Cathedral

“Yes, sir.”

“And stop calling me sir, you candy-assed flatfoot. When I was a lad, if you looked at a constable cross-eyed he’d knock you into next week. Now you’re all going round calling murderers sir. No wonder they picked New York for this. Fucking cops would rather bat softballs with a bunch of slum brats than bat heads. Also, while I’m on the subject, I don’t like your voice, Schroeder. You sound mealy-mouthed. How the hell did you get picked for this job? Your voice is all wrong.”

“Yes, sir … Mr. Hickey…. What would you like me to call you … ?”

“Call me a son of a bitch, Schroeder, because that’s what I am. Go on, you’ll feel better.”

Schroeder cleared his throat. “Okay … you’re a son of a bitch.”

“Oh, yeah? Well, I’d rather be a son of a bitch than an asshole like you.” He laughed and hung up.

Schroeder put down the receiver, took a long breath, and turned off the speakers. “Well … I think …” He looked down at Hickey’s file. “Very unstable. Maybe a little senile.” He looked at Burke. “You don’t have to go if you …”

“Yeah. I have to go. I damn well have to go. Where’s the fucking food?” He stood.

Langley spoke. “I didn’t like that part about the explosion.”

Major Martin said, “I’d have been surprised if they hadn’t set it up with explosives. That’s their specialty.”

Burke moved toward the door. “The Irish specialty is bullshit.” He looked at Martin. “Not subtle or sophisticated bullshit, of course, Major. Just bullshit. And if they had as much gelignite and plastic as they have bullshit, they could have blown up the solar system.” He opened the door and looked back over his shoulder. “Forty-five meals. Shit, I wouldn’t want to have to eat every meal over the number of people they have in there.”

Bellini called out at Burke’s retreating figure. “I hope you’re right, Burke. I hope to Christ you’re right.” He turned back to the people in the room. “He doesn’t have to shoot his way in there.”

Schroeder looked at Monsignor Downes, who appeared pale, then turned to Bellini and said irritably, “Damn it, Joe, stop that. No one is going to have to shoot his way into that Cathedral.”

Major Martin was examining some curios on the mantelpiece. He said, as though to himself but loud enough for everyone to hear him, “I wonder.”

CHAPTER 29

Flynn stood with Maureen on the landing in front of the crypt entrance. He found a key on the ring and opened the green, glass-paneled door. Inside, a set of stairs descended into the white-marbled burial chamber. He turned to Pedar Fitzgerald. “Somewhere in there may be a hidden passage. I’ll be along shortly.”

Fitzgerald cradled his submachine gun under his arm and moved down the stairs. Flynn shut the door and looked at the inscription in the bronze. Requiescant In Pace. “May they rest in peace,” he said. Below the inscriptions were plaques bearing the names of the former archbishops of New York who were buried in the crypt. He turned to Maureen. “You remember how frightened we were to go down into Whitehorn Abbey’s crypt?”

She nodded. “There have been too many graves in our lives, Brian, and too much running. God, look at you. You look ten years older than your age.”

“Do I? Well … that’s not just from the running. That’s partly from not running fast enough.” He paused, then added, “I was caught.”

She turned her head toward him. “Oh … I didn’t know.”

“It was kept quiet. Major Martin. Remember the name?”

“Of course. He contacted me once, right after I’d gone to Dublin. He wanted to know where you were. He said it would go easier on Sheila … and he said they would cancel the warrant for my arrest … Pleasant sort of chap, actually, but you knew he’d pull your fingernails out if he had you in Belfast.”

Flynn smiled. “And what did you tell this pleasant chap?”

“I would have told him to go to hell except I thought he might actually go and find you there. So I told him to fuck off.”

Flynn smiled again, but his eyes were appraising her thoughtfully.

She read the expression in his face. “I want you to understand that I never turned informer. Traitor, if you like, but never informer.”

He nodded. “I believe you. If I didn’t, I’d have killed you long ago.”

“Would you?”

He changed the subject. “You’re going to get people hurt if you try to escape again.”

She didn’t respond.

Flynn took a key from his pocket and held it out. “This is the key to the padlock on that chain. I’ll open it now, and you can go.”

“Not without the others.”

“But you’d try to escape without the others.”

“That’s different.”

He smiled and kept the key in front of her. “Ah, you’re still a street fighter, Maureen. You understand that there’s a price to pay—in advance—for a bit of freedom. Most men and women in this world would leave here quickly through the offered gate, and they wouldn’t even entertain the thought of escaping with bullets whistling about their ears. You see, your values and requirements are reversed from ordinary people’s. We changed you forever in those years we had you.”

She remembered the way he had of interpreting for her all of her motives and actions, and how he had once had her so confused about who and what she was that she’d fallen into his power, willingly and gladly. She looked at him. “Shut up.”

Flynn hesitated, then pocketed the key and shifted to another topic. “I chatted with the Cardinal. He believes in the ring, you know. You didn’t believe because you thought that as a halfhearted Christian you shouldn’t. But His Eminence is about as good a Christian as they make, you’ll agree, and for that reason he believes.”

She looked at the crypt door. “I never said I didn’t believe in such things. I told you in Whitehorn Abbey on the evening I left that I couldn’t understand why any power—good or evil—would pick you as their mortal emissary.”

He laughed. “That’s a terrible thing to say. You’re a master of the low blow, Maureen. You’d be a bitch except you’ve got a good heart.” He moved closer to her. “How do you explain the fact of Father Donnelly’s disappearance? I’ve searched for that man—if man he was—over these past years, and no one has even heard of him.”

She stared through a glass pane into the white, luminescent crypt and shook her head.

Flynn watched her, then put a different tone in his voice and took her arm in a firm grip. “Before I forget, let me give you one good piece of advice—don’t provoke Megan.”

She turned toward him. “The fact that I’m still breathing provokes her. Let me give you a piece of advice. If you get out of here alive, get as far from her as you can. She draws destruction like a lightning rod, Brian.”

Flynn made no response and let go of her arm.

She went on. “And Hickey … that man is …” She shook her head. “Never mind. I see you’ve fallen in with a bad lot. We hardly know each other anymore, Brian. How can we give each other advice?”

He reached out and touched her cheek. There was a long silence on the crypt landing. Then from the sacristy corridor came the sound of footsteps and the squeaking of wheels on the marble floor. Maureen said suddenly, “If Major Martin caught you, how is it that you’re alive?”

Flynn walked down the stairs and stood at the gate.

She followed. “Did you make a deal with him?”

He didn’t answer.

“And you call yourself a patriot?”

He looked at her sharply. “So does Major Martin. So do you.”

“I would never—”