Step On A Crack

Chapter 61

A CONNECTION-CUTTING dial tone howled in my ear-just as Mike Nardy, the cathedral’s caretaker, entered the trailer.

“I’m afraid I have a confession to make,” he blurted, looking out over the assembly of cops and agents. “There is another way into the cathedral.”

The FBI HRT commander, Oakley, stepped forward to handle this himself.

“Tell us about it, Mr. Nardy,” he said.

The old man was seated in a swivel chair and handed a coffee.

“The reason I didn’t say anything before was, well, it’s kind of a secret. Kind of embarrassing for the church, too. The only reason I’m even here is that Father Miller, the priest who was just shot, was a friend of mine, and well, I have your word that it won’t get out? The passageway?”

“Of course,” Oakley said immediately. “Where’s the way in, Mr. Nardy?”

“From the Rockefeller Center concourse,” the caretaker said. “There’s a passage that cuts under Fifth into a, um, bomb shelter. Back in the sixties, Cardinal Spellman, God rest his soul, got quite, I guess the word is paranoid, after the Bay of Pigs incident. He was convinced New York was going to get nuked. So he allocated some funds for an undisclosed construction project.

“A bomb shelter was built off the archbishops’ crypt. With the Rockefellers’ permission, an alternate escape passage was dug to the lower concourse of Rockefeller Center, where they now have shops and such. I’ve never been through the passage; no one has since they built it.”

“Why didn’t you tell us this before?” I butted in angrily. “You knew we were looking for a way to get in, Nardy.”

“I thought things could be resolved peacefully,” the caretaker said quietly. “Now I know otherwise. Poor Father Miller. He was a good soul.”

One thing I loved was when citizens decided to manipulate the police for their own political reasons. I was about to tear into the old man for obstructing justice when Oakley cut me off with a shake of his head.

“Do you think you could show us the way in, Mr. Nardy?” Oakley said calmly.

“Absolutely,” the caretaker said.

Oakley called into his radio and ordered half of his commando team to the command center.

Finally some action, I thought. Finally a break for the good guys.

I was sick of talking, too. Just like Jack.

“Going somewhere?” Oakley said, eyeing me with surprise.

“With you,” I said with a tight smile. “You never know when you might need to negotiate.”