57
   The director of CERN, Maximilian Kohler, opened his eyes to the cool rush of cromolyn and leukotriene in his body, dilating his bronchial tubes and pulmonary capillaries. He was breathing normally again. He found himself lying in a private room in the CERN infirmary, his wheelchair beside the bed.
   He took stock, examining the paper robe they had put him in. His clothing was folded on the chair beside the bed. Outside he could hear a nurse making the rounds. He lay there a long minute listening. Then, as quietly as possible, he pulled himself to the edge of the bed and retrieved his clothing. Struggling with his dead legs, he dressed himself. Then he dragged his body onto his wheelchair.
   Muffling a cough, he wheeled himself to the door. He moved manually, careful not to engage the motor. When he arrived at the door he peered out. The hall was empty.
   Silently, Maximilian Kohler slipped out of the infirmary.

58
   “Seven-forty-six and thirty… mark.” Even speaking into his walkie-talkie, Olivetti’s voice never seemed to rise above a whisper.
   Langdon felt himself sweating now in his Harris tweed in the backseat of the Alpha Romeo, which was idling in Piazza de la Concorde, three blocks from the Pantheon. Vittoria sat beside him, looking engrossed by Olivetti, who was transmitting his final orders.
   “Deployment will be an eight-point hem,” the commander said. “Full perimeter with a bias on the entry. Target may know you visually, so you will be pas-visible. Nonmortal force only. We’ll need someone to spot the roof. Target is primary. Asset secondary.”
   Jesus, Langdon thought, chilled by the efficiency with which Olivetti had just told his men the cardinal was expendable. Asset secondary.
   “I repeat. Nonmortal procurement. We need the target alive. Go.” Olivetti snapped off his walkie-talkie.
   Vittoria looked stunned, almost angry. “Commander, isn’t anyone going inside?”
   Olivetti turned. “Inside?”
   “Inside the Pantheon! Where this is supposed to happen?”
   “Attento,” Olivetti said, his eyes fossilizing. “If my ranks have been infiltrated, my men may be known by sight. Your colleague has just finished warning me that this will be our sole chance to catch the target. I have no intention of scaring anyone off by marching my men inside.”
   “But what if the killer is already inside?”
   Olivetti checked his watch. “The target was specific. Eight o’clock. We have fifteen minutes.”
   “He said he would kill the cardinal at eight o’clock. But he may already have gotten the victim inside somehow. What if your men see the target come out but don’t know who he is? Someone needs to make sure the inside is clean.”
   “Too risky at this point.”
   “Not if the person going in was unrecognizable.”
   “Disguising operatives is time consuming and—”
   “I meant me,” Vittoria said.
   Langdon turned and stared at her.
   Olivetti shook his head. “Absolutely not.”
   “He killed my father.”
   “Exactly, so he may know who you are.”
   “You heard him on the phone. He had no idea Leonardo Vetra even had a daughter. He sure as hell doesn’t know what I look like. I could walk in like a tourist. If I see anything suspicious, I could walk into the square and signal your men to move in.”
   “I’m sorry, I cannot allow that.”
   “Comandante?” Olivetti’s receiver crackled. “We’ve got a situation from the north point. The fountain is blocking our line of sight. We can’t see the entrance unless we move into plain view on the piazza. What’s your call? Do you want us blind or vulnerable?”
   Vittoria apparently had endured enough. “That’s it. I’m going.” She opened her door and got out.
   Olivetti dropped his walkie-talkie and jumped out of the car, circling in front of Vittoria.
   Langdon got out too. What the hell is she doing!
   Olivetti blocked Vittoria’s way. “Ms. Vetra, your instincts are good, but I cannot let a civilian interfere.”
   “Interfere? You’re flying blind. Let me help.”
   “I would love to have a recon point inside, but…”
   “But what?” Vittoria demanded. “But I’m a woman?”
   Olivetti said nothing.
   “That had better not be what you were going to say, Commander, because you know damn well this is a good idea, and if you let some archaic macho bullshit—”
   “Let us do our job.”
   “Let me help.”
   “Too dangerous. We would have no lines of communication with you. I can’t let you carry a walkie-talkie, it would give you away.”
   Vittoria reached in her shirt pocket and produced her cell phone. “Plenty of tourists carry phones.”
   Olivetti frowned.
   Vittoria unsnapped the phone and mimicked a call. “Hi, honey, I’m standing in the Pantheon. You should see this place!” She snapped the phone shut and glared at Olivetti. “Who the hell is going to know? It is a no-risk situation. Let me be your eyes!” She motioned to the cell phone on Olivetti’s belt. “What’s your number?”
   Olivetti did not reply.
   The driver had been looking on and seemed to have some thoughts of his own. He got out of the car and took the commander aside. They spoke in hushed tones for ten seconds. Finally Olivetti nodded and returned. “Program this number.” He began dictating digits.
   Vittoria programmed her phone.
   “Now call the number.”
   Vittoria pressed the auto dial. The phone on Olivetti’s belt began ringing. He picked it up and spoke into the receiver. “Go into the building, Ms. Vetra, look around, exit the building, then call and tell me what you see.”
   Vittoria snapped the phone shut. “Thank you, sir.”
   Langdon felt a sudden, unexpected surge of protective instinct. “Wait a minute,” he said to Olivetti. “You’re sending her in there alone.”
   Vittoria scowled at him. “Robert, I’ll be fine.”
   The Swiss Guard driver was talking to Olivetti again.
   “It’s dangerous,” Langdon said to Vittoria.
   “He’s right,” Olivetti said. “Even my best men don’t work alone. My lieutenant has just pointed out that the masquerade will be more convincing with both of you anyway.”
   Both of us? Langdon hesitated. Actually, what I meant–
   “Both of you entering together,” Olivetti said, “will look like a couple on holiday. You can also back each other up. I’m more comfortable with that.”
   Vittoria shrugged. “Fine, but we’ll need to go fast.”
   Langdon groaned. Nice move, cowboy.
   Olivetti pointed down the street. “First street you hit will be Via degli Orfani. Go left. It takes you directly to the Pantheon. Two-minute walk, tops. I’ll be here, directing my men and waiting for your call. I’d like you to have protection.” He pulled out his pistol. “Do either of you know how to use a gun?”
   Langdon’s heart skipped. We don’t need a gun!
   Vittoria held her hand out. “I can tag a breaching porpoise from forty meters off the bow of a rocking ship.”
   “Good.” Olivetti handed the gun to her. “You’ll have to conceal it.”
   Vittoria glanced down at her shorts. Then she looked at Langdon.
   Oh no you don’t! Langdon thought, but Vittoria was too fast. She opened his jacket, and inserted the weapon into one of his breast pockets. It felt like a rock dropping into his coat, his only consolation being that Diagramma was in the other pocket.
   “We look harmless,” Vittoria said. “We’re leaving.” She took Langdon’s arm and headed down the street.
   The driver called out, “Arm in arm is good. Remember, you’re tourists. Newlyweds even. Perhaps if you held hands?”
   As they turned the corner Langdon could have sworn he saw on Vittoria’s face the hint of a smile.

59
   The Swiss Guard “staging room” is located adjacent to the Corpo di Vigilanza barracks and is used primarily for planning the security surrounding papal appearances and public Vatican events. Today, however, it was being used for something else.
   The man addressing the assembled task force was the second-in-command of the Swiss Guard, Captain Elias Rocher. Rocher was a barrel-chested man with soft, puttylike features. He wore the traditional blue captain’s uniform with his own personal flair—a red beret cocked sideways on his head. His voice was surprisingly crystalline for such a large man, and when he spoke, his tone had the clarity of a musical instrument. Despite the precision of his inflection, Rocher’s eyes were cloudy like those of some nocturnal mammal. His men called him “orso”—grizzly bear. They sometimes joked that Rocher was “the bear who walked in the viper’s shadow.” Commander Olivetti was the viper. Rocher was just as deadly as the viper, but at least you could see him coming.
   Rocher’s men stood at sharp attention, nobody moving a muscle, although the information they had just received had increased their aggregate blood pressure by a few thousand points.
   Rookie Lieutenant Chartrand stood in the back of the room wishing he had been among the 99 percent of applicants who had not qualified to be here. At twenty years old, Chartrand was the youngest guard on the force. He had been in Vatican City only three months. Like every man there, Chartrand was Swiss Army trained and had endured two years of additional ausbilding in Bern before qualifying for the grueling Vatican pròva held in a secret barracks outside of Rome. Nothing in his training, however, had prepared him for a crisis like this.
   At first Chartrand thought the briefing was some sort of bizarre training exercise. Futuristic weapons? Ancient cults? Kidnapped cardinals? Then Rocher had shown them the live video feed of the weapon in question. Apparently this was no exercise.
   “We will be killing power in selected areas,” Rocher was saying, “to eradicate extraneous magnetic interference. We will move in teams of four. We will wear infrared goggles for vision. Reconnaissance will be done with traditional bug sweepers, recalibrated for sub-three-ohm flux fields. Any questions?”
   None.
   Chartrand’s mind was on overload. “What if we don’t find it in time?” he asked, immediately wishing he had not.
   The grizzly bear gazed out at him from beneath his red beret. Then he dismissed the group with a somber salute. “Godspeed, men.”

60
   Two blocks from the Pantheon, Langdon and Vittoria approached on foot past a line of taxis, their drivers sleeping in the front seats. Nap time was eternal in the Eternal City—the ubiquitous public dozing a perfected extension of the afternoon siestas born of ancient Spain.
   Langdon fought to focus his thoughts, but the situation was too bizarre to grasp rationally. Six hours ago he had been sound asleep in Cambridge. Now he was in Europe, caught up in a surreal battle of ancient titans, packing a semiautomatic in his Harris tweed, and holding hands with a woman he had only just met.
   He looked at Vittoria. She was focused straight ahead. There was a strength in her grasp—that of an independent and determined woman. Her fingers wrapped around his with the comfort of innate acceptance. No hesitation. Langdon felt a growing attraction. Get real, he told himself.
   Vittoria seemed to sense his uneasiness. “Relax,” she said, without turning her head. “We’re supposed to look like newlyweds.”
   “I’m relaxed.”
   “You’re crushing my hand.”
   Langdon flushed and loosened up.
   “Breathe through your eyes,” she said.
   “I’m sorry?”
   “It relaxes the muscles. It’s called pranayama.”
   “Piranha?”
   “Not the fish. Pranayama. Never mind.”
   As they rounded the corner into Piazza della Rotunda, the Pantheon rose before them. Langdon admired it, as always, with awe. The Pantheon. Temple to all gods. Pagan gods. Gods of Nature and Earth. The structure seemed boxier from the outside than he remembered. The vertical pillars and triangular pronaus all but obscured the circular dome behind it. Still, the bold and immodest inscription over the entrance assured him they were in the right spot. M AGRIPPA L F COS TERTIUM FECIT. Langdon translated it, as always, with amusement. Marcus Agrippa, Consul for the third time, built this.
   So much for humility, he thought, turning his eyes to the surrounding area. A scattering of tourists with video cameras wandered the area. Others sat enjoying Rome’s best iced coffee at La Tazza di Oro’s outdoor cafe. Outside the entrance to the Pantheon, four armed Roman policemen stood at attention just as Olivetti had predicted.
   “Looks pretty quiet,” Vittoria said.
   Langdon nodded, but he felt troubled. Now that he was standing here in person, the whole scenario seemed surreal. Despite Vittoria’s apparent faith that he was right, Langdon realized he had put everyone on the line here. The Illuminati poem lingered. From Santi’s earthly tomb with demon’s hole. YES, he told himself. This was the spot. Santi’s tomb. He had been here many times beneath the Pantheon’s oculus and stood before the grave of the great Raphael.
   “What time is it?” Vittoria asked.
   Langdon checked his watch. “Seven-fifty. Ten minutes till show time.”
   “Hope these guys are good,” Vittoria said, eyeing the scattered tourists entering the Pantheon. “If anything happens inside that dome, we’ll all be in the crossfire.”
   Langdon exhaled heavily as they moved toward the entrance. The gun felt heavy in his pocket. He wondered what would happen if the policemen frisked him and found the weapon, but the officers did not give them a second look. Apparently the disguise was convincing.
   Langdon whispered to Vittoria. “Ever fire anything other than a tranquilizer gun?”
   “Don’t you trust me?”
   “Trust you? I barely know you.”
   Vittoria frowned. “And here I thought we were newlyweds.”

61
   The air inside the Pantheon was cool and damp, heavy with history. The sprawling ceiling hovered overhead as though weightless—the 141-foot unsupported span larger even than the cupola at St. Peter’s. As always, Langdon felt a chill as he entered the cavernous room. It was a remarkable fusion of engineering and art. Above them the famous circular hole in the roof glowed with a narrow shaft of evening sun. The oculus, Langdon thought. The demon’s hole.
   They had arrived.
   Langdon’s eyes traced the arch of the ceiling sloping outward to the columned walls and finally down to the polished marble floor beneath their feet. The faint echo of footfalls and tourist murmurs reverberated around the dome. Langdon scanned the dozen or so tourists wandering aimlessly in the shadows. Are you here?
   “Looks pretty quiet,” Vittoria said, still holding his hand.
   Langdon nodded.
   “Where’s Raphael’s tomb?”
   Langdon thought for a moment, trying to get his bearings. He surveyed the circumference of the room. Tombs. Altars. Pillars. Niches. He motioned to a particularly ornate funerary across the dome and to the left. “I think that’s Raphael’s over there.”
   Vittoria scanned the rest of the room. “I don’t see anyone who looks like an assassin about to kill a cardinal. Shall we look around?”
   Langdon nodded. “There’s only one spot in here where anyone could be hiding. We better check the rientranze.”
   “The recesses?”
   “Yes.” Langdon pointed. “The recesses in the wall.”
   Around the perimeter, interspersed with the tombs, a series of semicircular niches were hewn in the wall. The niches, although not enormous, were big enough to hide someone in the shadows. Sadly, Langdon knew they once contained statues of the Olympian gods, but the pagan sculptures had been destroyed when the Vatican converted the Pantheon to a Christian church. He felt a pang of frustration to know he was standing at the first altar of science, and the marker was gone. He wondered which statue it had been, and where it had pointed. Langdon could imagine no greater thrill than finding an Illuminati marker—a statue that surreptitiously pointed the way down the Path of Illumination. Again he wondered who the anonymous Illuminati sculptor had been.
   “I’ll take the left arc,” Vittoria said, indicating the left half of the circumference. “You go right. See you in a hundred and eighty degrees.”
   Langdon smiled grimly.
   As Vittoria moved off, Langdon felt the eerie horror of the situation seeping back into his mind. As he turned and made his way to the right, the killer’s voice seemed to whisper in the dead space around him. Eight o’clock. Virgin sacrifices on the altars of science. A mathematical progression of death. Eight, nine, ten, eleven… and at midnight. Langdon checked his watch: 7:52. Eight minutes.
   As Langdon moved toward the first recess, he passed the tomb of one of Italy’s Catholic kings. The sarcophagus, like many in Rome, was askew with the wall, positioned awkwardly. A group of visitors seemed confused by this. Langdon did not stop to explain. Formal Christian tombs were often misaligned with the architecture so they could lie facing east. It was an ancient superstition that Langdon’s Symbology 212 class had discussed just last month.
   “That’s totally incongruous!” a female student in the front had blurted when Langdon explained the reason for east-facing tombs. “Why would Christians want their tombs to face the rising sun? We’re talking about Christianity… not sun worship!”
   Langdon smiled, pacing before the blackboard, chewing an apple. “Mr. Hitzrot!” he shouted.
   A young man dozing in back sat up with a start. “What! Me?”
   Langdon pointed to a Renaissance art poster on the wall. “Who is that man kneeling before God?”
   “Um… some saint?”
   “Brilliant. And how do you know he’s a saint?”
   “He’s got a halo?”
   “Excellent, and does that golden halo remind you of anything?”
   Hitzrot broke into a smile. “Yeah! Those Egyptian things we studied last term. Those… um… sun disks!”
   “Thank you, Hitzrot. Go back to sleep.” Langdon turned back to the class. “Halos, like much of Christian symbology, were borrowed from the ancient Egyptian religion of sun worship. Christianity is filled with examples of sun worship.”
   “Excuse me?” the girl in front said. “I go to church all the time, and I don’t see much sun worshiping going on!”
   “Really? What do you celebrate on December twenty-fifth?”
   “Christmas. The birth of Jesus Christ.”
   “And yet according to the Bible, Christ was born in March, so what are we doing celebrating in late December?”
   Silence.
   Langdon smiled. “December twenty-fifth, my friends, is the ancient pagan holiday of sol invictus–Unconquered Sun—coinciding with the winter solstice. It’s that wonderful time of year when the sun returns, and the days start getting longer.”
   Langdon took another bite of apple.
   “Conquering religions,” he continued, “often adopt existing holidays to make conversion less shocking. It’s called transmutation. It helps people acclimatize to the new faith. Worshipers keep the same holy dates, pray in the same sacred locations, use a similar symbology… and they simply substitute a different god.”
   Now the girl in front looked furious. “You’re implying Christianity is just some kind of… repackaged sun worship!”
   “Not at all. Christianity did not borrow only from sun worship. The ritual of Christian canonization is taken from the ancient ‘god-making’ rite of Euhemerus. The practice of ‘god-eating’—that is, Holy Communion—was borrowed from the Aztecs. Even the concept of Christ dying for our sins is arguably not exclusively Christian; the self-sacrifice of a young man to absolve the sins of his people appears in the earliest tradition of the Quetzalcoatl.”
   The girl glared. “So, is anything in Christianity original?”
   “Very little in any organized faith is truly original. Religions are not born from scratch. They grow from one another. Modern religion is a collage… an assimilated historical record of man’s quest to understand the divine.”
   “Um… hold on,” Hitzrot ventured, sounding awake now. “I know something Christian that’s original. How about our image of God? Christian art never portrays God as the hawk sun god, or as an Aztec, or as anything weird. It always shows God as an old man with a white beard. So our image of God is original, right?”
   Langdon smiled. “When the early Christian converts abandoned their former deities—pagan gods, Roman gods, Greek, sun, Mithraic, whatever—they asked the church what their new Christian God looked like. Wisely, the church chose the most feared, powerful… and familiar face in all of recorded history.”
   Hitzrot looked skeptical. “An old man with a white, flowing beard?”
   Langdon pointed to a hierarchy of ancient gods on the wall. At the top sat an old man with a white, flowing beard. “Does Zeus look familiar?”
   The class ended right on cue.
   “Good evening,” a man’s voice said.
   Langdon jumped. He was back in the Pantheon. He turned to face an elderly man in a blue cape with a red cross on the chest. The man gave him a gray-toothed smile.
   “You’re English, right?” The man’s accent was thick Tuscan.
   Langdon blinked, confused. “Actually, no. I’m American.”
   The man looked embarrassed. “Oh heavens, forgive me. You were so nicely dressed, I just figured… my apologies.”
   “Can I help you?” Langdon asked, his heart beating wildly.
   “Actually I thought perhaps I could help you. I am the cicerone here.” The man pointed proudly to his city-issued badge. “It is my job to make your visit to Rome more interesting.”
   More interesting? Langdon was certain this particular visit to Rome was plenty interesting.
   “You look like a man of distinction,” the guide fawned, “no doubt more interested in culture than most. Perhaps I can give you some history on this fascinating building.”
   Langdon smiled politely. “Kind of you, but I’m actually an art historian myself, and—”
   “Superb!” The man’s eyes lit up like he’d hit the jackpot. “Then you will no doubt find this delightful!”
   “I think I’d prefer to—”
   “The Pantheon,” the man declared, launching into his memorized spiel, “was built by Marcus Agrippa in 27 B.C.”
   “Yes,” Langdon interjected, “and rebuilt by Hadrian in 119 A.D.”
   “It was the world’s largest free-standing dome until 1960 when it was eclipsed by the Superdome in New Orleans!”
   Langdon groaned. The man was unstoppable.
   “And a fifth-century theologian once called the Pantheon the House of the Devil, warning that the hole in the roof was an entrance for demons!”
   Langdon blocked him out. His eyes climbed skyward to the oculus, and the memory of Vittoria’s suggested plot flashed a bone-numbing image in his mind… a branded cardinal falling through the hole and hitting the marble floor. Now that would be a media event. Langdon found himself scanning the Pantheon for reporters. None. He inhaled deeply. It was an absurd idea. The logistics of pulling off a stunt like that would be ridiculous.
   As Langdon moved off to continue his inspection, the babbling docent followed like a love-starved puppy. Remind me, Langdon thought to himself, there’s nothing worse than a gung ho art historian.
   Across the room, Vittoria was immersed in her own search. Standing all alone for the first time since she had heard the news of her father, she felt the stark reality of the last eight hours closing in around her. Her father had been murdered—cruelly and abruptly. Almost equally painful was that her father’s creation had been corrupted—now a tool of terrorists. Vittoria was plagued with guilt to think that it was her invention that had enabled the antimatter to be transported… her canister that was now counting down inside the Vatican. In an effort to serve her father’s quest for the simplicity of truth… she had become a conspirator of chaos.
   Oddly, the only thing that felt right in her life at the moment was the presence of a total stranger. Robert Langdon. She found an inexplicable refuge in his eyes… like the harmony of the oceans she had left behind early that morning. She was glad he was there. Not only had he been a source of strength and hope for her, Langdon had used his quick mind to render this one chance to catch her father’s killer.
   Vittoria breathed deeply as she continued her search, moving around the perimeter. She was overwhelmed by the unexpected images of personal revenge that had dominated her thoughts all day. Even as a sworn lover of all life… she wanted this executioner dead. No amount of good karma could make her turn the other cheek today. Alarmed and electrified, she sensed something coursing through her Italian blood that she had never felt before… the whispers of Sicilian ancestors defending family honor with brutal justice. Vendetta, Vittoria thought, and for the first time in her life understood.
   Visions of reprisal spurred her on. She approached the tomb of Raphael Santi. Even from a distance she could tell this guy was special. His casket, unlike the others, was protected by a Plexiglas shield and recessed into the wall. Through the barrier she could see the front of the sarcophagus.

Raphael Santi
1483-1520

   Vittoria studied the grave and then read the one-sentence descriptive plaque beside Raphael’s tomb.
   Then she read it again.
   Then… she read it again.
   A moment later, she was dashing in horror across the floor. “Robert! Robert!”

62
   Langdon’s progress around his side of the Pantheon was being hampered somewhat by the guide on his heels, now continuing his tireless narration as Langdon prepared to check the final alcove.
   “You certainly seem to be enjoying those niches!” the docent said, looking delighted. “Were you aware that the tapering thickness of the walls is the reason the dome appears weightless?”
   Langdon nodded, not hearing a word as he prepared to examine another niche. Suddenly someone grabbed him from behind. It was Vittoria. She was breathless and tugging at his arm. From the look of terror on her face, Langdon could only imagine one thing. She found a body. He felt an upswelling of dread.
   “Ah, your wife!” the docent exclaimed, clearly thrilled to have another guest. He motioned to her short pants and hiking boots. “Now you I can tell are American!”
   Vittoria’s eyes narrowed. “I’m Italian.”
   The guide’s smile dimmed. “Oh, dear.”
   “Robert,” Vittoria whispered, trying to turn her back on the guide. “Galileo’s Diagramma. I need to see it.”
   “Diagramma?” the docent said, wheedling back in. “My! You two certainly know your history! Unfortunately that document is not viewable. It is under secret preservation in the Vatican Arc—”
   “Could you excuse us?” Langdon said. He was confused by Vittoria’s panic. He took her aside and reached in his pocket, carefully extracting the Diagramma folio. “What’s going on?”
   “What’s the date on this thing?” Vittoria demanded, scanning the sheet.
   The docent was on them again, staring at the folio, mouth agape. “That’s not… really…”
   “Tourist reproduction,” Langdon quipped. “Thank you for your help. Please, my wife and I would like a moment alone.”
   The docent backed off, eyes never leaving the paper.
   “Date,” Vittoria repeated to Langdon. “When did Galileo publish…”
   Langdon pointed to the Roman numeral in the lower liner. “That’s the pub date. What’s going on?”
   Vittoria deciphered the number. “1639?”
   “Yes. What’s wrong?”
   Vittoria’s eyes filled with foreboding. “We’re in trouble, Robert. Big trouble. The dates don’t match.”
   “What dates don’t match?”
   “Raphael’s tomb. He wasn’t buried here until 1759. A century after Diagramma was published.”
   Langdon stared at her, trying to make sense of the words. “No,” he replied. “Raphael died in 1520, long before Diagramma.”
   “Yes, but he wasn’t buried here until much later.”
   Langdon was lost. “What are you talking about?”
   “I just read it. Raphael’s body was relocated to the Pantheon in 1758. It was part of some historic tribute to eminent Italians.”
   As the words settled in, Langdon felt like a rug had just been yanked out from under him.
   “When that poem was written,” Vittoria declared, “Raphael’s tomb was somewhere else. Back then, the Pantheon had nothing at all to do with Raphael!”
   Langdon could not breathe. “But that… means…”
   “Yes! It means we’re in the wrong place!”
   Langdon felt himself sway. Impossible… I was certain…
   Vittoria ran over and grabbed the docent, pulling him back. “Signore, excuse us. Where was Raphael’s body in the 1600s?”
   “Urb… Urbino,” he stammered, now looking bewildered. “His birthplace.”
   “Impossible!” Langdon cursed to himself. “The Illuminati altars of science were here in Rome. I’m certain of it!”
   “Illuminati?” The docent gasped, looking again at the document in Langdon’s hand. “Who are you people?”
   Vittoria took charge. “We’re looking for something called Santi’s earthly tomb. In Rome. Can you tell us what that might be?”
   The docent looked unsettled. “This was Raphael’s only tomb in Rome.”
   Langdon tried to think, but his mind refused to engage. If Raphael’s tomb wasn’t in Rome in 1655, then what was the poem referring to? Santi’s earthly tomb with demon’s hole? What the hell is it? Think!
   “Was there another artist called Santi?” Vittoria asked.
   The docent shrugged. “Not that I know of.”
   “How about anyone famous at all? Maybe a scientist or a poet or an astronomer named Santi?”
   The docent now looked like he wanted to leave. “No, ma’am. The only Santi I’ve ever heard of is Raphael the architect.”
   “Architect?” Vittoria said. “I thought he was a painter!”
   “He was both, of course. They all were. Michelangelo, da Vinci, Raphael.”
   Langdon didn’t know whether it was the docent’s words or the ornate tombs around them that brought the revelation to mind, but it didn’t matter. The thought occurred. Santi was an architect. From there the progression of thoughts fell like dominoes. Renaissance architects lived for only two reasons—to glorify God with big churches, and to glorify dignitaries with lavish tombs. Santi’s tomb. Could it be? The images came faster now…

   da Vinci’s Mona Lisa.
   Monet’s Water Lilies.
   Michelangelo’s David.
   Santi’s earthly tomb…

   “Santi designed the tomb,” Langdon said.
   Vittoria turned. “What?”
   “It’s not a reference to where Raphael is buried, it’s referring to a tomb he designed.”
   “What are you talking about?”
   “I misunderstood the clue. It’s not Raphael’s burial site we’re looking for, it’s a tomb Raphael designed for someone else. I can’t believe I missed it. Half of the sculpting done in Renaissance and Baroque Rome was for the funeraries.” Langdon smiled with the revelation. “Raphael must have designed hundreds of tombs!”
   Vittoria did not look happy. “Hundreds?”
   Langdon’s smile faded. “Oh.”
   “Any of them earthly, professor?”
   Langdon felt suddenly inadequate. He knew embarrassingly little about Raphael’s work. Michelangelo he could have helped with, but Raphael’s work had never captivated him. Langdon could only name a couple of Raphael’s more famous tombs, but he wasn’t sure what they looked like.
   Apparently sensing Langdon’s stymie, Vittoria turned to the docent, who was now inching away. She grabbed his arm and reeled him in. “I need a tomb. Designed by Raphael. A tomb that could be considered earthly.”
   The docent now looked distressed. “A tomb of Raphael’s? I don’t know. He designed so many. And you probably would mean a chapel by Raphael, not a tomb. Architects always designed the chapels in conjunction with the tomb.”
   Langdon realized the man was right.
   “Are any of Raphael’s tombs or chapels considered earthly?”
   The man shrugged. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what you mean. Earthly really doesn’t describe anything I know of. I should be going.”
   Vittoria held his arm and read from the top line of the folio. “From Santi’s earthly tomb with demon’s hole. Does that mean anything to you?”
   “Not a thing.”
   Langdon looked up suddenly. He had momentarily forgotten the second part of the line. Demon’s hole? “Yes!” he said to the docent. “That’s it! Do any of Raphael’s chapels have an oculus in them?”
   The docent shook his head. “To my knowledge the Pantheon is unique.” He paused. “But…”
   “But what!” Vittoria and Langdon said in unison.
   Now the docent cocked his head, stepping toward them again. “A demon’s hole?” He muttered to himself and picked at his teeth. “Demon’s hole… that is… buco diаvolo?”
   Vittoria nodded. “Literally, yes.”
   The docent smiled faintly. “Now there’s a term I have not heard in a while. If I’m not mistaken, a buco diаvolo refers to an undercroft.”
   “An undercroft?” Langdon asked. “As in a crypt?”
   “Yes, but a specific kind of crypt. I believe a demon’s hole is an ancient term for a massive burial cavity located in a chapel… underneath another tomb.”
   “An ossuary annex?” Langdon demanded, immediately recognizing what the man was describing.
   The docent looked impressed. “Yes! That is the term I was looking for!”
   Langdon considered it. Ossuary annexes were a cheap ecclesiastic fix to an awkward dilemma. When churches honored their most distinguished members with ornate tombs inside the sanctuary, surviving family members often demanded the family be buried together… thus ensuring they too would have a coveted burial spot inside the church. However, if the church did not have space or funds to create tombs for an entire family, they sometimes dug an ossuary annex—a hole in the floor near the tomb where they buried the less worthy family members. The hole was then covered with the Renaissance equivalent of a manhole cover. Although convenient, the ossuary annex went out of style quickly because of the stench that often wafted up into the cathedral. Demon’s hole, Langdon thought. He had never heard the term. It seemed eerily fitting.
   Langdon’s heart was now pounding fiercely. From Santi’s earthly tomb with demon’s hole. There seemed to be only one question left to ask. “Did Raphael design any tombs that had one of these demon’s holes?”
   The docent scratched his head. “Actually. I’m sorry… I can only think of one.”
   Only one? Langdon could not have dreamed of a better response.
   “Where!” Vittoria almost shouted.
   The docent eyed them strangely. “It’s called the Chigi Chapel. Tomb of Agostino Chigi and his brother, wealthy patrons of the arts and sciences.”
   “Sciences?” Langdon said, exchanging looks with Vittoria.
   “Where?” Vittoria asked again.
   The docent ignored the question, seeming enthusiastic again to be of service. “As for whether or not the tomb is earthly, I don’t know, but certainly it is… shall we say differénte.”
   “Different?” Langdon said. “How?”
   “Incoherent with the architecture. Raphael was only the architect. Some other sculptor did the interior adornments. I can’t remember who.”
   Langdon was now all ears. The anonymous Illuminati master, perhaps?
   “Whoever did the interior monuments lacked taste,” the docent said. “Dio mio! Atrocitаs! Who would want to be buried beneath pirámides?”
   Langdon could scarcely believe his ears. “Pyramids? The chapel contains pyramids?”
   “I know,” the docent scoffed. “Terrible, isn’t it?”
   Vittoria grabbed the docent’s arm. “Signore, where is this Chigi Chapel?”
   “About a mile north. In the church of Santa Maria del Popolo.”
   Vittoria exhaled. “Thank you. Let’s—”
   “Hey,” the docent said, “I just thought of something. What a fool I am.”
   Vittoria stopped short. “Please don’t tell me you made a mistake.”
   He shook his head. “No, but it should have dawned on me earlier. The Chigi Chapel was not always known as the Chigi. It used to be called Capella della Terra.”
   “Chapel of the Land?” Langdon asked.
   “No,” Vittoria said, heading for the door. “Chapel of the Earth.”
   Vittoria Vetra whipped out her cell phone as she dashed into Piazza della Rotunda. “Commander Olivetti,” she said. “This is the wrong place!”
   Olivetti sounded bewildered. “Wrong? What do you mean?”
   “The first altar of science is at the Chigi Chapel!”
   “Where?” Now Olivetti sounded angry. “But Mr. Langdon said—”
   “Santa Maria del Popolo! One mile north. Get your men over there now! We’ve got four minutes!”
   “But my men are in position here! I can’t possibly—”
   “Move!” Vittoria snapped the phone shut.
   Behind her, Langdon emerged from the Pantheon, dazed.
   She grabbed his hand and pulled him toward the queue of seemingly driverless taxis waiting by the curb. She pounded on the hood of the first car in line. The sleeping driver bolted upright with a startled yelp. Vittoria yanked open the rear door and pushed Langdon inside. Then she jumped in behind him.
   “Santa Maria del Popolo,” she ordered. “Presto!”
   Looking delirious and half terrified, the driver hit the accelerator, peeling out down the street.

63
   Gunther Glick had assumed control of the computer from Chinita Macri, who now stood hunched in the back of the cramped BBC van staring in confusion over Glick’s shoulder.
   “I told you,” Glick said, typing some more keys. “The British Tattler isn’t the only paper that runs stories on these guys.”
   Macri peered closer. Glick was right. The BBC database showed their distinguished network as having picked up and run six stories in the past ten years on the brotherhood called the Illuminati. Well, paint me purple, she thought. “Who are the journalists who ran the stories,” Macri asked. “Schlock jocks?”
   “BBC doesn’t hire schlock jocks.”
   “They hired you.”
   Glick scowled. “I don’t know why you’re such a skeptic. The Illuminati are well documented throughout history.”
   “So are witches, UFOs, and the Loch Ness Monster.”
   Glick read the list of stories. “You ever heard of a guy called Winston Churchill?”
   “Rings a bell.”
   “BBC did a historical a while back on Churchill’s life. Staunch Catholic by the way. Did you know that in 1920 Churchill published a statement condemning the Illuminati and warning Brits of a worldwide conspiracy against morality?”
   Macri was dubious. “Where did it run? In the British Tattler?”
   Glick smiled. “London Herald. February 8, 1920.”
   “No way.”
   “Feast your eyes.”
   Macri looked closer at the clip. London Herald. Feb. 8, 1920. I had no idea. “Well, Churchill was a paranoid.”
   “He wasn’t alone,” Glick said, reading further. “Looks like Woodrow Wilson gave three radio broadcasts in 1921 warning of growing Illuminati control over the U.S. banking system. You want a direct quote from the radio transcript?”
   “Not really.”
   Glick gave her one anyway. “He said, ‘There is a power so organized, so subtle, so complete, so pervasive, that none had better speak above their breath when they speak in condemnation of it.’ ”
   “I’ve never heard anything about this.”
   “Maybe because in 1921 you were just a kid.”
   “Charming.” Macri took the jab in stride. She knew her years were showing. At forty-three, her bushy black curls were streaked with gray. She was too proud for dye. Her mom, a Southern Baptist, had taught Chinita contentedness and self-respect. When you’re a black woman, her mother said, ain’t no hiding what you are. Day you try, is the day you die. Stand tall, smile bright, and let ’em wonder what secret’s making you laugh.
   “Ever heard of Cecil Rhodes?” Glick asked.
   Macri looked up. “The British financier?”
   “Yeah. Founded the Rhodes Scholarships.”
   “Don’t tell me—”
   “Illuminatus.”
   “BS.”
   “BBC, actually. November 16, 1984.”
   “We wrote that Cecil Rhodes was Illuminati?”
   “Sure did. And according to our network, the Rhodes Scholarships were funds set up centuries ago to recruit the world’s brightest young minds into the Illuminati.”
   “That’s ridiculous! My uncle was a Rhodes Scholar!”
   Glick winked. “So was Bill Clinton.”
   Macri was getting mad now. She had never had tolerance for shoddy, alarmist reporting. Still, she knew enough about the BBC to know that every story they ran was carefully researched and confirmed.
   “Here’s one you’ll remember,” Glick said. “BBC, March 5, 1998. Parliament Committee Chair, Chris Mullin, required all members of British Parliament who were Masons to declare their affiliation.”
   Macri remembered it. The decree had eventually extended to include policemen and judges as well. “Why was it again?”
   Glick read. “… concern that secret factions within the Masons exerted considerable control over political and financial systems.”
   “That’s right.”
   “Caused quite a bustle. The Masons in parliament were furious. Had a right to be. The vast majority turned out to be innocent men who joined the Masons for networking and charity work. They had no clue about the brotherhood’s past affiliations.”
   “Alleged affiliations.”
   “Whatever.” Glick scanned the articles. “Look at this stuff. Accounts tracing the Illuminati back to Galileo, the Guerenets of France, the Alumbrados of Spain. Even Karl Marx and the Russian Revolution.”
   “History has a way of rewriting itself.”
   “Fine, you want something current? Have a look at this. Here’s an Illuminati reference from a recent Wall Street Journal.”
   This caught Macri’s ear. “The Journal?”
   “Guess what the most popular Internet computer game in America is right now?”
   “Pin the tail on Pamela Anderson.”
   “Close. It’s called, Illuminati: New World Order.”
   Macri looked over his shoulder at the blurb. “Steve Jackson Games has a runaway hit… a quasi-historical adventure in which an ancient satanic brotherhood from Bavaria sets out to take over the world. You can find them on-line at…” Macri looked up, feeling ill. “What do these Illuminati guys have against Christianity?”
   “Not just Christianity,” Glick said. “Religion in general.” Glick cocked his head and grinned. “Although from the phone call we just got, it appears they do have a special spot in their hearts for the Vatican.”
   “Oh, come on. You don’t really think that guy who called is who he claims to be, do you?”
   “A messenger of the Illuminati? Preparing to kill four cardinals?” Glick smiled. “I sure hope so.”

64
   Langdon and Vittoria’s taxi completed the one-mile sprint up the wide Via della Scrofa in just over a minute. They skidded to a stop on the south side of the Piazza del Popolo just before eight. Not having any lire, Langdon overpaid the driver in U.S. dollars. He and Vittoria jumped out. The piazza was quiet except for the laughter of a handful of locals seated outside the popular Rosati Café—a hot spot of the Italian literati. The breeze smelled of espresso and pastry.
   Langdon was still in shock over his mistake at the Pantheon. With a cursory glance at this square, however, his sixth sense was already tingling. The piazza seemed subtly filled with Illuminati significance. Not only was it laid out in a perfectly elliptical shape, but dead center stood a towering Egyptian obelisk—a square pillar of stone with a distinctively pyramidal tip. Spoils of Rome’s imperial plundering, obelisks were scattered across Rome and referred to by symbologists as “Lofty Pyramids”—skyward extensions of the sacred pyramidal form.
   As Langdon’s eyes moved up the monolith, though, his sight was suddenly drawn to something else in the background. Something even more remarkable.
   “We’re in the right place,” he said quietly, feeling a sudden exposed wariness. “Have a look at that.” Langdon pointed to the imposing Porta del Popolo—the high stone archway at the far end of the piazza. The vaulted structure had been overlooking the piazza for centuries. Dead center of the archway’s highest point was a symbolic engraving. “Look familiar?”
   Vittoria looked up at the huge carving. “A shining star over a triangular pile of stones?”
   Langdon shook his head. “A source of Illumination over a pyramid.”
   Vittoria turned, her eyes suddenly wide. “Like… the Great Seal of the United States?”
   “Exactly. The Masonic symbol on the one-dollar bill.”
   Vittoria took a deep breath and scanned the piazza. “So where’s this damn church?”
   The Church of Santa Maria del Popolo stood out like a misplaced battleship, askew at the base of a hill on the southeast corner of the piazza. The eleventh-century stone aerie was made even more clumsy by the tower of scaffolding covering the façade.
   Langdon’s thoughts were a blur as they raced toward the edifice. He stared up at the church in wonder. Could a murder really be about to take place inside? He wished Olivetti would hurry. The gun felt awkward in his pocket.
   The church’s front stairs were ventaglio–a welcoming, curved fan—ironic in this case because they were blocked with scaffolding, construction equipment, and a sign warning:

Construzzione.
Non Entrare

   Langdon realized that a church closed for renovation meant total privacy for a killer. Not like the Pantheon. No fancy tricks needed here. Only to find a way in.
   Vittoria slipped without hesitation between the sawhorses and headed up the staircase.
   “Vittoria,” Langdon cautioned. “If he’s still in there…”
   Vittoria did not seem to hear. She ascended the main portico to the church’s sole wooden door. Langdon hurried up the stairs behind her. Before he could say a word she had grasped the handle and pulled. Langdon held his breath. The door did not budge.
   “There must be another entrance,” Vittoria said.
   “Probably,” Langdon said, exhaling, “but Olivetti will be here in a minute. It’s too dangerous to go in. We should cover the church from out here until—”
   Vittoria turned, her eyes blazing. “If there’s another way in, there’s another way out. If this guy disappears, we’re fungito.”
   Langdon knew enough Italian to know she was right.
   The alley on the right side of the church was pinched and dark, with high walls on both sides. It smelled of urine—a common aroma in a city where bars outnumbered public rest rooms twenty to one.
   Langdon and Vittoria hurried into the fetid dimness. They had gone about fifteen yards down when Vittoria tugged Langdon’s arm and pointed.
   Langdon saw it too. Up ahead was an unassuming wooden door with heavy hinges. Langdon recognized it as the standard porta sacra–a private entrance for clergy. Most of these entrances had gone out of use years ago as encroaching buildings and limited real estate relegated side entrances to inconvenient alleyways.
   Vittoria hurried to the door. She arrived and stared down at the doorknob, apparently perplexed. Langdon arrived behind her and eyed the peculiar donut-shaped hoop hanging where the doorknob should have been.
   “An annulus,” he whispered. Langdon reached out and quietly lifted the ring in his hand. He pulled the ring toward him. The fixture clicked. Vittoria shifted, looking suddenly uneasy. Quietly, Langdon twisted the ring clockwise. It spun loosely 360 degrees, not engaging. Langdon frowned and tried the other direction with the same result.
   Vittoria looked down the remainder of the alley. “You think there’s another entrance?”
   Langdon doubted it. Most Renaissance cathedrals were designed as makeshift fortresses in the event a city was stormed. They had as few entrances as possible. “If there is another way in,” he said, “it’s probably recessed in the rear bastion—more of an escape route than an entrance.”
   Vittoria was already on the move.
   Langdon followed deeper into the alley. The walls shot skyward on both sides of him. Somewhere a bell began ringing eight o’clock…
   Robert Langdon did not hear Vittoria the first time she called to him. He had slowed at a stained-glass window covered with bars and was trying to peer inside the church.
   “Robert!” Her voice was a loud whisper.
   Langdon looked up. Vittoria was at the end of the alley. She was pointing around the back of the church and waving to him. Langdon jogged reluctantly toward her. At the base of the rear wall, a stone bulwark jutted out concealing a narrow grotto—a kind of compressed passageway cutting directly into the foundation of the church.
   “An entrance?” Vittoria asked.
   Langdon nodded. Actually an exit, but we won’t get technical.
   Vittoria knelt and peered into the tunnel. “Let’s check the door. See if it’s open.”
   Langdon opened his mouth to object, but Vittoria took his hand and pulled him into the opening.
   “Wait,” Langdon said.
   She turned impatiently toward him.
   Langdon sighed. “I’ll go first.”
   Vittoria looked surprised. “More chivalry?”
   “Age before beauty.”
   “Was that a compliment?”
   Langdon smiled and moved past her into the dark. “Careful on the stairs.”
   He inched slowly into the darkness, keeping one hand on the wall. The stone felt sharp on his fingertips. For an instant Langdon recalled the ancient myth of Daedelus, how the boy kept one hand on the wall as he moved through the Minotaur’s labyrinth, knowing he was guaranteed to find the end if he never broke contact with the wall. Langdon moved forward, not entirely certain he wanted to find the end.
   The tunnel narrowed slightly, and Langdon slowed his pace. He sensed Vittoria close behind him. As the wall curved left, the tunnel opened into a semicircular alcove. Oddly, there was faint light here. In the dimness Langdon saw the outline of a heavy wooden door.
   “Uh oh,” he said.
   “Locked?”
   “It was.”
   “Was?” Vittoria arrived at his side.
   Langdon pointed. Lit by a shaft of light coming from within, the door hung ajar… its hinges splintered by a wrecking bar still lodged in the wood.
   They stood a moment in silence. Then, in the dark, Langdon felt Vittoria’s hands on his chest, groping, sliding beneath his jacket.
   “Relax, professor,” she said. “I’m just getting the gun.”
   At that moment, inside the Vatican Museums, a task force of Swiss Guards spread out in all directions. The museum was dark, and the guards wore U.S. Marine issue infrared goggles. The goggles made everything appear an eerie shade of green. Every guard wore headphones connected to an antennalike detector that he waved rhythmically in front of him—the same devices they used twice a week to sweep for electronic bugs inside the Vatican. They moved methodically, checking behind statues, inside niches, closets, under furniture. The antennae would sound if they detected even the tiniest magnetic field.
   Tonight, however, they were getting no readings at all.

65
   The interior of Santa Maria del Popolo was a murky cave in the dimming light. It looked more like a half-finished subway station than a cathedral. The main sanctuary was an obstacle course of torn-up flooring, brick pallets, mounds of dirt, wheelbarrows, and even a rusty backhoe. Mammoth columns rose through the floor, supporting a vaulted roof. In the air, silt drifted lazily in the muted glow of the stained glass. Langdon stood with Vittoria beneath a sprawling Pinturicchio fresco and scanned the gutted shrine.
   Nothing moved. Dead silence.
   Vittoria held the gun out in front of her with both hands. Langdon checked his watch: 8:04 P.M. We’re crazy to be in here, he thought. It’s too dangerous. Still he knew if the killer were inside, the man could leave through any door he wanted, making a one-gun outside stakeout totally fruitless. Catching him inside was the only way… that was, if he was even still here. Langdon felt guilt-ridden over the blunder that had cost everyone their chance at the Pantheon. He was in no position to insist on precaution now; he was the one who had backed them into this corner.
   Vittoria looked harrowed as she scanned the church. “So,” she whispered. “Where is this Chigi Chapel?”
   Langdon gazed through the dusky ghostliness toward the back of the cathedral and studied the outer walls. Contrary to common perception, Renaissance cathedrals invariably contained multiple chapels, huge cathedrals like Notre Dame having dozens. Chapels were less rooms than they were hollows–semicircular niches holding tombs around a church’s perimeter wall.
   Bad news, Langdon thought, seeing the four recesses on each side wall. There were eight chapels in all. Although eight was not a particularly overwhelming number, all eight openings were covered with huge sheets of clear polyurethane due to the construction, the translucent curtains apparently intended to keep dust off the tombs inside the alcoves.
   “It could be any of those draped recesses,” Langdon said. “No way to know which is the Chigi without looking inside every one. Could be a good reason to wait for Oliv—”
   “Which is the secondary left apse?” she asked.
   Langdon studied her, surprised by her command of architectural terminology. “Secondary left apse?”
   Vittoria pointed at the wall behind him. A decorative tile was embedded in the stone. It was engraved with the same symbol they had seen outside—a pyramid beneath a shining star. The grime-covered plaque beside it read:

Coat of arms of Alexander Chigi whose tomb is located in the secondary left apse of this Cathedral

   Langdon nodded. Chigi’s coat of arms was a pyramid and star? He suddenly found himself wondering if the wealthy patron Chigi had been an Illuminatus. He nodded to Vittoria. “Nice work, Nancy Drew.”
   “What?”
   “Never mind. I—”
   A piece of metal clattered to the floor only yards away. The clang echoed through the entire church. Langdon pulled Vittoria behind a pillar as she whipped the gun toward the sound and held it there. Silence. They waited. Again there was sound, this time a rustling. Langdon held his breath. I never should have let us come in here! The sound moved closer, an intermittent scuffling, like a man with a limp. Suddenly around the base of the pillar, an object came into view.
   “Figlio di puttana!” Vittoria cursed under her breath, jumping back. Langdon fell back with her.
   Beside the pillar, dragging a half-eaten sandwich in paper, was an enormous rat. The creature paused when it saw them, staring a long moment down the barrel of Vittoria’s weapon, and then, apparently unmoved, continued dragging its prize off to the recesses of the church.
   “Son of a…” Langdon gasped, his heart racing.
   Vittoria lowered the gun, quickly regaining her composure. Langdon peered around the side of the column to see a workman’s lunchbox splayed on the floor, apparently knocked off a sawhorse by the resourceful rodent.
   Langdon scanned the basilica for movement and whispered, “If this guy’s here, he sure as hell heard that. You sure you don’t want to wait for Olivetti?”
   “Secondary left apse,” Vittoria repeated. “Where is it?”
   Reluctantly Langdon turned and tried to get his bearings. Cathedral terminology was like stage directions—totally counterintuitive. He faced the main altar. Stage center. Then he pointed with his thumb backward over his shoulder.
   They both turned and looked where he was pointing.
   It seemed the Chigi Chapel was located in the third of four recessed alcoves to their right. The good news was that Langdon and Vittoria were on the correct side of the church. The bad news was that they were at the wrong end. They would have to traverse the length of the cathedral, passing three other chapels, each of them, like the Chigi Chapel, covered with translucent plastic shrouds.
   “Wait,” Langdon said. “I’ll go first.”
   “Forget it.”
   “I’m the one who screwed up at the Pantheon.”
   She turned. “But I’m the one with the gun.”
   In her eyes Langdon could see what she was really thinking… I’m the one who lost my father. I’m the one who helped build a weapon of mass destruction. This guy’s kneecaps are mine…
   Langdon sensed the futility and let her go. He moved beside her, cautiously, down the east side of the basilica. As they passed the first shrouded alcove, Langdon felt taut, like a contestant on some surreal game show. I’ll take curtain number three, he thought.
   The church was quiet, the thick stone walls blocking out all hints of the outside world. As they hurried past one chapel after the other, pale humanoid forms wavered like ghosts behind the rustling plastic. Carved marble, Langdon told himself, hoping he was right. It was 8:06 P.M. Had the killer been punctual and slipped out before Langdon and Vittoria had entered? Or was he still here? Langdon was unsure which scenario he preferred.
   They passed the second apse, ominous in the slowly darkening cathedral. Night seemed to be falling quickly now, accentuated by the musty tint of the stained-glass windows. As they pressed on, the plastic curtain beside them billowed suddenly, as if caught in a draft. Langdon wondered if someone somewhere had opened a door.
   Vittoria slowed as the third niche loomed before them. She held the gun before her, motioning with her head to the stele beside the apse. Carved in the granite block were two words:

Capella Chigi

   Langdon nodded. Without a sound they moved to the corner of the opening, positioning themselves behind a wide pillar. Vittoria leveled the gun around a corner at the plastic. Then she signaled for Langdon to pull back the shroud.
   A good time to start praying, he thought. Reluctantly, he reached over her shoulder. As carefully as possible, he began to pull the plastic aside. It moved an inch and then crinkled loudly. They both froze. Silence. After a moment, moving in slow motion, Vittoria leaned forward and peered through the narrow slit. Langdon looked over her shoulder.
   For a moment, neither one of them breathed.
   “Empty,” Vittoria finally said, lowering the gun. “We’re too late.”
   Langdon did not hear. He was in awe, transported for an instant to another world. In his life, he had never imagined a chapel that looked like this. Finished entirely in chestnut marble, the Chigi Chapel was breathtaking. Langdon’s trained eye devoured it in gulps. It was as earthly a chapel as Langdon could fathom, almost as if Galileo and the Illuminati had designed it themselves.
   Overhead, the domed cupola shone with a field of illuminated stars and the seven astronomical planets. Below that the twelve signs of the zodiac—pagan, earthly symbols rooted in astronomy. The zodiac was also tied directly to Earth, Air, Fire, Water… the quadrants representing power, intellect, ardor, emotion. Earth is for power, Langdon recalled.
   Farther down the wall, Langdon saw tributes to the Earth’s four temporal seasons—primavera, estate, autunno, invérno. But far more incredible than any of this were the two huge structures dominating the room. Langdon stared at them in silent wonder. It can’t be, he thought. It just can’t be! But it was. On either side of the chapel, in perfect symmetry, were two ten-foot-high marble pyramids.
   “I don’t see a cardinal,” Vittoria whispered. “Or an assassin.” She pulled aside the plastic and stepped in.
   Langdon’s eyes were transfixed on the pyramids. What are pyramids doing inside a Christian chapel? And incredibly, there was more. Dead center of each pyramid, embedded in their anterior façades, were gold medallions… medallions like few Langdon had ever seen… perfect ellipses. The burnished disks glimmered in the setting sun as it sifted through the cupola. Galileo’s ellipses? Pyramids? A cupola of stars? The room had more Illuminati significance than any room Langdon could have fabricated in his mind.
   “Robert,” Vittoria blurted, her voice cracking. “Look!”
   Langdon wheeled, reality returning as his eyes dropped to where she was pointing. “Bloody hell!” he shouted, jumping backward.
   Sneering up at them from the floor was the image of a skeleton—an intricately detailed, marble mosaic depicting “death in flight.” The skeleton was carrying a tablet portraying the same pyramid and stars they had seen outside. It was not the image, however, that had turned Langdon’s blood cold. It was the fact that the mosaic was mounted on a circular stone—a cupermento–that had been lifted out of the floor like a manhole cover and was now sitting off to one side of a dark opening in the floor.
   “Demon’s hole,” Langdon gasped. He had been so taken with the ceiling he had not even seen it. Tentatively he moved toward the pit. The stench coming up was overwhelming.
   Vittoria put a hand over her mouth. “Che puzzo.”
   “Effluvium,” Langdon said. “Vapors from decaying bone.” He breathed through his sleeve as he leaned out over the hole, peering down. Blackness. “I can’t see a thing.”
   “You think anybody’s down there?”
   “No way to know.”
   Vittoria motioned to the far side of the hole where a rotting, wooden ladder descended into the depths.
   Langdon shook his head. “Like hell.”
   “Maybe there’s a flashlight outside in those tools.” She sounded eager for an excuse to escape the smell. “I’ll look.”
   “Careful!” Langdon warned. “We don’t know for sure that the Hassassin—”
   But Vittoria was already gone.
   One strong-willed woman, Langdon thought.
   As he turned back to the pit, he felt light-headed from the fumes. Holding his breath, he dropped his head below the rim and peered deep into the darkness. Slowly, as his eyes adjusted, he began to see faint shapes below. The pit appeared to open into a small chamber. Demon’s hole. He wondered how many generations of Chigis had been unceremoniously dumped in. Langdon closed his eyes and waited, forcing his pupils to dilate so he could see better in the dark. When he opened his eyes again, a pale muted figure hovered below in the darkness. Langdon shivered but fought the instinct to pull out. Am I seeing things? Is that a body? The figure faded. Langdon closed his eyes again and waited, longer this time, so his eyes would pick up the faintest light.
   Dizziness started to set in, and his thoughts wandered in the blackness. Just a few more seconds. He wasn’t sure if it was breathing the fumes or holding his head at a low inclination, but Langdon was definitely starting to feel squeamish. When he finally opened his eyes again, the image before him was totally inexplicable.
   He was now staring at a crypt bathed in an eerie bluish light. A faint hissing sound reverberated in his ears. Light flickered on the steep walls of the shaft. Suddenly, a long shadow materialized over him. Startled, Langdon scrambled up.
   “Look out!” someone exclaimed behind him.
   Before Langdon could turn, he felt a sharp pain on the back of his neck. He spun to see Vittoria twisting a lit blowtorch away from him, the hissing flame throwing blue light around the chapel.
   Langdon grabbed his neck. “What the hell are you doing?”
   “I was giving you some light,” she said. “You backed right into me.”
   Langdon glared at the portable blowtorch in her hand.
   “Best I could do,” she said. “No flashlights.”
   Langdon rubbed his neck. “I didn’t hear you come in.”
   Vittoria handed him the torch, wincing again at the stench of the crypt. “You think those fumes are combustible?”
   “Let’s hope not.”
   He took the torch and moved slowly toward the hole. Cautiously, he advanced to the rim and pointed the flame down into the hole, lighting the side wall. As he directed the light, his eyes traced the outline of the wall downward. The crypt was circular and about twenty feet across. Thirty feet down, the glow found the floor. The ground was dark and mottled. Earthy. Then Langdon saw the body.
   His instinct was to recoil. “He’s here,” Langdon said, forcing himself not to turn away. The figure was a pallid outline against the earthen floor. “I think he’s been stripped naked.” Langdon flashed on the nude corpse of Leonardo Vetra.
   “Is it one of the cardinals?”
   Langdon had no idea, but he couldn’t imagine who the hell else it would be. He stared down at the pale blob. Unmoving. Lifeless. And yet… Langdon hesitated. There was something very strange about the way the figure was positioned. He seemed to be…
   Langdon called out. “Hello?”
   “You think he’s alive?”
   There was no response from below.
   “He’s not moving,” Langdon said. “But he looks…” No, impossible.
   “He looks what?” Vittoria was peering over the edge now too.
   Langdon squinted into the darkness. “He looks like he’s standing up.”
   Vittoria held her breath and lowered her face over the edge for a better look. After a moment, she pulled back. “You’re right. He’s standing up! Maybe he’s alive and needs help!” She called into the hole. “Hello?! Mi puó sentire?”
   There was no echo off the mossy interior. Only silence.
   Vittoria headed for the rickety ladder. “I’m going down.”
   Langdon caught her arm. “No. It’s dangerous. I’ll go.”
   This time Vittoria didn’t argue.

66
   Chinita Macri was mad. She sat in the passenger’s seat of the BBC van as it idled at a corner on Via Tomacelli. Gunther Glick was checking his map of Rome, apparently lost. As she had feared, his mystery caller had phoned back, this time with information.
   “Piazza del Popolo,” Glick insisted. “That’s what we’re looking for. There’s a church there. And inside is proof.”
   “Proof.” Chinita stopped polishing the lens in her hand and turned to him. “Proof that a cardinal has been murdered?”
   “That’s what he said.”
   “You believe everything you hear?” Chinita wished, as she often did, that she was the one in charge. Videographers, however, were at the whim of the crazy reporters for whom they shot footage. If Gunther Glick wanted to follow a feeble phone tip, Macri was his dog on a leash.
   She looked at him, sitting there in the driver’s seat, his jaw set intently. The man’s parents, she decided, must have been frustrated comedians to have given him a name like Gunther Glick. No wonder the guy felt like he had something to prove. Nonetheless, despite his unfortunate appellative and annoying eagerness to make a mark, Glick was sweet… charming in a pasty, Briddish, unstrung sort of way. Like Hugh Grant on lithium.
   “Shouldn’t we be back at St. Peter’s?” Macri said as patiently as possible. “We can check this mystery church out later. Conclave started an hour ago. What if the cardinals come to a decision while we’re gone?”
   Glick did not seem to hear. “I think we go to the right, here.” He tilted the map and studied it again. “Yes, if I take a right… and then an immediate left.” He began to pull out onto the narrow street before them.
   “Look out!” Macri yelled. She was a video technician, and her eyes were sharp. Fortunately, Glick was pretty fast too. He slammed on the brakes and avoided entering the intersection just as a line of four Alpha Romeos appeared out of nowhere and tore by in a blur. Once past, the cars skidded, decelerating, and cut sharply left one block ahead, taking the exact route Glick had intended to take.
   “Maniacs!” Macri shouted.
   Glick looked shaken. “Did you see that?”
   “Yeah, I saw that! They almost killed us!”
   “No, I mean the cars,” Glick said, his voice suddenly excited. “They were all the same.”
   “So they were maniacs with no imagination.”
   “The cars were also full.”
   “So what?”
   “Four identical cars, all with four passengers?”
   “You ever heard of carpooling?”
   “In Italy?” Glick checked the intersection. “They haven’t even heard of unleaded gas.” He hit the accelerator and peeled out after the cars.
   Macri was thrown back in her seat. “What the hell are you doing?”
   Glick accelerated down the street and hung a left after the Alpha Romeos. “Something tells me you and I are not the only ones going to church right now.”