The Secret Cardinal

by Tom Grace

  “This is true?” the pope asked Grin.

  “China has spent a lot of money on communications technology in recent years, but there isn’t a bit of it I can’t put to sleep.”

  “We will do everything possible to protect Yin and the people who go in to rescue him,” Kilkenny promised.

  The pope bowed his head and considered for a moment all that he had heard, then arched an eye toward Donoher.

  “Cardinal Donoher, what do you think?” the pope asked.

  “Your Holiness, I believe this plan has a fine chance to succeed. It’s simple, and it relies on guile rather than violence to achieve our aim. Bishop Yin could well be in Rome before Beijing realizes what has transpired.”

  The pope took Donoher’s advice with a nod, then slipped his right hand into the left sleeve of his simar and withdrew a piece of fine paper folded in thirds.

  “In anticipation that you would do as I asked, I have prepared this letter authorizing you to proceed. It is written in my hand and bears the seal of my holy office.”

  The pope handed the document to Donoher, then turned back to Kilkenny. A wry smile curled the corners of the pontiff’s mouth, and his blue eyes shone warmly. He shook an admonishing finger at Kilkenny.

  “When stealing from dragons, it is wise to be gone long before the beasts awaken.”

  7

  October 14

  The pope sat quietly in the Redemptoris Mater Chapel, his hands slowly working the smooth beads of an old familiar rosary. His prayers were interwoven with meditations on the Immaculate Heart of Mary, for he believed it was only through the Blessed Mother’s intervention that his life had been spared from an assassin’s bullets early in his pontificate.

  He prayed as he had throughout his long life, his daily devotions to a faith that had sustained him through years of suffering and the burden of more than a quarter century as the successor of Saint Peter, whose bones rested nearby beneath the altar of the basilica. One day, the pope knew, his body would be placed in the crypt with those of the other men who had preceded him as bishop of Rome.

  As he prayed, the pope heard a distant sound as if waves crashing on the shore. Thinking it the rushing traffic outside, he ignored the sound and continued with his devotions. But the waves continued to crash, each building in volume and intensity until the sound of water enveloped him. Then the crashing disappeared.

  “Jedrek,” a familiar voice spoke softly.

  Hearing the nickname used only by his family and closest friends, the pope paused in his recitation. He detected a faint floral scent in the air, a garden in springtime.

  “Jedrek,” the voice called again, this time more distinct. A lyrical voice, familiar, but from his distant past.

  Looking up, the pope saw a woman with blonde hair and blue eyes wearing a plain dress. She stood near the altar, and the air around her was suffused with an ethereal light. The woman was young and beautiful, as he had always remembered her in his heart.

  “Mamusia,” Pope Leo said, his voice choked with joy. He last saw her a month before his tenth birthday. “I have missed you so much.”

  The woman smiled. “I have always been with you, my son. Your long journey is over. Take my hand.”

  The pope felt a new strength flowing through his aged body, a vigor he thought lost in the waning years of his life. He rose and stood tall, his first steps poised and confident. He glanced down at his body. His hands were those of a younger man, and his lean frame was clad in a black cassock. Despite the turns his life had taken, the road that led him from an old wooden church in the Polish countryside to the glory of the Vatican, Andrzej Bojnarowicz had never sought to be anything but a parish priest.

  The young priest turned and saw his former self, a chrysalis empty as the tomb after Christ’s resurrection. In the face of the dead pope, he saw the joy he had felt at the sight of his mother.

  “Come, Jedrek,” his mother said lovingly. “It is time to go.”

  Andrzej Bojnarowicz took his mother’s hand for the first time since he was a child. He felt her warmth and love and followed her into the light.

  8

  Archbishop Sikora entered the chapel to prepare the pope for an early evening appointment with the cardinal in charge of the Pontifical Commission for the Vatican City State. He carried with him a BlackBerry PDA filled with the pope’s appointments scheduled several months out.

  “Your Holiness,” Sikora said as he approached the pontiff.

  The lack of an immediate response did not surprise him; the pope prayed and slept deeply. As he came around the pope’s chair, Sikora saw the pontiff’s rapt expression and dropped the PDA on the floor.

  “Jedrek,” Sikora blurted out reflexively.

  He placed two fingers on the pope’s neck; the skin felt cool to the touch and he found no pulse. Sikora scooped the PDA off the floor and said a brief prayer of thanks that the device was still functional as he keyed in a call to the pope’s personal physician.

  DONOHER ENTERED the papal apartments and went directly to the pope’s bedroom. In his wake followed the cleric prelates, the secretary and the chancellor of the Apostolic Camera, and the master of papal liturgical celebrations—men in whose presence he was officially to declare the pope’s death. The supine body of the supreme pontiff lay on the bed dressed in a clean white cassock. Donoher immediately noted the look of blessed serenity on the pope’s face. Death had been kind.

  Nearby stood Archbishop Sikora, the pope’s physician, and several members of the papal staff.

  “Your Eminence,” Sikora said, moving to kiss the cardinal’s ring.

  “Michal, please,” Donoher said, dismissing the polite formality. “You found him in his chapel?”

  Sikora nodded. He handed Donoher a velvet-lined pouch containing the lead seals of the papal office.

  “That we would all be so fortunate to meet God in a place that brings us great peace.” Donoher turned to the physician. “Have you determined the time and manner of the Holy Father’s passing?”

  “Only that His Holiness died sometime between six and seven o’clock this evening. An area of discoloration on his head suggests the probable cause was a massive cerebral hemorrhage. His death was almost instantaneous.”

  Donoher clasped the physician’s hand in both of his own. “Doctor, you and your staff have my sincerest gratitude for all you have done to ease his suffering over these past few years. I will pray for you, always.”

  “Grazie, Your Eminence, grazie.”

  Both the physician and Sikora retreated from the pope’s bed, merging in with those who had arrived with Donoher. In his first duty as camerlengo, Donoher approached the bedside of the pope. He said a silent prayer as he stroked the cheek of his friend, then turned to those assembled.

  “From medieval times to up well into the last century,” Donoher said solemnly, “the cardinal camerlengo would ascertain the death of the pope by tapping him on the forehead three times with a silver hammer. After each blow, the camerlengo would call out the pope’s given name and ask if he was dead. Universi Dominici Gregis makes no mention of this ancient ritual, and I see no need to further insult the body of this great man. I therefore declare that Pope Leo XIV is truly dead.”

  With the greatest respect, Donoher gently lifted the pope’s right hand and removed the gold fisherman’s ring. As he did so, he recalled the letter the pope had given him the previous day—likely the last official document sealed with this signet. Donoher placed the ring in the pouch with the seals. In his first meeting with those cardinals present at the Vatican, he would break both symbols of the holy office.

  Donoher turned to the chancellor of the Apostolic Camera. “Do you have the death certificate?”

  “I do, Your Eminence.”

  Donoher accepted the leatherbound folio and motioned for the physician to accompany him into the pope’s study. Inside the folio was a sheet of pure white vellum inscribed in fluid Latin script with the official pronouncement of the pope’s death.
Donoher and the physician affixed their signatures, completing the ritual.

  As he looped the “r” at the end of his name, Donoher suddenly felt the immense weight of his new office. At this moment, he was entrusted with a sacred duty to safeguard and administer all the goods and temporal rights of the Holy See. Until the election of the next pope, the cardinal camerlengo was the most powerful man in the Roman Catholic Church.

  “They are ready to prepare the pope’s body,” Sikora announced.

  “Doctor, is there any need for further examination?” Donoher asked.

  A minor controversy had erupted following the death of the previous pope, whose reign had lasted a mere thirty-three days. Those sowing rumors that the pope might have been murdered cited the quickness with which the late pontiff was embalmed as a sign of a Vatican coverup. Had the truth of the late pope’s poor health been more widely known among the College of Cardinals, he never would have been elected.

  “The cause of the pope’s death is clear,” the doctor avowed.

  “Then I release the pope’s body for preparation to lie in state.”

  After removal of the body from the apartments, Donoher cleared everyone from the papal bedroom and study and sealed the rooms. Those members of the late pope’s personal staff who resided in the papal apartments would be permitted to remain until the burial. After the funeral, the entire apartment would be sealed until the new pope was elected.

  Donoher moved purposefully as he left the papal apartments. The next few weeks would likely be among the busiest of his entire life; the list of his duties and responsibilities as camerlengo was immense.

  He flipped open his cell phone and dialed the number for the cardinal vicar of Rome. Upon receiving Donoher’s official notification, it would be that man’s unhappy duty to make the special announcement to the people of Rome later this evening. Crews representing news agencies from around the world were already setting up just outside the Vatican walls as rumor of the pope’s death spread.

  By the time he reached his office, Donoher completed his second call—this one to the cardinal archpriest of the Vatican Basilica, setting in motion the preparations for a papal funeral. He pulled out a file received from the previous camerlengo and ran down the list of tasks requiring his immediate attention. Throughout his life, Donoher had never owned real estate of any kind. Within the next few hours, he would formally take possession of the Apostolic Palace and the palaces of the Lateran and Castel Gandolfo.

  And then, Donoher thought, there was the matter of Yin Daoming.

  9

  October 15

  The news had spread worldwide by the following morning. Kilkenny and Grin learned of the pope’s death the previous evening while dining out late. The matriarch of the family that ran the tiny ristorante had burst loudly into tears when the cardinal vicar appeared on the small television she watched at her corner table. The woman had been inconsolable, and like millions of Catholics, she deeply felt the loss of the charismatic man who had led the Church for so long. The pall cast by the pope’s death blanketed Rome like fog, subduing the normally vibrant Eternal City.

  Kilkenny sat hunched forward against the imaging table, his arms folded along the edge as a support for his chin. He stared at a hologram of the corridor of rooms in the solitary wing where Yin was imprisoned. Through the nearly transparent holographic walls, he could follow the layout of pipes and ducts that serviced the cells, but his ability to focus on the details eluded him. Hwong’s murder and the deaths of the Chinese Roman Catholics still angered him, and the untimely deaths of his wife and son never strayed far from his conscious thoughts. And now, a man whom he had prayed for every Sunday as far back as he could remember, someone he’d met only twice but whose strength of spirit had affected him profoundly, was dead.

  To reach the Petriano Entrance that morning, Kilkenny and Grin had to wend their way slowly through the throng that had spilled beyond the confines of Saint Peter’s Square and into the streets around the Vatican. It didn’t matter that there was nothing to see—just being there at this moment seemed important to people.

  The somber mood of the crowd reminded Kilkenny of a few bitter losses at Michigan Stadium, when tens of thousands of emotionally drained football fans straggled away from the wreckage of a season derailed. He knew the analogy was weak, but the assassinations of President Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. predated him, and he simply had no better frame of reference for grief on such a massive scale. Even in the deep seclusion of the catacombs, the aura of mourning was inescapable.

  The magnetic lock buzzed as it released the door. Both Kilkenny and Grin turned, then stood as Donoher entered the room. He looked as if he had been up all night and didn’t expect to sleep anytime soon.

  “Here,” Kilkenny said, offering his chair. “I can’t imagine what your night must have been like.”

  Donoher nodded his thanks and sat down with a sigh. “I have been the head of the Roman Catholic Church for mere hours, and already I’m planning to announce in my opening remarks at the conclave that I have no desire to be pope, and to promise the most serious consequences to any cardinal who dares vote for me.”

  “That bad?” Kilkenny asked.

  “I won’t trouble you with the details, but never have I borne such a heavy cross. And despite everything that I am now required to do, the two of you have never been far from my thoughts. How soon do you think you can implement your plan?”

  “Training is the biggest issue—the people who do this will have to work very well together,” Kilkenny said as he considered the question. “Six weeks, maybe a month if we really push it.”

  “I’m afraid we don’t have that kind of time,” Donoher said flatly. “The pope’s death has set a clock in motion.”

  “What kind of clock?” Grin asked.

  “In fifteen days,” Donoher explained, “the eligible cardinals will gather in conclave to elect the next pope.”

  “How does that affect us?” Grin asked, unclear of the connection.

  “Pope Leo directed me to pursue this course of action,” Donoher explained, “and as long as he was alive, we had his blessing. With his death, responsibility for all of the Church’s temporal matters devolved to me as camerlengo. As I am of the same mind as the late pope regarding Bishop Yin, we can still proceed.”

  Kilkenny immediately grasped Donoher’s dilemma. “But you’re only in charge until the new pope is elected.”

  “Which could be as soon as fifteen days from now,” Donoher said. “And if the new pope doesn’t find this idea brilliant, the project is dead.”

  “And Yin with it,” Grin added.

  Kilkenny stared at the model of Yin’s prison, imagining the dark, lonely cell where decades of the bishop’s life had been stolen in a dry martyrdom. The injustice of that windowless hellhole infuriated Kilkenny and fueled his desire to find a way to free the bishop. Unlike the cancer that took his wife and child, Kilkenny knew how to attack the walls of Chifeng Prison. With a viable plan in hand, Kilkenny could not accept that the pope’s untimely death might condemn Yin to die inside that concrete box.

  “Fifteen days,” Kilkenny fumed through gritted teeth, his mind weighing each step of the plan against an impossible deadline.

  “Fifteen days is the minimum,” Donoher clarified. “It could be a bit longer if the conclave deadlocks.”

  “How much longer?” Grin asked.

  “Thirty ballots, about two additional weeks. After that, a trigger in the Apostolic Constitution kicks in that permits a change in the rules of the election. Instead of requiring a two-thirds majority, the electors can opt for an absolute majority or a runoff between the top two candidates on the previous ballot. These rule changes make it easier for a compromise candidate to garner enough votes to break the deadlock and win election.”

  “But we can’t count on a deadlock,” Kilkenny said. “We have to get Yin out of China in fifteen days.”

  “But just a moment ago you said you needed
at least a month to prepare,” Donoher said. “How is it you now think you can accomplish this in half that time?”

  “By using people already trained for this kind of work.” Kilkenny replied.

  “Mercenaries?” The cardinal was incredulous.

  “Volunteers,” Kilkenny replied. “Special Forces and CIA, but we’ll need permission to use them. I need the kind of people I can trust with my life.”

  Kilkenny’s eyes remained on the hologram of Chifeng Prison as he spoke, his face eerily illuminated by the computer-generated mirage. But the look of deep concentration that tightened his features waned, leaving behind determined calm.

  “You’re not intending to go into China yourself, are you?” Donoher asked.

  Kilkenny nodded. “It’s the only way to get the job done in time. Grin can handle the tech side of things without me.”

  “This isn’t what I brought you here for,” Donoher protested. “Your father will never forgive me.”

  “I couldn’t forgive myself if I let Yin continue to rot in that hellhole knowing that I could have gotten him out. I appreciate your concern for my father’s feelings, but this isn’t any different from my time in the Navy, and he should understand that.”

  “There’s still a chance the new pope will approve of your plan,” Donoher said, almost pleading.

  “Are you willing to bet Yin’s life on that?” Kilkenny asked.

  Donoher considered the papabili, those cardinals considered favorites for the papacy. All were good, deeply religious men, but none possessed the fiery determination of the late pope. Most, if not all, would find the plan to free Yin provocative and far too risky.

  “No,” Donoher conceded.

  Kilkenny stood and turned toward Donoher. “Our choice really is now or never.”

  “Then I can think of no greater honor to the memory of Pope Leo,” Donoher declared, “than to fulfill his last request.”