Cathedral (63 page)

The sergeant turned and led ten Guardsmen back into the south vestibule and opened the door to the spiral staircase. The soldiers double-timed up into the tower until they saw a large wooden door in the wall. The sergeant approached it cautiously and listened, but heard nothing. He put his hand on the knob and turned it slowly, then drew open the door a crack. There was complete blackness in front of him. At first he thought he wasn't in the loft, but then he saw in the distance candlelight playing off the wall of the long northern triforium above, and he recognized the empty flagstaff. He drew open the door, crouched with his 521

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rifle held out, and began walking in one of the cross aisles. The ten soldiers b6gan following at intervals.

The sergeant slid his shoulder along the pew enclosure on his left as he moved, blinking into the darkness, listening for a sound somewhere in the cavernous loft. His shoulder slipped into an opening, and he turned, facing the wide' aisle that ran up the center of the sloping loft. The entire expanse was pitch black, but he had a sense of its size from the massive rose window looming in the blackness, larger than a two-story house, glowing with the lights of Rockefeller Center across the Avenue.

The sergeant took a step up the rising aisle, and he heard a sound like rustling silk in the pews above him.

A woman stood a few feet in front of him on the next higher step. The sergeant stared up at two points of burning green light that reflected the candlelight rising from the Cathedral behind him. The piercing eyes held him for a fraction of a second before he raised his rifle.

Megan screamed wildly and discharged a shotgun blast into his face. She jumped up on a pew and began firing down into the aisle below. The soldiers scrambled back along the aisle, buckshot pelting their helmets, flak jackets, and limbs as they retreated into the tower.

Leary shouted, "Keep them away, Meganl Keep me covered. rm shooting like I never shot before. Give me time." He fired and moved, fired again and moved again.

Megan picked up her automatic rifle and fired quick bursts at the tower doors. Leary saw a periscope poking over the parapet in the southeast triforium and blew it away with a single shot. "I'm hotl God, I'm hot todayl"

Burke heard the shotgun blasts from the loft, followed by the short, quick bursts of the M-16 and then the whistling of the sniper's rifle as rounds chipped away at the balustrade over his head.

The ESD man beside him said, "Sounds like the weekend commandos didn't capture the choir loft."

Burke picked up the field phone and spoke to the other three triforia.

"At my command we throw everything we've 522

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got into the loft." He called the sacristy stairs. "Tell Malone and Baxter we're putting down suppressing fire again, and if they want to give it a try, this is the time to do it-there won't be another time."

Burke waited the remainder of the five minutes he had given the 69th, to be sure they were not going to try again to get into the loft, then put the field phone to his mouth. "Fire!"

Twenty-five ESD men rose in the four triforia and began firing with automatic rifles and grenade launchers. The rifles raked the loft with long traversing streams, while the launchers alternated their loads, firing beehive canisters of long needles, buckshot, high explosives, gas grenades, illumination rounds, and fire-extinguishing gas.

The choir loft reverberated with the din of exploding grenades, and thick black smoke mingled with the yellowish gas. The smoke and gas rose over the splintering pews, then moved along the ceiling of the Cathedral like an eerie cloud, iridescent in the light of the burning flares below.

Megan and Leary, wearing gas masks, knelt in the bottom aisle below the thick, protruding parapet that ran the width of the loft. Leary fired into the triforia, moved laterally, fired, and moved again. Megan sent streams of automatic fire into the sanctuary as she raced back and forth along the parapet.

Burke heard the sounds of the grenade launchers tapering off as the canisters were used up, and he heard an occasional exclamation when someone was hit. He stood and looked over the balustrade, through the smoke, and saw small flames flickering in the loft. From the field phone in his hand came excited voices as the other triforia called for medics.

And still the firing from the loft went on. Burke grabbed an M-16 from one of the EDS men. "Goddamned sons of bitches--2' He fired a full magazine without pause, reloaded and fired again until the gun overheated and jammed. He threw the rifle down savagely and shouted into the field phone, "Shoot the remaining fireextinguishing canisters and get down."

The last of the canisters arched into the loft, and Burke 523

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saw the fires begin to subside. Impulsively he grabbed the bullhorn and shouted toward the loft, "I'm coming for you, cocksuckers. I'm-" He felt someone knock his legs out from under him, and he toppled to the floor as a bullet passed through the space where he had stood.

An ESD man sat cross-legged looking down at him. "You got to be cool, Lieutenant. There's nothing personal between them and us. You understand?"

Another man lit a cigarette and added, "They're giving it their best shot, and we're giving it our best shot. Today they got the force with them-see? And we don't. Makes you wonder, though. . . . I mean in a cathedral and all that . . ."

Burke took the man's cigarette and got control of himself. "Okay. . . .

okay. . . . Any ideas?"

A man dabbing at a grazing wound across his jaw answered, "Yeah, offer them a job-my job."

Another man added, "Somebody's got to get into the loft through the towers. That's the truth."

Burke saw the dial of the other man's watch. He picked up the phone and called the sacristy stairs. "Did the hostages make it?"

The commo man answered, "Whoever's behind that M16 up there wasn't shooting at you guys-it was raining bullets on the floor between the pews and the stairsChrist, somebody up there has it in for these two."

"I'm sure it's not personal." Burke threw the phone down. "Still, I'm getting a little pissed off."

"What the hell is driving those two Micks on?" an ESD man asked.

"Politics? I mean, I'm a registered Democrat, but I don't get that excited about it. You know?"

Burke stubbed out a cigarette and thought about Bellini. He looked down at the coagulated gore on his trousers that had been part of Bellini, those great stupid brains that had held a lot more knowledge than he had realized. Bellini would know what to do, and if he didn't, he would know how to inspire confidence in these semi-psychotics around him. Burke felt very much out of his element, unwilling to give an order that would get one more man killed; and he

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appreciated-really and fully appreciated-the reason for Bellini's erratic behavior all night. Unconsciously he rubbed at the stains on his trousers until someone said, "It doesn't come off."

Burke nodded. He realized now that he had to go to the loft, himself, and finish it one way or the other.

Maureen listened to the intense volume of fire dying away. The arm of the policeman who had fallen from the triforium above dangled between the pews, dripping blood into a large puddle of red. Through the gunfire she had thought she heard a sound coming from the pulpit.

Baxter said, "I think that was our last chance, Maureen."

She heard it again, a low, choked-off moan. She said, "We may have one more chance." She slid away from Baxter, avoiding his grasp, and rolled beneath the pews, coming out where they ended near the spiral pulpit staircase a few feet across a patch of open floor. She dove across the opening and flattened herself on the marble-walled steps, hugging the big column around which the steps circled. As she reached the top she noticed the red bloodstains on the top stairs. She looked into the pulpit and saw that he had dragged himself up to a sitting position, his back to the marble wall. His eyes were shut, and she stared at him for several seconds, watching the irregular rising and falling of his chest. Then she slid into the pulpit. "Brian."

He opened his eyes and focused on her.

She leaned over him and said quietly, "Do you see what you've done?

They're all dead, Brian. All your trusting young friends are dead-only Leary, Megan, and Hickey are left-the bastards."

He took her hand and pressed it weakly. "Well . . . you're all right, then . . . and Baxter?"

She nodded, then ripped open his shirt and saw the bul let wound that had entered from the top of his shoulder.

She moved her hands over his body and found the exit wound on his opposite hip, big and jagged, filled with bone splinters and marrow. "Oh, GodShe breathed 525

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deeply several times, trying to bring her voice under control. "Was it worth it?"

His eyes seemed clear and alert. 'w9top scolding, Maureen."

She touched his cheek. "Father Murphy . . . Why did you . . . T, He closed his eyes and shook his head. "We never escape what we were as children. . . . Priests awe me. . . ." He drew a shallow breath. "Priests

. . . cathedrals . . . you attack what you fear . . . primitive . . .

self-protecting."

She glanced at her watch, then took him by his shoulders and shook him gently. "Can you call off Leary and Megan? Can you make them stop?" She looked up at the pulpit microphone. "Let me help you stand."

He didn't respond.

She shook him again. "Brian-it's over-it's finishedstop this killing--2'

He shook his head. "I can't stop them. . . . You know that. . . ."

"The bombs, then. Brian, how many bombs? Where are they? What time-T'

"I don't know . . . and if I did . . . I don't know . . . 6:03 . . . sooner

. . . later . . . two bombs . . . eight . . . a hundred . . . . Ask Hickey.

. . ."

She shook him more roughly. "You're a damned fool." She said more softly,

"You're dying."

"Let me go in peace, can't you?" He suddenly leaned forward and took her hands in a surprisingly tight grip, and a spasm shook his body. He felt blood rising from his lungs and felt it streaming through his parted lips.

"Oh . . . God . . . God, this is slow. . . ."

She looked at a pistol lying on the floor and picked it up.

He watched her as she held the pistol in both bands. He shook his head.

"No. . . . You've got enough regrets . . . don't carry that with you. . .

. Not for me . . . ...

She cocked the pistol. "Not for you-for me."

He held out his hand and pushed her arm away. "I want it to be slow. . . ."

She uncocked the pistol and flung it down the steps.

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"All right . . . as you wish." She looked around the floor of the pulpit, and from among a pile of ammunition boxes she took an aid kit and unwrapped two pressure bandages.

Flynn said, "Go away. . . . Don't prolong this. . . . You're not helping .

. . ...

"You want it to be slow." She dressed both wounds, then extracted a Syrette of morphine from the kit.

He pushed her hand away weakly. "For God's sake, Maureen, let me die my way. . . . I want to stay clearheaded . . . to think. . . ."

She tapped the spring-loaded Syrette against his arm, and the morphine shot into his muscle. "Clearheaded," she repeated, "clearheaded, indeed."

He stumped back against the pulpit wall. "Cold . . . cold . . . this is bad

. . . ...

"Yes . . . let the morphine work. Close your eyes."

"Maureen ... how many people have I done this to . . . My God . . . what have I done all these years . . . T'

Tears formed in her eyes. "Oh, Brian . . . always so late . . . always so late . . . . 11

Rory Devane felt blood collecting in his torn throat and tried to spit, but the blood gushed from his open wound again, carrying flecks of vomit with it. He blinked the running tears from his eyes as he moved upward. His hands had lost all sensation, and he had to look at them to see if they were grabbing the cold iron rungs.

The higher he climbed, the more his head throbbed where the ricochet had hit him, and the throbbing spread into his skull, causing a pain he wouldn't have believed possible. Several times he wanted to let go, but the image of the cross on the top drew him upward.

He reached the end of the stone spire and looked up at the protruding ornamental copper finial from which rose the cross. Iron spikes, like steps, had been driven into the bulging finial. He climbed them slowly, then threw his arms around the base of the cross and put his head down on the cold metal and wept. After a while he picked up his head and completed his climb. He draped his numb arms

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over the cross and stood, twenty-eight stories above the city.

Slowly Devane looked to his front. Across the Avenue, Rockefeller Center soared above him, half the windows lit and open, people waving at him.

He turned to his left and saw the Empire State Building towering over the Avenue. He shifted his body around and looked behind him. Between two tall. buildings he saw the flatland of Long Island stretching back to the horizon. A soft golden glow illuminated the place where the earth met the dark, starlit sky. 'Dawn.

Burke knelt on the blood-covered floor of the triforium. The wounded had been lowered down the elevator shaft, and the dead, including Bellini, were laid out in the attic. Four ESD men of the First Assault Squad remained, huddled against the parapet. The sniper in the choir loft was skimming bullets across the top of the balustrades, but from what Burke could hear, few of the ESD men in the three other triforia were picking their heads up to return the fire. Burke took the field phone and called the opposite triforium. "Situation."

The voice answered, "Squad leader got it. Wounded evacuated down the chimney, and replacements moving up but-listen, what's the word from Rockefeller Center? It's late."

Burke had a vivid image of Commissioner Rourke throwing up in a men's room, Murray Kline telling everyone to be calm, and Martin, looking very cool, giving advice that was designed to finish off the Cathedral and everyone in it. Burke glanced at his watch. It would be slow going down that chimney. He spoke into the phone. "Clear out."