The man in red raised his hands again and boomed, "Everybody siddown, curse it! We're friends here, friends—"
When the sound level dropped minusculy,he added,"Rich friends we're gonna be, every one of us!"
The cheers were general and loud enough to make the light troughs wobble.
"Now all you know there's no bigger supporter of the Bishop than I am," the gang boss continued in a voice whose nasality was smoothed by the multiple echoes. "But there's something else you all know, too. I'm not the man to back off when I got the hammer on some bastid neither."
He wasn't a stupid man. He forestalled the cheers—and the threats from the opposing side of the great room—that would have followed the statement by waving his arms again for silence even as he spoke.
"Now the way I sees it," he went on. "The way anybody sees it—is we got the hammer on Delcorio. So right now's the time we break 'is bloody neck for 'im. Not next week or next bloody year when somebody's cut another deal with 'im and he's got the streets full a' bloody soldiers!"
In the tumult of agreement, Desoix saw a woman wearing black cross-belts fight her way to the front of the spectators' section and wave a note over the heads of the line of orderlies.
The black-caped gang boss looked a question to the commo-helmeted aide with him on the dais. The aide shrugged in equal doubt,then obeyed the nodded order to reach across the orderlies and take the note from the woman's hand.
"Now the Bishop says,"continued the man in red,"Give him a little time,he'll waste right away and nobody gets hurt. And that's fine, sure . . . but maybe it's time a few a' them snooty bastids does get hurt, right?"
The shouts of"yes" and "kill" were punctuated with other sounds as bestial as the cries of panthers hunting. It was noticeable that the front rank of spectators, the men and women with estates and townhouses, either sat silent or looked about nervously as they tried to feign enthusiasm.
While the red leader waited with his head thrown back and arms akimbo, the rival gang boss read the note he had been passed. He reached toward Bishop Trimer with it and, when another priest tried to take the document from his hand, swatted the man away. Trimer leaned over to read the note.
"Now I say,"the man in redresumed ina lull,"allright,we give Delcorio time. We give the bastid as much time as it takes fer us to march over to the Palace and pull it down—"
The black-caped gang boss got up, drawing the Bishop's gaze to follow the note being thrust at the leader of the other street gang.
The timbre of the shouting changed as the spectators assessed what was happening in their own terms—and prepared for the immediate battle those terms might entail.
"The rightful President of Bamberia is Thomas Chastain," cried the blackcaped leader as the cathedral hushed and his rival squinted at the note in the red light.
The man in red looked up but did not interrupt as the other leader thundered in a deep bass, "He was robbed of his heritage by the Delcorios and held under their guards in the Palace—but now he's escaped! Thom Chastain's at his house right now, waiting for us to come and restore him to his position!"
Everyone on the dais was standing. Some of the leaders, Church and gangs and surely the business community as well, tried to speak to one another over the tumult. Unless they could read lips, that was a useless exercise.
Desoix was sure of that. He'd been caught in an artillery barrage, and the decibel level of the bursting shells had been no greater than that of the voices reverberating now in the cathedral.
Bishop Trimer touched the gang bosses. They conferred with looks, then stepped back to give the Bishop the floor again. Though they did not sit down, they motioned their subordinates into chairs on the dais. After a minute or two, the room had quieted enough for Trimer to speak.
"My people," he began with his arms outstretched in benediction. "You have spoken, and the Lord God has made his will known to us. We will gather at dawn here—"
The gang bosses had been whispering to one another.The man in black tugged the Bishop's arm firmly enough to bring a burly priest—Father Laughlin?—from his seat. Before he could intervene, the red-garbed leader spoke to Trimer with forceful gestures of his hand.
The Bishop nodded. Desoix couldn't see his face, but he could imagine the look of bland agreement wiped thinly over fury at being interrupted and dictated to by thugs.
"My people," he continued with unctuous warmth, "we will meet at dawn in the plaza, where all the city can see me anoint our rightful president in the name of God who rules us. Then we will carry President Chastain with us to the Palace to claim his seat—and God will strengthen our arms to smite anyone so steeped in sin that they would deny his will. At dawn!"
The cheering went on and on. Even in the gallery, where the floor and the pillars of colored marble provided a screen from the worst of the noise, it was some minutes before Kekkonan could shout into Desoix's ear, "What's that mean for us, sir?"
"It means," the UDB officer shouted back, "that we've got a couple hours to load what we can and get the hell out of Bamberg City."
He pauseda moment,then added,"It means we've had a good deal more luck the past half hour than we had any right to expect."
Chapter Twenty-Three
"We got 'em in sight," said Scratchard's voice through Tyl's commo helmet. The sergeant major was on the roof with the ten best marksmen in the unit."Everybody together, no signs they're being followed."
Tyl started to acknowledge, but before he could Scratchard concluded,"Plenty units out tonight besides them, but nobody seems too interested in them nor us. Over."
"Out," Tyl said, letting his voice stand for his identification.
He locked eyes with the sullen Guards officer across the doorway from him, Captain Sanchez, and said, "Open it up, sir. I got a team coming in."
There were two dozen soldiers in the rotunda: the ordinary complement of Executive Guard and the squad Tyl had brought with him when Desoix blipped that they were clear again and heading in.
Earlier that night, the UDB officer had talked Tyl and his men through the doors that might have been barred to them. Tyl wasn't at all sure his diplomacy was good enough for him to return the favor diplomatically.
But he didn't doubt the locals would accept any suggestion he chose to make with a squad of Slammers at his back.
Sanchez didn't respond, but the man at the shutter controls punched the right buttons instantly. Warm air, laced with smoke more pungent than that of the omnipresent cigars, puffed into the circular hall.
Tyl stepped into the night.
The height and width of the House of Grace was marked by a cross of bluish light, a polarized surface discharge from the vitril glazing. It was impressive despite being marred by several shattered panels.
And it was the only light in the city beyond hand carried lanterns and the sickly pink-orange-red of spreading fires. Streetlights that hadn't been cut when transformers shorted were tempting targets for gunmen.