Like a man awakening from a nightmare, the camerlegno’s eyes shot open and he sat bolt upright. Taken entirely by surprise, Langdon and the others fumbled with the shifting weight. The front of the table dipped. The camerlegno began to slide. They tried to recover by setting the table down, but it was too late. The camerlegno slid off the front. Incredibly, he did not fall. His feet hit the marble, and he swayed upright. He stood a moment, looking disoriented, and then, before anyone could stop him, he lurched forward, staggering down the stairs toward Macri.
"
Chartrand rushed forward, trying to reign in the camerlegno. But the camerlegno turned on him, wild-eyed, crazed. "Leave me!"
Chartrand jumped back.
The scene went from bad to worse. The camerlegno’s torn cassock, having been only laid over his chest by Chartrand, began to slip lower. For a moment, Langdon thought the garment might hold, but that moment passed. The cassock let go, sliding off his shoulders down around his waist.
The gasp that went up from the crowd seemed to travel around the globe and back in an instant. Cameras rolled, flashbulbs exploded. On media screens everywhere, the image of the camerlegno’s branded chest was projected, towering and in grisly detail. Some screens were even freezing the image and rotating it 180 degrees.
Langdon stared at the brand on the screens. Although it was the imprint of the square brand he had held earlier, the symbol
Orientation. Langdon had forgotten the first rule of symbology.
As the chaos grew, an old Illuminati quote echoed with new meaning: "A flawless diamond, born of the ancient elements with such perfection that all those who saw it could only stare in wonder."
Langdon knew now the myth was true.
Earth, Air, Fire, Water.
Robert Langdon had little doubt that the chaos and hysteria coursing through St. Peter’s Square at this very instant exceeded anything Vatican Hill had ever witnessed. No battle, no crucifixion, no pilgrimage, no mystical vision… nothing in the shrine’s 2,000-year history could possibly match the scope and drama of this very moment.
As the tragedy unfolded, Langdon felt oddly separate, as if hovering there beside Vittoria at the top of the stairs. The action seemed to distend, as if in a time warp, all the insanity slowing to a crawl…
The drama, however, had only just begun.
The camerlegno, as if in some sort of post-traumatic trance, seemed suddenly puissant, possessed by demons. He began babbling, whispering to unseen spirits, looking up at the sky and raising his arms to God.
"Speak!" the camerlegno yelled to the heavens. "Yes, I hear you!"
In that moment, Langdon understood. His heart dropped like a rock.
Vittoria apparently understood too. She went white. "He’s in shock," she said. "He’s hallucinating. He thinks he’s talking to God!"
Below them on the stairs, Chinita Macri was poised and filming, apparently having located her ideal vantage point. The images she filmed appeared instantly across the square behind her on media screens… like endless drive-in movies all playing the same grisly tragedy.
The whole scene felt epic. The camerlegno, in his torn cassock, with the scorched brand on his chest, looked like some sort of battered champion who had overcome the rings of hell for this one moment of revelation. He bellowed to the heavens.
"
Chartrand backed off, a look of awe on his face.
The hush that fell across the crowd was instant and absolute. For a moment it was as if the silence had fallen across the entire planet… everyone in front of their TVs rigid, a communal holding of breath.
The camerlegno stood on the stairs, before the world, and held out his arms. He looked almost Christlike, bare and wounded before the world. He raised his arms to the heavens and, looking up, exclaimed, "
The silence of the masses never broke.
