The Secret Cardinal

27

The door to Kilkenny’s cell rolled open, a pair of guards rushed inside, and the beating began. Kilkenny curled himself into a ball to protect his head and chest, letting his back and legs absorb the brunt of the assault. His attackers alternated between jabbing kicks and lash strokes with flexible plastic canes.

Kilkenny deliberately kept his breathing shallow, exhaling sharply in between blows. He felt blood pulsing from ruptured vessels into the traumatized layers of his skin and bruises knotting deep within his muscles. Stricken nerves fired signals of alarm to Kilkenny’s brain until he could no longer identify distinct points of injury. Pain was everywhere. Then, as quickly as it started, the violence ceased.

Someone was shouting angrily at the guards who had beaten him. Kilkenny couldn’t understand the Chinese words, but the tone and tenor were unmistakable. He stole a glance at the source of his reprieve, and through watery eyes saw a figure silhouetted in the doorway.

The guards manhandled Kilkenny as they shackled his wrists and ankles, and cursed at him violently when they stood him up and his battered legs threatened to buckle beneath him. Again, the officer barked an order and the guards complied. They held Kilkenny upright as the officer stepped into the dark cell and covered his head with a black bag. Kilkenny was half-walked, half-dragged from his cell and down the corridor.

Despite having familiarized himself with the prison layout, Kilkenny quickly became disoriented during the quick march through the facility. He lost count of the doors they passed through, but knew immediately that the last one had led outside. The sound of trucks and machinery and voices filled the air — the prison far more active than when he had arrived in the middle of the night.

Gravel crunched underfoot as the march continued. Kilkenny heard crows cawing overhead. The march suddenly stopped. A voice grunted an order, and the guards holding Kilkenny’s arms pushed him down on his knees.

Kilkenny heard a rustle of paper, and a voice began to speak with the official tones of a pronouncement. Whatever the meaning, Kilkenny did not like the sound of it. When the speaker finished, he gave another order.

Again, footsteps crunched in the gravel, though off to Kilkenny’s side. He heard what sounded in tone like a question, though directed at someone else. What startled him was the reply.

‘As the Lord has forgiven me,’ Yin said clearly in English, ‘so I forgive you.’

Yin’s words were followed by the sound of a muffled gunshot and a body falling to the ground.

Someone tugged at the hood covering Kilkenny’s head, pushing his chin down to his chest. Through the bunched folds of the cloth, he felt the barrel of a pistol press against the base of his skull. Among the flurry of thoughts running through his head, Kilkenny imagined the Chinese government trying to bill his father for the bullet and the response they would receive.

As if in slow motion, the sounds of the pistol mechanism vibrated against his skull. Because of his long experience with firearms, he could visualize the trigger bar drawing forward, pivoting the safety lever to allow the firing pin to move while at the same time releasing the hammer. The hammer then struck the firing pin, ramming it into the primer at the base of the chambered round.

It all took scarcely a second. The shock wave emanating like a thunderclap from the guard’s QSZ-92 nine-millimeter pistol reached Kilkenny’s eardrums just as he felt the impact against the back of his head. He saw stars in the darkness of the hood, then nothing. Kilkenny’s legs buckled and he lifelessly fell to the ground.