Kohler’s hands leveled the gun. "You have confessed. You have no escape."

The camerlegno laughed sadly. "Don’t you see. Confessing your sins is the escape." He looked toward the door. "When God is on your side, you have options a man like you could never comprehend." With his words still hanging in the air, the camerlegno grabbed the neck of his cassock and violently tore it open, revealing his bare chest.

Kohler jolted, obviously startled. "What are you doing!"

The camerlegno did not reply. He stepped backward, toward the fireplace, and removed an object from the glowing embers.

"Stop!" Kohler demanded, his gun still leveled. "What are you doing!"

When the camerlegno turned, he was holding a red-hot brand. The Illuminati Diamond. The man’s eyes looked wild suddenly. "I had intended to do this all alone." His voice seethed with a feral intensity. "But now… I see God meant for you to be here. You are my salvation."

Before Kohler could react, the camerlegno closed his eyes, arched his back, and rammed the red hot brand into the center of his own chest. His flesh hissed. "Mother Mary! Blessed Mother… Behold your son!" He screamed out in agony.

Kohler lurched into the frame now… standing awkwardly on his feet, gun wavering wildly before him.

The camerlegno screamed louder, teetering in shock. He threw the brand at Kohler’s feet. Then the priest collapsed on the floor, writhing in agony.

What happened next was a blur.

There was a great flurry onscreen as the Swiss Guard burst into the room. The soundtrack exploded with gunfire. Kohler clutched his chest, blown backward, bleeding, falling into his wheelchair.

"No!" Rocher called, trying to stop his guards from firing on Kohler.

The camerlegno, still writhing on the floor, rolled and pointed frantically at Rocher. "Illuminatus!"

"You bastard," Rocher yelled, running at him. "You sanctimonious bas—"

Chartrand cut him down with three bullets. Rocher slid dead across the floor.

Then the guards ran to the wounded camerlegno, gathering around him. As they huddled, the video caught the face of a dazed Robert Langdon, kneeling beside the wheelchair, looking at the brand. Then, the entire frame began lurching wildly. Kohler had regained consciousness and was detaching the tiny camcorder from its holder under the arm of the wheelchair. Then he tried to hand the camcorder to Langdon.

"G-give…" Kohler gasped. "G-give this to the m-media."

Then the screen went blank.

130

The camerlegno began to feel the fog of wonder and adrenaline dissipating. As the Swiss Guard helped him down the Royal Staircase toward the Sistine Chapel, the camerlegno heard singing in St. Peter’s Square and he knew that mountains had been moved.

Grazie Dio.

He had prayed for strength, and God had given it to him. At moments when he had doubted, God had spoken. Yours is a Holy mission, God had said. I will give you strength. Even with God’s strength, the camerlegno had felt fear, questioning the righteousness of his path.

If not you, God had challenged, then Who?

If not now, then When?

If not this way, then How?

Jesus, God reminded him, had saved them all… saved them from their own apathy. With two deeds, Jesus had opened their eyes. Horror and Hope. The crucifixion and the resurrection. He had changed the world.

But that was millennia ago. Time had eroded the miracle. People had forgotten. They had turned to false idols—techno-deities and miracles of the mind. What about miracles of the heart!

The camerlegno had often prayed to God to show him how to make the people believe again. But God had been silent. It was not until the camerlegno’s moment of deepest darkness that God had come to him. Oh, the horror of that night!

The camerlegno could still remember lying on the floor in tattered nightclothes, clawing at his own flesh, trying to purge his soul of the pain brought on by a vile truth he had just learned. It cannot be! he had screamed. And yet he knew it was. The deception tore at him like the fires of hell. The bishop who had taken him in, the man who had been like a father to him, the clergyman whom the camerlegno had stood beside while he rose to the papacy… was a fraud. A common sinner. Lying to the world about a deed so traitorous at its core that the camerlegno doubted even God could forgive it. "Your vow!" the camerlegno had screamed at the Pope. "You broke your vow to God! You, of all men!"