Angles & Demons Page 6

  16

  Hundreds of miles from CERN, a voice crackled through a walkie-talkie. "Okay, I’m in the hallway."

  The technician monitoring the video screens pressed the button on his transmitter. "You’re looking for camera #86. It’s supposed to be at the far end."

  There was a long silence on the radio. The waiting technician broke a light sweat. Finally his radio clicked.

  "The camera isn’t here," the voice said. "I can see where it was mounted, though. Somebody must have removed it."

  The technician exhaled heavily. "Thanks. Hold on a second, will you?"

  Sighing, he redirected his attention to the bank of video screens in front of him. Huge portions of the complex were open to the public, and wireless cameras had gone missing before, usually stolen by visiting pranksters looking for souvenirs. But as soon as a camera left the facility and was out of range, the signal was lost, and the screen went blank. Perplexed, the technician gazed up at the monitor. A crystal clear image was still coming from camera #86.

  If the camera was stolen, he wondered, why are we still getting a signal? He knew, of course, there was only one explanation. The camera was still inside the complex, and someone had simply moved it. But who? And why?

  He studied the monitor a long moment. Finally he picked up his walkie-talkie. "Are there any closets in that stairwell? Any cupboards or dark alcoves?"

  The voice replying sounded confused. "No. Why?"

  The technician frowned. "Never mind. Thanks for your help." He turned off his walkie-talkie and pursed his lips.

  Considering the small size of the video camera and the fact that it was wireless, the technician knew that camera #86 could be transmitting from just about anywhere within the heavily guarded compound—a densely packed collection of thirty-two separate buildings covering a half-mile radius. The only clue was that the camera seemed to have been placed somewhere dark. Of course, that wasn’t much help. The complex contained endless dark locations—maintenance closets, heating ducts, gardening sheds, bedroom wardrobes, even a labyrinth of underground tunnels. Camera #86 could take weeks to locate.

  But that’s the least of my problems, he thought.

  Despite the dilemma posed by the camera’s relocation, there was another far more unsettling matter at hand. The technician gazed up at the image the lost camera was transmitting. It was a stationary object. A modern-looking device like nothing the technician had ever seen. He studied the blinking electronic display at its base.

  Although the guard had undergone rigorous training preparing him for tense situations, he still sensed his pulse rising. He told himself not to panic. There had to be an explanation. The object appeared too small to be of significant danger. Then again, its presence inside the complex was troubling. Very troubling, indeed.

  Today of all days, he thought.

  Security was always a top priority for his employer, but today, more than any other day in the past twelve years, security was of the utmost importance. The technician stared at the object for a long time and sensed the rumblings of a distant gathering storm.

  Then, sweating, he dialed his superior.

  17

  Not many children could say they remembered the day they met their father, but Vittoria Vetra could. She was eight years old, living where she always had, Orfanotrofio di Siena, a Catholic orphanage near Florence, deserted by parents she never knew. It was raining that day. The nuns had called for her twice to come to dinner, but as always she pretended not to hear. She lay outside in the courtyard, staring up at the raindrops . . . feeling them hit her body . . . trying to guess where one would land next. The nuns called again, threatening that pneumonia might make an insufferably headstrong child a lot less curious about nature.

  I can’t hear you, Vittoria thought.

  She was soaked to the bone when the young priest came out to get her. She didn’t know him. He was new there. Vittoria waited for him to grab her and drag her back inside. But he didn’t. Instead, to her wonder, he lay down beside her, soaking his robes in a puddle.

  "They say you ask a lot of questions," the young man said.

  Vittoria scowled. "Are questions bad?"

  He laughed. "Guess they were right."

  "What are you doing out here?"

  "Same thing you’re doing . . . wondering why raindrops fall."

  "I’m not wondering why they fall! I already know!"

  The priest gave her an astonished look. "You do?"

  "Sister Francisca says raindrops are angels’ tears coming down to wash away our sins."

  "Wow!" he said, sounding amazed. "So that explains it."

  "No it doesn’t!" the girl fired back. "Raindrops fall because everything falls! Everything falls! Not just rain!"

  The priest scratched his head, looking perplexed. "You know, young lady, you’re right. Everything does fall. It must be gravity."

  "It must be what?"

  He gave her an astonished look. "You haven’t heard of gravity?"

  "No."

  The priest shrugged sadly. "Too bad. Gravity answers a lot of questions."

  Vittoria sat up. "What’s gravity?" she demanded. "Tell me!"

  The priest gave her a wink. "What do you say I tell you over dinner."

  The young priest was Leonardo Vetra. Although he had been an award-winning physics student while in university, he’d heard another call and gone into the seminary. Leonardo and Vittoria became unlikely best friends in the lonely world of nuns and regulations. Vittoria made Leonardo laugh, and he took her under his wing, teaching her that beautiful things like rainbows and the rivers had many explanations. He told her about light, planets, stars, and all of nature through the eyes of both God and science. Vittoria’s innate intellect and curiosity made her a captivating student. Leonardo protected her like a daughter.

  Vittoria was happy too. She had never known the joy of having a father. When every other adult answered her questions with a slap on the wrist, Leonardo spent hours showing her books. He even asked what her ideas were. Vittoria prayed Leonardo would stay with her forever. Then one day, her worst nightmare came true. Father Leonardo told her he was leaving the orphanage.

  "I’m moving to Switzerland," Leonardo said. "I have a grant to study physics at the University of Geneva."

  "Physics?" Vittoria cried. "I thought you loved God!"

  "I do, very much. Which is why I want to study his divine rules. The laws of physics are the canvas God laid down on which to paint his masterpiece."

  Vittoria was devastated. But Father Leonardo had some other news. He told Vittoria he had spoken to his superiors, and they said it was okay if Father Leonardo adopted her.

  "Would you like me to adopt you?" Leonardo asked.

  "What’s adopt mean?" Vittoria said.

  Father Leonardo told her.

  Vittoria hugged him for five minutes, crying tears of joy. "Oh yes! Yes!"

  Leonardo told her he had to leave for a while and get their new home settled in Switzerland, but he promised to send for her in six months. It was the longest wait of Vittoria’s life, but Leonardo kept his word. Five days before her ninth birthday, Vittoria moved to Geneva. She attended Geneva International School during the day and learned from her father at night.

  Three years later Leonardo Vetra was hired by CERN. Vittoria and Leonardo relocated to a wonderland the likes of which the young Vittoria had never imagined.

  Vittoria Vetra’s body felt numb as she strode down the LHC tunnel. She saw her muted reflection in the LHC and sensed her father’s absence. Normally she existed in a state of deep calm, in harmony with the world around her. But now, very suddenly, nothing made sense. The last three hours had been a blur.

  It had been 10 A.M. in the Balearic Islands when Kohler’s call came through. Your father has been murdered. Come home immediately. Despite the sweltering heat on the deck of the dive boat, the words had chilled her to the bone, Kohler’s emotionless tone hurting as much as the news.

  Now sh
e had returned home. But home to what? CERN, her world since she was twelve, seemed suddenly foreign. Her father, the man who had made it magical, was gone.

  Deep breaths, she told herself, but she couldn’t calm her mind. The questions circled faster and faster. Who killed her father? And why? Who was this American "specialist"? Why was Kohler insisting on seeing the lab?

  Kohler had said there was evidence that her father’s murder was related to the current project. What evidence? Nobody knew what we were working on! And even if someone found out, why would they kill him?

  As she moved down the LHC tunnel toward her father’s lab, Vittoria realized she was about to unveil her father’s greatest achievement without him there. She had pictured this moment much differently. She had imagined her father calling CERN’s top scientists to his lab, showing them his discovery, watching their awestruck faces. Then he would beam with fatherly pride as he explained to them how it had been one of Vittoria’s ideas that had helped him make the project a reality . . . that his daughter had been integral in his breakthrough. Vittoria felt a lump in her throat. My father and I were supposed to share this moment together. But here she was alone. No colleagues. No happy faces. Just an American stranger and Maximilian Kohler.

  Maximilian Kohler. Der König.

  Even as a child, Vittoria had disliked the man. Although she eventually came to respect his potent intellect, his icy demeanor always seemed inhuman, the exact antithesis of her father’s warmth. Kohler pursued science for its immaculate logic . . . her father for its spiritual wonder. And yet oddly there had always seemed to be an unspoken respect between the two men. Genius, someone had once explained to her, accepts genius unconditionally.

  Genius, she thought. My father . . . Dad. Dead.

  The entry to Leonardo Vetra’s lab was a long sterile hallway paved entirely in white tile. Langdon felt like he was entering some kind of underground insane asylum. Lining the corridor were dozens of framed, black-and-white images. Although Langdon had made a career of studying images, these were entirely alien to him. They looked like chaotic negatives of random streaks and spirals. Modern art? he mused. Jackson Pollock on amphetamines?

  "Scatter plots," Vittoria said, apparently noting Langdon’s interest. "Computer representations of particle collisions. That’s the Z-particle," she said, pointing to a faint track that was almost invisible in the confusion. "My father discovered it five years ago. Pure energy—no mass at all. It may well be the smallest building block in nature. Matter is nothing but trapped energy."

  Matter is energy? Langdon cocked his head. Sounds pretty Zen. He gazed at the tiny streak in the photograph and wondered what his buddies in the Harvard physics department would say when he told them he’d spent the weekend hanging out in a Large Hadron Collider admiring Z-particles.

  "Vittoria," Kohler said, as they approached the lab’s imposing steel door, "I should mention that I came down here this morning looking for your father."

  Vittoria flushed slightly. "You did?"

  "Yes. And imagine my surprise when I discovered he had replaced CERN’s standard keypad security with something else." Kohler motioned to an intricate electronic device mounted beside the door.

  "I apologize," she said. "You know how he was about privacy. He didn’t want anyone but the two of us to have access."

  Kohler said, "Fine. Open the door."

  Vittoria stood a long moment. Then, pulling a deep breath, she walked to the mechanism on the wall.

  Langdon was in no way prepared for what happened next.

  Vittoria stepped up to the device and carefully aligned her right eye with a protruding lens that looked like a telescope. Then she pressed a button. Inside the machine, something clicked. A shaft of light oscillated back and forth, scanning her eyeball like a copy machine.

  "It’s a retina scan," she said. "Infallible security. Authorized for two retina patterns only. Mine and my father’s."

  Robert Langdon stood in horrified revelation. The image of Leonardo Vetra came back in grisly detail—the bloody face, the solitary hazel eye staring back, and the empty eye socket. He tried to reject the obvious truth, but then he saw it . . . beneath the scanner on the white tile floor . . . faint droplets of crimson. Dried blood.

  Vittoria, thankfully, did not notice.

  The steel door slid open and she walked through.

  Kohler fixed Langdon with an adamant stare. His message was clear: As I told you . . . the missing eye serves a higher purpose.

  18

  The woman’s hands were tied, her wrists now purple and swollen from chafing. The mahogany-skinned Hassassin lay beside her, spent, admiring his naked prize. He wondered if her current slumber was just a deception, a pathetic attempt to avoid further service to him.

  He did not care. He had reaped sufficient reward. Sated, he sat up in bed.

  In his country women were possessions. Weak. Tools of pleasure. Chattel to be traded like livestock. And they understood their place. But here, in Europe, women feigned a strength and independence that both amused and excited him. Forcing them into physical submission was a gratification he always enjoyed.

  Now, despite the contentment in his loins, the Hassassin sensed another appetite growing within him. He had killed last night, killed and mutilated, and for him killing was like heroin . . . each encounter satisfying only temporarily before increasing his longing for more. The exhilaration had worn off. The craving had returned.

  He studied the sleeping woman beside him. Running his palm across her neck, he felt aroused with the knowledge that he could end her life in an instant. What would it matter? She was subhuman, a vehicle only of pleasure and service. His strong fingers encircled her throat, savoring her delicate pulse. Then, fighting desire, he removed his hand. There was work to do. Service to a higher cause than his own desire.

  As he got out of bed, he reveled in the honor of the job before him. He still could not fathom the influence of this man named Janus and the ancient brotherhood he commanded. Wondrously, the brotherhood had chosen him. Somehow they had learned of his loathing . . . and of his skills. How, he would never know. Their roots reach wide.

  Now they had bestowed on him the ultimate honor. He would be their hands and their voice. Their assassin and their messenger. The one his people knew as Malak al-haq—the Angel of Truth.

  19

  Vetra’s lab was wildly futuristic.

  Stark white and bounded on all sides by computers and specialized electronic equipment, it looked like some sort of operating room. Langdon wondered what secrets this place could possibly hold to justify cutting out someone’s eye to gain entrance.

  Kohler looked uneasy as they entered, his eyes seeming to dart about for signs of an intruder. But the lab was deserted. Vittoria moved slowly too . . . as if the lab felt unknown without her father there.

  Langdon’s gaze landed immediately in the center of the room, where a series of short pillars rose from the floor. Like a miniature Stonehenge, a dozen or so columns of polished steel stood in a circle in the middle of the room. The pillars were about three feet tall, reminding Langdon of museum displays for valuable gems. These pillars, however, were clearly not for precious stones. Each supported a thick, transparent canister about the size of a tennis ball can. They appeared empty.

  Kohler eyed the canisters, looking puzzled. He apparently decided to ignore them for the time being. He turned to Vittoria. "Has anything been stolen?"

  "Stolen? How?" she argued. "The retina scan only allows entry to us."

  "Just look around."

  Vittoria sighed and surveyed the room for a few moments. She shrugged. "Everything looks as my father always leaves it. Ordered chaos."

  Langdon sensed Kohler weighing his options, as if wondering how far to push Vittoria . . . how much to tell her. Apparently he decided to leave it for the moment. Moving his wheelchair toward the center of the room, he surveyed the mysterious cluster of seemingly empty canisters.

  "Secrets," Kohler fi
nally said, "are a luxury we can no longer afford."

  Vittoria nodded in acquiescence, looking suddenly emotional, as if being here brought with it a torrent of memories.

  Give her a minute, Langdon thought.

  As though preparing for what she was about to reveal, Vittoria closed her eyes and breathed. Then she breathed again. And again. And again . . .

  Langdon watched her, suddenly concerned. Is she okay? He glanced at Kohler, who appeared unfazed, apparently having seen this ritual before. Ten seconds passed before Vittoria opened her eyes.

  Langdon could not believe the metamorphosis. Vittoria Vetra had been transformed. Her full lips were lax, her shoulders down, and her eyes soft and assenting. It was as though she had realigned every muscle in her body to accept the situation. The resentful fire and personal anguish had been quelled somehow beneath a deeper, watery cool.

  "Where to begin . . ." she said, her accent unruffled.

  "At the beginning," Kohler said. "Tell us about your father’s experiment."

  "Rectifying science with religion has been my father’s life dream," Vittoria said. "He hoped to prove that science and religion are two totally compatible fields—two different approaches to finding the same truth." She paused as if unable to believe what she was about to say. "And recently . . . he conceived of a way to do that."

  Kohler said nothing.

  "He devised an experiment, one he hoped would settle one of the most bitter conflicts in the history of science and religion."

  Langdon wondered which conflict she could mean. There were so many.

  "Creationism," Vittoria declared. "The battle over how the universe came to be."

  Oh, Langdon thought. THE debate.

  "The Bible, of course, states that God created the universe," she explained. "God said, ‘Let there be light,’ and everything we see appeared out of a vast emptiness. Unfortunately, one of the fundamental laws of physics states that matter cannot be created out of nothing."

  Langdon had read about this stalemate. The idea that God allegedly created "something from nothing" was totally contrary to accepted laws of modern physics and therefore, scientists claimed, Genesis was scientifically absurd.