And when time ran out…

A blinding light. The roar of thunder. Spontaneous incineration. Just the flash… and an empty crater. A big empty crater.

The image of her father’s quiet genius being used as a tool of destruction was like poison in her blood. Antimatter was the ultimate terrorist weapon. It had no metallic parts to trip metal detectors, no chemical signature for dogs to trace, no fuse to deactivate if the authorities located the canister. The countdown had begun…

Langdon didn’t know what else to do. He took his handkerchief and lay it on the floor over Leonardo Vetra’s eyeball. Vittoria was standing now in the doorway of the empty Haz-Mat chamber, her expression wrought with grief and panic. Langdon moved toward her again, instinctively, but Kohler intervened.

"Mr. Langdon?" Kohler’s face was expressionless. He motioned Langdon out of earshot. Langdon reluctantly followed, leaving Vittoria to fend for herself. "You’re the specialist," Kohler said, his whisper intense. "I want to know what these Illuminati bastards intend to do with this antimatter."

Langdon tried to focus. Despite the madness around him, his first reaction was logical. Academic rejection. Kohler was still making assumptions. Impossible assumptions. "The Illuminati are defunct, Mr. Kohler. I stand by that. This crime could be anything—maybe even another CERN employee who found out about Mr. Vetra’s breakthrough and thought the project was too dangerous to continue."

Kohler looked stunned. "You think this is a crime of conscience, Mr. Langdon? Absurd. Whoever killed Leonardo wanted one thing—the antimatter specimen. And no doubt they have plans for it."

"You mean terrorism."

"Plainly."

"But the Illuminati were not terrorists."

"Tell that to Leonardo Vetra."

Langdon felt a pang of truth in the statement. Leonardo Vetra had indeed been branded with the Illuminati symbol. Where had it come from? The sacred brand seemed too difficult a hoax for someone trying to cover his tracks by casting suspicion elsewhere. There had to be another explanation.

Again, Langdon forced himself to consider the implausible. If the Illuminati were still active, and if they stole the antimatter, what would be their intention? What would be their target? The answer furnished by his brain was instantaneous. Langdon dismissed it just as fast. True, the Illuminati had an obvious enemy, but a wide-scale terrorist attack against that enemy was inconceivable. It was entirely out of character. Yes, the Illuminati had killed people, but individuals, carefully conscripted targets. Mass destruction was somehow heavy-handed. Langdon paused. Then again, he thought, there would be a rather majestic eloquence to it—antimatter, the ultimate scientific achievement, being used to vaporize—

He refused to accept the preposterous thought. "There is," he said suddenly, "a logical explanation other than terrorism."

Kohler stared, obviously waiting.

Langdon tried to sort out the thought. The Illuminati had always wielded tremendous power through financial means. They controlled banks. They owned gold bullion. They were even rumored to possess the single most valuable gem on earth—the Illuminati Diamond, a flawless diamond of enormous proportions. "Money," Langdon said. "The antimatter could have been stolen for financial gain."

Kohler looked incredulous. "Financial gain? Where does one sell a droplet of antimatter?"

"Not the specimen," Langdon countered. "The technology. Antimatter technology must be worth a mint. Maybe someone stole the specimen to do analysis and R and D."

"Industrial espionage? But that canister has twenty-four hours before the batteries die. The researchers would blow themselves up before they learned anything at all."

"They could recharge it before it explodes. They could build a compatible recharging podium like the ones here at CERN."

"In twenty-four hours?" Kohler challenged. "Even if they stole the schematics, a recharger like that would take months to engineer, not hours!"

"He’s right." Vittoria’s voice was frail.

Both men turned. Vittoria was moving toward them, her gait as tremulous as her words.

"He’s right. Nobody could reverse engineer a recharger in time. The interface alone would take weeks. Flux filters, servo-coils, power conditioning alloys, all calibrated to the specific energy grade of the locale."

Langdon frowned. The point was taken. An antimatter trap was not something one could simply plug into a wall socket. Once removed from CERN, the canister was on a one-way, twenty-four-hour trip to oblivion.

Which left only one, very disturbing, conclusion.

"We need to call Interpol," Vittoria said. Even to herself, her voice sounded distant. "We need to call the proper authorities. Immediately."

Kohler shook his head. "Absolutely not."

The words stunned her. "No? What do you mean?"

"You and your father have put me in a very difficult position here."

"Director, we need help. We need to find that trap and get it back here before someone gets hurt. We have a responsibility!"

"We have a responsibility to think," Kohler said, his tone hardening. "This situation could have very, very serious repercussions for CERN."

"You’re worried about CERN’s reputation? Do you know what that canister could do to an urban area? It has a blast radius of a half mile! Nine city blocks!"

"Perhaps you and your father should have considered that before you created the specimen."

Vittoria felt like she’d been stabbed. "But… we took every precaution."

"Apparently, it was not enough."

"But nobody knew about the antimatter." She realized, of course, it was an absurd argument. Of course somebody knew. Someone had found out.

Vittoria had told no one. That left only two explanations. Either her father had taken someone into his confidence without telling her, which made no sense because it was her father who had sworn them both to secrecy, or she and her father had been monitored. The cell phone maybe? She knew they had spoken a few times while Vittoria was traveling. Had they said too much? It was possible. There was also their E-mail. But they had been discreet, hadn’t they? CERN’s security system? Had they been monitored somehow without their knowledge? She knew none of that mattered anymore. What was done, was done. My father is dead.

The thought spurred her to action. She pulled her cell phone from her shorts pocket.

Kohler accelerated toward her, coughing violently, eyes flashing anger. "Who… are you calling?"

"CERN’s switchboard. They can connect us to Interpol."

"Think!" Kohler choked, screeching to a halt in front of her. "Are you really so naive? That canister could be anywhere in the world by now. No intelligence agency on earth could possibly mobilize to find it in time."

"So we do nothing?" Vittoria felt compunction challenging a man in such frail health, but the director was so far out of line she didn’t even know him anymore.

"We do what is smart," Kohler said. "We don’t risk CERN’s reputation by involving authorities who cannot help anyway. Not yet. Not without thinking."

Vittoria knew there was logic somewhere in Kohler’s argument, but she also knew that logic, by definition, was bereft of moral responsibility. Her father had lived for moral responsibility—careful science, accountability, faith in man’s inherent goodness. Vittoria believed in those things too, but she saw them in terms of karma. Turning away from Kohler, she snapped open her phone.

"You can’t do that," he said.

"Just try and stop me."

Kohler did not move.

An instant later, Vittoria realized why. This far underground, her cell phone had no dial tone.

Fuming, she headed for the elevator.