The Secret Cardinal

by Tom Grace

  Tian nodded. “They are a patient foe with a long memory. I do not see them easily abandoning the course they have chosen.”

  “We cannot permit Yin to be set free, and death seems the only way to ensure this,” Wen decided. “Minister Fu, please draft the order for the execution of Yin Daoming. Minister Tian, have one of your men deliver the order to Chifeng and serve as witness that it is carried out.”

  “What of the Vatican agents?” Tian asked.

  “I leave that investigation to you. I expect they will disperse once word of Yin’s execution is known. If any are found, they are to be killed.”

  25

  CHIFENG, CHINA October 29

  Kilkenny and Grin found no evidence of monitoring devices inside the cells at Chifeng Prison during their forays through the facility’s computer network. This didn’t disprove the existence of surveillance equipment—only that no such devices were tied into the network. Kilkenny’s next move would reveal if his cell was equipped with anything that operated offline.

  Confident that the prison had resumed normal operations since his unscheduled arrival, Kilkenny sat cross-legged on the floor and went to work on the hems of his uniform. While sequestered in the yurt, Kilkenny had practiced unraveling the seams in the dark. At first, the task was frustratingly difficult, but he eventually got the knack of un-tying the knotted threads to open the seams. He had considered using strips of Velcro but decided the added thickness made the pair of smuggler pouches too obvious.

  He extracted a small headset from the first pouch. Two thin wires branched out from a small foam earpiece—one bendable, the other loose. Kilkenny inserted the earpiece in his left ear, the rhythmic throb of his pulse providing the kinetic energy to power the device. He adjusted the first wire so that it wrapped around his temple to suspend a tiny heads-up display screen an inch in front of his left eye. The screen, a thin wafer of transparent plastic, was the size of a small postage stamp. Kilkenny licked the end of the second wire—the adhesive was bitter—and fixed a tiny microphone against his throat.

  From the second pouch, Kilkenny retrieved a small plastic cylinder about the size of a nine-millimeter shell casing. With his thumbnail, he peeled off the top to expose the cylinder’s hollow interior. He had first learned about microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) when the consortium he worked for became involved with a start-up firm in Ann Arbor that sprang out of the engineering research labs at the University of Michigan.

  Carefully packed inside the cylinder was one of the latest miracles of miniaturized electronics: the Fly. The device bore little resemblance to early prototypes, a testament to the great strides made in the young technology in just a few years. MEMS came in as many shapes and sizes as their large-scale mechanical ancestors, and the Fly was the smallest and most advanced breed of micro air vehicle (MAV).

  “Activate,” Kilkenny whispered.

  The throat mike captured the vibration of his vocal cords and transmitted the command to an object inside the cylinder. The tiny screen hanging in front of Kilkenny’s eye flickered and glowed light green, showing the interior of the cylinder. Its walls tapered forward like a tunnel toward a circular opening.

  “Take the field.”

  The Fly released its hold on the sides of the cylinder and crawled through the tunnel toward the opening. It stepped onto Kilkenny’s hand looking very much like a large deerfly. Its creators even programmed in several flylike maneuvers for the sake of realism.

  “Begin search.”

  The Fly lifted off from Kilkenny’s hand, its wings perfectly mimicking the stroke and tempo of its namesake in flight, buzzing as it orbited the cell. It slipped through the small ventilation grille in the wall into a filthy section of ductwork and out into the corridor. Before leaving for China, Kilkenny and Grin had loaded a crude model of the prison’s solitary-confinement wing into the Fly’s memory. Using visual clues in the corridor, the device determined where it was and began a cell-by-cell search, starting with the one next to Kilkenny’s. The Fly landed on the ceiling and panned the room with its night-vision eyes.

  “Hold image.”

  The fly stopped panning. Kilkenny’s neighbor lay curled up on the floor.

  “Grid.”

  The image on the eye screen divided into nine squares.

  “Enlarge A-3.”

  The square in the upper right corner grew to fill the entire screen as the Fly zoomed in on the man’s face. The prisoner was young, no older than his mid-twenties.

  “Move on.”

  The Fly wriggled through the vent and flew through the ductwork to the next cell. Kilkenny continued the process, discovering that the cells were either empty or occupied by men too young to be Yin Daoming.

  Two hours into the search, the Fly entered one of the few remaining cells at the far end of the corridor. Inside sat a man older than those Kilkenny had seen thus far but strangely ageless in appearance. Unlike the others who slept or fidgeted nervously, this man sat upright like a cross-legged Buddha. His eyes were closed, but Kilkenny knew he was awake because he was softly reciting something.

  “Enhance B-1.”

  The Fly’s camera focused in on the man’s shoulder.

  “Target site. Land.”

  The Fly orbited the room a few times before alighting on the man’s shoulder. His voice was barely above a whisper but detectable. Kilkenny could hear his words.

  “—benedictus fructus ventris tui lesus. Santa Maria, Mater Dei, ora pro nobis peccatoribus, nunc, et in hora mortis nostrae. Amen.”

  Definitely not Chinese, Kilkenny realized.

  “Ave Maria, gratia, Dominustecum.”

  “Hail Mary, full of grace,” Kilkenny translated in a whisper.

  Kilkenny realized from the cadence of the voice that the man was saying the rosary. After two more Hail Marys, the man completed the decade and began to recite the Lord’s Prayer.

  “Pater noster, qui es in caelis, sanctificetur nomen tuum. Adveniat regnum tuum. Fiat voluntas tua, sicut in caelo et in terra—”

  Kilkenny knew the Latin versions of these prayers because both his parents and grandparents had been raised with the Latin mass in use before the landmark Vatican II changes. The old invocations were both familiar and timeless.

  “—Panem nostrum quotidianum da nobis hodie, et dimitte nobis debita nostra sicut et nos dimittimus debitoribus nostris. Et ne nos inducas in tentationem, sed libera nos a malo. Amen.”

  “Speaker on.” Kilkenny commanded. A microphone-shaped icon appeared in the lower corner of his screen. “—but deliver us from evil. Amen,” he whispered into his throat mike.

  The man was silent. Perhaps he didn’t hear the Fly’s transmission, Kilkenny thought.

  Then, “Who is there?” The man spoke softly in halting English.

  Kilkenny’s pulse quickened. There can be only one man in this prison who knows Latin and English.

  “A friend. Are you Yin Daoming?”

  “I am,” Yin said softly.

  “Peter sent me. Your request for deliverance from evil has been granted.”

  26

  BEIJING, CHINA

  Liu Shing-Li’s eyes fluttered open with the first trill of his cell phone. His hand was on the device before it could ring a second time.

  “Liu,” he answered clearly without any hint of the dreamless sleep that enveloped him just seconds earlier.

  A woman lay on the bed beside him, her body tangled in the sheets, felled by exhaustion. He couldn’t remember her name, not that it mattered. He assumed it was a professional alias, no different from the one he’d given her or the ones he employed in his line of work. In that way, their professions were similar. Both Liu and the prostitute treated personas as wardrobe, to be worn and discarded as circumstance required—an occupational form of schizophrenia.

  “I’m on my way.” He ended the call.

  He showered, dressed, and was out of the hotel room in less than ten minutes, and through it all, the woman did not stir. He did not
consider the previous evening’s entertainment lovemaking. Rather, it was sexual calisthenics. Sex was a physical pleasure in its own right and, to Liu’s way of thinking, not to be complicated with emotion. This detached approach to commingling required increasingly exotic techniques to invigorate his libido.

  At this hour, still well before dawn, the drive to the capital’s western periphery went quickly. Of course, no traffic officer would consider stopping Liu’s car once he saw the special license-plate tag.

  Liu cleared the main security checkpoint and was admitted to the manicured grounds of the Ministry of State Security’s campus at Xiyuan. Like Langley and Lubyanka, the intelligence agency’s head-quarters took its name from the place it was located. Xiyuan meant Western Garden. Situated next to the former imperial Summer Palace, the facility boasted spectacular landscaping. The buildings, though modern in design, were distinctly Chinese and respectful of their ancient and illustrious neighbor.

  Liu strode purposefully through the ornate corridors of the wing occupied by the senior members of the ministry. He had no interest in the artifacts on display—to him they were merely cultural trophies, spoils to the victor.

  “Go in, please,” the executive assistant said, stifling a yawn as Liu entered the anteroom of the minister’s office suite. “He is expecting you.”

  The massive wooden door to Tian Yi’s office swung open silently and closed behind Liu with a barely audible click. Tian sat on a black leather sofa reading a file while sipping a cup of tea.

  “I am pleased you arrived so quickly,” Tian said without looking up from the file.

  “There were no delays on the way, Minister Tian.”

  “Good. Please sit.”

  Tian indicated a chair that faced him. Liu sat. Between the two men stood a low, black-lacquered table that held a tea service.

  “Tea?” Tian asked perfunctorily, his eyes still on the papers in the file.

  “Thank you,” Liu replied.

  Liu filled a porcelain cup with rich black tea and took in the slightly floral aroma. He sipped the hot brew and discovered a smooth, malty flavor with a hint of citrus. Golden Yunnan.

  “We have received a disturbing report from Rome. The dead pope secretly named Yin Daoming a cardinal of the foreign Catholic Church.”

  “We had always suspected as much.”

  “Yes, but he remained unnamed because the Vatican knew we would not allow it. Now that the pope is dead, what he kept secret died with him.”

  “Then Yin is no longer a cardinal, secret or otherwise?”

  “He never was,” Tian replied, “at least not in a way that posed a problem for us. But now he is something much more dangerous. According to Rome, Yin has become a papabile.”

  “Papabile?”

  “An Italian term for someone who might be elected pope.”

  Yin a pope? Liu questioned the proposition in his mind. He would have laughed had anyone other than the minister suggested it.

  “Why would they do such a thing?” Liu asked. “It’s madness.”

  “All religion is a form of madness, yet such an act might also be politically brilliant. The pope is not just the leader of a church but the ruler of a nation. If Yin became pope, he would cease to be a Chinese citizen in the eyes of most of the world. He would instead be a head of state and the spiritual leader of an international organization with as many followers as there are people in China.”

  “But what does that matter?” Liu asked dismissively. “Yin’s church has no military, and its billion followers are scattered all over the world.”

  “What you perceive as weakness can also be a strength,” Tian countered. “During the Second World War, Winston Churchill tried to persuade Josef Stalin on the advisability of an alliance with the Vatican. Stalin reportedly scoffed at the idea, asking rhetorically, How many divisions does the pope have? Stalin is dead and the Soviet Union is no more, yet the Vatican endures. The billion who follow the pope do so willingly. If Yin is elected pope, keeping him prisoner would be very dangerous for China.”

  “Yet we cannot let Yin Daoming go free.”

  “No,” Tian agreed. “The Vatican is aware of this fact too. The information from Rome also indicates that a clandestine effort is under way to take Yin out of the country.”

  “Then we should have him moved.”

  “Perhaps, but the transfer itself might also provide the opportunity for Yin to be taken. As you well know, millions of Chinese secretly share Yin’s religion. No doubt, many are also spies for the Vatican.”

  The conversation seemed like a game of Wei Ch’i to Liu, with the thrust of Tian’s moves narrowing the options on the board.

  “Yin’s situation is little known outside China, and that provides us with an opportunity to resolve this situation quietly.” Tian handed Liu the folder. “This authorization comes from Premier Wen himself.”

  Liu smiled as he read the execution order—a document he wished had come to him in August. “I will see to it personally.”

  “And if you discover anything out of the ordinary, take care of it as well. I don’t believe anyone you discover illegally inside our borders will be missed.”

  27

  CHIFENG, CHINA

  The door to Kilkenny’s cell rolled open, a pair of guards rushed inside, and the beating began. Kilkenny curled himself into a ball to protect his head and chest, letting his back and legs absorb the brunt of the assault. His attackers alternated between jabbing kicks and lash strokes with flexible plastic canes.

  Kilkenny deliberately kept his breathing shallow, exhaling sharply in between blows. He felt blood pulsing from ruptured vessels into the traumatized layers of his skin and bruises knotting deep within his muscles. Stricken nerves fired signals of alarm to Kilkenny’s brain until he could no longer identify distinct points of injury. Pain was everywhere. Then, as quickly as it started, the violence ceased.

  Someone was shouting angrily at the guards who had beaten him. Kilkenny couldn’t understand the Chinese words, but the tone and tenor were unmistakable. He stole a glance at the source of his reprieve, and through watery eyes saw a figure silhouetted in the doorway.

  The guards manhandled Kilkenny as they shackled his wrists and ankles, and cursed at him violently when they stood him up and his battered legs threatened to buckle beneath him. Again, the officer barked an order and the guards complied. They held Kilkenny upright as the officer stepped into the dark cell and covered his head with a black bag. Kilkenny was half-walked, half-dragged from his cell and down the corridor.

  Despite having familiarized himself with the prison layout, Kilkenny quickly became disoriented during the quick march through the facility. He lost count of the doors they passed through, but knew immediately that the last one had led outside. The sound of trucks and machinery and voices filled the air—the prison far more active than when he had arrived in the middle of the night.

  Gravel crunched underfoot as the march continued. Kilkenny heard crows cawing overhead. The march suddenly stopped. A voice grunted an order, and the guards holding Kilkenny’s arms pushed him down on his knees.

  Kilkenny heard a rustle of paper, and a voice began to speak with the official tones of a pronouncement. Whatever the meaning, Kilkenny did not like the sound of it. When the speaker finished, he gave another order.

  Again, footsteps crunched in the gravel, though off to Kilkenny’s side. He heard what sounded in tone like a question, though directed at someone else. What startled him was the reply.

  “As the Lord has forgiven me,” Yin said clearly in English, “so I forgive you.”

  Yin’s words were followed by the sound of a muffled gunshot and a body falling to the ground.

  Someone tugged at the hood covering Kilkenny’s head, pushing his chin down to his chest. Through the bunched folds of the cloth, he felt the barrel of a pistol press against the base of his skull. Among the flurry of thoughts running through his head, Kilkenny imagined the Chinese government trying to bill
his father for the bullet and the response they would receive.

  As if in slow motion, the sounds of the pistol mechanism vibrated against his skull. Because of his long experience with firearms, he could visualize the trigger bar drawing forward, pivoting the safety lever to allow the firing pin to move while at the same time releasing the hammer. The hammer then struck the firing pin, ramming it into the primer at the base of the chambered round.

  It all took scarcely a second. The shock wave emanating like a thunderclap from the guard’s QSZ-92 nine-millimeter pistol reached Kilkenny’s eardrums just as he felt the impact against the back of his head. He saw stars in the darkness of the hood, then nothing. Kilkenny’s legs buckled and he lifelessly fell to the ground.

  28

  “I am honored by your visit,” Zhong said, greeting Liu Shing-Li with the deference reserved for an important visitor from Beijing.

  The warden of Chifeng Prison was a stocky man whose once thickly muscled body had softened over time. He stood a full head shorter than Liu, his pate smooth and hairless by choice rather than genetics—lice thrived inside the prison, and the warden feared a personal infestation. Liu returned Zhong’s bow, though with less formality.

  “And I at your receiving me on such short notice. I hope my unannounced arrival is not inconvenient for you. The nature of my visit requires discretion.”

  Zhong assumed from Liu’s polite words that the Ministry of State Security felt it was either unwise or unnecessary to inform him of this visit. He hoped the latter was the case. He motioned Liu to a small circular conference table and sat opposite him.

  “Would you care for some tea?”

  “No, thank you,” Liu replied with a hint of boredom at the obligatory pleasantries. In situations like these, he envied the directness of Americans.

  “How may I be of service to you?” Zhong asked.

  Liu opened his briefcase and extracted from it the thin packet of documents he received from Minister Tian. “The Supreme People’s Court has ordered that the death sentence on one of your prisoners be implemented without further delay.”