The Secret Cardinal (42 page)

“They were,” Tian replied.

“Then explain the situation to them in terms they will understand. What is at stake here is far more valuable to them than a safe place to launder their money. The billions they earn each year from trade in Chinese opium and weapons are at risk. When Yin reaches Rome, he must die.”

67

ROME

Cusumano climbed aboard the caboose with five workmen. He was dressed in boots and worn gray coveralls with a laminated photo ID clipped to his breast pocket. He carried a dark green sports bag slung over one shoulder with a tall metal thermos protruding from the top of the bag.

The caboose was at the end of a three-car train attached to a small steam locomotive. The engine was something of an anachronism compared with modern high-speed diesel electric engines and magnetic-levitation trains, but the tiny engine was well suited to this particular journey and seemed an appropriate nod to a more elegant era. The train sat on a siding at the Stazione San Pietro under a gray sky, and Cusumano watched tiny droplets of rain streak down the grimy windows of the caboose.

With a lurch, the ancient locomotive began to move. It was, as usual, behind schedule. The tracks it followed ran northwest from the station, parallel to Via Innocenzo III and just outside the protective walls that surrounded the medieval city of Rome.

Cusumano sat quietly, doing little to draw the attention of his fellow passengers. There was no regular crew for this run; the station manager simply selected however many men were needed to unload the freight once they reached their destination. Fortunately for Cusumano, this train was scheduled to run today.

The sky outside matched the Sicilian's mood. Earlier that afternoon, he received an unexpected visit at his bookshop from Mr. Chin. Their meeting was brief and to the point. Yin had escaped from China and was en route to Rome. In a reverse of their first meeting, Chin told
Cusumano that it was now the mafia's responsibility to deal with Yin. Failure to do so, Chin implied, would have more than a deleterious effect on their business relationship. The mafia dons conspiring with Gagliardi had decided the matter quickly, and Cusumano—due in equal parts to reputation, current involvement, and immediate availability—found himself pressed again into service as an assassin on an almost impossible assignment. In the parlance of Mario Puzo's
The Godfather,
the dons made Cusumano an offer he couldn't refuse.

A kilometer out of the station, the train veered to the right on a spur built by Mussolini as part of the Lateran pacts of 1929 between the Holy See and the kingdom of Italy. The locomotive moved slowly along the track, as there was little point in building speed for a journey of a few kilometers.

A loud whistle blast announced the train as it neared the twelve-meter-high Leonine Walls surrounding the Vatican. The iron gates that secured an arched opening in the wall slowly pivoted open. As it passed through the wall, the train crossed the border from Italy into the sovereign state of Vatican City. The section of track ahead was only 862 meters long—the shortest national railroad in the world. Once the train was inside, the gates closed behind it.

At the end of the line stood papal architect Giuseppe Momo's candy-colored Vatican railroad station, a building clad in green, pink, and yellow marble and adorned with sculptures by Eduardo Rubino. Though conceived as a place where the pope could greet arriving dignitaries, the station was rarely used to serve passengers, and its high-ceilinged gallery had become an ornate storage room. During his many visits with his uncle, Cusumano could not recall ever setting foot inside the station. Gagliardi had snidely dismissed the building as an overdone warehouse and bypassed it in favor of the Vatican's more interesting sites.

The train pulled up to the station, and Cusumano followed his fellow workmen out onto the platform. The rain had slowed to a drizzle, and the workmen, armed with hand trucks from the station, began unloading the freight cars. Much of what they brought into the Vatican was destined for the souvenir stands and duty-free shops. A clerk kept track of the boxes as they were brought into the station, logging each
against the manifest, and all the activity occurred under the watchful eyes of a pair of Swiss Guards dressed in blue uniforms.

During a break, Cusumano sat inside the station quietly drinking espresso from his thermos. He listened as his fellow laborers speculated with the engine crew and the Vatican clerk about what might be happening inside the Sistine Chapel. News reports indicated that the conclave had remained locked in session since that morning. Three times today, black smoke spiraled from the chimney flue.

The workers took their time after the break, extending the job to the end of their shift with the hope of being inside the Vatican when, God willing, the new pope was elected. The boxes slowly disappeared until, at last, Cusumano trucked in the final load.

As the clerk locked the station, Cusumano and the other men boarded the caboose. He sat alone in the front corner of the car where he had left his bag.

“
Stu cazzo!
” Cusumano cursed. “My thermos leaked all over my bag.”

Two of the workmen laughed at his misfortune; the others sat back with their eyes closed. Cusumano pulled a handkerchief from his breast pocket and slipped his hands inside the bag as if to wipe up the spill. The tall metal thermos contained three chambers, of which only the uppermost contained coffee. Cusumano had used the other two to smuggle weapons through security at the railway station. He deftly unscrewed the bottom of his thermos and carefully removed the contents of the bottom chamber. Piece by piece, the Beretta Px4 pistol took shape as he swiftly reassembled it—a procedure he could accomplish blindfolded in seconds.

The whistle blasted a long tone, then the train shuddered and began to roll. Cusumano kept an eye on the two Swiss Guards through the side window as he attached the laser sight and, last, fitted the silencer into place. The rumble of the train obscured the sound of the twenty-round magazine clicking into place. As soon as the Vatican personnel on the station platform were out of view, he stood and opened fire on the laborers.

Cusumano murdered the men with five quick, expertly placed shots. He slipped the pistol back into his bag, opened the rear door of
the caboose, and leaped from the slow-moving train. His feet slipped in the moist gravel, but he kept his balance and stepped away from the rails. The freight cars screened Cusumano as he pulled himself over a short retaining wall and into a secluded corner of the Vatican Gardens. By the time the iron gates in the wall closed, he had concealed himself in the dense foliage where he would wait for Yin's arrival.

68

The chartered Alitalia flight was outfitted like the presidential suite of a luxury hotel, and the four weary travelers were fed well and had all their needs attended to. The aircraft made its final descent into Rome's Leonardo da Vinci—Ciampino airport just before ten o'clock in the evening. It had been overcast and rainy in the Eternal City most of the day, but the skies cleared at sunset and the heavens were full of stars. Yin slept through much of the long flight, but when the pilot announced their impending arrival, he woke and stared down at the city, catching his first glimpse of the illuminated dome of Saint Peter's.

As a bishop, Yin was required to visit the Vatican every five years to report on the state of his diocese. Due to his incarceration, it was a trip he never made. Now, Yin anticipated at long last fulfilling his episcopal duty. Since he would be unable to return to his See in China, he wondered what new assignment might be offered.

Heavenly Father
, Yin prayed,
I ask only for a small parish in need of a priest.

After landing, the aircraft taxied past the international terminal and pulled directly into a large hangar used by the airline to service its fleet. After the hangar doors were closed, the passengers and their Swiss Guard escort deplaned in privacy.

Tao, Gates, and Han stepped down the gangway, each wearing a new suit of clothes—a tailor on board customized the fit during the long flight from India. The tailor had also brought enough suits to outfit another eight men. Yin wore a new black cassock piped in amaranth red, with Ke Li's cross displayed openly on his chest.

As they waited for a car, Tao stepped over to the tailor's rack and looked at the collection of unused suits. She found a garment bag tagged with Kilkenny's name and zipped it open. Inside, she found a classic wool pinstripe suit with a double-breasted jacket.

“What's that?” Gates asked.

“Nolan's suit. He would have looked good in it,” Tao suddenly choked back a sob. “I can't believe I'm already talking about him like he's gone.”

“That's the bitch about not knowing,” Gates offered. “But I'm not giving up on him, not with all he and I have been through. And if I have to go back into China to get him out, I'll do it.”

Tao embraced Gates and kissed his cheek. “If that's what it takes, I'm going with you.”

An airport shuttle pulled into the hangar. The travelers boarded it and were transported to a section of the airfield reserved for private planes and helicopters. There they boarded a gleaming white Sikorsky S-92 bearing the Vatican coat of arms.

 

 

LUCIANO PAPIRI NURSED A DRINK in the satellite terminal serving international flights. From his seat by the window, he had watched the Alitalia flight land and taxi out to the service buildings without stopping at the terminal. Now, as the Vatican helicopter lifted off, he pulled out his cell phone and selected a preprogrammed number.

“Yes,” Cusumano answered.

“You guessed right. They just took off.”

“Good.”

Papiri ended the call, paid his tab, and left the bar.

 

 

THE SIKORSKY RACED OVER the Eternal City and, after a ten-minute flight, hovered above the far west bastion of the Vatican's medieval walls. The arrowhead-shaped projection of the Leonine Walls surrounded a flat expanse of ground that held two paved areas. Bypassing a smaller circular helipad set close to the tip of the arrowhead, the Sikorsky floated above the larger rectangular pad nearer the access road. This corner of the Vatican lay between the inner and outer walls and was dominated by the massive cylindrical form of Saint John's Tower.

The trees and bushes that lined the old walls rustled with the
downwash from the helicopter, shedding tiny droplets of water collected during the day. Cardinals Donoher and Velu sat inside the first of two sedans parked on the access road, both vehicles guarded by a pair of armed Swiss Guards.

 

 

CONCEALED BEHIND a thick grouping of trees and leafy shrubs that thrived alongside the medieval walls, Cusumano watched Yin's helicopter arrive. He was still dressed in sodden coveralls, but had added gloves and a balaclava to his disguise, the latter also soaked with perspiration and itchy. He had concealed himself in the remote copse hours earlier in expectation that Yin would be flown to the Vatican rather than driven—the roads leading to the city-state were packed with the faithful on vigil. When word came that Yin would indeed arrive by air, Cusumano was relieved. The Swiss Guards were on heightened alert in response to the discovery of the dead men in the caboose, and Cusumano knew they would be out in force near the conclave.

As the helicopter touched down, Cusumano gripped a pair of Chinese Type-86P grenades. He had hidden the weapons in the middle chamber of his thermos; they were black-market weapons the mafia profited from and now stood to lose if he didn't kill Yin. It infuriated him that the Chinese had failed to kill a man who had been their prisoner for decades. Now the ludicrous and dangerously suicidal task of killing the bishop inside the Vatican had fallen to him.

If I get out of this alive,
Cusumano thought,
the Chinese will have to pay me enough to buy a library of Gutenberg Bibles.

The main rotor slowed, and the helicopter door began to open. Cusumano glimpsed the passengers through the row of small windows that dotted the side of the helicopter, then saw the Swiss Guard stepping down the stair. Yin was the next figure in the doorway and the guard turned to help the bishop deplane. Cusumano rushed out into the clearing. As he ran, he popped the grenade pins with his thumbs, then pivoted his body and swung his right arm around for a side-arm throw to keep the weapon below the rotor blades.

Something bit sharply into Cusumano's left leg just as the grenade slipped from his fingertips. The fifty-caliber round drilled a one-inch
hole midthigh, ripping through flesh and muscle and shattering the bone. The damaged leg buckled immediately.

The grenade sailed through the air, its trajectory a low, flat arc toward the helicopter. Too low. It hit the ground short of the tarmac, the soft moist earth absorbing most of its kinetic energy. It rebounded with a weak hop and dribbled onto the tarmac, where the ovoid weapon rolled erratically like a fumbled football.

The guard at the foot of the stair spotted the masked figure running out of the shadows and turned back toward Yin. Looking over the bishop's shoulder, Tao saw the man too, wrapped her arms around Yin, and pulled him back from the opening.

Cusumano's first grenade detonated at the edge of the tarmac. The weapon's plastic shell all but vaporized with the blast, and sixteen hundred tiny steel balls blossomed out in all directions. The Sikorsky shuddered from the blast, but was distant enough to suffer no damage from the concussive force. Lethal shrapnel peppered the side of the helicopter, puncturing the thin metal skin. Dozens of fragments struck the Swiss Guardsman blocking the doorway, and he toppled forward into the aircraft.

Shifting his weight to his good leg, Cusumano reached back to hurl his remaining grenade. The sniper positioned atop Saint John's Tower fired a second fifty-caliber round from his AS50 rifle. The 660-grain ball projectile drilled through the center of Cusumano's chest. The Sicilian's heart exploded as fragments of lead and bone pureed everything within six inches of the entry point. The impact threw Cusumano onto his back, and he dropped the grenade as he fell. Seconds later, the weapon detonated in a spray of smoke and dirt, shredding the assassin's body.