Angels & Demons (15 page)

34

C ardinal 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 in numerous languages, the universal tongues being English, Italian, and Spanish. The light in the chapel was usually sublime—long rays of tinted sun slicing through the darkness like rays from heaven—but not today. As was the custom, all of the chapel’s 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 ghostly . . . 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 conclave, but at seventy-nine years old, Mortati was the most senior 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 Pope’s chamberlain would arrive, give opening prayer, and then leave. Then the Swiss Guard would seal the doors 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 worldwide. Conclaves created an intense, politically charged atmosphere, and over the centuries they had turned deadly; poisonings, fist fights, and even murder had erupted within the sacred walls.
Ancient history,
Mortati thought.
Tonight’s 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 word 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 anxious 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.

35

T he Vatican’s helipad, for reasons of safety and noise control, is located in the northwest tip of Vatican City, as far from St. Peter’s 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 before it left a horrific legacy.

After stretching a reflective sun tarp across the cockpit window, the pilot ushered them to an oversized electric golf cart waiting near the helipad. The cart whisked them silently alongside the country’s 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 sharply right onto Via della Osservatorio. Signs pointed in all directions:

COLLEGIO ETHIOPIANA

BASILICA SAN PIETRO

They accelerated up the manicured road past a squat building marked RADIO VATICANA. This, Langdon realized to his amazement, was the hub of the world’s 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. Peter’s 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 City’s administration. And up ahead on the left, the massive rectangular edifice of the Vatican Museum. Langdon knew there would be no time for a museum visit 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 little under an hour.”

Langdon nodded, vaguely recalling that before conclave the cardinals spent two hours inside the Sistine Chapel in quiet 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. Peter’s Basilica, the guard escorted Langdon and Vittoria up a stone escarpment to a marble plaza 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 huddled together. Langdon’s art history had taught him enough Italian to pick out signs for the Vatican Printing 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 adjacent to Il Corpo di Vigilanza, directly northeast of St. Peter’s Basilica. The office is a squat, stone building. On either side of the entrance, like two stone statues, stood a pair 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 razor-sharp 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, blocking the entrance. One looked up at the pilot in confusion.
“I pantaloni,”
he said, motioning to Vittoria’s 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 the 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 incite lust inside the Vatican. So he got a chisel and mallet 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 often wondered if there was a huge crate of stone penises someplace.

“Here,” the guard announced.

They reached the bottom 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.

36

T he Office of the Swiss Guard.

Langdon stood in the doorway, surveying the collision of centuries before them.
Mixed media
. The room was a lushly adorned Renaissance library complete with inlaid bookshelves, oriental carpets, and colorful tapestries . . . and yet the room bristled with high-tech gear—banks of computers, faxes, electronic maps of the Vatican complex, and televisions tuned to CNN. Men in colorful pantaloons typed feverishly on computers and listened intently in futuristic headphones.

“Wait here,” the guard said.

Langdon and Vittoria waited as the guard crossed the room to an exceptionally tall, wiry man in a dark blue military uniform. He was talking on a cellular phone and stood so straight he was almost bent backward. The guard said something to him, and the man shot a glance over at Langdon and Vittoria. He nodded, then turned his back on them and continued his phone call.

The guard returned. “Commander Olivetti will be with you in a moment.”

“Thank you.”

The guard left and headed back up the stairs.

Langdon studied Commander Olivetti across the room, realizing he was actually the Commander in Chief of the armed forces of an entire country. Vittoria and Langdon waited, observing the action before them. Brightly dressed guards bustled about yelling orders in Italian.

“Continua cercando!”
one yelled into a telephone.

“Probasti il museo?”
another asked.

Langdon did not need fluent Italian to discern that the security center was currently in intense search mode. This was the good news. The bad news was that they obviously had not yet found the antimatter.

“You okay?” Langdon asked Vittoria.

She shrugged, offering a tired smile.

When the commander finally clicked off his phone and approached across the room, he seemed to grow with each step. Langdon was tall himself and not accustomed to looking up at many people, but Commander Olivetti demanded it. Langdon sensed immediately that the commander was a man who had weathered tempests, his face hale and steeled. His dark hair was cropped in a military buzz cut, and his eyes burned with the kind of hardened determination only attainable through years of intense training. He moved with ramrod exactness, the earpiece hidden discreetly behind one ear making him look more like U.S. Secret Service than Swiss Guard.

The commander addressed them in accented English. His voice was startlingly quiet for such a large man, barely a whisper. It bit with a tight, military efficiency. “Good afternoon,” he said. “I am Commander Olivetti—
Comandante Principale
of the Swiss Guard. I’m the one who called your director.”

Vittoria gazed upward. “Thank you for seeing us, sir.”

The commander did not respond. He motioned for them to follow and led them through the tangle of electronics to a door in the side wall of the chamber. “Enter,” he said, holding the door for them. Langdon and Vittoria walked through and found themselves in a darkened control room where a wall of video monitors was cycling lazily through a series of black-and-white images of the complex. A young guard sat watching the images intently.

“Fuori,”
Olivetti said.

The guard packed up and left.

Olivetti walked over to one of the screens and pointed to it. Then he turned toward his guests. “This image is from a remote camera hidden somewhere inside Vatican City. I’d like an explanation.”

Langdon and Vittoria looked at the screen and inhaled in unison. The image was absolute. No doubt. It was CERN’s antimatter canister. Inside, a shimmering droplet of metallic liquid hung ominously in the air, lit by the rhythmic blinking of the LED digital clock. Eerily, the area around the canister was almost entirely dark, as if the antimatter were in a closet or darkened room. At the top of the monitor flashed superimposed text: LIVE FEED—CAMERA #86.

Vittoria looked at the time remaining on the flashing indicator on the canister. “Under six hours,” she whispered to Langdon, her face tense.

Langdon checked his watch. “So we have until . . .” He stopped, a knot tightening in his stomach.

“Midnight,” Vittoria said, with a withering look.

Midnight,
Langdon thought.
A flair for the dramatic
. Apparently whoever stole the canister last night had timed it perfectly. A stark foreboding set in as he realized he was currently sitting at ground zero. Olivetti’s whisper now sounded more like a hiss. “Does this object belong to your facility?”

Vittoria nodded. “Yes, sir. It was stolen from us. It contains an extremely combustible substance called antimatter.”

Olivetti looked unmoved. “I am quite familiar with incendiaries, Ms. Vetra. I have not heard of antimatter.”

“It’s new technology. We need to locate it immediately or evacuate Vatican City.”