Angels Demons Chapter 121-125

121The camerlegno erupted finished and by dint of the doors of St. Peters Basilica at exactly 1156 P.M. He staggered into the dazzling glare of the innovation spot white, carrying the antimatter before him comparable close to sort of numinous offering. Through intent eyes he could forecast his stimulate form, half-naked and wounded, towering uniform a giant on the media screens around the square. The roar that went up from the crowd in St. Peters Square was the resembling n unity the camerlegno had ever assured crying, screaming, chanting, praying a intermix of veneration and terror.Deliver us from evil, he whispered.He matte up whole dep every last(predicate)owed from his race come appear of the closet of the Necropolis. It had almost ended in disaster. Robert Langdon and Vittoria Vetra had valued to intercept him, to throw the cannister brook into its subterranean hiding place, to run low knocked out(p) positioning for c everywhere. Blind foolsThe camerlegno realized out discipline, with fearful clarity, that on any early(a) 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 camerlegnos demands for faith. The reporters, of course, were fascinate and lugging too much equipment to interfere.The Lord works in mysterious ways.The camerlegno could try out the others behind him at once see them on the screens, closing in. Mustering the last of his natural strength, he raised the antimatter high over his head. Then, throwing indorse his bare shoulders in an act of defiance to the Illuminati brand on his chest, he dashed dep all(prenominal)owe the stairs. in that respect was adept final act.Godspeed, he thought. Godspeed.Four minutesLangdon could barely see as he burst out of the basilica. Again the ocean of media lights bore into his retinas. every he could make out was the murky summary of the camerlegno, instanter ahead of him, trail scratch off the stairs. For an instant, refulgent in his annulus of media lights, the camerlegno whole toindigence celestial, like some kind of modern deity. His cassock was at his waist like a sheet. His body was scarred and wounded by the transfer of his enemies, and silence he endured. The camerlegno ran on, stand tall, calling out to the world to have faith, running toward the masses carrying this weapon of destruction.Langdon ran d own the stairs after him. What is he doing? He will kill them allSatans work, the camerlegno screamed, has no place in the family line of God He ran on toward a now terrified crowd. fuck off Langdon screamed, behind him. theres nowhere to go life to the heavens We forget to look to the heavensIn that moment, as Langdon saw where the camerlegno was headed, the glorious truth came fill all around him. Although Langdon could non see it on account of the lights, he k natural th eir salvation was promptly overhead.A star-filled Italian huckster. The escape route.The chop the camerlegno had summoned to intromit him to the hospital sat all in(p) ahead, pilot already in the cockpit, blades already humming in neutral. As the camerlegno ran toward it, Langdon matte up a sudden overwhelming exhilaration.The thoughts that disunite through Langdons mind came as a torrent jump he visualised the wide- discourteous expanse of the Mediterranean Sea. How far was it? five gnarls? Ten? He knew the beach at Fiumocino was sole(prenominal) well-nigh sevener minutes by train. But by pearly, 200 miles an hour, no dough If they could fly the canister shot far enough out to sea, and vanish it There were other options too, he realized, feeling almost weightless as he ran. La Cava Romana The marble quarries north of the metropolis were less than three miles forth. How larger were they? Two square miles? Certainly they were deserted at this hour move the canister thereEveryone jeopardize the camerlegno yelled. His chest ached as he ran. make up away NowThe Swiss Guard standing around the eggwhisk stood slack-jawed as the camerlegno approached them.Back the priest screamed.The forethoughts moved back.With the constitutional world reflexion in wonder, the camerlegno ran around the chopper to the pilots door and yanked it go around. Out, son NowThe guard jumped out.The camerlegno looked at the high cockpit seat and knew that in his exhausted state, he would need both custody to pull himself up. He glum to the pilot, trembling beside him, and throw the canister into his hands. Herstwhile(a) this. Hand it back when Im in.As the camerlegno pulled himself up, he could hear Robert Langdon yelling excitedly, running toward the craft. Now you understand, the camerlegno thought. Now you have faithThe camerlegno pulled himself up into the cockpit, ad stronglyed a few familiar levers, and then turned back to his window for the canister.But th e guard to whom he had given the canister stood empty-handed. He took it the guard yelled.The camerlegno felt his heart seize. WhoThe guard bloted. HimRobert Langdon was surprised by how arduous the canister was. He ran to the other side of the chopper and jumped in the so-and-so compartment where he and Vittoria had sat only hours ago. He left the door open and buckled himself in. Then he yelled to the camerlegno in the confront seat.Fly, FatherThe camerlegno craned back at Langdon, his face bloodless with dread. What are you doingYou fly Ill throw Langdon barked. Theres no magazine Just fly the blessed chopperThe camerlegno seemed momentarily paralyzed, the media lights glower through the cockpit change the creases in his face. I can do this alone, he whispered. I am supposed to do this alone.Langdon wasnt listening. Fly he hear himself screaming. Now Im here to help you Langdon looked down at the canister and felt his breath catch in his throat when he saw the numbers. com mon chord minutes, Father ThreeThe number seemed to stun the camerlegno back to sobriety. Without hesitation, he turned back to the controls. With a grinding roar, the helicopter lifted off.Through a swirl of dust, Langdon could see Vittoria running toward the chopper. Their eyes met, and then she dropped away like a sinking stone.122Inside the chopper, the whine of the engines and the gale from the open door assaulted Langdons senses with a deafening chaos. He steadied himself against the magnified drag of solemnity as the camerlegno accelerated the craft straight up. The glow of St. Peters Square shrank down the stairs them until it was an uncrystallised glowing ellipse radiating in a sea of city lights.The antimatter canister felt like deadweight in Langdons hands. He held tighter, his palms slick now with sweat and blood. Inside the trap, the globule of antimatter hovered calmly, pulsing red in the glow of the direct countdown clock.Two minutes Langdon yelled, wondering wher e the camerlegno mean to drop the canister.The city lights beneath them spread out in all directions. In the distance to the west, Langdon could see the twinkling delineation of the Mediterranean coast a jagged skirt of luminescence beyond which spread an deathless bleak expanse of cipherness. The sea looked farther now than Langdon had imagined. Moreover, the concentration of lights at the coast was a utter(a) reminder that even far out at sea an fusillade might have devastating effects. Langdon had non even considered the effects of a ten-kiloton tidal wave hitting the coast.When Langdon turned and looked straight ahead through the cockpit window, he was more hopeful. Directly in front of them, the rolling shadows of the Roman foothills loomed in the night. The hills were spotted with lights the villas of the very wealthy only a mile or so north, the hills grew dark. There were no lights at all bonny a huge pocket of blackness. nothing.The quarries Langdon thought. L a Cava RomanaStaring intently at the barren pocket of land, Langdon sensed that it was plenty large enough. It seemed close, too. Much walking(prenominal) than the ocean. Excitement surged through him. This was obviously where the camerlegno planned to take the antimatter The chopper was pointing directly toward it The quarries Oddly, however, as the engines strained louder and the chopper hurtled through the air, Langdon could see that the quarries were not acquire any closer. Bewildered, he shot a glance out the side door to get his bearings. What he saw doused his excitement in a wave of panic. Directly beneath them, thousands of feet straight down, glowed the media lights in St. Peters Square.Were chill out over the VaticanCamerlegno Langdon choked. Go before Were high enough Youve got to start moving forward We cant drop the canister back over Vatican CityThe camerlegno did not reply. He appeared to be concentrating on flying the craft.Weve got less than two minutes Langdon shouted, attribute up the canister. I can see them La Cava Romana A dyad of miles north We dont have No, the camerlegno said. Its far too dangerous. Im sorry. As the chopper go on to claw heavenward, the camerlegno turned and gave Langdon a mournful smile. I wish you had not come, my friend. You have made the ultimate sacrifice.Langdon looked in the camerlegnos exhausted eyes and absolutely understood. His blood turned to ice. But there must be somewhere we can goUp, the camerlegno replied, his articulate resigned. Its the only guarantee.Langdon could barely think. He had altogether misinterpreted the camerlegnos plan. Look to the heavensHeaven, Langdon now realized, was literally where he was headed. The camerlegno had never intended to drop the antimatter. He was plainly getting it as far away from Vatican City as valetly possible.This was a one-way trip.123In St. Peters Square, Vittoria Vetra stared upward. The helicopter was a speck now, the media lights no longer rea ching it. Even the mallet of the rotors had faded to a distant hum. It seemed, in that instant, that the entire world was center upward, silenced in anticipation, necks craned to the heavens all peoples, all faiths all police van beating as one.Vittorias emotions were a cyclone of twisting agonies. As the helicopter disappeared from sight, she pictured Roberts face, rising above her. What had he been thinking? Didnt he understand? just about the square, television cameras probed the darkness, waiting. A sea of faces stared heavenward, united in a smooth countdown. The media screens all flickered the same tranquil scene a Roman sky illuminated with brilliant stars. Vittoria felt the tears begin to well.Behind her on the marble escarpment, 161 cardinals stared up in silent awe. Some folded their hands in prayer. Most stood motionless, transfixed. Some wept. The seconds ticked past tense.In homes, bars, businesses, airports, hospitals around the world, soulfulnesss were joined i n usual witness. Men and women locked hands. Others held their children. Time seemed to hover in limbo, souls suspended in unison.Then, cruelly, the bells of St. Peters began to toll.Vittoria let the tears come.Then with the whole world watching time ran out.The dead silence of the event was the most terrifying of all.High above Vatican City, a pinpoint of light appeared in the sky. For a evanescent instant, a new heavenly body had been born a speck of light as pure and white as anyone had ever seen.Then it materialiseed.A flash. The point billowed, as if feeding on itself, unraveling across the sky in a dilating radius of blinding white. It shot out in all directions, accelerating with mystical speed, gobbling up the dark. As the sphere of light grew, it intensified, like a burgeoning fanatic preparing to consume the entire sky. It raced downward, toward them, picking up speed.Blinded, the multitudes of starkly lit human faces gasped as one, shielding their eyes, crying out in strangled fear.As the light roared out in all directions, the unimaginable occurred. As if parachute by Gods own will, the surging radius seemed to hit a wall. It was as if the gush were contained somehow in a giant glass sphere. The light rebounded inward, sharpening, rippling across itself. The wave appeared to have reached a predetermined diam and hovered there. For that instant, a perfect and silent sphere of light glowed over Rome. darkness had become day.Then it hit.The concussion was deep and hollow a thundery calamity wave from above. It descended on them like the wrath of hell, shaking the granite founding of Vatican City, knocking the breath out of peoples lungs, sending others stumbling backward. The reverberation circled the colonnade, followed by a sudden torrent of warm air. The wind tore through the square, allow out a sepulchral moan as it whistled through the columns and storm-tossed the walls. Dust swirled overhead as people huddled witnesses to Armageddo n.Then, as degraded as it appeared, the sphere imploded, sucking back in on itself, crush inward to the tiny point of light from which it had come.124Never before had so many been so silent.The faces in St. Peters Square, one by one, averted their eyes from the darkening sky and turned downward, each person in his or her own private moment of wonder. The media lights followed suit, dropping their beams back to earth as if out of reverence for the blackness now settling upon them. It seemed for a moment the entire world was bowing its head in unison.Cardinal Mortati knelt to pray, and the other cardinals joined him. The Swiss Guard lowered their long s conditions and stood numb. No one spoke. No one moved. Everywhere, hearts shuddered with spontaneous emotion. Bereavement. Fear. Wonder. Belief. And a dread-filled respect for the new and awful power they had just witnessed.Vittoria Vetra stood trembling at the foot of the basilicas sweeping stairs. She unsympathetic her eyes. Thro ugh the tempest of emotions now coursing through her blood, a superstar enounce tolled like a distant bell. Pristine. Cruel. She forced it away. And yet the word echoed. Again she drove it back. The pain was too great. She tried to lose herself in the images that blazed in others minds antimatters mind-boggling power the Vaticans deliverance the camerlegno feats of bravery miracles selflessness. And still the word echoed tolling through the chaos with a stinging loneliness.Robert.He had come for her at Castle St. Angelo.He had saved her.And now he had been destroyed by her creation.As Cardinal Mortati prayed, he wondered if he too would hear Gods voice as the camerlegno had. Does one need to believe in miracles to experience them? Mortati was a modern man in an ancient faith. Miracles had never p riged a part in his belief. Certainly his faith spoke of miracles bleeding palms, ascensions from the dead, imprints on shrouds and yet, Mortatis rational mind had always justified these accounts as part of the myth. They were simply the result of mans greatest weakness his need for proof. Miracles were nothing but stories we all clung to because we wished they were true.And yetAm I so modern that I cannot absorb what my eyes have just witnessed? It was a miracle, was it not? Yes God, with a few whispered words in the camerlegnos ear, had intervened and saved this church. Why was this so hard to believe? What would it say about God if God had done nothing? That the Almighty did not care? That He was powerless to stop it? A miracle was the only possible responseAs Mortati knelt in wonder, he prayed for the camerlegnos soul. He gave thanks to the young chamberlain who, even in his youthful years, had opened this old mans eyes to the miracles of unquestioning faith.Incredibly, though, Mortati never suspected the extent to which his faith was about to be testedThe silence of St. Peters Square broke with a cockle at first. The ripple grew to a murmur. And then, sudden ly, to a roar. Without warning, the multitudes were crying out as one.Look LookMortati opened his eyes and turned to the crowd. Everyone was pointing behind him, toward the front of St. Peters Basilica. Their faces were white. Some fell to their knees. Some fainted. Some burst into uncontrollable sobs.Look LookMortati turned, bewildered, following their outstretched hands. They were pointing to the uppermost level of the basilica, the rooftop terrace, where huge statues of rescuer and his apostles watched over the crowd.There, on the right of Jesus, arms outstretched to the world stood Camerlegno Carlo Ventresca. one hundred twenty-fiveRobert Langdon was no longer dropping.There was no more terror. No pain. Not even the conk out of the racing wind. There was only the soft sound of lap water, as though he were comfortably asleep on a beach.In a paradox of self-awareness, Langdon sensed this was death. He felt glad for it. He allowed the drifting numbness to possess him entirely. H e let it carry him wherever it was he would go. His pain and fear had been anesthetized, and he did not wish it back at any price. His final memory had been one that could only have been conjured in hell.Take me. PleaseBut the lapping that lulled in him a far-off sense of peace was also drag him back. It was trying to awaken him from a dream. No Let me be He did not want to awaken. He sensed demons gathering on the gross profit margin of his bliss, pounding to shatter his rapture. Fuzzy images swirled. Voices yelled. Wind churned. No, please The more he fought, the more the fury filtered through.Then, harshly, he was living it all againThe helicopter was in a dizzying dead climb. He was trapped inside. Beyond the open door, the lights of Rome looked farther away with every passing second. His survival full told him to jettison the canister right now. Langdon knew it would take less than twenty seconds for the canister to fall half a mile. But it would be go toward a city of peop le.Higher HigherLangdon wondered how high they were now. Small prop planes, he knew, flew at altitudes of about four miles. This helicopter had to be at a good fraction of that by now. Two miles up? Three? There was still a chance. If they timed the drop perfectly, the canister would fall only partway toward earth, exploding a safe distance over the ground and away from the chopper. Langdon looked out at the city sprawling below them.And if you calculate incorrectly? the camerlegno said.Langdon turned, startled. The camerlegno was not even looking at him, apparently having read Langdons thoughts from the ghostly verbalism in the windshield. Oddly, the camerlegno was no longer engrossed in his controls. His hands were not even on the throttle. The chopper, it seemed, was now in some sort of autopilot mode, locked in a climb. The camerlegno reached above his head, to the ceiling of the cockpit, fishing behind a cable-housing, where he removed a key, taped there out of view.Langdon w atched in bewilderment as the camerlegno quickly unlocked the metal cargo misfortune bolted between the seats. He removed some sort of large, black, nylon pack. He lay it on the seat next to him. Langdons thoughts churned. The camerlegnos movements seemed composed, as if he had a solution. ground me the canister, the camerlegno said, his tone serene.Langdon did not know what to think anymore. He thrust the canister to the camerlegno. Ninety secondsWhat the camerlegno did with the antimatter took Langdon totally by surprise. Holding the canister carefully in his hands, the camerlegno placed it inside the cargo box. Then he closed the bowed down(p) lid and used the key to lock it tight.What are you doing Langdon demanded.Leading us from temptation. The camerlegno threw the key out the open window.As the key tumbled into the night, Langdon felt his soul falling with it.The camerlegno then took the nylon pack and slipped his arms through the straps. He trussed a waist clamp around hi s stomach and cinched it all down like a backpack. He turned to a dumbstruck Robert Langdon.Im sorry, the camerlegno said. It wasnt supposed to happen this way. Then he opened his door and hurled himself into the night.The image burned in Langdons unconscious mind, and with it came the pain. Real pain. Physical pain. Aching. Searing. He begged to be taken, to let it end, but as the water lapped louder in his ears, new images began to flash. His hell had only just begun. He saw bits and pieces. Scattered frames of sheer panic. He lay center(a) between death and nightmare, begging for deliverance, but the pictures grew brighter in his mind.The antimatter canister was locked out of reach. It counted relentlessly downward as the chopper shot upward. Fifty seconds. Higher. Higher. Langdon spun wildly in the cabin, trying to make sense of what he had just seen. cardinal seconds. He dug under seats searching for another parachute. xl seconds. There was none There had to be an option Thi rty-five seconds. He raced to the open doorway of the chopper and stood in the raging wind, gazing down at the lights of Rome below. Thirty-two seconds.And then he made the weft.The unbelievable choiceWith no parachute, Robert Langdon had jumped out the door. As the night swallowed his tumbling body, the helicopter seemed to projectile off above him, the sound of its rotors evaporating in the deafening rush of his own free fall.As he plummeted toward earth, Robert Langdon felt something he had not experience since his years on the high dive the inexorable pull of gravity during a dead drop. The faster he fell, the harder the earth seemed to pull, sucking him down. This time, however, the drop was not fifty feet into a pool. The drop was thousands of feet into a city an endless expanse of pavement and concrete.Somewhere in the torrent of wind and desperation, Kohlers voice echoed from the grave words he had spoken earlier this morning standing at CERNs free-fall tube. One square yard of drag will tedious a falling body almost twenty percent. Twenty percent, Langdon now realized, was not even close to what one would need to stretch out a fall like this. Nonetheless, more out of paralysis than hope, he clenched in his hands the sole object he had grabbed from the chopper on his way out the door. It was an odd memento, but it was one that for a fleeting instant had given him hope.The windshield tarpaulin had been lying in the back of the helicopter. It was a concave rectangle about four yards by two like a huge fitted sheet the crudest approximation of a parachute imaginable. It had no harness, only bungie loops at either end for fastening it to the curvature of the windshield. Langdon had grabbed it, slid his hands through the loops, held on, and leapt out into the void.His last great act of youthful defiance.No illusions of life beyond this moment.Langdon fell like a rock. Feet first. Arms raised. His hands gripping the loops. The tarp billowed like a mushroom overhead. The wind tore past him violently.As he plummeted toward earth, there was a deep explosion somewhere above him. It seemed farther off than he had expected. Almost instantly, the shock wave hit. He felt the breath crushed from his lungs. There was a sudden warmth in the air all around him. He fought to hold on. A wall of heat raced down from above. The top of the tarp began to smolder but held.Langdon rocketed downward, on the edge of a billowing shroud of light, feeling like a surfer trying to outrun a thousand-foot tidal wave. Then suddenly, the heat receded.He was falling again through the dark coolness.For an instant, Langdon felt hope. A moment posterior, though, that hope faded like the withdrawing heat above. Despite his straining arms assuring him that the tarp was belatedlydown his fall, the wind still tore past his body with deafening velocity. Langdon had no doubt he was still moving too fast to survive the fall. He would be crushed when he hit the gr ound.Mathematical figures tumbled through his brain, but he was too numb to make sense of them one square yard of drag 20 percent reduction of speed. All Langdon could figure was that the tarp over his head was big enough to slow him more than 20 percent. Unfortunately, though, he could tell from the wind whipping past him that whatever good the tarp was doing was not enough. He was still falling fast there would be no surviving the impact on the waiting sea of concrete.Beneath him, the lights of Rome spread out in all directions. The city looked like an enormous starlit sky that Langdon was falling into. The perfect expanse of stars was marred only by a dark strip that split the city in two a wide, unkindled ribbon that wound through the dots of light like a plunk down snake. Langdon stared down at the meandering swatch of black.Suddenly, like the surging crest of an unforeseen wave, hope filled him again.With almost maniacal vigor, Langdon yanked down hard with his right hand on the canopy. The tarp suddenly flapped louder, billowing, cutting right to get the path of least resistance. Langdon felt himself drifting sideways. He pulled again, harder, ignoring the pain in his palm. The tarp flared, and Langdon sensed his body sliding laterally. Not much. But some He looked beneath him again, to the sinuous serpent of black. It was off to the right, but he was still pretty high. Had he waited too long? He pulled with all his might and accepted somehow that it was now in the hands of God. He focused hard on the widest part of the serpent and for the first time in his life, prayed for a miracle.The rest was a blur.The darkness rushing up beneath him the diving instincts coming back the reflexive locking of his spur track and pointing of the toes the inflating of his lungs to protect his vital organs the flexing of his legs into a battering ram and at long last the thankfulness that the winding Tiber River was raging making its waters frothy and full and th ree times softer than standing water.Then there was impact and blackness.It had been the move sound of the flapping canopy that drew the groups eyes away from the whizz-kid in the sky. The sky above Rome had been filled with sights tonight a skyrocketing helicopter, an enormous explosion, and now this strange object that had plummeted into the churning waters of the Tiber River, directly off the shore of the rivers tiny island, Isola Tiberina.Ever since the island had been used to quarantine the cast during the Roman plague of A.D. 1656, it had been thought to have mystic healing properties. For this reason, the island had later become the site for Romes Hospital Tiberina.The body was battered when they pulled it onto shore. The man still had a faint pulse, which was amazing, they thought. They wondered if it was Isola Tiberinas mythical reputation for healing that had somehow kept his heart pumping. Minutes later, when the man began coughing and slowly regained consciousness, t he group contumacious the island must indeed be magical.