Step On A Crack

Chapter 13

IN THE NAVE of the cathedral, “Jack” bit the antenna of his just-closed cell phone nervously as he gazed out at the dozens of Secret Service agents and private security and cops stationed around the church.

Would this scheme actually work? he thought for the thousandth, no, make that the hundred thousandth time. Well, no time like the present to find out. He holstered the phone and headed for the 51st Street exit.

Seconds later, he hustled down the marble stairs and unhooked the latch that was holding open the two-foot-thick wooden door. A female uniformed NYPD cop smoking a cigarette in the threshold glanced at him. She looked irritated.

“In or out?” Jack said with a smile. Though he was on the short side, he was capable of turning on the charm when he wanted. “Service is starting. We got to close ’em up.”

In the predawn security meeting, law enforcement personnel had been told to give the church security force deference in all matters concerning the ceremony.

“Out, I guess,” the cop said.

Good choice, flatfoot, Jack thought, pulling the heavy doors shut and snapping the key off in the lock. Choose life.

He hurried up the stairs and around the ambulatory along the back of the altar.

It was packed-standing room only-with white-frocked priests.

The organ started and the casket appeared from under the choir loft just as he arrived at the south transept.

Jack jogged down the stairs to the 50th Street side entrance and closed and locked the thick door there, too. He refrained from breaking the key in the lock because they’d need this exit in about a minute.

Next order of business. Jack took a deep breath.

Half of Hollywood, Wall Street, and Washington was now boxed inside the cathedral.

Quickly, he went back along the ambulatory. Beyond one of the massive columns, there was a leather bank rope. It blocked off a small, narrow marble stairwell at the rear of the altar. He stepped over the rope and descended.

At the bottom of the marble stairs was an ornate green copper door. The sign above it read: crypt of the archbishops of new york.

Jack stepped in quickly and yanked the door closed. He moved inside the crypt, then tightly shut the door behind him. In the dimness, he could make out the stone sarcophaguses of the interred archbishops arrayed in a semicircle around the rough-hewn stone walls of the chamber.

“It’s me, idiots,” he said in a low voice after another second. “Hit the light.”

There was a click, and the wall sconces came on.

Behind the stone caskets were a dozen men. Most were wearing T-shirts and sweatpants. They were big, muscular, and not very friendly-looking.

There were rips of Velcro as the men strapped on bulletproof Kevlar vests. Smith amp; Wesson nine-millimeter handguns in underarm holsters went on next. The black, fingerless gloves they put on were known as “sappers” and had cushioned lead shot over the knuckles.

Then the mysterious cadre pulled brown-hooded Franciscan monk robes over the Kevlar vests. Into the pockets of these were placed what looked like remote controls but were actually the latest in electric shock weaponry.

They slipped big-bored riot guns up the billowing sleeves of their robes. Half of the guns were loaded with rubber bullets; the other half with canisters of extremely caustic CS tear gas.

Last, the men pulled black ski masks over their faces. It was as if they were made of shadow when they flipped up the hoods.

Jack smiled approvingly as he threw on his own vest, robe, and black ski mask, then pulled up his hood.

“Lock, load, and strap your nuts on, ladies,” Jack said, smiling as he slowly pulled back the heavy door of the crypt. “It’s time to put the fun back into funeral.”