white and yellow Papal flag.
Megan turned to Abby Boland, who was dressed in the short skirt and blue blouse of a twirler from Mother Cabrini High School, a place neither of them had heard of until a week before. “This is your post,” said Megan. “Remember, the rocket is to use if you see a Saracen—or whatever they call them here—coming through your assigned door. The sniper rifle is for close-in defense, if they come through the tower door there—and for blowing your own brains out if you’ve a mind to. Any questions? No?” She looked the girl up and down. “You should have thought to bring some clothes with you. It’ll be cold up here tonight.” Megan returned to the tower.
Abby Boland unslung her rifles and put them down beside the rocket. She slipped off her tight-fitting shoes, unbuttoned her constricting blouse, and sighted through the scope of the sniper rifle, then lowered it and looked around. It occurred to her that rather than freeing her husband, Jonathan, she might very well end up in jail herself, on this side of the Atlantic, too long a distance to intertwine their fingers through the mesh wire of Long Kesh. She might also end up dead, of course, which might be better for both of them.
Megan Fitzgerald continued up the stairs of the bell tower and turned into a side passage. She found a pull chain and lit a small bulb revealing a section of the huge attic. Wooden catwalks ran over the plaster lathing of the vaulted ceiling below and stretched back into the darkness. The four people with her walked quickly over the catwalks, turning on lights in the cold, musty attic.
Megan could see the ten dormered hatches overhead that led to the slate roof above. On the floor, at intervals, were small winches that lowered the chandeliers to the floors below for maintenance. She turned and moved to the big arched window at the front peak of the attic. Stone tracery on the outside of the Cathedral partially blocked the view, and grime covered the small panes in front of her. She wiped a section with her hand and stared down into Fifth Avenue. The block in front of the Cathedral was nearly deserted, but the police had not yet cleared the crowds out of the intersections on either side. Falling sleet was visible against the streetlights, and ice covered the streets and sidewalks and collected on the shoulders of Atlas.
Megan looked up at the International Building in Rockefeller Center directly across from her. The two side wings of the building were lower than the attic, and she could see people moving through the ice, people sitting huddled on the big concrete tubs that held bare plants and trees. The uniformed police had no rifles, and she knew that the Cathedral was not yet surrounded by the SWAT teams euphemistically called the Emergency Services Division in New York. She saw no soldiers, either, and remembered that Americans rarely called on them.
She turned back to the attic. The four people had opened the suitcases and deposited piles of votive candles at intervals along the catwalks. Megan called out to Jean Kearney and Arthur Nulty. “Find the fire axes, chop wood from the catwalks, and build pyres around the candles. Cut the fire hoses up here and string the wire for the field telephone. Be quick about it. Mullins and Devane, grab an ax and come with me.”
Megan Fitzgerald retraced her steps out of the attic, followed by the two men who had posed as BSS Security, Donald Mullins and Rory Devane. She continued her climb up to the bell tower. Mullins carried a roll of communication wire, which he played out behind him. Devane carried the weapons and axes.
Arthur Nulty offered Jean Kearney a cigarette. He looked over her Kelly-green Aer Lingus stewardess uniform. “You look very sexy, lass. Would it be a sacrilege to do it up here, do you think?”
“We’ll not have time for that.”
“Time is all we’ve got up here. God, but it’s cold. We’ll need some warming and there’s no spirits allowed, so that leaves …”
“We’ll see. Jesus, Arthur, if your wife—what happens to us if we get her out of Armagh?”
Arthur Nulty let go of her arm and looked away. “Well … now … let’s take things one a time.” He picked up an ax and swung it, shattering a wooden railing, then ripped the railing from its post and threw it atop a pile of votive candles. “Whole place is wood up here. Never thought I’d be burning a church. If Father Flannery could see me now.” He took another swing with the ax. “Jesus, I hope it doesn’t come to that. They’ll give in before they see this Cathedral burned. In twenty-four hours your brothers will be in Dublin. Your old dad will be pleased, Jean. He thought he’d never see the boys again.” He threw a post on the woodpile. “She called them pyres, Megan did. Doesn’t she know that pyres refer only to places to burn corpses?”
CHAPTER 17
Patrick Burke posted patrolmen at each of the Cathedral’s portals with the warning that the doors were mined, then came back to the front of the Cathedral and approached a parked patrol car. “Any commo yet?”
The patrolman shook his head. “No, sir. What’s going on in there?”
“There are armed gunmen inside, so keep pushing the crowd back. Tell the officer in charge to begin a cordon operation.”
“Yes, sir.” The patrol car moved away through the nearly deserted Avenue.
Burke remounted the steps and saw Police Officer Betty Foster kneeling in the ice beside her horse.
She looked up at him. “You still here?” She looked back at the horse. “I have to get the saddle.” She unhooked the girth. “What the hell’s going on in there?” She tugged at the saddle. “You almost got me killed.”
He helped her pull at the saddle, but it wouldn’t come loose. “Leave this here.”
“I can’t. It’s police property.”
“There’s police property strewn up and down Fifth Avenue.” He let go of the saddle and looked at the bell tower. “There’ll be people in these towers soon, if they’re not there already. Get this later when they recover the horse.”
She straightened up. “Poor Commissioner. Both of them.”
“What do you mean?”
“Police Commissioner Dwyer died of a heart attack—at the reviewing stands.”
“Jesus Christ.” Burke heard a noise from the bell tower overhead and pulled Betty Foster under the alcove of the front door. “Somebody’s up there.”
“Are you staying here?”
“Until things get straightened out.”
She looked at him and said, “Are you brave, Lieutenant Burke?”
“No. Just stupid.”
“That’s what I thought.” She laughed. “God, I thought I was going to pass out when I saw that nun—I guess it wasn’t a nun—”
“Not likely.”
“That woman, pointing a gun at us.”
“You did fine.”
“Did I? I guess I did.” She paused and looked around. “I’m going to be on duty for a long time. I have to go back to Varick Street and get remounted.”
“Remounted?” A bizarre sexual image flashed through his mind. “Oh. Right. Keep close to the wall. I don’t know if those people up in the tower are looking for blue targets, but it’s better to assume they are.”
She hesitated. “See you later.” She moved out of the alcove, keeping close to the wall. She called back, “I didn’t just come back for the saddle. I wanted to see if you were all right.”
Burke watched her round the corner of the tower. This morning neither he nor Betty Foster would have given each other a second glance. Now, however, they had things going for them—riots, gunpowder, horses—great stimulants, powerful aphrodisiacs. He looked at his watch. This lull would not last much longer.
Megan Fitzgerald climbed into the bell room and stood catching her breath as she looked around the cold room, peering into the weak light cast by the single bulb. She saw Flynn’s radio jamming device on a crossbeam from which hung three huge bells, each with a turning wheel and a pull strap. Gusts of cold March wind blew in from the eight sets of copper louvers in the octagon-shaped tower room. The sound of police bullhorns and sirens was carried up into the eighteen-story-high room.
Megan grabbed a steel-cut fire ax from Rory Devane, turned suddenly, and swung it at one of the sets of louvers, ripping them open and letting in the lights of the city. Mullins set to work on the other seven louvers,
