“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 slumped 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
Tears formed in her eyes. “Oh, Brian … always so late … always so late….”
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 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.”
“I hear you.”
Burke signaled the switchboard. “Did you get through to the towers or attic yet?”
The operator answered, “Attic under control. Upper parts of both towers are secure, except for some clown climbing the south tower. But down at the loft level everything’s a fucking mess. Some weird bitch dressed like a witch or something is blasting away at the tower doors. Some ESD guys got wasted in the choir room. Army guys got creamed coming into the loft from the other tower. Very unclear. You want to speak to them? Tell them to try again?”
“No. Tell them to stand by. Put me through to the crawl space.”
The operator’s voice was hesitant. “We can’t raise them. They were reporting fine until a few minutes ago— then I lost them.” The man paused, then added, “Check the time.”
“I know the fucking time. Everybody knows the fucking time. Keep trying the crawl space. Connect me with Fifth Squad.”
An ESD man on the sacristy stairs answered, and Burke said, “Situation.”
The man reported, “Sacristy behind me is filled with fresh Assault Squads, but only two guys at a time can shoot from behind the altar. We definitely cannot reach that bronze plate. We cannot reach the hostages, and they can’t reach us. Christ, those two bastards up there can
“What’s happening,” Burke answered, “is that this end of the Cathedral will probably collapse in ten minutes, so send everyone back to the rectory basement except two or three men to keep contact with the hostages.”
“Right.”
Langley’s voice came on the line. “Burke—get the hell out of there. Now.” Burke answered, “Have the ESD and Bomb Squad send more people into the crawl space—Hickey must’ve nailed the others. There’s at least one bomb left, and he’s probably guarding it like a dog with a meaty bone. Get on it.”
Langley said, “The bomb could blow
Mayor Kline cut in, and his voice had the tone of a man speaking for the tape recorders. “Lieutenant,
Burke ripped the wire out of the phone and turned to the man beside him. “Get everyone down the elevator shaft, and don’t stop until you reach the basement of the Cardinal’s residence.”
The man slung his rifle. “You coming?”
Burke turned and moved around the bend in the triforium that overlooked the south transept. He stood and looked over the balustrade. The line of sight of the choir loft was blocked by the angle of the crossed-shaped building, and the ESD men had shot a line across the transept to the long triforium. Burke slipped into a rope harness and began pulling himself, hand over hand, across the hundred-foot-wide transept arm.
An ESD man on the far side reached out and pulled him over the balustrade. The two men walked quickly to the corner where Sullivan lay sprawled across his bagpipes, his kilts and bare legs splattered with blood. Both men crouched before they turned the corner, and Burke moved down the length of the triforium, passing six kneeling ESD snipers and two dead ones. He took a periscope and looked over the balustrade.
The choir loft was about three stories below, and from here he could see how huge and obscure it was, while the police perches were more defined by the candlelight playing off the window-like openings. Still, he thought, it was incredible that anyone in the loft had survived the volleys of fire, and he wondered why those two were so blessed.
He lowered the scope and moved farther to his right, then stood higher and focused the periscope on the floor below. The shattered front of the armored vehicle stuck out from under the loft, and he saw part of a body sprawled over it—Logan. Two blackened arms stuck straight out of what had been the driver’s compartment. Major Cole and a few men knelt to the side of the carrier, looking grim but, he thought, also relieved that the day’s National Guard exercises were nearly over.
A shot whistled out of the loft, and the periscope slapped Burke in the eye and flew out of his hands. Burke toppled and fell to the floor.
The ESD man beside him said, “You held it up too long, Lieutenant. And that was our last scope.”
Burke rubbed his eye and brought his hand away covered with watery blood. He rose to one knee and looked at the man, who appeared blurry. “Any word from the towers?”
Before the man answered, a short staccato burst of fire rolled out of the loft, followed by another, and the man said, “That’s the word from the towers—the witch wants nobody near her doors.” He looked at his watch and said, “What a fucking mess…. We almost had it. Right?”
Burke looked at the ESD man across from him, who was a sergeant. “Any ideas?”
“The thing hinges on knocking out the loft so that Malone and Baxter can make it to the stairs and so the ESD people there can drop concussion grenades through the plate and turn that guy Hickey’s brains to mashed potatoes. Then the bomb guys can get the bombs. Right?”
Burke nodded. This seemed to be the inescapable solution to the problem. The choir loft dominated the entire
