Angels Demons Chapter 93-97

93Langdon had no idea where he was going. Reflex was his entirely compass, driving him away from danger. His elbows and knees burned as he clambered on a lower muni humannesspowert the pews. Still he clawed on. Somewhere a region was telling him to move leftover. If you can make water to the master(prenominal) aisle, you can dash for the exit. He k spic-and-span it was impossible. Theres a w any(a) of flames blocking the main aisle His estimation hunting for options, Langdon go blindly on. The footsteps unkindly faster flat to his right.When it happened, Langdon was unprep atomic number 18d. He had guessed he had a nonher cristal feet of pews until he r apieceed the attend of the perform. He had guessed wrong. With reveal fightning, the top side in a higher(prenominal) place him ran pop. He froze for an crying(a), half opened at the front of the perform service. Rising in the recess to his left, gargantuan from this vantage point, was the very thing that had brought him here. He had entirely forgotten. Berninis exaltation of St. Teresa rose up deal or so sort of pornographic calm pieceners the saint on her groundwork, bowing in justificationsure, m kayoedh open in a moan, and over her, an angel pointing his spear of provoke.A dope blow up in the pew over Langdons question. He mat up his tree trunk opini unrivaledr analogous a sprinter emerge of a gate. Fueled mavin by adrenaline, and b arly conscious of his actions, he was abruptly running, hunched, head shoot defeat, pounding across the front of the church to his right. As the bullets erupted shadow him, Langdon squab insofar once again, slue disclose of statement across the marble storey ahead crashing in a heap against the kvetch of a niche on the right wing wall.It was past that he proverb her. A crumpled heap near the posterior of the church. Vittoria Her bargon legs were depraved infra her, besides Langdon sensed al aroundhow that sh e was breathing. He had no sequence to help her.Immediately, the killer go the pews on the far left of the church and bore relentlessly down. Langdon knew in a heartbeat it was over. The killer raised the subdivision, and Langdon did the that thing he could do. He rolled his dust over the banister into the niche. As he knockout the radix on the other(a) side, the marble columns of the balustrade exploded in a storm of bullets.Langdon mat up standardized a cornered animal(prenominal) as he scrambled deeper into the curving niche. Rising in the first place him, the niches sole table of contents slangmed ironically apropos a single sarcophagus. Mine perhaps, Langdon thought. charge the coffin itself seemed fitting. It was a sc??tola a small, unadorned, marble thump. burial chamber on a budget. The jewel casket was raised clear up the floor on dickens marble blocks, and Langdon eyed the opening night under it, windering if he could slide by dint of.Footste ps echoed bum him.With no other option in sight, Langdon imploreed himself to the floor and slithitherd toward the casket. Grabbing the both marble supports, single with each flock, he pulled bid a breaststroker, dragging his torso into the opening to a lower place the grave accent. The gasoline went off.Accomp anying the exclaim of the gun, Langdon tangle a sensition he had n of all time snarl in his behavior a bullet sailing chivalric his framing. There was a hiss of wind, like the secondlash of a whip, as the bullet tho missed him and exploded in the marble with a puff of dust. slant surging, Langdon heaved his personate the rest of the way infra the casket. Scrambling across the marble floor, he pulled himself out from beneath the casket and to the other side. out of mold end.Langdon was presently face to face with the tramp wall of the niche. He had no dubiousness that this tiny length behind the tomb would develop his grave. And soon, he realise, a s he cut the barrel of the gun summate to the fore in the opening beneath the sarcophagus. The Hassassin held the weapon parallel with the floor, pointing now at Langdons midsection. impracticable to miss.Langdon mat up a trace of self-preservation clutch bag his unconscious headspring. He twisted his body onto his stomach, parallel with the casket. Facedown, he planted his custody flat on the floor, the glass extirpation from the archives pinching open with a stab. Ignoring the infliction, he ro habited. Driving his body up in an awkward push-up, Langdon arched his stomach off the floor fitting as the gun went off. He could bump the shock coil of the bullets as they sailed beneath him and pulverized the permeable travertine behind. Closing his look and straining against exhaustion, Langdon prayed for the boom to stop.And then it did.The roar of gunfire was reset(p) with the c sr. click of an empty chamber.Langdon opened his eyeball dimly, almost fearful his eye lids would make a phonate. Fighting the trembling pain, he held his position, arched like a cat. He didnt regular dare roost. His eardrums numbed by gunfire, Langdon listened for any twist of the killers departure. Silence. He thought of Vittoria and ached to help her.The move into up(p) that followed was deafening. Barely hu troops. A guttural ululate of exertion.The sarcophagus over Langdons head suddenly seemed to rise on its side. Langdon collapsed on the floor as hundreds of pounds teetered toward him. Gravity overcame friction, and the lid was the first to go, sliding off the tomb and crashing to the floor beside him. The casket came next, rolling off its supports and toppling upside down toward Langdon.As the calamity rolled, Langdon knew he would ever soy be entombed in the hollow beneath it or crushed by i of the edges. Pulling in his legs and head, Langdon compacted his body and yanked his weapons system to his sides. Then he closed his eyes and awaited the si ckening crush.When it came, the entire floor shook beneath him. The upper backtalk landed solitary(prenominal) millimeters from the top of his head, tonic his teeth in their sockets. His right outgrowth, which Langdon had been reliable would be crushed, miraculously still felt intact. He opened his eyes to see a shaft of get down. The right line of the casket had non fallen all the way to the floor and was still propped partly on its supports. Directly overhead, though, Langdon put up himself consummate(a) quite literally into the face of death.The real occupant of the tomb was suspended to a higher place him, having adhered, as decaying bodies often did, to the bottom of the casket. The build hovered a flash, like a dubitable lover, and then with a sticky crackling, it succumbed to heavyess and peeled away. The carcass rushed down to embrace him, raining putrid b iodines and dust into Langdons eyes and mouth. forwards Langdon could react, a blind arm was slitheri ng d ace the opening beneath the casket, sifting by the carcass like a hungry python. It groped until it found Langdons neck and clamped down. Langdon time-tested to clamber back against the iron fist instanter crushing his larynx, scarcely he found his left sleeve pinched beneath the edge of the coffin. He had whole one arm free, and the fight was a losing battle.Langdons legs dented in the moreover open space he had, his feet meddling for the casket floor above him. He found it. Coiling, he planted his feet. Then, as the moot rough his neck squeezed tighter, Langdon closed his eyes and elongated his legs like a ram. The casket shifted, ever so s cloudlessly, save enough.With a knifelike grinding, the sarcophagus slid off the supports and landed on the floor. The casket rim crashed onto the killers arm, and thither was a subdued scream of pain. The hand released Langdons neck, twisting and saccade away into the dark. When the killer finally pulled his arm free, the casket fell with a determinate thud against the flat marble floor. fat darkness. Again.And silence.There was no frustrated pounding outside the overturned sarcophagus. No lever to get in. Nothing. As Langdon recline in the dark amidst a pile of machinates, he fought the closing darkness and turned his thoughts to her.Vittoria. argon you bide(a)?If Langdon had k promptlyn the truth the wickedness to which Vittoria would soon a slipstream he would down wished for her sake that she were assassinated.94Sitting in the Sistine Chapel among his stunned colleagues, Cardinal Mortati essay to comprehend the words he was hearing. Before him, lit precisely by the candlelight, the camerlegno had just t elder a tale of such hatred and treachery that Mortati found himself trembling. The camerlegno speak of kidnapped headphone cardinals, mark cardinals, mutilateed cardinals. He spoke of the antique Illuminati a name that dredged up forgotten fears and of their resurgence and vow of r rasege against the church. With pain in his instance, the camerlegno spoke of his late pontiff the victim of an Illuminati poisoning. And finally, his words almost a whisper, he spoke of a devilish new engineering accomplishment, antimatter, which in less than two hours threatened to destroy all of Vatican City.When he was through, it was as if Satan himself had sucked the origin from the room. cypher could move. The camerlegnos words hung in the darkness.The only sound Mortati could directly hear was the anomalous hum of a television camera in back an electronic presence no conclave in hi spirit level had ever endured nevertheless a presence demanded by the camerlegno. To the utter astonishment of the cardinals, the camerlegno had entered the Sistine Chapel with two BBC reporters a man and a womanhood and announced that they would be transmitting his solemn statement, live to the earthly concern.Now, speaking directly to the camera, the camerlegno stepped f orward. To the Illuminati, he express, his character deepening, and to those of perception, let me say this. He pause. You bugger off won the war.The silence open now to the deepest corners of the chapel. Mortati could hear the desperate thumping of his own heart.The wheels declare been in gesture for a long time, the camerlegno said. Your victory has been inevitable. neer ahead has it been as obvious as it is at this scrap. learning is the new deity.What is he saying? Mortati thought. Has he gone crazy? The entire demesne is hearing thisMedicine, electronic communications, space travel, genetic manipulation these are the miracles just nigh which we now tell our youngsterren. These are the miracles we herald as proof that science pull up stakes bring us the answers. The antique stories of immaculate conceptions, burning bushes, and parting seas are no thirster relevant. immortal has construct obsolete. scholarship has won the battle. We concede.A whisper of c onfusion and bewilderment swept through the chapel. just now sciences victory, the camerlegno added, his congressman intensifying, has cost each one of us. And it has cost us deeply.Silence. acquisition may chip in alleviated the miseries of distemper and drudgery and provided an array of gadgetry for our entertainment and convenience, plainly it has left us in a terra firma without wonder. Our sunsets birth been reduced to wavelengths and frequencies. The complexities of the human race confuse been shredded into mathematical equations. eve our self-worth as human beings has been undone. Science proclaims that planet Earth and its inhabitants are a unimportant speck in the grand scheme. A cosmic accident. He paused. point the engineering that promises to unite us, divides us. Each of us is now electronically connected to the globe, and withal we feel utterly alone. We are bombarded with violence, division, fracture, and betrayal. Skepticism has perish a virtue. Cynici sm and demand for proof has move enlightened thought. Is it any wonder that earth now feel more down(p) and defeated than they have at any point in human history? Does science hold anything sacred? Science looks for answers by probing our unhatched fetuses. Science even off presumes to rearrange our own DNA. It shatters Gods terra firma into smaller and smaller pieces in interest of nub and all it finds is more requestions.Mortati bring ined in awe. The camerlegno was almost hyp nonic now. He had a physical strength in his movements and voice that Mortati had never witnessed on a Vatican altar. The mans voice was wrought with conviction and sadness.The ancient war amid science and religion is over, the camerlegno said. You have won. But you have not won f crinklely. You have not won by providing answers. You have won by so radically reorienting our society that the truths we once saw as familyposts now seem inapplicable. piety cannot celebrate up. Scientific growth is exponential. It feeds on itself like a virus. Every new breakthrough opens gateways for new breakthroughs. Man broad took thousands of geezerhood to progress from the wheel to the car. Yet only decades from the car into space. Now we measure scientific progress in weeks. We are rotate out of control. The rift between us grows deeper and deeper, and as religion is left behind, pot find themselves in a unearthly void. We call up out for meaning. And guess me, we do cry out. We see UFOs, engage in channeling, spirit contact, out-of-body experiences, mindquests all these eccentric ideas have a scientific veneer, but they are un shamefacedly irrational. They are the desperate cry of the sophisticated soul, lonely and tormented, crippled by its own enlightenment and its inability to let in meaning in anything removed from technology.Mortati could feel himself leaning forward in his seat. He and the other cardinals and people somewhat the gentleman were hanging on this priests each utterance. The camerlegno spoke with no rhetoric or vitriol. No references to scripture or Jesus Christ. He spoke in modern terms, unadorned and pure. Somehow, as though the words were satiny from God himself, he spoke the modern language delivering the ancient message. In that moment, Mortati saw one of the reasons the late pontiff held this small man so dear. In a world of amodey, cynicism, and technological deification, men like the camerlegno, realists who could speak to our souls like this man just had, were the churchs only hope.The camerlegno was talking more forcefully now. Science, you say, will save us. Science, I say, has destroyed us. Since the age of Galileo, the church has tried to slow the relentless march of science, sometimes with mislead means, but always with benevolent intention. Even so, the temptations are too great for man to resist. I remonstrate with you, look almost yourselves. The promises of science have not been kept. Promises of ability a nd simplicity have bred nothing but pollution and chaos. We are a fractured and manic species moving down a path of destruction.The camerlegno paused a long moment and then sharpened his eyes on the camera.Who is this God science? Who is the God who offers his people agent but no moral good example to tell you how to use that power? What kind of God gives a child fire but does not warn the child of its dangers? The language of science bob ups with no signposts about good and bad. Science textbooks tell us how to become a nuclear reaction, and yet they contain no chapter asking us if it is a good or a bad idea.To science, I say this. The church is tired. We are exhausted from trying to be your signposts. Our resources are drying up from our campaign to be the voice of balance as you cope blindly on in your quest for smaller chips and larger profits. We ask not why you will not restrain yourselves, but how can you? Your world moves so fast that if you stop even for an instant t o consider the implications of your actions, someone more in force(p) will whip past you in a blur. So you move on. You grow weapons of mass destruction, but it is the Pope who travels the world beseeching leaders to use restraint. You clone living creatures, but it is the church reminding us to consider the moral implications of our actions. You encourage people to interact on phones, video screens, and computers, but it is the church who opens its doors and reminds us to commune in person as we were meant to do. You even murder unborn babies in the name of enquiry that will save lives. Again, it is the church who points out the fallacy of this reasoning.And all the while, you proclaim the church is ignorant. But who is more ignorant? The man who cannot define lightning, or the man who does not respect its awesome power? This church is reaching out to you. Reaching out to anyone. And yet the more we reach, the more you push us away. Show me proof in that location is a God, you say. I say use your telescopes to look to the heavens, and tell me how there could not be a God The camerlegno had crying in his eyes now. You ask what does God look like. I say, where did that question come from? The answers are one and the same. Do you not see God in your science? How can you miss Him You proclaim that even the slightest change in the force of staidness or the weight of an atom would have rendered our universe a lifeless sully quite than our magnificent sea of supernal bodies, and yet you fail to see Gods hand in this? Is it actually so very much easier to believe that we simply chose the right card from a deck of billions? Have we become so spi ritually bankrupt that we would rather believe in mathematical impossibleness than in a power great than us?Whether or not you believe in God, the camerlegno said, his voice deepening with deliberation, you essential believe this. When we as a species toss away our trust in the power greater than us, we abandon o ur sense of accountability. Faith all faiths are admonitions that there is something we cannot understand, something to which we are responsible With faith we are accountable to each other, to ourselves, and to a higher truth. Religion is flawed, but only because man is flawed. If the outside world could see this church as I do looking beyond the ritual of these walls they would see a modern miracle a brotherhood of imperfect, simple souls deficiencying only to be a voice of commiseration in a world spin around out of control.The camerlegno motioned out over the College of Cardinals, and the BBC camerawoman instinctively followed, panning the crowd.Are we obsolete? the camerlegno asked. Are these men dino-saurs? Am I? Does the world really gather up a voice for the poor, the weak, the oppressed, the unborn child? Do we really need souls like these who, though imperfect, spend their lives pleading each of us to read the signposts of morality and not lose our way?Mortati now r ealize that the camerlegno, whether consciously or not, was do a brilliant move. By video display the cardinals, he was personalizing the church. Vatican City was no longer a building, it was people people like the camerlegno who had spent their lives in the service of goodness. tonight we are perched on a precipice, the camerlegno said. none of us can afford to be apathetic. Whether you see this evil as Satan, corruption, or immorality the dark force is alive and growing every day. Do not ignore it. The camerlegno lowered his voice to a whisper, and the camera moved in. The force, though mighty, is not invincible. Goodness can prevail. come upon care to your hearts. Listen to God. Together we can step back from this abyss.Now Mortati understood. This was the reason. Conclave had been violated, but this was the only way. It was a dramatic and desperate plea for help. The camerlegno was speaking to both his enemy and his friends now. He was entreating anyone, friend or foe, to s ee the light and stop this madness. Certainly someone auditory modality would realize the insanity of this plot and come forward.The camerlegno knelt at the altar. Pray with me.The College of Cardinals dropped to their knees to join him in prayer. Outside in St. Peters Square and around the globe a stunned world knelt with them.95The Hassassin lay his unconscious dirty money in the rear of the van and took a moment to admire her sprawled body. She was not as beautiful as the women he bought, and yet she had an animal strength that excited him. Her body was radiant, dewy with perspiration. She smelled of musk.As the Hassasin stood there savor his regard, he ignored the throb in his arm. The bruise from the falling sarcophagus, although painful, was insignificant well worth the compensation that lay before him. He took consolation in subtile the American who had done this to him was probably dead by now.Gazing down at his lost prisoner, the Hassassin visualized what lay ahead. He ran a palm up beneath her shirt. Her breasts felt perfect beneath her bra. Yes, he s greybackd. You are more than worthy. Fighting the urge to take her right there, he closed the door and drive off into the night.There was no need to alert the press about this killing the flames would do that for him.At CERN, Sylvie sat stunned by the camerlegnos address. Never before had she felt so proud to be a Catholic and so ashamed to work at CERN. As she left the recreational wing, the mood in every single viewing room was bedazzle and somber. When she got back to Kohlers office, all seven phone lines were ringing. Media inquiries were never routed to Kohlers office, so the incoming calls could only be one thing.Geld. Money calls.Antimatter technology already had some takers.Inside the Vatican, Gunther Glick was locomote on air as he followed the camerlegno from the Sistine Chapel. Glick and Macri had just made the live transmittance of the decade. And what a transmission it had been. Th e camerlegno had been spellbinding.Now out in the hallway, the camerlegno turned to Glick and Macri. I have asked the Swiss Guard to assemble photos for you photos of the mark cardinals as well as one of His late Holiness. I must warn you, these are not pleasant pictures. gruesome burns. B missened tongues. But I would like you to direct them to the world.Glick decided it must be perpetual Christmas inside Vatican City. He wants me to broadcast an exclusive photo of the dead Pope? Are you sure? Glick asked, trying to keep the excitement from his voice.The camerlegno nodded. The Swiss Guard will also provide you a live video feed of the antimatter canister as it counts down.Glick stared. Christmas. Christmas. ChristmasThe Illuminati are about to find out, the camerlegno declared, that they have grossly overplayed their hand.96Like a recurring theme in some demonic symphony, the suffocating darkness had returned.No light. No air. No exit.Langdon lay trap beneath the overturned sar cophagus and felt his mind careening dangerously close to the brink. Trying to mystify his thoughts in any direction other than the crushing space around him, Langdon urged his mind toward some logical process mathematics, music, anything. But there was no room for tranquilize thoughts. I cant move I cant breatheThe pinched sleeve of his jacket had gratefully come free when the casket fell, loss Langdon now with two mobile weaponry. Even so, as he pressed upward on the ceiling of his tiny cell, he found it immovable. Oddly, he wished his sleeve were still caught. At least it might create a crack for some air.As Langdon pushed against the roof above, his sleeve fell back to reveal the faint glow of an old friend. Mickey. The greenish cartoon face seemed treat now.Langdon probed the blackness for any other sign of light, but the casket rim was soused against the floor. Goddamn Italian perfectionists, he cursed, now imperiled by the same artistic rightness he taught his students to revere impeccable edges, speckless parallels, and of course, use only of the most unlined and resilient Carrara marble.Precision can be suffocating.Lift the damn thing, he said aloud, pressing harder through the tangle of bones. The box shifted slightly. Setting his jaw, he heaved again. The box felt like a boulder, but this time it raised a quarter of an inch. A fleeting glimmer of light border him, and then the casket thudded back down. Langdon lay panting in the dark. He tried to use his legs to lift as he had before, but now that the sarcophagus had fallen flat, there was no room even to tidy his knees.As the claustrophobic panic closed in, Langdon was overcome by experiences of the sarcophagus shrinking around him. Squeezed by delirium, he fought the illusion with every logical shred of intellect he had.Sarcophagus, he stated aloud, with as much academic sterility as he could muster. But even erudition seemed to be his enemy directly. Sarcophagus is from the Greek sar x meaning flesh, and phagein meaning to eat. Im trapped in a box literally designed to eat flesh.Images of flesh eaten from bone only served as a grim reminder that Langdon lay cover in human remains. The notion brought illness and chills. But it also brought an idea.Fumbling blindly around the coffin, Langdon found a sherd of bone. A rib maybe? He didnt care. All he wanted was a wedge. If he could lift the box, even a crack, and slide the bone fragment beneath the rim, then maybe enough air couldReaching across his body and wedging the tapered end of the bone into the crack between the floor and the coffin, Langdon reached up with his other hand and heaved skyward. The box did not move. Not even slightly. He tried again. For a moment, it seemed to handclasp slightly, but that was all.With the fetid stench and lack of oxygen choking the strength from his body, Langdon realized he only had time for one more effort. He also knew he would need both arms.Regrouping, he placed the tap ered edge of the bone against the crack, and transformation his body, he wedged the bone against his shoulder, trap it in place. Careful not to bump it, he raised both work force above him. As the stifling inclose began to smother him, he felt a welling of intensified panic. It was the second time today he had been trapped with no air. holla aloud, Langdon thrust upward in one explosive motion. The casket jostled off the floor for an instant. But long enough. The bone shard he had braced against his shoulder slipped outbound into the widening crack. When the casket fell again, the bone shattered. But this time Langdon could see the casket was propped up. A tiny slit of light showed beneath the rim.Exhausted, Langdon collapsed. Hoping the strangling sensation in his throat would pass, he waited. But it only worsened as the seconds passed. Whatever air was coming through the slit seemed imperceptible. Langdon wondered if it would be enough to keep him alive. And if so, for how long? If he passed out, who would know he was even in there?With arms like lead, Langdon raised his watch again 1012 P.M. Fighting trembling fingers, he fumbled with the watch and made his final play. He twisted one of the tiny dials and pressed a button.As consciousness faded, and the walls squeezed closer, Langdon felt the old fears sweep over him. He tried to imagine, as he had so legion(predicate) times, that he was in an open field. The image he conjured, however, was no help. The nightmare that had follow him since his youth came crashing backThe flowers here are like paintings, the child thought, laughing as he ran across the meadow. He wished his parents had come on. But his parents were busy pitching camp.Dont research too far, his mother had said.He had fictive not to hear as he bounded off into the woods.Now, traversing this glorious field, the son came across a pile of field rock and rolls. He figured it must be the metrical foot of an old homestead. He would not g o near it. He knew better. Besides, his eyes had been draw to something else a brilliant ladys slipper the rarest and most beautiful flower in refreshed Hampshire. He had only ever seen them in books.Excited, the male child moved toward the flower. He knelt down. The res publica beneath him felt mulchy and hollow. He realized his flower had found an extra-fertile spot. It was growing from a patch of rotting wood.Thrilled by the thought of taking home his dirty money, the male child reached out fingers extending toward the stem.He never reached it.With a sickening crack, the earth gave way.In the tercet seconds of dizzying terror as he fell, the son knew he would die. Plummeting downward, he braced for the bone-crushing collision. When it came, there was no pain. entirely softness.And cold.He hit the deep liquid face first, plunging into a narrow blackness. Spinning disoriented somersaults, he groped the sheer walls thatenclosed him on all sides. Somehow, as if by instinct, he sputtered to the surface.Light.Faint. Above him. Miles above him, it seemed.His arms clawed at the water, searching the walls of the hollow for something to grab onto. Only smooth stone. He had fallen through an broken-down well covering. He screamed for help, but his cries reverberated in the tight shaft. He called out again and again. Above him, the tattered hole grew dim. iniquity fell.Time seemed to contort in the darkness. unemotionality set in as he treaded water in the depths of the chasm, calling, crying out. He was tormented by visions of the walls collapsing in, burying him alive. His arms ached with fatigue. A few times he thought he heard voices. He shouted out, but his own voice was muted like a dream.As the night wore on, the shaft deepened. The walls inched quietly inward. The boy pressed out against the enclosure, pushing it away. Exhausted, he wanted to give up. And yet he felt the water buoy him, chilling his burning fears until he was numb.When the rescue squad arrived, they found the boy barely conscious. He had been treading water for five hours. Two days later, the Boston Globe ran a front-page story called The Little Swimmer That Could.97The Hassassin smiled as he pulled his van into the mammoth stone structure overlooking the Tiber River. He carried his prize up and up spiraling higher in the stone tunnel, grateful his clog was slender.He arrived at the door.The Church of Illumination, he gloated. The ancient Illuminati meeting room. Who would have imagined it to be here?Inside, he lay her on a plush divan. Then he expertly bound her arms behind her back and tied her feet. He knew that what he longed for would have to wait until his final project was finished. Water.Still, he thought, he had a moment for indulgence. Kneeling beside her, he ran his hand along her thigh. It was smooth. Higher. His dark fingers snaked beneath the cuff of her shorts. Higher.He stopped. Patience, he told himself, feeling aroused. There is work to b e done.He walked for a moment out onto the chambers high stone balcony. The eve breeze slowly cooled his ardor. Far beneath the Tiber raged. He raised his eyes to the bean of St. Peters, three quarters of a mile away, naked under the glare of hundreds of press lights.Your final hour, he said aloud, pictorial representation the thousands of Muslims slaughtered during the Crusades. At midnight you will meet your God. slow him, the woman stirred. The Hassassin turned. He considered letting her wake up. Seeing terror in a womans eyes was his ultimate aphrodisiac.He opted for prudence. It would be better if she remained unconscious while he was gone. Although she was tied and would never escape, the Hassassin did not want to return and find her exhausted from struggling. I want your strength preserved for me.Lifting her head slightly, he placed his palm beneath her neck and found the hollow directly beneath her skull. The crown/meridian twitch point was one he had used countless tim es. With crushing force, he drove his thumb into the soft cartilage and felt it depress. The woman slumped instantly. Twenty minutes, he thought. She would be a tantalizing end to a perfect day. After she had served him and died doing it, he would stand on the balcony and watch the midnight Vatican fireworks.Leaving his prize unconscious on the couch, the Hassassin went downstairs into a torchlit dungeon. The final task. He walked to the table and august the sacred, metal forms that had been left there for him.Water. It was his last.Removing a torch from the wall as he had done three times already, he began heating the end. When the end of the object was sporty hot, he carried it to the cell.Inside, a single man stood in silence. Old and alone.Cardinal Baggia, the killer hissed. Have you prayed yet?The Italians eyes were fearless. Only for your soul.