Directly in front of them, the rolling shadows of the Roman foothills loomed in the night. The hills were
spotted with lights-the villas of the very wealthy-but a mile or so north, the hills grew dark. There
were no lights at all-just a huge pocket of blackness. Nothing.
The quarries! Langdon thought. La Cava Romana!
Staring intently at the barren pocket of land, Langdon sensed that it was plenty large enough. It seemed
close, too. Much closer than the ocean. Excitement surged through him. This was obviously where the
camerlegno planned to take the antimatter! The chopper was pointing directly toward it! The quarries!
Oddly, however, as the engines strained louder and the chopper hurtled through the air, Langdon could
see that the quarries were not getting any closer. Bewildered, he shot a glance out the side door to get his
bearings. What he saw doused his excitement in a wave of panic. Directly beneath them, thousands of feet
straight down, glowed the media lights in St. Peter's Square.
We're still over the Vatican!
"Camerlegno!" Langdon choked. "Go forward! We're high enough! You've got to start moving forward!
We can't drop the canister back over Vatican City!"
The camerlegno did not reply. He appeared to be concentrating on flying the craft.
"We've got less than two minutes!" Langdon shouted, holding up the canister. "I can see them! La Cava
Romana! A couple of miles north! We don't have-"
"No," the camerlegno said. "It's far too dangerous. I'm sorry." As the chopper continued to claw
heavenward, the camerlegno turned and gave Langdon a mournful smile. "I wish you had not come, my
friend. You have made the ultimate sacrifice."
Langdon looked in the camerlegno's exhausted eyes and suddenly understood. His blood turned to ice.
"But . . . there must be somewhere we can go!"
"Up," the camerlegno replied, his voice resigned. "It's the only guarantee."
Langdon could barely think. He had entirely misinterpreted the camerlegno's plan. Look to the heavens!
Heaven, Langdon now realized, was literally where he was headed. The camerlegno had never intended to
drop the antimatter. He was simply getting it as far away from Vatican City as humanly possible.
This was a one-way trip.
123
I n St. Peter's Square, Vittoria Vetra stared upward. The helicopter was a speck now, the media lights no
longer reaching it. Even the pounding of the rotors had faded to a distant hum. It seemed, in that instant,
that the entire world was focused upward, silenced in anticipation, necks craned to the heavens . . . all
peoples, all faiths . . . all hearts beating as one.
Vittoria's emotions were a cyclone of twisting agonies. As the helicopter disappeared from sight, she
pictured Robert's face, rising above her. What had he been thinking? Didn't he understand?
Around the square, television cameras probed the darkness, waiting. A sea of faces stared heavenward,
united in a silent countdown. The media screens all flickered the same tranquil scene . . . a Roman sky
illuminated with brilliant stars. Vittoria felt the tears begin to well.
Behind her on the marble escarpment, 161 cardinals stared up in silent awe. Some folded their hands in
prayer. Most stood motionless, transfixed. Some wept. The seconds ticked past.
In homes, bars, businesses, airports, hospitals around the world, souls were joined in universal witness.
Men and women locked hands. Others held their children. Time seemed to hover in limbo, souls
suspended in unison.
Then, cruelly, the bells of St. Peter's began to toll.
Vittoria let the tears come.
Then . . . with the whole world watching . . . time ran out.
The dead silence of the event was the most terrifying of all.
High above Vatican City, a pinpoint of light appeared in the sky. For a fleeting instant, a new heavenly
body had been born . . . a speck of light as pure and white as anyone had ever seen.
Then it happened.
A flash. The point billowed, as if feeding on itself, unraveling across the sky in a dilating radius of
blinding white. It shot out in all directions, accelerating with incomprehensible speed, gobbling up the
dark. As the sphere of light grew, it intensified, like a burgeoning fiend preparing to consume the entire
sky. It raced downward, toward them, picking up speed.
Blinded, the multitudes of starkly lit human faces gasped as one, shielding their eyes, crying out in
strangled fear.
As the light roared out in all directions, the unimaginable occurred. As if bound by God's own will, the
surging radius seemed to hit a wall. It was as if the explosion were contained somehow in a giant glass
sphere. The light rebounded inward, sharpening, rippling across itself. The wave appeared to have
reached a predetermined diameter and hovered there. For that instant, a perfect and silent sphere of light
glowed over Rome. Night had become day.
Then it hit.
The concussion was deep and hollow-a thunderous shock wave from above. It descended on them like
the wrath of hell, shaking the granite foundation of Vatican City, knocking the breath out of people's
lungs, sending others stumbling backward. The reverberation circled the colonnade, followed by a sudden
torrent of warm air. The wind tore through the square, letting out a sepulchral moan as it whistled through
the columns and buffeted the walls. Dust swirled overhead as people huddled . . . witnesses to
Armageddon.
Then, as fast as it appeared, the sphere imploded, sucking back in on itself, crushing inward to the tiny
point of light from which it had come.
124
N ever before had so many been so silent.
The faces in St. Peter's Square, one by one, averted their eyes from the darkening sky and turned
downward, each person in his or her own private moment of wonder. The media lights followed suit,
dropping their beams back to earth as if out of reverence for the blackness now settling upon them. It
seemed for a moment the entire world was bowing its head in unison.
Cardinal Mortati knelt to pray, and the other cardinals joined him. The Swiss Guard lowered their long
swords and stood numb. No one spoke. No one moved. Everywhere, hearts shuddered with spontaneous
emotion. Bereavement. Fear. Wonder. Belief. And a dread-filled respect for the new and awesome power
they had just witnessed.
Vittoria Vetra stood trembling at the foot of the basilica's sweeping stairs. She closed her eyes. Through
the tempest of emotions now coursing through her blood, a single word tolled like a distant bell. Pristine.
Cruel. She forced it away. And yet the word echoed. Again she drove it back. The pain was too great. She
tried to lose herself in the images that blazed in other's minds . . . antimatter's mind-boggling power . . .
the Vatican's deliverance . . . the camerlegno . . . feats of bravery . . . miracles . . . selflessness. And still
the word echoed . . . tolling through the chaos with a stinging loneliness.
Robert.
He had come for her at Castle St. Angelo.
He had saved her.
And now he had been destroyed by her creation.
As Cardinal Mortati prayed, he wondered if he too would hear God's voice as the camerlegno had. Does
one need to believe in miracles to experience them? Mortati was a modern man in an ancient faith.
Miracles had never played a part in his belief. Certainly his faith spoke of miracles . . . bleeding palms,
ascensions from the dead, imprints on shrouds . . . and yet, Mortati's rational mind had always justified
these accounts as part of the myth. They were simply the result of man's greatest weakness-his need for
proof. Miracles were nothing but stories we all clung to because we wished they were true.
And yet . . .
Am I so modern that I cannot accept what my eyes have just witnessed? It was a miracle, was it not? Yes!
God, with a few whispered words in the camerlegno's ear, had intervened and saved this church. Why
was this so hard to believe? What would it say about God if God had done nothing? That the Almighty
did not care? That He was powerless to stop it? A miracle was the only possible response!
As Mortati knelt in wonder, he prayed for the camerlegno's soul. He gave thanks to the young
chamberlain who, even in his youthful years, had opened this old man's eyes to the miracles of
unquestioning faith.
Incredibly, though, Mortati never suspected the extent to which his faith was about to be tested . . .
The silence of St. Peter's Square broke with a ripple at first. The ripple grew to a murmur. And then,
suddenly, to a roar. Without warning, the multitudes were crying out as one.
"Look! Look!"
Mortati opened his eyes and turned to the crowd. Everyone was pointing behind him, toward the front of
St. Peter's Basilica. Their faces were white. Some fell to their knees. Some fainted. Some burst into
uncontrollable sobs.
"Look! Look!"
Mortati turned, bewildered, following their outstretched hands. They were pointing to the uppermost level
of the basilica, the rooftop terrace, where huge statues of Christ and his apostles watched over the crowd.
There, on the right of Jesus, arms outstretched to the world . . . stood Camerlegno Carlo Ventresca.
125
R obert Langdon was no longer falling.
There was no more terror. No pain. Not even the sound of the racing wind. There was only the soft sound
of lapping water, as though he were comfortably asleep on a beach.
In a paradox of self-awareness, Langdon sensed this was death. He felt glad for it. He allowed the drifting
numbness to possess him entirely. He let it carry him wherever it was he would go. His pain and fear had
been anesthetized, and he did not wish it back at any price. His final memory had been one that could
only have been conjured in hell.
Take me. Please . . .
But the lapping that lulled in him a far-off sense of peace was also pulling him back. It was trying to
awaken him from a dream. No! Let me be! He did not want to awaken. He sensed demons gathering on
the perimeter of his bliss, pounding to s