Angels & Demons (57 page)

It seemed a cruel irony that the only way to save the people now was to destroy the church. Langdon figured the Illuminati were amused by the symbolism.

The air coming up from the bottom of the tunnel was cool 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.

Suddenly, the camerlegno’s lantern seemed to halt. Langdon closed on him fast. The end of the stairs loomed abruptly from out of the shadows. A wrought-iron 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 camerlegno’s way. The others came thundering down the stairs, everyone ghostly white in the BBC spotlight . . . especially
Glick
, who was looking more pasty with every step.

Chartrand grabbed Langdon. “Let the camerlegno pass!”

“No!” Vittoria said from above, breathless. “We must evacuate right now! You
cannot
take the antimatter out of here! If you bring it up, everyone outside will
die!”

The camerlegno’s voice was remarkably calm. “All of you . . . we must trust. We have little time.”

“You don’t understand,” Vittoria said. “An explosion at ground level will be much worse than one down here!”

The camerlegno looked at her, his green eyes resplendently sane. “Who said anything about an explosion at ground level?”

Vittoria stared. “You’re
leaving
it down here?”

The camerlegno’s certitude was hypnotic. “There will be no more death tonight.”

“Father, but—”

“Please . . . some
faith.”
The camerlegno’s voice plunged to a compelling hush. “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 camerlegno’s stare intensified. “I am to save this church. And I
can
. I swear on my life.”

The silence that followed might as well have been thunder.

120

E leven-fifty-one P.M.

Necropolis
literally means
City of the Dead
.

Nothing Robert Langdon had ever read about this place prepared him for the sight 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 dirt sky, which hung low over the penumbral hamlet.
City of the dead
, Langdon thought, feeling trapped between academic wonder and raw fear. He and the others dashed deeper down the winding passages.
Did I make the wrong choice?

Chartrand had been the first to fall under the camerlegno’s spell, yanking open the gate and declaring his faith in the camerlegno. Glick and Macri, at the camerlegno’s 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 eager of all, and Langdon had seen in her eyes a wariness that looked, unsettlingly, a lot like female intuition.

It’s too late now
, he thought, he and Vittoria dashing after the others.
We’re committed
. Vittoria 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
.

As they ran on through the mausoleums, Langdon felt his legs tiring, noting to his surprise that the group was ascending a steady incline. The explanation, when it dawned on him, sent shivers to his core. The topography beneath his feet was that of Christ’s time. He was running up the original Vatican Hill!

Langdon had heard Vatican scholars claim that St. Peter’s 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!

Langdon felt like he was running through the pages of history. Somewhere ahead was St. Peter’s tomb—
the
Christian relic. It was hard to imagine that the original grave had been marked only with a modest shrine. Not any more. As Peter’s eminence spread, new shrines were built on top of the old, and now, the homage stretched 440 feet overhead to the top of Michelangelo’s dome, the apex positioned directly over the original tomb within a fraction of an inch.

They continued ascending the sinuous passages. Langdon checked his watch.
Eight minutes
. He was beginning to wonder if he and Vittoria would be joining the deceased here permanently.

“Look out!” Glick yelled from behind them. “Snake holes!”

Langdon saw it in time. A series of small holes riddled the path before them. He leapt, just clearing them. Vittoria jumped too, barely avoiding the narrow hollows. She looked uneasy as they ran on.
“Snake
holes?”

“Snack
holes, actually,” Langdon corrected. “Trust me, you don’t want to know.” The holes, he had just realized, were
libation tubes
. The early Christians had believed in the resurrection of the flesh, and they’d used the holes to literally “feed the dead” by pouring milk and honey into crypts beneath the floor. The camerlegno felt weak.

He 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 pain than the body
. Still he felt tired. He knew he had precious little time.

“I will save your church, Father. I swear it.”

Despite 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 sloshed 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. As he approached the top of the hill, he was drenched in sweat, barely able to breathe. But when he emerged over the crest, he felt reborn. He staggered onto the flat 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 marker read:
Mausoleum S
.

La tomba di San Pietro
.

Before him, at waist level, was an opening in the wall. There was no gilded plaque here. No fanfare. Just a simple hole in the wall, beyond which lay a small grotto and a meager, 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.

Thank you, God. It is almost over
.

Outside 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 really going to appear on St. Peter’s—

“Look!” A gasp went up from the throngs.

“There!” Everyone was suddenly pointing at the screen. “It’s a miracle!”

Mortati looked up. The camera angle was unsteady, but it was clear enough. The image was unforgettable.

Filmed 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 the rubble of ancient 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.

San Pietro
.

Mortati was not naïve enough to think that the shouts of joy and amazement now thundering through the crowd were exaltations from bearing witness to one of Christianity’s most sacred relics. St. Peter’s tomb was not what had people falling to their knees in spontaneous prayer and thanksgiving. It was the object on
top
of his tomb.

The antimatter canister. It was there . . . where it had been all day . . . hiding in the darkness of the Necropolis. Sleek. Relentless. Deadly. The camerlegno’s revelation was correct. Mortati 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. Also sitting on the tomb, inches away from the canister, was the wireless Swiss Guard security camera that had been pointed at the canister and transmitting all along.

Mortati crossed himself, certain this was the most frightful image he had seen in his entire life. He realized, a moment later, however, that it was about to get worse.

The camerlegno stood suddenly. He grabbed the antimatter in his hands and wheeled toward the others. His face showing total focus. He pushed past the others and began descending the Necropolis the way he had come, running down the hill.

The camera caught Vittoria Vetra, frozen in terror. “Where are you going! Camerlegno! I thought you said—”

“Have faith!” he exclaimed as he ran off.

Vittoria spun toward Langdon. “What do we do?”

Robert Langdon tried to stop the camerlegno, but Chartrand was running interference now, apparently trusting the camerlegno’s conviction.

The picture coming from the BBC camera was like a roller coaster ride now, winding, twisting. Fleeting freeze-frames of confusion and terror as the chaotic cortege stumbled through the shadows back toward the Necropolis entrance.

Out in the square, Mortati let out a fearful gasp. “Is he bringing that up
here?”

On televisions all over the world, larger than life, the camerlegno raced upward out of the Necropolis with the antimatter before him. “There will be no more death tonight!”

But the camerlegno was wrong.

121

T he camerlegno erupted through the doors of St. Peter’s Basilica at exactly 11:56 P.M. He staggered into the dazzling glare of the world spotlight, carrying the antimatter before him like some sort of numinous offering. Through burning eyes he could see his own form, half-naked and wounded, towering like a giant on the media screens around the square. The roar that went up from the crowd in St. Peter’s Square was like none the camerlegno had ever heard—crying, screaming, chanting, praying . . . a mix of veneration and terror.

Deliver us from evil,
he whispered.

He felt totally depleted from his race out of the Necropolis. It had almost ended in disaster. Robert Langdon and Vittoria Vetra had wanted to intercept him, to throw the canister back into its subterranean hiding place, to run outside for cover.
Blind fools!

The camerlegno realized now, with fearful clarity, that on any other night, he would never have won the race. Tonight, however, God again had been with him. Robert Langdon, on the verge of overtaking the camerlegno, had been grabbed by Chartrand, ever trusting and dutiful to the camerlegno’s demands for faith. The reporters, of course, were spellbound and lugging too much equipment to interfere.
The Lord works in mysterious ways.

The camerlegno could hear the others behind him now . . . see them on the screens, closing in. Mustering the last of his physical strength, he raised the antimatter high over his head. Then, throwing back his bare shoulders in an act of defiance to the Illuminati brand on his chest, he dashed down the stairs. There was one final act.

Godspeed,
he thought.
Godspeed.

Four minutes . . .

Langdon could barely see as he burst out of the basilica. Again the sea of media lights bore into his retinas. All he could make out was the murky outline of the camerlegno, directly ahead of him, running down the stairs. For an instant, refulgent in his halo of media lights, the camerlegno looked celestial, like some kind of modern deity. His cassock was at his waist like a shroud. His body was scarred and wounded by the hands of his enemies, and still he endured. The camerlegno ran on, standing tall, calling out to the world to have faith, running toward the masses carrying this weapon of destruction. Langdon ran down the stairs after him.
What is he doing? He will kill them all!

“Satan’s work,” the camerlegno screamed, “has no place in the House of God!” He ran on toward a now terrified crowd.

“Father!” Langdon screamed, behind him. “There’s nowhere to go!”

“Look to the heavens! We forget to look to the heavens!”

In that moment, as Langdon saw where the camerlegno was headed, the glorious truth came flooding all around him. Although Langdon could not see it on account of the lights, he knew their salvation was directly overhead.

A star-filled Italian sky.
The escape route.

The helicopter the camerlegno had summoned to take him to the hospital sat dead ahead, pilot already in the cockpit, blades already humming in neutral. As the camerlegno ran toward it, Langdon felt a sudden overwhelming exhilaration.

The thoughts that tore through Langdon’s mind came as a torrent . . .

First he pictured the wide-open expanse of the Mediterranean Sea. How far was it? Five miles? Ten? He knew the beach at
Fiumocino
was only about seven minutes by train. But by helicopter, 200 miles an hour, no stops . . . If they could fly the canister far enough out to sea, and drop it . . . There were other options too, he realized, feeling almost weightless as he ran.
La Cava Romana!
The marble quarries north of the city were less than three miles away. How large were they? Two square miles? Certainly they were deserted at this hour! Dropping the canister
there . . .

“Everyone back!” the camerlegno yelled. His chest ached as he ran. “Get away! Now!”

The Swiss Guard standing around the chopper stood slack-jawed as the camerlegno approached them.

“Back!” the priest screamed.

The guards moved back.

With the entire world watching in wonder, the camerlegno ran around the chopper to the pilot’s door and yanked it open. “Out, son! Now!”