Angels & Demons

The camerlegno crossed himself and stepped over the threshold.

BBC journalist Gunther Glick sat sweating in the BBC network van parked on the eastern edge of St. Peter’s Square and cursed his assignment editor. Although Glick’s first monthly review had come back filled with superlatives – resourceful, sharp, dependable – here he was in Vatican City on "Pope-Watch." He reminded himself that reporting for the BBC carried a hell of a lot more credibility than fabricating fodder for the British Tattler, but still, this was not his idea of reporting.

Glick’s assignment was simple. Insultingly simple. He was to sit here waiting for a bunch of old farts to elect their next chief old fart, then he was to step outside and record a fifteen-second "live" spot with the Vatican as a backdrop.

Brilliant.

Glick couldn’t believe the BBC still sent reporters into the field to cover this schlock. You don’t see the American networks here tonight. Hell no! That was because the big boys did it right. They watched CNN, synopsized it, and then filmed their "live" report in front of a blue screen, superimposing stock video for a realistic backdrop. MSNBC even used in-studio wind and rain machines to give that on-the-scene authenticity. Viewers didn’t want truth anymore; they wanted entertainment.

Glick gazed out through the windshield and felt more and more depressed by the minute. The imperial mountain of Vatican City rose before him as a dismal reminder of what men could accomplish when they put their minds to it.

"What have I accomplished in my life?" he wondered aloud. "Nothing."

"So give up," a woman’s voice said from behind him.

Glick jumped. He had almost forgotten he was not alone. He turned to the back seat, where his camerawoman, Chinita Macri, sat silently polishing her glasses. She was always polishing her glasses. Chinita was black, although she preferred African American, a little heavy, and smart as hell. She wouldn’t let you forget it either. She was an odd bird, but Glick liked her. And Glick could sure as hell use the company.

"What’s the problem, Gunth?" Chinita asked.

"What are we doing here?"

She kept polishing. "Witnessing an exciting event."

"Old men locked in the dark is exciting?"

"You do know you’re going to hell, don’t you?"

"Already there."

"Talk to me." She sounded like his mother.

"I just feel like I want to leave my mark."

"You wrote for the British Tattler."

"Yeah, but nothing with any resonance."

"Oh, come on, I heard you did a groundbreaking article on the queen’s secret sex life with aliens."

"Thanks."

"Hey, things are looking up. Tonight you make your first fifteen seconds of TV history."

Glick groaned. He could hear the news anchor already. "Thanks Gunther, great report." Then the anchor would roll his eyes and move on to the weather. "I should have tried for an anchor spot."

Macri laughed. "With no experience? And that beard? Forget it."

Glick ran his hands through the reddish gob of hair on his chin. "I think it makes me look clever."

The van’s cell phone rang, mercifully interrupting yet another one of Glick’s failures. "Maybe that’s editorial," he said, suddenly hopeful. "You think they want a live update?"

"On this story?" Macri laughed. "You keep dreaming."

Glick answered the phone in his best anchorman voice. "Gunther Glick, BBC, Live in Vatican City."

The man on the line had a thick Arabic accent. "Listen carefully," he said. "I am about to change your life."

Langdon and Vittoria stood alone now outside the double doors that led to the inner sanctum of the Secret Archives. The decor in the colonnade was an incongruous mix of wall-to-wall carpets over marble floors and wireless security cameras gazing down from beside carved cherubs in the ceiling. Langdon dubbed it Sterile Renaissance. Beside the arched ingress hung a small bronze plaque.

ARCHIVIO VATICANO

Curatore: Padre Jaqui Tomaso

Father Jaqui Tomaso. Langdon recognized the curator’s name from the rejection letters at home in his desk.

Dear Mr. Langdon, It is with regret that I am writing to deny…

Regret. Bullshit. Since Jaqui Tomaso’s reign had begun, Langdon had never met a single non-Catholic American scholar who had been given access to the Secret Vatican Archives. Il gaurdiano, historians called him. Jaqui Tomaso was the toughest librarian on earth.

As Langdon pushed the doors open and stepped through the vaulted portal into the inner sanctum, he half expected to see Father Jaqui in full military fatigues and helmet standing guard with a bazooka. The space, however, was deserted.

Silence. Soft lighting.

Archivio Vaticano. One of his life dreams.

As Langdon’s eyes took in the sacred chamber, his first reaction was one of embarrassment. He realized what a callow romantic he was. The images he had held for so many years of this room could not have been more inaccurate. He had imagined dusty bookshelves piled high with tattered volumes, priests cataloging by the light of candles and stained-glass windows, monks poring over scrolls…

Not even close.

At first glance the room appeared to be a darkened airline hangar in which someone had built a dozen free-standing racquetball courts. Langdon knew of course what the glass-walled enclosures were. He was not surprised to see them; humidity and heat eroded ancient vellums and parchments, and proper preservation required hermitic vaults like these – airtight cubicles that kept out humidity and natural acids in the air. Langdon had been inside hermetic vaults many times, but it was always an unsettling experience… something about entering an airtight container where the oxygen was regulated by a reference librarian.

The vaults were dark, ghostly even, faintly outlined by tiny dome lights at the end of each stack. In the blackness of each cell, Langdon sensed the phantom giants, row upon row of towering stacks, laden with history. This was one hell of a collection.

Vittoria also seemed dazzled. She stood beside him staring mutely at the giant transparent cubes.

Time was short, and Langdon wasted none of it scanning the dimly lit room for a book catalog – a bound encyclopedia that cataloged the library’s collection. All he saw was the glow of a handful of computer terminals dotting the room. "Looks like they’ve got a Biblion. Their index is computerized."

Vittoria looked hopeful. "That should speed things up."

Langdon wished he shared her enthusiasm, but he sensed this was bad news. He walked to a terminal and began typing. His fears were instantly confirmed. "The old-fashioned method would have been better."

"Why?"

He stepped back from the monitor. "Because real books don’t have password protection. I don’t suppose physicists are natural born hackers?"

Vittoria shook her head. "I can open oysters, that’s about it."

Langdon took a deep breath and turned to face the eerie collection of diaphanous vaults. He walked to the nearest one and squinted into the dim interior. Inside the glass were amorphous shapes Langdon recognized as the usual bookshelves, parchment bins, and examination tables. He looked up at the indicator tabs glowing at the end of each stack. As in all libraries, the tabs indicated the contents of that row. He read the headings as he moved down the transparent barrier.

Pietro Il Erimito… Le Crociate… Urbano II… Levant…

"They’re labeled," he said, still walking. "But it’s not alpha-author." He wasn’t surprised. Ancient archives were almost never cataloged alphabetically because so many of the authors were unknown. Titles didn’t work either because many historical documents were untitled letters or parchment fragments. Most cataloging was done chronologically. Disconcertingly, however, this arrangement did not appear to be chronological.