'Angels Demons Chapter 118-120\r'

'118\r\nEleven-forty-two P.M.\r\nThe frenzied convoy that plunged back into the basilica to retrieve the camerlegno was non iodine Langdon had invariably imagined he would be part of… such(prenominal) less leading. plainly he had been closest to the ingress and had solveed on instinct.\r\nHell die in present, Langdon thought, sprinting e preciseplace the scepter into the darkened void. â€Å"Camerlegno! Stop!”\r\nThe w of all timey last(predicate)(a) of blackness that collide with Langdon was absolute. His pupils were contracted from the glare exposeside, and his field of vision at one quantify extended no farther than a a few(prenominal) feet in the beginning his face. He skidded to a stop. some(a)w here in the blackness ahead, he essayd the camerlegnos cassock rustle as the priest ran blindly into the abyss.\r\nVittoria and the maintains arrived immediately. Flash lightsomes came on, plainly the lights were almost all of a sudden nowadays and did not even begin to study the depths of the basilica before them. The beams swept back and forth, bring divulge scarcely columns and bare floor. The camerlegno was nowhere to be seen.\r\nâ€Å"Camerlegno!” Chartrand yelled, misgiving in his parting. â€Å"Wait! Signore!”\r\nA commotion in the door moda well(p)-lightedy slow them ca utilisationd everyone to turn. Chinita Macris large frame lurched done the entry. Her photographic camera was shouldered, and the g menialing red light on top revealed that it was motionless contagion. Glick was rill behind her, mike in hand, yelling for her to slow surmount.\r\nLangdon could not think these two. This is not the time!\r\nâ€Å"Out!” Chartrand snapped. â€Å"This is not for your eyeball!”\r\n entirely Macri and Glick kept coming.\r\nâ€Å"Chinita!” Glick sounded disquietudeful now. â€Å"This is suicide! Im not coming!”\r\nMacri ignored him. She threw a switch on her camera. The coz y up on top glared to life, blinding everyone.\r\nLangdon shield his face and turned away in pain. prick it! When he looked up, though, the church near them was illuminated for cardinal yards.\r\nAt that moment the camerlegnos section echoed somewhere in the distance. â€Å"Upon this careen I testament build my church!”\r\nMacri wheeled her camera toward the sound. uttermost off, in the greyness at the end of the spotlights reach, black fabric billowed, reveal a familiar form lead protrude the master(prenominal) aisle of the basilica.\r\nthither was a flit instant of hesitation as everyones eyes took in the bizarre image. Then the dam broke. Chartrand pushed onetime(prenominal) Langdon and sprinted after(prenominal) the camerlegno. Langdon took off next. Then the guards and Vittoria.\r\nMacri brought up the rear, lighting everyones way and transmitting the sepulchral chase to the world. An un pass oning Glick blasted aloud as he tagged along, clumsy by a terrified blow-by-blow commentary.\r\nThe main aisle of St. instruments Basilica, Lieutenant Chartrand had once figured out, was yearner than an Olympic soccer field. Tonight, however, it felt up desire doubly that. As the guard sprinted after the camerlegno, he venerateed where the macrocosm was headed. The camerlegno was all the way in shock, delirious no distrust from his physical trauma and pushchair witness to the repulsive massacre in the Popes office.\r\nSomewhere up ahead, beyond the reach of the BBC spotlight, the camerlegnos region rang out joyously. â€Å"Upon this reel I allow for build my church!”\r\nChartrand knew the man was yelling Scripture †Matthew 16:18, if Chartrand re shout outed correctly. Upon this rock I will build my church. It was an almost cruelly inapt earnestness †the church was about to be destroyed. Surely the camerlegno had asleep(p) mad.\r\nOr had he?\r\nFor a fleeting instant, Chartrands individual fluttered. Holy v isions and divine meanings had perpetually seemed desire avid delusions to him †the product of everyplacezealous judgings hearing what they wanted to hear †deity did not interact directly!\r\nA moment of later, though, as if the Holy Spirit Himself had descended to swing Chartrand of His power, Chartrand had a vision.\r\nFifty yards ahead, in the center of the church, a ghost appeared… a diaphanous, glowing outline. The pale determine was that of the half-naked camerlegno. The specter seemed unbiased, radiating light. Chartrand staggered to a stop, feeling a knot tighten in his chest. The camerlegno is glowing! The consistence seemed to shine brighter now. Then, it began to sink… muddyer and deeper, until it fadeed as if by dissembling into the blackness of the floor.\r\nLangdon had seen the phantom also. For a moment, he too thought he had witnessed a magical vision. But as he passed the stunned Chartrand and ran toward the spot where the camerle gno had disappeared, he realized what had honorable happened. The camerlegno had arrived at the Niche of the Palliums †the sunken chamber lit by ninety-nine anele lamps. The lamps in the niche shone up from beneath, illuminating him worry a ghost. Then, as the camerlegno descended the st tenors into the light, he had seemed to disappear beneath the floor.\r\nLangdon arrived breathless at the rim peremptory the sunken room. He peered coldcock the st aviations. At the bottom, lit by the meretricious glow of crude oil lamps, the camerlegno rush along across the marble chamber toward the set of trash doors that led to the room holding the famous well-situated box.\r\nWhat is he doing? Langdon wondered. Certainly he cant think the golden box â€\r\nThe camerlegno yanked open the doors and ran inside. Oddly though, he in all ignored the golden box, rushing right past it. Five feet beyond the box, he dropped to his knees and began struggling to kindle an iron supply emb edded in the floor.\r\nLangdon watched in horror, now realizing where the camerlegno was headed. Good beau ideal, no! He bucket along d stimulate the stairs after him. â€Å"Father! Dont!”\r\nAs Langdon opened the glass doors and ran toward the camerlegno, he saw the camerlegno gasp on the grate. The hinged, iron bulkhead fell open with a deafening crash, revealing a narrow m other fucker and a steep staircase that dropped into nothingness. As the camerlegno go toward the hole, Langdon grabbed his bare shoulders and pulled him back. The mans skin was slippery with sweat, tho Langdon held on.\r\nThe camerlegno wheeled, obviously pioneerled. â€Å"What are you doing!”\r\nLangdon was strike when their eyes met. The camerlegno no overnight had the glazed look of a man in a trance. His eyes were keen, glistening with a vapourous determination. The brand on his chest looked excruciating.\r\nâ€Å"Father,” Langdon urged, as calmly as possible, â€Å"you c ant go d feature on that point. We need to invalidate.”\r\nâ€Å"My son,” the camerlegno said, his phonation eerily sane. â€Å"I get drink down the stairs ones skin besides had a message. I know †â€Å"\r\nâ€Å"Camerlegno!” It was Chartrand and the others. They came dashing pull down the stairs into the room, lit by Macris camera.\r\nWhen Chartrand saw the open grate in the floor, his eyes filled with dread. He cut finished himself and shot Langdon a thankful look for having stop the camerlegno. Langdon understood; had read enough about Vatican architecture to know what lay beneath that grate. It was the most heavenly place in all of Christendom. Terra Santa. Holy Ground. Some called it the memorial park. Some called it the Catacombs. According to accounts from the select few clergy who had descended over the years, the memorial park was a dark maze of subsurface crypts that could swallow a visitor whole if he lost his way. It was not the kind of place through which they wanted to be chasing the camerlegno.\r\nâ€Å"Signore,” Chartrand pleaded. â€Å"Youre in shock. We need to sound over this place. You cannot go down in that respect. Its suicide.”\r\nThe camerlegno seemed suddenly stoic. He reached out and put a quiet hand on Chartrands shoulder. â€Å"Thank you for your concern and service. I cannot tell you how. I cannot tell you I understand. But I swallow had a revealing. I know where the antimatter is.”\r\nEveryone stared.\r\nThe camerlegno turned to the group. â€Å"Upon this rock I will build my church. That was the message. The meaning is plunder.”\r\nLangdon was up to now unable to comprehend the camerlegnos conviction that he had utter to divinity fudge, much less that he had deciphered the message. Upon this rock I will build my church? They were the roundn intercourse verbalisen by Jesus when he chose spear as his first apostle. What did they stimulate to do wi th allthing?\r\nMacri locomote in for a closer shot. Glick was mute, as if shell-shocked.\r\nThe camerlegno spoke quickly now. â€Å"The Illuminati have placed their tool of dying on the very cornerstone of this church. At the plantation.” He motioned down the stairs. â€Å"On the very rock upon which this church was bemuse. And I know where that rock is.”\r\nLangdon was certain the time had come to overpower the camerlegno and carry him off. As see-through as he seemed, the priest was talking nonsense. A rock? The cornerstone in the foundation? The stairway before them didnt lead to the foundation, it led to the burying grease! â€Å"The quote is a metaphor, Father! There is no existing rock!”\r\nThe camerlegno looked strangely sad. â€Å"There is a rock, my son.” He pointed into the hole. â€Å"Pietro e la pietra.”\r\nLangdon froze. In an instant it all came clear.\r\nThe austere simplicity of it gave him c agglomerates. As Langdon stoo d at that place with the others, unadulterated down the long staircase, he realized that there was indeed a rock buried in the injustice beneath this church.\r\nPietro e la pietra. Peter is the rock.\r\nPeters faith in God was so unwavering that Jesus called Peter â€Å"the rock” †the unwavering follower on whose shoulders Jesus would build his church. On this very arrangement, Langdon realized †Vatican Hill †Peter had been crucified and buried. The early Christians built a undersize shrine over his grave accent. As Christianity spread, the shrine got bigger, layer upon layer, culminating in this colossal basilica. The inherent Catholic faith had been built, quite literally, upon St. Peter. The rock.\r\nâ€Å"The antimatter is on St. Peters tomb,” the camerlegno said, his voice crystalline.\r\nDespite the manifestly supernatural origin of the information, Langdon sense a stark logic in it. Placing the antimatter on St. Peters tomb seemed pain fully obvious now. The Illuminati, in an act of symbolic defiance, had located the antimatter at the core of Christendom, both literally and figuratively. The ultimate infiltration.\r\nâ€Å"And if you all need terrestrial proof,” the camerlegno said, sounding impatient now, â€Å"I just found that grate unlocked.” He pointed to the open bulkhead in the floor. â€Å"It is never unlocked. Someone has been down there… recently.”\r\nEveryone stared into the hole.\r\nAn instant later, with misleading agility, the camerlegno spun, grabbed an oil lamp, and headed for the disruption.\r\n119\r\nThe stone steps declined steeply into the background.\r\nIm going to die down here, Vittoria thought, gripping the heavy rope banister as she bounded down the fasten passageway behind the others. Although Langdon had made a move to stop the camerlegno from entering the shaft, Chartrand had intervened, grabbing Langdon and holding on. Apparently, the young guard was no w convinced the camerlegno knew what he was doing.\r\nAfter a brief scuffle, Langdon had unfreezed himself and pursued the camerlegno with Chartrand close on his heels. Instinctively, Vittoria had race after them.\r\nNow she was racing headlong down a precipitous grade where any misplaced step could mean a deadly fall. Far below, she could see the golden glow of the camerlegnos oil lamp. canful her, Vittoria could hear the BBC reporters hurrying to keep up. The camera spotlight threw gnarled shadows beyond her down the shaft, illuminating Chartrand and Langdon. Vittoria could save believe the world was bearing witness to this insanity. spring up off the damn camera! Then again, she knew the light was the only reason any of them could see where they were going.\r\nAs the bizarre chase continued, Vittorias thoughts whipped wish well a tempest. What could the camerlegno possibly do down here? Even if he found the antimatter? There was no time!\r\nVittoria was surprised to fin d her intuition now telling her the camerlegno was likely right. Placing the antimatter terce stories beneath the earth seemed an almost majestic and merciful choice. Deep underground †much as in Z-lab †an antimatter annihilation would be partially contained. There would be no heat blast, no fly shrapnel to injure onlookers, just a biblical opening of the earth and a towering basilica crumbling into a crater.\r\nWas this Kohlers one act of decency? Sparing lives? Vittoria sedate could not fathom the directors involvement. She could accept his hatred of religion… but this awesome conspiracy seemed beyond him. Was Kohlers loathing authentically this profound? Destruction of the Vatican? Hiring an assassin? The murders of her father, the Pope, and four cardinals? It seemed unthinkable. And how had Kohler managed all this treachery in spite of appearance the Vatican walls? Rocher was Kohlers inside man, Vittoria told herself. Rocher was an Illuminatus. No head Ca ptain Rocher had keys to everything †the Popes chambers, Il Passetto, the Necropolis, St. Peters tomb, all of it. He could have placed the antimatter on St. Peters tomb †a exceedingly restricted locale †and then commanded his guards not to pine time searching the Vaticans restricted areas. Rocher knew nobody would ever find the canister.\r\nBut Rocher never counted on the camerlegnos message from above.\r\nThe message. This was the leap of faith Vittoria was still struggling to accept. Had God actually communicated with the camerlegno? Vittorias gut said no, and yet hers was the apprehension of entanglement physics †the study of interconnectedness. She witnessed miraculous communication theory every day †twin sea-turtle eggs divide and placed in labs thousands of miles apart hatching at the same instant… acres of jellyfish pulsating in perfect rhythm as if of a angiotensin-converting enzyme mind. There are invisible lines of communication everywh ere, she thought.\r\nBut surround by God and man?\r\n Vittoria wished her father were there to give her faith. He had once explained divine communication to her in scientific terms, and he had made her believe. She still remembered the day she had seen him requesting and asked him, â€Å"Father, why do you bother to pray? God cannot answer you.”\r\nLeonardo Vetra had looked up from his meditations with a paternal smile. â€Å"My daughter the skeptic. So you dont believe God speaks to man? allow me put it in your language.” He took a model of the human idea down from a shelf and set it in drift of her. â€Å"As you probably know, Vittoria, human beings normally use a very small percentage of their brain power. However, if you put them in emotionally charged situations †like physical trauma, extreme joy or fear, deep meditation †all of a sudden their neurons start firing like crazy, resulting in massively raise mental clarity.”\r\nâ€Å"So what?à ¢â‚¬Â Vittoria said. â€Å"Just because you think clearly doesnt mean you talk to God.”\r\nâ€Å"Aha!” Vetra ex adopted. â€Å"And yet remarkable solutions to seemingly impossible problems often occur in these moments of clarity. Its what gurus call higher consciousness. Biologists call it altered states. Psychologists call it super-sentience.” He paused. â€Å"And Christians call it answered supplicant.” Smiling broadly, he added, â€Å"Sometimes, divine revelation simply means adjusting your brain to hear what your center of attention already knows.”\r\nNow, as she scud down, headlong into the dark, Vittoria sense perhaps her father was right. Was it so hard to believe that the camerlegnos trauma had put his mind in a state where he had simply â€Å"realized” the antimatters location?\r\nEach of us is a God, Buddha had said. Each of us knows all. We need only open our minds to hear our own wisdom.\r\nIt was in that moment of clarity, as Vittoria plunged deeper into the earth, that she felt her own mind open… her own wisdom surface. She sensed now without a doubt what the camerlegnos intentions were. Her awareness brought with it a fear like nothing she had ever known.\r\nâ€Å"Camerlegno, no!” she shouted down the passage. â€Å"You dont understand!” Vittoria pictured the multitudes of hoi polloi surrounding Vatican City, and her blood ran cold. â€Å"If you bring the antimatter up… everyone will die!”\r\nLangdon was leaping three steps at a time now, gaining ground. The passage was cramped, but he felt no claustrophobia. His once debilitating fear was overshadowed by a far deeper dread.\r\nâ€Å"Camerlegno!” Langdon felt himself terminal the gap on the lanterns glow. â€Å"You must leave the antimatter where it is! Theres no other choice!”\r\nEven as Langdon spoke the words, he could not believe them. Not only had he accepted the camerlegnos divine revelation of the antimatters location, but he was lobbying for the destruction of St. Peters Basilica †one of the superior architectural feats on earth… as well as all of the art inside.\r\nBut the nation outside… its the only way.\r\nIt seemed a cruel satire that the only way to save the people now was to destroy the church. Langdon figured the Illuminati were amused by the symbolism.\r\nThe air coming up from the bottom of the tunnel was placid and dank. Somewhere down here was the sacred necropolis… burial place of St. Peter and countless other early Christians. Langdon felt a chill, hoping this was not a suicide mission.\r\nSuddenly, the camerlegnos lantern seemed to halt. Langdon closed on him fast.\r\nThe end of the stairs loomed abruptly from out of the shadows. A wrought-iron logic gate with three embossed skulls blocked the bottom of the stairs. The camerlegno was there, pulling the gate open. Langdon leapt, pushing the gate shut, blocking the camerlegnos way . The others came thundering down the stairs, everyone ghostly white in the BBC spotlight… especially Glick, who was looking to a greater extent than pasty with every step.\r\nChartrand grabbed Langdon. â€Å"Let the camerlegno pass!”\r\nâ€Å"No!” Vittoria said from above, breathless. â€Å"We must evacuate right now! You cannot take the antimatter out of here! If you bring it up, everyone outside will die!”\r\nThe camerlegnos voice was remarkably calm. â€Å"All of you… we must trust. We have bantam time.”\r\nâ€Å"You dont understand,” Vittoria said. â€Å"An explosion at ground level will be much worse than one down here!”\r\nThe camerlegno looked at her, his green eyes splendidly sane. â€Å"Who said anything about an explosion at ground level?”\r\nVittoria stared. â€Å"Youre leaving it down here?”\r\nThe camerlegnos cocksureness was hypnotic. â€Å"There will be no more than death tonight.”\r\nâ⠂¬Å"Father, but †â€Å"\r\nâ€Å"Please… some faith.” The camerlegnos voice plunged to a compelling hush. â€Å"I am not asking anyone to join me. You are all free to go. All I am asking is that you not interfere with His bidding. Let me do what I have been called to do.” The camerlegnos stare intensified. â€Å"I am to save this church. And I can. I swear on my life.”\r\nThe silence that followed tycoon as well have been thunder.\r\n120\r\nEleven-fifty-one P.M.\r\nNecropolis literally means City of the Dead.\r\nNothing Robert Langdon had ever read about this place prepared him for the sketch of it. The colossal subterranean hollow was filled with crumbling mausoleums, like small houses on the floor of a cave. The air smelled lifeless. An awkward grid of narrow walkways wound between the decaying memorials, most of which were fractured brick with marble platings. Like columns of dust, countless pillars of unexcavated earth rose up, supporting a dir t sky, which hung low over the penumbral hamlet.\r\nCity of the dead, Langdon thought, feeling trap between academic wonder and raw fear. He and the others dashed deeper down the winding passages. Did I make the wrong choice?\r\nChartrand had been the first to fall under the camerlegnos spell, yanking open the gate and declaring his faith in the camerlegno. Glick and Macri, at the camerlegnos suggestion, had nobly agreed to provide light to the quest, although considering what accolades awaited them if they got out of here alive, their motivations were certainly suspect. Vittoria had been the least overeager of all, and Langdon had seen in her eyes a wariness that looked, unsettlingly, a lot like female intuition.\r\nIts too late now, he thought, he and Vittoria dashing after the others. Were committed.\r\nVittoria was silent, but Langdon knew they were thinking the same thing. Nine minutes is not enough time to get the hell out of Vatican City if the camerlegno is wrong.\r\nAs th ey ran on through the mausoleums, Langdon felt his legs tiring, noting to his surprise that the group was ascending a smashed incline. The explanation, when it dawned on him, sent shivers to his core. The topography beneath his feet was that of Christs time. He was running up the original Vatican Hill! Langdon had heard Vatican scholars claim that St. Peters tomb was near the top of Vatican Hill, and he had always wondered how they knew. Now he understood. The damn hill is still here!\r\nLangdon felt like he was running through the pages of history. Somewhere ahead was St. Peters tomb †the Christian relic. It was hard to imagine that the original grave had been tag only with a modest shrine. Not any more. As Peters eminence spread, new shrines were built on top of the old, and now, the homage stretched 440 feet overhead to the top of Michelangelos dome, the eyeshade positioned directly over the original tomb within a fraction of an inch.\r\nThey continued ascending the sinu ate passages. Langdon checked his watch. Eight minutes. He was beginning to wonder if he and Vittoria would be joining the deceased here permanently.\r\nâ€Å"Look out!” Glick yelled from behind them. â€Å" glide holes!”\r\nLangdon saw it in time. A series of small holes riddled the path before them. He leapt, just clearing them.\r\nVittoria jumped too, barely avoiding the narrow hollows. She looked uneasy as they ran on. â€Å"Snake holes?”\r\nâ€Å"Snack holes, actually,” Langdon corrected. â€Å"Trust me, you dont want to know.” The holes, he had just realized, were libation tubes. The early Christians had believed in the resurrection of the flesh, and theyd used the holes to literally â€Å"feed the dead” by pouring milk and honey into crypts beneath the floor.\r\nThe camerlegno felt weak.\r\nHe dashed onward, his legs finding strength in his duty to God and man. Almost there. He was in incredible pain. The mind can bring so much more p ain than the body. Still he felt tired. He knew he had precious little time.\r\nâ€Å"I will save your church, Father. I swear it.”\r\nDespite the BBC lights behind him, for which he was grateful, the camerlegno carried his oil lamp high. I am a beacon in the darkness. I am the light. The lamp blotto as he ran, and for an instant he feared the flammable oil might spill and burn him. He had experienced enough burned flesh for one evening.\r\nAs he approached the top of the hill, he was drenched in in sweat, barely able to breathe. But when he emerged over the crest, he felt reborn. He staggered onto the matted piece of earth where he had stood many times. here the path ended. The necropolis came to an abrupt halt at a wall of earth. A tiny bulls eye read: Mausoleum S.\r\nLa tomba di San Pietro.\r\nBefore him, at stem level, was an opening in the wall. There was no florid plaque here. No fanfare. Just a bare(a) hole in the wall, beyond which lay a small grotto and a mea ger, crumbling sarcophagus. The camerlegno gazed into the hole and smiled in exhaustion. He could hear the others coming up the hill behind him. He set down his oil lamp and knelt to pray.\r\nThank you, God. It is almost over.\r\nOutside in the square, surrounded by astounded cardinals, Cardinal Mortati stared up at the media screen and watched the drama unfold in the crypt below. He no longer knew what to believe. Had the entire world just witnessed what he had seen? Had God truly spoken to the camerlegno? Was the antimatter very going to appear on St. Peters â€\r\nâ€Å"Look!” A gasp went up from the throngs.\r\nâ€Å"There!” Everyone was suddenly pointing at the screen. â€Å"Its a miracle!”\r\nMortati looked up. The camera angle was unsteady, but it was clear enough. The image was unforgettable.\r\nFilmed from behind, the camerlegno was kneeling in prayer on the earthen floor. In front of him was a rough-hewn hole in the wall. Inside the hollow, among th e rubble of antediluvian stone, was a terra cotta casket. Although Mortati had seen the coffin only once in his life, he knew beyond a doubt what it contained.\r\nSan Pietro.\r\nMortati was not naive enough to think that the shouts of joy and surprise now thundering through the crowd were exaltations from bearing witness to one of Christianitys most sacred relics. St. Peters tomb was not what had people falling to their knees in self-generated prayer and thanksgiving. It was the object on top of his tomb.\r\nThe antimatter canister. It was there… where it had been all day… hiding in the darkness of the Necropolis. Sleek. Relentless. Deadly. The camerlegnos revelation was correct.\r\nMortati stared in wonder at the transparent cylinder. The globule of liquid still hovered at its core. The grotto around the canister blinked red as the LED counted down into its final five minutes of life.\r\nAlso seance on the tomb, inches away from the canister, was the wireless Swiss care security camera that had been pointed at the canister and transmitting all along.\r\nMortati crossed himself, certain this was the most despicable image he had seen in his entire life. He realized, a moment later, however, that it was about to get worse.\r\nThe camerlegno stood suddenly. He grabbed the antimatter in his hands and wheeled toward the others. His face screening total focus. He pushed past the others and began descending the Necropolis the way he had come, running down the hill.\r\nThe camera caught Vittoria Vetra, frozen in terror. â€Å"Where are you going! Camerlegno! I thought you said †â€Å"\r\nâ€Å"Have faith!” he exclaimed as he ran off.\r\nVittoria spun toward Langdon. â€Å"What do we do?”\r\nRobert Langdon assay to stop the camerlegno, but Chartrand was running interference now, apparently trusting the camerlegnos conviction.\r\nThe picture coming from the BBC camera was like a roller coaster ride now, winding, twisting. Fleeti ng freeze-frames of confusion and terror as the chaotic cortege stumbled through the shadows back toward the Necropolis entrance.\r\nOut in the square, Mortati let out a fearful gasp. â€Å"Is he convey that up here?”\r\nOn televisions all over the world, larger than life, the camerlegno raced upward out of the Necropolis with the antimatter before him. â€Å"There will be no more death tonight!”\r\nBut the camerlegno was wrong.\r\n'