Step on a Crack (Michael Bennett 1)

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 & 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 w

hen 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.”

Chapter 14

MOVIE STAR and comedian John Rooney felt the breath rush out of him as the honor guard finally arrived at the front of the church with the flag-draped coffin.

Throughout the procession up the center aisle, they had stopped for a long, motionless moment after each step, the organ thundering from above. It was as if the casket weighed so much they needed to pause in order to carry it, Rooney thought sadly.

As the pallbearers laid down the coffin, Rooney remembered his own father’s burial at Arlington National Cemetery. Say what you want about the military, he thought, choking up. Flat out, no one knew better how to honor the dead.

He turned to his right when he saw the line of cowled, brown-robed monks appear. They walked with the same solemnity of the honor guard as they approached the altar. He could see another line of them walking down the aisle to his left.

In the dimness of the church, you couldn’t see faces beneath the hoods. He knew there was going to be a lot of ritual and ceremony today, but this was a new one on him. If the military knew how to honor the dead, leave it to the Catholics to put the fear of God into the living.

The organ was reaching a crescendo when the monks spaced themselves out and stopped suddenly in the side aisles.

Rooney jumped when he heard a series of muffled blasts under the rumble of the organ. Then smoke, white and enveloping, came billowing from all sides.

What had been the austere VIP section looked like a mosh pit as the people in there panicked, clawing at one another to get out of the pews.

Rooney thought he saw one of the monks setting off a shotgun into the crowd.

No, he thought, blinking hard in disbelief. He must have banged his head. That couldn’t be right.

He opened his eyes as a uniformed cop stumbled up the center aisle with blood pouring out of his nose and ears.