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Robert Langdon wakes beneath a frescoed cupola with an oxygen mask on his face, disoriented by smoke and the smell of burned flesh. A paramedic explains that Langdon’s Mickey Mouse watch alarm led firefighters to him, and Langdon sees it is 10:28 P.M. The memory of the explosion and his entrapment returns, along with the urgent awareness that time is running out.

Near the altar, firefighters tell Langdon that only Cardinal Guidera and Commander Olivetti have been found dead; Vittoria is missing. Langdon concludes that the Hassassin likely took Vittoria, remembering the killer’s earlier threats, and his priorities shift from saving the Vatican or solving the Illuminati mystery to one immediate goal: find Vittoria.

Langdon returns to Bernini’s Ecstasy of St. Teresa and follows the direction of the angel’s spear, which points west across Rome. Using a fire department map, he first finds too many churches to identify the final altar, but then notices that the first three murder sites form a systematic pattern. By adding a fourth possible point along the spear’s line, he sees the locations form a diamond-like arrangement.

After struggling with the shape, Langdon realizes the clue is not a diamond but a cross made by connecting opposite points. The poem’s phrase “’Cross Rome the mystic elements unfold” becomes clear: the altars of science form a vast cross across the city. This reveals the final site as Piazza Navona, where Bernini’s Fountain of the Four Rivers stands as the Water marker, complete with an obelisk.

Believing he is finally ahead of the Hassassin, Langdon discreetly takes Olivetti’s semiautomatic pistol and walkie-talkie. He leaves without alerting firefighters or the press, fearing a noisy response would ruin his chance to save Vittoria and stop the final killing. Outside, the walkie-talkie fails, taxis are absent, and Langdon, exhausted and alone, carjacks an idling Citroën at gunpoint to race toward Piazza Navona.