Cathedral (65 page)

A voice called out from the dark, an old man's voice with a mocking tone.

"Fuck youl Fuck all of you!"

A nervous young policeman shouted back, "Fuck you!"

The squad leader stuck his head around the crypt comer and shouted, "If you come out with your hands--2'

"Oh, baloneyl" Hickey laughed, then fired a burst of bullets at the red glow coming around the comer of the crypt. The gunfire caused a deafening roar in the closed space and echoed far into the quarter-acre of crawl space. Hickey shouted, "Is there a bomb squad lad there? Answer me!"

Peterson edged toward the comer. "Right here, Pop."

"Pop? Who are you calling Pop? Well, never mindlisten, these bombs have more sensitive triggers to make them blow than . . . than Linda Lovelace."

He laughed, then said, "Terrible metaphor. Anyway, lass, to give you an example you'll appreciate professionally-I mean demolitions, not blowing-where was I? Oh, yes, I've lots of triggers-photosensitive, audio--all kinds of triggers. Do you believe that, little girl?"

"I think you're full of shit."

Hickey laughed. "Well, then send everyone away, darlin', and toss a concussion grenade at me. If that doesn't blow the bombs, then a demo man can come back and defuse them. You won't be able to with your brains scrambled, and I won't be able to stop him with my brains'scrambled. Go on, lassie. Let's see what you're made of."

Wendy Peterson turned to the squad leader. "Give me a concussion grenade and clear out."

"Like hell. Anyway, you know we don't carry those things in spaces like this."

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She unsheathed the long stiletto that she used to cut plastic and moved around the corner of the crypt.

The squad leader reached out and pulled her back. "Where the hell are you going? Listen, I thought of thatit's over sixty feet to where that guy is. Nobody can cover that distance without making some noise, and he'll nail you the second he hears you."

"Then cover me with noise."

"Forget it."

Hickey called out, "What's next, folks? One man bellycrawling? I can hear breathing at thirty-forty feet. I can smell a copper at sixty feet.

Listen, gentlemen-and ladythe time has come for you to leave. You're annoying me, and I have things to think about in the next few minutes.

I feel like singing-" He began singing a bawdy version of the British army song:

"Fuck you aaa-M, fuck you aaa-M, The long and the short and the taa-111. Fuck all the coppers, and fuck all their guns, Fuck all the priests and their bastard sons. S-o-oo, I'm saying good-bye to you all, The ones that appeal and appall. I stall and tarry, While you want to save Harry, But nevertheless fuck you aaa-Ill."

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 explo-537

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sive conforming to his back. "Oh . . . well He filled his pipe, lit it, and looked at his watch. 5:56. "My, it's late. . . ." He bummed a few bars of "An Irish Lullaby," then sang softly to himself, too-ra-loo-ra-loora, 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. "Heyl 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

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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 maWs 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."

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"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.

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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 down?"

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

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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 cardinalon 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. Patridk, 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 542

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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 toldcovering that plate and keeping those two from running."