In chapter 31, Vittoria and Langdon travel to Rome. They talk about religion and how Langdon first got involved with the Illuminati.
In chapter 32, it is 6 o’clock when they land in Rome. A Swiss Guard comes to pick them up in a helicopter. He takes them to Vatican City.
In chapter 33, as they are flying over Rome into the Vatican City, Vittoria and Langdon see news vans and the press and ask what is going on. Their pilot tells them Il Conclave. Langdon stomach drops when he realizes that he had forgotten about the Vatican Conclave. Fifteen days ago, the Pope had passed away. Now, keeping in with the sacred tradition, fifteen days after the death of a Pope, the Vatican was holding Il Conclave –the sacred ceremony in which the 165 cardinals of the world – the most powerful men in Christendom – gathered in Vatican City to elect the new Pope. Langdon realizes that every cardinal on the planet is there and that the entire power structure of the Roman Catholic Church is sitting on a time bomb.
In chapter 34, Cardinal Mortati, the most senior cardinal at the age of seventy-nine years old, is in the Sistine Chapel at the Il Conclave. He is speculating about an unexpected development that had emerged. Four cardinals are absent from the chapel and they are no ordinary cardinals. They are the cardinals, the chosen four. As overseer of the conclave, Mortati had already sent word to the Swiss Guard alerting them of the cardinals’ absence. He is now starting to fear it might be a long evening after all.
In chapter 35, the helicopter lands and Langdon, Vittoria, and the Swiss Guard travel to the Office of the Swiss Guard. They enter.
In chapter 36, Langdon and Vittoria meet with Commander Olivetti, the one who called Kohler. They walk into a control room with a wall of video monitors. Olivetti walks over to one of the screens and pointed to it. He tells them that that image is from a remote camera hidden somewhere inside Vatican City and he wants an explanation. On the screen is CERN’s antimatter canister. Vittoria looks at the time remaining on the flashing indicator on the canister and whispers to Langdon that they have less than six hours. Langdon checks his watch and figures out that they have until midnight. Vittoria explains that it was stolen from their facility and that they need to locate it immediately or evacuate Vatican City. She asks if they have made any headway in locating the canister and he says that they haven’t even begun looking for it yet. Olivetti doesn’t believe them when they try to explain the situation. He thinks that CERN is trying to disrupt a sacred Vatican event with a well-executed fraud. Vittoria gets mad and asks for him to take her to the person in charge, someone in the clergy. Olivetti tells her that the clergy has gone and that, with the exception of the Swiss Guard, the only ones present in Vatican City are that College of Cardinals and they are inside the Sistine Chapel. Langdon asks, “How about the chamberlain?” During the interim between Popes, complete autonomous power shifted temporarily to the late Pope’s personal assistant – his chamberlain – a secretarial underling who oversaw conclave until the cardinals chose the new Pope. Olivetti scowls and replies, “Il camerlengo? The camerlengo is only a priest here. He is the late Pope’s hand servant.” Langdon says, “But he is here. And you must answer to him.” Vittoria demands that he take them to him and Olivetti says that it’s impossible because the Conclave begins in forty minutes and he is in the Office of the Pope preparing and that Olivetti has no intention of disturbing him with matters of security. He leads them to his office and tells them that he will be back in ten minutes. He tells them that he doesn’t have time for their nonsense and locks them in his office.
I do not like Commander Olivetti at all. He was such a jerk to them and he was more upset by Vittoria’s short shorts than the possibility that the Vatican could be blown up. He obviously does not trust scientists and is just not a nice guy. I thought that the fact that Il Conclave was happening that day was a clever twist and I thought it was cool how the Hassassin waited until exactly midnight to take the canister for the dramatic effect. I also think it’s funny how the police in both the Da Vinci Code and this novel are hidebound and oblivious to what is really going on.
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