Vittoria blanched noticeably in the reddish glow.
Langdon smiled and smoothed his gloves. "Substantiate or suffocate, Ms. Vetra. Mickey’s ticking."
51
BBC reporter Gunther Glick stared at the cell phone in his hand for ten seconds before he finally hung up.
Chinita Macri studied him from the back of the van. "What happened? Who was that?"
Glick turned, feeling like a child who had just received a Christmas gift he feared was not really for him. "I just got a tip. Something’s going on inside the Vatican."
"It’s called conclave," Chinita said. "Helluva tip."
"No, something else."
"I’d say you’re being hazed by someone at the office with a sick sense of humor."
"What if I told you we were going to be given the exact location of the first murder?"
"I’d want to know who the hell you just talked to."
"He didn’t say."
"Perhaps because he’s full of shit?"
Glick had come to expect Macri’s cynicism, but what she was forgetting was that liars and lunatics had been Glick’s business for almost a decade at the
"He told me something else too," Glick said.
"What? That Elvis Presley was just elected Pope?"
"Dial into the BBC database, will you?" Glick’s adrenaline was pumping now. "I want to see what other stories we’ve run on these guys."
"What guys?"
"Indulge me."
Macri sighed and pulled up the connection to the BBC database. "This’ll take a minute."
Glick’s mind was swimming. "The caller was very intent to know if I had a cameraman."
"Videographer."
"And if we could transmit live."
"One point five three seven megahertz. What is this about?" The database beeped. "Okay, we’re in. Who is it you’re looking for?"
Glick gave her the keyword.
Macri turned and stared. "I sure as hell hope you’re kidding."
52
The internal organization of Archival Vault 10 was not as intuitive as Langdon had hoped, and the
"You’re sure
"Positive. It’s a confirmed listing in both the
"Fine. As long as you’re sure." She headed left, while he went right.
Langdon began his manual search. He needed every bit of self-restraint not to stop and read every treasure he passed. The collection was staggering.
It was Vittoria who finally struck gold near the back of the vault. Her throaty voice called out, "
Langdon dashed through the crimson haze to join her. "Where?"
Vittoria pointed, and Langdon immediately realized why they had not found it earlier. The manuscript was in a folio bin, not on the shelves. Folio bins were a common means of storing unbound pages. The label on the front of the container left no doubt about the contents.
Langdon dropped to his knees, his heart pounding. "
Vittoria knelt beside him, and they heaved. The metal tray on which the bin was sitting rolled toward them on castors, revealing the top of the container.
"No lock?" Vittoria said, sounding surprised at the simple latch.
"Never. Documents sometimes need to be evacuated quickly. Floods and fires."
"So open it."
Langdon didn’t need any encouragement. With his academic life’s dream right in front of him and the thinning air in the chamber, he was in no mood to dawdle. He unsnapped the latch and lifted the lid. Inside, flat on the floor of the bin, lay a black, duck-cloth pouch. The cloth’s breathability was critical to the preservation of its contents. Reaching in with both hands and keeping the pouch horizontal, Langdon lifted it out of the bin.
"I expected a treasure chest," Vittoria said. "Looks more like a pillowcase."
"Follow me," he said. Holding the bag before him like a sacred offering, Langdon walked to the center of the vault where he found the customary glass-topped archival exam table. Although the central location was intended to minimize in-vault travel of documents, researchers appreciated the privacy the surrounding stacks afforded. Career-making discoveries were uncovered in the top vaults of the world, and most academics did not like rivals peering through the glass as they worked.
Langdon lay the pouch on the table and unbuttoned the opening. Vittoria stood by. Rummaging through a tray of archivist tools, Langdon found the felt-pad pincers archivists called
"Relax," Vittoria said. "It’s paper, not plutonium."
Langdon slid the tongs around the stack of documents inside and was careful to apply even pressure. Then, rather than pulling out the documents, he held them in place while he slid off the bag—an archivist’s procedure for minimizing torque on the artifact. Not until the bag was removed and Langdon had turned on the exam darklight beneath the table did he begin breathing again.
Vittoria looked like a specter now, lit from below by the lamp beneath the glass. "Small sheets," she said, her voice reverent.
Langdon nodded. The stack of folios before them looked like loose pages from a small paperback novel. Langdon could see that the top sheet was an ornate pen and ink cover sheet with the title, the date, and Galileo’s name in his own hand.
In that instant, Langdon forgot the cramped quarters, forgot his exhaustion, forgot the horrifying situation that had brought him here. He simply stared in wonder. Close encounters with history always left Langdon numbed with reverence… like seeing the brushstrokes on the Mona Lisa.
The muted, yellow papyrus left no doubt in Langdon’s mind as to its age and authenticity, but excluding the inevitable fading, the document was in superb condition.
