Free Cathedral by Nelson DeMille Page A

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.

    73

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 Eke 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."

    74

    CATHEDRAL

    "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 Flannagan. 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 wiqow 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 comer. "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."

    75

    NELSON DE MILLE

    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