Kohler sighed, and his voice grew suddenly solemn. ‘Mr Langdon, please sit down.’
Langdon sat tentatively on a frost-covered chair.
Kohler moved his wheelchair closer. ‘I am not sure I understand everything you have just told me, but I do understand this. Leonardo Vetra was one of CERN’s greatest assets. He was also a friend. I need you to help me locate the Illuminati.’
Langdon didn’t know how to respond. ‘Locate the Illuminati?’ He’s kidding, right? ‘I’m afraid, sir, that will be utterly impossible.’
Kohler’s brow creased. ‘What do you mean? You won’t—’
‘Mr Kohler,’ Langdon leaned toward his host, uncertain how to make him understand what he was about to say, ‘I did not finish my story. Despite appearances, it is extremely unlikely that this brand was put here by the Illuminati. There has been no evidence of their existence for over half a century, and most scholars agree the Illuminati have been defunct for many years.’
The words hit silence. Kohler stared through the fog with a look somewhere between stupefaction and anger. ‘How the hell can you tell me this group is extinct when their name is seared into this man!’
Langdon had been asking himself that question all morning. The appearance of the Illuminati ambigram was astonishing. Symbologists worldwide would be dazzled. And yet, the academic in Langdon understood that the brand’s re-emergence proved absolutely nothing about the Illuminati.
‘Symbols,’ Langdon said, ‘in no way confirm the presence of their original creators.’
‘What is that supposed to mean?’
‘It means that when organized philosophies like the Illuminati go out of existence, their symbols remain . . . available for adoption by other groups. It’s called transference. It’s very common in symbology. The Nazis took the swastika from the Hindus, the Christians adopted the cruciform from the Egyptians, the—’
‘This morning,’ Kohler challenged, ‘when I typed the word “Illuminati” into the computer, it returned thousands of current references. Apparently a lot of people think this group is still active.’
‘Conspiracy buffs,’ Langdon replied. He had always been annoyed by the plethora of conspiracy theories that circulated in modern pop culture. The media craved apocalyptic headlines, and self-proclaimed ‘cult specialists’ were still cashing in on millennium hype with fabricated stories that the Illuminati were alive and well and organizing their New World Order. Recently the New York Times had reported the eerie Masonic ties of countless famous men – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the Duke of Kent, Peter Sellers, Irving Berlin, Prince Philip, Louis Armstrong, as well as a pantheon of well-known modern-day industrialists and banking magnates.
Kohler pointed angrily at Vetra’s body. ‘Considering the evidence, I would say perhaps the conspiracy buffs are correct.’
‘I realize how it appears,’ Langdon said as diplomatically as he could. ‘And yet a far more plausible explanation is that some other organization has taken control of the Illuminati brand and is using it for their own purposes.’
‘What purposes? What does this murder prove?’
Good question, Langdon thought. He was also having trouble imagining where anyone could have turned up the Illuminati brand after 400 years. ‘All I can tell you is that even if the Illuminati were still active today, which I am virtually positive they are not, they would never be involved in Leonardo Vetra’s death.’
‘No?’
‘No. The Illuminati may have believed in the abolition of Christianity, but they wielded their power through political and financial means, not through terrorist acts. Furthermore, the Illuminati had a strict code of morality regarding who they saw as enemies. They held men of science in the highest regard. There is no way they would have murdered a fellow scientist like Leonardo Vetra.’
Kohler’s eyes turned to ice. ‘Perhaps I failed to mention that Leonardo Vetra was anything but an ordinary scientist.’
Langdon exhaled patiently. ‘Mr Kohler, I’m sure Leonardo Vetra was brilliant in many ways, but the fact remains—’
Without warning, Kohler spun in his wheelchair and accelerated out of the living room, leaving a wake of swirling mist as he disappeared down a hallway.
For the love of God, Langdon groaned. He followed. Kohler was waiting for him in a small alcove at the end of the hallway.
‘This is Leonardo’s study,’ Kohler said, motioning to the sliding door. ‘Perhaps when you see it you’ll understand things differently.’ With an awkward grunt, Kohler heaved, and the door slid open.
Langdon peered into the study and immediately felt his skin crawl. Holy mother of Jesus, he said to himself.
12
In another country, a young guard sat patiently before an expansive bank of video monitors. He watched as images flashed before him – live feeds from hundreds of wireless video cameras that surveyed the sprawling complex. The images went by in an endless procession.
An ornate hallway.
A private office.
An industrial-size kitchen.
As the pictures went by, the guard fought off a daydream. He was nearing the end of his shift, and yet he was still vigilant. Service was an honor. Someday he would be granted his ultimate reward.
As his thoughts drifted, an image before him registered alarm. Suddenly, with a reflexive jerk that startled even himself, his hand shot out and hit a button on the control panel. The picture before him froze.
His nerves tingling, he leaned toward the screen for a closer look. The reading on the monitor told him the image was being transmitted from camera #86 – a camera that was supposed to be overlooking a hallway.
But the image before him was most definitely not a hallway.
13
Langdon stared in bewilderment at the study before him. ‘What is this place?’ Despite the welcome blast of warm air on his face, he stepped through the door with trepidation.
Kohler said nothing as he followed Langdon inside.
Langdon scanned the room, not having the slightest idea what to make of it. It contained the most peculiar mix of artifacts he had ever seen. On the far wall, dominating the decor, was an enormous wooden crucifix, which Langdon placed as fourteenth-century Spanish. Above the cruciform, suspended from the ceiling, was a metallic mobile of the orbiting planets. To the left was an oil painting of the Virgin Mary, and beside that was a laminated periodic table of elements. On the side wall, two additional brass cruciforms flanked a poster of Albert Einstein, his famous quote reading, GOD DOES NOT PLAY DICE WITH THE UNIVERSE.
Langdon moved into the room, looking around in astonishment. A leather-bound Bible sat on Vetra’s desk beside a plastic Bohr model of an atom and a miniature replica of Michelangelo’s Moses.
Talk about eclectic, Langdon thought. The warmth felt good, but something about the decor sent a new set of chills through his body. He felt like he was witnessing the clash of two philosophical titans . . . an unsettling blur of opposing forces. He scanned the titles on the bookshelf:
The God Particle
The Tao of Physics
God: The Evidence
One of the bookends was etched with a quote:
TRUE SCIENCE DISCOVERS GOD WAITING BEHIND EVERY DOOR.
—POPE PIUS XII