nnected by some sort of universal
consciousness, every last media screen in the piazza cut away from their countdown clocks and their
Vatican experts and began transmitting the same picture-a jiggling action footage swooping up the
Vatican stairs. Now, everywhere Langdon looked, he saw the camerlegno's limp body in a Technicolor
close-up.
This is wrong! Langdon thought. He wanted to run down the stairs and interfere, but he could not. It
wouldn't have helped anyway. Whether it was the roar of the crowd or the cool night air that caused it,
Langdon would never know, but at that moment, the inconceivable occurred.
Like a man awakening from a nightmare, the camerlegno's eyes shot open and he sat bolt upright. Taken
entirely by surprise, Langdon and the others fumbled with the shifting weight. The front of the table
dipped. The camerlegno began to slide. They tried to recover by setting the table down, but it was too late.
The camerlegno slid off the front. Incredibly, he did not fall. His feet hit the marble, and he swayed
upright. He stood a moment, looking disoriented, and then, before anyone could stop him, he lurched
forward, staggering down the stairs toward Macri.
"No!" Langdon screamed.
Chartrand rushed forward, trying to reign in the camerlegno. But the camerlegno turned on him, wildeyed,
crazed. "Leave me!"
Chartrand jumped back.
The scene went from bad to worse. The camerlegno's torn cassock, having been only laid over his chest
by Chartrand, began to slip lower. For a moment, Langdon thought the garment might hold, but that
moment passed. The cassock let go, sliding off his shoulders down around his waist.
The gasp that went up from the crowd seemed to travel around the globe and back in an instant. Cameras
rolled, flashbulbs exploded. On media screens everywhere, the image of the camerlegno's branded chest
was projected, towering and in grisly detail. Some screens were even freezing the image and rotating it
180 degrees.
The ultimate Illuminati victory.
Langdon stared at the brand on the screens. Although it was the imprint of the square brand he had held
earlier, the symbol now made sense. Perfect sense. The marking's awesome power hit Langdon like a
train.
Orientation. Langdon had forgotten the first rule of symbology. When is a square not a square? He had
also forgotten that iron brands, just like rubber stamps, never looked like their imprints. They were in
reverse. Langdon had been looking at the brand's negative!
As the chaos grew, an old Illuminati quote echoed with new meaning: "A flawless diamond, born of the
ancient elements with such perfection that all those who saw it could only stare in wonder."
Langdon knew now the myth was true.
Earth, Air, Fire, Water.
The Illuminati Diamond.
117
R obert Langdon had little doubt that the chaos and hysteria coursing through St. Peter's Square at this
very instant exceeded anything Vatican Hill had ever witnessed. No battle, no crucifixion, no pilgrimage,
no mystical vision . . . nothing in the shrine's 2,000-year history could possibly match the scope and
drama of this very moment.
As the tragedy unfolded, Langdon felt oddly separate, as if hovering there beside Vittoria at the top of the
stairs. The action seemed to distend, as if in a time warp, all the insanity slowing to a crawl . . .
The branded camerlegno . . . raving for the world to see . . .
The Illuminati Diamond . . . unveiled in its diabolical genius . . .
The countdown clock registering the final twenty minutes of Vatican history . . .
The drama, however, had only just begun.
The camerlegno, as if in some sort of post-traumatic trance, seemed suddenly puissant, possessed by
demons. He began babbling, whispering to unseen spirits, looking up at the sky and raising his arms to
God.
"Speak!" the camerlegno yelled to the heavens. "Yes, I hear you!"
In that moment, Langdon understood. His heart dropped like a rock.
Vittoria apparently understood too. She went white. "He's in shock," she said. "He's hallucinating. He
thinks he's talking to God!"
Somebody's got to stop this, Langdon thought. It was a wretched and embarrassing end. Get this man to a
hospital!
Below them on the stairs, Chinita Macri was poised and filming, apparently having located her ideal
vantage point. The images she filmed appeared instantly across the square behind her on media screens . .
. like endless drive-in movies all playing the same grisly tragedy.
The whole scene felt epic. The camerlegno, in his torn cassock, with the scorched brand on his chest,
looked like some sort of battered champion who had overcome the rings of hell for this one moment of
revelation. He bellowed to the heavens.
"Ti sento, Dio! I hear you, God!"
Chartrand backed off, a look of awe on his face.
The hush that fell across the crowd was instant and absolute. For a moment it was as if the silence had
fallen across the entire planet . . . everyone in front of their TVs rigid, a communal holding of breath.
The camerlegno stood on the stairs, before the world, and held out his arms. He looked almost Christlike,
bare and wounded before the world. He raised his arms to the heavens and, looking up, exclaimed,
"Grazie! Grazie, Dio!"
The silence of the masses never broke.
"Grazie, Dio!" the camerlegno cried out again. Like the sun breaking through a stormy sky, a look of joy
spread across his face. "Grazie, Dio!"
Thank you, God? Langdon stared in wonder.
The camerlegno was radiant now, his eerie transformation complete. He looked up at the sky, still
nodding furiously. He shouted to the heavens, "Upon this rock I will build my church!"
Langdon knew the words, but he had no idea why the camerlegno could possibly be shouting them.
The camerlegno turned back to the crowd and bellowed again into the night. "Upon this rock I will build
my church!" Then he raised his hands to the sky and laughed out loud. "Grazie, Dio! Grazie!"
The man had clearly gone mad.
The world watched, spellbound.
The culmination, however, was something no one expected.
With a final joyous exultation, the camerlegno turned and dashed back into St. Peter's Basilica.
118
E leven-forty-two P.M.
The frenzied convoy that plunged back into the basilica to retrieve the camerlegno was not one Langdon
had ever imagined he would be part of . . . much less leading. But he had been closest to the door and had
acted on instinct.
He'll die in here, Langdon thought, sprinting over the threshold into the darkened void. "Camerlegno!
Stop!"
The wall of blackness that hit Langdon was absolute. His pupils were contracted from the glare outside,
and his field of vision now extended no farther than a few feet before his face. He skidded to a stop.
Somewhere in the blackness ahead, he heard the camerlegno's cassock rustle as the priest ran blindly into
the abyss.
Vittoria and the guards arrived immediately. Flashlights came on, but the lights were almost dead now
and did not even begin to probe the depths of the basilica before them. The beams swept back and forth,
revealing only columns and bare floor. The camerlegno was nowhere to be seen.
"Camerlegno!" Chartrand yelled, fear in his voice. "Wait! Signore!"
A commotion in the doorway behind them caused everyone to turn. Chinita Macri's large frame lurched
through the entry. Her camera was shouldered, and the glowing red light on top revealed that it was still
transmitting. Glick was running behind her, microphone in hand, yelling for her to slow down.
Langdon could not believe these two. This is not the time!
"Out!" Chartrand snapped. "This is not for your eyes!"
But Macri and Glick kept coming.
"Chinita!" Glick sounded fearful now. "This is suicide! I'm not coming!"
Macri ignored him. She threw a switch on her camera. The spotlight on top glared to life, blinding
everyone.
Langdon shielded his face and turned away in pain. Damn it! When he looked up, though, the church
around them was illuminated for thirty yards.
At that moment the camerlegno's voice echoed somewhere in the distance. "Upon this rock I will build
my church!"
Macri wheeled her camera toward the sound. Far off, in the grayness at the end of the spotlight's reach,
black fabric billowed, revealing a familiar form running down the main aisle of the basilica.
There was a fleeting instant of hesitation as everyone's eyes took in the bizarre image. Then the dam
broke. Chartrand pushed past Langdon and sprinted after the camerlegno. Langdon took off next. Then
the guards and Vittoria.
Macri brought up the rear, lighting everyone's way and transmitting the sepulchral chase to the world. An
unwilling Glick cursed aloud as he tagged along, fumbling through a terrified blow-by-blow commentary.
The main aisle of St. Peter's Basilica, Lieutenant Chartrand had once figured out, was longer than an
Olympic soccer field. Tonight, however, it felt like twice that. As the guard sprinted after the camerlegno,
he wondered where the man was headed. The camerlegno was clearly in shock, delirious no doubt from
his physical trauma and bearing witness to the horrific massacre in the Pope's office.
Somewhere up ahead, beyond the reach of the BBC spotlight, the camerlegno's voice rang out joyously.
"Upon this rock I will build my church!"
Chartrand knew the man was shouting Scripture-Matthew 16:18, if Chartrand recalled correctly. Upon
this rock I will build my church. It was an almost cruelly inapt inspiration-the church was about to be
destroyed. Surely the camerlegno had gone mad.
Or had he?
For a fleeting instant, Chartrand's soul fluttered. Holy visions and divine messages had always seemed
like wishful delusions to him-the product of overzealous minds hearing what they wanted to hear-God
did not interact directly!
A moment later, though, as if the Holy Spirit Himself had descended to persuade Chartrand of His power,
Chartrand had a vision.
Fifty yards ahead, in the center of the churc