EXTRAORDINARY PRAISE

For

NELSON DEMILLE’S

CATHEDRAL

“From the beginning … until the final chapters when you find yourself frantically turning pages, it’s truly impossible to lay aside CATHEDRAL.”

—Dallas Times Herald

“TOO TRUE TO LIFE FOR COMFORT … ENTERTAINS…. The writing is crisp, terse, and highly realistic.”

—New York Daily News

“There ought to be a law against Nelson DeMille. CATHEDRAL held me spellbound for three solid days…. It’s better than By the Rivers of Babylon by a long margin—and I can’t think of higher praise than that. In short, it’s a masterwork.”

—Harrison E. Salisbury

“THOROUGHLY CREDIBLE AND ABSOLUTELY ABSORBING…. Motivation, characterization, and plotting are all exceptional…. Will keep readers engrossed till the final page.”

—United Press International

“DAZZLING…. No one writing about the current Irish troubles has been so successful in getting inside the personality of the character of the Irish-Americans…. As for suspense, I’ll never walk by St. Paddy’s again without wondering whether there’s a sniper in the bell tower.”

—Andrew M. Greeley

“CHILLINGLY BELIEVABLE, PEOPLED WITH REC OGNIZABLE CHARACTERS…. CATHEDRAL ENTERTAINS WITH THE UNIMAGINABLE.”

—Publishers Weekly

“A RIVETING SUSPENSE NOVEL … vivid characterizations … a perfect blending of plot and people.”

—Robert J. Serling, author of The President’s Plane Is Missing

“FAST-PACED, BREATHTAKING.”

—Chattanooga Times

“THE MOST FRIGHTENING THING ABOUT THIS STORY IS THAT IT AT NO TIME SEEMS IMPLAUSIBLE.”

—Newark Star-Ledger

“STRONG, LONG, WELL-SUSTAINED SUSPENSE…. A CHAOTIC, EXPLOSIVE FINALE.”

—Kirkus Reviews

“GRIPPING … SUSPENSEFUL…. I was engrossed from beginning to end.”

—Walter Murphy, author of

The Vicar of Christ

“A THRILLER OF THE FIRST ORDER…. Telescopes a few hours and a lifetime of emotions to create an hour-by-hour countdown to the climax…. Powerful tensions so skillfully built from beginning to end, they stretch the reader taut…. Highly recommended.”

—Indianapolis News

“A RETURN TO THE CLASSIC THRILLER.”

—Richmond News-Ledger

“TIMELY, TAUT, AND TERRIFYING … relentlessly gripping and vivid (5-stars—highest rating).”

—West Coast Review of Books

“EXCITING, SUSPENSEFUL, AND CAN EASILY BE CATEGORIZED AS A PAGE-TURNER.”

—Bestsellers

“A REAL NAIL-BITER OF A SUSPENSE NOVEL.”

—Seattle Times

“THE SUSPENSE IS RELENTLESS AND GRIPPING … A WINNER.”

—Library Journal

Books by Nelson DeMille

BY THE RIVERS OF BABYLON

CATHEDRAL

THE TALBOT ODYSSEY

WORD OF HONOR

THE CHARM SCHOOL

THE GOLD COAST

THE GENERAL’S DAUGHTER

SPENCERVILLE

PLUM ISLAND

Published by

WARNER BOOKS

For Lauren, age three,

an old hand at the alphabet,

and Alexander,

newly arrived in the world

CATHEDRAL. Copyright © 1981 by Nelson DeMille. All rights reserved.

Acknowledgments

I wish to thank the following people for their editorial help, dedication, and above all, patience: Bernard and Darlene Geis, Joseph Elder, David Kleinman, Mary Crowley, Eleanor Hurka, and Rose Ann Ferrick. And very special thanks to Judith Shafran, to whom this book would have been dedicated had she not been an editor and therefore a natural enemy of authors, albeit a noble and forthright one.

For their expertise and technical assistance I’d like to thank Detective Jack Lanigan, NYPD, Retired; and Michael Moriarty, Carm Tintle, and Jim Miller, Seanachies.

The following organizations have provided information for this book: The New York Police Department Public Information Office; The St. Patrick’s Parade Committee; The 69th Infantry, NYARNG; Amnesty International; the Irish Consulate, the British Consulate; and the Irish Tourist Board.

There were other individuals and organizations who gave of their time and knowledge, providing colorful threads of the narrative tapestry presented here, and to them—too numerous to mention—I express my sincere appreciation.

And finally, I want to thank The Little People, who refrained, as much as could be hoped, from mischief.Nelson DeMilleNew YorkSpring 1980

Author’s Note

Regarding places, people, and events: The author has learned that in any book dealing with the Irish, literary license and other liberties should not only be tolerated but expected.

St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York has been described with care and accuracy. However, as in any work of fiction, especially in one set in the future, dramatic liberties have been exercised in some instances.

The New York police officers represented in this novel are not based on real people. The fictional hostage negotiator, Captain Bert Schroeder, is not meant to represent the present New York Police Department Hostage Negotiator, Frank Bolz. The only similarity shared is the title of Hostage Negotiator. Captain Bolz is an exceptionally competent officer whom the author has had the pleasure of meeting on three occasions, and Captain Bolz’s worldwide reputation as innovator of the New York Plan of hostage negotiating is well deserved. To the people of the city of New York, and especially to the people whose lives he’s been instrumental in saving, he is a true hero in every sense of the word.

The Catholic clergy represented in this work are not based on actual persons. The Irish revolutionaries in this novel are based to some extent on a composite of real people, as are the politicians, intelligence people, and diplomats, though no individual character is meant to represent an actual man or woman.

The purpose of this work was not to write a roman à clef or to represent in any way, favorably or unfavorably, persons living or dead.

The story takes place not in the present or the past but in the future; the nature of the story, however, compels the author to use descriptive job titles and other factual designations that exist at this writing. Beyond these designations there is no identification meant or intended with the public figures who presently hold those descriptive job titles.

Historical characters and references are for the most part factual except where there is an obvious blend of fact and fiction woven into the story line.

Book I

Northern Ireland

Now that I’ve learned a great deal about Northern Ireland, there are things I can say about it: that it’s an unhealthy and morbid place, where people learn to die from the time that they’re children; where we’ve never been able to forget our history and our culture—which are only other forms of violence; where it’s so easy to deride things and people; where people are capable of much love, affection, human warmth and generosity. But, my God! How much we know how to hate!

Every two or three hours, we resurrect the part, dust it off and throw it in someone’s face.Betty Williams,

Northern Irish peace

activist and winner of

the Nobel Peace Prize

CHAPTER 1

“The tea has got cold.” Sheila Malone set down her cup and waited for the two young men who sat opposite her, clad in khaki underwear, to do the same.

The younger man, Private Harding, cleared his throat. “We’d like to put on our uniforms.”

Sheila Malone shook her head. “No need for that.”

The other man, Sergeant Shelby, put down his cup. “Let’s get done with it.” His voice was steady, but his hand shook and the color had drained from under his eyes. He made no move to rise.

Sheila Malone said abruptly, “Why don’t we take a walk?”

The sergeant stood. The other man, Harding, looked down at the table, staring at the scattered remains of the bridge game they’d all passed the morning with. He shook his head. “No.”

Sergeant Shelby took the younger man’s arm and tried to grip it, but there was no strength in his hand. “Come on, now. We could use some air.”

Sheila Malone nodded to two men by the fire. They rose and came up behind the British soldiers. One of them, Liam Coogan, said roughly, “Let’s go. We’ve not got all day.”

Shelby looked at the men behind him. “Give the lad a second or two,” he said, pulling at Harding’s arm. “Stand up,” he ordered. “That’s the hardest part.”

The young private rose slowly, then began to sink back into his chair, his body trembling.

Coogan grasped him under the arms and propelled him toward the door. The other man, George Sullivan, opened the door and pushed him out.

Everyone knew that speed was important now, that it had to be done quickly, before anyone’s courage failed. The sod was wet and cold under the prisoners’ feet, and a January wind shook water off the rowan trees. They passed the outdoor privy they had walked to every morning and every evening for two weeks and kept walking toward the ravine near the cottage.

Sheila Malone reached under her sweater and drew a small revolver from her waistband. During the weeks she had spent with these men she had grown to like them, and out of common decency someone else should have been sent to do it. Bloody insensitive bastards.

The two soldiers were at the edge of the ravine now, walking down into it.

Coogan poked her roughly. “Now, damn you! Now!”

She looked back toward the prisoners. “Stop!”

The two men halted with their backs to their executioners. Sheila Malone hesitated, then raised the pistol with both hands. She knew she would hit only their backs from that range, but she couldn’t bring herself to move closer for a head shot. She took a deep breath and fired, shifted her aim, and fired again.

Shelby and Harding lurched forward and hit the ground before the echo of the two reports died away. They thrashed on the ground, moaning.

Coogan cursed. “Goddamn it!” He ran into the ravine, pointed his pistol at the back of Shelby’s head, and fired. He looked at Harding, who was lying on his side. Frothy blood trickled from his mouth and his chest heaved. Coogan bent over, placed the pistol between Harding’s wideopen eyes, and fired again. He put his revolver in his pocket and looked up at the edge of the ravine. “Bloody stupid woman. Give a woman a job to do and …”

Sheila Malone pointed her revolver down at him. Coogan stepped backward and tripped over Shelby’s body. He lay between the two corpses with his hands still held high. “No! Please. I didn’t mean anything by it. Don’t shoot!”

Sheila lowered the pistol. “If you ever touch me again, or say anything to me again … I’ll blow your fucking head off!”

Sullivan approached her cautiously. “It’s all right now. Come on, Sheila. We’ve got to get away from here.”

“He can find his own bloody way back. I’ll not ride with him.”

Sullivan turned and looked down at Coogan. “Head out through the wood, Liam. You’ll pick up a bus on the highway. See you in Belfast.”

Sheila Malone and George Sullivan walked quickly to the car waiting off the lane and climbed in behind the driver, Rory Devane, and the courier, Tommy Fitzgerald.

“Let’s go,” said Sullivan.

“Where’s Liam?” asked Devane nervously.

“Move out,” said Sheila.

The car pulled into the lane and headed south toward Belfast.

Sheila drew from her pocket the two letters the soldiers had given her to mail to their families. If she were stopped at a roadblock and the Royal Ulster Constabulary found the letters … She opened the window and threw her pistol out, then let the letters sail into the wind.

Sheila Malone jumped out of her bed. She could hear motors in the street and the sounds of boots against the cobbles. Residents of the block were shouting from windows, and trash-can lids were being beaten to sound the alarm. As she began pulling her slacks on under her nightdress her bedroom door crashed open, and two soldiers rushed in without a word. A shaft of light from the hall made her cover her eyes. The red-bereted paratroopers pushed her against the wall and ripped the slacks from around her legs. One of them raised her nightdress over her head, and then ran his hands over her body, searching for a weapon. She spun and swung her fists at him. “Get your filthy hands …”

One of the soldiers punched her in the stomach, and she doubled over and lay on the floor, her nightdress gathered up around her breasts.

The second soldier bent down, grabbed her long hair, and dragged her to her feet. He spoke for the first time. “Sheila Malone, all I’m required to tell you is that you are being arrested under the Special Powers Act. If you make one fucking sound when we take you out to the trucks, we’ll beat you to a pulp.”

The two soldiers pushed her into the hall, down the stairs, and into the street, which was filled with shouting people. Everything passed in a blur as she was half-carried to the intersection where the trucks were parked. Voices called insults at the British soldiers and the Royal Ulster Constabulary who were assisting them. A boy’s voice shouted, “Fuck the Queen.” Women and children were crying, and dogs were barking. She saw a young priest trying to calm a group of people. An unconscious man, his head bloodied, was dragged past her. The soldiers picked her up and threw her into the back of a small truck filled with a dozen other prisoners. An RUC guard stood at the front of the truck, fondling a large truncheon. “Lie down, bitch, and shut your mouth.”

She lay down by the tailgate and listened to her own breathing in the totally silent truck. After a few minutes the gates of the truck closed and it pulled away.

The guard shouted above the noise of the convoy. “The Pope is a fucking queer.”

Sheila Malone lay against the tailgate, trying to calm herself. In the dark truck some men slept or were unconscious; a few were weeping. The guard kept up an anti-Catholic tirade until the truck stopped and the tailgate swung open, revealing a large, floodlit enclosure surrounded by barbed wire and machine-gun towers. Long Kesh, known to the Catholics of Northern Ireland as Dachau.

A soldier shouted into the truck, “Clear out! Quick! Move it!”

A few men scrambled over and around Sheila, and she heard the sounds of blows, shouts, and cries as the men left the truck. A voice cried out, “Take it easy, I’m an old man.” A young boy clad in pajamas crawled over her and tumbled to the ground. The RUC guard was kicking everyone toward the tailgate now, like a trash man sweeping the floor of his truck clean at the dump. Someone pulled her out by her legs, and she fell on the soft, wet earth. She tried to stand but was knocked down.

“Crawl! Crawl, you bastards!”

She picked up her head and saw two lines of paratrooper boots. She crawled as quickly as she could between the gauntlet as blows fell on her back and buttocks. A few of the men made obscene remarks as she passed by on her hands and knees, but the blows were light and the obscenities were shouted by boyish, embarrassed voices, which somehow made it all the more obscene.

At the end of the gauntlet two soldiers picked her up and pushed her into a long Nissen hut. An officer with a swagger stick pointed to an open door, and the soldiers pushed her onto the floor of a small room and shut the door as they left. She looked up from where she lay in the center of the tiny cubicle.

A matron stood behind a camp table. “Strip. Come on, you little tramp. Stand up and take them off.”

Within minutes she was stripped and searched and was wearing a gray prison dress and prison underwear. She could hear blows being struck outside the small cubicle and cries and shouts as the harvest of the sweep was processed— transformed from sleeping civilians into gray, terrified internees.

Sheila Malone had no doubt that a good number of them were guilty of some kind of anti-British or antigovernment activity. A few were actually IRA. A smaller number might even be arsonists or bombers … or murderers like herself. There was a fifty-fifty chance of getting out of internment within ninety days if you didn’t crack and confess to something. But if they had something on you—something as serious as murder … Before she could gather her thoughts and begin to formulate what she was going to say, someone placed a hood over her head and she was pushed through a door that closed behind her.

A voice shouted directly in her ear, and she jumped. “I said, spell your name, bitch!”

She tried to spell it but found to her surprise that she could not. Someone laughed.

Another voice shouted, “Stupid cunt!”

A third voice screamed in her other ear. “So, you shot two of our boys, did you?”

There it was. They knew. She felt her legs begin to shake.

“Answer me, you little murdering cunt!”

“N-n-no.”

“What? Don’t lie to us, you cowardly, murdering bitch. Like to shoot men in the back, do you? Now it’s your turn!”

She felt something poke her in the back of the head and heard the sound of a pistol cocking. The hammer fell home and made a loud, metallic thud. She jumped and someone laughed again. “Next time it won’t be empty, bitch.”

She felt sweat gather on her brow and soak the black hood.

“All right. Pull up your dress. That’s right. All the way!”

She pulled her skirt up and stood motionless as someone pulled her pants down to her ankles.

After an hour of pain, insults, humiliation, and leering laughter, the three interrogators seemed to get bored. She was certain now that they were just fishing, and she could almost picture being released at dawn.

“Fix yourself up.”

She let her aching arms fall and bent over to pull up her pants. Before she straightened up she heard the three men leave the room as two other people entered. The hood was pulled from her head, and the bright lights half-blinded her. The man who had taken the hood moved to the side and sat in a chair just out of range of her vision. She focused her eyes straight ahead.

A young British army officer, a major, sat in a chair behind a small camp desk in the center of the windowless room. “Sit down, Miss Malone.”

She walked stiffly toward a stool in front of the desk and sat slowly. Her buttocks hurt so much that she would almost rather have remained standing. She choked down a sob and steadied her breathing.

“Yes, you can have a bed as soon as we finish this.” The major smiled. “My name is Martin. Bartholomew Martin.”

“Yes … I’ve heard of you.”

“Really? Good things, I trust.”

She leaned forward and looked into his eyes. “Listen Major Martin, I was beaten and sexually abused.”

He shuffled some papers. “We’ll discuss all of that as soon as we finish with this.” He picked out one sheet of paper. “Here it is. A search of your room has uncovered a pistol and a satchel of gelignite. Enough to blow up the whole block.” He looked at her. “That’s a dreadful thing to keep in your aunt’s home. I’m afraid she may be in trouble now as well.”

“There was no gun or explosives in my room, and you know it.”

He drummed his fingers impatiently on the desk. “Whether they were there or not is hardly the point, Miss Malone. The point is that my report says a gun and explosives were found, and in Ulster there is not a great deal of difference between the charges and the realities. In fact, they are the same. Do you follow me?”

She didn’t answer.

“All right,” said the major. “That’s not important. What is important,” he continued as he stared into her eyes, “are the murders of Sergeant Thomas Shelby and Private Alan Harding.”

She stared back at his eyes and displayed no emotion, but her stomach heaved. They had her, and she was fairly certain she knew how they had gotten her.

“I believe you know a Liam Coogan, Miss Malone. An associate of yours. He’s turned Queen’s evidence.” An odd half smile passed over his face. “I’m afraid we’ve got you now.”

“If you know so goddamned much, why did your men—”

“Oh, they’re not my men. They’re paratroop lads. Served with Harding and Shelby. Brought them here for the occasion. I’m in Intelligence, of course.” Major Martin’s voice changed, became more intimate. “You’re damned lucky they didn’t kill you.”

Sheila Malone considered her situation. Even under normal British law she would probably be convicted on Coogan’s testimony. Then why had she been arrested under the Special Powers Act? Why had they bothered to plant a gun and explosives in her room? Major Martin was after something else.

Martin stared at her, then cleared his throat. “Unfortunately, there is no capital punishment for murder in our enlightened kingdom. However, we’re going to try something new. We’re going to try to get an indictment for treason—I think we can safely say that the Provisional Irish Republican Army, of which you are a member, has committed treason toward the Crown.”

He looked down at an open book in front of him. “‘Acts that constitute treason. Paragraph 811—Levies war against the Sovereign in her realm….’ I think you fill that bill nicely.” He pulled the book closer and read, “‘Paragraph 812—The essence of the offense of treason lies in the violation of the allegiance owed to the Sovereign….’ And Paragraph 813 is my favorite. It says simply”—he looked at her without reading from the book—“‘The punishment for treason is death by hanging.’” He stressed the last words and looked for a reaction, but there was none. “It was Mr. Churchill, commenting on the Irish uprising of 1916, who said, ‘The grass grows green on the battlefield, but never on the scaffold.’ It’s time we started hanging Irish traitors again. You first. And beside you on the scaffold will be your sister, Maureen.”

She sat up. “My sister? Why … ?”

“Coogan says she was there as well. You, your sister, and her lover, Brian Flynn.”

“That’s a bloody lie.”

“Why would a man turn Queen’s evidence and then lie about who committed the murders?”

“Because he shot those soldiers—”

“There were two calibers of bullets. We can try two people for murder—any two. So why don’t you let me work out who did what to whom?”

“You don’t care who killed those soldiers. It’s Flynn you want to hang.”

“Someone must hang.” But Major Martin had no intention of hanging any of them and making more Irish martyrs. He wanted to get Flynn into Long Kesh, where he could wring out every piece of information that he possessed about the Provisional IRA. Then he would cut Brian Flynn’s throat with a piece of glass and call it suicide.

He said, “Let’s assume that you escape the hangman’s noose. Assume also that we pick up your sister, which is not unlikely. Consider if you will, Miss Malone, sharing a cell with your sister for the rest of your natural lives. How old are you? Not twenty yet? The months, the years pass slowly. Slowly. Young girls wasting their lives … and for what? A philosophy? The rest of the world will go on living and loving, free to come and go. And you … well, the real hell of it is that Maureen, at least, is innocent of murder. You are the reason she’d be there—because you wouldn’t name her lover. And Flynn will have found another woman, of course. And Coogan, yes, Coogan will have gone to London or America to live and—”

“Shut up! For God’s sake, shut up!” She buried her face in her hands and tried to think before he started again.

“Now there is a way out.” He looked down at his papers, then looked up again. “There always is, isn’t there? What you must do is dictate a confession naming Brian Flynn as an officer in the Provisional IRA—which he is—and naming him as the murderer of Sergeant Shelby and Private Harding. You will be charged as an accessory after the fact and be free within … let’s say, seven years.”

“And my sister?”

“We’ll put out a warrant for her arrest only as an accessory. She should leave Ulster and never return. We will not look for her and will not press any country for extradition. But this arrangement is operative only if we find Brian Flynn.” He leaned forward. “Where is Brian Flynn?”

“How the hell should I know?”

Martin leaned back in his chair. “Well, we must charge you with something within ninety days of internment. That’s the law, you understand. If we don’t find Flynn by the ninetieth day, we will charge you with double homicide—perhaps treason as well. So, if you can remember anything that will lead us to him, please don’t hesitate to tell us.” He paused. “Will you think about where Flynn might be?”

She didn’t answer.

“Actually, if you really don’t know, then you’re useless to me … unless … You see, your sister will try to free you, and with her will be Flynn … so perhaps—”

“You won’t use me for bait, you bastard.”

“No? Well, we’ll have to see about that, won’t we?”

“May I have a bed?”

“Certainly. You may stand now.”

She stood. “No more Gestapo tactics?”

“I’m sorry, I don’t understand.” He rose from his chair. “The matron will escort you to a cell. Good night.”

She turned and opened the door. A hood came down over her head, but before it did she saw not the matron but two young Royal Ulster Constabulary men and three grinning paratroopers.

CHAPTER 2

Brian Flynn looked up at Queen’s Bridge, shrouded in March mist and darkness. The Lagan River fog rolled down the partially lit street and hung between the red-brick buildings of Bank Road. The curfew was in effect, and there was no traffic.

Maureen Malone looked at him. His handsome, dark features always seemed sinister at night. She pulled back the sleeve of her trench coat and looked at her watch. “It’s after four. Where the hell are—”

“Quiet! Listen.”

She heard the rhythmic footsteps coming out of Oxford Street. In the mist a squad of Royal Ulster Constabulary appeared and turned toward them, and they crouched behind a stack of oil drums.

They waited in silence, their breathing coming irregularly in long plumes of fog. The patrol passed, and a few seconds later they heard the whining of a truck changing gears and saw the headlights in the mist. A Belfast Gas Works truck pulled up to the curbstone near them, and they jumped in the open side door. The driver, Rory Devane, moved the truck slowly north toward the bridge. The man in the passenger seat, Tommy Fitzgerald, turned. “Road block on Cromac Street.”

Maureen Malone sat on the floor. “Is everything set?”

Devane spoke as he steered slowly toward the bridge. “Yes. Sheila left Long Kesh in an RUC van a half hour ago. They took the A23 and were seen passing through Castlereagh not ten minutes ago. They’ll be coming over the Queen’s Bridge about now.”

Flynn lit a cigarette. “Escort?”

“No,” said Devane. “Just a driver and guard in the cab and two guards in the back, according to our sources.”

“Other prisoners?”

“Maybe as many as ten. All going to Crumlin Road Jail, except for two women going up to Armagh.” He paused. “Where do you want to hit them?”

Flynn looked out the rear window of the truck. A pair of headlights appeared on the bridge. “Collins’s men are set up on Waring Street. That’s the way they’ll have to go to Crumlin Road.” He wiped the fog from the window and stared. “Here’s the RUC van.” Devane cut off the engine and shut the lights.

The black, unmarked RUC van rolled off the bridge and headed into Ann Street. Devane waited, then restarted his truck and followed at a distance with his lights off. Flynn said to Devane, “Circle round to High Street.”

No one spoke as the truck moved through the quiet streets. They approached Waring Street, and Tommy Fitzgerald reached under his seat and pulled out two weapons, an old American Thompson submachine gun and a modern Armalite automatic rifle. “The tommy gun is for you, Brian, and the light gun for my lady.” He passed a short cardboard tube to Flynn. “And this … if, God forbid, we run into a Saracen.” Flynn took the tube and stuck it under his trench coat.

They swung off Royal Avenue into Waring Street from the west at the same time the RUC van entered from the east at Victoria Street. The two vehicles approached each other slowly. A black sedan fell in behind the RUC van, and Fitzgerald pointed. “That’ll be Collins and his boys.”

Flynn saw that the RUC van was moving more slowly now, the driver realizing that he was being boxed in and looking for a way out.

“Now!” shouted Flynn. Devane swung the truck so that it blocked the road, and the RUC van screeched to a stop. The black sedan following the van came to a halt, and Collins with three of his men jumped out and ran toward the rear of the van with submachine guns.

Flynn and Maureen were out of the truck and moving toward the trapped van twenty-five yards up the road. The RUC guard and driver dropped below the windshield, and Flynn pointed his rifle. “Come out with your hands raised!” But the men didn’t come out, and Flynn knew he couldn’t shoot at the unarmored van filled with prisoners. He yelled to Collins, “I’ve got them covered! Go on!”

Collins stepped up to the van and struck the rear doors with his rifle butt. “Guards! You’re surrounded! Open the doors and you won’t be harmed!”

Maureen knelt in the road, her rifle across her knees. She felt her heart beating heavily in her chest. The idea of freeing her sister had become an obsession over the months and had, she realized, clouded her judgment. Suddenly all the things that were wrong with this operation crystallized in her mind—the van riding very low as though it were weighted, the lack of an escort, the predictable route. “Run! Collins—”

She saw Collins’s surprised face under the glare of a streetlamp as the doors swung out from the RUC van.

Collins stood paralyzed in front of the open doors and stared at the British paratrooper berets over the top of a sandbag wall. The two barrels of the machine guns blazed in his face.

Flynn watched as his four men were cut down. One machine gun continued to pour bullets into the bodies while the other shifted its fire and riddled the sedan with incendiary rounds, hitting the gas tank and blowing it up. The street echoed with the explosion and the chattering sound of the machine guns, and the night was illuminated by the fire of the burning sedan.

Maureen grabbed Flynn’s arm and pulled him toward their truck as pistol shots rang out from the doorway where the guard and driver had disappeared. She fired a full magazine into the doorway and the shooting stopped. The streets were alive with the sounds of whistles, shouting, and running men, and they could hear motor vehicles closing in.

Flynn turned and saw that the truck’s windshield was shot out and the tires were flat. Fitzgerald and Devane were running up the street. Fitzgerald’s body jerked, and he slid across the cobblestones. Devane kept running and disappeared into a bombed-out building.

Behind him Flynn could hear soldiers jumping from the RUC van and racing toward them. He pulled Maureen’s arm, and they started to run as a light rain began to fall.

Donegall Street entered Waring Street from the north, and they turned into it, bullets kicking up chips of cobble behind them. Maureen slipped on the wet stone and fell, her rifle clattering on the pavement and skidding away in the darkness. Flynn lifted her, and they ran into a long alleyway, coming out into Hill Street.

A British Saracen armored car rolled into the street, its six huge rubber wheels skidding as it turned. The Saracen’s spotlight came on and found them. The armored car turned and came directly at them, its loudspeaker blaring into the rainy night. “HALT! HANDS ON YOUR HEADS!”

Behind him Flynn could hear the paratroopers coming into the long alley. He pulled the cardboard tube from his trench coat and knelt. He broke the seal and extended the telescoped tubes of the American-made M-72 antitank weapon, raised the plastic sights, and aimed at the approaching Saracen.

The Saracen’s two machine guns blazed, pulverizing the brick walls around him, and he felt shards of brick bite into his chest. He put his finger on the percussion ignition switch and tried to steady his aim as he wondered if the thing would work. A disposable cardboard rocket launcher. Like a disposable diaper. Who but the Americans could make a throwaway bazooka? Steady, Brian. Steady.

The Saracen fired again, and he heard Maureen give a short yell behind him and felt her roll against his legs. “Bastards!” He squeezed the switch, and the 66mm HEAT rocket roared out of the tube and streaked down the dark, foggy street.

The turret of the Saracen erupted into orange flame, and the vehicle swerved wildly, smashing into a bombed-out travel agency. The surviving crew stumbled out holding their heads from the pain of the deafening rocket hit, and Flynn could see their clothes smoking. He turned and looked down at Maureen. She was moving, and he put his arm under her head. “Are you hit badly?”

She opened her eyes and began to sit up in his arms. “I don’t know. Breast.”

“Can you run?”

She nodded, and he helped her up. In the streets around them they could hear whistles, motors, shouts, tramping feet, and dogs. Flynn carefully wiped his fingerprints from the Thompson submachine gun and threw it into the alley.

They headed north toward the Catholic ghetto around New Lodge Road. As they entered the residential area they kept to the familiar maze of back alleys and yards between the row houses. They could hear a column of men double-timing on the street, rifle butts knocking on doors, windows opening, angry exchanges, babies wailing. The sounds of Belfast.

Maureen leaned against a brick garden wall. The running had made the blood flow faster through her wound, and she put her hand under her sweater. “Oh.”

“Bad?”

“I don’t know.” She drew her hand away and looked at the blood, then said, “We were set up.”

“Happens all the time,” he said.

“Who?”

“Coogan, maybe. Could have been anyone, really.” He was fairly certain he knew who it was. “I’m sorry about Sheila.”

She shook her head. “I should have known they would use her as bait to get us…. You don’t think she …” She put her face in her hands. “We lost some good people tonight.”

He peered over the garden wall, then helped her over, and they ran through a block of adjoining yards. They entered a Protestant neighborhood, noticing the better built and maintained homes. Flynn knew this neighborhood from his youth, and he remembered the schoolboy pranks—breaking windows and running like hell—like now—through these alleys and yards. He remembered the smells of decent food, the clotheslines of white gleaming linen, the rose gardens, and the lawn furniture.

They headed west and approached the Catholic enclave of the Ardoyne. Ulster Defense League civilian patrols blocked the roads leading into the Arodyne, and the Royal Ulster Constabulary and British soldiers were making house searches. Flynn crouched behind a row of trash bins and pulled Maureen down beside him. “We’ve gotten everyone out of their beds tonight.”

Maureen Malone glanced at him and saw the half smile on his face. “You enjoy this.”

“So do they. Breaks the monotony. They’ll swap brave tales at the Orange lodges and in the barracks. Men love the hunt.”

She flexed her arm. A stiffness and dull pain were spreading outward from her breast into her side and shoulder. “I don’t think we have much chance of getting out of Belfast.”

“All the hunters are here in the forest. The hunters’ village is therefore deserted.”

“Which means?”

“Into the heart of the Protestant neighborhood. The Shankill Road is not far.”

They turned, headed south, and within five minutes they entered Shankill Road. They walked up the deserted road casually and stopped on a corner. It was not as foggy here, and the streetlights were working. Flynn couldn’t see any blood on Maureen’s black trench coat, but the wound had drained the color from her face. His own wound had stopped bleeding, and the dried blood stuck to his chest and sweater. “We’ll take the next outbound bus that comes by, sleep in a barn, and head for Derry in the morning.”

“All we need is an outbound bus, not to mention an appearance of respectability.” She leaned back against the bus-stop sign. “When do we get our discharge, Brian?”

He looked at her in the dim light. “Don’t forget the IRA motto,” he said softly. “Once in, never out. Do you understand?”

She didn’t answer.

A Red Bus appeared from the east. Flynn pulled Maureen close to him and supported her as they mounted the steps. “Clady,” said Flynn, and he smiled at the driver as he paid the fare. “The lady’s had rather too much to drink, I’m afraid.”

The driver, a heavy-set man with a face that looked more Scottish than Irish, nodded uncaringly. “Do you have your curfew card?”

Flynn glanced down the length of the bus. Less than a dozen people, mostly workers in essential services, and they looked mostly Protestant—as far as he could tell—like the driver. Perhaps everyone looked like Prods tonight. No sign of police, though. “Yes. Here it is.” He held his wallet up close to the driver’s face.

The driver glanced at it and moved the door lever closed, then put the bus in gear.

Flynn helped Maureen toward the rear of the bus, and a few of the passengers gave them looks ranging from disapproval to curiosity. In London or Dublin they would be dismissed for what they claimed to be—drunks. In Belfast people’s minds worked in different directions. He knew they would have to get off the bus soon. They sat in the back seat.

The bus rolled up Shankill Road, through the Protestant working-class neighborhood, then headed northwest into the mixed neighborhoods around Oldpark. Flynn turned to Maureen and spoke softly. “Feeling better?”

“Oh, quite. Let’s do it again.”

“Ah, Maureen …”

An old woman sitting alone in front of them turned around. “How’s the lady? How are you, dear? Feelin’ better, then?”

Maureen looked at her without answering. The citizens of Belfast were capable of anything from murder and treachery to Christian kindness.

The old woman showed a toothless smile and spoke quietly. “Between Squire’s Hill and McIlwhan’s Hill is a wee valley called the Flush. There’s an abbey there— you know it—Whitehorn Abbey. The priest, Father Donnelly, will give you lodgings for the night.”

Flynn fixed the woman with a cold stare. “What makes you think we need a place to stay? We’re headed home.”

The bus stopped, and the old woman stood without another word and trundled off to the front of the bus and stepped off.

The bus started again. Flynn was very uneasy now. “Next stop. Are you up to it?”

“I’m not up to one more second on this bus.” She paused thoughtfully. “The old woman … ?”

Flynn shook his head.

“I think we can trust her.”

“I don’t trust anyone.”

“What kind of country do we live in?”

He laughed derisively. “What a bloody stupid thing to say, Maureen. We are the ones who helped make it like it is.”

She lowered her head. “You’re right, of course … as usual.”

“You must accept what you are. I accept it. I’m well adjusted.”

She nodded. With that strange logic of his he had turned the world upside down. Brian was normal. She was not. “I’m going to Whitehorn Abbey.”

He shrugged. “Better than a barn, I suppose. You’ll be needing bandaging … but if the good rector there turns us in …”

She didn’t answer and turned away from him.

He put his arm around her shoulders. “I do love you, you know.”

She looked down and nodded.

The bus stopped again about a half-mile up the road, and Flynn and Maureen moved toward the door.

“This isn’t Clady,” said the driver.

“That’s all right,” answered Flynn. They stepped off the bus and into the road. Flynn took Maureen’s arm. “That bastard will report us at the next stop.” They crossed the road and headed north up a country lane lined with rowan trees. Flynn looked at his watch, then at the eastern sky. “Almost dawn. We have to be there before the farmers start running about—they’re almost all Prods up here.”

“I know that.” Maureen breathed deeply as they walked in the light rain. The filthy air and ugliness of Belfast were far behind, and she felt better. Belfast—a blot of ash on the green loveliness of County Antrim, a blot of ash on the soul of Ireland. Sometimes she wished that the city would sink back into the bog it grew out of.

They passed hedgerows, well-tended fields, and pastures dotted with cattle and bales of fodder. An exhilarating sodden scent filled the air, and the first birds of morning began to sing.

“I’m not going back to Belfast.”

He put his arm around her and touched her face with his hand. She was becoming feverish. “I understand. See how you feel in a week or two.”

“I’m going to live in the south. A village.”

“Good. And what will you do there? Tend pigs? Or do you have independent means, Maureen? Will you buy a country estate?”

“Do you remember the cottage overlooking the sea? You said we’d go there some day to live our lives in peace.”

“Someday maybe we will.”

“I’ll go to Dublin, then. Find a job.”

“Yes. Good jobs in Dublin. After a year they’ll give you the tables by the window where the American tourists sit. Or the sewing machine by the window where you can get a bit of air and sun. That’s the secret. By the window.”

After a while she said, “Perhaps Killeen …”

“No. You can never go back to your own village. It’s never the same, you know. Better to go to any other pig village.”

“Let’s go to America.”

“No!” The loudness of his own voice surprised him.

“No. I won’t do what they all did.” He thought of his family and friends, so many of them gone to America, Canada, or Australia. He had lost them as surely as he had lost his mother and father when he buried them. Everyone in Ireland, north and south, lost family, friends, neighbors, even husbands and wives and lovers, through emigration. Like some great plague sweeping the land, taking the firstborn, the brightest, and the most adventurous, leaving the old, the sick, the timid, the self-satisfied rich, the desperately poor. “This is my country. I won’t leave here to become a laborer in America.”

She nodded. Better to be a king of the dunghills of Belfast and Londonderry. “I may go alone.”

“You probably should.”

They walked quietly, their arms around each other’s waists, both realizing that they had lost something more than a little blood this night.

CHAPTER 3

The lane led into a small, treeless valley between two hills. In the distance they saw the abbey. The moonlight lit the white stone and gave it a spectral appearance in the ground mist.

They approached the abbey cautiously and stood under a newly budded sycamore tree. A small oblong cemetery, hedged with short green plants, spread out beside the abbey wall. Flynn pushed through the hedge and led Maureen into the cemetery.

The churchyard was unkempt, and vines grew up the gravestones. Whitehorn plants—which gave the abbey its name and which were omens of good luck or bad luck, depending on which superstition you believed—clogged the narrow path. A small side gate in a high stone wall led into the abbey’s cloister. Flynn pushed it open and looked around the quiet court. “Sit on this bench. I’ll find the brothers’ dormitory.”

She sat without answering and let her head fall to her chest. When she opened her eyes again, Flynn was standing over her with a priest.

“Maureen, this is Father Donnelly.”

She focused on the elderly priest, a frail-looking man with a pale face. “Hello, Father.”

He took her hand and with his other hand held her forearm in that way they had of claiming instant intimacy. He was the pastor; she was now one of his flock. Presto. Everyone’s role had been carved in stone two millennia ago.

“Follow me,” he said. “Hold my arm.”

The three of them walked across the cloister and entered the arched door of a polygon-shaped building. Maureen recognized the traditional configuration of the chapter house, the meeting place of the monks. For a moment she thought she was going to face an assemblage, but she saw by the light of a table lamp that the room was empty.

Father Donnelly stopped abruptly and turned. “We have an infirmary, but I’m afraid I’ll have to put you in the hole until the police and soldiers have come round looking for you.”

Flynn didn’t answer.

“You can trust me.”

Flynn didn’t trust anyone, but if he was betrayed, at least the War Council wouldn’t think him too foolish for having trusted a priest. “Where’s this hole, then? We don’t have much time, I think.”

The priest led them down a corridor, then opened the door at the end of the passage. Gray dawn came through stained glass, emitting a light that was more sensed than seen. A single votive candle burned in a red jar, and Flynn could see he was in the abbey’s small church.

The priest lit a candle on a wall sconce and took it down. “Follow me up the altar. Be careful.”

Flynn helped Maureen up to the raised altar sanctuary and watched the priest fumble with some keys and then disappear behind the reredos wall in back of the altar.

Flynn glanced around the church but neither saw nor heard anything in the shadows to signal danger. He noticed that the oppressive smell of incense and tallow was missing, and the church smelled like the outside air. The priest had told him that the abbey was deserted. Father Donnelly was apparently not the abbot but served in something like a caretaker capacity, though he didn’t seem the type of priest that a bishop would exile to such a place, thought Flynn. Nor did he seem the type to hide members of the provisional IRA just to get a thrill out of it.

The priest reappeared holding his candle in the darkness. “Come this way.” He led them to a half-open door made of scrolled wrought iron in the rear of the altar. “This is the place we use.” He looked at the two fugitives to see why they weren’t moving toward it. “The crypt,” he added as if to explain.

“I know what it is. Everyone knows there’s a crypt beneath an altar’s sanctuary.”

“Yes,” said Father Donnelly. “First place they always look. Come along.”

Flynn peered down the stone steps. A candle in an amber glass, apparently always kept burning, illuminated a wall and floor of white limestone. “Why is it I’ve not heard of this abbey as a place of safety before tonight?”

The priest spoke softly, evenly. “You had no need of it before tonight.”

Typical priests’ talk, thought Flynn. He turned to Maureen. She looked down the stairway, then at the priest. Her instincts, too, rebelled against entering the crypt. Yet her conditioned response was to do what the priest urged. She stepped toward the stairway and descended. Flynn glanced at the priest, then stepped through the doorway.

Father Donnelly led them along the limestone wall past the tombs of the former abbots of Whitehorn Abbey. He stopped and opened the bronze door of one of the tombs, marked Fr. Seamus Cahill, held up his candle, and entered the tomb. A wooden casket lay on a stone plinth in the middle of the chamber.

Father Donnelly passed the candle to Flynn and raised the lid of the casket. Inside was a body wrapped in heavy winding sheets, the linen covered with fuzz of green mold. “Sticks and straw,” he said. He reached into the casket and released a concealed catch, and the coffin bottom swung downward with the bogus mummy still affixed to it. “Yes, yes. Melodramatic for our age, but when it was conceived, it was necessary and quite common. Go on. Climb in. There’s a staircase. See it? Follow the passageway at the bottom until you enter a chamber. Use your candle to light the way. There are more candles in the chamber.”

Flynn mounted the plinth and swung his legs over the side. His feet found the top step, and he stood in the casket. A dank, almost putrid smell rose out of the dark hole. He stared at Father Donnelly questioningly.

“It’s the entranceway to hell, my boy. Don’t fear. You’ll find friends down there.”

Flynn tried to smile at the joke, but an involuntary shudder ran up his spine. “I suppose we should be thanking you.”

“I suppose you should. But just hurry on now. I want to be in the refectory having breakfast when they arrive.”

Flynn took a few steps down as Father Donnelly helped Maureen up the plinth and over the side of the casket onto the first step. Flynn held her arm with one hand and held the candle high with the other. She avoided the wrapped figure as she descended.

Father Donnelly pulled the casket floor up, then shut the lid and left the tomb, closing the bronze door behind him.

Flynn held the candle out and followed the narrow, shoulder-width passageway for a distance of about fifty feet, grasping Maureen’s hand behind him. He entered an open area and followed the wall to his right. He found candles in sconces spaced irregularly around the unhewn and unmortared stone walls and lit them, completing the circuit around the room. The air in the chamber was chilly, and he saw his own breath. He looked around slowly at the half-lit room. “Odd sort of place.”

Maureen wrapped herself in a gray blanket she had found and sat on a footstool. “What did you expect, Brian—a game room?”

“Ah, I see you’re feeling better.”

“I’m feeling terrible.”

He walked around the perimeter of the six-sided room. On one wall was a large Celtic cross, and under the cross was a small chest on a wooden stand. Flynn placed his hand on the dusty lid but didn’t open it. He turned back to Maureen. “You trust him?”

“He’s a priest.”

“Priests are no different from other men.”

“Of course they are.”

“We’ll see.” He now felt the fatigue that he had fought off for so long, and he sank down to the damp floor. He sat against the wall next to the chest, facing the stairway. “If we awake in Long Kesh …”

“My fault. All right? Go to sleep.”

Flynn drifted off into fitful periods of sleep, opening his eyes once to see Maureen, wrapped in the blanket, lying on the floor beside him. He awoke again when he heard the casket bottom swing down and strike the wall of the passageway. He jumped up and stood at the entrance to the passage. In a shaft of light from the crypt he could see the coffin floor hanging, its grotesque mockery of a dead man stuck to it like a lizard on a wall.

The torso of a man appeared: black shoes, black trousers, the Roman collar, then the face of Father Donnelly. He held a tea tray high above his head as he made his way. “They were here and they’re gone.”

Flynn moved down the passageway and took the tray that the priest passed to him. Father Donnelly closed the coffin, and they walked into the chamber, Flynn placing the tray on a small wooden table.

Father Donnelly looked around the chamber the way a host examines a guest room. He stared at Maureen’s sleeping figure, then turned to Flynn. “So, you blew up a sixer, did you? Rather daring, I’d say.”

Flynn didn’t answer.

“Well, anyway, they traced you as far as the McGloughlin farm up the lane. Good, loyal Ulstermen, the McGloughlins. Solid Presbyterians. Family came over from Scotland with Cromwell’s army. Another three hundred years and they’ll think this is their country. How’s the lady?”

Flynn knelt beside her. “Sleeping.” He touched her forehead. “Feverish.”

“There’s some penicillin tablets and an army aid kit along with the tea and bacon.” He took a small bottle from his pocket. “And some Dunphy’s, if you’ve the need of it.”

Flynn took the bottle. “Rarely have I needed it more.” He uncorked it and took a long drink.

Father Donnelly found two footstools, pulled them to the table, and sat. “Let her sleep. I’ll take tea with you.”

Flynn sat and watched the priest go through the fussy motions of a man who took food and drink seriously. “Who was here?” asked Flynn.

“The Brits and the RUCs. As usual the RUCs wanted to tear the place apart, but a British army officer restrained them. A Major Martin. Know him, do you? Yes, he’s quite infamous. Anyway, they all played their roles wonderfully.”

“I’m glad everyone had a good time. I’m only sorry I had to waken everyone so early.”

“You know, lad, it’s as if the participants in this war secretly appreciate each other. The excitement is not entirely unwelcome.”

Flynn looked at the priest. Here was one man, at least, who didn’t lie about it. “Can we get out of here?” he asked as he sipped the hot tea.

“You’ll have to wait until they clear out of the hedgerows. Binoculars, you understand. Two days at least. Leave at night, of course.

“Doesn’t everyone travel at night?”

The priest laughed. “Ah, Mister …”

“Cocharan.”

“Whatever. When will this all stop?”

“When the British leave and the northern six counties are reunited with the southern twenty-six.”

The priest put down his teacup. “Not true, my boy. The real desire of the IRA, the most secret dark desire of the Catholics, no matter what we all say about living in peace after the reunification, is to deport all the Protestants back to England, Scotland, and Wales. Send the McGloughlins back to a country they haven’t seen in three hundred years.”

“That’s bloody rubbish.”

The priest shrugged. “I don’t care personally, you understand. I only want you to examine your own heart.”

Flynn leaned across the table. “Why are you in this? The Catholic clergy has never supported any Irish rebellion against the British. So why are you risking internment?”

Father Donnelly stared down into his cup, then looked up at Flynn. “I don’t involve myself with any of the things that mean so much to you. I don’t care what your policy is or even what Church policy is. My only role here is to provide sanctuary. A haven in a country gone mad.”

“To anyone? A murderer like me? Protestants? British troops?”

“Anyone who asks.” He stood. “In this abbey was once an order of fifty monks. Now, only me.” He paused and looked down at Flynn. “This abbey has a limited future, Mr. Cocharan, but a very rich past.”

“Like you and me, Father. But I hope not like our country.”

The priest seemed not to hear him and went on. “This chamber was once the storage cellar of an ancient Celtic Bruidean house. You know the term?”

“Yes, I think so.”

“The House of the Hostages, it was called. A six-sided structure where six roads met. Coincidentally—or maybe not so—chapter houses are traditionally polygons, and the chapter house we passed through is built on these foundations.” He gestured above. “Here in the Bruidean a traveler or a fugitive could shelter from the cold, dark road, protected by tradition and the king’s law. The early Celts were not complete barbarians, after all.” He looked at Flynn, “So you see, you’ve come to the right place.”

“And you’ve taken it upon yourself to combine a bit of paganism with Christian charity.”

The priest smiled. “Irish Catholicism has always been a blend of paganism and Christianity. The early Christians after Patrick specifically built their churches on Druid holy spots such as this. I suspect early Christians burnt this Bruidean down, then constructed a crude church on its foundations. You can still see the charred foundation stones. Then the Vikings destroyed the original monastery, and the next one was destroyed by the English army when Cromwell passed through. This is the last abbey to be built here. The Protestant plantations took all the good land in Ireland, but the Catholics held on to most of the good church sites.”

“What more could you want?”

The priest regarded Flynn for a long time, then spoke softly. “You’d better wake the lady before the tea gets cold.”

Flynn rose and crossed the floor to where Maureen was lying, knelt beside her, and shook her. “Tea.”

She opened her eyes.

He said, “Hold on to me.” He stood her up and helped her to his stool. “How are you feeling?”

She looked around the candlelit room. “Better.”

Flynn poured the tea, and Father Donnelly extracted a pill from a vial. “Take this.”

She swallowed the pill and took some tea. “Did the British come?”

The priest felt her forehead. “Came and went. In a few days you’ll be on your way.”

She looked at him, He was so accepting of them, what they were and what they had done. She felt disreputable. Whenever her life was revealed to people not in the movement, she felt not proud but ashamed, and that was not the way it was supposed to be. “Can you help us?”

“I am, dear. Drink your tea.”

“No, I mean can you help us … get out of this?”

The priest nodded. “I see. Yes, I can help you if you want. It’s rather easy, you know.”

Flynn seemed impatient. “Father, save souls on your own time. I need some sleep. Thank you for everything.”

“You’re quite welcome.”

“Could you do one more favor for us? I’ll give you a number to call. Tell the person who answers where we are. Tell them that Brian and Maureen need help. Let me know what they say.”

“I’ll use a phone in the village in case this one is tapped.”

Flynn smiled appreciatively. “If I’ve seemed a bit abrupt—”

“Don’t let it trouble you.” He repeated the number Flynn gave him, turned, and disappeared into the narrow passageway.

Flynn took the bottle of Dunphy’s from the table and poured some in Maureen’s teacup. She shook her head impatiently. “Not with the penicillin, Brian.”

He looked at her. “We’re not getting along, are we?”

“I’m afraid not.”

He nodded. “Well, let’s have a look at the nick, then.”

She stood slowly, pulled her wet sweater over her head, and dropped it on the stool. Flynn saw that she was in pain as she unhooked her bloodied bra, but he didn’t offer to help. He took a candle from the table and examined the wound, a wide gash running along the outside of her right breast and passing under her armpit. An inch to the left and she would have been dead. “Just a graze, really.”

“I know.”

“The important thing is that you won’t need a doctor.” The wound was bleeding again from the movement of her undressing, and he could see that it had bled and coagulated several times already. “It’s going to hurt a bit.” He dressed the wound while she stood with her arm raised. “Lie down and wrap yourself in the blanket.”

She lay down and stared at him in the flickering light. She was cold, wet, and feverish. Her whole side ached, and the food had made her nauseous, though she was very thirsty. “We live like animals, licking our wounds, cut off from humanity … from …”

“God? But don’t settle for this second-class Popish nonsense, Maureen. Join the Church of England—then you’ll have your God, your respectability, and you can sit over tea with the Ladies’ Auxiliary and complain about the IRA’s latest outrage.”

She closed her eyes, and tears ran down her cheeks.

When he saw that she was sleeping, he took the cup of Dunphy’s and drained it, then began walking around the cellar. He examined the walls again and saw the scorch marks. How many times had this place been put to the torch? What made this location holy to both the Druids and the Christians? What spirit lived here in the heart of the earth? He carried a candle to the wooden chest and studied it. After some time he reached out and lifted the lid.

Inside he saw fragments of limestone that bore ancient Celtic inscriptions and a few unidentifiable pieces of metal, bronze, rusted iron. He pushed some of the objects aside, revealing a huge oval ring crusted with verdigris. He slipped it on his ring finger. It was large, but it stayed on his finger well enough. He clenched his fist and studied the ring. It bore a crest, and through the tarnish he could make out Celtic writing around a crudely molded bearded face.

He rubbed his fingers over the ring and wiped away some of the encrustation. The crude face stared back at him like a child’s rendering of a particularly fearsome man. He felt dizzy and sensed his legs buckling under him. He was aware of hitting the floor. Then he blacked out.

CHAPTER 4

Brian Flynn woke to find a face staring down at him.

“It’s noon,” said Father Donnelly. “I’ve brought you some lunch.”

Flynn focused on the ruddy face of the old man. He saw that the priest was staring at the ring on his finger. He got to his feet and looked around. Maureen was sitting at the table wearing a new pullover and eating from a steaming bowl. The priest had been there for some time, and that annoyed him. He walked over and sat opposite her. “Feeling better?”

“Much.”

Father Donnelly pulled up a stool. “Would you mind if I joined you?”

“It’s your food and your table,” said Flynn.

The priest smiled. “One never gets used to dining alone.”

Flynn took a spoon. “Why don’t they send you a … monk or something?” He took a spoonful of stew.

“There’s a lay brother who does the caretaking, but he’s on leave.” He leaned forward. “I see you’ve found the treasure of Whitehorn Abbey.”

Flynn continued to eat as he spoke. “Sorry. Couldn’t resist the temptation.”

“That’s all right.”

Maureen looked up. “What are we talking about, please?”

Flynn slipped off the ring, passed it to her, and motioned toward the opened chest.

She examined the ring, then passed it to Father Donnelly. “It’s an extraordinary ring.”

Father Donnelly toyed with the ring. “Extraordinarily large, in any case.”

Flynn poured a bottle of Guinness into a glass. “Where did it come from?”

The priest shook his head. “The last abbot said it was always here with the other things in that box. It may have been excavated here during one of the rebuildings. Perhaps under this floor.”

Flynn stared at the ring in the priest’s hand. “Pre-Christian?”

“Yes. Pagan. If you want a romantic story, it is said that it was a warrior king’s ring. More specifically, Fenian. It’s certainly a man’s ring, and no average man at that.”

Flynn nodded. “Why not MacCumail’s ring? Or Dermot’s?”

“Why not, indeed? Who would dare wear a ring larger than this?”

Flynn smiled. “You’ve a pagan streak in you, Father. Didn’t Saint Patrick consign the departed Fenians to hell? What was their crime, then, that they must spend eternity in hell?”

“No crime. Just born at the wrong time.” He smiled. “Like many of us.”

“Right.” Flynn liked a priest who could laugh at his dogma.

The priest leaned across the table. “When Oisin, son of Finn MacCumail, returned from the Land of Perpetual Youth, he found Ireland Christian. The brave warrior was confused, sad. Oisin rejected the ordered Christian society and longed with nostalgia for the untamed lustiness of old Erin. If he or his father, Finn MacCumail, came into Ulster today, they would be overjoyed at this Christian warfare. And they would certainly recognize the new pagans among us.”

“Meaning me?”

Maureen poured tea into three mugs. “He’s talking to you, Brian, isn’t he?”

Father Donnelly rose. “I’ll take my tea in the refectory.”

Maureen Malone rose, too. “Don’t leave.”

“I really must.” His demeanor had changed from paternal to businesslike. He looked at Flynn. “Your friends want you to stay here for two more days. They’ll contact me and let me know the plan. Any reply?”

Flynn shook his head. “No.”

Maureen looked at Flynn, then at Father Donnelly. “I have a reply. Tell them I want safe passage to Dublin, a hundred pounds, and a work visa for the south.”

The priest nodded. He turned to go, hesitated, and came back. He placed the ring on the small table. “Mister …”

“Cocharan.”

“Yes. Take this ring.”

“Why?”

“Because you want it and I don’t.”

“It’s a valuable relic.”

“So are you.”

“I won’t ask you what you mean by that.” He stood and looked hard at the priest, then took the ring from the table and placed it on his finger. Several new thoughts were forming in his mind, but he had no one to share them with. “Thank you.” He looked at the ring. “Any curse attached to it that I should know about?”

The priest replied, “You should assume there is.”

He looked at the two people standing before him. “I can’t approve of the way you live your lives, but I find it painful to see a love dying. Any love, anywhere in this unloving country.” He turned and made his way out of the cellar.

Flynn knew that Maureen had been talking to the priest while he’d been sleeping. He was having difficulty dealing with all that had happened in so short a time. Belfast, the old lady and the abbey, a priest who used pagan legends to make Christian statements, Maureen’s aloofness. He was clearly not in control. He stood motionless for a time, then turned toward her. “I’d like you to reconsider about Dublin.”

She looked down and shook her head.

“I’m asking you to stay … not only because I … What I mean is …”

“I know what you mean. Once in, never out. I’m not afraid of them.”

“You should be. I can’t protect you—”

“I’m not asking you to.” She looked at him. “We’re both better off.”

“You’re probably right. You understand these things better than I.”

She knew that tone of voice. Remote. Sarcastic. The air in the cellar felt dense, oppressive. Church or not, the place made her uneasy. She thought about the coffin through which they had entered this hole, and that had been a little like dying. When she came out again she wanted to leave behind every memory of the place, every thought of the war. She looked at the ring on his hand. “Leave the damned thing here.”

“I’m not only taking the ring, Maureen, I’m taking the name as well.”

“What name?”

“I need a new code name … Finn MacCumail.”

She almost laughed. “In any other country they’d treat you for megalomania. In Northern Ireland they’ll find you quite normal, Brian.”

“But I am normal.”

“Not bloody likely.”

He looked at her in the dim candlelight. He thought he had never seen anyone so lovely, and he realized that he hadn’t thought of her in that way for a long time. Now she was flushed with the expectation of new beginnings, not to mention the flush of fever that reddened her cheeks and caused her eyes to burn bright. “You may well be right.”

“About your being a lunatic?”

“Well, that too.” He smiled at the small shared joke. “But I meant about you going off to Dublin.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. I’m only sorry I can’t go with you.”

“Perhaps, Brian, some day you’ll get tired of this.”

“Not bloody likely.”

“No.”

“Well, I’ll miss you.”

“I hope so,” she said.

He stayed silent for a moment, then said, “I still don’t know if we can trust him.”

“He’s a saint, for God’s sake, Brian. Take him for what he appears to be.”

“He appears different to me. Something odd about him. Anyway, we’re not home free yet.”

“I know.”

“If anything happens and I don’t have time to make a proper parting … well …”

“You’ve had time enough over the years to say what you felt. Time wasn’t the problem. Tea?”

“Yes, please.”

They sat silently, drinking their tea.

Flynn put down his cup. “Your sister …”

She shook her head. “Sheila is beyond our help.”

“Maybe not.”

“I don’t want to see anyone else killed….”

“There are other ways….” He lapsed into silence, then said, “The keys to the jails of Ulster are in America.”

A month later, when spring was firmly planted in the countryside and three weeks after Maureen Malone left for Dublin, Brian Flynn hired a car and went out to the abbey to thank Father Donnelly and to ask him about possible help in the future.

He found all the gates to the abbey locked, and no one answered any of the pull bells. A farmer riding by on a cart told him that the abbey was looked after by villagers employed by the diocese. And that no one had lived there for many years.

Book II

New York

English, Scotchmen, Jews, do well in Ireland—Irishmen, never; even the patriot has to leave Ireland to get a hearing.

George Moore,

Ave(Overture)

CHAPTER 5

Brian Flynn, dressed in the black clothing and white collar of a Roman Catholic priest, stood in the dim morning light near the south transept entrance to St. Patrick’s Cathedral. He carried a small parcel wrapped in white paper decorated with green shamrocks. A few older women and two men stood at the base of the steps near him, huddled against the cold.

One of the two large transept doors swung open, and the head of a sexton appeared and nodded. The small crowd mounted the steps and passed through the side vestibule, then entered the Cathedral. Brian Flynn followed.

Inside the Cathedral, Flynn kneeled at the communion rail. The raised marble area, the altar sanctuary, was decked with fields of green carnations, and he studied the festive decorations. It had been four years since he had left Whitehorn Abbey; four years since he had seen her. Today he would see her again, for the last time.

He rose and turned toward the front of the Cathedral, slipping his right hand into his black overcoat pocket to feel the cold steel of the automatic pistol.

Father Timothy Murphy left his room in the rectory and made his way to the underground passage between the rectory and the Cathedral. At the end of a corridor he came to a large paneled door and opened it, then stepped into a dark room and turned on a wall switch. Soft lights glowed in the marble-vaulted sacristy.

He walked to the priests’ chapel in the rear of the sacristy and knelt, directing his prayers to St. Patrick, whose feast day it was, and asking as he did every year for peace in Northern Ireland, his native land. He asked also for good weather for the parade and a peaceful and relatively sober day in his adopted city.

He rose, crossed the sacristy, mounted a short flight of marble stairs, and unlocked a pair of brass gates. He rolled the gates back on their tracks into the marble archway, then continued up the steps.

On the first landing he stopped and peered through a barred door into the crypt that contained the remains of the past archbishops of New York. A soft yellow light burned somewhere in the heart of the crypt.

The staircase split in two directions on the landing, and he took the flight to the left. He came around the altar and walked toward the high pulpit. He mounted the curving stone steps and stood beneath the bronze canopy high above the pews.

The Cathedral spread out before him, covering an entire city block. The lighter spots of the towering stained-glass windows—the flesh tones of faces and hands—picked up the early morning light, changing the focus of the scenes from the Scriptures depicted on them in a way that their artisans never intended. Disembodied heads and limbs stared out of the cobalt blues and fiery reds, looking more damned than saved.

Father Murphy turned away from the windows and peered down at the worshipers. A dozen people were widely scattered over the length and breadth of this massive-columned house, none of them with any companion but God. He lifted his eyes toward the great choir loft over the front portals. The large pipe organ rose up like a miniature cathedral, its thousands of brass pipes soaring like spires against the diffused light of the massive rose window above them.

From his pocket Father Murphy drew his typed sermon and laid it over the open pages of the lectionary, then adjusted the microphone upward. He checked his watch. Six-forty. Twenty minutes until Mass.

Satisfied with these small details, he looked up again and noticed a tall priest standing beside the altar of St. Brigid. He didn’t recognize the man, but St. Patrick’s would be filled with visiting priests on this day; in fact, the priest appeared to be sightseeing, taking in the wide expanses of the Cathedral. A country bumpkin, thought Murphy, just as he himself had been years before. Yet there was something self-assured about the man’s bearing. He seemed to be not awed but critical, as though he were considering buying the place but was unhappy with some of the appointments.

Father Murphy came down from the pulpit. He studied the bouquets of green-dyed carnations, then snapped one off and stuck it in the lapel of his coat as he descended the steps of the altar sanctuary and walked down the center aisle. In the large vestibule under the bell tower he came within a dozen feet of the tall priest, that area of space within which greeting had to be made. He paused, then smiled, “Good morning, Father.”

The tall priest stared. “Morning.”

Father Murphy considered extending his hand, but the other priest had his right hand deep in his overcoat pocket and held a gift-wrapped box under his other arm. Murphy passed by the priest and crossed the cold stone vestibule to the front door. He drew the floor bolt, then pushed the door open and stepped out to the front steps of the Cathedral. His clear blue eyes drifted across Fifth Avenue and upward to the top of the International Building in Rockefeller Center. A glint of sunlight reflected from the bronze work of the building. It was going to be a sunny day for the Irish, a great day for the Irish.

He looked to his right. Approaching from the north was a vehicle with flashing yellow lights. Hissing noises emanated from it as it drew opposite the Cathedral. Murphy saw the stream of Kelly-green paint coming from the rear of the machine, drawing a line down the middle of Fifth Avenue and covering the white traffic line.

His eyes focused on the huge bronze statue of Atlas—facing him from across the street in front of the International Building—holding up the world in a classic pose, heroic but pagan. He had never liked that statue—it mocked his church. Rockefeller Center itself mocked his church, its gray masonry buildings a colossal monument to the ego of one man, soaring above the marble spires of the Cathedral.

He stared at the naked physique of the god opposite him and was reminded of the tall priest in the Cathedral.

Brian Flynn moved to an arched oak door in a wall of the vestibule below the bell tower, opened it, and stepped into a small elevator. He pushed the only button on the panel, and the elevator rose. Flynn stepped out into the choir practice room, walked through it into the choir loft, and stood at the parapet rail.

Flynn looked beyond the sea of wooden pews toward the raised altar, its bronze work bathed in soft illumination and its marble gleaming from unseen light sources. White statuary reflected the ambient lighting and seemed—as it was supposed to seem—ethereal and animated. The statue of St. Patrick opposite the pulpit appeared to be looking up at him. Behind the carnation-decked altar was the rounded apse that held the Lady Chapel, the tall, slender, stained-glass windows alight with the rising sun. The fifteen altars that stood on the periphery of the Cathedral were aglow with votive candles.

If the intention was to awe, to mystify, to diminish man in the face of God, then this Gothic structure accomplished its purpose very well. What masters of suspense and mystery these Catholics were, Flynn thought, what incredible manipulators of physical reality and, hence, inner reality. Bread and wine into flesh and blood, indeed. Yet inside this Cathedral the years of childhood programming had their effect, and his thinking was involved with too many forgotten emotions. Outside the Church was a world that didn’t diminish him or play tricks with his mind and eyes. He gave the Cathedral a last look, then made his way to a small door off the choir loft and opened it.

A rush of cold air hit him, and he shivered as he stepped into the bell tower. When his eyes had adjusted to the darkness he moved forward and found a spiral staircase with handrails in the center of the tower and began to climb, steadying himself with one hand and holding the parcel with the other.

The tower was dark, but translucent glass let in a grayish light. Flynn could see his breath as he climbed. The stairs gave way to ladders, and the ladders became shakier at each succeeding landing. He wondered if anyone ever came up here; he couldn’t imagine why they would. He stopped to catch his breath on a landing below what he believed to be the first bell room.

He saw some movement to his right and drew his pistol. He walked in a crouch toward the movement, but it was only the straps of the bells hanging down the wall in a sinister fashion, swaying in the drafts as they passed through a hole in the landing.

He looked around. The place was eerie. The diffused light added to the effect, and the sounds of the surrounding city were changed into odd noises that seemed to come from the tower itself. The draft was eerie also because he couldn’t quite tell from which direction it came. It seemed to come from some hidden respiratory organ belonging to the Cathedral itself—in a way, the secret breath of St. Patrick’s— or St. Patrick himself. Yet he felt somehow that this breath was not sanctified and that there was an evil about the place, He had felt that in Whitehorn Abbey, and afterward realized that what the faithful took to be the presence of the Holy Spirit was something quite different for the faithless.

He tried to light a cigarette, but the matches would not stay lit. The brief light illuminated the small, polygon-shaped chamber of the tower, and again his thoughts were drawn back to the subbasement of Whitehorn’s chapter house. He rubbed his hand over the large ring that he still wore. He thought of Maureen and pictured her as he had last seen her in that basement: frightened, sick, saddened at their parting. He wondered what her first words to him would be after these four years.

He looked at his watch. In ten minutes the bells would ring the Angelus, and if he were near them he would be deafened. He mounted the ladder and ascended. He had an impulse to shout a blasphemy up into the dark tower to rouse those spirits in their aerie, to tell them that Finn MacCumail was approaching and to make way.

The ladder reached into the first bell room, which held three of the Cathedral’s nineteen cast-bronze bells hanging from a crossbeam. Flynn checked his watch again. Eight minutes to seven. Setting a flashlight on a crossbeam, he worked swiftly to unwrap the package, exposing a black metal box. He found the electrical wire that led to the utility work light fixed on the beam and cut the wire, connecting each end to terminals in the metal box. He set an electrical timer on the box to 5:00 P.M., then pulled the chain of the utility light. The bell room was partially illuminated, revealing the accumulated dust and cobwebs of a century, and the timer began ticking loudly in the still room.

He touched one of the bronze bells and felt its coldness, thinking that today might be the last day New York would hear it.

CHAPTER 6

Maureen Malone stood naked in front of the full-length door mirror, cold water clinging to her face and shoulders and glistening in the harsh bathroom light. Her hand moved to her right breast, and she felt the cold, jagged flesh along the side of it. She stared at the purple gash. God, the damage a tiny bullet could do. She had once considered plastic surgery, but the wound went down into her soul where no surgeon’s hands could reach it.

She took a hotel bath towel, wrapped herself in it, and stepped into the bedroom. She walked slowly across the thick carpet, parted the heavy drapery, and looked out into the city from the forty-second floor of the Waldorf’s north tower.

She tried to focus on the lights a few at a time. Strings of highway and bridge lamps cut across the waterways and flatlands around the island, and the island itself was jammed with incredibly huge buildings. She scanned the buildings closest to her and saw the Cathedral laid out in the shape of a cross, bathed in a cold blue light. The apse faced her, and the entrance was on a wide avenue. It’s twin spires rose gracefully amid the rectangular hulks around it, and she could see traffic moving on many of the city’s streets, an incredible thing at that hour, she thought.

The lights of the city blurred in her eyes, and her mind wandered back to the dinner in the Empire Room downstairs where she had been a speaker. What had she told those ladies and gentlemen of Amnesty International? That she was there for the living and dead of Ireland. What was her mission? they asked. To convince the British to release the men and women interned in Northern Ireland under the Special Powers Act. After that, and only after that, would her former comrades-in-arms talk peace.

The newspapers had said that her appearance on the steps of St. Patrick’s Cathedral on the saint’s feast day, with Sir Harold Baxter, the British Consul General in New York, would be a historical precedent. Never had a Cardinal allowed anyone remotely political to stand with him on the steps on this day. The political types mounted the steps, she was told, saluted the Prince of the Church and his entourage, then rejoined the parade and marched to the reviewing stands fourteen blocks farther north. But Maureen Malone, ex-IRA terrorist, had been invited. Hadn’t Jesus forgiven Mary Magdalene? the Cardinal had asked her. Wasn’t this what Christ’s message was all about? She didn’t know if she liked the comparison with that famous whore, but the Cardinal had seemed so sincere.

Sir Harold Baxter, she knew, was as uncomfortable with the arrangement as she was, but he could not have accepted without the approval of his Foreign Office, so that at least was a breakthrough. Peace initiatives, unlike war initiatives, always had such small, meek, tentative beginnings.

She felt a sudden chill by the window and shivered. Her eyes went back to the blue-lit Cathedral. She tried to envision how the day would end but couldn’t, and this frightened her. Another chill, a different kind, ran down her spine. Once in, never out.

Somehow she knew Brian Flynn was close, and she knew he would not let her get away with this.

Terri O’Neal woke to the sound of early morning traffic coming through the second-story window. She sat up slowly in the bed. A streetlight outside the window partially illuminated the room. The man next to her—Dan, yes, Dan—turned his head and stared at her. She could see that his eyes were clear, unclouded by either drink or sleep. She suspected that he had been awake for some time, and this made her uneasy, but she didn’t know why. “Maybe I should get going. Work today.”

He sat up and held her arm. “No work today. You’re going to the parade. Remember?”

His voice, a light brogue, was not husky with sleep. He had been awake—and how did he know she wasn’t going to work today? She never told her pickups anything more than they had to know—in case it didn’t go well. “Are you going to work today?”

“I am at work.” He laughed as he took a cigarette from the night table.

She forced a smile, swung her legs out of bed, and stood. She felt his eyes taking in her figure as she walked to the big bay window and knelt in the window bench facing the street. She looked out. A lovely street. Sixty-something—off Fifth, a street of brownstone and granite town houses.

She looked westward. A big police van was parked on the corner of Fifth, and across the street from it was a television truck. On the far side of the Avenue were the reviewing stands that had been assembled in front of the park.

She looked directly below her. A long line of police scooters were angle-parked on the street. Dozens of helmeted police officers were milling about, blowing into their hands or drinking coffee. Their proximity made her feel better.

She turned and sat facing the bed. She noticed that he had put on his jeans, but he was still sitting on the bed. She became apprehensive again, and her voice came out low and tremulous. “Who—who are you?”

He got off the bed and walked to her. “I’m your lover of last evening, Mrs. O’Neal.” He stood directly in front of her, and she had to crane her neck to look up into his face.

Terri O’Neal was frightened. This man did not act, look, or talk like a crazy—yet he was going to do something to her that she was not going to like. She was sure of that. She pulled free of his stare and turned her eyes slightly toward the side panel of the bay window. A loud scream would do it. She hoped to God it would do it.

Dan Morgan didn’t follow her eyes, but he knew what was out there. “Not a peep, lass. Not a peep …”

Reluctantly she swung her head back toward him and found herself staring into a big, black silencer at the end of a bigger black pistol. Her mouth went dry.

“… or I’ll put a bullet through your pretty, dimpled kneecap.”

It was several seconds before she could form a thought or a word, then she said softly, “What do you want?”

“Just your company for a while.”

“Company?” Her brain wasn’t taking in any of this.

“You’re kidnapped, darlin’. Kidnapped.”

CHAPTER 7

Detective Lieutenant Patrick Burke sat huddled against the cold dawn on the top riser of the reviewing stands and looked down into the Avenue. The freshly painted green line glistened in the thin sunlight, and policemen stepped carefully over it as they crossed the street.

A bomb squad ambled through the risers picking up paper bags and bottles, none of them containing anything more lethal than the dregs of cheap wine. A bum lay covered with newspaper on the riser below him, undisturbed by the indulgent cops.

Burke looked east into Sixty-fourth Street. Police motor scooters lined the street, and a WPIX television van had taken up position on the north corner. A police mobile headquarters van was parked on the south corner, and two policemen were connecting the van’s cables to an access opening at the base of a streetlamp.

Burke lit a cigarette. In twenty years of intelligence work this scene had not changed nearly so much as everything else in his life had. He thought that even the bum might be the same.

Burke glanced at his watch—five minutes to kill. He watched the uniformed patrolmen queue up to a PBA canteen truck for coffee. Someone at the back of the line was fortifying the cups of coffee with a dark liquid poured from a Coke bottle, like a priest, thought Burke, sprinkling holy water on the passing troops. It would be a long, hard day for the uniformed cops. Over a million people, Irish and otherwise, would crowd the sidewalks of Fifth Avenue and the bars and restaurants of midtown Manhattan. Surprisingly, for all the sound and fury of the day there had never been a serious political incident in over two centuries of St. Patrick’s days in New York. But Burke felt every year that it would happen, that it must happen eventually.

The presence of the Malone woman in New York disturbed him. He had interviewed her briefly in the Empire Room of the Waldorf the previous evening. She seemed likable enough, pretty, too, and undaunted by his suggestion that someone might decide to murder her. She had probably become accustomed to threats on her life, he thought.

The Irish were Burke’s specialty, and the Irish, he believed, were potentially the most dangerous group of all. But if they struck, would they pick this day? This day belonged to the Irish. The parade was their trooping of the colors, their showing of the green, necessary in those days when they were regarded as America’s first unwanted foreigners. He remembered a joke his grandfather used to tell, popular at the turn of the century: What is St. Patrick’s Day? It’s the day the Protestants and Jews look out the windows of their town houses on Fifth Avenue to watch their employees march by.

What had begun as America’s first civil rights demonstration was now a reminder to the city—to the nation—that the Irish still existed as a force. This was the day that the Irish got to fuck up New York City, the day they turned Manhattan on its ear.

Burke stood, stretched his big frame, then bounded down the rows of benches and jumped onto the sidewalk. He walked behind the stands until he came to an opening in the low stone wall that bordered Central Park, where he descended a flight of stone steps. In front of him rose the huge, castlelike Arsenal—actually a park administration building—flying, along with the American flag, the green, white, and orange tricolor of the Republic of Ireland. He circled around it to his right and came to a closed set of towering wrought-iron gates. Without much enthusiasm he climbed to the top of the gates, then dropped down into the zoo.

The zoo was deserted and much darker than the Avenue. Ornate lamps cast a weak light over the paths and brick buildings. He proceeded slowly down the straight lane, staying in the shadows. As he walked he unholstered his service revolver and slipped it into his coat pocket, more as a precaution against muggers than professional assassins.

The shadows of bare sycamores lay over the lane, and the smell of damp straw and animals hung oppressively in the cold, misty air. To his left seals were barking in their pool, and birds, captive and free, chirped and squawked in a blend of familiar and exotic sounds.

Burke passed the brick arches that supported the Delacorte clock and peered into the shadows of the colonnade, but no one was there. He checked his watch against the clock. Ferguson was late or dead. He leaned against one of the clock arches and lit another cigarette. Around him he saw, to the east, south, and west, towering skyscrapers silhouetted against the dawn, crowded close to the black treelines like sheer cliffs around a rain forest basin.

He heard the sound of soft footsteps behind him and turned, peering around the arch into the path that led to the Children’s Zoo deeper into the park.

Jack Ferguson passed through a concrete tunnel and stepped into a pool of light, then stopped. “Burke?”

“Over here.” Burke watched Ferguson approach. The man walked with a slight limp, his oversized vintage trench coat flapping with every step he took.

Ferguson offered his hand and smiled, showing a set of yellowed teeth. “Good to see you, Patrick.”

Burke took his hand. “How’s your wife, Jack?”

“Poorly. Poorly, I’m afraid.”

“Sorry to hear that. You’re looking a bit pale yourself.”

Ferguson touched his face. “Am I? I should get out more.”

“Take a walk in the park—when the sun’s up. Why are we meeting here, Jack?”

“Oh God, the town’s full of Micks today, isn’t it? I mean we could be seen anywhere by anybody.”

“I suppose.” Old revolutionaries, thought Burke, would wither and die without their paranoia and conspiracies. Burke pulled a small thermal flask from his coat. “Tea and Irish?”

“Bless you.” Ferguson took it and drank, then handed it back as he looked around into the shadows. “Are you alone?”

“Me, you, and the monkeys.” Burke took a drink and regarded Ferguson over the rim of the flask. Jack Ferguson was a genuine 1930s City College Marxist whose life had been spent in periods of either fomenting or waiting for the revolution of the working classes. The historical tides that had swept the rest of the world since the war had left Jack Ferguson untouched and unimpressed. In addition he was a pacifist, a gentle man, though these seemingly disparate ideals never appeared to cause him any inner conflict. Burke held out the flask. “Another rip?”

“No, not just yet.”

Burke screwed the cap back on the Thermos as he studied Ferguson, who was nervously looking around him. Ferguson was a ranking officer in the Official Irish Republican Army, or whatever was left of it in New York, and he was as burnt out and moribund as the rest of that group of geriatrics. “What’s coming down today, Jack?”

Ferguson took Burke’s arm and looked up into his face. “The Fenians ride again, my boy.”

“Really? Where’d they get the horses?”

“No joke, Patrick. A renegade group made up mostly from the Provos in Ulster. They call themselves the Fenians.”

Burke nodded. He had heard of them. “They’re here? In New York?”

“Afraid so.”

“For what purpose?”

“I couldn’t say, exactly. But they’re up to mischief.”

“Are your sources reliable?”

“Very.”

“Are these people into violence?”

“In the vernacular of the day, yes, they’re into violence.

Into it up to their asses. They’re murderers, arsonists, and bombers. The cream of the Provisional IRA. Between them they’ve leveled most of downtown Belfast, and they’re responsible for hundreds of deaths. A bad lot.”

“Sounds like it, doesn’t it? What do they do on weekends?”

Ferguson lit a cigarette with unsteady hands. “Let’s sit awhile.”

Burke followed him toward a bench facing the ape house. As he walked he watched the man in front of him. If ever there was a man more anachronistic, more quixotic than Jack Ferguson, he had never met him. Yet Ferguson had somehow survived in that netherworld of leftist politics and had even survived a murder attempt—or an assassination attempt, as Ferguson would have corrected him. And he was unusually reliable in these matters. The Marxist-oriented Officials distrusted the breakaway Provisionals and vice versa. Each side still had people in the opposite camp, and they were the best sources of information about each other. The only common bond they shared was a deep hate for the English and a policy of hands-off-America. Burke sat next to Ferguson. “The IRA has not committed acts of violence in America since the Second World War,” Burke recited the conventional wisdom, “and I don’t think they’re ready to now.”

“That’s true of the Officials, certainly, and even the Provisionals, but not of these Fenians.”

Burke said nothing for a long time, then asked, “How many?”

Ferguson chain-lit a cigarette. “At least twenty, maybe more.”

“Armed?”

“Not when they left Belfast, of course, but there are people here who would help them.”

“Target?”

“Who knows? No end of targets today. Hundreds of politicians in the reviewing stands, in the parade. People on the steps of the Cathedral. Then, of course, there’s the British Consulate, British Airways, the Irish Tourist Board, the Ulster Trade Delegation, the—”

“All right. I’ve got a list too.” Burke watched a gorilla with red, burning eyes peering at them through the bars of the ape house. The animal seemed interested in them, turning its head whenever they spoke. “Who are the leaders of these Fenians?”

“A man who calls himself Finn MacCumail.”

“What’s his real name?”

“I may know this afternoon. MacCumail’s lieutenant is John Hickey, code name Dermot.”

“Hickey’s dead.”

“No, he’s living right here in New Jersey. He must be close to eighty by now.”

Burke had never met Hickey, but Hickey’s career in the IRA was so long and so blood-splattered that he was mentioned in history books. “Anything else?”

“No, that’s it for now.”

“Where can we meet later?”

“Call me at home every hour starting at noon. If you don’t reach me, meet me back here on the terrace of the restaurant at four-thirty … unless, of course, whatever is to happen has already happened. In that case I’ll be out of town for a while.”

Burke nodded. “What can I do for you?”

Ferguson acted both surprised and indifferent, the way he always did at this point. “Do? Oh, well … let’s see…. How’s the special fund these days?”

“I can get a few hundred.”

“Fine. Things are a bit tight with us.”

Burke didn’t know if he was referring to himself and his wife or his organization. Probably both. “I’ll try for more.”

“As you wish. The money isn’t so important. What is important is that you avoid bloodshed, and that the department knows we’re helping you. And that no one else knows it.”

“That’s the way we’ve always done it.”

Ferguson stood and put out his hand. “Good-bye, Patrick. Erin go bragh.”

Burke stood and took Ferguson’s hand. “Do what you can, Jack, but be careful.”

Burke watched Ferguson limp away down the path and disappear under the clock. He felt very chilled and took a drink from his flask. The Fenians ride again. He had an idea that this St. Patrick’s Day would be the most memorable of all.

CHAPTER 8

Maureen Malone put down her teacup and let her eyes wander around the hotel breakfast room.

“Would you like anything else?” Margaret Singer, Secretary of Amnesty International, smiled at her from across the table.

“No, thank you—” She almost added ma’am but caught herself. Three years as a revolutionary didn’t transform a lifetime of inbred deference.

Next to Margaret Singer sat Malcolm Hull, also of Amnesty. And across the round table sat a man introduced only as Peter who had his back to the wall and faced the main entrance to the dining room. He neither ate nor smiled but drank black coffee. Maureen knew the type.

The fifth person at the table was recently arrived and quite unexpected: Sir Harold Baxter, British Consul General. He had come, he said frankly, to break the ice so there would be no awkwardness when they met on the steps of the Cathedral. The British, reflected Maureen, were so civilized, polite, and practical. It made one sick, really.

Sir Harold poured a cup of coffee and smiled at her. “Will you be staying on awhile?”

She forced herself to look into his clear gray eyes. He looked no more than forty, but his hair was graying at the temples. He was undeniably good-looking. “I think I’ll go on to Belfast tonight.”

His smile never faded. “Not a good idea, actually. London or even Dublin would be better.”

She smiled back at his words. Translation: After today they’ll surely murder you in Belfast. She didn’t think he cared personally if the IRA murdered her, but his government must have decided she was useful. Her voice was cool. “When the Famine killed a million and a half Irish, it also scattered as many throughout the English-speaking world, and among these Irish are always a few IRA types. If I’m to die by their bullets, I’d rather it be in Belfast than anywhere else.”

No one said anything for a few seconds, then Sir Harold spoke. “Certainly you overestimate the strength of these people outside of Ulster. Even in the south, the Dublin government has outlawed them—”

“The Dublin government, Sir Harold, are a bunch of British lackeys.” There. She had really broken the ice now. “The only hope for the Catholics of the six counties— or Ulster, as you call it—has become the Irish Republican Army—not London or Dublin or Washington. Northern Ireland needs an alternative to the IRA, so Northern Ireland is where I must be.”

Harold Baxter’s eyes grew weary. He was sick to death of this problem but felt it his duty to respond. “And you are the alternative?”

“I’m searching for an alternative to the killing of innocent civilians.”

Harold Baxter put on his best icy stare. “But not British soldiers? Tell me, why would Ulster Catholics wish to unite with a nation governed by British lackeys?”

Her response was quick, as his had been. They both knew their catechism. “I think a people would rather be governed by their own incompetent politicians than by foreign incompetents.”

Baxter sat back and pressed his palms together. “Please don’t forget the two-thirds of the Ulster population who are Protestant and who consider Dublin, not London, to be a foreign capital.”

Maureen Malone’s face grew red. “That bunch of Bible-toting bigots does not recognize any allegiance except money. They’d throw you over in a second if they thought they could handle the Catholics themselves. Every time they sing ‘God Save the Queen’ in their silly Orange Lodges, they wink at each other. They think the English are decadent and the Irish Catholics are lazy drunks. They are certain they are the chosen people. And they’ve guiled you into thinking they’re your loyal subjects.” She realized that she had raised her voice and took a deep breath, then fixed Baxter with a cold stare to match his own. “English blood and the Crown’s money keep Belfast’s industry humming—don’t you feel like fools, Sir Harold?”

Harold Baxter placed his napkin on the table. “Her Majesty’s government would no more abandon one million subjects—loyal or disloyal—in Ulster than they would abandon Cornwall or Surrey, madam.” He stood. “If this makes us fools, so be it. Excuse me.” He turned and headed toward the door.

Maureen stared after him, then turned toward her host and hostess. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have picked an argument with him.”

Margaret Singer smiled. “That’s all right. But I’d advise you not to argue politics with the other side. If we tell the Russians what bullies they are and then try to get a Soviet Jew released from the camps, we don’t have much luck, you know.”

Hull nodded in assent. “You won’t agree, but I can assure you that the British are among the fairest people in this troubled world. If you want to get them to end internment, you’ll have to appeal to that sense of fairness. You broke with the IRA to travel this path.”

Margaret Singer added, “We all must deal with our devils—and we do.” She paused. “They hold the keys to the camps.”

Maureen took the gentle rebuke without answering. The good people of the world were infinitely more difficult to deal with than the bad. “Thank you for breakfast. Excuse me.” She stood.

A bellhop came toward the table. “Miss Malone?”

She nodded slowly.

“For you, miss.” He held up a small bouquet of green carnations. “I’ll put them in a nice vase in your room, ma’am. There’s a card I can give you now, if you wish.”

She stared at the small buff envelope, then took it. It was blank. She looked questioningly at Singer and Hull. They shook their heads. She broke the seal on the envelope.

Maureen’s mind went back to London five years earlier. She and Sheila had been hiding in a safe house in an Irish neighborhood in the East End. Their mission had been secret, and only the Provisional IRA War Council knew of their whereabouts.

A florist had come to the door one morning and delivered a bouquet of English lavender and foxglove, and the Irishwoman who owned the house had gone up to their room and thrown the flowers on their bed. “Secret mission,” she had said, and had spit on the floor. “What a bloody bunch of fools you all are.”

She and Sheila had read the accompanying card: Welcome to London. Her Majesty’s government hope you enjoy your visit and trust you will avail yourself of the pleasures of our island and the hospitality of the English people. Right out of a government travel brochure. Except that it wasn’t signed by the Tourist Board but by Military Intelligence.

She had never been so humiliated and frightened in her life. She and Sheila had run out of the house with only the clothes on their backs, and spent days in the parks and the London Underground. They hadn’t dared to go to any other contacts for fear they were being followed for that purpose. Eventually, after the worst fortnight she had ever passed in her life, they had made it to Dublin.

She pulled the card half out of its envelope to read the words. Welcome to New York. We hope your stay will be pleasant and that you will take advantage of the pleasures of the island and the hospitality of the people.

She didn’t have to pull the rest of the card out to see the signature, but she did anyway, and read the name of Finn MacCumail.

Maureen closed the door of her room and bolted it. The flowers were already on the dresser. She pulled them from the vase and took them into the bathroom. She tore and ripped them and flushed them down the toilet. In the mirror she could see the reflection of the bedroom and the partly opened door to the adjoining sitting room. She spun around. The closet door was also ajar, and she hadn’t left either of those doors open. She took several deep breaths to make sure her voice was steady. “Brian?”

She heard a movement in the sitting room. Her knees were beginning to feel shaky, and she pressed them together. “Damn you, Flynn!”

The connecting door to the sitting room swung open. “Ma’am?” The maid looked across the room at her.

Maureen took another long breath. “Is anyone else here?”

“No, ma’am.”

“Has anyone been here?”

“Only the boy with the flowers, ma’am.”

“Please leave.”

“Yes, ma’am.” The maid pushed her cart into the hall. Maureen followed her and bolted the door, then sat in the armchair and stared at the Paisley wallpaper.

She was surprised by her calmness. She almost wished he would roll out from under the bed and smile at her with that strange smile that was not a smile at all. She conjured up an image of him standing in front of her. He would say, “It’s been a damned long time, Maureen.” He always said that after they had been separated. Or “Where are my flowers, lass? Did you put them in a special place?”

“Yes, very special,” she said aloud. “I flushed them down the goddamned john.”

She sat there for several minutes carrying on her imaginary conversation with him. She realized how much she missed him and how she wanted to hear his voice again. She was both excited and frightened by the knowledge that he was close and that he would find her.

The phone next to her rang. She let it ring for a long time before she picked it up.

“Maureen? Is everything all right?” It was Margaret Singer, “Shall I come up and get you? We’re expected at the Irish Pavilion—”

“I’ll be right down.” She hung up and rose slowly from the chair. The Irish Pavilion for a reception, then the steps of St. Patrick’s, the parade, and the reviewing stands at the end of the day. Then the Irish Cultural Society Benefit Dinner for Ireland’s Children. Then Kennedy Airport. What a lot of merrymaking in the name of helping soothe the ravages of war. Only in America. The Americans would turn the Apocalypse into a dinner dance.

She walked across the sitting room and into the bedroom. On the floor she saw a single green carnation, and she knelt to pick it up.

CHAPTER 9

Patrick Burke looked out of the telephone booth into the dim interior of the Blarney Stone on Third Avenue. Cardboard shamrocks were pasted on the bar mirror, and a plastic leprechaun hat hung from the ceiling. Burke dialed a direct number in Police Plaza. “Langley?”

Inspector Philip Langley, head of the New York Police Department’s Intelligence Division, sipped his coffee. “I got your report on Ferguson.” Langley looked down from his thirteenth-story window toward the Brooklyn Bridge. The sea fog was burning off. “It’s like this, Pat. We’re getting some pieces to a puzzle here, and the picture that’s taking shape doesn’t look good. The FBI has received information from IRA informers that a renegade group from Ireland has been poking around the New York and Boston IRA—testing the waters to see if they can have a free hand in something that they’re planning in this country.”

Burke wiped his neck with a handkerchief. “In the words of the old cavalry scout, I see many hoofprints going in and none coming out.”

Langley said, “Of course, nothing points directly to New York on Saint Patrick’s Day—”

“There is a law that says that if you imagine the worst possible thing happening at the worst possible moment, it will usually happen, and Saint Patrick’s Day is a nightmare under the best of circumstances. It’s Mardi Gras, Bastille Day, Carnivale, all in one. So if I were the head of a renegade Irish group and I wanted to make a big splash in America, I would do it in New York City on March seventeenth.”

“I hear you. How do you want to approach this?”

“I’ll start by digging up my contacts. Barhop. Listen to the barroom patriots talk. Buy drinks. Buy people.”

“Be careful.”

Burke hung up, then walked over to the bar.

“What’ll you be having?”

“Cutty.” Burke placed a twenty-dollar bill on the bar. He recognized the bartender, a giant of a man named Mike. Burke took his drink and left the change on the bar. “Buy you one?”

“It’s a little early yet.” The bartender waited. He knew a man who wanted something.

Burke slipped into a light brogue. “I’m looking for friends.”

“Go to church.”

“I won’t be finding them there. The brothers Flannnagan. Eddie and Bob. Also John Hickey.”

“You’re a friend?”

“Meet them every March seventeenth.”

“Then you should know that John Hickey is dead—may his soul rest in peace. The Flannagans are gone back to the old country. A year it’s been. Drink up now and move along. You’ll not be finding any friends here.”

“Is this the bar where they throw a drunk through the window every Saint Patrick’s Day?”

“It will be if you don’t move along.” He stared at Burke.

A medium-built man in an expensive topcoat suddenly emerged from a booth and stood beside Burke. The man spoke softly, in a British accent. “Could I have a word with you?”

Burke stared at the man, who inclined his head toward the door. Both men walked out of the bar. The man led Burke across the street, stopping on the far corner. “My name is Major Bartholomew Martin of British Military Intelligence.” Martin produced his diplomatic passport and military I.D. card.

Burke hardly glanced at them. “Means nothing.”

Martin motioned to a skyscraper in the center of the block. “Then perhaps we’d better go in there.”

Burke knew the building without looking at it. He saw two big Tactical Policemen standing a few yards from the entrance with their hands behind their backs. Martin walked past the policemen and held open the door. Burke entered the big marble lobby and picked out four Special Services men standing at strategic locations. Martin moved swiftly to the rear of the lobby, behind a stone façade that camouflaged the building’s elevators. The elevator doors opened, and both men moved inside. Burke reached out and pushed floor nine.

Martin smiled. “Thank you.”

Burke looked at the man standing in a classical elevator pose, feet separated, hands behind his back, head tilted upward, engrossed in the progression of illuminated numbers. Despite his rank there was nothing military about Bartholomew Martin, thought Burke. If anything he looked like an actor who was trying to get into character for a difficult role. He hadn’t mastered control of the mouth, however, which was hard and unyielding, despite the smile. A glimpse of the real man, perhaps.

The elevator stopped, and Burke followed the major into the corridor. Martin nodded to a man who stood to the left, dressed in a blue blazer with polished brass buttons.

On the wall of the corridor, opposite Burke, was the royal coat of arms and a highly polished bronze plaque that read: BRITISH INFORMATION SERVICES. There was no sign to indicate that this was where the spies usually hung out, but as far as Burke knew, nobody’s consulate or embassy information office made that too clear.

Burke followed Martin through a door into a large room. A blond receptionist, dressed in a blue tweed suit that matched the Concorde poster above her desk, stood as they approached and said in a crisp British accent, “Good morning, Major.”

Martin led Burke through a door just beyond the desk, through a microfilm reading room, and into a small sitting room furnished in a more traditional style than the rest of the place. The only detail that suggested a government office was a large travel poster that showed a black and white cow standing in a sunny meadow, captioned: “Find peace and tranquility in an English village.”

Martin drew the door shut, locked it, and hung his topcoat on a clothes tree. “Have a seat, Lieutenant.”

Burke left his coat on, walked to the sideboard and took the stopper out of a decanter, smelled it, then poured a drink. He looked around the well-furnished room. The last time he’d been in the consulate was a week before last St. Patrick’s Day. A Colonel Hayes that time. Burke leaned back against the sideboard. “Well, what can you do for me?”

Major Martin smiled. “A great deal, I think.”

“Good.”

“I’ve already given Inspector Langley a report on a group of Irish terrorists called the Fenians, led by a Finn MacCumail. You’ve seen the report?”

“I’ve been apprised of the details.”

“Fine. Then you know something may happen here today.” Major Martin leaned forward. “I’m working closely with the FBI and CIA, but I’d like to work more closely with your people—pool our information. The FBI and CIA tell us things they don’t tell you, but I’d keep you informed of their progress as well as ours. I’ve already helped your military intelligence branches set up files on the IRA, and I’ve briefed your State Department intelligence service on the problem.”

“You’ve been busy.”

“Yes. You see, I’m a sort of clearinghouse in this affair. British Intelligence knows more about the Irish revolutionaries than anyone, of course, and now you seem to need that information, and we have a chance to do you a good turn.”

“What’s the price?”

Major Martin played with a lighter on the coffee table. “Yes, price. Well better information from you in future on the transatlantic IRA types in New York. Gunrunning. Fund raising. IRA people here on R and R. That sort of thing.”

“Sounds fair.”

“It is fair.”

“So what do you want of me particularly?”

Major Martin looked at Burke. “Just wanted to tell you directly about all of this. To meet you.” Martin stood. “Look here, if you want to get a bit of information to me directly, call here and ask for Mr. James. Someone will take the message and pass it on to me. And I’ll leave messages for you here as well. Perhaps a little something you can give to Langley as your own. You’ll make a few points that way. Makes everyone look good.”

Burke moved toward the door, then turned. “They’re probably going after the Malone woman. Maybe even after the consul general.”

Major Martin shook his head. “I don’t think so. Sir Harold has no involvement whatsoever in Irish affairs. And the Malone woman—I knew her sister, Sheila, in Belfast, incidentally. She’s in jail. An IRA martyr. They should only know—but that’s another story. Where was I?—Maureen Malone. She’s quite the other thing to the IRA. A Provisional IRA tribunal has condemned her to death in absentia, you know. She’s on borrowed time now. But they won’t shoot her down in the street. They’ll grab her someday in Ireland, north or south, have a trial with her present this time, kneecap her, then a day or so later shoot her in the head and leave her on a street in Belfast. And the Fenians, whoever they are, won’t do anything that would preempt the Provos’ death sentence. And don’t forget, Malone and Sir Harold will be on the steps of Saint Patrick’s most of the day, and the Irish respect the sanctuary of the church no matter what their religious or political beliefs. No, I wouldn’t worry about those two. Look for a more obvious target. British property. The Ulster Trade Delegation. The Irish always perform in a predictable manner.”

“Really? Maybe that’s why my wife left me.”

“Oh, you’re Irish, of course … sorry….”

Burke unbolted the door and walked out of the room.

Major Martin threw back his head and laughed softly, then went to the sideboard and made himself a martini. He evaluated his conversation with Burke and decided that Burke was more clever than he had been led to believe. Not that it would do him any good this late in the game.

Book III

The Parade

Saint Patrick’s Day in New York is the most fantastic affair, and in past years on Fifth Avenue, from Forty-fourth Street to Ninety-sixth Street, the white traffic lines were repainted green for the occasion. All the would-be Irish, has-been Irish and never-been Irish, seem to appear true-blue Irish overnight. Everyone is in on the act, but it is a very jolly occasion and I have never experienced anything like it anywhere else in the world.Brendan Behan,Brendan Behan’s New York

CHAPTER 10

In the middle of Fifth Avenue, at Forty-fourth Street, Pat and Mike, the two Irish wolfhounds that were the mascots of the Fighting 69th Infantry Regiment, strained at their leashes. Colonel Dennis Logan, Commander of the 69th, tapped his Irish blackthorn swagger stick impatiently against his leg. He glanced at the sky and sniffed the air, then turned to Major Matthew Cole. “What’s the weather for this afternoon, Major?”

Major Cole, like all good adjutants, had the answer to everything. “Cold front moving through later, sir. Snow or freezing rain by nightfall.”

Logan nodded and thrust his prominent jaw out in a gesture of defiance, as though he were going to say, “Damn the weather—full speed ahead.”

The young major struck a similar pose, although his jaw was not so grand. “Parade’ll be finished before then, I suspect, Colonel.” He glanced at Logan to see if he was listening. The colonel’s marvelously angular face had served him well at staff meetings, but the rocklike quality of that visage was softened by misty green eyes like a woman’s. Too bad.

Logan looked at his watch, then at the big iron stanchion clock in front of the Morgan Guaranty Trust Building on Fifth Avenue. The clock was three minutes fast, but they would go when that clock struck noon. Logan would never forget the newspaper picture that showed his unit at parade rest and the clock at three minutes after. The caption had read: THE IRISH START LATE. Never again.

The regiment’s staff, back from their inspection of the unit, was assembled in front of the color guard. The national and regimental colors snapped in a five-mile-an-hour wind that came down the Avenue from the north, and the multicolored battle streamers, some going back to the Civil War and the Indian wars, fluttered nicely. Logan turned to Major Cole. “What’s your feel?”

The major searched his mind for a response, but the question threw him. “Feel … sir?”

“Feel, man. Feel.” He accentuated the words.

“Fine. Fine.”

Logan looked at the battle ribbons on the major’s chest. A splash of purple stood out like the wound it represented. “In ’Nam, did you ever get a feeling that everything was not fine?”

The major nodded thoughtfully.

Logan waited for a response that would reinforce his own feelings of unease, but Cole was too young to have fully developed that other sense to the extent that he could identify what he felt in the jungle and recognize it in the canyons of Manhattan Island. “Keep a sharp eye out today. This is not a parade—it’s an operation. Don’t let your head slide up your ass.”

“Yes, sir.”

Logan looked at his regiment. They stood at parade rest, their polished helmets with the regimental crest reflecting the overhead sunlight. Slung across their shoulders were M-16 rifles.

The crowd at Forty-fourth Street, swelled by office workers on their lunch hour, was jostling for a better view. People had climbed atop the WALK–DON’T WALK signs, the mailboxes, and the cement pots that held the newly budded trees along the Avenue.

In the intersection around Colonel Logan newsmen mixed with politicians and parade officials. The parade chairman, old Judge Driscoll, was patting everyone on the back as he had done for over forty years. The formation marshals, resplendent in black morning coats, straightened their tricolor sashes and top hats. The Governor was shaking every hand that looked as if it could pull a voting lever, and Mayor Kline was wearing the silliest green derby that Logan had ever seen.

Logan looked up Fifth Avenue. The broad thoroughfare was clear of traffic and people, an odd sight reminiscent of a B-grade science-fiction movie. The pavement stretched unobstructed to the horizon, and Colonel Logan was more impressed with this sight than anything else he had seen that day. He couldn’t see the Cathedral, recessed between Fiftieth and Fifty-first Streets, but he could see the police barriers around it and the guests on the lower steps.

A stillness began to descend on the crossroads as the hands of the clock moved another notch toward the twelve. The army band accompanying the 69th ceased their tuning of instruments, and the bagpipes of the Emerald Society on the side street stopped practicing. The dignitaries, whom the 69th Regiment was charged with escorting to the reviewing stands, began to fall into their designated places as Judge Driscoll looked on approvingly.

Logan felt his heart beat faster as he waited out the final minutes. He was aware of, but did not see, the mass of humanity huddled around him, the hundreds of thousands of spectators along the parade route to his front, the police, the reviewing stands in the park, the cameras and the newspeople. It was to be a day of dedication and celebration, sentimentality and even sorrow. In New York this day had been crowned by the parade, which had gone on uninterrupted by war, depression, or civil strife since 1762. It was, in fact, a mainstay of Irish culture in the New World, and it was not about to change, even if every last man, woman, and child in old Ireland did away with themselves and the British to boot. Logan turned to Major Cole. “Are we ready, Major?”

“The Fighting Irish are always ready, Colonel.”

Logan nodded. The Irish were always ready for anything, he thought, and prepared for nothing.

Father Murphy looked around him as a thousand guests crowded the steps of the Cathedral. He edged over and stood on the long green carpet that had been unrolled from the main portal between the brass handrail and down into the street. In front of him, between the handrails, stood the Cardinal and the Monsignor, shoulder to shoulder. Flanking them were the British consul, Baxter, next to the Cardinal, and the Malone woman next to the Monsignor. Murphy smiled. The arrangement wasn’t strictly protocol, but they couldn’t get at each other’s throats so easily now.

Standing in loose formation around the Cardinal’s group were priests, nuns, and church benefactors. Murphy noticed at least two men who were probably undercover police. He looked up over the heads of the people in front of him toward the crowd across the Avenue. Boys and girls had climbed to the top of the pedestal of the Atlas and were passing bottles back and forth. His eyes were drawn to a familiar face: Standing in front of the pedestal, with his hands resting on a police barricade, was Patrick Burke. The man towered above the crowd around him and seemed strangely unaffected by the animated throng pressing against him on the sidewalk. Murphy realized that Burke’s presence reassured him, though he didn’t know why he felt he needed that assurance.

The Cardinal turned his head toward Harold Baxter and spoke in a voice that had that neutral tone of diplomacy so like his own. “Will you be staying with us for the entire day, Mr. Baxter?”

Baxter was no longer used to being called mister, but he didn’t think the Cardinal meant anything by it. He turned his head to meet the Cardinal’s eyes. “If I may, Your Eminence.”

“We would be delighted.”

“Thank you.” He continued to look at the Cardinal, who had now turned away. The man was old, but his eyes were bright. Baxter cleared his throat. “Excuse me, Your Eminence, but I was thinking that perhaps I should stand away from the center of things a bit.”

The Cardinal waved to well-wishers in the crowd as he spoke. “Mr. Baxter, you are the center of things today. You and Miss Malone. This little display of ours has captured the imagination of political commentators. It is, as they say, newsworthy. Everyone loves these precedents, this breaking with the past.” He turned and smiled at Baxter, a wide Irish smile. “If you move an inch, they will be pulling their hair in Belfast, Dublin, London, and Washington.” He turned back to the crowds and continued moving his arm in a blending of cheery waving and holy blessing.

“Yes, of course. I wasn’t taking into account the political aspect—only the security aspect. I wouldn’t want to be the cause of anyone being injured or—”

“God is watching over us, Mr. Baxter, and Commissioner Dwyer assures me that the Police Department is doing the same.”

“That’s reassuring on both counts. You’ve spoken to him recently? The Police Commissioner, I mean.”

The Cardinal turned and fixed Baxter with a smile that showed he understood the little joke but did not find it amusing.

Baxter stared back for a moment, then turned away. It was going to be a long day.

Patrick Burke regarded the steps. He noticed his friend Father Murphy near the Cardinal. It must be a strange life for a man, he reflected. The celibacy. The paternal and maternal concern of monsignors and mother superiors. Like being an eternal boy. His mother had wanted that for him. A priest in the family was the ultimate status for those old Irish, but he had become a cop instead, which was almost as good in the old neighborhoods, and no one was disappointed, least of all himself.

He saw that the Monsignor was smiling and talking with the ex-IRA woman. Burke focused on her. She looked pretty, even from this distance. Angelic, almost. Her blond hair moved nicely in the breeze, and she kept brushing wisps of hair from her face.

Burke thought that if he were Harold Baxter or Maureen Malone he would not be on those steps at all, and certainly not together. And if he were the Cardinal, he would have invited them for yesterday, when they could have shared the steps with indifferent pigeons, bag ladies, and winos. He didn’t know whose idea it had been to wave this red flag in the face of the Irish rebels, but if it was supposed to bring peace, someone had badly miscalculated.

He looked up and down the Avenue. Workers and high school kids, all playing hooky to get in on the big bash, mingled with street vendors, who were making out very well. Some young girls had painted green shamrocks and harps on their faces and wore Kiss Me, I’m Irish buttons, and they were being taken up on it by young men, most of whom wore plastic leprechaun bowlers. The older crowd settled for green carnations and Erin Go Bragh buttons.

Maureen Malone had never seen so many people. All along the Avenue, American and Irish flags hung from staffs jutting out of the gray masonry buildings. A group in front of the British Empire Building was hoisting a huge green banner, and Maureen read the familiar words: ENGLAND GET OUT OF IRELAND. Margaret Singer had told her that this was the only political slogan she would see, the only one sanctioned by the Grand Marshal, who had also specified that the banners be nearly made with white lettering on green background. The police had permission to seize any other banner. She hoped Baxter saw it; she didn’t see how he could miss it. She turned to Monsignor Downes. “All these people are certainly not Irish.”

Monsignor Downes smiled. “We have a saying in New York. ‘On Saint Patrick’s Day, everyone is Irish!’ ”

She looked around again, as though she still didn’t believe what she was seeing. Little Ireland, poor and underpopulated, with its humble patron saint, almost unknown in the rest of the Christian world, causing all this fuss. It gave her goose bumps, and she felt a choking in her throat. Ireland’s best exports, it was said bitterly, were her sons and daughters. But there was nothing to be bitter about, she realized. They had kept the faith, although in an Americanized version.

Suddenly she heard a great noise coming from the crowd and turned her head toward the commotion. A group of men and women, about fifteen of them, had unfurled a green banner reading: VICTIMS OF BRITISH INTERNMENT AND TORTURE. She recognized a friend of her sister’s.

A police mounted unit galloped south down the Avenue, Plexiglas helmet-visors down, long batons raised above their heads. From the north side of the Cathedral on Fifty-first Street, scooter police roared past the mobile headquarters truck and onto Fifth Avenue.

A man with a bullhorn shouted, “LONG KESH! ARMAGH PRISON! CRUMLIN ROAD JAIL! CONCENTRATION CAMPS, BAXTER, YOU BASTARD! MAUREEN MALONE—TRAITOR!”

She turned and looked at Harold Baxter across the empty space left by the Cardinal and Monsignor who had been moved up the steps by the security police. He remained in a rigid position of attention, staring straight ahead. She knew there were news cameras trained on him to record his every movement, every betrayal of emotion, whether anger or fear. But they were wasting their time. The man was British.

She realized that cameras were on her as well, and she turned away from him and looked down into the street. The banner was down now, and half the demonstrators were in the hands of the police, but the other half had broken through the police barricades and were coming toward the steps, where a line of mounted police waited almost nonchalantly.

Maureen shook her head. The history of her people: forever attempting the insurmountable and, in the end, finding it indeed insurmountable.

Maureen watched, transfixed, as one of the last standing men cocked his arm and threw something toward the steps. Her heart skipped a beat as she saw it sailing through the air. It seemed to hang for a second before drifting downward slowly; the sunlight sparkled from it, making it difficult to identify. “Oh God.” She began to drop to the ground but caught a glimpse of Baxter out of the corner of her eye. He hadn’t moved a muscle and, whether it was a bomb or a carnation heading his way, he acted as if he could not care less. Reluctantly she straightened up. She heard a bottle crash on the granite steps directly behind her and waited for the sound of exploding petrol or nitro, but there was only a choked-off exclamation from the crowd, then a stillness around her. Green paint from the shattered bottle flecked the clothing of the people standing closest to where it hit. Her legs began to shake in relief, and her mouth became dry.

Sir Harold Baxter turned his head and looked at her. “Is this traditional?”

She could not control her voice sufficiently to speak, and she stared at him.

Baxter moved beside her. Their shoulders touched. Her reaction was to move away, but she didn’t. He turned his head slightly. “Will you stand next to me for the rest of this thing?”

She moved her eyes toward him. Camera shutters clicked around them. She spoke softly. “I believe there’s an assassin out there who intends to kill me today.”

He didn’t appear to react to this information. “Well, there are probably several out there who intend to kill me…. I promise I won’t throw myself in front of you if you promise the same.”

She let herself smile. “I think we can agree on that.”

Burke stood firm as the crowd pushed and shoved around him. He looked at his watch. The episode had taken just two minutes. For a moment he had thought this was it, but within fifteen seconds he knew these were not the Fenians.

The security police on the steps had acted quickly but not really decisively in front of the partisan crowd. If that bottle had been a bomb, there would have been more than green paint to mop up. Burke took a long drink from his flask. He knew the whole day was a security problem of such magnitude that it had ceased to be a problem.

Burke considered the little he knew of the Fenians. They were veterans, said Ferguson, survivors, not suicidal fanatics. Whatever their mission they most probably intended to get away afterward, and that, thought Burke, would make their mission more difficult and make his job just a little easier. He hoped.

Colonel Dennis Logan was calming Pat and Mike, who had been aroused by shouts from the crowd.

Logan straightened up and looked at the stanchion clock. One minute past noon. “Oh, shit!” He turned to his adjutant, Major Cole. “Start this fucking parade.”

“Yes, sir!” The adjutant turned to Barry Dugan, the police officer who for twenty-five years had blown the green whistle to begin the parade. “Officer Dugan! Do it!”

Dugan put the whistle to his lips, filled his lungs, and let out the longest, loudest whistle in all his quarter century of doing it.

Colonel Logan placed himself in front of the formation and raised his arm. Logan looked up the six blocks and saw the mass of newsmen and blue uniforms milling around a paddy wagon. They’d take their time if left to their own devices. He remembered his regiment’s motto: Clear the way! He lowered his arm and turned his head over his right shoulder. “Foo-waard—MARCH!” The regiment stepped off.

The army band struck up the “Garryowen,” and the two hundred and twenty-third St. Patrick’s Day Parade began.

CHAPTER 11

Patrick Burke walked across the Avenue to the curb in front of the Cathedral and stood by the barricades. The 69th Regiment came abreast of the Cathedral, and Colonel Logan called the regiment to a halt.

The barriers behind Burke were parted where the green carpet came into the street, and a group of men in morning dress left the parade line and approached the Cathedral.

Burke remembered that the Cardinal had mentioned, casually, to the newspapers the day before that his favorite song was “Danny Boy,” and the army bandleader apparently had taken this as a command and ordered the band to play the sweet, lilting air. Some of the people on the steps and many in the crowd around the Cathedral broke into spontaneous song. It was difficult for an Irishman, thought Burke, not to respond to that music, especially if he had had a few already. “O Danny Boy, the pipes, the pipes are callingFrom glen to glen, and down the mountain side,The summer’s gone, and all the roses falling,’Tis you, ’tis you, must go and I must bide.”

Burke watched the entourage of dignitaries as they mounted the steps: the marshals, Mayor Kline, Governor Doyle, senators, congressmen, all the secular power in the city and state, and many from the national level. They all passed through the space in those barriers, walked across the narrow carpet, and presented themselves to the Cardinal, then left quickly, as protocol demanded. The faithful knelt and kissed the green-jeweled ring; others bowed or shook hands. “But come ye back when summer’s in the meadow,Or when the valley’s hushed and white with snow,For I’ll be here in sunshine or in shadow,O Danny Boy, O Danny Boy, I love you so.”

Maureen felt the excitement, the heightening of perceptions that led to fear, to apprehension. Everyone was smiling and bowing, kissing the Cardinal’s ring, shaking her hand, the Monsignor’s hand, Baxter’s hand. Hands and wide smiles. The Americans had super teeth. Not a bad one in the lot.

She noticed a few steely-eyed men near her who wore the same expression of suppressed anxiety that she knew was on her face. Down by the space in the barriers she recognized Lieutenant Burke from the Waldorf. He was eyeing everyone who approached, as though they were all ax murderers instead of important citizens, and she felt a little comforted.

Around her the crowd was still singing, trying to remember the words and humming where they couldn’t, as the flutes and horns of the army band played.

“But when ye leave, and all the flowers are dying,

And I am dead, as dead I may well be,

Then will ye come and find the place where I am lying,

And kneel and say an Ave there for me?”

Maureen shook her head. What a typically morbid Irish song. She tried to turn her thoughts to other things, but the intrusive words of the ballad reminded her of her own life—her own tragic love. Danny Boy was Brian, as Danny Boy was every Irish girl’s lover. She could not escape its message and meaning for her as an Irishwoman; she found her eyes had gone misty, and there was a lump in her throat. “And I shall hear tho soft ye tread above me,And tho my grave will warmer, sweeter be,And you shall bend and tell me that you love me,And I shall sleep in peace until you come to me.”

Burke watched the 69th move out. When the last unit was clear of the Cathedral, he breathed easier. The potential targets were no longer clustered around the Cathedral, they were scattered again—on the steps, moving around the regiment in small groups, some riding now in limousines up Park Avenue to the reviewing stands, some on their way home or to the airports.

At the end of the 69th Regiment Burke saw the regimental veterans in civilian clothes marching in a unit. Behind them was the Police Emerald Society Pipes and Drums, kilts swirling and their bagpipes wailing as their drums beat out a warlike cadence. At the head of the unit their longtime commander, Finbar Devine, raised his huge mace and ordered the pipers to play “Danny Boy” as they passed the Cathedral. Burke smiled. One hundred and ninety-six marching bands would play “Danny Boy” for the Cardinal today, such was the combined power of the press and the Cardinal’s casual remark. Before the day was out His Eminence would wish he had never heard the song and pray to God that he would never hear it again as long as he lived.

Burke joined the last rank of the old veterans at the end of the 69th Regiment. The next likely point of trouble was the reviewing stands at Sixty-fourth Street, where the targets would again be bunched up like irresistibly plump fruit, and on St. Patrick’s Day the fastest way to get uptown was to be in the parade.

Central Park was covered with people on hillocks and stone outcroppings, and several people were sitting in trees.

Colonel Logan knew that thousands of marchers had fallen in behind him now. He could feel the electricity that was passing through his regiment into the crowd around him and down the line of marchers, until the last units—the old IRA vets— had caught the tempo and the spirit. Cold and tired in the fading light, the old soldiers would hold their heads high as they passed the spectators, who by this time were jaded, weary, and drunk.

Logan watched the politicians as they left the march and headed toward the reviewing stands to take their seats. He gave the customary order of “eyes left” as they passed the stands and saluted, breathing more easily now that his escort mission had been accomplished.

Patrick Burke left the parade formation at Sixty-fourth Street, made his way through the crowd, and entered the rear door of the police mobile headquarters van. A television set was tuned to the WPIX news program that was covering the parade. Lights flashed on the consoles, and three radios, each tuned to a different command channel, crackled in the semidarkness. A few men occupied with paperwork or electronics sat on small stools.

Burke recognized Sergeant George Byrd from the Bureau of Special Services. “Big Byrd.”

Byrd looked up from a radio and smiled. “Patrick Burke, the scourge of Irish revolutionaries, defender of the faith.”

“Eat it, George.” He lit a cigarette.

“I read the report you filed this morning. Who are the Finnigans? What do they want?”

Burke sat on a small jump seat. “Fenians.”

“Fenians. Finnigans. Micks. Who are they?”

“The Fenians were a group of Irish warriors and poets. About 200 A.D. There was also an Irish anti-British guerrilla army in the nineteenth century who called themselves Fenians—”

Byrd laughed. “That’s kind of old intelligence, Burke. Must have been held up in Police Plaza.”

“Filed with your promotion papers, no doubt.”

Byrd grunted and leaned back against the wall. “And who’s Finn Mac— something?”

“Head of the original Fenians. Been dead seventeen hundred years now.”

“A code name?”

“I hope so. Wouldn’t want to meet the real one.”

Byrd listened to the radios. The command posts up and down the Avenue were reporting: The post at the Presbyterian church at Fifty-fourth Street reported all quiet. The post on the twentieth floor of the General Motors Building reported all quiet. The mobile headquarters at the Cathedral reported all quiet. Byrd picked up the radiophone and hesitated, then spoke softly. “Mobile at Sixty-fourth. All quiet at the reviewing stands. Out.” He replaced the phone and looked at Burke. “Too quiet?”

“Don’t start that shit.” Burke picked up a telephone and dialed. “Jack?”

Jack Ferguson glanced at the closed bedroom door where his wife slept fitfully, then spoke in a low voice. “Patrick”—he looked at a wall clock in the kitchen—“it’s twelve-thirty. You’re supposed to call me on the hour.”

“I was in the parade. What do you have?”

Ferguson looked at some notes scribbled on a pad near the telephone. “It’s hard to find anyone today.”

“I know, Jack. That’s why today is the day.”

“Exactly. But I did learn that the man called MacCumail has recruited some of the more wild-eyed members of the Boston Provisional IRA.”

“Interesting. Any line on weapons? Explosives?”

“No,” answered Ferguson, “but you can buy anything you want in this country, from pistols to tanks.”

“Anything else?”

“A partial description of the man called MacCumail—tall, lean, dark—”

“That could be my mother.”

“He wears a distinctive ring. Always has it.”

“Not very smart.”

“No. He may believe it’s a charm of some sort. The Irish are a superstitious lot. The ring is oversized, probably an antique or a family heirloom. Also, I did find out something interesting about this MacCumail. It’s only hearsay … but apparently he was captured once and possibly compromised by British Intelligence.”

“Hold on.” Burke tried to arrange his thoughts. It occurred to him, not for the first time, that there was more than one game in town today. Where there was an Irish conspiracy, there was sure to be an English conspiracy. After eight hundred years of almost continuous strife, it was as though the two adversaries were inseparably bonded in a bizarre embrace destined to last eternally. If the Irish war was coming to America, then the English would be here to fight it. It was Major Bartholomew Martin’s presence in New York, more than anything Ferguson said, that signaled an approaching battle. And Major Martin knew more than he was telling. Burke spoke into the mouthpiece. “Do you have anything else?”

“No … I’m going to have to do some legwork now. I’ll leave messages with Langley at Police Plaza if anything turns up. I’ll meet you at the zoo at four-thirty if nothing has happened by then.”

“Time is short, Jack,” Burke said.

“I’ll do what I can to avoid violence. But you must try to go easy on the lads if you find them. They’re brothers.”

“Yeah … brothers….” Burke hung up and turned to Byrd. “That was one of my informers. A funny little guy who’s caught between his own basic decency and his wild politics.”

Burke left the van and stood in the crowd at the corner of Sixty-fourth Street. He looked at the reviewing stands across Fifth Avenue, thick with people. If there was going to be trouble, it would probably happen at the reviewing stands. The other possible objectives that Major Martin suggested—the banks, the consulates, the airline offices, symbols of the London, Dublin, or Belfast governments—were small potatoes compared to the reviewing stands crowded with American, British, Irish, and other foreign VIPs.

The Cathedral, Burke understood, was also a big potato. But no Irish group would attack the Cathedral. Even Ferguson’s Official IRA—mostly nonviolent Marxists and atheists—wouldn’t consider it. The Provisionals were violent but mostly Catholic. Who but the Irish could have peaceful Reds and bomb-throwing Catholics?

Burke rubbed his tired eyes. Yes, if there was an action today, it had to be the reviewing stands.

Terri O’Neal was lying on the bed. The television set was tuned to the parade. Dan Morgan sat on the window seat and looked down Sixty-fourth Street. He noticed a tall man in civilian clothes step down from the police van, and he watched him as he lit a cigarette and stared into the street, scanning the buildings. Eventually the police, the FBI, maybe even the CIA and British Intelligence, would start to get onto them. That was expected. The Irish had a tradition called Inform and Betray. Without that weakness in the national character they would have been rid of the English centuries ago. But this time was going to be different. MacCumail was a man you didn’t want to betray. The Fenians were a group more closely knit than an ancient clan, bound by one great sorrow and one great hate.

The telephone rang. Morgan walked into the living room, closed the door behind him, then picked up the receiver. “Yes?” He listened to the voice of Finn MacCumail, then hung up and pushed open the door. He stared at Terri O’Neal. It wasn’t easy to kill a woman, yet MacCumail wasn’t asking him to do something he himself wouldn’t do. Maureen Malone and Terri O’Neal. They had nothing in common except their ancestry and the fact that both of them had only a fifty-fifty chance of seeing another dawn.

CHAPTER 12

Patrick Burke walked down Third Avenue, stopping at Irish pubs along the way. The sidewalks were crowded with revelers engaged in the traditional barhopping. Paper shamrocks and harps were plastered against the windows of most shops and restaurants. There was an old saying that St. Patrick’s Day was the day the Irish marched up Fifth Avenue and staggered down Third, and Burke noticed that ladies and gentlemen were be beginning to wobble a bit. There was a great deal of handshaking, a tradition of sorts, as though everyone were congratulating each other on being Irish or on being sober enough to find his hand.

Burke approached P. J. Clarke’s at Fifty-fifth Street, an old nineteenth-century brick relic, spared by the wrecker’s ball but left encapsulated in the towering hulk around it—the Marine Midland Bank Building, which resembled a black Sony calculator with too many buttons.

Burke walked in through the frosted glass doors, made his way to the crowded bar, and ordered a beer. He looked around for familiar faces, an informant, an old friend, someone who owed him, but there was no one. Too many familiar faces missing this afternoon.

He made his way back into the street and breathed the cold north wind until his head cleared. He continued to walk, stopping at a half-remembered bar, an Irish-owned shop, or wherever a group of people huddled and spoke on the sidewalk. His thoughts raced rapidly and, unconsciously, he picked up his pace to keep abreast of the moving streams of people.

This day had begun strangely, and every incident, every conversation, added to his sense of unreality. He took a cigarette from his pocket, lit it, and headed south again.

Burke stared up at the gilt lettering on the window of J. P. Donleavy’s, a small, inconspicuous pub on Forty-seventh Street. Donleavy’s was another haunt of the quasi-IRA men and barroom patriots. Occasionally there would be a real IRA man there from the other side, and you could tell who he was because he rarely stood at the bar but usually sat alone in a booth. They were always pale, the result of Ireland’s perpetual mist or as a result of some time in internment. New York and Boston were their sanctuaries, places of Irish culture, Irish pubs, Irish people without gelignite.

Burke walked in and pushed his way between two men who were talking to each other at the bar. He slipped into his light brogue for the occasion. “Buy you a drink, gentlemen. A round here, barkeeper!” He turned to the man on his left, a young laborer. The man looked annoyed. Burke smiled. “I’m to meet some friends in P.J.’s, but I can’t remember if they said P. J. Clarke’s, P. J. O’Hara’s, P. J. Moriarty’s, P. J. O’Rourke’s or here. Bloody stupid of me—or of them.” The beer came and Burke paid for it. “Would you know Kevin Michaels or Jim Malloy or Liam Connelly? Have you seen them today?”

The man to Burke’s right spoke. “That’s an interesting list of names. If you’re looking for them, you can be sure they’ll find you.”

Burke looked into the man’s eyes. “That’s what I’m counting on.”

The man stared back but said nothing.

Burke smelled the sour beer on the man’s breath, on his clothes. “I’m looking, too, for John Hickey.”

Neither man spoke.

Burke took a long drink and put his glass down. “Thank you, gentlemen. I’m off to the Green Derby. Good day.” He turned and walked down the length of the bar. An angled mirror reflected the two men huddled with the bartender, looking at him as he left.

He repeated his story, or one like it, in every bar that he thought might be promising. He switched from whiskey to stout to hot coffee and had a sandwich at a pub, which made him feel better. He crossed and recrossed Third Avenue, making his way southward. In every bar he left a forwarding address, and at every street corner he stopped and waited for the sound of shoes against the cold concrete to hesitate, to stop behind him. He was trolling, using himself as bait, but no one was rising to it today.

Burke picked up his pace. Time was running out. He looked at his watch; it was past four, and he had to be at the zoo at four-thirty. He stopped at a phone booth. “Langley? I need five hundred for Ferguson.”

“Later. You didn’t call for that.”

Burke lit a cigarette. “What do you know about a Major Bartholomew Martin?”

There was a long silence on the phone, then Langley said, “Oh, you mean the British Intelligence guy. Don’t worry about him.”

“Why not?”

“Because I said so.” Langley paused. “It’s very complicated … CIA …”

“Tell me about it someday. Anything else I should know?”

“The FBI has finally decided to talk to us,” Langley said. “They’ve uncovered an arms buy in New Jersey. A dozen M-16 rifles, a few sniper rifles, pistols, and plastic explosives. Also, a half dozen of those disposable rocket launchers. U.S. Army issue.”

“Any other particulars?”

“Only that the buyers had Irish accents, and they didn’t arrange for shipping to Ireland the way they usually do.”

“Sounds ominous.”

“I’ll say—what are they waiting for?”

Burke shook his head. “I don’t know. The parade has less than an hour to run. The weapons should be a clue to the type of operation.”

“Martin thinks they’re going to knock over a British bank down in the Wall Street area. The Police Commissioner has diverted detectives and patrolmen down there,” said Langley.

“Why should they come all the way here to knock over a British bank? They want something … something they can only get here.”

“Maybe.” Langley paused. “We’re really not getting any closer, are we?”

“Too many targets. Too much beach to guard. The attackers always have the initiative.”

“I’ll remember that line when I stand in front of the Commissioner.”

Burke looked at his watch. “I have to meet Ferguson. He’s my last play.” He hung up, stepped into Third Avenue, and hailed a cab.

Burke passed through the open gate beside the armory. The zoo looked less sinister in the light of day. Children with parents or governesses walked on the paths, holding candy or balloons, or some other object that was appropriate to their mission and the setting.

The Delacorte clock showed four thirty. Brass monkeys in the clock tower suddenly came to life, circled the bell with hammers raised, and struck it. As the mast gong sounded a recording played “MacNamara’s Band.”

Burke found Ferguson in the Terrace Restaurant at a small table, his face buried in The New York Times. Two containers of tea steamed on the table. Burke pulled up a chair opposite him and took a container.

Ferguson lowered the newspaper. “Well, the word on the street is that there is to be a robbery of a major British bank in the Wall Street area.”

“Who told you that?”

Ferguson didn’t answer.

Burke looked over the zoo, scanning the men on the benches, then turned back to Ferguson and fixed him with a sharp look.

Ferguson said nothing. “Major Martin,” Burke said, “is what is known as an agent provocateur. What his game is, I don’t know yet. But I think he knows more than he’s telling any of us.” Burke ground out his cigarette. “All right, forget what Martin told you. Tell me what you think. Time is—”

Ferguson turned up the collar of his trench coat against the rising wind. “I know all about time. It’s very relative, you know. When they’re kneecapping you in that new way with an electric drill instead of a bullet, then time moves very slowly. If you’re trying to discover something by dusk, it goes quickly. If you were ten minutes early instead of late, you might have had the time to do something.”

“About what?”

Ferguson leaned across the table. “I just came from the Cathedral. John Hickey, who hasn’t been inside a church since he robbed Saint Patrick’s in Dublin, was sleeping in the first pew. The old man wears a beard now, but I’d know him anywhere.”

“Go on.”

“The four o’clock Mass is ending soon, and there’ll be thousands of people coming out of the Cathedral. Quitting time for most citizens is also at five.”

“Right. It’s called rush hour—”

“The counties and the IRA vets are marching now. Both groups are composed of people in civilian dress, and there are people who don’t know each other in each unit. Anyone could be infiltrated among them.”

“I’m listening, but hurry it up.”

“I have to give you my thoughts so you can deduce—”

“Go on.”

“All right. The police are tired. Some units are going off duty, the crowd is restless, drunk.”

“I hear you.”

“Events are moving inexorably toward their end. The gathering storm is about to break.”

“No poetry, please.”

“Finn MacCumail is Brian Flynn. Before Maureen Malone’s desertion from the IRA, she and Brian Flynn were lovers.”

Burke stood. “He’s going after her.”

“It’s the kind of insane thing a man who calls himself Finn MacCumail, Chief of the Fenians, would do.”

“At the Cathedral?”

“What better place? The Irish have a love of spectacle, grand gestures. Whether they win or not is unimportant. Ireland will always remember her martyrs and heroes for their style, not their success or lack of it. So, who will soon forget the resurrected Finn MacCumail and his Fenians when they kidnap or kill his faithless lover at Saint Patrick’s Cathedral in New York on Saint Patrick’s Day? No, it won’t be soon forgotten.”

Burke’s mind raced. “I didn’t believe they’d hit the Cathedral … but it fits the facts—”

“To hell with the facts. It fits their characters. It fits with history, with destiny, with—”

“Fuck history.” Burke ran toward the terrace steps. “Fuck destiny, Jack.” He tore down the path toward Fifth Avenue.

Ferguson called out after him. “Too late! Too late!”

Terri O’Neal watched the IRA veterans pass on the television screen. The scene shifted from Sixty-fourth Street to a view from the roof of Rockefeller Center. The County Tyrone unit passed in front of the Cathedral, and the camera zoomed in. She sat up and leaned closer to the television set. Her father’s face suddenly filled the screen, and the announcer, who had recognized him, made a passing comment. She put her hand over her face as the enormity of what was going to happen—to her, to him, to everyone—at last dawned on her. “Oh, no…. Dad! Don’t let them get away with this….”

Dan Morgan looked at her. “Even if he could hear you, there’s not a thing he can do now.”

The telephone rang, and Morgan answered it. He listened. “Yes, as ready as I’ll ever be.” He hung up, then looked at his watch and began counting off sixty seconds as he walked into the bedroom.

Terri O’Neal looked up from the television and watched him. “Is this it?”

He glanced at the parade passing by on the screen, then at her. “Yes. And God help us if we’ve misjudged….”

“God help you, anyway.”

Morgan went into the bedroom, opened the side panel of the bay window, and waved a green shamrock flag.

CHAPTER 13

Brendan O’Connor stood with the crowd on Fifth Avenue. He looked up and saw the shamrock flag waving from the window on Sixty-fourth Street. He took a deep breath and moved behind the reviewing stands where pedestrian traffic was allowed to pass under the scrutiny of patrolmen. He lit a cigarette and watched the smoke blow southward, over his shoulder.

O’Connor reached his right hand into the pocket of his overcoat, slid the elastic off the handle of a grenade that had the pin removed, and held the handle down with his thumb. As he moved through the closely pressed crowd he pushed the grenade through a slit in his pocket and let it fall to the sidewalk. He felt the detonator handle hit his ankle as it flew off. He repeated the procedure with a grenade in his left pocket, pushing quickly through the tight crowd as it fell.

Both seven-second fuses popped in sequence. The first grenade, a CS gas canister, hissed quietly. The second grenade, a smoke signaling device, billowed huge green clouds that floated south into the stands. Brendan O’Connor kept walking. Behind him he could hear the sounds of surprise as the CS gas rose to face level, followed by the sounds of fear and panic as the smoke and choking gas swept over the crowd on the sidewalk and up to the reviewing stands. O’Connor released four more canisters through his pockets, then walked through an opening in the stone wall and disappeared into the park.

Patrick Burke vaulted the low stone wall of Central Park and barreled into the crowd on the sidewalk near the reviewing stands. Billowing green smoke rolled over the stands toward him, and even before it reached him his eyes began to tear. “Shit.” He put a handkerchief to his face and ran into the Avenue, but panic had seized the marchers, and Burke was caught in the middle of the confusion. The banner of the unit had fallen to the pavement, and Burke glimpsed it under the feet of the running men—BELFAST IRISH REPUBLICAN ARMY VETERANS. As he fought his way across the Avenue, Burke could see that their ranks were laced with agitators and professional shriekers, as he called them. Well planned, he thought. Well executed.

James Sweeney put his back to the streetlight pole at Sixty-fourth Street and held his ground against the press of people around him. His hands reached through the pockets of his long trench coat and grabbed a long-handled bolt cutter hanging from his belt. He let the skirts of his coat fall over the cable connections from the mobile headquarters van as he clipped the telephone lines and then the electric power lines at the base of the pole.

Sweeney took three steps into the shoving crowd and let the bolt cutter slide into the storm drain at the curb. He allowed himself to be carried along with the flow of the moving mass of marchers and spectators up Sixty-fourth Street, away from the Avenue and the choking gas.

Inside the mobile headquarters van the telephone operators heard an odd noise, and the four telephones went dead. All the lights in the van went out a second later. One of the operators looked up at George Byrd silhouetted against a small side window. “Phones out!”

Byrd pressed his face to the small window and looked down at the base of the streetlight. “Oh Christ! Sons of bitches.” He turned back and grabbed at a radio as the van driver started the engine and switched to internal power. Byrd transmitted: “All stations! Mobile at Sixty-fourth. Power line cut. We’re operating radios on generator. Telephone lines cut. Situation unclear—”

Burke burst through the door and grabbed the radiophone from Byrd’s hand. “Mobile at Fifty-first—do you read?”

The second mobile van beside the Cathedral answered. “Roger. All quiet here. Mounted and scooter units headed your way—”

“No! Listen—”

As the nineteen bronze bells in the north spire of St. Patrick’s Cathedral chimed five o’clock, the timer on the box resting on the crossbeam above the bells completed the electrical circuit. The box, a broad-band transmitter, began sending out static over the entire spectrum of the radio band. From its transmitting point, high above the street, the transmitter jammed all two-way radios in the midtown area.

A high, piercing sound filled Burke’s earphone. “Mobile at Fifty-first—do you read? Action will take place at Cathedral. …” The sound grew louder and settled into a pattern of continuous high-pitched static. “Mobile at Fifty-first …” He let the radiophone fall from his hand and turned to Byrd. “Jammed.”

“I hear it—shit!” Byrd grabbed at the radio and switched to alternate command channels, but they were all filled with static. “Bastards!”

Burke grabbed his arm. “Listen, get some men to the public telephones. Call Police Plaza and the rectory. Have them try to get a message to the police around the Cathedral. The mobile van there may still have telephone communication.”

“I doubt it.”

“Tell them—”

“I know, I know. I heard you.” Byrd sent four men out of the van. He looked out the side window at the crowd streaming by and watched his men pushing through it. He turned around to speak to Burke, but he was gone.

On the steps of the Cathedral, Maureen watched the plainclothesman standing in front of her trying to get his hand radio to work. Several policemen were running around, passing on messages and receiving orders, and she could tell by their manner that there was some confusion among them. Police were moving in and out of the van on the corner to her right. She noticed the spectators on the sidewalks; they seemed to have received some message that those on the steps had not. There was a murmur running through the crowd, and heads craned north, up the Avenue, as though the message had come from that direction as in a child’s game of Pass-ItOn. She looked north but could see nothing unusual except the unsettled crowd. Then she noticed that the pace of the marchers had slowed. She turned to Harold Baxter and said quietly, “Something is wrong.”

The bells struck the last of the five chimes, then began their traditional five o’clock hymns with “Autumn.”

Baxter nodded. “Keep alert.”

The County Cork unit passed slowly in front of the Cathedral, and behind them the County Mayo unit marked time as the parade became inexplicably stalled. Parade marshals and formation marshals spoke to policemen. Maureen noticed that the Cardinal looked annoyed but not visibly concerned about the rising swell of commotion around him.

Office workers and store clerks began streaming out of the lobbies of Rockefeller Center, the Olympic Tower, and the surrounding skyscrapers onto the already crowded sidewalks. They jostled to get away from the area, or to get a better view of the parade.

Suddenly there was a loud cry from the crowd. Maureen turned to her left. From the front doors of Saks Fifth Avenue burst a dozen men dressed in black suits and derbies. They wore white gloves and bright orange sashes across their chests, and most of them carried walking sticks. They pushed aside a police barricade and unfurled a long banner that read: GOD SAVE THE QUEEN. ULSTER WILL BE BRITISH FOREVER.

Maureen’s pulse quickened, and her mind flashed back to Ulster, to the long summer marching season when the Orangemen paraded through the cities and villages, proclaiming their loyalty to God and Queen and their hate of their Catholic neighbors.

The crowd began to howl and hiss. An old IRA veteran fortified with spirits crashed through the police barrier and ran into the street, racing at the Orangemen, screaming as he ran, “Fucking bloody murdering bastards! I’ll kill you!”

A half dozen of the Orangemen hoisted bullhorns and broke into song:“A rope, a rope, to hang the Pope!A pennyworth o’ cheese to choke him!A pint o’ lamp oil to wrench it down,And a big hot fire to roast him!”

Several of the enraged crowd broke from the sidewalks and ran into the street, spurred on by a few men who seemed to have materialized suddenly as their leaders. This vanguard was soon joined by streams of men, women, and teen-agers as the barriers began falling up and down the Avenue.

The few mounted police who had not headed to the reviewing stands formed a protective phalanx around the Orangemen, and a paddy wagon escorted by patrol cars began moving up Fiftieth Street to rescue the Orangemen from the crowd that had suddenly turned into a mob. The police swung clubs to keep the surging mob away from the still singing Orangemen. All the techniques of crowd control, learned in the Police Academy and learned on the streets, were employed in an effort to save the dozen Orangemen from being lynched, and the Orangemen themselves seemed finally to recognize their perilous position as hundreds of people ran out of control. They laid down their bullhorns and banner and joined the police in fighting their way to the safety of the approaching paddy wagon.

Patrick Burke ran south on Fifth Avenue, weaving in

and out of the spectators and marchers who filled the street. He drew up in front of a parked patrol car, out of breath, and held up his badge. “Can you call mobile at the Cathedral?”

The patrolman shook his head and pointed to the static-filled radio.

“Take me to the Cathedral. Quick!” He grabbed the rear-door handle.

The uniformed sergeant sitting beside the driver called out. “No way! We can’t move through this mob. If we hit someone, they’ll tear us apart.”

“Shit.” Burke slammed the door and recrossed the Avenue. He vaulted the wall into Central Park and ran south along a path paralleling the Avenue. He came out of the park at Grand Army Plaza and began moving south through the increasingly disorderly mob. He know it could take him half an hour to move the remaining nine blocks to the Cathedral, and he knew that the parallel avenues were probably not much better, even if he could get to them through a side street. He was not going to make it.

Suddenly a black horse appeared in front of him. A young policewoman, with blond hair tucked under her helmet, was sitting impassively atop the horse. He pushed alongside the woman and showed his badge. “Burke, Intelligence Division. I have to get to the Cathedral. Can you push this nag through this mob with me on the back?”

She regarded Burke, taking in his disheveled appearance. “This is not a nag, Lieutenant, but if you’re in so much of a hurry, jump on.” She reached down. Burke took her hand, put his foot in the stirrup, and swung heavily onto the rear of the horse.

The policewoman spurred the horse forward. “Giddyap! Come on, Commissioner!”

“I’m only a lieutenant.”

The policewoman glanced over her shoulder as the horse began to move forward. “That’s the horse’s name—Commissioner.”

“Oh. What’s your … ?”

“Police Officer Foster … Betty.”

“Nice. Good names. Let’s move it.”

The trained police horse and the rider were in their element, darting, weaving, cutting into every brief opening, and scattering knots of people in their path without seriously injuring anyone.

Burke held tightly to the woman’s waist. He looked up and saw that they were approaching the intersection at Fifty-seventh Street. He shouted into her ear, “You dance good, Betty. Come here often?”

The policewoman turned her head and looked at him. “This run had damned well better be important, Lieutenant.”

“It’s the most important horse ride since Paul Revere’s.”

Major Bartholomew Martin stood at the window of a small room on the tenth floor of the British Empire Building in Rockefeller Center. He watched the riot that swirled around the Cathedral, then turned to the man standing beside him. “Well, Kruger, it appears that the Fenians have arrived.”

The other man, an American, said, “Yes, for better or for worse.” He paused, then asked, “Did you know this was going to happen?”

“Not exactly. Brian Flynn does not confide in me. I gave him some ideas, some options. His only prohibition was not to attack British property or personnel—like blowing up this building, for instance. But you never quite know with these people.” Major Martin stared off into space for a few seconds, then spoke in a faraway voice. “You know, Kruger, when I finally caught up with the bastard in Belfast last winter, he was a beaten man—physically as well as mentally. All he wanted was for me to kill him quickly. And I wanted very much to accommodate him, I assure you, but then I thought better of it. I turned him around, as we say, then pointed him at America and set him loose. A dangerous business, I know, like grabbing that tiger by the tail. But it’s paid off, I think.”

Kruger stared at him for a long time, then said, “I hope

we’ve calculated American public reaction correctly.”

Martin smiled as he took some brandy from a flask. “If the American public was ambivalent about the Irish problem yesterday, they are not so ambivalent today.” He looked at Kruger. “I’m sure this will help your service a bit.”

Kruger replied, “And if it doesn’t help, then you owe us a favor. In fact, I wanted to speak to you about something we have planned in Hong Kong.”

“Ah, intrigue. Yes, yes, I want to hear all about it. But later. Enjoy the parade.” He opened the window, and the sound of crashing windows, police sirens, and thousands of people filled the small room. “Erin go bragh, as they say.”

CHAPTER 14

Maureen Malone felt someone tap her on the shoulder. She turned to see a man holding a badge in front of her face. “Bureau of Special Services, Miss Malone. Some of the crowd is turning their attention up here. We have to get you into the Cathedral. Mr. Baxter, you too. Please follow us.”

Baxter looked down at the crowd in the street and at the police line, arms locked, at the curb. “I think we’re perfectly safe here for now.”

The man answered, “Sir, you have to get out of here for the safety of the other people on the steps—please—”

“Yes, yes, I see. All right. Miss Malone, he’s quite right.”

Maureen and Baxter turned and mounted the steps. Maureen saw the red vestments of the Cardinal as he moved through the crowded steps in front of them, flanked by two men.

Other BSS men on the steps had moved around the Monsignor and the other priests and church people, eyeing the crowd closely. Two BSS men noticed that the Cardinal, Malone, and Baxter were being led away by unknown men and began to follow, pushing their way toward the portals. Two priests on the top step fell in behind them, and the two BSS men felt the press of something hard on their backs. “Freeze,” said one of the priests softly, “or we’ll blow your spines open.”

The police in the mobile headquarters van beside the Cathedral had lost radio communication as static filled the frequencies, but they were still reporting by telephone. Without warning an ambulance coming down Fifty-first Street swerved and sideswiped the headquarters van. The van shot forward, and the lines connecting it to the streetlamp snapped. The ambulance drivers abandoned their vehicle and disappeared quickly into the crowded lobby of the Olympic Tower.

Maureen Malone, Harold Baxter, and the Cardinal walked abreast down the main aisle of the crowded Cathedral. Two men walked behind them, and two men set the pace in front. Maureen could see that the priest in the pulpit was Father Murphy, and another priest was kneeling at the communion rail. As she moved closer to the kneeling priest she was aware that there was something familiar about him.

The Cardinal turned and looked back up the aisle, then asked his escort, “Where is Monsignor Downes? Why aren’t the others with us?”

One of the men answered, “They’ll be along. Please keep moving, Your Eminence.”

Father Murphy tried to continue the Mass, but he was distracted again by the shouts and sirens outside. He looked out over the two thousand worshipers in the pews and in the aisles, and his eye caught a movement of brilliant red in the main aisle. He stared at the disturbing sight of the Cardinal walking toward the altar, flanked by Malone and Baxter and escorted by security men. The thought that something was happening outside to mar this great day upset him. He forgot where he was in the Mass and said abruptly, “The Mass is ended. Go in peace.” He added hurriedly, “No. Wait. Stay until we know what is happening. Stay in your seats, please.”

Father Murphy turned and saw the priest who had been kneeling at the communion rail now standing on the top step of the pulpit. He recognized the tall priest with the deep green eyes and was, oddly, not surprised to see him again. He cleared his throat. “Yes?”

Brian Flynn slipped a pistol from under his black coat and kept it near his side. “Stand back.”

Murphy took a deep breath. “Who the hell are you?”

“I’m the new archbishop.” Flynn pushed Murphy into the rear of the pulpit and took the microphone. He watched the Cardinal approaching the altar, then began to address the worshipers who were still standing in the pews. “Ladies and gentlemen,” he began in a carefully measured cadence, “may I have your attention….”

Maureen Malone stopped abruptly in the open area a few feet from the altar rail. She stared up at the pulpit, transfixed by the tall, dark figure standing there in the dim light. The man behind her nudged her forward. She turned slowly. “Who are you?”

The man revealed a pistol stuck in his waistband. “Not the police, I assure you.” The New York accent had disappeared, replaced by a light brogue. “Keep walking. You, too, Baxter, Your Eminence.”

One of the men in front opened the gate in the marble altar railing and turned. “Come in, won’t you?”

Patrick Burke, seated uneasily on the horse, looked over the heads of the crowd. Two blocks beyond he could see mass confusion, worse than that which swirled around him. The shop windows of Cartier and Gucci were broken, as were most of the other windows along the Avenue. Uniformed police stood in front of the displays of many of the shops, but there was no apparent looting, only that strange mixture of fighting and reveling that the Irish affectionately called a donnybrook. Burke could see the Cathedral now, and it was obvious that whatever had sparked this turmoil had begun there.

The crowd immediately around him was made up of marching units that were staying together, passing bottles, and singing. A brass band was playing “East Side, West Side,” backed by an enthusiastic chorus. The policewoman spurred the horse on.

Midway down the block before the Cathedral the crowd became tighter, and the horse was straining to sidestep through. Bodies crushed against the riders’ legs, then fell away as the horse made another lunge. “Keep pushing! Keep going!” called Burke.

The policewoman shouted, “God, they’re packed so tight….” She pulled back on the reins, and the horse reared up. The crowd scattered, and she drove into the opening, then repeated the maneuver.

Burke felt his stomach heave and caught his breath. “Nice! Nice! Good work!”

“How far do I have to get?”

“When Commissioner is kneeling at the communion rail, I’ll tell you!”

Brian Flynn waited until the Cardinal and the others were safely inside the railing of the high altar, then said into the microphone, “Ladies and gentlemen, there is a small fire in the basement. Please stay calm. Leave quickly through the doors, including the front doors.”

A cry went up from the congregation, and a few men interspersed throughout the Cathedral shouted, “Fire! Fire! Run!”

The pews emptied rapidly, and the aisles streamed with people pushing toward the exits. Racks of votive candles went down, spilling and cracking on the floor. The bookshop near the south spire emptied, and the first wave of people filled the vestibules and surged through the three sets of front doors, pouring out onto the steps.

The spectators on the steps suddenly found themselves pushed by a sea of people coming through the portals, and were swept down across the sidewalk, into the police barricades, through the line of policemen, and into the riot on Fifth Avenue.

Monsignor Downes tried to fight against the tide and get into the Cathedral, but found himself in the street squeezed between a heavy woman and a burly police officer.

The two bogus priests who had been pressing guns into the backs of the Bureau of Special Services men blended into the moving throng and disappeared. The two BSS men turned and tried to remount the steps but were carried down into the Avenue by the crowd.

Police scooters toppled, and patrol cars were covered with people trying to escape the crush of the crowd. Marching units broke ranks and became engulfed in the mob. Police tried to set up perimeters to keep the area of the disturbance contained, but without radio communication their actions were uncoordinated and ineffective.

Television news crews filmed the scene until they were overwhelmed by the surging mob.

Inspector Philip Langley peered down from the New York Police Department command helicopter into the darkening canyons below. He turned to Deputy Police Commissioner Rourke and shouted above the beat of the rotor blades. “I think the Saint Patrick’s Day Parade is over.”

The Deputy Commissioner eyed him for a long second, then looked down at the incredible scene. Rush hour traffic was stalled for miles, and a sea of people completely covered the streets and sidewalks as far south as Thirty-fourth Street and as far north as Seventy-second Street. Close to a million people were in the small midtown area at this hour, and not one of them was going to get home in time for dinner. “Lot of unhappy citizens down there, Philip.”

Langley lit a cigarette. “I’ll hand in my resignation tonight.”

The Deputy Commissioner looked up at him. “I hope there’s somebody around to accept it.” He looked back at the streets. “Almost every ranking officer in the New York Police Department is down there somewhere, cut off from communication, cut off from their command.” He turned to Langley. “This is the worst yet.”

Langley shook his head. “I think the worst is yet to come.”

In the intersection at Fiftieth Street, Burke could see the bright orange sashes of men being led into a paddy wagon. Burke remembered the Irish saying: “If you want an audience, start a fight.” These Orangemen had wanted an audience, and he knew why; he knew, too, that they were not Orangemen at all but Boston Provos recruited to cause a diversion—dumb Micks with more courage than brains.

The policewoman turned to him as she urged the horse on. “Who are those people with orange sashes?”

“It’s a long story. Go on. Almost there—”

Brian Flynn came down from the pulpit and faced Maureen Malone. “It’s been a damned long time, Maureen.”

She looked at him and replied in an even voice, “Not long enough.”

He smiled. “Did you get my flowers?”

“I flushed them.”

“You have one in your lapel.”

Her face reddened. “So you’ve come to America after all, Brian.”

“Yes. But as you can see, on my terms.” He looked out over the Cathedral. The last of the worshipers were jamming the center vestibule, trying to squeeze through the great bronze doors. Two Fenians, Arthur Nulty dressed as a priest and Frank Gallagher dressed as a parade marshal, stood behind them and urged them on through the doors, onto the packed steps, but the crowd began to back up into the vestibule. All the other doors had been swung closed and bolted. Flynn looked at his watch. This was taking longer than he expected. He turned to Maureen. “Yes, on my terms. Do you see what I’ve done? Within half an hour all of America will see and hear this. We’ll provide some good Irish theater for them. Better than the Abbey ever did.”

Maureen saw in his eyes a familiar look of triumph, but mixed with that look was one of fear that she had never seen before. Like a little boy, she thought, who had stolen something from a shop and knows he might have to answer for his transgression very shortly. “You won’t get away with this, you know.”

He smiled, and the fear left his eyes. “Yes, I will.”

Two of the Fenians who had posed as police walked around the altar and descended the stairs that led down to the sacristy. From the open archway on the left-hand wall of the sacristy, they heard footsteps approaching in the corridor that led from the rectory. Excited voices came from a similar opening on the opposite wall that led to the Cardinal’s residence. All at once priests and uniformed policemen burst into the sacristy from both doors.

The two Fenians drew the sliding gates out of the wall until they met with a loud metallic ring, and the people in the sacristy looked up the stairs. A uniformed sergeant called out, “Hey! Open those gates!” He advanced toward the stairs.

The Fenians tied a chain through the scrolled brasswork and produced a padlock.

The sergeant drew his pistol. Another policeman came up behind him and did the same.

The Fenians seemed to pay no attention to the officers and snapped the heavy lock on the ends of the wrapped chain. One of them looked up, smiled, and gave a brief salute. “Sorry, lads, you’ll have to go round.” Both Fenians disappeared up the stairs. One of them, Pedar Fitzgerald, sat near the crypt door where he could see the gate. The other, Eamon Farrell, came around the altar and nodded to Flynn.

Flynn turned to Baxter for the first time. “Sir Harold Baxter?”

“That’s correct.”

He stared at Baxter. “Yes, I’d enjoy killing you.”

Baxter replied without inflection, “Your kind would enjoy killing anyone.”

Flynn turned away and looked at the Cardinal. “Your Eminence.” He bowed his head, and it wasn’t clear if he was mocking or sincere. “My name is Finn MacCumail, Chief of the new Fenian Army. This church is now mine. This is my Bruidean. You know the term? My place of sanctuary.”

The Cardinal seemed not to hear him. He asked abruptly, “Is this Cathedral on fire?”

“That depends to a large extent on what happens in the next few minutes.”

The Cardinal stared at him, and neither man flinched. The Cardinal finally spoke. “Get out of here. Get out while you can.”

“I can’t, and I don’t want to.” He looked up at the choir loft over the main doors where Jack Leary, dressed as a colonial soldier, stood with a rifle. Flynn’s eyes dropped to the main doors nearly a block away. People still jammed the vestibule, and noise and light passed in through the open doors. He turned to Father Murphy, who stood next to him. “Father, you may leave. Hurry down the aisle before the doors close.”

Murphy strode deliberately to a spot beside the Cardinal. “We are both leaving.”

“No. No, on second thought, we may find a use for you later.” Flynn turned to Maureen again and moved closer to her. He spoke softly. “You knew, didn’t you? Even before you got the flowers?”

“I knew.”

“Good. We still know each other, don’t we? We’ve spoken over the years and across the miles, haven’t we, Maureen?”

She nodded.

A young woman dressed as a nun appeared at the altar rail holding a large pistol. In the front pew a bearded old man, apparently sleeping on the bench, rose, stretched, and came up behind her. Everyone watched as the two people ascended the steps of the altar sanctuary.

The old man nodded to the hostages and spoke in a clear, vibrant voice. “Your Eminence, Father Murphy, Miss Malone, Sir Harold. I am John Hickey, fancifully code-named Dermot, in keeping with the pagan motif suggested by our leader, Finn MacCumail.” He made an exaggerated bow to Flynn. “I am a poet, scholar, soldier, and patriot, much like the original Fenians. You may have heard of me.” He looked around and saw the signs of recognition in the eyes of the four hostages. “No, not dead, as you can plainly see. But dead before the sun rises again, I’ll wager. Dead in the ruins of this smoldering Cathedral. A magnificent funeral pyre it’ll be, befitting a man of my rank. Oh, don’t look so glum, Cardinal, there’s a way out—if we all keep our senses about us.” He turned to the young woman beside him. “May I present our Grania—or, as she prefers her real name, Megan Fitzgerald.”

Megan Fitzgerald said nothing but looked into the face of each hostage. Her eyes came to rest on Maureen Malone, and she looked her up and down.

Maureen stared back at the young woman. She knew there would be a woman. There always was with Flynn. Flynn was that type of man who needed a woman watching in order to stiffen his courage, the way other men needed a drink. Maureen looked into the face of Megan Fitzgerald: high cheekboned, freckled, with a mouth that seemed set in a perpetual sneer, and eyes that should have been lovely but were something quite different. Too young, and not likely to get much older in the company of Brian Flynn. Maureen saw herself ten years before.