him. Flynn looked out at Abby Boland. These personal bonds had always been the Fenian strength-but also the weakness.

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Sullivan also glanced across the nave. He spoke almost self-consciously.

"I saw she made a confession to the priest. . . . These damned women of ours are so guilty and ashamed. . . . I feel somehow betrayed . . ."

Flynn said lightly, "You should have told him your version."

Sullivan started to reply but thought better of it. Flynn extended his hand, and Sullivan took it firmly.

Flynn and Father Murphy walked together back into the south tower and climbed the ten stories into the louvered room where Rory Devane stood in the dark, his face blackened and a large flak jacket hanging from his thin shoulders. Devane greeted them affably, but the sight of the priest wearing the purple stole was clearly not a welcome one.

Flynn said, "Sometime after 5:15 snipers will begin pouring bullets through all eight sides of this room."

"The room will be crowded, won't it?"

Flynn went on. "Yet you have to stay here and engage the helicopters. You have to put a rocket into the armored carrier."

Devane moved to a west-facing opening and looked down. Flynn briefed Devane, then said, "Father Murphy is interested in your soul."

Devane looked back at the priest. "I made my confession this morning-right here in Saint Pat's, as a matter of fact. Father Bertero, it was. I've done nothing in the meanwhile I need to confess."

Murphy said, "If you say an act of contrition, you can regain a state of grace." He turned and dropped into the ladder opening.

Flynn took Devane's hand. "Good luck to you. See you in Dublin."

"Aye, Brian, Kavanagh's Pub, or a place close by the back wall."

Flynn turned and dropped down the ladder, joining Murphy on the next level. The two men left the south

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tower and made their way across the choir loft. They entered the bell tower, and Flynn indicated the spiral staircase. "I have to speak with Mullins again."

Murphy was about to suggest that Flynn use the field phone, but something in Flynn's manner compelled him not to speak. They climbed until they reached a level where the stairs gave way to ladders somewhere below the first bell room where Mullins was.

Flynn looked at the large room they were in. The tower here was four-sided, with small milky-glass windows separated by thick stone.

Mullins had knocked holes in some of the panes in the event he had to change his location, and Flynn pulled off a thick triangle of glass and looked at it, then looked at Murphy. "A great many people watching this on television are morbidly fascinated with the question of how this place will look afterward."

Murphy said, "I don't need any more revelations from you tonight. As a priest nothing shocks me any longer, and I still cling to my faith in humanity."

"That is truly a wonder. I'm in awe of that. . . .

Murphy saw that he was sincere. "I observed how your people cared for each other, and for you. . . . I've heard some of their confessions. .

. . There are hopeful signs amid all this."

Flynn nodded. "And Hickey? Megan? Leary? And me?"

"May God have mercy on all your souls."

Flynn didn't respond,

Murphy said evenly, "If you're going to kill me, do it quickly."

Flynn's face looked puzzled, then almost hurt. "No

. why would you think that?"

Murphy automatically mumbled an apology but immediately felt it was unnecessary under the circumstances.

Flynn reached out and grabbed his arm. "Listen, I've kept my promise to you and let you run around doing your duty. Now I want a promise from you."

Father Murphy looked at him cautiously.

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Flynn said, "Promise me that after this is finished, you'll see that all my people are buried together in Glasnevin with Ireland's patriots. You can have a Catholic ceremony, if that'll make you feel better. . . . I know it won't be easy . . . . It may take you years to convince those swine in Dublin . . . . They never know who their heroes are until fifty years after they're dead."

The priest looked at him without comprehension, then said, "I . . . won't be alive to . . ."

Flynn took the priest's big hand firmly as though to shake it, but slapped the end of a handcuff on his wrist and locked the other end around the ladder's rail.

Father Murphy stared at his tethered wrist, then looked at Flynn. "Let me loose."

Flynn smiled weakly. "You weren't even supposed to be here. Now just keep your wits about you when the bullets start to fly. This tower should survive the explosion."

Murphy's face went red, and he shouted again. "You've no right to do this! Let me go!"

Flynn ignored him. He pulled a pistol from his belt and jumped down into the ladder opening. "It may happen that Megan, Hickey . . . someone may come for you . . . ... He laid the pistol on the floor. "Kill them." He dropped down the ladder. "Good luck, Padre."

Murphy bent down and grabbed the pistol with his free hand. He pointed it at the top of Flynn's head. "Stop!"

Flynn smiled as he continued his climb down. "Erin go bragh, Timothy Murphy." He laughed, and the sound echoed through the stone tower.

Murphy shouted after him. "Stop! Listen . . . you must save the others too . . . . Maureen . . . For God's sake, man, she loves you . . . . He stared down into the dark hole and watched Flynn disappear.

Father Murphy threw the pistol to the floor and tugged at the cuffs, then sank to his knees beside the ladder opening. Somewhere in the city a church bell tolled, then another joined in, and soon he could hear the sounds of a dozen different carillons playing the hymn "Be Not 452

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Afraid." He thought that every bell in the city must be ringing, perhaps every bell in the country, and he hoped 0

the others could hear them, too, and know they were not alone. For the first time since it had all begun, Father Murphy felt tears forming in his eyes.

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Brian Flynn came down from the tower and walked up the nave aisle, his footsteps echoing from the polished marble. He turned into the ambulatory and approached John Hickey, who stood on the raised platform of the chancel organ and watched him approach. Flynn walked deliberately up the steps and stood facing Hickey. After a short silence Hickey said, "It's 4:59. You let Murphy waste valuable time trying to save already damned souls. Does everyone know their orders at least?"

"Has Schroeder called?"

"No-that means either nothing is new or something is wrong." Hickey took out his pipe and filled it. "All night I've worried that my tobacco would run out before my life. It really bothered me. . . . A man shouldn't have to scrimp on his tobacco before he dies." He struck a match, and it sounded inordinately loud in the stillness. He drew deeply on his pipe and said, "Well, where's the priest?"

Flynn motioned vaguely toward the towers. "We've no grudge against him.

. . . He shouldn't pay the price for being in the wrong place at the wrong time."

"Why not? That's why the rest of us are going to die." He flashed a look of feigned enlightenment. "Ah, I suppose playing God means you have to save a life for every ten score you take."

Flynn said, "Who are you?"

Hickey smiled with unrestrained glee. "Have I frightened you, Iad? Don't be frightened, then. I'm just an old man who amuses himself by playing on people's fears and

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superstitions." Hickey stepped over the body of Pedar Fitzgerald and came closer to Flynn. He sucked noisily on his pipe, a pensive look on his face. "You know, lad, I've had more fun since I had myself buried than ever I did before I was interred. You get a lot of mileage out of resurrectionsomeone made a whole religion out of it once." He jerked a thumb toward the crucifix atop the altar and laughed again.

Flynn felt the old man's breath against his face. He put his right hand on the organ console. "Do you know anything about this ring?"

Hickey didn't look at it. "I know what you believe it is."

"And what is it really?"

"A ring, made of bronze."

Flynn slipped it from his finger and held it in his open palm. "Then I've held it too long. Take it."

Hickey shrugged and reached for it.

Flynn closed his hand and stared at Hickey.

Hickey's eyes narrowed into dark slits. "So, you want to know who I am and how I got here?" Hickey looked into the glowing bowl of his pipe with exaggerated interest. "I can tell you I'm a ghost, a thevshi, come from the grave to retrieve the ring and bring about your destruction and the destruction of the new Fenians-to perpetuate this strife into the next generation. There's the proper Celtic explanation you're looking for to make you feel better about your fears." He looked directly into Flynn's eyes. "But I can also tell you the truth, which is far more frightening.

I'm alive. Your own dark soul imagined the thevshi, as it imagines the banshee, and the pooka, and the Par Darrig, and all the nightmarish creatures that walk the dark landscape of your mind and make you huddle around flickering peat fires. Aye, Brian, that's a fright, because you can't find sanctuary from those monsters you carry within you."

Flynn stared at him, examining the furrowed white face. Suddenly Hickey's eyes became benign, sparkling, and his mouth curled up in a good-natured smile. Hickey said, "You see?"

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Flvnn said. "Yes, I see. I see that you're a creature who draws stren ' eth from other men's weaknesses. It's my fault you're here. and it's my responsibility to see that you do no further harm."

"The harm is done. Had you stood up to me instead of wallowing in self-pity, you could have fulfilled your responsibility to your people, not to mention your own destiny."

Flynn stared at Hickey. "No matter what happens, I'll see you don't leave here alive." Flynn turned and walked to the sanctuary. He stood before the high throne. "Cardinal, the police will attack anytime after 5:15. Father Murphy is in a relativelv safe place-we are not, and we will most probably die."

Flynn watched the Cardinal's face for a show of emotion, but there was none. He went on, "I want you to know that the people out there share in the responsibility for this. Like me they are vain, egotistical, and flawed. A rather sorry lot for products of so many thousands of years of Judeo-Christian love and charity, wouldn't you say?"

The Cardinal leaned forward in the throne. "That's a question for people who are looking for a path to take them through life. Your life is over, and you'll have all your answers very soon. Use the minutes left to you to speak to her." He nodded toward Maureen.

Flynn was momentarily taken aback. It was perhaps the last reply be expected from a priest. He stepped away from the throne, turned, and crossed the sanctuary.

Maureen and Baxter remained seated, cuffed together in the first pew.

Without a word Flynn unlocked the handcuffs, then spoke in a distant voice.

"I'd like to put you both in a less exposed place, but that isn't acceptable to some of the others. However. when the shooting starts, you won't be executed, because we may repel them and we'll need you again." He looked at his watch and continued in a dispassionate voice. "Sometime after 5:15 you'll see all the doors explode, followed by police rushing in. I know

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you are- both capable of keeping a coot head. Dive between the pews behind you. As 6:03 approaches . . . if you're still alive . . . get out of this area no matter what's happening around you. That's all I can do for you."

Maureen stood and looked at him closely. "No one asked you to do anything for us. If you want to do something for everyone, get down those stairs right now and open the gates to them. Then go into the pulpit and tell your people it's finished. No one will stop you, Brian. I think they're waiting to hear from you."

"When they open the gates of Long Kesh, I'll open the gates here."

Her voice became angry. "The keys to the jails of Ulster are not in America, or in London or Dublin. They are in Ulster. Give me a year in Belfast and Londonderry, and I'll get more people out of jail than you've ever bad released with your kidnappings, raids, assassinations-"

Flynn laughed. "A year? You wouldn't last a year. If the Catholics didn't get you, Maureen, the Prods would."

She drew a shallow breath and brought her voice under control. "Very well

. . . it's not worth going into that again. But you've no right to con these people into dying. Your voice can break the spell of death that hangs over this place. Go on! Do it! Now!" She swung and slapped him on the face.

Baxter moved off to one side and looked away.

Flynn pulled Maureen to him and said, "All night everyone's been very good about giving me advice. It's odd, isn't it, how people don't pay much attention to you until you've set a time bomb ticking under them?"

He released her arms. "You, for instance, walked out on me four years ago without much advice for my future. All the things you've said to me tonight could have been said then."

She glanced at Baxter and felt curiously uncomfortable that he was hearing all of this. She spoke in a low voice. "I said all I had to say then. You weren't listening."

"You weren't speaking so loudly, either."

Flynn turned to Baxter. "And you, Harry." He moved 457

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closer to Baxter. "Major Bartholomew Martin needed a dead Englishman in here, and you're it."

Baxter considered this and accepted it in a very short time. "Yes . . .