31

The X-33 heads south toward Rome with Robert Langdon and Vittoria Vetra aboard. After briefing Vittoria on the Illuminati and their hostility toward the Vatican, Langdon questions why he came, but concludes that curiosity, conscience, and Vittoria’s isolation made leaving impossible.

Langdon also realizes that the stolen antimatter threatens not only lives but the Vatican’s irreplaceable art and architecture, including the Vatican Museum, the Sistine Chapel, and St. Peter’s Basilica. Vittoria quietly thanks Langdon for coming, and Langdon gives her his jacket when he notices she is cold.

As turbulence worsens Langdon’s discomfort in the cramped, windowless cabin, Vittoria asks whether Langdon believes in God. Langdon explains that although he respects religion, his academic mind resists scripture, miracles, and rigid codes of conduct. Vittoria distinguishes belief in God from belief in human religious texts, arguing that faith is a universal search for meaning expressed through different traditions.

Langdon asks how Vittoria reconciles science and faith as the daughter of a Catholic priest. Vittoria says science convinces Vittoria that God must exist, while Vittoria’s mind accepts that God cannot be understood. Vittoria frames the planet as a living organism in which all people serve the whole, and Langdon finds himself drawn to Vittoria’s clarity and composure.

Vittoria then asks how Langdon became involved with the Illuminati. Langdon explains that his interest began with U.S. currency and shows Vittoria the one-dollar bill, pointing to the pyramid, the eye in the triangle, and the phrase Novus Ordo Seculorum. Langdon identifies these as Illuminati-related symbols and claims they reached the Great Seal through Henry Wallace, who persuaded Franklin D. Roosevelt to accept the design by presenting the phrase as meaning New Deal.