better to let Captain Bellini handle it—but now that he’s—”
“We appreciate that, sir.” Burke noticed Kline’s voice had that cool preciseness that was just a hair away from whining panic. “Actually, I have to get through to the crawl space, Mr. Mayor, so—”
“Yes—just a second—I was wondering if you could fill us in—”
“I just did.”
“What? Oh, yes. Just one second. We need a situation report from you as the ranking man in there—you’re in charge, by the way.”
“Thanks. Let me call you right back—”
“Fine.”
He heard a click and spoke to the police operator. “Don’t put that asshole through again.” He dropped the receiver on the floor.
The Sixth Assault Squad of ESD rappelled from police helicopters into the open attic hatches. They ran across the foam-covered catwalks to the south tower and split up, one team going up toward Devane’s position, the other down toward the triforium and choir loft levels.
The team climbing into the tower fired grenades ahead of them, moving up level by level until they reached the copper-louvered room where Devane had been posted. They looked for the body of the Fenian sniper in the dark, smoke-filled room but found only bloodstains on the floor and a gas mask lying in the corner.
The squad leader touched a bloodstain on the ascending ladder and looked up. “We’ll go with gas from here.”
The men pulled on gas masks and fired CS canisters to the next level. They moved up the ladder, floor by floor, the gas rising with them, into the narrowing spire. Above them they heard the echoing sounds of a man coughing, then the deep, full bellow of vomiting. They followed the blood trail on the rusty ladder, cautiously moving through the dark levels until they reached a narrow, tapering, octagonal room about fifteen stories above the street. The room had clover-shaped openings, without glass, cut into the eight sides of the stonework. The blood trail ended on the ladder, and the floor near one of the openings was smeared with vomit. The squad leader pulled off his gas mask and stuck his head and shoulders out of the opening and looked up.
A series of iron rungs ran up the last hundred feet of the tapering spire toward the copper cross on top. The squad leader saw a man climbing halfway up. The man lost his footing, then recovered and pulled himself up to the next rung. The squad leader dropped back into the small, cold room. He unslung his rifle and chambered a round. “These fucks blew away a lot of our people—understand?”
One of his men said, “It’s not too cool to blow him away with all those people watching from Rockafeller Center.”
The squad leader looked out the opening at the buildings across the Avenue. Despite orders and all the police could do, hundreds of people were at the windows and on the rooftops watching the climber make his way up the granite spire. A few people were shouting, making encouraging motions with their hands and bodies. The squad leader heard cheering and applauding and thought he heard gasps when the man slipped. He said, “Assholes. The wrong people are
The climber glanced down but continued up the spire.
The squad leader pulled his head back into the room. “Give me the rappelling line.” He took the nylon rope and began hooking himself up. “Well, as the homicide detectives say, ‘Did he fall or was he pushed?’ That is the question.”
The other half of the Sixth Assault Squad descended through the south tower and, following a rough sketch supplied by Gordon Stillway, located the door to the long southwest triforium. One of the men kicked the door in, and the other four rushed down the length of the long gallery in a crouch. An ESD man spotted a man dressed in kilts lying crumpled at the corner of the balustrade, a bagpipe sticking out from under his body.
Suddenly a periscope rose from the triforium across the transept, and a bullhorn blared. “Get down! The loft! Watch the loft!”
The men turned in unison and stared down at the choir loft projecting out at a right angle about thirty feet below them. A muzzle flashed twice, and two of the five men went down. The other three dove for the floor. “What the hell … ?” The team leader looked wildly around the long dark gallery as though it were full of gunmen. “Where did that come from … the loft?” He looked at the two dead men, each shot between the eyes. “I never saw it…. I never heard anything….”
One of the men said, “Neither did they.”
The fifteen men of the 69th Regiment had moved back into the Cathedral after the carrier had stopped burning, and they lay on the floor under the choir loft, sighting their rifles down the five wide aisles toward the raised sanctuary. Major Cole rose to one knee and looked over the pews with a pair of binoculars, then scanned the four triforia. Nothing seemed to be moving in the Cathedral, and the loudest sound was the striking of bullets from the Fenian sniper overhead. Cole looked at the smoking armored carrier beside him. The smell of burnt gasoline and flesh made his stomach heave.
A sergeant came up beside him. “Major, we have to do something.”
The major felt his stomach heave again. “We are not supposed to interfere with the police in any way. There could be a misunderstanding … an accident …”
A runner came up the steps, moved through the battered doors, and crossed the vestibule, finding Major Cole contemplating his watch. The runner crouched beside him. “From the Governor, sir.”
Cole took the handwritten report without enthusiasm and read from the last paragraph. “Father Murphy still missing. Locate and rescue him and rescue the other two hostages beneath the sanctuary pews….” Cole looked up at the sergeant.
The sergeant regarded Cole’s pale face. “If I found a way into that loft and zapped the sniper, you could dash up the aisle and grab the two hostages—” He smiled. “But you got to move quick because you’ll be racing the cops for them.”
Major Cole said stiffly, “All right. Take ten men into the loft.” He turned to the runner. “Acknowledge message. Have the police command call their men in the triforia and tell them to hold fire on the loft for … five minutes.” The runner saluted and moved off. Cole said to the sergeant, “Don’t get anyone hurt.”
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 rifle held out, and began walking in one of the cross aisles. The ten soldiers began 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, Megan! Keep me covered. I’m 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
