23

After Vittoria demonstrates antimatter annihilation, Vittoria demands to see Leonardo Vetra's body, but Maximilian Kohler presses her about why Leonardo and Vittoria kept the discovery secret. Vittoria explains that Leonardo wanted to frame antimatter's religious implications carefully, while Vittoria wanted to protect its future as a clean, limitless energy source from premature commercial or political backlash.

Kohler shifts the conversation toward the murder, asking who else knew about the technology and what an intruder might seek. Vittoria insists no one knew and that the upper lab is secure, but her wording reveals that there is also a lower lab used for storage.

Under pressure, Vittoria admits that the lower Haz-Mat chamber contains one much larger antimatter specimen. She explains that the quarter-gram sample was created to prove antimatter could be produced in cost-effective quantities and safely stored, despite Leonardo's reservations and strict secrecy requirements.

Kohler is horrified because a quarter gram of antimatter would equal nearly five kilotons of explosive force and could destroy everything within a half-mile radius if annihilated at once. Vittoria insists the sample is protected by fail-safe power and a second retina-scan security system, but Kohler orders everyone downstairs immediately.

The freight elevator descends another seventy-five feet to the Haz-Mat level. At the steel door, Vittoria notices blood smeared on the retina scanner; then Kohler and Langdon stare at the floor, where Vittoria sees a discarded hazel eyeball and realizes it is Leonardo Vetra's.