‘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.’
51
MESSAGE UPLOAD COMPLETE
‘Satellite uplink off,’ Kilkenny said.
The heads-up display disappeared and Kilkenny removed his helmet. Gates reclined beside him in the co-pilot’s seat, resting up for the final leg of their flight.
‘Think your buddy Grin will get that?’ Gates asked without opening his eyes.
‘He’ll figure it out.’
‘I hope so ’cause it’d be mighty nice if there was someone friendly there to meet us on the other side.’
‘I’m more concerned about the unfriendly ones who are trying to keep us from getting there.’
Kilkenny pulled himself out of the BAT and stretched, his joints stiff from two long flights. The temperature had dropped considerably as they ascended to the Tibetan plateau, and Kilkenny’s breath now billowed in steamy wisps as he exhaled. At a little over three thousand meters, the altitude relative to sea level here was ten times higher than where he lived in Michigan. The air was noticeably thinner, too, but Kilkenny found he had little difficulty acclimating.
He left Gates in the BAT and found Tao in conversation with the team’s medic. The three pilots were clustered together around one of the BATs, reviewing the night’s flight plan over what qualified as their evening meal. Food was a traditional grumbling point among soldiers, and Kilkenny was certain that even a Memphis barbecue served by the Hooters girls would receive complaints by troops in the field. The remaining team members were either on watch, checking equipment, or, like Gates, trying to catch some shuteye.
Yin sat back on his heels, his legs tucked beneath him, knees parted in a wide posture Kilkenny was familiar with from his years of martial arts training. Yin’s upper body stood tall, and his palms lay open on his thighs. He was alone on a grassy patch of ground facing the western horizon. The sun had just slipped behind the highest peaks, painting the entire range in a warm golden glow. A gentle breeze ruffled Yin’s white hair but did not disturb his meditation.