INT VATICAN ARCHIVES NIGHT

KA-CHUNG! Emergency lights switch on in the Vatican Archives,

casting a weird, reddish glow over everything.

But the ribbons at the oxygen panel remain limp.

Below, Langdon pushes, again and again, on the deadened exit

button, trying to activate the doors. Nothing doing.

He's weak, weaving, barely on his feet.

Chartrand's already slumped against a wall, his radio in hand,

keying it over and over again, but getting only static.

69.

LANGDON

Anything?

Chartrand gestures weakly around the room.

CHARTRAND

Walls... lead-lined... no signal.

Langdon blinks, his vision becoming seriously impaired. He holds

his eyes closed for a moment, opens them, it's not much better.

Langdon looks at the glass wall on the far side of the vault. Then

at the row of bookcases. Gets an idea.

He goes to the last bookcase, which is about six feet from the

glass wall. He hoists himself up on the shelf of the bookcase

opposite it, wedges himself in.

And pushes with one leg. The giant bookcase teeters, but just

barely.

Langdon hoists himself further up, gets both legs up against the

bookshelf.

Pushes again -- more movement this time.

Now he puts everything he has into it, straining like hell. The

bookcase starts to tip, goes just past the point of no return,

starts to fall, gloriously headed straight for the glass wall,

which it SLAMS into with enormous power and --

--- stops.

Leaning against the wall. Forget cracks, there's not even a

scratch.

Langdon CURSES under his breath, looks around for another idea.

He hears a soft THUD from the other side of the room, sees

Chartrand has slumped over, unconscious.

But his jacket has fallen open, revealing the sidearm he carries

in a shoulder holster.

LANGDON'S HAND

slips the gun out of the holster and hefts it. Safe bet he's

never held one of these before.

He staggers over toward the glass wall, raises the gun, and pulls

the trigger. Nothing happens. Trigger doesn't even move.

70.

After a moment of oxygen-poor thinking, he figures out how to

CLICK off the safety. Tries again.

(Pow.)

The sound of the shot is barely audible to Langdon. His brain's

going fast.

If he was hoping to bring the whole wall down, he failed, but

there's a faint HISSING sound coming from the bullethole, and he

goes to it and takes a deep breath of air from the outside.

He stands back, his brain clearing momentarily.

Seized by an idea, he looks up at the wall, at its four corners,

and at the tiny web of cracks radiating out from the hole he just

made in the center.

He raises the gun again and fires off FOUR SHOTS in quick

succession. They're in an odd pattern-- upper left corner, upper

right, not quite as high, lower middle-left, and the very lower

right corner.

Now there are four new holes, each HISSING slightly, and the first

hole, in the center.

Shaking his head once more to clear it, Langdon steps forward to

the glass wall, but instead of barreling against it or throwing a

chair, he simply raises one hand, places it flat over the first

hole he made, the one in the center of the glass wall ---

-- and presses gently.

Almost immediately, a SHARP SOUND comes from the hole beneath his

hand and a jagged crack leaps out from the first hole, shooting up

to connect with the hole in the upper left corner.

He presses just a touch harder and a SECOND CRACK starts,

shooting down to the lower right. Then a third, and a fourth,

the glass is cracking like ice in springtime, all four extremities

connecting with the central hole, and with a huge GROANING SOUND -

-

-- the entire glass wall falls to pieces at his feet.

Air RUSHES into the vault.

And, wouldn't you know it, the power comes back on in the Archives.

CUT TO:

71.

Date: 2015-12-18; view: 473