The Secret Cardinal

2

This is where it ends, Liu thought as he stared at the front entry of the opulent Residence Barberini in the heart of Rome. Although it had been days since he slept, Liu felt his exhaustion give way to the excitement of the kill.

He sat in the back seat of a dark blue Alfa Romeo 166, watching from behind tinted glass as slivers of early morning sunlight advanced against the shadows in the narrow streets of the Ludovisi District. In the weeks following the theater fire, Beijing’s greatest fear was the prospect of having news services worldwide broadcasting Yin Daoming’s pro-Vatican outburst and the deadly aftermath. The Tiananmen Square massacre paled in comparison with the wanton immolation of five hundred people, and it was Liu’s responsibility to ensure that this political and public relations nightmare never materialized.

After the fire, Liu was certain the damning video clip would swiftly find its way onto the Internet. Of course, Beijing would denounce the clip as a hoax, but the damage would be done. Still, the underground Catholics he’d interrogated were consistent in their belief that for the deaths of the five hundred martyrs to have any meaning, the world must first learn of the tragedy from the Vatican.

Their strategy of keeping the video clip off the Internet initially served to protect the small group of conspirators, but it also provided Liu with the time he needed to conduct his search and for Beijing to take counter-measures. In addition to establishing a massive data filtering program that all but slowed China’s domestic Internet traffic to a halt, the elite hackers working for the Ministry of State Security mounted a denial of service attack against the Vatican that forced the Holy See offline.

Deprived of the instantaneous connectivity of the Internet, the conspirators had only two options. The first was simply to mail a disk to the Vatican, but in an era when packages from unknown senders and data files of unknown provenance were treated with grave suspicion, there was high probability the Vatican would discard the disk upon receipt. The other option was the oldest in the history of espionage: a courier.

A pair of swarthy Italian men filled the front bucket seats of the Alfa — men employed by one of China’s main partners in the lucrative trade in arms and heroin. Their associates held strategic positions in and around the hotel and near all the entry points to Vatican City. In the rear seat of the sedan beside Liu sat a stone-faced man named Chin. Chin was a trusted intermediary between the Chinese government and the Italian mafia, and his fluency in both languages provided clear and accurate communication between Liu and the Italians.

Their quarry was Hwong Yi Jie, a successful high-end clothing manufacturer from Zhejiang Province who was in Europe visiting her clients in the European fashion industry. Hwong exemplified the type of citizen Beijing saw as vital to the nation’s future, and in her twenty-nine years she had never aroused the interest of the Ministry of State Security. That had all changed a few days ago when a man suspected of handling the video clip broke down after several days of nonstop interrogation and identified Hwong as a member of the underground Catholic Church and his accomplice. Informed that she would present the clip to a representative of the Vatican during her stay in the Eternal City, Liu raced to Rome, arriving last night just a few hours ahead of Hwong. After checking into her hotel, Hwong had ordered a late meal in her room and retired for the night.

‘She’s in the lobby,’ Chin said, translating the report streaming into his earpiece. ‘The front desk reports no calls to or from her room.’

Hwong moved purposefully through the front doors of the hotel. Her long black hair was drawn back in a ponytail, and she was dressed in running shorts and a colorful long-sleeve T-shirt emblazoned with the graphics of the Hong Kong Marathon. A fanny pack around her slim waist held a water bottle, and an iPod was strapped to her left arm. After a few minutes of stretching against the wall of the hotel, Hwong started her morning run.

‘Search her room,’ Liu said, his eyes following the beautiful young woman.

As Chin passed the order on to the men inside the hotel, the driver slipped the Alfa into gear and initiated a loose pursuit of Hwong. Two other cars joined the surveillance, switching every few blocks to avoid detection.

Hwong wound through the narrow streets of the district before heading northwest along Via delle Quattro Fontane. She ran at a modest pace, warming up her legs and finding her stride. A little over a kilometer into her run, she stopped beside Bernini’s Fontana della Barcaccia in the Piazza di Spagna for a drink of water and a quick check of her pulse rate. Then with ferocious intensity, she stormed up the Spanish Steps toward the Sallustian Obelisk and the church of Sant’ Andrea della Fratte. At the top, she turned and descended the majestic staircase at a comfortable jog, allowing her legs and breathing to recover. She repeated the cycle five times before continuing up Viale della Trinita del Monti toward the Piazza dei Popolo.

The Tylenol caplets rattled like dried beans in a maraca, their hard gelatin shells tapping against the convenient travel-sized container whose compact form Nolan Kilkenny found decidedly inconvenient as he rummaged to locate it within the many zippered and Velcro-flapped compartments of the toiletries kit that hung from the back of the bathroom door. His search was not aided by the hangover-induced headache that made even the memory of pain relievers in his luggage a minor miracle. The black organizer and its thoughtful complement of grooming and health products had been a gift from his bride to replace the tattered wreck that had seen him through sixteen years of adult bachelor life. Out with the old…with love, Kelsey read the note he found tucked inside when she presented it to him. Ten months later, the note was still there.

Kilkenny located the bottle, its tamper-resistant seal still intact. He peeled off the skin of thick clear plastic in jagged strips, popped off the childproof cap, and quickly downed a pair of pills with a handful of cold water and a prayer for speedy relief.

This wasn’t his first hangover, nor was it the worst — those memorable events having occurred when Kilkenny was a newly minted high school graduate and later, while serving as a junior officer in the Navy SEALs, after the successful snatch-and-grab of a terrorist leader residing comfortably in Iran. Those and a few other painful mornings-after followed revelry shared with close friends and comrades in arms. Kilkenny rarely drank, and when he did it was typically in small amounts and on social occasions. But last night he had consumed a lot of red wine with dinner at a nearby ristorante, and had done so alone.

What the hell am I doing here?

The image staring back at Kilkenny in the mirror evinced the malaise gnawing inside him, and his futile attempt to marinate that unwanted sensation in Chianti both sickened and angered him. He knew men who had anesthetized their senses with alcohol and drugs for lesser reasons than his, and he vowed that his loss of faith, of hope, would not be his undoing.

After scrubbing the film from his mouth, Kilkenny splashed some water on his face and head, matting down the disheveled tufts of red hair. His hotel room was small but efficient and, most important, located within walking distance of the Vatican, where he spent most of his time. He had come to Rome at the behest of his father, to work with his father’s oldest friend, Malachy Donoher, the Cardinal Librarian of the Holy Roman Church.

Kilkenny’s job was to improve the flow of information between the Vatican Library and the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, for it was through these two entities that the Church remained abreast of advances in science and technology while retaining an institutional memory that spanned a millennium. Donoher believed the academy and library, working in concert, could give the Pope a clearer view of advances that might pose moral or ethical problems tempered with a broad historical perspective, the goal of which was to provide the Holy Father with wise counsel when matters of science and faith seemed at odds.

Officially, the invitation to be a consultant to the Vatican drew on Kilkenny’s technical expertise at managing information — a fairly simple task to be remunerated with a modest fee. But Kilkenny suspected that Donoher and his father had conspired, creating an assignment that was merely a pretext to force him from an empty home in Ann Arbor, where his surroundings could only remind him of all he had lost. Kilkenny had buried himself in work in the two months since the deaths of his wife and unborn child, but grief remained his constant companion. He existed only in the present, his desired future obliterated by a cruel disease.

He appreciated the thought behind the invitation, even if the job demanded little of his mental energies. Kilkenny’s true work — as a venture capitalist with his father’s company, MARC (Michigan Applied Research Consortium) — kept him fully engaged with new and interesting challenges. Kilkenny oversaw the transfer of nascent technologies from academic research laboratories into the world of commerce — he was a trafficker in intellectual property. And not just any property. From quantum energy cells to strange organisms hidden for eons in dark waters beneath miles of polar ice, Kilkenny served as guardian and even midwife to innovations that would change the future. His profession was both exhilarating and lucrative, and on more than one occasion deadly.

Travel was part of his job, so living in Rome for a few weeks did not seem at all unusual. And he had to admit, the Vatican did offer a dramatic change of atmosphere, no doubt exactly what his father and Donoher had intended.

Several new garment bags hung in the closet above two boxes of new dress shoes. He had arrived in Rome two weeks earlier wearing jeans, sneakers, and an Ireland rugby jersey, carrying a briefcase and a small overnight bag, but the garment bag containing the rest of his clothing had gone astray. When it became apparent that the bag’s MIA status was likely permanent, Kilkenny took advantage of the opportunity to update his wardrobe at several of Rome’s finer clothiers.

After drying his face, Kilkenny traded the boxers he’d slept in for running shorts and a T-shirt and began to stretch lightly. His freckled skin gave a boyish look to his six-foot frame — a lean, well-defined body built not for bursts of speed or strength but endurance. He clipped a fanny pack around his waist, retrieved a pair of Saucony running shoes from the closet, and sat on the edge of the double bed to pull them on. A biography of Mark Twain rested on the nightstand along with a black diver’s watch and a small triptych frame.

Reaching for his watch, Kilkenny’s eyes lingered on the woman pictured in the frame’s central panel. The photo was taken in July, when Kilkenny and his wife were vacationing in Harbor Springs, Michigan. Kelsey was wading knee-deep in the placid water of Little Traverse Bay clad in a brightly colored bikini, unaware of the camera trained upon her. She was gazing down at her belly, both hands placed as if cradling the life growing within. It was the middle of her fifth month, and Kelsey was delighted with her maternal shape. Kilkenny remembered the moment and her amazed expression as their child stirred. She had called him over and pressed his hand to the spot where she had felt movement.

The frame to the left of Kelsey’s picture contained a slip of light gray paper marked with a pair of black impressions, footprints no larger than the end of Kilkenny’s thumb. These were the only marks his son would ever make on the world, aside from the ones Toby left on his father’s heart. Framed to the right was a mass card from the funeral of his wife and son this past August.

‘I still dream of you and me at the beach, playing with Toby,’ Kilkenny said to his wife as he fastened his watch. ‘I miss you both so much.’

He grabbed his room key and a water bottle from the minibar refrigerator and left.

As Hwong reached the Piazza del Popolo, a melodic ring tone chimed from her fanny pack. She paused her iPod and answered her cell phone.

‘Hwong,’ she said cautiously.

‘Ave Maria, gratia plena, Dominus tecum,’ a man said, carefully enunciating each syllable in the first line of an old Latin prayer.

‘Benedicta tu in mulieribus — ’ Hwong’s voice wavered as she recited the second line, completing the code phrase for her contact inside the Vatican, ‘et benedictus fructus ventris tui, Jesus.’

‘Are you being followed?’ The man’s English was warmed with an Irish lilt.

‘Yes,’ she replied.

‘I know what you’ve been asked to do is dangerous,’ the man offered sincerely.

‘But it must be done,’ Hwong said.

‘A man will be running across Ponte Cavour shortly. Check your phone for his picture.’

‘I don’t understand.’

‘We never walk alone, my child.’

The call ended and Hwong found on her phone’s LCD screen a picture of a man running. He appeared to be about her age, was clean-shaven, and possessed a head of bright red hair. She deleted the photo, stowed her phone, and resumed her run, heading west down Via Ferdinando di Savoia toward the Tiber River. At the foot of the Ponte Margherita, she turned south and ran down the scenic tree-lined lungotevere that followed the meandering course of the river.

Hwong saw the runner crossing Ponte Cavour over the Tiber as she moved past the Ara Pacis Augustea and the Mausoleum of Augustus. He turned south on the lungotevere, and she picked up her pace to close the distance. The man stood a full head taller than Hwong and ran with his back straight and head high. He moved purposefully, not a wasted motion in his long-legged stride. She glided up beside him, but he was so lost in thought that he failed to notice. A glint of metal on his left hand caught her eye, a simple gold band around his ring finger.

‘Excuse me,’ Hwong said politely. ‘You speak English?’

Startled, Kilkenny turned his head and was surprised to discover a beautiful young woman running beside him.

‘Most of the time,’ Kilkenny replied warily. ‘Why do you ask?’

‘I speak some Italian and French, but my English is better. And you do not look Italian or French.’

Kilkenny nodded with a laugh, and Hwong saw a warm twinkle in his green eyes.

‘Command of three languages is impressive, but I’m guessing you know at least one more. Where are you from?’

‘China — I live in the city of Hangzhou.’

‘That’s near Shanghai, isn’t it?’

‘Yes, south of Shanghai.’

‘So, what brings you to Rome?’ Kilkenny asked.

‘Business. And you?’

‘The same.’

‘Do you run far today?’ Hwong asked.

‘That depends on what you think is far. Since you’re having no trouble keeping up with me, I’m guessing you earned that shirt. How’d you finish?’

‘Three hours and eighteen minutes.’

‘You beat my personal best,’ Kilkenny admitted. ‘What I’m running today will probably be easy for you. The route is a little more than ten kilometers, but it has a challenging hill near the end. Care to join me?’

‘Yes,’ Hwong beamed, relieved. ‘This is my first visit to this city, and I do not like to run alone.’

‘I’m just getting used to it again. Where are you staying?’

‘A hotel near the Spanish Steps.’

The man thought for a moment. ‘That’ll add another two K. How are you set for time?’

‘I have a meeting at noon.’

‘You’ll be back at your hotel well before then,’ Kilkenny promised. ‘What’s your name?’

‘Hwong Yi Jie.’

‘A pleasure to meet you, Miss Hwong. I’m Nolan Kilkenny.’

They ran down the Lungotevere, the relatively flat route an easy scenic course for the distance veterans. Hwong stowed her ear-buds so they could talk, and Kilkenny acted as tour guide, pointing out items of interest along the way. Behind them, Liu coordinated the rotating surveillance of the three cars, never letting the runners out of sight.

‘We’ve finished searching the room,’ one of the Italians at Hwong’s hotel called Liu to report. ‘Her laptop and PDA are clean, and we’ve found no disks or storage devices in the room. The room safe was open and empty, and she’s left nothing with the front desk. She must have what you’re looking for on her.’

‘Are you and your men the only ones who have been in the room since she left?’ Liu asked.

‘Si.’

‘Then pull them back and await further orders.’

Liu’s driver followed the two runners as they turned at Ponte Aventino, crossing to the west side of the Tiber into the Trastevere District.

‘The woman has what I want,’ Liu told Chin. ‘Tell the men to be prepared to take her on my orders.’

‘What about the man running with her?’ one of the Italians asked.

‘If he gets in the way,’ Liu replied, ‘kill him.’

‘Sir,’ the driver offered, ‘if you’re looking for a secluded place to grab the woman, they’re taking the passaggiata to the top of Monte Gianicolo. This early in the morning, only a handful of tourists will be watching the sunrise up on the piazzale.’

Liu studied the wooded hill rising up ahead. ‘We’ll follow the runners to the top, then take the woman there.’

Kilkenny quickened the pace as he led Hwong through the switchback turns in Via Garibaldi.

‘That’s San Pietro in Montorio,’ Kilkenny explained with increasingly labored breaths as they sped past a late-fifteenth-century church and convent. ‘It was built because local tradition once held that Nero crucified the Apostle Peter here. That actually happened on Vatican Hill, not far from the other Saint Peter’s. Up ahead is the Baroque spectacular Fontana dell’Acqua Paulo. The locals call it Fontanone, which means really big fountain.’

Hwong laughed at Kilkenny’s joke. ‘Why did they build it?’

‘According to the plaque inside, it celebrates the restoration of the Trajan Aqueduct in the early sixteen hundreds. The imperial Romans used triumphal arches to commemorate their success in war. Their descendants were happy to get fresh drinking water.’

Kilkenny and Hwong veered right at the fountain, straining on the increasing grade of the road as they climbed the Passeggiata del Gianicolo. City buildings abruptly gave way to lush trees and manicured landscapes. Kilkenny’s commentary trailed off in the absence of monuments to point out, which suited him fine. Their rapid ascent of Rome’s Mons Aureus — Hill of Gold — left him with little breath to spare.

The road leveled out near the top of the hill and flowed into a broad open space — the Janiculum Terrace. Small groups of tourists clustered alongside the low wall on the eastern border of the piazzale. To the west stood a section of ancient defensive walls built by the third-century emperor Aurelian to protect his capital city. A guardrail of heavy iron chain threaded through a ring of stone bollards defined a circular traffic island in the center of the terrace. Kilkenny and Hwong jogged across the terrace to the island and stopped at the base of a massive equestrian monument. The heroic figure of Giuseppe Garibaldi on horseback towered above them from the very spot where the charismatic adventurer commanded the defense of Rome against the French in 1849.

As their breathing steadied, both runners took deep pulls from their water bottles. Kilkenny extended his arm toward the east.

‘Miss Hwong, there is the reward for climbing this hill.’

Rome glistened in the morning sun, the undulating city dazzling from this lofty height. The Tiber sparkled like liquid silver as it snaked between the ancient hills now obscured by roads and buildings. The generations of people who dwelled here had left their mark in the numerous monuments and domes, palaces and bell towers — some instantly recognizable the world over.

Hwong wiped the perspiration from her forehead as she took in the view.

‘As beautiful as that is,’ Kilkenny added, ‘it’s even more amazing at sunset.’

He had read about this view while preparing for his assignment to Rome and, though never a romantic about sunsets, knew immediately it was a place Kelsey would have wanted to see with him. Kilkenny ran the hill every morning, pausing at the top to enjoy the view and remember his wife. Before dinner last night, for the first time, he had come here alone to watch the sunset.

Three Alfa sedans raced into the piazzale. Hwong’s heart pounded at the sight of the fast-approaching cars, her body instinctively pumping adrenaline in preparation to fight or flee. The water bottle slipped from her trembling fingers.

‘Lord, help me,’ Hwong stammered.

‘What?’ Kilkenny asked, lost in his thoughts.

‘I have something for the Pope,’ Hwong replied, touching the iPod on her arm. ‘Evidence of a great tragedy. My government does not want the world to know what they’ve done.’

Tires squealed against the pavement. The lead car veered left to cover the front of the monument. The second car stopped at the guardrail directly in front of Kilkenny and Hwong, and the third moved to box them in on the right. Two men from the first car, both wearing black balaclavas, leaped over the guardrail as the doors of the second car flew open.

‘Run,’ Kilkenny said, pushing Hwong away from the four men rushing toward them. ‘Head for the woods.’

A bullet ricocheted off granite as they rounded the back of the monument, and several tourists screamed. The third car stopped directly in their path and two more men emerged, charging with pistols drawn. In a quick calculus of their situation, Kilkenny knew they were outnumbered, outgunned, and caught almost completely in the open. Though it had been a few years since his Navy days, Kilkenny’s SEAL training kicked in.

Using his only weapon, Kilkenny hurled his water bottle at the nearest assailant. It struck the man squarely in the face as Kilkenny quickly closed the distance. Moving to the outside, he grabbed the man’s right wrist and twisted until the elbow locked. A sharp palm strike audibly fractured the joint, and the man’s weapon clattered to the pavement. Using the momentum of his attack, Kilkenny spun his opponent around by his broken arm and hammered him into the second assailant.

Both men fell in a heap, the one on the bottom knocked senseless when he toppled back and struck his head against the cobblestones. Hwong ran straight for the walking paths that led into the woods, and as Kilkenny turned to follow her, he scooped up the loose pistol and emptied the weapon at the next pair of pursuers. His shots chiseled the corner of the monument’s plinth, buying time by forcing the men to seek cover behind the sculpted mass of stone.

As he emerged from the long shadow cast by Garibaldi’s monument, Kilkenny saw the pair of assailants from the first car chasing Hwong. One of them was shouting at her angrily in Chinese and, failing to close the distance on her, took careful aim and fired. A single round caught Hwong between the shoulder blades. Her arms flailed as if to grasp something. As Hwong’s legs folded beneath her, she fell to the ground like a wounded bird.

Kilkenny charged angrily toward the shooter, colliding with the man in a vicious broadside and knocking him down. The impact sent the still-smoking pistol clattering across the pavement, and the weapon came to rest near a group of frightened tourists. Kilkenny leaned over and stripped the balaclava from the man’s head.

Recovering from the open-field tackle, Liu faced Kilkenny, his eyes a pair of smoldering black coals. He struck quickly, spearing Kilkenny in the chest with the tip of his elbow. The air burst from Kilkenny’s lungs, and as he gasped, Liu smashed the back of his fist against Kilkenny’s forehead and raked his knuckles down Kilkenny’s face. Liu grabbed a fistful of Kilkenny’s hair and rolled. As Kilkenny toppled over, Liu struck the side of his neck with the outer edge of his right hand, stunning Kilkenny to near-unconsciousness.

Liu pushed Kilkenny aside and leaped to his feet. In the distance, he heard the wail of approaching sirens.

‘I have them,’ one of the Italians teamed with Liu called out, Hwong’s iPod and phone clutched in his meaty fists.

Not waiting for the order, the others loaded the two wounded men into the nearest car. Liu considered finishing off Kilkenny, but he had what he came for and the police were on their way.

As the Alfas fled the terrace, Kilkenny struggled to his feet and staggered to where Hwong had fallen supine on the pavement. From the tiny wound, an oozing slick of blood now soaked her T-shirt. She was still alive, though her breathing was quick and shallow. Kilkenny took her hand but dared not move her.

‘Hang on,’ Kilkenny urged.

‘Did they take it?’ Hwong asked, pointing weakly at her arm. The armband with her iPod was gone.

‘Yes.’

Her look of relief surprised Kilkenny.

‘Long live Christ the King,’ she said softly. ‘Long live the Pope.’