87
   Langdon’s watch, now smeared with blood, read 9:41 P.M. as he ran across the Courtyard of the Belvedere and approached the fountain outside the Swiss Guard security center. His hand had stopped bleeding and now felt worse than it looked. As he arrived, it seemed everyone convened at once—Olivetti, Rocher, the camerlegno, Vittoria, and a handful of guards.
   Vittoria hurried toward him immediately. “Robert, you’re hurt.”
   Before Langdon could answer, Olivetti was before him. “Mr. Langdon, I’m relieved you’re okay. I’m sorry about the crossed signals in the archives.”
   “Crossed signals?” Langdon demanded. “You knew damn well—”
   “It was my fault,” Rocher said, stepping forward, sounding contrite. “I had no idea you were in the archives. Portions of our white zones are cross-wired with that building. We were extending our search. I’m the one who killed power. If I had known…”
   “Robert,” Vittoria said, taking his wounded hand in hers and looking it over, “the Pope was poisoned. The Illuminati killed him.”
   Langdon heard the words, but they barely registered. He was saturated. All he could feel was the warmth of Vittoria’s hands.
   The camerlegno pulled a silk handkerchief from his cassock and handed it to Langdon so he could clean himself. The man said nothing. His green eyes seemed filled with a new fire.
   “Robert,” Vittoria pressed, “you said you found where the next cardinal is going to be killed?”
   Langdon felt flighty. “I do, it’s at the—”
   “No,” Olivetti interrupted. “Mr. Langdon, when I asked you not to speak another word on the walkie-talkie, it was for a reason.” He turned to the handful of assembled Swiss Guards. “Excuse us, gentlemen.”
   The soldiers disappeared into the security center. No indignity. Only compliance.
   Olivetti turned back to the remaining group. “As much as it pains me to say this, the murder of our Pope is an act that could only have been accomplished with help from within these walls. For the good of all, we can trust no one. Including our guards.” He seemed to be suffering as he spoke the words.
   Rocher looked anxious. “Inside collusion implies—”
   “Yes,” Olivetti said. “The integrity of your search is compromised. And yet it is a gamble we must take. Keep looking.”
   Rocher looked like he was about to say something, thought better of it, and left.
   The camerlegno inhaled deeply. He had not said a word yet, and Langdon sensed a new rigor in the man, as if a turning point had been reached.
   “Commander?” The camerlegno’s tone was impermeable. “I am going to break conclave.”
   Olivetti pursed his lips, looking dour. “I advise against it. We still have two hours and twenty minutes.”
   “A heartbeat.”
   Olivetti’s tone was now challenging “What do you intend to do? Evacuate the cardinals single-handedly?”
   “I intend to save this church with whatever power God has given me. How I proceed is no longer your concern.”
   Olivetti straightened. “Whatever you intend to do…” He paused. “I do not have the authority to restrain you. Particularly in light of my apparent failure as head of security. I ask only that you wait. Wait twenty minutes… until after ten o’clock. If Mr. Langdon’s information is correct, I may still have a chance to catch this assassin. There is still a chance to preserve protocol and decorum.”
   “Decorum?” The camerlegno let out a choked laugh. “We have long since passed propriety, commander. In case you hadn’t noticed, this is war.”
   A guard emerged from the security center and called out to the camerlegno, “Signore, I just got word we have detained the BBC reporter, Mr. Glick.”
   The camerlegno nodded. “Have both he and his camerawoman meet me outside the Sistine Chapel.”
   Olivetti’s eyes widened. “What are you doing?”
   “Twenty minutes, commander. That’s all I’m giving you.” Then he was gone.
   When Olivetti’s Alpha Romeo tore out of Vatican City, this time there was no line of unmarked cars following him. In the back seat, Vittoria bandaged Langdon’s hand with a first-aid kit she’d found in the glove box.
   Olivetti stared straight ahead. “Okay, Mr. Langdon. Where are we going?”

88
   Even with its siren now affixed and blaring, Olivetti’s Alpha Romeo seemed to go unnoticed as it rocketed across the bridge into the heart of old Rome. All the traffic was moving in the other direction, toward the Vatican, as if the Holy See had suddenly become the hottest entertainment in Rome.
   Langdon sat in the backseat, the questions whipping through his mind. He wondered about the killer, if they would catch him this time, if he would tell them what they needed to know, if it was already too late. How long before the camerlegno told the crowd in St. Peter’s Square they were in danger? The incident in the vault still nagged. A mistake.
   Olivetti never touched the brakes as he snaked the howling Alpha Romeo toward the Church of Santa Maria della Vittoria. Langdon knew on any other day his knuckles would have been white. At the moment, however, he felt anesthetized. Only the throbbing in his hand reminded him where he was.
   Overhead, the siren wailed. Nothing like telling him we’re coming, Langdon thought. And yet they were making incredible time. He guessed Olivetti would kill the siren as they drew nearer.
   Now with a moment to sit and reflect, Langdon felt a tinge of amazement as the news of the Pope’s murder finally registered in his mind. The thought was inconceivable, and yet somehow it seemed a perfectly logical event. Infiltration had always been the Illuminati powerbase—rearrangements of power from within. And it was not as if Popes had never been murdered. Countless rumors of treachery abounded, although with no autopsy, none was ever confirmed. Until recently. Academics not long ago had gotten permission to X-ray the tomb of Pope Celestine V, who had allegedly died at the hands of his overeager successor, Boniface VIII. The researchers had hoped the X-ray might reveal some small hint of foul play—a broken bone perhaps. Incredibly, the X-ray had revealed a ten-inch nail driven into the Pope’s skull.
   Langdon now recalled a series of news clippings fellow Illuminati buffs had sent him years ago. At first he had thought the clippings were a prank, so he’d gone to the Harvard microfiche collection to confirm the articles were authentic. Incredibly, they were. He now kept them on his bulletin board as examples of how even respectable news organizations sometimes got carried away with Illuminati paranoia. Suddenly, the media’s suspicions seemed a lot less paranoid. Langdon could see the articles clearly in his mind…

The British Broadcasting Corporation
June 14, 1998

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

The New York Times
August 24, 1998

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

London Daily Mail
August 27, 1998

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

   The cellular in Vittoria’s pocket rang, thankfully erasing the memories from Langdon’s mind.
   Vittoria answered, looking confused as to who might be calling her. Even from a few feet away, Langdon recognized the laserlike voice on the phone.
   “Vittoria? This is Maximilian Kohler. Have you found the antimatter yet?”
   “Max? You’re okay?”
   “I saw the news. There was no mention of CERN or the antimatter. This is good. What is happening?”
   “We haven’t located the canister yet. The situation is complex. Robert Langdon has been quite an asset. We have a lead on catching the man assassinating cardinals. Right now we are headed—”
   “Ms. Vetra,” Olivetti interrupted. “You’ve said enough.”
   She covered the receiver, clearly annoyed. “Commander, this is the president of CERN. Certainly he has a right to—”
   “He has a right,” Olivetti snapped, “to be here handling this situation. You’re on an open cellular line. You’ve said enough.”
   Vittoria took a deep breath. “Max?”
   “I may have some information for you,” Max said. “About your father… I may know who he told about the antimatter.”
   Vittoria’s expression clouded. “Max, my father said he told no one.”
   “I’m afraid, Vittoria, your father did tell someone. I need to check some security records. I will be in touch soon.” The line went dead.
   Vittoria looked waxen as she returned the phone to her pocket.
   “You okay?” Langdon asked.
   Vittoria nodded, her trembling fingers revealing the lie.
   “The church is on Piazza Barberini,” Olivetti said, killing the siren and checking his watch. “We have nine minutes.”
   When Langdon had first realized the location of the third marker, the position of the church had rung some distant bell for him. Piazza Barberini. Something about the name was familiar… something he could not place. Now Langdon realized what it was. The piazza was the sight of a controversial subway stop. Twenty years ago, construction of the subway terminal had created a stir among art historians who feared digging beneath Piazza Barberini might topple the multiton obelisk that stood in the center. City planners had removed the obelisk and replaced it with a small fountain called the Triton.
   In Bernini’s day, Langdon now realized, Piazza Barberini had contained an obelisk! Whatever doubts Langdon had felt that this was the location of the third marker now totally evaporated.
   A block from the piazza, Olivetti turned into an alley, gunned the car halfway down, and skidded to a stop. He pulled off his suit jacket, rolled up his sleeves, and loaded his weapon.
   “We can’t risk your being recognized,” he said. “You two were on television. I want you across the piazza, out of sight, watching the front entrance. I’m going in the back.” He produced a familiar pistol and handed it to Langdon. “Just in case.”
   Langdon frowned. It was the second time today he had been handed the gun. He slid it into his breast pocket. As he did, he realized he was still carrying the folio from Diagramma. He couldn’t believe he had forgotten to leave it behind. He pictured the Vatican Curator collapsing in spasms of outrage at the thought of this priceless artifact being packed around Rome like some tourist map. Then Langdon thought of the mess of shattered glass and strewn documents that he’d left behind in the archives. The curator had other problems. If the archives even survive the night…
   Olivetti got out of the car and motioned back up the alley. “The piazza is that way. Keep your eyes open and don’t let yourselves be seen.” He tapped the phone on his belt. “Ms. Vetra, let’s retest our auto dial.”
   Vittoria removed her phone and hit the auto dial number she and Olivetti had programmed at the Pantheon. Olivetti’s phone vibrated in silent-ring mode on his belt.
   The commander nodded. “Good. If you see anything, I want to know.” He cocked his weapon. “I’ll be inside waiting. This heathen is mine.”
   At that moment, very nearby, another cellular phone was ringing.
   The Hassassin answered. “Speak.”
   “It is I,” the voice said. “Janus.”
   The Hassassin smiled. “Hello, master.”
   “Your position may be known. Someone is coming to stop you.”
   “They are too late. I have already made the arrangements here.”
   “Good. Make sure you escape alive. There is work yet to be done.”
   “Those who stand in my way will die.”
   “Those who stand in your way are knowledgeable.”
   “You speak of an American scholar?”
   “You are aware of him?”
   The Hassassin chuckled. “Cool-tempered but naive. He spoke to me on the phone earlier. He is with a female who seems quite the opposite.” The killer felt a stirring of arousal as he recalled the fiery temperament of Leonardo Vetra’s daughter.
   There was a momentary silence on the line, the first hesitation the Hassassin had ever sensed from his Illuminati master. Finally, Janus spoke. “Eliminate them if need be.”
   The killer smiled. “Consider it done.” He felt a warm anticipation spreading through his body. Although the woman I may keep as a prize.

89
   War had broken out in St. Peter’s Square.
   The piazza had exploded into a frenzy of aggression. Media trucks skidded into place like assault vehicles claiming beachheads. Reporters unfurled high-tech electronics like soldiers arming for battle. All around the perimeter of the square, networks jockeyed for position as they raced to erect the newest weapon in media wars—flat-screen displays.
   Flat-screen displays were enormous video screens that could be assembled on top of trucks or portable scaffolding. The screens served as a kind of billboard advertisement for the network, broadcasting that network’s coverage and corporate logo like a drive-in movie. If a screen were well-situated—in front of the action, for example—a competing network could not shoot the story without including an advertisement for their competitor.
   The square was quickly becoming not only a multimedia extravaganza, but a frenzied public vigil. Onlookers poured in from all directions. Open space in the usually limitless square was fast becoming a valuable commodity. People clustered around the towering flat-screen displays, listening to live reports in stunned excitement.
   Only a hundred yards away, inside the thick walls of St. Peter’s Basilica, the world was serene. Lieutenant Chartrand and three other guards moved through the darkness. Wearing their infrared goggles, they fanned out across the nave, swinging their detectors before them. The search of Vatican City’s public access areas so far had yielded nothing.
   “Better remove your goggles up here,” the senior guard said.
   Chartrand was already doing it. They were nearing the Niche of the Palliums—the sunken area in the center of the basilica. It was lit by ninety-nine oil lamps, and the amplified infrared would have seared their eyes.
   Chartrand enjoyed being out of the heavy goggles, and he stretched his neck as they descended into the sunken niche to scan the area. The room was beautiful… golden and glowing. He had not been down here yet.
   It seemed every day since Chartrand had arrived in Vatican City he had learned some new Vatican mystery. These oil lamps were one of them. There were exactly ninety-nine lamps burning at all times. It was tradition. The clergy vigilantly refilled the lamps with sacred oils such that no lamp ever burned out. It was said they would burn until the end of time.
   Or at least until midnight, Chartrand thought, feeling his mouth go dry again.
   Chartrand swung his detector over the oil lamps. Nothing hidden in here. He was not surprised; the canister, according to the video feed, was hidden in a dark area.
   As he moved across the niche, he came to a bulkhead grate covering a hole in the floor. The hole led to a steep and narrow stairway that went straight down. He had heard stories about what lay down there. Thankfully, they would not have to descend. Rocher’s orders were clear. Search only the public access areas; ignore the white zones.
   “What’s that smell?” he asked, turning away from the grate. The niche smelled intoxicatingly sweet.
   “Fumes from the lamps,” one of them replied.
   Chartrand was surprised. “Smells more like cologne than kerosene.”
   “It’s not kerosene. These lamps are close to the papal altar, so they take a special, ambiental mixture—ethanol, sugar, butane, and perfume.”
   “Butane?” Chartrand eyed the lamps uneasily.
   The guard nodded. “Don’t spill any. Smells like heaven, but burns like hell.”
   The guards had completed searching the Niche of the Palliums and were moving across the basilica again when their walkie-talkies went off.
   It was an update. The guards listened in shock.
   Apparently there were troubling new developments, which could not be shared on-air, but the camerlegno had decided to break tradition and enter conclave to address the cardinals. Never before in history had this been done. Then again, Chartrand realized, never before in history had the Vatican been sitting on what amounted to some sort of neoteric nuclear warhead.
   Chartrand felt comforted to know the camerlegno was taking control. The camerlegno was the person inside Vatican City for whom Chartrand held the most respect. Some of the guards thought of the camerlegno as a beato–a religious zealot whose love of God bordered on obsession—but even they agreed… when it came to fighting the enemies of God, the camerlegno was the one man who would stand up and play hardball.
   The Swiss Guards had seen a lot of the camerlegno this week in preparation for conclave, and everyone had commented that the man seemed a bit rough around the edges, his verdant eyes a bit more intense than usual. Not surprisingly, they had all commented; not only was the camerlegno responsible for planning the sacred conclave, but he had to do it immediately on the heels of the loss of his mentor, the Pope.
   Chartrand had only been at the Vatican a few months when he heard the story of the bomb that blew up the camerlegno’s mother before the kid’s very eyes. A bomb in church… and now it’s happening all over again. Sadly, the authorities never caught the bastards who planted the bomb… probably some anti-Christian hate group they said, and the case faded away. No wonder the camerlegno despised apathy.
   A couple months back, on a peaceful afternoon inside Vatican City, Chartrand had bumped into the camerlegno coming across the grounds. The camerlegno had apparently recognized Chartrand as a new guard and invited him to accompany him on a stroll. They had talked about nothing in particular, and the camerlegno made Chartrand feel immediately at home.
   “Father,” Chartrand said, “may I ask you a strange question?”
   The camerlegno smiled. “Only if I may give you a strange answer.”
   Chartrand laughed. “I have asked every priest I know, and I still don’t understand.”
   “What troubles you?” The camerlegno led the way in short, quick strides, his frock kicking out in front of him as he walked. His black, crepe-sole shoes seemed befitting, Chartrand thought, like reflections of the man’s essence… modern but humble, and showing signs of wear.
   Chartrand took a deep breath. “I don’t understand this omnipotent-benevolent thing.”
   The camerlegno smiled. “You’ve been reading Scripture.”
   “I try.”
   “You are confused because the Bible describes God as an omnipotent and benevolent deity.”
   “Exactly.”
   “Omnipotent-benevolent simply means that God is all-powerful and well-meaning.”
   “I understand the concept. It’s just… there seems to be a contradiction.”
   “Yes. The contradiction is pain. Man’s starvation, war, sickness…”
   “Exactly!” Chartrand knew the camerlegno would understand. “Terrible things happen in this world. Human tragedy seems like proof that God could not possibly be both all-powerful and well-meaning. If He loves us and has the power to change our situation, He would prevent our pain, wouldn’t He?”
   The camerlegno frowned. “Would He?”
   Chartrand felt uneasy. Had he overstepped his bounds? Was this one of those religious questions you just didn’t ask? “Well… if God loves us, and He can protect us, He would have to. It seems He is either omnipotent and uncaring, or benevolent and powerless to help.”
   “Do you have children, Lieutenant?”
   Chartrand flushed. “No, signore.”
   “Imagine you had an eight-year-old son… would you love him?”
   “Of course.”
   “Would you do everything in your power to prevent pain in his life?”
   “Of course.”
   “Would you let him skateboard?”
   Chartrand did a double take. The camerlegno always seemed oddly “in touch” for a clergyman. “Yeah, I guess,” Chartrand said. “Sure, I’d let him skateboard, but I’d tell him to be careful.”
   “So as this child’s father, you would give him some basic, good advice and then let him go off and make his own mistakes?”
   “I wouldn’t run behind him and mollycoddle him if that’s what you mean.”
   “But what if he fell and skinned his knee?”
   “He would learn to be more careful.”
   The camerlegno smiled. “So although you have the power to interfere and prevent your child’s pain, you would choose to show your love by letting him learn his own lessons?”
   “Of course. Pain is part of growing up. It’s how we learn.”
   The camerlegno nodded. “Exactly.”

90
   Langdon and Vittoria observed Piazza Barberini from the shadows of a small alleyway on the western corner. The church was opposite them, a hazy cupola emerging from a faint cluster of buildings across the square. The night had brought with it a welcome cool, and Langdon was surprised to find the square deserted. Above them, through open windows, blaring televisions reminded Langdon where everyone had disappeared to.


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


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

HOTEL BERNINI

   “Five of ten,” Vittoria said, cat eyes darting around the square. No sooner had she spoken the words than she grabbed Langdon’s arm and pulled him back into the shadows. She motioned into the center of the square.
   Langdon followed her gaze. When he saw it, he stiffened.
   Crossing in front of them, beneath a street lamp, two dark figures appeared. Both were cloaked, their heads covered with dark mantles, the traditional black covering of Catholic widows. Langdon would have guessed they were women, but he couldn’t be sure in the dark. One looked elderly and moved as if in pain, hunched over. The other, larger and stronger, was helping.
   “Give me the gun,” Vittoria said.
   “You can’t just—”
   Fluid as a cat, Vittoria was in and out of his pocket once again. The gun glinted in her hand. Then, in absolute silence, as if her feet never touched the cobblestone, she was circling left in the shadows, arching across the square to approach the couple from the rear. Langdon stood transfixed as Vittoria disappeared. Then, swearing to himself, he hurried after her.
   The couple was moving slowly, and it was only a matter of half a minute before Langdon and Vittoria were positioned behind them, closing in from the rear. Vittoria concealed the gun beneath casually crossed arms in front of her, out of sight but accessible in a flash. She seemed to float faster and faster as the gap lessened, and Langdon battled to keep up. When his shoes scuffed a stone and sent it skittering, Vittoria shot him a sideways glare. But the couple did not seem to hear. They were talking.
   At thirty feet, Langdon could start to hear voices. No words. Just faint murmurings. Beside him, Vittoria moved faster with every step. Her arms loosened before her, the gun starting to peek out. Twenty feet. The voices were clearer—one much louder than the other. Angry. Ranting. Langdon sensed it was the voice of an old woman. Gruff. Androgynous. He strained to hear what she was saying, but another voice cut the night.
   “Mi scusi!” Vittoria’s friendly tone lit the square like a torch.
   Langdon tensed as the cloaked couple stopped short and began to turn. Vittoria kept striding toward them, even faster now, on a collision course. They would have no time to react. Langdon realized his own feet had stopped moving. From behind, he saw Vittoria’s arms loosening, her hand coming free, the gun swinging forward. Then, over her shoulder, he saw a face, lit now in the street lamp. The panic surged to his legs, and he lunged forward. “Vittoria, no!”
   Vittoria, however, seemed to exist a split second ahead of him. In a motion as swift as it was casual, Vittoria’s arms were raised again, the gun disappearing as she clutched herself like a woman on a chilly night. Langdon stumbled to her side, almost colliding with the cloaked couple before them.
   “Buona sera,” Vittoria blurted, her voice startled with retreat.
   Langdon exhaled in relief. Two elderly women stood before them scowling out from beneath their mantles. One was so old she could barely stand. The other was helping her. Both clutched rosaries. They seemed confused by the sudden interruption.
   Vittoria smiled, although she looked shaken. “Dov’è la chiesa Santa Maria della Vittoria? Where is the Church of—”
   The two women motioned in unison to a bulky silhouette of a building on an inclined street from the direction they had come. “È là.”
   “Grazie,” Langdon said, putting his hands on Vittoria’s shoulders and gently pulling her back. He couldn’t believe they’d almost attacked a pair of old ladies.
   “Non si puó entrare,” one woman warned. “È chiusa temprano.”
   “Closed early?” Vittoria looked surprised. “Perchè?”
   Both women explained at once. They sounded irate. Langdon understood only parts of the grumbling Italian. Apparently, the women had been inside the church fifteen minutes ago praying for the Vatican in its time of need, when some man had appeared and told them the church was closing early.
   “Hanno conosciuto l’uomo?” Vittoria demanded, sounding tense. “Did you know the man?”
   The women shook their heads. The man was a straniero crudo, they explained, and he had forcibly made everyone inside leave, even the young priest and janitor, who said they were calling the police. But the intruder had only laughed, telling them to be sure the police brought cameras.
   Cameras? Langdon wondered.
   The women clucked angrily and called the man a bar-аrabo. Then, grumbling, they continued on their way.
   “Bar-аrabo?” Langdon asked Vittoria. “A barbarian?”
   Vittoria looked suddenly taut. “Not quite. Bar-аrabo is derogatory wordplay. It means Аrabo… Arab.”
   Langdon felt a shiver and turned toward the outline of the church. As he did, his eyes glimpsed something in the church’s stained-glass windows. The image shot dread through his body.
   Unaware, Vittoria removed her cell phone and pressed the auto dial. “I’m warning Olivetti.”
   Speechless, Langdon reached out and touched her arm. With a tremulous hand, he pointed to the church.
   Vittoria let out a gasp.
   Inside the building, glowing like evil eyes through the stained-glass windows… shone the growing flash of flames.

91
   Langdon and Vittoria dashed to the main entrance of the church of Santa Maria della Vittoria and found the wooden door locked. Vittoria fired three shots from Olivetti’s semi-automatic into the ancient bolt, and it shattered.
   The church had no anteroom, so the entirety of the sanctuary spread out in one gasping sweep as Langdon and Vittoria threw open the main door. The scene before them was so unexpected, so bizarre, that Langdon had to close his eyes and reopen them before his mind could take it all in.
   The church was lavish baroque… gilded walls and altars. Dead center of the sanctuary, beneath the main cupola, wooden pews had been stacked high and were now ablaze in some sort of epic funeral pyre. A bonfire shooting high into the dome. As Langdon’s eyes followed the inferno upward, the true horror of the scene descended like a bird of prey.
   High overhead, from the left and right sides of the ceiling, hung two incensor cables—lines used for swinging frankincense vessels above the congregation. These lines, however, carried no incensors now. Nor were they swinging. They had been used for something else…
   Suspended from the cables was a human being. A naked man. Each wrist had been connected to an opposing cable, and he had been hoisted almost to the point of being torn apart. His arms were outstretched in a spread-eagle as if he were nailed to some sort of invisible crucifix hovering within the house of God.
   Langdon felt paralyzed as he stared upward. A moment later, he witnessed the final abomination. The old man was alive, and he raised his head. A pair of terrified eyes gazed down in a silent plea for help. On the man’s chest was a scorched emblem. He had been branded. Langdon could not see it clearly, but he had little doubt what the marking said. As the flames climbed higher, lapping at the man’s feet, the victim let out a cry of pain, his body trembling.
   As if ignited by some unseen force, Langdon felt his body suddenly in motion, dashing down the main aisle toward the conflagration. His lungs filled with smoke as he closed in. Ten feet from the inferno, at a full sprint, Langdon hit a wall of heat. The skin on his face singed, and he fell back, shielding his eyes and landing hard on the marble floor. Staggering upright, he pressed forward again, hands raised in protection.
   Instantly he knew. The fire was far too hot.
   Moving back again, he scanned the chapel walls. A heavy tapestry, he thought. If I can somehow smother the… But he knew a tapestry was not to be found. This is a baroque chapel, Robert, not some damn German castle! Think! He forced his eyes back to the suspended man.
   High above, smoke and flames swirled in the cupola. The incensor cables stretched outward from the man’s wrists, rising to the ceiling where they passed through pulleys, and descended again to metal cleats on either side of the church. Langdon looked over at one of the cleats. It was high on the wall, but he knew if he could get to it and loosen one of the lines, the tension would slacken and the man would swing wide of the fire.
   A sudden surge of flames crackled higher, and Langdon heard a piercing scream from above. The skin on the man’s feet was starting to blister. The cardinal was being roasted alive. Langdon fixed his sights on the cleat and ran for it.
   In the rear of the church, Vittoria clutched the back of a pew, trying to gather her senses. The image overhead was horrid. She forced her eyes away. Do something! She wondered where Olivetti was. Had he seen the Hassassin? Had he caught him? Where were they now? Vittoria moved forward to help Langdon, but as she did, a sound stopped her.
   The crackling of the flames was getting louder by the instant, but a second sound also cut the air. A metallic vibration. Nearby. The repetitive pulse seemed to emanate from the end of the pews to her left. It was a stark rattle, like the ringing of a phone, but stony and hard. She clutched the gun firmly and moved down the row of pews. The sound grew louder. On. Off. A recurrent vibration.
   As she approached the end of the aisle, she sensed the sound was coming from the floor just around the corner at the end of the pews. As she moved forward, gun outstretched in her right hand, she realized she was also holding something in her left hand—her cell phone. In her panic she had forgotten that outside she had used it to dial the commander… setting off his phone’s silent vibration feature as a warning. Vittoria raised her phone to her ear. It was still ringing. The commander had never answered. Suddenly, with rising fear, Vittoria sensed she knew what was making the sound. She stepped forward, trembling.
   The entire church seemed to sink beneath her feet as her eyes met the lifeless form on the floor. No stream of liquid flowed from the body. No signs of violence tattooed the flesh. There was only the fearful geometry of the commander’s head… torqued backward, twisted 180 degrees in the wrong direction. Vittoria fought the images of her own father’s mangled body.
   The phone on the commander’s belt lay against the floor, vibrating over and over against the cold marble. Vittoria hung up her own phone, and the ringing stopped. In the silence, Vittoria heard a new sound. A breathing in the dark directly behind her.
   She started to spin, gun raised, but she knew she was too late. A laser beam of heat screamed from the top of her skull to the soles of her feet as the killer’s elbow crashed down on the back of her neck.
   “Now you are mine,” a voice said.
   Then, everything went black.
   Across the sanctuary, on the left lateral wall, Langdon balanced atop a pew and scraped upward on the wall trying to reach the cleat. The cable was still six feet above his head. Cleats like these were common in churches and were placed high to prevent tampering. Langdon knew priests used wooden ladders called piuòli to access the cleats. The killer had obviously used the church’s ladder to hoist his victim. So where the hell is the ladder now! Langdon looked down, searching the floor around him. He had a faint recollection of seeing a ladder in here somewhere. But where? A moment later his heart sank. He realized where he had seen it. He turned toward the raging fire. Sure enough, the ladder was high atop the blaze, engulfed in flames.
   Filled now with desperation, Langdon scanned the entire church from his raised platform, looking for anything at all that could help him reach the cleat. As his eyes probed the church, he had a sudden realization.
   Where the hell is Vittoria? She had disappeared. Did she go for help? Langdon screamed out her name, but there was no response. And where is Olivetti?
   There was a howl of pain from above, and Langdon sensed he was already too late. As his eyes went skyward again and saw the slowly roasting victim, Langdon had thoughts for only one thing. Water. Lots of it. Put out the fire. At least lower the flames.” I need water, damn it!” he yelled out loud.
   “That’s next,” a voice growled from the back of the church.
   Langdon wheeled, almost falling off the pews.
   Striding up the side aisle directly toward him came a dark monster of a man. Even in the glow of the fire, his eyes burned black. Langdon recognized the gun in his hand as the one from his own jacket pocket… the one Vittoria had been carrying when they came in.
   The sudden wave of panic that rose in Langdon was a frenzy of disjunct fears. His initial instinct was for Vittoria. What had this animal done to her? Was she hurt? Or worse? In the same instant, Langdon realized the man overhead was screaming louder. The cardinal would die. Helping him now was impossible. Then, as the Hassassin leveled the gun at Langdon’s chest, Langdon’s panic turned inward, his senses on overload. He reacted on instinct as the shot went off. Launching off the bench, Langdon sailed arms first over the sea of church pews.
   When he hit the pews, he hit harder than he had imagined, immediately rolling to the floor. The marble cushioned his fall with all the grace of cold steel. Footsteps closed to his right. Langdon turned his body toward the front of the church and began scrambling for his life beneath the pews.
   High above the chapel floor, Cardinal Guidera endured his last torturous moments of consciousness. As he looked down the length of his naked body, he saw the skin on his legs begin to blister and peel away. I am in hell, he decided. God, why hast thou forsaken me? He knew this must be hell because he was looking at the brand on his chest upside down… and yet, as if by the devil’s magic, the word made perfect sense.

92
   Three ballotings. No Pope.
   Inside the Sistine Chapel, Cardinal Mortati had begun praying for a miracle. Send us the candidates! The delay had gone long enough. A single missing candidate, Mortati could understand. But all four? It left no options. Under these conditions, achieving a two-thirds majority would take an act of God Himself.
   When the bolts on the outer door began to grind open, Mortati and the entire College of Cardinals wheeled in unison toward the entrance. Mortati knew this unsealing could mean only one thing. By law, the chapel door could only be unsealed for two reasons—to remove the very ill, or to admit late cardinals.
   The preferiti are coming!
   Mortati’s heart soared. Conclave had been saved.
   But when the door opened, the gasp that echoed through the chapel was not one of joy. Mortati stared in incredulous shock as the man walked in. For the first time in Vatican history, a camerlegno had just crossed the sacred threshold of conclave after sealing the doors.
   What is he thinking!
   The camerlegno strode to the altar and turned to address the thunderstruck audience. “Signori,” he said, “I have waited as long as I can. There is something you have a right to know.”

93
   Langdon had no idea where he was going. Reflex was his only compass, driving him away from danger. His elbows and knees burned as he clambered beneath the pews. Still he clawed on. Somewhere a voice was telling him to move left. If you can get to the main aisle, you can dash for the exit. He knew it was impossible. There’s a wall of flames blocking the main aisle! His mind hunting for options, Langdon scrambled blindly on. The footsteps closed faster now to his right.
   When it happened, Langdon was unprepared. He had guessed he had another ten feet of pews until he reached the front of the church. He had guessed wrong. Without warning, the cover above him ran out. He froze for an instant, half exposed at the front of the church. Rising in the recess to his left, gargantuan from this vantage point, was the very thing that had brought him here. He had entirely forgotten. Bernini’s Ecstasy of St. Teresa rose up like some sort of pornographic still life… the saint on her back, arched in pleasure, mouth open in a moan, and over her, an angel pointing his spear of fire.
   A bullet exploded in the pew over Langdon’s head. He felt his body rise like a sprinter out of a gate. Fueled only by adrenaline, and barely conscious of his actions, he was suddenly running, hunched, head down, pounding across the front of the church to his right. As the bullets erupted behind him, Langdon dove yet again, sliding out of control across the marble floor before crashing in a heap against the railing of a niche on the right-hand wall.
   It was then that he saw her. A crumpled heap near the back of the church. Vittoria! Her bare legs were twisted beneath her, but Langdon sensed somehow that she was breathing. He had no time to help her.
   Immediately, the killer rounded the pews on the far left of the church and bore relentlessly down. Langdon knew in a heartbeat it was over. The killer raised the weapon, and Langdon did the only thing he could do. He rolled his body over the banister into the niche. As he hit the floor on the other side, the marble columns of the balustrade exploded in a storm of bullets.
   Langdon felt like a cornered animal as he scrambled deeper into the semicircular niche. Rising before him, the niche’s sole contents seemed ironically apropos—a single sarcophagus. Mine perhaps, Langdon thought. Even the casket itself seemed fitting. It was a scаtola–a small, unadorned, marble box. Burial on a budget. The casket was raised off the floor on two marble blocks, and Langdon eyed the opening beneath it, wondering if he could slide through.
   Footsteps echoed behind him.
   With no other option in sight, Langdon pressed himself to the floor and slithered toward the casket. Grabbing the two marble supports, one with each hand, he pulled like a breaststroker, dragging his torso into the opening beneath the tomb. The gun went off.
   Accompanying the roar of the gun, Langdon felt a sensation he had never felt in his life… a bullet sailing past his flesh. There was a hiss of wind, like the backlash of a whip, as the bullet just missed him and exploded in the marble with a puff of dust. Blood surging, Langdon heaved his body the rest of the way beneath the casket. Scrambling across the marble floor, he pulled himself out from beneath the casket and to the other side.
   Dead end.
   Langdon was now face to face with the rear wall of the niche. He had no doubt that this tiny space behind the tomb would become his grave. And soon, he realized, as he saw the barrel of the gun appear in the opening beneath the sarcophagus. The Hassassin held the weapon parallel with the floor, pointing directly at Langdon’s midsection.
   Impossible to miss.
   Langdon felt a trace of self-preservation grip his unconscious mind. He twisted his body onto his stomach, parallel with the casket. Facedown, he planted his hands flat on the floor, the glass cut from the archives pinching open with a stab. Ignoring the pain, he pushed. Driving his body upward in an awkward push-up, Langdon arched his stomach off the floor just as the gun went off. He could feel the shock wave of the bullets as they sailed beneath him and pulverized the porous travertine behind. Closing his eyes and straining against exhaustion, Langdon prayed for the thunder to stop.
   And then it did.
   The roar of gunfire was replaced with the cold click of an empty chamber.
   Langdon opened his eyes slowly, almost fearful his eyelids would make a sound. Fighting the trembling pain, he held his position, arched like a cat. He didn’t even dare breathe. His eardrums numbed by gunfire, Langdon listened for any hint of the killer’s departure. Silence. He thought of Vittoria and ached to help her.
   The sound that followed was deafening. Barely human. A guttural bellow of exertion.
   The sarcophagus over Langdon’s head suddenly seemed to rise on its side. Langdon collapsed on the floor as hundreds of pounds teetered toward him. Gravity overcame friction, and the lid was the first to go, sliding off the tomb and crashing to the floor beside him. The casket came next, rolling off its supports and toppling upside down toward Langdon.
   As the box rolled, Langdon knew he would either be entombed in the hollow beneath it or crushed by one of the edges. Pulling in his legs and head, Langdon compacted his body and yanked his arms to his sides. Then he closed his eyes and awaited the sickening crush.
   When it came, the entire floor shook beneath him. The upper rim landed only millimeters from the top of his head, rattling his teeth in their sockets. His right arm, which Langdon had been certain would be crushed, miraculously still felt intact. He opened his eyes to see a shaft of light. The right rim of the casket had not fallen all the way to the floor and was still propped partially on its supports. Directly overhead, though, Langdon found himself staring quite literally into the face of death.
   The original occupant of the tomb was suspended above him, having adhered, as decaying bodies often did, to the bottom of the casket. The skeleton hovered a moment, like a tentative lover, and then with a sticky crackling, it succumbed to gravity and peeled away. The carcass rushed down to embrace him, raining putrid bones and dust into Langdon’s eyes and mouth.
   Before Langdon could react, a blind arm was slithering through the opening beneath the casket, sifting through the carcass like a hungry python. It groped until it found Langdon’s neck and clamped down. Langdon tried to fight back against the iron fist now crushing his larynx, but he found his left sleeve pinched beneath the edge of the coffin. He had only one arm free, and the fight was a losing battle.
   Langdon’s legs bent in the only open space he had, his feet searching for the casket floor above him. He found it. Coiling, he planted his feet. Then, as the hand around his neck squeezed tighter, Langdon closed his eyes and extended his legs like a ram. The casket shifted, ever so slightly, but enough.
   With a raw grinding, the sarcophagus slid off the supports and landed on the floor. The casket rim crashed onto the killer’s arm, and there was a muffled scream of pain. The hand released Langdon’s neck, twisting and jerking away into the dark. When the killer finally pulled his arm free, the casket fell with a conclusive thud against the flat marble floor.
   Complete darkness. Again.
   And silence.
   There was no frustrated pounding outside the overturned sarcophagus. No prying to get in. Nothing. As Langdon lay in the dark amidst a pile of bones, he fought the closing darkness and turned his thoughts to her.
   Vittoria. Are you alive?
   If Langdon had known the truth—the horror to which Vittoria would soon awake—he would have wished for her sake that she were dead.

94
   Sitting in the Sistine Chapel among his stunned colleagues, Cardinal Mortati tried to comprehend the words he was hearing. Before him, lit only by the candlelight, the camerlegno had just told a tale of such hatred and treachery that Mortati found himself trembling. The camerlegno spoke of kidnapped cardinals, branded cardinals, murdered cardinals. He spoke of the ancient Illuminati—a name that dredged up forgotten fears—and of their resurgence and vow of revenge against the church. With pain in his voice, the camerlegno spoke of his late Pope… the victim of an Illuminati poisoning. And finally, his words almost a whisper, he spoke of a deadly new technology, antimatter, which in less than two hours threatened to destroy all of Vatican City.
   When he was through, it was as if Satan himself had sucked the air from the room. Nobody could move. The camerlegno’s words hung in the darkness.
   The only sound Mortati could now hear was the anomalous hum of a television camera in back—an electronic presence no conclave in history had ever endured—but a presence demanded by the camerlegno. To the utter astonishment of the cardinals, the camerlegno had entered the Sistine Chapel with two BBC reporters—a man and a woman—and announced that they would be transmitting his solemn statement, live to the world.
   Now, speaking directly to the camera, the camerlegno stepped forward. “To the Illuminati,” he said, his voice deepening, “and to those of science, let me say this.” He paused. “You have won the war.”
   The silence spread now to the deepest corners of the chapel. Mortati could hear the desperate thumping of his own heart.
   “The wheels have been in motion for a long time,” the camerlegno said. “Your victory has been inevitable. Never before has it been as obvious as it is at this moment. Science is the new God.”
   What is he saying? Mortati thought. Has he gone mad? The entire world is hearing this!
   “Medicine, electronic communications, space travel, genetic manipulation… these are the miracles about which we now tell our children. These are the miracles we herald as proof that science will bring us the answers. The ancient stories of immaculate conceptions, burning bushes, and parting seas are no longer relevant. God has become obsolete. Science has won the battle. We concede.”
   A rustle of confusion and bewilderment swept through the chapel.
   “But science’s victory,” the camerlegno added, his voice intensifying, “has cost every one of us. And it has cost us deeply.”
   Silence.
   “Science may have alleviated the miseries of disease and drudgery and provided an array of gadgetry for our entertainment and convenience, but it has left us in a world without wonder. Our sunsets have been reduced to wavelengths and frequencies. The complexities of the universe have been shredded into mathematical equations. Even our self-worth as human beings has been destroyed. Science proclaims that Planet Earth and its inhabitants are a meaningless speck in the grand scheme. A cosmic accident.” He paused. “Even the technology that promises to unite us, divides us. Each of us is now electronically connected to the globe, and yet we feel utterly alone. We are bombarded with violence, division, fracture, and betrayal. Skepticism has become a virtue. Cynicism and demand for proof has become enlightened thought. Is it any wonder that humans now feel more depressed and defeated than they have at any point in human history? Does science hold anything sacred? Science looks for answers by probing our unborn fetuses. Science even presumes to rearrange our own DNA. It shatters God’s world into smaller and smaller pieces in quest of meaning… and all it finds is more questions.”
   Mortati watched in awe. The camerlegno was almost hypnotic now. He had a physical strength in his movements and voice that Mortati had never witnessed on a Vatican altar. The man’s voice was wrought with conviction and sadness.
   “The ancient war between science and religion is over,” the camerlegno said. “You have won. But you have not won fairly. You have not won by providing answers. You have won by so radically reorienting our society that the truths we once saw as signposts now seem inapplicable. Religion cannot keep up. Scientific growth is exponential. It feeds on itself like a virus. Every new breakthrough opens doors for new breakthroughs. Mankind took thousands of years to progress from the wheel to the car. Yet only decades from the car into space. Now we measure scientific progress in weeks. We are spinning out of control. The rift between us grows deeper and deeper, and as religion is left behind, people find themselves in a spiritual void. We cry out for meaning. And believe me, we do cry out. We see UFOs, engage in channeling, spirit contact, out-of-body experiences, mindquests—all these eccentric ideas have a scientific veneer, but they are unashamedly irrational. They are the desperate cry of the modern soul, lonely and tormented, crippled by its own enlightenment and its inability to accept meaning in anything removed from technology.”
   Mortati could feel himself leaning forward in his seat. He and the other cardinals and people around the world were hanging on this priest’s every utterance. The camerlegno spoke with no rhetoric or vitriol. No references to scripture or Jesus Christ. He spoke in modern terms, unadorned and pure. Somehow, as though the words were flowing from God himself, he spoke the modern language… delivering the ancient message. In that moment, Mortati saw one of the reasons the late Pope held this young man so dear. In a world of apathy, cynicism, and technological deification, men like the camerlegno, realists who could speak to our souls like this man just had, were the church’s only hope.
   The camerlegno was talking more forcefully now. “Science, you say, will save us. Science, I say, has destroyed us. Since the days of Galileo, the church has tried to slow the relentless march of science, sometimes with misguided means, but always with benevolent intention. Even so, the temptations are too great for man to resist. I warn you, look around yourselves. The promises of science have not been kept. Promises of efficiency and simplicity have bred nothing but pollution and chaos. We are a fractured and frantic species… moving down a path of destruction.”
   The camerlegno paused a long moment and then sharpened his eyes on the camera.
   “Who is this God science? Who is the God who offers his people power but no moral framework to tell you how to use that power? What kind of God gives a child fire but does not warn the child of its dangers? The language of science comes with no signposts about good and bad. Science textbooks tell us how to create a nuclear reaction, and yet they contain no chapter asking us if it is a good or a bad idea.
   “To science, I say this. The church is tired. We are exhausted from trying to be your signposts. Our resources are drying up from our campaign to be the voice of balance as you plow blindly on in your quest for smaller chips and larger profits. We ask not why you will not govern yourselves, but how can you? Your world moves so fast that if you stop even for an instant to consider the implications of your actions, someone more efficient will whip past you in a blur. So you move on. You proliferate weapons of mass destruction, but it is the Pope who travels the world beseeching leaders to use restraint. You clone living creatures, but it is the church reminding us to consider the moral implications of our actions. You encourage people to interact on phones, video screens, and computers, but it is the church who opens its doors and reminds us to commune in person as we were meant to do. You even murder unborn babies in the name of research that will save lives. Again, it is the church who points out the fallacy of this reasoning.
   “And all the while, you proclaim the church is ignorant. But who is more ignorant? The man who cannot define lightning, or the man who does not respect its awesome power? This church is reaching out to you. Reaching out to everyone. And yet the more we reach, the more you push us away. Show me proof there is a God, you say. I say use your telescopes to look to the heavens, and tell me how there could not be a God!” The camerlegno had tears in his eyes now. “You ask what does God look like. I say, where did that question come from? The answers are one and the same. Do you not see God in your science? How can you miss Him! You proclaim that even the slightest change in the force of gravity or the weight of an atom would have rendered our universe a lifeless mist rather than our magnificent sea of heavenly bodies, and yet you fail to see God’s hand in this? Is it really so much easier to believe that we simply chose the right card from a deck of billions? Have we become so spiritually bankrupt that we would rather believe in mathematical impossibility than in a power greater than us?
   “Whether or not you believe in God,” the camerlegno said, his voice deepening with deliberation, “you must believe this. When we as a species abandon our trust in the power greater than us, we abandon our sense of accountability. Faith… all faiths… are admonitions that there is something we cannot understand, something to which we are accountable… With faith we are accountable to each other, to ourselves, and to a higher truth. Religion is flawed, but only because man is flawed. If the outside world could see this church as I do… looking beyond the ritual of these walls… they would see a modern miracle… a brotherhood of imperfect, simple souls wanting only to be a voice of compassion in a world spinning out of control.”
   The camerlegno motioned out over the College of Cardinals, and the BBC camerawoman instinctively followed, panning the crowd.
   “Are we obsolete?” the camerlegno asked. “Are these men dino-saurs? Am I? Does the world really need a voice for the poor, the weak, the oppressed, the unborn child? Do we really need souls like these who, though imperfect, spend their lives imploring each of us to read the signposts of morality and not lose our way?”
   Mortati now realized that the camerlegno, whether consciously or not, was making a brilliant move. By showing the cardinals, he was personalizing the church. Vatican City was no longer a building, it was people–people like the camerlegno who had spent their lives in the service of goodness.
   “Tonight we are perched on a precipice,” the camerlegno said. “None of us can afford to be apathetic. Whether you see this evil as Satan, corruption, or immorality… the dark force is alive and growing every day. Do not ignore it.” The camerlegno lowered his voice to a whisper, and the camera moved in. “The force, though mighty, is not invincible. Goodness can prevail. Listen to your hearts. Listen to God. Together we can step back from this abyss.”
   Now Mortati understood. This was the reason. Conclave had been violated, but this was the only way. It was a dramatic and desperate plea for help. The camerlegno was speaking to both his enemy and his friends now. He was entreating anyone, friend or foe, to see the light and stop this madness. Certainly someone listening would realize the insanity of this plot and come forward.
   The camerlegno knelt at the altar. “Pray with me.”
   The College of Cardinals dropped to their knees to join him in prayer. Outside in St. Peter’s Square and around the globe… a stunned world knelt with them.

95
   The Hassassin lay his unconscious trophy in the rear of the van and took a moment to admire her sprawled body. She was not as beautiful as the women he bought, and yet she had an animal strength that excited him. Her body was radiant, dewy with perspiration. She smelled of musk.
   As the Hassasin stood there savoring his prize, he ignored the throb in his arm. The bruise from the falling sarcophagus, although painful, was insignificant… well worth the compensation that lay before him. He took consolation in knowing the American who had done this to him was probably dead by now.
   Gazing down at his incapacitated prisoner, the Hassassin visualized what lay ahead. He ran a palm up beneath her shirt. Her breasts felt perfect beneath her bra. Yes, he smiled. You are more than worthy. Fighting the urge to take her right there, he closed the door and drove off into the night.
   There was no need to alert the press about this killing… the flames would do that for him.
   At CERN, Sylvie sat stunned by the camerlegno’s address. Never before had she felt so proud to be a Catholic and so ashamed to work at CERN. As she left the recreational wing, the mood in every single viewing room was dazed and somber. When she got back to Kohler’s office, all seven phone lines were ringing. Media inquiries were never routed to Kohler’s office, so the incoming calls could only be one thing.
   Geld. Money calls.
   Antimatter technology already had some takers.
   Inside the Vatican, Gunther Glick was walking on air as he followed the camerlegno from the Sistine Chapel. Glick and Macri had just made the live transmission of the decade. And what a transmission it had been. The camerlegno had been spellbinding.
   Now out in the hallway, the camerlegno turned to Glick and Macri. “I have asked the Swiss Guard to assemble photos for you—photos of the branded cardinals as well as one of His late Holiness. I must warn you, these are not pleasant pictures. Ghastly burns. Blackened tongues. But I would like you to broadcast them to the world.”
   Glick decided it must be perpetual Christmas inside Vatican City. He wants me to broadcast an exclusive photo of the dead Pope? “Are you sure?” Glick asked, trying to keep the excitement from his voice.
   The camerlegno nodded. “The Swiss Guard will also provide you a live video feed of the antimatter canister as it counts down.”
   Glick stared. Christmas. Christmas. Christmas!
   “The Illuminati are about to find out,” the camerlegno declared, “that they have grossly overplayed their hand.”

96
   Like a recurring theme in some demonic symphony, the suffocating darkness had returned.
   No light. No air. No exit.
   Langdon lay trapped beneath the overturned sarcophagus and felt his mind careening dangerously close to the brink. Trying to drive his thoughts in any direction other than the crushing space around him, Langdon urged his mind toward some logical process… mathematics, music, anything. But there was no room for calming thoughts. I can’t move! I can’t breathe!
   The pinched sleeve of his jacket had thankfully come free when the casket fell, leaving Langdon now with two mobile arms. Even so, as he pressed upward on the ceiling of his tiny cell, he found it immovable. Oddly, he wished his sleeve were still caught. At least it might create a crack for some air.
   As Langdon pushed against the roof above, his sleeve fell back to reveal the faint glow of an old friend. Mickey. The greenish cartoon face seemed mocking now.
   Langdon probed the blackness for any other sign of light, but the casket rim was flush against the floor. Goddamn Italian perfectionists, he cursed, now imperiled by the same artistic excellence he taught his students to revere… impeccable edges, faultless parallels, and of course, use only of the most seamless and resilient Carrara marble.
   Precision can be suffocating.
   “Lift the damn thing,” he said aloud, pressing harder through the tangle of bones. The box shifted slightly. Setting his jaw, he heaved again. The box felt like a boulder, but this time it raised a quarter of an inch. A fleeting glimmer of light surrounded him, and then the casket thudded back down. Langdon lay panting in the dark. He tried to use his legs to lift as he had before, but now that the sarcophagus had fallen flat, there was no room even to straighten his knees.
   As the claustrophobic panic closed in, Langdon was overcome by images of the sarcophagus shrinking around him. Squeezed by delirium, he fought the illusion with every logical shred of intellect he had.
   “Sarcophagus,” he stated aloud, with as much academic sterility as he could muster. But even erudition seemed to be his enemy today. Sarcophagus is from the Greek “sarx” meaning “flesh,” and “phagein” meaning “to eat.” I’m trapped in a box literally designed to “eat flesh.”
   Images of flesh eaten from bone only served as a grim reminder that Langdon lay covered in human remains. The notion brought nausea and chills. But it also brought an idea.
   Fumbling blindly around the coffin, Langdon found a shard of bone. A rib maybe? He didn’t care. All he wanted was a wedge. If he could lift the box, even a crack, and slide the bone fragment beneath the rim, then maybe enough air could…
   Reaching across his body and wedging the tapered end of the bone into the crack between the floor and the coffin, Langdon reached up with his other hand and heaved skyward. The box did not move. Not even slightly. He tried again. For a moment, it seemed to tremble slightly, but that was all.
   With the fetid stench and lack of oxygen choking the strength from his body, Langdon realized he only had time for one more effort. He also knew he would need both arms.
   Regrouping, he placed the tapered edge of the bone against the crack, and shifting his body, he wedged the bone against his shoulder, pinning it in place. Careful not to dislodge it, he raised both hands above him. As the stifling confine began to smother him, he felt a welling of intensified panic. It was the second time today he had been trapped with no air. Hollering aloud, Langdon thrust upward in one explosive motion. The casket jostled off the floor for an instant. But long enough. The bone shard he had braced against his shoulder slipped outward into the widening crack. When the casket fell again, the bone shattered. But this time Langdon could see the casket was propped up. A tiny slit of light showed beneath the rim.
   Exhausted, Langdon collapsed. Hoping the strangling sensation in his throat would pass, he waited. But it only worsened as the seconds passed. Whatever air was coming through the slit seemed imperceptible. Langdon wondered if it would be enough to keep him alive. And if so, for how long? If he passed out, who would know he was even in there?
   With arms like lead, Langdon raised his watch again: 10:12 P.M. Fighting trembling fingers, he fumbled with the watch and made his final play. He twisted one of the tiny dials and pressed a button.
   As consciousness faded, and the walls squeezed closer, Langdon felt the old fears sweep over him. He tried to imagine, as he had so many times, that he was in an open field. The image he conjured, however, was no help. The nightmare that had haunted him since his youth came crashing back…


       The flowers here are like paintings, the child thought, laughing as he ran across the meadow. He wished his parents had come along. But his parents were busy pitching camp.
       “Don’t explore too far,” his mother had said.
       He had pretended not to hear as he bounded off into the woods.
       Now, traversing this glorious field, the boy came across a pile of fieldstones. He figured it must be the foundation of an old homestead. He would not go near it. He knew better. Besides, his eyes had been drawn to something else—a brilliant lady’s slipper—the rarest and most beautiful flower in New Hampshire. He had only ever seen them in books.
       Excited, the boy moved toward the flower. He knelt down. The ground beneath him felt mulchy and hollow. He realized his flower had found an extra-fertile spot. It was growing from a patch of rotting wood.
       Thrilled by the thought of taking home his prize, the boy reached out… fingers extending toward the stem.
       He never reached it.
       With a sickening crack, the earth gave way.
       In the three seconds of dizzying terror as he fell, the boy knew he would die. Plummeting downward, he braced for the bone-crushing collision. When it came, there was no pain. Only softness.
       And cold.
       He hit the deep liquid face first, plunging into a narrow blackness. Spinning disoriented somersaults, he groped the sheer walls thatenclosed him on all sides. Somehow, as if by instinct, he sputtered to the surface.
       Light.
       Faint. Above him. Miles above him, it seemed.
       His arms clawed at the water, searching the walls of the hollow for something to grab onto. Only smooth stone. He had fallen through an abandoned well covering. He screamed for help, but his cries reverberated in the tight shaft. He called out again and again. Above him, the tattered hole grew dim.
       Night fell.
       Time seemed to contort in the darkness. Numbness set in as he treaded water in the depths of the chasm, calling, crying out. He was tormented by visions of the walls collapsing in, burying him alive. His arms ached with fatigue. A few times he thought he heard voices. He shouted out, but his own voice was muted… like a dream.
       As the night wore on, the shaft deepened. The walls inched quietly inward. The boy pressed out against the enclosure, pushing it away. Exhausted, he wanted to give up. And yet he felt the water buoy him, cooling his burning fears until he was numb.
       When the rescue team arrived, they found the boy barely conscious. He had been treading water for five hours. Two days later, the Boston Globe ran a front-page story called “The Little Swimmer That Could.”