bounced downward like a ratchet on a jack. He
wondered how many stacks there were in all. How much would they weigh? The glass at the far end was
thick . . .
Langdon's stack had fallen almost to the horizontal when he heard what he was waiting for-a different
kind of collision. Far off. At the end of the vault. The sharp smack of metal on glass. The vault around
him shook, and Langdon knew the final stack, weighted down by the others, had hit the glass hard. The
sound that followed was the most unwelcome sound Langdon had ever heard.
Silence.
There was no crashing of glass, only the resounding thud as the wall accepted the weight of the stacks
now propped against it. He lay wide-eyed on the pile of books. Somewhere in the distance there was a
creaking. Langdon would have held his breath to listen, but he had none left to hold.
One second. Two . . .
Then, as he teetered on the brink of unconsciousness, Langdon heard a distant yielding . . . a ripple
spidering outward through the glass. Suddenly, like a cannon, the glass exploded. The stack beneath
Langdon collapsed to the floor.
Like welcome rain on a desert, shards of glass tinkled downward in the dark. With a great sucking hiss,
the air gushed in.
Thirty seconds later, in the Vatican Grottoes, Vittoria was standing before a corpse when the electronic
squawk of a walkie-talkie broke the silence. The voice blaring out sounded short of breath. "This is
Robert Langdon! Can anyone hear me?"
Vittoria looked up. Robert! She could not believe how much she suddenly wished he were there.
The guards exchanged puzzled looks. One took a radio off his belt. "Mr. Langdon? You are on channel
three. The commander is waiting to hear from you on channel one."
"I know he's on channel one, damn it! I don't want to speak to him. I want the camerlegno. Now!
Somebody find him for me."
In the obscurity of the Secret Archives, Langdon stood amidst shattered glass and tried to catch his breath.
He felt a warm liquid on his left hand and knew he was bleeding. The camerlegno's voice spoke at once,
startling Langdon.
"This is Camerlegno Ventresca. What's going on?"
Langdon pressed the button, his heart still pounding. "I think somebody just tried to kill me!"
There was a silence on the line.
Langdon tried to calm himself. "I also know where the next killing is going to be."
The voice that came back was not the camerlegno's. It was Commander Olivetti's: "Mr. Langdon. Do not
speak another word."
87
L angdon'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 walkietalkie,
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
E ven 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 illeg