ANGELS & DEMONS
Written by
Akiva Goldsman
April, 2008
INT PAPAL APARTMENT DAY
CLOSE ON an ornate ring. It's intricately carved with a seal, an
image of St. Peter casting a net. The ring is carried on a satin
pillow through a darkened, regal apartment. In the distance,
BELLS ARE TOLLING -- the slow, solemn tones that announce a death.
A dozen men in scarlet cassocks, ROMAN CATHOLIC CARDINALS, bend
down to inspect the ring, nodding in affirmation, part of an
ancient ritual.
A younger man (the CAMERLENGO) in a black cassock takes a silver
knife and scratches the ring's seal twice, once horizontally and
once vertically, in the sign of the cross.
Now the ring is placed on a lead block. The Camerlengo raises a
silver mallet and SMASHES it down, shattering the ring into a
thousand tiny pieces.
As the Cardinals confirm to their satisfaction that the ring has
been destroyed, the HUSHED VOICE of a NEWS REPORTER comes over the
image.
REPORTER
-- the Ring of the Fisherman, which
bears the official papal seal and by
Vatican law must be destroyed
immediately following the Pope's
death.
IN THE HALLWAY JUST OUTSIDE THE APARTMENT,
the Cardinals file out in a solemn procession. Behind them, the
Camerlengo closes and locks the doors to the apartment entrance,
helped by an AIDE who stretches red silk across the doors in the
form of an X.
REPORTER (O.S.)
The Pope's Chamberlain, or
"Camerlengo," then seals the papal
apartments ---
At the juncture point of the doors, the Camerlengo places a glob
of hot wax, then raises a seal and BURNS it into the wax with a
hot SIZZLE. TWO SWISS GUARDSMEN, traditionally attired, step in
front of the doors, their eight-foot swords held in a low cross.
REPORTER (O.S.) (cont'd)
--- and Swiss Guard will remain posted
outside the doors for at least nine
days of mourning, a period known as
tempe sede vacante, or ---
2.
INT ST. PETER'S BASILICA DAY
In St. Peter's Basilica, we move in toward an empty chair, a chair
so magnificent it can only be called a throne.
REPORTER (O.S.)
--- "the time of the empty throne."
A ring appears around the empty throne and --
DISSOLVE TO:
INT CERN - DETECTOR ROOM DAY
-- a ring as ornate in its way as the Ring of the Fisherman, except
this one is a mass of technological sophistication. It's twenty-
five feet across, covered with wires, sensors, gizmos. It's the
centerpiece of a massive laboratory the size of a football field.
SCIENTISTS and TECHNICIANS read off checklists in a variety of
languages, none of them English so far. The place is a hive of
activity and sound; cooling water WHOOSHES through pipes, the
static HUM of high levels of current floats in the air.
VITTORIA VETRA, an intense woman in her mid-thirties with the long
stride of an impatient person, makes her way across the floor to
PHILLIPE, the project manager, a Frenchman around fifty. She
follows him as he climbs down a scaffolding that surrounds the
detector wheel and heads toward a console across the room.
VITTORIA
(in Italian, subtitled)
Somebody pulled us off the grid,
Phillipe.
PHILLIPE
(responds in French,
also subtitled)
You hit 36kV down there yesterday.
The whole synchrotron only loads 18.
VITTORIA
(switching to French)
And the LEAR's specked up to 42. It's
all approved by the Director, you want
me to call him?
Reluctantly, Phillipe sits down at a console and starts entering
commands, shaking his head.
3.
PHILLIPE
Waste of power, what're you
extracting, still ten to the seventh
APs a second? How long to produce
a gram at that rate?
VITTORIA
About two billion years. At that
rate.
He looks at her sideways, didn't like the sound of that. He
hits a few last keystrokes and a series of flashing lights
reconnect what looks like a lower laboratory complex to the main
grid. She nods her thanks and starts to go.
PHILLIPE
Vittoria.
(switching to soft
ITALIAN)
Please don't blow us all to heaven.
And on the word "heaven," everything goes white and --
DISSOLVES TO:
INT ST. PETER'S BASILICA DAY
--- a veil of thin white silk billows down over the face of the
dead pontiff. TWO VATICAN FUNEREAL WORKERS pull a second veil over
his face, then another over his head and hands.
A burled cypress lid slides over the top of the coffin, which is
carried out of frame and into ---
EXT ST. PETER'S SQUARE DAY
--- St. Peter's Square, packed with THREE HUNDRED THOUSAND MOURNERS,
including kings, queens, presidents, and prime ministers.
REPORTER (O.S.)
Following the elegy Mass, the body of
the pontiff, borne by the traditional
twelve pall bearers will be sealed in
a zinc crypt deep in the Vatican
Grottoes along with the bodies of
twenty-five other popes.
The PROCESSION OF CARDINALS is a ribbon of red making its way
through the kaleidoscope of colors of the assembled religious
dignitaries. On the brilliant array of colors ---
CUT TO:
4.
INT CERN - DETECTOR ROOM DAY
--- another array of colors, this one like the best fireworks
display you've ever seen. Pulling back, we realize it's on one
of the giant monitor screens in the detector room at CERN, all of
which are lit up with similar arrays.
Something has happened and there's an enormous amount of
excitement in the room. More Scientists and Technicians pour
in, take their seats at consoles, CONFER excitedly. A
computerized voice speaks English over a loudspeaker:
VOICE (O.S.)
Beam on beam collisions are active.
It repeats the message in Italian, German, French, and Chinese.
INT CERN TUNNEL DAY
Elevator doors open in a subterranean tunnel and Vittoria steps
out. A long tube, about four feet across, runs off into the
distance, and as Vittoria heads off in the other direction, we see
that the tunnel, and its cylinder, go on forever that way too.
TWO MORE TECHNICIANS hurry down the tunnel and jump into the
elevator she just vacated.
Vittoria steps up to a security panel and places her chin in a
cup. A vertical laser sweeps across her eyeball and we --
CUT TO:
INT ST. PETER'S BASILICA DAY
--- an ancient carved incense holder that swings back and forth at
the end of a chain, swung by a PRIEST in St. Peter's Basilica. A
THOUSAND FAITHFUL are gathered for ---
REPORTER
--- the Pope's elegy Mass, led by
Cardinal Saverio Mortati, Dean of the
College of Cardinals ---
At the front, CARDINAL MORTATI stands behind a massive altar, arms
outstretched, praying in Latin for the assembled luminaries.
As he performs the service, intoning in a dead language --
INT ANTIMATTER LAB DAY
--- Vittoria steps through an airlock and emerges in a gleaming
white underground lab. Everything, everywhere, is white.
5.
There are a dozen columns of polished steel about three feet tall,
each of which supports a transparent canister the size of a tennis
ball can. They appear empty.
LEONARDO BENTIVOGLIO, sixtyish, black pants and a short-sleeve
black shirt, is at work at a command console in the center of the
room. (They speak to each other in Italian, subtitled.)
VITTORIA
Power should be back five by five.
LEONARDO
It is, extraction's already started.
He turns around, and we thought his black pants and shirt looked
familiar -- now we see his Roman collar and realize this physicist
is also a priest.
LEONARDO (cont'd)
We're in God's hands now.
While Leonardo and Vittoria work at the console, we move slowly
across the room toward those strange vertical pillars.
INT ST. PETER'S BASILICA DAY
In St. Peter's, we're in a complimentary move, down the aisle past
the College of Cardinals, one hundred sixty-five aging men in
brilliant red robes, seated near the altar.
REPORTER (O.S.)
The College of Cardinals will lock
itself in the Sistine Chapel for
Conclave literally, the word means
"with key" -- the process by which
the Church chooses a new leader for
the world's one billion Catholics.
We move onto the altar, close enough to Mortati to get a good look
at him. He's in his late seventies, grave, eyes closed in
religious fervor as he consecrates the communion host.
INT ANTIMATTER LAB DAY
In the lab, we're still moving, close to one of the pillars and to
the transparent tube on top of it. The tube isn't empty, as we
first thought, there's something suspended in the middle of it, a
drop, round and white, floating in mid-air.
INT ST. PETER'S BASILICA DAY
Mortati reaches the religious climax of the ceremony and holds
aloft the round white communion host.
6.
A THOUSAND VOICES begin singing in St. Peter's, we go in close on
the host and dissolve to ---
INT ANTIMATTER LAB DAY
--- that otherworldly drop, also round and white, a perfect match
for the host, but so different, hovering in the tube like a hot
blob of mercury, defying gravity.
Everything abruptly goes black and a title bleeds on screen:
ANGELS AND DEMONS
CUT TO:
INT HARVARD COLLEGE - NATATORIUM DAWN
The bottom of a swimming pool. A lithe figure SLASHES like a
knife through the water, doing laps.
The swimmer is the only one in the pool, but still pushes like
he's got someone to beat. His strokes echo off vacant bleachers
in an oldish college natatorium.
As he reaches the end of the pool, he sees a murky figure through
the water. The swimmer stops, pulls off his goggles.
ROBERT LANGDON is fiftyish, but looks ten years younger, must have
something to do with two hundred laps at dawn every day.
CLAUDIO VINCENZO is heavier, dressed in a sport jacket and slacks,
looks exhausted. He speaks with an Italian accent.
VINCENZO
Professor Langdon?
LANGDON
Swim might help your jet lag.
VINCENZO
I beg your pardon?
Langdon gets out and pulls a towel off a nearby bench.
LANGDON
(GESTURING)
Bags under your eyes, up at five a.m.,
Italian accent... Do I hear Naples in
those Rs?
7.
VINCENZO
(smiles, shows an ID)
Claudio Vincenzo, Corpo della
Gendarmeria Vaticano.
LANGDON
Vatican Police? I was expecting
another letter.
(Vincenzo looks confused)
My request for access to the Archives?
Vincenzo has no idea what he's talking about.
LANGDON (cont'd)
Shouldn't you be in Rome? Busy time
for you guys.
VINCENZO
In fact I was in New York, on
vacation. I got a call in the
middle of the night --- find Robert
Langdon. A matter of great urgency.
LANGDON
Urgent Vatican business, involving me?
I doubt that.
He heads for the locker room. Vincenzo calls after him.
VINCENZO
They said to show you this.
Langdon turns back. Vincenzo's holding a single sheet of paper in
his right hand. Langdon, curious, makes his way back to him.
Takes the paper ---
--- and, it is safe to say, feels the earth give way beneath his
feet. He looks up, eyes wide, and mutters a single word:
LANGDON
llluminati?
CUT TO:
EXT HARVARD CAMPUS DAWN
As the sun comes up, Langdon and Vincenzo leave the natatorium.
VINCENZO
Yes, of course, but it couldn't be
the llluminati as we knew them, they
disappeared a hundred years ago.
8.
LANGDON
Did they? Look at the paper.
VINCENZO
I've seen it.
LANGDON
Look again.
Vincenzo looks at it. The word llluminati is written in ornate
script. Vincenzo looks back up --- so?
LANGDON (cont'd)
Turn it upside down.
Vincenzo does. Incredibly, the word reads exactly the same way
upside down.
LANGDON (cont'd)
It's called an ambigram, the same
backwards and forwards. That's common
in a symbol, like a Jewish star, or
yin-yang, or a swastika, but this is a
word. People have searched for the
llluminati ambigrammatic symbol for
four centuries, modern symbologists
even tried to create it, but nobody
could pull it off, not even by
computer. Most had concluded it was a
myth. I wrote a book about it.
(REALIZING)
Which is why you're here, isn't it?
VINCENZO
"The Art of the llluminati," by Robert
Langdon.
CUT TO:
INT LANGDON'S APARTMENT DAY
A hand skims along a bookcase and stops at that very title, a
heavy academic tome. Langdon pulls it out and drops it on the
desk in his apartment with a THUD.
(The apartment is cluttered with esoterica, the home of a man
whose taste in furnishings was very fashionable about four hundred
years ago. A single man -- no kid stuff, no cats.)
Langdon flips the book open to an illustrated section in the
middle, filled with renderings of previous attempts to create the
symbol he now holds in his hand.
9.
LANGDON
Incredible. Either someone just
figured out how to make this, or they
found it. Recently. Which would
mean the llluminati have returned.
(looks at Vincenzo)
An ancient brotherhood, enemies of the
church, surfacing just after the death
of a Pope? I'd pull you off
vacation too.
VINCENZO
It's worse than just that. Four
cardinals were kidnapped from their
quarters inside the Vatican some time
between three and five a.m. this
morning. Shortly afterward, the Office
of the Swiss Guard received that
document, along with the threat that
the Cardinals will be publicly
executed, one per hour, starting at
seven p.m. tonight, in Rome.
LANGDON
(mind racing ahead)
Conclave?
VINCENZO
Was to begin today. We have
postponed its start for a few hours, a
story of illness, there are no
suspicions. Yet.
LANGDON
What do you want from me?
VINCENZO
The perpetrators of this heinous act
sent that -- ambigram, you say? -- as a
provocation, a taunt. But it may
also be their undoing. If you can
help us learn their identity, perhaps
we can stop them.
LANGDON
Why me?
VINCENZO
Your expertise. Your erudition. And
your involvement with recent Church --
shall we say "mysteries?"
10.
LANGDON
I wasn't under the impression that
episode had endeared me to the
Vatican.
VINCENZO
Oh, it didn't. But it made you --
what is the word?
(Italian pronunciation)
Formidable. Formidable. A plane
is standing by twenty minutes from
here. Will you come with me?
Langdon doesn't move, just stares at the ambigram, still amazed.
VINCENZO (cont'd)
Professor Langdon, you have spent ten
years of your academic life searching
for the very symbol you now hold in
your hand. And the madman who
created it, or who knows the secrets
of its origin-- that person is in Rome.
(checks his watch)
How much longer must we pretend you
have not already decided to come?
CUT TO:
EXT AIRPORT DAY
A small private plane SCREAMS into the sky.
EXT ROME DAY
We soar over Rome, the Eternal City. A helicopter WHOOSHES into
frame below us.
INT HELICOPTER DAY
The papal helicopter is plush inside, and nearly silent. A very
pricey piece of equipment. Vincenzo stares out the window.
VINCENZO
If the llluminati have returned and
are in Rome, we will hunt them down
and kill them.
Langdon, seated across from him, stifles a laugh.
LANGDON
Spoken like a Roman Catholic.
Vincenzo looks at him sharply.
11.
LANGDON (cont'd)
The llluminati didn't become violent
anti-Papists until the 17th century.
Initially, they were physicists,
mathematicians, astronomers. Their
name means "the Enlightened Ones." In
the 1500s, they started meeting
secretly to share their concerns about
the church's inaccurate teachings.
They were dedicated to the quest for
scientific truth. And for that, the
church -- to use your words -- hunted
them down and killed them. Drove
them underground.
Langdon turns and looks out the front window of the helicopter as,
up ahead, the marble facade of St. Peter's Basilica blazes like
fire in the afternoon sun.
LANGDON (cont'd)
Into a secret society.
EXT ST. PETER'S SQUARE DAY
Pulling away from the helicopter, we see a coat of arms emblazoned
on its side -- two skeleton keys crossing a shield and papal crown.
The helicopter SWOOPS over St. Peter's Square, filled with more
tourists than usual, due to the impending start of Conclave.
We drift toward a structure on the far side of the Square, closer
to its huge, ornate windows. As we approach, large swaths of
black drop down, draping over the windows, closing off our view.
INT SISTINE CHAPEL DAY
Inside, WORKERS continue to drape large bolts of black velvet over
the windows, sealing this room off from outside. Pulling back,
we realize it's not just any room ---
--- it's the Sistine Chapel. As the last window is blackened,
the room is bathed in a profound darkness lit only by candles.
ONE HUNDRED SIXTY-ONE MEN in red robes are gathered inside the
Chapel, the College of Cardinals. They talk in a polyglot of
languages, milling about the place, conferring, catching up on old
friendships.
Cardinal Mortati, the Dean of the College who led the Pope's elegy
mass, is the type of man one crosses a room to see, not the other
way around.
12.
He chats in Italian with two other Cardinals, until a black-
cassocked aide (FATHER SIMEON) outside the open doors of the
Chapel catches his eye. Mortati excuses himself, steps through
the open doorway, and into ---
INT SALON DAY
-- the salon just outside the Chapel. Father Simeon is an unctuous
man in his fifties with eyes that are always looking for whoever's
behind you. (They speak in Italian, subtitled.)
MORTATI
And?
FR. SIMEON
Commandante Rocher assures me the
Guard is doing everything humanly
possible to find the prefiriti.
MORTATI
A very long way for him to say very
little.
FR. SIMEON
What if you were to begin in their
absence?
MORTATI
They are the four leading candidates.
If they're not present, they're not
eligible. There will be no
consensus without them, wid are we to
vote for?
Father Simeon gives him a look -- perhaps you?
MORTATI (cont'd)
It is as much a sin to offer flattery
to accept it.
FR. SIMEON
(chastened, but not
REALLY)
The Camerlengo asks how long you can
postpone the opening prayer without
making another announcement to the
public?
MORTATI
Two years and three months.
(Simeon looks confused)
The conclave of 1316?
(never mind)
(MORE)
13.
MORTATI (cont'd)
Tell the Camerlengo the Cardinal
Electors will take every minute
required to perform their sacred
trust. No further announcements are
necessary.
FR. SIMEON
He's be concerned about the public
dimension. People will think-
MORTATI
(cutting him off)
What we tell them to think.
CUT TO:
EXT VATICAN - STREET DAY
On the ground now and behind Vatican walls, Langdon and Vincenzo
walk briskly around a corner and are met by ERNESTO OLIVETTI, a
solidly-built man in his late thirties.
OLIVETTI
Professor Langdon, welcome to Vatican
City. Ernesto Olivetti, Inspector
Generale of the Vatican Police Force.
He takes Langdon by the arm and gestures down a narrow passageway.
OLIVETTI (cont'd)
This way, please, we'll meet in the
headquarters of the Swiss Guard.
LANGDON
I assumed you were Swiss Guard.
OLIVETTI
No. The Gendarmerie is responsible
for everything inside the Vatican
walls, with the exception of the
security of His Holiness and the
Apostolic Palace. That is Swiss
Guard. The Commandante Generale of
the Roman Carbinieri has joined us as
well, in an advisory capacity, and
the Guarda Nacionale have sent a
representative.
LANGDON
(CONFUSED)
So jurisdictionally, this is-
OLIVETTI
A God damn nightmare.
14.
They turn a corner and approach a squat stone building labeled
"Offizia della Guarda Suiza."
TWO SWISS GUARDSMEN are standing outside the entrance to the
building. They're somewhat comically dressed in puffy tunics
vertically striped in brilliant blue and gold, with matching
pantaloons and spats, topped by a black beret.
Langdon can't completely hide a smile. Olivetti notices. The
Guards raise their eight-foot swords, allowing the three of them
to enter the building.
INT SWISS GUARD OFFICES - CORRIDOR DAY
The interior of the Swiss Guard offices is ornate and filled with
artwork, like every other Vatican building. As they walk,
Langdon studies the row of statues of male nudes that lines both
sides of the hallway, all wearing fig leaves.
LANGDON
The Great Castration.
OLIVETTI
I beg your pardon?
LANGDON
1857. Pius IX felt the male form might
inspire lust, so he got a hammer and
chisel and unmanned two hundred
statues. These plaster fig leaves
were added later.
Olivetti stops abruptly, outside a heavy steel door with a
security keyguard beside it.
OLIVETTI
Are you anti-Catholic, Professor
Langdon?
LANGDON
Me? No, I'm anti-vandalism.
OLIVETTI
I urge you to guard your tone in there.
The Swiss Guard is a calling, not a
profession, and it encourages a certain
-- zealotry. Commander Rocher, the
head of the Guard, is a deeply
spiritual man, and he was close to the
late Pope. Understood?
LANGDON
(SINCERE)
I just hope I can help.
15.
OLIVETTI
So do I. You were my idea.
He enters a five-digit number on the keypad and the steel doors
slide open.
INT SWISS GUARD HEADQUARTERS DAY
The headquarters of the Swiss Guard is in a lushly adorned
Renaissance library crammed with sophisticated communications and
surveillance equipment. It's crowded, Swiss Guard (in suits and
ties, the pantaloons are more for show), uniformed Carbinieri, and
Vatican Police crammed around different stations, some working
together, others arguing, mostly in Italian.
OLIVETTI
Wait here.
He crosses the room to a tall, fair-haired man around sixty,
weathered like steel -- maybe "tempered" is the better word.
While they confer, Langdon notices a woman to his left. We
recognize Vittoria Vetra, the physicist we saw at CERN.
She catches Langdon's eye, forces a grim smile, recognizes they're
both strangers here. Olivetti comes back with COMMANDER ROCHER,
the tall man, very much in charge. He speaks with a French/Swiss
ACCENT·
ROCHER
(to Vittoria)
Ms. Vetra? I'm Commander Rocher,
Commandante Principale of the Swiss
Guard. Thank you for coming. And
Professor Langdon?
LANGDON
That's right. Rocher looks him up and
down, so, you're Langdon.
ROCHER
Thank God, the symbologist is here.
Ms. Vetra, this way, please.
He leads Vittoria across the room, to a surveillance monitor.
Langdon, puzzled by the cold shoulder, looks at Olivetti, who
leans in.
OLIVETTI
There's been a development. We
received another threat from the
kidnapper.
16.
Across the room, they hear Vittoria GASP. Olivetti goes to join
them, nodding to Langdon to follow.
AT THE MONITOR,
Langdon and Olivetti join Rocher and Vittoria and stare at the
image on a video monitor -- it's a familiar-looking canister, in
which a metallic drop of liquid shimmers in the middle, suspended.
The acronym CERN is stenciled up its side. On its base is an
LED display, counting down from about six hours.
At the top of the monitor flashes superimposed text -- LIVE FEED,
CAMERA #86.
VITTORIA
(CONTINUING)
-- canister was stolen from our lab
around midnight last night. The
intruder killed my research partner,
Leonardo Bentivoglio, and mutilated
him in order to bypass security.
They look at her, don't quite see the connection.
VITTORIA (cont'd)
We use retinal scanners.
(they still don't get it)
They cut out his eyes.
They cringe.
VITTORIA (cont'd)
That canister contains an extremely
combustible substance called
antimatter. We need to locate it
immediately or evacuate Vatican City.
ROCHER
I'm quite familiar with incendiaries,
Ms. Vetra. I haven't heard of
antimatter.
VITTORIA
It's new, energy research technology.
It uses a reverse polarity vacuum to
filter out anti-matter positrons
generated in particle accelerations in
the Large Hadron Collider at CERN.
They look at her blankly. She points at the screen,
17.
VITTORIA (cont'd)
The anti-matter is suspended, there,
in an airtight nanocomposite shell
with electromagnets at each end. But
if it were to fall out of suspension
and come into contact with matter --
say, the bottom of the canister -- the
two opposing forces will annihilate
one another. Violently.
ROCHER
And what might cause it to fall out of
suspension?
VITTORIA
The battery going dead. Which it
will.
(looks at the screen)
In six hours and eleven minutes.
Silence for a moment.
VITTORIA (cont'd)
Where is that camera? Number eighty-
six?
OLIVETTI
It's wireless. It too was stolen.
That could be anywhere inside the
Vatican walls.
VITTORIA
You've got to find it.
ROCHER
We're a bit preoccupied with four
missing cardinals at the moment.
VITTORIA
You don't understand. An
annihilation is a cataclysmic event.
It would be a blinding explosion,
equivalent to about five megatons.
The blast radius alone would be --
Softly, Langdon speaks up from behind her.
LANGDON
"Vatican City will be consumed by
light."
A few voices fall still. They turn and look at him.
18.
ROCHER
Those are the exact words the
kidnapper used.
INT ROCHER'S OFFICE DAY
A few moments later, they're crowded around the communications
console at Rocher's desk, where a dimly-lit video recording is
playing back on a computer screen. (The office is behind a
glass wall to one side of the headquarters.)
The images on the recording are of FOUR OLDER MEN, some in their
sixties, the others in their seventies, filmed in dim light behind
bars in a dank, dungeon-like space.
A lightly accented VOICE speaks from behind the camera.
VOICE (O.S.)
We will destroy your four pillars...
brand your preferiti and sacrifice
them on the altars of science... and
then bring your church down upon you.
Vatican City will be consumed by
light.
LANGDON
It's an ancient llluminati threat.
(Rocher pauses the recording)
The destruction of Vatican City
through light. The four pillars --
he probably means the kidnapped
cardinals. You didn't mention they
were the preferiti.
(to Vittoria)
The favorites to be chosen as the new
Pope. Play it again.
VOICE (O.S.)
We will destroy your four pillars...
brand your preferiti and sacrifice
them on the altars of science...
LANGDON
Stop it there.
Rocher does
LANGDON (cont'd)
"Brand" them, another llluminati
legend, this one says there are a set
of five brands, each one an ambigram.
(MORE)
19.
LANGDON (cont'd)
The first four are the fundamental
elements of science -- earth, air,
fire, water. The fifth -- is a
mystery. Maybe it's this.
He pulls the "llluminati" ambigram from his pocket.
ROCHER
He said they'd be killed publicly. In
churches.
LANGDON
(nods, not surprised)
Revenge for La Purga.
ROCHER
La Purga?
LANGDON
Don't you guys read your own history?
1668. The church kidnapped four
llluminati scientists and branded
their chests with the symbol of the
cross. To "purge their sins."
Murdered them and left their bodies in
the street as a warning to others to
stop questioning church rulings on
scientific matters. It was after La
Purga that a darker, more violent
llluminati emerged. This sounds
like retribution.
(to Rocher)
Is there any more?
Rocher hits play again.
VOICE (O.S.)
.... and then bring your church down
upon you. Vatican City will be
consumed by light...
While listening this time, Langdon notices a darkened video
monitor, inlaid at an angle on Rocher's desk. It faces away
from the outer office, and instead of an on/off switch, there is
an oddly-shaped keyhole.
VOICE (O.S.) (cont'd)
A shining star at the end of the Path
of Illumination.
Langdon looks up sharply.
20.
LANGDON
The Path of Illumination?
Rocher stops the video.
LANGDON (cont'd)
I need to get into the Vatican
Archives.
Rocher shakes his head, looks at Olivetti harshly, is embarrassed.
OLIVETTI
Professor, this is not the appropriate
moment to-
ROCHER
Your petition has been denied seven
times, Mr. Langdon.
LANGDON
This has nothing to do with that,
(FAST)
The Path of Illumination is an ancient
trail through Rome that leads to the
Church of the Illumination, a secret
place where llluminati members could
meet in safety. If I can find the
Segno, the sign that marks the start
of the Path, I'm willing to bet the
four churches along it are where he
intends to murder your cardinals. If
we can get to one of them before he
does, we can stop it. But to find
the start of the path, I need to get
into the Archives.
ROCHER
Even if I wanted to help you, access
is only by written decree of the
curator and the Board of Vatican
Librarians.
LANGDON
Or by papal mandate.
ROCHER
Yes. But as you've no doubt heard,
the Holy Father is-
LANGDON
What about Il Camerlengo? Let me
talk to him.
21.
ROCHER
The Camerlengo? He's just a priest
here, the former Pope's Chamberlain.
LANGDON
Doesn't the power of the Holy See rest
with him during tempe sede vacante?
They just stare at him. Shit, this guy's good. Langdon checks his
watch, getting irritated.
LANGDON (cont'd)
Hey, fellas --- you called me.
CUT TO:
INT PAPAL OFFICES DAY
A spectacular view of St. Peter's Square, through the windows of
the Papal offices. Moving down, we find a figure dressed in a
simple black cassock, his back to us, staring out at the crowd.
FATHER SEBASTIAN GUTTIEREZ, the Camerlengo, speaks with a soft
Spanish accent.
CAMERLENGO
His Holiness once told me that a Pope
is a man torn between two worlds...
the real world and the divine.
Assembled in the grand office are Langdon, Rocher, Olivetti, and
Vittoria. The Camerlengo's back is still turned.
CAMERLENGO (cont'd)
He warned that any church that ignored
reality would not survive to enjoy the
divine.
He turns around. He's younger than we thought, in his mid-
thirties, deep, dark eyes. The kind of priest who often
inspires, before the years of dogma catch up with him.
CAMERLENGO (cont'd)
It seems the real world is upon us
tonight.
(to Langdon)
I'm familiar with llluminati lore, and
the legend of the brandings. La
Purga is a dark stain on the church's
history; I'm not surprised this ghost
has come back to haunt us.
22.
He sits behind the massive desk, and if he seemed young before, he
seems like a child now, overcome by the position he's in. But
when he speaks to Rocher, he's in command.
CAMERLENGO (cont'd)
Commandante, have you begun a search
for this explosive device?
ROCHER
Of course, but it could be anywhere,
and the safety of the cardinals is my
primary concern at the moment.
CAMERLENGO
The Sistine Chapel is a fortress, as
long as the cardinals are in conclave,
your security concerns are at a
minimum. Devote as much of your
resources as possible to a search for-
ROCHER
Signore, if you're about to suggest
we make a naked-eye search of all of
Vatican City, I must-
CAMERLENGO
(SHARPLY)
Commander. Though I am not His
Holiness, when you address me, you are
addressing this office. Do you
understand?
ROCHER
Yes, Padre,
CAMERLENGO
Good. Now -- you said the image on
screen was illuminated by artificial
light. May I suggest methodically
cutting the power to various sections
of the City. When the image on your
screen goes dark, you'll have a more
specific idea of the device's
location.
Rocher looks at Olivetti -- gotta admit, that's a pretty damn good
idea.
CAMERLENGO (cont'd)
Ms. Vetra. Besides yourself and
your research partner, who knew about
your antimatter project?
23.
VITTORIA
Only the director of CERN. But
Leonardo kept detailed journals; if he
told anyone else about what we were
doing, he would have made a note of
it.
CAMERLENGO
(PAUSE)
Do you have these journals?
VITTORIA
I can have them flown here from Geneva
in an hour.
He pauses, thinking, then turns the phone on his desk to face her.
While she picks it up to dial, the Camerlengo comes around his
desk to speak privately to Langdon.
CAMERLENGO
Mr. Langdon. You're correct that I
may grant you access to the Archives.
LANGDON
Thank you, Padre.
CAMERLENGO
I said you're correct that I may, not
that I will. Christianity's most
sacred codices are in that archive.
Given your recent entanglement with
the church -- I need to ask you a
question first.
Langdon looks at him -- fire away.
CAMERLENGO (cont'd)
Do you believe in God, sir?
LANGDON
(DELICATELY)
Father, I simply believe that
religions can often-
CAMERLENGO
I didn't ask if you believe what man
says about God, I asked if you believe
in God.
LANGDON
I'm an academic. My mind tells me I
will never understand God.
24.
CAMERLENGO
And your heart?
LANGDON
Tells me I'm not meant to.
The Camerlengo looks at him -- that's not quite good enough.
LANGDON (cont'd)
I believe that faith is a gift, which
I have not been fortunate enough to
receive.
The Camerlengo looks at him for a long moment. Pretty damn good
answer. He puts a hand on Langdon's shoulder and leans in.
CAMERLENGO
Be delicate with our treasures.
CUT TO:
EXT APOSTOLIC PALACE DAY
The back doors of the Apostolic Palace BANG open and Langdon is
ushered out (fast) by Olivetti, the head of the Vatican Police.
OLIVETTI
The archives are this way.
They turn down a narrow passageway. A VOICE calls from behind
them.
VITTORIA (O.S.)
Professor Langdon!
Vittoria catches up to them.
VITTORIA (cont'd)
If this path really leads to the
Church of Illumination, that may be
where they've hidden the antimatter.
LANGDON
"A shining star at the end of the
Path." My thoughts exactly.
OLIVETTI
(to Vittoria)
If we find this bomb, can you
deactivate it?
25.
VITTORIA
No, but I can change its battery, as
long as it has more than five minutes
of life. That would give us another
twenty-four hours to get it back to
CERN.
Olivetti nods to her, come on along. They walk again, holds a hand
out to Langdon.
VITTORIA (cont'd)
Vittoria Vetra. Are you really a
symbologist, or was he mocking you?
LANGDON
Both. You're a physicist?
VITTORIA
(NODS)
Bio-entanglement physics.
Interconnectivity of life systems.
LANGDON
Okay.
VITTORIA
What are we looking for in the
archives?
LANGDON
A little book written by Galileo.
VITTORIA
Galileo was llluminati?
LANGDON
And a devout Catholic. He thought
science and religion weren't enemies,
but two different languages telling
the same story. He wanted like
minds to be able to find the Church of
Illumination, but he couldn't exactly
advertise its location, so he created
a coded path. An unknown llluminati
master sculpted four statues, each a
tribute to one of the four fundamental
elements -- earth, air, fire, water --
and put them out in public, in
churches throughout Rome. Each
statue held a clue, pointing to the
next. And at the end of the trail was
the Church of Illumination.
26.
Vicenzo, leading them, turns up Via Sentinel and starts up the
hill toward the Archives. They follow, quickly.
OLIVETTI
What makes you think he's going to
murder the cardinals in the churches?
LANGDON
The llluminati called those four
churches by a special name -- L'Altare
di scienza. The altars of science.
VITTORIA
(making the
CONNECTION)
"Sacrifice them on the altars of
science," he said.
Langdon stops in his tracks.
LANGDON
Oh. Oh, wow.
He's staring up at the impressive facade of the Vatican Archives.
He takes a deep breath, then steps forward to enter. But
Vincenzo doesn't follow. Langdon looks at him.
LANGDON (cont'd)
We go in alone?
OLIVETTI
Vatican Police aren't allowed access
to the archives, only Swiss Guard. Lt.
Chartrand will meet you inside. I'll
be here when you're done.
Langdon turns back to the Archives with a look of deep contentment
-- he's wanted in here for a long, long time.
And steps through the double doors.
CUT TO:
INT APOSTOLIC PALACE DAY
The Camerlengo walks briskly through the hallways of the Apostolic
Palace, deep in thought. He reaches the top of the Royal
Staircase, and can hear the RUMBLING of activity in the Sistine
Chapel below.
Looking down the stairs, he sees the doorway open, and the
gathering of cardinals inside. As he reaches the base of the
stairs, Cardinal Mortati, who has been summoned, steps outside to
meet him, flanked by his aide, Father Simeon.
27.
Vincenzo, leading them, turns up Via Sentinel and starts up the
hill toward the Archives. They follow, quickly.
They speak in English, their common language.
CAMERLENGO
You've been informed of the new
situation?
MORTATI
(NODS)
May God's mercy be upon us.
CAMERLENGO
And the other cardinals?
MORTATI
Await your word.
The Camerlengo thinks, feels the weight of this decision on his
young shoulders.
CAMERLENGO
May I ask your guidance, Padre?
MORTATI
My belief is we should proceed with
the sealing of conclave.
CAMERLENGO
At this hour? That would be highly
unorthodox.
MORTATI
And yet within church law. It's in
my power, I've been chosen Great
Elector.
CAMERLENGO
The cruelest honor in Christendom.
MORTATI
The only ambitions I have are for my
church. St. Peter's church, which
is under attack at its most vulnerable
moment. This is not a coincidence.
Is it possible our enemies hope to
distract us from our sacred task?
CAMERLENGO
The church will not fall in a day. We
may be wise to consider evacuation.
28.
MORTATI
That is exactly what they want,
publicity and panic. We must not
give them oxygen for the media fire.
CAMERLENGO
What of the safety of the cardinals?
MORTATI
Surely there is not an elector present
who values his physical being more
than the unbroken leadership of the
Holy See.
CAMERLENGO
And the people in St. Peter's Square?
MORTATI
They care as deeply about their church
as we do. Their faith will sustain
them.
CAMERLENGO
But if their faith does not protect
them from an explosion?
MORTATI
We're all bound for heaven eventually,
are we not?
CAMERLENGO
Spoken like one who has enjoyed the
blessings of a long and full life.
Mortati bristles at the thinly-veiled insult.
MORTATI
Signore, do not confuse the power of
the office you temporarily hold with
your true place here in the Vatican.
You were a favorite of His Holiness,
but His Holiness is with his Father
now.
CAMERLENGO
Mea culpa.
Satisfied, Mortati looks back over his shoulder, at the anxious
faces in the Chapel. Then turns back to the Camerlengo.
MORTATI
Seal the doors.
29.
With a heavy THUD, the huge doors close and bolts SLAM into place.
An ancient key GRINDS in an ornate lock, two heavy chains RATTLE
into place, FOUR SWISS GUARD take position in front of the doors
and at that very moment --
INT VATICAN ARCHIVES DAY
-- two huge, modern glass doors WHOOSH open, revealing what looks
like a 23rd century library. It's a massive underground space,
like a darkened airplane hangar, with a dozen glass boxes evenly
spaced throughout. They're lit up from within, each containing
row upon row of bookshelves, neatly filled with books, papers, and
arcana.
LT. CHARTRAND, a twenty-five year old member of the Swiss Guard
(in a suit and earpiece, not the traditional garb), leads Langdon
and Vittoria toward the glass enclosures.
CHARTRAND
(Swiss accent)
The chambers are hermetic vaults,
oxygen is kept at lowest possible
levels. It's a partial vacuum
inside. More than ten minutes in the
vault is not recommended without
breathing apparatus.
He stops at one particular chamber and gestures to the sign on its
door -- "Il Processo Galileano."
CHARTRAND (cont'd)
I'll be just outside the door.
Langdon starts toward the entrance to the vault, but Chartrand
puts a hand on his chest, stopping him.
CHARTRAND (cont'd)
Watching you, Mr. Langdon.
Langdon looks at him. He's not popular around here.
INT GALILEO VAULT DAY
The electronic revolving door spins and admits Langdon to the
interior of the vault. He takes a deep breath, holds it, and lets
it out.
Vittoria follows shortly behind him, and she's unprepared -- the
lack of oxygen hits her hard, she dizzies.
30.
LANGDON
Take a moment. If you feel double
vision, double over.
VITTORIA
(bends over)
Feels like I'm... scuba diving... with
the wrong mixture.
LANGDON
Plenty of time.
He checks his watch. It's 7:07.
LANGDON (cont'd)
Uh... actually, I take that back.
CUT TO:
INT A DARK SPACE DAY
In a dark space, a tea bag bobs delicately up and down in a cup of
hot water. An elegant man in his forties, dressed in a casual
suit, no tie, HUMS softly to himself as he steeps his tea. No
idea of his name, but his suit is gray, so how about MR. GRAY.
The tea is on an old wooden table, being heated by a small can of
sterno. While Mr. Gray bobs the tea bag, he stares at something
to his right.
Money. A lot of it, in a number of different denominations,
neatly segmented in a briefcase. And three passports, all
different colors (and nationalities), neatly placed on top of it.
Satisfied, Mr. Gray CLICKS the briefcase shut and slides it under
the table, tucking it up against the wall. He removes the cup
from the heat, still bobbing the tea bag.
He walks, lit by candlelight that throws harsh shadows on strange
walls. He heads down a very dark hallway, past a row of
stonewalled cells, and within each is the dimly lit figure of the
older men we saw on the videotape earlier -- the kidnapped
cardinals.
He stops at the last cell, where the man, CARDINAL LAMASSE, looks
up at him from the wooden bench he's sitting on.
MR. GRAY
You have no idea what you're missing.
LAMASSE
Conclave will go on without us. The
voice of God will not be silenced.
31.
MR. GRAY
I was referring to my tea. Last
chance, I'd be happy to make you a
cup.
LAMASSE
May God forgive you for what you've
done.
MR. GRAY
Father, if God has issues they won't
be with what I've done --
(seems genuinely saddened)
-- but with what I'm about to do.
A MOMENT LATER,
Mr. Gray's hand takes the burning tin of sterno and tosses it into
a fireplace, where the liquid fire consumes a pile of dry
kindling. He picks up something else and places it in the heart
of the flames.
A long-handled iron rod.
CUT TO:
INT VATICAN ARCHIVES DAY
Inside the archive, Vittoria is searching the lower shelves while
Langdon, on a ladder, digs through folio bins higher up.
LANGDON
-- confiscated from the Netherlands by
the Vatican shortly after Galileo's
death. I've been petitioning to see
it for almost ten years. Ever since
I realized what was in it.
VITTORIA
What makes you so sure the Segno is
there?
LANGDON
(while searching)
The number 503. I kept seeing it over
and over in llluminati letters, scribbled
in the margins, or sometimes just signed
that way, "503." It's a numerical
clue, but to what? Five, of course, is
the sacred llluminati number -- the
pentagram, Pythagoras, a dozen other
examples in science -- but why three?
(MORE)
32.
LANGDON (cont'd)
It made no sense. And then I thought --
what if it were a Roman numeral?
VITTORIA
(THINKS)
D-I-I-I?
LANGDON
D3. Galileo's third text.
(ticking them off)
Dialogo. Discorsi.
His eyes light up as he pulls a slender volume out of a folio bin
on one of the top shelves.
LANGDON (cont'd)
Diagramma.
A MOMENT LATER,
Langdon, now wearing white cotton gloves, sets the tiny manuscript
on a viewing stand.
LANGDON
Diagramma della Verita. The Diagram
of Truth.
VITTORIA
I know about Dialogo and Discorsi --
Galileo laid out his theories about
the earth revolving around the sun,
and the church forced him to recant.
But what was this?
LANGDON
This is where he got the word out. The
truth, not what the Vatican forced him
to write. Smuggled out of Rome and
printed in Holland on sedge papyrus.
That way any scientists caught with a
copy could simply drop it in water and
the booklet would dissolve.
Carefully, he turns the first page.
LANGDON (cont'd)
Between its delicate nature and the
Vatican burnings, it's said this is
the only copy that remains.
(turns the second page)
(MORE)
33.
LANGDON (cont'd)
And if I'm right the Segno should be
hidden --
(and the third)
-- on page number --
(and the fourth)
-- five.
He stops. They study the page,
LANGDON (cont'd)
Latin. Can you --- ?
VITTORIA
A bit.
She reaches for the book, to pull it towards her, but Langdon
SLAPS her hand. He holds up his own, glove
LANGDON
Finger acids.
She rolls her eyes and leans in, studying the page. There are
sketches on the page as well.
VITTORIA
(READING)
Movement of the planets... elliptical
orbits... heliocentricity...
Langdon's nervous. This doesn't sound right. Vittoria turns the
page, turns it back.
VITTORIA (cont'd)
I'm sorry, I don't think there's
anything that could be interpreted
as a-
LANGDON
Do that again.
She turns the page, then turns it back. Noticing something in
the deep crevice of the margin as the page moves, Langdon grabs a
magnifying glass on the end of a long pole and swings it over.
There, in the print gutter, what looked like a smudge is revealed
under the magnifier to be --
LANGDON (cont'd)
A line of text. In English.
(CONT'D)
34.
VITTORIA
English? Why English?
LANGDON
No one spoke it at the Vatican. It
was considered polluted. Too free-
thinking, the language of radicals
like Shakespeare and Chaucer.
He rotates the book.
LANGDON (cont'd)
Another line.
He keeps rotating the book, finds two more tiny lines written at
the very edges, barely visible to the naked eye.
LANGDON (cont'd)
"The path of light is laid, the sacred
test..." I need a pen, we have to
transcribe this.
VITTORIA
Sorry, Professor. No time.
Before Langdon can do anything to stop her, she RIPS the page from
the text and shoves it in her pocket.
Langdon's jaw drops. He shoots a look over his shoulder at Lt.
Chartrand, but the man's back is turned.
LANGDON
Ah, what the hell.
He SNAPS the magnifying glass off the end of its pole.
CUT TO:
EXT VATICAN ARCHIVES DAY
The doors SLAM on a Vatican police car and the tires SQUEAL as
Olivetti hits the gas.
INT CAR DAY
Olivetti is behind the wheel, Vittoria's in front, Langdon leans
in from the back seat.
OLIVETTI
Twenty minutes till eight, where are
we headed?
35.
LANGDON
I'll know in a minute, give me the
paper.
Vittoria pulls the page from the Diagramma out of her pocket and
hands it to Langdon. He pulls the magnifier from his coat and
studies the thin paper, turning it in his hands.
LANGDON (cont'd)
(READING)
From Santi's earthly tomb with demon's
hole...
OLIVETTI
Where did you get that paper?!
LANGDON
'Cross Rome the mystic elements
unfold.
VITTORIA
We borrowed it.
LANGDON
The path of light is laid, the sacred
test...
OLIVETTI
Are you insane?!
LANGDON
Let angels guide you on your earthly
quest.
OLIVETTI
You removed a document from the
Vatican Archives?!
LANGDON
Huh? Oh, um -- well, she moved so
fast.·.
VITTORIA
The first marker sounds like it's at
Santi's tomb.
LANGDON
(MUSING)
Sounds like.
VITTORIA
But who is Santi?
36.
LANGDON
Raphael.
VITTORIA
Raphael? The sculptor?
LANGDON
Santi was his last name.
VITTORIA
So the path starts at Raphael's tomb!
LANGDON
(not entirely
CONVINCED)
Yeah.
OLIVETTI
Raphael is buried at the Pantheon.
VITTORIA
Is the Pantheon even a church?
OLIVETTI
(snatching up the
RADIO)
Oldest Catholic church in Rome!
Langdon has fallen silent, but it all makes perfect sense, so he
says nothing as Olivetti cranks the wheel hard --
EXT ROME - STREET DAY
-- the car fishtails into a 180, and they take off in the opposite
direction, headed for the Pantheon.
CUT TO:
EXT PANTHEON - SIDE STREET DAY
The police car pulls to a stop, as quietly as possible, across an
open plaza from the Pantheon.
Two black Alfa-Romeos with tinted windows glide to a stop on
either side of them. As Langdon and the others get out,
Commander Rocher and THREE MORE SWISS GUARD, all in black suits,
surround them. Rocher goes straight to Langdon, highly skeptical.
ROCHER
I've just pulled a dozen of my best
men from Vatican City during conclave
and left the search for the antimatter
device in the hands of secondary
officers. You'd better be right.
37.
LANGDON
I believe I am.
ROCHER
The Pantheon is one of the busiest
tourist spots in Rome, how could he
hope to get away with it? It's
impossible.
LANGDON
As impossible as kidnapping four
cardinals from Vatican City? The
poem is precise.
Olivetti catches eyes with Langdon, who's still clutching the page
pulled from the Diagramma. He slips it quietly into his jacket
pocket.
ROCHER
The poem. Unbelievable. I'm
basing this operation on an American's
interpretation of a four hundred year
old poem.
VITTORIA
The information we have clearly refers
to Raphael's tomb, and Raphael's tomb
is inside that building.
She points to the Pantheon, its edifice shimmering in the early
evening light.
LANGDON
The Pantheon is your one chance to
catch this guy.
ROCHER
One? I thought you said four. A
pathway, four markers. We'll have
four chances to catch him.
LANGDON
You would have, a hundred years ago.
The Vatican had all the pagan statues
in the Pantheon removed and destroyed
in the late 1800s. Whatever marker
was there to lead us to the next
church is gone now. The path is
dead. This is your chance.
Rocher looks at him for a long moment, then turns abruptly to a
UNIFORMED OFFICER.
38.
ROCHER
Separate approaches. Cars to Piazza
della Rotunda, Via degli Orfani,
Piazza Sant'Ignazio, and
Sant1Eustachio. No closer than two
blocks, no uniforms, three minutes.
Understood?
The Officer salutes and they snap into action.
ROCHER (cont'd)
And I need a set of eyes inside.
Two BEEFY GUARDSMEN in black suits step forward.
VITTORIA
Wait a minute, you'll scare him off.
ROCHER
They're not in uniform.
VITTORIA
I'm sorry, two weightlifters in
matching black suits and earpieces,
they're hardly disguised.
ROCHER
There's no time to get undercover men
here.
VITTORIA
Fine. I'll go.
ROCHER
I'm not sending a wom-
Her arched eyebrow stops his sentence in its tracks.
ROCHER (cont'd)
-- a civilian into this situation. You
have no communications and you can't
carry a walkie-talkie, it's too
conspicuous.
VITTORIA
Tourists have cell phones, don't they?
(pulls out her own and
holds it to her ear)
Hi honey, I'm at the Pantheon, you
should see this place!
39.
Rocher seems to be thinking about it. Langdon looks at her, his
protective instincts aroused.
LANGDON
You can't send her in there alone.
ROCHER
I don't intend to.
EXT PANTHEON - TWO MINUTES LATER
CLOSE ON a pair of hands, linked. Vittoria and Langdon, holding
hands like lovers, walk slowly toward the entrance to the
Pantheon. A COUPLE DOZEN TOURISTS, blissfully unaware, mill about
the square while up on the rooftops, SNIPERS have them in view.
Langdon looks around, this wasn't what he had in mind. Vittoria
glances at him, amused.
VITTORIA
You're crushing my hand.
LANGDON
I'm sorry.
VITTORIA
A nervous newlywed?
LANGDON
Ancient newlywed.
VITTORIA
Try harder.
He puts an arm around her waist, feels a lump in her back.
LANGDON
You really know how to use that gun
gave you?
VITTORIA
I can tag a breaching porpoise from
forty meters off the bow of a rocking
ship.
LANGDON
Thought you said you were a physicist,
VITTORIA
I am. Long story.
LANGDON
Make it short.
40.
VITTORIA
(THINKS)
Can't be done. What time is it?
Langdon raises his hand and checks his watch.
LANGDON
Seven minutes to eight.
VITTORIA
(of the watch)
Was that Mickey Mouse?
LANGDON
Long story.
VITTORIA
Make it short.
LANGDON
(THINKS)
Can't be done.
And with that they step through the entrance and into --
INT PANTHEON DAY
-- the Pantheon, a massive, circular room with a 141-foot
unsupported span even larger than the cupola of St. Peter's. There
are a DOZEN TOURISTS scattered around, and a TOUR GROUP on one
side hearing a lecture from a MUSEUM DOCENT.
Langdon looks up at the hole in the ceiling through which a bright
shaft of light is shining.
LANGDON
The oculus. That could be the
"demon's hole" in the poem.
Looking around, Vittoria sees several sarcophagi scattered around
the room, all pointing obliquely in a certain direction. As they
move stealthily through the crowd, they speak in low tones:
VITTORIA
Why are the tombs at an angle?
LANGDON
To face east. Sun worship.
VITTORIA
But this is a Christian church.
41.
LANGDON
(SHRUGS)
New religions often adopt existing
holidays to make conversion less
shocking. December 25th was the pagan
holiday of the Unconquered Sun. Made
it a handy choice for Christ's
birthday.
VITTORIA
You're saying Christianity is
repackaged sun worship?
LANGDON
Where do you think halos came from?
Not just sun worship though, the
Catholics borrowed Communion from the
Aztecs, canonization from Euphemerus,
the cruciform from the Egyptians ---
VITTORIA
No wonder they don't like you around
here.
LANGDON
Just trying to keep the conversation
lively.
(POINTS)
Check the recesses. I'll go left.
See you in a hundred eighty degrees.
He starts to the left, she goes to the right, walking in the
shadowy recesses behind the pillars at the edges of the room.
Langdon walks slowly, checking out faces. Tourists. Couples.
Teenagers. More tourists.
Around every column, there are shadows, and in those shadows --
--- nothing.
He looks at his watch. Five minutes to eight. And then --
--- a SHRIEK from the other side of the room. He whirls, sees
Vittoria backing away from something.
LANGDON (cont'd)
Vittoria!
He races across the room, reaches her at the far side. Her face is
ashen. She's pointing at something, aghast.
42.
VITTORIA
Raphael's tomb! But --
Langdon rushes forward to the crypt. There doesn't seem to be
anything out of the ordinary, except ---
VITTORIA (cont'd)
--- it's the wrong one!
LANGDON
What are you talking about?!
He leans down, looks at the plaque on it.
VITTORIA
He was moved here, in 1759. A century
after Diagramma was published!
LANGDON
That's not possible, the poem said-
VITTORIA
Where was he originally buried?
LANGDON
I don't know... Urbino, I think...
(thinking like crazy)
Santi's earthly tomb... what else
could it possibly... Santi 's tomb...
His eyes flit around the room, from one ornate sarcophagus to
another. And then it hits him:
LANGDON (cont'd)
Damn it! "Santi's tomb" must mean
one of the chapels he built! He's
not buried in it, he designed it! Rich
people commissioned burial chapels in
churches all over Rome in his day!
(looks up)
And the "demon's hole," it isn't the
oculus, it's an undercroft, a crypt,
common sixteenth century term!
At that very moment, the tour group is passing them, and the
elderly Docent asks his group the perfunctory wrap-up:
DOCENT
Does anyone have any questions?
Langdon busts in on the group.
43.
LANGDON
Yes! Did Raphael Santi ever design
a chapel with an ossuary annex and
angel figure commissioned by the
Catholic Church?!
The Docent blinks. Wasn't expecting quite so esoteric a
question.
LANGDON (cont'd)
Well?!
DOCENT
I'm sorry, I... I can only think of
one.
Langdon suppresses the urge to grab him by the lapels and shake it
out of him.
LANGDON
One'll do.
CUT TO:
EXT PANTHEON DAY
A clock in the square outside the Pantheon says 7:56. Langdon
and Vittoria face Rocher, Olivetti, and half a dozen Swiss Guard.
ROCHER
Wrong? What do you mean, wrong?!
LANGDON
(FAST)
The first altar of science is the
Chigi Chapel, in the church of Santa
Maria del Popolo, about a mile from
here! It used to be called Capella
della Terra, Chapel of the Earth.
Earth, the first element! This is
it, I'm certain.
ROCHER
You were certain of the Pantheon.
LANGDON
Please, we have four minutes!
Rocher looks at Langdon with contempt, then BARKS orders to his
men in Italian. They begin to head for their cars.
VITTORIA
Back to the Vatican?! You can't!
44.
LANGDON
Commandante, if you care at all about
your church-
ROCHER
My church? My church feeds the
hungry, comforts the sick and dying.
What does your church do, Professor?
(no answer)
Ah, that's right, you haven't one.
He turns and walks away, glaring at Olivetti.
ROCHER (cont'd)
Take him if you want, but I'm done
with him.
CUT TO:
EXT PIAZZA DEL POPOLO DAY
Olivetti's car SCREECHES to a halt in the Piazza del Popolo at
sunset. Langdon, Vittoria, Olivetti, and Vincenzo, the Vatican
cop who first came to see Langdon, all climb out, start scanning
the square.
LANGDON
This is the place.
He points to an obelisk in the center of the square.
LANGDON (cont'd)
An obelisk, with a pyramid at the top.
Both Masonic symbols.
VITTORIA
The Freemasons? Are Illuminati?
LANGDON
The Illuminati were infiltrators.
There isn't a powerful organization on
earth they didn't place members in.
Look at a dollar bill some time. A
pyramid, an occult symbol representing
convergence upward, with the eye of
illumination above it, and beneath it
the Latin for "New World Order."
45.
VITTORIA
The United States government was
infiltrated by Illuminati?
LANGDON
FDR's vice-president was a high-
ranking Freemason. Convinced him
the words in Latin actually meant "New
Deal."
A church bell begins to TOLL.
OLIVETTI
Eight o'clock!
Langdon takes off running, toward and eleventh-century church at
the southwest corner of the plaza, covered in scaffolding.
At the front door of the church,
Langdon hops over the sawhorses blocking the entrance and tries
the door. Locked. A sign says the place is under
construction.
At a side door,
Olivetti races alongside the church, followed by the others.
He reaches a door with a large, heavy ring, and pulls it toward
him. But the door won t budge. He pushes, throws his shoulder
into it. Locked.
LANGDON
(APPROACHING)
No, no, it's an annulus!
But Olivetti just races onward, looking for another door, followed
by Vincenzo. As they disappear around the back of the church,
Langdon steps up to the large ring, gives it an almighty twist --
INT SANTA MARIA DEL POPOLO DUSK
-- and the heavy door CLUNKS open.
The interior of the church is an obstacle course of torn-up
flooring, brick pallets, mounds of dirt. Silt drifts in the
dying sunlight that shines through the broken windows and walls.
Nothing moves. Dead silence. Langdon and Vittoria walk
slowly to the middle of the floor, at one end of the chapel.
There are eight recesses, four on either side of a central aisle,
all covered with large sheets of plastic, to protect them during
construction.
46.
LANGDON
(WHISPERING)
The chapel is in one of those apses.
The plastic RUSTLES ominously. Anything could be behind any one
of them.
Vittoria pulls the gun from her waistband and holds it in front of
her. Langdon notices, it makes him uncomfortable.
LANGDON (cont'd)
You have to give that back.
She looks at him --- what are you, nuts? Something rushes at them
from the side, she whirls --
--- and nearly blows Olivetti to kingdom come as he and Vincenzo
barrel in through the side door.
Langdon gestures --- everybody quiet. Olivetti points to the left
gestures to Langdon and Vittoria to go to the right.
They separate, to either side of the main aisle.
AT THE FIRST CHAPEL,
Langdon pulls the plastic aside, eyes scan the chapel. Nothing.
ON THE OTHER SIDE,
Olivetti does the same, at another chapel. Nothing.
AT THE THIRD CHAPEL,
Vittoria pushes the plastic aside, gun in front of her. There's
a sudden movement to her left, she whirls --
--- and a rat scurries away.
AT THE FOURTH CHAPEL,
Langdon pushes the plastic aside, steps inside --
-- and GASPS.
Moving behind him, we see a Christian chapel like no other we've
ever seen. Finished entirely in chestnut marble, overhead it
has a domed cupola with a field of illuminated stars and the seven
planets (as known in Galileo's day).
Further down the wall, there are tributes to earth's four seasons
but most incredible of all are the two huge structures that
dominate the room from either side.
47.
Pyramids. Ten feet high.
Vittoria steps in behind him.
LANGDON
Pyramids. In a Catholic church.
This is it.
Behind them, the plastic rustles, as if drawn by a wind, and as
Langdon turns, he hears, faintly, a DOOR CLOSING far away.
He turns back, eyes drawn to the floor. There is a large oval
medallion there, with a skeleton carved into it. It's slightly
off center, raised. As if it's been opened recently, and
hurriedly replaced.
LANGDON (cont'd)
The demon's hole.
IN THE DEMON'S HOLE,
we're looking up now as the medallion GRINDS to the side. Faces
peer down at us -- Langdon, Vittoria, Olivetti, and Vincenzo. They
recoil from a stench.
UP TOP,
Langdon squints, trying to see inside.
LANGDON
Anybody got a flashlight?
Vincenzo hands him one. Langdon shines it down into the crypt.
There are shapes, but thirty feet down and hard to make out.
There's one in particular, in the darkness, seems too short to be
a person, but it's moving slightly.
OLIVETTI
Can you tell what it is?
LANGDON
Not from up here.
He reaches down, rattles the ladder that leans against the wall of
the crypt. Takes a deep breath, looks at the others.
LANGDON (cont'd)
Those guns. Keep 'em handy?
48.
IN THE DEMON'S HOLE,
Langdon reaches the bottom, still shining the light at the figure
in the distance. It's brighter here, he can see it's flesh-
colored, but still indistinct. He takes a step toward it --
-- and something CRUNCHES under his feet.
He shines the light down. He's standing on a pile of human skulls
OLIVETTI
(calling down)
You okay?
LANGDON
More or less.
He takes two more steps, closer to the swaying figure on the other
side of the crypt. He can now clearly see a man's naked back.
LANGDON (cont'd)
He's here! I think he's -- sitting.
(moves closer)
Hello?
(closer still)
Are you all right?
It's a human figure. As Langdon draws close, he sees the source
of the movement --- rats, gnawing at the dead body.
They scurry away as Langdon comes around the front, and we pull
back to see what he sees.
It's Cardinal Lamasse.
He's been buried in the earthen floor of the crypt up to his waist
his jaw broken, his mouth crammed full of dirt.
But that's not the worst of it. Langdon GAGS as he sees the
blackened word that has been branded into the red flesh of the
Cardinal's chest. It's an ambigram, like we've seen before, but
this time it says --
EARTH.
CUT TO:
INT SISTINE CHAPEL DAY
Cardinal Mortati sits regally at the main altar at the front of
the Sistine Chapel as the electors, one by one, cast their votes
in the traditional manner.
49.
An AFRICAN CARDINAL at the front of the line kneels before him.
AFRICAN CARDINAL
(SUBTITLED)
I call as my witness Christ the Lord,
who will be my judge that my vote is
given to the one who before God I
think should be elected.
The African Cardinal stands, holds his ballot over his head, t
lowers the ballot to the altar, where a plate sits atop a large
chalice.
He places the ballot on the plate, then picks up the plate and
uses it to drop the ballot in the chalice. He then replaces the
plate over the chalice, bows to the cross, and heads for his seat.
The next cardinal steps up to repeat the process.
A SHORT TIME LATER, A DISSOLVE,
and the line is gone. Mortati holds the chalice with all the
votes. He shakes it, chooses one---
MORTATI
Eligo in summum pontificem --
-- and reads an unfamiliar name.
He makes a note in a ledger, then raises a threaded needle and
pierces the ballot through the word "Eligo," sliding the ballot on
the thread.
A SHORT TIME LATER, ANOTHER DISSOLVE,
and there are a hundred and sixty-one ballots on the thread,
Mortati looks up from his ledger and speaks to the room.
MORTATI
The first ballot has failed.
He takes He thread carrying all the ballots and ties the ends
together to create a ring.
He lays the ring of ballots on a silver tray. Dusts the tray
heavily with a yellowish powder.
A DOOR OPENS
on a small incinerator. The ring of ballots is hurled inside and
bursts immediately into flame.
50.
A dark, brackish smoke billows up from the burning ballots, and we
follow the smoke up, up, into the chimney --
EXT ST. PETER'S SQUARE DUSK
--- and to the roof of the Sistine Chapel, where the black iUPke
puffs out into the early evening sky.
Below, a CROWD OF THOUSANDS GROANS in disappointment as the
message is sent --- no new pope yet.
But while they are all watching the smoke, we turn our attention?
to the opposite direction, to the east, across Rome, to where ---
CUT TO:
EXT PIAZZA DEL POPOLO DUSK
--- those black Alfa Romeos, four this time, glide silently to a
halt outside the church where Langdon just found the corpse. Swiss
Guard in black suits pour out of the vehicles and hurry into the
church, trying to attract as little attention as possible.
INT SANTA MARIA DEL POPOLO DUSK
The inside of the church is being sealed off as a crime scene.
Rocher, just arriving, takes charge as the plastic is RIPPED off
the Chigi Chapel.
ROCHER
Get that body out of there and search
the rest of the building.
Swiss Guardsmen drop into the demon's hole to remove the body.
ROCHER (cont'd)
(to another Guardsman)
Outside -- a perimeter. Secure but
invisible. No lights, no guns, no
one knows. Understood?
Langdon, lost in thought, drifts through the small chapel, studying
the intricate carvings and other artwork.
LANGDON
Earthly symbology... everywhere...
Rocher passes through his field of vision, livid:
ROCHER
Why the hell didn't you figure this
out in the first place?
51.
It was more a rhetorical question, but Langdon answers honestly,
still lost in thought, his voice soft.
LANGDON
I made a mistake.
He drifts toward a statue, of the highest quality white marble,
resting in a niche on the far side, out of the way of the mayhem.
Vittoria joins him.
VITTORIA
Is it Raphael?
LANGDON
The chapel is. But the sculptures
are Bernini.
(STUNNED)
The unknown Illuminati master was
Bernini.
VITTORIA
Didn't he work for the Church?
LANGDON
Almost exclusively. It means the
Illuminati even infiltrated the
Vatican. They hid in plain sight.
He steps closer to the statue. It's of two life-size human
figures, intertwined, one a regal, bearded man, the other a
cherub, floating overhead.
LANGDON (cont'd)
Habakkuk and the Angel.
VITTORIA
Habakkuk?
LANGDON
The prophet who predicted the
annihilation of the earth. This is
the first marker.
He steps closer, studying it carefully.
LANGDON (cont'd)
"Let angels guide you on your lofty
quest..."
His eyes move slowly over the statue, and ours do too, from the
angel's innocent face, down his arm, and to his right hand, which
is outstretched, one finger extended --
52.
-- pointing the way.
LANGDON (cont'd)
The Path is alive.
CUT TO:
EXT PIAZZA DEL POPOLO DUSK
Langdon dashes down the stairs outside the church and into the
middle of the piazza. It's getting dark now, shadows streaking
the square.
LANGDON
Southwest... it points southwest...
He gets his bearings, looks to the southwest, sees nothing but
buildings in the way.
He runs back up the church steps, where Vittoria and Rocher are
just coming outside. Langdon's mind is racing.
LANGDON (cont'd)
Earth-air-fire-water, we're looking
for a Bernini sculpture having
something to do with air...
(to Rocher)
And the next church is southwest of
here.
ROCHER
You're sure this time?
LANGDON
I need a map. One that shows all
the churches in Rome.
Rocher just stares at him, studying him.
LANGDON (cont'd)
I could use it now.
Rocher starts down the steps toward his car.
LANGDON (cont'd)
And a compass!
He looks around, sees the rickety scaffolding outside the church,
and ---
53.
A MOMENT LATER,
--- he climbs into our view, now on the scaffolding. He's moving
upward, fast, toward ---
EXT CHURCH ROOF DUSK
--- the roof of the old church, also undergoing renovation. The
view of Rome is spectacular from up here, and Langdon rushes to
the western wall, looking intently off in that direction.
He sees something that makes him suck in his breath, hears a voice
from behind him ---
VITTORIA (O.S.)
Robert!
--- and turns as Vittoria tosses something small and black up to
him.
A compass. He catches it, holds it steady, and walks toward the
edge of the roof as the compass needle swivels and settles on SW.
Langdon looks up, following the line of the needle, up over the
rooftops of Rome, to a massive structure in the distance, exactly
in line with the compass needle.
A huge dome on the horizon blots out the setting sun.
ST. PETER'S BASILICA.
CUT TO:
INT CAR NIGHT
CLOSE ON a map of Rome, unfolded in the back seat of a racing car
and spread out over Langdon and Vittoria's laps. Langdon has a
pen and is drawing a line on the map, through --
LANGDON
The black rectangles with crosses are
churches, and none of them intersect
the line until it comes to an end,
right in the middle of St. Peter's
Square.
Night has fallen, and the four Alfa Romeos are now speeding across
Rome. No sirens, but lots of speed. Olivetti drives, Rocher
is in the passenger seat.
54.
ROCHER
Your theory doesn't hold up,
Professor. Michelangelo designed
St. Peter's, not Bernini.
LANGDON
The Basilica is Michelangelo, but the
square is Bernini. The second
marker must be a statue in the square.
VITTORIA
It's ten minutes till nine! Can we
go any faster?!
ROCHER
Not unless we want the full attention
of the world press.
She looks down, to two television screens mounted into the backs
of the front seats. Both are tuned to coverage of the papal
selection process, REPORTERS doing stand-ups from the middle of
crowded St. Peter's Square.
We move in on one of the images, then into the image, coming out -
CUT TO:
EXT ST. PETER'S SQUARE NIGHT
--- on a television monitor in St. Peter's Square. The Reporter, a
JAPANESE WOMAN, is giving a stand-up report on the progress so
far, gesturing to the chimney over the Sistine Chapel.
The crowd has grown, now four thousand, maybe five. FLASHBULBS
POP. A few PROTESTERS CHANT.
Almost silently, behind them all, half a dozen black Alfa Romeos
race in, too fast, and come to an abrupt halt.
IN ROCHER'S CAR,
they all get out, trying to avoid causing a panic.
Langdon walks into the square, eyes focused on an object in the
middle.
LANGDON
Another obelisk. We're close.
He looks up, at row after row of statues that ring the square from
atop the oval colonnades.
SHARPSHOOTERS scurry among the statuary, setting themselves up.
55.
In the crowd, Rocher MUTTERS into his radio and to undercover
SWISS GUARD scattered throughout. The crowd is unaware of them.
Langdon keeps walking, turning in circles, looking above him, to
the tops of the colonnades that border the square.
VITTORIA
There must be a hundred statues up
there, which one is it?
LANGDON
How in God's name would anyone make a
sculpture about air?
And indeed there are. Langdon looks at his watch. Two
minutes to nine.
And then he freezes. Staring down, not up.
He takes a step back. There is a fresco carved into the square
beneath his feet, or more accurately --
LANGDON (cont'd)
Bas relief!
He takes a step back, to look at the carving, as does Vittoria.
LANGDON (cont'd)
The other half of sculpture is bas
relief.
(to Vittoria)
Look for more! Something having to
do with air!
They move through the crowd, pushing people aside, causing a bit
of a ruckus as they try to uncover the elaborate carvings in the
stone of the square.
(IF WE ARE EAGLE-EYED, at this point we will see TWO ROBED MEN,
one helping the other, who carries a cross, as they pass through
the crowd behind Langdon.)
Remembering something, Langdon rushes forward, toward the center
of the square, uncharacteristically brusque with the crowd,
shoving his way through now.
He draws close to one carving in particular, slows to a stop, and
stares down at it, eyes wide.
It's a carving of an angel's face, cheeks billowing outward as it
blows a gust of wind, symbolized by five vertical streaks. Its
title is ---
56.
LANGDON (cont'd)
"West Ponente." The West Wind. An
angel's face and five streaks. Air!
So this is it, but now what? They look around frantically,
scanning the crowd. So does Rocher, so does Olivetti. The
BELLS of St. Peter's start to TOLL the hour.
NEARBY,
a LITTLE GIRL dances with a doll. Happily unaware of what's
going on.
ELSEWHERE,
some PROTESTERS tangle. Some believe one thing, others don't.
Swiss Guard and Vatican Police race in to break it up. But there's
no bloodshed.
CLOSE TO THAT,
a ROBED MAN carrying a small wooden cross falls to the ground.
Somebody near him SCREAMS.
NEARBY,
the Little Girl is jostled by a HOMELESS MAN, drops her doll.
THE ROBED MAN
is helped to his feet by the Police. He's fine. He wanders
away, holding his cross high.
And as he passes us, we catch just a glimpse of his face ---
--and recognize Mr. Gray.
THE LITTLE GIRL
bends down, picks up her doll, and sees --
-- IT'S COVERED IN BLOOD.
She looks down at the ground, sees a trail of blood, follows it
with her eyes to where ---
-- the Homeless Man, dressed in torn rags, leans against a
fountain, gasping for breath.
ACROSS THE CROWD,
57.
Vittoria and Langdon hear the SCREAMS. They're closest, and
they're at the fountain in just a few seconds.
Langdon drops to his knees, turns the Homeless Man over.
Through the man's torn shirt, he can see a black and red brand
burned into his chest.
Three letters, ornate script, reading the same front to back:
AIR.
Vittoria grabs his arm, feels for a pulse.
VITTORIA
He's still alive!
But the dying Cardinal is gasping for breath, his mouth opening
and closing like a fish on a dock.
She bends down, arches his neck, closes her mouth over his, and
blows air into his lungs.
Immediately, a fog of red mist BILLOWS from two puncture holes in
the man's chest, covering Langdon in blood --- his face, his
clothes.
VITTORIA (cont'd)
His chest! They punctured his lungs!
Langdon recoils in horror, overcome, completely out of his depth.
Rocher arrives, as does Olivetti, as do a DOZEN MORE SWISS GUARD
and VATICAN POLICE. Rocher looks around, defeated and enraged,
as the Cardinal expires and the Crowd panics, fleeing in all
directions.
He presses his radio to his lips and keys the mic.
ROCHER
Clear the square.
CUT TO:
INT BATHROOM NIGHT
Blood and water swirl down a drain. Langdon looks up from the
sink, water rushing from his face. He dries himself, looks in the
mirror. He holds up his hands. They're shaking.
He's standing in a lavish marble bathroom, now cleaned up and
changed into black pants and a black long-sleeved shirt. No
Roman collar, they don't just give you those, but clearly the
clothes of a priest. He steps out of the bathroom and into ---
58.
INT PAPAL OFFICE NIGHT
-- the papal office, where the Camerlengo, Rocher, Olivetti, and
Vittoria are gathered again, as are HALF A DOZEN other security
officers. It's crowded, busy, little knots of jurisdictional
arguments and competing theories around the room.
The Camerlengo, at his desk, is stunned, speaking to Olivetti.
Langdon edges close enough to hear, but not too close.
CAMERLENGO
When did this call come in?
OLIVETTI
Three, four minutes ago. The same
voice as on the tape. We're
analyzing the accent now, Alsatian is
our best guess at the moment.
CAMERLENGO
And he actually claimed responsibility
for the death of His Holiness?
OLIVETTI
Not personally, but he said it was the
Illuminati. He said they murdered
him.
CAMERLENGO
That's ridiculous, the Holy Father
died of a stroke. Did he say how
they claim to have done it?
OLIVETTI
The Pope's own medication. A drug
known as Heparin?
There is silence for a moment. Rocher looks up. Looks away.
VITTORIA
The Pope took Heparin?
CAMERLENGO
He had thrombophlebitis. He took an
injection once a day. But no one
knew that.
OLIVETTI
Someone knew.
59.
ROCHER
His Holiness had health concerns; he
was subject to seizures as well. But
he took steps to make sure he was --
watched. For safety. That's all
he wished to be made public, and
that's all we should discuss.
VITTORIA
(ignoring him)
Heparin is lethal in the wrong dosage.
An overdose would cause massive
internal bleeding and brain
hemorrhages. At first it might look
like a stroke, but in a few days his
body would show signs, we could easily-
Rocher spins on her, livid.
ROCHER
Ms. Vetra, in case you're unaware,
papal autopsies are prohibited by
Vatican Law. We are not about to
defile His Holiness's body just
because his enemies claim to-
CAMERLENGO
Of course we're not. We'll make a
public announcement refuting this
absurd claim.
Father Simeon, Cardinal Mortati's aide, steps forward.
FR. SIMEON
I'm afraid that's out of the question.
Cardinal Mortati has insisted this
entire matter be kept internal.
CAMERLENGO
Cardinal Mortati shouldn't even be
aware of this, he's locked in
conclave.
FR. SIMEON
His final instructions before sealing
the doors were very clear -- no outside
communications unless absolutely
necessary.
CAMERLENGO
Cardinal Mortati will remember that he
is Dean of the College of Cardinals,
not His Holiness himself.
60.
FR. SIMEON
As you say. Yet, technically, now that
Conclave has begun, it is his
privilege and duty to control public
announcements. I've drafted a short
release about the incident in the
square, but any other statements are
specifically prohibited. For that, the
Cardinal has asked me to remind you --
we have a chimney.
The Camerlengo just stares at him, a power struggle. Which he is
going to lose.
CAMERLENGO
As you say.
(turns away)
Commander Rocher, the search for the
device?
ROCHER
We've turned the power off and on to
about twenty percent of Vatican City.
Nothing on the video yet.
CAMERLENGO
Mr. Langdon, you've been right so far,
if belatedly, about the Path. It's now
nine fifteen, how quickly can you find
the next church?
Langdon refers to a map spread out on the desk.
LANGDON
The line of the breath in the carving
points due east, directly away from
Vatican City, but there are five
lines, so there's room for error.
While he talks, an AIDE in a business suit is ushered quietly in
the door by a Swiss Guardsman. He's carrying a satchel.
Vittoria recognizes him, and he goes to her.
LANGDON (cont'd)
There are about twenty churches that
intersect it. None of their names
invoke "fire," but there must be a
Bernini sculpture inside one of them
that does. I'm going to need to get
back into the Archives to find it.
61.
CAMERLENGO
(to Olivetti)
Escort him.
Langdon looks to Vittoria -- you coming? She looks up from a table,
where she's opened the satchel brought in by the Aide. She holds
two leather-bound books in her hand.
VITTORIA
The journals I asked for. I'd like
to stay here and study them. If
Leonardo told anyone else about our
project, that could be the killer.
CAMERLENGO
Fine.
The group starts to break up, half of them headed for the doors.
As Langdon rolls up the map on the desk, the Camerlengo notices
his black clothes for the first time.
CAMERLENGO (cont'd)
Professor, would it surprise you to
find those clothes suit you?
Langdon manages a sliver of a smile, starting to like this guy.
LANGDON
It would surprise the hell out of me.
CUT TO:
EXT ST. PETER'S SQUARE NIGHT
St. Peter's has been cleared out, the throng moved to barricades
at its edges so that the crime scene can be properly investigated.
Flashbulbs POP everywhere.
The row of TV REPORTERS is nearly shoulder to shoulder, and we
move along them --- first up is an ITALIAN REPORTER:
ITALIAN REPORTER
(SUBTITLED)
-- a statement just released by the
Vatican expressing sympathy for the
family of the mugging victim, a
tourist from Dusseldorf --
Still moving, we pass a CHINESE REPORTER.
62.
CHINESE REPORTER
(SUBTITLED)
--- who is now confirmed dead.
Vatican Police have a suspect in
custody, and after photographing the
crime scene ---
Still moving, a FRENCH REPORTER.
FRENCH REPORTER
(SUBTITLED)
--- will allow the crowds of faithful
back into St. Peter's Square, where
security will be doubled.
Still moving, a BBC REPORTER, in English.
BBC REPORTER
Sadly, the Vatican spokesman points
out, where crowds go --
And finally, an AMERICAN.
AMERICAN REPORTER
--- so often follows crime. We're
trying now to get the name of the
tourist who was- wait a-
The American Reporter looks confused, somebody's talking to her in
her earpiece.
AMERICAN REPORTER (cont'd)
We're getting word now of -- smoke,
smoke from the Sistine Chapel chimney,
apparently there's been another vote I
And almost as one, the row of TV cameras all swing away from the
crime scene in the square and up, to the Sistine Chapel chimney,
where there is indeed a thick cloud --
--- of black smoke. Still no new pope, and the subject is
effectively changed.
CUT TO:
INT VATICAN ARCHIVES NIGHT
Langdon and Lt. Chartrand, the young Swiss Guardsman, walk quickly
down the row of hermetically sealed vaults in the Vatican
Archives.
Langdon's leading, looking at the names on the outsides of each of
the individual vaults.
63.
CHARTRAND
What are you looking for this time?
LANGDON
Assets.
CHARTRAND
I beg your pardon?
LANGDON
Artwork is valuable, and corporations
tend to keep track of their holdings.
CHARTRAND
The Catholic Church is not a
corporation, Signore, it is a beacon,
a source of inspiration for one
billion lost and frightened souls.
LANGDON
Sure sure, I get that.
He stops, pointing up at a sign on the end of one of the vaults --
BANCO VATICANO.
LANGDON (cont'd)
But it's also a bank.
He takes one last breath of oxygen-rich air, pushes through the
revolving door --
INT VAULT NIGHT
--- and comes through the other side, eyes scanning the place. A
moment later, Chartrand follows him through the door. Langdon
looks at him --- you're coming in too?
CHARTRAND
Cfmmander Olivetti said I was not to
leave your side this time.
LANGDON
(a mutter)
Wasn't me, it was her,
MOVING FAST ALONG THE LEATHER-BOUND VOLUMES, Langdon searches the
place as fast as he can.
BAM!
A book drops onto a table, pages flip by, Langdon studies it,
SLAMS it shut.
64.
BAM! BAM! Two more books, flipped open, compared, pages rifled,
nothing.
BACK IN THE STACKS,
his hand finds a five-inch thick ledger marked "Bernini."
ON A TABLE,
it SMACKS down and opens to the first page. Langdon sits, begins
turning the pages, one by one.
LOOKING AT THE PAGE,
his vision momentarily blurs. He rubs his eyes, it clears
again.
He looks up, at a vent over the doorway. Thin ribbons flutter in
the breeze of the minimal oxygen that's being pumped in.
He goes back to work. Chartrand watches him.
CUT TO:
INT PAPAL OFFICE NIGHT
Looking out the window of the papal office, we see the barricades
removed from the edges of St. Peter's Square. The crowds
return.
Pulling back, we see the Camerlengo looking out at them, thinking,
troubled. There are still half a dozen Security Officials in
the papal office, but the Camerlengo turns and looks at Vittoria,
working alone at a desk on the far side of the office.
AT THE DESK,
Vittoria pores over the journals sent from Geneva. Sensing
something, she looks up. The Camerlengo is standing over her.
He speaks quietly.
CAMERLENGO
What sort of signs?
VITTORIA
I'm sorry?
The Camerlengo looks over his shoulder, to make sure their
conversation is private.
CAMERLENGO
If the Holy Father were given an
overdose of Heparin... what signs
would his body bear?
65.
VITTORIA
Bleeding of the oral mucosa.
(off his questioning look)
His gums. Postmortem, the blood
congeals and turns the inside of the
mouth black.
CAMERLENGO
Even though he died fourteen days ago?
VITTORIA
It wouldn't show up until at least a
week after his death.
He looks around the room once more. Then back to her?
CAMERLENGO
He was... very important to me.
VITTORIA
I understand.
He thinks for a long moment, then --
CAMERLENGO
Please come.
--- turns and leaves the room. She makes sure no one's looking,
then follows him out.
She leaves the journals behind.
CUT TO:
INT VATICAN ARCHIVES NIGHT
CLOSE ON the Bernini ledger, which Langdon is now almost halfway
through. He tiyrns a page, scans the list of items written
there, then moves on to the next.
He blinks, his vision blurring again. He looks over at Chartrand,
who's suffering even worse, panting for air, hands on his knees.
LANGDON
You don't smoke, do you?
CHARTRAND
(yes, a lot)
A little bit.
LANGDON
Sit down before you fall down.
66.
Chartrand half-stumbles into a chair on the opposite side of the
table. Langdon goes back to what he was doing, flipping a page--
--- and then immediately flipping it back.
There is a hand-written notation alongside one of the entries.
LANGDON (cont'd)
My Italian's no good, what does this
note say? Next to the entry for The
Ecstasy of St. Teresa?
Chartrand leans over the ledger, squinting hard, trying to focus.
CHARTRAND
"Moved at suggestion of the artist."
LANGDON
Moved to another church? At
Bernini"s suggestion?
Chartrand, really suffering for air, can't follow it.
CHARTRAND
I don't know.
Langdon flips the page back, to a photograph of the sculpture in
question.
THE STATUE
is of a woman, seemingly in the throes of ecstasy, while an angel
hovering over her holds a spear aloft.
Langdon raises an eyebrow.
The word "Seraphim" jumps up from the page, words in quotes after
it -- "Seraphim, meaning 'the fiery one...'"
LANGDON
Fire.
More words pop out at us -- "His great golden spear... filled with
fire..."
LANGDON (cont'd)
Fire.
Still more -- "woman inflamed by passion's fire..."
And now a close-up of her enraptured face.
67.
LANGDON
Fire.
And now three things happen in quick succession:
-- Langdon SLAMS the ledger shut,
-- the ribbons on the air vent fall as the oxygen into the vault is
cut off, and
-- one by one, ALL THE LIGHTS IN THE ARCHIVES GO OUT.
Total silence for a moment.
Langdon and Chartrand look at each other in the darkness.
LANGDON (cont'd)
The door -- ?
CHARTRAND
Electronic.
LANGDON
That's too bad.
CUT TO:
INT ST. PETER'S BASILICA NIGHT
The Camerlengo, flanked by two Swiss Guardsmen, escorts Vittoria
rapidly across the deserted floor of St. Peter's Basilica.
VITTORIA
Where are we going?
CAMERLENGO
To see my father.
VITTORIA
I don't understand.
They circle past a pillar and she sees an orange glow up ahead,
seeming to emanate from beneath the floor in the center of the
basilica.
CAMERLENGO
I was orphaned when I was nine years
old. A bombing in Madrid -- Basque
separatists protesting the visit of a
Catholic archbishop.
As they draw closer, she sees it's the entrance to a sumptuous
underground chamber, surrounded by scores of glowing oil lamps.
68.
CAMERLENGO (cont'd)
The archbishop felt responsible, and
he adopted me the following day. I
was raised by him, and by the church.
The Camerlengo starts down a winding stairway, rimmed by the
lamps,
ON THE STAIRCASE,
they descend, lit by the spectral glow of the oil lamps.
CAMERLENGO (cont'd)
He was the wisest man I ever met, even
with my youthful foolishness. He
always saw the middle way. I wanted
to be ordained, but I also refused to
be excused from military service.
So he suggested I fly rescue missions,
helicopters bringing the wounded to
hospital.
He stops at the bottom of the stairs and looks up at her.
CAMERLENGO (cont'd)
He was a great man.
VITTORIA
He died?
CAMERLENGO
(NODS)
Fourteen days ago.
Vittoria, stunned, realizes who he's talking about.
CUT TO:
INT VATICAN ARCHIVES NIGHT
KA-CHUNG! Emergency lights switch on in the Vatican Archives,
casting a weird, reddish glow over everything.
But the ribbons at the oxygen panel remain limp.
Below, Langdon pushes, again and again, on the deadened exit
button, trying to activate the doors. Nothing doing.
He's weak, weaving, barely on his feet.
Chartrand's already slumped against a wall, his radio in hand,
keying it over and over again, but getting only static.
69.
LANGDON
Anything?
Chartrand gestures weakly around the room.
CHARTRAND
Walls... lead-lined... no signal.
Langdon blinks, his vision becoming seriously impaired. He holds
his eyes closed for a moment, opens them, it's not much better.
Langdon looks at the glass wall on the far side of the vault. Then
at the row of bookcases. Gets an idea.
He goes to the last bookcase, which is about six feet from the
glass wall. He hoists himself up on the shelf of the bookcase
opposite it, wedges himself in.
And pushes with one leg. The giant bookcase teeters, but just
barely.
Langdon hoists himself further up, gets both legs up against the
bookshelf.
Pushes again -- more movement this time.
Now he puts everything he has into it, straining like hell. The
bookcase starts to tip, goes just past the point of no return,
starts to fall, gloriously headed straight for the glass wall,
which it SLAMS into with enormous power and --
--- stops.
Leaning against the wall. Forget cracks, there's not even a
scratch.
Langdon CURSES under his breath, looks around for another idea.
He hears a soft THUD from the other side of the room, sees
Chartrand has slumped over, unconscious.
But his jacket has fallen open, revealing the sidearm he carries
in a shoulder holster.
LANGDON'S HAND
slips the gun out of the holster and hefts it. Safe bet he's
never held one of these before.
He staggers over toward the glass wall, raises the gun, and pulls
the trigger. Nothing happens. Trigger doesn't even move.
70.
After a moment of oxygen-poor thinking, he figures out how to
CLICK off the safety. Tries again.
(Pow.)
The sound of the shot is barely audible to Langdon. His brain's
going fast.
If he was hoping to bring the whole wall down, he failed, but
there's a faint HISSING sound coming from the bullethole, and he
goes to it and takes a deep breath of air from the outside.
He stands back, his brain clearing momentarily.
Seized by an idea, he looks up at the wall, at its four corners,
and at the tiny web of cracks radiating out from the hole he just
made in the center.
He raises the gun again and fires off FOUR SHOTS in quick
succession. They're in an odd pattern-- upper left corner, upper
right, not quite as high, lower middle-left, and the very lower
right corner.
Now there are four new holes, each HISSING slightly, and the first
hole, in the center.
Shaking his head once more to clear it, Langdon steps forward to
the glass wall, but instead of barreling against it or throwing a
chair, he simply raises one hand, places it flat over the first
hole he made, the one in the center of the glass wall ---
-- and presses gently.
Almost immediately, a SHARP SOUND comes from the hole beneath his
hand and a jagged crack leaps out from the first hole, shooting up
to connect with the hole in the upper left corner.
He presses just a touch harder and a SECOND CRACK starts,
shooting down to the lower right. Then a third, and a fourth,
the glass is cracking like ice in springtime, all four extremities
connecting with the central hole, and with a huge GROANING SOUND -
-
-- the entire glass wall falls to pieces at his feet.
Air RUSHES into the vault.
And, wouldn't you know it, the power comes back on in the Archives.
CUT TO:
71.
INT VATICAN GROTTOES NIGHT
Vittoria, the Camerlengo, and the two Swiss Guard reach the
entrance to the Holy Vatican Grottoes just as --
-- their power goes out.
Two flashlights CLICK on, and the Guardsmen lead the way in. On
both sides, hollow niches line the walls. Recessed in the
alcoves, as far as the flashlights let them see, the hulking
shadows of sarcophagi loom.
On top of each tomb are life-sized marble carvings of each Pope,
shown in death and wearing full papal vestments, arms folded
across their chests.
CAMERLENGO
If the Holy Father was murdered, the
implications are profound. Vatican
security is impenetrable, no one from
the outside could have gotten anywhere
near him.
VITTORIA
Meaning it was someone on the inside.
CAMERLENGO
We can trust no one
He steps up his pace, taking the lead, knows exactly where he's
going. The others fall behind, as everyone slowly realizes what
he intends to do. And they're not at all sure they're up for
it.
AT THE LATE POPE'S SARCOPHAGUS,
the Camerlengo closes the last few feet alone. He knees down in
front of the bright marble carving, a likeness of the late Pope.
He WHISPERS.
CAMERLENGO
Father... Holy Father... You told me
when I was young that the voice in my
heart was that of God. You told me
I must follow it no matter what
painful places it leads. I hear it
now, asking me the impossible. Give
me strength. Forgive me. What I
do, I do in the name of everything you
believe.
BEHIND HIM,
72.
the others watch as he finishes his private prayer, stands, and
turns to them.
CAMERLENGO (cont'd)
Remove the covering.
Nobody moves. Just stares at him.
CAMERLENGO (cont'd)
Did you hear me?
SWISS GUARDSMAN
Signore, by law we are at your
command. But we are also bound by-
CAMERLENGO
I ask your forgiveness for putting you
in this position. Vatican laws are
established to protect the church. But
it is in that very spirit that I
command you to break them now.
A moment of silence, and then --
-- they step forward. Set their flashlights on the floor.
And step to the tomb. Bracing their hands against the marble
covering near the head of the tomb, they plant their feet and
push.
It doesn't move.
They push harder.
Vittoria and the Camerlengo join them.
With an almost primal GROWL of stone on stone, the lid slides,
rotating off the top of the casket and coming to rest at an angle.
The Camerlengo picks up a flashlight and shines it in the crypt.
Vittoria leans forward.
The light creeps up the Pope's body, over his burial vestments,
past his folded hands, and finally to his face.
His cheeks have collapsed, the Pope's mouth gapes wide --
-- and his tongue is black as death.
CUT TO:
73.
EXT VATICAN ARCHIVES NIGHT
The face of Langdon's Mickey Mouse watch is smeared with blood
from a cut on his hand, but we can still read the time.
It's 9:41.
Langdon and Chartrand stagger down the front steps of the Vatican
Archives, where they're immediately met by three Vatican Police
cars. Olivetti leaps out of one and meets them at the base of
the steps, holding his hands up in defense almost before Langdon
can lay into him.
LANGDON
Are you out of your minds?!
OLIVETTI
Please. In the car.
LANGDON
Someone tried to kill me.
OLIVETTI
Do you know where the next church is?
LANGDON
Yes.
OLIVETTI
Then get in the car!
Langdon jumps in the back seat of the car with Olivetti, and they
SQUEAL away from the Archives.
IN THE CAR,
they continue as the DRIVER tears through the streets of Rome.
OLIVETTI
We had no idea that --
LANGDON
You heard me ask permission! You
assigned me an escort! Don't try to
tell me you didn't know I was in
there!
OLIVETTI
(let me finish)
Of course I knew, but we had no idea
that portions of our white zones are
74.
OLIVETTI (cont'd)
cross-wired with that building.
Commander Rocher was extending the
search, if he'd known the Archives
were on that grid, he never would have
killed the power.
Langdon looks at him evenly, sees in Olivetti's eyes that they may
be thinking the same thing.
LANGDON
Or there is the other possibility.
Olivetti doesn't answer. But he's thinking about it.
LANGDON (cont'd)
Infiltration is the Illuminati
specialty -- why not the head of the
Swiss Guard?
OLIVETTI
(AGONIZED)
Perhaps.
LANGDON
I want to speak to the Camerlengo.
OLIVETTI
Il Camerlengo is unavailable,
LANGDON
Unavailable? Why?
OLIVETTI
He's found evidence that the Holy
Father was indeed murdered. He is
seeking guidance.
LANGDON
From whom?
Olivetti looks at him -- what are you, an idiot?
OLIVETTI
From God.
LANGDON
Oh, right.
OLIVETTI
Please. Make an effort.
CUT TO:
75.
INT PAPAL OFFICE NIGHT
Vittoria, escorted by the two Swiss Guardsmen from the grottoes,
returns to the papal office.
She goes to the desk where she was sitting earlier, to resume her
examination of the journals.
But the desk is bare.
VITTORIA
The journals. Where are they?
The Guardsmen look at her blankly.
VITTORIA (cont'd)
Who took the journals from this desk?!
INT APOSTOLIC PALACE - GREAT STAIRCASE NIGHT
The Camerlengo, in deep meditation, slowly descends the stairs
that lead to the Sistine Chapel.
At the bottom, Four Swiss Guard (in traditional garb) guard the
locked doors.
The Camerlengo reaches them. Hesitates. Looks heavenward for
one last word of encouragement, and then --
CAMERLENGO
Unseal the doors.
INT SISTINE CHAPEL NIGHT
There is an audible GASP from the assembled cardinals as the heavy
locks CLUNK open, the chains RATTLE away, and the main doors of
the Sistine Chapel sweep open.
The Camerlengo walks in, a stark presence in his black cassock
amid the sea of red robes. Cardinal Mortati steps from behind the
altar to meet him.
MORTATI
Signore, do you realize that for the
first time in Vatican history, a
Camerlengo has just crossed the sacred
threshold of conclave after sealing
the doors?
CUT TO:
CAMERLENGO
There has been a development.
76.
EXT ROME - STREET NIGHT
Olivetti's Alfa Romeo races through the streets of Rome, trailed
by three other cars.
INT SISTINE CHAPEL NIGHT
The Camerlengo has just passed on the shocking news, and the
whispered word "murder" can be heard in several languages.
Even Mortati is shaken. The Camerlengo speaks to the Cardinals.
CAMERLENGO
Please... a moment... if I...
He strides quickly up the steps of the altar to address the group
-- again, to the shock and surprise of this most conservative and
rule-bound group.
But no one stops him.
CAMERLENGO (cont'd)
It is true we are under attack from an
old enemy. And this time they've
struck from within, murdering our Holy
Father and threatening us all with
destruction at the hands of their new
god, science. So what are we to do?
INT OLIVETTI'S CAR NIGHT
CLOSE ON the dashboard clock in Olivetti's car, which now reads
8:57. Langdon looks up from it, staring intently through the
windshield.
On the horizon, he sees a faint orange glow.
LANGDON
Oh no.
INT SISTINE CHAPEL NIGHT
The Camerlengo continues, and the cardinals are listening.
CAMERLENGO
Since the days of Galileo, the church
has tried to slow the relentless march
of science, sometimes with misguided
means, but always with benevolent
intention. Still, they call us
backward, ignorant.
77.
CAMERLENGO (cont'd)
But who is more ignorant? The man
who cannot define lightning, or the
man who does not respect its awesome
power?
INT OLIVETTI'S CAR NIGHT
Through the windshield of Olivetti's car, we see that orange glow,
closer now. It's a building on fire.
INT SISTINE CHAPEL NIGHT
The Camerlengo continues, growing passionate.
CAMERLENGO
The promises of science have not been
kept. We're a fractured and frantic
species, moving down of destruction in
the name of progress.
EXT SANTA MARIA DELLA VITTORIA NIGHT
The police cars come to an abrupt stop in front of the Church of
Santa Maria della Vittoria. Flames glow like evil eyes through
the stained-glass windows fifty feet above the ground.
A small CROWD has gathered, stabbing at their cell phones. A
SIREN WAILS in the distance.
INT SISTINE CHAPEL NIGHT
Mortati's Aide, Father Simeon, takes advantage of the open Sistine
Chapel doors and slips inside. He takes a place just behind
Mortati as the Camerlengo goes on.
CAMERLENGO
Science and religion are not enemies.
But there are things that science is
simply too young to understand. We
are here to lead, but how?
EXT SANTA MARIA DELLA VITTORIA NIGHT
With three sharp CRACKS, Olivetti fires into the lock in the front
door of the church. He KICKS it open --
-- and flame RIPS out into the night air.
INT SISTINE CHAPEL NIGHT
The Camerlengo speaks faster now:
78.
CAMERLENGO
Shall we cloak ourselves in silence
and secrecy, as in the past? Or do
we open the doors, take down the
blackened curtains, and speak to our
flock?
INT SANTA MARIA DELLA VITTORIA NIGHT
Olivetti, Langdon, and four other VATICAN POLICE make their way
into the burning church. There is a massive pile of church pews
in the center aisle, burning wildly.
INT SISTINE CHAPEL NIGHT
The Camerlengo's wrapping up:
CAMERLENGO
Signores, I ask, no, I pray that you
break this conclave. Open the
doors.
INT SANTA MARIA DELLA VITTORIA NIGHT
In the burning church, two heavy incensor cables run from the
walls of the church and rise above the burning pews at an angle,
strung tightly to a center point. Langdon follows the wires up
with his eyes --
INT SISTINE CHAPEL NIGHT
CAMERLENGO
Evacuate St. Peter's Square.
INT BURNING CHURCH NIGHT
-- the wires meet at a center point, just above the roaring
flames, where --
INT SISTINE CHAPEL NIGHT
CAMERLENGO
Tell the world the truth.
INT BURNING CHURCH NIGHT
-- the third cardinal, still alive, is suspended over the searing
flames.
A word is branded into the center of his bared chest:
FIRE.
79.
Vatican Police, led by Olivetti and Vincenzo, race into the
building and draw their weapons. Olivetti SHOUTS to them in
Italian, looking for a way to cut down the agonized cardinal.
Langdon races toward the pyre, but is repelled by a wall of heat
ten feet away.
The Cardinal SCREAMS, and Langdon looks to the sides, following
the cables that reach to the walls.
One of the Vatican Cops ducks
INTO THE LEFT SIDE AISLE,
which is lit only by the wild orange flames. He creeps forward,
gun in front of him, toward a fire extinguisher mounted on the
wall.
He reaches for it --
-- but a HAND reaches for him from behind, he's pulled off his
feet and --
IN THE MAIN AISLE,
Olivetti and Vincenzo whirl as TWO GUNSHOTS come from the darkened
side aisle. They race toward it.
AT THE BONFIRE,
Langdon SHOUTS to two more Vatican Cops, pointing upward.
LANGDON
The cleat, on the wall! Get
something to stand on!
He's pointing at a cleat, maybe ten feet up on the wall, where the
right guide wire is attached.
Vatican Cops 2 & 3 drag a half-burned pew out of the fire and pull
it underneath, leaning it against the wall for greater height,
Langdon starts to climb it, to uncleat the wire.
IN THE DARKENED LEFT AISLE
Olivetti creeps forward, gun at the ready, Vincenzo close behind
him.
They see a form on the floor in front of them and Olivetti bends
down -- it's the first Vatican Policeman.
Dead in a pool of his own blood.
80.
Vincenzo, standing behind Olivetti, looks down, horrified, and in
that moment of distraction, a figure creeps up behind him --
-- and twists his head 180 degrees with one smooth motion.
Olivetti whirls, but his gun comes around a split-second slower
than he does and in that split-second a shadow falls over him,
something SLASHES through the air and --
IN THE MAIN AISLE,
Langdon struggles to climb the pew that's leaned against the wall
as Vatican Cop 4 finds a long-handled candle snuffer and races
toward the edge of the fire with it.
Blinking back the intense heat, he manages to hook the Cardinals
manacled foot with it, he turns to Langdon--
-- who, stretched as far as he possibly can, just manages to
loose the wire from its cleat, holding tightly to it so as not to
let the Cardinal go into free-fall.
But the pew on which he's balanced starts to wobble, then- --
-- BLAM! BLAM!
Two gunshots THUD into the chests of Vatican Cops 2 & 3, who were
supporting the pew. They fall, the pew tips --
-- and Langdon, falling --
-- loses his grip on the chain.
The Cardinal falls toward the flames. Vatican Cop 4 tries to pull
him to safety, but doesn't have enough of WHIRRS through the
pulley until it reaches its the Cardinal to an abrupt stop, six
feet lower
-- and directly in the middle of the bonfire.
His SHRIEK of agony echoes through the burning church.
Langdon SLAMS to the floor just at the edge of the burning church
pews, maybe CRACKING a rib on the hard floor of the church.
A FIGURE steps out of the shadows, looming over him, Langdon looks
up, expecting a gunshot, but instead --
-- sees the bleeding figure of Olivetti, staggering toward him,
clutching his slit throat in his last moments of life.
NEARBY,
81.
Vatican Cop 4 is desperately trying to pull the Cardinal from the
flames, the end of the candle-snuffer is now hooked around the
Cardinal's foot, he pulls him closer, reaches out, can almost grab
his ankle --
-- until he is SHOT in the back. He falls to the floor,
drawing and dropping his gun in the process, losing his grip on
the long-handled pole as well.
On the ground, bleeding, he sees his gun, just a foot away from
his hand.
He reaches for it.
And a foot steps on his wrist, BREAKING it.
Mr. Gray stands over him, implacable.
FROM A DISTANCE,
we see Mr. Gray fire two shots into the ground where Cop 4 is
lying.
Then he turns toward us.
NEARBY,
Langdon, still on the ground, looks up at the sound of the shots.
Through the burning church pews he can see Mr. Gray, starting
toward him.
Langdon crawls, on all fours, through the outskirts of the
bonfire, toward a recessed part of the wall ten or fifteen feet
away.
Mr. Gray steps up behind him, raises his gun --
VOICE (O.S.)
Polizia!
-- and turns. TWO MORE COPS, Roman Carbinieri, have run into
the burning church and are making their way down the center aisle,
straight toward him.
Mr. Gray raises his left (non-gun holding) hand, displaying a
leather billfold with a badge in it.
MR. GRAY
(good Italian accent)
Gendarmeria Vaticano!
Recognizing the ID, the two Cops glance away for a second, to
search the rest of the church --
82.
-- and Mr. Gray BLASTS two shots into each of them.
They drop, dead, but one of them squeezes off a single round
before falling.
Mr. Gray looks down, at his right shoulder, where a dark red stain
is spreading on his suit. He touches it, more annoyed than
anything.
UNDERNEATH THE BURNING PEWS,
Langdon has crawled as close as he dares to the raging fire, and
the sleeve of his shirt is ablaze. He rolls out the other side
of the embers, stamping out the flames, gets to his feet, and
takes off running.
Mr. Gray pursues, only slowing his gait slightly to DOUBLE TAP two
shots into the head of a dying Vatican Cop.
ACROSS THE CHURCH,
Langdon hurls himself over a balustrade and into a chapel on the
far side of the church. Bullets SHATTER the glass of an
elevated crypt, three feet off the floor. (Inside is a superbly
detailed wax statue of a saint in death.)
Langdon dives under it and crawls backwards, staring in horror at
Mr. Gray's feet as they approach the chapel from across the
church.
Langdon's back THUDS into a wall.
Dead end.
But there's an old wooden grating in the wall. He turns, KICKS
it with both feet.
The grating CRUNCHES into pieces, revealing a narrow crawlspace
IN THE CRAWL SPACE,
Langdon army-crawls through it.
Mr. Gray's face appears in the entry to the crypt. He pauses to
change clips on his handgun --
-- the floor beneath Langdon abruptly runs out --
-- Mr. Gray raises his gun --
-- and Langdon disappears. The gunshots THUD into cement wall
where he was, not where he is.
83.
UNDERGROUND,
Langdon CRUNCHES to a hard landing on a subterranean stone floor,
rolls over, and sees Mr. Gray above him, now pointing down.
But there's another crawl space, and Langdon scurries into it.
IN THE SECOND CRAWL SPACE,
it's hopelessly dark, an even tighter space than the last one,
filled with cobwebs that Langdon blindly claws his way through.
He hits another hole in the floor, falls a second time ---
INTO THE CATACOMB,
-- and lands on top of a pile of long-decayed skeletons in the
nearly-black bottom of the church's underground warren of hiding
places.
He looks up. He's ten feet from the nearest handhold, only a
fool would follow him down here
BACK UP IN THE BURNING CHURCH,
-- and Mr. Gray is no fool. He steps back over the balustrade
and leaves the chapel.
The waxen face of the carving in the sarcophagus melts in the
intense heat of the out-of-control fire.
CUT TO:
INT SISTINE CHAPEL - SALON NIGHT
In the salon outside the Sistine Chapel, the Camerlengo waits
alone. From inside can be heard the sound of VOICES in debate.
Finally, the big doors open and Cardinal Mortati emerges, goes to
him.
MORTATI
My son... God answers all prayers.
He puts a hand on the Camerlengo's shoulder.
MORTATI (cont'd)
But sometimes the answer is no.
The Camerlengo closes his eyes -- this is a terrible, terrible
mistake.
84.
MORTATI
The College will not break conclave.
CAMERLENGO
We can't hide this anymore. The
burning church --
MORTATI
A despicable act of terrorism.
Father Simeon will make a suitable
announcement lamenting the loss of
life. May I suggest you direct
your energies to helping the Swiss
Guard confront the possibility of this
explosive device, and leave church
leadership --
He gestures to the open doors to the Sistine Chapel, and the
assembled cardinals within.
MORTATI (cont'd)
-- to its leaders.
The Camerlengo looks at him for a long moment, then turns and
wa1ks away.
Father Simeon, who had been lurking in the open doorway to the
chapel, now glides up beside him and touches Mortati's arm.
FR. SIMEON
Eminence. There is a growing fear
that without the four prefiriti, a two-
thirds majority for any candidate may
be impossible. Unless --
He trails off, gestures vaguely.
MORTATI
Speak plainly.
FR. SIMEON
It is the recommendation of many that
you ask to be removed from your post
as Great Elector --
Mortati raises an eyebrow, seeing where this is going.
FR. SIMEON (cont'd)
-- thereby making yourself eligible
to wear the Ring of the Fisherman.
85.
Mortati looks at him for a moment, then looks back, over his
shoulder, where a small knot of Cardinals, who have clearly
discussed this, are looking at him in confirmation.
MORTATI
If it is God's will, may His will be
DONE
CUT TO:
INT OFFICE OF THE SWISS GUARD NIGHT
CLOSE ON a handwritten page, half-filled with mathematical
computations; the other half with a scratchy handwritten prose.
(IF WE'RE EAGLE-EYED, we'll notice the phrase we move past just as
we cut into the scene is "may His will be done," the same phrase
we just heard Mortati utter.)
Commandante Rocher is at his desk, Vittoria's leather-bound
journals on the desk in front of him. He's studying them
carefully, and seems troubled by what he reads.
Through the glass walls of his office, we can see a commotion in
the still-chaotic Swiss Guard headquarters. Someone is walking
toward us, briskly, a WOMAN'S VOICE complaining loudly in Italian.
Rocher calmly places the journals on top of the screen of the
video monitor inlaid in his desk, the one we saw earlier, with a
keyhole where a power switch should be.
He pushes a button and the monitor rotates shut, into an inlaid
panel in the desk's surface. It closes just after --
VITTORIA (O.S.)
Those journals are private property.
-- Vittoria arrives in the doorway, livid.
VITTORIA (cont'd)
I demand that you return them to me.
ROCHER
(no attempt at a
DENIAL)
They are material evidence in a
Vatican investigation.
VITTORIA
I am an Italian citizen and I have a
right to-
86.
ROCHER
This isn't Italy. It isn't even
Rome. The Vatican is its own
country, with its own laws, and when
those journals crossed our border they
became our property. You will get
them back when I have decided they
contain nothing of value to this
investigation.
She looks at him, then down at the desk, where the outline of the
hidden panel is visible in the veneer of the wood.
VITTORIA
Do you have something to hide,
Commandante Rocher?
ROCHER
Do you, Doctor Vetra?
He stresses her title, as if it offends
CUT TO:
EXT SANTA MARIA DELLA VITTORIA NIGHT
The burning church, now mostly extinguished. But a LARGE CROWD
has gathered, along with a dozen police and fire vehicles.
INT SANTA MARIA DELLA VITTORIA NIGHT
As FIREMEN put out the last of the flames (not using water, but
Halon gas, which creates no steam), a metallic TAPPING sound comes
from somewhere.
One of the Firemen approaches another, gets his attention -- stop
what you're doing and listen.
They shut down a hose and stop, listening.
There it is again. They SHOUT in Italian to the others, now
everybody shuts down their hoses and listens.
The metallic TAPPING echoes in the smoldering church.
They walk toward it -- it's coming from an oval plate in the
floor, like a manhole cover, heavy and carved. We've seen one
of these before, it leads to a Demon's Hole.
The TAPPING is louder now, rhythmic. Somebody's down there.
Crowbars are produced, the cover of the Demon's Hole is pried off
and shoved aside, revealing --
87.
-- Robert Langdon, wedged into the top of the opening, holding a
rock in one hand as he clings precariously to the walls he has
climbed.
Strong hands reach down, haul him to his feet --
AT THE FRONT OF THE CHURCH,
-- and those same feet hurry to the front of the smoldering
church, coming to a stop in front of --
-- Bernini's Ecstasy of St. Teresa.
The statue he came here to find. Now, as the Italian-speaking
police and firemen work around him, Langdon moves, as if in his
own world. He looks to the statue, repeating fragments of the
poem he has by now memorized:
LANGDON
Let angels guide you on your lofty
quest...
Directly over the recumbent saint, against a backdrop of gilded
flame, hovers Bernini's angel. The angel's hand clutches a
pointed spear of fire.
LANGDON (cont'd)
Cross Rome the mystic elements
unfold...
Langdon's eyes follow the direction of the shaft, arcing toward
the right side of the church.
VOICE (O.S.)
Professor?
A ROMAN POLICEMAN, a member of the Carbinieri, comes up to
Langdon, discussing him in Italian with TWO OTHER COPS as he
approaches.
ROMAN COP
Langdon, is it?
Langdon ignores him, pointing at the wall instead.
LANGDON
What direction is that?
ROMAN COP
Direction? West, I think. Mr.
Langdon, we've confirmed with the
Vatican that they invited you into
this investigation, but what I-
88.
LANGDON
Map.
A MOMENT LATER,
as if by command, a map CRINKLES out on the floor of the church.
It's detailed, a fire department map, and Langdon drops down on
all fours, studying it.
LANGDON
We're here... Piazza Barberini...
Langdon whips a glance over at the angel, gets bearings, and
rotates the map to match.
His finger travels over the map and --
CLOSE ON THE MAP,
we watch as his finger crosses church after church after church,
tiny black boxes with crosses in them. There must be two dozen.
LANGDON
Damn it.
He sits back for a moment.
The Roman Cop bends down next to him. Treats him like a crazy
person.
ROMAN COP
Professor, I need to know what you saw
here.
LANGDON
Fire and death. Show me where Santa
Maria del Popolo is.
(the Cop doesn't
UNDERSTAND)
The Church, it was the first altar of
science.
The Cop points to a spot at the top center of the map.
LANGDON (cont'd)
And St. Peter's is...
The Cop points to a spot at the bottom center.
Langdon's eyes widen, he grabs the Cop by the lapels --
-- and pulls a pen from the man's pocket.
89.
He turns back to the map and draws a straight line, from north to
south, connecting the two churches the Cop just pointed to.
LANGDON (cont'd)
And we're over here --
He puts the pen on a point on the eastern side of the map.
LANGDON (cont'd)
-- and west is --
He draws a line straight across the map, to the west, sucking in
his breath as he realizes something.
LANGDON (cont'd)
'Cross Rome...
Now he stands, slowly, and as he stands, we rise up, to get a
birds-eye view of the map on the floor.
On which he has drawn a perfect cross.
LANGDON (cont'd)
It's a cross. The poem meant it
literally. The four altars of
science form a perfect cross.
The Cop, who has no clue what he's talking about, gets a call on
his radio and turns away to take it.
LANGDON (cont'd)
(muttering to himself)
Which means the fourth element, water,
should be right about --
He drops to his knees again, and traces the horizontal line to
where it stops on the western side of the city, exactly as far
from the center line as was the church on the eastern side.
LANGDON (cont'd)
Here.
ROMAN COP
(behind him)
Professor, I am asked to escort you to
the Vatican immediately. Commander
Rocher has asked to see you.
LANGDON
(ignoring him)
Water.
90.
As Langdon peers down, we see the line on the map comes to a stop
in the center of a place called Piazza Navona, and as we go in
closer on the map, an odd-shaped object in the middle of the
Piazza starts to move, to ripple, right there on the map, and we
hear the sound of running water as it slowly dissolves to --
DISSOLVE TO:
EXT PIAZZA NAVONA NIGHT
-- Bernini's spectacular Fountain of the Four Rivers in the
Piazza Navona.
There is a black van parked beside the fountain, and we drift over
toward it. Passing through the passenger window, we go inside
to find --
-- Mr. Gray, facing the rear of the van, his jacket off and his
shirt open, engaged in battlefield surgery on his injured right
shoulder. Using a long-handled tweezers, he digs into his own
flesh, gets a hold of the bullet that pierced him, and tosses it
onto the metal floor of the van with a TING.
It lands beside a lumpy tarp, and as metal hits metal, the tarp
jumps.
There's a human being in there. Mr. Gray speaks to the lump.
MR. GRAY
Were it up to me, it would not be this
way. It is a sin to kill with pain.
(SIGHS)
But I am a sinner.
We pan off him quickly and look out the driver's window, up at a
clock tower on the far side of the plaza.
It's sixteen minutes to eleven.
CUT TO:
EXT BURNING CHURCH NIGHT
Langdon hurries down the steps of the still-smoldering church,
followed closely by the Roman Cop and TWO OTHER COPS.
ROMAN COP
Professor! The Vatican insists that-
91.
LANGDON
(turning on him)
The Vatican is about to see its fourth
Cardinal murdered tonight.
He realizes he spoke too loudly, and there is quite a crowd
assembled outside the smoking church. Langdon lowers his voice
and presses in.
LANGDON (cont'd)
Now you can either do what they tell
you and force me to go to the Vatican,
where we can all mourn his death
together, or you can show them how
real cops act and take me to the
Piazza Navona, where we might be able
to stop it.
The Cop looks at him, thinking, confers with another Cop in rapid
Italian. Langdon checks his watch.
LANGDON (cont'd)
By all means, talk it over. But in
fourteen minutes he'll be dead.
CUT TO:
EXT ST. PETER'S SQUARE NIGHT
St. Peter's Square is even more crowded than before. Another
move down the row of international television reporters, but this
one's about twice as fast as the last one. (Anybody not
speaking English is subtitled.)
SOUTH AFRICAN REPORTER
-- possibility of terrorism, as the
church has now confirmed arson at one
of its oldest and holiest churches
Moving on, to an Asian Reporter:
ASIAN REPORTER
-- resulting in at least six confirmed
deaths --
To a Brazilian:
BRAZILIAN REPORTER
-- initial rumors that one of the
dead was Cardinal Ebner of Frankfurt --
To an American:
92.
AMERICAN REPORTER
-- been refuted by the Vatican, which
has asked international media not to
engage in, quote, "wild speculation"--
And to a French Woman:
FRENCH REPORTER
-- as conclave goes on, with no sign
of agreement on a new pope yet.
CUT TO:
INT OFFICE OF THE POPE NIGHT
In the papal office, the Camerlengo sits, alone, in front of the
fireplace, staring into the flames, thinking.
Behind him, a small knot of Swiss Guard debate their next move in
Italian. He speaks softly to them, in Italian, subtitled.
CAMERLENGO
At 11:15, if the church is still in
peril, give the order to evacuate the
cardinals. But with dignity, let
them exit into St. Peter's Square,
with their heads held high. I don't
want the last image of this church to
be frightened old men sneaking out a
back door. If Cardinal Mortati
protests, escort him bodily. Do you
understand?
The Guardsmen are uncomfortable with that idea.
SWISS GUARDSMAN
If you think it is the right thing,
Signore.
CAMERLENGO
I'm certain it's the wrong thing,
and I will be removed from my post
for it. But I also know we have
no choice.
They just look at him. You're the boss.
CAMERLENGO (cont'd)
Please clear the room so that I may
pray on the matter.
93.
They get out. He stares into the flames.
CUT TO:
EXT PIAZZA NAVONA NIGHT
Piazza Navona is lightly peopled on this soft summer night with so
much attention directed toward the Vatican.
The hood of a car glides into view, nearly silent, on the far side
of the fountain. Langdon and the two Roman Cops step out and
survey the area.
Langdon looks to the fountain. Its central core is twenty feet
tall, a rugged mountain of marble with caves and grottoes through
which water churns. Atop it stands an obelisk that climbs
another forty feet.
LANGDON
(eyes searching)
Let angels guide you...
But there's no angel anywhere. He turns to the first Roman Cop.
LANGDON (cont'd)
Isn't there an angel on this fountain?
ROMAN COP
Not anymore.
LANGDON
The marker's no good without an angel,
pointing to the final-
ROMAN COP
Blame Mussolini. He wanted it for
his summer-
But the Cop stops mid-sentence as he notices the black van parked
on the far side of the fountain.
Silently, the Cops gesture to each other to go opposite ways
around the fountain, and to Langdon to stay where he is.
Langdon, frustrated but no action hero, watches them as they
slowly encircle the van.
AT THE DRIVER'S SIDE,
the First Cop approaches the Driver's Window, sees Mr. Gray
sitting implacably behind the wheel. He taps lightly with a
knuckle, his drawn gun at his side, just out of view.
94.
Mr. Gray opens the window.
MR. GRAY
Si?
The Roman Cop looks down, ever so briefly, at a small spreading
bloodstain on Mr. Gray's shirt. When he looks back up --
-- there is a silenced pistol pointing directly at him.
PHOOM.
He takes a bullet in the forehead, slumps forward against the
window, and --
FROM A DISTANCE,
we see his body pulled rapidly into the van through the driver's
window. Whole thing took about three seconds. DINERS at an
outdoor cafe don't even notice.
FROM LANGDON'S POINT OF VIEW,
on the other side of the fountain, the van rocks slightly, but he
can't see anything out of the ordinary.
He turns, looks to the Second Cop, who is just now approaching
from the rear of the van.
WITH THE SECOND COP,
this one's got his gun in front of him, he's ready for anything.
We creep around the back of the van with him, and just as he comes
around to where he can see the driver's side --
-- the barrel of the silencer presses into his forehead. A
quick exchange in Italian:
SECOND COP
Per favore?
MR. GRAY
Non posso.
PHOOM.
Another bullet, another slumping Cop, and
FROM LANGDON'S POINT OF VIEW,
the van rocks again, but he can't see anything more detailed than
that. All he knows is the two cops aren't coming out from the
other side of the van, something is going on --
95.
-- and the bell in the clock tower starts to BONG.
EVEN UNARMED, LANGDON STARTS TO MOVE FORWARD, JUST AS --
-- the sliding door on the fountain side of the van SLAMS open
-- revealing the figure of the FOURTH CARDINAL, wrapped in chains
and with manacled hands and feet. He thrashes against the iron
links, but the chains are too heavy. One of the links bisects
his mouth like a horse's bit, stifling his cries for help. Mr.
Gray hovers over him.
Langdon GASPS --
-- and Mr. Gray shoves the bound figure roughly out of the van.
The Cardinal rolls, falling into the fountain with an enormous
SPLASH. His weighted body sinks immediately to the bottom.
There is a moment, frozen in time, in which Langdon locks eyes
with Mr. Gray, still hunched in the back of the van as the clock
tower continues to BONG, the only sound we can hear.
Langdon looks at him, then down at the body in the fountain, then
back up at Mr. Gray--
-- who salutes him ---
-- the van door SLAMS shut, and the van tears ass out of there.
Langdon looks from its receding taillights to the idling police
car, its door hanging open, he could jump in and give chase, but
then his eyes go back to the fountain, where the drowning cardinal
must not have much time left, and it's really no decision at all.
Langdon covers the distance to the fountain in two quick strides
and leaps in.
IN THE FOUNTAIN,
the water is waist deep and like ice. Steady streams of bubbles
rise up from the bottom, churning it.
Langdon reaches the body of the Cardinal, plunges in --
UNDERWATER,
-- and struggles to get both arms underneath the drowning man.
Through the watery haze, we can see the man's bare chest, branded
with the final ambigram:
WATER.
96.
Langdon struggles to lift him, but the weight is too much, he can
barely get him a few inches off the bottom of the fountain, much
less all the way to the surface.
Langdon, running out of air, bursts to the surface and -- ON THE
SURFACE,
-- takes a deep breath, then plunges back --
UNDERWATER,
-- but he still can't move the Cardinal.
He makes eye contact with the dying man, who seems to be accepting
his fate, maybe even welcoming it.
Langdon changes his grip, strains like hell, and actually gets him
a few inches higher this time, but nowhere close to the air
supply.
But with the new position, his eyes fall on something behind the
cardinal -- a plastic tube, six inches across, streaming bubbles
into the fountain.
He goes back --
ABOVE THE SURFACE
-- takes another breathy and sees the fountain of bubbles rising
up to the surface just above the tube. Air!
Several PASSERS-BY notice the commotion in the fountain as Langdon
dives back under the water.
UNDERWATER,
Langdon drags the body of the Cardinal a few feet across the
bottom of the fountain and RIPS the tube free from its mooring,
pulling it to the Cardinal's mouth.
He clamps it down over the man's lips, and the Cardinal sucks a
few greedy breaths from it. Enough to keep him alive.
Langdon takes the tube and draws a couple breaths of his own, then
digs his hands back underneath the Cardinal to lift him, but this
time --
-- SIX MORE HANDS come in from all sides.
Several Passers-by have jumped into the fountain to help, and as
they all strain together --
97.
ON THE SURFACE,
-- the Cardinal's bound body breaks the surface and he GULPS deep
lungfuls of air.
He is saved. Langdon sags against the side of the fountain,
exhausted and freezing, as the others pull the Cardinal's body to
safety.
In the distance, SIRENS.
Langdon, gathering himself, goes to the Cardinal, speaks in rapid
Spanish, subtitled.
LANGDON
Cardinale Guidera?
CARDINAL GU
Si...si...
LANGDON
The Church of Illumination. It's
where you were being held, isn't it?
Guidera nods weakly as, around them, it seems like everybody
arrives at the fountain -- Carbinieri, Swiss Guard, Vatican
Police, paramedics -- car after car after car.
LANGDON (cont'd)
(still to Guidera)
Where is it?!
CARDINAL GUIDERA
Castel... Sant'Angelo...
CUT TO:
INT OFFICE OF THE SWISS GUARD NIGHT
CLOSE ON a row of weapons in a cabinet in the Office of the Swiss
Commander Rocher selects a pistol and slips it into a harness.
While his back is turned to the room, Lt. Chartrand, the young
Swiss Guardsman who escorted Langdon to the Archives, hurries up
behind him.
CHARTRAND
Langdon says Cardinal Guidera will be
killed in Piazza Navona. He's on
his way there with two Carbinieri.
98.
ROCHER
Send everyone we can spare.
He closes and locks the cabinet, heads for the door. Alone.
CHARTRAND
You?
ROCHER
Staying here to continue the search
for the explosive.
He leaves. Chartrand looks back at the weapons cabinet. Sees
the space from which the pistol was taken.
CUT TO:
EXT CASTEL SANT'ANGELO NIGHT
We fly over a bridge, flanked by a dozen angel statues standing
sentinel on either side, leading directly toward--
-- the Castel Sant'Angelo, Castle of the Angels, its ancient
stone ramparts lit by floodlights. Soaring swiftly up its
facade, we close in on a mammoth bronze angel standing atop the
citadel.
It points the way, all right, its sword aimed directly downward,
at the castle itself, as if to say you've found it.
DOWN ON THE GROUND,
several Police Cars come to a stop in front of the castle at the
same time.
Langdon climbs out the back of one just as Vittoria gets out of a
car driven by a SWISS GUARDSMAN.
Langdon grabs her, thrilled to see her.
LANGDON
You're all right?
VITTORIA
I'm all right, what about you?!
LANGDON
Cold and wet but alive. Where's
Rocher?
VITTORIA
I don't know. He took the journals,
he's hiding something.
99.
More Cops arrive, and a SECURITY GUARD is pressed into service
behind them, opening the massive front doors to the Castle,
LANGDON
This is it. The Church of
Illumination is somewhere in the
castle.
Cops pour into the courtyard of the castle. Langdon and
Vittoria follow.
EXT CASTEL SANT'ANGELO - COURTYARD NIGHT
They dash around the outer bulwark of the Castle. The courtyard
beneath them looks like a museum of ancient warfare -- catapults,
stacks of marble cannonballs, fearful contraptions.
As the Cops quickly and silently search every nook, Langdon and
Vittoria follow closely.
LANGDON
The Vatican used this place for
centuries as a hideout, a prison for
enemies of the church -- there are
passages and catacombs everywhere. It
makes sense, the Illuminati
infiltrated the Church's own
stronghold. Bernini was chief
architect here, he left clues
everywhere, it's even surrounded by a
pentagonal park!
They reach the central core of the castle.
Another angel statue, similar to the one atop the citadel, stands
in front of them, its sword held in the same position, pointing
downward at an angle.
Langdon studies it, follows the line of the angel's sword -- and
sees a gated drive that cuts across the courtyard itself.
LANGDON (cont'd)
There.
A MOMENT LATER,
he and Vittoria are down in the courtyard, at the mouth of the
gated drive. The gate is open and leads to a tunnel, a gaping
entry in the central core.
100.
LANGDON
A traforo. Commanders on horseback
used them to ride directly into a
castle from the outside.
He gestures to the nearby Cops, who are already on it, and they
all head into the darkened tunnel.
INT TUNNEL NIGHT
Police flashlights switch on and their beams bounce crazily off
the walls of the tunnel.
Footsteps CRUNCH as they all press in, Langdon and Vittoria
content to let men with guns lead the way.
It gets darker as they descend, and then, by the echo of their
footfalls, they can tell they've entered --
A LARGE CHAMBER.
More lights are switched on, illuminating the space, which
terminates in three stone walls.
LANGDON
It's a dead end.
But the Police attention is focused on the black van parked in the
center of the room.
Roman Police snap into action, flashlight beams bounce everywhere,
guns point in every possible window of the van, SHOUTS for
whoever's inside to get the hell out now, now, now.
The doors are flung open.
The van is empty.
Except for the two dead policemen from the Piazza Navona.
The police frenzy reaches an even higher level, URGENT MESSAGES
passed along on radios, half the Cops turning and heading back out
of the tunnel.
LANGDON (cont'd)
Where are they going?
Vittoria listens to the orders being given in Italian.
VITTORIA
Back to search the outer castle.
101.
LANGDON
No... no, it has to be here!
But there's no stopping the Cops, and the only two that remain are
posted outside the van, guarding their fallen colleagues.
VITTORIA
Robert, it's a dead end.
Langdon walks forward, to the stone wall at the end of the tunnel,
and feels his way along it.
It joins smoothly with the wall on the right side.
VITTORIA (cont'd)
Robert...
But he waves her off, this has to be it. He feels all along the
wall toward the other corner, and as he looks down at the ground,
his eyes widen.
LANGDON
Bring a flashlight.
Vittoria borrows a flashlight from one of the two remaining Cops,
who now get a CRACKLY MESSAGE on their walkie-talkies and race out
of the tunnel, toward the top, leaving Langdon and Vittoria alone
in the dead end.
She brings the light to Langdon, who shines its beam down at the
floor. There, in the corner, is a granite block.
LANGDON (cont'd)
None of the other blocks are granite.
And they're all square.
He bends down, looks closer.
LANGDON (cont'd)
This one's a pentagram. It points --
Sure enough, the block is carved in the shape of a pentagram, with
the tip pointing into the corner.
LANGDON (cont'd)
-- at nothing.
But as he shines the light, there's something off about the shadow
it casts in the corner of the room. It creates an odd, dark
slit.
Langdon crouches in the corner and slides his hand along the back
wall of the chamber. When he reaches the point at which it
should intersect the side wall --
102.
-- his hand disappears.
LANGDON (cont'd)
The walls overlap.
He flattens himself against the back wall, shining the light
straight at what should be the intersection of the walls. Half
the flashlight's beam falls on the side wall, and the other half --
INT SECRET PASSAGE NIGHT
-- shines through into the secret passage behind the wall.
Langdon draws in his breath and forces himself through the tiny
slit, just wide enough for a determined person to squeeze through.
Vittoria follows.
They look ahead, shining the light. They're in an extremely narrow
passageway.
They start carefully down it, flashlight in front of them. They
whisper.
LANGDON
Do you still have the gun?
VITTORIA
You told me to give it back.
She pulls the gun from her waistband.
VITTORIA (cont'd)
I ignored you.
LANGDON
Ignore me any time you like.
To their right, they pass half a dozen tiny jail cells, the iron
bars on most eroded away. Several of the larger cells are
intact, and on the floor of one they see black robes and red
sashes.
They approach an iron doorway in the wall. The door is ajar and
beyond it there is some sort of passage. Langdon squints at two
words above it -- II Passetto.
Vittoria gestures -- that way?
Langdon shakes his head no.
103.
LANGDON (cont'd)
(WHISPERS)
Leads to the Vatican. Or from it.
An ancient escape route.
They round a corner, where the tunnel takes a ninety degree turn
to the right. At the corner, Langdon notices another
pentagrammal block in the floor.
He bends, studies the direction it's pointing, feels the wall --
LANGDON (cont'd)
Another overlap.
-- and finds another overlapping angle, this one even smaller
than the last. The wall is actually joined at the floor, seems
to open out at the middle (in roughly the shape of a human form
turned sideways), and joins again at the top.
HE TAKES A DEEP BREATH, SLIPS THROUGH THE GAP --
-- and finds himself at the base of a set of steep spiral stairs.
Langdon looks up, to the top of the stairs. There is an
archway, adorned with a tiny carved angel.
Vittoria slips through the gap, sees the carving too.
VITTORIA
An angel.
Langdon, sensing they're close, starts up the stairs.
CUT TO:
INT APOSTOLIC PALACE - HALLWAY NIGHT
Commander Rocher, eyes dead-set, walks down a hallway in the
Apostolic Palace. He passes two Swiss Guardsmen with radios.
ROCHER
Get on the radio and put the word out.
Conclave is to remain sealed.
SWISS GUARDSMAN
But the Camerlengo gave the order for
evacuation at eleven fif-
ROCHER
I'm countermanding it.
SWISS GUARDSMAN
BUT-
104.
ROCHER
That door stays SHUT! Do you
understand?
SWISS GUARDSMAN
Yes sir.
Rocher keeps walking.
CUT TO:
INT CHURCH OF ILLUMINATION NIGHT
Langdon and Vittoria creep into the Church of Illumination, and we
get our first good look at it.
The embellishments, though faded, are replete with familiar
symbology. Pentagram tiles. Planet frescoes. Pyramids.
VITTORIA
We have thirty minutes left, I can
still change the battery if we can
find the cannister.
Langdon nods, but he's fascinated by the place.
In the center of the room, there is an open fireplace, its embers
still smoking. The four Illuminati brands, their faces wiped
clean, have been placed back in a molded velvet case.
Langdon, fascinated, spots an empty slot in the very center of the
case, surrounded by the four used brands.
But this one's missing.
Vittoria arrives over his shoulder, having completed a quick
search of the place.
VITTORIA (cont'd)
It isn't here.
LANGDON
There's a fifth brand.
VITTORIA
What?
He touches the indentation in the velvet, puzzling it out.
LANGDON
Two crossed keys.
105.
VITTORIA
The symbol for the Vatican?
LANGDON
The papacy.
(THINKING)
They're going to kill him. Before
they blow up the Vatican they're going
to kill and brand the pope himself.
VITTORIA
But there is no pope.
LANGDON
Technically, there is.
VITTORIA
The Camerlengo?! We have to-
MR. GRAY (O.S.)
Please place your gun on the floor.
They freeze. Vittoria looks at Langdon, who nods -- you'd better
do it. She does.
MR. GRAY (cont'd)
Now turn around.
They turn and face Mr. Gray. He looks quite dapper, and not too
much the worse for wear. There is a briefcase on the ground
beside him, and he's changed into a fresh shirt.
MR. GRAY (cont'd)
Kick it to me.
She does. He picks it up, ejects the clip and the round in the
chamber, pockets them, and tosses the gun into the smoldering
fire.
LANGDON
You could have been long gone by
now.
MR. GRAY
Some do God's work for love, others
for money. Which do you take me
for?
As if to answer his own question, he picks up the briefcase from
the floor beside him. Then studies Langdon for a moment.
106.
MR. GRAY
You're not one of them.
LANGDON
Neither are you. I was expecting a
fanatic.
MR. GRAY
When they call me -- and they all
call me -- it is so important to
them that I know what they ask is
the Lord's will. Or Allah's, or
Yahweh's. And I suppose they're
right. Because if He were not
vengeful, I would not exist, would
I?
He picks up his briefcase.
MR. GRAY (cont'd)
Be careful. These are men of God.
He turns to go. Langdon can't help himself:
LANGDON
Why didn't you kill us when you had
the chancer
Vittoria looks at Langdon like he's nuts. Mr. Gray turns back,
seems puzzled by the very thought.
MR. GRAY
Because no one asked me to.
He leaves.
Langdon and Vittoria pause for a moment, look at each other --
LANGDON
We've got to get to the Vatican.
CUT TO:
INT PAPAL OFFICES - HALLWAY NIGHT
Rocher reaches the office of the Pope. Two uniformed Swiss Guard
are stationed outside.
Another Swiss Guardsman steps out of the office, reporting back
from within.
107.
SWISS GUARDSMAN
The Camerlengo says he will grant you
an audience.
ROCHER
I'd like to see him alone.
The Swiss Guards look at each other.
SWISS GUARDSMAN
That's impossible, sir. No one-
ROCHER
Have you forgotten who you work for?!
Rocher is truly intimidating when he wants to be.
SWISS GUARDSMAN
No, sir.
He nods to the other Guards, who raise their swords, allowing
access.
CUT TO:
INT SECRET PASSAGE NIGHT
Vittoria and Langdon barrel down the stone stairs, into the
passage, and through the open doorway to Il Passetto.
INT IL PASSETTO NIGHT
The passetto is narrow and dark, lit only by streaks of moonlight
coming through the vertical slits in the walls.
But up ahead, there's light. They race for it.
CUT TO:
INT OFFICE OF THE POPE NIGHT
The Camerlengo kneels in prayer in front of the fire. He hears a
sound behind him and turns as the door to the papal office opens.
Rocher enters, closes and locks the door behind him.
CAMERLENGO
Have you come to make me a martyr?
CUT TO:
108.
INT/EXT IL PASSETTO NIGHT
Vittoria and Langdon race up a flight of stairs, and the passetto
comes out into the open for a hundred yards or so as it leaves the
Castel Sant'Angelo.
Ahead, they see a rope ladder over the side. They look down.
Directly below them, Mr. Gray is getting into an Alfa Romeo parked
discretely at the end of a dead end street, making his escape.
DOWN ON THE STREET,
the car door SLAMS.
IN THE CAR,
Mr. Gray turns the key.
UP ON THE PASSETTO,
Langdon and Vittoria are running toward the Vatican again when the
EXPLOSION rips through the still night.
They stagger and turn back, in time to see Mr. Gray's car go up in
an enormous fireball.
VITTORIA
Men of God.
Langdon grabs her arm and they take off. The Passetto descends
again, into --
INT IL PASSETTO NIGHT
-- another underground space. The outline of a steel gate
looms ahead, blocking their way.
But as they draw closer, they find the ancient lock hanging open,
and the gate swings freely. This tunnel has been used, and
recently.
FURTHER AHEAD,
they plow onward, and now there is a low ROARING sound from above
them. Langdon pauses, looks up.
LANGDON
We're under St. Peter's Square.
They keep on.
CUT TO:
109.
INT PAPAL OFFICES - HALLWAY NIGHT
In the hallway outside the Pope's office, there are raised VOICES
from behind the closed door. Lt. Chartrand approaches
nervously.
He and the Guards look at each other, don't know what to do. From
the other direction, Father Simeon, Cardinal Mortati's Aide,
strides toward them.
FR. SIMEON
I demand to speak to the Camerlengo.
AN ANGRY SHOUT from behind the door draws their attention --what
the hell is going on in there?
CUT TO:
INT IL PASSETTO NIGHT
Langdon and Vittoria hit another gate, this one heavier, but it
too is unlocked. The sound of St. Peter's Square fades behind
them now.
UP AHEAD,
they turn a corner and, without warning --- the tunnel ends.
There is only a thick iron door, and as Langdon searches it with
his flashlight, he finds no handle, no knob, no keyhole, no
hinges.
LANGDON
Senza chiave! A one-way portal, the
only access is from the other side!
With a ROAR of anger, he starts to POUND on the door. Vittoria
joins in.
INT OFFICES OF THE POPE - HALLWAY NIGHT
CLOSE ON a watch -- 11:40. Outside the door to the Pope's
office, Lt. Chartrand is desperate.
While Father Simeon attempts to argue with him in Italian,
Chartrand turns, hearing the POUNDING coming from down the hall.
He heads toward it, rounds a corner --
INT POPE'S PRIVATE LIBRARY NIGHT
-- and steps into the Pope's private library, where the POUNDING
is louder.
110.
He steps to a heavy door in the wall, looks unused for a century,
but it's clearly the source of the sounds. He looks down, sees
three keyholes in the door, and an ancient key in each of them.
Chartrand puts his ear to the door, hears VOICES --
INT IL PASSETTO NIGHT
-- and, on the other side, Langdon and Vittoria squint at the
light as the heavy door is hauled open before them.
Chartrand looks at them in amazement -- how'd you get here?
LANGDON
The Camerlengo is in danger!
INT PAPAL OFFICES - HALLWAY NIGHT
Chartrand, Langdon, and Vittoria round the corner and race down
the hallway toward the Pope's office, just as --
-- a BLOODCURDLING SCREAM comes from behind the closed doors. The
Swiss Guard move fast, throwing open the door.
INT POPE'S OFFICE NIGHT
Langdon and the others race into the pope's office and find a
truly bizarre scene.
Rocher is near the fireplace, brandishing his sidearm, aimed at
the Camerlengo, who lays on the floor, writhing in agony.
His cassock is torn open, and his bare chest is seared black. A
large, square brand is on the floor at Rocher's feet.
Two of the Swiss Guard act without hesitation -- they open fire.
Two bullets SLAM into Rocher's chest and he crumples.
Father Simeon bursts into the room, and as he does the Camerlengo
rolls over onto one side, points his index finger at Simeon, and
cries out a single word:
CAMERLENGO
ILLUMINATUS!
FR. SIMEON
You bastard! You sanctimonious-
He rushes at the Camerlengo and Chartrand reacts on instinct,
putting three bullets in Father Simeon's back.
111.
He falls to the floor, dead.
Chartrand and the Guards dash to the Camerlengo, who clutches his
chest, convulsing in pain.
Langdon walks toward him, stunned, as the Guards pull the
Camerlengo's hands away from his wound, revealing the fifth brand.
The crossed keys, seared into the flesh of his chest.
Langdon looks at Rocher in utter disbelief. Rocher's still alive,
trying to say something, holding out a hand.
Everyone else in the room is focused on the Camerlengo, so Langdon
bends down, takes the dying man's hand.
Rocher looks up at him, desperation in his eyes, trying to
communicate something but too weak to say more than:
ROCHER
For safety.
And his eyes close.
Langdon withdraws his hand from Rocher's, and finds the dying man
has pressed something into his palm.
A key.
Langdon looks at it, and it gives him a thought. He turns, looks
at the Camerlengo, whose chest is exposed.
The crossed keys are indeed branded there -- but they're upside
down.
Langdon slips the key in his pocket and approaches the Camerlengo
as Chartrand gets to his feet, on his radio.
CHARTRAND
I need a Medevac to St. Peter's
Square, right now!
The Camerlengo struggles to a sitting position.
CAMERLENGO
Order the evacuation. We only have
nineteen minutes.
LANGDON
(POINTING)
The keys. They're upside down.
112.
VITTORIA
You think it's a sign?
LANGDON
Everything has been a sign, why should
this be any different?
He looks at Rocher, dead on the floor. Back at the branded
keys.
LANGDON (cont'd)
Crossed keys -- the symbol for the
papacy, upside-down.
CAMERLENGO
St. Peter.
LANGDON
(YES)
The first pope, he was crucified
upside-down, on Vatican Hill. Right
beneath where we're standing.
CAMERLENGO
"Upon this rock I will build my
church."...
LANGDON
Or bring it down upon itself.
He looks back at Rocher, and at Father Simeon, dead on the floor.
LANGDON (cont'd)
They were conservatives, the former
Pope was becoming more and more
liberal. Maybe they loved their
church so much they were willing to
destroy it.
CAMERLENGO
(thinking, repeats)
Upon this rock I will build my church.
LANGDON
St. Peter's tomb is the very core of
Christendom.
CAMERLENGO
The bomb is in St. Peter's tomb!
LANGDON
(almost admiring it)
The ultimate infiltration.
113.
VITTORIA
I can still change the battery if we
hurry!
CUT TO:
EXT ST. PETER'S SQUARE NIGHT
The square is more crowded than ever, and now the helicopter.
Chartrand called SWOOPS in low overhead as Vatican Police
frantically try to clear a landing area.
CUT TO:
INT ST. PETER'S BASILICA NIGHT
Langdon, Vittoria, the Camerlengo, and two Swiss Guard are
hurrying across the deserted floor of St. Peter's Basilica when
the lights go out.
CHARTRAND
The grid is still cycling -- the power
to this section must be down.
They race down the center aisle, to the candlelit balustrade which
surrounds the winding staircase into the grottoes.
CAMERLENGO
Oil lamps. Grab one!
They do, and run down the center stair.
On the staircase,
the ninety-nine burning oil lamps throw exaggerated shadows on
stone walls.
VITTORIA
What's down here?
LANGDON
The Necropolis. City of the dead.
Oh.
The Camerlengo drops to his knees and opens an iron grate in the
marble floor.
CUT TO:
114.
INT THE NECROPOLIS NIGHT
Vittoria, Langdon, the Camerlengo, and Chartrand drop down through
an open hole and into an underground city of ancient, winding
streets. Part museum, part ruin, they run past ancient
structures, some hundreds, some thousands of years old.
The rectangular tombs are similar to little houses, complete with
doorways, thresholds, windows, and terraces.
AROUND A CORNER,
the Camerlengo seems to know exactly where he's going; he leads
them down a narrow stone passageway.
AROUND ANOTHER CORNER,
they hurry up a small hill. At the top of the grade, there is a
stone grotto, toward which the Camerlengo is racing.
He reaches the grotto, searches, but finds nothing.
Langdon and Vittoria come to a stop behind him, breathing hard.
CAMERLENGO
It must be here! It must be!
He rips aside some protective tarps, finds that underneath the
actual burial site is an underground area, part of a dig in
progress.
He climbs down into it, we see just the top of his head as --
-- a soft glow seems to emanate from beneath him.
The Camerlengo's head is wreathed in light for a moment, and then,
as he climbs out, we see that he's holding in his hands --
-- the glowing canister of anti-matter.
ON THE GROUND NEARBY,
Vittoria drops to her knees, a tiny silver pellet in one hand, two
wires leading from opposite ends of it.
VITTORIA
Set it down flat.
The Camerlengo does. Langdon bends close. Vittoria checks
the timer.
VITTORIA (cont'd)
We still have seven minutes. Good.
115.
She leans down, reaching for the canister's baseplate.
As she does, a drop of sweat rolls to the tip of her nose She
freezes.
Wipes the sweat away, thinking about it
VITTORIA (cont'd)
It's hot down here. Isn't it?
LANGDON
What's wrong?
VITTORIA
Heat decreases battery life. We may
have less than five minutes.
CAMERLENGO
So?
VITTORIA
If I pull the power with less than
five minutes, the residual charge
won't hold suspension. We should leave
it and get clear if we can. At least
if it goes off down here the damage
will be-
CAMERLENGO
NO.
And with that, he snatches up the canister and takes off running,
back the way they came.
VITTORIA
Wait!
LANGDON
Father, please!
But he's already gone, around a darkened corner.
EXT ST. PETER'S SQUARE NIGHT
In St. Peter's Square, the helicopter that was brought in for the
Camerlengo waits, propellers spinning.
The Crowd seems even bigger now, and a REPORTER tells us why:
REPORTER
-- in St. Peter's Square where,
despite a bomb threat and order of
evacuation, the crowd is actually
growing in size as we await --
116.
INT ST. PETER'S BASILICA NIGHT
The Camerlengo emerges from the spiral staircase, accidentally
kicks over one of the oil lamps, spilling its burning oil on the
floor of the Basilica.
He ignores it, racing for the front doors.
INT THE NECROPOLIS NIGHT
Langdon and Vittoria come around a corner in the Necropolis,
having taken slightly longer to find their way.
Langdon spots the circular entry by which they first came in.
LANGDON
There it is!
They race toward it and climb up.
INT ST. PETER'S BASILICA NIGHT
They hurry across the floor of St. Peter's Basilica and burst out
the huge doors that open onto St. Peter's Square, just as --
EXT ST. PETER'S SQUARE NIGHT
-- the helicopter lifts off.
The Crowd watches in amazement, and the PILOT stands in the
square, talking animatedly to two Swiss Guard, gesturing toward
the helicopter. But if he's not flying it...
Langdon looks up at the helicopter as it climbs, straight upward.
LANGDON
Oh my God...
INT HELICOPTER NIGHT
The Camerlengo is indeed at the controls of the helicopter,
piloting it upwards and away from the crowd below. The canister
is beside him on the passenger seat.
EXT ST. PETER'S SQUARE NIGHT
The crowd falls silent, all eyes turning upward, watching the
helicopter recede into the clouds.
117.
INT HELICOPTER NIGHT
The canister BEEPS on the seat beside the Camerlengo -- still a
few minutes left on its timer, but the urgently flashing red power
light can't be considered a good sign.
The Camerlengo looks at it.
Crosses himself.
Raises the crucifix from around his neck and brushes it against
his lips.
EXT ST. PETER'S SQUARE NIGHT
All eyes are upturned, all voices have fallen still, watching as
the helicopter's anti-collision lights disappear into the clouded
night sky.
EXT IN THE SKY NIGHT
High above the square, the helicopter still climbs, rotating in
circles.
INT HELICOPTER NIGHT
CLOSE ON the canister as the red light flashes even faster, and a
shrill BEEPING fills the cockpit.
EXT ST. PETER'S SQUARE NIGHT
In the crowd, faces turn, PEOPLE point. There's something in
the sky above them.
Langdon and Vittoria see it too -- a faint white speck, far up in
the sky. This is the explosion?
EXT IN THE SKY NIGHT
No, the faint white speck is a billowing parachute -- and the
Camerlengo dangles at the end of it.
ABOVE HIM,
the helicopter continues to climb, far up into the night.
INT HELICOPTER NIGHT
And in the canister, the BEEPING sound becomes continuous and the
light winks out altogether.
118.
The shimmering bead of anti-matter falls out of suspension and
drops, slowly, toward the bottom of the canister, it barely
touches the surface --
EXT IN THE SKY NIGHT
-- and the helicopter explodes in a blinding pinpoint of white
light.
EXT ST. PETER'S SQUARE NIGHT
Up in the sky over St. Peter's Square, the pinpoint of light is
tiny at first, then it shoots out to either side in a searing
white line, then the white line balloons out on either side,
expanding into a gigantic ball of hot white light.
And then the sound hits.
THIS is the explosion, and it is so much more ferocious than we
could have imagined.
The entire image is bleached white, with only the faint outlines
of people visible within it.
And then concussive force of the blast hits, like heat waves,
rippling everything in its way. SCREAMING and panic.
EXT IN THE SKY NIGHT
The Camerlengo, clinging to the parachute, is buffeted wildly,
spun over and over, tangling him in his cords, which makes him
fall faster.
EXT ST. PETER'S SQUARE NIGHT
The second wave of the blast comes, and this one's ten times as
powerful as the first.
Everything standing is flattened -- PEOPLE, camera trucks, the
fountain in the middle of the square collapses in a shower of
marble and water.
INT ST. PETER'S BASILICA NIGHT
Ceiling tiles fall and SMASH on the floor inside St. Peter's,
statues topple.
EXT IN THE SKY NIGHT
The Camerlengo falls, unconscious now, tumbling over and over,
dropping too fast. He SLAMS off an angled rooftop, headed for the
ground.
119.
EXT ST. PETER'S SQUARE NIGHT
In the square, Langdon and Vittoria dodge falling debris.
Vittoria loses her footing as a chunk of plaster CRUNCHES off a
building, plummeting toward her.
Langdon pulls her to safety as the plaster PULVERIZES itself in
the square.
EXT IN THE SKY NIGHT
The Camerlengo CRUNCHES off the side of another building and
drifts downward, fast, toward the crowd in St. Peter's.
His unconscious form SMASHES through a dozen people before SLAMMING
to the ground at one edge of the square.
AND IN THE SKY ABOVE,
the blast suddenly turns inward on itself, the heat and light and
sound all seeming to suck back up into a perfect horizontal line,
which then collapses in from the sides, until once again it is
just a speck of white hot light --
-- that disappears into the night.
EXT ST. PETER'S SQUARE NIGHT
The only sound that remains in the square is a soft night wind.
The wounded pick themselves up off the ground.
The crowd, realizing the blast is over, turns its attention to the
body of the Camerlengo, on the far side of the square.
Langdon and Vittoria try to make their way toward him, but the
crowd surges past them, and we soar over the heads of the crowd,
wanting to get there first, wanting to be the first ones to see
--- his eyes open. He's alive.
WIDE ON THE SQUARE AS
a great CHEER rises up from the crowd.
CUT TO:
INT SISTINE CHAPEL NIGHT
The CHEERS from outside are clearly audible in the Sistine Chapel,
where the doors have been thrown open and they have gotten the
news. Jubilation reigns.
A SWISS GUARDSMAN runs in, finds Cardinal Mortati.
120.
SWISS GUARDSMAN
Signore Mortati, he is alive! The
Camerlengo is alive!
MORTATI
Praise God.
But he looks around him -- the Cardinals have split into small
groups, they're discussing something with great animation amongst
themselves.
Mortati watches, doesn't like what he's seeing.
CUT TO:
INT OFFICE OF THE SWISS GUARD NIGHT
Langdon and Vittoria, on a bench in the office of the Swiss Guard,
are having superficial wounds treated. The buzz in the office is
intense, just as excited as in the square and the Sistine Chapel.
Langdon looks over at Vittoria.
LANGDON
Are you okay?
She looks back at him, nods. Smiles. He reaches over, interlaces
his fingers with hers, and takes her hand.
LANGDON (cont'd)
Thank God.
She smiles, turns his hand, noticing the glass on his wristwatch
is broken. He notices, seems distressed.
VITTORIA
Do we have time for that story now?
LANGDON
Do I have someone to tell it to?
She smiles and kisses the back of his hand -- yes. A ROAR
comes from outside and we see --
EXT ST. PETER'S SQUARE NIGHT
-- the crowd in St. Peter's Square, in rapture. There is SINGING,
there's CHANTING of the Camerlengo's name. It's exactly
midnight.
121.
INT SISTINE CHAPEL NIGHT
In the Sistine Chapel, Cardinal Mortati is in hushed, urgent
conversation with a group of seven or eight Cardinals.
MORTATI
Signores... you are no doubt aware
that by Holy Law the man is ineligible
for election to the papacy. He is
not a cardinal, he is a priest, a
chamberlain. And there is the
matter of his inadequate age. I'm
sorry, the protocols of conclave are
not subject to modification. I will
not call a ballot on this matter.
The African Cardinal who cast his vote earlier speaks up.
AFRICAN CARDINAL
But Signore, you would not call the
ballot. Surely you remember -- you
gave up your post as Great Elector.
Mortati looks at him. Boxed into a corner.
Outside, the crowd in St. Peter's can be heard, singing joyously.
A SECOND CARDINAL steps forward.
SECOND CARDINAL
They are singing in St. Peter's
Square! What happened here tonight
transcends our laws!
MORTATI
Does it? Is it God's will that we
abandon reason and give ourselves over
to frenzy? Discard the rules of the
church?
A THIRD CARDINAL now, a peacemaker:
THIRD CARDINAL
Perhaps they need not be discarded.
They all look at him.
THIRD CARDINAL (cont'd)
I am thinking now of Romano Pontifici
Eligendo, Numero 63.
Most of the Cardinals look puzzled -- but Mortati's face darkens.
122.
THIRD CARDINAL (cont'd)
Balloting is not the only method by
which a Pope can be elected. There
is another, more divine method.
MORTATI
"Acclimation by Adoration."
THIRD CARDINAL
Si, signore!
The Second Cardinal sparks to this idea.
SECOND CARDINAL
Of course!
(answering those around
him who look confused)
Election by Adoration occurs when
all the cardinals, as if by
inspiration of the Holy Spirit,
freely and spontaneously,
unanimously and aloud, proclaim one
individual's name.
THIRD CARDINAL
And the law states that Adoration
supersedes all other eligibility
requirements. The candidate need
only be an ordained member of the
clergy.
(DRAMATICALLY)
BUT!
(they listen)
He must be present in the Sistine
Chapel at the moment of election.
Many cries now of "Bring the Camerlengo to us!"
Mortati looks deeply troubled.
CUT TO:
INT ROCHER'S OFFICE NIGHT
Bandaged now, Langdon and Vittoria are ushered into Rocher's
office by a Swiss Guardsman.
SWISS GUARDSMAN
Please wait here while we arrange your
transportation. May I get you
anything?
123.
They shake their heads, no thanks. Settle into chairs to the
side of Rocher's desk.
They look uncomfortable -- it's weird to be in a dead man's
office.
Vittoria looks at his desk. Thinks of something.
She gets up and goes to it, running her hand lightly over it.
LANGDON
What are you doing?
VITTORIA
Leonardo's journals. I want them
back.
She feels in the surface of the desk and finds the square outline
of the inlaid panel where Rocher hid the journals. She tries
prying it open, but that doesn't work, she tries pushing down on
the front of it --
-- and the panel slowly rotates open. The journals, which were
laid on top of the television monitor, slide out and onto the
desk.
Vittoria scoops them up and is about to close the panel again
when --
LANGDON
Wait a minute.
He looks down at the monitor. Thinking.
At its odd, key-shaped on/off switch.
He pulls something from his pocket -- the key Rocher gave him,
just as he died.
IN LANGDON'S MIND,
he sees Rocher's face, looking up at him, dying:
ROCHER
For safety.
BACK IN THE OFFICE,
Langdon looks at the key, and its odd shape. Looks down at the
monitor, the same odd shape where its switch should be.
124.
IN LANGDON'S MIND,
they're back in the Pope's office, but Rocher is alive, and saying
words he said earlier:
ROCHER
The Holy Father was subject to
seizures... but he took steps.
BACK IN THE OFFICE,
Rocher's voice continues over, but Langdon mouths the words as he
remembers them:
ROCHER'S VOICE (O.S.)
"MADE SURE HE WAS WATCHED."
IN LANGDON'S MIND,
Rocher is back in the office again, finishing his sentence:
ROCHER
For safety.
IN ROCHER'S OFFICE,
Langdon holds the key up, repeating those last words:
LANGDON
For safety.
He lowers the key to the monitor, extending it toward the keyhole
-- and it's a perfect fit. He twists it.
And with a ZZZZT of power, the monitor winks to life. An image
comes into focus.
VITTORIA
Where's that?
LANGDON
That...is the papal office.
On the monitor,
they are indeed looking at an image of the Pope's office. There
are two dead bodies on the floor, covered with sheets, and VATICAN
POLICE are photographing everything. Must be live.
IN ROCHER'S OFFICE,
Langdon's figuring it out.
125.
LANGDON
The Pope spent a lot of time in
contemplation, alone. If he was
worried about seizures, he must have
asked Rocher to install a camera
without telling anyone. To keep an
eye on him. For safety. And
maybe --
He reaches down to the screen, toward a touch panel at the bottom.
You don't have to be a symbologist to understand these symbols-
play, pause, fast forward.
And rewind. Langdon touches it.
ON THE MONITOR,
the image ZIPS backwards, rapidly, to the shooting, and the all
the way back to when Rocher and the Camerlengo were alone
together. Rocher stands just behind him, the Camerlengo still
kneels before the fireplace.
As the image starts to play forward, in real time, we go in close
on the monitor and come out --
INT POPE'S OFFICE NIGHT
-- in the papal office, to watch the scene in person.
CAMERLENGO
The scientist kept journals? So?
ROCHER
You figure prominently in them.
The Camerlengo turns his eyes back to the flames, stirring the
embers with a poker.
CAMERLENGO
Really.
ROCHER
Leonardo wasn't just a physicist, he
was a Catholic priest. Deeply
conflicted about the implications of
his work and in need of spiritual
guidance. About a month ago, he
requested an audience with the Pope.
But you'd know that, because you
granted the audience, and were present
during it.
The Camerlengo twists the poker in the fire. Speaks softly.
126.
CAMERLENGO
The fool thought he had duplicated the
moment of creation.
ROCHER
And the Holy Father urged him to go
public. His Holiness thought the
discovery might actually prove the
existence of a divine power -- begin
to bridge the gap between religion and
science.
CAMERLENGO
Science. The new God. Ignore the
weapons and chaos and madness.
The Camerlengo looks up at him, and his expression is different
than we've ever seen it. Contemptuous. Angry. Violent.
CAMERLENGO (cont'd)
His work was not religious, it was
sacrilegious!
ROCHER
But you saw the Pope's position as a
softening of church law. An old
man's weakness. Your father's
weakness.
CAMERLENGO
He raised me to protect the church.
Even from within.
ROCHER
So you brought an old enemy back from
the dead to frighten people.
CAMERLENGO
Nothing unites hearts like the
presence of evil.
ROCHER
It didn't work, Father.
CAMERLENGO
It isn't finished.
ROCHER
I've informed Father Simeon of what I
learned and he'll get word to the
Cardinals the moment conclave opens.
The Camerlengo looks at him calmly for a moment --
127.
CAMERLENGO
I was planning on doing this alone.
-- and then removes the poker from the fire. But it isn't a
poker, it's a long-handled brand, with a cross of some kind at the
end.
Rocher pulls his gun, holds it at his side.
ROCHER
Put that down.
The Camerlengo rips open his cassock with his free hand.
CAMERLENGO
But perhaps it's better that you're
here.
ROCHER
(raising the gun)
Put it down!
But the Camerlengo RAMS the red-hot brand into the exposed flesh
of his bare chest. His skin SIZZLES and smokes, Rocher SHOUTS,
the Camerlengo SCREAMS in agony, and we know the rest --
-- the door bursts open, Swiss Guard pour in, Rocher is shot,
Father Simeon races toward the Camerlengo --
FR. SIMEON
You bastard! You sanctimonious-
-- and the Camerlengo rolls over, pointing one long finger at
Father Simeon and CRYING OUT:
CAMERLENGO
ILLUMINATUS!
As we saw before, Lt. Chartrand FIRES THREE TIMES, killing Father
Simeon in his tracks, we pull back, the image turns to --
INT ROCHER'S OFFICE NIGHT
-- video again, and as we complete the move out from the monitor,
we see it isn't Langdon and Vittoria watching the image this time --
--- but Cardinal Mortati, flanked by two other red-robed Cardinals
and a half-dozen Swiss Guardsman.
Langdon and Vittoria stand to one side as Mortati turns and looks
at them. Suddenly, he seems very, very old.
CUT TO:
128.
INT GRAND STAIRCASE NIGHT
The Camerlengo, escorted by two Swiss Guardsman, descends the
Royal Staircase that leads to the Sistine Chapel.
Though he is injured and limping, he radiates confidence, even
benevolence, a man certain this is the greatest day of his life.
He approaches the chapel doors, speaks to the Swiss Guard posted
there as he approaches.
CAMERLENGO
I have been summoned by the College of
Cardinals.
Oh, they know all about it. They lift their swords, the doors
sweep open, the Camerlengo strides boldly across the threshold --
INT SISTINE CHAPEL NIGHT
-- and stops, right there, the look of imminent ascendancy frozen
on his face.
The Cardinals are looking at him, all right, but not in joy, not
in wonder, not for leadership. One hundred sixty-one faces are
turned toward his, with an expression of ---
-- utter condemnation.
He stands there for a moment, searching their faces, trying to
figure out what could possibly have happened.
But it doesn't matter.
They know. And he knows they know.
He takes two steps backwards, almost involuntarily.
Starts to teeter, balances himself in the doorway.
Then straightens himself, smoothes his cassock.
And turns and walks away, back up the staircase.
Two Swiss Guard move to go after him, quickly, but Cardinal
Mortati gestures to them.
MORTATI
Gently. But within our walls.
The Swiss Guard follow the Camerlengo up the staircase.
CUT TO:
129.
INT ST. PETER'S BASILICA NIGHT
The Camerlengo comes out of a doorway and into St. Peter's
Basilica. He heads for the main doors --
-- just as HALF A DOZEN SWISS GUARD step in from outside,
blocking his way. Some MURMUR softly into their radios.
He stops, turns around to come back the way he came ---
-- but TWO SWISS GUARD appear in that doorway, also with radios.
He turns again, no way to go but toward the front of the Basilica.
He sees the candlelit balustrade near the front, the one that
leads to the grottoes and the Necropolis. He picks up his pace.
The Swiss Guard follow, at a slight distance.
The Camerlengo reaches the spiral staircase and stops, looking
down, seeing the oil lamp he kicked over earlier.
He thinks. He picks up a fresh lamp, holds it to his face --
-- and blows out its flame with a soft PUFF.
ACROSS THE BASILICA,
we're with the Swiss Guard as they walk slowly toward him.
But they hear a CRY from ahead, he's gone down the stairs a short
distance, and they can hear the sound of liquid SLOSHING.
They break into a run as they realize what he's about to do,
they're twenty feet away, then ten, then just close enough to see
the Camerlengo as he --
-- SMASHES a burning oil lamp at his feet. The flames leap
onto his oil-soaked clothes and --
-- HE IGNITES IN A PILLAR OF WHITE FLAME.
CUT TO:
INT SISTINE CHAPEL NIGHT
CLOSE ON a bundle of one hundred sixty-one slips of paper, pierced
by a needle and strung together.
They're tossed into the fireplace in the Sistine Chapel, where
they too burst into flame.
We rise up again, ahead of the smoke this time, all the way up to --
130.
EXT ST. PETER'S SQUARE DAWN
-- the chimney above St. Peter's Square, where the throng is
still gathered, waiting for some word as the sun rises on the
horizon. And this time, the smoke that billows from the chimney --
-- is white.
There is a new pope. The crowd ROARS its approval, BELLS begin
to toll --
INT PAPAL APARTMENT DAY
-- the red silk sash covering the doors to the papal apartment is
SLICED apart --
-- the wax seal BREAKS as the doors are flung open, and we --
DISSOLVE TO:
EXT ST. PETER'S SQUARE DAY
-- St. Peter's Square, later the same day. The Crowd, if you can
believe it, is even bigger.
A STRING OF REPORTERS fills us in for the last time (non-English
speakers subtitled).
BBC REPORTER
Church sources now confirm that
Camerlengo Father Sebastian Guttierez
has died of internal injuries
sustained in his heroic fall --
A BRAZILIAN REPORTER:
BRAZILIAN REPORTER
-- which has spurred calls for his
immediate canonization and sainthood.
The Vatican also announced the death
of three of its cardinals in the fire
at Santa Maria Delia Vittoria --
An AMERICAN REPORTER:
AMERICAN REPORTER
-- but all eyes here are on the papal
balcony as we await the appearance of
the new Holy Father, who, despite
terrorist attempts at disruption --
We move off the Reporter and up, toward the papal balcony, its
doors hanging open, curtains billowing.
131.
AMERICAN REPORTER (cont'd)
-- seems to have been selected in one
of the swiftest and smoothest
conclaves in modern church history.
DISSOLVE TO:
INT PAPAL APARTMENT DAY
Inside the papal apartments, Robert Langdon sits stiffly on a
straight-backed chair in a hallway. Couldn't look more
uncomfortable if he tried.
A Swiss Guardsman stands on either side of him.
The door to his right suddenly opens, another Guardsman nods to
him, and Langdon gets to his feet, straightening his jacket.
INT OFFICE OF THE POPE DAY
Langdon is shown into the office, where a robed figure is being
dressed by two VATICAN ATTENDANTS -- the clothes he dons are
unmistakably papal vestments. The figure, his back to us,
gestures to a nearby table.
One of the Swiss Guardsmen goes to the table and picks up an
envelope, hands it to Langdon.
SWISS GUARDSMAN
A token of thanks from His Holiness.
Langdon, puzzled, opens the envelope and lets the contents fall
into his hand.
It's a thin volume, but a familiar one -- the only surviving copy
of Galileo's Diagramma. Langdon nearly GASPS.
The figure in the papal robes turn around. It is, of course,
Cardinal Mortati.
MORTATI
This should help you complete your
scholarly work, Professor.
Langdon is too stunned to speak,
MORTATI (cont'd)
I ask only that in your last will and
testament you ensure it finds its way
home.
LANGDON
I -- yes, I -- of course.
132.
Mortati takes a few steps forward, studying Langdon,
MORTATI
When you write of us -- and you will
write of us -- may I ask one thing?
Langdon looks at him questioningly.
MORTATI (cont'd)
Do so gently?
LANGDON
I'll try.
MORTATI
Religion is flawed, Mr. Langdon, but
only because man is flawed.
Including this one.
He touches his chest lightly.
The Aides now pick up the miter, the spade-shaped papal hat. He
stands still while they place it on his head, completing his
attire.
LANGDON
I hear you've chosen the name Luke.
There have been Marks and Johns, but
never a Luke.
MORTATI
It's said he was a doctor.
LANGDON
Is that a message? Science and
faith all in one?
MORTATI
The world is in need of both.
Science can heal, or science can kill.
It depends on the soul of the man
using the science.
Langdon looks at him. Likes the sound of that.
LANGDON
You'll lead wisely.
MORTATI
I'm an old man. I'll lead briefly,
Mortati comes closer to Langdon, raises his right hand, and makes
a gentle sign of the cross over him, murmuring softly.
133.
MORTATI (cont'd)
Thanks be to God, for sending someone
to protect His church.
LANGDON
I -- don't believe He sent me,
Father.
MORTATI
Oh, my son...
He smiles.
MORTATI (cont'd)
Of course He did.
He turns, and his Aides part the billowing silk curtains that lead
to the papal balcony.
We move forward with him as he steps out over St. Peter's Square
and a great ROAR rises up from below.
Cardinal Mortati, Pope Luke I, holds his arms out to his sides, an
embrace to take in the world --
-- and behind him, hidden in the shadows of the papal apartment,
just behind the billowing curtains, Robert Langdon folds his hand
in front of him --
-- and bows his head.
THE END
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