aerial view of the Cathedral brightening slowly in the dawn light. In churches and synagogues that had maintained allnight vigils, people looked at their watches. 6:04.
Wendy Peterson rose slowly from the hole and walked to the middle of the sanctuary, blinking in the brighter lighting. She held something in both hands and stared at it, then looked slowly up at the triforia and loft. Her face was very pale, and her voice was slightly hesitant, but her words rolled through the silent Cathedral. “The detonating device …” She held up a clock connected by four wires to a large battery pack, from which ran four more wires. She raised it higher, as though it were a chalice, and in her other hand she held four long cylindrical detonators that she had clipped from the wires. White plastic still clung to the mechanism, and in the stillness of the Cathedral the ticking clock sounded very loud. She ran her tongue over her dry lips and said, “All clear.”
No one applauded, no one cheered, but in the silence there was an audible collective sigh, then the sound of someone weeping.
The quiet was suddenly broken by the shrill noise of a long scream as a man fell headfirst from the choir loft. The body hit the floor in front of the armored carrier with a loud crack.
Maureen and Baxter turned and looked down at the awkwardly sprawled body, a splatter of blood radiating over the floor around the head. Baxter spoke in a whisper. “Martin.”
Burke walked haltingly across the floor beneath the choir loft. The tingling in his back had become a dull pain. A stretcher was carried past him, and he caught a glimpse of Brian Flynn’s face but couldn’t tell if he was dead or alive. Burke kept walking until he came to Martin’s body. Martin’s neck was broken, his eyes were wide open, and his protruding tongue was half bitten off. Burke lit a cigarette and dropped the match on Martin’s face.
He turned and looked absently at the huge, charred carrier and the blackened bodies on it, then watched the people around him moving, speaking quickly, going about their duties; but it all seemed remote, as though he were watching through an unfocused telescope. He looked around for Baxter and Malone but saw they were gone. He realized he had nothing to do at the moment and felt good about it.
Burke moved aimlessly up the center aisle and saw Wendy Peterson standing alone in the aisle and looking, like himself, somewhat at loose ends. Weak sunlight came through the broken window above the east end of the ambulatory, and she seemed, he thought, to be deliberately standing in the dust-moted shaft. As he walked past her he said, “Very nice.”
She looked up at him. “Burke …”
He turned and saw she held the detonating mechanism. She spoke, but not really, he thought, to him. “The clock is working … see? And the batteries can’t all have failed…. The connections were tight…. There’re four separate detonators … but they never …” She looked almost appalled, he thought, as though all the physical laws of the universe that she had believed in had been revoked.
He said, “But you—you were—”
She shook her head. “
Book VI
Morning, March 18
Patrick Burke blinked as he walked out through the ceremonial doors, down the center of the crushed steps between the flattened handrails, and into the thin winter sunlight.
The night’s accumulation of ice was running from rooftops and sidewalks and melting over the steps of St. Patrick’s into the littered streets. Burke saw on the bottom step the hand-lettered sign that the Fenians had stuck to the front doors, half torn, the words blurring over the soggy cardboard. The splatter of green paint from the thrown bottle bled out across the granite, and a long, barely visible trail of blood from the dead horse led into the Avenue. You wouldn’t know what it all was, thought Burke, if you hadn’t been there.
A soft south wind shook the ice from the bare trees along Fifth Avenue, and church bells tolled in the distance. Ambulances, police vehicles, and limousines splashed through the sunlit pools of water, and platoons of Tactical Police and National Guardsmen marched in the streets, while mounted police, half-asleep on their horses, moved in apparently random directions. Many of the police, Burke noticed, had black ribbons on their badges, most of the city officials wore black armbands, and many of the flags along the Avenue were at half-mast, as though this had all been thought out for some time, anticipated, foreseen.
Burke heard a sound on the north terrace and saw the procession of clergy and lay people who were completing their circle of the Cathedral walls, led by the Cardinal wearing a white stole. They drew abreast of the main doors and faced them, the Cardinal intoning, “Purify me with hyssop, Lord, and I shall be clean of sin. Wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.”
Burke stood a few yards off, listening as the assembly continued the rite of reconciliation for the profaned church, oblivious to the people swarming around them. He watched the Cardinal sprinkle holy water against the walls as the others prayed, and he wondered how so obscure a ritual could be carried out so soon and with such Roman precision. Then he realized that the Cardinal and the others must have been thinking about it all night, just as the city officials had rehearsed their parts in their minds during the long black hours. He, Burke, had never let his thoughts get much beyond 6:03, which was one reason why he would never be either the Mayor or the Archbishop of New York.
The procession moved through the portal two by two and past the smashed ceremonial doors into the Cathedral. Burke took off his flak jacket and dropped it at his feet, then walked slowly to the corner of the steps near Fiftieth Street and sat down in a patch of pale sunlight. He folded his arms over his knees and rested his head, falling into a half-sleep.
The Cardinal moved at the head of the line of priests who made up the Cathedral staff. A cross-bearer held a tall gold cross above the sea of moving heads, and the Litany of the Saints was chanted ss the line went forward through the gate of the communion rail.
The group assembled in the center of the sanctuary where Monsignor Downes awaited them. The altar was entirely bare of religious objects in preparation for the conclusion of the cleansing rite, and police photographers and crime lab personnel were hurrying through their work. The assembly fell silent, and people began looking around at the blood-splattered sanctuary and altar. Then heads began to turn out toward the ravaged Cathedral, and several people wept openly.
The Cardinal’s voice cut off the display of emotion. “There will be time enough for that later.” He spoke to two of the priests. “Go into the side vestibules where the casualties have been taken and assist the police and army chaplains.” He added, “Have Father Murphy’s body taken to the rectory.”
The two priests moved off. The Cardinal looked at the sacristans and motioned around the sanctuary. “As soon as the police have finished here, make it presentable for the Mass that will be offered at the conclusion of the purification.” He added, “Leave the carnations.”
He turned to Monsignor Downes and spoke to him for the first time. “Thank you for your prayers, and for your efforts during this ordeal.”
Monsignor Downes lowered his head and said softly, “I … they asked me to sanction your rescue … this attack …”
“I know all of that.” He smiled. “More than once during the night I thanked God it wasn’t I who had to deal with those … questions.” The Cardinal turned and faced the long, wide expanse of empty pews. “God arises, His enemies are scattered, and those who hate Him flee before Him.”
