The Secret Cardinal

50

After interviewing the priest, Donoher attended a brief service in the Pauline Chapel, where Cardinal Cain, the senior cardinal in the order of deacons, lived up to his reputation and delivered an exhortation to princely brethren in a basso profundo that shook the foundations of the Apostolic Palace. As the rest of the cardinals returned to their rooms to reflect and pray, Donoher changed into less conspicuous priestly attire and was taken by a Swiss Guard in an unmarked car to the Gemelli Polyclinic.

Cardinal Gagliardi was asleep when Donoher arrived, and the Sicilian looked no better than during the Camerlengo’s previous visit. Donoher closed the door behind him to dampen the noise from the corridor. Outside, it was cool for this time of year, but the sky shone clear blue and the midday sun created a warm pool of light by the window. Donoher found an old rosary on the table beside Gagliardi’s bed, its ebony beads polished smooth by thousands of recitations. He moved a chair into the patch of sunlight and began to pray.

Donoher lost track of the time as he prayed, his thoughts gliding in and out with the rosary’s familiar cadences. He had completed two circuits of the rosary — contemplating the joyful and luminous mysteries of Christ’s life — and was about to start the sorrowful mysteries when Gagliardi stirred.

‘Water,’ the Sicilian rasped, his voice thin and hoarse.

A pitcher of ice water and a plastic drinking glass with a straw sat on a bedside tray table. Donoher filled the cup and placed the straw close to Gagliardi’s lips, which were cracked and dry. The cardinal sipped gingerly, the parched interior of his mouth absorbing the liquid like a dry sponge. When he had drunk enough, Gagliardi turned his head away. Donoher removed the cup and wiped a droplet that escaped from the corner of the patient’s mouth.

‘You’re looking better,’ Donoher lied.

‘If I looked any worse,’ Gagliardi’s words came in barely audible gasps, ‘I’d be dead.’

‘What do your doctors say?’

‘That I will die soon.’

‘Does your family know?’

‘Just my nephew. I don’t want a death vigil. Do we have a new Pope?’

Donoher shook his head. ‘Deadlocked. Voting is suspended until tomorrow.’

‘Papabili?’

Donoher pulled his chair close to the bed so that his face was just a few inches from the Sicilian’s.

‘In the last balloting, Magni was the only one with more than thirty votes. Escalante and Oromo are both mired in the mid-twenties, followed by Velu.’

Gagliardi tallied the votes in his head and recognized the shortfall. ‘Who else?’

‘Bishop Yin. He fell back a bit after the first ballot and has languished in the teens. I expect his candidacy will falter in the next round.’

‘For the best. Ryff?’

‘He threw in with Magni’s supporters rather than split the European vote. That’s been the only real change. There was some interesting movement between those backing Velu and Oromo this morning, so we might yet see a Third World consolidation to challenge Magni.’

‘He needs the North Americans,’ rasped Gagliardi.

‘Don’t they all, but the United States is divided. The older urban areas favor Oromo, but the regions with a growing Hispanic presence are backing Escalante. The Canadians, I suspect, are more inclined toward Europe.’

‘All good men, but two bold moves are not good for the Church.’

‘You may be right,’ Donoher offered. ‘Perhaps the Church needs a caretaker after a Pope like Leo.’

‘Magni would be best,’ Gagliardi agreed.

‘If that is God’s will. Is it yours?’ Donoher asked pointedly.

‘Eh?’

‘Is it your will that Magni become the next Pope? Is it your hand I see in the shadows deftly orchestrating his ascension?’

‘What are you talking about?’ Gagliardi asked.

‘Motivation. You missed a wonderful sermon this morning. Cain really outdid himself — I wouldn’t be surprised if he won a few votes in the next round, despite his age. He asked each of us to question our motivation, to question what was truly behind our previous votes. He got me thinking. The Italian cardinals have always been a very loyal group, true both to the Church and one another. As a bloc, they’ve enjoyed the historical position as king makers in the Church. Then I thought about the papabili, how these five good men all found their way to this point in history, and it struck me that from the moment they became cardinals, you played a part in each man’s career. You guided their appointments on committees; you made sure they traveled and became known among the college. From your position in the Curia, you nurtured them, but your actions, when viewed through Cain’s lens, now seem calculated. Did you get your thirty pieces of silver?’

‘What are you accusing me of?’ Gagliardi gasped.

‘Betrayal. You conspired to interfere with the election. You broke your solemn oath to the conclave. And you betrayed Bishop Yin, endangering his life and the lives of those sent to save him. For what, money?’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

‘The mafia’s sole purpose is making money, and only Italians can be mafia. The Chinese learned about Pope Leo’s message to the conclave from the mafia here in Rome, and you are the only Italian cardinal to leave the conclave. Is making Magni Pope so important that you would allow blood to be shed to see it happen? Bishop Yin and the people I sent to rescue him are at this very moment being hunted. Among those whose lives you’ve endangered is the son of my oldest and dearest friend. I baptized this young man, and in just this past year presided over both his wedding and the funeral of his young wife and unborn son. This brave young man is family to me.

‘And today, there are whole families of martyrs in China because of your betrayal,’ Donoher continued. ‘People with faith far greater than yours and mine, people who gave their lives to protect the man you betrayed. Their blood is on your hands, and you will have to answer to the Almighty for their deaths.’

Gagliardi closed his eyes tightly against the irate Camerlengo’s condemnation. In his mind, he envisioned his impending day of reckoning with the Creator. He stood naked and alone before an unimaginably bright light, his hands soaked in blood.

Donoher leaned back in his chair, flushed with anger and revulsion. His eyes followed the tubes and wires that connected Gagliardi to a phalanx of medical devices, and he wondered if pulling the plug on any of them would hasten the traitorous cardinal’s demise. For the first time, Donoher entertained a desire to kill.

‘Forgive me,’ Gagliardi croaked in a whisper.

‘What?’ Donoher asked, struggling to dispel the temptations of his homicidal fantasy.

‘Forgive me.’

‘I don’t know if I can,’ Donoher replied, unprepared for Gagliardi’s request.

‘I admit it,’ Gagliardi pleaded. ‘All you’ve said is true. Money, all for money. The IOR, money laundering.’

Donoher recalled the Banco Ambrosiano affair that rocked the Vatican Bank in the early eighties. The IOR had become entangled in the spectacular collapse of an Italian bank involved in money laundering for criminal syndicates.

‘Is Magni a party to your betrayal?’

Gagliardi shook his head. ‘He knows nothing of this. He is a good man but with no head for numbers. It would be easy to hide the details from him.’

Donoher knew Magni to be a pious man who couldn’t balance his own checkbook, and even the best accountants would find it difficult to ferret out a well-conceived scheme of financial chicanery in the Vatican’s complex account books.

‘How were your criminal associates informed about Bishop Yin?’ Donoher asked.

‘My nephew. He is trusted. I know I don’t deserve it, but please, I beg you. Forgive me.’

Gagliardi held out a trembling hand to Donoher. Tears streamed from the stricken man’s eyes and trickled along the oxygen cannula tubing from his face down onto the bed sheets. The depth of Gagliardi’s remorse turned Donoher’s anger to pity. He wrapped Gagliardi’s hand in both his own and stilled the tremors.

‘Forgive me,’ Gagliardi pleaded again.

‘I forgive you,’ Donoher said softly, ‘but I cannot absolve you of your sins.’

‘You would deny me the sacraments?’

‘I am powerless in this matter. From the moment you betrayed the conclave, you were excommunicated latae sententiae. Only the new Pope can absolve you of these grave sins.’

Having engineered the conclave’s deadlock, Gagliardi knew it might be weeks before a new Pope was elected — time he did not have. The monitor at his bedside began beeping frantically, and the display of lines monitoring the cardinal’s heart function lost their rhythm and became erratic. Gagliardi gasped, his breathing shallow and strangled as if his chest were in a vice.

Three nurses and the physician on call rushed into the room with a crash cart. Donoher released Gagliardi’s hand and stepped back by the window, out of the way but still in the stricken cardinal’s line of sight. They checked his airway and vital signs, performed CPR, and applied increasing levels of electric shock to arrest the erratic fibrillation of Gagliardi’s heart, but the organ was past recovery.

With each fluttering heartbeat, the blood circulating in the Sicilian’s body slowed until it finally stopped. When death came, Gagliardi did not sense the presence of loved ones who preceded him, nor did he feel drawn out of his body into a radiant light. Instead, his consciousness closed in around him, contracting tightly like a black hole. The darkness that enveloped Gagliardi felt infinite and in its vastness empty.

The on-call physician noted the time of death, and the nurses began switching off the monitors.

‘There was nothing more we could do for him,’ the physician told Donoher.

‘Thank you for making his last days comfortable. I’ll notify the Vatican of his passing, and if it is permitted, I wish to inform his next of kin.’

‘That is very gracious of you,’ the doctor said. ‘This kind of news is best delivered in person.’