The Secret Cardinal

25

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 untying 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 Jesus. Sancta Maria, Mater Dei, ora pro nobis peccatoribus, nunc et in hora mortis nostrae. Amen.’

Definitely not Chinese, Kilkenny realized.

‘Ave Maria, gratia plena, Dominus tecum.’

‘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.’