The Secret Cardinal

11

Jackson Barnett pressed the button for the seventh floor, an action repeated so many times it no longer required conscious thought — which was good, as he was concerned with a difficult problem. The Director of Central Intelligence (DCI) knew the agency’s activities in nations hostile to the United States carried an element of risk to the men and women involved. Nothing saddened Barnett more than the somber convocations held in the cavernous lobby, where he unveiled new additions to the constellation of black stars chiseled into the white marble wall. The stars represented the CIA’s honored dead.

The doors slid open, and Barnett headed purposefully toward his office.

‘Is the link set up?’ Barnett asked as he approached the desk of his assistant, Sally Kirsch.

‘They’re waiting for you now,’ Kirsch replied.

Entering his office, Barnett’s eyes immediately darted to the flat rectangular display mounted on his wall. The conversation between the two people pictured there ceased as soon as he walked into view of the camera mounted atop the screen. On the right half of the split image sat Kilkenny, likely in the same Vatican conference room from which Donoher had spoken to the President a few hours earlier. Kilkenny looked tired and a bit disheveled in a sweatshirt and jeans, though Barnett had seen him in far worse condition on several occasions over the past few years.

Beside Kilkenny — virtually, though in reality in a MARC conference room in Ann Arbor, Michigan — sat a beautiful young woman with long black hair and almond eyes. Roxanne Tao was dressed impeccably in a tailored suit. Barnett knew her to be a professional who went to great lengths to look and act the part. Pinned to Tao’s lapel was a gold Chinese character representing the word Qi — the name of the CIA-backed venture-capital firm she represented in Ann Arbor.

‘Good morning, Roxanne,’ Barnett said, his South Carolina baritone rich with warmth. ‘I hope this impromptu meeting didn’t disrupt your day too much.’

‘Nothing that can’t be rescheduled,’ Tao replied.

‘Good evening, Nolan.’

Kilkenny acknowledged the DCI’s perfunctory greeting with a nod as he sipped on a Diet Coke. Barnett set his briefcase down beside the desk but remained standing. A prosecutor before embarking on a long and distinguished career with the agency, Barnett found he did some of his best thinking on his feet.

‘Has Nolan briefed you on his latest project?’ Barnett asked Tao.

‘No, we were just catching up. It sounds as if things are a little crazy in Rome right now.’

‘I have no doubt an element of madness is at work.’

Kilkenny eyed Barnett curiously as he spoke. Donoher had warned him that the DCI was less than enthusiastic about liberating Yin.

‘I am just now returning from the White House,’ Barnett continued, speaking directly to Tao, ‘where the President and I had a most interesting conversation with Cardinal Donoher. As you may or may not know, the cardinal was responsible for hiring Nolan as a consultant to the Vatican. Following the Pope’s death, Cardinal Donoher assumed stewardship of the Vatican City State and the Holy See. The subject of our conversation was a Roman Catholic Bishop and Chinese dissident named Yin Daoming. Do you know of Bishop Yin?’

‘To many in China, Bishop Yin is a heroic figure, a man of great courage and honor,’ Tao replied. ‘That he is imprisoned is a crime.’

‘Until a few days ago, I’m sad to say I’d never heard of Bishop Yin,’ Kilkenny admitted.

‘It’s not surprising,’ Tao said. ‘He is little known outside of China, and in China his name is mentioned only with great discretion.’

‘Nolan, would you care to illuminate Roxanne on what you’ve been working on for the Vatican?’ Barnett asked.

‘I’m going to get Bishop Yin out of China, and I’d like your help.’

‘Of course,’ Tao replied. ‘What do you need me to do?’

‘You spent a lot of time in China — I need your experience. I also need to procure some items over there, so if you still have any contacts that you trust, I need them too. And once our team is in place, I’ve got the role of a lifetime for you to play.’

‘I’m certain Nolan wouldn’t ask you to set foot in China if he had any idea of the risk it poses to you and to his mission,’ Barnett said to Tao. ‘And since I have been ordered to provide covert support for this venture, I feel compelled to make full disclosure about your past work in China.’ Barnett turned to Kilkenny. ‘You already possess the appropriate security clearance for this information, Nolan, and now you have the need to know. Roxanne, tell him.’

As Tao collected her thoughts, Barnett sat down in a brown leather chair, careful to remain in the camera’s field of view.

‘In the eight years prior to my arrival in Ann Arbor, I was a deep-cover agent for the CIA in Beijing. I was, in the parlance of my profession, an illegal. I had no papers, no diplomatic immunity, no status as a U.S. citizen. If caught, I would have been tried for espionage and, after a thorough interrogation, executed. Those were the rules governing my existence.

‘For eight years, I was native Chinese. During that time, I built several cells of agents in various government ministries and businesses. My agents produced volumes of intelligence on the actions and intentions of Beijing, information that even led to the disruption of a network of Chinese agents working in the United States.

‘In China, I also built a personal life and formed relationships with many people who played no part in my work. I even fell in love and was engaged to be married. I became the person I pretended to be, lived the role as if I’d been born to it, as if Roxanne Tao of California was a fiction and Chen Mei Yue of Beijing was real. In living with the fear that the government could arrest me at any time, I was no different from most ordinary Chinese. The people of China have lived for thousands of years with a government-induced form of paranoia.

‘I spent most of my last year in China on the run, my cover blown, my Chinese life in ruins. Many of my cells were exposed, my agents arrested and killed. Some sacrificed themselves to ensure my escape. A few of my people remain in place, dormant, living in dread that the next knock at the door will either be the police, or perhaps me.’

Kilkenny studied Tao as she spoke and sensed equal amounts of anguish and relief. The rules of secrecy with which she lived meant that eight years of her life had to be kept separate, repressed in her memory as something she didn’t truly own and could never admit to possessing.

‘The very success of Roxanne’s operation in China set the stage for her undoing,’ Barnett added. ‘The Chinese knew something was afoot but had no way to gauge the extent. So, being well versed in the teachings of Sun Tsu, they found an inward spy here at Langley who accepted their generosity in exchange for information. The career of the gentleman in question as a mole didn’t last long enough to spend even a fraction of his ill-gotten wealth, but the damage he caused in human terms was immense.

‘Chen Mei Yue is a known spy of the United States. The Chinese have photographs of her, fingerprints, probably even DNA because she fled her apartment just moments ahead of the police, leaving everything behind. Chen is a wanted fugitive, and the Chinese are still looking for her. Asking Roxanne to return to China is tantamount to asking her to commit suicide.’

‘Nonetheless, I’m going,’ Tao declared.

‘I can’t ask you to do that,’ Kilkenny said.

‘You can’t ask me to remain behind, either,’ Tao countered. ‘Not now that I know what you’re after. It may be a danger for me to go, but how much more of a danger is it for you to go without me?’

‘Roxanne,’ Barnett said, ‘I caution you against returning.’

‘I’m going in surrounded by a team of meat eaters,’ Kilkenny added, ‘all big boys who can handle themselves if the merde hits the ventilateur électrique. You don’t have to go.’

‘Yes, I do.’

‘Why?’ Kilkenny asked softly.

‘My fiancé was an underground Roman Catholic. I was the spy, and yet Ming kept his secret from me for years. At first, he hid his faith to protect himself, but as our relationship grew he maintained the secret to protect me. Eventually we shared our secrets and planned to have our marriage blessed by a priest. I was raised a Christian but was never very religious until I fell in love with this man. When my cover was blown, Ming hid me in the community of his underground church. He could have saved himself, in fact I urged him to, but in the end he died to protect me.

‘What I learned from Ming and the others who sheltered me when I was on the run was the fierce loyalty the Roman Catholics in China have toward one another. I asked Ming why this was so, and he said it was Bishop Yin. Yin stayed with his people when he could have fled. He lived the words he preached. Ming followed that example, and I am alive because of his sacrifice.’ Tao’s eyes brimmed with tears as she dredged through her store of memories. ‘In any other case, I would agree with you both about the dangers of my returning to China, but for Ming and the others who saved my life, I must do this.’

As Tao spoke, Kilkenny recalled her boundless support in the days after his wife and son died. Family and friends offered heartfelt sympathy, of course, but in hindsight only Tao seemed to comprehend the depth of his grief and anger. What he had assumed was tremendous empathy he now realized was a wound they shared in common.

‘I see there will be no dissuading you,’ Barnett conceded, ‘so we must do everything possible to keep you off Beijing’s radar.’