our call? Do you want us blind or vulnerable?"
Vittoria apparently had endured enough. "That's it. I'm going." She opened her door and got out.
Olivetti dropped his walkie-talkie and jumped out of the car, circling in front of Vittoria.
Langdon got out too. What the hell is she doing!
Olivetti blocked Vittoria's way. "Ms. Vetra, your instincts are good, but I cannot let a civilian interfere."
"Interfere? You're flying blind. Let me help."
"I would love to have a recon point inside, but . . ."
"But what?" Vittoria demanded. "But I'm a woman?"
Olivetti said nothing.
"That had better not be what you were going to say, Commander, because you know damn well this is a
good idea, and if you let some archaic macho bullshit-"
"Let us do our job."
"Let me help."
"Too dangerous. We would have no lines of communication with you. I can't let you carry a walkietalkie,
it would give you away."
Vittoria reached in her shirt pocket and produced her cell phone. "Plenty of tourists carry phones."
Olivetti frowned.
Vittoria unsnapped the phone and mimicked a call. "Hi, honey, I'm standing in the Pantheon. You should
see this place!" She snapped the phone shut and glared at Olivetti. "Who the hell is going to know? It is a
no-risk situation. Let me be your eyes!" She motioned to the cell phone on Olivetti's belt. "What's your
number?"
Olivetti did not reply.
The driver had been looking on and seemed to have some thoughts of his own. He got out of the car and
took the commander aside. They spoke in hushed tones for ten seconds. Finally Olivetti nodded and
returned. "Program this number." He began dictating digits.
Vittoria programmed her phone.
"Now call the number."
Vittoria pressed the auto dial. The phone on Olivetti's belt began ringing. He picked it up and spoke into
the receiver. "Go into the building, Ms. Vetra, look around, exit the building, then call and tell me what
you see."
Vittoria snapped the phone shut. "Thank you, sir."
Langdon felt a sudden, unexpected surge of protective instinct. "Wait a minute," he said to Olivetti.
"You're sending her in there alone."
Vittoria scowled at him. "Robert, I'll be fine."
The Swiss Guard driver was talking to Olivetti again.
"It's dangerous," Langdon said to Vittoria.
"He's right," Olivetti said. "Even my best men don't work alone. My lieutenant has just pointed out that
the masquerade will be more convincing with both of you anyway."
Both of us? Langdon hesitated. Actually, what I meant-
"Both of you entering together," Olivetti said, "will look like a couple on holiday. You can also back each
other up. I'm more comfortable with that."
Vittoria shrugged. "Fine, but we'll need to go fast."
Langdon groaned. Nice move, cowboy.
Olivetti pointed down the street. "First street you hit will be Via degli Orfani. Go left. It takes you directly
to the Pantheon. Two-minute walk, tops. I'll be here, directing my men and waiting for your call. I'd like
you to have protection." He pulled out his pistol. "Do either of you know how to use a gun?"
Langdon's heart skipped. We don't need a gun!
Vittoria held her hand out. "I can tag a breaching porpoise from forty meters off the bow of a rocking
ship."
"Good." Olivetti handed the gun to her. "You'll have to conceal it."
Vittoria glanced down at her shorts. Then she looked at Langdon.
Oh no you don't! Langdon thought, but Vittoria was too fast. She opened his jacket, and inserted the
weapon into one of his breast pockets. It felt like a rock dropping into his coat, his only consolation being
that Diagramma was in the other pocket.
"We look harmless," Vittoria said. "We're leaving." She took Langdon's arm and headed down the street.
The driver called out, "Arm in arm is good. Remember, you're tourists. Newlyweds even. Perhaps if you
held hands?"
As they turned the corner Langdon could have sworn he saw on Vittoria's face the hint of a smile.
59
T he Swiss Guard "staging room" is located adjacent to the Corpo di Vigilanza barracks and is used
primarily for planning the security surrounding papal appearances and public Vatican events. Today,
however, it was being used for something else.
The man addressing the assembled task force was the second-in-command of the Swiss Guard, Captain
Elias Rocher. Rocher was a barrel-chested man with soft, puttylike features. He wore the traditional blue
captain's uniform with his own personal flair-a red beret cocked sideways on his head. His voice was
surprisingly crystalline for such a large man, and when he spoke, his tone had the clarity of a musical
instrument. Despite the precision of his inflection, Rocher's eyes were cloudy like those of some
nocturnal mammal. His men called him "orso"-grizzly bear. They sometimes joked that Rocher was
"the bear who walked in the viper's shadow." Commander Olivetti was the viper. Rocher was just as
deadly as the viper, but at least you could see him coming.
Rocher's men stood at sharp attention, nobody moving a muscle, although the information they had just
received had increased their aggregate blood pressure by a few thousand points.
Rookie Lieutenant Chartrand stood in the back of the room wishing he had been among the 99 percent of
applicants who had not qualified to be here. At twenty years old, Chartrand was the youngest guard on the
force. He had been in Vatican City only three months. Like every man there, Chartrand was Swiss Army
trained and had endured two years of additional ausbilding in Bern before qualifying for the grueling
Vatican pròva held in a secret barracks outside of Rome. Nothing in his training, however, had prepared
him for a crisis like this.
At first Chartrand thought the briefing was some sort of bizarre training exercise. Futuristic weapons?
Ancient cults? Kidnapped cardinals? Then Rocher had shown them the live video feed of the weapon in
question. Apparently this was no exercise.
"We will be killing power in selected areas," Rocher was saying, "to eradicate extraneous magnetic
interference. We will move in teams of four. We will wear infrared goggles for vision. Reconnaissance
will be done with traditional bug sweepers, recalibrated for sub-three-ohm flux fields. Any questions?"
None.
Chartrand's mind was on overload. "What if we don't find it in time?" he asked, immediately wishing he
had not.
The grizzly bear gazed out at him from beneath his red beret. Then he dismissed the group with a somber
salute. "Godspeed, men."
60
T wo blocks from the Pantheon, Langdon and Vittoria approached on foot past a line of taxis, their
drivers sleeping in the front seats. Nap time was eternal in the Eternal City-the ubiquitous public dozing
a perfected extension of the afternoon siestas born of ancient Spain.
Langdon fought to focus his thoughts, but the situation was too bizarre to grasp rationally. Six hours ago
he had been sound asleep in Cambridge. Now he was in Europe, caught up in a surreal battle of ancient
titans, packing a semiautomatic in his Harris tweed, and holding hands with a woman he had only just
met.
He looked at Vittoria. She was focused straight ahead. There was a strength in her grasp-that of an
independent and determined woman. Her fingers wrapped around his with the comfort of innate
acceptance. No hesitation. Langdon felt a growing attraction. Get real, he told himself.
Vittoria seemed to sense his uneasiness. "Relax," she said, without turning her head. "We're supposed to
look like newlyweds."
"I'm relaxed."
"You're crushing my hand."
Langdon flushed and loosened up.
"Breathe through your eyes," she said.
"I'm sorry?"
"It relaxes the muscles. It's called pranayama."
"Piranha?"
"Not the fish. Pranayama. Never mind."
As they rounded the corner into Piazza della Rotunda, the Pantheon rose before them. Langdon admired
it, as always, with awe. The Pantheon. Temple to all gods. Pagan gods. Gods of Nature and Earth. The
structure seemed boxier from the outside than he remembered. The vertical pillars and triangular pronaus
all but obscured the circular dome behind it. Still, the bold and immodest inscription over the entrance
assured him they were in the right spot. M AGRIPPA L F COS TERTIUM FECIT. Langdon translated it, as
always, with amusement. Marcus Agrippa, Consul for the third time, built this.
So much for humility, he thought, turning his eyes to the surrounding area. A scattering of tourists with
video cameras wandered the area. Others sat enjoying Rome's best iced coffee at La Tazza di Oro's
outdoor cafe. Outside the entrance to the Pantheon, four armed Roman policemen stood at attention just
as Olivetti had predicted.
"Looks pretty quiet," Vittoria said.
Langdon nodded, but he felt troubled. Now that he was standing here in person, the whole scenario
seemed surreal. Despite Vittoria's apparent faith that he was right, Langdon realized he had put everyone
on the line here. The Illuminati poem lingered. From Santi's earthly tomb with demon's hole. YES, he told
himself. This was the spot. Santi's tomb. He had been here many times beneath the Pantheon's oculus and
stood before the grave of the great Raphael.
"What time is it?" Vittoria asked.
Langdon checked his watch. "Seven-fifty. Ten minutes till show time."
"Hope these guys are good," Vittoria said, eyeing the scattered tourists entering the Pantheon. "If
anything happens inside that dome, we'll all be in the crossfire."
Langdon exhaled heavily as they moved toward the entrance. The gun felt heavy in his pocket. He
wondered what would happen if the policemen frisked him and found the weapon, but the officers did not
give them a second look. Apparently the disguise was convincing.
Langdon whispered to Vittoria. "Ever fire anything other than a tranquilizer gun?"
"Don't you trust me?"
"Trust you? I barely know you."
Vittoria frowned. "And here I thought we were newlyweds."
61
T he air inside the Pantheon was cool and damp, heavy with history. The spr