The Secret Cardinal

by Tom Grace

  As Grin rose, Donoher pulled a Bible from his briefcase and held out the book with his left hand.

  “Repeat after me,” Donoher began, leading Grin through the same oath sworn by all those providing service to the cardinal electors.

  As Grin recited, he wondered what his devoutly religious parents would think of their highly unorthodox son being made a party to the secrets of a papal election.

  “—and these Holy Gospels which I touch with my hand,” Grin said, completing the oath.

  Donoher slipped the Bible back into his briefcase. “I swore you in because there are matters we need to discuss that are bound up in the rules of the conclave.”

  “And if I’m not in, I’m out.”

  “Precisely,” Donoher said. “Pope Leo has let the proverbial cat out of the bag.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Shortly before the start of the opening session, the late pope’s personal assistant took me aside and gave me a disk containing a message from the late pontiff to the conclave. In it, His Holiness, God rest His soul,” Donoher said the last phrase through clenched teeth, “revealed that Yin was in fact the cardinal he had named in pectore so many years ago, then as much as said that I was mounting a jailbreak to get him out and that the cardinal electors should consider Yin himself for the papacy.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  Donoher’s expression was devoid of humor. “As we speak, my staff is preparing a dossier on Bishop Yin for the cardinal electors to review before the session tomorrow morning. Most of my esteemed brothers know very little about the man, and now that Yin is in the running, they would like to make a more informed decision.”

  “The talking heads of the media have been chattering about a secret cardinal,” Grin offered. “So Bishop Yin is really a cardinal?”

  “No, but only because he could not be named publicly and attend a consistory. Yin was a cardinal only in the heart of Pope Leo, and until today, Nolan and I were the only ones brought into his confidence. It’s a dangerous secret,” Donoher explained, “one I would have preferred stayed secret until after Yin was free.”

  “Is there really a chance Yin could be elected pope?”

  “Honestly, I don’t know. I wouldn’t have thought it possible until Velu spoke up on his behalf—resulting in Yin drawing the second highest number of votes. It’s either the most selfless act I’ve ever seen or the most Machiavellian.”

  “How so?” Grin asked.

  “Just an odd thought, but going into the conclave, there were five cardinals with a strong possibility of being elected. And since graft, bribery, and sex have little to do with Vatican politics these days, and there is no campaigning per se, a papal election boils down to networking and personality. You’d be right in thinking that five papabili would split the electorate five ways, making it unlikely that anyone would secure the supermajority required to win. I’m wondering, perhaps, if Velu might have backed Yin to muddy the waters.”

  “But wouldn’t that damage his own candidacy?”

  “Perhaps. Perhaps not. The introduction of Bishop Yin makes this a completely different race from what we were all expecting. Yin’s story evokes a certain amount of sympathy, which has translated into votes. Not enough to get him elected, mind you, but enough to shake the status quo. As long as Yin remains in China, he is unelectable, and once that reality begins to set in, his backers will begin to look elsewhere. They’ll remember Velu and the selfless act he performed in front of them all.”

  “You have a very devious mind, Your Eminence.”

  “This election will play out as God wills, but now I have to contend with a chapel full of cardinals who know we’re up to something in China. I pray for the sake of Nolan and the others that none of this information gets out.”

  “That would be bad,” Grin agreed.

  “It would indeed.”

  “Any way to dissuade the Yin vote?”

  “Overtly, no, but I will certainly continue to do what I can without violating both the letter and the spirit of the Apostolic Constitution.”

  Both of the news feeds on Grin’s monitors cut to a live image of a Vatican official delivering a statement to the press. In a split screen appeared a file photo of Cardinal Gagliardi.

  “You mind turning up the volume?” Donoher was staring at the monitors.

  “Sure.”

  “—the Vatican has confirmed that it was indeed one of the cardinals who was rushed just a short time ago to the Gemelli Polyclinic here in Rome,” a newscaster said off-screen. “The cardinal has been identified as Cardinal Gagliardi of Sicily, a long-time Vatican insider with a history of heart trouble. No word yet on the cardinal’s status, though clearly this is serious enough for him to be removed from the conclave.”

  “That’s enough,” Donoher said.

  Grin muted the feed. “You did have an exciting session.”

  “Much more than I would have wished.”

  23

  Donoher displayed his identification to the security guards at the entrance to the cardiac care unit. Although most press members respected the needs of the patient and satisfied themselves with updates from the hospital’s public relations staff, there were some paparazzi who would employ any guise to get a photograph of a cardinal stricken ill during the conclave.

  Once stabilized in the emergency room, Gagliardi was admitted to the CICU—the cardiac intensive care unit. The nurse station was an island in the center surrounded by glass-walled patient rooms. Cleared to enter the unit, Donoher was led by the head nurse to where the Sicilian cardinal lay under careful observation.

  Through the glass, Donoher saw that Gagliardi was with another visitor—a man in his early forties who bore a strong resemblance to the Sicilian churchman, equally large-framed if much more physically fit. The man was talking on a cell phone.

  “If you’ll wait here a moment, Your Eminence,” the nurse said, “I must have a word with the cardinal’s other visitor.”

  Donoher could not hear the exchange, but the nurse was clearly irritated with the man’s use of a cell phone inside the hospital. Unrepentant, the man ended his call and slipped the phone into the pocket of his leather briefcase.

  “You may go in now,” the nurse told Donoher as she exited the room, satisfied that order had been restored.

  Gagliardi reclined in bed, his body connected by wires and tubes to a dozen different medical devices. He was still ashen and appeared old and frail. The cardinal’s other visitor leaned over him as Donoher entered the room.

  “Uncle, you have a visitor,” he said in a warm, friendly tone.

  Gagliardi opened his eyes and smiled weakly. Donoher wrapped his hands around one of Gagliardi’s—it felt cool and clammy.

  “It is very kind of you to come,” Gagliardi said, his voice a hoarse whisper filled with emotion, “especially at such a difficult time.”

  “Wasn’t it you who once told me that caring for the sick is more important than paperwork? The others would be here as well if they could, but I am the only one permitted to leave the area of the conclave. Know that their prayers are with you, my friend.”

  “I know, and mine are with them.” Gagliardi lifted his other hand feebly, pointing in the direction of the young man. “This is my nephew, Guglielmo Cusumano. He’s an antique book dealer here in Rome.”

  “An honor to meet you, Your Eminence,” Cusumano said before kissing Donoher’s ring. “My uncle speaks very highly of you.”

  “It is good of you to be here. Family is very important at times like this.”

  “Go finish that call to your mother,” Gagliardi suggested. “I believe the camerlengo and I have some matters to discuss privately.”

  Donoher nodded, and Cusumano took the hint. “I’ll be back in the morning, Uncle, in time to meet with your doctors.”

  “He is a good boy,” Gagliardi said, after Cusumano departed.

  “What have your doctors told you?”

  “Nothing I haven’t heard before
. A lifetime of bad habits has finally caught up with me. The doctors are still running tests, but apparently three more arteries in my heart are blocked. Had the doctors not been standing by outside the chapel, I would now be dead.”

  “Then perhaps it’s not your time.”

  “That remains to be seen. The last time they opened my chest, the surgeon offered me a lifetime guarantee on his work. At this moment, I am not comforted. The message from His Holiness was quite a surprise.”

  “To us all,” Donoher agreed.

  “Can you get Yin out of China?”

  “I believe our chances are very good.”

  “When?”

  “It could be as early as tomorrow.”

  Gagliardi paused, momentarily lost in thought. “Do you think Yin would make a good pope?”

  “Having never met the man, I honestly don’t know. But His Holiness found him worthy of being a cardinal, if only in his heart, so I suppose that means he’s as capable as any of us. In truth, I don’t think it’s an issue.”

  “But Yin received the second highest number of votes, almost a tie with Magni.”

  “Yet neither was even close to being elected. I don’t know how to read the votes for Yin. Were they sympathy or a sign? The real test will come in the next ballots, which, sadly, I have to return to prepare for. Before I go, do you wish to be anointed?”

  “I do,” Gagliardi replied.

  Donoher draped a stole across his shoulders, then placed a small vial and a golden pyx on the table beside Gagliardi’s bed. The vial contained the oil of the infirm from Saint Peter’s Basilica and the pyx—a thin, coin-shaped vessel—held Holy Communion.

  With hands folded and head bowed, Donoher began, “In the name of the Father . . . ”

  24

  BEIJING, CHINA October 29

  Xiyuan, the site of the Summer Palace, was once in the countryside northwest of the imperial capital, separated from it by an expanse of farms and wilderness. Urban sprawl over the past sixty years had consumed much of that open land, erasing the separate sense of place Xiyuan once enjoyed. The sphere of the Beijing metropolitan area fully encompassed the garden campus of the Ministry of State Security, rendering Tian Yi’s ride into the central city paved and urban.

  The Chinese spymaster stared absently at the lights of Beijing as his driver sped down the broad avenues toward the center of the capital. A steady stream of cars flowed along the city’s main arteries despite the late hour, and towering cranes populated the rapidly changing skyline like a flock of wading birds hovering over a river teeming with fish. Floodlights illuminated the slender structures, the glow evidence of night workers toiling to complete a century of civic construction in a few short years. In China, live cranes were a sign of good luck. Tian Yi wondered what kind of luck the giant steel cranes would bring.

  The driver turned on to Xichangan Jie, heading east toward Tiananmen Square, the symbolic heart of China. Ahead on the left, Tian saw the southern portion of the massive red walls that enclosed a two-square-kilometer compound of Zhongnanhai. The compound took its name from the two small lakes contained within its walls, though most in China thought of it as the Sea Palaces. From its origin as an imperial pleasure park during the Jin dynasty, the region of rolling hills and lakes immediately west of the Forbidden City evolved from a place of leisure for residents of the imperial court, filled with pavilions and gardens, into the seat of power for the Communist ruling elite. In 1949, Zhongnanhai became China’s Kremlin.

  Near the center of its length, the southern wall angled away from the road, receding to form a forecourt in front of an ornate two-story structure with a columned facade and a traditional red tile roof. The eighteenth-century Emperor Qianlong built the Precious Moon Tower—as the Xinhuamen (New China) Gate was originally known—as a gift for his homesick concubine.

  As his driver turned into the guarded forecourt, Tian saw two large red signs emblazoned with white characters on the walls flanking the gate.

  LONG LIVE THE GREAT COMMUNIST PARTY OF CHINA!

  LONG LIVE THE INVINCIBLE THOUGHTS OF MAO ZEDONG!

  The guards verified Tian’s appointment and permitted his driver

  to proceed. Inside the gate, Tian saw a third sign—

  SERVE THE PEOPLE.

  As the driver followed the narrow road around the southern lake, Tian thought of the slogans at the gate and recalled Yin Daoming’s exhortation to the audience in the Beijing theater. Mao famously said that all political power grows out of the barrel of a gun, yet the very real threat of death did not cow Yin or his fellow Roman Catholics.

  How many communists, Tian mused, would sing the praises of the illustrious Mao while being immolated for refusing to denounce the party?

  The car entered an area northwest of the southern lake called Fengzeyuan (Garden of Plenty). There, guards on night patrol directed Tian’s driver to a parking space near a small pavilion that dated to the Qing dynasty. A large contingent of armed men near the building served to alert Tian that the premier was already inside waiting for him.

  A soldier opened the car door and saluted as Tian stepped out. A man in his late fifties, Tian was of average height with a trim build and a lean face with a smooth pate of lightly freckled skin stretched taut over the uneven topography of his skull.

  The pavilion doors opened for Tian as he approached them and closed once he was inside. Premier Wen Lequan sat in a high-backed chair carefully watching Tian. A thickset man in his mid-sixties, the premier was an electrical engineer who rose through the party ranks before taking the reins of the world’s most populous nation four years earlier.

  Seated beside Wen were President Chong Jiyun and Minister Fu Yushan of the Ministry of Justice. Chong, a thin bookish man, was an economist and the architect of the country’s two-system approach wedding communist politics with capitalist economics. Fu tackled the equally daunting task of modernizing the nation’s legal code and processes for administering justice. Trim and athletic, the fifty-three-year-old Fu was the youngest man in the room. His quick political rise was attributed in equal parts to his brilliant legal mind and fiery personality.

  Facing three of China’s most powerful figures was an empty chair. “Minister Tian,” Wen said, pronouncing the name with great formality, “please sit.”

  Tian did as the premier instructed, his expression betraying no emotion despite the attention now directed at him. He gazed past the three men and focused instead on the exquisite brushwork in a painting of the Qutang Gorge hanging on the far wall.

  “Throughout your many years of service to our country,” Wen said, “you have cultivated a reputation as a man of reason and thoughtful, considered action. What most urgent matter has arisen that requires the immediate attention of me and my esteemed comrades?”

  “Premier Wen, President Chong, Minister Fu,” Tian began, nodding respectfully to each man in turn, “I believe the sovereignty of our nation has been violated by forces of Western aggression.”

  “Please explain,” Wen said.

  “A few hours ago, we received a message from our chief of station in Rome. The Vatican has set in motion an effort to extract a prisoner from the laogai in Chifeng and remove him from the country.”

  “Which prisoner?” Fu demanded.

  “Yin Daoming, the Roman Catholic bishop of Shanghai.”

  Tian saw Wen tense slightly at the name.

  “The Vatican?” Chong mused softly. “Are they not now leaderless?”

  “Yes, and that I believe is the reason behind this provocative action. In a recorded message, Pope Leo himself revealed the plot to his cardinals—the men who are now meeting in secret to select a new leader. This message also revealed that Pope Leo secretly named Bishop Yin a cardinal and asked that he be considered by the committee as the next pope.”

  “Incredible,” Fu said. “Would they even consider selecting Yin?”

  “My information indicates he is one of the top candidates.”

  “History often
acts with a keen sense of irony,” Wen offered.

  “How so, Premier Wen?” Fu asked.

  “I was raised in Shanghai Province, in a small village just outside the city—the same village as Yin Daoming. We attended the same school, so I knew him. I remember Yin as a good student and difficult competitor. We were not friends, but we respected each other. There was an old man in our village—a recluse who many believed could glimpse the future. One summer day, I was swimming with Yin and a group of boys in a small lake. We were racing, and Yin and I were ahead of the others when we reached the far shore. There, we encountered the old man standing in the shade of a willow by the water’s edge. We were young, perhaps twelve, and the old man was a frightening figure. He stared at us for a moment, then said, ‘One of you will rule, the other will lead.’”

  “Yin is in prison because he leads a dangerous cult,” Fu said. “He should have been executed years ago.”

  “Perhaps,” Chong said, “but martyrs are more dangerous than prisoners. And once made, they cannot be unmade. If the agents of the Vatican know where Yin is, can we not simply move him?”

  “That may not be sufficient,” Tian answered. “The information we received was provided by our Italian partners. They view the appearance of Yin as a contender for the leadership of the Vatican as a threat to our mutual interests. They correctly recognize Yin as an internal matter and request that we resolve it quickly and quietly before it can negatively impact our business relationship.”

  Tian did not have to elaborate. Everyone in the room knew of Beijing’s clandestine involvement in the arms and drug trade through the Ministry of State Security. The premier considered Tian’s report and the opinions of Chong and Fu.

  “I do not like the idea of killing Yin Daoming, but I recognize the danger he poses to China. Our society is undergoing a great transformation, and in questioning their faith in the party, the people are vulnerable to subversive influences. If the agents of the Vatican succeed in taking Yin out of China, he will be far more troublesome than the Dalai Lama. If we move Yin, do you think the Vatican will continue trying to free him?”