97
   The Hassassin smiled as he pulled his van into the mammoth stone structure overlooking the Tiber River. He carried his prize up and up… spiraling higher in the stone tunnel, grateful his load was slender.
   He arrived at the door.
   The Church of Illumination, he gloated. The ancient Illuminati meeting room. Who would have imagined it to be here?
   Inside, he lay her on a plush divan. Then he expertly bound her arms behind her back and tied her feet. He knew that what he longed for would have to wait until his final task was finished. Water.
   Still, he thought, he had a moment for indulgence. Kneeling beside her, he ran his hand along her thigh. It was smooth. Higher. His dark fingers snaked beneath the cuff of her shorts. Higher.
   He stopped. Patience, he told himself, feeling aroused. There is work to be done.
   He walked for a moment out onto the chamber’s high stone balcony. The evening breeze slowly cooled his ardor. Far below the Tiber raged. He raised his eyes to the dome of St. Peter’s, three quarters of a mile away, naked under the glare of hundreds of press lights.
   “Your final hour,” he said aloud, picturing the thousands of Muslims slaughtered during the Crusades. “At midnight you will meet your God.”
   Behind him, the woman stirred. The Hassassin turned. He considered letting her wake up. Seeing terror in a woman’s eyes was his ultimate aphrodisiac.
   He opted for prudence. It would be better if she remained unconscious while he was gone. Although she was tied and would never escape, the Hassassin did not want to return and find her exhausted from struggling. I want your strength preserved… for me.
   Lifting her head slightly, he placed his palm beneath her neck and found the hollow directly beneath her skull. The crown/meridian pressure point was one he had used countless times. With crushing force, he drove his thumb into the soft cartilage and felt it depress. The woman slumped instantly. Twenty minutes, he thought. She would be a tantalizing end to a perfect day. After she had served him and died doing it, he would stand on the balcony and watch the midnight Vatican fireworks.
   Leaving his prize unconscious on the couch, the Hassassin went downstairs into a torchlit dungeon. The final task. He walked to the table and revered the sacred, metal forms that had been left there for him.
   Water. It was his last.
   Removing a torch from the wall as he had done three times already, he began heating the end. When the end of the object was white hot, he carried it to the cell.
   Inside, a single man stood in silence. Old and alone.
   “Cardinal Baggia,” the killer hissed. “Have you prayed yet?”
   The Italian’s eyes were fearless. “Only for your soul.”

98
   The six pompieri firemen who responded to the fire at the Church of Santa Maria Della Vittoria extinguished the bonfire with blasts of Halon gas. Water was cheaper, but the steam it created would have ruined the frescoes in the chapel, and the Vatican paid Roman pompieri a healthy stipend for swift and prudent service in all Vatican-owned buildings.
   Pompieri, by the nature of their work, witnessed tragedy almost daily, but the execution in this church was something none of them would ever forget. Part crucifixion, part hanging, part burning at the stake, the scene was something dredged from a Gothic nightmare.
   Unfortunately, the press, as usual, had arrived before the fire department. They’d shot plenty of video before the pompieri cleared the church. When the firemen finally cut the victim down and lay him on the floor, there was no doubt who the man was.
   “Cardinale Guidera,” one whispered. “Di Barcellona.”
   The victim was nude. The lower half of his body was crimson-black, blood oozing through gaping cracks in his thighs. His shinbones were exposed. One fireman vomited. Another went outside to breathe.
   The true horror, though, was the symbol seared on the cardinal’s chest. The squad chief circled the corpse in awestruck dread. Lavoro del diavolo, he said to himself. Satan himself did this. He crossed himself for the first time since childhood.
   “Un’ altro corpo!” someone yelled. One of the firemen had found another body.
   The second victim was a man the chief recognized immediately. The austere commander of the Swiss Guard was a man for whom few public law enforcement officials had any affection. The chief called the Vatican, but all the circuits were busy. He knew it didn’t matter. The Swiss Guard would hear about this on television in a matter of minutes.
   As the chief surveyed the damage, trying to recreate what possibly could have gone on here, he saw a niche riddled with bullet holes. A coffin had been rolled off its supports and fallen upside down in an apparent struggle. It was a mess. That’s for the police and Holy See to deal with, the chief thought, turning away.
   As he turned, though, he stopped. Coming from the coffin he heard a sound. It was not a sound any fireman ever liked to hear.
   “Bomba!” he cried out. “Tutti fuori!”
   When the bomb squad rolled the coffin over, they discovered the source of the electronic beeping. They stared, confused.
   “Mèdico!” one finally screamed. “Mèdico!”

99
   “Any word from Olivetti?” the camerlegno asked, looking drained as Rocher escorted him back from the Sistine Chapel to the Pope’s office.
   “No, signore. I am fearing the worst.”
   When they reached the Pope’s office, the camerlegno’s voice was heavy. “Captain, there is nothing more I can do here tonight. I fear I have done too much already. I am going into this office to pray. I do not wish to be disturbed. The rest is in God’s hands.”
   “Yes, signore.”
   “The hour is late, Captain. Find that canister.”
   “Our search continues.” Rocher hesitated. “The weapon proves to be too well hidden.”
   The camerlegno winced, as if he could not think of it. “Yes. At exactly 11:15 P.M., if the church is still in peril, I want you to evacuate the cardinals. I am putting their safety in your hands. I ask only one thing. Let these men proceed from this place with dignity. Let them exit into St. Peter’s Square and stand side by side with the rest of the world. I do not want the last image of this church to be frightened old men sneaking out a back door.”
   “Very good, signore. And you? Shall I come for you at 11:15 as well?”
   “There will be no need.”
   “Signore?”
   “I will leave when the spirit moves me.”
   Rocher wondered if the camerlegno intended to go down with the ship.
   The camerlegno opened the door to the Pope’s office and entered. “Actually…” he said, turning. “There is one thing.”
   “Signore?”
   “There seems to be a chill in this office tonight. I am trembling.”
   “The electric heat is out. Let me lay you a fire.”
   The camerlegno smiled tiredly. “Thank you. Thank you, very much.”
   Rocher exited the Pope’s office where he had left the camerlegno praying by firelight in front of a small statue of the Blessed Mother Mary. It was an eerie sight. A black shadow kneeling in the flickering glow. As Rocher headed down the hall, a guard appeared, running toward him. Even by candlelight Rocher recognized Lieutenant Chartrand. Young, green, and eager.
   “Captain,” Chartrand called, holding out a cellular phone. “I think the camerlegno’s address may have worked. We’ve got a caller here who says he has information that can help us. He phoned on one of the Vatican’s private extensions. I have no idea how he got the number.”
   Rocher stopped. “What?”
   “He will only speak to the ranking officer.”
   “Any word from Olivetti?”
   “No, sir.”
   He took the receiver. “This is Captain Rocher. I am ranking officer here.”
   “Rocher,” the voice said. “I will explain to you who I am. Then I will tell you what you are going to do next.”
   When the caller stopped talking and hung up, Rocher stood stunned. He now knew from whom he was taking orders.
   Back at CERN, Sylvie Baudeloque was frantically trying to keep track of all the licensing inquiries coming in on Kohler’s voice mail. When the private line on the director’s desk began to ring, Sylvie jumped. Nobody had that number. She answered.
   “Yes?”
   “Ms. Baudeloque? This is Director Kohler. Contact my pilot. My jet is to be ready in five minutes.”

100
   Robert Langdon had no idea where he was or how long he had been unconscious when he opened his eyes and found himself staring up at the underside of a baroque, frescoed cupola. Smoke drifted overhead. Something was covering his mouth. An oxygen mask. He pulled it off. There was a terrible smell in the room—like burning flesh.
   Langdon winced at the pounding in his head. He tried to sit up. A man in white was kneeling beside him.
   “Riposati!” the man said, easing Langdon onto his back again. “Sono il paramédico.”
   Langdon succumbed, his head spiraling like the smoke overhead. What the hell happened? Wispy feelings of panic sifted through his mind.
   “Sórcio salvatore,” the paramedic said. “Mouse… savior.”
   Langdon felt even more lost. Mouse savior?
   The man motioned to the Mickey Mouse watch on Langdon’s wrist. Langdon’s thoughts began to clear. He remembered setting the alarm. As he stared absently at the watch face, Langdon also noted the hour. 10:28 P.M.
   He sat bolt upright.
   Then, it all came back.
   Langdon stood near the main altar with the fire chief and a few of his men. They had been rattling him with questions. Langdon wasn’t listening. He had questions of his own. His whole body ached, but he knew he needed to act immediately.
   A pompiero approached Langdon across the church. “I checked again, sir. The only bodies we found are Cardinal Guidera and the Swiss Guard commander. There’s no sign of a woman here.”
   “Grazie,” Langdon said, unsure whether he was relieved or horrified. He knew he had seen Vittoria unconscious on the floor. Now she was gone. The only explanation he came up with was not a comforting one. The killer had not been subtle on the phone. A woman of spirit. I am aroused. Perhaps before this night is over, I will find you. And when I do…”
   Langdon looked around. “Where is the Swiss Guard?”
   “Still no contact. Vatican lines are jammed.”
   Langdon felt overwhelmed and alone. Olivetti was dead. The cardinal was dead. Vittoria was missing. A half hour of his life had disappeared in a blink.
   Outside, Langdon could hear the press swarming. He suspected footage of the third cardinal’s horrific death would no doubt air soon, if it hadn’t already. Langdon hoped the camerlegno had long since assumed the worst and taken action. Evacuate the damn Vatican! Enough games! We lose!
   Langdon suddenly realized that all of the catalysts that had been driving him—helping to save Vatican City, rescuing the four cardinals, coming face to face with the brotherhood he had studied for years—all of these things had evaporated from his mind. The war was lost. A new compulsion had ignited within him. It was simple. Stark. Primal.
   Find Vittoria.
   He felt an unexpected emptiness inside. Langdon had often heard that intense situations could unite two people in ways that decades together often did not. He now believed it. In Vittoria’s absence he felt something he had not felt in years. Loneliness. The pain gave him strength.
   Pushing all else from his mind, Langdon mustered his concentration. He prayed that the Hassassin would take care of business before pleasure. Otherwise, Langdon knew he was already too late. No, he told himself, you have time. Vittoria’s captor still had work to do. He had to surface one last time before disappearing forever.
   The last altar of science, Langdon thought. The killer had one final task. Earth. Air. Fire. Water.
   He looked at his watch. Thirty minutes. Langdon moved past the firemen toward Bernini’s Ecstasy of St. Teresa. This time, as he stared at Bernini’s marker, Langdon had no doubt what he was looking for.
   Let angels guide you on your lofty quest…
   Directly over the recumbent saint, against a backdrop of gilded flame, hovered Bernini’s angel. The angel’s hand clutched a pointed spear of fire. Langdon’s eyes followed the direction of the shaft, arching toward the right side of the church. His eyes hit the wall. He scanned the spot where the spear was pointing. There was nothing there. Langdon knew, of course, the spear was pointing far beyond the wall, into the night, somewhere across Rome.
   “What direction is that?” Langdon asked, turning and addressing the chief with a newfound determination.
   “Direction?” The chief glanced where Langdon was pointing. He sounded confused. “I don’t know… west, I think.”
   “What churches are in that direction?”
   The chief’s puzzlement seemed to deepen. “Dozens. Why?”
   Langdon frowned. Of course there were dozens. “I need a city map. Right away.”
   The chief sent someone running out to the fire truck for a map. Langdon turned back to the statue. Earth… Air… Fire… VITTORIA.
   The final marker is Water, he told himself. Bernini’s Water. It was in a church out there somewhere. A needle in a haystack. He spurred his mind through all the Bernini works he could recall. I need a tribute to Water!
   Langdon flashed on Bernini’s statue of Triton–the Greek God of the sea. Then he realized it was located in the square outside this very church, in entirely the wrong direction. He forced himself to think. What figure would Bernini have carved as a glorification of water? Neptune and Apollo? Unfortunately that statue was in London’s Victoria & Albert Museum.
   “Signore?” A fireman ran in with a map.
   Langdon thanked him and spread it out on the altar. He immediately realized he had asked the right people; the fire department’s map of Rome was as detailed as any Langdon had ever seen. “Where are we now?”
   The man pointed. “Next to Piazza Barberini.”
   Langdon looked at the angel’s spear again to get his bearings. The chief had estimated correctly. According to the map, the spear was pointing west. Langdon traced a line from his current location west across the map. Almost instantly his hopes began to sink. It seemed that with every inch his finger traveled, he passed yet another building marked by a tiny black cross. Churches. The city was riddled with them. Finally, Langdon’s finger ran out of churches and trailed off into the suburbs of Rome. He exhaled and stepped back from the map. Damn.
   Surveying the whole of Rome, Langdon’s eyes touched down on the three churches where the first three cardinals had been killed. The Chigi Chapel… St. Peter’s… here…
   Seeing them all laid out before him now, Langdon noted an oddity in their locations. Somehow he had imagined the churches would be scattered randomly across Rome. But they most definitely were not. Improbably, the three churches seemed to be separated systematically, in an enormous city-wide triangle. Langdon double-checked. He was not imagining things. “Penna,” he said suddenly, without looking up.
   Someone handed him a ballpoint pen.
   Langdon circled the three churches. His pulse quickened. He triple-checked his markings. A symmetrical triangle!
   Langdon’s first thought was for the Great Seal on the one-dollar bill—the triangle containing the all-seeing eye. But it didn’t make sense. He had marked only three points. There were supposed to be four in all.
   So where the hell is Water? Langdon knew that anywhere he placed the fourth point, the triangle would be destroyed. The only option to retain the symmetry was to place the fourth marker inside the triangle, at the center. He looked at the spot on the map. Nothing. The idea bothered him anyway. The four elements of science were considered equal. Water was not special; Water would not be at the center of the others.
   Still, his instinct told him the systematic arrangement could not possibly be accidental. I’m not yet seeing the whole picture. There was only one alternative. The four points did not make a triangle; they made some other shape.
   Langdon looked at the map. A square, perhaps? Although a square made no symbolic sense, squares were symmetrical at least. Langdon put his finger on the map at one of the points that would turn the triangle into a square. He saw immediately that a perfect square was impossible. The angles of the original triangle were oblique and created more of a distorted quadrilateral.
   As he studied the other possible points around the triangle, something unexpected happened. He noticed that the line he had drawn earlier to indicate the direction of the angel’s spear passed perfectly through one of the possibilities. Stupefied, Langdon circled that point. He was now looking at four ink marks on the map, arranged in somewhat of an awkward, kitelike diamond.
   He frowned. Diamonds were not an Illuminati symbol either. He paused. Then again…
   For an instant Langdon flashed on the famed Illuminati Diamond. The thought, of course, was ridiculous. He dismissed it. Besides, this diamond was oblong—like a kite—hardly an example of the flawless symmetry for which the Illuminati Diamond was revered.
   When he leaned in to examine where he had placed the final mark, Langdon was surprised to find that the fourth point lay dead center of Rome’s famed Piazza Navona. He knew the piazza contained a major church, but he had already traced his finger through that piazza and considered the church there. To the best of his knowledge it contained no Bernini works. The church was called Saint Agnes in Agony, named for St. Agnes, a ravishing teenage virgin banished to a life of sexual slavery for refusing to renounce her faith.
   There must be something in that church! Langdon racked his brain, picturing the inside of the church. He could think of no Bernini works at all inside, much less anything to do with water. The arrangement on the map was bothering him too. A diamond. It was far too accurate to be coincidence, but it was not accurate enough to make any sense. A kite? Langdon wondered if he had chosen the wrong point. What am I missing!
   The answer took another thirty seconds to hit him, but when it did, Langdon felt an exhilaration like nothing he had ever experienced in his academic career.
   The Illuminati genius, it seemed, would never cease.
   The shape he was looking at was not intended as a diamond at all. The four points only formed a diamond because Langdon had connected adjacent points. The Illuminati believe in opposites! Connecting opposite vertices with his pen, Langdon’s fingers were trembling. There before him on the map was a giant cruciform. It’s a cross! The four elements of science unfolded before his eyes… sprawled across Rome in an enormous, city-wide cross.
   As he stared in wonder, a line of poetry rang in his mind… like an old friend with a new face.
   ’Cross Rome the mystic elements unfold…
   ’Cross Rome…
   The fog began to clear. Langdon saw that the answer had been in front of him all night! The Illuminati poem had been telling him how the altars were laid out. A cross!
   ’Cross Rome the mystic elements unfold!
   It was cunning wordplay. Langdon had originally read the word’Cross as an abbreviation of Across. He assumed it was poetic license intended to retain the meter of the poem. But it was so much more than that! Another hidden clue.
   The cruciform on the map, Langdon realized, was the ultimate Illuminati duality. It was a religious symbol formed by elements of science. Galileo’s path of Illumination was a tribute to both science and God!
   The rest of the puzzle fell into place almost immediately.
   Piazza Navona.
   Dead center of Piazza Navona, outside the church of St. Agnes in Agony, Bernini had forged one of his most celebrated sculptures. Everyone who came to Rome went to see it.
   The Fountain of the Four Rivers!
   A flawless tribute to water, Bernini’s Fountain of the Four Rivers glorified the four major rivers of the Old World—The Nile, Ganges, Danube, and Rio Plata.
   Water, Langdon thought. The final marker. It was perfect.
   And even more perfect, Langdon realized, the cherry on the cake, was that high atop Bernini’s fountain stood a towering obelisk.
   Leaving confused firemen in his wake, Langdon ran across the church in the direction of Olivetti’s lifeless body.
   10:31 P.M., he thought. Plenty of time. It was the first instant all day that Langdon felt ahead of the game.
   Kneeling beside Olivetti, out of sight behind some pews, Langdon discreetly took possession of the commander’s semiautomatic and walkie-talkie. Langdon knew he would call for help, but this was not the place to do it. The final altar of science needed to remain a secret for now. The media and fire department racing with sirens blaring to Piazza Navona would be no help at all.
   Without a word, Langdon slipped out the door and skirted the press, who were now entering the church in droves. He crossed Piazza Barberini. In the shadows he turned on the walkie-talkie. He tried to hail Vatican City but heard nothing but static. He was either out of range or the transmitter needed some kind of authorization code. Langdon adjusted the complex dials and buttons to no avail. Abruptly, he realized his plan to get help was not going to work. He spun, looking for a pay phone. None. Vatican circuits were jammed anyway.
   He was alone.
   Feeling his initial surge of confidence decay, Langdon stood a moment and took stock of his pitiful state—covered in bone dust, cut, deliriously exhausted, and hungry.
   Langdon glanced back at the church. Smoke spiraled over the cupola, lit by the media lights and fire trucks. He wondered if he should go back and get help. Instinct warned him however that extra help, especially untrained help, would be nothing but a liability. If the Hassassin sees us coming… He thought of Vittoria and knew this would be his final chance to face her captor.
   Piazza Navona, he thought, knowing he could get there in plenty of time and stake it out. He scanned the area for a taxi, but the streets were almost entirely deserted. Even the taxi drivers, it seemed, had dropped everything to find a television. Piazza Navona was only about a mile away, but Langdon had no intention of wasting precious energy on foot. He glanced back at the church, wondering if he could borrow a vehicle from someone.
   A fire truck? A press van? Be serious.
   Sensing options and minutes slipping away, Langdon made his decision. Pulling the gun from his pocket, he committed an act so out of character that he suspected his soul must now be possessed. Running over to a lone Citroën sedan idling at a stoplight, Langdon pointed the weapon through the driver’s open window. “Fuori!” he yelled.
   The trembling man got out.
   Langdon jumped behind the wheel and hit the gas.

101
   Gunther Glick sat on a bench in a holding tank inside the office of the Swiss Guard. He prayed to every god he could think of. Please let this NOT be a dream. It had been the scoop of his life. The scoop of anyone’s life. Every reporter on earth wished he were Glick right now. You are awake, he told himself. And you are a star. Dan Rather is crying right now.
   Macri was beside him, looking a little bit stunned. Glick didn’t blame her. In addition to exclusively broadcasting the camerlegno’s address, she and Glick had provided the world with gruesome photos of the cardinals and of the Pope—that tongue!—as well as a live video feed of the antimatter canister counting down. Incredible!
   Of course, all of that had all been at the camerlegno’s behest, so that was not the reason Glick and Macri were now locked in a Swiss Guard holding tank. It had been Glick’s daring addendum to their coverage that the guards had not appreciated. Glick knew the conversation on which he had just reported was not intended for his ears, but this was his moment in the sun. Another Glick scoop!
   “The 11th Hour Samaritan?” Macri groaned on the bench beside him, clearly unimpressed.
   Glick smiled. “Brilliant, wasn’t it?”
   “Brilliantly dumb.”
   She’s just jealous, Glick knew. Shortly after the camerlegno’s address, Glick had again, by chance, been in the right place at the right time. He’d overheard Rocher giving new orders to his men. Apparently Rocher had received a phone call from a mysterious individual who Rocher claimed had critical information regarding the current crisis. Rocher was talking as if this man could help them and was advising his guards to prepare for the guest’s arrival.
   Although the information was clearly private, Glick had acted as any dedicated reporter would—without honor. He’d found a dark corner, ordered Macri to fire up her remote camera, and he’d reported the news.
   “Shocking new developments in God’s city,” he had announced, squinting his eyes for added intensity. Then he’d gone on to say that a mystery guest was coming to Vatican City to save the day. The 11th Hour Samaritan, Glick had called him—a perfect name for the faceless man appearing at the last moment to do a good deed. The other networks had picked up the catchy sound bite, and Glick was yet again immortalized.
   I’m brilliant, he mused. Peter Jennings just jumped off a bridge.
   Of course Glick had not stopped there. While he had the world’s attention, he had thrown in a little of his own conspiracy theory for good measure.
   Brilliant. Utterly brilliant.
   “You screwed us,” Macri said. “You totally blew it.”
   “What do you mean? I was great!”
   Macri stared disbelievingly. “Former President George Bush? An Illuminatus?”
   Glick smiled. How much more obvious could it be? George Bush was a well-documented, 33rd-degree Mason, and he was the head of the CIA when the agency closed their Illuminati investigation for lack of evidence. And all those speeches about “a thousand points of light” and a “New World Order”… Bush was obviously Illuminati.
   “And that bit about CERN?” Macri chided. “You are going to have a very big line of lawyers outside your door tomorrow.”
   “CERN? Oh come on! It’s so obvious! Think about it! The Illuminati disappear off the face of the earth in the 1950s at about the same time CERN is founded. CERN is a haven for the most enlightened people on earth. Tons of private funding. They build a weapon that can destroy the church, and oops!… they lose it!”
   “So you tell the world that CERN is the new home base of the Illuminati?”
   “Obviously! Brotherhoods don’t just disappear. The Illuminati had to go somewhere. CERN is a perfect place for them to hide. I’m not saying everyone at CERN is Illuminati. It’s probably like a huge Masonic lodge, where most people are innocent, but the upper echelons—”
   “Have you ever heard of slander, Glick? Liability?”
   “Have you ever heard of real journalism!”
   “Journalism? You were pulling bullshit out of thin air! I should have turned off the camera! And what the hell was that crap about CERN’s corporate logo? Satanic symbology? Have you lost your mind?”
   Glick smiled. Macri’s jealousy was definitely showing. The CERN logo had been the most brilliant coup of all. Ever since the camerlegno’s address, all the networks were talking about CERN and antimatter. Some stations were showing the CERN corporate logo as a backdrop. The logo seemed standard enough—two intersecting circles representing two particle accelerators, and five tangential lines representing particle injection tubes. The whole world was staring at this logo, but it had been Glick, a bit of a symbologist himself, who had first seen the Illuminati symbology hidden in it.
   “You’re not a symbologist,” Macri chided, “you’re just one lucky-ass reporter. You should have left the symbology to the Harvard guy.”
   “The Harvard guy missed it,” Glick said.
   The Illuminati significance in this logo is so obvious!
   He was beaming inside. Although CERN had lots of accelerators, their logo showed only two. Two is the Illuminati number of duality. Although most accelerators had only one injection tube, the logo showed five. Five is the number of the Illuminati pentagram. Then had come the coup—the most brilliant point of all. Glick pointed out that the logo contained a large numeral “6—clearly formed by one of the lines and circles—and when the logo was rotated, another six appeared… and then another. The logo contained three sixes! 666! The devil’s number! The mark of the beast!
   Glick was a genius.
   Macri looked ready to slug him.
   The jealousy would pass, Glick knew, his mind now wandering to another thought. If CERN was Illuminati headquarters, was CERN where the Illuminati kept their infamous Illuminati Diamond? Glick had read about it on the Internet—“a flawless diamond, born of the ancient elements with such perfection that all those who saw it could only stand in wonder.”
   Glick wondered if the secret whereabouts of the Illuminati Diamond might be yet another mystery he could unveil tonight.

102
   Piazza Navona. Fountain of the Four Rivers.
   Nights in Rome, like those in the desert, can be surprisingly cool, even after a warm day. Langdon was huddled now on the fringes of Piazza Navona, pulling his jacket around him. Like the distant white noise of traffic, a cacophony of news reports echoed across the city. He checked his watch. Fifteen minutes. He was grateful for a few moments of rest.
   The piazza was deserted. Bernini’s masterful fountain sizzled before him with a fearful sorcery. The foaming pool sent a magical mist upward, lit from beneath by underwater floodlights. Langdon sensed a cool electricity in the air.
   The fountain’s most arresting quality was its height. The central core alone was over twenty feet tall—a rugged mountain of travertine marble riddled with caves and grottoes through which the water churned. The entire mound was draped with pagan figures. Atop this stood an obelisk that climbed another forty feet. Langdon let his eyes climb. On the obelisk’s tip, a faint shadow blotted the sky, a lone pigeon perched silently.
   A cross, Langdon thought, still amazed by the arrangement of the markers across Rome. Bernini’s Fountain of the Four Rivers was the last altar of science. Only hours ago Langdon had been standing in the Pantheon convinced the Path of Illumination had been broken and he would never get this far. It had been a foolish blunder. In fact, the entire path was intact. Earth, Air, Fire, Water. And Langdon had followed it… from beginning to end.
   Not quite to the end, he reminded himself. The path had five stops, not four. This fourth marker fountain somehow pointed to the ultimate destiny—the Illuminati’s sacred lair—the Church of Illumination. Langdon wondered if the lair were still standing. He wondered if that was where the Hassassin had taken Vittoria.
   Langdon found his eyes probing the figures in the fountain, looking for any clue as to the direction of the lair. Let angels guide you on your lofty quest. Almost immediately, though, he was overcome by an unsettling awareness. This fountain contained no angels whatsoever. It certainly contained none Langdon could see from where he was standing… and none he had ever seen in the past. The Fountain of the Four Rivers was a pagan work. The carvings were all profane—humans, animals, even an awkward armadillo. An angel here would stick out like a sore thumb.
   Is this the wrong place? He considered the cruciform arrangement of the four obelisks. He clenched his fists. This fountain is perfect.
   It was only 10:46 P.M. when a black van emerged from the alleyway on the far side of the piazza. Langdon would not have given it a second look except that the van drove with no headlights. Like a shark patrolling a moonlit bay, the vehicle circled the perimeter of the piazza.
   Langdon hunkered lower, crouched in the shadows beside the huge stairway leading up to the Church of St. Agnes in Agony. He gazed out at the piazza, his pulse climbing.
   After making two complete circuits, the van banked inward toward Bernini’s fountain. It pulled abreast of the basin, moving laterally along the rim until its side was flush with the fountain. Then it parked, its sliding door positioned only inches above the churning water.
   Mist billowed.
   Langdon felt an uneasy premonition. Had the Hassassin arrived early? Had he come in a van? Langdon had imagined the killer escorting his last victim across the piazza on foot, like he had at St. Peter’s, giving Langdon an open shot. But if the Hassassin had arrived in a van, the rules had just changed.
   Suddenly, the van’s side door slid open.
   On the floor of the van, contorted in agony, lay a naked man. The man was wrapped in yards of heavy chains. He thrashed against the iron links, but the chains were too heavy. One of the links bisected the man’s mouth like a horse’s bit, stifling his cries for help. It was then that Langdon saw the second figure, moving around behind the prisoner in the dark, as though making final preparations.
   Langdon knew he had only seconds to act.
   Taking the gun, he slipped off his jacket and dropped it on the ground. He didn’t want the added encumbrance of a tweed jacket, nor did he have any intention of taking Galileo’s Diagramma anywhere near the water. The document would stay here where it was safe and dry.
   Langdon scrambled to his right. Circling the perimeter of the fountain, he positioned himself directly opposite the van. The fountain’s massive centerpiece obscured his view. Standing, he ran directly toward the basin. He hoped the thundering water was drowning his footsteps. When he reached the fountain, he climbed over the rim and dropped into the foaming pool.
   The water was waist deep and like ice. Langdon grit his teeth and plowed through the water. The bottom was slippery, made doubly treacherous by a stratum of coins thrown for good luck. Langdon sensed he would need more than good luck. As the mist rose all around him, he wondered if it was the cold or the fear that was causing the gun in his hand to shake.
   He reached the interior of the fountain and circled back to his left. He waded hard, clinging to the cover of the marble forms. Hiding himself behind the huge carved form of a horse, Langdon peered out. The van was only fifteen feet away. The Hassassin was crouched on the floor of the van, hands planted on the cardinal’s chain-clad body, preparing to roll him out the open door into the fountain.
   Waist-deep in water, Robert Langdon raised his gun and stepped out of the mist, feeling like some sort of aquatic cowboy making a final stand. “Don’t move.” His voice was steadier than the gun.
   The Hassassin looked up. For a moment he seemed confused, as though he had seen a ghost. Then his lips curled into an evil smile. He raised his arms in submission. “And so it goes.”
   “Get out of the van.”
   “You look wet.”
   “You’re early.”
   “I am eager to return to my prize.”
   Langdon leveled the gun. “I won’t hesitate to shoot.”
   “You’ve already hesitated.”
   Langdon felt his finger tighten on the trigger. The cardinal lay motionless now. He looked exhausted, moribund. “Untie him.”
   “Forget him. You’ve come for the woman. Do not pretend otherwise.”
   Langdon fought the urge to end it right there. “Where is she?”
   “Somewhere safe. Awaiting my return.”
   She’s alive. Langdon felt a ray of hope. “At the Church of Illumination?”
   The killer smiled. “You will never find its location.”
   Langdon was incredulous. The lair is still standing. He aimed the gun. “Where?”
   “The location has remained secret for centuries. Even to me it was only revealed recently. I would die before I break that trust.”
   “I can find it without you.”
   “An arrogant thought.”
   Langdon motioned to the fountain. “I’ve come this far.”
   “So have many. The final step is the hardest.”
   Langdon stepped closer, his footing tentative beneath the water. The Hassassin looked remarkably calm, squatting there in the back of the van with his arms raised over his head. Langdon aimed at his chest, wondering if he should simply shoot and be done with it. No. He knows where Vittoria is. He knows where the antimatter is. I need information!
   From the darkness of the van the Hassassin gazed out at his aggressor and couldn’t help but feel an amused pity. The American was brave, that he had proven. But he was also untrained. That he had also proven. Valor without expertise was suicide. There were rules of survival. Ancient rules. And the American was breaking all of them.
   You had the advantage—the element of surprise. You squandered it.
   The American was indecisive… hoping for backup most likely… or perhaps a slip of the tongue that would reveal critical information.
   Never interrogate before you disable your prey. A cornered enemy is a deadly enemy.
   The American was talking again. Probing. Maneuvering.
   The killer almost laughed aloud. This is not one of your Hollywood movies… there will be no long discussions at gunpoint before the final shoot-out. This is the end. Now.
   Without breaking eye contact, the killer inched his hands across the ceiling of the van until he found what he was looking for. Staring dead ahead, he grasped it.
   Then he made his play.
   The motion was utterly unexpected. For an instant, Langdon thought the laws of physics had ceased to exist. The killer seemed to hang weightless in the air as his legs shot out from beneath him, his boots driving into the cardinal’s side and launching the chain-laden body out the door. The cardinal splashed down, sending up a sheet of spray.
   Water dousing his face, Langdon realized too late what had happened. The killer had grasped one of the van’s roll bars and used it to swing outward. Now the Hassassin was sailing toward him, feet-first through the spray.
   Langdon pulled the trigger, and the silencer spat. The bullet exploded through the toe of the Hassassin’s left boot. Instantly Langdon felt the soles of the Hassassin’s boots connect with his chest, driving him back with a crushing kick.
   The two men splashed down in a spray of blood and water.
   As the icy liquid engulfed Langdon’s body, his first cognition was pain. Survival instinct came next. He realized he was no longer holding his weapon. It had been knocked away. Diving deep, he groped along the slimy bottom. His hand gripped metal. A handful of coins. He dropped them. Opening his eyes, Langdon scanned the glowing basin. The water churned around him like a frigid Jacuzzi.
   Despite the instinct to breathe, fear kept him on the bottom. Always moving. He did not know from where the next assault would come. He needed to find the gun! His hands groped desperately in front of him.
   You have the advantage, he told himself. You are in your element. Even in a soaked turtleneck Langdon was an agile swimmer. Water is your element.
   When Langdon’s fingers found metal a second time, he was certain his luck had changed. The object in his hand was no handful of coins. He gripped it and tried to pull it toward him, but when he did, he found himself gliding through the water. The object was stationary.
   Langdon realized even before he coasted over the cardinal’s writhing body that he had grasped part of the metal chain that was weighing the man down. Langdon hovered a moment, immobilized by the sight of the terrified face staring up at him from the floor of the fountain.
   Jolted by the life in the man’s eyes, Langdon reached down and grabbed the chains, trying to heave him toward the surface. The body came slowly… like an anchor. Langdon pulled harder. When the cardinal’s head broke the surface, the old man gasped a few sucking, desperate breaths. Then, violently, his body rolled, causing Langdon to lose his grip on the slippery chains. Like a stone, Baggia went down again and disappeared beneath the foaming water.
   Langdon dove, eyes wide in the liquid murkiness. He found the cardinal. This time, when Langdon grabbed on, the chains across Baggia’s chest shifted… parting to reveal a further wickedness… a word stamped in seared flesh.


   An instant later, two boots strode into view. One was gushing blood.

103
   As a water polo player, Robert Langdon had endured more than his fair share of underwater battles. The competitive savagery that raged beneath the surface of a water polo pool, away from the eyes of the referees, could rival even the ugliest wrestling match. Langdon had been kicked, scratched, held, and even bitten once by a frustrated defenseman from whom Langdon had continuously twisted away.
   Now, though, thrashing in the frigid water of Bernini’s fountain, Langdon knew he was a long way from the Harvard pool. He was fighting not for a game, but for his life. This was the second time they had battled. No referees here. No rematches. The arms driving his face toward the bottom of the basin thrust with a force that left no doubt that it intended to kill.
   Langdon instinctively spun like a torpedo. Break the hold! But the grip torqued him back, his attacker enjoying an advantage no water polo defenseman ever had—two feet on solid ground. Langdon contorted, trying to get his own feet beneath him. The Hassassin seemed to be favoring one arm… but nonetheless, his grip held firm.
   It was then that Langdon knew he was not coming up. He did the only thing he could think of to do. He stopped trying to surface. If you can’t go north, go east. Marshalling the last of his strength, Langdon dolphin-kicked his legs and pulled his arms beneath him in an awkward butterfly stroke. His body lurched forward.
   The sudden switch in direction seemed to take the Hassassin off guard. Langdon’s lateral motion dragged his captor’s arms sideways, compromising his balance. The man’s grip faltered, and Langdon kicked again. The sensation felt like a towline had snapped. Suddenly Langdon was free. Blowing the stale air from his lungs, Langdon clawed for the surface. A single breath was all he got. With crashing force the Hassassin was on top of him again, palms on his shoulders, all of his weight bearing down. Langdon scrambled to plant his feet beneath him but the Hassassin’s leg swung out, cutting Langdon down.
   He went under again.
   Langdon’s muscles burned as he twisted beneath the water. This time his maneuvers were in vain. Through the bubbling water, Langdon scanned the bottom, looking for the gun. Everything was blurred. The bubbles were denser here. A blinding light flashed in his face as the killer wrestled him deeper, toward a submerged spotlight bolted on the floor of the fountain. Langdon reached out, grabbing the canister. It was hot. Langdon tried to pull himself free, but the contraption was mounted on hinges and pivoted in his hand. His leverage was instantly lost.
   The Hassassin drove him deeper still.
   It was then Langdon saw it. Poking out from under the coins directly beneath his face. A narrow, black cylinder. The silencer of Olivetti’s gun! Langdon reached out, but as his fingers wrapped around the cylinder, he did not feel metal, he felt plastic. When he pulled, the flexible rubber hose came flopping toward him like a flimsy snake. It was about two feet long with a jet of bubbles surging from the end. Langdon had not found the gun at all. It was one of the fountain’s many harmless spumanti… bubble makers.
   Only a few feet away, Cardinal Baggia felt his soul straining to leave his body. Although he had prepared for this moment his entire life, he had never imagined the end would be like this. His physical shell was in agony… burned, bruised, and held underwater by an immovable weight. He reminded himself that this suffering was nothing compared to what Jesus had endured.
   He died for my sins…
   Baggia could hear the thrashing of a battle raging nearby. He could not bear the thought of it. His captor was about to extinguish yet another life… the man with kind eyes, the man who had tried to help.
   As the pain mounted, Baggia lay on his back and stared up through the water at the black sky above him. For a moment he thought he saw stars.
   It was time.
   Releasing all fear and doubt, Baggia opened his mouth and expelled what he knew would be his final breath. He watched his spirit gurgle heavenward in a burst of transparent bubbles. Then, reflexively, he gasped. The water poured in like icy daggers to his sides. The pain lasted only a few seconds.
   Then… peace.
   The Hassassin ignored the burning in his foot and focused on the drowning American, whom he now held pinned beneath him in the churning water. Finish it fully. He tightened his grip, knowing this time Robert Langdon would not survive. As he predicted, his victim’s struggling became weaker and weaker.
   Suddenly Langdon’s body went rigid. He began to shake wildly.
   Yes, the Hassassin mused. The rigors. When the water first hits the lungs. The rigors, he knew, would last about five seconds.
   They lasted six.
   Then, exactly as the Hassassin expected, his victim went suddenly flaccid. Like a great deflating balloon, Robert Langdon fell limp. It was over. The Hassassin held him down for another thirty seconds to let the water flood all of his pulmonary tissue. Gradually, he felt Langdon’s body sink, on its own accord, to the bottom. Finally, the Hassassin let go. The media would find a double surprise in the Fountain of the Four Rivers.
   “Tabban!” the Hassassin swore, clambering out of the fountain and looking at his bleeding toe. The tip of his boot was shredded, and the front of his big toe had been sheared off. Angry at his own carelessness, he tore the cuff from his pant leg and rammed the fabric into the toe of his boot. Pain shot up his leg. “Ibn al-kalb!” He clenched his fists and rammed the cloth deeper. The bleeding slowed until it was only a trickle.
   Turning his thoughts from pain to pleasure, the Hassassin got into his van. His work in Rome was done. He knew exactly what would soothe his discomfort. Vittoria Vetra was bound and waiting. The Hassassin, even cold and wet, felt himself stiffen.
   I have earned my reward.
   Across town Vittoria awoke in pain. She was on her back. All of her muscles felt like stone. Tight. Brittle. Her arms hurt. When she tried to move, she felt spasms in her shoulders. It took her a moment to comprehend her hands were tied behind her back. Her initial reaction was confusion. Am I dreaming? But when she tried to lift her head, the pain at the base of her skull informed her of her wakefulness.
   Confusion transforming to fear, she scanned her surroundings. She was in a crude, stone room—large and well-furnished, lit by torches. Some kind of ancient meeting hall. Old-fashioned benches sat in a circle nearby.
   Vittoria felt a breeze, cold now on her skin. Nearby, a set of double doors stood open, beyond them a balcony. Through the slits in the balustrade, Vittoria could have sworn she saw the Vatican.

104
   Robert Langdon lay on a bed of coins at the bottom of the Fountain of the Four Rivers. His mouth was still wrapped around the plastic hose. The air being pumped through the spumanti tube to froth the fountain had been polluted by the pump, and his throat burned. He was not complaining, though. He was alive.
   He was not sure how accurate his imitation of a drowning man had been, but having been around water his entire life, Langdon had certainly heard accounts. He had done his best. Near the end, he had even blown all the air from his lungs and stopped breathing so that his muscle mass would carry his body to the floor.
   Thankfully, the Hassassin had bought it and let go.
   Now, resting on the bottom of the fountain, Langdon had waited as long as he could wait. He was about to start choking. He wondered if the Hassassin was still out there. Taking an acrid breath from the tube, Langdon let go and swam across the bottom of the fountain until he found the smooth swell of the central core. Silently, he followed it upward, surfacing out of sight, in the shadows beneath the huge marble figures.
   The van was gone.
   That was all Langdon needed to see. Pulling a long breath of fresh air back into his lungs, he scrambled back toward where Cardinal Baggia had gone down. Langdon knew the man would be unconscious now, and chances of revival were slim, but he had to try. When Langdon found the body, he planted his feet on either side, reached down, and grabbed the chains wrapped around the cardinal. Then Langdon pulled. When the cardinal broke water, Langdon could see the eyes were already rolled upward, bulging. Not a good sign. There was no breath or pulse.
   Knowing he could never get the body up and over the fountain rim, Langdon lugged Cardinal Baggia through the water and into the hollow beneath the central mound of marble. Here the water became shallow, and there was an inclined ledge. Langdon dragged the naked body up onto the ledge as far as he could. Not far.
   Then he went to work. Compressing the cardinal’s chain-clad chest, Langdon pumped the water from his lungs. Then he began CPR. Counting carefully. Deliberately. Resisting the instinct to blow too hard and too fast. For three minutes Langdon tried to revive the old man. After five minutes, Langdon knew it was over.
   Il preferito. The man who would be Pope. Lying dead before him.
   Somehow, even now, prostrate in the shadows on the semisubmerged ledge, Cardinal Baggia retained an air of quiet dignity. The water lapped softly across his chest, seeming almost remorseful… as if asking forgiveness for being the man’s ultimate killer… as if trying to cleanse the scalded wound that bore its name.
   Gently, Langdon ran a hand across the man’s face and closed his upturned eyes. As he did, he felt an exhausted shudder of tears well from within. It startled him. Then, for the first time in years, Langdon cried.

105
   The fog of weary emotion lifted slowly as Langdon waded away from the dead cardinal, back into deep water. Depleted and alone in the fountain, Langdon half-expected to collapse. But instead, he felt a new compulsion rising within him. Undeniable. Frantic. He sensed his muscles hardening with an unexpected grit. His mind, as though ignoring the pain in his heart, forced aside the past and brought into focus the single, desperate task ahead.
   Find the Illuminati lair. Help Vittoria.
   Turning now to the mountainous core of Bernini’s fountain, Langdon summoned hope and launched himself into his quest for the final Illuminati marker. He knew somewhere on this gnarled mass of figures was a clue that pointed to the lair. As Langdon scanned the fountain, though, his hope withered quickly. The words of the segno seemed to gurgle mockingly all around him. Let angels guide you on your lofty quest. Langdon glared at the carved forms before him. The fountain is pagan! It has no damn angels anywhere!
   When Langdon completed his fruitless search of the core, his eyes instinctively climbed the towering stone pillar. Four markers, he thought, spread across Rome in a giant cross.
   Scanning the hieroglyphics covering the obelisk, he wondered if perhaps there were a clue hidden in the Egyptian symbology. He immediately dismissed the idea. The hieroglyphs predated Bernini by centuries, and hieroglyphs had not even been decipherable until the Rosetta Stone was discovered. Still, Langdon ventured, maybe Bernini had carved an additional symbol? One that would go unnoticed among all the hieroglyphs?
   Feeling a shimmer of hope, Langdon circumnavigated the fountain one more time and studied all four façades of the obelisk. It took him two minutes, and when he reached the end of the final face, his hopes sank. Nothing in the hieroglyphs stood out as any kind of addition. Certainly no angels.
   Langdon checked his watch. It was eleven on the dot. He couldn’t tell whether time was flying or crawling. Images of Vittoria and the Hassassin started to swirl hauntingly as Langdon clambered his way around the fountain, the frustration mounting as he frantically completed yet another fruitless circle. Beaten and exhausted, Langdon felt ready to collapse. He threw back his head to scream into the night.
   The sound jammed in his throat.
   Langdon was staring straight up the obelisk. The object perched at the very top was one he had seen earlier and ignored. Now, however, it stopped him short. It was not an angel. Far from it. In fact, he had not even perceived it as part of Bernini’s fountain. He thought it was a living creature, another one of the city’s scavengers perched on a lofty tower.
   A pigeon.
   Langdon squinted skyward at the object, his vision blurred by the glowing mist around him. It was a pigeon, wasn’t it? He could clearly see the head and beak silhouetted against a cluster of stars. And yet the bird had not budged since Langdon’s arrival, even with the battle below. The bird sat now exactly as it had been when Langdon entered the square. It was perched high atop the obelisk, gazing calmly westward.
   Langdon stared at it a moment and then plunged his hand into the fountain and grabbed a fistful of coins. He hurled the coins skyward. They clattered across the upper levels of the granite obelisk. The bird did not budge. He tried again. This time, one of the coins hit the mark. A faint sound of metal on metal clanged across the square.
   The damned pigeon was bronze.
   You’re looking for an angel, not a pigeon, a voice reminded him. But it was too late. Langdon had made the connection. He realized the bird was not a pigeon at all.
   It was a dove.
   Barely aware of his own actions, Langdon splashed toward the center of the fountain and began scrambling up the travertine mountain, clambering over huge arms and heads, pulling himself higher. Halfway to the base of the obelisk, he emerged from the mist and could see the head of the bird more clearly.
   There was no doubt. It was a dove. The bird’s deceptively dark color was the result of Rome’s pollution tarnishing the original bronze. Then the significance hit him. He had seen a pair of doves earlier today at the Pantheon. A pair of doves carried no meaning. This dove, however, was alone.
   The lone dove is the pagan symbol for the Angel of Peace.
   The truth almost lifted Langdon the rest of the way to the obelisk. Bernini had chosen the pagan symbol for the angel so he could disguise it in a pagan fountain. Let angels guide you on your lofty quest. The dove is the angel! Langdon could think of no more lofty perch for the Illuminati’s final marker than atop this obelisk.
   The bird was looking west. Langdon tried to follow its gaze, but he could not see over the buildings. He climbed higher. A quote from St. Gregory of Nyssa emerged from his memory most unexpectedly. As the soul becomes enlightened… it takes the beautiful shape of the dove.
   Langdon rose heavenward. Toward the dove. He was almost flying now. He reached the platform from which the obelisk rose and could climb no higher. With one look around, though, he knew he didn’t have to. All of Rome spread out before him. The view was stunning.
   To his left, the chaotic media lights surrounding St. Peter’s. To his right, the smoking cupola of Santa Maria della Vittoria. In front of him in the distance, Piazza del Popolo. Beneath him, the fourth and final point. A giant cross of obelisks.
   Trembling, Langdon looked to the dove overhead. He turned and faced the proper direction, and then he lowered his eyes to the skyline.
   In an instant he saw it.
   So obvious. So clear. So deviously simple.
   Staring at it now, Langdon could not believe the Illuminati lair had stayed hidden for so many years. The entire city seemed to fade away as he looked out at the monstrous stone structure across the river in front of him. The building was as famous as any in Rome. It stood on the banks of the Tiber River diagonally adjacent to the Vatican. The building’s geometry was stark—a circular castle, within a square fortress, and then, outside its walls, surrounding the entire structure, a park in the shape of a pentagram.
   The ancient stone ramparts before him were dramatically lit by soft floodlights. High atop the castle stood the mammoth bronze angel. The angel pointed his sword downward at the exact center of the castle. And as if that were not enough, leading solely and directly to the castle’s main entrance stood the famous Bridge of Angels… a dramatic approachway adorned by twelve towering angels carved by none other than Bernini himself.
   In a final breathtaking revelation, Langdon realized Bernini’s city-wide cross of obelisks marked the fortress in perfect Illuminati fashion; the cross’s central arm passed directly through the center of the castle’s bridge, dividing it into two equal halves.
   Langdon retrieved his tweed coat, holding it away from his dripping body. Then he jumped into the stolen sedan and rammed his soggy shoe into the accelerator, speeding off into the night.

106
   It was 11:07 P.M. Langdon’s car raced through the Roman night. Speeding down Lungotevere Tor Di Nona, parallel with the river, Langdon could now see his destination rising like a mountain to his right.
   Castel Sant’ Angelo. Castle of the Angel.
   Without warning, the turnoff to the narrow Bridge of Angels—Ponte Sant’ Angelo—appeared suddenly. Langdon slammed on his brakes and swerved. He turned in time, but the bridge was barricaded. He skidded ten feet and collided with a series of short cement pillars blocking his way. Langdon lurched forward as the vehicle stalled, wheezing and shuddering. He had forgotten the Bridge of Angels, in order to preserve it, was now zoned pedestrians only.
   Shaken, Langdon staggered from the crumpled car, wishing now he had chosen one of the other routes. He felt chilled, shivering from the fountain. He donned his Harris tweed over his damp shirt, grateful for Harris’s trademark double lining. The Diagramma folio would remain dry. Before him, across the bridge, the stone fortress rose like a mountain. Aching and depleted, Langdon broke into a loping run.
   On both sides of him now, like a gauntlet of escorts, a procession of Bernini angels whipped past, funneling him toward his final destination. Let angels guide you on your lofty quest. The castle seemed to rise as he advanced, an unscalable peak, more intimidating to him even than St. Peter’s. He sprinted toward the bastion, running on fumes, gazing upward at the citadel’s circular core as it shot skyward to a gargantuan, sword-wielding angel.
   The castle appeared deserted.
   Langdon knew through the centuries the building had been used by the Vatican as a tomb, a fortress, a papal hideout, a prison for enemies of the church, and a museum. Apparently, the castle had other tenants as well—the Illuminati. Somehow it made eerie sense. Although the castle was property of the Vatican, it was used only sporadically, and Bernini had made numerous renovations to it over the years. The building was now rumored to be honeycombed with secret entries, passageways, and hidden chambers. Langdon had little doubt that the angel and surrounding pentagonal park were Bernini’s doing as well.
   Arriving at the castle’s elephantine double doors, Langdon shoved them hard. Not surprisingly, they were immovable. Two iron knockers hung at eye level. Langdon didn’t bother. He stepped back, his eyes climbing the sheer outer wall. These ramparts had fended off armies of Berbers, heathens, and Moors. Somehow he sensed his chances of breaking in were slim.
   Vittoria, Langdon thought. Are you in there?
   Langdon hurried around the outer wall. There must be another entrance!
   Rounding the second bulwark to the west, Langdon arrived breathless in a small parking area off Lungotere Angelo. On this wall he found a second castle entrance, a drawbridge-type ingress, raised and sealed shut. Langdon gazed upward again.
   The only lights on the castle were exterior floods illuminating the façade. All the tiny windows inside seemed black. Langdon’s eyes climbed higher. At the very peak of the central tower, a hundred feet above, directly beneath the angel’s sword, a single balcony protruded. The marble parapet seemed to shimmer slightly, as if the room beyond it were aglow with torchlight. Langdon paused, his soaked body shivering suddenly. A shadow? He waited, straining. Then he saw it again. His spine prickled. Someone is up there!
   “Vittoria!” he called out, unable to help himself, but his voice was swallowed by the raging Tiber behind him. He wheeled in circles, wondering where the hell the Swiss Guard were. Had they even heard his transmission?
   Across the lot a large media truck was parked. Langdon ran toward it. A paunchy man in headphones sat in the cabin adjusting levers. Langdon rapped on the side of the truck. The man jumped, saw Langdon’s dripping clothes, and yanked off his headset.
   “What’s the worry, mate?” His accent was Australian.
   “I need your phone.” Langdon was frenzied.
   The man shrugged. “No dial tone. Been trying all night. Circuits are packed.”
   Langdon swore aloud. “Have you seen anyone go in there?” He pointed to the drawbridge.
   “Actually, yeah. A black van’s been going in and out all night.”
   Langdon felt a brick hit the bottom of his stomach.
   “Lucky bastard,” the Aussie said, gazing up at the tower, and then frowning at his obstructed view of the Vatican. “I bet the view from up there is perfect. I couldn’t get through the traffic in St. Peter’s, so I’m shooting from here.”
   Langdon wasn’t listening. He was looking for options.
   “What do you say?” the Australian said. “This 11th Hour Samaritan for real?”
   Langdon turned. “The what?”
   “You didn’t hear? The Captain of the Swiss Guard got a call from somebody who claims to have some primo info. The guy’s flying in right now. All I know is if he saves the day… there go the ratings!” The man laughed.
   Langdon was suddenly confused. A good Samaritan flying in to help? Did the person somehow know where the antimatter was? Then why didn’t he just tell the Swiss Guard? Why was he coming in person? Something was odd, but Langdon didn’t have time to figure out what.
   “Hey,” the Aussie said, studying Langdon more closely. “Ain’t you that guy I saw on TV? Trying to save that cardinal in St. Peter’s Square?”
   Langdon did not answer. His eyes had suddenly locked on a contraption attached to the top of the truck—a satellite dish on a collapsible appendage. Langdon looked at the castle again. The outer rampart was fifty feet tall. The inner fortress climbed farther still. A shelled defense. The top was impossibly high from here, but maybe if he could clear the first wall…
   Langdon spun to the newsman and pointed to the satellite arm. “How high does that go?”
   “Huh?” The man looked confused. “Fifteen meters. Why?”
   “Move the truck. Park next to the wall. I need help.”
   “What are you talking about?”
   Langdon explained.
   The Aussie’s eyes went wide. “Are you insane? That’s a two-
   hundred-thousand-dollar telescoping extension. Not a ladder!”
   “You want ratings? I’ve got information that will make your day.” Langdon was desperate.
   “Information worth two hundred grand?”
   Langdon told him what he would reveal in exchange for the favor.
   Ninety seconds later, Robert Langdon was gripping the top of the satellite arm wavering in the breeze fifty feet off the ground. Leaning out, he grabbed the top of the first bulwark, dragged himself onto the wall, and dropped onto the castle’s lower bastion.
   “Now keep your bargain!” the Aussie called up. “Where is he?”
   Langdon felt guilt-ridden for revealing this information, but a deal was a deal. Besides, the Hassassin would probably call the press anyway. “Piazza Navona,” Langdon shouted. “He’s in the fountain.”
   The Aussie lowered his satellite dish and peeled out after the scoop of his career.
   In a stone chamber high above the city, the Hassassin removed his soaking boots and bandaged his wounded toe. There was pain, but not so much that he couldn’t enjoy himself.
   He turned to his prize.
   She was in the corner of the room, on her back on a rudimentary divan, hands tied behind her, mouth gagged. The Hassassin moved toward her. She was awake now. This pleased him. Surprisingly, in her eyes, he saw fire instead of fear.
   The fear will come.