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, cutting them out of their stone casements as Devane knelt on the floor and connected a field telephone.
Megan turned to Mullins, who had moved to the window overlooking Fifth Avenue. “Remember, Mullins, report anything unusual. Keep a sharp eye for helicopters. No shooting without orders.”
Mullins looked out at Rockefeller Center. People were pressed to the windows opposite him, and, on the roofs below, people were pointing up at the ripped louvers. A police spotlight in the street came on, and its white beam circled and came to rest on the opening where Mullins stood. He moved back and blinked his eyes. “I’d like to put that spot out.”
Megan nodded. “Might as well set them straight now.”
Mullins leaned out of the opening and squinted into his sniper scope. He saw figures moving around at the periphery of the spotlight. He took a long breath, steadied his aim, then squeezed the trigger. The sound of the rifle exploded in the bell room, and Mullins saw the red tracer round streak down into the intersection. The spotlight suddenly lost its beam, fading from white to red to black. A hollow popping sound drifted into the bell room, followed by sounds of shouting. Mullins stepped back behind the stonework and blew his nose into a handkerchief. “Cold up here.”
Devane sat on the floor and cranked the field phone. “Attic, this is bell tower. Can you hear me?”
The voice of Jean Kearney came back clearly. “Hear you, bell tower. What was that noise?”
Devane answered. “Mullins put out a spot. No problem.”
“Roger. Stand by for commo check with choir loft. Choir loft, can you hear bell tower and attic?”
John Hickey’s voice came over the line. “Hear you both. Commo established. Who the hell authorized you to shoot at a spotlight?”
Megan grabbed the field phone from Devane. “I did.”
Hickey’s voice had an edge of sarcasm and annoyance. “Ah, Megan, that was a rhetorical question, lass. I knew the answer to that. Watch yourself today.”
Megan dropped the field phone on the floor and looked down at Devane. “Go on down and string the wire from the choir loft to the south tower, then knock out the louvers and take your post there.”
Devane picked up a roll of communication wire and the fire ax and climbed down out of the bell room.
Megan moved from opening to opening. The walls of the Cathedral were bathed in blue luminescence from the Cathedral’s floodlights in the gardens. To the north the massive fifty-one-story Olympic Tower reflected the Cathedral from its glass sides. To the east the Waldorf-Astoria’s windows were lit against the black sky, and to the south the Cathedral’s twin tower rose up, partially blocking the view of Saks Fifth Avenue. Police stood on the Saks roof, milling around, flapping their arms against the cold. In all the surrounding streets the crowd was being forced back block by block, and the deserted area around the Cathedral grew in size.
Megan looked back at Mullins, who was blowing into his hands. His young face was red with cold, and tinges of blue showed on his lips. She moved to the ladder in the middle of the floor. “Keep alert.”
He watched Megan disappear down the ladder and suddenly felt lonely. “Bitch.” She was not much older than he, but her movements, her voice, were those of an older woman. She had lost her youth in everything but her face and body.
Mullins looked around his solitary observation post, then peered back into Fifth Avenue. He unfastened a rolled flag around his waist and tied the corners to the louvers, then let it unfurl over the side of the tower. A wind made it snap against the gray marble, and the Cathedral’s floodlights illuminated it nicely.