understanding and approval. Gallagher’s eyes met Maureen’s; he started to speak but then turned and hurried up the stairs.
Flynn looked down the remaining steps at the chained gate, then faced Maureen.
She realized that Brian Flynn had reasserted himself, imposed his will on the others. And she knew also that he was going to go a step further. He was going to free her, but she didn’t know if he was doing it for her or for himself, or to demonstrate that he could do anything he damned well pleased—to show that he was Finn MacCumail, Chief of the Fenians. She walked down the staircase and stopped at the gate. Flynn followed and gestured toward the sacristy. “Two worlds meet here, the worlds of the sacred and the profaned, the living and the dead. Have ever such divergent worlds been separated by so little?”
She stared into the quiet sacristy and saw a votive candle flickering on the altar of the priests’ chapel, the vestment tables lining the walls, covered with neatly folded white and purple vestments of the Lenten season. Easter, she thought.
He said, “Will you choose life? Will you go without the others?”
She nodded. “Yes, I’ll go.”
He hesitated, then drew the keys from his pocket. With a hand that was unsteady he unlocked the gate’s lock and the chain’s padlock, and began unwinding the chain. He rolled back the left gate and scanned the corridor openings but saw no sign of the police. “Hurry.”
She took his arm. “I’ll go, but not without you.”
He looked at her, then said, “You’d leave the others to go with me?”
“Yes.”
“Could you do that and live with yourself?”
“Yes.”
He stared at the open gate. “I’d be imprisoned for a long time. Could you wait?”
“Yes.”
“You love me?”
“Yes.”
He reached out for her, but she moved quickly up the stairs and stopped halfway to the landing. “You’ll not push me out. We leave together.”
He stood looking up at her silhouetted against the light of the crypt doors. “I can’t go.”
“Not even for me? I’d go with you—for you. Won’t you do the same?”
“I
“Together. One way or the other,
He looked down and shook his head and, after what seemed like a long time, heard her footsteps retreating up the stairs.
He relocked the gate and followed, and when he walked up to the altar sanctuary, he found her lying beside Baxter again, the cuff locked on her wrist and her eyes closed.
Flynn came down from the sanctuary and walked to a pew in the center of the Cathedral and sat, staring at the high altar. It struck him that the things most men found trying—leadership, courage, the ability to seize their own destiny—came easily to him, a gift, he thought, of the gods. But love—so basic an emotion that even unexceptional men were blessed with loving women, children, friends—that had always eluded him. And the one time it had not eluded him it had been so difficult as to be painful, and to make the pain stop he made the love stop through the sheer force of his will. Yet it came back, again and again.
He felt very empty inside. But at the same time, to his horror and disgust, he felt very good about being in command of himself and his world again.
He sat in the pew for a long time.
Flynn looked down at Pedar Fitzgerald, lying in a curled position at the side of the organ console, a blanket drawn up to his blood-encrusted chin. Flynn moved beside John Hickey, who lay slumped over the organ keyboard, and stared down at Hickey’s pale, almost waxen face. The field phone rang, and Hickey stirred. It rang again, and Flynn grabbed it.
Mullins’s voice came over the line. “I’m back in the bell room. Is that it for the bells, then?”
“Yes…. How does it look outside?”
Mullins said, “Very quiet below. But out farther … there’re still people in the streets.”
Flynn heard a note of wonder in the young man’s voice. “They celebrate late, don’t they? We’ve given them a Saint Patrick’s Day to remember.”
Mullins said, “There wasn’t even a
Flynn smiled. America reminded him of the
“No.”
“Can you sense any anxiety down there … movement … ?”
Mullins considered, then said, “No, they look relaxed yet. Cold and tired for sure, but at ease. No passing of orders, none of that stiffness you see before an attack.”
“How are you holding up against the cold?”
“I’m past that.”
“Well, you and Rory will be the first to see the dawn break.”
Mullins had given up on the dawn hours ago. “Aye, the dawn from the bell tower of Saint Patrick’s in New York. That needs a poem.”
“You’ll tell me it later.” He hung up and picked up the extension phone. “Get me Captain Schroeder, please.” He looked at Hickey’s face as the operator routed the call. Awake, the face was expressive, alive, but asleep it looked like a death mask.
Schroeder’s voice came through sounding slurred. “Yes …”
“Flynn here. Did I wake you?”
“No, sir. We’ve been waiting for Mr. Hickey’s hourly call. He said … but I’m glad you called. I’ve been wanting to speak to you.”
“Thought I was dead, did you?”
“Well, no…. You were on the bells, right?”
“How did I sound out there?”
Schroeder cleared his throat. “You show promise.”
Flynn laughed. “Well, can it be you’re developing a sense of humor, Captain?” Schroeder laughed self- consciously.
“Or is it that you’re so relieved to be talking to me instead of Hickey that you’re giddy?”
Schroeder didn’t answer.
Flynn said, “How are they faring in the capitals?”
Schroeder’s tone was reserved. “They’re wondering why you haven’t responded to what Inspector Langley related to you.”
“I’m afraid we aren’t very clear on that.”
“I can’t elaborate over the phone.”
“I see…. Well, why don’t you come to the sacristy gate, then, and we’ll talk.” There was a long pause. “I’m not at liberty to do that…. It’s against regulations.”
“So is burning down a cathedral, which is what will happen if we don’t speak, Captain.”
“You don’t understand, Mr. Flynn. There are carefully worked out rules … as I think you know…. And the negotiator cannot expose himself to … to …”
“I won’t kill you.”
“Well … I know you won’t … but … Listen, you and Lieutenant Burke have … Would you like to speak with him at the gate?”
“No, I would like to speak with
“I …”
