Galileo Galilei, 1639

Langdon dropped to his knees, his heart pounding. “Diagramma.” He gave her a grin. “Nice work. Help me pull out this bin.”

Vittoria knelt beside him, and they heaved. The metal tray on which the bin was sitting rolled toward them on castors, revealing the top of the container.

“No lock?” Vittoria said, sounding surprised at the simple latch.

“Never. Documents sometimes need to be evacuated quickly. Floods and fires.”

“So open it.”

Langdon didn’t need any encouragement. With his academic life’s dream right in front of him and the thinning air in the chamber, he was in no mood to dawdle. He unsnapped the latch and lifted the lid. Inside, flat on the floor of the bin, lay a black, duck‑cloth pouch. The cloth’s breathability was critical to the preservation of its contents. Reaching in with both hands and keeping the pouch horizontal, Langdon lifted it out of the bin.

“I expected a treasure chest,” Vittoria said. “Looks more like a pillowcase.”

“Follow me,” he said. Holding the bag before him like a sacred offering, Langdon walked to the center of the vault where he found the customary glass‑topped archival exam table. Although the central location was intended to minimize in‑vault travel of documents, researchers appreciated the privacy the surrounding stacks afforded. Career‑making discoveries were uncovered in the top vaults of the world, and most academics did not like rivals peering through the glass as they worked.

Langdon lay the pouch on the table and unbuttoned the opening. Vittoria stood by. Rummaging through a tray of archivist tools, Langdon found the felt‑pad pincers archivists called finger cymbals —oversized tweezers with flattened disks on each arm. As his excitement mounted, Langdon feared at any moment he might awake back in Cambridge with a pile of test papers to grade. Inhaling deeply, he opened the bag. Fingers trembling in their cotton gloves, he reached in with his tongs.

“Relax,” Vittoria said. “It’s paper, not plutonium.”

Langdon slid the tongs around the stack of documents inside and was careful to apply even pressure. Then, rather than pulling out the documents, he held them in place while he slid off the bag—an archivist’s procedure for minimizing torque on the artifact. Not until the bag was removed and Langdon had turned on the exam darklight beneath the table did he begin breathing again.

Vittoria looked like a specter now, lit from below by the lamp beneath the glass. “Small sheets,” she said, her voice reverent.

Langdon nodded. The stack of folios before them looked like loose pages from a small paperback novel. Langdon could see that the top sheet was an ornate pen and ink cover sheet with the title, the date, and Galileo’s name in his own hand.

In that instant, Langdon forgot the cramped quarters, forgot his exhaustion, forgot the horrifying situation that had brought him here. He simply stared in wonder. Close encounters with history always left Langdon numbed with reverence . . . like seeing the brushstrokes on the Mona Lisa.

The muted, yellow papyrus left no doubt in Langdon’s mind as to its age and authenticity, but excluding the inevitable fading, the document was in superb condition. Slight bleaching of the pigment. Minor sundering and cohesion of the papyrus. But all in all . . . in damn fine condition. He studied the ornate hand etching of the cover, his vision blurring in the lack of humidity. Vittoria was silent.

“Hand me a spatula, please.” Langdon motioned beside Vittoria to a tray filled with stainless‑steel archival tools. She handed it to him. Langdon took the tool in his hand. It was a good one. He ran his fingers across the face to remove any static charge and then, ever so carefully, slid the blade beneath the cover. Then, lifting the spatula, he turned over the cover sheet.

The first page was written in longhand, the tiny, stylized calligraphy almost impossible to read. Langdon immediately noticed that there were no diagrams or numbers on the page. It was an essay.

“Heliocentricity,” Vittoria said, translating the heading on folio one. She scanned the text. “Looks like Galileo renouncing the geocentric model once and for all. Ancient Italian, though, so no promises on the translation.”

“Forget it,” Langdon said. “We’re looking for math. The pure language.” He used the spatula tool to flip the next page. Another essay. No math or diagrams. Langdon’s hands began to sweat inside his gloves.

“Movement of the Planets,” Vittoria said, translating the title.

Langdon frowned. On any other day, he would have been fascinated to read it; incredibly NASA’s current model of planetary orbits, observed through high‑powered telescopes, was supposedly almost identical to Galileo’s original predictions.

“No math,” Vittoria said. “He’s talking about retrograde motions and elliptical orbits or something.”

Elliptical orbits. Langdon recalled that much of Galileo’s legal trouble had begun when he described planetary motion as elliptical. The Vatican exalted the perfection of the circle and insisted heavenly motion must be only circular. Galileo’s Illuminati, however, saw perfection in the ellipse as well, revering the mathematical duality of its twin foci. The Illuminati’s ellipse was prominent even today in modern Masonic tracing boards and footing inlays.

“Next,” Vittoria said.

Langdon flipped.

“Lunar phases and tidal motion,” she said. “No numbers. No diagrams.”

Langdon flipped again. Nothing. He kept flipping through a dozen or so pages. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing.

“I thought this guy was a mathematician,” Vittoria said. “This is all text.”

Langdon felt the air in his lungs beginning to thin. His hopes were thinning too. The pile was waning.

“Nothing here,” Vittoria said. “No math. A few dates, a few standard figures, but nothing that looks like it could be a clue.”

Langdon flipped over the last folio and sighed. It, too, was an essay.

“Short book,” Vittoria said, frowning.

Langdon nodded.

“Merda, as we say in Rome.”

Shit is right, Langdon thought. His reflection in the glass seemed mocking, like the image staring back at him this morning from his bay window. An aging ghost. “There’s got to be something,” he said, the hoarse desperation in his voice surprising him. “The segno is here somewhere. I know it!”

“Maybe you were wrong about DIII?”

Langdon turned and stared at her.

“Okay,” she agreed, “DIII makes perfect sense. But maybe the clue isn’t mathematical?”

“Lingua pura. What else would it be?”

“Art?”

“Except there are no diagrams or pictures in the book.”

“All I know is that lingua pura refers to something other than Italian. Math just seems logical.”

“I agree.”

Langdon refused to accept defeat so quickly. “The numbers must be written longhand. The math must be in words rather than equations.”

“It’ll take some time to read all the pages.”

“Time’s something we don’t have. We’ll have to split the work.” Langdon flipped the stack back over to the beginning. “I know enough Italian to spot numbers.” Using his spatula, he cut the stack like a deck of cards and lay the first half‑dozen pages in front of Vittoria. “It’s in here somewhere. I’m sure.”

Vittoria reached down and flipped her first page by hand.

“Spatula!” Langdon said, grabbing her an extra tool from the tray. “Use the spatula.”

“I’m wearing gloves,” she grumbled. “How much damage could I cause?”

“Just use it.”

Vittoria picked up the spatula. “You feeling what I’m feeling?”

“Tense?”

“No. Short of breath.”

Langdon was definitely starting to feel it too. The air was thinning faster than he had imagined. He knew they had to hurry. Archival conundrums were nothing new for him, but usually he had more than a few minutes to work them out. Without another word, Langdon bowed his head and began translating the first page in his stack.

Show yourself, damn it! Show yourself!

Somewhere beneath Rome the dark figure prowled down a stone ramp into the underground tunnel. The ancient passageway was lit only by torches, making the air hot and thick. Up ahead the frightened voices of grown men called out in vain, echoing in the cramped spaces.

As he rounded the corner he saw them, exactly as he had left them—four old men, terrified, sealed behind rusted iron bars in a stone cubicle.

“Qui êtes‑vous? “one of the men demanded in French. “What do you want with us?”

“Hilfe! “another said in German. “Let us go!”

“Are you aware who we are?” one asked in English, his accent Spanish.

“Silence,” the raspy voice commanded. There was a finality about the word.

The fourth prisoner, an Italian, quiet and thoughtful, looked into the inky void of his captor’s eyes and swore he saw hell itself. God help us, he thought.

The killer checked his watch and then returned his gaze to the prisoners. “Now then,” he said. “Who will be first?”

Inside Archive Vault 10 Robert Langdon recited Italian numbers as he scanned the calligraphy before him. Mille . . . centi . . . uno, duo, tre . . . cincuanta. I need a numerical reference! Anything, damnit!

When he reached the end of his current folio, he lifted the spatula to flip the page. As he aligned the blade with the next page, he fumbled, having difficulty holding the tool steady. Minutes later, he looked down and realized he had abandoned his spatula and was turning pages by hand. Oops, he thought, feeling vaguely criminal. The lack of oxygen was affecting his inhibitions. Looks like I’ll burn in archivist’s hell.

“About damn time,” Vittoria choked when she saw Langdon turning pages by hand. She dropped her spatula and followed suit.

“Any luck?”

Vittoria shook her head. “Nothing that looks purely mathematical. I’m skimming . . . but none of this reads like a clue.”

Langdon continued translating his folios with increasing difficulty. His Italian skills were rocky at best, and the tiny penmanship and archaic language was making it slow going. Vittoria reached the end of her stack before Langdon and looked disheartened as she flipped the pages back over. She hunkered down for another more intense inspection.

When Langdon finished his final page, he cursed under his breath and looked over at Vittoria. She was scowling, squinting at something on one of her folios. “What is it?” he asked.

Vittoria did not look up. “Did you have any footnotes on your pages?”

“Not that I noticed. Why?”

“This page has a footnote. It’s obscured in a crease.”

Langdon tried to see what she was looking at, but all he could make out was the page number in the upper right‑hand corner of the sheet. Folio 5. It took a moment for the coincidence to register, and even when it did the connection seemed vague. Folio Five. Five, Pythagoras, pentagrams, Illuminati. Langdon wondered if the Illuminati would have chosen page five on which to hide their clue. Through the reddish fog surrounding them, Langdon sensed a tiny ray of hope. “Is the footnote mathematical?”

Vittoria shook her head. “Text. One line. Very small printing. Almost illegible.”

His hopes faded. “It’s supposed to be math. Lingua pura.”

“Yeah, I know.” She hesitated. “I think you’ll want to hear this, though.” Langdon sensed excitement in her voice.

“Go ahead.”

Squinting at the folio, Vittoria read the line. “The path of light is laid, the sacred test.”

The words were nothing like what Langdon had imagined. “I’m sorry?”

Vittoria repeated the line. “The path of light is laid, the sacred test.”

“Path of light?” Langdon felt his posture straightening.

“That’s what it says. Path of light.”

As the words sank in, Langdon felt his delirium pierced by an instant of clarity. The path of light is laid, the sacred test. He had no idea how it helped them, but the line was as direct a reference to the Path of Illumination as he could imagine. Path of light. Sacred test. His head felt like an engine revving on bad fuel. “Are you sure of the translation?”

Vittoria hesitated. “Actually . . .” She glanced over at him with a strange look. “It’s not technically a translation. The line is written in English.”

For an instant, Langdon thought the acoustics in the chamber had affected his hearing. “English? “

Vittoria pushed the document over to him, and Langdon read the minuscule printing at the bottom of the page. “The path of light is laid, the sacred test. English? What is English doing in an Italian book?”

Vittoria shrugged. She too was looking tipsy. “Maybe English is what they meant by the lingua pura ? It’s considered the international language of science. It’s all we speak at CERN.”

“But this was in the 1600s,” Langdon argued. “Nobody spoke English in Italy, not even—” He stopped short, realizing what he was about to say. “Not even . . . the clergy.” Langdon’s academic mind hummed in high gear. “In the 1600s,” he said, talking faster now, “English was one language the Vatican had not yet embraced. They dealt in Italian, Latin, German, even Spanish and French, but English was totally foreign inside the Vatican. They considered English a polluted, free‑thinkers language for profane men like Chaucer and Shakespeare.” Langdon flashed suddenly on the Illuminati brands of Earth, Air, Fire, Water. The legend that the brands were in English now made a bizarre kind of sense.

“So you’re saying maybe Galileo considered English la lingua pura because it was the one language the Vatican did not control?”

“Yes. Or maybe by putting the clue in English, Galileo was subtly restricting the readership away from the Vatican.”

“But it’s not even a clue,” Vittoria argued. “The path of light is laid, the sacred test? What the hell does that mean?”

She’s right, Langdon thought. The line didn’t help in any way. But as he spoke the phrase again in his mind, a strange fact hit him. Now that’s odd, he thought. What are the chances of that?

“We need to get out of here,” Vittoria said, sounding hoarse.

Langdon wasn’t listening. The path of light is laid, the sacred test. “It’s a damn line of iambic pentameter,” he said suddenly, counting the syllables again. “Five couplets of alternating stressed and unstressed syllables.”

Vittoria looked lost. “Iambic who?”

For an instant Langdon was back at Phillips Exeter Academy sitting in a Saturday morning English class. Hell on earth. The school baseball star, Peter Greer, was having trouble remembering the number of couplets necessary for a line of Shakespearean iambic pentameter. Their professor, an animated schoolmaster named Bissell, leapt onto the table and bellowed, “Penta‑meter, Greer! Think of home plate! A penta‑gon! Five sides! Penta! Penta! Penta! Jeeeesh!”

Five couplets, Langdon thought. Each couplet, by definition, having two syllables. He could not believe in his entire career he had never made the connection. Iambic pentameter was a symmetrical meter based on the sacred Illuminati numbers of 5 and 2!

You’re reaching! Langdon told himself, trying to push it from his mind. A meaningless coincidence! But the thought stuck. Five . . . for Pythagoras and the pentagram. Two . . . for the duality of all things.

A moment later, another realization sent a numbing sensation down his legs. Iambic pentameter, on account of its simplicity, was often called “pure verse” or “pure meter.” La lingua pura? Could this have been the pure language the Illuminati had been referring to? The path of light is laid, the sacred test . . .

“Uh oh,” Vittoria said.

Langdon wheeled to see her rotating the folio upside down. He felt a knot in his gut. Not again. “There’s no way that line is an ambigram!”

“No, it’s not an ambigram . . . but it’s . . .” She kept turning the document, 90 degrees at every turn.

“It’s what?”

Vittoria looked up. “It’s not the only line.”

“There’s another?”

“There’s a different line on every margin. Top, bottom, left, and right. I think it’s a poem.”

“Four lines?” Langdon bristled with excitement. Galileo was a poet? “Let me see!”

Vittoria did not relinquish the page. She kept turning the page in quarter turns. “I didn’t see the lines before because they’re on the edges.” She cocked her head over the last line. “Huh. You know what? Galileo didn’t even write this.”

“What!”

“The poem is signed John Milton.”

“John Milton ?” The influential English poet who wrote Paradise Lost was a contemporary of Galileo’s and a savant who conspiracy buffs put at the top of their list of Illuminati suspects. Milton’s alleged affiliation with Galileo’s Illuminati was one legend Langdon suspected was true. Not only had Milton made a well‑documented 1638 pilgrimage to Rome to “commune with enlightened men,” but he had held meetings with Galileo during the scientist’s house arrest, meetings portrayed in many Renaissance paintings, including Annibale Gatti’s famous Galileo and Milton, which hung even now in the IMSS Museum in Florence.

“Milton knew Galileo, didn’t he?” Vittoria said, finally pushing the folio over to Langdon. “Maybe he wrote the poem as a favor?”

Langdon clenched his teeth as he took the sheathed document. Leaving it flat on the table, he read the line at the top. Then he rotated the page 90 degrees, reading the line in the right margin. Another twist, and he read the bottom. Another twist, the left. A final twist completed the circle. There were four lines in all. The first line Vittoria had found was actually the third line of the poem. Utterly agape, he read the four lines again, clockwise in sequence: top, right, bottom, left. When he was done, he exhaled. There was no doubt in his mind. “You found it, Ms. Vetra.”

She smiled tightly. “Good, now can we get the hell out of here?”

“I have to copy these lines down. I need to find a pencil and paper.”

Vittoria shook her head. “Forget it, professor. No time to play scribe. Mickey’s ticking.” She took the page from him and headed for the door.

Langdon stood up. “You can’t take that outside! It’s a—”

But Vittoria was already gone.

Langdon and Vittoria exploded onto the courtyard outside the Secret Archives. The fresh air felt like a drug as it flowed into Langdon’s lungs. The purple spots in his vision quickly faded. The guilt, however, did not. He had just been accomplice to stealing a priceless relic from the world’s most private vault. The camerlegno had said, I am giving you my trust.

“Hurry,” Vittoria said, still holding the folio in her hand and striding at a half‑jog across Via Borgia in the direction of Olivetti’s office.

“If any water gets on that papyrus—”

“Calm down. When we decipher this thing, we can return their sacred Folio 5.”

Langdon accelerated to keep up. Beyond feeling like a criminal, he was still dazed over the document’s spellbinding implications. John Milton was an Illuminatus. He composed the poem for Galileo to publish in Folio 5 . . . far from the eyes of the Vatican.

As they left the courtyard, Vittoria held out the folio for Langdon. “You think you can decipher this thing? Or did we just kill all those brain cells for kicks?”

Langdon took the document carefully in his hands. Without hesitation he slipped it into one of the breast pockets of his tweed jacket, out of the sunlight and dangers of moisture. “I deciphered it already.”

Vittoria stopped short. “You what ?”

Langdon kept moving.

Vittoria hustled to catch up. “You read it once! I thought it was supposed to be hard!”

Langdon knew she was right, and yet he had deciphered the segno in a single reading. A perfect stanza of iambic pentameter, and the first altar of science had revealed itself in pristine clarity. Admittedly, the ease with which he had accomplished the task left him with a nagging disquietude. He was a child of the Puritan work ethic. He could still hear his father speaking the old New England aphorism: If it wasn’t painfully difficult, you did it wrong. Langdon hoped the saying was false. “I deciphered it,” he said, moving faster now. “I know where the first killing is going to happen. We need to warn Olivetti.”

Vittoria closed in on him. “How could you already know? Let me see that thing again.” With the sleight of a boxer, she slipped a lissome hand into his pocket and pulled out the folio again.

“Careful!” Langdon said. “You can’t—”

Vittoria ignored him. Folio in hand, she floated beside him, holding the document up to the evening light, examining the margins. As she began reading aloud, Langdon moved to retrieve the folio but instead found himself bewitched by Vittoria’s accented alto speaking the syllables in perfect rhythm with her gait.

For a moment, hearing the verse aloud, Langdon felt transported in time . . . as though he were one of Galileo’s contemporaries, listening to the poem for the first time . . . knowing it was a test, a map, a clue unveiling the four altars of science . . . the four markers that blazed a secret path across Rome. The verse flowed from Vittoria’s lips like a song.

From Santi’s earthly tomb with demon’s hole,

‘Cross Rome the mystic elements unfold.

The path of light is laid, the sacred test,

Let angels guide you on your lofty quest.

Vittoria read it twice and then fell silent, as if letting the ancient words resonate on their own.

From Santi’s earthly tomb, Langdon repeated in his mind. The poem was crystal clear about that. The Path of Illumination began at Santi’s tomb. From there, across Rome, the markers blazed the trail.

From Santi’s earthly tomb with demon’s hole,

‘Cross Rome the mystic elements unfold.

Mystic elements. Also clear. Earth, Air, Fire, Water. Elements of science, the four Illuminati markers disguised as religious sculpture.

“The first marker,” Vittoria said, “sounds like it’s at Santi’s tomb.”

Langdon smiled. “I told you it wasn’t that tough.”

“So who is Santi?” she asked, sounding suddenly excited. “And where’s his tomb?”

Langdon chuckled to himself. He was amazed how few people knew Santi, the last name of one of the most famous Renaissance artists ever to live. His first name was world renowned . . . the child prodigy who at the age of twenty‑five was already doing commissions for Pope Julius II, and when he died at only thirty‑eight, left behind the greatest collection of frescoes the world had ever seen. Santi was a behemoth in the art world, and being known solely by one’s first name was a level of fame achieved only by an elite few . . . people like Napoleon, Galileo, and Jesus . . . and, of course, the demigods Langdon now heard blaring from Harvard dormitories—Sting, Madonna, Jewel, and the artist formerly known as Prince, who had changed his name to the symbol

causing Langdon to dub him “The Tau Cross With Intersecting Hermaphroditic Ankh.”

“Santi,” Langdon said, “is the last name of the great Renaissance master, Raphael.”

Vittoria looked surprised. “Raphael? As in the Raphael?”

“The one and only.” Langdon pushed on toward the Office of the Swiss Guard.

“So the path starts at Raphael’s tomb?”

“It actually makes perfect sense,” Langdon said as they rushed on. “The Illuminati often considered great artists and sculptors honorary brothers in enlightenment. The Illuminati could have chosen Raphael’s tomb as a kind of tribute.” Langdon also knew that Raphael, like many other religious artists, was a suspected closet atheist.

Vittoria slipped the folio carefully back in Langdon’s pocket. “So where is he buried?”

Langdon took a deep breath. “Believe it or not, Raphael’s buried in the Pantheon.”

Vittoria looked skeptical. “The Pantheon?”

“The Raphael at the Pantheon.” Langdon had to admit, the Pantheon was not what he had expected for the placement of the first marker. He would have guessed the first altar of science to be at some quiet, out of the way church, something subtle. Even in the 1600s, the Pantheon, with its tremendous, holed dome, was one of the best known sites in Rome.

“Is the Pantheon even a church ?” Vittoria asked.

“Oldest Catholic church in Rome.”

Vittoria shook her head. “But do you really think the first cardinal could be killed at the Pantheon? That’s got to be one of the busiest tourist spots in Rome.”

Langdon shrugged. “The Illuminati said they wanted the whole world watching. Killing a cardinal at the Pantheon would certainly open some eyes.”

“But how does this guy expect to kill someone at the Pantheon and get away unnoticed? It would be impossible.”

“As impossible as kidnapping four cardinals from Vatican City? The poem is precise.”

“And you’re certain Raphael is buried inside the Pantheon?”

“I’ve seen his tomb many times.”

Vittoria nodded, still looking troubled. “What time is it?”

Langdon checked. “Seven‑thirty.”

“Is the Pantheon far?”

“A mile maybe. We’ve got time.”

“The poem said Santi’s earthly tomb. Does that mean anything to you?”

Langdon hastened diagonally across the Courtyard of the Sentinel. “Earthly? Actually, there’s probably no more earthly place in Rome than the Pantheon. It got its name from the original religion practiced there—Pantheism—the worship of all gods, specifically the pagan gods of Mother Earth.”

As a student of architecture, Langdon had been amazed to learn that the dimensions of the Pantheon’s main chamber were a tribute to Gaea—the goddess of the Earth. The proportions were so exact that a giant spherical globe could fit perfectly inside the building with less than a millimeter to spare.

“Okay,” Vittoria said, sounding more convinced. “And demon’s hole? From Santi’s earthly tomb with demon’s hole? “

Langdon was not quite as sure about this. “Demon’s hole must mean the oculus,” he said, making a logical guess. “The famous circular opening in the Pantheon’s roof.”

“But it’s a church,” Vittoria said, moving effortlessly beside him. “Why would they call the opening a demon’s hole?”

Langdon had actually been wondering that himself. He had never heard the term “demon’s hole,” but he did recall a famous sixth‑century critique of the Pantheon whose words seemed oddly appropriate now. The Venerable Bede had once written that the hole in the Pantheon’s roof had been bored by demons trying to escape the building when it was consecrated by Boniface IV.

“And why,” Vittoria added as they entered a smaller courtyard, “why would the Illuminati use the name Santi if he was really known as Raphael ?”

“You ask a lot of questions.”

“My dad used to say that.”

“Two possible reasons. One, the word Raphael has too many syllables. It would have destroyed the poem’s iambic pentameter.”

“Sounds like a stretch.”

Langdon agreed. “Okay, then maybe using ’santi’ was to make the clue more obscure, so only very enlightened men would recognize the reference to Raphael.”

Vittoria didn’t appear to buy this either. “I’m sure Raphael’s last name was very well known when he was alive.”

“Surprisingly not. Single name recognition was a status symbol. Raphael shunned his last name much like pop stars do today. Take Madonna, for example. She never uses her surname, Ciccone.”

Vittoria looked amused. “You know Madonna’s last name?”

Langdon regretted the example. It was amazing the kind of garbage a mind picked up living with 10,000 adolescents.

As he and Vittoria passed the final gate toward the Office of the Swiss Guard, their progress was halted without warning.

“Para! “a voice bellowed behind them.

Langdon and Vittoria wheeled to find themselves looking into the barrel of a rifle.

“Attento! “Vittoria exclaimed, jumping back. “Watch it with—”

“Non sportarti! “the guard snapped, cocking the weapon.

“Soldato! “a voice commanded from across the courtyard. Olivetti was emerging from the security center. “Let them go!”

The guard looked bewildered. “Ma, signore, è una donna —”

“Inside!” he yelled at the guard.

“Signore, non posso —”

“Now! You have new orders. Captain Rocher will be briefing the corps in two minutes. We will be organizing a search.”

Looking bewildered, the guard hurried into the security center. Olivetti marched toward Langdon, rigid and steaming. “Our most secret archives? I’ll want an explanation.”

“We have good news,” Langdon said.

Olivetti’s eyes narrowed. “It better be damn good.”

The four unmarked Alpha Romeo 155 T‑Sparks roared down Via dei Coronari like fighter jets off a runway. The vehicles carried twelve plainclothed Swiss Guards armed with Cherchi‑Pardini semiautomatics, local‑radius nerve gas canisters, and long‑range stun guns. The three sharpshooters carried laser‑sighted rifles.

Sitting in the passenger seat of the lead car, Olivetti turned backward toward Langdon and Vittoria. His eyes were filled with rage. “You assured me a sound explanation, and this is what I get?”

Langdon felt cramped in the small car. “I understand your—”

“No, you don’t understand!” Olivetti never raised his voice, but his intensity tripled. “I have just removed a dozen of my best men from Vatican City on the eve of conclave. And I have done this to stake out the Pantheon based on the testimony of some American I have never met who has just interpreted a four‑hundred‑year‑old poem. I have also just left the search for this antimatter weapon in the hands of secondary officers.”

Langdon resisted the urge to pull Folio 5 from his pocket and wave it in Olivetti’s face. “All I know is that the information we found refers to Raphael’s tomb, and Raphael’s tomb is inside the Pantheon.”

The officer behind the wheel nodded. “He’s right, commander. My wife and I—”

“Drive,” Olivetti snapped. He turned back to Langdon. “How could a killer accomplish an assassination in such a crowded place and escape unseen?”

“I don’t know,” Langdon said. “But the Illuminati are obviously highly resourceful. They’ve broken into both CERN and Vatican City. It’s only by luck that we know where the first kill zone is. The Pantheon is your one chance to catch this guy.”

“More contradictions,” Olivetti said. “One chance? I thought you said there was some sort of pathway. A series of markers. If the Pantheon is the right spot, we can follow the pathway to the other markers. We will have four chances to catch this guy.”

“I had hoped so,” Langdon said. “And we would have . . . a century ago.”

Langdon’s realization that the Pantheon was the first altar of science had been a bittersweet moment. History had a way of playing cruel tricks on those who chased it. It was a long shot that the Path of Illumination would be intact after all of these years, with all of its statues in place, but part of Langdon had fantasized about following the path all the way to the end and coming face to face with the sacred Illuminati lair. Alas, he realized, it was not to be. “The Vatican had all the statues in the Pantheon removed and destroyed in the late 1800s.”

Vittoria looked shocked. “Why?”

“The statues were pagan Olympian Gods. Unfortunately, that means the first marker is gone . . . and with it—”

“Any hope,” Vittoria said, “of finding the Path of Illumination and additional markers?”

Langdon shook his head. “We have one shot. The Pantheon. After that, the path disappears.”

Olivetti stared at them both a long moment and then turned and faced front. “Pull over,” he barked to the driver.

The driver swerved the car toward the curb and put on the brakes. Three other Alpha Romeos skidded in behind them. The Swiss Guard convoy screeched to a halt.

“What are you doing!” Vittoria demanded.

“My job,” Olivetti said, turning in his seat, his voice like stone. “Mr. Langdon, when you told me you would explain the situation en route, I assumed I would be approaching the Pantheon with a clear idea of why my men are here. That is not the case. Because I am abandoning critical duties by being here, and because I have found very little that makes sense in this theory of yours about virgin sacrifices and ancient poetry, I cannot in good conscience continue. I am recalling this mission immediately.” He pulled out his walkie‑talkie and clicked it on.

Vittoria reached across the seat and grabbed his arm. “You can’t!”

Olivetti slammed down the walkie‑talkie and fixed her with a red‑hot stare. “Have you been to the Pantheon, Ms. Vetra?”

“No, but I—”

“Let me tell you something about it. The Pantheon is a single room. A circular cell made of stone and cement. It has one entrance. No windows. One narrow entrance. That entrance is flanked at all times by no less than four armed Roman policemen who protect this shrine from art defacers, anti‑Christian terrorists, and gypsy tourist scams.”

“Your point?” she said coolly.

“My point?” Olivetti’s knuckles gripped the seat. “My point is that what you have just told me is going to happen is utterly impossible! Can you give me one plausible scenario of how someone could kill a cardinal inside the Pantheon? How does one even get a hostage past the guards into the Pantheon in the first place? Much less actually kill him and get away?” Olivetti leaned over the seat, his coffee breath now in Langdon’s face. “How, Mr. Langdon? One plausible scenario.”

Langdon felt the tiny car shrink around him. I have no idea! I’m not an assassin! I don’t know how he will do it! I only know —

“One scenario?” Vittoria quipped, her voice unruffled. “How about this? The killer flies over in a helicopter and drops a screaming, branded cardinal down through the hole in the roof. The cardinal hits the marble floor and dies.”

Everyone in the car turned and stared at Vittoria. Langdon didn’t know what to think. You’ve got one sick imagination, lady, but you are quick.

Olivetti frowned. “Possible, I admit . . . but hardly—”

“Or the killer drugs the cardinal,” Vittoria said, “brings him to the Pantheon in a wheelchair like some old tourist. He wheels him inside, quietly slits his throat, and then walks out.”

This seemed to wake up Olivetti a bit.

Not bad! Langdon thought.

“Or,” she said, “the killer could—”

“I heard you,” Olivetti said. “Enough.” He took a deep breath and blew it out. Someone rapped sharply on the window, and everyone jumped. It was a soldier from one of the other cars. Olivetti rolled down the window.

“Everything all right, commander?” The soldier was dressed in street clothes. He pulled back the sleeve of his denim shirt to reveal a black chronograph military watch. “Seven‑forty, commander. We’ll need time to get in position.”

Olivetti nodded vaguely but said nothing for many moments. He ran a finger back and forth across the dash, making a line in the dust. He studied Langdon in the side‑view mirror, and Langdon felt himself being measured and weighed. Finally Olivetti turned back to the guard. There was reluctance in his voice. “I’ll want separate approaches. Cars to Piazza della Rotunda, Via delgi Orfani, Piazza Sant’Ignacio, and Sant’Eustachio. No closer than two blocks. Once you’re parked, gear up and await my orders. Three minutes.”

“Very good, sir.” The soldier returned to his car.

Langdon gave Vittoria an impressed nod. She smiled back, and for an instant Langdon felt an unexpected connection . . . a thread of magnetism between them.

The commander turned in his seat and locked eyes with Langdon. “Mr. Langdon, this had better not blow up in our faces.”

Langdon smiled uneasily. How could it?

The director of CERN, Maximilian Kohler, opened his eyes to the cool rush of cromolyn and leukotriene in his body, dilating his bronchial tubes and pulmonary capillaries. He was breathing normally again. He found himself lying in a private room in the CERN infirmary, his wheelchair beside the bed.

He took stock, examining the paper robe they had put him in. His clothing was folded on the chair beside the bed. Outside he could hear a nurse making the rounds. He lay there a long minute listening. Then, as quietly as possible, he pulled himself to the edge of the bed and retrieved his clothing. Struggling with his dead legs, he dressed himself. Then he dragged his body onto his wheelchair.

Muffling a cough, he wheeled himself to the door. He moved manually, careful not to engage the motor. When he arrived at the door he peered out. The hall was empty.

Silently, Maximilian Kohler slipped out of the infirmary.

“Seven‑forty‑six and thirty . . . mark.” Even speaking into his walkie‑talkie, Olivetti’s voice never seemed to rise above a whisper.

Langdon felt himself sweating now in his Harris tweed in the backseat of the Alpha Romeo, which was idling in Piazza de la Concorde, three blocks from the Pantheon. Vittoria sat beside him, looking engrossed by Olivetti, who was transmitting his final orders.

“Deployment will be an eight‑point hem,” the commander said. “Full perimeter with a bias on the entry. Target may know you visually, so you will be pas‑visible. Nonmortal force only. We’ll need someone to spot the roof. Target is primary. Asset secondary.”

Jesus, Langdon thought, chilled by the efficiency with which Olivetti had just told his men the cardinal was expendable. Asset secondary.

“I repeat. Nonmortal procurement. We need the target alive. Go.” Olivetti snapped off his walkie‑talkie.

Vittoria looked stunned, almost angry. “Commander, isn’t anyone going inside ?”

Olivetti turned. “Inside?”

“Inside the Pantheon! Where this is supposed to happen?”

“Attento,” Olivetti said, his eyes fossilizing. “If my ranks have been infiltrated, my men may be known by sight. Your colleague has just finished warning me that this will be our sole chance to catch the target. I have no intention of scaring anyone off by marching my men inside.”

“But what if the killer is already inside?”

Olivetti checked his watch. “The target was specific. Eight o’clock. We have fifteen minutes.”

“He said he would kill the cardinal at eight o’clock. But he may already have gotten the victim inside somehow. What if your men see the target come out but don’t know who he is? Someone needs to make sure the inside is clean.”

“Too risky at this point.”

“Not if the person going in was unrecognizable.”

“Disguising operatives is time consuming and—”

“I meant me,” Vittoria said.

Langdon turned and stared at her.

Olivetti shook his head. “Absolutely not.”

“He killed my father.”

“Exactly, so he may know who you are.”

“You heard him on the phone. He had no idea Leonardo Vetra even had a daughter. He sure as hell doesn’t know what I look like. I could walk in like a tourist. If I see anything suspicious, I could walk into the square and signal your men to move in.”

“I’m sorry, I cannot allow that.”

“Comandante? “Olivetti’s receiver crackled. “We’ve got a situation from the north point. The fountain is blocking our line of sight. We can’t see the entrance unless we move into plain view on the piazza. What’s your 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 walkie‑talkie, 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.

The 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.”

Two 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.”

The air inside the Pantheon was cool and damp, heavy with history. The sprawling ceiling hovered overhead as though weightless—the 141‑foot unsupported span larger even than the cupola at St. Peter’s. As always, Langdon felt a chill as he entered the cavernous room. It was a remarkable fusion of engineering and art. Above them the famous circular hole in the roof glowed with a narrow shaft of evening sun. The oculus, Langdon thought. The demon’s hole.

They had arrived.

Langdon’s eyes traced the arch of the ceiling sloping outward to the columned walls and finally down to the polished marble floor beneath their feet. The faint echo of footfalls and tourist murmurs reverberated around the dome. Langdon scanned the dozen or so tourists wandering aimlessly in the shadows. Are you here?

“Looks pretty quiet,” Vittoria said, still holding his hand.

Langdon nodded.

“Where’s Raphael’s tomb?”

Langdon thought for a moment, trying to get his bearings. He surveyed the circumference of the room. Tombs. Altars. Pillars. Niches. He motioned to a particularly ornate funerary across the dome and to the left. “I think that’s Raphael’s over there.”

Vittoria scanned the rest of the room. “I don’t see anyone who looks like an assassin about to kill a cardinal. Shall we look around?”

Langdon nodded. “There’s only one spot in here where anyone could be hiding. We better check the rientranze.”

“The recesses?”

“Yes.” Langdon pointed. “The recesses in the wall.”

Around the perimeter, interspersed with the tombs, a series of semicircular niches were hewn in the wall. The niches, although not enormous, were big enough to hide someone in the shadows. Sadly, Langdon knew they once contained statues of the Olympian gods, but the pagan sculptures had been destroyed when the Vatican converted the Pantheon to a Christian church. He felt a pang of frustration to know he was standing at the first altar of science, and the marker was gone. He wondered which statue it had been, and where it had pointed. Langdon could imagine no greater thrill than finding an Illuminati marker—a statue that surreptitiously pointed the way down the Path of Illumination. Again he wondered who the anonymous Illuminati sculptor had been.

“I’ll take the left arc,” Vittoria said, indicating the left half of the circumference. “You go right. See you in a hundred and eighty degrees.”

Langdon smiled grimly.

As Vittoria moved off, Langdon felt the eerie horror of the situation seeping back into his mind. As he turned and made his way to the right, the killer’s voice seemed to whisper in the dead space around him. Eight o’clock. Virgin sacrifices on the altars of science. A mathematical progression of death. Eight, nine, ten, eleven . . . and at midnight. Langdon checked his watch: 7:52. Eight minutes.

As Langdon moved toward the first recess, he passed the tomb of one of Italy’s Catholic kings. The sarcophagus, like many in Rome, was askew with the wall, positioned awkwardly. A group of visitors seemed confused by this. Langdon did not stop to explain. Formal Christian tombs were often misaligned with the architecture so they could lie facing east. It was an ancient superstition that Langdon’s Symbology 212 class had discussed just last month.

“That’s totally incongruous!” a female student in the front had blurted when Langdon explained the reason for east‑facing tombs. “Why would Christians want their tombs to face the rising sun ? We’re talking about Christianity . . . not sun worship!”

Langdon smiled, pacing before the blackboard, chewing an apple. “Mr. Hitzrot!” he shouted.

A young man dozing in back sat up with a start. “What! Me?”

Langdon pointed to a Renaissance art poster on the wall. “Who is that man kneeling before God?”

“Um . . . some saint?”

“Brilliant. And how do you know he’s a saint?”

“He’s got a halo?”

“Excellent, and does that golden halo remind you of anything?”

Hitzrot broke into a smile. “Yeah! Those Egyptian things we studied last term. Those . . . um . . . sun disks !”

“Thank you, Hitzrot. Go back to sleep.” Langdon turned back to the class. “Halos, like much of Christian symbology, were borrowed from the ancient Egyptian religion of sun worship. Christianity is filled with examples of sun worship.”

“Excuse me?” the girl in front said. “I go to church all the time, and I don’t see much sun worshiping going on!”

“Really? What do you celebrate on December twenty‑fifth?”

“Christmas. The birth of Jesus Christ.”

“And yet according to the Bible, Christ was born in March, so what are we doing celebrating in late December?”

Silence.

Langdon smiled. “December twenty‑fifth, my friends, is the ancient pagan holiday of sol invictus —Unconquered Sun—coinciding with the winter solstice. It’s that wonderful time of year when the sun returns, and the days start getting longer.”

Langdon took another bite of apple.

“Conquering religions,” he continued, “often adopt existing holidays to make conversion less shocking. It’s called transmutation. It helps people acclimatize to the new faith. Worshipers keep the same holy dates, pray in the same sacred locations, use a similar symbology . . . and they simply substitute a different god.”

Now the girl in front looked furious. “You’re implying Christianity is just some kind of . . . repackaged sun worship !”

“Not at all. Christianity did not borrow only from sun worship. The ritual of Christian canonization is taken from the ancient ‘god‑making’ rite of Euhemerus. The practice of ‘god‑eating’—that is, Holy Communion—was borrowed from the Aztecs. Even the concept of Christ dying for our sins is arguably not exclusively Christian; the self‑sacrifice of a young man to absolve the sins of his people appears in the earliest tradition of the Quetzalcoatl.”

The girl glared. “So, is anything in Christianity original?”

“Very little in any organized faith is truly original. Religions are not born from scratch. They grow from one another. Modern religion is a collage . . . an assimilated historical record of man’s quest to understand the divine.”

“Um . . . hold on,” Hitzrot ventured, sounding awake now. “I know something Christian that’s original. How about our image of God? Christian art never portrays God as the hawk sun god, or as an Aztec, or as anything weird. It always shows God as an old man with a white beard. So our image of God is original, right?”

Langdon smiled. “When the early Christian converts abandoned their former deities—pagan gods, Roman gods, Greek, sun, Mithraic, whatever—they asked the church what their new Christian God looked like. Wisely, the church chose the most feared, powerful . . . and familiar face in all of recorded history.”

Hitzrot looked skeptical. “An old man with a white, flowing beard?”

Langdon pointed to a hierarchy of ancient gods on the wall. At the top sat an old man with a white, flowing beard. “Does Zeus look familiar?”

The class ended right on cue.

“Good evening,” a man’s voice said.

Langdon jumped. He was back in the Pantheon. He turned to face an elderly man in a blue cape with a red cross on the chest. The man gave him a gray‑toothed smile.

“You’re English, right?” The man’s accent was thick Tuscan.

Langdon blinked, confused. “Actually, no. I’m American.”

The man looked embarrassed. “Oh heavens, forgive me. You were so nicely dressed, I just figured . . . my apologies.”

“Can I help you?” Langdon asked, his heart beating wildly.

“Actually I thought perhaps I could help you. I am the cicerone here.” The man pointed proudly to his city‑issued badge. “It is my job to make your visit to Rome more interesting.”

More interesting? Langdon was certain this particular visit to Rome was plenty interesting.

“You look like a man of distinction,” the guide fawned, “no doubt more interested in culture than most. Perhaps I can give you some history on this fascinating building.”

Langdon smiled politely. “Kind of you, but I’m actually an art historian myself, and—”

“Superb!” The man’s eyes lit up like he’d hit the jackpot. “Then you will no doubt find this delightful!”

“I think I’d prefer to—”

“The Pantheon,” the man declared, launching into his memorized spiel, “was built by Marcus Agrippa in 27 B.C.”

“Yes,” Langdon interjected, “and rebuilt by Hadrian in 119 A.D.”

“It was the world’s largest free‑standing dome until 1960 when it was eclipsed by the Superdome in New Orleans!”

Langdon groaned. The man was unstoppable.

“And a fifth‑century theologian once called the Pantheon the House of the Devil, warning that the hole in the roof was an entrance for demons!”

Langdon blocked him out. His eyes climbed skyward to the oculus, and the memory of Vittoria’s suggested plot flashed a bone‑numbing image in his mind . . . a branded cardinal falling through the hole and hitting the marble floor. Now that would be a media event. Langdon found himself scanning the Pantheon for reporters. None. He inhaled deeply. It was an absurd idea. The logistics of pulling off a stunt like that would be ridiculous.

As Langdon moved off to continue his inspection, the babbling docent followed like a love‑starved puppy. Remind me, Langdon thought to himself, there’s nothing worse than a gung ho art historian.

Across the room, Vittoria was immersed in her own search. Standing all alone for the first time since she had heard the news of her father, she felt the stark reality of the last eight hours closing in around her. Her father had been murdered—cruelly and abruptly. Almost equally painful was that her father’s creation had been corrupted—now a tool of terrorists. Vittoria was plagued with guilt to think that it was her invention that had enabled the antimatter to be transported . . . her canister that was now counting down inside the Vatican. In an effort to serve her father’s quest for the simplicity of truth . . . she had become a conspirator of chaos.

Oddly, the only thing that felt right in her life at the moment was the presence of a total stranger. Robert Langdon. She found an inexplicable refuge in his eyes . . . like the harmony of the oceans she had left behind early that morning. She was glad he was there. Not only had he been a source of strength and hope for her, Langdon had used his quick mind to render this one chance to catch her father’s killer.

Vittoria breathed deeply as she continued her search, moving around the perimeter. She was overwhelmed by the unexpected images of personal revenge that had dominated her thoughts all day. Even as a sworn lover of all life . . . she wanted this executioner dead. No amount of good karma could make her turn the other cheek today. Alarmed and electrified, she sensed something coursing through her Italian blood that she had never felt before . . . the whispers of Sicilian ancestors defending family honor with brutal justice. Vendetta, Vittoria thought, and for the first time in her life understood.

Visions of reprisal spurred her on. She approached the tomb of Raphael Santi. Even from a distance she could tell this guy was special. His casket, unlike the others, was protected by a Plexiglas shield and recessed into the wall. Through the barrier she could see the front of the sarcophagus.

Raphael Santi

1483–1520

Vittoria studied the grave and then read the one‑sentence descriptive plaque beside Raphael’s tomb.

Then she read it again.

Then . . . she read it again.

A moment later, she was dashing in horror across the floor. “Robert! Robert!”

Langdon’s progress around his side of the Pantheon was being hampered somewhat by the guide on his heels, now continuing his tireless narration as Langdon prepared to check

Date: 2015-12-18; view: 310