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Angels and Demons

“Commander, I will only say this once. I will not use this office as a pulpit to lie to the world. If I announce anything at all, it will be the truth.”

“The truth? That Vatican City is threatened to be destroyed by satanic terrorists? It only weakens our position.”

The camerlegno glared. “How much weaker could our position be?”

Rocher shouted suddenly, grabbing the remote and increasing the volume on the television. Everyone turned.

On air, the woman from MSNBC now looked genuinely unnerved. Superimposed beside her was a photo of the late Pope. “ . . . breaking information. This just in from the BBC . . .” She glanced off camera as if to confirm she was really supposed to make this announcement. Apparently getting confirmation, she turned and grimly faced the viewers. “The Illuminati have just claimed responsibility for . . .” She hesitated. “They have claimed responsibility for the death of the Pope fifteen days ago.”

The camerlegno’s jaw fell.

Rocher dropped the remote control.

Vittoria could barely process the information.

“By Vatican law,” the woman continued, “no formal autopsy is ever performed on a Pope, so the Illuminati claim of murder cannot be confirmed. Nonetheless, the Illuminati hold that the cause of the late Pope’s death was not a stroke as the Vatican reported, but poisoning.”

The room went totally silent again.

Olivetti erupted. “Madness! A bold-faced lie!”

Rocher began flipping channels again. The bulletin seemed to spread like a plague from station to station. Everyone had the same story. Headlines competed for optimal sensationalism.

MURDER AT THE VATICAN

POPE POISONED

SATAN TOUCHES HOUSE OF GOD

The camerlegno looked away. “God help us.”

As Rocher flipped, he passed a BBC station. “—tipped me off about the killing at Santa Maria de Popolo—”

“Wait!” the camerlegno said. “Back.”

Rocher went back. On screen, a prim-looking man sat at a BBC news desk. Superimposed over his shoulder was a still snapshot of an odd-looking man with a red beard. Underneath his photo, it said: GUNTHER GLICK—LIVE IN VATICAN CITY. Reporter Glick was apparently reporting by phone, the connection scratchy. “. . . my videographer got the footage of the cardinal being removed from the Chigi Chapel.”

“Let me reiterate for our viewers,” the anchorman in London was saying, “BBC reporter Gunther Glick is the man who first broke this story. He has been in phone contact twice now with the alleged Illuminati assassin. Gunther, you say the assassin phoned only moments ago to pass along a message from the Illuminati?”

“He did.”

“And their message was that the Illuminati were somehow responsible for the Pope’s death?” The anchorman sounded incredulous.

“Correct. The caller told me that the Pope’s death was not a stroke, as the Vatican had thought, but rather that the Pope had been poisoned by the Illuminati.”

Everyone in the Pope’s office froze.

“Poisoned?” the anchorman demanded. “But . . . but how!”

“They gave no specifics,” Glick replied, “except to say that they killed him with a drug known as . .

.”—there was a rustling of papers on the line—“something known as Heparin.”

The camerlegno, Olivetti, and Rocher all exchanged confused looks.

“Heparin?” Rocher demanded, looking unnerved. “But isn’t that . . . ?”

The camerlegno blanched. “The Pope’s medication.”

Vittoria was stunned. “The Pope was on Heparin?”

“He had thrombophlebitis,” the camerlegno said. “He took an injection once a day.”

Rocher looked flabbergasted. “But Heparin isn’t a poison. Why would the Illuminati claim—”

“Heparin is lethal in the wrong dosages,” Vittoria offered. “It’s a powerful anticoagulant. An overdose would cause massive internal bleeding and brain hemorrhages.”

Olivetti eyed her suspiciously. “How would you know that?”

“Marine biologists use it on sea mammals in captivity to prevent blood clotting from decreased activity. Animals have died from improper administration of the drug.” She paused. “A Heparin overdose in a human would cause symptoms easily mistaken for a stroke . . . especially in the absence of a proper autopsy.”

The camerlegno now looked deeply troubled.

“Signore,” Olivetti said, “this is obviously an Illuminati ploy for publicity. Someone overdosing the Pope would be impossible. Nobody had access. And even if we take the bait and try to refute their claim, how could we? Papal law prohibits autopsy. Even with an autopsy, we would learn nothing. We would find traces of Heparin in his body from his daily injections.”

“True.” The camerlegno’s voice sharpened. “And yet something else troubles me. No one on the outside knew His Holiness was taking this medication.”

There was a silence.

“If he overdosed with Heparin,” Vittoria said, “his body would show signs.”

Olivetti spun toward her. “Ms. Vetra, in case you didn’t hear me, papal autopsies are prohibited by Vatican Law. We are not about to defile His Holiness’s body by cutting him open just because an enemy makes a taunting claim!”

Vittoria felt shamed. “I was not implying . . .” She had not meant to seem disrespectful. “I certainly was not suggesting you exhume the Pope . . .” She hesitated, though. Something Robert told her in the Chigi passed like a ghost through her mind. He had mentioned that papal sarcophagi were above ground and never cemented shut, a throwback to the days of the pharaohs when sealing and burying a casket was believed to trap the deceased’s soul inside. Gravity had become the mortar of choice, with coffin lids often weighing hundreds of pounds. Technically, she realized, it would be possible to—

“What sort of signs?” the camerlegno said suddenly.

Vittoria felt her heart flutter with fear. “Overdoses can cause bleeding of the oral mucosa.”

“Oral what?”

“The victim’s gums would bleed. Post mortem, the blood congeals and turns the inside of the mouth black.” Vittoria had once seen a photo taken at an aquarium in London where a pair of killer whales had been mistakenly overdosed by their trainer. The whales floated lifeless in the tank, their mouths hanging open and their tongues black as soot.

The camerlegno made no reply. He turned and stared out the window.

Rocher’s voice had lost its optimism. “Signore, if this claim about poisoning is true . . .”

“It’s not true,” Olivetti declared. “Access to the Pope by an outsider is utterly impossible.”

“If this claim is true,” Rocher repeated, “and our Holy Father was poisoned, then that has profound implications for our antimatter search. The alleged assassination implies a much deeper infiltration of Vatican City than we had imagined. Searching the white zones may be inadequate. If we are compromised to such a deep extent, we may not find the canister in time.”

Olivetti leveled his captain with a cold stare. “Captain, I will tell you what is going to happen.”

“No,” the camerlegno said, turning suddenly. “I will tell you what is going to happen.” He looked directly at Olivetti. “This has gone far enough. In twenty minutes I will be making a decision whether or not to cancel conclave and evacuate Vatican City. My decision will be final. Is that clear?”

Olivetti did not blink. Nor did he respond.

The camerlegno spoke forcefully now, as though tapping a hidden reserve of power. “Captain Rocher, you will complete your search of the white zones and report directly to me when you are finished.”

Rocher nodded, throwing Olivetti an uneasy glance.

The camerlegno then singled out two guards. “I want the BBC reporter, Mr. Glick, in this office immediately. If the Illuminati have been communicating with him, he may be able to help us. Go.”

The two soldiers disappeared.

Now the camerlegno turned and addressed the remaining guards. “Gentlemen, I will not permit any more loss of life this evening. By ten o’clock you will locate the remaining two cardinals and capture the monster responsible for these murders. Do I make myself understood?”

“But, signore,” Olivetti argued, “we have no idea where—”

“Mr. Langdon is working on that. He seems capable. I have faith.”

With that, the camerlegno strode for the door, a new determination in his step. On his way out, he pointed to three guards. “You three, come with me. Now.”

The guards followed.

In the doorway, the camerlegno stopped. He turned to Vittoria. “Ms. Vetra. You too. Please come with me.”

Vittoria hesitated. “Where are we going?”

He headed out the door. “To see an old friend.”

82

A t CERN, secretary Sylvie Baudeloque was hungry, wishing she could go home. To her dismay, Kohler had apparently survived his trip to the infirmary; he had phoned and demanded—not asked, demanded—that Sylvie stay late this evening. No explanation.

Over the years, Sylvie had programmed herself to ignore Kohler’s bizarre mood swings and eccentricities—his silent treatments, his unnerving propensity to secretly film meetings with his wheelchair’s porta-video. She secretly hoped one day he would shoot himself during his weekly visit to CERN’s recreational pistol range, but apparently he was a pretty good shot. Now, sitting alone at her desk, Sylvie heard her stomach growling. Kohler had not yet returned, nor had he given her any additional work for the evening. To hell with sitting here bored and starving, she decided. She left Kohler a note and headed for the staff dining commons to grab a quick bite. She never made it.

As she passed CERN’s recreational “suites de loisir”— a long hallway of lounges with televisions—she noticed the rooms were overflowing with employees who had apparently abandoned dinner to watch the news. Something big was going on. Sylvie entered the first suite. It was packed with byte-heads—wild young computer programmers. When she saw the headlines on the TV, she gasped.

TERROR AT THE VATICAN

Sylvie listened to the report, unable to believe her ears. Some ancient brotherhood killing cardinals? What did that prove? Their hatred? Their dominance? Their ignorance?

And yet, incredibly, the mood in this suite seemed anything but somber.

Two young techies ran by waving T-shirts that bore a picture of Bill Gates and the message: AND THE

GEEK SHALL INHERIT THE EARTH!

“Illuminati!” one shouted. “I told you these guys were real!”

“Incredible! I thought it was just a game!”

“They killed the Pope, man! The Pope!”

“Jeez! I wonder how many points you get for that?”

They ran off laughing.

Sylvie stood in stunned amazement. As a Catholic working among scientists, she occasionally endured the antireligious whisperings, but the party these kids seemed to be having was all-out euphoria over the church’s loss. How could they be so callous? Why the hatred?

For Sylvie, the church had always been an innocuous entity . . . a place of fellowship and introspection . .

. sometimes just a place to sing out loud without people staring at her. The church recorded the benchmarks of her life—funerals, weddings, baptisms, holidays—and it asked for nothing in return. Even the monetary dues were voluntary. Her children emerged from Sunday School every week uplifted, filled with ideas about helping others and being kinder. What could possibly be wrong with that?

It never ceased to amaze her that so many of CERN’s so-called “brilliant minds” failed to comprehend the importance of the church. Did they really believe quarks and mesons inspired the average human being?

Or that equations could replace someone’s need for faith in the divine?

Dazed, Sylvie moved down the hallway past the other lounges. All the TV rooms were packed. She began wondering now about the call Kohler had gotten from the Vatican earlier. Coincidence? Perhaps. The Vatican called CERN from time to time as a “courtesy” before issuing scathing statements condemning CERN’s research—most recently for CERN’s breakthroughs in nanotechnology, a field the church denounced because of its implications for genetic engineering. CERN never cared. Invariably, within minutes after a Vatican salvo, Kohler’s phone would ring off the hook with tech-investment companies wanting to license the new discovery. “No such thing as bad press,” Kohler would always say. Sylvie wondered if she should page Kohler, wherever the hell he was, and tell him to turn on the news. Did he care? Had he heard? Of course, he’d heard. He was probably videotaping the entire report with his freaky little camcorder, smiling for the first time in a year.

As Sylvie continued down the hall, she finally found a lounge where the mood was subdued . . . almost melancholy. Here the scientists watching the report were some of CERN’s oldest and most respected. They did not even look up as Sylvie slipped in and took a seat.

On the other side of CERN, in Leonardo Vetra’s frigid apartment, Maximilian Kohler had finished reading the leather-bound journal he’d taken from Vetra’s bedside table. Now he was watching the television reports. After a few minutes, he replaced Vetra’s journal, turned off the television, and left the apartment.

Far away, in Vatican City, Cardinal Mortati carried another tray of ballots to the Sistine Chapel chimney. He burned them, and the smoke was black.

Two ballotings. No Pope.

83

F lashlights were no match for the voluminous blackness of St. Peter’s Basilica. The void overhead pressed down like a starless night, and Vittoria felt the emptiness spread out around her like a desolate ocean. She stayed close as the Swiss Guards and the camerlegno pushed on. High above, a dove cooed and fluttered away.

As if sensing her discomfort, the camerlegno dropped back and lay a hand on her shoulder. A tangible strength transferred in the touch, as if the man were magically infusing her with the calm she needed to do what they were about to do.

What are we about to do? she thought. This is madness!

And yet, Vittoria knew, for all its impiety and inevitable horror, the task at hand was inescapable. The grave decisions facing the camerlegno required information . . . information entombed in a sarcophagus in the Vatican Grottoes. She wondered what they would find. Did the Illuminati murder the Pope? Did their power really reach so far? Am I really about to perform the first papal autopsy?

Vittoria found it ironic that she felt more apprehensive in this unlit church than she would swimming at night with barracuda. Nature was her refuge. She understood nature. But it was matters of man and spirit that left her mystified. Killer fish gathering in the dark conjured images of the press gathering outside. TV

footage of branded bodies reminded her of her father’s corpse . . . and the killer’s harsh laugh. The killer was out there somewhere. Vittoria felt the anger drowning her fear.

As they circled past a pillar—thicker in girth than any redwood she could imagine—Vittoria saw an orange glow up ahead. The light seemed to emanate from beneath the floor in the center of the basilica. As they came closer, she realized what she was seeing. It was the famous sunken sanctuary beneath the main altar—the sumptuous underground chamber that held the Vatican’s most sacred relics. As they drew even with the gate surrounding the hollow, Vittoria gazed down at the golden coffer surrounded by scores of glowing oil lamps.

“St. Peter’s bones?” she asked, knowing full well that they were. Everyone who came to St. Peter’s knew what was in the golden casket.

“Actually, no,” the camerlegno said. “A common misconception. That’s not a reliquary. The box holds palliums—woven sashes that the Pope gives to newly elected cardinals.”

“But I thought—”

“As does everyone. The guidebooks label this as St. Peter’s tomb, but his true grave is two stories beneath us, buried in the earth. The Vatican excavated it in the forties. Nobody is allowed down there.”

Vittoria was shocked. As they moved away from the glowing recession into the darkness again, she thought of the stories she’d heard of pilgrims traveling thousands of miles to look at that golden box, thinking they were in the presence of St. Peter. “Shouldn’t the Vatican tell people?”

“We all benefit from a sense of contact with divinity . . . even if it is only imagined.”

Vittoria, as a scientist, could not argue the logic. She had read countless studies of the placebo effect—aspirins curing cancer in people who believed they were using a miracle drug. What was faith, after all?

“Change,” the camerlegno said, “is not something we do well within Vatican City. Admitting our past faults, modernization, are things we historically eschew. His Holiness was trying to change that.” He paused. “Reaching to the modern world. Searching for new paths to God.”

Vittoria nodded in the dark. “Like science?”

“To be honest, science seems irrelevant.”

“Irrelevant?” Vittoria could think of a lot of words to describe science, but in the modern world

“irrelevant” did not seem like one of them.

“Science can heal, or science can kill. It depends on the soul of the man using the science. It is the soul that interests me.”

“When did you hear your call?”

“Before I was born.”

Vittoria looked at him.

“I’m sorry, that always seems like a strange question. What I mean is that I’ve always known I would serve God. From the moment I could first think. It wasn’t until I was a young man, though, in the military, that I truly understood my purpose.”

Vittoria was surprised. “You were in the military?”

“Two years. I refused to fire a weapon, so they made me fly instead. Medevac helicopters. In fact, I still fly from time to time.”

Vittoria tried to picture the young priest flying a helicopter. Oddly, she could see him perfectly behind the controls. Camerlegno Ventresca possessed a grit that seemed to accentuate his conviction rather than cloud it. “Did you ever fly the Pope?”

“Heavens no. We left that precious cargo to the professionals. His Holiness let me take the helicopter to our retreat in Gandolfo sometimes.” He paused, looking at her. “Ms. Vetra, thank you for your help here today. I am very sorry about your father. Truly.”

“Thank you.”

“I never knew my father. He died before I was born. I lost my mother when I was ten.”

Vittoria looked up. “You were orphaned?” She felt a sudden kinship.

“I survived an accident. An accident that took my mother.”

“Who took care of you?”

“God,” the camerlegno said. “He quite literally sent me another father. A bishop from Palermo appeared at my hospital bed and took me in. At the time I was not surprised. I had sensed God’s watchful hand over me even as a boy. The bishop’s appearance simply confirmed what I had already suspected, that God had somehow chosen me to serve him.”

“You believed God chose you?”

“I did. And I do.” There was no trace of conceit in the camerlegno’s voice, only gratitude. “I worked under the bishop’s tutelage for many years. He eventually became a cardinal. Still, he never forgot me. He is the father I remember.” A beam of a flashlight caught the camerlegno’s face, and Vittoria sensed a loneliness in his eyes.

The group arrived beneath a towering pillar, and their lights converged on an opening in the floor. Vittoria looked down at the staircase descending into the void and suddenly wanted to turn back. The guards were already helping the camerlegno onto the stairs. They helped her next.

“What became of him?” she asked, descending, trying to keep her voice steady. “The cardinal who took you in?”

“He left the College of Cardinals for another position.”

Vittoria was surprised.

“And then, I’m sorry to say, he passed on.”

“Le mie condoglianze,” Vittoria said. “Recently?”

The camerlegno turned, shadows accentuating the pain on his face. “Exactly fifteen days ago. We are going to see him right now.”

84

T he dark lights glowed hot inside the archival vault. This vault was much smaller than the previous one Langdon had been in. Less air. Less time. He wished he’d asked Olivetti to turn on the recirculating fans. Langdon quickly located the section of assets containing the ledgers cataloging Belle Arti. The section was impossible to miss. It occupied almost eight full stacks. The Catholic church owned millions of individual pieces worldwide.

Langdon scanned the shelves searching for Gianlorenzo Bernini. He began his search about midway down the first stack, at about the spot he thought the B’s would begin. After a moment of panic fearing the ledger was missing, he realized, to his greater dismay, that the ledgers were not arranged alphabetically. Why am I not surprised?

It was not until Langdon circled back to the beginning of the collection and climbed a rolling ladder to the top shelf that he understood the vault’s organization. Perched precariously on the upper stacks he found the fattest ledgers of all—those belonging to the masters of the Renaissance—Michelangelo, Raphael, da Vinci, Botticelli. Langdon now realized, appropriate to a vault called “Vatican Assets,” the ledgers were arranged by the overall monetary value of each artist’s collection. Sandwiched between Raphael and Michelangelo, Langdon found the ledger marked Bernini. It was over five inches thick. Already short of breath and struggling with the cumbersome volume, Langdon descended the ladder. Then, like a kid with a comic book, he spread himself out on the floor and opened the cover. The book was cloth-bound and very solid. The ledger was handwritten in Italian. Each page cataloged a single work, including a short description, date, location, cost of materials, and sometimes a rough sketch of the piece. Langdon fanned through the pages . . . over eight hundred in all. Bernini had been a busy man.

As a young student of art, Langdon had wondered how single artists could create so much work in their lifetimes. Later he learned, much to his disappointment, that famous artists actually created very little of their own work. They ran studios where they trained young artists to carry out their designs. Sculptors like Bernini created miniatures in clay and hired others to enlarge them into marble. Langdon knew that if Bernini had been required to personally complete all of his commissions, he would still be working today.

“Index,” he said aloud, trying to ward off the mental cobwebs. He flipped to the back of the book, intending to look under the letter F for titles containing the word fuòco—fire—but the F’s were not together. Langdon swore under his breath. What the hell do these people have against alphabetizing?

The entries had apparently been logged chronologically, one by one, as Bernini created each new work. Everything was listed by date. No help at all.

As Langdon stared at the list, another disheartening thought occurred to him. The title of the sculpture he was looking for might not even contain the word Fire. The previous two works— Habakkuk and the Angel and West Ponente—had not contained specific references to Earth or Air. He spent a minute or two flipping randomly through the ledger in hopes that an illustration might jump out at him. Nothing did. He saw dozens of obscure works he had never heard of, but he also saw plenty he recognized . . . Daniel and the Lion, Apollo and Daphne, as well as a half dozen fountains. When he saw the fountains, his thoughts skipped momentarily ahead. Water. He wondered if the fourth altar of science was a fountain. A fountain seemed a perfect tribute to water. Langdon hoped they could catch the killer before he had to consider Water—Bernini had carved dozens of fountains in Rome, most of them in front of churches.

Langdon turned back to the matter at hand. Fire. As he looked through the book, Vittoria’s words encouraged him. You were familiar with the first two sculptures . . . you probably know this one too. As he turned to the index again, he scanned for titles he knew. Some were familiar, but none jumped out. Langdon now realized he would never complete his search before passing out, so he decided, against his better judgment, that he would have to take the book outside the vault. It’s only a ledger, he told himself. It’s not like I’m removing an original Galilean folio. Langdon recalled the folio in his breast pocket and reminded himself to return it before leaving.

Hurrying now, he reached down to lift the volume, but as he did, he saw something that gave him pause. Although there were numerous notations throughout the index, the one that had just caught his eye seemed odd.

The note indicated that the famous Bernini sculpture, The Ecstasy of St. Teresa, shortly after its unveiling, had been moved from its original location inside the Vatican. This in itself was not what had caught Langdon’s eye. He was already familiar with the sculpture’s checkered past. Though some thought it a masterpiece, Pope Urban VIII had rejected The Ecstasy of St. Teresa as too sexually explicit for the Vatican. He had banished it to some obscure chapel across town. What had caught Langdon’s eye was that the work had apparently been placed in one of the five churches on his list. What was more, the note indicated it had been moved there per suggerimento del artista.

By suggestion of the artist? Langdon was confused. It made no sense that Bernini had suggested his masterpiece be hidden in some obscure location. All artists wanted their work displayed prominently, not in some remote—

Langdon hesitated. Unless . . .

He was fearful even to entertain the notion. Was it possible? Had Bernini intentionally created a work so explicit that it forced the Vatican to hide it in some out-of-the-way spot? A location perhaps that Bernini himself could suggest? Maybe a remote church on a direct line with West Ponente’s breath?

As Langdon’s excitement mounted, his vague familiarity with the statue intervened, insisting the work had nothing to do with fire. The sculpture, as anyone who had seen it could attest, was anything but scientific— pornographic maybe, but certainly not scientific. An English critic had once condemned The Ecstasy of St. Teresa as “the most unfit ornament ever to be placed in a Christian Church.” Langdon certainly understood the controversy. Though brilliantly rendered, the statue depicted St. Teresa on her back in the throes of a toe-curling orgasm. Hardly Vatican fare.

Langdon hurriedly flipped to the ledger’s description of the work. When he saw the sketch, he felt an instantaneous and unexpected tingle of hope. In the sketch, St. Teresa did indeed appear to be enjoying herself, but there was another figure in the statue who Langdon had forgotten was there. An angel.

The sordid legend suddenly came back . . .

St. Teresa was a nun sainted after she claimed an angel had paid her a blissful visit in her sleep. Critics later decided her encounter had probably been more sexual than spiritual. Scrawled at the bottom of the ledger, Langdon saw a familiar excerpt. St. Teresa’s own words left little to the imagination:

. . . his great golden spear . . . filled with fire . . . plunged into me several times . . . penetrated to my entrails . . . a sweetness so extreme that one could not possibly wish it to stop.

Langdon smiled. If that’s not a metaphor for some serious sex, I don’t know what is. He was smiling also because of the ledger’s description of the work. Although the paragraph was in Italian, the word fuòco appeared a half dozen times:

. . . angel’s spear tipped with point of fire . . .

. . . angel’s head emanating rays of fire . . .

. . . woman inflamed by passion’s fire . . .

Langdon was not entirely convinced until he glanced up at the sketch again. The angel’s fiery spear was raised like a beacon, pointing the way. Let angels guide you on your lofty quest. Even the type of angel Bernini had selected seemed significant. It’s a seraphim, Langdon realized. Seraphim literally means “the fiery one.”

Robert Langdon was not a man who had ever looked for confirmation from above, but when he read the name of the church where the sculpture now resided, he decided he might become a believer after all. Santa Maria della Vittoria.

Vittoria, he thought, grinning. Perfect.

Staggering to his feet, Langdon felt a rush of dizziness. He glanced up the ladder, wondering if he should replace the book. The hell with it, he thought. Father Jaqui can do it. He closed the book and left it neatly at the bottom of the shelf.

As he made his way toward the glowing button on the vault’s electronic exit, he was breathing in shallow gasps. Nonetheless, he felt rejuvenated by his good fortune.

His good fortune, however, ran out before he reached the exit.

Without warning, the vault let out a pained sigh. The lights dimmed, and the exit button went dead. Then, like an enormous expiring beast, the archival complex went totally black. Someone had just killed power. 85

T he Holy Vatican Grottoes are located beneath the main floor of St. Peter’s Basilica. They are the burial place of deceased Popes.

Vittoria reached the bottom of the spiral staircase and entered the grotto. The darkened tunnel reminded her of CERN’s Large Hadron Collider—black and cold. Lit now only by the flashlights of the Swiss Guards, the tunnel carried a distinctly incorporeal feel. On both sides, hollow niches lined the walls. Recessed in the alcoves, as far as the lights let them see, the hulking shadows of sarcophagi loomed. An iciness raked her flesh. It’s the cold, she told herself, knowing that was only partially true. She had the sense they were being watched, not by anyone in the flesh, but by specters in the dark. On top of each tomb, in full papal vestments, lay life-sized semblances of each Pope, shown in death, arms folded across their chests. The prostrate bodies seemed to emerge from within the tombs, pressing upward against the marble lids as if trying to escape their mortal restraints. The flashlight procession moved on, and the papal silhouettes rose and fell against the walls, stretching and vanishing in a macabre shadowbox dance. A silence had fallen across the group, and Vittoria couldn’t tell whether it was one of respect or apprehension. She sensed both. The camerlegno moved with his eyes closed, as if he knew every step by heart. Vittoria suspected he had made this eerie promenade many times since the Pope’s death . . . perhaps to pray at his tomb for guidance.

I worked under the cardinal’s tutelage for many years, the camerlegno had said. He was like a father to me. Vittoria recalled the camerlegno speaking those words in reference to the cardinal who had “saved”

him from the army. Now, however, Vittoria understood the rest of the story. That very cardinal who had taken the camerlegno under his wing had apparently later risen to the papacy and brought with him his young protégé to serve as chamberlain.

That explains a lot, Vittoria thought. She had always possessed a well-tuned perception for others’ inner emotions, and something about the camerlegno had been nagging her all day. Since meeting him, she had sensed an anguish more soulful and private than the overwhelming crisis he now faced. Behind his pious calm, she saw a man tormented by personal demons. Now she knew her instincts had been correct. Not only was he facing the most devastating threat in Vatican history, but he was doing it without his mentor and friend . . . flying solo.

The guards slowed now, as if unsure where exactly in the darkness the most recent Pope was buried. The camerlegno continued assuredly and stopped before a marble tomb that seemed to glisten brighter than the others. Lying atop was a carved figure of the late Pope. When Vittoria recognized his face from television, a shot of fear gripped her. What are we doing?

“I realize we do not have much time,” the camerlegno said. “I still ask we take a moment of prayer.”

The Swiss Guard all bowed their heads where they were standing. Vittoria followed suit, her heart pounding in the silence. The camerlegno knelt before the tomb and prayed in Italian. As Vittoria listened to his words, an unexpected grief surfaced as tears . . . tears for her own mentor . . . her own holy father. The camerlegno’s words seemed as appropriate for her father as they did for the Pope.

“Supreme father, counselor, friend.” The camerlegno’s voice echoed dully around the ring. “You told me when I was young that the voice in my heart was that of God. You told me I must follow it no matter what painful places it leads. I hear that voice now, asking of me impossible tasks. Give me strength. Bestow on me forgiveness. What I do . . . I do in the name of everything you believe. Amen.”

“Amen,” the guards whispered.

Amen, Father. Vittoria wiped her eyes.

The camerlegno stood slowly and stepped away from the tomb. “Push the covering aside.”

The Swiss Guards hesitated. “Signore,” one said, “by law we are at your command.” He paused. “We will do as you say . . .”

The camerlegno seemed to read the young man’s mind. “Someday I will ask your forgiveness for placing you in this position. Today I ask for your obedience. Vatican laws are established to protect this church. It is in that very spirit that I command you to break them now.”

There was a moment of silence and then the lead guard gave the order. The three men set down their flashlights on the floor, and their shadows leapt overhead. Lit now from beneath, the men advanced toward the tomb. Bracing their hands against the marble covering near the head of the tomb, they planted their feet and prepared to push. On signal, they all thrust, straining against the enormous slab. When the lid did not move at all, Vittoria found herself almost hoping it was too heavy. She was suddenly fearful of what they would find inside.

The men pushed harder, and still the stone did not move.

“Ancora,” the camerlegno said, rolling up the sleeves of his cassock and preparing to push along with them. “Ora!” Everyone heaved.

Vittoria was about to offer her own help, but just then, the lid began to slide. The men dug in again, and with an almost primal growl of stone on stone, the lid rotated off the top of the tomb and came to rest at an angle—the Pope’s carved head now pushed back into the niche and his feet extended out into the hallway.

Everyone stepped back.

Tentatively, a guard bent and retrieved his flashlight. Then he aimed it into the tomb. The beam seemed to tremble a moment, and then the guard held it steady. The other guards gathered one by one. Even in the darkness Vittoria sensed them recoil. In succession, they crossed themselves. The camerlegno shuddered when he looked into the tomb, his shoulders dropping like weights. He stood a long moment before turning away.

Vittoria had feared the corpse’s mouth might be clenched tight with rigor mortis and that she would have to suggest breaking the jaw to see the tongue. She now saw it would be unnecessary. The cheeks had collapsed, and the Pope’s mouth gaped wide.

His tongue was black as death.

86

N o light. No sound.

The Secret Archives were black.

Fear, Langdon now realized, was an intense motivator. Short of breath, he fumbled through the blackness toward the revolving door. He found the button on the wall and rammed his palm against it. Nothing happened. He tried again. The door was dead.

Spinning blind, he called out, but his voice emerged strangled. The peril of his predicament suddenly closed in around him. His lungs strained for oxygen as the adrenaline doubled his heart rate. He felt like someone had just punched him in the gut.

When he threw his weight into the door, for an instant he thought he felt the door start to turn. He pushed again, seeing stars. Now he realized it was the entire room turning, not the door. Staggering away, Langdon tripped over the base of a rolling ladder and fell hard. He tore his knee against the edge of a book stack. Swearing, he got up and groped for the ladder.

He found it. He had hoped it would be heavy wood or iron, but it was aluminum. He grabbed the ladder and held it like a battering ram. Then he ran through the dark at the glass wall. It was closer than he thought. The ladder hit head-on, bouncing off. From the feeble sound of the collision, Langdon knew he was going to need a hell of a lot more than an aluminum ladder to break this glass. When he flashed on the semiautomatic, his hopes surged and then instantly fell. The weapon was gone. Olivetti had relieved him of it in the Pope’s office, saying he did not want loaded weapons around with the camerlegno present. It made sense at the time.

Langdon called out again, making less sound than the last time.

Next he remembered the walkie-talkie the guard had left on the table outside the vault. Why the hell didn’t I bring it in! As the purple stars began to dance before his eyes, Langdon forced himself to think. You’ve been trapped before, he told himself. You survived worse. You were just a kid and you figured it out. The crushing darkness came flooding in. Think!

Langdon lowered himself onto the floor. He rolled over on his back and laid his hands at his sides. The first step was to gain control.

Relax. Conserve.

No longer fighting gravity to pump blood, Langdon’s heart began to slow. It was a trick swimmers used to re-oxygenate their blood between tightly scheduled races.

There is plenty of air in here, he told himself. Plenty. Now think. He waited, half-expecting the lights to come back on at any moment. They did not. As he lay there, able to breathe better now, an eerie resignation came across him. He felt peaceful. He fought it.

You will move, damn it! But where . . .

On Langdon’s wrist, Mickey Mouse glowed happily as if enjoying the dark: 9:33 P.M. Half an hour until Fire. Langdon thought it felt a whole hell of a lot later. His mind, instead of coming up with a plan for escape, was suddenly demanding an explanation. Who turned off the power? Was Rocher expanding his search? Wouldn’t Olivetti have warned Rocher that I’m in here! Langdon knew at this point it made no difference.

Opening his mouth wide and tipping back his head, Langdon pulled the deepest breaths he could manage. Each breath burned a little less than the last. His head cleared. He reeled his thoughts in and forced the gears into motion.

Glass walls, he told himself. But damn thick glass.

He wondered if any of the books in here were stored in heavy, steel, fireproof file cabinets. Langdon had seen them from time to time in other archives but had seen none here. Besides, finding one in the dark could prove time-consuming. Not that he could lift one anyway, particularly in his present state. How about the examination table? Langdon knew this vault, like the other, had an examination table in the center of the stacks. So what! He knew he couldn’t lift it. Not to mention, even if he could drag it, he wouldn’t get it far. The stacks were closely packed, the aisles between them far too narrow. The aisles are too narrow . . .

Suddenly, Langdon knew.

With a burst of confidence, he jumped to his feet far too fast. Swaying in the fog of a head rush, he reached out in the dark for support. His hand found a stack. Waiting a moment, he forced himself to conserve. He would need all of his strength to do this.

Positioning himself against the book stack like a football player against a training sled, he planted his feet and pushed. If I can somehow tip the shelf. But it barely moved. He realigned and pushed again. His feet slipped backward on the floor. The stack creaked but did not move.

He needed leverage.

Finding the glass wall again, he placed one hand on it to guide him as he raced in the dark toward the far end of the vault. The back wall loomed suddenly, and he collided with it, crushing his shoulder. Cursing, Langdon circled the shelf and grabbed the stack at about eye level. Then, propping one leg on the glass behind him and another on the lower shelves, he started to climb. Books fell around him, fluttering into the darkness. He didn’t care. Instinct for survival had long since overridden archival decorum. He sensed his equilibrium was hampered by the total darkness and closed his eyes, coaxing his brain to ignore visual input. He moved faster now. The air felt leaner the higher he went. He scrambled toward the upper shelves, stepping on books, trying to gain purchase, heaving himself upward. Then, like a rock climber conquering a rock face, Langdon grasped the top shelf. Stretching his legs out behind him, he walked his feet up the glass wall until he was almost horizontal.

Now or never, Robert, a voice urged. Just like the leg press in the Harvard gym. With dizzying exertion, he planted his feet against the wall behind him, braced his arms and chest against the stack, and pushed. Nothing happened.

Fighting for air, he repositioned and tried again, extending his legs. Ever so slightly, the stack moved. He pushed again, and the stack rocked forward an inch or so and then back. Langdon took advantage of the motion, inhaling what felt like an oxygenless breath and heaving again. The shelf rocked farther. Like a swing set, he told himself. Keep the rhythm. A little more. Langdon rocked the shelf, extending his legs farther with each push. His quadriceps burned now, and he blocked the pain. The pendulum was in motion. Three more pushes, he urged himself. It only took two.

There was an instant of weightless uncertainty. Then, with a thundering of books sliding off the shelves, Langdon and the shelf were falling forward.

Halfway to the ground, the shelf hit the stack next to it. Langdon hung on, throwing his weight forward, urging the second shelf to topple. There was a moment of motionless panic, and then, creaking under the weight, the second stack began to tip. Langdon was falling again.

Like enormous dominoes, the stacks began to topple, one after another. Metal on metal, books tumbling everywhere. Langdon held on as his inclined stack bounced downward like a ratchet on a jack. He wondered how many stacks there were in all. How much would they weigh? The glass at the far end was thick . . .

Langdon’s stack had fallen almost to the horizontal when he heard what he was waiting for—a different kind of collision. Far off. At the end of the vault. The sharp smack of metal on glass. The vault around him shook, and Langdon knew the final stack, weighted down by the others, had hit the glass hard. The sound that followed was the most unwelcome sound Langdon had ever heard.

Silence.

There was no crashing of glass, only the resounding thud as the wall accepted the weight of the stacks now propped against it. He lay wide-eyed on the pile of books. Somewhere in the distance there was a creaking. Langdon would have held his breath to listen, but he had none left to hold. One second. Two . . .

Then, as he teetered on the brink of unconsciousness, Langdon heard a distant yielding . . . a ripple spidering outward through the glass. Suddenly, like a cannon, the glass exploded. The stack beneath Langdon collapsed to the floor.

Like welcome rain on a desert, shards of glass tinkled downward in the dark. With a great sucking hiss, the air gushed in.

Thirty seconds later, in the Vatican Grottoes, Vittoria was standing before a corpse when the electronic squawk of a walkie-talkie broke the silence. The voice blaring out sounded short of breath. “This is Robert Langdon! Can anyone hear me?”

Vittoria looked up. Robert! She could not believe how much she suddenly wished he were there. The guards exchanged puzzled looks. One took a radio off his belt. “Mr. Langdon? You are on channel three. The commander is waiting to hear from you on channel one.”

“I know he’s on channel one, damn it! I don’t want to speak to him. I want the camerlegno. Now!

Somebody find him for me.”

In the obscurity of the Secret Archives, Langdon stood amidst shattered glass and tried to catch his breath. He felt a warm liquid on his left hand and knew he was bleeding. The camerlegno’s voice spoke at once, startling Langdon.

“This is Camerlegno Ventresca. What’s going on?”

Langdon pressed the button, his heart still pounding. “I think somebody just tried to kill me!”

There was a silence on the line.

Langdon tried to calm himself. “I also know where the next killing is going to be.”

The voice that came back was not the camerlegno’s. It was Commander Olivetti’s: “Mr. Langdon. Do not speak another word.”

87

L angdon’s watch, now smeared with blood, read 9:41 P.M. as he ran across the Courtyard of the Belvedere and approached the fountain outside the Swiss Guard security center. His hand had stopped bleeding and now felt worse than it looked. As he arrived, it seemed everyone convened at once—Olivetti, Rocher, the camerlegno, Vittoria, and a handful of guards. Vittoria hurried toward him immediately. “Robert, you’re hurt.”

Before Langdon could answer, Olivetti was before him. “Mr. Langdon, I’m relieved you’re okay. I’m sorry about the crossed signals in the archives.”

“Crossed signals?” Langdon demanded. “You knew damn well—”

“It was my fault,” Rocher said, stepping forward, sounding contrite. “I had no idea you were in the archives. Portions of our white zones are cross-wired with that building. We were extending our search. I’m the one who killed power. If I had known . . .”

“Robert,” Vittoria said, taking his wounded hand in hers and looking it over, “the Pope was poisoned. The Illuminati killed him.”

Langdon heard the words, but they barely registered. He was saturated. All he could feel was the warmth of Vittoria’s hands.

The camerlegno pulled a silk handkerchief from his cassock and handed it to Langdon so he could clean himself. The man said nothing. His green eyes seemed filled with a new fire.

“Robert,” Vittoria pressed, “you said you found where the next cardinal is going to be killed?”

Langdon felt flighty. “I do, it’s at the—”

“No,” Olivetti interrupted. “Mr. Langdon, when I asked you not to speak another word on the walkietalkie, it was for a reason.” He turned to the handful of assembled Swiss Guards. “Excuse us, gentlemen.”

The soldiers disappeared into the security center. No indignity. Only compliance. Olivetti turned back to the remaining group. “As much as it pains me to say this, the murder of our Pope is an act that could only have been accomplished with help from within these walls. For the good of all, we can trust no one. Including our guards.” He seemed to be suffering as he spoke the words. Rocher looked anxious. “Inside collusion implies—”

“Yes,” Olivetti said. “The integrity of your search is compromised. And yet it is a gamble we must take. Keep looking.”

Rocher looked like he was about to say something, thought better of it, and left. The camerlegno inhaled deeply. He had not said a word yet, and Langdon sensed a new rigor in the man, as if a turning point had been reached.

“Commander?” The camerlegno’s tone was impermeable. “I am going to break conclave.”

Olivetti pursed his lips, looking dour. “I advise against it. We still have two hours and twenty minutes.”

“A heartbeat.”

Olivetti’s tone was now challenging “What do you intend to do? Evacuate the cardinals single-handedly?”

“I intend to save this church with whatever power God has given me. How I proceed is no longer your concern.”

Olivetti straightened. “Whatever you intend to do . . .” He paused. “I do not have the authority to restrain you. Particularly in light of my apparent failure as head of security. I ask only that you wait. Wait twenty minutes . . . until after ten o’clock. If Mr. Langdon’s information is correct, I may still have a chance to catch this assassin. There is still a chance to preserve protocol and decorum.”

“Decorum?” The camerlegno let out a choked laugh. “We have long since passed propriety, commander. In case you hadn’t noticed, this is war.”

A guard emerged from the security center and called out to the camerlegno, “Signore, I just got word we have detained the BBC reporter, Mr. Glick.”

The camerlegno nodded. “Have both he and his camerawoman meet me outside the Sistine Chapel.”

Olivetti’s eyes widened. “What are you doing?”

“Twenty minutes, commander. That’s all I’m giving you.” Then he was gone. When Olivetti’s Alpha Romeo tore out of Vatican City, this time there was no line of unmarked cars following him. In the back seat, Vittoria bandaged Langdon’s hand with a first-aid kit she’d found in the glove box.

Olivetti stared straight ahead. “Okay, Mr. Langdon. Where are we going?”

88

E ven with its siren now affixed and blaring, Olivetti’s Alpha Romeo seemed to go unnoticed as it rocketed across the bridge into the heart of old Rome. All the traffic was moving in the other direction, toward the Vatican, as if the Holy See had suddenly become the hottest entertainment in Rome. Langdon sat in the backseat, the questions whipping through his mind. He wondered about the killer, if they would catch him this time, if he would tell them what they needed to know, if it was already too late. How long before the camerlegno told the crowd in St. Peter’s Square they were in danger? The incident in the vault still nagged. A mistake.

Olivetti never touched the brakes as he snaked the howling Alpha Romeo toward the Church of Santa Maria della Vittoria. Langdon knew on any other day his knuckles would have been white. At the moment, however, he felt anesthetized. Only the throbbing in his hand reminded him where he was. Overhead, the siren wailed. Nothing like telling him we’re coming, Langdon thought. And yet they were making incredible time. He guessed Olivetti would kill the siren as they drew nearer. Now with a moment to sit and reflect, Langdon felt a tinge of amazement as the news of the Pope’s murder finally registered in his mind. The thought was inconceivable, and yet somehow it seemed a perfectly logical event. Infiltration had always been the Illuminati powerbase—rearrangements of power from within. And it was not as if Popes had never been murdered. Countless rumors of treachery abounded, although with no autopsy, none was ever confirmed. Until recently. Academics not long ago had gotten permission to X-ray the tomb of Pope Celestine V, who had allegedly died at the hands of his overeager successor, Boniface VIII. The researchers had hoped the X-ray might reveal some small hint of foul play—a broken bone perhaps. Incredibly, the X-ray had revealed a ten-inch nail driven into the Pope’s skull.

Langdon now recalled a series of news clippings fellow Illuminati buffs had sent him years ago. At first he had thought the clippings were a prank, so he’d gone to the Harvard microfiche collection to confirm the articles were authentic. Incredibly, they were. He now kept them on his bulletin board as examples of how even respectable news organizations sometimes got carried away with Illuminati paranoia. Suddenly, the media’s suspicions seemed a lot less paranoid. Langdon could see the articles clearly in his mind . . .

THE BRITISH BROADCASTING CORPORATION

June 14, 1998

Pope John Paul I, who died in 1978, fell victim to a plot by the P2 Masonic Lodge . . . The secret society P2 decided to murder John Paul I when it saw he was determined to dismiss the American Archbishop Paul Marcinkus as President of the Vatican Bank. The Bank had been implicated in shady financial deals with the Masonic Lodge . . .

THE NEW YORK TIMES

August 24, 1998

Why was the late John Paul I wearing his day shirt in bed? Why was it torn? The questions don’t stop there. No medical investigations were made. Cardinal Villot forbade an autopsy on the grounds that no Pope was ever given a postmortem. And John Paul’s medicines mysteriously vanished from his bedside, as did his glasses, slippers and his last will and testament.

LONDON DAILY MAIL

August 27, 1998

. . . a plot including a powerful, ruthless and illegal Masonic lodge with tentacles stretching into the Vatican.

The cellular in Vittoria’s pocket rang, thankfully erasing the memories from Langdon’s mind. Vittoria answered, looking confused as to who might be calling her. Even from a few feet away, Langdon recognized the laserlike voice on the phone.

“Vittoria? This is Maximilian Kohler. Have you found the antimatter yet?”

“Max? You’re okay?”

“I saw the news. There was no mention of CERN or the antimatter. This is good. What is happening?”

“We haven’t located the canister yet. The situation is complex. Robert Langdon has been quite an asset. We have a lead on catching the man assassinating cardinals. Right now we are headed—”

“Ms. Vetra,” Olivetti interrupted. “You’ve said enough.”

She covered the receiver, clearly annoyed. “Commander, this is the president of CERN. Certainly he has a right to—”

“He has a right,” Olivetti snapped, “to be here handling this situation. You’re on an open cellular line. You’ve said enough.”

Vittoria took a deep breath. “Max?”

“I may have some information for you,” Max said. “About your father . . . I may know who he told about the antimatter.”

Vittoria’s expression clouded. “Max, my father said he told no one.”

“I’m afraid, Vittoria, your father did tell someone. I need to check some security records. I will be in touch soon.” The line went dead.

Vittoria looked waxen as she returned the phone to her pocket.

“You okay?” Langdon asked.

Vittoria nodded, her trembling fingers revealing the lie.

“The church is on Piazza Barberini,” Olivetti said, killing the siren and checking his watch. “We have nine minutes.”

When Langdon had first realized the location of the third marker, the position of the church had rung some distant bell for him. Piazza Barberini. Something about the name was familiar . . . something he could not place. Now Langdon realized what it was. The piazza was the sight of a controversial subway stop. Twenty years ago, construction of the subway terminal had created a stir among art historians who feared digging beneath Piazza Barberini might topple the multiton obelisk that stood in the center. City planners had removed the obelisk and replaced it with a small fountain called the Triton. In Bernini’s day, Langdon now realized, Piazza Barberini had contained an obelisk! Whatever doubts Langdon had felt that this was the location of the third marker now totally evaporated. A block from the piazza, Olivetti turned into an alley, gunned the car halfway down, and skidded to a stop. He pulled off his suit jacket, rolled up his sleeves, and loaded his weapon.

“We can’t risk your being recognized,” he said. “You two were on television. I want you across the piazza, out of sight, watching the front entrance. I’m going in the back.” He produced a familiar pistol and handed it to Langdon. “Just in case.”

Langdon frowned. It was the second time today he had been handed the gun. He slid it into his breast pocket. As he did, he realized he was still carrying the folio from Diagramma. He couldn’t believe he had forgotten to leave it behind. He pictured the Vatican Curator collapsing in spasms of outrage at the thought of this priceless artifact being packed around Rome like some tourist map. Then Langdon thought of the mess of shattered glass and strewn documents that he’d left behind in the archives. The curator had other problems. If the archives even survive the night . . .

Olivetti got out of the car and motioned back up the alley. “The piazza is that way. Keep your eyes open and don’t let yourselves be seen.” He tapped the phone on his belt. “Ms. Vetra, let’s retest our auto dial.”

Vittoria removed her phone and hit the auto dial number she and Olivetti had programmed at the Pantheon. Olivetti’s phone vibrated in silent-ring mode on his belt.

The commander nodded. “Good. If you see anything, I want to know.” He cocked his weapon. “I’ll be inside waiting. This heathen is mine.”

At that moment, very nearby, another cellular phone was ringing.

The Hassassin answered. “Speak.”

“It is I,” the voice said. “Janus.”

The Hassassin smiled. “Hello, master.”

“Your position may be known. Someone is coming to stop you.”

“They are too late. I have already made the arrangements here.”

“Good. Make sure you escape alive. There is work yet to be done.”

“Those who stand in my way will die.”

“Those who stand in your way are knowledgeable.”

“You speak of an American scholar?”

“You are aware of him?”

The Hassassin chuckled. “Cool-tempered but naïve. He spoke to me on the phone earlier. He is with a female who seems quite the opposite.” The killer felt a stirring of arousal as he recalled the fiery temperament of Leonardo Vetra’s daughter.

There was a momentary silence on the line, the first hesitation the Hassassin had ever sensed from his Illuminati master. Finally, Janus spoke. “Eliminate them if need be.”

The killer smiled. “Consider it done.” He felt a warm anticipation spreading through his body. Although the woman I may keep as a prize.

89

W ar had broken out in St. Peter’s Square.

The piazza had exploded into a frenzy of aggression. Media trucks skidded into place like assault vehicles claiming beachheads. Reporters unfurled high-tech electronics like soldiers arming for battle. All around the perimeter of the square, networks jockeyed for position as they raced to erect the newest weapon in media wars—flat-screen displays.

Flat-screen displays were enormous video screens that could be assembled on top of trucks or portable scaffolding. The screens served as a kind of billboard advertisement for the network, broadcasting that network’s coverage and corporate logo like a drive-in movie. If a screen were well-situated—in front of the action, for example—a competing network could not shoot the story without including an advertisement for their competitor.

The square was quickly becoming not only a multimedia extravaganza, but a frenzied public vigil. Onlookers poured in from all directions. Open space in the usually limitless square was fast becoming a valuable commodity. People clustered around the towering flat-screen displays, listening to live reports in stunned excitement.

Only a hundred yards away, inside the thick walls of St. Peter’s Basilica, the world was serene. Lieutenant Chartrand and three other guards moved through the darkness. Wearing their infrared goggles, they fanned out across the nave, swinging their detectors before them. The search of Vatican City’s public access areas so far had yielded nothing.

“Better remove your goggles up here,” the senior guard said.

Chartrand was already doing it. They were nearing the Niche of the Palliums—the sunken area in the center of the basilica. It was lit by ninety-nine oil lamps, and the amplified infrared would have seared their eyes.

Chartrand enjoyed being out of the heavy goggles, and he stretched his neck as they descended into the sunken niche to scan the area. The room was beautiful . . . golden and glowing. He had not been down here yet.

It seemed every day since Chartrand had arrived in Vatican City he had learned some new Vatican mystery. These oil lamps were one of them. There were exactly ninety-nine lamps burning at all times. It was tradition. The clergy vigilantly refilled the lamps with sacred oils such that no lamp ever burned out. It was said they would burn until the end of time.

Or at least until midnight, Chartrand thought, feeling his mouth go dry again. Chartrand swung his detector over the oil lamps. Nothing hidden in here. He was not surprised; the canister, according to the video feed, was hidden in a dark area. As he moved across the niche, he came to a bulkhead grate covering a hole in the floor. The hole led to a steep and narrow stairway that went straight down. He had heard stories about what lay down there. Thankfully, they would not have to descend. Rocher’s orders were clear. Search only the public access areas; ignore the white zones.

“What’s that smell?” he asked, turning away from the grate. The niche smelled intoxicatingly sweet.

“Fumes from the lamps,” one of them replied.

Chartrand was surprised. “Smells more like cologne than kerosene.”

“It’s not kerosene. These lamps are close to the papal altar, so they take a special, ambiental mixture—ethanol, sugar, butane, and perfume.”

“Butane?” Chartrand eyed the lamps uneasily.

The guard nodded. “Don’t spill any. Smells like heaven, but burns like hell.”

The guards had completed searching the Niche of the Palliums and were moving across the basilica again when their walkie-talkies went off.

It was an update. The guards listened in shock.

Apparently there were troubling new developments, which could not be shared on-air, but the camerlegno had decided to break tradition and enter conclave to address the cardinals. Never before in history had this been done. Then again, Chartrand realized, never before in history had the Vatican been sitting on what amounted to some sort of neoteric nuclear warhead.

Chartrand felt comforted to know the camerlegno was taking control. The camerlegno was the person inside Vatican City for whom Chartrand held the most respect. Some of the guards thought of the camerlegno as a beato—a religious zealot whose love of God bordered on obsession—but even they agreed . . . when it came to fighting the enemies of God, the camerlegno was the one man who would stand up and play hardball.

The Swiss Guards had seen a lot of the camerlegno this week in preparation for conclave, and everyone had commented that the man seemed a bit rough around the edges, his verdant eyes a bit more intense than usual. Not surprisingly, they had all commented; not only was the camerlegno responsible for planning the sacred conclave, but he had to do it immediately on the heels of the loss of his mentor, the Pope.

Chartrand had only been at the Vatican a few months when he heard the story of the bomb that blew up the camerlegno’s mother before the kid’s very eyes. A bomb in church . . . and now it’s happening all over again. Sadly, the authorities never caught the bastards who planted the bomb . . . probably some antiChristian hate group they said, and the case faded away. No wonder the camerlegno despised apathy. A couple months back, on a peaceful afternoon inside Vatican City, Chartrand had bumped into the camerlegno coming across the grounds. The camerlegno had apparently recognized Chartrand as a new guard and invited him to accompany him on a stroll. They had talked about nothing in particular, and the camerlegno made Chartrand feel immediately at home.

“Father,” Chartrand said, “may I ask you a strange question?”

The camerlegno smiled. “Only if I may give you a strange answer.”

Chartrand laughed. “I have asked every priest I know, and I still don’t understand.”

“What troubles you?” The camerlegno led the way in short, quick strides, his frock kicking out in front of him as he walked. His black, crepe-sole shoess seemed befitting, Chartrand thought, like reflections of the man’s essence . . . modern but humble, and showing signs of wear.

Chartrand took a deep breath. “I don’t understand this omnipotent-benevolent thing.”

The camerlegno smiled. “You’ve been reading Scripture.”

“I try.”

“You are confused because the Bible describes God as an omnipotent and benevolent deity.”

“Exactly.”

“Omnipotent-benevolent simply means that God is all-powerful and well-meaning.”

“I understand the concept. It’s just . . . there seems to be a contradiction.”

“Yes. The contradiction is pain. Man’s starvation, war, sickness . . .”

“Exactly!” Chartrand knew the camerlegno would understand. “Terrible things happen in this world. Human tragedy seems like proof that God could not possibly be both all-powerful and well-meaning. If He loves us and has the power to change our situation, He would prevent our pain, wouldn’t He?”

The camerlegno frowned. “Would He?”

Chartrand felt uneasy. Had he overstepped his bounds? Was this one of those religious questions you just didn’t ask? “Well . . . if God loves us, and He can protect us, He would have to. It seems He is either omnipotent and uncaring, or benevolent and powerless to help.”

“Do you have children, Lieutenant?”

Chartrand flushed. “No, signore.”

“Imagine you had an eight-year-old son . . . would you love him?”

“Of course.”

“Would you do everything in your power to prevent pain in his life?”

“Of course.”

“Would you let him skateboard?”

Chartrand did a double take. The camerlegno always seemed oddly “in touch” for a clergyman. “Yeah, I guess,” Chartrand said. “Sure, I’d let him skateboard, but I’d tell him to be careful.”

“So as this child’s father, you would give him some basic, good advice and then let him go off and make his own mistakes?”

“I wouldn’t run behind him and mollycoddle him if that’s what you mean.”

“But what if he fell and skinned his knee?”

“He would learn to be more careful.”

The camerlegno smiled. “So although you have the power to interfere and prevent your child’s pain, you would choose to show your love by letting him learn his own lessons?”

“Of course. Pain is part of growing up. It’s how we learn.”

The camerlegno nodded. “Exactly.”

90

L angdon and Vittoria observed Piazza Barberini from the shadows of a small alleyway on the western corner. The church was opposite them, a hazy cupola emerging from a faint cluster of buildings across the square. The night had brought with it a welcome cool, and Langdon was surprised to find the square deserted. Above them, through open windows, blaring televisions reminded Langdon where everyone had disappeared to.

“. . . no comment yet from the Vatican . . . Illuminati murders of two cardinals . . . satanic presence in Rome . . . speculation about further infiltration . . .”

The news had spread like Nero’s fire. Rome sat riveted, as did the rest of the world. Langdon wondered if they would really be able to stop this runaway train. As he scanned the piazza and waited, Langdon realized that despite the encroachment of modern buildings, the piazza still looked remarkably elliptical. High above, like some sort of modern shrine to a bygone hero, an enormous neon sign blinked on the roof of a luxurious hotel. Vittoria had already pointed it out to Langdon. The sign seemed eerily befitting.

HOTEL BERNINI

“Five of ten,” Vittoria said, cat eyes darting around the square. No sooner had she spoken the words than she grabbed Langdon’s arm and pulled him back into the shadows. She motioned into the center of the square.

Langdon followed her gaze. When he saw it, he stiffened.

Crossing in front of them, beneath a street lamp, two dark figures appeared. Both were cloaked, their heads covered with dark mantles, the traditional black covering of Catholic widows. Langdon would have guessed they were women, but he couldn’t be sure in the dark. One looked elderly and moved as if in pain, hunched over. The other, larger and stronger, was helping.

“Give me the gun,” Vittoria said.

“You can’t just—”

Fluid as a cat, Vittoria was in and out of his pocket once again. The gun glinted in her hand. Then, in absolute silence, as if her feet never touched the cobblestone, she was circling left in the shadows, arching across the square to approach the couple from the rear. Langdon stood transfixed as Vittoria disappeared. Then, swearing to himself, he hurried after her.

The couple was moving slowly, and it was only a matter of half a minute before Langdon and Vittoria were positioned behind them, closing in from the rear. Vittoria concealed the gun beneath casually crossed arms in front of her, out of sight but accessible in a flash. She seemed to float faster and faster as the gap lessened, and Langdon battled to keep up. When his shoes scuffed a stone and sent it skittering, Vittoria shot him a sideways glare. But the couple did not seem to hear. They were talking. At thirty feet, Langdon could start to hear voices. No words. Just faint murmurings. Beside him, Vittoria moved faster with every step. Her arms loosened before her, the gun starting to peek out. Twenty feet. The voices were clearer—one much louder than the other. Angry. Ranting. Langdon sensed it was the voice of an old woman. Gruff. Androgynous. He strained to hear what she was saying, but another voice cut the night.

“Mi scusi!” Vittoria’s friendly tone lit the square like a torch. Langdon tensed as the cloaked couple stopped short and began to turn. Vittoria kept striding toward them, even faster now, on a collision course. They would have no time to react. Langdon realized his own feet had stopped moving. From behind, he saw Vittoria’s arms loosening, her hand coming free, the gun swinging forward. Then, over her shoulder, he saw a face, lit now in the street lamp. The panic surged to his legs, and he lunged forward. “Vittoria, no!”

Vittoria, however, seemed to exist a split second ahead of him. In a motion as swift as it was casual, Vittoria’s arms were raised again, the gun disappearing as she clutched herself like a woman on a chilly night. Langdon stumbled to her side, almost colliding with the cloaked couple before them.

“Buona sera,” Vittoria blurted, her voice startled with retreat. Langdon exhaled in relief. Two elderly women stood before them scowling out from beneath their mantles. One was so old she could barely stand. The other was helping her. Both clutched rosaries. They seemed confused by the sudden interruption.

Vittoria smiled, although she looked shaken. “Dov’è la chiesa Santa Maria della Vittoria? Where is the Church of—”

The two women motioned in unison to a bulky silhouette of a building on an inclined street from the direction they had come. “È là.”

“Grazie,” Langdon said, putting his hands on Vittoria’s shoulders and gently pulling her back. He couldn’t believe they’d almost attacked a pair of old ladies.

“Non si puó entrare,” one woman warned. “È chiusa temprano.”

“Closed early?” Vittoria looked surprised. “Perchè?”

Both women explained at once. They sounded irate. Langdon understood only parts of the grumbling Italian. Apparently, the women had been inside the church fifteen minutes ago praying for the Vatican in its time of need, when some man had appeared and told them the church was closing early.

“Hanno conosciuto l’uomo?” Vittoria demanded, sounding tense. “Did you know the man?”

The women shook their heads. The man was a straniero crudo, they explained, and he had forcibly made everyone inside leave, even the young priest and janitor, who said they were calling the police. But the intruder had only laughed, telling them to be sure the police brought cameras. Cameras? Langdon wondered.

The women clucked angrily and called the man a bar-àrabo. Then, grumbling, they continued on their way.

“Bar-àrabo?”Langdon asked Vittoria. “A barbarian?”

Vittoria looked suddenly taut. “Not quite. Bar-àrabo is derogatory wordplay. It means Àrabo . . . Arab.”

Langdon felt a shiver and turned toward the outline of the church. As he did, his eyes glimpsed something in the church’s stained-glass windows. The image shot dread through his body. Unaware, Vittoria removed her cell phone and pressed the auto dial. “I’m warning Olivetti.”

Speechless, Langdon reached out and touched her arm. With a tremulous hand, he pointed to the church. Vittoria let out a gasp.

Inside the building, glowing like evil eyes through the stained-glass windows . . . shone the growing flash of flames.

91

L angdon and Vittoria dashed to the main entrance of the church of Santa Maria della Vittoria and found the wooden door locked. Vittoria fired three shots from Olivetti’s semi-automatic into the ancient bolt, and it shattered.

The church had no anteroom, so the entirety of the sanctuary spread out in one gasping sweep as Langdon and Vittoria threw open the main door. The scene before them was so unexpected, so bizarre, that Langdon had to close his eyes and reopen them before his mind could take it all in. The church was lavish baroque . . . gilded walls and altars. Dead center of the sanctuary, beneath the main cupola, wooden pews had been stacked high and were now ablaze in some sort of epic funeral pyre. A bonfire shooting high into the dome. As Langdon’s eyes followed the inferno upward, the true horror of the scene descended like a bird of prey.

High overhead, from the left and right sides of the ceiling, hung two incensor cables—lines used for swinging frankincense vessels above the congregation. These lines, however, carried no incensors now. Nor were they swinging. They had been used for something else . . .

Suspended from the cables was a human being. A naked man. Each wrist had been connected to an opposing cable, and he had been hoisted almost to the point of being torn apart. His arms were outstretched in a spread-eagle as if he were nailed to some sort of invisible crucifix hovering within the house of God.

Langdon felt paralyzed as he stared upward. A moment later, he witnessed the final abomination. The old man was alive, and he raised his head. A pair of terrified eyes gazed down in a silent plea for help. On the man’s chest was a scorched emblem. He had been branded. Langdon could not see it clearly, but he had little doubt what the marking said. As the flames climbed higher, lapping at the man’s feet, the victim let out a cry of pain, his body trembling.

As if ignited by some unseen force, Langdon felt his body suddenly in motion, dashing down the main aisle toward the conflagration. His lungs filled with smoke as he closed in. Ten feet from the inferno, at a full sprint, Langdon hit a wall of heat. The skin on his face singed, and he fell back, shielding his eyes and landing hard on the marble floor. Staggering upright, he pressed forward again, hands raised in protection. Instantly he knew. The fire was far too hot.

Moving back again, he scanned the chapel walls. A heavy tapestry, he thought. If I can somehow smother the . . . But he knew a tapestry was not to be found. This is a baroque chapel, Robert, not some damn German castle! Think! He forced his eyes back to the suspended man. High above, smoke and flames swirled in the cupola. The incensor cables stretched outward from the man’s wrists, rising to the ceiling where they passed through pulleys, and descended again to metal cleats on either side of the church. Langdon looked over at one of the cleats. It was high on the wall, but he knew if he could get to it and loosen one of the lines, the tension would slacken and the man would swing wide of the fire.

A sudden surge of flames crackled higher, and Langdon heard a piercing scream from above. The skin on the man’s feet was starting to blister. The cardinal was being roasted alive. Langdon fixed his sights on the cleat and ran for it.

In the rear of the church, Vittoria clutched the back of a pew, trying to gather her senses. The image overhead was horrid. She forced her eyes away. Do something! She wondered where Olivetti was. Had he seen the Hassassin? Had he caught him? Where were they now? Vittoria moved forward to help Langdon, but as she did, a sound stopped her.

The crackling of the flames was getting louder by the instant, but a second sound also cut the air. A metallic vibration. Nearby. The repetitive pulse seemed to emanate from the end of the pews to her left. It was a stark rattle, like the ringing of a phone, but stony and hard. She clutched the gun firmly and moved down the row of pews. The sound grew louder. On. Off. A recurrent vibration. As she approached the end of the aisle, she sensed the sound was coming from the floor just around the corner at the end of the pews. As she moved forward, gun outstretched in her right hand, she realized she was also holding something in her left hand—her cell phone. In her panic she had forgotten that outside she had used it to dial the commander . . . setting off his phone’s silent vibration feature as a warning. Vittoria raised her phone to her ear. It was still ringing. The commander had never answered. Suddenly, with rising fear, Vittoria sensed she knew what was making the sound. She stepped forward, trembling. The entire church seemed to sink beneath her feet as her eyes met the lifeless form on the floor. No stream of liquid flowed from the body. No signs of violence tattooed the flesh. There was only the fearful geometry of the commander’s head . . . torqued backward, twisted 180 degrees in the wrong direction. Vittoria fought the images of her own father’s mangled body.

The phone on the commander’s belt lay against the floor, vibrating over and over against the cold marble. Vittoria hung up her own phone, and the ringing stopped. In the silence, Vittoria heard a new sound. A breathing in the dark directly behind her.

She started to spin, gun raised, but she knew she was too late. A laser beam of heat screamed from the top of her skull to the soles of her feet as the killer’s elbow crashed down on the back of her neck.

“Now you are mine,” a voice said.

Then, everything went black.

Across the sanctuary, on the left lateral wall, Langdon balanced atop a pew and scraped upward on the wall trying to reach the cleat. The cable was still six feet above his head. Cleats like these were common in churches and were placed high to prevent tampering. Langdon knew priests used wooden ladders called piuò li to access the cleats. The killer had obviously used the church’s ladder to hoist his victim. So where the hell is the ladder now! Langdon looked down, searching the floor around him. He had a faint recollection of seeing a ladder in here somewhere. But where? A moment later his heart sank. He realized where he had seen it. He turned toward the raging fire. Sure enough, the ladder was high atop the blaze, engulfed in flames.

Filled now with desperation, Langdon scanned the entire church from his raised platform, looking for anything at all that could help him reach the cleat. As his eyes probed the church, he had a sudden realization.

Where the hell is Vittoria? She had disappeared. Did she go for help? Langdon screamed out her name, but there was no response. And where is Olivetti!

There was a howl of pain from above, and Langdon sensed he was already too late. As his eyes went skyward again and saw the slowly roasting victim, Langdon had thoughts for only one thing. Water. Lots of it. Put out the fire. At least lower the flames. “I need water, damn it!” he yelled out loud.

“That’s next,” a voice growled from the back of the church.

Langdon wheeled, almost falling off the pews.

Striding up the side aisle directly toward him came a dark monster of a man. Even in the glow of the fire, his eyes burned black. Langdon recognized the gun in his hand as the one from his own jacket pocket . . . the one Vittoria had been carrying when they came in.

The sudden wave of panic that rose in Langdon was a frenzy of disjunct fears. His initial instinct was for Vittoria. What had this animal done to her? Was she hurt? Or worse? In the same instant, Langdon realized the man overhead was screaming louder. The cardinal would die. Helping him now was impossible. Then, as the Hassassin leveled the gun at Langdon’s chest, Langdon’s panic turned inward, his senses on overload. He reacted on instinct as the shot went off. Launching off the bench, Langdon sailed arms first over the sea of church pews.

When he hit the pews, he hit harder than he had imagined, immediately rolling to the floor. The marble cushioned his fall with all the grace of cold steel. Footsteps closed to his right. Langdon turned his body toward the front of the church and began scrambling for his life beneath the pews. High above the chapel floor, Cardinal Guidera endured his last torturous moments of consciousness. As he looked down the length of his naked body, he saw the skin on his legs begin to blister and peel away. I am in hell, he decided. God, why hast thou forsaken me? He knew this must be hell because he was looking at the brand on his chest upside down . . . and yet, as if by the devil’s magic, the word made perfect sense.

92

T hree ballotings. No Pope.

Inside the Sistine Chapel, Cardinal Mortati had begun praying for a miracle. Send us the candidates! The delay had gone long enough. A single missing candidate, Mortati could understand. But all four? It left no options. Under these conditions, achieving a two-thirds majority would take an act of God Himself. When the bolts on the outer door began to grind open, Mortati and the entire College of Cardinals wheeled in unison toward the entrance. Mortati knew this unsealing could mean only one thing. By law, the chapel door could only be unsealed for two reasons—to remove the very ill, or to admit late cardinals. The preferiti are coming!

Mortati’s heart soared. Conclave had been saved.

But when the door opened, the gasp that echoed through the chapel was not one of joy. Mortati stared in incredulous shock as the man walked in. For the first time in Vatican history, a camerlegno had just crossed the sacred threshold of conclave after sealing the doors. What is he thinking!

The camerlegno strode to the altar and turned to address the thunderstruck audience. “Signori,” he said, “I have waited as long as I can. There is something you have a right to know.”

93

L angdon had no idea where he was going. Reflex was his only compass, driving him away from danger. His elbows and knees burned as he clambered beneath the pews. Still he clawed on. Somewhere a voice was telling him to move left. If you can get to the main aisle, you can dash for the exit. He knew it was impossible. There’s a wall of flames blocking the main aisle! His mind hunting for options, Langdon scrambled blindly on. The footsteps closed faster now to his right.

When it happened, Langdon was unprepared. He had guessed he had another ten feet of pews until he reached the front of the church. He had guessed wrong. Without warning, the cover above him ran out. He froze for an instant, half exposed at the front of the church. Rising in the recess to his left, gargantuan from this vantage point, was the very thing that had brought him here. He had entirely forgotten. Bernini’s Ecstasy of St. Teresa rose up like some sort of pornographic still life . . . the saint on her back, arched in pleasure, mouth open in a moan, and over her, an angel pointing his spear of fire. A bullet exploded in the pew over Langdon’s head. He felt his body rise like a sprinter out of a gate. Fueled only by adrenaline, and barely conscious of his actions, he was suddenly running, hunched, head down, pounding across the front of the church to his right. As the bullets erupted behind him, Langdon dove yet again, sliding out of control across the marble floor before crashing in a heap against the railing of a niche on the right-hand wall.

It was then that he saw her. A crumpled heap near the back of the church. Vittoria! Her bare legs were twisted beneath her, but Langdon sensed somehow that she was breathing. He had no time to help her. Immediately, the killer rounded the pews on the far left of the church and bore relentlessly down. Langdon knew in a heartbeat it was over. The killer raised the weapon, and Langdon did the only thing he could do. He rolled his body over the banister into the niche. As he hit the floor on the other side, the marble columns of the balustrade exploded in a storm of bullets.

Langdon felt like a cornered animal as he scrambled deeper into the semicircular niche. Rising before him, the niche’s sole contents seemed ironically apropos—a single sarcophagus. Mine perhaps, Langdon thought. Even the casket itself seemed fitting. It was a scàtola—a small, unadorned, marble box. Burial on a budget. The casket was raised off the floor on two marble blocks, and Langdon eyed the opening beneath it, wondering if he could slide through.

Footsteps echoed behind him.

With no other option in sight, Langdon pressed himself to the floor and slithered toward the casket. Grabbing the two marble supports, one with each hand, he pulled like a breaststroker, dragging his torso into the opening beneath the tomb. The gun went off.

Accompanying the roar of the gun, Langdon felt a sensation he had never felt in his life . . . a bullet sailing past his flesh. There was a hiss of wind, like the backlash of a whip, as the bullet just missed him and exploded in the marble with a puff of dust. Blood surging, Langdon heaved his body the rest of the way beneath the casket. Scrambling across the marble floor, he pulled himself out from beneath the casket and to the other side.

Dead end.

Langdon was now face to face with the rear wall of the niche. He had no doubt that this tiny space behind the tomb would become his grave. And soon, he realized, as he saw the barrel of the gun appear in the opening beneath the sarcophagus. The Hassassin held the weapon parallel with the floor, pointing directly at Langdon’s midsection.

Impossible to miss.

Langdon felt a trace of self-preservation grip his unconscious mind. He twisted his body onto his stomach, parallel with the casket. Facedown, he planted his hands flat on the floor, the glass cut from the archives pinching open with a stab. Ignoring the pain, he pushed. Driving his body upward in an awkward push-up, Langdon arched his stomach off the floor just as the gun went off. He could feel the shock wave of the bullets as they sailed beneath him and pulverized the porous travertine behind. Closing his eyes and straining against exhaustion, Langdon prayed for the thunder to stop.

And then it did.

The roar of gunfire was replaced with the cold click of an empty chamber. Langdon opened his eyes slowly, almost fearful his eyelids would make a sound. Fighting the trembling pain, he held his position, arched like a cat. He didn’t even dare breathe. His eardrums numbed by gunfire, Langdon listened for any hint of the killer’s departure. Silence. He thought of Vittoria and ached to help her.

The sound that followed was deafening. Barely human. A guttural bellow of exertion. The sarcophagus over Langdon’s head suddenly seemed to rise on its side. Langdon collapsed on the floor as hundreds of pounds teetered toward him. Gravity overcame friction, and the lid was the first to go, sliding off the tomb and crashing to the floor beside him. The casket came next, rolling off its supports and toppling upside down toward Langdon.

As the box rolled, Langdon knew he would either be entombed in the hollow beneath it or crushed by one of the edges. Pulling in his legs and head, Langdon compacted his body and yanked his arms to his sides. Then he closed his eyes and awaited the sickening crush.

When it came, the entire floor shook beneath him. The upper rim landed only millimeters from the top of his head, rattling his teeth in their sockets. His right arm, which Langdon had been certain would be crushed, miraculously still felt intact. He opened his eyes to see a shaft of light. The right rim of the casket had not fallen all the way to the floor and was still propped partially on its supports. Directly overhead, though, Langdon found himself staring quite literally into the face of death. The original occupant of the tomb was suspended above him, having adhered, as decaying bodies often did, to the bottom of the casket. The skeleton hovered a moment, like a tentative lover, and then with a sticky crackling, it succumbed to gravity and peeled away. The carcass rushed down to embrace him, raining putrid bones and dust into Langdon’s eyes and mouth.

Before Langdon could react, a blind arm was slithering through the opening beneath the casket, sifting through the carcass like a hungry python. It groped until it found Langdon’s neck and clamped down. Langdon tried to fight back against the iron fist now crushing his larynx, but he found his left sleeve pinched beneath the edge of the coffin. He had only one arm free, and the fight was a losing battle. Langdon’s legs bent in the only open space he had, his feet searching for the casket floor above him. He found it. Coiling, he planted his feet. Then, as the hand around his neck squeezed tighter, Langdon closed his eyes and extended his legs like a ram. The casket shifted, ever so slightly, but enough. With a raw grinding, the sarcophagus slid off the supports and landed on the floor. The casket rim crashed onto the killer’s arm, and there was a muffled scream of pain. The hand released Langdon’s neck, twisting and jerking away into the dark. When the killer finally pulled his arm free, the casket fell with a conclusive thud against the flat marble floor.

Complete darkness. Again.

And silence.

There was no frustrated pounding outside the overturned sarcophagus. No prying to get in. Nothing. As Langdon lay in the dark amidst a pile of bones, he fought the closing darkness and turned his thoughts to her.

Vittoria. Are you alive?

If Langdon had known the truth—the horror to which Vittoria would soon awake—he would have wished for her sake that she were dead.

94

S itting in the Sistine Chapel among his stunned colleagues, Cardinal Mortati tried to comprehend the words he was hearing. Before him, lit only by the candlelight, the camerlegno had just told a tale of such hatred and treachery that Mortati found himself trembling. The camerlegno spoke of kidnapped cardinals, branded cardinals, murdered cardinals. He spoke of the ancient Illuminati—a name that dredged up forgotten fears—and of their resurgence and vow of revenge against the church. With pain in his voice, the camerlegno spoke of his late Pope . . . the victim of an Illuminati poisoning. And finally, his words almost a whisper, he spoke of a deadly new technology, antimatter, which in less than two hours threatened to destroy all of Vatican City.

When he was through, it was as if Satan himself had sucked the air from the room. Nobody could move. The camerlegno’s words hung in the darkness.

The only sound Mortati could now hear was the anomalous hum of a television camera in back—an electronic presence no conclave in history had ever endured—but a presence demanded by the camerlegno. To the utter astonishment of the cardinals, the camerlegno had entered the Sistine Chapel with two BBC reporters—a man and a woman—and announced that they would be transmitting his solemn statement, live to the world.

Now, speaking directly to the camera, the camerlegno stepped forward. “To the Illuminati,” he said, his voice deepening, “and to those of science, let me say this.” He paused. “You have won the war.”

The silence spread now to the deepest corners of the chapel. Mortati could hear the desperate thumping of his own heart.

“The wheels have been in motion for a long time,” the camerlegno said. “Your victory has been inevitable. Never before has it been as obvious as it is at this moment. Science is the new God.”

What is he saying! Mortati thought. Has he gone mad? The entire world is hearing this!

“Medicine, electronic communications, space travel, genetic manipulation . . . these are the miracles about which we now tell our children. These are the miracles we herald as proof that science will bring us the answers. The ancient stories of immaculate conceptions, burning bushes, and parting seas are no longer relevant. God has become obsolete. Science has won the battle. We concede.”

A rustle of confusion and bewilderment swept through the chapel.

“But science’s victory,” the camerlegno added, his voice intensifying, “has cost every one of us. And it has cost us deeply.”

Silence.

“Science may have alleviated the miseries of disease and drudgery and provided an array of gadgetry for our entertainment and convenience, but it has left us in a world without wonder. Our sunsets have been reduced to wavelengths and frequencies. The complexities of the universe have been shredded into mathematical equations. Even our self-worth as human beings has been destroyed. Science proclaims that Planet Earth and its inhabitants are a meaningless speck in the grand scheme. A cosmic accident.” He paused. “Even the technology that promises to unite us, divides us. Each of us is now electronically connected to the globe, and yet we feel utterly alone. We are bombarded with violence, division, fracture, and betrayal. Skepticism has become a virtue. Cynicism and demand for proof has become enlightened thought. Is it any wonder that humans now feel more depressed and defeated than they have at any point in human history? Does science hold anything sacred? Science looks for answers by probing our unborn fetuses. Science even presumes to rearrange our own DNA. It shatters God’s world into smaller and smaller pieces in quest of meaning . . . and all it finds is more questions.”

Mortati watched in awe. The camerlegno was almost hypnotic now. He had a physical strength in his movements and voice that Mortati had never witnessed on a Vatican altar. The man’s voice was wrought with conviction and sadness.

“The ancient war between science and religion is over,” the camerlegno said. “You have won. But you have not won fairly. You have not won by providing answers. You have won by so radically reorienting our society that the truths we once saw as signposts now seem inapplicable. Religion cannot keep up. Scientific growth is exponential. It feeds on itself like a virus. Every new breakthrough opens doors for new breakthroughs. Mankind took thousands of years to progress from the wheel to the car. Yet only decades from the car into space. Now we measure scientific progress in weeks. We are spinning out of control. The rift between us grows deeper and deeper, and as religion is left behind, people find themselves in a spiritual void. We cry out for meaning. And believe me, we do cry out. We see UFOs, engage in channeling, spirit contact, out-of-body experiences, mindquests—all these eccentric ideas have a scientific veneer, but they are unashamedly irrational. They are the desperate cry of the modern soul, lonely and tormented, crippled by its own enlightenment and its inability to accept meaning in anything removed from technology.”

Mortati could feel himself leaning forward in his seat. He and the other cardinals and people around the world were hanging on this priest’s every utterance. The camerlegno spoke with no rhetoric or vitriol. No references to scripture or Jesus Christ. He spoke in modern terms, unadorned and pure. Somehow, as though the words were flowing from God himself, he spoke the modern language . . . delivering the ancient message. In that moment, Mortati saw one of the reasons the late Pope held this young man so dear. In a world of apathy, cynicism, and technological deification, men like the camerlegno, realists who could speak to our souls like this man just had, were the church’s only hope. The camerlegno was talking more forcefully now. “Science, you say, will save us. Science, I say, has destroyed us. Since the days of Galileo, the church has tried to slow the relentless march of science, sometimes with misguided means, but always with benevolent intention. Even so, the temptations are too great for man to resist. I warn you, look around yourselves. The promises of science have not been kept. Promises of efficiency and simplicity have bred nothing but pollution and chaos. We are a fractured and frantic species . . . moving down a path of destruction.”

The camerlegno paused a long moment and then sharpened his eyes on the camera.

“Who is this God science? Who is the God who offers his people power but no moral framework to tell you how to use that power? What kind of God gives a child fire but does not warn the child of its dangers? The language of science comes with no signposts about good and bad. Science textbooks tell us how to create a nuclear reaction, and yet they contain no chapter asking us if it is a good or a bad idea.

“To science, I say this. The church is tired. We are exhausted from trying to be your signposts. Our resources are drying up from our campaign to be the voice of balance as you plow blindly on in your quest for smaller chips and larger profits. We ask not why you will not govern yourselves, but how can you? Your world moves so fast that if you stop even for an instant to consider the implications of your actions, someone more efficient will whip past you in a blur. So you move on. You proliferate weapons of mass destruction, but it is the Pope who travels the world beseeching leaders to use restraint. You clone living creatures, but it is the church reminding us to consider the moral implications of our actions. You encourage people to interact on phones, video screens, and computers, but it is the church who opens its doors and reminds us to commune in person as we were meant to do. You even murder unborn babies in the name of research that will save lives. Again, it is the church who points out the fallacy of this reasoning.

“And all the while, you proclaim the church is ignorant. But who is more ignorant? The man who cannot define lightning, or the man who does not respect its awesome power? This church is reaching out to you. Reaching out to everyone. And yet the more we reach, the more you push us away. Show me proof there is a God, you say. I say use your telescopes to look to the heavens, and tell me how there could not be a God!” The camerlegno had tears in his eyes now. “You ask what does God look like. I say, where did that question come from? The answers are one and the same. Do you not see God in your science? How can you miss Him! You proclaim that even the slightest change in the force of gravity or the weight of an atom would have rendered our universe a lifeless mist rather than our magnificent sea of heavenly bodies, and yet you fail to see God’s hand in this? Is it really so much easier to believe that we simply chose the right card from a deck of billions? Have we become so spiritually bankrupt that we would rather believe in mathematical impossibility than in a power greater than us?

“Whether or not you believe in God,” the camerlegno said, his voice deepening with deliberation, “you must believe this. When we as a species abandon our trust in the power greater than us, we abandon our sense of accountability. Faith . . . all faiths . . . are admonitions that there is something we cannot understand, something to which we are accountable . . . With faith we are accountable to each other, to ourselves, and to a higher truth. Religion is flawed, but only because man is flawed. If the outside world could see this church as I do . . . looking beyond the ritual of these walls . . . they would see a modern miracle . . . a brotherhood of imperfect, simple souls wanting only to be a voice of compassion in a world spinning out of control.”

The camerlegno motioned out over the College of Cardinals, and the BBC camerawoman instinctively followed, panning the crowd.

“Are we obsolete?” the camerlegno asked. “Are these men dino-saurs? Am I? Does the world really need a voice for the poor, the weak, the oppressed, the unborn child? Do we really need souls like these who, though imperfect, spend their lives imploring each of us to read the signposts of morality and not lose our way?”

Mortati now realized that the camerlegno, whether consciously or not, was making a brilliant move. By showing the cardinals, he was personalizing the church. Vatican City was no longer a building, it was people—people like the camerlegno who had spent their lives in the service of goodness.

“Tonight we are perched on a precipice,” the camerlegno said. “None of us can afford to be apathetic. Whether you see this evil as Satan, corruption, or immorality . . . the dark force is alive and growing every day. Do not ignore it.” The camerlegno lowered his voice to a whisper, and the camera moved in. “The force, though mighty, is not invincible. Goodness can prevail. Listen to your hearts. Listen to God. Together we can step back from this abyss.”

Now Mortati understood. This was the reason. Conclave had been violated, but this was the only way. It was a dramatic and desperate plea for help. The camerlegno was speaking to both his enemy and his friends now. He was entreating anyone, friend or foe, to see the light and stop this madness. Certainly someone listening would realize the insanity of this plot and come forward. The camerlegno knelt at the altar. “Pray with me.”

The College of Cardinals dropped to their knees to join him in prayer. Outside in St. Peter’s Square and around the globe . . . a stunned world knelt with them.

95

T he Hassassin lay his unconscious trophy in the rear of the van and took a moment to admire her sprawled body. She was not as beautiful as the women he bought, and yet she had an animal strength that excited him. Her body was radiant, dewy with perspiration. She smelled of musk. As the Hassasin stood there savoring his prize, he ignored the throb in his arm. The bruise from the falling sarcophagus, although painful, was insignificant . . . well worth the compensation that lay before him. He took consolation in knowing the American who had done this to him was probably dead by now. Gazing down at his incapacitated prisoner, the Hassassin visualized what lay ahead. He ran a palm up beneath her shirt. Her breasts felt perfect beneath her bra. Yes, he smiled. You are more than worthy. Fighting the urge to take her right there, he closed the door and drove off into the night. There was no need to alert the press about this killing . . . the flames would do that for him. At CERN, Sylvie sat stunned by the camerlegno’s address. Never before had she felt so proud to be a Catholic and so ashamed to work at CERN. As she left the recreational wing, the mood in every single viewing room was dazed and somber. When she got back to Kohler’s office, all seven phone lines were ringing. Media inquiries were never routed to Kohler’s office, so the incoming calls could only be one thing.

Geld. Money calls.

Antimatter technology already had some takers.

Inside the Vatican, Gunther Glick was walking on air as he followed the camerlegno from the Sistine Chapel. Glick and Macri had just made the live transmission of the decade. And what a transmission it had been. The camerlegno had been spellbinding.

Now out in the hallway, the camerlegno turned to Glick and Macri. “I have asked the Swiss Guard to assemble photos for you—photos of the branded cardinals as well as one of His late Holiness. I must warn you, these are not pleasant pictures. Ghastly burns. Blackened tongues. But I would like you to broadcast them to the world.”

Glick decided it must be perpetual Christmas inside Vatican City. He wants me to broadcast an exclusive photo of the dead Pope? “Are you sure?” Glick asked, trying to keep the excitement from his voice. The camerlegno nodded. “The Swiss Guard will also provide you a live video feed of the antimatter canister as it counts down.”

Glick stared. Christmas. Christmas. Christmas!

“The Illuminati are about to find out,” the camerlegno declared, “that they have grossly overplayed their hand.”

96

L ike a recurring theme in some demonic symphony, the suffocating darkness had returned. No light. No air. No exit.

Langdon lay trapped beneath the overturned sarcophagus and felt his mind careening dangerously close to the brink. Trying to drive his thoughts in any direction other than the crushing space around him, Langdon urged his mind toward some logical process . . . mathematics, music, anything. But there was no room for calming thoughts. I can’t move! I can’t breathe!

The pinched sleeve of his jacket had thankfully come free when the casket fell, leaving Langdon now with two mobile arms. Even so, as he pressed upward on the ceiling of his tiny cell, he found it immovable. Oddly, he wished his sleeve were still caught. At least it might create a crack for some air. As Langdon pushed against the roof above, his sleeve fell back to reveal the faint glow of an old friend. Mickey. The greenish cartoon face seemed mocking now.

Langdon probed the blackness for any other sign of light, but the casket rim was flush against the floor. Goddamn Italian perfectionists, he cursed, now imperiled by the same artistic excellence he taught his students to revere . . . impeccable edges, faultless parallels, and of course, use only of the most seamless and resilient Carrara marble.

Precision can be suffocating.

“Lift the damn thing,” he said aloud, pressing harder through the tangle of bones. The box shifted slightly. Setting his jaw, he heaved again. The box felt like a boulder, but this time it raised a quarter of an inch. A fleeting glimmer of light surrounded him, and then the casket thudded back down. Langdon lay panting in the dark. He tried to use his legs to lift as he had before, but now that the sarcophagus had fallen flat, there was no room even to straighten his knees.

As the claustrophobic panic closed in, Langdon was overcome by images of the sarcophagus shrinking around him. Squeezed by delirium, he fought the illusion with every logical shred of intellect he had.

“Sarcophagus,” he stated aloud, with as much academic sterility as he could muster. But even erudition seemed to be his enemy today. Sarcophagus is from the Greek “sarx”meaning “flesh,” and “phagein”

meaning “to eat.” I’m trapped in a box literally designed to “eat flesh.”

Images of flesh eaten from bone only served as a grim reminder that Langdon lay covered in human remains. The notion brought nausea and chills. But it also brought an idea. Fumbling blindly around the coffin, Langdon found a shard of bone. A rib maybe? He didn’t care. All he wanted was a wedge. If he could lift the box, even a crack, and slide the bone fragment beneath the rim, then maybe enough air could . . .

Reaching across his body and wedging the tapered end of the bone into the crack between the floor and the coffin, Langdon reached up with his other hand and heaved skyward. The box did not move. Not even slightly. He tried again. For a moment, it seemed to tremble slightly, but that was all. With the fetid stench and lack of oxygen choking the strength from his body, Langdon realized he only had time for one more effort. He also knew he would need both arms.

Regrouping, he placed the tapered edge of the bone against the crack, and shifting his body, he wedged the bone against his shoulder, pinning it in place. Careful not to dislodge it, he raised both hands above him. As the stifling confine began to smother him, he felt a welling of intensified panic. It was the second time today he had been trapped with no air. Hollering aloud, Langdon thrust upward in one explosive motion. The casket jostled off the floor for an instant. But long enough. The bone shard he had braced against his shoulder slipped outward into the widening crack. When the casket fell again, the bone shattered. But this time Langdon could see the casket was propped up. A tiny slit of light showed beneath the rim.

Exhausted, Langdon collapsed. Hoping the strangling sensation in his throat would pass, he waited. But it only worsened as the seconds passed. Whatever air was coming through the slit seemed imperceptible. Langdon wondered if it would be enough to keep him alive. And if so, for how long? If he passed out, who would know he was even in there?

With arms like lead, Langdon raised his watch again: 10:12 P.M. Fighting trembling fingers, he fumbled with the watch and made his final play. He twisted one of the tiny dials and pressed a button. As consciousness faded, and the walls squeezed closer, Langdon felt the old fears sweep over him. He tried to imagine, as he had so many times, that he was in an open field. The image he conjured, however, was no help. The nightmare that had haunted him since his youth came crashing back . . . The flowers here are like paintings, the child thought, laughing as he ran across the meadow. He wished his parents had come along. But his parents were busy pitching camp.

“Don’t explore too far,” his mother had said.

He had pretended not to hear as he bounded off into the woods.

Now, traversing this glorious field, the boy came across a pile of fieldstones. He figured it must be the foundation of an old homestead. He would not go near it. He knew better. Besides, his eyes had been drawn to something else—a brilliant lady’s slipper—the rarest and most beautiful flower in New Hampshire. He had only ever seen them in books.

Excited, the boy moved toward the flower. He knelt down. The ground beneath him felt mulchy and hollow. He realized his flower had found an extra-fertile spot. It was growing from a patch of rotting wood.

Thrilled by the thought of taking home his prize, the boy reached out . . . fingers extending toward the stem.

He never reached it.

With a sickening crack, the earth gave way.

In the three seconds of dizzying terror as he fell, the boy knew he would die. Plummeting downward, he braced for the bone-crushing collision. When it came, there was no pain. Only softness. And cold.

He hit the deep liquid face first, plunging into a narrow blackness. Spinning disoriented somersaults, he groped the sheer walls that enclosed him on all sides. Somehow, as if by instinct, he sputtered to the surface.

Light.

Faint. Above him. Miles above him, it seemed.

His arms clawed at the water, searching the walls of the hollow for something to grab onto. Only smooth stone. He had fallen through an abandoned well covering. He screamed for help, but his cries reverberated in the tight shaft. He called out again and again. Above him, the tattered hole grew dim. Night fell.

Time seemed to contort in the darkness. Numbness set in as he treaded water in the depths of the chasm, calling, crying out. He was tormented by visions of the walls collapsing in, burying him alive. His arms ached with fatigue. A few times he thought he heard voices. He shouted out, but his own voice was muted .

. . like a dream.

As the night wore on, the shaft deepened. The walls inched quietly inward. The boy pressed out against the enclosure, pushing it away. Exhausted, he wanted to give up. And yet he felt the water buoy him, cooling his burning fears until he was numb.

When the rescue team arrived, they found the boy barely conscious. He had been treading water for five hours. Two days later, the Boston Globe ran a front-page story called “The Little Swimmer That Could.”

97

T he Hassassin smiled as he pulled his van into the mammoth stone structure overlooking the Tiber River. He carried his prize up and up . . . spiraling higher in the stone tunnel, grateful his load was slender.

He arrived at the door.

The Church of Illumination, he gloated. The ancient Illuminati meeting room. Who would have imagined it to be here?

Inside, he lay her on a plush divan. Then he expertly bound her arms behind her back and tied her feet. He knew that what he longed for would have to wait until his final task was finished. Water. Still, he thought, he had a moment for indulgence. Kneeling beside her, he ran his hand along her thigh. It was smooth. Higher. His dark fingers snaked beneath the cuff of her shorts. Higher. He stopped. Patience, he told himself, feeling aroused. There is work to be done. He walked for a moment out onto the chamber’s high stone balcony. The evening breeze slowly cooled his ardor. Far below the Tiber raged. He raised his eyes to the dome of St. Peter’s, three quarters of a mile away, naked under the glare of hundreds of press lights.

“Your final hour,” he said aloud, picturing the thousands of Muslims slaughtered during the Crusades.

“At midnight you will meet your God.”

Behind him, the woman stirred. The Hassassin turned. He considered letting her wake up. Seeing terror in a woman’s eyes was his ultimate aphrodisiac.

He opted for prudence. It would be better if she remained unconscious while he was gone. Although she was tied and would never escape, the Hassassin did not want to return and find her exhausted from struggling. I want your strength preserved . . . for me.

Lifting her head slightly, he placed his palm beneath her neck and found the hollow directly beneath her skull. The crown/meridian pressure point was one he had used countless times. With crushing force, he drove his thumb into the soft cartilage and felt it depress. The woman slumped instantly. Twenty minutes, he thought. She would be a tantalizing end to a perfect day. After she had served him and died doing it, he would stand on the balcony and watch the midnight Vatican fireworks.

Leaving his prize unconscious on the couch, the Hassassin went downstairs into a torchlit dungeon. The final task. He walked to the table and revered the sacred, metal forms that had been left there for him. Water. It was his last.

Removing a torch from the wall as he had done three times already, he began heating the end. When the end of the object was white hot, he carried it to the cell.

Inside, a single man stood in silence. Old and alone.

“Cardinal Baggia,” the killer hissed. “Have you prayed yet?”

The Italian’s eyes were fearless. “Only for your soul.”

98

T he six pompieri firemen who responded to the fire at the Church of Santa Maria Della Vittoria extinguished the bonfire with blasts of Halon gas. Water was cheaper, but the steam it created would have ruined the frescoes in the chapel, and the Vatican paid Roman pompieri a healthy stipend for swift and prudent service in all Vatican-owned buildings.

Pompieri, by the nature of their work, witnessed tragedy almost daily, but the execution in this church was something none of them would ever forget. Part crucifixion, part hanging, part burning at the stake, the scene was something dredged from a Gothic nightmare.

Unfortunately, the press, as usual, had arrived before the fire department. They’d shot plenty of video before the pompieri cleared the church. When the firemen finally cut the victim down and lay him on the floor, there was no doubt who the man was.

“Cardinale Guidera,” one whispered. “Di Barcellona.”

The victim was nude. The lower half of his body was crimson-black, blood oozing through gaping cracks in his thighs. His shinbones were exposed. One fireman vomited. Another went outside to breathe. The true horror, though, was the symbol seared on the cardinal’s chest. The squad chief circled the corpse in awestruck dread. Lavoro del diavolo, he said to himself. Satan himself did this. He crossed himself for the first time since childhood.

“Un’ altro corpo!” someone yelled. One of the firemen had found another body. The second victim was a man the chief recognized immediately. The austere commander of the Swiss Guard was a man for whom few public law enforcement officials had any affection. The chief called the Vatican, but all the circuits were busy. He knew it didn’t matter. The Swiss Guard would hear about this on television in a matter of minutes.

As the chief surveyed the damage, trying to recreate what possibly could have gone on here, he saw a niche riddled with bullet holes. A coffin had been rolled off its supports and fallen upside down in an apparent struggle. It was a mess. That’s for the police and Holy See to deal with, the chief thought, turning away.

As he turned, though, he stopped. Coming from the coffin he heard a sound. It was not a sound any fireman ever liked to hear.

“Bomba!” he cried out. “Tutti fuori!”

When the bomb squad rolled the coffin over, they discovered the source of the electronic beeping. They stared, confused.

“Mèdico!” one finally screamed. “Mèdico!”

99

A ny word from Olivetti?” the camerlegno asked, looking drained as Rocher escorted him back from the Sistine Chapel to the Pope’s office.

“No, signore. I am fearing the worst.”

When they reached the Pope’s office, the camerlegno’s voice was heavy. “Captain, there is nothing more I can do here tonight. I fear I have done too much already. I am going into this office to pray. I do not wish to be disturbed. The rest is in God’s hands.”

“Yes, signore.”

“The hour is late, Captain. Find that canister.”

“Our search continues.” Rocher hesitated. “The weapon proves to be too well hidden.”

The camerlegno winced, as if he could not think of it. “Yes. At exactly 11:15 P.M., if the church is still in peril, I want you to evacuate the cardinals. I am putting their safety in your hands. I ask only one thing. Let these men proceed from this place with dignity. Let them exit into St. Peter’s Square and stand side by side with the rest of the world. I do not want the last image of this church to be frightened old men sneaking out a back door.”

“Very good, signore. And you? Shall I come for you at 11:15 as well?”

“There will be no need.”

“Signore?”

“I will leave when the spirit moves me.”

Rocher wondered if the camerlegno intended to go down with the ship.

The camerlegno opened the door to the Pope’s office and entered. “Actually . . .” he said, turning. “There is one thing.”

“Signore?”

“There seems to be a chill in this office tonight. I am trembling.”

“The electric heat is out. Let me lay you a fire.”

The camerlegno smiled tiredly. “Thank you. Thank you, very much.”

Rocher exited the Pope’s office where he had left the camerlegno praying by firelight in front of a small statue of the Blessed Mother Mary. It was an eerie sight. A black shadow kneeling in the flickering glow. As Rocher headed down the hall, a guard appeared, running toward him. Even by candlelight Rocher recognized Lieutenant Chartrand. Young, green, and eager.

“Captain,” Chartrand called, holding out a cellular phone. “I think the camerlegno’s address may have worked. We’ve got a caller here who says he has information that can help us. He phoned on one of the Vatican’s private extensions. I have no idea how he got the number.”

Rocher stopped. “What?”

“He will only speak to the ranking officer.”

“Any word from Olivetti?”

“No, sir.”

He took the receiver. “This is Captain Rocher. I am ranking officer here.”

“Rocher,” the voice said. “I will explain to you who I am. Then I will tell you what you are going to do next.”

When the caller stopped talking and hung up, Rocher stood stunned. He now knew from whom he was taking orders.

Back at CERN, Sylvie Baudeloque was frantically trying to keep track of all the licensing inquiries coming in on Kohler’s voice mail. When the private line on the director’s desk began to ring, Sylvie jumped. Nobody had that number. She answered.

“Yes?”

“Ms. Baudeloque? This is Director Kohler. Contact my pilot. My jet is to be ready in five minutes.”

100

R obert Langdon had no idea where he was or how long he had been unconscious when he opened his eyes and found himself staring up at the underside of a baroque, frescoed cupola. Smoke drifted overhead. Something was covering his mouth. An oxygen mask. He pulled it off. There was a terrible smell in the room—like burning flesh.

Langdon winced at the pounding in his head. He tried to sit up. A man in white was kneeling beside him.

“Riposati!” the man said, easing Langdon onto his back again. “Sono il paramédico.”

Langdon succumbed, his head spiraling like the smoke overhead. What the hell happened? Wispy feelings of panic sifted through his mind.

“Sórcio salvatore,” the paramedic said. “Mouse . . . savior.”

Langdon felt even more lost. Mouse savior?

The man motioned to the Mickey Mouse watch on Langdon’s wrist. Langdon’s thoughts began to clear. He remembered setting the alarm. As he stared absently at the watch face, Langdon also noted the hour. 10:28 P.M.

He sat bolt upright.

Then, it all came back.

Langdon stood near the main altar with the fire chief and a few of his men. They had been rattling him with questions. Langdon wasn’t listening. He had questions of his own. His whole body ached, but he knew he needed to act immediately.

A pompiero approached Langdon across the church. “I checked again, sir. The only bodies we found are Cardinal Guidera and the Swiss Guard commander. There’s no sign of a woman here.”

“Grazie,” Langdon said, unsure whether he was relieved or horrified. He knew he had seen Vittoria unconscious on the floor. Now she was gone. The only explanation he came up with was not a comforting one. The killer had not been subtle on the phone. A woman of spirit. I am aroused. Perhaps before this night is over, I will find you. And when I do . . .”

Langdon looked around. “Where is the Swiss Guard?”

“Still no contact. Vatican lines are jammed.”

Langdon felt overwhelmed and alone. Olivetti was dead. The cardinal was dead. Vittoria was missing. A half hour of his life had disappeared in a blink.

Outside, Langdon could hear the press swarming. He suspected footage of the third cardinal’s horrific death would no doubt air soon, if it hadn’t already. Langdon hoped the camerlegno had long since assumed the worst and taken action. Evacuate the damn Vatican! Enough games! We lose!

Langdon suddenly realized that all of the catalysts that had been driving him—helping to save Vatican City, rescuing the four cardinals, coming face to face with the brotherhood he had studied for years—all of these things had evaporated from his mind. The war was lost. A new compulsion had ignited within him. It was simple. Stark. Primal.

Find Vittoria.

He felt an unexpected emptiness inside. Langdon had often heard that intense situations could unite two people in ways that decades together often did not. He now believed it. In Vittoria’s absence he felt something he had not felt in years. Loneliness. The pain gave him strength. Pushing all else from his mind, Langdon mustered his concentration. He prayed that the Hassassin would take care of business before pleasure. Otherwise, Langdon knew he was already too late. No, he told himself, you have time. Vittoria’s captor still had work to do. He had to surface one last time before disappearing forever.

The last altar of science, Langdon thought. The killer had one final task. Earth. Air. Fire. Water. He looked at his watch. Thirty minutes. Langdon moved past the firemen toward Bernini’s Ecstasy of St. Teresa. This time, as he stared at Bernini’s marker, Langdon had no doubt what he was looking for. Let angels guide you on your lofty quest . . .

Directly over the recumbent saint, against a backdrop of gilded flame, hovered Bernini’s angel. The angel’s hand clutched a pointed spear of fire. Langdon’s eyes followed the direction of the shaft, arching toward the right side of the church. His eyes hit the wall. He scanned the spot where the spear was pointing. There was nothing there. Langdon knew, of course, the spear was pointing far beyond the wall, into the night, somewhere across Rome.

“What direction is that?” Langdon asked, turning and addressing the chief with a newfound determination.

“Direction?” The chief glanced where Langdon was pointing. He sounded confused. “I don’t know . . . west, I think.”

“What churches are in that direction?”

The chief’s puzzlement seemed to deepen. “Dozens. Why?”

Langdon frowned. Of course there were dozens. “I need a city map. Right away.”

The chief sent someone running out to the fire truck for a map. Langdon turned back to the statue. Earth .

. . Air . . . Fire . . . VITTORIA.

The final marker is Water, he told himself. Bernini’s Water. It was in a church out there somewhere. A needle in a haystack. He spurred his mind through all the Bernini works he could recall. I need a tribute to Water!

Langdon flashed on Bernini’s statue of Triton—the Greek God of the sea. Then he realized it was located in the square outside this very church, in entirely the wrong direction. He forced himself to think. What figure would Bernini have carved as a glorification of water? Neptune and Apollo? Unfortunately that statue was in London’s Victoria & Albert Museum.

“Signore?” A fireman ran in with a map.

Langdon thanked him and spread it out on the altar. He immediately realized he had asked the right people; the fire department’s map of Rome was as detailed as any Langdon had ever seen. “Where are we now?”

The man pointed. “Next to Piazza Barberini.”

Langdon looked at the angel’s spear again to get his bearings. The chief had estimated correctly. According to the map, the spear was pointing west. Langdon traced a line from his current location west across the map. Almost instantly his hopes began to sink. It seemed that with every inch his finger traveled, he passed yet another building marked by a tiny black cross. Churches. The city was riddled with them. Finally, Langdon’s finger ran out of churches and trailed off into the suburbs of Rome. He exhaled and stepped back from the map. Damn.

Surveying the whole of Rome, Langdon’s eyes touched down on the three churches where the first three cardinals had been killed. The Chigi Chapel . . . St. Peter’s . . . here . . . Seeing them all laid out before him now, Langdon noted an oddity in their locations. Somehow he had imagined the churches would be scattered randomly across Rome. But they most definitely were not. Improbably, the three churches seemed to be separated systematically, in an enormous city-wide triangle. Langdon double-checked. He was not imagining things. “Penna,” he said suddenly, without looking up. Someone handed him a ballpoint pen.

Langdon circled the three churches. His pulse quickened. He triple-checked his markings. A symmetrical triangle!

Langdon’s first thought was for the Great Seal on the one-dollar bill—the triangle containing the allseeing eye. But it didn’t make sense. He had marked only three points. There were supposed to be four in all.

So where the hell is Water? Langdon knew that anywhere he placed the fourth point, the triangle would be destroyed. The only option to retain the symmetry was to place the fourth marker inside the triangle, at the center. He looked at the spot on the map. Nothing. The idea bothered him anyway. The four elements of science were considered equal. Water was not special; Water would not be at the center of the others. Still, his instinct told him the systematic arrangement could not possibly be accidental. I’m not yet seeing the whole picture. There was only one alternative. The four points did not make a triangle; they made some other shape.

Langdon looked at the map. A square, perhaps? Although a square made no symbolic sense, squares were symmetrical at least. Langdon put his finger on the map at one of the points that would turn the triangle into a square. He saw immediately that a perfect square was impossible. The angles of the original triangle were oblique and created more of a distorted quadrilateral.

As he studied the other possible points around the triangle, something unexpected happened. He noticed that the line he had drawn earlier to indicate the direction of the angel’s spear passed perfectly through one of the possibilities. Stupefied, Langdon circled that point. He was now looking at four ink marks on the map, arranged in somewhat of an awkward, kitelike diamond.

He frowned. Diamonds were not an Illuminati symbol either. He paused. Then again . . . For an instant Langdon flashed on the famed Illuminati Diamond. The thought, of course, was ridiculous. He dismissed it. Besides, this diamond was oblong—like a kite—hardly an example of the flawless symmetry for which the Illuminati Diamond was revered.

When he leaned in to examine where he had placed the final mark, Langdon was surprised to find that the fourth point lay dead center of Rome’s famed Piazza Navona. He knew the piazza contained a major church, but he had already traced his finger through that piazza and considered the church there. To the best of his knowledge it contained no Bernini works. The church was called Saint Agnes in Agony, named for St. Agnes, a ravishing teenage virgin banished to a life of sexual slavery for refusing to renounce her faith.

There must be something in that church! Langdon racked his brain, picturing the inside of the church. He could think of no Bernini works at all inside, much less anything to do with water. The arrangement on the map was bothering him too. A diamond. It was far too accurate to be coincidence, but it was not accurate enough to make any sense. A kite? Langdon wondered if he had chosen the wrong point. What am I missing!

The answer took another thirty seconds to hit him, but when it did, Langdon felt an exhilaration like nothing he had ever experienced in his academic career.

The Illuminati genius, it seemed, would never cease.

The shape he was looking at was not intended as a diamond at all. The four points only formed a diamond because Langdon had connected adjacent points. The Illuminati believe in opposites! Connecting opposite vertices with his pen, Langdon’s fingers were trembling. There before him on the map was a giant cruciform. It’s a cross! The four elements of science unfolded before his eyes . . . sprawled across Rome in an enormous, city-wide cross.

As he stared in wonder, a line of poetry rang in his mind . . . like an old friend with a new face.

’Cross Rome the mystic elements unfold . . .

’Cross Rome . . .

The fog began to clear. Langdon saw that the answer had been in front of him all night! The Illuminati poem had been telling him how the altars were laid out. A cross!

’Cross Rome the mystic elements unfold!

It was cunning wordplay. Langdon had originally read the word ’Cross as an abbreviation of Across. He assumed it was poetic license intended to retain the meter of the poem. But it was so much more than that!

Another hidden clue.

The cruciform on the map, Langdon realized, was the ultimate Illuminati duality. It was a religious symbol formed by elements of science. Galileo’s path of Illumination was a tribute to both science and God!

The rest of the puzzle fell into place almost immediately.

Piazza Navona.

Dead center of Piazza Navona, outside the church of St. Agnes in Agony, Bernini had forged one of his most celebrated sculptures. Everyone who came to Rome went to see it.

The Fountain of the Four Rivers!

A flawless tribute to water, Bernini’s Fountain of the Four Rivers glorified the four major rivers of the Old World—The Nile, Ganges, Danube, and Rio Plata.

Water, Langdon thought. The final marker. It was perfect. And even more perfect, Langdon realized, the cherry on the cake, was that high atop Bernini’s fountain stood a towering obelisk.

Leaving confused firemen in his wake, Langdon ran across the church in the direction of Olivetti’s lifeless body.

10:31 P.M., he thought. Plenty of time. It was the first instant all day that Langdon felt ahead of the game. Kneeling beside Olivetti, out of sight behind some pews, Langdon discreetly took possession of the commander’s semiautomatic and walkie-talkie. Langdon knew he would call for help, but this was not the place to do it. The final altar of science needed to remain a secret for now. The media and fire department racing with sirens blaring to Piazza Navona would be no help at all.

Without a word, Langdon slipped out the door and skirted the press, who were now entering the church in droves. He crossed Piazza Barberini. In the shadows he turned on the walkie-talkie. He tried to hail Vatican City but heard nothing but static. He was either out of range or the transmitter needed some kind of authorization code. Langdon adjusted the complex dials and buttons to no avail. Abruptly, he realized his plan to get help was not going to work. He spun, looking for a pay phone. None. Vatican circuits were jammed anyway.

He was alone.

Feeling his initial surge of confidence decay, Langdon stood a moment and took stock of his pitiful state—covered in bone dust, cut, deliriously exhausted, and hungry.

Langdon glanced back at the church. Smoke spiraled over the cupola, lit by the media lights and fire trucks. He wondered if he should go back and get help. Instinct warned him however that extra help, especially untrained help, would be nothing but a liability. If the Hassassin sees us coming . . . He thought of Vittoria and knew this would be his final chance to face her captor.

Piazza Navona, he thought, knowing he could get there in plenty of time and stake it out. He scanned the area for a taxi, but the streets were almost entirely deserted. Even the taxi drivers, it seemed, had dropped everything to find a television. Piazza Navona was only about a mile away, but Langdon had no intention of wasting precious energy on foot. He glanced back at the church, wondering if he could borrow a vehicle from someone.

A fire truck? A press van? Be serious.

Sensing options and minutes slipping away, Langdon made his decision. Pulling the gun from his pocket, he committed an act so out of character that he suspected his soul must now be possessed. Running over to a lone Citroën sedan idling at a stoplight, Langdon pointed the weapon through the driver’s open window. “Fuori!” he yelled.

The trembling man got out.

Langdon jumped behind the wheel and hit the gas.

101

G unther Glick sat on a bench in a holding tank inside the office of the Swiss Guard. He prayed to every god he could think of. Please let this NOT be a dream. It had been the scoop of his life. The scoop of anyone’s life. Every reporter on earth wished he were Glick right now. You are awake, he told himself. And you are a star. Dan Rather is crying right now.

Macri was beside him, looking a little bit stunned. Glick didn’t blame her. In addition to exclusively broadcasting the camerlegno’s address, she and Glick had provided the world with gruesome photos of the cardinals and of the Pope— that tongue! —as well as a live video feed of the antimatter canister counting down. Incredible!

Of course, all of that had all been at the camerlegno’s behest, so that was not the reason Glick and Macri were now locked in a Swiss Guard holding tank. It had been Glick’s daring addendum to their coverage that the guards had not appreciated. Glick knew the conversation on which he had just reported was not intended for his ears, but this was his moment in the sun. Another Glick scoop!

“The 11th Hour Samaritan?” Macri groaned on the bench beside him, clearly unimpressed. Glick smiled. “Brilliant, wasn’t it?”

“Brilliantly dumb.”

She’s just jealous, Glick knew. Shortly after the camerlegno’s address, Glick had again, by chance, been in the right place at the right time. He’d overheard Rocher giving new orders to his men. Apparently Rocher had received a phone call from a mysterious individual who Rocher claimed had critical information regarding the current crisis. Rocher was talking as if this man could help them and was advising his guards to prepare for the guest’s arrival.

Although the information was clearly private, Glick had acted as any dedicated reporter would—without honor. He’d found a dark corner, ordered Macri to fire up her remote camera, and he’d reported the news.

“Shocking new developments in God’s city,” he had announced, squinting his eyes for added intensity. Then he’d gone on to say that a mystery guest was coming to Vatican City to save the day. The 11th Hour Samaritan, Glick had called him—a perfect name for the faceless man appearing at the last moment to do a good deed. The other networks had picked up the catchy sound bite, and Glick was yet again immortalized.

I’m brilliant, he mused. Peter Jennings just jumped off a bridge. Of course Glick had not stopped there. While he had the world’s attention, he had thrown in a little of his own conspiracy theory for good measure.

Brilliant. Utterly brilliant.

“You screwed us,” Macri said. “You totally blew it.”

“What do you mean? I was great!”

Macri stared disbelievingly. “Former President George Bush? An Illuminatus?”

Glick smiled. How much more obvious could it be? George Bush was a well-documented, 33rd-degree Mason, and he was the head of the CIA when the agency closed their Illuminati investigation for lack of evidence. And all those speeches about “a thousand points of light” and a “New World Order” . . . Bush was obviously Illuminati.

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