Angels Demons Page 0,8

brick facade, an ornate balustrade, and sat framed by sculpted symmetrical hedges. As the two men ascended the stone path toward the entry, they passed under a gateway formed by a pair of marble columns. Someone had put a sticky-note on one of them.

This column is Ionic

Physicist graffiti? Langdon mused, eyeing the column and chuckling to himself. "I'm relieved to see that even brilliant physicists make mistakes."

Kohler looked over. "What do you mean?"

"Whoever wrote that note made a mistake. That column isn't Ionic. Ionic columns are uniform in width. That one's tapered. It's Doric - the Greek counterpart. A common mistake."

Kohler did not smile. "The author meant it as a joke, Mr. Langdon. Ionic means containing ions - electrically charged particles. Most objects contain them."

Langdon looked back at the column and groaned.

Langdon was still feeling stupid when he stepped from the elevator on the top floor of Building C. He followed Kohler down a well-appointed corridor. The decor was unexpected - traditional colonial French - a cherry divan, porcelain floor vase, and scrolled woodwork.

"We like to keep our tenured scientists comfortable," Kohler explained.

Evidently, Langdon thought. "So the man in the fax lived up here? One of your upper-level employees?"

"Quite," Kohler said. "He missed a meeting with me this morning and did not answer his page. I came up here to locate him and found him dead in his living room."

Langdon felt a sudden chill realizing that he was about to see a dead body. His stomach had never been particularly stalwart. It was a weakness he'd discovered as an art student when the teacher informed the class that Leonardo da Vinci had gained his expertise in the human form by exhuming corpses and dissecting their musculature.

Kohler led the way to the far end of the hallway. There was a single door. "The Penthouse, as you would say," Kohler announced, dabbing a bead of perspiration from his forehead.

Langdon eyed the lone oak door before them. The name plate read:

Leonardo Vetra

"Leonardo Vetra," Kohler said, "would have been fifty-eight next week. He was one of the most brilliant scientists of our time. His death is a profound loss for science."

For an instant Langdon thought he sensed emotion in Kohler's hardened face. But as quickly as it had come, it was gone. Kohler reached in his pocket and began sifting through a large key ring.

An odd thought suddenly occurred to Langdon. The building seemed deserted. "Where is everyone?" he asked. The lack of activity was hardly what he expected considering they were about to enter a murder scene.

"The residents are in their labs," Kohler replied, finding the key.

"I mean the police," Langdon clarified. "Have they left already?"

Kohler paused, his key halfway into the lock. "Police?"

Langdon's eyes met the director's. "Police. You sent me a fax of a homicide. You must have called the police."

"I most certainly have not."

"What?"

Kohler's gray eyes sharpened. "The situation is complex, Mr. Langdon."

Langdon felt a wave of apprehension. "But... certainly someone else knows about this!"

"Yes. Leonardo's adopted daughter. She is also a physicist here at CERN. She and her father share a lab. They are partners. Ms. Vetra has been away this week doing field research. I have notified her of her father's death, and she is returning as we speak."

"But a man has been murd - "

"A formal investigation," Kohler said, his voice firm, "will take place. However, it will most certainly involve a search of Vetra's lab, a space he and his daughter hold most private. Therefore, it will wait until Ms. Vetra has arrived. I feel I owe her at least that modicum of discretion."

Kohler turned the key.

As the door swung open, a blast of icy air hissed into the hall and hit Langdon in the face. He fell back in bewilderment. He was gazing across the threshold of an alien world. The flat before him was immersed in a thick, white fog. The mist swirled in smoky vortexes around the furniture and shrouded the room in opaque haze.

"What the...?" Langdon stammered.

"Freon cooling system," Kohler replied. "I chilled the flat to preserve the body."

Langdon buttoned his tweed jacket against the cold. I'm in Oz, he thought. And I forgot my magic slippers.

Chapter 9-12

9

The corpse on the floor before Langdon was hideous. The late Leonardo Vetra lay on his back, stripped naked, his skin bluish-gray. His neck bones were jutting out where they had been broken, and his head was twisted completely backward, pointing the wrong way. His face was out of view, pressed against the floor.