Angels and Demons

Vittoria grabs Langdon. She realized from the plaque that Raphael was relocated there a century after the poem was written. They ask the confused guide where Raphael had been buried before. They work out that it must be a tomb that he designed rather than one he was buried in. They work out that the poem must refer to the demon’s hole, or crypt, at Chigi Chapel. The hunch seems to be confirmed by the guide’s description of the unusual pyramidal structures within the Church and the fact that it used to be called Capella della Terra—Chapel of the Earth. Pyramids are made of triangles, which are Illuminati symbols, and the earth is one of the four elements.

Vittoria calls Olivetti and tells him they were wrong, and his men need to move to the Chigi Chapel a mile away. Langdon and Vittoria jump into a taxi.

Glick and Macri research the Illuminati at the BBC offices as they consider the legitimacy of the tip. Glick points out the many historical and modern references to the Illuminati and hopes—for the sake of his career—that the caller’s allegation of four cardinals being killed is right.

The Piazza del Popolo, where the Church of Santa Maria is located, is filled with Illuminati significance. It is an elliptical shape and contains an Egyptian obelisk under a star. Langdon is confident that they’re in the right place, and they run to the Church, which is covered in scaffolding and roped off. The first door they try is locked, but the next is broken. They enter, Langdon leading the way.

At the Vatican, the guards are searching for the canister with infrared goggles and devices that detect magnetic fields.

Langdon and Vittoria navigate the gutted church, moving around construction materials, brick pallets, and torn-up flooring. They panic when they hear a noise, but it is a rat. They find the Chigi Chapel—the tomb designed by Raphael—in the secondary left apse in the Church; the demon’s hole has been opened.

Langdon nervously peers into the space. Vittoria finds a blowtorch to provide light. A cardinal, stripped naked, is dimly visible.

Glick and Macri, following the caller’s instructions, go to the Church at the Piazza del Popolo. Four Alfa Romeos filled with men zoom past them.

Langdon climbs a ladder down into the demon’s hole. It is very dark, and he struggles to make out the state of the cardinal in the dark crypt. Eventually, he sees that the man has been suffocated by having his mouth filled with dirt. An ambigram, earth, is seared onto the man’s chest.

Cardinal Mortati is nervous about the inauspicious beginning of the conclave and continues to wonder about the absence of the four favorites.

The Camerlengo sealed the conclave after he explained that the four favorites were not in attendance, but he couldn’t clarify why. The first lot of ballots do not produce a consensus. Mortati concludes that the cardinals are voting for themselves as a stalling tactic—they are waiting for the preferiti (the four favorites). Mortati ritualistically burns the first ballots.

Langdon is helped out of the demon’s hole by two Swiss Guards. Vittoria suggests that the Illuminati sculptor of the symbolic markers must have been Gianlorenzo Bernini. At first, Langdon thinks that this cannot be the case because Bernini was a Vatican sculptor, but then he realizes that she must be right.

Langdon remembers a line from the poem—“let angels guide you on your lofty quest”—as he considers a well-known Bernini sculpture (286). He realizes that the next clue—and the next cardinal—must be the way the angel in the sculpture is pointing.

Glick and Macri surreptitiously film the events at Piazza del Popolo. Swiss Guards enter the Church. Meanwhile, Langdon tries to remember which Bernini sculpture is southwest of the Piazza. He climbs scaffolding to see if any church spires align with the direction. Macri films Langdon on the scaffolding and Vittoria below him, wondering who they are.

Macri films the Swiss Guards returning to their cars with the naked body of a dead cardinal. They call the BBC editorial team to inform them of the story.

Meanwhile, at CERN, Kohler breaks into Leonardo Vetra’s bedside table drawer.

Olivetti’s soldiers examine a map of Rome with Vittoria and Langdon; they are looking for a church southwest of their location. They notice that St. Peter’s Square is southwest. Langdon dismisses it as it’s in Vatican City, but one guard suggests that there is contention over whether the square is in Rome or Vatican City. Another soldier says that there is a relief in the square that depicts a gust of wind. Langdon remembers that the square was designed by Benini.

Unnoticed by the group, the BBC van tails them as they leave.

BBC’s editorial team agrees to look at the footage Macri filmed.

As they arrive at the square, Langdon wonders how an assassination could take place in such a public location. Langdon and Vittoria approach Bernini’s West Ponente, the marble block, posing as ambling tourists.

Macri follows them, surreptitiously filming them. Glick feels that they’re onto a big story.

Vittoria notices Macri tailing them, and they move slightly away from Bernini’s relief to try to lose her. Langdon notices what he believes to be a man who is drunk dozing at the obelisk’s base. As a nearby bell tolls nine o’clock, a little girl near the relief starts to scream.

The girl is pointing at the man. Langdon sees blood flowing over the man’s clothing, and the man falls face down onto the ground. Vittoria and Langdon roll the man onto his back, exposing a symbol branded into his chest: air.

Vittoria blows air into the man’s mouth, attempting to resuscitate him, but the air rushes out of two wounds in the man’s chest, spraying blood over them. His lungs have been punctured. Langdon sees Macri, and Macri runs.

Macri runs across the square pursued by Swiss Guards. She takes the tape out of her camera, shoves it into the back of her pants, and puts a blank tape in the camera. Macri is cornered, and the guards confiscate her camera. She is led toward the Vatican. Glick manages to surreptitiously take the tape from her pants as she is led away through the crowd.

Langdon washes up in the Pope’s bathroom, marveling over where he is. He is covered with the man’s blood, who turns out to have been Cardinal Lamasse.

At the BBC office in London, preparations are made to deliver a shocking news bulletin. The editor-in-chief tells the staff that other channels can use their footage for $1 million per second, and the employees are shocked.

The Hassassin prepares to phone Glick with another tip-off.

Olivetti, Langdon, Vittoria, and the Camerlengo discuss the situation. Captain Rocher informs the Camerlengo that they hope to find the antimatter canister shortly, having searched most of the Vatican that is accessible to the public. Rocher believes it unlikely that the intruder could have gained access to the inner zones of Vatican City. The Camerlengo believes that the kidnappings of the four cardinals indicate that the infiltration runs deep, and the canister could be in a non-public zone.

They inspect a map of Rome, looking east of the West Ponente (the breath of air pointed east). There are many churches nearby. There are no churches near obelisks—the other two markers were near or on obelisks. Langdon tries to think of Bernini statues related to fire and asks to be taken to a reference book of Bernini’s works. He is led toward the archives by a Swiss Guard. Olivetti receives a message from a guard to turn on the television.

Langdon is taken back into the Vatican secret archives. Langdon is annoyed that the guard plans to leave him there alone; protocol insists that the Swiss Guard are not permitted in the archives. The guard leaves a walkie-talkie for Langdon, informing him that he can reach the commander on channel one.

Olivetti, Rocher, and the Camerlengo are appalled that footage of the two cardinals’ deaths is being televised. The Camerlengo wants to make a public announcement about the antimatter and evacuate the College of Cardinals. Olivetti urges him to wait; he believes that there is still time to find the antimatter and save the other two cardinals.

The group is shocked to hear the news anchor report that the Illuminati have claimed responsibility for the death of the last Pope. The report cuts to Glick, who explains that the Illuminati used the drug Heparin to poison him. The Camerlengo, shocked, confirms that the Pope was using Heparin. Vittoria, who is familiar with the drug from her time working in marine biology, explains that the Pope’s body would show signs of an overdose. The Camerlengo takes Vittoria and a few Swiss Guards to see the Pope’s body and demands that Glick be brought to see him.

Kohler’s secretary, Sylvie Baudeloque, is upset to see that many CERN scientists are excited about the developments at the Vatican. She is Catholic. Kohler reads Leonardo Vetra’s journal.

At the Vatican, another ballot is completed with no consensus.

Vittoria learns that the Camerlengo was taken in by a bishop after he was orphaned, and this bishop later became the late Pope.

Langdon feels overwhelmed by the number of documents in the vault. He is further disheartened when the collection of Bernini’s work is arranged chronologically rather than alphabetically; he was hoping to find a reference relating to fire. Langdon’s eye is drawn to a reference to the famous sculpture The Ecstacy of St. Teresa. The description contains many allusions to fuoco—fire. He is excited, believing that he has found the next step of the path. Suddenly, the power goes off, and the archival vault goes black.

Vittoria walks with Ventresca and the Swiss Guards into the Vatican Grottoes. Popes are interred in marble tombs that bear their likeness. Vittoria is moved by the prayer that Ventresca delivers before they open the last Pope’s tomb. The men struggle to push the heavy marble lid aside, and Ventresca helps them. They look at the corpse of the late Pope. His mouth is black, a sign of Heparin poisoning.

Langdon tries to open the door but it will not budge. He takes a ladder and runs it into the glass wall, but the wall does not break. The walkie-talkie is outside of the glass-encased archival room, so he cannot use it to summon help. Langdon climbs a shelf and rocks it back and forth, causing it to tip into the shelf next to it. The shelves fall like dominos, breaking the glass wall on the other side. Langdon uses the walkie-talkie to ask for the Camerlengo. Ventresca answers, and Langdon tells him that he thinks someone just tried to kill him, and he knows where the next killing will be. Olivetti comes onto the line and instructs Langdon not to say another word.

Langdon runs to the Swiss Guard security center. Rocher contritely explains that he cut the power, not knowing that Langdon was in the archives. Vittoria tells Langdon that the Pope was murdered. Langdon starts to say where the next murder will be, but Olivetta cuts him off; he is concerned that there may be a traitor in their midst. He dismisses the Swiss Guard. Olivetti, Langdon, and Vittoria get into Olivetti’s car.

Ventresca decides that he will break conclave. Glick has been detained by Swiss Guards, and Ventresca summons Glick and Macri to see him.

Swarms of people—mostly press—gather outside the Vatican, drawn by the emergency. Olivetta, Vittoria, and Langdon rush to the next location on the Illuminati clue map. Langdon remembers other media reports of Illuminati plots over the years that he dismissed as baseless; now, he is forced to reconsider them. Kohler calls Vittoria and says he may have discovered whom her father told about the antimatter. He promises to call back once he has verified the breach.

They arrive at the Church in the Piazza Barberini—the site of the next planned murder. Olivetti instructs Langdon and Vittoria to watch the front entrance of the Church and proceeds into the back.

The Hassassin receives a call from Janus, who is concerned that their position may have been compromised. Janus instructs the Hassassin to eliminate those who are tracking him if he needs to. The Hassassin privately reflects that he would be happy to do so, “although the woman I may keep as a prize” (357).

Members of the press continue to flood into the square, many setting up widescreen displays of their coverage. Shocked onlookers arrive, watching the action.

Lieutenant Chartrand continues to search for the antimatter canister with the other Swiss Guards. They receive an update that the Camerlengo plans to break conclave. Chartrand respects the Camerlengo; he remembers a conversation they had in which the Camerlengo compared God’s failure to intervene in tragedy with a parent who allows their child to skateboard, knowing that they might get hurt.

Langdon and Vittoria watch Piazza Barberini from a nearby alleyway. They see two dark, cloaked figures, and Vittoria runs to them, believing that they might be the Hassassin and the third cardinal, but they are merely two old ladies. Vittoria manages to hide the gun she is holding and asks them—as cover for accosting them—where the Santa Maria della Vittoria church is. The women report that an Arab man insisted that everyone, including the priest and janitor, leave. When they threatened to call the police, he allegedly laughed and said that they were welcome to and that the police should bring cameras. They see that the Church is burning.