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28
Secretary Sylvie Baudeloque was now in a panic. She paced outside the director's empty office. Where the hell is he? What do I do?
It had been a bizarre day. Of course, any day working for Maximilian Kohler had the potential to be strange, but Kohler had been in rare form today.
"Find me Leonardo Vetra!" he had demanded when Sylvie arrived this morning.
Dutifully, Sylvie paged, phoned, and E-mailed Leonardo Vetra.
Nothing.
So Kohler had left in a huff, apparently to go find Vetra himself. When he rolled back in a few hours later, Kohler looked decidedly not well... not that he ever actually looked well, but he looked worse than usual. He locked himself in his office, and she could hear him on his modem, his phone, faxing, talking. Then Kohler rolled out again. He hadn't been back since.
Sylvie had decided to ignore the antics as yet another Kohlerian melodrama, but she began to get concerned when Kohler failed to return at the proper time for his daily injections; the director's physical condition required regular treatment, and when he decided to push his luck, the results were never pretty - respiratory shock, coughing fits, and a mad dash by the infirmary personnel. Sometimes Sylvie thought Maximilian Kohler had a death wish.
She considered paging him to remind him, but she'd learned charity was something Kohlers's pride despised. Last week, he had become so enraged with a visiting scientist who had shown him undue pity that Kohler clambered to his feet and threw a clipboard at the man's head. King Kohler could be surprisingly agile when he was pisse.
At the moment, however, Sylvie's concern for the director's health was taking a back burner... replaced by a much more pressing dilemma. The CERN switchboard had phoned five minutes ago in a frenzy to say they had an urgent call for the director.
"He's not available," Sylvie had said.
Then the CERN operator told her who was calling.
Sylvie half laughed aloud. "You're kidding, right?" She listened, and her face clouded with disbelief. "And your caller ID confirms - " Sylvie was frowning. "I see. Okay. Can you ask what the - " She sighed. "No. That's fine. Tell him to hold. I'll locate the director right away. Yes, I understand. I'll hurry."
But Sylvie had not been able to find the director. She had called his cell line three times and each time gotten the same message: "The mobile customer you are trying to reach is out of range." Out of range? How far could he go? So Sylvie had dialed Kohler's beeper. Twice. No response. Most unlike him. She'd even E-mailed his mobile computer. Nothing. It was like the man had disappeared off the face of the earth.
So what do I do? she now wondered.
Short of searching CERN's entire complex herself, Sylvie knew there was only one other way to get the director's attention. He would not be pleased, but the man on the phone was not someone the director should keep waiting. Nor did it sound like the caller was in any mood to be told the director was unavailable.
Startled with her own boldness, Sylvie made her decision. She walked into Kohler's office and went to the metal box on his wall behind his desk. She opened the cover, stared at the controls, and found the correct button.
Then she took a deep breath and grabbed the microphone.
29
Vittoria did not remember how they had gotten to the main elevator, but they were there. Ascending. Kohler was behind her, his breathing labored now. Langdon's concerned gaze passed through her like a ghost. He had taken the fax from her hand and slipped it in his jacket pocket away from her sight, but the image was still burned into her memory.
As the elevator climbed, Vittoria's world swirled into darkness. Papa! In her mind she reached for him. For just a moment, in the oasis of her memory, Vittoria was with him. She was nine years old, rolling down hills of edelweiss flowers, the Swiss sky spinning overhead.
Papa! Papa!
Leonardo Vetra was laughing beside her, beaming. "What is it, angel?"
"Papa!" she giggled, nuzzling close to him. "Ask me what's the matter!"
"But you look happy, sweetie. Why would I ask you what's the matter?"
"Just ask me."
He shrugged. "What's the matter?"
She immediately started laughing. "What's the matter? Everything is the matter! Rocks! Trees! Atoms! Even anteaters! Everything is the matter!"
He laughed. "Did you make that up?"
"Pretty smart, huh?"
"My little Einstein."
She frowned. "He has stupid hair. I saw his picture."
"He's got a smart head, though. I told you what he proved, right?"
Her eyes widened with dread. "Dad! No! You promised!"
"E=MC2!" He tickled her playfully. "E=MC2!"
"No math! I told you! I hate it!"
"I'm glad you hate it. Because girls aren't even allowed to do math."
Vittoria stopped short. "They aren't?"
"Of course not. Everyone knows that. Girls play with dollies. Boys do math. No math for girls. I'm not even permitted to talk to little girls about math."
"What! But that's not fair!"
"Rules are rules. Absolutely no math for little girls."
Vittoria looked horrified. "But dolls are boring!"
"I'm sorry," her father said. "I could tell you about math, but if I got caught..." He looked nervously around the deserted hills.
Vittoria followed his gaze. "Okay," she whispered, "just tell me quietly."
The motion of the elevator startled her. Vittoria opened her eyes. He was gone.
Reality rushed in, wrapping a frosty grip around her. She looked to Langdon. The earnest concern in his gaze felt like the warmth of a guardian angel, especially in the aura of Kohler's chill.
A single sentient thought began pounding at Vittoria with unrelenting force.
Where is the antimatter?
The horrifying answer was only a moment away.
30
"Maximilian Kohler. Kindly call your office immediately."
Blazing sunbeams flooded Langdon's eyes as the elevator doors opened into the main atrium. Before the echo of the announcement on the intercom overhead faded, every electronic device on Kohler's wheelchair started beeping and buzzing simultaneously. His pager. His phone. His E-mail. Kohler glanced down at the blinking lights in apparent bewilderment. The director had resurfaced, and he was back in range.
"Director Kohler. Please call your office."
The sound of his name on the PA seemed to startle Kohler.
He glanced up, looking angered and then almost immediately concerned. Langdon's eyes met his, and Vittoria's too. The three of them were motionless a moment, as if all the tension between them had been erased and replaced by a single, unifying foreboding.
Kohler took his cell phone from the armrest. He dialed an extension and fought off another coughing fit. Vittoria and Langdon waited.
"This is... Director Kohler," he said, wheezing. "Yes? I was subterranean, out of range." He listened, his gray eyes widening. "Who? Yes, patch it through." There was a pause. "Hello? This is Maximilian Kohler. I am the director of CERN. With whom am I speaking?"
Vittoria and Langdon watched in silence as Kohler listened.
"It would be unwise," Kohler finally said, "to speak of this by phone. I will be there immediately." He was coughing again. "Meet me... at Leonardo da Vinci Airport. Forty minutes." Kohler's breath seemed to be failing him now. He descended into a fit of coughing and barely managed to choke out the words, "Locate the canister immediately... I am coming." Then he clicked off his phone.
Vittoria ran to Kohler's side, but Kohler could no longer speak. Langdon watched as Vittoria pulled out her cell phone and paged CERN's infirmary. Langdon felt like a ship on the periphery of a storm... tossed but detached.
Meet me at Leonardo da Vinci Airport. Kohler's words echoed.
The uncertain shadows that had fogged Langdon's mind all morning, in a single instant, solidified into a vivid image. As he stood there in the swirl of confusion, he felt a door inside him open... as if some mystic threshold had just been breached. The ambigram. The murdered priest/scientist. The antimatter. And now... the target. Leonardo da Vinci Airport could only mean one thing. In a moment of stark realization, Langdon knew he had just crossed over. He had become a believer.
Five kilotons. Let there be light.
Two paramedics materialized, racing across the atrium in white smocks. They knelt by Kohler, putting an oxygen mask on his face. Scientists in the hall stopped and stood back.
Kohler took two long pulls, pushed the mask aside, and still gasping for air, looked up at Vittoria and Langdon. "Rome."
"Rome?" Vittoria demanded. "The antimatter is in Rome? Who called?"
Kohler's face was twisted, his gray eyes watering. "The Swiss..." He choked on the words, and the paramedics put the mask back over his face. As they prepared to take him away, Kohler reached up and grabbed Langdon's arm.
Langdon nodded. He knew.
"Go..." Kohler wheezed beneath his mask. "Go... call me..." Then the paramedics were rolling him away.
Vittoria stood riveted to the floor, watching him go. Then she turned to Langdon. "Rome? But... what was that about the Swiss?"
Langdon put a hand on her shoulder, barely whispering the words. "The Swiss Guard," he said. "The sworn sentinels of Vatican City."
