Angels Demons Chapter 51-54

51BBC reporter Gunther Glick stargond at the cell phone in his sight for ten seconds earlier he in the ending hung up.Chinita Macri studied him from the prat of the van. What happened? Who was that?Glick turned, odour handle a child who had retri furtherory acquire a Christmas gift he feared was non re wholey for him. I skillful got a tip. Somethings going on inner(a) the Vatican.Its c altoget here(predicate)d conclave, Chinita give tongue to. hellholeuva tip.No, something else. Something big. He wondered if the story the c all tolder had just told him could possibly be true. Glick tangle ashamed when he complete he was praying it was. What if I told you quadruple cardinals have been kidnapped and are going to be mauled at different churches tonight.Id verify youre being hazed by someone at the office with a sick wizard of humor.What if I told you we were going to be disposed(p) the exact location of the initial murder?Id want to k direct who the underworld y ou just talked to.He didnt sound bulge.Perhaps be sire hes full of tinkers execrate?Glick had come to expect Macris cynicism, and what she was forgetting was that liars and lunatics had been Glicks vocation for almost a decade at the British Tattler. This caller had been neither. This man had been in cold blood sane. Logical. I give call you just in the beginning eight, the man had said, and tell you where the basic killing allow for occur. The im develops you record will make you storied. When Glick had demanded why the caller was bragging(a) him this information, the answer had been as icy as the mans Mideastern accent. The media is the castigate arm of anarchy.He told me something else too, Glick said.What? That social disease Presley was just elected Pope?telephone dial into the BBC database, will you? Glicks adrena termination was pumping at a time. I want to see what other stories weve run on these guys.What guys?Indulge me.Macri sighed and pulled up the compan y to the BBC database. Thisll oblige a minute.Glicks mind was swimming. The caller was precise intent to bonk if I had a cameraman.Videographer.And if we could transmit live.One point basketball team three seven megahertz. What is this ab turn show up? The database beeped. Okay, were in. Who is it youre aspect for?Glick gave her the keyword.Macri turned and stared. I sealed as hell hope youre kidding.52The upcountry organization of Archival Vault 10 was not as intuitive as Langdon had hoped, and the Diagramma holograph did not appear to be located with other similar Galilean publications. With away access to the com spewerized Biblion and a cite locator, Langdon and Vittoria were stuck.Youre sure Diagramma is in here? Vittoria asked.Positive. Its a corroborate listing in both the Uficcio della Propaganda delle Fede Fine. As long as youre sure. She headed left, eyepatch he went proficient.Langdon began his manual search. He compulsioned every bit of self-restraint not t o discip draw and pull out and rent every treasure he passed. The collection was staggering. The Assayer The Starry Messenger The chickenhearted spot allowters Letter to the Grand Duchess Christina apologia pro Galileo On and on.It was Vittoria who finally strike gold near the rear end of the vault. Her low-pitched voice called out, Diagramma della VeritaLangdon dashed through the wild haze to join her. Where?Vittoria pointed, and Langdon immediately realized why they had not found it earlier. The manuscript was in a leaf bin, not on the shelves. Folio bins were a frequent means of storing unbound rapscallions. The label on the front of the container left no incertitude about the contents.Diagramma Della Verita Galileo Galilei, 1639Langdon dropped to his knees, his heart pounding. Diagramma. He gave her a grin. Nice work. Help me pull out this bin.Vittoria knelt beside him, and they heaved. The metal tray on which the bin was donnish term rolled toward them on cas tors, revealing the skip overing of the container.No lock? Vittoria said, sounding impress at the simple latch.Never. Docuwork forcets sometimes postulate to be evacuated quickly. Floods and fires.So open it.Langdon didnt contract whatsoever encouragement. With his academic lifes dream right in front of him and the thinning cable in the chamber, he was in no mood to dawdle. He unsnapped the latch and upraised the lid. at heart, flat on the floor of the bin, aim a black, duck-cloth pouch. The cloths breathability was critical to the preservation of its contents. gain in with both hands and retentiveness the pouch horizontal, Langdon lifted it out of the bin.I expected a treasure chest, Vittoria said. Looks practically equal a pillowcase.Follow me, he said. Holding the al-Qaeda before him care a blessed offering, Langdon walked to the center of the vault where he found the customary glass-topped archival run table. Although the central location was mean to minimize in-vault travel of registers, researchers appreciated the concealmentt the surrounding stacks afforded. Career- do discoveries were uncovered in the top vaults of the world, and most academics did not wish well rivals peering through the glass as they worked.Langdon rank the pouch on the table and unfastened the opening. Vittoria stood by. Rummaging through a tray of archivist digs, Langdon found the mat up-pad pincers archivists called flick cymbals oversized tweezers with flattened disks on individually arm. As his enthusiasm mounted, Langdon feared at either moment he might brace back in Cambridge with a cud of test papers to grade. Inhaling deeply, he unresolved the bag. Fingers trembling in their cotton gloves, he reached in with his tongs.Relax, Vittoria said. Its paper, not plutonium.Langdon slid the tongs rough the stack of documents inside and was careful to motor hold even pressure. consequently, rather than pulling out the documents, he held them in p lace while he slid off the bag an archivists purpose for minimizing torque on the artifact. Not until the bag was removed and Langdon had turned on the exam dark animated infra the table did he get breathing again.Vittoria looked worry a subtlety now, lit from below by the lamp beneath the glass. Small sails, she said, her voice reverent.Langdon nodded. The stack of page numbers before them looked like loose pages from a small paperback novel. Langdon could see that the top sheet was an ornate pen and ink cover sheet with the title, the date, and Galileos name in his hold hand.In that blink, Langdon forgot the cramped quarters, forgot his exhaustion, forgot the horrifying event that had brought him here. He simply stared in wonder. attached encounters with history always left Langdon numbed with awe like seeing the brushstrokes on the Mona Lisa.The muted, yellow papyrus left no interrogative moveence in Langdons mind as to its age and au soticity, solely excluding t he inevitable fading, the document was in superb condition. Slight bleaching of the pigment. Minor s blaststairsing and tackiness of the papyrus. exactly all in all in deuced fine condition. He studied the ornate hand etch of the cover, his vision blurring in the lack of humidity. Vittoria was silent. sink me a spatula, please. Langdon queryed beside Vittoria to a tray filled with stainless-steel archival tools. She handed it to him. Langdon took the tool in his hand. It was a good one. He ran his fingers across the baptistry to remove whatever static trip out and then, ever so carefully, slid the firebrand beneath the cover. Then, lifting the spatula, he turned over the cover sheet.The commencement page was written in longhand, the trivial, stylized calligraphy almost unsurmountable to read. Langdon immediately noticed that there were no diagrams or numbers on the page. It was an essay.Heliocentricity, Vittoria said, translating the gallery on folio one. She scanned t he text. Looks like Galileo renouncing the Ptolemaic personate once and for all. Ancient Italian, though, so no promises on the translation.Forget it, Langdon said. Were face for math. The slender expression. He used the spatula tool to transpose the next page. some other essay. No math or diagrams. Langdons hands began to diaphoresis inside his gloves.Movement of the Planets, Vittoria said, translating the title.Langdon frowned. On any other day, he would have been fascinate to read it incredibly NASAs current model of planetary orbits, observed through dynamical telescopes, was supposedly almost identical to Galileos skipper predictions.No math, Vittoria said. Hes talking about draw back motions and elliptical orbits or something.Elliptical orbits. Langdon recalled that much of Galileos legal trouble had begun when he describe planetary motion as elliptical. The Vatican high-sounding the perfection of the circle and insisted heavenly motion must be only circular. Gali leos Illuminati, however, adage perfection in the ellipse as well, revering the mathematical duality of its twin foci. The Illuminatis ellipse was prominent even today in modern Masonic tracing boards and terra firma inlays.Next, Vittoria said.Langdon flipped.Lunar phases and tidal motion, she said. No numbers. No diagrams.Langdon flipped again. zip fastener. He unploughed flipping through a dozen or so pages. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing.I thought this guy was a mathematician, Vittoria said. This is all text.Langdon felt the cinch in his lungs inception to thin. His hopes were thinning too. The pile was waning.Nothing here, Vittoria said. No math. A a few(prenominal) dates, a few standard figures, yet nothing that looks like it could be a roll.Langdon flipped over the final stage folio and sighed. It, too, was an essay. short(p) book, Vittoria said, frowning.Langdon nodded.Merda, as we say in capital of Italy.S nock is right, Langdon thought. His reflection in the glass seeme d mocking, like the image sodding(a) back at him this morning from his bay tree window. An aging ghost. Theres got to be something, he said, the gruff desperation in his voice move him. The segno is here somewhere. I know it possibly you were wrong about DIII?Langdon turned and stared at her.Okay, she agreed, DIII makes perfect sense. But maybe the clue isnt mathematical?Lingua pura. What else would it be? blind?Except there are no diagrams or pictures in the book.All I know is that glossa pura refers to something other than Italian. mathematics just seems logical. I agree.Langdon refused to accept batter so quickly. The numbers must be written longhand. The math must be in words rather than equations.Itll pull in ones horns some time to read all the pages.Times something we dont have. Well have to split the work. Langdon flipped the stack back over to the beginning. I know exuberant Italian to spot numbers. Using his spatula, he cut the stack like a deck of cards and lay the first half-dozen pages in front of Vittoria. Its in here somewhere. Im sure.Vittoria reached buck and flipped her first page by hand.Spatula Langdon said, grabbing her an extra tool from the tray. Use the spatula.Im eroding gloves, she grumbled. How much damage could I cause?Just use it.Vittoria picked up the spatula. You feeling what Im feeling?Tense?No. Short of breath.Langdon was definitely starting to feel it too. The air was thinning faster than he had imagined. He knew they had to hurry. Archival conundrums were nothing new for him, but usually he had more than a few minutes to work them out. Without other word, Langdon bowed his head and began translating the first page in his stack. delegate yourself, damn it Show yourself53Somewhere beneath Rome the dark figure prowled pour down a stone ramp into the underground tunnel. The antique passageway was lit only by torches, making the air hot and thick. Up ahead the frightened voices of grown men called out in vain, echoing i n the cramped spaces.As he travel the corner he see them, hardly as he had left them quadruple old men, terrified, sealed behind dilapidate iron bars in a stone cubicle.Qui etes-vous? one of the men demanded in French. What do you want with us?Hilfe other said in German. Let us goAre you aware who we are? one asked in side of meat, his accent Spanish.Silence, the pettish voice commanded. There was a conclusiveness about the word.The fourth prisoner, an Italian, quiet and thoughtful, looked into the achromatic void of his captors eyes and swore he saw hell itself. God help us, he thought.The killer checked his watch and then returned his gaze to the prisoners. Now then, he said. Who will be first?54Inside Archive Vault 10 Robert Langdon recited Italian numbers as he scanned the calligraphy before him. Mille centi uno, duo, tre cincuanta. I need a numerical reference Anything, damnitWhen he reached the end of his current folio, he lifted the spatula to flip the page. As he aligned the blade with the next page, he fumbled, having difficulty retentiveness the tool steady. Minutes later, he looked down and realized he had abandoned his spatula and was number pages by hand. Oops, he thought, feeling mistily criminal. The lack of oxygen was affecting his inhibitions. Looks like Ill burn in archivists hell.About damn time, Vittoria choked when she saw Langdon turning pages by hand. She dropped her spatula and followed suit.Any luck?Vittoria shook her head. Nothing that looks consummate(a)ly mathematical. Im skimming but no(prenominal) of this reads like a clue.Langdon continued translating his folios with change magnitude difficulty. His Italian skills were rocky at best, and the tiny penmanship and archaic language was making it slow going. Vittoria reached the end of her stack before Langdon and looked disheartened as she flipped the pages back over. She hunkered down for some other more intense inspection.When Langdon undone his final page, he cur sed under his breath and looked over at Vittoria. She was scowling, squinting at something on one of her folios. What is it? he asked.Vittoria did not look up. Did you have any annotates on your pages?Not that I noticed. why?This page has a footnote. Its obscured in a crease.Langdon tried to see what she was facial expression at, but all he could make out was the page number in the swiftness right-hand corner of the sheet. Folio 5. It took a moment for the coincidence to register, and even when it did the connection seemed vague. Folio fiver. cardinal, Pythagoras, pentagrams, Illuminati. Langdon wondered if the Illuminati would have chosen page five on which to hide their clue. through and through the reddish fog surrounding them, Langdon sense a tiny ray of hope. Is the footnote mathematical?Vittoria shook her head. Text. One line. in truth small effect. Almost illegible.His hopes faded. Its supposed to be math. Lingua pura.Yeah, I know. She hesitated. I theorise youll want to hear this, though. Langdon sensed excitement in her voice.Go ahead.Squinting at the folio, Vittoria read the line. The course of light is laid, the consecrate test.The words were nothing like what Langdon had imagined. Im gloomful?Vittoria repeated the line. The course of study of light is laid, the sanctified test.Path of light? Langdon felt his durability straightening.Thats what it says. Path of light.As the words sank in, Langdon felt his delirium pierced by an instant of clarity. The path of light is laid, the tabu test. He had no idea how it helped them, but the line was as direct a reference to the Path of Illumination as he could imagine. Path of light. Sacred test. His head felt like an engine revving on corked fuel. Are you sure of the translation?Vittoria hesitated. in truth She glanced over at him with a oddish look. Its not technically a translation. The line is written in face.For an instant, Langdon thought the acoustics in the chamber had affected his he aring. slope?Vittoria pushed the document over to him, and Langdon read the minuscule printing at the bottom of the page. The path of light is laid, the sacred test. English? What is English doing in an Italian book?Vittoria shrugged. She too was looking tipsy. Maybe English is what they meant by the lingua pura? Its considered the international language of science. Its all we sing at CERN.But this was in the 1600s, Langdon argued. nada spoke English in Italy, not even He stopped short, realizing what he was about to say. Not even the clergy. Langdons academic mind hummed in high gear. In the 1600s, he said, talking faster now, English was one language the Vatican had not save embraced. They dealt in Italian, Latin, German, even Spanish and French, but English was totally foreign inside the Vatican. They considered English a polluted, free-thinkers language for deflower men like Chaucer and Shakespeare. Langdon flashed suddenly on the Illuminati brands of Earth, Air, Fire, Wa ter. The legend that the brands were in English now made a bizarre potpourri of sense.So youre saying maybe Galileo considered English la lingua pura because it was the one language the Vatican did not control?Yes. Or maybe by putting the clue in English, Galileo was subtly restricting the readership away from the Vatican.But its not even a clue, Vittoria argued. The path of light is laid, the sacred test? What the hell does that mean?Shes right, Langdon thought. The line didnt help in any way. But as he spoke the phrase again in his mind, a strange fact hit him. Now thats odd, he thought. What are the chances of that?We need to get out of here, Vittoria said, sounding hoarse.Langdon wasnt listening. The path of light is laid, the sacred test. Its a damn line of iambic pentameter, he said suddenly, counting the syllables again. Five couplets of alternating hard-pressed and unstressed syllables.Vittoria looked lost. Iambic who?For an instant Langdon was back at Phillips Exeter Acad emy sitting in a Saturday morning English class. Hell on earth. The school baseball star, beak Greer, was having trouble remembering the number of couplets requirement for a line of Shakespearean iambic pentameter. Their professor, an animated schoolmaster named Bissell, leapt onto the table and bellowed, Penta-meter, Greer consider of home plate A penta-gon Five sides Penta Penta Penta JeeeeshFive couplets, Langdon thought. Each couplet, by definition, having dickens syllables. He could not believe in his entire career he had never made the connection. Iambic pentameter was a proportionate meter based on the sacred Illuminati numbers of 5 and 2Youre arriver Langdon told himself, trying to push it from his mind. A purposeless coincidence But the thought stuck. Five for Pythagoras and the pentagram. Two for the duality of all things.A moment later, another realization sent a numbing sensation down his legs. Iambic pentameter, on account of its simplicity, was oft called pure verse or pure meter. La lingua pura? Could this have been the pure language the Illuminati had been referring to? The path of light is laid, the sacred testUh oh, Vittoria said.Langdon wheeled to see her rotating the folio upside down. He felt a knot in his gut. Not again. Theres no way that line is an ambigramNo, its not an ambigram but its She kept turning the document, 90 degrees at every turn.Its what?Vittoria looked up. Its not the only line.Theres another?Theres a different line on every margin. Top, bottom, left, and right. I think its a verse.Four lines? Langdon bristled with excitement. Galileo was a poet? Let me seeVittoria did not relinquish the page. She kept turning the page in quarter turns. I didnt see the lines before because theyre on the edges. She cocked her head over the last line. Huh. You know what? Galileo didnt even write this.WhatThe poem is sign John Milton.John Milton? The influential English poet who wrote Paradise Lost was a present-day(a) of Galileos and a savant who conspiracy buffs put at the top of their list of Illuminati suspects. Miltons so-called affiliation with Galileos Illuminati was one legend Langdon hazard was true. Not only had Milton made a well-documented 1638 pilgrimage to Rome to commune with enlightened men, but he had held meetings with Galileo during the scientists house arrest, meetings visualized in many Renaissance paintings, including Annibale Gattis famous Galileo and Milton, which hung even now in the IMSS Museum in Florence.Milton knew Galileo, didnt he? Vittoria said, finally pushing the folio over to Langdon. Maybe he wrote the poem as a favor?Langdon clenched his teeth as he took the cover document. Leaving it flat on the table, he read the line at the top. Then he rotated the page 90 degrees, reading the line in the right margin. Another twist, and he read the bottom. Another twist, the left. A final twist spotless the circle. There were four lines in all. The first line Vittoria had found was actually the trinity line of the poem. Utterly agape, he read the four lines again, clockwise in age top, right, bottom, left. When he was done, he exhaled. There was no doubt in his mind. You found it, Ms. Vetra.She smiled tightly. Good, now can we get the hell out of here?I have to sham these lines down. I need to find a pencil and paper.Vittoria shook her head. Forget it, professor. No time to play scribe. Mickeys ticking. She took the page from him and headed for the door.Langdon stood up. You cant take that outside Its a But Vittoria was already gone.