It was a cool, clear night with a waning moon hanging a few degrees above the eastern horizon. Thirty feet off the ground, the three BATs flew almost due south on the start of a five-hour journey that would skirt the edge of the Gobi Desert as it headed across the border into China.
17
The funeral mass for Pope Leo XIV was celebrated six days after his death on a beautiful October day in Saint Peter’s Square. Donoher stood on the basilica steps studying the nearly half a million people who filled Bernini’s piazza and overflowed down the length of Via della Conciliazione, through the Borgo District, to the banks of the Tiber. The streets surrounding the Vatican were packed with millions more as the Church drew together during this time of grief. And around the world, billions watched or listened to what was the largest funeral in history.
The Pope’s body lay inside a simple coffin made of cypress, the sole ornament an inlaid cross and the letter M near the bottom of the lid, the design taken from the pontiff’s personal coat of arms. During the processional, the pallbearers — twelve tuxedo-clad papal gentlemen — had slowly borne the coffin out of the basilica on a red litter. They carried it past the wooden altar and set it in the center of an ornate rectangular rug laid atop the stones of the square. A tall paschal candle stood beside the coffin, and atop the wooden lid lay a red leather-bound book containing the four Gospel accounts of the life and teachings of Jesus Christ.
Three long rows of prelates clad in red vestments framed the sides of a rectangular space that contained the altar and the coffin, and behind these sat more than two hundred world leaders in a sea of funeral black. A choir dressed in white closed the back of the space, with the front open to the square. With a gathering so large that no building could contain it, the people themselves became the architecture, the true body of the Church.
During a private ceremony before the funeral, the Pope’s body was placed inside the coffin. Archbishop Sikora then drew a veil of white silk over Leo’s face, and Donoher blessed the body with holy water. At the Pope’s side, Donoher placed a red velvet bag containing samples of the coins minted during his long reign.
As Cardinal Scheuermann read a Latin eulogy of the Pope’s many accomplishments, Donoher reflected on the last item he placed in the coffin — a brass cylinder containing a vellum scroll of that same eulogy penned by a master calligrapher. The scroll was a work of art in itself but more so for the deeds it represented. The Church in the late twentieth century faced many difficult challenges, but it was Pope Leo’s clear vision and steadfast faith that had helped change the world for the better.
If pride was a sin, Donoher would permit himself this indulgence. He was proud of all the Church had accomplished during the reign of Pope Leo XIV, and of his role in those deeds now committed to history.
He did not feel sorrow as the sun warmed his face while he stood on the basilica steps, overlooked by a procession of statues of the saints. He felt joy. The long suffering of his friend and mentor was over, and the wonderful soul that was the essence of that great man had at last received its blessed release and was now with God. For a man of faith, there could be no greater triumph than this.
As the voices of the pontifical choir filled the piazza with the closing hymn, the cardinals followed the Pope’s coffin back into the basilica, the procession passing through the great bronze doors in the center of its facade — masterworks by Il Filarete depicting Christ, the Virgin Mary, and the martyrdoms of Saints Peter and Paul.
The cardinals moved solemnly up through the nave and filled the space beneath the great dome, surrounding the confessio and the baldacchino. The pallbearers paused in front of the great pier where Bernini’s statue of the mythical Saint Longinus stood bearing the spear that pierced the side of Christ, then descended the stairway into the grotto beneath the basilica. There, the sampietrini affixed red bands to the coffin lid with both papal and Vatican seals. The coffin was placed in a second made of zinc and a third of walnut that bore Leo’s name and his coat of arms.
A humble priest, Pope Leo decided early in his pontificate to forgo the traditional papal interment in an ornate marble sarcophagus, wishing instead to be buried in the earth.
‘Lord, grant him eternal rest,’ Donoher called out at the conclusion of the rite, his booming voice echoing inside the subterranean chamber, ‘and may perpetual light shine upon him.’
As those gathered in the grotto sang ‘Salve Regina,’ Donoher stared down into the Pope’s grave and thought of another holy man in a dark hole, half a world away.
18
On the night they crossed the border, Kilkenny and the warriors rendezvoused with Roxanne Tao at the landing zone in the steppe twenty miles north of Chifeng Prison. Tao’s local contacts provided yurts to house the men and conceal their weapons and equipment. During their second night in China, Gates and the Alpha team dug into camouflaged positions around the prison and began reconnaissance.
Kilkenny had lain low during the past eight days, sequestered in the yurts while the other members of Bravo team ventured into the city of Chifeng with Roxanne Tao, getting a feel for their surroundings. Inner Mongolia’s tourist season was all but over, and a Caucasian face would draw more attention than he desired.
Kilkenny sat on the floor on the west side of the yurt — the men’s side — with his back to the fire. He was wearing his helmet, comparing Alpha team’s observations with information gathered by Chinese Roman Catholics on the heads-up display. The fresh intelligence confirmed much of what he had gleaned from the older data. It held no surprises.
Chifeng Prison ran on a tight schedule. The guards worked in three eight-hour shifts each day. The prisoners started their day in the middle of the first shift and returned to their cells halfway through the third — sixteen backbreaking hours making bricks, seven days a week. Trucks came and went at scheduled times, processed through the two gates with the same security procedures. Kilkenny had confidence in the information he had, but he really wanted the one piece he was sorely missing — the precise cell housing Bishop Yin.
‘Computer off,’ Kilkenny said, ending the review session.
He stood and stretched, pulled off the helmet, and absently scratched at the prickly red whiskers populating his jaw line. In addition to the scrubby beard, Kilkenny temporarily had suspended several personal grooming habits in preparing for the mission, and the prison pajamas he wore while sequestered in the yurt exuded that fusty odor he associated with a high school locker room.
Opposite the yurt’s door, on the north side of the circular dwelling, stood a traditional Buddhist altar. Kilkenny approached the domestic shrine — no different really from the religious items his grandmother kept atop her bedroom dresser — and offered a brief prayer of thanks for the people helping them.
The couple that provided the yurts owned few possessions, but what they had were well cared for. Through halting English, they let Kilkenny know that he and his companions were honored guests and, as if to emphasize the point, showed him their most prized possession. Hidden behind a false panel on the altar was a worn photograph clipped from a Taiwanese magazine — the Dalai Lama and Pope Leo XIV together in prayer. Kilkenny was humbled by the tremendous risk the couple took each day in possessing that image, a risk they accepted only because of a deeply rooted faith. Only here, in the wilderness along China’s northern border, could the descendants of Genghis Khan find spiritual contentment in a belief system that wedded traditional Tibetan Buddhism with Roman Catholicism.