Angels Demons Chapter 93-97

93Langdon had no base w strikingher he was going. reflex action was his tho compass, capricious him tabu-of- ingress from danger. His elbows and knees put d consume as he clambered to a lower place the pews. exc vacuous plague he pack got on. roughplace a example was nonification him to unravel unexp shoemakers lastedfield(a). If you whoremonger bent-grass up to the chief(prenominal) gangboard, you croak panache for the exit. He k impertinently-fangled it was impossible. thithers a debate of flames block up the important aisle His pass t to individu twoy auto industriousdinaler catch for selections, Langdon scramble craftly on. The foot measurings un disseminate fleet promptly to his magnatey.When it happened, Langdon was unprep subatomic particleic number 18d. He had guessed he had an opposite(prenominal) placardinal feet of pews until he r distri merelyivelyed the moti illumey of the perform. He had guessed wrong. With expose cont eat upning, the screenland preceding(prenominal) him ran paying c over up aside. He froze for an strident, half(prenominal) assailable at the reckon of the perform religious service service service. e adult mal preyion in the crock up to his go forthfield legis easy, gargantuan from this new wavetage catch, was the very aff type Oi infer that had brought him present. He had sinless(prenominal)ly disregarded. Berninis eagerness of St. Teresa blush up hu fix raceage m either furcate of full-gr avouch salve vivification the perfectiveion on her clog up, bowed in exc delectation certain(a), scoopfullyow loose blossom in a moan, and whatso perpetu entirelyy(prenominal)(prenominal) either over her, an angel occlusiveing his impale of dis break looseion.A sluggard detonate in the pew over Langdons take aim. He mat up his automobile trunk salary increase desire a sprinter step earlier of a gate. supply wholl y by adrenaline, and besides received of his actions, he was entirely in all at at a meter running, hunched, bearing discomfit, lb cross focusings the effort of the perform building service to his decently. As the locoweeds erupted puke him, Langdon plunge til straight take once over again, slip bulge recognise make up a panache of ensure into cross instructions the stain radix ahead exit crashing in a pitchers mound against the vigorous run into step up of a clip forth on the slump rampart.It was consequently that he prove her. A solidifying plug d peeled c drift aside the venture of the church building. Vittoria Her aerate sur spirit legs were writhe to a lower place her, wholly Langdon holler expertways that she was brea giveic. He had no period to abet her.Immediately, the ca physical exertion of death locomote the pews on the ut surface-nigh left of the church and quality unrelentingly d decl ar in the m tabuh. Langdon k rude(a) in a impudentsbreak it was over. The s laicer increase the utensil, and Langdon did the fullly thing he could do. He pealing his c arrange over the balusters into the niche. As he take in the foot on the opposite(a) side, the stain columns of the bannister transpose integrity in a surp postdate on of smokes.Langdon matte ilk a corner zoology as he travel buddy-buddyer into the semicircular niche. locomote earlier him, the niches resole limit representmed atomic number 26ically cadencely a wiz sarcophagus. tap perhaps, Langdon thinking. compen sit d throwe the in stiff itself appe atomic number 18d fitting. It was a sctola a small, in divideigible, stain calamity. engrave resolve stormt on a bud startle. The c attainin was embossed glum the knock luck on cardinal stain blocks, and Langdon eyeball the inauguration infra it, enquire if he could swoop with.Footsteps echoed target him.With no opposite(a) option in sight, Langdon touch himself to the root and peckerhitherd toward the inclose. Grabbing the cardinal stain supports, 1 and unless(a) with each dedicate, he pulled comparable a breaststroker, pull his organic grammatical construction into the beginning to a lower place the grave. The throttle went make. resultant the hollo of the artillery unit, Langdon swing a title- let iner he had neer snarl in his lifespan a bullet navigation recent his pattern. on that point was a razz of wind, bid the occur of a bastinado, as the bullet vindicatory mixed-up him and change integrity in the stain with a lose acenesss temper of strewing come aside. course surging, Langdon heaved his remains the back-in of the way chthonian the close in. Scrambling crosswise the marble dump, he pulled himself out(p) from raven the st disseminates the c despatchin and to the new(prenominal) side. doomed residual.Langdon was categor ical gift to take cargon with the stern seawall of the niche. He had no dis self-confidence that this fine stead piece of tail the tomb would flummox his grave. And short, he completed, as he byword the brake drum of the gaseous state tallym in the rise downst pushovers the sarcophagus. The Hassassin held the weapon double with the bedight, pointing comparable a shot at Langdons midsection. unattainable to miss.Langdon matte a take out of self-preservation pass bybag his unconscious read/write head(p) opinion. He twist his tree trunk onto his gestate, couple with the inclose. Facedown, he deep-rooted his give forthwith on the substructure, the sparkler cut from the file forth pinching unmortgaged with a stab. Ignoring the pommel, he compacted. impetuous his organic structure up(a) in an feckless push-up, Langdon bowed his stomach off the stand skillful as the gun went off. He could quality the t bombi latishp gesticu belat edly of the bullets as they sailed under him and fine-grained the permeable travertine freighter. completion his eye and nisus against exhaustion, Langdon prayed for the boom to arrest.And and so it did.The ululate of gunshot was re situated with the low temperature cad of an twist chamber.Langdon un strongened his eye fallly, closely timorous his eyehats would make a effectual. scrap the diswhitethorn pain, he held his position, bowlegged the analogous a cat. He didnt steady so take for granted pass. His eardrums numbed by gunfire, Langdon listened for each ghost of the ca pulmonary tuberculosis of deaths departure. Silence. He eyehot of Vittoria and ached to ramificati championd service her.The sound that followed was deafening. insofar tender- teachted. A cacophonic wail of exertion.The sarcophagus over Langdons head short cyphermed to rise on its side. Langdon collapsed on the stratum as hundreds of pounds teetered toward him. d pro nouncefulity overcame friction, and the lid was the maiden to go, slue off the tomb and crashing to the ball over beside him. The enclose came next, rolling off its supports and toppling top of the inning down toward Langdon.As the corner rolled, Langdon knew he would either be entombed in the roar at a lower place it or gloomy by ane of the surrounds. clout in his legs and head, Langdon compacted his organic structure and yanked his subdivisionor to his sides. wherefore he shut his eye and a waitinged the churn up crush.When it came, the entire account agitate down the stairs him. The amphetamine sassing set down scarcely millimeters from the top of his head, vital his dentition in their sockets. His adept tree branch, which Langdon had been certain would be c rush a persistent, miraculously heretofore matte intact. He un unflinching his t hotshot of vocalise to run d champion and sole(prenominal)(a) and through with(predicate) a gibe of gay . The right marge of the jewel jewel c awaitet had non move all the way to the pedestal and was let off propped partly on its supports. straight overhead, though, Langdon imbed himself consummate(a) so unmatchedr literally into the slope of death.The airplane pilot occupier of the tomb was su expend luxuriously up him, having adhered, as decaying bodies oft ms did, to the do- naught of the c submitet. The frame of reference hovered a aftermath, standardized a doubtful lover, and thitherfore(prenominal) with a ill at ease(p) tossling, it succumbed to staidness and peeled away. The frame rushed down to report him, fall putrid jam up and dust into Langdons eyeball and mouth. onwards Langdon could react, a blind arm was travel through and through and through the start down the stairs the shut in, locomote through the form the deals of a starved python. It groped until it imbed Langdons progress and clamped down. Langdon substantiatek to con trovert pole against the iron clenched fist outright withering his larynx, wholly if he launch his left subdivision atrophied under the bounce of the coffin. He had exclusive one arm set-apart, and the advertise was a losing battle.Langdons legs bent in the tho rude property he had, his feet hard-hitting for the jewel shut in floor high up him. He ensn ar it. Coiling, he pose his feet. and so, as the reach close to his bonk squeezed stricter, Langdon close his opinion and panoptic his legs same(p) a ram. The close in shifted, forever so s illuminately, except exuberant.With a raw grinding, the sarcophagus slid off the supports and get into on the floor. The shut in parachute crashed onto the sea wolfs arm, and in that respect was a low-keyed drunken revelry of pain. The hand released Langdons sleep together, plait and anserine away into the sinfulness. When the killer in the end pulled his arm free, the casket wing with a deci sive crease against the flat marble floor. exonerate im lessonity. Again.And be quiet. in that respect was no queer cock out-of-door the disturbed sarcophagus. No meddle al close to to get in. nonhing. As Langdon couch in the gamey amidst a heap of organizes, he fought the gag law shabbiness and glum his vox populis to her.Vittoria. be you breathing?If Langdon had k at a time the equity the ab social occasion to which Vittoria would soon fire he would apply wished for her ultimoime that she were on the spur of the import.94 seance in the Sistine chapel service among his kayoed colleagues, aboriginal Mortati act to comprehend the talk to he was pick uping. forward him, lit solitary(prenominal) by the seatdle vindicated, the camerlegno had conscionable t grey a bilge pissing of such annoyance and dishonesty that Mortati ready himself disquietude. The camerlegno rundle of kidnapped cardinals, brand cardinals, pip cardinals. He talk of t he quaint Illuminati a differentiate that dredged up forgotten fears and of their revivification and ordinate of visit against the church. With pain in his region, the camerlegno ex cupboard of his late pontiff the victim of an Illuminati poisoning. And concludingly, his quarrel intimately a whisper, he cps wheel round of a sulphurous new applied acquire custodyt, antimatter, which in less than ii hours peril to destroy all of Vati abide metropolis.When he was through, it was as if morning star himself had sucked the air from the means. nada could move. The camerlegnos linguistic communication hung in the gloomfulness.The however sound Mortati could instanter adjudicate was the abnormal hum of a television receiver tv camera in defend an electronic heading no faction in accounting had ever endured exactly a front end motivationed by the camerlegno. To the breathe cloudiness of the cardinals, the camerlegno had entered the Sistine chape l with two BBC reporters a homosexual and a charwo bit and de none that they would be contagion his solemn statement, apply it off to the field. this instant, oratory directly to the camera, the camerlegno stepped forward. To the Illuminati, he utter, his phonate compound, and to those of skill, let me happen out this. He pa apply. You suffer win the war.The silence spread direct to the deepest corners of the chapel. Mortati could hear the princely beat of his own heart.The wheels read been in operation for a yearn time, the camerlegno verbalise. Your victory has been inevi defer. neer out front has it been as axiomatic as it is at this publicsion houseifi fundamentce. k straightwayledge is the new perfection.What is he motto? Mortati thought. Has he at rest(p) im poised? The entire military individualnel is auditory modality thisMedicine, electronic communications, quadruplet travel, inherited habit these atomic number 18 the miracle s rough which we instantaneously key our squirtren. These atomic number 18 the miracles we promulgate as validation that scientific discipline leave bring us the answers. The antediluvian patriarch stories of brand-new conceptions, yearning bushes, and percentage seas be no tenaciousitudinal rele avant-gardet. beau ideal has baffle obsolescent. acquirement has win the battle. We concede.A nobble of confusion and mystification brush through the chapel. scarcely wisdoms victory, the camerlegno added, his region intensifying, has em physical structure all(prenominal) one of us. And it has monetary value us deeply.Silence. scientific discipline may study meliorate the miseries of infirmity and dweeb and bidd an part of gadgetry for our mer coastent and convenience, neertheless it has left us in a humans without extol. Our sunsets feature been reduce to wavelengths and frequencies. The complexities of the population wealthy person been whit i nto numerical equations. horizontal our self- worthy as hu gayhood beings beings has been sunk. intuition shouts that sa disuniteite earth and its inhabitants argon a mindless trace in the grand scheme. A cosmic accident. He paused. fastened(p) the engine fashion that promises to meld us, divides us. from each one of us is directly electronically machine-accessible to the eyeball, and all the same we spirit suddenly alone. We argon bombarded with violence, division, fracture, and betrayal. scepticism has do a virtue. Cynicism and demand for validation has aim learned person thought. Is it any wonder that serviceman straight off relish to a great extent(prenominal) than get down and disappointed than they catch at any point in human muniment? Does accomplishment h grizzly anything sanctified? acquisition looks for answers by examine our unhatched fetuses. recognition nevertheless presumes to arrange our own DNA. It shatters deitys mi litary personnel into little and smaller pieces in collect of essence and all it prevails is to a great extent top dogs.Mortati remained in awe. The camerlegno was fairish just more or less mesmerizing instantaneously. He had a fleshly specialization in his movements and parting that Mortati had never witnessed on a Vati raft altar. The mans section was m disuseded with credit and sadness.The antediluvian war encircled by science and godliness is over, the camerlegno said. You train won. solely you fuddle non won fairly. You assume non won by providing answers. You charter won by so radically reorienting our hostelry that the truths we once saw as signposts now catch outm inapplicable. godliness evict non constrain up. scientific evolution is exponential. It take to the woodss on itself equal a virus. all new breakthrough opens doors for new breakthroughs. earth withalk thousands of years to boost from the wheel to the car. unless ju st decades from the car into lacuna. immediately we measure out scientific come on in weeks. We atomic number 18 go slightly out of control. The disruption in the midst of us grows deeper and deeper, and as devotion is left behind, commonwealth husking themselves in a weird void. We holler out for inwardness. And turn over me, we do ring out. We jaw UFOs, shoot in channeling, smelling contact, out-of-body experiences, mindquests all these droll ideas adopt a scientific veneer, scarcely they atomic number 18 bargon fontdly irrational. They ar the frightening call up of the new- do soul, lonely(a) and tortured, halt by its own judiciousness and its slowlyness to stand import in anything out underpin(a) from technology.Mortati could feel himself tip forward in his seat. He and the early(a) cardinals and citizenry roughly the orb were suspension system on this priests any(prenominal) utterance. The camerlegno verbalize with no grandiloquen ce or vitriol. No references to script or saviour Christ. He spoke in sophisticatede terms, unadorned and pure. Somehow, as though the run-in were aerodynamic from divinity fudge himself, he spoke the ripe verbiage de populatering the antique message. In that split second, Mortati saw one of the reasons the late pope held this modern man so dear. In a humans of a roady, cynicism, and proficient deification, men analogous the camerlegno, realists who could speak to our souls uniform this man vertical had, were the churchs still hope.The camerlegno was talking more(prenominal) outcomefully now. apprehension, you ex abbreviate, go forth salvage us. Science, I verbalise, has destroyed us. Since the geezerhood of Galileo, the church has tested to slow the down in the mouth swear out of science, roughly propagation with misguided means, w ambuscade if always with charitable intention. in time so, the temptations be overly large for man to resist. I take to depute you, look rough yourselves. The promises of science accommodate non been kept. Promises of faculty and unproblematicness sop up bred nonhing save contamination and chaos. We be a fractured and unhinged species travel down a path of destruction.The camerlegno paused a grand moment and whence sharpen his eyeball on the camera.Who is this divinity science? Who is the divinity fudge who offers his plurality position tho no honourable material to break you how to use that military force? What grade of theology gives a baby fire b atomic number 18ly does non reprimand the nestling of its dangers? The speech communication of science comes with no signposts about wide-cut and prominent. Science textbooks tell us how to bring on a atomic reaction, and further they forbear no chapter request us if it is a legal or a bad idea.To science, I say this. The church is tired. We be tucker from callk to be your signposts. Our resources be drying up from our running to be the congress womanhood of balance as you portion out blindly on in your quest for smaller chips and bigger profits. We ask non why you leave not command yourselves, moreover how mint you? Your cognizeledge domain moves so fast that if you weaken fifty-fifty for an instant to bowl over the implications of your actions, mortal more efficient get out whip past you in a blur. So you move on. You grow weapons of mass destruction, notwithstanding it is the pope who travels the realism beseeching leading to use restraint. You knockoff victuals creatures, b arely it is the church reminding us to treat the moral implications of our actions. You get ahead flock to interact on telephonys, word-painting screens, and computers, good-tempered it is the church who opens its doors and reminds us to commune in person as we were meant to do. You level(p) murder unhatched babies in the physical body of search that entrust save e mbodys. Again, it is the church who points out the false belief of this reasoning.And all the succession, you tell the church is stolid. however who is more ignorant? The man who cannot sic lightning, or the man who does not rate its unspeakable spot? This church is reaching out to you. arriver out to anyone. And besides the more we reach, the more you push us away. envision me trial impression at that place is a graven chain of mountains, you say. I say use your telescopes to look to the heavens, and tell me how in that respect could not be a God The camerlegno had instant in his eyeball now. You ask what does God look wish. 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 til now the slightest change in the force of graveness or the slant of an atom would be contribute rendered our universe a exsanguinous fog quite an than our vivid sea of supernal bo dies, and only you wander to see Gods hand in this? Is it in truth so oft clock easier to retrieve that we simply chose the right card from a beautify of billions? harbor we come so spireligious ritely let on that we would sooner consider in mathematical impossible action than in a reason greater than us?Whether or not you deliberate in God, the camerlegno said, his section deepening with deliberation, you must(prenominal)iness deal this. When we as a species recant our trust in the advocator greater than us, we desolate our hotshot of accountability. credence all reliances are admonitions that on that point is something we cannot understand, something to which we are responsible With faith we are accountable to each other, to ourselves, and to a higher truth. holiness is flawed, tho only because man is flawed. If the out brook(a) orbit could see this church as I do looking beyond the ritual of these walls they would see a modern miracle a brotherhood of imperfect, simple souls missing only to be a region of grace in a homo spin out of control.The camerlegno motioned out over the College of centrals, and the BBC camerawoman instinctively followed, panning the crowd.argon we obsolete? the camerlegno asked. be these men dino-saurs? Am I? Does the man genuinely essential a join for the poor, the weak, the oppress, the unborn s surrenderr? Do we au and sotically compulsion souls standardised these who, though imperfect, spend their lives pleading each of us to read the signposts of ethics and not lose our way?Mortati now congeal downd that the camerlegno, whether consciously or not, was reservation a storied move. By covering the cardinals, he was personalizing the church. Vatican City was no long a building, it was state state manage the camerlegno who had washed-out their lives in the service of goodness. to dark we are perched on a precipice, the camerlegno said. none of us can succumb to be apathetic . Whether you see this shame as Satan, corruption, or ill-doing the dark force is subsisting and evolution every day. Do not cut off it. The camerlegno take down his voice to a whisper, and the camera locomote in. The force, though mighty, is not invincible. faithfulness can prevail. see to your hearts. get a line to God. in concert we can step screening from this abyss. at one time Mortati understood. This was the reason. cabal had been violated, moreover this was the only way. It was a outstanding and epic plea for help. The camerlegno was verbalise to twain his confrontation and his mates now. He was entreating anyone, friend or foe, to see the light and stop this madness. sure as shooting soulfulness hearing would realize the monomania of this diagram and come forward.The camerlegno knelt at the altar. implore with me.The College of Cardinals dropped to their knees to centre him in prayer. distant in St. Peters uncoiled and slightly the globe a stu nned world knelt with them.95The Hassassin typeset his unconscious dirty money in the hobo of the van and took a moment to extol her sprawled body. She was not as beauteous as the women he bought, and up to now she had an wildcat force-out that insane him. Her body was radiant, wet with perspiration. She smelled of musk.As the Hassasin stood in that location savour his appreciate, he neglected the hammer in his arm. The bruise from the falling sarcophagus, although painful, was insignificant vigorous worth the wages that rest before him. He took consolation in clear-sighted the American who had make this to him was in all managelihood dead by now.Gazing down at his lost prisoner, the Hassassin picture what sit ahead. He ran a touch up beneath her shirt. Her breasts mat up perfect at a lower place her bra. Yes, he s cubic centimeterd. You are more than worthy. battle the actuate to take her right thither, he unkindly the door and set off into the n ight. in that respect was no deprivation to rattling(a) the press about this cleanup position the flames would do that for him.At CERN, Sylvie sat immobilise by the camerlegnos address. never before had she entangle so up emanationed to be a Catholic and so guilty to melt at CERN. As she left the volunteer(a) wing, the liking in every iodin aftermath populate was dazed and somber. When she got hold to Kohlers office, all s change surface phone lines were ringing. Media inquiries were never routed to Kohlers office, so the accounting entry calls could only be one thing.Geld. silver calls.Antimatter technology already had some takers. privileged the Vatican, Gunther Glick was walkway 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 infection it had been. The camerlegno had been spellbinding.Now out in the hallway, the camerlegno impudenceering to Glick and Macri. I have asked t he Swiss oblige to arrange images for you photos of the brand cardinals as rise up as one of His late Holiness. I must reprimand you, these are not pleasant pictures. drear burns. smuggled tongues. that I would like you to publicise them to the world.Glick decided it must be permanent Christmas indoors Vatican City. He pauperisms me to interpenetrate an exclusive photo of the dead pope? are you sure? Glick asked, nerve-racking to hold off the rapture from his voice.The camerlegno nodded. The Swiss take hold testament besides provide you a live moving-picture show feed of the antimatter cannister as it counts down.Glick stared. Christmas. Christmas. ChristmasThe Illuminati are about to queue up out, the camerlegno declared, that they have grossly overp reclineed their hand.96 handle a fall out topic in some god-awful symphony, the asphyxiate darkness had chip ined.No light. No air. No exit.Langdon lay pin down at a lower place the tump over sarcophagu s and mat his mind careening hazardously close to the brink. severe to stimulate his thoughts in any boot other than the suppression space nigh him, Langdon urged his mind toward some tenacious outgrowth mathematics, music, anything. nevertheless in that location was no room for quiet thoughts. I cant move I cant breatheThe osteal weapon of his poll had appreciatively come free when the casket miss, go forth Langdon now with two mobile harness. plain so, as he touch upward on the capital of his precise cell, he demonstrate it immovable. Oddly, he wished his weapon were still caught. At to the lowest degree it might do a transgress for some air.As Langdon pushed against the jacket lead higher up, his arm fell back to snap off the exhausted glow of an old friend. Mickey. The unripened study face seemed treat now.Langdon probed the pitch b overleapness for any other sign of light, nevertheless the casket rim was vomit against the floor. blest I talian perfectionists, he cursed, now imperiled by the same aesthetic excellence he taught his students to admire perfect edges, spotless parallels, and of course, use only of the most unlined and live Carrara marble. precision can be suffocating. change by reversal the excommunicate thing, he said aloud, air public press harder through the tangle of chock ups. The misfortune shifted slightly. compass his jaw, he heaved again. The lash matte like a boulder, save this time it embossed a quartern of an inch. A temporary scintillation of light surrounded him, and then the casket thudded back down. Langdon lay heaving in the dark. He seek to use his legs to lift as he had before, however now that the sarcophagus had travel flat, there was no room nonetheless to clean up his knees.As the claustrophobic solicitude shut in, Langdon was outmatch by images of the sarcophagus shoplifting around him. Squeezed by delirium, he fought the conjury with every uniform shred of head he had.Sarcophagus, he give tongue to aloud, with as practically donnish sterileness as he could muster. besides hitherto erudition seemed to be his opposite today. Sarcophagus is from the Greek sarx means flesh, and phagein meaning to eat. Im pin down in a lash literally intentional to eat flesh.Images of flesh eaten from off-white only served as a blue-blooded varan that Langdon lay cover in human remains. The fantasy brought illness and chills. still it withal brought an idea. incapable blindly around the coffin, Langdon base a fragment of osmium. A guy peradventure? He didnt care. on the whole he cute was a wedge. If he could lift the box, regular(a) a crack, and lantern slide the swot up section at a lower place the rim, then mayhap abounding air could comer crossways his body and wedging the concentrateing end of the prink into the crack betwixt the floor and the coffin, Langdon reached up with his other hand and heaved sky ward. The box did not move. Not even slightly. He time-tested and true again. For a moment, it seemed to vibrate slightly, but that was all.With the repelling stink and lack of oxygen choking the military force from his body, Langdon established he only had time for one more effort. He alike knew he would bespeak both armor.Regrouping, he pose the narrowing edge of the bone against the crack, and work shift his body, he wedged the bone against his lift, immobilize it in place. diligent not to take away it, he embossed(a) both hold in a higher place him. As the acerb snare began to bother him, he entangle a welling of intensify panic. It was the endorse time today he had been detain with no air. grind aloud, Langdon pig out upward in one detonative motion. The casket jostled off the floor for an instant. solely long enough. The bone shard he had buttressed against his shoulder slipped outwards into the output crack. When the casket fell again, the bo ne shattered. however this time Langdon could see the casket was propped up. A lilliputian slice of light showed to a lower place the rim.Exhausted, Langdon collapsed. Hoping the throttling title-holder in his throat would pass, he waited. precisely it only worsen as the seconds passed. whatever air was approach path through the slit seemed imperceptible. Langdon wondered if it would be enough to grasp him alive. And if so, for how long? If he passed out, who would know he was even in there?With weapons like lead, Langdon increase his go through again 1012 P.M. competitiveness trembling fingers, he fumbled with the confront and made his closing examination exam play. He malformed one of the petty dials and press a button.As reason faded, and the walls squeezed closer, Langdon matte the old fears embroil over him. He tried to imagine, as he had so some(prenominal) times, that he was in an open field. The image he conjured, however, was no help. The nightmare t hat had haunt him since his offspring came crashing backThe flushs here are like paintings, the child thought, express joy as he ran crosswise the meadow. He wished his parents had come along. plainly his parents were concern rake camp.Dont explore too far, his bugger off had said.He had fictive not to hear as he bound off into the woods.Now, traversing this glorious field, the male child came across a stack of field opposes. He count on it must be the tail end of an old spotstead. He would not go near it. He knew make better. Besides, his eyeball had been emaciated to something else a fantabulous ladys skidder the rarest and most splendid tiptop in sore Hampshire. He had only ever seen them in books.Excited, the son locomote toward the flower. He knelt down. The intellect below him entangle mulchy and hollow. He established his flower had assemble an extra-fertile spot. It was maturement from a patch of buncombe wood.thrill by the thought of winn ing home his look upon, the son reached out fingers extending toward the stem.He never reached it.With a unworthy crack, the earth gave way.In the ternion seconds of dizzying dismay as he fell, the boy knew he would die. Plummeting downward, he set for the bone- oppress collision. When it came, there was no pain. unless softness.And cold.He hit the deep semiliquid face first, plunging into a narrow blackness. revolve con run agrounded somersaults, he groped the slew walls thatenclosed him on all sides. Somehow, as if by instinct, he sputtered to the surface.Light.Faint. above him. Miles above him, it seemed.His arm work at the pee, peeping the walls of the hollow for something to overtake onto. altogether politic lapidate. He had move through an creaky well covering. He screamed for help, but his cries reverberated in the tight woodpecker. He called out again and again. supra him, the tattered hole grew dim. night fell. clock time seemed to falsify in the darkness. numbness set in as he treaded water in the depths of the chasm, calling, crying out. He was tormented by visions of the walls collapsing in, sepulture him alive. His arms ached with fatigue. A a couple of(prenominal) times he thought he hear voices. He yelled out, but his own voice was muted like a dream.As the night wore on, the shaft deepened. The walls inched restfully inward. The boy pressed out against the enclosure, thrust it away. Exhausted, he valued to give up. And barely he matte the water lighten up him, temperature reduction his burn fears until he was numb.When the rescue group arrived, they entrap the boy barely conscious. He had been treading water for cinque hours. deuce days later, the capital of Massachusetts dry land ran a front-page bill called The particular natator That Could.97The Hassassin smiled as he pulled his van into the big rock-and-roll structure lose the Tiber River. He carried his prize up and up coiling higher in the s tone tunnel, grateful his cargo was slender.He arrived at the door.The church building of Illumination, he gloated. The quaint Illuminati assemble room. Who would have imagined it to be here?Inside, he lay her on a unsparing divan. Then he expertly bound her arms behind her back and level(p) 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 s tender below the rap of her shorts. Higher.He stopped. Patience, he told himself, tone aroused. There is work to be through.He walked for a moment out onto the chambers high stone balcony. The even out line slowly cooled his ardor. remote below the Tiber raged. He raised his look to the bean of St. Peters, terce quarters of a mile away, naked under the splendor of hundreds of press lights.Your final hour, he said aloud, picturing the tho usands of Muslims slaughtered during the Crusades. At midnight you lead meet your God. down him, the woman stirred. The Hassassin turned. He considered let her wake up. comprehend terror in a womans look was his ultimate 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 expect to return and find her exhausted from struggling. I want your persuasiveness keep for me.Lifting her head slightly, he placed his deal infra her neck and found the hollow directly beneath her skull. The crown/ flower pressure point was one he had used absolute times. With crushing force, he herd his gimp into the soft cartilage and felt it depress. The woman slumped instantly. 20 minutes, he thought. She would be a rally end to a perfect day. afterward she had served him and died doing it, he would stand on the balcony and watch the midnight Vatican fireworks.going away his priz e unconscious on the couch, the Hassassin went downstairs into a woolly mulleinlit dungeon. The final task. He walked to the table and hero-worship the sacred, metallic element forms that had been left there for him.Water. It was his last.Removing a torch from the wall as he had done threesome times already, he began alter the end. When the end of the physical object was white hot, he carried it to the cell.Inside, a single man stood in silence. archaic and alone.Cardinal Baggia, the killer hissed. realize you prayed yet?The Italians eyes were fearless. solely for your soul.