at the streets. “Almost every ranking officer in the New York Police Department is down there somewhere, cut off from communication, cut off from their command.” He turned to Langley. “This is the worst yet.”
Langley shook his head. “I think the worst is yet to come.”
In the intersection at Fiftieth Street, Burke could see the bright orange sashes of men being led into a paddy wagon. Burke remembered the Irish saying: “If you want an audience, start a fight.” These Orangemen had wanted an audience, and he knew why; he knew, too, that they were not Orangemen at all but Boston Provos recruited to cause a diversion—dumb Micks with more courage than brains.
The policewoman turned to him as she urged the horse on. “Who are those people with orange sashes?”
“It’s a long story. Go on. Almost there—”
Brian Flynn came down from the pulpit and faced Maureen Malone. “It’s been a damned long time, Maureen.”
She looked at him and replied in an even voice, “Not long enough.”
He smiled. “Did you get my flowers?”
“I flushed them.”
“You have one in your lapel.”
Her face reddened. “So you’ve come to America after all, Brian.”
“Yes. But as you can see, on my terms.” He looked out over the Cathedral. The last of the worshipers were jamming the center vestibule, trying to squeeze through the great bronze doors. Two Fenians, Arthur Nulty dressed as a priest and Frank Gallagher dressed as a parade marshal, stood behind them and urged them on through the doors, onto the packed steps, but the crowd began to back up into the vestibule. All the other doors had been swung closed and bolted. Flynn looked at his watch. This was taking longer than he expected. He turned to Maureen. “Yes, on my terms. Do you see what I’ve
Maureen saw in his eyes a familiar look of triumph, but mixed with that look was one of fear that she had never seen before. Like a little boy, she thought, who had stolen something from a shop and knows he might have to answer for his transgression very shortly. “You won’t get away with this, you know.”
He smiled, and the fear left his eyes. “Yes, I will.”
Two of the Fenians who had posed as police walked around the altar and descended the stairs that led down to the sacristy. From the open archway on the left-hand wall of the sacristy, they heard footsteps approaching in the corridor that led from the rectory. Excited voices came from a similar opening on the opposite wall that led to the Cardinal’s residence. All at once priests and uniformed policemen burst into the sacristy from both doors.
The two Fenians drew the sliding gates out of the wall until they met with a loud metallic ring, and the people in the sacristy looked up the stairs. A uniformed sergeant called out, “Hey! Open those gates!” He advanced toward the stairs.
The Fenians tied a chain through the scrolled brasswork and produced a padlock.
The sergeant drew his pistol. Another policeman came up behind him and did the same.
The Fenians seemed to pay no attention to the officers and snapped the heavy lock on the ends of the wrapped chain. One of them looked up, smiled, and gave a brief salute. “Sorry, lads, you’ll have to go round.” Both Fenians disappeared up the stairs. One of them, Pedar Fitzgerald, sat near the crypt door where he could see the gate. The other, Eamon Farrell, came around the altar and nodded to Flynn.
Flynn turned to Baxter for the first time. “Sir Harold Baxter?”
“That’s correct.”
He stared at Baxter. “Yes, I’d enjoy killing you.”
Baxter replied without inflection, “Your kind would enjoy killing anyone.”
Flynn turned away and looked at the Cardinal. “Your Eminence.” He bowed his head, and it wasn’t clear if he was mocking or sincere. “My name is Finn MacCumail, Chief of the new Fenian Army. This church is now mine. This is my Bruidean. You know the term? My place of sanctuary.”
The Cardinal seemed not to hear him. He asked abruptly, “Is this Cathedral on fire?”
“That depends to a large extent on what happens in the next few minutes.”
The Cardinal stared at him, and neither man flinched. The Cardinal finally spoke. “Get out of here. Get out while you can.”
“I can’t, and I don’t want to.” He looked up at the choir loft over the main doors where Jack Leary, dressed as a colonial soldier, stood with a rifle. Flynn’s eyes dropped to the main doors nearly a block away. People still jammed the vestibule, and noise and light passed in through the open doors. He turned to Father Murphy, who stood next to him. “Father, you may leave. Hurry down the aisle before the doors close.”
Murphy strode deliberately to a spot beside the Cardinal. “We are both leaving.”
“No. No, on second thought, we may find a use for you later.” Flynn turned to Maureen again and moved closer to her. He spoke softly. “You knew, didn’t you? Even before you got the flowers?”
“I knew.”
“Good. We still know each other, don’t we? We’ve spoken over the years and across the miles, haven’t we, Maureen?”
She nodded.
A young woman dressed as a nun appeared at the altar rail holding a large pistol. In the front pew a bearded old man, apparently sleeping on the bench, rose, stretched, and came up behind her. Everyone watched as the two people ascended the steps of the altar sanctuary.
The old man nodded to the hostages and spoke in a clear, vibrant voice. “Your Eminence, Father Murphy, Miss Malone, Sir Harold. I am John Hickey, fancifully code-named Dermot, in keeping with the pagan motif suggested by our leader, Finn MacCumail.” He made an exaggerated bow to Flynn. “I am a poet, scholar, soldier, and patriot, much like the original Fenians. You may have heard of me.” He looked around and saw the signs of recognition in the eyes of the four hostages. “No, not dead, as you can plainly see. But dead before the sun rises again, I’ll wager. Dead in the ruins of this smoldering Cathedral. A magnificent funeral pyre it’ll be, befitting a man of my rank. Oh, don’t look so glum, Cardinal, there’s a way out—if we all keep our senses about us.” He turned to the young woman beside him. “May I present our Grania—or, as she prefers her real name, Megan Fitzgerald.”
Megan Fitzgerald said nothing but looked into the face of each hostage. Her eyes came to rest on Maureen Malone, and she looked her up and down.
Maureen stared back at the young woman. She knew there would be a woman. There always was with Flynn. Flynn was that type of man who needed a woman watching in order to stiffen his courage, the way other men needed a drink. Maureen looked into the face of Megan Fitzgerald: high cheekboned, freckled, with a mouth that seemed set in a perpetual sneer, and eyes that should have been lovely but were something quite different. Too young, and not likely to get much older in the company of Brian Flynn. Maureen saw herself ten years before.
Megan Fitzgerald stepped up to her, the big pistol swinging nonchalantly from her left hand, and put her mouth close to Maureen’s ear. “You understand that I’m looking for an excuse to kill you.”
“I hope I find the courage to do something to give you one. Then we’ll see how
Megan Fitzgerald’s body tensed visibly. After a few seconds she stepped back and looked around the altar, sweeping each person standing there with a cold stare and meeting Flynn’s look of disapproval. She turned, walked down from the altar, and then strode down the main aisle toward the center doors.
Flynn watched her, then looked past her into the vestibule. The doors were still open. He hadn’t counted on the crowd being so large. If they couldn’t get thedoors closed and bolted soon, the police would force their way in and there would be a fire fight. As he watched, Megan passed into the vestibule and raised her pistol. He saw the smoke flash from the upturned muzzle of her gun, then heard the report roll through the massive church and echo in and out of the vaults and side altars. A scream went up from the crowd in the vestibule, and their backs receded as they found a new strength and a more immediate reason to push through the crowd blocking the steps.
Flynn watched Megan bring the gun down into a horizontal position and aim it at the opening. Nulty and Gallagher maneuvered around, and each took up a position behind the doors, pushing them against the last of the
