Robert Langdon dashed around the outer bulwark of the castle, grateful for the
glow of the floodlights. As he circled the wall, the courtyard beneath him
looked like a museum of ancient warfare—catapults, stacks of marble
cannonballs, and an arsenal of fearful contraptions. Parts of the castle were
open to tourists during the day, and the courtyard had been partially restored
to its original state.
Langdon’s eyes crossed the courtyard to the central core of the fortress. The
circular citadel shot skyward 107 feet to the bronze angel above. The balcony
at the top still glowed from within. Langdon wanted to call out but knew
better. He would have to find a way in.
He checked his watch.
11:12 P.M.
Dashing down the stone ramp that hugged the inside of the wall, Langdon
descended to the courtyard. Back on ground level, he ran through shadows,
clockwise around the fort. He passed three porticos, but all of them were
permanently sealed. How did the Hassassin get in? Langdon pushed on. He
passed two modern entrances, but they were padlocked from the outside. Not
here. He kept running.
Langdon had circled almost the entire building when he saw a gravel drive
cutting across the courtyard in front of him. At one end, on the outer wall of
the castle, he saw the back of the gated drawbridge leading back outside. At
the other end, the drive disappeared into the fortress. The drive seemed to
enter a kind of tunnel—a gaping entry in the central core. Il traforo! Langdon
had read about this castle’s traforo, a giant spiral ramp that circled up inside the
fort, used by commanders on horseback to ride from top to bottom rapidly.
The Hassassin drove up! The gate blocking the tunnel was raised, ushering
Langdon in. He felt almost exuberant as he ran toward the tunnel. But as he
reached the opening, his excitement disappeared.
The tunnel spiraled down.
The wrong way. This section of the traforo apparently descended to the
dungeons, not to the top.
Standing at the mouth of a dark bore that seemed to twist endlessly deeper
into the earth, Langdon hesitated, looking up again at the balcony. He could
swear he saw motion up there. Decide! With no other options, he dashed down
into the tunnel.
High overhead, the Hassassin stood over his prey. He ran a hand across her
arm. Her skin was like cream. The anticipation of exploring her bodily
treasures was inebriating. How many ways could he violate her?
The Hassassin knew he deserved this woman. He had served Janus well.
She was a spoil of war, and when he was finished with her, he would pull her
from the divan and force her to her knees. She would service him again. The
ultimate submission. Then, at the moment of his own climax, he would slit her
throat.
Ghayat assa’adah, they called it. The ultimate pleasure.
Afterward, basking in his glory, he would stand on the balcony and savor the
culmination of the Illuminati triumph . . . a revenge desired by so many for so
long.
The tunnel grew darker. Langdon descended.
After one complete turn into the earth, the light was all but gone. The
tunnel leveled out, and Langdon slowed, sensing by the echo of his footfalls
that he had just entered a larger chamber. Before him in the murkiness, he
thought he saw glimmers of light . . . fuzzy reflections in the ambient gleam.
He moved forward, reaching out his hand. He found smooth surfaces. Chrome
and glass. It was a vehicle. He groped the surface, found a door, and opened it.
The vehicle’s interior dome-light flashed on. He stepped back and
recognized the black van immediately. Feeling a surge of loathing, he stared amoment, then he dove in, rooting around in hopes of finding a weapon to
replace the one he’d lost in the fountain. He found none. He did, however, find
Vittoria’s cell phone. It was shattered and useless. The sight of it filled Langdon
with fear. He prayed he was not too late.
He reached up and turned on the van’s headlights. The room around him
blazed into existence, harsh shadows in a simple chamber. Langdon guessed
the room was once used for horses and ammunition. It was also a dead end.
No exit. I came the wrong way!
At the end of his rope, Langdon jumped from the van and scanned the walls
around him. No doorways. No gates. He thought of the angel over the tunnel
entrance and wondered if it had been a coincidence. No! He thought of the
killer’s words at the fountain. She is in the Church of Illumination . . . awaiting my
return. Langdon had come too far to fail now. His heart was pounding.
Frustration and hatred were starting to cripple his senses.
When he saw the blood on the floor, Langdon’s first thought was for
Vittoria. But as his eyes followed the stains, he realized they were bloody
footprints. The strides were long. The splotches of blood were only on the left
foot. The Hassassin!
Langdon followed the footprints toward the corner of the room, his
sprawling shadow growing fainter. He felt more and more puzzled with every
step. The bloody prints looked as though they walked directly into the corner
of the room and then disappeared.
When Langdon arrived in the corner, he could not believe his eyes. The
granite block in the floor here was not a square like the others. He was looking
at another signpost. The block was carved into a perfect pentagram, arranged
with the tip pointing into the corner. Ingeniously concealed by overlapping
walls, a narrow slit in the stone served as an exit. Langdon slid through. He
was in a passage. In front of him were the remains of a wooden barrier that
had once been blocking this tunnel.
Beyond it there was light.
Langdon was running now. He clambered over the wood and headed for the
light. The passage quickly opened into another, larger chamber. Here a single
torch flickered on the wall. Langdon was in a section of the castle that had no
electricity . . . a section no tourists would ever see. The room would have been
frightful in daylight, but the torch made it even more gruesome.
Il prigione.There were a dozen tiny jail cells, the iron bars on most eroded away. One
of the larger cells, however, remained intact, and on the floor Langdon saw
something that almost stopped his heart. Black robes and red sashes on the
floor. This is where he held the cardinals!
Near the cell was an iron doorway in the wall. The door was ajar and
beyond it Langdon could see some sort of passage. He ran toward it. But
Langdon stopped before he got there. The trail of blood did not enter the
passage. When Langdon saw the words carved over the archway, he knew why.
Il Passetto.
He was stunned. He had heard of this tunnel many times, never knowing
where exactly the entrance was. Il Passetto—The Little Passage—was a
slender, three-quarter-mile tunnel built between Castle St. Angelo and the
Vatican. It had been used by various Popes to escape to safety during sieges of
the Vatican . . . as well as by a few less pious Popes to secretly visit mistresses
or oversee the torture of their enemies. Nowadays both ends of the tunnel
were supposedly sealed with impenetrable locks whose keys were kept in
some Vatican vault. Langdon suddenly feared he knew how the Illuminati had
been moving in and out of the Vatican. He found himself wondering who on
the inside had betrayed the church and coughed up the keys. Olivetti? One of the
Swiss Guard? None of it mattered anymore.
The blood on the floor led to the opposite end of the prison. Langdon
followed. Here, a rusty gate hung draped with chains. The lock had been
removed and the gate stood ajar. Beyond the gate was a steep ascension of
spiral stairs. The floor here was also marked with a pentagramal block.
Langdon stared at the block, trembling, wondering if Bernini himself had held
the chisel that had shaped these chunks. Overhead, the archway was adorned
with a tiny carved cherub. This was it.
The trail of blood curved up the stairs.
Before ascending, Langdon knew he needed a weapon, any weapon. He
found a four-foot section of iron bar near one of the cells. It had a sharp,
splintered end. Although absurdly heavy, it was the best he could do. He hoped
the element of surprise, combined with the Hassassin’s wound, would be
enough to tip the scales in his advantage. Most of all, though, he hoped he was
not too late.
The staircase’s spiral treads were worn and twisted steeply upward.
Langdon ascended, listening for sounds. None. As he climbed, the light fromthe prison area faded away. He ascended into the total darkness, keeping one
hand on the wall. Higher. In the blackness, Langdon sensed the ghost of
Galileo, climbing these very stairs, eager to share his visions of heaven with
other men of science and faith.
Langdon was still in a state of shock over the location of the lair. The
Illuminati meeting hall was in a building owned by the Vatican. No doubt
while the Vatican guards were out searching basements and homes of well-
known scientists, the Illuminati were meeting here . . . right under the Vatican’s
nose. It suddenly seemed so perfect. Bernini, as head architect of renovations
here, would have had unlimited access to this structure . . . remodeling it to his
own specifications with no questions asked. How many secret entries had
Bernini added? How many subtle embellishments pointing the way?
The Church of Illumination. Langdon knew he was close.
As the stairs began narrowing, Langdon felt the passage closing around him.
The shadows of history were whispering in the dark, but he moved on. When
he saw the horizontal shaft of light before him, he realized he was standing a
few steps beneath a landing, where the glow of torchlight spilled out beneath
the threshold of a door in front of him. Silently he moved up.
Langdon had no idea where in the castle he was right now, but he knew he
had climbed far enough to be near the peak. He pictured the mammoth angel
atop the castle and suspected it was directly overhead.
Watch over me, angel, he thought, gripping the bar. Then, silently, he reached
for the door.
On the divan, Vittoria’s arms ached. When she had first awoken to find them
tied behind her back, she’d thought she might be able to relax and work her
hands free. But time had run out. The beast had returned. Now he was
standing over her, his chest bare and powerful, scarred from battles he had
endured. His eyes looked like two black slits as he stared down at her body.
Vittoria sensed he was imagining the deeds he was about to perform. Slowly,
as if to taunt her, the Hassassin removed his soaking belt and dropped it on the
floor.
Vittoria felt a loathing horror. She closed her eyes. When she opened them
again, the Hassassin had produced a switchblade knife. He snapped it opendirectly in front of her face.
Vittoria saw her own terrified reflection in the steel.
The Hassassin turned the blade over and ran the back of it across her belly.
The icy metal gave her chills. With a contemptuous stare, he slipped the blade
below the waistline of her shorts. She inhaled. He moved back and forth,
slowly, dangerously . . . lower. Then he leaned forward, his hot breath
whispering in her ear.
“This blade cut out your father’s eye.”
Vittoria knew in that instant that she was capable of killing.
The Hassassin turned the blade again and began sawing upward through
the fabric of her khaki shorts. Suddenly, he stopped, looking up. Someone was
in the room.
“Get away from her,” a deep voice growled from the doorway.
Vittoria could not see who had spoken, but she recognized the voice. Robert!
He’s alive!
The Hassassin looked as if
