Angels Demons Chapter 32-35

32Langdon held his breath as the X-33 spiraled into Romes Leonardo da Vinci International Airport. Vittoria sat crossways from him, go to unappealing as if trying to impart the situation into control. The contrivance touched overcome and taxied to a private hangar.Sorry for the slow flight, the indicator lamp apologized, emerging from the cockpit. Had to prim her back. Noise regulations over populated beas.Langdon checked his watch. They had been ventborne thirty-seven minutes.The vaporize popped the verbotener brink. Anybody want to tell me whats going on?Neither Vittoria nor Langdon responded.Fine, he said, stretching. Ill be in the cockpit with the air-conditioning and my music. Just me and Garth.The late- later on wardsnoon sun blazed immaterial the hangar. Langdon carried his tweed detonating device over his shoulder. Vittoria turned her face skyward and inhaled deeply, as if the suns rays both(prenominal)how transferred to her some mystical replenishing energy .Mediterraneans, Langdon muse, already sweating.Little old for cartoons, arent you? Vittoria asked, without origin her eyeball.Im sorry?Your wristwatch. I adage it on the plane.Langdon flushed slightly. He was accustomed to having to defend his judg ment of convictionpiece. The collectors fluctuation Mickey Mouse watch had been a childhood gift from his parents. patronage the contorted foolishness of Mickeys outstretched gird designating the hour, it was the hardly watch Langdon had of all fourth dimension worn. Waterproof and glow-in-the-dark, it was perfect for swimming laps or walking unlit college paths at night. When Langdons students questi 1d his fashion sense, he told them he wore Mickey as a cursory reminder to stay young at heart.Its six oclock, he said.Vittoria nodded, eyes still closed. I think our rides present.Langdon heard the distant whine, looked up, and mat up a sinking feeling. Approaching from the north was a helicopter, slicing low across the runway. Langdon had been on a helicopter once in the Andean Palpa vale looking at the Nazca sand drawings and had non enjoyed it champion bit. A escape shoebox. later a morning of space plane rides, Langdon had hoped the Vatican would send a car. seemingly non.The chop shot slowed overhead, hovered a moment, and dropped toward the runway in front of them. The craft was white and carried a coat of arms emblazoned on the side cardinal skeleton keys crossing a shield and grandiloquent crown. He knew the symbolisation well. It was the traditional seal of the Vatican the sacred symbol of the Holy See or holy seat of government, the seat being literally the ancient flock of St. Peter.The Holy Chopper, Langdon groaned, watching the craft land. Hed forgotten the Vatican owned one of these things, used for transporting the Pope to the airport, to meetings, or to his summer palace in Gandolfo. Langdon definitely would gift preferred a car.The aviate jumped from the cockpit and strode t oward them across the tarmac. promptly it was Vittoria who looked uneasy. Thats our pilot?Langdon overlap her concern. To fly, or non to fly. That is the question.The pilot looked handle he was festooned for a Shakespearean melodrama. His puffy tunic was vertically striped in brilliant sombre and fortunate. He wore matching pantaloons and spats. On his feet were contraband flats that looked similar slippers. On hint of it all, he wore a black felt beret.Traditional Swiss shelter uniforms, Langdon explained. Designed by Michelangelo himself. As the man drew closer, Langdon winced. I admit, non one of Michelangelos better efforts.Despite the mans garish attire, Langdon could tell the pilot meant business. He locomote toward them with all the rigidity and dignity of a U.S. Marine. Langdon had read numerous times about the rigorous requirements for be advent one of the elite Swiss Guard. Recruited from one of Switzerlands four Catholic cantons, applicants had to be Swiss ma les in the midst of 19 and thirty geezerhood old, at least 5 feet 6 inches, dexterous by the Swiss Army, and unmarried. This imperial corps was envied by institution governments as the most allegiant and deadly security force in the universe.You are from CERN? the reserve asked, arriving in the lead them. His voice was steely.Yes, sir, Langdon replied.You made remarkable time, he said, expectant the X-33 a mystified stare. He turned to Vittoria. Maam, do you have any(prenominal) other clothing?I beg your pardon?He motioned to her legs. get nearly pants are non permitted at heart(a) Vatican city.Langdon glanced floor at Vittorias legs and frowned. He had forgotten. Vatican City had a strict ban on visible legs above the knee both male and female. The regulation was a way of display respect for the sanctity of Gods city.This is all I have, she said. We came in a hurry.The safe nodded, clearly displeased. He turned next to Langdon. Are you carrying any weapons?Weap ons? Langdon thought. Im not even carrying a change of underwear He shook his head.The policeman crouched at Langdons feet and began patting him down, scratch line at his socks. Trusting guy, Langdon thought. The guards strong hands moved up Langdons legs, coming uncomfortably close to his groin. Finally they moved up to his chest and shoulders. Apparently content Langdon was clean, the guard turned to Vittoria. He ran his eyes up her legs and torso.Vittoria glared. Dont even think about it.The guard fixed Vittoria with a gaze clearly intended to intimidate. Vittoria did not flinch.Whats that? the guard said, pointing to a wispy square bulge in the front pocket of her shorts.Vittoria removed an ultrathin stall phone. The guard took it, clicked it on, waited for a dial tone, and thus, apparently satisfied that it was indeed zero more than a phone, returned it to her. Vittoria slid it back into her pocket.Turn around, please, the guard said.Vittoria obliged, holding her arms out and rotating a full 360 degrees.The guard carefully studied her. Langdon had already decided that Vittorias form-fitting shorts and blouse were not bulging anyw here they shouldnt have been. Apparently the guard came to the same conclusion.Thank you. This way please.The Swiss Guard chopper churned in neutral as Langdon and Vittoria approached. Vittoria boarded first, standardized a seasoned pro, that even stooping as she passed downstairs the whirling rotors. Langdon held back a moment.No chance of a car? he yelled, half-joking to the Swiss Guard, who was climbing in the pilots seat.The man did not answer.Langdon knew that with Romes maniacal drivers, flying was probably safer anyway. He took a deep breath and boarded, stooping cautiously as he passed at a lower place the spinning rotors.As the guard fired up the engines, Vittoria called out, form you located the canister?The guard glanced over his shoulder, looking confused. The what?The canister. You called CERN about a cani ster?The man shrugged. No idea what youre talking about. Weve been very crabby today. My commander told me to pick you up. Thats all I k without delay.Vittoria gave Langdon an unsettled look.Buckle up, please, the pilot said as the engine revved.Langdon reached for his seat belt and strapped himself in. The tiny fuselage seemed to foreshorten around him. Then with a roar, the craft shot up and banked astutely north toward Rome.Rome the caput mundi, where Caesar once ruled, where St. Peter was crucified. The cradle of new-made civilization. And at its core a ticking bomb.33Rome from the air is a labyrinth an indecipherable maze of ancient roadways winding around buildings, fountains, and crumbling ruins.The Vatican chopper stayed low in the sky as it sliced north Hesperian done the permanent smog layer coughed up by the over-crowding below. Langdon gazed down at the mopeds, sight-seeing buses, and armies of miniature Fiat sedans buzzing around rotaries in all directions. Koyaa nisqatsi, he thought, recalling the Hopi term for life out of balance.Vittoria sat in silent determination in the seat beside him.The chopper banked hard.His stomach dropping, Langdon gazed farther into the distance. His eyes found the crumbling ruins of the Roman coliseum. The Coliseum, Langdon had always thought, was one of historys greatest ironies. promptly a dignified symbol for the rise of human culture and civilization, the area had been built to host centuries of barbaric events hungry lions shredding prisoners, armies of slaves battling to the death, gang rapes of exotic women captured from far-off lands, as well as public beheadings and castrations. It was ironic, Langdon thought, or perhaps fitting, that the Coliseum had served as the architectural blueprint for Harvards Soldier Field the football sports stadium where the ancient traditions of savagery were reenacted all fall crazed fans screaming for gore as Harvard battled Yale.As the chopper headed north, Lang don spied the Roman Forum the heart of pre-Christian Rome. The decaying columns looked like toppled gravestones in a cemetery that had somehow avoided being swallowed by the metropolis surrounding it.To the west the commodious basin of the Tiber River wound enormous arcs across the city. Even from the air Langdon could tell the water was deep. The churning currents were brown, filled with back up and foam from heavy rains.Straight ahead, the pilot said, climbing higher. Langdon and Vittoria looked out and saw it. Like a mountain parting the morning fog, the colossal domed stadium rose out of the haze before them St. Peters Basilica.Now that, Langdon said to Vittoria, is something Michelangelo got right.Langdon had never seen St. Peters from the air. The marble faade blazed like fire in the afternoon sun. change with 140 statues of saints, martyrs, and angels, the Herculean edifice stretched two football fields wide and a staggering six long. The cavernous interior of the basili ca had style for over 60,000 worshipers over one hundred times the population of Vatican City, the smallest outlandish in the human race.Incredibly, though, not even a citadel of this magnitude could overshadow the piazza before it. A sprawling expanse of granite, St. Peters Square was a staggering open space in the congestion of Rome, like a classical Central Park. In front of the basilica, bordering the vast oval common, 284 columns move outward in four concentric arcs of diminishing size an architectural trompe de loiel used to heighten the piazzas sense of grandeur.As he stared at the first-class shrine before him, Langdon wondered what St. Peter would think if he were here now. The exaltation had died a gruesome death, crucified upside down on this very spot. Now he rested in the most sacred of tombs, buried quin stories down, directly beneath the central cupola of the basilica.Vatican City, the pilot said, sounding anything but welcoming.Langdon looked out at the tower ing stone bastions that loomed ahead impenetrable fortifications surrounding the composite a strangely earthly defense for a spiritual knowledge domain of secrets, power, and mystery.Look Vittoria said suddenly, grabbing Langdons arm. She motioned frantically downward toward St. Peters Square directly beneath them. Langdon put his face to the window and looked.Over there, she said, pointing.Langdon looked. The rear of the piazza looked like a parking lot crowded with a dozen or so trailer trucks. Huge satellite dishes pointed skyward from the roof of every truck. The dishes were emblazoned with familiar namesTelevisor EuropeaVideo ItaliaBBCUnited Press InternationalLangdon felt suddenly confused, wondering if the news of the antimatter had already leaked out.Vittoria seemed suddenly tense. Why is the pressure level here? Whats going on?The pilot turned and gave her an odd look over his shoulder. Whats going on? You dont know?No, she fired back, her accent curmudgeonly and stron g.Il memoriseclavo, he said. It is to be sealed in about an hour. The livelong world is watching.Il Conclavo.The sacred scripture rang a long moment in Langdons ears before dropping like a brick to the pit of his stomach. Il Conclavo. The Vatican Conclave. How could he have forgotten? It had been in the news recently.Fifteen days ago, the Pope, after a tremendously popular twelve-year reign, had passed away. each paper in the world had carried the story about the Popes fatal stroke while sleeping a sudden and surprising death many whispered was suspicious. But now, in keeping with the sacred tradition, fifteen days after the death of a Pope, the Vatican was holding Il Conclavo the sacred ceremony in which the 165 cardinals of the world the most powerful men in Christendom gathered in Vatican City to elect the new Pope.Every cardinal on the planet is here today, Langdon thought as the chopper passed over St. Peters Basilica. The expansive inner world of Vatican City spread o ut beneath him. The entire power mental synthesis of the Roman Catholic Church is sitting on a time bomb.34Cardinal Mortati gazed up at the lavish ceiling of the Sistine chapel and tried to find a moment of quiet reflection. The frescoed walls echoed with the voices of cardinals from nations around the globe. The men jostled in the candlelit tabernacle, whispering excitedly and consulting with one another(prenominal) in numerous languages, the universal tongues being English, Italian, and Spanish.The light in the chapel was usually rarified long rays of tinted sun slicing through the darkness like rays from paradise but not today. As was the custom, all of the chapels windows had been covered in black velvet in the name of secrecy. This ensured that no one on the inside could send signals or communicate in any way with the outside world. The result was a profound darkness lit only by candles a shimmering radiance that seemed to purify everyone it touched, making them all ghost ly like saints.What privilege, Mortati thought, that I am to oversee this sanctified event. Cardinals over eighty years of age were too old to be eligible for election and did not attend crew, but at seventy-nine years old, Mortati was the most sr. cardinal here and had been appointed to oversee the proceedings.Following tradition, the cardinals gathered here two hours before conclave to catch up with friends and engage in last-minute discussion. At 7 P.M., the late Popes chamberlain would arrive, give opening prayer, and so leave. Then the Swiss Guard would seal the approachs and lock all the cardinals inside. It was then that the oldest and most secretive political ritual in the world would begin. The cardinals would not be released until they decided who among them would be the next Pope.Conclave. Even the name was secretive. Con clave literally meant locked with a key. The cardinals were permitted no contact whatsoever with the outside world. No phone calls. No messages. No whispers through doorways. Conclave was a vacuum, not to be influenced by anything in the outside world. This would ensure that the cardinals kept Solum Dum prae oculis only God before their eyes.Outside the walls of the chapel, of course, the media watched and waited, speculating as to which of the cardinals would become the ruler of one billion Catholics oecumenic. Conclaves created an intense, politically charged atmosphere, and over the centuries they had turned deadly poisonings, clenched fist bodhts, and even murder had erupted within the sacred walls. Ancient history, Mortati thought. Tonights conclave will be unified, blissful, and above all brief.Or at least that had been his speculation.Now, however, an unexpected development had emerged. Mystifyingly, four cardinals were absent from the chapel. Mortati knew that all the exits to Vatican City were guarded, and the missing cardinals could not have gone far, but still, with less than an hour before opening prayer, he was feeling disconcerted. After all, the four missing men were no ordinary cardinals. They were the cardinals.The chosen four.As overseer of the conclave, Mortati had already sent countersign through the proper channels to the Swiss Guard alerting them to the cardinals absence. He had yet to hear back. Other cardinals had now noticed the puzzling absence. The vile whispers had begun. Of all cardinals, these four should be on time Cardinal Mortati was starting to fear it might be a long evening after all.He had no idea.35The Vaticans helipad, for reasons of safety and noise control, is located in the northwest tip of Vatican City, as far from St. Peters Basilica as possible.Terra firma, the pilot announced as they touched down. He exited and opened the sliding door for Langdon and Vittoria.Langdon descended from the craft and turned to help Vittoria, but she had already dropped effortlessly to the ground. Every muscle in her body seemed tuned to one objective finding the antimatter bef ore it left a horrific legacy.After stretching a ruminative sun tarp across the cockpit window, the pilot ushered them to an oversized electric golf game cart waiting near the helipad. The cart whisked them silently alongside the countrys western border a fifty-foot-tall cement bulwark thick enough to ward off attacks even by tanks. Lining the interior of the wall, posted at fifty-meter intervals, Swiss Guards stood at attention, surveying the interior of the grounds. The cart turned sagaciously right onto Via della Osservatorio. Signs pointed in all directionsPalazzio GovernatorioCollegio EthiopianaBasilica San PietroCapella SistinaThey accelerated up the manicured road past a squat building marked intercommunicate Vaticana. This, Langdon realized to his amazement, was the hub of the worlds most listened-to radio programming Radio Vaticana spreading the word of God to millions of listeners around the globe.Attenzione, the pilot said, turning sharply into a rotary.As the cart wound round, Langdon could barely believe the sight now coming into view. Giardini Vaticani, he thought. The heart of Vatican City. Directly ahead rose the rear of St. Peters Basilica, a view, Langdon realized, most people never saw. To the right loomed the Palace of the Tribunal, the lush papal residence rivaled only by Versailles in its baroque embellishment. The severe-looking Governatorato building was now behind them, housing Vatican Citys administration. And up ahead on the left, the massive immaterial edifice of the Vatican Museum. Langdon knew there would be no time for a museum shout this trip.Where is everyone? Vittoria asked, surveying the deserted lawns and walkways.The guard checked his black, military-style chronograph an odd anachronism beneath his puffy sleeve. The cardinals are convened in the Sistine Chapel. Conclave begins in a puny under an hour.Langdon nodded, vaguely recalling that before conclave the cardinals spent two hours inside the Sistine Chapel in q uiet reflection and visitations with their fellow cardinals from around the globe. The time was meant to renew old friendships among the cardinals and facilitate a less heated election process. And the rest of the residents and staff?Banned from the city for secrecy and security until the conclave concludes.And when does it conclude?The guard shrugged. God only knows. The words sounded oddly literal.After parking the cart on the wide lawn directly behind St. Peters Basilica, the guard escorted Langdon and Vittoria up a stone escarpment to a marble nerve centre off the back of the basilica. Crossing the plaza, they approached the rear wall of the basilica and followed it through a triangular courtyard, across Via Belvedere, and into a series of buildings closely huddle together together. Langdons art history had taught him enough Italian to pick out signs for the Vatican impression Office, the Tapestry Restoration Lab, Post Office Management, and the Church of St. Ann. They crossed another small square and arrived at their destination.The Office of the Swiss Guard is housed coterminous to Il Corpo di Vigilanza, directly northeast of St. Peters Basilica. The office is a squat, stone building. On either side of the entrance, like two stone statues, stood a mate of guards.Langdon had to admit, these guards did not look quite so comical. Although they also wore the blue and gold uniform, each wielded the traditional Vatican long sword an eight-foot spear with a distinct scythe rumored to have decapitated countless Muslims while defending the Christian crusaders in the fifteenth century.As Langdon and Vittoria approached, the two guards stepped forward, crossing their long swords, engine block the entrance. One looked up at the pilot in confusion. I pantaloni, he said, motioning to Vittorias shorts.The pilot waved them off. Il comandante vuole vederli subito.The guards frowned. Reluctantly they stepped aside.Inside, the air was cool. It looked nothing like t he administrative security offices Langdon would have imagined. Ornate and impeccably furnished, the hallways contained paintings Langdon was certain any museum worldwide would gladly have featured in its main gallery.The pilot pointed down a steep set of stairs. Down, please.Langdon and Vittoria followed the white marble treads as they descended between a gauntlet of nude male sculptures. Each statue wore a fig leaf that was lighter in color than the rest of the body.The Great Castration, Langdon thought.It was one of the most horrific tragedies in Renaissance art. In 1857, Pope Pius IX decided that the accurate representation of the male form might support lust inside the Vatican. So he got a chisel and hammering and hacked off the genitalia of every single male statue inside Vatican City. He defaced works by Michelangelo, Bramante, and Bernini. Plaster fig leaves were used to patch the damage. Hundreds of sculptures had been emasculated. Langdon had ofttimes wondered if there w as a huge crate of stone penises someplace.Here, the guard announced.They reached the tush of the stairs and dead-ended at a heavy, steel door. The guard typed an entry code, and the door slid open. Langdon and Vittoria entered.Beyond the threshold was absolute mayhem.