Angels & Demons by Dan Brown Read Free Book Online Page A

vigilant. Service was an honor. Someday he would be granted his ultimate reward. As his thoughts drifted, an image before him registered alarm. Suddenly, with a reflexive jerk that startled even himself, his hand shot out and hit a button on the control panel. The picture before him froze. His nerves tingling, he leaned toward the screen for a closer look. The reading on the monitor told him the image was being transmitted from camera #86—a camera that was supposed to be overlooking a hallway. But the image before him was most definitely not a hallway.
    13
    L angdon stared in bewilderment at the study before him. “What is this place?” Despite the welcome blast of warm air on his face, he stepped through the door with trepidation. Kohler said nothing as he followed Langdon inside.
    Langdon scanned the room, not having the slightest idea what to make of it. It contained the most peculiar mix of artifacts he had ever seen. On the far wall, dominating the decor, was an enormous wooden crucifix, which Langdon placed as fourteenth-century Spanish. Above the cruciform, suspended from the ceiling, was a metallic mobile of the orbiting planets. To the left was an oil painting of the Virgin Mary, and beside that was a laminated periodic table of elements. On the side wall, two additional brass cruciforms flanked a poster of Albert Einstein, his famous quote reading, GOD DOES NOT PLAY DICE
    WITH THE UNIVERSE.
    Langdon moved into the room, looking around in astonishment. A leather-bound Bible sat on Vetra’s desk beside a plastic Bohr model of an atom and a miniature replica of Michelangelo’s Moses. Talk about eclectic , Langdon thought. The warmth felt good, but something about the decor sent a new set of chills through his body. He felt like he was witnessing the clash of two philosophical titans . . . an unsettling blur of opposing forces. He scanned the titles on the bookshelf: The God Particle
    The Tao of Physics
    God: The Evidence
    One of the bookends was etched with a quote:

TRUE SCIENCE DISCOVERS GOD
    WAITING BEHIND EVERY DOOR.
    —POPE PIUS XII
    “Leonardo was a Catholic priest,” Kohler said.
    Langdon turned. “A priest? I thought you said he was a physicist.”
    “He was both. Men of science and religion are not unprecedented in history. Leonardo was one of them. He considered physics ‘God’s natural law.’ He claimed God’s handwriting was visible in the natural order all around us. Through science he hoped to prove God’s existence to the doubting masses. He considered himself a theo-physicist.”
    Theo-physicist? Langdon thought it sounded impossibly oxymoronic.
    “The field of particle physics,” Kohler said, “has made some shocking discoveries lately—discoveries quite spiritual in implication. Leonardo was responsible for many of them.”
    Langdon studied CERN’s director, still trying to process the bizarre surroundings. “Spirituality and physics?” Langdon had spent his career studying religious history, and if there was one recurring theme, it was that science and religion had been oil and water since day one . . . archenemies . . . unmixable.
    “Vetra was on the cutting edge of particle physics,” Kohler said. “He was starting to fuse science and religion . . . showing that they complement each other in most unanticipated ways. He called the field New Physics .” Kohler pulled a book from the shelf and handed it to Langdon. Langdon studied the cover. God, Miracles, and the New Physics —by Leonardo Vetra.
    “The field is small,” Kohler said, “but it’s bringing fresh answers to some old questions—questions about the origin of the universe and the forces that bind us all. Leonardo believed his research had the potential to convert millions to a more spiritual life. Last year he categorically proved the existence of an energy force that unites us all. He actually demonstrated that we are all physically connected . . . that the molecules in your body are intertwined with the