27
   “Vittoria, I will not allow it!” Kohler’s breath was labored and getting worse as the Haz-Mat elevator ascended.
   Vittoria blocked him out. She craved sanctuary, something familiar in this place that no longer felt like home. She knew it was not to be. Right now, she had to swallow the pain and act. Get to a phone.
   Robert Langdon was beside her, silent as usual. Vittoria had given up wondering who the man was. A specialist? Could Kohler be any less specific? Mr. Langdon can help us find your father’s killer. Langdon was being no help at all. His warmth and kindness seemed genuine, but he was clearly hiding something. They both were.
   Kohler was at her again. “As director of CERN, I have a responsibility to the future of science. If you amplify this into an international incident and CERN suffers—”
   “Future of science?” Vittoria turned on him. “Do you really plan to escape accountability by never admitting this antimatter came from CERN? Do you plan to ignore the people’s lives we’ve put in danger?”
   “Not we,” Kohler countered. “You. You and your father.”
   Vittoria looked away.
   “And as far as endangering lives,” Kohler said, “life is exactly what this is about. You know antimatter technology has enormous implications for life on this planet. If CERN goes bankrupt, destroyed by scandal, everybody loses. Man’s future is in the hands of places like CERN, scientists like you and your father, working to solve tomorrow’s problems.”
   Vittoria had heard Kohler’s Science-as-God lecture before, and she never bought it. Science itself caused half the problems it was trying to solve. “Progress” was Mother Earth’s ultimate malignancy.
   “Scientific advancement carries risk,” Kohler argued. “It always has. Space programs, genetic research, medicine—they all make mistakes. Science needs to survive its own blunders, at any cost. For everyone’s sake.”
   Vittoria was amazed at Kohler’s ability to weigh moral issues with scientific detachment. His intellect seemed to be the product of an icy divorce from his inner spirit. “You think CERN is so critical to the earth’s future that we should be immune from moral responsibility?”
   “Do not argue morals with me. You crossed a line when you made that specimen, and you have put this entire facility at risk. I’m trying to protect not only the jobs of the three thousand scientists who work here, but also your father’s reputation. Think about him. A man like your father does not deserve to be remembered as the creator of a weapon of mass destruction.”
   Vittoria felt his spear hit home. I am the one who convinced my father to create that specimen. This is my fault!
   When the door opened, Kohler was still talking. Vittoria stepped out of the elevator, pulled out her phone, and tried again.
   Still no dial tone. Damn! She headed for the door.
   “Vittoria, stop.” The director sounded asthmatic now, as he accelerated after her. “Slow down. We need to talk.”
   “Basta di parlare!”
   “Think of your father,” Kohler urged. “What would he do?”
   She kept going.
   “Vittoria, I haven’t been totally honest with you.”
   Vittoria felt her legs slow.
   “I don’t know what I was thinking,” Kohler said. “I was just trying to protect you. Just tell me what you want. We need to work together here.”
   Vittoria came to a full stop halfway across the lab, but she did not turn. “I want to find the antimatter. And I want to know who killed my father.” She waited.
   Kohler sighed. “Vittoria, we already know who killed your father. I’m sorry.”
   Now Vittoria turned. “You what?”
   “I didn’t know how to tell you. It’s a difficult—”
   “You know who killed my father?”
   “We have a very good idea, yes. The killer left somewhat of a calling card. That’s the reason I called Mr. Langdon. The group claiming responsibility is his specialty.”
   “The group? A terrorist group?”
   “Vittoria, they stole a quarter gram of antimatter.”
   Vittoria looked at Robert Langdon standing there across the room. Everything began falling into place. That explains some of the secrecy. She was amazed it hadn’t occurred to her earlier. Kohler had called the authorities after all. The authorities. Now it seemed obvious. Robert Langdon was American, clean-cut, conservative, obviously very sharp. Who else could it be? Vittoria should have guessed from the start. She felt a newfound hope as she turned to him.
   “Mr. Langdon, I want to know who killed my father. And I want to know if your agency can find the antimatter.”
   Langdon looked flustered. “My agency?”
   “You’re with U.S. Intelligence, I assume.”
   “Actually… no.”
   Kohler intervened. “Mr. Langdon is a professor of art history at Harvard University.”
   Vittoria felt like she had been doused with ice water. “An art teacher?”
   “He is a specialist in cult symbology.” Kohler sighed. “Vittoria, we believe your father was killed by a satanic cult.”
   Vittoria heard the words in her mind, but she was unable to process them. A satanic cult.
   “The group claiming responsibility calls themselves the Illuminati.”
   Vittoria looked at Kohler and then at Langdon, wondering if this was some kind of perverse joke. “The Illuminati?” she demanded. “As in the Bavarian Illuminati?”
   Kohler looked stunned. “You’ve heard of them?”
   Vittoria felt the tears of frustration welling right below the surface. “Bavarian Illuminati: New World Order. Steve Jackson computer games. Half the techies here play it on the Internet.” Her voice cracked. “But I don’t understand…”
   Kohler shot Langdon a confused look.
   Langdon nodded. “Popular game. Ancient brotherhood takes over the world. Semihistorical. I didn’t know it was in Europe too.”
   Vittoria was bewildered. “What are you talking about? The Illuminati? It’s a computer game!”
   “Vittoria,” Kohler said, “the Illuminati is the group claiming responsibility for your father’s death.”
   Vittoria mustered every bit of courage she could find to fight the tears. She forced herself to hold on and assess the situation logically. But the harder she focused, the less she understood. Her father had been murdered. CERN had suffered a major breach of security. There was a bomb counting down somewhere that she was responsible for. And the director had nominated an art teacher to help them find a mythical fraternity of Satanists.
   Vittoria felt suddenly all alone. She turned to go, but Kohler cut her off. He reached for something in his pocket. He produced a crumpled piece of fax paper and handed it to her.
   Vittoria swayed in horror as her eyes hit the image.
   “They branded him,” Kohler said. “They branded his goddamn chest.”

28
   Secretary Sylvie Baudeloque was now in a panic. She paced outside the director’s empty office. Where the hell is he? What do I do?
   It had been a bizarre day. Of course, any day working for Maximilian Kohler had the potential to be strange, but Kohler had been in rare form today.
   “Find me Leonardo Vetra!” he had demanded when Sylvie arrived this morning.
   Dutifully, Sylvie paged, phoned, and E-mailed Leonardo Vetra.
   Nothing.
   So Kohler had left in a huff, apparently to go find Vetra himself. When he rolled back in a few hours later, Kohler looked decidedly not well… not that he ever actually looked well, but he looked worse than usual. He locked himself in his office, and she could hear him on his modem, his phone, faxing, talking. Then Kohler rolled out again. He hadn’t been back since.
   Sylvie had decided to ignore the antics as yet another Kohlerian melodrama, but she began to get concerned when Kohler failed to return at the proper time for his daily injections; the director’s physical condition required regular treatment, and when he decided to push his luck, the results were never pretty—respiratory shock, coughing fits, and a mad dash by the infirmary personnel. Sometimes Sylvie thought Maximilian Kohler had a death wish.
   She considered paging him to remind him, but she’d learned charity was something Kohlers’s pride despised. Last week, he had become so enraged with a visiting scientist who had shown him undue pity that Kohler clambered to his feet and threw a clipboard at the man’s head. King Kohler could be surprisingly agile when he was pissé.
   At the moment, however, Sylvie’s concern for the director’s health was taking a back burner… replaced by a much more pressing dilemma. The CERN switchboard had phoned five minutes ago in a frenzy to say they had an urgent call for the director.
   “He’s not available,” Sylvie had said.
   Then the CERN operator told her who was calling.
   Sylvie half laughed aloud. “You’re kidding, right?” She listened, and her face clouded with disbelief. “And your caller ID confirms—” Sylvie was frowning. “I see. Okay. Can you ask what the—” She sighed. “No. That’s fine. Tell him to hold. I’ll locate the director right away. Yes, I understand. I’ll hurry.”
   But Sylvie had not been able to find the director. She had called his cell line three times and each time gotten the same message: “The mobile customer you are trying to reach is out of range.” Out of range? How far could he go? So Sylvie had dialed Kohler’s beeper. Twice. No response. Most unlike him. She’d even E-mailed his mobile computer. Nothing. It was like the man had disappeared off the face of the earth.
   So what do I do? she now wondered.
   Short of searching CERN’s entire complex herself, Sylvie knew there was only one other way to get the director’s attention. He would not be pleased, but the man on the phone was not someone the director should keep waiting. Nor did it sound like the caller was in any mood to be told the director was unavailable.
   Startled with her own boldness, Sylvie made her decision. She walked into Kohler’s office and went to the metal box on his wall behind his desk. She opened the cover, stared at the controls, and found the correct button.
   Then she took a deep breath and grabbed the microphone.

29
   Vittoria did not remember how they had gotten to the main elevator, but they were there. Ascending. Kohler was behind her, his breathing labored now. Langdon’s concerned gaze passed through her like a ghost. He had taken the fax from her hand and slipped it in his jacket pocket away from her sight, but the image was still burned into her memory.
   As the elevator climbed, Vittoria’s world swirled into darkness. Papa! In her mind she reached for him. For just a moment, in the oasis of her memory, Vittoria was with him. She was nine years old, rolling down hills of edelweiss flowers, the Swiss sky spinning overhead.
   Papa! Papa!
   Leonardo Vetra was laughing beside her, beaming. “What is it, angel?”
   “Papa!” she giggled, nuzzling close to him. “Ask me what’s the matter!”
   “But you look happy, sweetie. Why would I ask you what’s the matter?”
   “Just ask me.”
   He shrugged. “What’s the matter?”
   She immediately started laughing. “What’s the matter? Everything is the matter! Rocks! Trees! Atoms! Even anteaters! Everything is the matter!”
   He laughed. “Did you make that up?”
   “Pretty smart, huh?”
   “My little Einstein.”
   She frowned. “He has stupid hair. I saw his picture.”
   “He’s got a smart head, though. I told you what he proved, right?”
   Her eyes widened with dread. “Dad! No! You promised!”
   “E=MC2!” He tickled her playfully. “E=MC2!”
   “No math! I told you! I hate it!”
   “I’m glad you hate it. Because girls aren’t even allowed to do math.”
   Vittoria stopped short. “They aren’t?”
   “Of course not. Everyone knows that. Girls play with dollies. Boys do math. No math for girls. I’m not even permitted to talk to little girls about math.”
   “What! But that’s not fair!”
   “Rules are rules. Absolutely no math for little girls.”
   Vittoria looked horrified. “But dolls are boring!”
   “I’m sorry,” her father said. “I could tell you about math, but if I got caught…” He looked nervously around the deserted hills.
   Vittoria followed his gaze. “Okay,” she whispered, “just tell me quietly.”
   The motion of the elevator startled her. Vittoria opened her eyes. He was gone.
   Reality rushed in, wrapping a frosty grip around her. She looked to Langdon. The earnest concern in his gaze felt like the warmth of a guardian angel, especially in the aura of Kohler’s chill.
   A single sentient thought began pounding at Vittoria with unrelenting force.
   Where is the antimatter?
   The horrifying answer was only a moment away.

30
   “Maximilian Kohler. Kindly call your office immediately.”
   Blazing sunbeams flooded Langdon’s eyes as the elevator doors opened into the main atrium. Before the echo of the announcement on the intercom overhead faded, every electronic device on Kohler’s wheelchair started beeping and buzzing simultaneously. His pager. His phone. His E-mail. Kohler glanced down at the blinking lights in apparent bewilderment. The director had resurfaced, and he was back in range.
   “Director Kohler. Please call your office.”
   The sound of his name on the PA seemed to startle Kohler.
   He glanced up, looking angered and then almost immediately concerned. Langdon’s eyes met his, and Vittoria’s too. The three of them were motionless a moment, as if all the tension between them had been erased and replaced by a single, unifying foreboding.
   Kohler took his cell phone from the armrest. He dialed an extension and fought off another coughing fit. Vittoria and Langdon waited.
   “This is… Director Kohler,” he said, wheezing. “Yes? I was subterranean, out of range.” He listened, his gray eyes widening. “Who? Yes, patch it through.” There was a pause. “Hello? This is Maximilian Kohler. I am the director of CERN. With whom am I speaking?”
   Vittoria and Langdon watched in silence as Kohler listened.
   “It would be unwise,” Kohler finally said, “to speak of this by phone. I will be there immediately.” He was coughing again. “Meet me… at Leonardo da Vinci Airport. Forty minutes.” Kohler’s breath seemed to be failing him now. He descended into a fit of coughing and barely managed to choke out the words, “Locate the canister immediately… I am coming.” Then he clicked off his phone.
   Vittoria ran to Kohler’s side, but Kohler could no longer speak. Langdon watched as Vittoria pulled out her cell phone and paged CERN’s infirmary. Langdon felt like a ship on the periphery of a storm… tossed but detached.
   Meet me at Leonardo da Vinci Airport. Kohler’s words echoed.
   The uncertain shadows that had fogged Langdon’s mind all morning, in a single instant, solidified into a vivid image. As he stood there in the swirl of confusion, he felt a door inside him open… as if some mystic threshold had just been breached. The ambigram. The murdered priest/scientist. The antimatter. And now… the target. Leonardo da Vinci Airport could only mean one thing. In a moment of stark realization, Langdon knew he had just crossed over. He had become a believer.
   Five kilotons. Let there be light.
   Two paramedics materialized, racing across the atrium in white smocks. They knelt by Kohler, putting an oxygen mask on his face. Scientists in the hall stopped and stood back.
   Kohler took two long pulls, pushed the mask aside, and still gasping for air, looked up at Vittoria and Langdon. “Rome.”
   “Rome?” Vittoria demanded. “The antimatter is in Rome? Who called?”
   Kohler’s face was twisted, his gray eyes watering. “The Swiss…” He choked on the words, and the paramedics put the mask back over his face. As they prepared to take him away, Kohler reached up and grabbed Langdon’s arm.
   Langdon nodded. He knew.
   “Go…” Kohler wheezed beneath his mask. “Go… call me…” Then the paramedics were rolling him away.
   Vittoria stood riveted to the floor, watching him go. Then she turned to Langdon. “Rome? But… what was that about the Swiss?”
   Langdon put a hand on her shoulder, barely whispering the words. “The Swiss Guard,” he said. “The sworn sentinels of Vatican City.”

31
   The X-33 space plane roared into the sky and arched south toward Rome. On board, Langdon sat in silence. The last fifteen minutes had been a blur. Now that he had finished briefing Vittoria on the Illuminati and their covenant against the Vatican, the scope of this situation was starting to sink in.
   What the hell am I doing? Langdon wondered. I should have gone home when I had the chance! Deep down, though, he knew he’d never had the chance.
   Langdon’s better judgment had screamed at him to return to Boston. Nonetheless, academic astonishment had somehow vetoed prudence. Everything he had ever believed about the demise of the Illuminati was suddenly looking like a brilliant sham. Part of him craved proof. Confirmation. There was also a question of conscience. With Kohler ailing and Vittoria on her own, Langdon knew that if his knowledge of the Illuminati could assist in any way, he had a moral obligation to be here.
   There was more, though. Although Langdon was ashamed to admit it, his initial horror on hearing about the antimatter’s location was not only the danger to human life in Vatican City, but for something else as well.
   Art.
   The world’s largest art collection was now sitting on a time bomb. The Vatican Museum housed over 60,000 priceless pieces in 1,407 rooms—Michelangelo, da Vinci, Bernini, Botticelli. Langdon wondered if all of the art could possibly be evacuated if necessary. He knew it was impossible. Many of the pieces were sculptures weighing tons. Not to mention, the greatest treasures were architectural—the Sistine Chapel, St. Peter’s Basilica, Michelangelo’s famed spiral staircase leading to the Musèo Vaticano–priceless testaments to man’s creative genius. Langdon wondered how much time was left on the canister.
   “Thanks for coming,” Vittoria said, her voice quiet.
   Langdon emerged from his daydream and looked up. Vittoria was sitting across the aisle. Even in the stark fluorescent light of the cabin, there was an aura of composure about her—an almost magnetic radiance of wholeness. Her breathing seemed deeper now, as if a spark of self-preservation had ignited within her… a craving for justice and retribution, fueled by a daughter’s love.
   Vittoria had not had time to change from her shorts and sleeveless top, and her tawny legs were now goose-bumped in the cold of the plane. Instinctively Langdon removed his jacket and offered it to her.
   “American chivalry?” She accepted, her eyes thanking him silently.
   The plane jostled across some turbulence, and Langdon felt a surge of danger. The windowless cabin felt cramped again, and he tried to imagine himself in an open field. The notion, he realized, was ironic. He had been in an open field when it had happened. Crushing darkness. He pushed the memory from his mind. Ancient history.
   Vittoria was watching him. “Do you believe in God, Mr. Langdon?”
   The question startled him. The earnestness in Vittoria’s voice was even more disarming than the inquiry. Do I believe in God? He had hoped for a lighter topic of conversation to pass the trip.
   A spiritual conundrum, Langdon thought. That’s what my friends call me. Although he studied religion for years, Langdon was not a religious man. He respected the power of faith, the benevolence of churches, the strength religion gave to many people… and yet, for him, the intellectual suspension of disbelief that was imperative if one were truly going to “believe” had always proved too big an obstacle for his academic mind. “I want to believe,” he heard himself say.
   Vittoria’s reply carried no judgment or challenge. “So why don’t you?”
   He chuckled. “Well, it’s not that easy. Having faith requires leaps of faith, cerebral acceptance of miracles—immaculate conceptions and divine interventions. And then there are the codes of conduct. The Bible, the Koran, Buddhist scripture… they all carry similar requirements—and similar penalties. They claim that if I don’t live by a specific code I will go to hell. I can’t imagine a God who would rule that way.”
   “I hope you don’t let your students dodge questions that shamelessly.”
   The comment caught him off guard. “What?”
   “Mr. Langdon, I did not ask if you believe what man says about God. I asked if you believed in God. There is a difference. Holy scripture is stories… legends and history of man’s quest to understand his own need for meaning. I am not asking you to pass judgment on literature. I am asking if you believe in God. When you lie out under the stars, do you sense the divine? Do you feel in your gut that you are staring up at the work of God’s hand?”
   Langdon took a long moment to consider it.
   “I’m prying,” Vittoria apologized.
   “No, I just…”
   “Certainly you must debate issues of faith with your classes.”
   “Endlessly.”
   “And you play devil’s advocate, I imagine. Always fueling the debate.”
   Langdon smiled. “You must be a teacher too.”
   “No, but I learned from a master. My father could argue two sides of a Möbius Strip.”
   Langdon laughed, picturing the artful crafting of a Möbius Strip—a twisted ring of paper, which technically possessed only one side. Langdon had first seen the single-sided shape in the artwork of M. C. Escher. “May I ask you a question, Ms. Vetra?”
   “Call me Vittoria. Ms. Vetra makes me feel old.”
   He sighed inwardly, suddenly sensing his own age. “Vittoria, I’m Robert.”
   “You had a question.”
   “Yes. As a scientist and the daughter of a Catholic priest, what do you think of religion?”
   Vittoria paused, brushing a lock of hair from her eyes. “Religion is like language or dress. We gravitate toward the practices with which we were raised. In the end, though, we are all proclaiming the same thing. That life has meaning. That we are grateful for the power that created us.”
   Langdon was intrigued. “So you’re saying that whether you are a Christian or a Muslim simply depends on where you were born?”
   “Isn’t it obvious? Look at the diffusion of religion around the globe.”
   “So faith is random?”
   “Hardly. Faith is universal. Our specific methods for understanding it are arbitrary. Some of us pray to Jesus, some of us go to Mecca, some of us study subatomic particles. In the end we are all just searching for truth, that which is greater than ourselves.”
   Langdon wished his students could express themselves so clearly. Hell, he wished he could express himself so clearly. “And God?” he asked. “Do you believe in God?”
   Vittoria was silent for a long time. “Science tells me God must exist. My mind tells me I will never understand God. And my heart tells me I am not meant to.”
   How’s that for concise, he thought. “So you believe God is fact, but we will never understand Him.”
   “Her,” she said with a smile. “Your Native Americans had it right.”
   Langdon chuckled. “Mother Earth.”
   “Gaea. The planet is an organism. All of us are cells with different purposes. And yet we are intertwined. Serving each other. Serving the whole.”
   Looking at her, Langdon felt something stir within him that he had not felt in a long time. There was a bewitching clarity in her eyes… a purity in her voice. He felt drawn.
   “Mr. Langdon, let me ask you another question.”
   “Robert,” he said. Mr. Langdon makes me feel old. I am old!
   “If you don’t mind my asking, Robert, how did you get involved with the Illuminati?”
   Langdon thought back. “Actually, it was money.”
   Vittoria looked disappointed. “Money? Consulting, you mean?”
   Langdon laughed, realizing how it must have sounded. “No. Money as in currency.” He reached in his pants pocket and pulled out some money. He found a one-dollar bill. “I became fascinated with the cult when I first learned that U.S. currency is covered with Illuminati symbology.”
   Vittoria’s eyes narrowed, apparently not knowing whether or not to take him seriously.
   Langdon handed her the bill. “Look at the back. See the Great Seal on the left?”
   Vittoria turned the one-dollar bill over. “You mean the pyramid?”
   “The pyramid. Do you know what pyramids have to do with U.S. history?”
   Vittoria shrugged.
   “Exactly,” Langdon said. “Absolutely nothing.”
   Vittoria frowned. “So why is it the central symbol of your Great Seal?”
   “An eerie bit of history,” Langdon said. “The pyramid is an occult symbol representing a convergence upward, toward the ultimate source of Illumination. See what’s above it?”
   Vittoria studied the bill. “An eye inside a triangle.”
   “It’s called the trinacria. Have you ever seen that eye in a triangle anywhere else?”
   Vittoria was silent a moment. “Actually, yes, but I’m not sure…”
   “It’s emblazoned on Masonic lodges around the world.”
   “The symbol is Masonic?”
   “Actually, no. It’s Illuminati. They called it their ‘shining delta.’ A call for enlightened change. The eye signifies the Illuminati’s ability to infiltrate and watch all things. The shining triangle represents enlightenment. And the triangle is also the Greek letter delta, which is the mathematical symbol for—”
   “Change. Transition.”
   Langdon smiled. “I forgot I was talking to a scientist.”
   “So you’re saying the U.S. Great Seal is a call for enlightened, all-seeing change?”
   “Some would call it a New World Order.”
   Vittoria seemed startled. She glanced down at the bill again. “The writing under the pyramid says Novus… Ordo…”
   “Novus Ordo Seculorum,” Langdon said. “It means New Secular Order.”
   “Secular as in non religious?”
   “Nonreligious. The phrase not only clearly states the Illuminati objective, but it also blatantly contradicts the phrase beside it. In God We Trust.”
   Vittoria seemed troubled. “But how could all this symbology end up on the most powerful currency in the world?”
   “Most academics believe it was through Vice President Henry Wallace. He was an upper echelon Mason and certainly had ties to the Illuminati. Whether it was as a member or innocently under their influence, nobody knows. But it was Wallace who sold the design of the Great Seal to the president.”
   “How? Why would the president have agreed to—”
   “The president was Franklin D. Roosevelt. Wallace simply told him Novus Ordo Seculorum meant New Deal.”
   Vittoria seemed skeptical. “And Roosevelt didn’t have anyone else look at the symbol before telling the Treasury to print it?”
   “No need. He and Wallace were like brothers.”
   “Brothers?”
   “Check your history books,” Langdon said with a smile. “Franklin D. Roosevelt was a well-known Mason.”

32
   Langdon held his breath as the X-33 spiraled into Rome’s Leonardo da Vinci International Airport. Vittoria sat across from him, eyes closed as if trying to will the situation into control. The craft touched down and taxied to a private hangar.
   “Sorry for the slow flight,” the pilot apologized, emerging from the cockpit. “Had to trim her back. Noise regulations over populated areas.”
   Langdon checked his watch. They had been airborne thirty-seven minutes.
   The pilot popped the outer door. “Anybody want to tell me what’s going on?”
   Neither Vittoria nor Langdon responded.
   “Fine,” he said, stretching. “I’ll be in the cockpit with the air-conditioning and my music. Just me and Garth.”
   The late-afternoon sun blazed outside the hangar. Langdon carried his tweed jacket over his shoulder. Vittoria turned her face skyward and inhaled deeply, as if the sun’s rays somehow transferred to her some mystical replenishing energy.
   Mediterraneans, Langdon mused, already sweating.
   “Little old for cartoons, aren’t you?” Vittoria asked, without opening her eyes.
   “I’m sorry?”
   “Your wristwatch. I saw it on the plane.”
   Langdon flushed slightly. He was accustomed to having to defend his timepiece. The collector’s edition Mickey Mouse watch had been a childhood gift from his parents. Despite the contorted foolishness of Mickey’s outstretched arms designating the hour, it was the only watch Langdon had ever worn. Waterproof and glow-in-the-dark, it was perfect for swimming laps or walking unlit college paths at night. When Langdon’s students questioned his fashion sense, he told them he wore Mickey as a daily reminder to stay young at heart.
   “It’s six o’clock,” he said.
   Vittoria nodded, eyes still closed. “I think our ride’s here.”
   Langdon heard the distant whine, looked up, and felt a sinking feeling. Approaching from the north was a helicopter, slicing low across the runway. Langdon had been on a helicopter once in the Andean Palpa Valley looking at the Nazca sand drawings and had not enjoyed it one bit. A flying shoebox. After a morning of space plane rides, Langdon had hoped the Vatican would send a car.
   Apparently not.
   The chopper slowed overhead, hovered a moment, and dropped toward the runway in front of them. The craft was white and carried a coat of arms emblazoned on the side—two skeleton keys crossing a shield and papal crown. He knew the symbol well. It was the traditional seal of the Vatican—the sacred symbol of the Holy See or “holy seat” of government, the seat being literally the ancient throne of St. Peter.
   The Holy Chopper, Langdon groaned, watching the craft land. He’d forgotten the Vatican owned one of these things, used for transporting the Pope to the airport, to meetings, or to his summer palace in Gandolfo. Langdon definitely would have preferred a car.
   The pilot jumped from the cockpit and strode toward them across the tarmac.
   Now it was Vittoria who looked uneasy. “That’s our pilot?”
   Langdon shared her concern. “To fly, or not to fly. That is the question.”
   The pilot looked like he was festooned for a Shakespearean melodrama. His puffy tunic was vertically striped in brilliant blue and gold. He wore matching pantaloons and spats. On his feet were black flats that looked like slippers. On top of it all, he wore a black felt beret.
   “Traditional Swiss Guard uniforms,” Langdon explained. “Designed by Michelangelo himself.” As the man drew closer, Langdon winced. “I admit, not one of Michelangelo’s better efforts.”
   Despite the man’s garish attire, Langdon could tell the pilot meant business. He moved toward them with all the rigidity and dignity of a U.S. Marine. Langdon had read many times about the rigorous requirements for becoming one of the elite Swiss Guard. Recruited from one of Switzerland’s four Catholic cantons, applicants had to be Swiss males between nineteen and thirty years old, at least 5 feet 6 inches, trained by the Swiss Army, and unmarried. This imperial corps was envied by world governments as the most allegiant and deadly security force in the world.
   “You are from CERN?” the guard asked, arriving before them. His voice was steely.
   “Yes, sir,” Langdon replied.
   “You made remarkable time,” he said, giving the X-33 a mystified stare. He turned to Vittoria. “Ma’am, do you have any other clothing?”
   “I beg your pardon?”
   He motioned to her legs. “Short pants are not permitted inside Vatican City.”
   Langdon glanced down at Vittoria’s legs and frowned. He had forgotten. Vatican City had a strict ban on visible legs above the knee—both male and female. The regulation was a way of showing respect for the sanctity of God’s city.
   “This is all I have,” she said. “We came in a hurry.”
   The guard nodded, clearly displeased. He turned next to Langdon. “Are you carrying any weapons?”
   Weapons? Langdon thought. I’m not even carrying a change of underwear! He shook his head.
   The officer crouched at Langdon’s feet and began patting him down, starting at his socks. Trusting guy, Langdon thought. The guard’s strong hands moved up Langdon’s legs, coming uncomfortably close to his groin. Finally they moved up to his chest and shoulders. Apparently content Langdon was clean, the guard turned to Vittoria. He ran his eyes up her legs and torso.
   Vittoria glared. “Don’t even think about it.”
   The guard fixed Vittoria with a gaze clearly intended to intimidate. Vittoria did not flinch.
   “What’s that?” the guard said, pointing to a faint square bulge in the front pocket of her shorts.
   Vittoria removed an ultrathin cell phone. The guard took it, clicked it on, waited for a dial tone, and then, apparently satisfied that it was indeed nothing more than a phone, returned it to her. Vittoria slid it back into her pocket.
   “Turn around, please,” the guard said.
   Vittoria obliged, holding her arms out and rotating a full 360 degrees.
   The guard carefully studied her. Langdon had already decided that Vittoria’s form-fitting shorts and blouse were not bulging anywhere they shouldn’t have been. Apparently the guard came to the same conclusion.
   “Thank you. This way please.”
   The Swiss Guard chopper churned in neutral as Langdon and Vittoria approached. Vittoria boarded first, like a seasoned pro, barely even stooping as she passed beneath the whirling rotors. Langdon held back a moment.
   “No chance of a car?” he yelled, half-joking to the Swiss Guard, who was climbing in the pilot’s seat.
   The man did not answer.
   Langdon knew that with Rome’s maniacal drivers, flying was probably safer anyway. He took a deep breath and boarded, stooping cautiously as he passed beneath the spinning rotors.
   As the guard fired up the engines, Vittoria called out, “Have you located the canister?”
   The guard glanced over his shoulder, looking confused. “The what?”
   “The canister. You called CERN about a canister?”
   The man shrugged. “No idea what you’re talking about. We’ve been very busy today. My commander told me to pick you up. That’s all I know.”
   Vittoria gave Langdon an unsettled look.
   “Buckle up, please,” the pilot said as the engine revved.
   Langdon reached for his seat belt and strapped himself in. The tiny fuselage seemed to shrink around him. Then with a roar, the craft shot up and banked sharply north toward Rome.
   Rome… the caput mundi, where Caesar once ruled, where St. Peter was crucified. The cradle of modern civilization. And at its core… a ticking bomb.

33
   Rome from the air is a labyrinth—an indecipherable maze of ancient roadways winding around buildings, fountains, and crumbling ruins.
   The Vatican chopper stayed low in the sky as it sliced northwest through the permanent smog layer coughed up by the congestion below. Langdon gazed down at the mopeds, sight-seeing buses, and armies of miniature Fiat sedans buzzing around rotaries in all directions. Koyaanisqatsi, he thought, recalling the Hopi term for “life out of balance.”
   Vittoria sat in silent determination in the seat beside him.
   The chopper banked hard.
   His stomach dropping, Langdon gazed farther into the distance. His eyes found the crumbling ruins of the Roman Coliseum. The Coliseum, Langdon had always thought, was one of history’s greatest ironies. Now a dignified symbol for the rise of human culture and civilization, the stadium had been built to host centuries of barbaric events—hungry lions shredding prisoners, armies of slaves battling to the death, gang rapes of exotic women captured from far-off lands, as well as public beheadings and castrations. It was ironic, Langdon thought, or perhaps fitting, that the Coliseum had served as the architectural blueprint for Harvard’s Soldier Field—the football stadium where the ancient traditions of savagery were reenacted every fall… crazed fans screaming for bloodshed as Harvard battled Yale.
   As the chopper headed north, Langdon spied the Roman Forum—the heart of pre-Christian Rome. The decaying columns looked like toppled gravestones in a cemetery that had somehow avoided being swallowed by the metropolis surrounding it.
   To the west the wide basin of the Tiber River wound enormous arcs across the city. Even from the air Langdon could tell the water was deep. The churning currents were brown, filled with silt and foam from heavy rains.
   “Straight ahead,” the pilot said, climbing higher.
   Langdon and Vittoria looked out and saw it. Like a mountain parting the morning fog, the colossal dome rose out of the haze before them: St. Peter’s Basilica.
   “Now that,” Langdon said to Vittoria, “is something Michelangelo got right.”
   Langdon had never seen St. Peter’s from the air. The marble façade blazed like fire in the afternoon sun. Adorned with 140 statues of saints, martyrs, and angels, the Herculean edifice stretched two football fields wide and a staggering six long. The cavernous interior of the basilica had room for over 60,000 worshipers… over one hundred times the population of Vatican City, the smallest country in the world.
   Incredibly, though, not even a citadel of this magnitude could dwarf the piazza before it. A sprawling expanse of granite, St. Peter’s Square was a staggering open space in the congestion of Rome, like a classical Central Park. In front of the basilica, bordering the vast oval common, 284 columns swept outward in four concentric arcs of diminishing size… an architectural trompe de l’oiel used to heighten the piazza’s sense of grandeur.
   As he stared at the magnificent shrine before him, Langdon wondered what St. Peter would think if he were here now. The Saint had died a gruesome death, crucified upside down on this very spot. Now he rested in the most sacred of tombs, buried five stories down, directly beneath the central cupola of the basilica.
   “Vatican City,” the pilot said, sounding anything but welcoming.
   Langdon looked out at the towering stone bastions that loomed ahead—impenetrable fortifications surrounding the complex… a strangely earthly defense for a spiritual world of secrets, power, and mystery.
   “Look!” Vittoria said suddenly, grabbing Langdon’s arm. She motioned frantically downward toward St. Peter’s Square directly beneath them. Langdon put his face to the window and looked.
   “Over there,” she said, pointing.
   Langdon looked. The rear of the piazza looked like a parking lot crowded with a dozen or so trailer trucks. Huge satellite dishes pointed skyward from the roof of every truck. The dishes were emblazoned with familiar names:

   Televisor Europea
   Video Italia
   BBC
   United Press International

   Langdon felt suddenly confused, wondering if the news of the antimatter had already leaked out.
   Vittoria seemed suddenly tense. “Why is the press here? What’s going on?”
   The pilot turned and gave her an odd look over his shoulder. “What’s going on? You don’t know?”
   “No,” she fired back, her accent husky and strong.
   “Il Conclavo,” he said. “It is to be sealed in about an hour. The whole world is watching.”
   Il Conclavo.
   The word rang a long moment in Langdon’s ears before dropping like a brick to the pit of his stomach. Il Conclavo. The Vatican Conclave. How could he have forgotten? It had been in the news recently.
   Fifteen days ago, the Pope, after a tremendously popular twelve-year reign, had passed away. Every paper in the world had carried the story about the Pope’s fatal stroke while sleeping—a sudden and unexpected death many whispered was suspicious. But now, in keeping with the sacred tradition, fifteen days after the death of a Pope, the Vatican was holding Il Conclavo–the sacred ceremony in which the 165 cardinals of the world—the most powerful men in Christendom—gathered in Vatican City to elect the new Pope.
   Every cardinal on the planet is here today, Langdon thought as the chopper passed over St. Peter’s Basilica. The expansive inner world of Vatican City spread out beneath him. The entire power structure of the Roman Catholic Church is sitting on a time bomb.

34
   Cardinal Mortati gazed up at the lavish ceiling of the Sistine Chapel and tried to find a moment of quiet reflection. The frescoed walls echoed with the voices of cardinals from nations around the globe. The men jostled in the candlelit tabernacle, whispering excitedly and consulting with one another in numerous languages, the universal tongues being English, Italian, and Spanish.
   The light in the chapel was usually sublime—long rays of tinted sun slicing through the darkness like rays from heaven—but not today. As was the custom, all of the chapel’s windows had been covered in black velvet in the name of secrecy. This ensured that no one on the inside could send signals or communicate in any way with the outside world. The result was a profound darkness lit only by candles… a shimmering radiance that seemed to purify everyone it touched, making them all ghostly… like saints.
   What privilege, Mortati thought, that I am to oversee this sanctified event. Cardinals over eighty years of age were too old to be eligible for election and did not attend conclave, but at seventy-nine years old, Mortati was the most senior cardinal here and had been appointed to oversee the proceedings.
   Following tradition, the cardinals gathered here two hours before conclave to catch up with friends and engage in last-minute discussion. At 7 P.M., the late Pope’s chamberlain would arrive, give opening prayer, and then leave. Then the Swiss Guard would seal the doors and lock all the cardinals inside. It was then that the oldest and most secretive political ritual in the world would begin. The cardinals would not be released until they decided who among them would be the next Pope.
   Conclave. Even the name was secretive. “Con clave” literally meant “locked with a key.” The cardinals were permitted no contact whatsoever with the outside world. No phone calls. No messages. No whispers through doorways. Conclave was a vacuum, not to be influenced by anything in the outside world. This would ensure that the cardinals kept Solum Dum prae oculis… only God before their eyes.
   Outside the walls of the chapel, of course, the media watched and waited, speculating as to which of the cardinals would become the ruler of one billion Catholics worldwide. Conclaves created an intense, politically charged atmosphere, and over the centuries they had turned deadly: poisonings, fist fights, and even murder had erupted within the sacred walls. Ancient history, Mortati thought. Tonight’s conclave will be unified, blissful, and above all… brief.
   Or at least that had been his speculation.
   Now, however, an unexpected development had emerged. Mystifyingly, four cardinals were absent from the chapel. Mortati knew that all the exits to Vatican City were guarded, and the missing cardinals could not have gone far, but still, with less than an hour before opening prayer, he was feeling disconcerted. After all, the four missing men were no ordinary cardinals. They were the cardinals.
   The chosen four.
   As overseer of the conclave, Mortati had already sent word through the proper channels to the Swiss Guard alerting them to the cardinals’ absence. He had yet to hear back. Other cardinals had now noticed the puzzling absence. The anxious whispers had begun. Of all cardinals, these four should be on time! Cardinal Mortati was starting to fear it might be a long evening after all.
   He had no idea.

35
   The Vatican’s helipad, for reasons of safety and noise control, is located in the northwest tip of Vatican City, as far from St. Peter’s Basilica as possible.
   “Terra firma,” the pilot announced as they touched down. He exited and opened the sliding door for Langdon and Vittoria.
   Langdon descended from the craft and turned to help Vittoria, but she had already dropped effortlessly to the ground. Every muscle in her body seemed tuned to one objective—finding the antimatter before it left a horrific legacy.
   After stretching a reflective sun tarp across the cockpit window, the pilot ushered them to an oversized electric golf cart waiting near the helipad. The cart whisked them silently alongside the country’s western border—a fifty-foot-tall cement bulwark thick enough to ward off attacks even by tanks. Lining the interior of the wall, posted at fifty-meter intervals, Swiss Guards stood at attention, surveying the interior of the grounds. The cart turned sharply right onto Via della Osservatorio. Signs pointed in all directions:
   Palazzio Governatorio
   Collegio Ethiopiana
   Basilica San Pietro
   Capella Sistina
   They accelerated up the manicured road past a squat building marked Radio Vaticana. This, Langdon realized to his amazement, was the hub of the world’s most listened-to radio programming—Radio Vaticana–spreading the word of God to millions of listeners around the globe.
   “Attenzione,” the pilot said, turning sharply into a rotary.
   As the cart wound round, Langdon could barely believe the sight now coming into view. Giardini Vaticani, he thought. The heart of Vatican City. Directly ahead rose the rear of St. Peter’s Basilica, a view, Langdon realized, most people never saw. To the right loomed the Palace of the Tribunal, the lush papal residence rivaled only by Versailles in its baroque embellishment. The severe-looking Governatorato building was now behind them, housing Vatican City’s administration. And up ahead on the left, the massive rectangular edifice of the Vatican Museum. Langdon knew there would be no time for a museum visit this trip.
   “Where is everyone?” Vittoria asked, surveying the deserted lawns and walkways.
   The guard checked his black, military-style chronograph—an odd anachronism beneath his puffy sleeve. “The cardinals are convened in the Sistine Chapel. Conclave begins in a little under an hour.”
   Langdon nodded, vaguely recalling that before conclave the cardinals spent two hours inside the Sistine Chapel in quiet reflection and visitations with their fellow cardinals from around the globe. The time was meant to renew old friendships among the cardinals and facilitate a less heated election process. “And the rest of the residents and staff?”
   “Banned from the city for secrecy and security until the conclave concludes.”
   “And when does it conclude?”
   The guard shrugged. “God only knows.” The words sounded oddly literal.
   After parking the cart on the wide lawn directly behind St. Peter’s Basilica, the guard escorted Langdon and Vittoria up a stone escarpment to a marble plaza off the back of the basilica. Crossing the plaza, they approached the rear wall of the basilica and followed it through a triangular courtyard, across Via Belvedere, and into a series of buildings closely huddled together. Langdon’s art history had taught him enough Italian to pick out signs for the Vatican Printing Office, the Tapestry Restoration Lab, Post Office Management, and the Church of St. Ann. They crossed another small square and arrived at their destination.
   The Office of the Swiss Guard is housed adjacent to Il Corpo di Vigilanza, directly northeast of St. Peter’s Basilica. The office is a squat, stone building. On either side of the entrance, like two stone statues, stood a pair of guards.
   Langdon had to admit, these guards did not look quite so comical. Although they also wore the blue and gold uniform, each wielded the traditional “Vatican long sword”—an eight-foot spear with a razor-sharp scythe—rumored to have decapitated countless Muslims while defending the Christian crusaders in the fifteenth century.
   As Langdon and Vittoria approached, the two guards stepped forward, crossing their long swords, blocking the entrance. One looked up at the pilot in confusion. “I pantaloni,” he said, motioning to Vittoria’s shorts.
   The pilot waved them off. “Il comandante vuole vederli subito.”
   The guards frowned. Reluctantly they stepped aside.
   Inside, the air was cool. It looked nothing like the administrative security offices Langdon would have imagined. Ornate and impeccably furnished, the hallways contained paintings Langdon was certain any museum worldwide would gladly have featured in its main gallery.
   The pilot pointed down a steep set of stairs. “Down, please.”
   Langdon and Vittoria followed the white marble treads as they descended between a gauntlet of nude male sculptures. Each statue wore a fig leaf that was lighter in color than the rest of the body.
   The Great Castration, Langdon thought.
   It was one of the most horrific tragedies in Renaissance art. In 1857, Pope Pius IX decided that the accurate representation of the male form might incite lust inside the Vatican. So he got a chisel and mallet and hacked off the genitalia of every single male statue inside Vatican City. He defaced works by Michelangelo, Bramante, and Bernini. Plaster fig leaves were used to patch the damage. Hundreds of sculptures had been emasculated. Langdon had often wondered if there was a huge crate of stone penises someplace.
   “Here,” the guard announced.
   They reached the bottom of the stairs and dead-ended at a heavy, steel door. The guard typed an entry code, and the door slid open. Langdon and Vittoria entered.
   Beyond the threshold was absolute mayhem.

36
   The Office of the Swiss Guard.
   Langdon stood in the doorway, surveying the collision of centuries before them. Mixed media. The room was a lushly adorned Renaissance library complete with inlaid bookshelves, oriental carpets, and colorful tapestries… and yet the room bristled with high-tech gear—banks of computers, faxes, electronic maps of the Vatican complex, and televisions tuned to CNN. Men in colorful pantaloons typed feverishly on computers and listened intently in futuristic headphones.
   “Wait here,” the guard said.
   Langdon and Vittoria waited as the guard crossed the room to an exceptionally tall, wiry man in a dark blue military uniform. He was talking on a cellular phone and stood so straight he was almost bent backward. The guard said something to him, and the man shot a glance over at Langdon and Vittoria. He nodded, then turned his back on them and continued his phone call.
   The guard returned. “Commander Olivetti will be with you in a moment.”
   “Thank you.”
   The guard left and headed back up the stairs.
   Langdon studied Commander Olivetti across the room, realizing he was actually the Commander in Chief of the armed forces of an entire country. Vittoria and Langdon waited, observing the action before them. Brightly dressed guards bustled about yelling orders in Italian.
   “Continua cercando!” one yelled into a telephone.
   “Probasti il musèo?” another asked.
   Langdon did not need fluent Italian to discern that the security center was currently in intense search mode. This was the good news. The bad news was that they obviously had not yet found the antimatter.
   “You okay?” Langdon asked Vittoria.
   She shrugged, offering a tired smile.
   When the commander finally clicked off his phone and approached across the room, he seemed to grow with each step. Langdon was tall himself and not accustomed to looking up at many people, but Commander Olivetti demanded it. Langdon sensed immediately that the commander was a man who had weathered tempests, his face hale and steeled. His dark hair was cropped in a military buzz cut, and his eyes burned with the kind of hardened determination only attainable through years of intense training. He moved with ramrod exactness, the earpiece hidden discreetly behind one ear making him look more like U.S. Secret Service than Swiss Guard.
   The commander addressed them in accented English. His voice was startlingly quiet for such a large man, barely a whisper. It bit with a tight, military efficiency. “Good afternoon,” he said. “I am Commander Olivetti—Comandante Principale of the Swiss Guard. I’m the one who called your director.”
   Vittoria gazed upward. “Thank you for seeing us, sir.”
   The commander did not respond. He motioned for them to follow and led them through the tangle of electronics to a door in the side wall of the chamber. “Enter,” he said, holding the door for them.
   Langdon and Vittoria walked through and found themselves in a darkened control room where a wall of video monitors was cycling lazily through a series of black-and-white images of the complex. A young guard sat watching the images intently.
   “Fuori,” Olivetti said.
   The guard packed up and left.
   Olivetti walked over to one of the screens and pointed to it. Then he turned toward his guests. “This image is from a remote camera hidden somewhere inside Vatican City. I’d like an explanation.”
   Langdon and Vittoria looked at the screen and inhaled in unison. The image was absolute. No doubt. It was CERN’s antimatter canister. Inside, a shimmering droplet of metallic liquid hung ominously in the air, lit by the rhythmic blinking of the LED digital clock. Eerily, the area around the canister was almost entirely dark, as if the antimatter were in a closet or darkened room. At the top of the monitor flashed superimposed text: Live Feed—Camera #86.
   Vittoria looked at the time remaining on the flashing indicator on the canister. “Under six hours,” she whispered to Langdon, her face tense.
   Langdon checked his watch. “So we have until…” He stopped, a knot tightening in his stomach.
   “Midnight,” Vittoria said, with a withering look.
   Midnight, Langdon thought. A flair for the dramatic. Apparently whoever stole the canister last night had timed it perfectly. A stark foreboding set in as he realized he was currently sitting at ground zero.
   Olivetti’s whisper now sounded more like a hiss. “Does this object belong to your facility?”
   Vittoria nodded. “Yes, sir. It was stolen from us. It contains an extremely combustible substance called antimatter.”
   Olivetti looked unmoved. “I am quite familiar with incendiaries, Ms. Vetra. I have not heard of antimatter.”
   “It’s new technology. We need to locate it immediately or evacuate Vatican City.”
   Olivetti closed his eyes slowly and reopened them, as if refocusing on Vittoria might change what he just heard. “Evacuate? Are you aware what is going on here this evening?”
   “Yes, sir. And the lives of your cardinals are in danger. We have about six hours. Have you made any headway locating the canister?”
   Olivetti shook his head. “We haven’t started looking.”
   Vittoria choked. “What? But we expressly heard your guards talking about searching the—”
   “Searching, yes,” Olivetti said, “but not for your canister. My men are looking for something else that does not concern you.”
   Vittoria’s voice cracked. “You haven’t even begun looking for this canister?”
   Olivetti’s pupils seemed to recede into his head. He had the passionless look of an insect. “Ms. Vetra, is it? Let me explain something to you. The director of your facility refused to share any details about this object with me over the phone except to say that I needed to find it immediately. We are exceptionally busy, and I do not have the luxury of dedicating manpower to a situation until I get some facts.”
   “There is only one relevant fact at this moment, sir,” Vittoria said, “that being that in six hours that device is going to vaporize this entire complex.”
   Olivetti stood motionless. “Ms. Vetra, there is something you need to know.” His tone hinted at patronizing. “Despite the archaic appearance of Vatican City, every single entrance, both public and private, is equipped with the most advanced sensing equipment known to man. If someone tried to enter with any sort of incendiary device it would be detected instantly. We have radioactive isotope scanners, olfactory filters designed by the American DEA to detect the faintest chemical signatures of combustibles and toxins. We also use the most advanced metal detectors and X-ray scanners available.”
   “Very impressive,” Vittoria said, matching Olivetti’s cool. “Unfortunately, antimatter is nonradioactive, its chemical signature is that of pure hydrogen, and the canister is plastic. None of those devices would have detected it.”
   “But the device has an energy source,” Olivetti said, motioning to the blinking LED. “Even the smallest trace of nickel-cadmium would register as—”
   “The batteries are also plastic.”
   Olivetti’s patience was clearly starting to wane. “Plastic batteries?”
   “Polymer gel electrolyte with Teflon.”
   Olivetti leaned toward her, as if to accentuate his height advantage. “Signorina, the Vatican is the target of dozens of bomb threats a month. I personally train every Swiss Guard in modern explosive technology. I am well aware that there is no substance on earth powerful enough to do what you are describing unless you are talking about a nuclear warhead with a fuel core the size of a baseball.”
   Vittoria framed him with a fervent stare. “Nature has many mysteries yet to unveil.”
   Olivetti leaned closer. “Might I ask exactly who you are? What is your position at CERN?”
   “I am a senior member of the research staff and appointed liaison to the Vatican for this crisis.”
   “Excuse me for being rude, but if this is indeed a crisis, why am I dealing with you and not your director? And what disrespect do you intend by coming into Vatican City in short pants?”
   Langdon groaned. He couldn’t believe that under the circumstances the man was being a stickler for dress code. Then again, he realized, if stone penises could induce lustful thoughts in Vatican residents, Vittoria Vetra in shorts could certainly be a threat to national security.
   “Commander Olivetti,” Langdon intervened, trying to diffuse what looked like a second bomb about to explode. “My name is Robert Langdon. I’m a professor of religious studies in the U.S. and unaffiliated with CERN. I have seen an antimatter demonstration and will vouch for Ms. Vetra’s claim that it is exceptionally dangerous. We have reason to believe it was placed inside your complex by an antireligious cult hoping to disrupt your conclave.”
   Olivetti turned, peering down at Langdon. “I have a woman in shorts telling me that a droplet of liquid is going to blow up Vatican City, and I have an American professor telling me we are being targeted by some antireligious cult. What exactly is it you expect me to do?”
   “Find the canister,” Vittoria said. “Right away.”
   “Impossible. That device could be anywhere. Vatican City is enormous.”
   “Your cameras don’t have GPS locators on them?”
   “They are not generally stolen. This missing camera will take days to locate.”
   “We don’t have days,” Vittoria said adamantly. “We have six hours.”
   “Six hours until what, Ms. Vetra?” Olivetti’s voice grew louder suddenly. He pointed to the image on the screen. “Until these numbers count down? Until Vatican City disappears? Believe me, I do not take kindly to people tampering with my security system. Nor do I like mechanical contraptions appearing mysteriously inside my walls. I am concerned. It is my job to be concerned. But what you have told me here is unacceptable.”
   Langdon spoke before he could stop himself. “Have you heard of the Illuminati?”
   The commander’s icy exterior cracked. His eyes went white, like a shark about to attack. “I am warning you. I do not have time for this.”
   “So you have heard of the Illuminati?”
   Olivetti’s eyes stabbed like bayonets. “I am a sworn defendant of the Catholic Church. Of course I have heard of the Illuminati. They have been dead for decades.”
   Langdon reached in his pocket and pulled out the fax image of Leonardo Vetra’s branded body. He handed it to Olivetti.
   “I am an Illuminati scholar,” Langdon said as Olivetti studied the picture. “I am having a difficult time accepting that the Illuminati are still active, and yet the appearance of this brand combined with the fact that the Illuminati have a well-known covenant against Vatican City has changed my mind.”
   “A computer-generated hoax.” Olivetti handed the fax back to Langdon.
   Langdon stared, incredulous. “Hoax? Look at the symmetry! You of all people should realize the authenticity of—”
   “Authenticity is precisely what you lack. Perhaps Ms. Vetra has not informed you, but CERN scientists have been criticizing Vatican policies for decades. They regularly petition us for retraction of Creationist theory, formal apologies for Galileo and Copernicus, repeal of our criticism against dangerous or immoral research. What scenario seems more likely to you—that a four-hundred-year-old satanic cult has resurfaced with an advanced weapon of mass destruction, or that some prankster at CERN is trying to disrupt a sacred Vatican event with a well-executed fraud?”
   “That photo,” Vittoria said, her voice like boiling lava, “is of my father. Murdered. You think this is my idea of a joke?”
   “I don’t know, Ms. Vetra. But I do know until I get some answers that make sense, there is no way I will raise any sort of alarm. Vigilance and discretion are my duty… such that spiritual matters can take place here with clarity of mind. Today of all days.”
   Langdon said, “At least postpone the event.”
   “Postpone?” Olivetti’s jaw dropped. “Such arrogance! A conclave is not some American baseball game you call on account of rain. This is a sacred event with a strict code and process. Never mind that one billion Catholics in the world are waiting for a leader. Never mind that the world media is outside. The protocols for this event are holy—not subject to modification. Since 1179, conclaves have survived earthquakes, famines, and even the plague. Believe me, it is not about to be canceled on account of a murdered scientist and a droplet of God knows what.”
   “Take me to the person in charge,” Vittoria demanded.
   Olivetti glared. “You’ve got him.”
   “No,” she said. “Someone in the clergy.”
   The veins on Olivetti’s brow began to show. “The clergy has gone. With the exception of the Swiss Guard, the only ones present in Vatican City at this time are the College of Cardinals. And they are inside the Sistine Chapel.”
   “How about the chamberlain?” Langdon stated flatly.
   “Who?”
   “The late Pope’s chamberlain.” Langdon repeated the word self-assuredly, praying his memory served him. He recalled reading once about the curious arrangement of Vatican authority following the death of a Pope. If Langdon was correct, during the interim between Popes, complete autonomous power shifted temporarily to the late Pope’s personal assistant—his chamberlain—a secretarial underling who oversaw conclave until the cardinals chose the new Holy Father. “I believe the chamberlain is the man in charge at the moment.”
   “Il camerlegno?” Olivetti scowled. “The camerlegno is only a priest here. He is not even canonized. He is the late Pope’s hand servant.”
   “But he is here. And you answer to him.”
   Olivetti crossed his arms. “Mr. Langdon, it is true that Vatican rule dictates the camerlegno assume chief executive office during conclave, but it is only because his lack of eligibility for the papacy ensures an unbiased election. It is as if your president died, and one of his aides temporarily sat in the oval office. The camerlegno is young, and his understanding of security, or anything else for that matter, is extremely limited. For all intents and purposes, I am in charge here.”
   “Take us to him,” Vittoria said.
   “Impossible. Conclave begins in forty minutes. The camerlegno is in the Office of the Pope preparing. I have no intention of disturbing him with matters of security.”
   Vittoria opened her mouth to respond but was interrupted by a knocking at the door. Olivetti opened it.
   A guard in full regalia stood outside, pointing to his watch. “Éé l’ora, comandante.”
   Olivetti checked his own watch and nodded. He turned back to Langdon and Vittoria like a judge pondering their fate. “Follow me.” He led them out of the monitoring room across the security center to a small clear cubicle against the rear wall. “My office.” Olivetti ushered them inside. The room was unspecial—a cluttered desk, file cabinets, folding chairs, a water cooler. “I will be back in ten minutes. I suggest you use the time to decide how you would like to proceed.”
   Vittoria wheeled. “You can’t just leave! That canister is—”
   “I do not have time for this,” Olivetti seethed. “Perhaps I should detain you until after the conclave when I do have time.”
   “Signore,” the guard urged, pointing to his watch again. “Spazzare di capella.”
   Olivetti nodded and started to leave.
   “Spazzare di capella?” Vittoria demanded. “You’re leaving to sweep the chapel?”
   Olivetti turned, his eyes boring through her. “We sweep for electronic bugs, Miss Vetra—a matter of discretion.” He motioned to her legs. “Not something I would expect you to understand.”
   With that he slammed the door, rattling the heavy glass. In one fluid motion he produced a key, inserted it, and twisted. A heavy deadbolt slid into place.
   “Idiòta!” Vittoria yelled. “You can’t keep us in here!”
   Through the glass, Langdon could see Olivetti say something to the guard. The sentinel nodded. As Olivetti strode out of the room, the guard spun and faced them on the other side of the glass, arms crossed, a large sidearm visible on his hip.
   Perfect, Langdon thought. Just bloody perfect.