At 11:17, Cardinal Matteo Valli had only one empty box left on the shutdown sheet.
The sheet had been printed on paper too thick for a provisional document. It bore six signatures, three stamps, a date in Roman numerals, and, at the bottom, a grid in which every access point to the conclave perimeter had to turn from green to red before three. Valli followed the column with a finger as though recounting a house’s windows before a storm. Santa Marta door: red. Kitchen passage: red. Service elevator: red. Internal line to the pharmacy: orange.
“Orange is not closed,” he said.
Colonel Davide Ferri of the Vatican Gendarmerie remained standing across the desk. He had put his cap on the chair but had not taken the chair. With him, that indicated he did not intend to prolong the conversation.
“Orange means the backup circuit hasn’t finished testing. At two it will be red.”
“At ten to two, the first vehicles will already be moving.”
“And the circuit connects to nothing outside.”
Valli looked toward the window. Beyond the rooftops, October’s sky was the color of washed metal. The top of the Sistine Chapel was visible, temporary structures around the chimney, and below, a strip of St. Peter’s Square already divided into squares by barriers. Telephoto lenses had been sprouting there since dawn. A pope’s death had made every door interesting.
He returned to the orange box.
“Close it now.”
Ferri did not move.
“Your Eminence, if we close it now and the pharmacy test fails, we’ll have to physically reopen the service corridor. There will be more people in the zone, not fewer.”
“If it stays open and someone exploits the circuit, we’ll have a channel that should never have existed.”
“They’d first have to know it exists.”
“Which is why I’d rather it didn’t.”
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