In chapter 117, Langdon has little doubt that the chaos and hysteria coursing thought St. Peter’s Square at this very instant exceeded anything Vatican Hill had ever witnessed. The camerlengo, as if in some sort of post-traumatic trace, seemed suddenly possessed by demons. He began babbling, whispering to unseen spirits, looking up at the sky and raising his arms to God. The whole scene was epic. The camerlengo, in his torn cassock, with the scorched brand on his chest, looked like some sort of battered champion who had overcome the rings of hell for this one moment of revelation. He bellowed to the heavens, “Ti sento, Dio! I hear you, God!” The hush that fell across the crowd was instant and absolute. For a moment it was as if the silence had fallen across the entire planet…everyone in front of their TVs rigid, a communal holding of breath. The camerlengo raised his arms to the heavens and, looking up, exclaimed, “Grazie! Grazie Dio!” The silence of the masses never broke. He cried it out again and a look of joy spread across his face. The camerlengo was radiant now. He shouted to the heavens, “Upon this rock I will build my church!” The camerlengo turned back to the crowd and bellowed again into the night, “Upon this rock I will build my church!” Then he raised his hands to the shy and laughed out loud yelling “Grazie, Dio! Grazie!” With a final joyous exultation, the camerlengo turned and dashed back into St. Peter’s Basilica.
In chapter 118, it is 11:42. Langdon, Vittoria, Chartrand, Glick, Macri, and some other Swiss Guards chase the camerlengo through the church. Langdon tries to stop the camerlengo because he thinks he’ll die in the church. The camerlengo keeps shouting “Upon this rock I will build my church!” as he runs through St. Peter’s. Macri is transmitting the whole chase to the world while lighting everyone’s way. Glick unwillingly tags along, thinking it’s suicide, and gives a terrified blow-by-blow commentary. Langdon stops the camerlengo before he goes down an open grate in the floor. Beneath the grate lay the most sacred place in all of Christendom. Terra Santa. Holy Ground. Some called it the Necropolis. According to accounts from the select few clergy who had descended over the years, the Necropolis was a dark maze of subterranean crypts that could swallow a visitor whole if he lost his way. It was not the kind of place through which they wanted to be chasing the camerlengo. The camerlengo tells everyone that he has had a revelation and that he knows where the antimatter is. He says to the group, “Upon this rock I will build my church. That was the message. The meaning is clear. The Illuminati have placed their tool of destruction on the very cornerstone of this church. At the foundation. On the very rock upon which this church is built. And I know where that rock is.” Langdon thinks he is literally insane and says, “The quote is a metaphor, Father! There is no actual rock!” The camerlengo looks strangely sad and says, “There is a rock, my son.” He points into the hole, “Pietro è la pietra.” Langdon freezes and in an instant it all came clear. Peter is the rock. The camerlengo says, “The antimatter is on St. Peter’s tomb.”
In chapter 119, they all follow the camerlengo down the grate. Vittoria realizes there is not enough time to travel back to CERN and recharge it so the antimatter will detonate. What’s more, if the camerlengo brings the antimatter up, everyone will die. Langdon realizes this also and finds the cruel irony that the only way to save the people now was to destroy the church. He figures the Illuminati were amused by the symbolism. The camerlengo tells everyone that they all must trust and to please have some faith.
In chapter 120, it is 11:51 and they enter Necropolis. Necropolis literally means City of the Dead. They arrive at La tomba di San Pietro. Before the camerlengo, at waist level, is an opening in the wall beyond which is a small grotto and a meager, crumbling sarcophagus. The camerlengo gazes into the hole and smiles in exhaustion. Outside in the square, surrounded by astounded cardinals, Cardinal Mortati stares up at the media screen and watches the drama unfold in the crypt below. A gasp went up from the throngs and everyone suddenly pointed at the screen saying “It’s a miracle!” Mortati looks up. The camera angle was unsteady, but it was clear enough. On top of St. Peter’s tomb was the antimatter canister. The camerlengo’s revelation was correct. The globule of liquid was still hovering at the cylinder’s core. The grotto around the canister blinked red as the LED counted down into its final five minutes of life. Also sitting on the tomb, inches away from the canister, was the wireless Swiss Guard security camera that had been pointed at the canister and transmitting all along. The camerlengo stood suddenly and grabbed the antimatter. He began running back towards the way they had come from. Out in the square, Mortati let out a fearful gasp, “Is he bringing that up here?” On televisions all over the world, larger than life, the camerlengo raced upward out of the Necropolis with the antimatter before him saying, “There will be no more death tonight!”
In chapter 121, the camerlengo bursts through the doors of St. Peter’s Basilica at exactly 11:56. He runs down the stairs. Langdon screams “Father! There’s nowhere to go!” He replies, “Look to the heavens! We forget to look to the heavens!” In that moment, as Langdon saw where the camerlengo was headed, the glorious truth came flooding all around him. He knew their salvation was directly overhead in the star-filled Italian sky – the escape route. The helicopter the camerlengo had summoned to take him to the hospital sat dead ahead, blades already humming in neutral. The camerlengo ran to the chopper’s pilot’s door and told the guard to get out now. He handed the canister to the guard while he pulled himself into the helicopter. He could hear Langdon yelling excitedly running towards the craft. He turned back to the guard to whom he had given the canister and the guard said, “He took it!” Langdon, who now has the antimatter, gets in the helicopter and tells the camerlengo to fly. The camerlengo seems momentarily paralyzed and whispers, “I can do this alone. I am supposed to do this alone.” Langdon wasn’t listening and yelled, “Three minutes, Father! Three!” Without hesitation, he turns back to the controls and with a grinding roar, the helicopter lifts off. Through a swirl of dust, Langdon sees Vittoria running towards the chopper. Their eyes meet, and then she drops away like a sinking stone as he travels upward.
In chapter 122, the canister counts down the last two minutes. Langdon thinks that they are going to drop the canister over the quarries where there is nothing, but he sees that they are still over Vatican City. He says that the quarries are just a few miles north but the camerlengo replies, “No, it’s far too dangerous. I’m sorry. I wish you had not come, my friend. You have made the ultimate sacrifice.” As the chopper continues to climb higher, Langdon realizes that the camerlengo never intended to drop the antimatter. He was simply getting it as far away from Vatican City as humanly possible. It was a one-way trip.
In chapter 123, Vittoria’s emotions are a cyclone of twisting agonies. As the helicopter disappears from sight, she pictures Robert’s face. She 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. In homes, bars, businesses, airports, and hospitals around the world, souls were joined in universal witness. Time seemed to hover in limbo, souls suspended in unison. Then, cruelly, the bells of St. Peter’s began to toll. Vittoria lets 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 fleeting instant, a new heavenly body had been born… a speck of light as pure and white as anyone had ever seen. Then it happened. 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 incomprehensible speed, gobbling up the dark. 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 bound by God’s own will, the surging radius seemed to hit a wall. It was as if the explosion were contained somehow in a giant glass sphere. The light rebounded inward, sharpening, rippling across itself. For that instant, a perfect and silent sphere of light glowed over Rome. Night had become day. Then it hit. The concussion was deep and hollow – a thunderous shock wave from above. It descended on them like the wrath of hell, shaking the granite foundation of Vatican City, knocking the breath out of people’s lungs, sending others stumbling backward. The reverberation circled the colonnade, following by sudden torrent of warm air. The wind tore through the square, letting out a sepulchral moan as it whistled through the columns and buffeted the walls. Then, as fast as it appeared, the sphere imploded, sucking back in on itself, crushing inward to the tiny point of light from which it had come.
Wow. That was really intense. I can’t believe that the camerlengo just had a revelation at the perfect time and was able to find the canister at the last minute. I think that it was clever that the Illuminati had located the antimatter at the core of Christendom, both literally and figuratively. Placing the antimatter on St. Peter’s tomb was the ultimate infiltration. I can’t accept that Langdon died in the helicopter when the antimatter exploded. The novel is not over yet and it wouldn’t surprise me to find that he found a way to survive another impossible situation.
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