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.
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.”
She shook her head. “I’ll hang around—you never know what might happen.”
“I
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 cardinal—on the wing—in the dark. God, I can’t miss! I can’t
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. Patrick, 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 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 told— covering that plate and keeping those two from running.”
She shouted as she took aim at the clergy pews. “I want to
Leary stared, down at Megan, her silhouette visible against the candlelight and flares below. He spoke in a low, contemplative voice. “Everyone’s dead, Megan, except Hickey and, I guess, Malone and Baxter. They’ll all die in the explosion. That leaves only you and me.”
She spun around and peered up into the blackness toward the place from which his voice had come.
He said, “You understand, I’m a professional. It’s like I said, I only do what I’m told—never more, never less—and Flynn told me to make especially sure of you and Hickey.”
She shook her head. “Jack … you can’t…. Not after we …” She laughed. “Yes, of course…. I don’t want to be taken…. Brian knew that…. He did it for me. Go on, then. Quickly!”
He raised a pistol, aimed at the dark outline, and put two bullets in rapid succession through her head. Megan’s body toppled back, and she rolled down the aisle, coming to rest beside the Guard sergeant she had killed.
Burke stood in his stocking feet with his back to the wall just inside the tower door, a short, fat grenade
