Chapter 71 Chapter Seventy

In the shadows on the far edge of Piazza del Popolo sits a BBC interview van, with Gunther Glick and Chinet McCree sitting in it.They had just arrived in the wake of four Alfa Romeos, just in time to witness an unexpected sequence of events.Chinet doesn't yet know what all this means, but she's well aware that the cameras are already rolling. Once there, Chinet and Glick saw a group of young people pouring out of the Alfa Romeo and surrounding the church.Some drew their weapons, and one of them, a stern elder, led a procession up the church steps.The soldier drew his pistol and broke the lock on the front door.McCree heard nothing, and figured they must have put silencers on.Then the soldiers rushed in.

Chinet advised them to sit in the car and shoot from the shadows.After all, a gun is a gun, and they could clearly see those people in action from the car.Glick didn't argue.Now, across the square, soldiers were coming and going from the church, shouting to each other.Chinet adjusted her camera to follow a small group of people searching the surrounding area.All of them acted like soldiers despite their civilian clothes. "Who do you think they are?" she asked. "If only I knew." Glick seemed to be concentrating. "Did you take a picture of this?" "Every frame was captured."

Glick said complacently: "Do you still think we should go back to the 'Pope Class'?" Chinet didn't know how to answer.It was obvious what was going on here, but she had been in the press long enough to know that explanations of interesting events were often tedious. "It's probably nothing," she said. "These guys may have got the same secret information as you and are verifying it. Maybe it's just a false alarm." Glick grabbed her arm violently. "Over there, aim quickly." He pointed to the side of the church. Chinet pans the camera back to the top step. "Over there," she said, aiming at the man who had just emerged from the church.

"Who is that well-dressed man?" Chinet adjusts the camera for a close-up. "Never seen him before." She focused the camera on the man's face and smiled, "but I wouldn't mind seeing him again." Robert Langdon rushed down the stairs outside the church and into the middle of the square.It was getting dark.The spring sun sets late in southern Rome, but the sun has dipped below the surrounding buildings, whose shadows are dappled on the piazza. "Well, Bernini," he said aloud to himself, "where is your angel pointing?" He turned around, checked the orientation of the church he had just stepped out of, imagined the interior of the Ziggy Chapel and the angel statue inside, and turned to the west without hesitation, walking into the afterglow of the setting sun.Time is passing.

"Southwest," he said, frowning at the shops and apartment buildings blocking his view, "the next sign is there." Langdon racked his brains, trying to recall page after page of Italian art history.Despite his familiarity with Bernini's work, Langdon knew that the sculptor's oeuvre was too rich for any non-specialist to understand him in its entirety.And, given the fame of the first logo—Habakkuk and the Angels—Langdon wished the second logo was a work he knew. Earth, air, fire, water, he thought.Earth, they have found - in the chapel of the earth - Habakkuk, the prophet who foretold the destruction of the earth.

Gas, it's next.Langdon tried to make himself think.One of Bernini's sculptures has something to do with Qi. He has no idea, but he still feels energetic.I am on the path of light, the path of light that is still intact!Langdon looked far southwest, expecting to see spiers or cathedral towers jutting out from behind the barriers, but he couldn't see anything.He needs a map.If they could figure out what churches there were in the southwest, maybe one of them would remind him of something.Angry, he tried to think.Air, Bernini, sculpture, air, think about it!Langdon turned and headed back toward the cathedral stairs.Under the scaffolding he meets Victoria and Olivetti.

"Southwest," Langdon panted, "the next church is in the southwest." Olivetti said coldly, "Are you sure this time?" Langdon didn't bite to death. "We need a map, a map of all the churches in Rome." Commander Olivetti observed him for a while without any change in expression. Langdon checked his watch. "We only have half an hour." Olivetti walked down the stairs from Langdon's side and walked towards his car parked directly in front of the cathedral.Langdon hoped he was fetching the map. Victoria looked excited. "So the angel is pointing to the southwest? It's just that I don't know any churches in the southwest?"

"These goddamn buildings are blocking my view." Langdon turned to face the square again. "And I don't know much about the churches in Rome..." He broke off. Victoria looked surprised. "what?" Langdon looked across the plaza again.He went up the church steps, which were much higher now and had a better view.He still couldn't see anything, but he realized he was heading in the right direction. He looked up the rickety scaffolding, about six stories high, almost to the top of the rose window of the church, far taller than the other buildings on the square.He knew immediately where he was going.

On the other side of the square, Chinet McLee and Gunther Glick sat firmly behind the windshield of the BBC interview van. "Did you film this?" Gunther asked. McCree's camera closely follows the man climbing the scaffolding. "He's too well-dressed for Spider-Man, if you ask me." "Who is that Spider-Woman?" Chinet glanced at the attractive woman under the scaffolding and said, "I'm sure you'll find out." "Do you think I should call the editor?" "Not yet. Let's take another look. We'd better have some real stuff in our finished negatives before we admit we've given up on this secret meeting."

"Do you think someone actually killed an old guy in there?" Chinet chuckled and said, "You really deserve to go to hell!" "Then I'll take my Pulitzer Prize with me, too."