67
   The descent was slow.
   Langdon dropped rung by rung down the creaking ladder… deeper and deeper beneath the floor of the Chigi Chapel. Into the Demon’s hole, he thought. He was facing the side wall, his back to the chamber, and he wondered how many more dark, cramped spaces one day could provide. The ladder groaned with every step, and the pungent smell of rotting flesh and dampness was almost asphyxiating. Langdon wondered where the hell Olivetti was.
   Vittoria’s outline was still visible above, holding the blowtorch inside the hole, lighting Langdon’s way. As he lowered himself deeper into the darkness, the bluish glow from above got fainter. The only thing that got stronger was the stench.
   Twelve rungs down, it happened. Langdon’s foot hit a spot that was slippery with decay, and he faltered. Lunging forward, he caught the ladder with his forearms to avoid plummeting to the bottom. Cursing the bruises now throbbing on his arms, he dragged his body back onto the ladder and began his descent again.
   Three rungs deeper, he almost fell again, but this time it was not a rung that caused the mishap. It was a bolt of fear. He had descended past a hollowed niche in the wall before him and suddenly found himself face to face with a collection of skulls. As he caught his breath and looked around him, he realized the wall at this level was honeycombed with shelflike openings—burial niches—all filled with skeletons. In the phosphorescent light, it made for an eerie collage of empty sockets and decaying rib cages flickering around him.
   Skeletons by firelight, he grimaced wryly, realizing he had quite coincidentally endured a similar evening just last month. An evening of bones and flames. The New York Museum of Archeology’s candlelight benefit dinner—salmon flambé in the shadow of a brontosaurus skeleton. He had attended at the invitation of Rebecca Strauss—one-time fashion model now art critic from the Times, a whirlwind of black velvet, cigarettes, and not-so-subtly enhanced breasts. She’d called him twice since. Langdon had not returned her calls. Most ungentlemanly, he chided, wondering how long Rebecca Strauss would last in a stink-pit like this.
   Langdon was relieved to feel the final rung give way to the spongy earth at the bottom. The ground beneath his shoes felt damp. Assuring himself the walls were not going to close in on him, he turned into the crypt. It was circular, about twenty feet across. Breathing through his sleeve again, Langdon turned his eyes to the body. In the gloom, the image was hazy. A white, fleshy outline. Facing the other direction. Motionless. Silent.
   Advancing through the murkiness of the crypt, Langdon tried to make sense of what he was looking at. The man had his back to Langdon, and Langdon could not see his face, but he did indeed seem to be standing.
   “Hello?” Langdon choked through his sleeve. Nothing. As he drew nearer, he realized the man was very short. Too short…
   “What’s happening?” Vittoria called from above, shifting the light.
   Langdon did not answer. He was now close enough to see it all. With a tremor of repulsion, he understood. The chamber seemed to contract around him. Emerging like a demon from the earthen floor was an old man… or at least half of him. He was buried up to his waist in the earth. Standing upright with half of him below ground. Stripped naked. His hands tied behind his back with a red cardinal’s sash. He was propped limply upward, spine arched backward like some sort of hideous punching bag. The man’s head lay backward, eyes toward the heavens as if pleading for help from God himself.
   “Is he dead?” Vittoria called.
   Langdon moved toward the body. I hope so, for his sake. As he drew to within a few feet, he looked down at the upturned eyes. They bulged outward, blue and bloodshot. Langdon leaned down to listen for breath but immediately recoiled. “For Christ’s sake!”
   “What!”
   Langdon almost gagged. “He’s dead all right. I just saw the cause of death.” The sight was gruesome. The man’s mouth had been jammed open and packed solid with dirt. “Somebody stuffed a fistful of dirt down his throat. He suffocated.”
   “Dirt?” Vittoria said. “As in… earth?”
   Langdon did a double take. Earth. He had almost forgotten. The brands. Earth, Air, Fire, Water. The killer had threatened to brand each victim with one of the ancient elements of science. The first element was Earth. From Santi’s earthly tomb. Dizzy from the fumes, Langdon circled to the front of the body. As he did, the symbologist within him loudly reasserted the artistic challenge of creating the mythical ambigram. Earth? How? And yet, an instant later, it was before him. Centuries of Illuminati legend whirled in his mind. The marking on the cardinal’s chest was charred and oozing. The flesh was seared black. La lingua pura…
   Langdon stared at the brand as the room began to spin.


   “Earth,” he whispered, tilting his head to see the symbol upside down. “Earth.”
   Then, in a wave of horror, he had one final cognition. There are three more.

68
   Despite the soft glow of candlelight in the Sistine Chapel, Cardinal Mortati was on edge. Conclave had officially begun. And it had begun in a most inauspicious fashion.
   Half an hour ago, at the appointed hour, Camerlegno Carlo Ventresca had entered the chapel. He walked to the front altar and gave opening prayer. Then, he unfolded his hands and spoke to them in a tone as direct as anything Mortati had ever heard from the altar of the Sistine.
   “You are well aware,” the camerlegno said, “that our four preferiti are not present in conclave at this moment. I ask, in the name of his late Holiness, that you proceed as you must… with faith and purpose. May you have only God before your eyes.” Then he turned to go.
   “But,” one cardinal blurted out, “where are they?”
   The camerlegno paused. “That I cannot honestly say.”
   “When will they return?”
   “That I cannot honestly say.”
   “Are they okay?”
   “That I cannot honestly say.”
   “Will they return?”
   There was a long pause.
   “Have faith,” the camerlegno said. Then he walked out of the room.
   The doors to the Sistine Chapel had been sealed, as was the custom, with two heavy chains on the outside. Four Swiss Guards stood watch in the hallway beyond. Mortati knew the only way the doors could be opened now, prior to electing a Pope, was if someone inside fell deathly ill, or if the preferiti arrived. Mortati prayed it would be the latter, although from the knot in his stomach he was not so sure.
   Proceed as we must, Mortati decided, taking his lead from the resolve in the camerlegno’s voice. So he had called for a vote. What else could he do?
   It had taken thirty minutes to complete the preparatory rituals leading up to this first vote. Mortati had waited patiently at the main altar as each cardinal, in order of seniority, had approached and performed the specific balloting procedure.
   Now, at last, the final cardinal had arrived at the altar and was kneeling before him.
   “I call as my witness,” the cardinal declared, exactly as those before him, “Christ the Lord, who will be my judge that my vote is given to the one who before God I think should be elected.”
   The cardinal stood up. He held his ballot high over his head for everyone to see. Then he lowered the ballot to the altar, where a plate sat atop a large chalice. He placed the ballot on the plate. Next he picked up the plate and used it to drop the ballot into the chalice. Use of the plate was to ensure no one secretly dropped multiple ballots.
   After he had submitted his ballot, he replaced the plate over the chalice, bowed to the cross, and returned to his seat.
   The final ballot had been cast.
   Now it was time for Mortati to go to work.
   Leaving the plate on top of the chalice, Mortati shook the ballots to mix them. Then he removed the plate and extracted a ballot at random. He unfolded it. The ballot was exactly two inches wide. He read aloud for everyone to hear.
   “Eligo in summum pontificem…” he declared, reading the text that was embossed at the top of every ballot. I elect as Supreme Pontiff… Then he announced the nominee’s name that had been written beneath it. After he read the name, he raised a threaded needle and pierced the ballot through the word Eligo, carefully sliding the ballot onto the thread. Then he made note of the vote in a logbook.
   Next, he repeated the entire procedure. He chose a ballot from the chalice, read it aloud, threaded it onto the line, and made note in his log. Almost immediately, Mortati sensed this first vote would be failed. No consensus. After only seven ballots, already seven different cardinals had been named. As was normal, the handwriting on each ballot was disguised by block printing or flamboyant script. The concealment was ironic in this case because the cardinals were obviously submitting votes for themselves. This apparent conceit, Mortati knew, had nothing to do with self-centered ambition. It was a holding pattern. A defensive maneuver. A stall tactic to ensure no cardinal received enough votes to win… and another vote would be forced.
   The cardinals were waiting for their preferiti…
   When the last of the ballots had been tallied, Mortati declared the vote “failed.”
   He took the thread carrying all the ballots and tied the ends together to create a ring. Then he lay the ring of ballots on a silver tray. He added the proper chemicals and carried the tray to a small chimney behind him. Here he lit the ballots. As the ballots burned, the chemicals he’d added created black smoke. The smoke flowed up a pipe to a hole in the roof where it rose above the chapel for all to see. Cardinal Mortati had just sent his first communication to the outside world.
   One balloting. No Pope.

69
   Nearly asphyxiated by fumes, Langdon struggled up the ladder toward the light at the top of the pit. Above him he heard voices, but nothing was making sense. His head was spinning with images of the branded cardinal.
   Earth… Earth…
   As he pushed upward, his vision narrowed and he feared consciousness would slip away. Two rungs from the top, his balance faltered. He lunged upward trying to find the lip, but it was too far. He lost his grip on the ladder and almost tumbled backward into the dark. There was a sharp pain under his arms, and suddenly Langdon was airborne, legs swinging wildly out over the chasm.
   The strong hands of two Swiss Guards hooked him under the armpits and dragged him skyward. A moment later Langdon’s head emerged from the Demon’s hole, choking and gasping for air. The guards dragged him over the lip of the opening, across the floor, and lay him down, back against the cold marble floor.
   For a moment, Langdon was unsure where he was. Overhead he saw stars… orbiting planets. Hazy figures raced past him. People were shouting. He tried to sit up. He was lying at the base of a stone pyramid. The familiar bite of an angry tongue echoed inside the chapel, and then Langdon knew.
   Olivetti was screaming at Vittoria. “Why the hell didn’t you figure that out in the first place!”
   Vittoria was trying to explain the situation.
   Olivetti cut her off midsentence and turned to bark orders to his men. “Get that body out of there! Search the rest of the building!”
   Langdon tried to sit up. The Chigi Chapel was packed with Swiss Guards. The plastic curtain over the chapel opening had been torn off the entryway, and fresh air filled Langdon’s lungs. As his senses slowly returned, Langdon saw Vittoria coming toward him. She knelt down, her face like an angel.
   “You okay?” Vittoria took his arm and felt his pulse. Her hands were tender on his skin.
   “Thanks.” Langdon sat up fully. “Olivetti’s mad.”
   Vittoria nodded. “He has a right to be. We blew it.”
   “You mean I blew it.”
   “So redeem yourself. Get him next time.”
   Next time? Langdon thought it was a cruel comment. There is no next time! We missed our shot!
   Vittoria checked Langdon’s watch. “Mickey says we’ve got forty minutes. Get your head together and help me find the next marker.”
   “I told you, Vittoria, the sculptures are gone. The Path of Illumination is—” Langdon halted.
   Vittoria smiled softly.
   Suddenly Langdon was staggering to his feet. He turned dizzying circles, staring at the artwork around him. Pyramids, stars, planets, ellipses. Suddenly everything came back. This is the first altar of science! Not the Pantheon! It dawned on him now how perfectly Illuminati the chapel was, far more subtle and selective than the world famous Pantheon. The Chigi was an out of the way alcove, a literal hole-in-the-wall, a tribute to a great patron of science, decorated with earthly symbology. Perfect.
   Langdon steadied himself against the wall and gazed up at the enormous pyramid sculptures. Vittoria was dead right. If this chapel was the first altar of science, it might still contain the Illuminati sculpture that served as the first marker. Langdon felt an electrifying rush of hope to realize there was still a chance. If the marker were indeed here, and they could follow it to the next altar of science, they might have another chance to catch the killer.
   Vittoria moved closer. “I found out who the unknown Illuminati sculptor was.”
   Langdon’s head whipped around. “You what?”
   “Now we just need to figure out which sculpture in here is the—”
   “Wait a minute! You know who the Illuminati sculptor was?” He had spent years trying to find that information.
   Vittoria smiled. “It was Bernini.” She paused. “The Bernini.”
   Langdon immediately knew she was mistaken. Bernini was an impossibility. Gianlorenzo Bernini was the second most famous sculptor of all time, his fame eclipsed only by Michelangelo himself. During the 1600s Bernini created more sculptures than any other artist. Unfortunately, the man they were looking for was supposedly an unknown, a nobody.
   Vittoria frowned. “You don’t look excited.”
   “Bernini is impossible.”
   “Why? Bernini was a contemporary of Galileo. He was a brilliant sculptor.”
   “He was a very famous man and a Catholic.”
   “Yes,” Vittoria said. “Exactly like Galileo.”
   “No,” Langdon argued. “Nothing like Galileo. Galileo was a thorn in the Vatican’s side. Bernini was the Vatican’s wonder boy. The church loved Bernini. He was elected the Vatican’s overall artistic authority. He practically lived inside Vatican City his entire life!”
   “A perfect cover. Illuminati infiltration.”
   Langdon felt flustered. “Vittoria, the Illuminati members referred to their secret artist as il maestro ignoto–the unknown master.”
   “Yes, unknown to them. Think of the secrecy of the Masons—only the upper-echelon members knew the whole truth. Galileo could have kept Bernini’s true identity secret from most members… for Bernini’s own safety. That way, the Vatican would never find out.”
   Langdon was unconvinced but had to admit Vittoria’s logic made strange sense. The Illuminati were famous for keeping secret information compartmentalized, only revealing the truth to upper-level members. It was the cornerstone of their ability to stay secret… very few knew the whole story.
   “And Bernini’s affiliation with the Illuminati,” Vittoria added with a smile, “explains why he designed those two pyramids.”
   Langdon turned to the huge sculpted pyramids and shook his head. “Bernini was a religious sculptor. There’s no way he carved those pyramids.”
   Vittoria shrugged. “Tell that to the sign behind you.”
   Langdon turned to the plaque:

ART OF THE CHIGI CHAPEL
While the architecture is Raphael’s, all interior adornments are those of Gianlorenzo Bernini.

   Langdon read the plaque twice, and still he was not convinced. Gianlorenzo Bernini was celebrated for his intricate, holy sculptures of the Virgin Mary, angels, prophets, Popes. What was he doing carving pyramids?
   Langdon looked up at the towering monuments and felt totally disoriented. Two pyramids, each with a shining, elliptical medallion. They were about as un-Christian as sculpture could get. The pyramids, the stars above, the signs of the Zodiac. All interior adornments are those of Gianlorenzo Bernini. If that were true, Langdon realized, it meant Vittoria had to be right. By default, Bernini was the Illuminati’s unknown master; nobody else had contributed artwork to this chapel! The implications came almost too fast for Langdon to process.
   Bernini was an Illuminatus.
   Bernini designed the Illuminati ambigrams.
   Bernini laid out the path of Illumination.
   Langdon could barely speak. Could it be that here in this tiny Chigi Chapel, the world-renowned Bernini had placed a sculpture that pointed across Rome toward the next altar of science?
   “Bernini,” he said. “I never would have guessed.”
   “Who other than a famous Vatican artist would have had the clout to put his artwork in specific Catholic chapels around Rome and create the Path of Illumination? Certainly not an unknown.”
   Langdon considered it. He looked at the pyramids, wondering if one of them could somehow be the marker. Maybe both of them? “The pyramids face opposite directions,” Langdon said, not sure what to make of them. “They are also identical, so I don’t know which…”
   “I don’t think the pyramids are what we’re looking for.”
   “But they’re the only sculptures here.”
   Vittoria cut him off by pointing toward Olivetti and some of his guards who were gathered near the demon’s hole.
   Langdon followed the line of her hand to the far wall. At first he saw nothing. Then someone moved and he caught a glimpse. White marble. An arm. A torso. And then a sculpted face. Partially hidden in its niche. Two life-size human figures intertwined. Langdon’s pulse accelerated. He had been so taken with the pyramids and demon’s hole, he had not even seen this sculpture. He moved across the room, through the crowd. As he drew near, Langdon recognized the work was pure Bernini—the intensity of the artistic composition, the intricate faces and flowing clothing, all from the purest white marble Vatican money could buy. It was not until he was almost directly in front of it that Langdon recognized the sculpture itself. He stared up at the two faces and gasped.
   “Who are they?” Vittoria urged, arriving behind him.
   Langdon stood astonished. “Habakkuk and the Angel,” he said, his voice almost inaudible. The piece was a fairly well-known Bernini work that was included in some art history texts. Langdon had forgotten it was here.
   “Habakkuk?”
   “Yes. The prophet who predicted the annihilation of the earth.”
   Vittoria looked uneasy. “You think this is the marker?”
   Langdon nodded in amazement. Never in his life had he been so sure of anything. This was the first Illuminati marker. No doubt. Although Langdon had fully expected the sculpture to somehow “point” to the next altar of science, he did not expect it to be literal. Both the angel and Habakkuk had their arms outstretched and were pointing into the distance.
   Langdon found himself suddenly smiling. “Not too subtle, is it?”
   Vittoria looked excited but confused. “I see them pointing, but they are contradicting each other. The angel is pointing one way, and the prophet the other.”
   Langdon chuckled. It was true. Although both figures were pointing into the distance, they were pointing in totally opposite directions. Langdon, however, had already solved that problem. With a burst of energy he headed for the door.
   “Where are you going?” Vittoria called.
   “Outside the building!” Langdon’s legs felt light again as he ran toward the door. “I need to see what direction that sculpture is pointing!”
   “Wait! How do you know which finger to follow?”
   “The poem,” he called over his shoulder. “The last line!”
   “ ‘Let angels guide you on your lofty quest?’ ” She gazed upward at the outstretched finger of the angel. Her eyes misted unexpectedly. “Well I’ll be damned!”

70
   Gunther Glick and Chinita Macri sat parked in the BBC van in the shadows at the far end of Piazza del Popolo. They had arrived shortly after the four Alpha Romeos, just in time to witness an inconceivable chain of events. Chinita still had no idea what it all meant, but she’d made sure the camera was rolling.
   As soon as they’d arrived, Chinita and Glick had seen a veritable army of young men pour out of the Alpha Romeos and surround the church. Some had weapons drawn. One of them, a stiff older man, led a team up the front steps of the church. The soldiers drew guns and blew the locks off the front doors. Macri heard nothing and figured they must have had silencers. Then the soldiers entered.
   Chinita had recommended they sit tight and film from the shadows. After all, guns were guns, and they had a clear view of the action from the van. Glick had not argued. Now, across the piazza, men moved in and out of the church. They yelled to each other. Chinita adjusted her camera to follow a team as they searched the surrounding area. All of them, though dressed in civilian clothes, seemed to move with military precision. “Who do you think they are?” she asked.
   “Hell if I know.” Glick looked riveted. “You getting all this?”
   “Every frame.”
   Glick sounded smug. “Still think we should go back to Pope-Watch?”
   Chinita wasn’t sure what to say. There was obviously something going on here, but she had been in journalism long enough to know that there was often a very dull explanation for interesting events. “This could be nothing,” she said. “These guys could have gotten the same tip you got and are just checking it out. Could be a false alarm.”
   Glick grabbed her arm. “Over there! Focus.” He pointed back to the church.
   Chinita swung the camera back to the top of the stairs. “Hello there,” she said, training on the man now emerging from the church.
   “Who’s the dapper?”
   Chinita moved in for a close-up. “Haven’t seen him before.” She tightened in on the man’s face and smiled. “But I wouldn’t mind seeing him again.”
   Robert Langdon dashed down the stairs outside the church and into the middle of the piazza. It was getting dark now, the springtime sun setting late in southern Rome. The sun had dropped below the surrounding buildings, and shadows streaked the square.
   “Okay, Bernini,” he said aloud to himself. “Where the hell is your angel pointing?”
   He turned and examined the orientation of the church from which he had just come. He pictured the Chigi Chapel inside, and the sculpture of the angel inside that. Without hesitation he turned due west, into the glow of the impending sunset. Time was evaporating.
   “Southwest,” he said, scowling at the shops and apartments blocking his view. “The next marker is out there.”
   Racking his brain, Langdon pictured page after page of Italian art history. Although very familiar with Bernini’s work, Langdon knew the sculptor had been far too prolific for any nonspecialist to know all of it. Still, considering the relative fame of the first marker—Habakkuk and the Angel–Langdon hoped the second marker was a work he might know from memory.
   Earth, Air, Fire, Water, he thought. Earth they had found—inside the Chapel of the Earth—Habakkuk, the prophet who predicted the earth’s annihilation.
   Air is next. Langdon urged himself to think. A Bernini sculpture that has something to do with Air! He was drawing a total blank. Still he felt energized. I’m on the path of Illumination! It is still intact!
   Looking southwest, Langdon strained to see a spire or cathedral tower jutting up over the obstacles. He saw nothing. He needed a map. If they could figure out what churches were southwest of here, maybe one of them would spark Langdon’s memory. Air, he pressed. Air. Bernini. Sculpture. Air. Think!
   Langdon turned and headed back up the cathedral stairs. He was met beneath the scaffolding by Vittoria and Olivetti.
   “Southwest,” Langdon said, panting. “The next church is southwest of here.”
   Olivetti’s whisper was cold. “You sure this time?”
   Langdon didn’t bite. “We need a map. One that shows all the churches in Rome.”
   The commander studied him a moment, his expression never changing.
   Langdon checked his watch. “We only have half an hour.”
   Olivetti moved past Langdon down the stairs toward his car, parked directly in front of the cathedral. Langdon hoped he was going for a map.
   Vittoria looked excited. “So the angel’s pointing southwest? No idea which churches are southwest?”
   “I can’t see past the damn buildings.” Langdon turned and faced the square again. “And I don’t know Rome’s churches well enou—” He stopped.
   Vittoria looked startled. “What?”
   Langdon looked out at the piazza again. Having ascended the church stairs, he was now higher, and his view was better. He still couldn’t see anything, but he realized he was moving in the right direction. His eyes climbed the tower of rickety scaffolding above him. It rose six stories, almost to the top of the church’s rose window, far higher than the other buildings in the square. He knew in an instant where he was headed.
   Across the square, Chinita Macri and Gunther Glick sat glued to the windshield of the BBC van.
   “You getting this?” Gunther asked.
   Macri tightened her shot on the man now climbing the scaffolding. “He’s a little well dressed to be playing Spiderman if you ask me.”
   “And who’s Ms. Spidey?”
   Chinita glanced at the attractive woman beneath the scaffolding. “Bet you’d like to find out.”
   “Think I should call editorial?”
   “Not yet. Let’s watch. Better to have something in the can before we admit we abandoned conclave.”
   “You think somebody really killed one of the old farts in there?”
   Chinita clucked. “You’re definitely going to hell.”
   “And I’ll be taking the Pulitzer with me.”

71
   The scaffolding seemed less stable the higher Langdon climbed. His view of Rome, however, got better with every step. He continued upward.
   He was breathing harder than he expected when he reached the upper tier. He pulled himself onto the last platform, brushed off the plaster, and stood up. The height did not bother him at all. In fact, it was invigorating.
   The view was staggering. Like an ocean on fire, the red-tiled rooftops of Rome spread out before him, glowing in the scarlet sunset. From that spot, for the first time in his life, Langdon saw beyond the pollution and traffic of Rome to its ancient roots—Cittа di Dio–The city of God.
   Squinting into the sunset, Langdon scanned the rooftops for a church steeple or bell tower. But as he looked farther and farther toward the horizon, he saw nothing. There are hundreds of churches in Rome, he thought. There must be one southwest of here! If the church is even visible, he reminded himself. Hell, if the church is even still standing!
   Forcing his eyes to trace the line slowly, he attempted the search again. He knew, of course, that not all churches would have visible spires, especially smaller, out-of-the-way sanctuaries. Not to mention, Rome had changed dramatically since the 1600s when churches were by law the tallest buildings allowed. Now, as Langdon looked out, he saw apartment buildings, high-rises, TV towers.
   For the second time, Langdon’s eye reached the horizon without seeing anything. Not one single spire. In the distance, on the very edge of Rome, Michelangelo’s massive dome blotted the setting sun. St. Peter’s Basilica. Vatican City. Langdon found himself wondering how the cardinals were faring, and if the Swiss Guards’ search had turned up the antimatter. Something told him it hadn’t… and wouldn’t.
   The poem was rattling through his head again. He considered it, carefully, line by line. From Santi’s earthly tomb with demon’s hole. They had found Santi’s tomb. ‘Cross Rome the mystic elements unfold. The mystic elements were Earth, Air, Fire, Water. The path of light is laid, the sacred test. The path of Illumination formed by Bernini’s sculptures. Let angels guide you on your lofty quest.
   The angel was pointing southwest…
   “Front stairs!” Glick exclaimed, pointing wildly through the windshield of the BBC van. “Something’s going on!”
   Macri dropped her shot back down to the main entrance. Something was definitely going on. At the bottom of the stairs, the military-looking man had pulled one of the Alpha Romeos close to the stairs and opened the trunk. Now he was scanning the square as if checking for onlookers. For a moment, Macri thought the man had spotted them, but his eyes kept moving. Apparently satisfied, he pulled out a walkie-talkie and spoke into it.
   Almost instantly, it seemed an army emerged from the church. Like an American football team breaking from a huddle, the soldiers formed a straight line across the top of the stairs. Moving like a human wall, they began to descend. Behind them, almost entirely hidden by the wall, four soldiers seemed to be carrying something. Something heavy. Awkward.
   Glick leaned forward on the dashboard. “Are they stealing something from the church?”
   Chinita tightened her shot even more, using the telephoto to probe the wall of men, looking for an opening. One split second, she willed. A single frame. That’s all I need. But the men moved as one. Come on! Macri stayed with them, and it paid off. When the soldiers tried to lift the object into the trunk, Macri found her opening. Ironically, it was the older man who faltered. Only for an instant, but long enough. Macri had her frame. Actually, it was more like ten frames.
   “Call editorial,” Chinita said. “We’ve got a dead body.”
   Far away, at CERN, Maximilian Kohler maneuvered his wheelchair into Leonardo Vetra’s study. With mechanical efficiency, he began sifting through Vetra’s files. Not finding what he was after, Kohler moved to Vetra’s bedroom. The top drawer of his bedside table was locked. Kohler pried it open with a knife from the kitchen.
   Inside Kohler found exactly what he was looking for.

72
   Langdon swung off the scaffolding and dropped back to the ground. He brushed the plaster dust from his clothes. Vittoria was there to greet him.
   “No luck?” she said.
   He shook his head.
   “They put the cardinal in the trunk.”
   Langdon looked over to the parked car where Olivetti and a group of soldiers now had a map spread out on the hood. “Are they looking southwest?”
   She nodded. “No churches. From here the first one you hit is St. Peter’s.”
   Langdon grunted. At least they were in agreement. He moved toward Olivetti. The soldiers parted to let him through.
   Olivetti looked up. “Nothing. But this doesn’t show every last church. Just the big ones. About fifty of them.”
   “Where are we?” Langdon asked.
   Olivetti pointed to Piazza del Popolo and traced a straight line exactly southwest. The line missed, by a substantial margin, the cluster of black squares indicating Rome’s major churches. Unfortunately, Rome’s major churches were also Rome’s older churches… those that would have been around in the 1600s.
   “I’ve got some decisions to make,” Olivetti said. “Are you certain of the direction?”
   Langdon pictured the angel’s outstretched finger, the urgency rising in him again. “Yes, sir. Positive.”
   Olivetti shrugged and traced the straight line again. The path intersected the Margherita Bridge, Via Cola di Riezo, and passed through Piazza del Risorgimento, hitting no churches at all until it dead-ended abruptly at the center of St. Peter’s Square.
   “What’s wrong with St. Peter’s?” one of the soldiers said. He had a deep scar under his left eye. “It’s a church.”
   Langdon shook his head. “Needs to be a public place. Hardly seems public at the moment.”
   “But the line goes through St. Peter’s Square,” Vittoria added, looking over Langdon’s shoulder. “The square is public.”
   Langdon had already considered it. “No statues, though.”
   “Isn’t there a monolith in the middle?”
   She was right. There was an Egyptian monolith in St. Peter’s Square. Langdon looked out at the monolith in the piazza in front of them. The lofty pyramid. An odd coincidence, he thought. He shook it off. “The Vatican’s monolith is not by Bernini. It was brought in by Caligula. And it has nothing to do with Air.” There was another problem as well. “Besides, the poem says the elements are spread across Rome. St. Peter’s Square is in Vatican City. Not Rome.”
   “Depends who you ask,” a guard interjected.
   Langdon looked up. “What?”
   “Always a bone of contention. Most maps show St. Peter’s Square as part of Vatican City, but because it’s outside the walled city, Roman officials for centuries have claimed it as part of Rome.”
   “You’re kidding,” Langdon said. He had never known that.
   “I only mention it,” the guard continued, “because Commander Olivetti and Ms. Vetra were asking about a sculpture that had to do with Air.”
   Langdon was wide-eyed. “And you know of one in St. Peter’s Square?”
   “Not exactly. It’s not really a sculpture. Probably not relevant.”
   “Let’s hear it,” Olivetti pressed.
   The guard shrugged. “The only reason I know about it is because I’m usually on piazza duty. I know every corner of St. Peter’s Square.”
   “The sculpture,” Langdon urged. “What does it look like?” Langdon was starting to wonder if the Illuminati could really have been gutsy enough to position their second marker right outside St. Peter’s Church.
   “I patrol past it every day,” the guard said. “It’s in the center, directly where that line is pointing. That’s what made me think of it. As I said, it’s not really a sculpture. It’s more of a… block.”
   Olivetti looked mad. “A block?”
   “Yes, sir. A marble block embedded in the square. At the base of the monolith. But the block is not a rectangle. It’s an ellipse. And the block is carved with the image of a billowing gust of wind.” He paused. “Air, I suppose, if you wanted to get scientific about it.”
   Langdon stared at the young soldier in amazement. “A relief!” he exclaimed suddenly.
   Everyone looked at him.
   “Relief,” Langdon said, “is the other half of sculpture!” Sculpture is the art of shaping figures in the round and also in relief. He had written the definition on chalkboards for years. Reliefs were essentially two-dimensional sculptures, like Abraham Lincoln’s profile on the penny. Bernini’s Chigi Chapel medallions were another perfect example.
   “Bassorelievo?” the guard asked, using the Italian art term.
   “Yes! Bas-relief!” Langdon rapped his knuckles on the hood. “I wasn’t thinking in those terms! That tile you’re talking about in St. Peter’s Square is called the West Ponente–the West Wind. It’s also known as Respiro di Dio.”
   “Breath of God?”
   “Yes! Air! And it was carved and put there by the original architect!”
   Vittoria looked confused. “But I thought Michelangelo designed St. Peter’s.”
   “Yes, the basilica!” Langdon exclaimed, triumph in his voice. “But St. Peter’s Square was designed by Bernini!”
   As the caravan of Alpha Romeos tore out of Piazza del Popolo, everyone was in too much of a hurry to notice the BBC van pulling out behind them.

73
   Gunther Glick floored the BBC van’s accelerator and swerved through traffic as he tailed the four speeding Alpha Romeos across the Tiber River on Ponte Margherita. Normally Glick would have made an effort to maintain an inconspicuous distance, but today he could barely keep up. These guys were flying.
   Macri sat in her work area in the back of the van finishing a phone call with London. She hung up and yelled to Glick over the sound of the traffic. “You want the good news or bad news?”
   Glick frowned. Nothing was ever simple when dealing with the home office. “Bad news.”
   “Editorial is burned we abandoned our post.”
   “Surprise.”
   “They also think your tipster is a fraud.”
   “Of course.”
   “And the boss just warned me that you’re a few crumpets short of a proper tea.”
   Glick scowled. “Great. And the good news?”
   “They agreed to look at the footage we just shot.”
   Glick felt his scowl soften into a grin. I guess we’ll see who’s short a few crumpets. “So fire it off.”
   “Can’t transmit until we stop and get a fixed cell read.”
   Glick gunned the van onto Via Cola di Rienzo. “Can’t stop now.” He tailed the Alpha Romeos through a hard left swerve around Piazza Risorgimento.
   Macri held on to her computer gear in back as everything slid. “Break my transmitter,” she warned, “and we’ll have to walk this footage to London.”
   “Sit tight, love. Something tells me we’re almost there.”
   Macri looked up. “Where?”
   Glick gazed out at the familiar dome now looming directly in front of them. He smiled. “Right back where we started.”
   The four Alpha Romeos slipped deftly into traffic surrounding St. Peter’s Square. They split up and spread out along the piazza perimeter, quietly unloading men at select points. The debarking guards moved into the throng of tourists and media vans on the edge of the square and instantly became invisible. Some of the guards entered the forest of pillars encompassing the colonnade. They too seemed to evaporate into the surroundings. As Langdon watched through the windshield, he sensed a noose tightening around St. Peter’s.
   In addition to the men Olivetti had just dispatched, the commander had radioed ahead to the Vatican and sent additional undercover guards to the center where Bernini’s West Ponente was located. As Langdon looked out at the wide-open spaces of St. Peter’s Square, a familiar question nagged. How does the Illuminati assassin plan to get away with this? How will he get a cardinal through all these people and kill him in plain view? Langdon checked his Mickey Mouse watch. It was 8:54 P.M. Six minutes.
   In the front seat, Olivetti turned and faced Langdon and Vittoria. “I want you two right on top of this Bernini brick or block or whatever the hell it is. Same drill. You’re tourists. Use the phone if you see anything.”
   Before Langdon could respond, Vittoria had his hand and was pulling him out of the car.
   The springtime sun was setting behind St. Peter’s Basilica, and a massive shadow spread, engulfing the piazza. Langdon felt an ominous chill as he and Vittoria moved into the cool, black umbra. Snaking through the crowd, Langdon found himself searching every face they passed, wondering if the killer was among them. Vittoria’s hand felt warm.
   As they crossed the open expanse of St. Peter’s Square, Langdon sensed Bernini’s sprawling piazza having the exact effect the artist had been commissioned to create—that of “humbling all those who entered.” Langdon certainly felt humbled at the moment. Humbled and hungry, he realized, surprised such a mundane thought could enter his head at a moment like this.
   “To the obelisk?” Vittoria asked.
   Langdon nodded, arching left across the piazza.
   “Time?” Vittoria asked, walking briskly, but casually.
   “Five of.”
   Vittoria said nothing, but Langdon felt her grip tighten. He was still carrying the gun. He hoped Vittoria would not decide she needed it. He could not imagine her whipping out a weapon in St. Peter’s Square and blowing away the kneecaps of some killer while the global media looked on. Then again, an incident like that would be nothing compared to the branding and murder of a cardinal out here.
   Air, Langdon thought. The second element of science. He tried to picture the brand. The method of murder. Again he scanned the sprawling expanse of granite beneath his feet—St. Peter’s Square—an open desert surrounded by Swiss Guard. If the Hassassin really dared attempt this, Langdon could not imagine how he would escape.
   In the center of the piazza rose Caligula’s 350-ton Egyptian obelisk. It stretched eighty-one feet skyward to the pyramidal apex onto which was affixed a hollow iron cross. Sufficiently high to catch the last of the evening sun, the cross shone as if magic… purportedly containing relics of the cross on which Christ was crucified.
   Two fountains flanked the obelisk in perfect symmetry. Art historians knew the fountains marked the exact geometric focal points of Bernini’s elliptical piazza, but it was an architectural oddity Langdon had never really considered until today. It seemed Rome was suddenly filled with ellipses, pyramids, and startling geometry.
   As they neared the obelisk, Vittoria slowed. She exhaled heavily, as if coaxing Langdon to relax along with her. Langdon made the effort, lowering his shoulders and loosening his clenched jaw.
   Somewhere around the obelisk, boldly positioned outside the largest church in the world, was the second altar of science—Bernini’s West Ponente–an elliptical block in St. Peter’s Square.
   Gunther Glick watched from the shadows of the pillars surrounding St. Peter’s Square. On any other day the man in the tweed jacket and the woman in khaki shorts would not have interested him in the least. They appeared to be nothing but tourists enjoying the square. But today was not any other day. Today had been a day of phone tips, corpses, unmarked cars racing through Rome, and men in tweed jackets climbing scaffolding in search of God only knew what. Glick would stay with them.
   He looked out across the square and saw Macri. She was exactly where he had told her to go, on the far side of the couple, hovering on their flank. Macri carried her video camera casually, but despite her imitation of a bored member of the press, she stood out more than Glick would have liked. No other reporters were in this far corner of the square, and the acronym “BBC” stenciled on her camera was drawing some looks from tourists.
   The tape Macri had shot earlier of the naked body dumped in the trunk was playing at this very moment on the VCR transmitter back in the van. Glick knew the images were sailing over his head right now en route to London. He wondered what editorial would say.
   He wished he and Macri had reached the body sooner, before the army of plainclothed soldiers had intervened. The same army, he knew, had now fanned out and surrounded this piazza. Something big was about to happen.
   The media is the right arm of anarchy, the killer had said. Glick wondered if he had missed his chance for a big scoop. He looked out at the other media vans in the distance and watched Macri tailing the mysterious couple across the piazza. Something told Glick he was still in the game…

74
   Langdon saw what he was looking for a good ten yards before they reached it. Through the scattered tourists, the white marble ellipse of Bernini’s West Ponente stood out against the gray granite cubes that made up the rest of the piazza. Vittoria apparently saw it too. Her hand tensed.
   “Relax,” Langdon whispered. “Do your piranha thing.”
   Vittoria loosened her grip.
   As they drew nearer, everything seemed forbiddingly normal. Tourists wandered, nuns chatted along the perimeter of the piazza, a girl fed pigeons at the base of the obelisk.
   Langdon refrained from checking his watch. He knew it was almost time.
   The elliptical stone arrived beneath their feet, and Langdon and Vittoria slowed to a stop—not overeagerly—just two tourists pausing dutifully at a point of mild interest.
   “West Ponente,” Vittoria said, reading the inscription on the stone.
   Langdon gazed down at the marble relief and felt suddenly naive. Not in his art books, not in his numerous trips to Rome, not ever had West Ponente’s significance jumped out at him.
   Not until now.
   The relief was elliptical, about three feet long, and carved with a rudimentary face—a depiction of the West Wind as an angel-like countenance. Gusting from the angel’s mouth, Bernini had drawn a powerful breath of air blowing outward away from the Vatican… the breath of God. This was Bernini’s tribute to the second element… Air… an ethereal zephyr blown from angel’s lips. As Langdon stared, he realized the significance of the relief went deeper still. Bernini had carved the air in five distinct gusts… five! What was more, flanking the medallion were two shining stars. Langdon thought of Galileo. Two stars, five gusts, ellipses, symmetry… He felt hollow. His head hurt.
   Vittoria began walking again almost immediately, leading Langdon away from the relief. “I think someone’s following us,” she said.
   Langdon looked up. “Where?”
   Vittoria moved a good thirty yards before speaking. She pointed up at the Vatican as if showing Langdon something on the dome. “The same person has been behind us all the way across the square.” Casually, Vittoria glanced over her shoulder. “Still on us. Keep moving.”
   “You think it’s the Hassassin?”
   Vittoria shook her head. “Not unless the Illuminati hires women with BBC cameras.”
   When the bells of St. Peter’s began their deafening clamor, both Langdon and Vittoria jumped. It was time. They had circled away from West Ponente in an attempt to lose the reporter but were now moving back toward the relief.
   Despite the clanging bells, the area seemed perfectly calm. Tourists wandered. A homeless drunk dozed awkwardly at the base of the obelisk. A little girl fed pigeons. Langdon wondered if the reporter had scared the killer off. Doubtful, he decided, recalling the killer’s promise. I will make your cardinals media luminaries.
   As the echo of the ninth bell faded away, a peaceful silence descended across the square.
   Then… the little girl began to scream.

75
   Langdon was the first to reach the screaming girl.
   The terrified youngster stood frozen, pointing at the base of the obelisk where a shabby, decrepit drunk sat slumped on the stairs. The man was a miserable sight… apparently one of Rome’s homeless. His gray hair hung in greasy strands in front of his face, and his entire body was wrapped in some sort of dirty cloth. The girl kept screaming as she scampered off into the crowd.
   Langdon felt an upsurge of dread as he dashed toward the invalid. There was a dark, widening stain spreading across the man’s rags. Fresh, flowing blood.
   Then, it was as if everything happened at once.
   The old man seemed to crumple in the middle, tottering forward. Langdon lunged, but he was too late. The man pitched forward, toppled off the stairs, and hit the pavement facedown. Motionless.
   Langdon dropped to his knees. Vittoria arrived beside him. A crowd was gathering.
   Vittoria put her fingers on the man’s throat from behind. “There’s a pulse,” she declared. “Roll him.”
   Langdon was already in motion. Grasping the man’s shoulders, he rolled the body. As he did, the loose rags seemed to slough away like dead flesh. The man flopped limp onto his back. Dead center of his naked chest was a wide area of charred flesh.
   Vittoria gasped and pulled back.
   Langdon felt paralyzed, pinned somewhere between nausea and awe. The symbol had a terrifying simplicity to it.


   “Air,” Vittoria choked. “It’s… him.”
   Swiss Guards appeared from out of nowhere, shouting orders, racing after an unseen assassin.
   Nearby, a tourist explained that only minutes ago, a dark-skinned man had been kind enough to help this poor, wheezing, homeless man across the square… even sitting a moment on the stairs with the invalid before disappearing back into the crowd.
   Vittoria ripped the rest of the rags off the man’s abdomen. He had two deep puncture wounds, one on either side of the brand, just below his rib cage. She cocked the man’s head back and began to administer mouth to mouth. Langdon was not prepared for what happened next. As Vittoria blew, the wounds on either side of the man’s midsection hissed and sprayed blood into the air like blowholes on a whale. The salty liquid hit Langdon in the face.
   Vittoria stopped short, looking horrified. “His lungs…” she stammered. “They’re… punctured.”
   Langdon wiped his eyes as he looked down at the two perforations. The holes gurgled. The cardinal’s lungs were destroyed. He was gone.
   Vittoria covered the body as the Swiss Guards moved in.
   Langdon stood, disoriented. As he did, he saw her. The woman who had been following them earlier was crouched nearby. Her BBC video camera was shouldered, aimed, and running. She and Langdon locked eyes, and he knew she’d gotten it all. Then, like a cat, she bolted.

76
   Chinita Macri was on the run. She had the story of her life.
   Her video camera felt like an anchor as she lumbered across St. Peter’s Square, pushing through the gathering crowd. Everyone seemed to be moving in the opposite direction than her… toward the commotion. Macri was trying to get as far away as possible. The man in the tweed jacket had seen her, and now she sensed others were after her, men she could not see, closing in from all sides.
   Macri was still aghast from the images she had just recorded. She wondered if the dead man was really who she feared he was. Glick’s mysterious phone contact suddenly seemed a little less crazy.
   As she hurried in the direction of the BBC van, a young man with a decidedly militaristic air emerged from the crowd before her. Their eyes met, and they both stopped. Like lightning, he raised a walkie-talkie and spoke into it. Then he moved toward her. Macri wheeled and doubled back into the crowd, her heart pounding.
   As she stumbled through the mass of arms and legs, she removed the spent video cassette from her camera. Cellulose gold, she thought, tucking the tape under her belt flush to her backside and letting her coat tails cover it. For once she was glad she carried some extra weight. Glick, where the hell are you!
   Another soldier appeared to her left, closing in. Macri knew she had little time. She banked into the crowd again. Yanking a blank cartridge from her case, she slapped it into the camera. Then she prayed.
   She was thirty yards from the BBC van when the two men materialized directly in front of her, arms folded. She was going nowhere.
   “Film,” one snapped. “Now.”
   Macri recoiled, wrapping her arms protectively around her camera. “No chance.”
   One of the men pulled aside his jacket, revealing a sidearm.
   “So shoot me,” Macri said, amazed by the boldness of her voice.
   “Film,” the first one repeated.
   Where the devil is Glick? Macri stamped her foot and yelled as loudly as possible, “I am a professional videographer with the BBC! By Article 12 of the Free Press Act, this film is property of the British Broadcast Corporation!”
   The men did not flinch. The one with the gun took a step toward her. “I am a lieutenant with the Swiss Guard, and by the Holy Doctrine governing the property on which you are now standing, you are subject to search and seizure.”
   A crowd had started to gather now around them.
   Macri yelled, “I will not under any circumstances give you the film in this camera without speaking to my editor in London. I suggest you—”
   The guards ended it. One yanked the camera out of her hands. The other forcibly grabbed her by the arm and twisted her in the direction of the Vatican. “Grazie,” he said, leading her through a jostling crowd.
   Macri prayed they would not search her and find the tape. If she could somehow protect the film long enough to—
   Suddenly, the unthinkable happened. Someone in the crowd was groping under her coat. Macri felt the video yanked away from her. She wheeled, but swallowed her words. Behind her, a breathless Gunther Glick gave her a wink and dissolved back into the crowd.