"Two possible reasons. One, the word Raphael has too many syllables. It would have destroyed the poem’s iambic pentameter."

"Sounds like a stretch."

Langdon agreed. "Okay, then maybe using ‘Santi’ was to make the clue more obscure, so only very enlightened men would recognize the reference to Raphael."

Vittoria didn’t appear to buy this either. "I’m sure Raphael’s last name was very well known when he was alive."

"Surprisingly not. Single name recognition was a status symbol. Raphael shunned his last name much like pop stars do today. Take Madonna, for example. She never uses her surname, Ciccone."

Vittoria looked amused. "You know Madonna’s last name?"

Langdon regretted the example. It was amazing the kind of garbage a mind picked up living with 10,000 adolescents.

As he and Vittoria passed the final gate toward the Office of the Swiss Guard, their progress was halted without warning.

"Para!" a voice bellowed behind them.

Langdon and Vittoria wheeled to find themselves looking into the barrel of a rifle.

"Attento!" Vittoria exclaimed, jumping back. "Watch it with—"

"Non sportarti!" the guard snapped, cocking the weapon.

"Soldato!" a voice commanded from across the courtyard. Olivetti was emerging from the security center. "Let them go!"

The guard looked bewildered. "Ma, signore, è una donna—"

"Inside!" he yelled at the guard.

"Signore, non posso—"

"Now! You have new orders. Captain Rocher will be briefing the corps in two minutes. We will be organizing a search."

Looking bewildered, the guard hurried into the security center. Olivetti marched toward Langdon, rigid and steaming. "Our most secret archives? I’ll want an explanation."

"We have good news," Langdon said.

Olivetti’s eyes narrowed. "It better be damn good."

56

The four unmarked Alpha Romeo 155 T-Sparks roared down Via dei Coronari like fighter jets off a runway. The vehicles carried twelve plainclothed Swiss Guards armed with Cherchi-Pardini semiautomatics, local-radius nerve gas canisters, and long-range stun guns. The three sharpshooters carried laser-sighted rifles.

Sitting in the passenger seat of the lead car, Olivetti turned backward toward Langdon and Vittoria. His eyes were filled with rage. "You assured me a sound explanation, and this is what I get?"

Langdon felt cramped in the small car. "I understand your—"

"No, you don’t understand!" Olivetti never raised his voice, but his intensity tripled. "I have just removed a dozen of my best men from Vatican City on the eve of conclave. And I have done this to stake out the Pantheon based on the testimony of some American I have never met who has just interpreted a four-hundred-year-old poem. I have also just left the search for this antimatter weapon in the hands of secondary officers."

Langdon resisted the urge to pull Folio 5 from his pocket and wave it in Olivetti’s face. "All I know is that the information we found refers to Raphael’s tomb, and Raphael’s tomb is inside the Pantheon."

The officer behind the wheel nodded. "He’s right, commander. My wife and I—"

"Drive," Olivetti snapped. He turned back to Langdon. "How could a killer accomplish an assassination in such a crowded place and escape unseen?"

"I don’t know," Langdon said. "But the Illuminati are obviously highly resourceful. They’ve broken into both CERN and Vatican City. It’s only by luck that we know where the first kill zone is. The Pantheon is your one chance to catch this guy."

"More contradictions," Olivetti said. "One chance? I thought you said there was some sort of pathway. A series of markers. If the Pantheon is the right spot, we can follow the pathway to the other markers. We will have four chances to catch this guy."

"I had hoped so," Langdon said. "And we would have… a century ago."

Langdon’s realization that the Pantheon was the first altar of science had been a bittersweet moment. History had a way of playing cruel tricks on those who chased it. It was a long shot that the Path of Illumination would be intact after all of these years, with all of its statues in place, but part of Langdon had fantasized about following the path all the way to the end and coming face to face with the sacred Illuminati lair. Alas, he realized, it was not to be. "The Vatican had all the statues in the Pantheon removed and destroyed in the late 1800s."

Vittoria looked shocked. "Why?"

"The statues were pagan Olympian Gods. Unfortunately, that means the first marker is gone… and with it—"

"Any hope," Vittoria said, "of finding the Path of Illumination and additional markers?"

Langdon shook his head. "We have one shot. The Pantheon. After that, the path disappears."

Olivetti stared at them both a long moment and then turned and faced front. "Pull over," he barked to the driver.

The driver swerved the car toward the curb and put on the brakes. Three other Alpha Romeos skidded in behind them. The Swiss Guard convoy screeched to a halt.

"What are you doing!" Vittoria demanded.