Brian Flynn stood at the railing of the choir loft and looked out over the vast Cathedral spread out over an area larger than a football field. Seventy towering stained-glass windows glowed with the outside lights of the city like dripping jewels, and dozens of hanging chandeliers cast a soft luminescence over the dark wooden pews. Rows of gray granite pillars reached up to the vaulted ceiling like the upraised arms of the faithful supporting the house of God. Flynn turned to John Hickey. “It would take some doing to level this place.”
“Leave it to me, Brian.”
Flynn said, “The first priority of the police is that mob out there. We’ve bought some time to set up our defense.” Flynn raised a pair of field glassess and looked at Maureen. Even at this distance he saw that her face was red, and her jaw was set in a hard line. He focused on Megan who had assembled three men and two women and was making an inspection of the perimeter walls. She had taken off the nun’s wimple, revealing long red hair that fell to her shoulders. She walked quickly, now peeling off her nun’s habit and throwing the black and white garments carelessly onto the floor until she was clad in only jeans and a T-shirt, which had a big red apple on it and the words I Love New York. She stopped by the north transept doors and looked up at the southeast triforium as she called out, “Gallagher!”
Frank Gallagher, dressed in the morning coat and striped pants of a parade marshal, leaned over the balcony parapet and pointed his sniper rifle at her, taking aim through the scope. He shouted back, “Check!”
Megan moved on.
Flynn unrolled a set of blueprints and rested them on the rail of the choir loft. He tapped the plans of the Cathedral with his open hand and said, as though the realization had just come to him, “We took it.”
Hickey nodded and stroked his wispy beard. “Aye, but can we keep it? Can we hold it with a dozen people against twenty thousand policemen?”
Flynn turned to Jack Leary standing near the organ keyboard beside him. “Can we hold it, Jack?”
Leary nodded slowly. “Twenty thousand, or twenty, they can only come in a few at a time.” He patted his modified M-14 rifle with attached scope. “Anyone who survives the mines on the doors will be dead before he gets three paces.”
Flynn looked closely at Leary in the subdued light. Leary looked comical in his colonial marching uniform and with his green-painted rifle. But there was nothing funny about his eyes or his expressionless voice.
Flynn looked back over the Cathedral and glanced at the blueprints. This building was shaped like a cross. The long stem of the cross was the nave, holding the main pews and five aisles; the cross-arms were the transepts, containing more pews and an exit from the end of each arm. Two arcaded triforia, long, dark galleries supported by columns, overhung the nave, running as far as the transepts. Two shorter triforia began at the far side of the transepts and overlooked the altar. This was the basic layout of the structure to be defended.
Flynn looked at the top of the blueprints. They showed the five-story rectory nestled in the northeast quadrant of the cross outside the Cathedral. The rectory was connected to the Cathedral by basement areas under the terraces, which did not appear on the blueprints. In the southeast quadrant was the Cardinal’s residence, also separated by terraces and gardens and connected underground. These uncharted connections, Flynn understood, were a weak point in the defense. “I wish we could have held the two outside buildings.”
Hickey smiled. “Next time.”
Flynn smiled in return. The old man had remained an enigma, swinging precipitantly between clownishness and decisiveness. Flynn looked back at the blueprints. The top of the cross was the rounded area called the apse. In the apse was the Lady Chapel, a quiet, serene area of long, narrow stained-glass windows. Flynn pointed to the blueprint. “The Lady Chapel has no outside connections, and I’ve decided not to post a man there—can’t spare anyone.”
Hickey leaned over the blueprints. “I’ll examine it for hidden passages. Church architecture wouldn’t be church architecture, Brian, without hollow walls and secret doors. Places for the Holy Ghost to run about—places where priests can pop up on you unawares and scare the hell out of you by whispering your name.”
“Have you heard of Whitehorn Abbey outside of Belfast?”
“I spent a night there once. Did you get a scare there, lad?” Hickey laughed.
Flynn looked out over the Cathedral again, concentrating on the raised area of black and white marble called the altar sanctuary. In the middle of the sanctuary sat the altar, raised still higher on a broad marble plinth. The cold marble and bronze of the area was softened by fields of fresh green carnations, symbolizing, Flynn imagined, the green sod of Ireland, which would not have looked or smelled as nice on the altar.
On both sides of the sanctuary were rows of wooden pews reserved for clergy. In the pews to the right sat Maureen, Baxter, and Father Murphy, all looking very still from this distance. Flynn placed his field glasses to his eyes and focused on Maureen again. She didn’t appear at all frightened, and he liked that. He noticed that her lips were moving as she stared straight ahead. Praying? No, not Maureen. Baxter’s lips were moving also. And Father Murphy’s. “They’re plotting dark things against us, John.”
“Good,” said Hickey. “Maybe they’ll keep us entertained.”
Flynn swung the field glasses to the left. Facing the hostages across the checkered marble floor sat the Cardinal on his elevated throne of red velvet, absolutely motionless. “No sanctuary in the sanctuary,” commented Flynn under his breath.
Leary heard him and called out, “A sanctuary of sorts. If they leave that area, I’ll kill them.”
Flynn leaned farther over the rail. Directly behind the altar were the sacristy stairs, not visible from the loft, where Pedar Fitzgerald, Megan’s brother, sat on the landing holding a submachine gun. Fitzgerald was a good man, a man who knew that those chained gates had to be protected at any cost. He had his sister’s courage without her savagery. “We still don’t know if there’s a way they can enter the crypt from an underground route and come up behind Pedar.”
Hickey glanced again at the blueprints. “We’ll get the crypt keys and the keys to this whole place later and have a proper look around the real estate. We need time, Brian. Time to tighten our defense. Damn these blueprints, they’re not very detailed. And damn this church. It’s like a marble sieve with more holes in it than the story of the Resurrection.”
“I hope the police don’t get hold of the architect.”
“You should have kidnapped him last night along with Terri O’Neal,” Hickey said.
“Too obvious. That would have put Intelligence onto something.”
“Then you should have killed him and made it look like an accident.”
Flynn shook his head. “One has to draw a line somewhere. Don’t you think so?”
“You’re a lousy revolutionary. It’s a wonder you’ve come as far as you have.”
“I’ve come farther than most. I’m here.”
CHAPTER 16
Major Bartholomew Martin put down his field glasses and let out a long breath. “Well, they’ve done it. No apparent casualties … except that fine horse.” He closed the window against the cold wind and sleet. “Burke almost got himself killed, however.”