Chapter 44 Chapter Forty-Three

Langdon stood motionless by the bulletproof glass window of the pope's office, staring down at the bustling interview cars in St. Peter's Square below.Somehow, that eerie phone call had given him a swollen... swollen feeling, but not his own. The Illuminati seemed to be a poisonous snake that swam from a long forgotten history and entangled itself in the body of an old enemy. It made no demands or conditions, and only wanted revenge, which was extremely simple.Wrap tightly.The enmity of four hundred years is about to be washed away.It seems that after hundreds of years of religious persecution, the scientific counter-offensive has come to an end.

The Pope's chamberlain stood at the table, staring blankly at the phone.Olivetti was the first to break the silence. "Carlo," he called him by his first name. He didn't sound like an officer, but more like a tired friend. "I have sworn to defend the Holy See for twenty-six years. It seems that I have been humiliated tonight." The pope's servant shook his head, "You and I serve God in different identities, and service will always bring glory." "These things... I didn't expect it to happen... like this..." Olivetti looked embarrassed and overwhelmed.

"You know we have only one way to go. It is my duty to keep the College of Cardinals safe." "I'm afraid that is my responsibility, sir." "Your men are responsible for the immediate evacuation of the crowd." "gentlemen?" "Other operations will follow later - the search for this thing, the search for the missing cardinals and their captors. But first the cardinals must be safe. The dignity of life is above all else, and these people are the foundation of the Church." "Are you saying we cancel the conclave immediately?"

"Do I have a choice?" "And what about your obligation to elect a new Pope?" The young pope's chamberlain sighed, turned to face out of the window, his eyes swept out to look at the winding city of Rome below. "The Holy See once told me that the Pope is a man who is busy in two worlds...one is the world of reality and the other is the world of divinity. He warned that any church that ignores reality will not survive to reach the world of divinity .” His words suddenly revealed a kind of wisdom beyond his years. "Tonight we are confronted with a real world, and it would be foolish to ignore it. Pride and precedent cannot overshadow reason."

Olivetti nodded, seemingly shaken. "I underestimated you, sir." The pope's chamberlain didn't seem to hear, his gaze was staring into the distance through the glass window. "Sir, let me just say this, this real world is mine. I'm trapped in the ugliness of reality every day, so that other people can find purer things without hindrance. Allow me to tell you how to deal with the current situation , I was trained to do this. Your intuition, though commendable . . . may lead to misfortune." The Pope's chamberlain turned around. Olivetti sighed. "Removing the College of Cardinals from the Sistine Chapel is the worst thing you can do right now."

The Pope's servant didn't seem to be aggrieved, but just looked dazed. "Then what do you say?" "Say nothing to the cardinal, lock down the conference room so we can buy time to try something else." The pope's chamberlain looked disturbed. "You want me to lock the entire College of Cardinals on a ticking time bomb?" "Yes, sir. But only for now. We can also arrange for an evacuation later if necessary." The Pope's servant shook his head and said, "Postponing the ceremony before it starts will only make everyone question the reason, but after the door is sealed, nothing can interfere. The secret meeting procedure requires—"

"The real world, sir, you are in it tonight. Listen carefully." Olivetti now spoke forcefully in the tone of a field commander, "one hundred and sixty-five red-clothed It would be reckless for a bishop to march into Rome unprepared and unprotected, causing confusion and panic among some elderly people, and, frankly, having already suffered a fatal stroke this month, it That's enough." Fatal stroke.The Commander's words reminded Langdon of the headlines he had read while dining with a few students in the Harvard dining hall: The Pope had suffered a stroke and died in his bed.

"Besides," said Olivetti, "the Sistine Chapel is a fortress. Although we don't advertise it to the public, the church is actually extremely strong and can withstand any attack except missiles. As a preparation, we searched the church this afternoon. Every inch of it, scanned for bugs and other surveillance devices. The church is now clean and safe, and I am sure antimatter is not inside. There is no safer place for those people. If necessary, we will We can discuss emergency evacuation later.” Langdon immediately admired Olivetti's calm and sharp thinking, reminding him of Kohler.

"Commander," Victoria said nervously, "we have other worries. No one has ever produced so much antimatter. I can only estimate the blast radius of the explosion. Some places around Rome may also be dangerous. If The antimatter storage is in your central building or underground, and that would probably cause minimal damage outside of the Vatican, but if the storage is on the periphery...say in this building..." She asked warily Looking out the window, I glanced at the bustling crowd in St. Peter's Square. "I am very aware of my responsibilities towards the outside," Oliverti replied, "and that makes the situation less serious. I have been guarding this sanctuary professionally for more than twenty years, and I will never allow this weapon to explode. "

Pope Ventersk's servant looked up and asked, "Do you think you can find it?" "Let me discuss with a few of my monitors what options we have. There is a possibility that if we shut down the power supply to the Vatican, we can eliminate the radio frequency noise and create a clean enough environment to figure out where the storage is. Magnetic field readings." Victoria was first surprised, then shocked by his words. "You want to turn the whole Vatican into a dark place?" "Maybe. I don't know if it's possible right now, but I'd like to try this route."

"The Cardinal must have thought something strange was going on," Victoria said. Olivetti shook his head and said: "The secret meeting is lit with candles. The cardinal will never know what happened. After the meeting room is sealed, except for a few guards around me, I will let the whole army unfold Big searches. A hundred men can search a lot of places in five hours." "Four hours," Victoria corrected, "I'm going to fly back to CERN with the storage. If the battery isn't charged, an explosion is inevitable." "Can't charge here?" Victoria shook her head. "The interface is very complicated, if only I brought it." "Four hours, then," said Olivetti, frowning. "That's enough time. No use panicking. You have ten minutes, sir. Go to church and seal the meeting room. Give my men time." Do their thing. We'll make decisions about emergency situations when the moment of truth approaches." Langdon wondered how close to "the moment of truth" Olivetti would get everything done. The pope's chamberlain looked disturbed. "But the College of Cardinals will ask the candidate bishops ... especially Bagger ... where they are." "Then you'll have to figure it out, sir. Tell them you gave them something to eat at tea, and they don't feel well." The pope's chamberlain is on fire. "Tell me to stand on the altar of the Sistine Chapel and lie to the College of Cardinals?" "It's for their own good. It's just a white lie. Your duty is to maintain stability." Olivetti walked towards the door. "With your permission, I will act right now." "Commander," pleaded the Pope's chamberlain, "we cannot just leave the missing cardinal alone." Olivetti stopped at the door and said: "Bagger and a few others are now outside our sphere of influence. We have to leave them alone...for the good of the whole. This is called triage in the military. " "Are you saying you're giving them up?" His tone hardened. "If there is any way, sir...no matter what method, as long as I can find these four cardinals, I will risk my life to find them, but..." He pointed to the window opposite the room, outside the window, the evening sun passed by The endless roofs of the city of Rome, "Searching a city of five million people is beyond my power. I will not waste precious time doing futile work to comfort my conscience. I am sorry." Victoria suddenly said, "But if we can catch the killer, can't you make him confess?" Olivetti frowned at her. "Soldiers are not saints, Ms. Witterer. Believe me, I understand your personal motives for wanting to catch this man." "It's not just personal," she said. "The killer knows where the antimatter is... and the missing cardinal. If we can somehow find him..." "Let them pick a deal?" Olivetti said. "Believe me, the withdrawal of all troops from Vatican City in order to monitor hundreds of churches is playing into the hands of the Illuminati...wasting precious time and money that we should be using to search. Manpower...or worse, leave the Vatican Bank unprotected, and the remaining cardinals." This sentence hits the nail on the head. "What about the Roman gendarme?" asked the pope's servant. "We can send out a crisis alert throughout the city and ask them to help us find the person who took the cardinal." "Wrong again," said Olivetti. "You know what the Roman gendarme thinks of us. If we do that, we have to dedicate some of our energies to the difficulties they've caused by leaking our crisis to the global media, which Just what our enemies wanted. We would have had to deal with the media right away." I'll make them news, Langdon remembered the killer's words.The first cardinal's body will appear at exactly eight o'clock, and then one will be killed every hour.The press will be very interested. The pope's chamberlain spoke again, with a hint of sullenness in his voice. "Commander, in good conscience, we cannot ignore the missing cardinal!" Olivetti stared intently into the Pope's chamberlain's eyes. "Sir, do you remember the prayer of St. Francis?" "Lord, give me the strength to accept the things I cannot change," the young pastor said with pain. "Believe me," said Olivetti, "this is one of those things," and he left.