With a single sentence, the Pope had brought the camerlegno’s world crashing down around him. Everything the camerlegno had ever believed about his mentor was shattered before his eyes. The truth drilled into the camerlegno’s heart with such force that he staggered backward out of the Pope’s office and vomited in the hallway.

"Wait!" the Pope had cried, chasing after him. "Please let me explain!"

But the camerlegno ran off. How could His Holiness expect him to endure any more? Oh, the wretched depravity of it! What if someone else found out? Imagine the desecration to the church! Did the Pope’s holy vows mean nothing?

The madness came quickly, screaming in his ears, until he awoke before St. Peter’s tomb. It was then that God came to him with an awesome fierceness.

Yours is a Vengeful God!

Together, they made their plans. Together they would protect the church. Together they would restore faith to this faithless world. Evil was everywhere. And yet the world had become immune! Together they would unveil the darkness for the world to see… and God would overcome! Horror and Hope. Then the world would believe!

God’s first test had been less horrible than the camerlegno imagined. Sneaking into the Papal bed chambers… filling his syringe… covering the deceiver’s mouth as his body spasmed into death. In the moonlight, the camerlegno could see in the Pope’s wild eyes there was something he wanted to say.

But it was too late.

The Pope had said enough.

133

"The Pope fathered a child."

Inside the Sistine Chapel, the camerlegno stood unwavering as he spoke. Five solitary words of astonishing disclosure. The entire assembly seemed to recoil in unison. The cardinals’ accusing miens evaporated into aghast stares, as if every soul in the room were praying the camerlegno was wrong.

The Pope fathered a child.

Langdon felt the shock wave hit him too. Vittoria’s hand, tight in his, jolted, while Langdon’s mind, already numb with unanswered questions, wrestled to find a center of gravity.

The camerlegno’s utterance seemed like it would hang forever in the air above them. Even in the camerlegno’s frenzied eyes, Langdon could see pure conviction. Langdon wanted to disengage, tell himself he was lost in some grotesque nightmare, soon to wake up in a world that made sense.

"This must be a lie!" one of the cardinals yelled.

"I will not believe it!" another protested. "His Holiness was as devout a man as ever lived!"

It was Mortati who spoke next, his voice thin with devastation. "My friends. What the camerlegno says is true." Every cardinal in the chapel spun as though Mortati had just shouted an obscenity. "The Pope indeed fathered a child."

The cardinals blanched with dread.

The camerlegno looked stunned. "You knew? But… how could you possibly know this?"

Mortati sighed. "When His Holiness was elected… I was the Devil’s Advocate."

There was a communal gasp.

Langdon understood. This meant the information was probably true. The infamous "Devil’s Advocate" was the authority when it came to scandalous information inside the Vatican. Skeletons in a Pope’s closet were dangerous, and prior to elections, secret inquiries into a candidate’s background were carried out by a lone cardinal who served as the "Devil’s Advocate"—that individual responsible for unearthing reasons why the eligible cardinals should not become Pope. The Devil’s Advocate was appointed in advance by the reigning Pope in preparation for his own death. The Devil’s Advocate was never supposed to reveal his identity. Ever.

"I was the Devil’s Advocate," Mortati repeated. "That is how I found out."

Mouths dropped. Apparently tonight was a night when all the rules were going out the window.

The camerlegno felt his heart filling with rage. "And you… told no one?"

"I confronted His Holiness," Mortati said. "And he confessed. He explained the entire story and asked only that I let my heart guide my decision as to whether or not to reveal his secret."

"And your heart told you to bury the information?"

"He was the runaway favorite for the papacy. People loved him. The scandal would have hurt the church deeply."

"But he fathered a child! He broke his sacred vow of celibacy!" The camerlegno was screaming now. He could hear his mother’s voice. A promise to God is the most important promise of all. Never break a promise to God. "The Pope broke his vow!"

Mortati looked delirious with angst. "Carlo, his love… was chaste. He had broken no vow. He didn’t explain it to you?"

"Explain what?" The camerlegno remembered running out of the Pope’s office while the Pope was calling to him. Let me explain!