The Secret Cardinal (19 page)

“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?”

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.