127
   The images around him blurred, drifting in and out. Langdon’s eyes slowly began to focus. His legs ached, and his body felt like it had been run over by a truck. He was lying on his side on the ground. Something stunk, like bile. He could still hear the incessant sound of lapping water. It no longer sounded peaceful to him. There were other sounds too—talking close around him. He saw blurry white forms. Were they all wearing white? Langdon decided he was either in an asylum or heaven. From the burning in his throat, Langdon decided it could not be heaven.
   “He’s finished vomiting,” one man said in Italian. “Turn him.” The voice was firm and professional.
   Langdon felt hands slowly rolling him onto his back. His head swam. He tried to sit up, but the hands gently forced him back down. His body submitted. Then Langdon felt someone going through his pockets, removing items.
   Then he passed out cold.
   Dr. Jacobus was not a religious man; the science of medicine had bred that from him long ago. And yet, the events in Vatican City tonight had put his systematic logic to the test. Now bodies are falling from the sky?
   Dr. Jacobus felt the pulse of the bedraggled man they had just pulled from the Tiber River. The doctor decided that God himself had hand-delivered this one to safety. The concussion of hitting the water had knocked the victim unconscious, and if it had not been for Jacobus and his crew standing out on the shore watching the spectacle in the sky, this falling soul would surely have gone unnoticed and drowned.
   “É Americano,” a nurse said, going through the man’s wallet after they pulled him to dry land.
   American? Romans often joked that Americans had gotten so abundant in Rome that hamburgers should become the official Italian food. But Americans falling from the sky? Jacobus flicked a penlight in the man’s eyes, testing his dilation. “Sir? Can you hear me? Do you know where you are?”
   The man was unconscious again. Jacobus was not surprised. The man had vomited a lot of water after Jacobus had performed CPR.
   “Si chiama Robert Langdon,” the nurse said, reading the man’s driver’s license.
   The group assembled on the dock all stopped short.
   “Impossibile!” Jacobus declared. Robert Langdon was the man from the television—the American professor who had been helping the Vatican. Jacobus had seen Mr. Langdon, only minutes ago, getting into a helicopter in St. Peter’s Square and flying miles up into the air. Jacobus and the others had run out to the dock to witness the antimatter explosion—a tremendous sphere of light like nothing any of them had ever seen. How could this be the same man!
   “It’s him!” the nurse exclaimed, brushing his soaked hair back. “And I recognize his tweed coat!”
   Suddenly someone was yelling from the hospital entryway. It was one of the patients. She was screaming, going mad, holding her portable radio to the sky and praising God. Apparently Camerlegno Ventresca had just miraculously appeared on the roof of the Vatican.
   Dr. Jacobus decided, when his shift got off at 8 A.M., he was going straight to church.
   The lights over Langdon’s head were brighter now, sterile. He was on some kind of examination table. He smelled astringents, strange chemicals. Someone had just given him an injection, and they had removed his clothes.
   Definitely not gypsies, he decided in his semiconscious delirium. Aliens, perhaps? Yes, he had heard about things like this. Fortunately these beings would not harm him. All they wanted were his—
   “Not on your life!” Langdon sat bolt upright, eyes flying open.
   “Attento!” one of the creatures yelled, steadying him. His badge read Dr. Jacobus. He looked remarkably human.
   Langdon stammered, “I… thought…”
   “Easy, Mr. Langdon. You’re in a hospital.”
   The fog began to lift. Langdon felt a wave of relief. He hated hospitals, but they certainly beat aliens harvesting his testicles.
   “My name is Dr. Jacobus,” the man said. He explained what had just happened. “You are very lucky to be alive.”
   Langdon did not feel lucky. He could barely make sense of his own memories… the helicopter… the camerlegno. His body ached everywhere. They gave him some water, and he rinsed out his mouth. They placed a new gauze on his palm.
   “Where are my clothes?” Langdon asked. He was wearing a paper robe.
   One of the nurses motioned to a dripping wad of shredded khaki and tweed on the counter. “They were soaked. We had to cut them off you.”
   Langdon looked at his shredded Harris tweed and frowned.
   “You had some Kleenex in your pocket,” the nurse said.
   It was then that Langdon saw the ravaged shreds of parchment clinging all over the lining of his jacket. The folio from Galileo’s Diagramma. The last copy on earth had just dissolved. He was too numb to know how to react. He just stared.
   “We saved your personal items.” She held up a plastic bin. “Wallet, camcorder, and pen. I dried the camcorder off the best I could.”
   “I don’t own a camcorder.”
   The nurse frowned and held out the bin. Langdon looked at the contents. Along with his wallet and pen was a tiny Sony RUVI camcorder. He recalled it now. Kohler had handed it to him and asked him to give it to the media.
   “We found it in your pocket. I think you’ll need a new one, though.” The nurse flipped open the two-inch screen on the back. “Your viewer is cracked.” Then she brightened. “The sound still works, though. Barely.” She held the device up to her ear. “Keeps playing something over and over.” She listened a moment and then scowled, handing it to Langdon. “Two guys arguing, I think.”
   Puzzled, Langdon took the camcorder and held it to his ear. The voices were pinched and metallic, but they were discernible. One close. One far away. Langdon recognized them both.
   Sitting there in his paper gown, Langdon listened in amazement to the conversation. Although he couldn’t see what was happening, when he heard the shocking finale, he was thankful he had been spared the visual.
   My God!
   As the conversation began playing again from the beginning, Langdon lowered the camcorder from his ear and sat in appalled mystification. The antimatter… the helicopter… Langdon’s mind now kicked into gear.
   But that means…
   He wanted to vomit again. With a rising fury of disorientation and rage, Langdon got off the table and stood on shaky legs.
   “Mr. Langdon!” the doctor said, trying to stop him.
   “I need some clothes,” Langdon demanded, feeling the draft on his rear from the backless gown.
   “But, you need to rest.”
   “I’m checking out. Now. I need some clothes.”
   “But, sir, you—”
   “Now!”
   Everyone exchanged bewildered looks. “We have no clothes,” the doctor said. “Perhaps tomorrow a friend could bring you some.”
   Langdon drew a slow patient breath and locked eyes with the doctor. “Dr. Jacobus, I am walking out your door right now. I need clothes. I am going to Vatican City. One does not go to Vatican City with one’s ass hanging out. Do I make myself clear?”
   Dr. Jacobus swallowed hard. “Get this man something to wear.”
   When Langdon limped out of Hospital Tiberina, he felt like an overgrown Cub Scout. He was wearing a blue paramedic’s jumpsuit that zipped up the front and was adorned with cloth badges that apparently depicted his numerous qualifications.
   The woman accompanying him was heavyset and wore a similar suit. The doctor had assured Langdon she would get him to the Vatican in record time.
   “Molto traffico,” Langdon said, reminding her that the area around the Vatican was packed with cars and people.
   The woman looked unconcerned. She pointed proudly to one of her patches. “Sono conducente di ambulanza.”
   “Ambulanza?” That explained it. Langdon felt like he could use an ambulance ride.
   The woman led him around the side of the building. On an outcropping over the water was a cement deck where her vehicle sat waiting. When Langdon saw the vehicle he stopped in his tracks. It was an aging medevac chopper. The hull read Aero-Ambulanza.
   He hung his head.
   The woman smiled. “Fly Vatican City. Very fast.”

128
   The College of Cardinals bristled with ebullience and electricity as they streamed back into the Sistine Chapel. In contrast, Mortati felt in himself a rising confusion he thought might lift him off the floor and carry him away. He believed in the ancient miracles of the Scriptures, and yet what he had just witnessed in person was something he could not possibly comprehend. After a lifetime of devotion, seventy-nine years, Mortati knew these events should ignite in him a pious exuberance… a fervent and living faith. And yet all he felt was a growing spectral unease. Something did not feel right.
   “Signore Mortati!” a Swiss Guard yelled, running down the hall. “We have gone to the roof as you asked. The camerlegno is… flesh! He is a true man! He is not a spirit! He is exactly as we knew him!”
   “Did he speak to you?”
   “He kneels in silent prayer! We are afraid to touch him!”
   Mortati was at a loss. “Tell him… his cardinals await.”
   “Signore, because he is a man…” the guard hesitated.
   “What is it?”
   “His chest… he is burned. Should we bind his wounds? He must be in pain.”
   Mortati considered it. Nothing in his lifetime of service to the church had prepared him for this situation. “He is a man, so serve him as a man. Bathe him. Bind his wounds. Dress him in fresh robes. We await his arrival in the Sistine Chapel.”
   The guard ran off.
   Mortati headed for the chapel. The rest of the cardinals were inside now. As he walked down the hall, he saw Vittoria Vetra slumped alone on a bench at the foot of the Royal Staircase. He could see the pain and loneliness of her loss and wanted to go to her, but he knew it would have to wait. He had work to do… although he had no idea what that work could possibly be.
   Mortati entered the chapel. There was a riotous excitement. He closed the door. God help me.
   Hospital Tiberina’s twin-rotor Aero-Ambulanza circled in behind Vatican City, and Langdon clenched his teeth, swearing to God this was the very last helicopter ride of his life.
   After convincing the pilot that the rules governing Vatican airspace were the least of the Vatican’s concerns right now, he guided her in, unseen, over the rear wall, and landed them on the Vatican’s helipad.
   “Grazie,” he said, lowering himself painfully onto the ground. She blew him a kiss and quickly took off, disappearing back over the wall and into the night.
   Langdon exhaled, trying to clear his head, hoping to make sense of what he was about to do. With the camcorder in hand, he boarded the same golf cart he had ridden earlier that day. It had not been charged, and the battery-meter registered close to empty. Langdon drove without headlights to conserve power.
   He also preferred no one see him coming.
   At the back of the Sistine Chapel, Cardinal Mortati stood in a daze as he watched the pandemonium before him.
   “It was a miracle!” one of the cardinals shouted. “The work of God!”
   “Yes!” others exclaimed. “God has made His will manifest!”
   “The camerlegno will be our Pope!” another shouted. “He is not a cardinal, but God has sent a miraculous sign!”
   “Yes!” someone agreed. “The laws of conclave are man’s laws. God’s will is before us! I call for a balloting immediately!”
   “A balloting?” Mortati demanded, moving toward them. “I believe that is my job.”
   Everyone turned.
   Mortati could sense the cardinals studying him. They seemed distant, at a loss, offended by his sobriety. Mortati longed to feel his heart swept up in the miraculous exultation he saw in the faces around him. But he was not. He felt an inexplicable pain in his soul… an aching sadness he could not explain. He had vowed to guide these proceedings with purity of soul, and this hesitancy was something he could not deny.
   “My friends,” Mortati said, stepping to the altar. His voice did not seem his own. “I suspect I will struggle for the rest of my days with the meaning of what I have witnessed tonight. And yet, what you are suggesting regarding the camerlegno… it cannot possibly be God’s will.”
   The room fell silent.
   “How… can you say that?” one of the cardinals finally demanded. “The camerlegno saved the church. God spoke to the camerlegno directly! The man survived death itself! What sign do we need!”
   “The camerlegno is coming to us now,” Mortati said. “Let us wait. Let us hear him before we have a balloting. There may be an explanation.”
   “An explanation?”
   “As your Great Elector, I have vowed to uphold the laws of conclave. You are no doubt aware that by Holy Law the camerlegno is ineligible for election to the papacy. He is not a cardinal. He is a priest… a chamberlain. There is also the question of his inadequate age.” Mortati felt the stares hardening. “By even allowing a balloting, I would be requesting that you endorse a man who Vatican Law proclaims ineligible. I would be asking each of you to break a sacred oath.”
   “But what happened here tonight,” someone stammered, “it certainly transcends our laws!”
   “Does it?” Mortati boomed, not even knowing now where his words were coming from. “Is it God’s will that we discard the rules of the church? Is it God’s will that we abandon reason and give ourselves over to frenzy?”
   “But did you not see what we saw?” another challenged angrily. “How can you presume to question that kind of power!”
   Mortati’s voice bellowed now with a resonance he had never known. “I am not questioning God’s power! It is God who gave us reason and circumspection! It is God we serve by exercising prudence!”

129
   In the hallway outside the Sistine Chapel, Vittoria Vetra sat benumbed on a bench at the foot of the Royal Staircase. When she saw the figure coming through the rear door, she wondered if she were seeing another spirit. He was bandaged, limping, and wearing some kind of medical suit.
   She stood… unable to believe the vision. “Ro… bert?”
   He never answered. He strode directly to her and wrapped her in his arms. When he pressed his lips to hers, it was an impulsive, longing kiss filled with thankfulness.
   Vittoria felt the tears coming. “Oh, God… oh, thank God…”
   He kissed her again, more passionately, and she pressed against him, losing herself in his embrace. Their bodies locked, as if they had known each other for years. She forgot the fear and pain. She closed her eyes, weightless in the moment.
   “It is God’s will!” someone was yelling, his voice echoing in the Sistine Chapel. “Who but the chosen one could have survived that diabolical explosion?”
   “Me,” a voice reverberated from the back of the chapel.
   Mortati and the others turned in wonder at the bedraggled form coming up the center aisle. “Mr…. Langdon?”
   Without a word, Langdon walked slowly to the front of the chapel. Vittoria Vetra entered too. Then two guards hurried in, pushing a cart with a large television on it. Langdon waited while they plugged it in, facing the cardinals. Then Langdon motioned for the guards to leave. They did, closing the door behind them.
   Now it was only Langdon, Vittoria, and the cardinals. Langdon plugged the Sony RUVI’s output into the television. Then he pressed Play.
   The television blared to life.
   The scene that materialized before the cardinals revealed the Pope’s office. The video had been awkwardly filmed, as if by hidden camera. Off center on the screen the camerlegno stood in the dimness, in front of a fire. Although he appeared to be talking directly to the camera, it quickly became evident that he was speaking to someone else—whoever was making this video. Langdon told them the video was filmed by Maximilian Kohler, the director of CERN. Only an hour ago Kohler had secretly recorded his meeting with the camerlegno by using a tiny camcorder covertly mounted under the arm of his wheelchair.
   Mortati and the cardinals watched in bewilderment. Although the conversation was already in progress, Langdon did not bother to rewind. Apparently, whatever Langdon wanted the cardinals to see was coming up…
   “Leonardo Vetra kept diaries?” the camerlegno was saying. “I suppose that is good news for CERN. If the diaries contain his processes for creating antimatter—”
   “They don’t,” Kohler said. “You will be relieved to know those processes died with Leonardo. However, his diaries spoke of something else. You.”
   The camerlegno looked troubled. “I don’t understand.”
   “They described a meeting Leonardo had last month. With you.”
   The camerlegno hesitated, then looked toward the door. “Rocher should not have granted you access without consulting me. How did you get in here?”
   “Rocher knows the truth. I called earlier and told him what you have done.”
   “What I have done? Whatever story you told him, Rocher is a Swiss Guard and far too faithful to this church to believe a bitter scientist over his camerlegno.”
   “Actually, he is too faithful not to believe. He is so faithful that despite the evidence that one of his loyal guards had betrayed the church, he refused to accept it. All day long he has been searching for another explanation.”
   “So you gave him one.”
   “The truth. Shocking as it was.”
   “If Rocher believed you, he would have arrested me.”
   “No. I wouldn’t let him. I offered him my silence in exchange for this meeting.”
   The camerlegno let out an odd laugh. “You plan to blackmail the church with a story that no one will possibly believe?”
   “I have no need of blackmail. I simply want to hear the truth from your lips. Leonardo Vetra was a friend.”
   The camerlegno said nothing. He simply stared down at Kohler.
   “Try this,” Kohler snapped. “About a month ago, Leonardo Vetra contacted you requesting an urgent audience with the Pope—an audience you granted because the Pope was an admirer of Leonardo’s work and because Leonardo said it was an emergency.”
   The camerlegno turned to the fire. He said nothing.
   “Leonardo came to the Vatican in great secrecy. He was betraying his daughter’s confidence by coming here, a fact that troubled him deeply, but he felt he had no choice. His research had left him deeply conflicted and in need of spiritual guidance from the church. In a private meeting, he told you and the Pope that he had made a scientific discovery with profound religious implications. He had proved Genesis was physically possible, and that intense sources of energy—what Vetra called God–could duplicate the moment of Creation.”
   Silence.
   “The Pope was stunned,” Kohler continued. “He wanted Leonardo to go public. His Holiness thought this discovery might begin to bridge the gap between science and religion—one of the Pope’s life dreams. Then Leonardo explained to you the downside—the reason he required the church’s guidance. It seemed his Creation experiment, exactly as your Bible predicts, produced everything in pairs. Opposites. Light and dark. Vetra found himself, in addition to creating matter, creating antimatter. Shall I go on?”
   The camerlegno was silent. He bent down and stoked the coals.
   “After Leonardo Vetra came here,” Kohler said, “you came to CERN to see his work. Leonardo’s diaries said you made a personal trip to his lab.”
   The camerlegno looked up.
   Kohler went on. “The Pope could not travel without attracting media attention, so he sent you. Leonardo gave you a secret tour of his lab. He showed you an antimatter annihilation—the Big Bang—the power of Creation. He also showed you a large specimen he kept locked away as proof that his new process could produce antimatter on a large scale. You were in awe. You returned to Vatican City to report to the Pope what you had witnessed.”
   The camerlegno sighed. “And what is it that troubles you? That I would respect Leonardo’s confidentiality by pretending before the world tonight that I knew nothing of antimatter?”
   “No! It troubles me that Leonardo Vetra practically proved the existence of your God, and you had him murdered!”
   The camerlegno turned now, his face revealing nothing.
   The only sound was the crackle of the fire.
   Suddenly, the camera jiggled, and Kohler’s arm appeared in the frame. He leaned forward, seeming to struggle with something affixed beneath his wheelchair. When he sat back down, he held a pistol out before him. The camera angle was a chilling one… looking from behind… down the length of the outstretched gun… directly at the camerlegno.
   Kohler said, “Confess your sins, Father. Now.”
   The camerlegno looked startled. “You will never get out of here alive.”
   “Death would be a welcome relief from the misery your faith has put me through since I was a boy.” Kohler held the gun with both hands now. “I am giving you a choice. Confess your sins… or die right now.”
   The camerlegno glanced toward the door.
   “Rocher is outside,” Kohler challenged. “He too is prepared to kill you.”
   “Rocher is a sworn protector of th—”
   “Rocher let me in here. Armed. He is sickened by your lies. You have a single option. Confess to me. I have to hear it from your very lips.”
   The camerlegno hesitated.
   Kohler cocked his gun. “Do you really doubt I will kill you?”
   “No matter what I tell you,” the camerlegno said, “a man like you will never understand.”
   “Try me.”
   The camerlegno stood still for a moment, a dominant silhouette in the dim light of the fire. When he spoke, his words echoed with a dignity more suited to the glorious recounting of altruism than that of a confession.
   “Since the beginning of time,” the camerlegno said, “this church has fought the enemies of God. Sometimes with words. Sometimes with swords. And we have always survived.”
   The camerlegno radiated conviction.
   “But the demons of the past,” he continued, “were demons of fire and abomination… they were enemies we could fight—enemies who inspired fear. Yet Satan is shrewd. As time passed, he cast off his diabolical countenance for a new face… the face of pure reason. Transparent and insidious, but soulless all the same.” The camerlegno’s voice flashed sudden anger—an almost maniacal transition. “Tell me, Mr. Kohler! How can the church condemn that which makes logical sense to our minds! How can we decry that which is now the very foundation of our society! Each time the church raises its voice in warning, you shout back, calling us ignorant. Paranoid. Controlling! And so your evil grows. Shrouded in a veil of self-righteous intellectualism. It spreads like a cancer. Sanctified by the miracles of its own technology. Deifying itself! Until we no longer suspect you are anything but pure goodness. Science has come to save us from our sickness, hunger, and pain! Behold science—the new God of endless miracles, omnipotent and benevolent! Ignore the weapons and the chaos. Forget the fractured loneliness and endless peril. Science is here!” The camerlegno stepped toward the gun. “But I have seen Satan’s face lurking… I have seen the peril…”
   “What are you talking about! Vetra’s science practically proved the existence of your God! He was your ally!”
   “Ally? Science and religion are not in this together! We do not seek the same God, you and I! Who is your God? One of protons, masses, and particle charges? How does your God inspire? How does your God reach into the hearts of man and remind him he is accountable to a greater power! Remind him that he is accountable to his fellow man! Vetra was misguided. His work was not religious, it was sacrilegious! Man cannot put God’s Creation in a test tube and wave it around for the world to see! This does not glorify God, it demeans God!” The camerlegno was clawing at his body now, his voice manic.
   “And so you had Leonardo Vetra killed!”
   “For the church! For all mankind! The madness of it! Man is not ready to hold the power of Creation in his hands. God in a test tube? A droplet of liquid that can vaporize an entire city? He had to be stopped!” The camerlegno fell abruptly silent. He looked away, back toward the fire. He seemed to be contemplating his options.
   Kohler’s hands leveled the gun. “You have confessed. You have no escape.”
   The camerlegno laughed sadly. “Don’t you see. Confessing your sins is the escape.” He looked toward the door. “When God is on your side, you have options a man like you could never comprehend.” With his words still hanging in the air, the camerlegno grabbed the neck of his cassock and violently tore it open, revealing his bare chest.
   Kohler jolted, obviously startled. “What are you doing!”
   The camerlegno did not reply. He stepped backward, toward the fireplace, and removed an object from the glowing embers.
   “Stop!” Kohler demanded, his gun still leveled. “What are you doing!”
   When the camerlegno turned, he was holding a red-hot brand. The Illuminati Diamond. The man’s eyes looked wild suddenly. “I had intended to do this all alone.” His voice seethed with a feral intensity. “But now… I see God meant for you to be here. You are my salvation.”
   Before Kohler could react, the camerlegno closed his eyes, arched his back, and rammed the red hot brand into the center of his own chest. His flesh hissed. “Mother Mary! Blessed Mother… Behold your son!” He screamed out in agony.
   Kohler lurched into the frame now… standing awkwardly on his feet, gun wavering wildly before him.
   The camerlegno screamed louder, teetering in shock. He threw the brand at Kohler’s feet. Then the priest collapsed on the floor, writhing in agony.
   What happened next was a blur.
   There was a great flurry onscreen as the Swiss Guard burst into the room. The soundtrack exploded with gunfire. Kohler clutched his chest, blown backward, bleeding, falling into his wheelchair.
   “No!” Rocher called, trying to stop his guards from firing on Kohler.
   The camerlegno, still writhing on the floor, rolled and pointed frantically at Rocher. “Illuminatus!”
   “You bastard,” Rocher yelled, running at him. “You sanctimonious bas—”
   Chartrand cut him down with three bullets. Rocher slid dead across the floor.
   Then the guards ran to the wounded camerlegno, gathering around him. As they huddled, the video caught the face of a dazed Robert Langdon, kneeling beside the wheelchair, looking at the brand. Then, the entire frame began lurching wildly. Kohler had regained consciousness and was detaching the tiny camcorder from its holder under the arm of the wheelchair. Then he tried to hand the camcorder to Langdon.
   “G-give…” Kohler gasped. “G-give this to the m-media.”
   Then the screen went blank.

130
   The camerlegno began to feel the fog of wonder and adrenaline dissipating. As the Swiss Guard helped him down the Royal Staircase toward the Sistine Chapel, the camerlegno heard singing in St. Peter’s Square and he knew that mountains had been moved.
   Grazie Dio.
   He had prayed for strength, and God had given it to him. At moments when he had doubted, God had spoken. Yours is a Holy mission, God had said. I will give you strength. Even with God’s strength, the camerlegno had felt fear, questioning the righteousness of his path.
   If not you, God had challenged, then Who?
   If not now, then When?
   If not this way, then How?
   Jesus, God reminded him, had saved them all… saved them from their own apathy. With two deeds, Jesus had opened their eyes. Horror and Hope. The crucifixion and the resurrection. He had changed the world.
   But that was millennia ago. Time had eroded the miracle. People had forgotten. They had turned to false idols—techno-deities and miracles of the mind. What about miracles of the heart!
   The camerlegno had often prayed to God to show him how to make the people believe again. But God had been silent. It was not until the camerlegno’s moment of deepest darkness that God had come to him. Oh, the horror of that night!
   The camerlegno could still remember lying on the floor in tattered nightclothes, clawing at his own flesh, trying to purge his soul of the pain brought on by a vile truth he had just learned. It cannot be! he had screamed. And yet he knew it was. The deception tore at him like the fires of hell. The bishop who had taken him in, the man who had been like a father to him, the clergyman whom the camerlegno had stood beside while he rose to the papacy… was a fraud. A common sinner. Lying to the world about a deed so traitorous at its core that the camerlegno doubted even God could forgive it. “Your vow!” the camerlegno had screamed at the Pope. “You broke your vow to God! You, of all men!”
   The Pope had tried to explain himself, but the camerlegno could not listen. He had run out, staggering blindly through the hallways, vomiting, tearing at his own skin, until he found himself bloody and alone, lying on the cold earthen floor before St. Peter’s tomb. Mother Mary, what do I do? It was in that moment of pain and betrayal, as the camerlegno lay devastated in the Necropolis, praying for God to take him from this faithless world, that God had come.
   The voice in his head resounded like peals of thunder. “Did you vow to serve your God?”
   “Yes!” the camerlegno cried out.
   “Would you die for your God?”
   “Yes! Take me now!”
   “Would you die for your church?”
   “Yes! Please deliver me!”
   “But would you die for… mankind?”
   It was in the silence that followed that the camerlegno felt himself falling into the abyss. He tumbled farther, faster, out of control. And yet he knew the answer. He had always known.
   “Yes!” he shouted into the madness. “I would die for man! Like your son, I would die for them!”
   Hours later, the camerlegno still lay shivering on his floor. He saw his mother’s face. God has plans for you, she was saying. The camerlegno plunged deeper into madness. It was then God had spoken again. This time with silence. But the camerlegno understood. Restore their faith.
   If not me… then who?
   If not now… then when?
   As the guards unbolted the door of the Sistine Chapel, Camerlegno Carlo Ventresca felt the power moving in his veins… exactly as it had when he was a boy. God had chosen him. Long ago.
   His will be done.
   The camerlegno felt reborn. The Swiss Guard had bandaged his chest, bathed him, and dressed him in a fresh white linen robe. They had also given him an injection of morphine for the burn. The camerlegno wished they had not given him painkillers. Jesus endured his pain for three days on the cross! He could already feel the drug uprooting his senses… a dizzying undertow.
   As he walked into the chapel, he was not at all surprised to see the cardinals staring at him in wonder. They are in awe of God, he reminded himself. Not of me, but how God works THROUGH me. As he moved up the center aisle, he saw bewilderment in every face. And yet, with each new face he passed, he sensed something else in their eyes. What was it? The camerlegno had tried to imagine how they would receive him tonight. Joyfully? Reverently? He tried to read their eyes and saw neither emotion.
   It was then the camerlegno looked at the altar and saw Robert Langdon.

131
   Camerlegno Carlo Ventresca stood in the aisle of the Sistine Chapel. The cardinals were all standing near the front of the church, turned, staring at him. Robert Langdon was on the altar beside a television that was on endless loop, playing a scene the camerlegno recognized but could not imagine how it had come to be. Vittoria Vetra stood beside him, her face drawn.
   The camerlegno closed his eyes for a moment, hoping the morphine was making him hallucinate and that when he opened them the scene might be different. But it was not.
   They knew.
   Oddly, he felt no fear. Show me the way, Father. Give me the words that I can make them see Your vision.
   But the camerlegno heard no reply.
   Father, We have come too far together to fail now.
   Silence.
   They do not understand what We have done.
   The camerlegno did not know whose voice he heard in his own mind, but the message was stark.
   And the truth shall set you free…
   And so it was that Camerlegno Carlo Ventresca held his head high as he walked toward the front of the Sistine Chapel. As he moved toward the cardinals, not even the diffused light of the candles could soften the eyes boring into him. Explain yourself, the faces said. Make sense of this madness. Tell us our fears are wrong!
   Truth, the camerlegno told himself. Only truth. There were too many secrets in these walls… one so dark it had driven him to madness. But from the madness had come the light.
   “If you could give your own soul to save millions,” the camerlegno said, as he moved down the aisle, “would you?”
   The faces in the chapel simply stared. No one moved. No one spoke. Beyond the walls, the joyous strains of song could be heard in the square.
   The camerlegno walked toward them. “Which is the greater sin? Killing one’s enemy? Or standing idle while your true love is strangled?” They are singing in St. Peter’s Square! The camerlegno stopped for a moment and gazed up at the ceiling of the Sistine. Michelangelo’s God was staring down from the darkened vault… and He seemed pleased.
   “I could no longer stand by,” the camerlegno said. Still, as he drew nearer, he saw no flicker of understanding in anyone’s eyes. Didn’t they see the radiant simplicity of his deeds? Didn’t they see the utter necessity!
   It had been so pure.
   The Illuminati. Science and Satan as one.
   Resurrect the ancient fear. Then crush it.
   Horror and Hope. Make them believe again.
   Tonight, the power of the Illuminati had been unleashed anew… and with glorious consequence. The apathy had evaporated. The fear had shot out across the world like a bolt of lightning, uniting the people. And then God’s majesty had vanquished the darkness.
   I could not stand idly by!
   The inspiration had been God’s own—appearing like a beacon in the camerlegno’s night of agony. Oh, this faithless world! Someone must deliver them. You. If not you, who? You have been saved for a reason. Show them the old demons. Remind them of their fear. Apathy is death. Without darkness, there is no light. Without evil, there is no good. Make them choose. Dark or light. Where is the fear? Where are the heroes? If not now, when?
   The camerlegno walked up the center aisle directly toward the crowd of standing cardinals. He felt like Moses as the sea of red sashes and caps parted before him, allowing him to pass. On the altar, Robert Langdon switched off the television, took Vittoria’s hand, and relinquished the altar. The fact that Robert Langdon had survived, the camerlegno knew, could only have been God’s will. God had saved Robert Langdon. The camerlegno wondered why.
   The voice that broke the silence was the voice of the only woman in the Sistine Chapel. “You killed my father?” she said, stepping forward.
   When the camerlegno turned to Vittoria Vetra, the look on her face was one he could not quite understand—pain yes, but anger? Certainly she must understand. Her father’s genius was deadly. He had to be stopped. For the good of Mankind.
   “He was doing God’s work,” Vittoria said.
   “God’s work is not done in a lab. It is done in the heart.”
   “My father’s heart was pure! And his research proved—”
   “His research proved yet again that man’s mind is progressing faster than his soul!” The camerlegno’s voice was sharper than he had expected. He lowered his voice. “If a man as spiritual as your father could create a weapon like the one we saw tonight, imagine what an ordinary man will do with his technology.”
   “A man like you?”
   The camerlegno took a deep breath. Did she not see? Man’s morality was not advancing as fast as man’s science. Mankind was not spiritually evolved enough for the powers he possessed. We have never created a weapon we have not used! And yet he knew that antimatter was nothing—another weapon in man’s already burgeoning arsenal. Man could already destroy. Man learned to kill long ago. And his mother’s blood rained down. Leonardo Vetra’s genius was dangerous for another reason.
   “For centuries,” the camerlegno said, “the church has stood by while science picked away at religion bit by bit. Debunking miracles. Training the mind to overcome the heart. Condemning religion as the opiate of the masses. They denounce God as a hallucination—a delusional crutch for those too weak to accept that life is meaningless. I could not stand by while science presumed to harness the power of God himself! Proof, you say? Yes, proof of science’s ignorance! What is wrong with the admission that something exists beyond our understanding? The day science substantiates God in a lab is the day people stop needing faith!”
   “You mean the day they stop needing the church,” Vittoria challenged, moving toward him. “Doubt is your last shred of control. It is doubt that brings souls to you. Our need to know that life has meaning. Man’s insecurity and need for an enlightened soul assuring him everything is part of a master plan. But the church is not the only enlightened soul on the planet! We all seek God in different ways. What are you afraid of? That God will show himself somewhere other than inside these walls? That people will find him in their own lives and leave your antiquated rituals behind? Religions evolve! The mind finds answers, the heart grapples with new truths. My father was on your quest! A parallel path! Why couldn’t you see that? God is not some omnipotent authority looking down from above, threatening to throw us into a pit of fire if we disobey. God is the energy that flows through the synapses of our nervous system and the chambers of our hearts! God is in all things!”
   “Except science,” the camerlegno fired back, his eyes showing only pity. “Science, by definition, is soulless. Divorced from the heart. Intellectual miracles like antimatter arrive in this world with no ethical instructions attached. This in itself is perilous! But when science heralds its Godless pursuits as the enlightened path? Promising answers to questions whose beauty is that they have no answers?” He shook his head. “No.”
   There was a moment of silence. The camerlegno felt suddenly tired as he returned Vittoria’s unbending stare. This was not how it was supposed to be. Is this God’s final test?
   It was Mortati who broke the spell. “The preferiti,” he said in a horrified whisper. “Baggia and the others. Please tell me you did not…”
   The camerlegno turned to him, surprised by the pain in his voice. Certainly Mortati could understand. Headlines carried science’s miracles every day. How long had it been for religion? Centuries? Religion needed a miracle! Something to awaken a sleeping world. Bring them back to the path of righteousness. Restore faith. The preferiti were not leaders anyway, they were transformers—liberals prepared to embrace the new world and abandon the old ways! This was the only way. A new leader. Young. Powerful. Vibrant. Miraculous. The preferiti served the church far more effectively in death than they ever could alive. Horror and Hope. Offer four souls to save millions. The world would remember them forever as martyrs. The church would raise glorious tribute to their names. How many thousands have died for the glory of God? They are only four.
   “The preferiti,” Mortati repeated.
   “I shared their pain,” the camerlegno defended, motioning to his chest. “And I too would die for God, but my work is only just begun. They are singing in St. Peter’s Square!”
   The camerlegno saw the horror in Mortati’s eyes and again felt confused. Was it the morphine? Mortati was looking at him as if the camerlegno himself had killed these men with his bare hands. I would do even that for God, the camerlegno thought, and yet he had not. The deeds had been carried out by the Hassassin—a heathen soul tricked into thinking he was doing the work of the Illuminati. I am Janus, the camerlegno had told him. I will prove my power. And he had. The Hassassin’s hatred had made him God’s pawn.
   “Listen to the singing,” the camerlegno said, smiling, his own heart rejoicing. “Nothing unites hearts like the presence of evil. Burn a church and the community rises up, holding hands, singing hymns of defiance as they rebuild. Look how they flock tonight. Fear has brought them home. Forge modern demons for modern man. Apathy is dead. Show them the face of evil—Satanists lurking among us—running our governments, our banks, our schools, threatening to obliterate the very House of God with their misguided science. Depravity runs deep. Man must be vigilant. Seek the goodness. Become the goodness!”
   In the silence, the camerlegno hoped they now understood. The Illuminati had not resurfaced. The Illuminati were long deceased. Only their myth was alive. The camerlegno had resurrected the Illuminati as a reminder. Those who knew the Illuminati history relived their evil. Those who did not, had learned of it and were amazed how blind they had been. The ancient demons had been resurrected to awaken an indifferent world.
   “But… the brands?” Mortati’s voice was stiff with outrage.
   The camerlegno did not answer. Mortati had no way of knowing, but the brands had been confiscated by the Vatican over a century ago. They had been locked away, forgotten and dust covered, in the Papal Vault—the Pope’s private reliquary, deep within his Borgia apartments. The Papal Vault contained those items the church deemed too dangerous for anyone’s eyes except the Pope’s.
   Why did they hide that which inspired fear? Fear brought people to God!
   The vault’s key was passed down from Pope to Pope. Camerlegno Carlo Ventresca had purloined the key and ventured inside; the myth of what the vault contained was bewitching—the original manuscript for the fourteen unpublished books of the Bible known as the Apocrypha, the third prophecy of Fatima, the first two having come true and the third so terrifying the church would never reveal it. In addition to these, the camerlegno had found the Illuminati Collection—all the secrets the church had uncovered after banishing the group from Rome… their contemptible Path of Illumination… the cunning deceit of the Vatican’s head artist, Bernini… Europe’s top scientists mocking religion as they secretly assembled in the Vatican’s own Castle St. Angelo. The collection included a pentagon box containing iron brands, one of them the mythical Illuminati Diamond. This was a part of Vatican history the ancients thought best forgotten. The camerlegno, however, had disagreed.
   “But the antimatter…” Vittoria demanded. “You risked destroying the Vatican!”
   “There is no risk when God is at your side,” the camerlegno said. “This cause was His.”
   “You’re insane!” she seethed.
   “Millions were saved.”
   “People were killed!”
   “Souls were saved.”
   “Tell that to my father and Max Kohler!”
   “CERN’s arrogance needed to be revealed. A droplet of liquid that can vaporize a half mile? And you call me mad?” The camerlegno felt a rage rising in him. Did they think his was a simple charge? “Those who believe undergo great tests for God! God asked Abraham to sacrifice his child! God commanded Jesus to endure crucifixion! And so we hang the symbol of the crucifix before our eyes—bloody, painful, agonizing—to remind us of evil’s power! To keep our hearts vigilant! The scars on Jesus’ body are a living reminder of the powers of darkness! My scars are a living reminder! Evil lives, but the power of God will overcome!”
   His shouts echoed off the back wall of the Sistine Chapel and then a profound silence fell. Time seemed to stop. Michelangelo’s Last Judgment rose ominously behind him… Jesus casting sinners into hell. Tears brimmed in Mortati’s eyes.
   “What have you done, Carlo?” Mortati asked in a whisper. He closed his eyes, and a tear rolled. “His Holiness?”
   A collective sigh of pain went up, as if everyone in the room had forgotten until that very moment. The Pope. Poisoned.
   “A vile liar,” the camerlegno said.
   Mortati looked shattered. “What do you mean? He was honest! He… loved you.”
   “And I him.” Oh, how I loved him! But the deceit! The broken vows to God!
   The camerlegno knew they did not understand right now, but they would. When he told them, they would see! His Holiness was the most nefarious deceiver the church had ever seen. The camerlegno still remembered that terrible night. He had returned from his trip to CERN with news of Vetra’s Genesis and of antimatter’s horrific power. The camerlegno was certain the Pope would see the perils, but the Holy Father saw only hope in Vetra’s breakthrough. He even suggested the Vatican fund Vetra’s work as a gesture of goodwill toward spiritually based scientific research.
   Madness! The church investing in research that threatened to make the church obsolete? Work that spawned weapons of mass destruction? The bomb that had killed his mother…
   “But… you can’t!” the camerlegno had exclaimed.
   “I owe a deep debt to science,” the Pope had replied. “Something I have hidden my entire life. Science gave me a gift when I was a young man. A gift I have never forgotten.”
   “I don’t understand. What does science have to offer a man of God?”
   “It is complicated,” the Pope had said. “I will need time to make you understand. But first, there is a simple fact about me that you must know. I have kept it hidden all these years. I believe it is time I told you.”
   Then the Pope had told him the astonishing truth.

132
   The camerlegno lay curled in a ball on the dirt floor in front of St. Peter’s tomb. The Necropolis was cold, but it helped clot the blood flowing from the wounds he had torn at his own flesh. His Holiness would not find him here. Nobody would find him here…
   “It is complicated,” the Pope’s voice echoed in his mind. “I will need time to make you understand…”
   But the camerlegno knew no amount of time could make him understand.
   Liar! I believed in you! GOD believed in you!
   With a single sentence, the Pope had brought the camerlegno’s world crashing down around him. Everything the camerlegno had ever believed about his mentor was shattered before his eyes. The truth drilled into the camerlegno’s heart with such force that he staggered backward out of the Pope’s office and vomited in the hallway.
   “Wait!” the Pope had cried, chasing after him. “Please let me explain!”
   But the camerlegno ran off. How could His Holiness expect him to endure any more? Oh, the wretched depravity of it! What if someone else found out? Imagine the desecration to the church! Did the Pope’s holy vows mean nothing?
   The madness came quickly, screaming in his ears, until he awoke before St. Peter’s tomb. It was then that God came to him with an awesome fierceness.

Yours is a Vengeful God!

   Together, they made their plans. Together they would protect the church. Together they would restore faith to this faithless world. Evil was everywhere. And yet the world had become immune! Together they would unveil the darkness for the world to see… and God would overcome! Horror and Hope. Then the world would believe!
   God’s first test had been less horrible than the camerlegno imagined. Sneaking into the Papal bed chambers… filling his syringe… covering the deceiver’s mouth as his body spasmed into death. In the moonlight, the camerlegno could see in the Pope’s wild eyes there was something he wanted to say.
   But it was too late.
   The Pope had said enough.

133
   “The Pope fathered a child.”
   Inside the Sistine Chapel, the camerlegno stood unwavering as he spoke. Five solitary words of astonishing disclosure. The entire assembly seemed to recoil in unison. The cardinals’ accusing miens evaporated into aghast stares, as if every soul in the room were praying the camerlegno was wrong.
   The Pope fathered a child.
   Langdon felt the shock wave hit him too. Vittoria’s hand, tight in his, jolted, while Langdon’s mind, already numb with unanswered questions, wrestled to find a center of gravity.
   The camerlegno’s utterance seemed like it would hang forever in the air above them. Even in the camerlegno’s frenzied eyes, Langdon could see pure conviction. Langdon wanted to disengage, tell himself he was lost in some grotesque nightmare, soon to wake up in a world that made sense.
   “This must be a lie!” one of the cardinals yelled.
   “I will not believe it!” another protested. “His Holiness was as devout a man as ever lived!”
   It was Mortati who spoke next, his voice thin with devastation. “My friends. What the camerlegno says is true.” Every cardinal in the chapel spun as though Mortati had just shouted an obscenity. “The Pope indeed fathered a child.”
   The cardinals blanched with dread.
   The camerlegno looked stunned. “You knew? But… how could you possibly know this?”
   Mortati sighed. “When His Holiness was elected… I was the Devil’s Advocate.”
   There was a communal gasp.
   Langdon understood. This meant the information was probably true. The infamous “Devil’s Advocate” was the authority when it came to scandalous information inside the Vatican. Skeletons in a Pope’s closet were dangerous, and prior to elections, secret inquiries into a candidate’s background were carried out by a lone cardinal who served as the “Devil’s Advocate”—that individual responsible for unearthing reasons why the eligible cardinals should not become Pope. The Devil’s Advocate was appointed in advance by the reigning Pope in preparation for his own death. The Devil’s Advocate was never supposed to reveal his identity. Ever.
   “I was the Devil’s Advocate,” Mortati repeated. “That is how I found out.”
   Mouths dropped. Apparently tonight was a night when all the rules were going out the window.
   The camerlegno felt his heart filling with rage. “And you… told no one?”
   “I confronted His Holiness,” Mortati said. “And he confessed. He explained the entire story and asked only that I let my heart guide my decision as to whether or not to reveal his secret.”
   “And your heart told you to bury the information?”
   “He was the runaway favorite for the papacy. People loved him. The scandal would have hurt the church deeply.”
   “But he fathered a child! He broke his sacred vow of celibacy!” The camerlegno was screaming now. He could hear his mother’s voice. A promise to God is the most important promise of all. Never break a promise to God. “The Pope broke his vow!”
   Mortati looked delirious with angst. “Carlo, his love… was chaste. He had broken no vow. He didn’t explain it to you?”
   “Explain what?” The camerlegno remembered running out of the Pope’s office while the Pope was calling to him. Let me explain!
   Slowly, sadly, Mortati let the tale unfold. Many years ago, the Pope, when he was still just a priest, had fallen in love with a young nun. Both of them had taken vows of celibacy and never even considered breaking their covenant with God. Still, as they fell deeper in love, although they could resist the temptations of the flesh, they both found themselves longing for something they never expected—to participate in God’s ultimate miracle of creation—a child. Their child. The yearning, especially in her, became overwhelming. Still, God came first. A year later, when the frustration had reached almost unbearable proportions, she came to him in a whirl of excitement. She had just read an article about a new miracle of science—a process by which two people, without ever having sexual relations, could have a child. She sensed this was a sign from God. The priest could see the happiness in her eyes and agreed. A year later she had a child through the miracle of artificial insemination…
   “This cannot… be true,” the camerlegno said, panicked, hoping it was the morphine washing over his senses. Certainly he was hearing things.
   Mortati now had tears in his eyes. “Carlo, this is why His Holiness has always had an affection for the sciences. He felt he owed a debt to science. Science let him experience the joys of fatherhood without breaking his vow of celibacy. His Holiness told me he had no regrets except one—that his advancing stature in the church prohibited him from being with the woman he loved and seeing his infant grow up.”
   Camerlegno Carlo Ventresca felt the madness setting in again. He wanted to claw at his flesh. How could I have known?
   “The Pope committed no sin, Carlo. He was chaste.”
   “But…” The camerlegno searched his anguished mind for any kind of rationale. “Think of the jeopardy… of his deeds.” His voice felt weak. “What if this whore of his came forward? Or, heaven forbid, his child? Imagine the shame the church would endure.”
   Mortati’s voice was tremulous. “The child has already come forward.”
   Everything stopped.
   “Carlo…?” Mortati crumbled. “His Holiness’s child… is you.”
   At that moment, the camerlegno could feel the fire of faith dim in his heart. He stood trembling on the altar, framed by Michelangelo’s towering Last Judgment. He knew he had just glimpsed hell itself. He opened his mouth to speak, but his lips wavered, soundless.
   “Don’t you see?” Mortati choked. “That is why His Holiness came to you in the hospital in Palermo when you were a boy. That is why he took you in and raised you. The nun he loved was Maria… your mother. She left the nunnery to raise you, but she never abandoned her strict devotion to God. When the Pope heard she had died in an explosion and that you, his son, had miraculously survived… he swore to God he would never leave you alone again. Carlo, your parents were both virgins. They kept their vows to God. And still they found a way to bring you into the world. You were their miraculous child.”
   The camerlegno covered his ears, trying to block out the words. He stood paralyzed on the altar. Then, with his world yanked from beneath him, he fell violently to his knees and let out a wail of anguish.
   Seconds. Minutes. Hours.
   Time seemed to have lost all meaning inside the four walls of the chapel. Vittoria felt herself slowly breaking free of the paralysis that seemed to have gripped them all. She let go of Langdon’s hand and began moving through the crowd of cardinals. The chapel door seemed miles away, and she felt like she was moving underwater… slow motion.
   As she maneuvered through the robes, her motion seemed to pull others from their trance. Some of the cardinals began to pray. Others wept. Some turned to watch her go, their blank expressions turning slowly to a foreboding cognition as she moved toward the door. She had almost reached the back of the crowd when a hand caught her arm. The touch was frail but resolute. She turned, face to face with a wizened cardinal. His visage was clouded by fear.
   “No,” the man whispered. “You cannot.”
   Vittoria stared, incredulous.
   Another cardinal was at her side now. “We must think before we act.”
   And another. “The pain this could cause…”
   Vittoria was surrounded. She looked at them all, stunned. “But these deeds here today, tonight… certainly the world should know the truth.”
   “My heart agrees,” the wizened cardinal said, still holding her arm, “and yet it is a path from which there is no return. We must consider the shattered hopes. The cynicism. How could the people ever trust again?”
   Suddenly, more cardinals seemed to be blocking her way. There was a wall of black robes before her. “Listen to the people in the square,” one said. “What will this do to their hearts? We must exercise prudence.”
   “We need time to think and pray,” another said. “We must act with foresight. The repercussions of this…”
   “He killed my father!” Vittoria said. “He killed his own father!”
   “I’m certain he will pay for his sins,” the cardinal holding her arm said sadly.
   Vittoria was certain too, and she intended to ensure he paid. She tried to push toward the door again, but the cardinals huddled closer, their faces frightened.
   “What are you going to do?” she exclaimed. “Kill me?”
   The old men blanched, and Vittoria immediately regretted her words. She could see these men were gentle souls. They had seen enough violence tonight. They meant no threat. They were simply trapped. Scared. Trying to get their bearings.
   “I want…” the wizened cardinal said, “… to do what is right.”
   “Then you will let her out,” a deep voice declared behind her. The words were calm but absolute. Robert Langdon arrived at her side, and she felt his hand take hers. “Ms. Vetra and I are leaving this chapel. Right now.”
   Faltering, hesitant, the cardinals began to step aside.
   “Wait!” It was Mortati. He moved toward them now, down the center aisle, leaving the camerlegno alone and defeated on the altar. Mortati looked older all of a sudden, wearied beyond his years. His motion was burdened with shame. He arrived, putting a hand on Langdon’s shoulder and one on Vittoria’s as well. Vittoria felt sincerity in his touch. The man’s eyes were more tearful now.
   “Of course you are free to go,” Mortati said. “Of course.” The man paused, his grief almost tangible. “I ask only this…” He stared down at his feet a long moment then back up at Vittoria and Langdon. “Let me do it. I will go into the square right now and find a way. I will tell them. I don’t know how… but I will find a way. The church’s confession should come from within. Our failures should be our own to expose.”
   Mortati turned sadly back toward the altar. “Carlo, you have brought this church to a disastrous juncture.” He paused, looking around. The altar was bare.
   There was a rustle of cloth down the side aisle, and the door clicked shut.
   The camerlegno was gone.

134
   Camerlegno Ventresca’s white robe billowed as he moved down the hallway away from the Sistine Chapel. The Swiss Guards had seemed perplexed when he emerged all alone from the chapel and told them he needed a moment of solitude. But they had obeyed, letting him go.
   Now as he rounded the corner and left their sight, the camerlegno felt a maelstrom of emotions like nothing he thought possible in human experience. He had poisoned the man he called “Holy Father,” the man who addressed him as “my son.” The camerlegno had always believed the words “father” and “son” were religious tradition, but now he knew the diabolical truth—the words had been literal.
   Like that fateful night weeks ago, the camerlegno now felt himself reeling madly through the darkness.
   It was raining the morning the Vatican staff banged on the camerlegno’s door, awakening him from a fitful sleep. The Pope, they said, was not answering his door or his phone. The clergy were frightened. The camerlegno was the only one who could enter the Pope’s chambers unannounced.
   The camerlegno entered alone to find the Pope, as he was the night before, twisted and dead in his bed. His Holiness’s face looked like that of Satan. His tongue black like death. The Devil himself had been sleeping in the Pope’s bed.
   The camerlegno felt no remorse. God had spoken.
   Nobody would see the treachery… not yet. That would come later.
   He announced the terrible news—His Holiness was dead of a stroke. Then the camerlegno prepared for conclave.
   Mother Maria’s voice was whispering in his ear. “Never break a promise to God.”
   “I hear you, Mother,” he replied. “It is a faithless world. They need to be brought back to the path of righteousness. Horror and Hope. It is the only way.”
   “Yes,” she said. “If not you… then who? Who will lead the church out of darkness?”
   Certainly not one of the preferiti. They were old… walking death… liberals who would follow the Pope, endorsing science in his memory, seeking modern followers by abandoning the ancient ways. Old men desperately behind the times, pathetically pretending they were not. They would fail, of course. The church’s strength was its tradition, not its transience. The whole world was transitory. The church did not need to change, it simply needed to remind the world it was relevant! Evil lives! God will overcome!
   The church needed a leader. Old men do not inspire! Jesus inspired! Young, vibrant, powerful… Miraculous.
   “Enjoy your tea,” the camerlegno told the four preferiti, leaving them in the Pope’s private library before conclave. “Your guide will be here soon.”
   The preferiti thanked him, all abuzz that they had been offered a chance to enter the famed Passetto. Most uncommon! The camerlegno, before leaving them, had unlocked the door to the Passetto, and exactly on schedule, the door had opened, and a foreign-looking priest with a torch had ushered the excited preferiti in.
   The men had never come out.
   They will be the Horror. I will be the Hope.
   No… I am the horror.
   The camerlegno staggered now through the darkness of St. Peter’s Basilica. Somehow, through the insanity and guilt, through the images of his father, through the pain and revelation, even through the pull of the morphine… he had found a brilliant clarity. A sense of destiny. I know my purpose, he thought, awed by the lucidity of it.
   From the beginning, nothing tonight had gone exactly as he had planned. Unforeseen obstacles had presented themselves, but the camerlegno had adapted, making bold adjustments. Still, he had never imagined tonight would end this way, and yet now he saw the preordained majesty of it.
   It could end no other way.
   Oh, what terror he had felt in the Sistine Chapel, wondering if God had forsaken him! Oh, what deeds He had ordained! He had fallen to his knees, awash with doubt, his ears straining for the voice of God but hearing only silence. He had begged for a sign. Guidance. Direction. Was this God’s will? The church destroyed by scandal and abomination? No! God was the one who had willed the camerlegno to act! Hadn’t He?
   Then he had seen it. Sitting on the altar. A sign. Divine communication—something ordinary seen in an extraordinary light. The crucifix. Humble, wooden. Jesus on the cross. In that moment, it had all come clear… the camerlegno was not alone. He would never be alone.
   This was His will… His meaning.
   God had always asked great sacrifice of those he loved most. Why had the camerlegno been so slow to understand? Was he too fearful? Too humble? It made no difference. God had found a way. The camerlegno even understood now why Robert Langdon had been saved. It was to bring the truth. To compel this ending.
   This was the sole path to the church’s salvation!
   The camerlegno felt like he was floating as he descended into the Niche of the Palliums. The surge of morphine seemed relentless now, but he knew God was guiding him.
   In the distance, he could hear the cardinals clamoring in confusion as they poured from the chapel, yelling commands to the Swiss Guard.
   But they would never find him. Not in time.
   The camerlegno felt himself drawn… faster… descending the stairs into the sunken area where the ninety-nine oil lamps shone brightly. God was returning him to Holy Ground. The camerlegno moved toward the grate covering the hole that led down to the Necropolis. The Necropolis is where this night would end. In the sacred darkness below. He lifted an oil lamp, preparing to descend.
   But as he moved across the Niche, the camerlegno paused. Something about this felt wrong. How did this serve God? A solitary and silent end? Jesus had suffered before the eyes of the entire world. Surely this could not be God’s will! The camerlegno listened for the voice of his God, but heard only the blurring buzz of drugs.
   “Carlo.” It was his mother. “God has plans for you.”
   Bewildered, the camerlegno kept moving.
   Then, without warning, God arrived.
   The camerlegno stopped short, staring. The light of the ninety-nine oil lanterns had thrown the camerlegno’s shadow on the marble wall beside him. Giant and fearful. A hazy form surrounded by golden light. With flames flickering all around him, the camerlegno looked like an angel ascending to heaven. He stood a moment, raising his arms to his sides, watching his own image. Then he turned, looking back up the stairs.
   God’s meaning was clear.
   Three minutes had passed in the chaotic hallways outside the Sistine Chapel, and still nobody could locate the camerlegno. It was as if the man had been swallowed up by the night. Mortati was about to demand a full-scale search of Vatican City when a roar of jubilation erupted outside in St. Peter’s Square. The spontaneous celebration of the crowd was tumultuous. The cardinals all exchanged startled looks.
   Mortati closed his eyes. “God help us.”
   For the second time that evening, the College of Cardinals flooded onto St. Peter’s Square. Langdon and Vittoria were swept up in the jostling crowd of cardinals, and they too emerged into the night air. The media lights and cameras were all pivoted toward the basilica. And there, having just stepped onto the sacred Papal Balcony located in the exact center of the towering façade, Camerlegno Carlo Ventresca stood with his arms raised to the heavens. Even far away, he looked like purity incarnate. A figurine. Dressed in white. Flooded with light.
   The energy in the square seemed to grow like a cresting wave, and all at once the Swiss Guard barriers gave way. The masses streamed toward the basilica in a euphoric torrent of humanity. The onslaught rushed forward—people crying, singing, media cameras flashing. Pandemonium. As the people flooded in around the front of the basilica, the chaos intensified, until it seemed nothing could stop it.
   And then something did.
   High above, the camerlegno made the smallest of gestures. He folded his hands before him. Then he bowed his head in silent prayer. One by one, then dozens by dozens, then hundreds by hundreds, the people bowed their heads along with him.
   The square fell silent… as if a spell had been cast.
   In his mind, swirling and distant now, the camerlegno’s prayers were a torrent of hopes and sorrows… forgive me, Father… Mother… full of grace… you are the church… may you understand this sacrifice of your only begotten son.
   Oh, my Jesus… save us from the fires of hell… take all souls to heaven, especially, those most in need of thy mercy…
   The camerlegno did not open his eyes to see the throngs below him, the television cameras, the whole world watching. He could feel it in his soul. Even in his anguish, the unity of the moment was intoxicating. It was as if a connective web had shot out in all directions around the globe. In front of televisions, at home, and in cars, the world prayed as one. Like synapses of a giant heart all firing in tandem, the people reached for God, in dozens of languages, in hundreds of countries. The words they whispered were newborn and yet as familiar to them as their own voices… ancient truths… imprinted on the soul.
   The consonance felt eternal.
   As the silence lifted, the joyous strains of singing began to rise again.
   He knew the moment had come.
   Most Holy Trinity, I offer Thee the most precious Body, Blood, Soul… in reparation for the outrages, sacrileges, and indifferences…
   The camerlegno already felt the physical pain setting in. It was spreading across his skin like a plague, making him want to claw at his flesh like he had weeks ago when God had first come to him. Do not forget what pain Jesus endured. He could taste the fumes now in his throat. Not even the morphine could dull the bite.
   My work here is done.
   The Horror was his. The Hope was theirs.
   In the Niche of the Palliums, the camerlegno had followed God’s will and anointed his body. His hair. His face. His linen robe. His flesh. He was soaking now with the sacred, vitreous oils from the lamps. They smelled sweet like his mother, but they burned. His would be a merciful ascension. Miraculous and swift. And he would leave behind not scandal… but a new strength and wonder.
   He slipped his hand into the pocket of his robe and fingered the small, golden lighter he had brought with him from the Pallium incendiario.
   He whispered a verse from Judgments. And when the flame went up toward heaven, the angel of the Lord ascended in the flame.
   He positioned his thumb.
   They were singing in St. Peter’s Square…
   The vision the world witnessed no one would ever forget.
   High above on the balcony, like a soul tearing free of its corporeal restrains, a luminous pyre of flame erupted from the camerlegno’s center. The fire shot upward, engulfing his entire body instantly. He did not scream. He raised his arms over his head and looked toward heaven. The conflagration roared around him, entirely shrouding his body in a column of light. It raged for what seemed like an eternity, the whole world bearing witness. The light flared brighter and brighter. Then, gradually, the flames dissipated. The camerlegno was gone. Whether he had collapsed behind the balustrade or evaporated into thin air was impossible to tell. All that was left was a cloud of smoke spiraling skyward over Vatican City.

135
   Dawn came late to Rome.
   An early rainstorm had washed the crowds from St. Peter’s Square. The media stayed on, huddling under umbrellas and in vans, commentating on the evening’s events. Across the world, churches overflowed. It was a time of reflection and discussion… in all religions. Questions abounded, and yet the answers seemed only to bring deeper questions. Thus far, the Vatican had remained silent, issuing no statement whatsoever.
   Deep in the Vatican Grottoes, Cardinal Mortati knelt alone before the open sarcophagus. He reached in and closed the old man’s blackened mouth. His Holiness looked peaceful now. In quiet repose for eternity.
   At Mortati’s feet was a golden urn, heavy with ashes. Mortati had gathered the ashes himself and brought them here. “A chance for forgiveness,” he said to His Holiness, laying the urn inside the sarcophagus at the Pope’s side. “No love is greater than that of a father for His son.” Mortati tucked the urn out of sight beneath the papal robes. He knew this sacred grotto was reserved exclusively for the relics of Popes, but somehow Mortati sensed this was appropriate.
   “Signore?” someone said, entering the grottoes. It was Lieutenant Chartrand. He was accompanied by three Swiss Guards. “They are ready for you in conclave.”
   Mortati nodded. “In a moment.” He gazed one last time into the sarcophagus before him, and then stood up. He turned to the guards. “It is time for His Holiness to have the peace he has earned.”
   The guards came forward and with enormous effort slid the lid of the Pope’s sarcophagus back into place. It thundered shut with finality.
   Mortati was alone as he crossed the Borgia Courtyard toward the Sistine Chapel. A damp breeze tossed his robe. A fellow cardinal emerged from the Apostolic Palace and strode beside him.
   “May I have the honor of escorting you to conclave, signore?”
   “The honor is mine.”
   “Signore,” the cardinal said, looking troubled. “The college owes you an apology for last night. We were blinded by—”
   “Please,” Mortati replied. “Our minds sometimes see what our hearts wish were true.”
   The cardinal was silent a long time. Finally he spoke. “Have you been told? You are no longer our Great Elector.”
   Mortati smiled. “Yes. I thank God for small blessings.”
   “The college insisted you be eligible.”
   “It seems charity is not dead in the church.”
   “You are a wise man. You would lead us well.”
   “I am an old man. I would lead you briefly.”
   They both laughed.
   As they reached the end of the Borgia Courtyard, the cardinal hesitated. He turned to Mortati with a troubled mystification, as if the precarious awe of the night before had slipped back into his heart.
   “Were you aware,” the cardinal whispered, “that we found no remains on the balcony?”
   Mortati smiled. “Perhaps the rain washed them away.”
   The man looked to the stormy heavens. “Yes, perhaps…”

136
   The midmorning sky still hung heavy with clouds as the Sistine Chapel’s chimney gave up its first faint puffs of white smoke. The pearly wisps curled upward toward the firmament and slowly dissipated.
   Far below, in St. Peter’s Square, reporter Gunther Glick watched in reflective silence. The final chapter…
   Chinita Macri approached him from behind and hoisted her camera onto her shoulder. “It’s time,” she said.
   Glick nodded dolefully. He turned toward her, smoothed his hair, and took a deep breath. My last transmission, he thought. A small crowd had gathered around them to watch.
   “Live in sixty seconds,” Macri announced.
   Glick glanced over his shoulder at the roof of the Sistine Chapel behind him. “Can you get the smoke?”
   Macri patiently nodded. “I know how to frame a shot, Gunther.”
   Glick felt dumb. Of course she did. Macri’s performance behind the camera last night had probably won her the Pulitzer. His performance, on the other hand… he didn’t want to think about it. He was sure the BBC would let him go; no doubt they would have legal troubles from numerous powerful entities… CERN and George Bush among them.
   “You look good,” Chinita patronized, looking out from behind her camera now with a hint of concern. “I wonder if I might offer you…” She hesitated, holding her tongue.
   “Some advice?”
   Macri sighed. “I was only going to say that there’s no need to go out with a bang.”
   “I know,” he said. “You want a straight wrap.”
   “The straightest in history. I’m trusting you.”
   Glick smiled. A straight wrap? Is she crazy? A story like last night’s deserved so much more. A twist. A final bombshell. An unforeseen revelation of shocking truth.
   Fortunately, Glick had just the ticket waiting in the wings…

* * *

   “You’re on in… five… four… three…”
   As Chinita Macri looked through her camera, she sensed a sly glint in Glick’s eye. I was insane to let him do this, she thought. What was I thinking?
   But the moment for second thoughts had passed. They were on.
   “Live from Vatican City,” Glick announced on cue, “this is Gunther Glick reporting.” He gave the camera a solemn stare as the white smoke rose behind him from the Sistine Chapel. “Ladies and gentlemen, it is now official. Cardinal Saverio Mortati, a seventy-nine-year-old progressive, has just been elected the next Pope of Vatican City. Although an unlikely candidate, Mortati was chosen by an unprecedented unanimous vote by the College of Cardinals.”
   As Macri watched him, she began to breathe easier. Glick seemed surprisingly professional today. Even austere. For the first time in his life, Glick actually looked and sounded somewhat like a newsman.
   “And as we reported earlier,” Glick added, his voice intensifying perfectly, “the Vatican has yet to offer any statement whatsoever regarding the miraculous events of last night.”
   Good. Chinita’s nervousness waned some more. So far, so good.
   Glick’s expression grew sorrowful now. “And though last night was a night of wonder, it was also a night of tragedy. Four cardinals perished in yesterday’s conflict, along with Commander Olivetti and Captain Rocher of the Swiss Guard, both in the line of duty. Other casualties include Leonardo Vetra, the renowned CERN physicist and pioneer of antimatter technology, as well as Maximilian Kohler, the director of CERN, who apparently came to Vatican City in an effort to help but reportedly passed away in the process. No official report has been issued yet on Mr. Kohler’s death, but conjecture is that he died due to complications brought on by a long-time illness.”
   Macri nodded. The report was going perfectly. Just as they discussed.
   “And in the wake of the explosion in the sky over the Vatican last night, CERN’s antimatter technology has become the hot topic among scientists, sparking excitement and controversy. A statement read by Mr. Kohler’s assistant in Geneva, Sylvie Baudeloque, announced this morning that CERN’s board of directors, although enthusiastic about antimatter’s potential, are suspending all research and licensing until further inquiries into its safety can be examined.”
   Excellent, Macri thought. Home stretch.
   “Notably absent from our screens tonight,” Glick reported, “is the face of Robert Langdon, the Harvard professor who came to Vatican City yesterday to lend his expertise during this Illuminati crisis. Although originally thought to have perished in the antimatter blast, we now have reports that Langdon was spotted in St. Peter’s Square after the explosion. How he got there is still speculation, although a spokesman from Hospital Tiberina claims that Mr. Langdon fell out of the sky into the Tiber River shortly after midnight, was treated, and released.” Glick arched his eyebrows at the camera. “And if that is true… it was indeed a night of miracles.”
   Perfect ending! Macri felt herself smiling broadly. Flawless wrap! Now sign off!
   But Glick did not sign off. Instead, he paused a moment and then stepped toward the camera. He had a mysterious smile. “But before we sign off…”
   No!
   “… I would like to invite a guest to join me.”
   Chinita’s hands froze on the camera. A guest? What the hell is he doing? What guest! Sign off! But she knew it was too late. Glick had committed.
   “The man I am about to introduce,” Glick said, “is an American… a renowned scholar.”
   Chinita hesitated. She held her breath as Glick turned to the small crowd around them and motioned for his guest to step forward. Macri said a silent prayer. Please tell me he somehow located Robert Langdon… and not some Illuminati-conspiracy nutcase.
   But as Glick’s guest stepped out, Macri’s heart sank. It was not Robert Langdon at all. It was a bald man in blue jeans and a flannel shirt. He had a cane and thick glasses. Macri felt terror. Nutcase!
   “May I introduce,” Glick announced, “the renowned Vatican scholar from De Paul University in Chicago. Dr. Joseph Vanek.”
   Macri now hesitated as the man joined Glick on camera. This was no conspiracy buff; Macri had actually heard of this guy.
   “Dr. Vanek,” Glick said. “You have some rather startling information to share with us regarding last night’s conclave.”
   “I do indeed,” Vanek said. “After a night of such surprises, it is hard to imagine there are any surprises left… and yet…” He paused.
   Glick smiled. “And yet, there is a strange twist to all this.”
   Vanek nodded. “Yes. As perplexing as this will sound, I believe the College of Cardinals unknowingly elected two Popes this weekend.”
   Macri almost dropped the camera.
   Glick gave a shrewd smile. “Two Popes, you say?”
   The scholar nodded. “Yes. I should first say that I have spent my life studying the laws of papal election. Conclave judicature is extremely complex, and much of it is now forgotten or ignored as obsolete. Even the Great Elector is probably not aware of what I am about to reveal. Nonetheless… according to the ancient forgotten laws put forth in the Romano Pontifici Eligendo, Numero 63… balloting is not the only method by which a Pope can be elected. There is another, more divine method. It is called ‘Acclamation by Adoration.’” He paused. “And it happened last night.”
   Glick gave his guest a riveted look. “Please, go on.”
   “As you may recall,” the scholar continued, “last night, when Camerlegno Carlo Ventresca was standing on the roof of the basilica, all of the cardinals below began calling out his name in unison.”
   “Yes, I recall.”
   “With that image in mind, allow me to read verbatim from the ancient electoral laws.” The man pulled some papers from his pocket, cleared his throat, and began to read. “‘Election by Adoration occurs when… all the cardinals, as if by inspiration of the Holy Spirit, freely and spontaneously, unanimously and aloud, proclaim one individual’s name.’”
   Glick smiled. “So you’re saying that last night, when the cardinals chanted Carlo Ventresca’s name together, they actually elected him Pope?”
   “They did indeed. Furthermore, the law states that Election by Adoration supercedes the cardinal eligibility requirement and permits any clergyman—ordained priest, bishop, or cardinal—to be elected. So, as you can see, the camerlegno was perfectly qualified for papal election by this procedure.” Dr. Vanek looked directly into the camera now. “The facts are these… Carlo Ventresca was elected Pope last night. He reigned for just under seventeen minutes. And had he not ascended miraculously into a pillar of fire, he would now be buried in the Vatican Grottoes along with the other Popes.”
   “Thank you, doctor.” Glick turned to Macri with a mischievous wink. “Most illuminating…”