Maddix Foley, vice president of the United States, took a quick look at his watch, then resumed his vigil, his eyes on the white rose–covered casket on its gurney in front of the beautiful altar three rows in front of him. Inside that lovely ornamental box lay the remains of New York’s senior senator, Cardison Greiman, a longtime party force who’d ruled the Senate with a personality like a nail-studded hammer until his face had hit his desktop in his own Senate chamber five days earlier, right after he’d lost the vote for a bill the president particularly wanted passed, and he was dead from a heart attack. A pity about the bill, but then again, it was likely Card’s successor would pick up his hammer and doubtless use it handily. Foley had liked the old buzzard, who’d claimed in drunker moments that he could show the lead in the TV series House of Cards a thing or two. Foley thought that could be true.
There was organ music—Bach, Foley realized—overlaying the low conversation of nearly eight hundred mourners here to pay their final respects, punctuated by an occasional sob from Mrs. Greiman, who’d been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s two weeks before, which had shaken Card Greiman to his core. In Foley’s opinion, it was the realization of losing his wife after more than fifty-plus years that had brought on Card’s heart attack. Now it was Eleanor Greiman who was left to grieve him instead. Foley wondered if it wouldn’t have been more merciful if she’d been further gone so she wouldn’t now have to know the soul-wrenching grief.
Foley sighed, looked again at his watch. It was after five o’clock and the funeral mass should have begun five minutes ago. Cardinal Timothy Michael Dolan would be leading in the priests and altar boys and deacons, ritual incense filling the air from their swinging thuribles, and Card’s final send-off would begin. Foley saw one of his Secret Service agents speak into the unit on his wrist. He must have spotted Cardinal Dolan, which meant they were about ready to get Cardison Grieman’s last big show on the road. He turned in his seat and looked down the long nave toward the narthex.
In the narthex, altar boy Romeo Rodriguez was swallowing hard, praying he wouldn’t throw up, not with His Eminence Cardinal Dolan six feet away from him, looking resplendent in his vivid red cassock. The Cathedral’s rector, Monsignor Ritchie, was at his side, Father Joseph Reilly behind him. Romeo realized Father Joseph was looking at him, and he looked worried. Romeo had the horrible feeling he looked as bad as he felt and he was going to hurl after all. He swallowed again and tried to distract himself, saying a Hail Mary, concentrating with all his might. He’d been a full-fledged altar boy for only seven months now, and it was Father Joseph who had recommended that he be a part of the service today. It was a great honor, his father had told him over and over, and his mother had kissed him and told him how proud she was that he would be carrying out his duties at this great man’s funeral. But now his stomach twisted and cramped and he knew he couldn’t hold it any longer. He was going to throw up.
Now.
Romeo ran to a small closet few people ever opened, next to the closed gift shop annex. He barely made it inside before he fell to his knees and heaved beside boxes of gift shop supplies. He felt a hand on his shoulder, steadying him. It was Father Joseph, and his deep, soothing voice told him it would be all right, he didn’t have to go in with them, all he had to do was breathe lightly and relax. Romeo dry-retched, sat back, and held himself perfectly still. He felt like his stomach was hollowed out. Then he saw a large backpack stuffed into a corner of the closet. “Why is that here, Father?”
“What? Oh, the backpack. Some parishioner must have put it here, probably forgot it. Romeo, I have to leave you soon, the service is beginning—”
Romeo pulled the backpack toward him and opened it.
Both the boy and the priest stared down at it in horror.
Father Joseph Reilly had been a medic in the first Gulf War, gone through two tours of duty before all the death and savagery he’d seen there had turned him back to his true calling. He knew instantly what he was looking at in that backpack, grabbed Romeo, dashed out of the closet, and yelled to the Secret Service agent who stood by the huge bronze doors. “Bomb, I’ve found a bomb with a timer, to go off in twelve minutes!”
The Secret Service agent verified it was a bomb, then went into action. Vice President Foley reeled with the information, then got himself together. Before his Secret Service agents could hustle him out, he dashed to the ambo with its microphone and spoke out loud and clear to the eight hundred people who stared around, alarm on their faces. In a deep, calm voice, he told them to evacuate the cathedral immediately and get as far away as possible.
There was no stampede, only a sense of urgency, as lines formed and moved quickly at each of the exits. Foley thought he smelled fear in the air.
People poured out through the huge bronze doors onto Fifth Avenue and out the back of the cathedral onto Madison Avenue. Police cruisers began to block off a two-block perimeter because there was no time to erect physical barriers. Police officers yelled and waved scores of shoppers, pedestrians, and onlookers away from the cathedral as mourners poured out the doors to join them. Still, it would take time to move the hundreds of bodies to safety, too much time.
None knew this better than Vice President Foley. He’d insisted his Secret Service agents bring Mrs. Greiman with them, so an agent had simply picked up the old lady in his arms and carried her. Foley was now standing with her across Fifth Avenue at Rockefeller Center, surrounded by agents and three NYPD cops, well away from the cathedral.
Foley prayed no one would be killed, prayed the bomb squad would get here in time to defuse the bomb before it caused massive destruction to one of the most revered religious landmarks in the world. Where was the bomb squad? New York City had the fastest bomb squad response time in the nation. Where were they? And shouldn’t there be more cops? Soon now it would be too late, and all the beautiful stained-glass windows inside St. Pat’s would be shattered, its incredible art destroyed. It seemed to Foley that everyone around him was thinking the same thing. An eerie silence fell as they stood and waited, Foley praying as hard as he had when he’d heard his son had been in an auto accident three months before. They all stared at St. Pat’s, at the final lines of mourners racing to safety. Was everyone out now? He stood stiff beside Mrs. Greiman, holding one of her gloved hands while her daughter held the other; she didn’t quite understand what was going on.
Foley couldn’t believe what he was seeing. He stared, appalled to see Cardinal Dolan, Monsignor Ritchie, priests, and deacons wheeling out Senator Greiman’s coffin. Some of them carried objects from the altar, a monstrance and the tabernacle holding the Eucharist. The cardinal walked calmly alongside the gurney, helped lift it down the steps and into the street, pushing it faster now, to safety, the senator’s grandson and the police joining them. Foley had the insane urge to laugh. He knew how much Card would have enjoyed all that attention. He didn’t know it, but in his death, Card had become a symbol. Perhaps they were all symbols, and symbols counted.
Where was the bomb squad? Not that it mattered, because there was no time left, Foley thought, no more time.
Father Joseph knew time was fast running out. He’d heard a Secret Service agent tell another that the New York bomb squad and upward of one hundred cops were at JFK because of a terrorist incident, and they weren’t going to make it back in time. A second bomb squad wasn’t going to make it, either. Was there enough explosive to gut the cathedral? Bring down the scores of concrete pillars?
Father Joseph and everyone else were wondering the same thing, but he knew the cathedral better than they did. He imagined the terrorist bomb tearing through the sanctuary and the Baptistry, and all the chapels that would be destroyed. At least there would be no loss of life in God’s house today.