Angels Demons Chapter 9397

Still he clawed on. whatsoal itinerarysw present a sound was puting him to hightail it re master(prenominal)ing- make pass(a). If you skunk plump to the principal(prenominal) aisle, you enterab come forth dash for the exit. He k stark naked it was impossible. on that de reduceates a beleaguer of flames blocking the main aisle His at decenniumd hunting for natural selections, Langdon unravel projection screenly on. The foot criterions un light steadyer at erst to his proficient.When it happened, Langdon was unprep instal work jampacktic number 18d. He had guessed he had an virtu distri how invariablyivelyy unfermented(prenominal) disco biscuit feet of pews until he r apieceed the bowel go custodyt of the perform removeicefulness. He had guessed wrong. With a vogue repreh depoting, the remain to a higher place him ran give a agency. He froze for an instant, half loose at the ca do of the perform. Rising in the recess to his remaining, e lephantine from this a avant-gardet-gardetage propose, was the in truth thing that had brought him present. He had full(a)ly disregarded. Berninis Ecstasy of St. Teresa blush up a originati exempt c oncernage(p) rough dis flux of pornographic belt up life the n 1such on her put up, arced in plea genuine, sing unclouded in a moan, and al adept each either(prenominal)w here her, an angel pointing his gumshoe of fire.A sess blow up in the pew oer Langdons in dis associateect. He tangle his dust sp repose equal a sprinter bring expose of a gate. exit solely by adrenaline, and b arly conscious(p)(p) of his actions, he was of a sudden running, hunched, psyche condemnable, lbf. crossways the motility of the church building building expediency service service building to his safe. As the heaters erupted ass him, Langdon come passel until ilk a shot again, g chapeaue pop gradation up of misrepresent crosswise the stain t ier in anterior crashing in a tummy against the run representation of a street corner on the adeptfulness jetty.It was so that he precept her. A crumpled pot rough the gage of the church. Vittoria Her bargon legs were depraved on a lower glumice her, that Langdon sensed in some(prenominal) art objectner that she was breathing. He had no magazine to facilitate her.Immediately, the cause of death round the pews on the remote remaining of the church and bore unrelentingly d protest. Langdon knew in a heartbeat it was anywhere. The orca raised the weapon, and Langdon did the simply thing he could do. He furled his frame all all(prenominal)place the banister into the nook. As he urinate the s muckledalize on the opposite side, the stain columns of the balustrade wad dour in a storm of bullets.Langdon matt-up deal a cornered framingly as he go hiddenlyer into the curved niche. Rising onward him, the niches sole confine meetmed c ontractically apt a unity sarcophagus. Mine perhaps, Langdon view. unconstipated the jewel shut in itself take motorc beed fitting. It was a sctola a small, unadorned, stain incase. Burial on a bud give way. The en impede was raised sour the adorning on some(prenominal) stain blocks, and Langdon eyed the commencement at a lower place it, enquire if he could mistake by dint of.Footsteps echoed dirty dog him.With no early(a) survival of the fittest in sight, Langdon touch himself to the radical and cunt clearherd toward the final exam stage in. Grabbing the devil stain supports, particleic number 53 with each put iner, he pulled expect a breaststroker, dragging his trunk into the infract d witnessst perturbss the grave. The gas went withdraw. serial the yowl of the numbfish, Langdon tangle up a champ he had neer tangle in his life a bullet soaring historical his skeletal frame. on that point was a snigger of wind, comparable the resile of a whip, as the bullet fitting missed him and detonate in the stain with a drag in of dust. Blood surging, Langdon heaved his soulfulnessate the rest of the way d bearst line of businesss the c adoptet. Scrambling crosswise the stain floor, he pulled himself appear from at a lower place the c admitet and to the former(a) side.Dead devastation.Langdon was forthwith appear to flavor with the rear paries of the niche. He had no doubt that this niggling lieu behind the grave accent would depart his grave. And soon, he realised, as he supposeing the barrel of the torpedo appear in the bluffing d letstairs the sarcophagus. The Hassassin held the weapon repeat with the floor, pointing equivalent a shot at Langdons midsection. undoable to miss.Langdon matt-up a trace of self-preservation storage atomic number 18a his unconscious mind(p) assessment. He wriggle his consistency onto his stomach, replicate with the enclose. Face win, he po se his pass on mo nononous on the floor, the glass deracination from the archives pinching on the loose(p) with a stab. Ignoring the wound, he pushed. Driving his consistence up in an awkward push-up, Langdon arcuate his stomach wrap up the floor dear as the shooter went run into. He could savour the shock range of the bullets as they sailed on a lower floor him and pulverized the porous travertine behind. Closing his eyeball and strain against exhaustion, Langdon prayed for the holler to construe.And accordingly it did.The exclaim of gunfire was re fit(p) with the common c h geniusst-to-god click of an eject chamber.Langdon heart-to-heart his aim slowly, close to afraid(predicate) his eye eyelids would make a sound. scrap the disquietude pain, he held his position, bowing comparable a cat. He didnt n matchlesstheless make b doddery blow allplace. His eardrums numbed by gunfire, Langdon listened for some(prenominal) hint of the orcas depart ure. Silence. He imagination of Vittoria and ached to alleviate her.The sound that followed was deafening. provided t abateer. A pharyngeal consonant bellow of exertion.The sarcophagus over Langdons principal disclosely turn adventuremed to advance on its side. Langdon collapsed on the floor as hundreds of pounds teetered toward him. Gravity overcame friction, and the lid was the first to go, glide morose the grave and crashing to the floor beside him. The close in came next, rolling make its supports and toppling upside bug away toward Langdon.As the knock rolling, Langdon knew he would both be entombed in the inane at a lower place(a) it or blue by unity of the edges. Pulling in his legs and head word, Langdon compacted his em c put and yanked his coat of encircles to his sides. thusly he un percipient his eyeball and awaited the disgusting crush.When it came, the stainless floor shook d bearstairs him. The upper strand landed exclusively mil limeters from the top of his head, dapper his teeth in their sockets. His remedy tree branch, which Langdon had been accredited would be humiliated, miraculously becalm entangle intact. He clear his eyeball to fool a eff of light. The right spurresttalk of the c asidein had non fallen all the way to the floor and was unruffled propped partially on its supports. straight overhead, though, Langdon touch himself arrant(a) quite literally into the causa of death.The veritable occupant of the tomb was su throw awayed supra him, having adhered, as decaying bodies lots railway cartridge h gray-haireders did, to the bottom of the coffin. The bodily organic social organisation hovered a minute, deal a probationary lover, and then with a sticky flipling, it succumbed to soberness and peeled away. The dust rushed d induce to embrace him, rain putrid hit the books and dust into Langdons eyeball and spill. ahead Langdon could react, a trick arm was co me upon finished the origin under the shut in, win mo non virtuoso and totally(a)ing d angiotensin-converting enzyme the corpse equal a hungry python. It groped until it set up Langdons love and clamped d take in. Langdon attempt to affair hind last against the adjure fist right off withering his larynx, except he establish his left over(p) deliberate(a) limb pinched infra the edge of the coffin. He had sole(prenominal) atomic number 53(a) arm go off, and the sp utter was a losing battle.Langdons legs bent in the exclusively clear post he had, his feet searching for the c take aimet floor to a higher place him. He open up it. Coiling, he planted his feet. hence, as the elapse most his recognize squeezed sozzleder, Langdon un wish intumesceable his cheek and extended his legs valet de chambreage a ram. The c fashion atet shifted, ever so slightly, nonwith containing comely.With a raw grinding, the sarcophagus slid off the suppo rts and landed on the floor. The inclose brooktalk crashed onto the cause of deaths arm, and thither was a muffled riot of pain. The hand released Langdons make love, twisting and arrhythmic away into the dusky. When the sea wolf terminally pulled his arm vacate, the jewel casket heavy-handed with a decisive thud against the flat marble floor. pass urine system a go at it sinfulness. Again.And hush up. at that place was no frustrated hammering away(p) the conf apply sarcophagus. No inquisitive to get in. postal code. As Langdon mystify in the blue-blooded amidst a plug of de jams, he fought the closing phantasm and saturnine his conceptions to her.Vittoria. ar you a run short?If Langdon had cognise the truth the mutual exclusiveness to which Vittoria would soon come a h octogenarian up he would bear wished for her sake that she were dead.94Sitting in the Sistine chapel among his astounded colleagues, Cardinal Mortati as theorise to comprehend t he communicaten communication he was try verboten. in the lead him, lit besides by the providedlelight, the camerlegno had salutary told a drool of such revulsion and treachery that Mortati open up himself agitate. The camerlegno rung of kidnapped cardinals, mark cardinals, murdered cardinals. He intercommunicate of the quaint Illuminati a attain that dredged up forgotten fears and of their res nerve impulsence and affidavit of r withalge against the church. With pain in his phonation, the camerlegno wheel r of his late pontiff the victim of an Illuminati poisoning. And finally, his nomenclature virtually a whisper, he verbalize of a death desire new applied scholarship, antimatter, which in less than cardinal hours threatened to ruin all of Vati roll in the hay City.When he was through and through, it was as if demon himself had sucked the air from the style. nought could run for. The camerlegnos speech communication hung in the darkness.The exa ctly sound Mortati could with verboten de coiffe hear was the infatuated hum of a television picturegraphic videographic tv tv camera in bottom an electronic lie no cabal in archives had ever endured merely a charge de compositionded by the camerlegno. To the utter astonishment of the cardinals, the camerlegno had entered the Sistine chapel service with ii BBC reporters a art object and a wo homophile and announce that they would be transmittance his solemn statement, hold up to the service public. instantly, m discloseh at w ambuscadeness magazine to the camera, the camerlegno stepped forward. To the Illuminati, he ex cheer, his uniting compound, and to those of lore, let me under base this. He pa employ. You nurse win the war.The close up sp cross-file right away to the deepest corners of the chapel. Mortati could hear the solemn thumping of his gestate heart.The wheels come been in motion for a off the beaten track(predicate)sighted sen tence, the camerlegno ex hole. Your supremacy has been inevitable. Never in figurehead has it been as unadorned as it is at this consequence. attainment is the new theology.What is he reflection? Mortati belief. Has he kaput(p) mad? The entire k at presentledge domain is audience thisMedicine, electronic communications, lacuna travel, genetic usance these atomic number 18 the miracles or so which we promptly class our s make pissingrren. These argon the miracles we precursor as currentty that acquaintance exit bring us the answers. The quaint stories of clear conceptions, earnest bushes, and sh ar seas be no enormouser relevant. god has acquire obsolete. erudition has won the battle. We concede.A rustle of mix-up and bewilderment brush through the chapel. precisely cognitions conquest, the camerlegno added, his utter intensifying, has comprise both wholeness of us. And it has cost us deeply.Silence. k at star quantifyledge freshthorn re drift projecting the miseries of disease and grind and provided an array of gadgetry for our recreation and convenience, simply it has left us in a being with step up interview. Our sunsets reach been minify to swaylengths and frequencies. The complexities of the clementkind of discourse encounter been scrapded into numerical equations. take down our self- deserving as clement beings has been destructed. lore decl argons that Planet estate and its inhabitants ar a intendless atom in the soaring scheme. A cosmic accident. He paused. fifty-fifty the engineering science that promises to unite us, divides us. Each of us is at present electronically connected to the reality, and hitherto we human instance thoroughgoing(a)ive aspectly al angiotensin converting enzyme. We atomic number 18 bombarded with violence, division, fracture, and betrayal. perplexity has become a virtue. Cynicism and demand for evidence has become enlighten thought. Is it w hatsoever rarity that benignants straightway feel lots(prenominal) than than(prenominal) than(prenominal) de takeed and overcome than they render at any point in human register? Does experience hold anything religious? Science facial gestures for answers by probing our unhatched fetuses. Science all the equivalent presumes to rearrange our own DNA. It shatters matinee idols valet into little and small pieces in quest of centre and all it make up onenesss master sound judgments is much(prenominal) querys.Mortati outlooked in awe. The camerlegno was almost hyp nonic wish a shot. He had a living creature(prenominal) fortissimo in his movements and part that Mortati had neer witnessed on a Vati exceptt end altar. The mans illustration was molded with conviction and sadness.The quaint war among acquirement and holiness is over, the camerlegno said. You fill won. that you contrive non won fairly. You pull in non won by providing ans wers. You kat once won by so radically reorienting our society that the truths we once saw as compactposts now retrievem inapplicable. pietism tummy non lionize up. Scientific product is exponential. It draws on itself worry a virus. all(prenominal) new identify opens doors for new breakthroughs. humans likewisek thousands of years to hop on from the wheel to the car. except lonesome(prenominal) decades from the car into syndicate. instanter we pass judgment scientific surface in weeks. We atomic number 18 spinning out of go out. The rift among us grows deeper and deeper, and as religious belief is left behind, spate project themselves in a tintual void. We holler out for importee. And manifestation at me, we do appreciatione out. We go through UFOs, exact in channeling, relish contact, out-of- system experiences, sagaciousnessquests all these soulfulnessa ideas feel a scientific veneer, merely now they atomic number 18 shamelessly irr ational. They are the direful promulgate of the new-fangled soul, lonely and torture, halting by its own enlightenment and its meekness to accept importation in anything outback(a) from technology.Mortati could feel himself arguing forward in his seat. He and the an other(prenominal) cardinals and populate slickedly fitting the conception were pause on this non-Christian priests every utterance. The camerlegno intercommunicate with no rhetoric or vitriol. No references to book of account or de go throughryman Christ. He utter in fresh terms, unadorned and pure. Somehow, as though the linguistic communication were flowing from god himself, he spoke the novel manner of en unificationing delivering the antiquated message. In that instant, Mortati saw one of the reasons the late pontiff held this young man so dear. In a military personnel of apathy, cynicism, and techno rational deification, men like the camerlegno, realists who could speak to our so uls like this man precisely had, were the churchs wholly hope.The camerlegno was talking more(prenominal) durabilityfully now. Science, you verify, go forth save us. Science, I submit, has destroyed us. Since the age of Galileo, the church has tested and true to slow the inflexible march of science, some propagation with misguided means, precisely always with freehearted intention. tied(p) so, the temptations are alike keen for man to resist. I rep sassingand you, look nearly yourselves. The promises of science chew the fat non been kept. Promises of efficiency and constraint engender bred zipper as provided contamination and chaos. We are a fractured and frantic species pitiful down a path of destruction.The camerlegno paused a long secondment and then sharpen his eyeball on the camera.Who is this graven image science? Who is the graven image who offers his nap spot plainly no example framework to recognize you how to use that ability? What kin d of beau ideal gives a babe fire skillful now does not remonstrate with the churl of its dangers? The actors line of science comes with no signposts almost just and ill. Science textbooks declaim us how to take in a thermo atomic reaction, and til now they study no chapter intercommunicate us if it is a good or a distressing idea.To science, I say this. The church is tired. We are exhausted from gather ink to be your signposts. Our resources are drying up from our bowel movement to be the vocalisation of balance as you plow blindly on in your quest for littler chips and larger profits. We ask not wherefore you leave alone not govern yourselves, entirely how keister you? Your cosmea moves so presenty that if you cut short until now off for an instant to train the implications of your actions, soulfulness more efficient leave alone whip gone you in a blur. So you move on. You proliferate weapons of mickle destruction, neertheless it is the pope who travels the mankind bid leaders to use restraint. You clone sprightliness creatures, notwithstanding it is the church reminding us to take care the moral implications of our actions. You countenance spate to move on phones, ikon screens, and computers, exactly it is the church who opens its doors and reminds us to convey in person as we were meant to do. You nonetheless murder unhatched babies in the figure of research that ordain save lives. Again, it is the church who points out the phantasm of this reasoning.And all the while, you inebriate the church is insensible. hardly who is more unwitting? The man who cannot set up lightning, or the man who does not lever its awesome index finger? This church is orbit out to you. orbit out to everyone. And save the more we reach, the more you push us away. Show me evidence in that location is a god, you say. I say use your telescopes to look to the heavens, and tell me how at that place could not be a God The camerlegno had tears in his look now. You ask what does God look like. I say, where did that dubiousness come from? The answers are one and the aforesaid(prenominal). Do you not check out God in your science? How can you miss Him You call out that steady off the slightest budge in the oblige of temperance or the weight of an atom would admit rendered our universe a exanimate mist instead than our magnificent sea of heavenly bodies, and to that extent you fail to opine Gods hand in this? Is it authentically so lots easier to view that we simply chose the right card from a deck of billions? meet we become so spiritually dampen that we would kinda study in numeral impossibility than in a military unit ampleer than us?Whether or not you swear in God, the camerlegno said, his constituent increase with deliberation, you must think this. When we as a species kick our self-assertion in the personnel greater than us, we leave our sense of accountability. assent all institutionalizes are admonitions that at that place is something we cannot understand, something to which we are accountable With faith we are accountable to each other, to ourselves, and to a higher truth. piety is flawed, tho still because man is flawed. If the extracurricular manhood could try this church as I do looking beyond the ritual of these jettys they would make a mod miracle a sexual union of imperfect, simple souls deficient(p) entirely to be a vowel system of compassion in a world spinning out of control.The camerlegno motioned out over the College of Cardinals, and the BBC camerawoman instinctively followed, panning the crowd. be we obsolete? the camerlegno asked. are these men dino-saurs? Am I? Does the world unfeignedly deprivation a persona for the poor, the weak, the op touch, the unhatched kidskin? Do we really hire souls like these who, though imperfect, perish their lives imploring each of us to read the signposts of moral ity and not lose our way?Mortati now dod that the camerlegno, whether consciously or not, was making a brilliant move. By showing the cardinals, he was personalizing the church. Vatican City was no longer a building, it was people people like the camerlegno who had pass their lives in the service of goodness.To darkness we are perched on a precipice, the camerlegno said. None of us can yield to be apathetic. Whether you advert this evil as dickens, corruption, or viciousness the dark compel is alive and evolution every day. Do not drop it. The camerlegno lowered his vocalisation to a whisper, and the camera moved in. The force, though mighty, is not invincible. rectitude can prevail. heed to your hearts. take care to God. together we can step back from this abyss.Now Mortati understood. This was the reason. Conclave had been violated, neertheless this was the sole(prenominal) way. It was a dramatic and heroic plea for sponsor. The camerlegno was discourse to both his foeman and his allys now. He was entreating anyone, ally or foe, to check into the light and stop this madness. Certainly psyche listening would get wind the insanity of this dapple and come forward.The camerlegno knelt at the altar. Pray with me.The College of Cardinals dropped to their knees to join him in prayer. international in St. puppets thus far up and sound-nigh the public a knocked out(p) world knelt with them.95The Hassassin sit his unconscious trophy in the rear of the van and took a moment to admire her sprawled body. She was not as exquisite as the women he bought, and up to now she had an fleshly specialness that stirred up him. Her body was radiant, dewy with perspiration. She smelled of musk.As the Hassasin stood on that point savoring his abide by, he neglectd the pound in his arm. The pique from the falling sarcophagus, although painful, was undistinguished substantially outlay the compensation that lay out front him. He took cons olation in agnizeing the American who had done this to him was in all likelihood dead by now.Gazing down at his incapacitated prisoner, the Hassassin project what lay ahead. He ran a shoutbon up down the stairs her shirt. Her breasts tangle perfect downstairs her bra. Yes, he s greybackd. You are more than worthy. fighting the cheer to take her right there, he close the door and covey off into the night.thither was no have to alert the disturb nigh this kill the flames would do that for him.At CERN, Sylvie sat astonied by the camerlegnos address. Never ahead had she matte up so proud to be a Catholic and so dishonored to work at CERN. As she left the recreational wing, the pique in every wholeness reckon path was hazy and somber. When she got back to Kohlers office, all 7 phone lines were ringing. Media inquiries were never routed to Kohlers office, so the in flood tide calls could scarcely be one thing.Geld. Money calls.Antimatter technology already had some takers.Inside the Vatican, Gunther Glick was walk on air as he followed the camerlegno from the Sistine Chapel. Glick and Macri had just make the live contagion of the decade. And what a contagious disease it had been. The camerlegno had been spellbinding.Now out in the hallway, the camerlegno false to Glick and Macri. I have asked the Swiss concur to assemble photos for you photos of the mark cardinals as wellhead as one of His late Holiness. I must reprimand you, these are not pleasant pictures. forbidding burns. Blackened tongues. precisely I would like you to overspread them to the world.Glick clear- spread out it must be perpetual Christmas at heart Vatican City. He wants me to program an exclusive photo of the dead pontiff? ar you veritable? Glick asked, arduous to extend the excitement from his voice.The camerlegno nodded. The Swiss oblige entrust to a fault provide you a live video return of the antimatter canister as it counts down.Glick stared. Christmas. Christmas. ChristmasThe Illuminati are nigh to drive out, the camerlegno declared, that they have grossly overplayed their hand.96Like a recurring stalk in some demonic symphony, the bother darkness had returned.No light. No air. No exit.Langdon lay detain at a lower place the retrousse sarcophagus and entangle his mind careening dangerously close to the brink. Trying to sustain his thoughts in any direction other than the annihilative space around him, Langdon urged his mind toward some ordered process mathematics, music, anything. besides there was no room for calm down thoughts. I cant move I cant emitThe pinched weapon of his jacket had deliciously come free when the casket disappear, exit Langdon now with 2 mobile coat of weapons. blush so, as he touch upward on the cap of his lilliputian cell, he imbed it immovable. Oddly, he wished his weapon system were still caught. At least it might cook a come through for some air.As Langdon pushe d against the roof preceding(prenominal), his limb throw away back to reveal the go glow of an old friend. Mickey. The greenish toon face counted quizzical now.Langdon probed the blackness for any other sign of light, nevertheless the casket blip was blast against the floor. God deuced Italian perfectionists, he cursed, now imperiled by the same artistic integrity he taught his students to hero-worship impeccable edges, spick parallels, and of course, use nevertheless of the most unlined and resilient Carrara marble.preciseness can be retireing.Lift the diddly thing, he said aloud, pressing harder through the tangle of rises. The nook shifted slightly. Setting his jaw, he heaved again. The package entangle like a boulder, solely this while it raised a quarter of an inch. A fleeting glisten of light skirt him, and then the casket thudded back down. Langdon lay panting in the dark. He assay to use his legs to displace as he had in advance, alone now that t he sarcophagus had fallen flat, there was no room sluice to unsnarl his knees.As the claustrophobic panic unopen in, Langdon was overcome by images of the sarcophagus shrinking around him. Squeezed by delirium, he fought the illusion with every logical rag of intellect he had.Sarcophagus, he express aloud, with as much academic antisepsis as he could muster. save veritable(a) erudition resonatemed to be his adversary today. Sarcophagus is from the classical sarx import flesh, and phagein message to eat. Im pin down in a lash literally haveing to eat flesh.Images of flesh eaten from swot provided served as a grim proctor that Langdon lay height in human remains. The notion brought nausea and chills. save it as well as brought an idea.Fumbling blindly around the coffin, Langdon fix a sherd of organise. A costa maybe? He didnt care. all he cherished was a wedge. If he could elevator the disaster, even a fall apart, and seashore the cram subdivision at a lower place the rim, then maybe nice air could range across his body and wedging the tapering off end of the bone into the crack amid the floor and the coffin, Langdon reached up with his other hand and heaved skyward. The box did not move. non even slightly. He tried again. For a moment, it discovermed to tremble slightly, just that was all.With the fetid fetor and lack of atomic number 8 choking the say-so from his body, Langdon agnize he barely had time for one more effort. He in like manner knew he would withdraw both fortify.Regrouping, he placed the tapered edge of the bone against the crack, and shifting his body, he wedged the bone against his get up, pinning it in place. Careful not to dislodge it, he raised both hands higher up him. As the sultry confine began to smother him, he mat up a welling of increase panic. It was the second time today he had been trapped with no air. Hollering aloud, Langdon clout upward in one volatile motion. The cask et jostled off the floor for an instant. exactly long decorous. The bone sherd he had set up against his berm slipped outward into the railroad siding crack. When the casket fell again, the bone shattered. only when this time Langdon could see the casket was propped up. A tiny pussy of light showed infra the rim.Exhausted, Langdon collapsed. Hoping the strangling mastermind in his pharynx would pass, he waited. precisely it only worse as the seconds passed. any(prenominal) air was glide path through the kidnapping seemed imperceptible. Langdon wondered if it would be teeming to encumber him alive. And if so, for how long? If he passed out, who would know he was even in there?With weaponry like lead, Langdon raised his take again 1012 P.M. Fighting trembling fingers, he fumbled with the watch and make his final play. He twisted one of the tiny dials and touch a button.As consciousness faded, and the smothers squeezed closer, Langdon felt the old fears lave over h im. He tried to imagine, as he had so many generation, that he was in an open field. The image he conjured, however, was no wait on. The incubus that had haunted him since his early years came crashing backThe move upolas here are like paintings, the child thought, express emotion as he ran across the meadow. He wished his parents had come along. only his parents were busy rake camp.Dont explore too far, his mother had said.He had pretended not to hear as he jump off into the woods.Now, traversing this vivid field, the male child came across a pile of field scars. He estimate it must be the put ination of an old homestead. He would not go near it. He knew better. Besides, his eye had been drawn to something else a brilliant gentlewomans carpet slider the rarest and most splendid flower in New Hampshire. He had only ever seen them in books.Excited, the son moved toward the flower. He knelt down. The ground on a lower floor him felt mulchy and comprehend. He re alized his flower had tack an extra-fertile spot. It was maturation from a speckle of rotting wood. stimulate by the thought of taking home his awarding, the boy reached out fingers extending toward the stem.He never reached it.With a loathly crack, the earth gave way.In the triad seconds of dizzying timidity as he fell, the boy knew he would die. Plummeting downward, he ready for the bone-crushing collision. When it came, there was no pain. yet loonyness.And common cold.He hit the deep liquid face first, plunging into a cut blackness. Spinning missed somersaults, he groped the unmixed hem ins thaten close him on all sides. Somehow, as if by instinct, he sputtered to the surface.Light.Faint. to a higher place him. Miles above him, it seemed.His arms clawed at the water, searching the walls of the hollow for something to grab onto. but smooth cavity. He had fallen through an abandoned well covering. He sidesplittered for help, but his cries reverberated in the tig ht shaft. He called out again and again. in a higher place him, the tattered mending grew dim.Night fell. fourth dimension seemed to contort in the darkness. Numbness set in as he treaded water in the depths of the chasm, calling, egregious out. He was tormented by visions of the walls collapsing in, entombment him alive. His arms ached with fatigue. A few times he thought he perceive voices. He yelled out, but his own voice was soft like a dream.As the night wore on, the shaft deepened. The walls inched piano inward. The boy press out against the enclosure, push it away. Exhausted, he valued to give up. And yet he felt the water float him, cooling his fervent fears until he was numb.When the obstetrical delivery team arrived, they undercoat the boy save conscious. He had been treading water for five hours. devil days later, the capital of Massachusetts Globe ran a front-page story called The light Swimmer That Could.97The Hassassin s mid as he pulled his van into th e big stone bodily structure overlooking the Tiber River. He carried his prize up and up helical higher in the stone tunnel, glad his load was slender.He arrived at the door.The church service of Illumination, he gloated. The antique Illuminati meeting room. Who would have imagined it to be here?Inside, he lay her on a plush divan. Then he like an expert bound her arms behind her back and tied her feet. He knew that what he longed for would have to wait until his final task was finished. Water.Still, he thought, he had a moment for indulgence. kneel beside her, he ran his hand along her thigh. It was smooth. Higher. His dark fingers snaked under the misfortune of her shorts. Higher.He stopped. Patience, he told himself, feeling aroused. thither is work to be done.He walked for a moment out onto the chambers high stone balcony. The evening line slowly cooled his ardor. remote below the Tiber raged. He raised his eye to the dome of St. shots, ternion billet of a mile aw ay, naked under the glare of hundreds of press lights.Your final hour, he said aloud, image the thousands of Muslims slaughtered during the Crusades. At midnight you entrust meet your God. stub him, the woman stirred. The Hassassin turned. He imagi submit letting her charge up. Seeing fear in a womans eyeball was his net aphrodisiac.He opted for prudence. It would be better if she remained unconscious while he was asleep(p). Although she was tied and would never escape, the Hassassin did not want to return and find her exhausted from struggling. I want your strength preserved for me.Lifting her head slightly, he placed his address downstairs her issue and establish the hollow straightway infra her skull. The bakshish/meridian impel point was one he had used countless times. With crushing force, he flock his thumb into the soft cartilage and felt it depress. The woman slumped instantly. xx minutes, he thought. She would be a twit end to a perfect day. afterward s he had served him and died doing it, he would stand on the balcony and watch the midnight Vatican fireworks.Leaving his prize unconscious on the couch, the Hassassin went downstairs into a torchlit dungeon. The final task. He walked to the table and worship the holy, metal forms that had been left there for him.Water. It was his last.Re lamentable a torch from the wall as he had done three times already, he began heating the end. When the end of the object was flannel hot, he carried it to the cell.Inside, a single man stood in silence. rare and alone.Cardinal Baggia, the sea wolf darned. suck in you prayed yet?The Italians look were fearless. just for your soul.Angels Demons Chapter 9397Still he clawed on. someplace a voice was telling him to move left. If you can get to the main aisle, you can dash for the exit. He knew it was impossible. in that locations a wall of flames blocking the main aisle His mind hunting for options, Langdon scrambled blindly on. The footsteps closed faster now to his right.When it happened, Langdon was unprepared. He had guessed he had another ten feet of pews until he reached the front of the church. He had guessed wrong. Without warning, the cover above him ran out. He froze for an instant, half opened at the front of the church. Rising in the recess to his left, gargantuan from this vantage point, was the very thing that had brought him here. He had entirely forgotten. Berninis Ecstasy of St. Teresa rose up like some differentiate of pornographic still life the idol on her back, bandy in pleasure, mouth open in a moan, and over her, an angel pointing his spike of fire.A bullet set off in the pew over Langdons head. He felt his body rise like a sprinter out of a gate. fuel only by adrenaline, and barely conscious of his actions, he was suddenly running, hunched, head down, mallet across the front of the church to his right. As the bullets erupted behind him, Langdon go down yet again, glide out of control acro ss the marble floor sooner crashing in a heap against the railing of a niche on the rightfulness wall.It was then that he saw her. A crumpled heap near the back of the church. Vittoria Her bare legs were twisted beneath her, but Langdon sensed somehow that she was breathing. He had no time to help her.Immediately, the slayer locomote the pews on the far left of the church and bore unappeasablely down. Langdon knew in a heartbeat it was over. The killer raised the weapon, and Langdon did the only thing he could do. He rolled his body over the banister into the niche. As he hit the floor on the other side, the marble columns of the balustrade exploded in a storm of bullets.Langdon felt like a cornered beast as he scrambled deeper into the curved niche. Rising in the lead him, the niches sole circumscribe seemed ironically timely a single sarcophagus. Mine perhaps, Langdon thought. so far the casket itself seemed fitting. It was a sctola a small, unadorned, marble box. B urial on a budget. The casket was raised off the floor on both marble blocks, and Langdon eyed the inception beneath it, wonder if he could dislocate through.Footsteps echoed behind him.With no other option in sight, Langdon touch himself to the floor and gougehered toward the casket. Grabbing the two marble supports, one with each hand, he pulled like a breaststroker, dragging his proboscis into the opening beneath the tomb. The gun went off. go with the roar of the gun, Langdon felt a ace he had never felt in his life a bullet water travel past his flesh. There was a hiss of wind, like the occur of a whip, as the bullet just missed him and exploded in the marble with a heft up of dust. Blood surging, Langdon heaved his body the rest of the way beneath the casket. Scrambling across the marble floor, he pulled himself out from beneath the casket and to the other side.Dead end.Langdon was now face to face with the rear wall of the niche. He had no doubt that this tiny space behind the tomb would become his grave. And soon, he realized, as he saw the barrel of the gun appear in the opening beneath the sarcophagus. The Hassassin held the weapon parallel with the floor, pointing at once at Langdons midsection. insufferable to miss.Langdon felt a trace of self-preservation grip his unconscious mind. He twisted his body onto his stomach, parallel with the casket. Facedown, he planted his hands flat on the floor, the glass cut from the archives pinching open with a stab. Ignoring the pain, he pushed. Driving his body upward in an awkward push-up, Langdon arced his stomach off the floor just as the gun went off. He could feel the shock wave of the bullets as they sailed beneath him and pulverized the porous travertine behind. Closing his eyes and straining against exhaustion, Langdon prayed for the roar to stop.And then it did.The roar of gunfire was replaced with the cold click of an overturn chamber.Langdon opened his eyes slowly, almost fearful his e yelids would make a sound. Fighting the trembling pain, he held his position, arched like a cat. He didnt even resist breathe. His eardrums numbed by gunfire, Langdon listened for any hint of the killers departure. Silence. He thought of Vittoria and ached to help her.The sound that followed was deafening. scarce human. A pharyngeal bellow of exertion.The sarcophagus over Langdons head suddenly seemed to rise on its side. Langdon collapsed on the floor as hundreds of pounds teetered toward him. Gravity overcame friction, and the lid was the first to go, glide off the tomb and crashing to the floor beside him. The casket came next, rolling off its supports and toppling upside down toward Langdon.As the box rolled, Langdon knew he would any be entombed in the hollow beneath it or crushed by one of the edges. Pulling in his legs and head, Langdon compacted his body and yanked his arms to his sides. Then he closed his eyes and awaited the noisome crush.When it came, the entire floo r shook beneath him. The upper rim landed only millimeters from the top of his head, in truth his teeth in their sockets. His right arm, which Langdon had been certain would be crushed, miraculously still felt intact. He opened his eyes to see a shaft of light. The right rim of the casket had not fallen all the way to the floor and was still propped partially on its supports. right away overhead, though, Langdon comprise himself thoroughgoing(a) quite literally into the face of death.The original occupant of the tomb was suspended above him, having adhered, as decaying bodies often did, to the bottom of the casket. The form hovered a moment, like a in question(p) lover, and then with a sticky crackling, it succumbed to gravity and peeled away. The corpse rushed down to embrace him, raining putrid swot and dust into Langdons eyes and mouth. forrader Langdon could react, a blind arm was go through the opening beneath the casket, sift through the carcass like a hungry python. It groped until it bring Langdons neck and clamped down. Langdon tried to difference back against the iron fist now crushing his larynx, but he found his left branch pinched beneath the edge of the coffin. He had only one arm free, and the interlocking was a losing battle.Langdons legs bent in the only open space he had, his feet searching for the casket floor above him. He found it. Coiling, he planted his feet. Then, as the hand around his neck squeezed tighter, Langdon closed his eyes and extended his legs like a ram. The casket shifted, ever so slightly, but enough.With a raw grinding, the sarcophagus slid off the supports and landed on the floor. The casket rim crashed onto the killers arm, and there was a muffled scream of pain. The hand released Langdons neck, twisting and jerky away into the dark. When the killer finally pulled his arm free, the casket fell with a conclusive thud against the flat marble floor. terminated darkness. Again.And silence.There was no frustra ted origin hammer outside the distressed sarcophagus. No inquisitive to get in. Nothing. As Langdon lay in the dark amidst a pile of bones, he fought the closing darkness and turned his thoughts to her.Vittoria. be you alive?If Langdon had know the truth the horror to which Vittoria would soon incite he would have wished for her sake that she were dead.94Sitting in the Sistine Chapel among his stupid(p) colleagues, Cardinal Mortati tried to comprehend the linguistic communication he was hearing. beforehand him, lit only by the candlelight, the camerlegno had just told a baloney of such villainy and treachery that Mortati found himself trembling. The camerlegno spoke of kidnapped cardinals, brand cardinals, murdered cardinals. He spoke of the quaint Illuminati a construct that dredged up forgotten fears and of their resurgence and oath of revenge against the church. With pain in his voice, the camerlegno spoke of his late pope the victim of an Illuminati poisoning . And finally, his wrangle almost a whisper, he spoke of a foul new technology, antimatter, which in less than two hours threatened to destroy all of Vatican City.When he was through, it was as if Satan himself had sucked the air from the room. zero could move. The camerlegnos nomenclature hung in the darkness.The only sound Mortati could now hear was the abnormal hum of a television camera in back an electronic armorial bearing no junto in history had ever endured but a comportment demanded by the camerlegno. To the utter astonishment of the cardinals, the camerlegno had entered the Sistine Chapel with two BBC reporters a man and a woman and announce that they would be transmittal system his solemn statement, live to the world.Now, speaking directly to the camera, the camerlegno stepped forward. To the Illuminati, he said, his voice deepening, and to those of science, let me say this. He paused. You have won the war.The silence spread now to the deepest corners of th e chapel. Mortati could hear the despairing thumping of his own heart.The wheels have been in motion for a long time, the camerlegno said. Your victory has been inevitable. Never before has it been as self-explanatory as it is at this moment. Science is the new God.What is he verbal expression? Mortati thought. Has he gone mad? The entire world is hearing thisMedicine, electronic communications, space travel, genetic usance these are the miracles about which we now tell our children. These are the miracles we propound as check that science allow bring us the answers. The ancient stories of spick-and-span conceptions, burning bushes, and character seas are no longer relevant. God has become obsolete. Science has won the battle. We concede.A rustle of mix-up and bewilderment move through the chapel. still sciences victory, the camerlegno added, his voice intensifying, has cost every one of us. And it has cost us deeply.Silence.Science may have alleviate the miseries of dis ease and labor and provided an array of gadgetry for our sport and convenience, but it has left us in a world without wonder. Our sunsets have been lessen to wavelengths and frequencies. The complexities of the universe have been shredded into numeral equations. Even our self-worth as human beings has been destroyed. Science make knowns that Planet priming coat and its inhabitants are a meaningless blot in the epic scheme. A cosmic accident. He paused. Even the technology that promises to unite us, divides us. Each of us is now electronically connected to the globe, and yet we feel dead alone. We are bombarded with violence, division, fracture, and betrayal. suspense has become a virtue. Cynicism and demand for conclusion has become novice thought. Is it any wonder that humans now feel more depressed and discomfited than they have at any point in human history? Does science hold anything sacred? Science looks for answers by probing our unborn fetuses. Science even presum es to rearrange our own DNA. It shatters Gods world into smaller and smaller pieces in quest of meaning and all it finds is more questions.Mortati watched in awe. The camerlegno was almost hypnotic now. He had a physical strength in his movements and voice that Mortati had never witnessed on a Vatican altar. The mans voice was shaped with conviction and sadness.The ancient war between science and religion is over, the camerlegno said. You have won. besides you have not won fairly. You have not won by providing answers. You have won by so radically reorienting our society that the truths we once saw as signposts now seem inapplicable. Religion cannot have up. Scientific produce is exponential. It feeds on itself like a virus. either new breakthrough opens doors for new breakthroughs. creation took thousands of years to ramp up from the wheel to the car. in so far only decades from the car into space. Now we survey scientific senesce in weeks. We are spinning out of control. The rift between us grows deeper and deeper, and as religion is left behind, people find themselves in a spiritual void. We let loose out for meaning. And view me, we do cry out. We see UFOs, ask in channeling, spirit contact, out-of-body experiences, mindquests all these outre ideas have a scientific veneer, but they are barefacedly irrational. They are the do-or-die(a) cry of the late soul, lonely and tormented, crippled by its own enlightenment and its inability to accept meaning in anything take from technology.Mortati could feel himself bend forward in his seat. He and the other cardinals and people around the world were temporary removal on this priests every utterance. The camerlegno spoke with no rhetoric or vitriol. No references to script or deliveryman Christ. He spoke in juvenile terms, unadorned and pure. Somehow, as though the linguistic process were flowing from God himself, he spoke the modern spoken communication delivering the ancient message. In that moment, Mortati saw one of the reasons the late pontiff held this young man so dear. In a world of apathy, cynicism, and technological deification, men like the camerlegno, realists who could speak to our souls like this man just had, were the churchs only hope.The camerlegno was talking more forcefully now. Science, you say, leave alone save us. Science, I say, has destroyed us. Since the days of Galileo, the church has tried to slow the relentless march of science, sometimes with misguided means, but always with tender-hearted intention. Even so, the temptations are too great for man to resist. I warn you, look around yourselves. The promises of science have not been kept. Promises of efficiency and ease have bred nothing but befoulment and chaos. We are a fractured and frantic species moving down a path of destruction.The camerlegno paused a long moment and then sharpen his eyes on the camera.Who is this God science? Who is the God who offers his people indicator but n o moral framework to tell you how to use that mightiness? What kind of God gives a child fire but does not warn the child of its dangers? The lecture of science comes with no signposts about good and bad. Science textbooks tell us how to draw a nuclear reaction, and yet they contain no chapter asking us if it is a good or a bad idea.To science, I say this. The church is tired. We are exhausted from trying to be your signposts. Our resources are drying up from our move to be the voice of balance as you plow blindly on in your quest for smaller chips and larger profits. We ask not why you ordain not govern yourselves, but how can you? Your world moves so fast that if you stop even for an instant to manage the implications of your actions, someone more efficient volition whip past you in a blur. So you move on. You proliferate weapons of potentiometer destruction, but it is the pope who travels the world plead leaders to use restraint. You clone spiritedness creatures, but it is the church reminding us to consider the moral implications of our actions. You come on people to interact on phones, video screens, and computers, but it is the church who opens its doors and reminds us to pass in person as we were meant to do. You even murder unborn babies in the name of research that will save lives. Again, it is the church who points out the fallacy of this reasoning.And all the while, you proclaim the church is ignorant. just who is more ignorant? The man who cannot square off lightning, or the man who does not repute its awesome power? This church is arrive at out to you. stretch out to everyone. And yet the more we reach, the more you push us away. Show me certainty there is a God, you say. I say use your telescopes to look to the heavens, and tell me how there could not be a God The camerlegno had tears in his eyes now. You ask what does God look like. I say, where did that question come from? The answers are one and the same. Do you not see God in your science? How can you miss Him You proclaim that even the slightest deepen in the force of gravity or the weight of an atom would have rendered our universe a lifeless mist rather than our magnificent sea of heavenly bodies, and yet you fail to see Gods hand in this? Is it really so much easier to rely that we simply chose the right card from a deck of billions? Have we become so spiritually stop that we would rather believe in numeral impossibility than in a power greater than us?Whether or not you believe in God, the camerlegno said, his voice deepening with deliberation, you must believe this. When we as a species abandon our trust in the power greater than us, we abandon our sense of accountability. creed all faiths are admonitions that there is something we cannot understand, something to which we are accountable With faith we are accountable to each other, to ourselves, and to a higher truth. Religion is flawed, but only because man is flawed. If the outside world could see this church as I do looking beyond the ritual of these walls they would see a modern miracle a trade union of imperfect, simple souls wanting only to be a voice of compassion in a world spinning out of control.The camerlegno motioned out over the College of Cardinals, and the BBC camerawoman instinctively followed, panning the crowd. be we obsolete? the camerlegno asked. Are these men dino-saurs? Am I? Does the world really admit a voice for the poor, the weak, the oppressed, the unborn child? Do we really need souls like these who, though imperfect, spend their lives imploring each of us to read the signposts of morality and not lose our way?Mortati now realized that the camerlegno, whether consciously or not, was making a brilliant move. By showing the cardinals, he was personalizing the church. Vatican City was no longer a building, it was people people like the camerlegno who had worn out(p) their lives in the service of goodness.Tonight we are perched on a precipi ce, the camerlegno said. None of us can throw to be apathetic. Whether you see this evil as Satan, corruption, or viciousness the dark force is alive and suppuration every day. Do not ignore it. The camerlegno lowered his voice to a whisper, and the camera moved in. The force, though mighty, is not invincible. goodness can prevail. Listen to your hearts. Listen to God. together we can step back from this abyss.Now Mortati understood. This was the reason. Conclave had been violated, but this was the only way. It was a dramatic and desperate plea for help. The camerlegno was speaking to both his enemy and his friends now. He was entreating anyone, friend or foe, to see the light and stop this madness. Certainly someone listening would realize the insanity of this plot and come forward.The camerlegno knelt at the altar. Pray with me.The College of Cardinals dropped to their knees to join him in prayer. extracurricular in St. woodpeckers significant and around the globe a knock ed out(p) world knelt with them.95The Hassassin lay his unconscious trophy in the rear of the van and took a moment to admire her sprawled body. She was not as pretty as the women he bought, and yet she had an animal strength that aflame him. Her body was radiant, dewy with perspiration. She smelled of musk.As the Hassasin stood there savoring his prize, he ignored the pounding in his arm. The surpass from the falling sarcophagus, although painful, was insignificant well worth the compensation that lay before him. He took consolation in knowing the American who had done this to him was probably dead by now.Gazing down at his incapacitated prisoner, the Hassassin project what lay ahead. He ran a palm up beneath her shirt. Her breasts felt perfect beneath her bra. Yes, he smiled. You are more than worthy. Fighting the urge to take her right there, he closed the door and flock off into the night.There was no need to alert the press about this cleanup the flames would do that fo r him.At CERN, Sylvie sat stunned by the camerlegnos address. Never before had she felt so proud to be a Catholic and so discredited to work at CERN. As she left the recreational wing, the toughness in every single covering room was fogged and somber. When she got back to Kohlers office, all seven phone lines were ringing. Media inquiries were never routed to Kohlers office, so the incoming calls could only be one thing.Geld. Money calls.Antimatter technology already had some takers.Inside the Vatican, Gunther Glick was walking on air as he followed the camerlegno from the Sistine Chapel. Glick and Macri had just do the live transmission of the decade. And what a transmission it had been. The camerlegno had been spellbinding.Now out in the hallway, the camerlegno turned to Glick and Macri. I have asked the Swiss Guard to assemble photos for you photos of the mark cardinals as well as one of His late Holiness. I must warn you, these are not pleasant pictures. ill burns. Blac kened tongues. save I would like you to broadcast them to the world.Glick unyielding it must be perpetual Christmas inwardly Vatican City. He wants me to broadcast an exclusive photo of the dead pontiff? Are you sure? Glick asked, trying to keep the excitement from his voice.The camerlegno nodded. The Swiss Guard will in addition provide you a live video feed of the antimatter canister as it counts down.Glick stared. Christmas. Christmas. ChristmasThe Illuminati are about to find out, the camerlegno declared, that they have grossly overplayed their hand.96Like a recurring piece of music in some demonic symphony, the suffocating darkness had returned.No light. No air. No exit.Langdon lay trapped beneath the worried sarcophagus and felt his mind careening dangerously close to the brink. Trying to baffle his thoughts in any direction other than the crushing space around him, Langdon urged his mind toward some logical process mathematics, music, anything. only if there was no ro om for calming thoughts. I cant move I cant breatheThe pinched limb of his jacket had thankfully come free when the casket fell, go away Langdon now with two mobile arms. Even so, as he pressed upward on the jacket meridian of his tiny cell, he found it immovable. Oddly, he wished his sleeve were still caught. At least it might effect a crack for some air.As Langdon pushed against the roof above, his sleeve fell back to reveal the dull glow of an old friend. Mickey. The greenish cartoon face seemed handle now.Langdon probed the blackness for any other sign of light, but the casket rim was boot against the floor. Goddamn Italian perfectionists, he cursed, now imperiled by the same artistic morality he taught his students to love impeccable edges, speckless parallels, and of course, use only of the most circular-knit and resilient Carrara marble.preciseness can be suffocating.Lift the damn thing, he said aloud, pressing harder through the tangle of bones. The box shifted slightly. Setting his jaw, he heaved again. The box felt like a boulder, but this time it raised a quarter of an inch. A fleeting breath of light border him, and then the casket thudded back down. Langdon lay panting in the dark. He tried to use his legs to lift as he had before, but now that the sarcophagus had fallen flat, there was no room even to clean up his knees.As the claustrophobic panic closed in, Langdon was overcome by images of the sarcophagus shrinking around him. Squeezed by delirium, he fought the illusion with every logical shred of intellect he had.Sarcophagus, he declared aloud, with as much academic antisepsis as he could muster. merely even erudition seemed to be his enemy today. Sarcophagus is from the Greek sarx meaning flesh, and phagein meaning to eat. Im trapped in a box literally intentional to eat flesh.Images of flesh eaten from bone only served as a grim varan that Langdon lay cover in human remains. The notion brought nausea and chills. alone i t also brought an idea.Fumbling blindly around the coffin, Langdon found a shard of bone. A rib maybe? He didnt care. all(prenominal) he precious was a wedge. If he could lift the box, even a crack, and slip the bone fall apart beneath the rim, then maybe enough air could attain across his body and wedging the tapered end of the bone into the crack between the floor and the coffin, Langdon reached up with his other hand and heaved skyward. The box did not move. Not even slightly. He tried again. For a moment, it seemed to tremble slightly, but that was all.With the fetid stench and lack of type O choking the strength from his body, Langdon realized he only had time for one more effort. He also knew he would need both arms.Regrouping, he placed the tapered edge of the bone against the crack, and shifting his body, he wedged the bone against his shoulder, pinning it in place. Careful not to dislodge it, he raised both hands above him. As the sulfurous confine began to smother him, he felt a welling of increase panic. It was the second time today he had been trapped with no air. Hollering aloud, Langdon jabbing upward in one volatile motion. The casket jostled off the floor for an instant. But long enough. The bone shard he had braced against his shoulder slipped outward into the widen crack. When the casket fell again, the bone shattered. But this time Langdon could see the casket was propped up. A tiny slit of light showed beneath the rim.Exhausted, Langdon collapsed. Hoping the strangling fighter in his throat would pass, he waited. But it only worse as the seconds passed. whatsoever air was coming through the slit seemed imperceptible. Langdon wondered if it would be enough to keep him alive. And if so, for how long? If he passed out, who would know he was even in there?With arms like lead, Langdon raised his watch again 1012 P.M. Fighting trembling fingers, he fumbled with the watch and do his final play. He twisted one of the tiny dials and press ed a button.As consciousness faded, and the walls squeezed closer, Langdon felt the old fears shaft over him. He tried to imagine, as he had so many times, that he was in an open field. The image he conjured, however, was no help. The incubus that had haunted him since his spring chicken came crashing backThe flowers here are like paintings, the child thought, express emotion as he ran across the meadow. He wished his parents had come along. But his parents were busy pitching camp.Dont explore too far, his mother had said.He had pretended not to hear as he leap off into the woods.Now, traversing this known field, the boy came across a pile of fieldstones. He count on it must be the foundation of an old homestead. He would not go near it. He knew better. Besides, his eyes had been drawn to something else a brilliant brothel keepers slipper the rarest and most bewitching flower in New Hampshire. He had only ever seen them in books.Excited, the boy moved toward the flower. H e knelt down. The ground beneath him felt mulchy and hollow. He realized his flower had found an extra-fertile spot. It was growing from a damn of rotting wood. stimulate by the thought of taking home his prize, the boy reached out fingers extending toward the stem.He never reached it.With a disgust crack, the earth gave way.In the three seconds of dizzying curse as he fell, the boy knew he would die. Plummeting downward, he braced for the bone-crushing collision. When it came, there was no pain. unaccompanied softness.And cold.He hit the deep liquid face first, plunging into a shockable blackness. Spinning illogical somersaults, he groped the plain walls thatenclosed him on all sides. Somehow, as if by instinct, he sputtered to the surface.Light.Faint. supra him. Miles above him, it seemed.His arms clawed at the water, searching the walls of the hollow for something to grab onto. Only smooth stone. He had fallen through an abandoned well covering. He screamed for help, but his cries reverberated in the tight shaft. He called out again and again. preceding(prenominal) him, the tattered hole grew dim.Night fell. while seemed to contort in the darkness. Numbness set in as he treaded water in the depths of the chasm, calling, squall out. He was tormented by visions of the walls collapsing in, conceal him alive. His arms ached with fatigue. A few times he thought he perceive voices. He shouted out, but his own voice was sluggish like a dream.As the night wore on, the shaft deepened. The walls inched quietly inward. The boy pressed out against the enclosure, pushing it away. Exhausted, he treasured to give up. And yet he felt the water buoy him, cooling his burning fears until he was numb.When the manner of speaking team arrived, they found the boy barely conscious. He had been treading water for five hours. two days later, the capital of Massachusetts Globe ran a front-page story called The runty Swimmer That Could.97The Hassassin smiled as he pulled his van into the large stone structure overlooking the Tiber River. He carried his prize up and up volute higher in the stone tunnel, grateful his load was slender.He arrived at the door.The church service of Illumination, he gloated. The ancient Illuminati meeting room. Who would have imagined it to be here?Inside, he lay her on a plush divan. Then he expertly bound her arms behind her back and tied her feet. He knew that what he longed for would have to wait until his final task was finished. Water.Still, he thought, he had a moment for indulgence. rest beside her, he ran his hand along her thigh. It was smooth. Higher. His dark fingers snaked beneath the whomp of her shorts. Higher.He stopped. Patience, he told himself, feeling aroused. There is work to be done.He walked for a moment out onto the chambers high stone balcony. The evening crack slowly cooled his ardor. removed below the Tiber raged. He raised his eyes to the dome of St. tools, three lodge of a mile away, naked under the glare of hundreds of press lights.Your final hour, he said aloud, pictorial representation the thousands of Muslims slaughtered during the Crusades. At midnight you will meet your God. arsehole him, the woman stirred. The Hassassin turned. He considered letting her wake up. Seeing fear in a womans eyes was his net aphrodisiac.He opted for prudence. It would be better if she remained unconscious while he was gone. Although she was tied and would never escape, the Hassassin did not want to return and find her exhausted from struggling. I want your strength preserved for me.Lifting her head slightly, he placed his palm beneath her neck and found the hollow directly beneath her skull. The crown/meridian tweet point was one he had used countless times. With crushing force, he hatch his thumb into the soft cartilage and felt it depress. The woman slumped instantly. twenty minutes, he thought. She would be a beguiling end to a perfect day. after(prenominal) sh e had served him and died doing it, he would stand on the balcony and watch the midnight Vatican fireworks.Leaving his prize unconscious on the couch, the Hassassin went downstairs into a torchlit dungeon. The final task. He walked to the table and idolize the sacred, metal forms that had been left there for him.Water. It was his last.Removing a torch from the wall as he had done three times already, he began heating the end. When the end of the object was white hot, he carried it to the cell.Inside, a single man stood in silence. disused and alone.Cardinal Baggia, the killer hissed. Have you prayed yet?The Italians eyes were fearless. Only for your soul.