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Inferno

hand column—chosen allegedly for the impressive number of artistic methods used in its

making. Langdon suspected, however, that the actual reason for the panel’s dominance

was that Ghiberti had chosen it on which to sign his name.

A few years earlier, Ignazio Busoni had proudly shown Langdon these doors, sheepishly

admitting that after half a millennium of exposure to floods, vandalism, and air pollution,

the gilded doors had been quietly swapped out for exact replicas, the originals now safely

stored inside the Museo dell’Opera del Duomo for restoration. Langdon politely refrained

from telling Busoni that he was well aware of the fact that they were admiring fakes, and

that in actuality, these copies were the second set of “fake” Ghiberti doors Langdon had

encountered—the first set quite by accident while he was researching the labyrinths at

Grace Cathedral in San Francisco and discovered that replicas of Ghiberti’s Gates of

Paradise had served as the cathedral’s front doors since the mid-twentieth century.

As Langdon stood before Ghiberti’s masterpiece, his eye was drawn to the short

informational placard mounted nearby, on which a simple phrase in Italian caught his

attention, startling him.

La peste nera. The phrase meant “the Black Death.” My God, Langdon thought, it’s

everywhere I turn! According to the placard, the doors had been commissioned as a

“votive” offering to God—a show of gratitude that Florence had somehow survived the

plague.

Langdon forced his eyes back to the Gates of Paradise while Ignazio’s words echoed

again in his mind. The gates are open to you, but you must hurry.

Despite Ignazio’s promise, the Gates of Paradise were definitely closed, as they always

were, except for rare religious holidays. Normally, tourists entered the baptistry from a

different side, through the north door.

Sienna was on tiptoe beside him, trying to see around the crowd. “There’s no door

handle,” she said. “No keyhole. Nothing.”

True, Langdon thought, knowing Ghiberti was not about to ruin his masterpiece with

something as mundane as a doorknob. “The doors swing in. They lock from the inside.”

Sienna thought a moment, pursing her lips. “So from out here … nobody would know if

the doors were locked or not.”

Langdon nodded. “I’m hoping that’s precisely Ignazio’s thinking.”

He walked a few steps to his right and glanced around the north side of the building to

a far less ornate door—the tourist entrance—where a bored-looking docent was smoking

a cigarette and rebuffing inquiring tourists by pointing to the sign on the entrance:

APERTURA 1300–1700.

It doesn’t open for several hours, Langdon thought, pleased. And nobody has been

inside yet.

Instinctively, he checked his wristwatch, and was again reminded that Mickey Mouse

was gone.

When he returned to Sienna, she had been joined by a group of tourists who were

taking photos through the simple iron fence that had been erected several feet in front of

the Gates of Paradise to prevent tourists from getting too close to Ghiberti’s masterwork.

This protective gate was made of black wrought iron topped with sunray spikes dipped

in gold paint, and resembled the simple estate fencing that often enclosed suburban

homes. Ambiguously, the informational placard describing the Gates of Paradise had been

mounted not on the spectacular bronze doors themselves but on this very ordinary

protective gate.

Langdon had heard that the placard’s placement sometimes caused confusion among

tourists, and sure enough, just then a chunky woman in a Juicy Couture sweat suit

pushed through the crowd, glanced at the placard, frowned at the wrought-iron gate, and

scoffed, “Gates of Paradise? Hell, it looks like my dog fence at home!” Then she toddled

off before anyone could explain.

Sienna reached up and grasped the protective gate, casually peering through the bars

at the locking mechanism on the back.

“Look,” she whispered, turning wide-eyed to Langdon. “The padlock on the back is

unlocked.”

Langdon looked through the bars and saw she was right. The padlock was positioned

as if it were locked, but on closer inspection, he could see that it was definitely unlocked.

The gates are open to you, but you must hurry.

Langdon raised his eyes to the Gates of Paradise beyond the fencing. If Ignazio had

indeed left the baptistry’s huge doors unbolted, they should simply swing open. The

challenge, however, would be getting inside without drawing the attention of every single

person in the square, including, no doubt, the police and Duomo guards.

“Look out!” a woman suddenly screamed nearby. “He’s going to jump!” Her voice was

filled with terror. “Up there on the bell tower!”

Langdon spun now from the doors, and saw that the woman shouting was … Sienna.

She stood five yards away, pointing up into Giotto’s bell tower and shouting, “There at

the top! He’s going to jump!”

Every set of eyes turned skyward, searching the top of the bell tower. Nearby, others

began pointing, squinting, calling out to one another.

“Someone is jumping?!”

“Where?!”

“I don’t see him!”

“Over there on the left?!”

It took only seconds for people across the square to sense the panic and follow suit,

staring up at the top of the bell tower. With the fury of a wildfire consuming a parched

hay field, the rush of fear billowed out across the piazza until the entire crowd was

craning their necks, looking upward, and pointing.

Viral marketing, Langdon thought, knowing he’d have only a moment to act.

Immediately he grabbed the wrought-iron fence and swung it open just as Sienna

returned to his side and slipped with him into the small space beyond. Once the gate was

closed behind them, they turned to face the fifteen-foot bronze doors. Hoping he had

understood Ignazio correctly, Langdon threw his shoulder into one side of the massive

double doors and drove his legs hard.

Nothing happened, and then, painfully slowly, the cumbersome section began to move.

The doors are open! The Gates of Paradise swung open about one foot, and Sienna

wasted no time turning sideways and slipping through. Langdon followed suit, inching

sideways through the narrow opening into the darkness of the baptistry.

Together, they turned and heaved the door in the opposite direction, quickly closing

the massive portal with a definitive thud. Instantly, the noise and chaos outside

evaporated, leaving only silence.

Sienna pointed to a long wooden beam on the floor at their feet, which clearly had

been set in side brackets on either side of the door to serve as a barricade. “Ignazio must

have removed it for you,” she said.

Together they lifted the beam and dropped it back into its brackets, effectively locking

the Gates of Paradise … and sealing themselves safely inside.

For a long moment Langdon and Sienna stood in silence, leaning against the door and

catching their breath. Compared to the noises of the piazza outside, the interior of the

baptistry felt as peaceful as heaven itself.

Outside the Baptistry of San Giovanni, the man in the Plume Paris spectacles and a

paisley necktie moved through the crowd, ignoring the uneasy stares of those who

noticed his bloody rash.

He had just reached the bronze doors through which Robert Langdon and his blond

companion had cleverly disappeared; even from outside, he had heard the heavy thud of

the doors being barred from within.

No entry this way.

Slowly, the ambience in the piazza was returning to normal. The tourists who had been

staring upward in anticipation were now losing interest. No jumper. Everyone moved on.

The man was itchy again, his rash getting worse. Now his fingertips were swollen and

cracking as well. He slid his hands into his pockets to keep himself from scratching. His

chest continued to throb as he began circling the octagon in search of another entrance.

He had barely made it around the corner when he felt a sharp pain on his Adam’s apple

and realized he was scratching again.

CHAPTER 55

LEGEND PROCLAIMS THAT it is physically impossible, upon entering the Baptistry of San

Giovanni, not to look up. Langdon, despite having been in this room many times, now felt

the mystical pull of the space, and let his gaze climb skyward to the ceiling.

High, high overhead, the surface of the baptistry’s octagonal vault spanned more than

eighty feet from side to side. It glistened and shimmered as if it were made of smoldering

coals. Its burnished amber-gold surface reflected the ambient light unevenly from more

than a million smalti tiles—tiny ungrouted mosaic pieces hand-cut from a glassy silica

glaze—which were arranged in six concentric rings in which scenes from the Bible were

depicted.

Adding stark drama to the lustrous upper portion of the room, natural light pierced the

dark space through a central oculus—much like the one in Rome’s Pantheon—assisted by

a series of high, small, deeply recessed windows that threw shafts of illumination that

were so focused and tight that they seemed almost solid, like structural beams propped

at ever-changing angles.

As Langdon walked with Sienna deeper into the room, he took in the legendary ceiling

mosaic—a multitiered representation of heaven and hell, very much like the depiction in

The Divine Comedy.

Dante Alighieri saw this as a child, Langdon thought. Inspiration from above.

Langdon fixed his gaze now on the centerpiece of the mosaic. Hovering directly above

the main altar rose a twenty-seven-foot-tall Jesus Christ, seated in judgment over the

saved and the damned.

At Jesus’ right hand, the righteous received the reward of everlasting life.

On His left hand, however, the sinful were stoned, roasted on spikes, and eaten by all

manner of creatures.

Overseeing the torture was a colossal mosaic of Satan portrayed as an infernal, man-

eating beast. Langdon always flinched when he saw this figure, which more than seven

hundred years ago had stared down at the young Dante Alighieri, terrifying him and

eventually inspiring his vivid portrayal of what lurked in the final ring of hell.

The frightening mosaic overhead depicted a horned devil that was in the process of

consuming a human being headfirst. The victim’s legs dangled from Satan’s mouth in a

way that resembled the flailing legs of the half-buried sinners in Dante’s Malebolge.

Lo ’mperador del doloroso regno, Langdon thought, recalling Dante’s text. The emperor

of the despondent kingdom.

Slithering from the ears of Satan were two massive, writhing snakes, also in the

process of consuming sinners, giving the impression that Satan had three heads, exactly

as Dante described him in the final canto of his Inferno. Langdon searched his memory

and recalled fragments of Dante’s imagery.

On his head he had three faces … his three chins gushing a bloody froth … his three

mouths used as grinders … gnashing sinners three at once.

That Satan’s evil was threefold, Langdon knew, was fraught with symbolic meaning: it

placed him in perfect balance with the threefold glory of the Holy Trinity.

As Langdon stared up at the horrific sight, he tried to imagine the effect the mosaic had

on the youthful Dante, who had attended services at this church year after year, and seen

Satan staring down at him each time he prayed. This morning, however, Langdon had the

uneasy feeling that the devil was staring directly at him.

He quickly lowered his gaze to the baptistry’s second-story balcony and standing

gallery—the lone area from which women were permitted to view baptisms—and then

down to the suspended tomb of Antipope John XXIII, his body lying in repose high on the

wall like a cave dweller or a subject in a magician’s levitation trick.

Finally, his gaze reached the ornately tiled floor, which many believed contained

references to medieval astronomy. He let his eyes move across the intricate black-and-

white patterns until they reached the very center of the room.

And there it is, he thought, knowing he was staring at the exact spot where Dante

Alighieri had been baptized in the latter half of the thirteenth century. “ ‘I shall return as

poet … at my baptismal font,’ ” Langdon declared, his voice echoing through the empty

space. “This is it.”

Sienna looked troubled as she eyed the center of the floor, where Langdon was now

pointing. “But … there’s nothing here.”

“Not anymore,” Langdon replied.

All that remained was a large reddish-brown octagon of pavement. This unusually

plain, eight-sided area clearly interrupted the pattern of the more ornately designed floor

and resembled nothing so much as a large, patched-up hole, which, in fact, was precisely

what it was.

Langdon quickly explained that the baptistry’s original baptismal font had been a large

octagonal pool located at the very center of this room. While modern fonts were usually

raised basins, earlier fonts were more akin to the literal meaning of the word

font—“springs” or “fountains”—in this case a deep pool of water into which participants

could be more deeply immersed. Langdon wondered what this stone chamber had

sounded like as children screamed in fear while being literally submerged in the large

pool of icy water that once stood in the middle of the floor.

“Baptisms here were cold and scary,” Langdon said. “True rites of passage. Dangerous

even. Allegedly Dante once jumped into the font to save a drowning child. In any case,

the original font was covered over at some point in the sixteenth century.”

Sienna’s eyes now began darting around the building with obvious concern. “But if

Dante’s baptismal font is gone … where did Ignazio hide the mask?!”

Langdon understood her alarm. There was no shortage of hiding places in this massive

chamber—behind columns, statues, tombs, inside niches, at the altar, even upstairs.

Nonetheless, Langdon felt remarkably confident as he turned and faced the door

through which they’d just entered. “We should start over there,” he said, pointing to an

area against the wall just to the right of the Gates of Paradise.

On a raised platform, behind a decorative gate, there sat a tall hexagonal plinth of

carved marble, which resembled a small altar or service table. The exterior was so

intricately carved that it resembled a mother-of-pearl cameo. Atop the marble base sat a

polished wooden top with a diameter of about three feet.

Sienna looked uncertain as she followed Langdon over to it. As they ascended the steps

and moved inside the protective gate, Sienna looked more closely and drew a startled

breath, realizing what she was looking at.

Langdon smiled. Exactly, it’s not an altar or table. The polished wooden top was in fact

a lid—a covering for the hollow structure.

“A baptismal font?” she asked.

Langdon nodded. “If Dante were baptized today, it would be in this basin right here.”

Wasting no time, he took a deep, purposeful breath and placed his palms on the wooden

cover, feeling a tingle of anticipation as he prepared to remove it.

Langdon tightly gripped the edges of the cover and heaved it to one side, carefully

sliding the top off the marble base and placing it on the floor beside the font. Then he

peered down into the two-foot-wide, dark, hollow space within.

The eerie sight made Langdon swallow hard.

From out of the shadows, the dead face of Dante Alighieri was looking back at him.

CHAPTER 56

SEEK AND YE shall find.

Langdon stood at the rim of the baptismal font and stared down at the pale yellow

death mask, whose wrinkled countenance gazed blankly upward. The hooked nose and

protruding chin were unmistakable.

Dante Alighieri.

The lifeless face was disturbing enough, and yet something about its position in the

font seemed almost supernatural. For a moment Langdon was unsure what he was

seeing.

Is the mask … hovering?

Langdon crouched lower, peering more closely at the scene before him. The font was

several feet deep—more of a vertical well than a shallow basin—its steep walls dropping

down to a hexagonal repository that was filled with water. Strangely, the mask seemed

to be suspended partway down the font … perched just above the surface of the water as

if by magic.

It took a moment for Langdon to realize what was causing the illusion. The font had a

vertical central spindle that rose halfway up and flattened into a kind of small metal

platter just above the water. The platter appeared to be a decorative fountainhead and

perhaps a place to rest a baby’s bottom, but it was currently serving as a pedestal on

which the mask of Dante rested, elevated safely above the water.

Neither Langdon nor Sienna said a word as they stood side by side gazing down at the

craggy face of Dante Alighieri, still sealed in his Ziploc bag, as if he’d been suffocated. For

a moment the image of a face staring up out of a water-filled basin conjured for Langdon

his own terrifying experience as a child, stuck at the bottom of a well, staring skyward in

desperation.

Pushing the thought from his mind, he carefully reached down and gripped the mask on

either side, where Dante’s ears would have been. Although the face was small by modern

standards, the ancient plaster was heavier than he’d expected. He slowly lifted the mask

out of the font and held it up so that he and Sienna could examine it more closely.

Even viewed through the plastic bag, the mask was remarkably lifelike. Every wrinkle

and blemish of the old poet’s face had been captured by the wet plaster. With the

exception of an old crack down the center of the mask, it was in perfect condition.

“Turn it over,” Sienna whispered. “Let’s see the back.”

Langdon was already doing just that. The security video from the Palazzo Vecchio had

clearly shown Langdon and Ignazio discovering something on the reverse side of the

mask—something of such startling interest that the two men had essentially walked out

of the palace with the artifact.

Taking exceptional care not to drop the fragile plaster, Langdon flipped the mask over

and laid it facedown in his right palm so they could examine the back. Unlike the

weathered, textured face of Dante, the inside of the mask was smooth and bare. Because

the mask was never meant to be worn, its back side had been filled in with plaster to

give some solidity to the delicate piece, resulting in a featureless, concave surface, like a

shallow soup bowl.

Langdon didn’t know what he had expected to find on the back of the mask, but it most

certainly was not this.

Nothing.

Nothing at all.

Just a smooth, empty surface.

Sienna seemed equally confused. “It’s blank plaster,” she whispered. “If there’s nothing

here, what did you and Ignazio see?”

I have no idea, Langdon thought, pulling the plastic bag taut across the plaster for a

clearer view. There’s nothing here! With mounting distress, Langdon raised the mask into

a shaft of light and studied it closely. As he tipped the object over for a better view, he

thought for an instant that he might have glimpsed a faint discoloration near the top—a

line of markings running horizontally across the inside of Dante’s forehead.

A natural blemish? Or maybe … something else. Langdon immediately spun and

pointed to a hinged panel of marble on the wall behind them. “Look in there,” he told

Sienna. “See if there are towels.”

Sienna looked skeptical, but obeyed, opening the discreetly hidden cupboard, which

contained three items—a valve for controlling the water level in the font, a light switch

for controlling the spotlight above the font, and … a stack of linen towels.

Sienna gave Langdon a surprised look, but Langdon had toured enough churches

worldwide to know that baptismal fonts almost always afforded their priests easy access

to emergency swaddling cloths—the unpredictability of infants’ bladders a universal risk of

christenings.

“Good,” he said, eyeing the towels. “Hold the mask a second?” He gently transferred

the mask to Sienna’s hands and then set to work.

First, Langdon retrieved the hexagonal lid and heaved it back up onto the font to

restore the small, altarlike table they had first seen. Then he grabbed several of the linen

towels from the cupboard and spread them out like a tablecloth. Finally, he flipped the

font’s light switch, and the spotlight directly overhead sprang to life, illuminating the

baptismal area and shining brightly down on the covered surface.

Sienna gently laid the mask on the font while Langdon retrieved more towels, which he

used like oven mitts to slide the mask from the Ziploc bag, careful not to touch it with his

bare hands. Moments later, Dante’s death mask lay unsheathed and naked, faceup

beneath the bright light, like the head of an anesthetized patient on an operating table.

The mask’s dramatic texturing appeared even more unsettling in the light, the creases

and wrinkles of old age accentuated by the discolored plaster. Langdon wasted no time

using his makeshift mitts to flip the mask over and lay it facedown.

The back side of the mask looked markedly less aged than the front—clean and white

rather than dingy and yellow.

Sienna cocked her head, looking puzzled. “Does this side look newer to you?”

Admittedly, the color difference was more emphatic than Langdon would have

imagined, but this side was most certainly the same age as the front. “Uneven aging,” he

said. “The back of the mask has been shielded by the display case so has never suffered

the aging effects of sunlight.” Langdon made a mental note to double the SPF of his

sunscreen.

“Hold on,” Sienna said, leaning in close to the mask. “Look! On the forehead! That

must be what you and Ignazio saw.”

Langdon’s eyes moved quickly across the smooth white surface to the same

discoloration he had spied earlier through the plastic—a faint line of markings that ran

horizontally across the inside of Dante’s forehead. Now, however, in the stark light,

Langdon saw clearly that these markings were not a natural blemish … they were man-

made.

“It’s … writing,” Sienna whispered, the words catching in her throat. “But …”

Langdon studied the inscription on the plaster. It was a single row of letters—

handwritten in a florid script of faint brownish yellow.

“That’s all it says?” Sienna said, sounding almost angry.

Langdon barely heard her. Who wrote this? he wondered. Someone in Dante’s era? It

seemed unlikely. If so, some art historian would have spotted it long ago during regular

cleaning or restoration, and the writing would have become part of the lore of the mask.

Langdon had never heard of it.

A far more likely source quickly materialized in his mind.

Bertrand Zobrist.

Zobrist was the mask’s owner and therefore could easily have requested private access

to it whenever he wanted. He could have written the text on the back of the mask fairly

recently and then replaced it in the antique case without anyone ever knowing. The

mask’s owner, Marta had told them, won’t even permit our staff to open the case without

him present.

Langdon quickly explained his theory.

Sienna seemed to accept his logic, and yet the prospect clearly troubled her. “It makes

no sense,” she said, looking restless. “If we believe Zobrist secretly wrote something on

the back of the Dante death mask, and he also went to the trouble to create that little

projector to point to the mask … then why didn’t he write something more meaningful? I

mean, it’s senseless! You and I have been looking all day for the mask, and this is all we

find?”

Langdon redirected his focus to the text on the back of the mask. The handwritten

message was very brief—only seven letters long—and admittedly looked entirely

purposeless.

Sienna’s frustration is certainly understandable.

Langdon, however, felt the familiar thrill of imminent revelation, having realized almost

instantly that these seven letters would tell him everything he needed to know about

what he and Sienna were to do next.

Furthermore, he had detected a faint odor to the mask—a familiar scent that divulged

why the plaster on the back was so much whiter than the front … and the difference had

nothing to do with aging or sunlight.

“I don’t understand,” Sienna said. “The letters are all the same.”

Langdon nodded calmly as he studied the line of text—seven identical letters carefully

inscribed in calligraphy across the inside of Dante’s forehead.

PPPPPPP

“Seven Ps,” Sienna said. “What are we supposed to do with this?”

Langdon smiled calmly and raised his eyes to hers. “I suggest we do precisely what this

message tells us to do.”

Sienna stared. “Seven Ps is … a message?”

“It is,” he said with a grin. “And if you’ve studied Dante, it’s a very clear one.”

Outside the Baptistry of San Giovanni, the man with the necktie wiped his fingernails on

his handkerchief and dabbed at the pustules on his neck. He tried to ignore the burning in

his eyes as he squinted at his destination.

The tourist entrance.

Outside the door, a wearied docent in a blazer smoked a cigarette and redirected

tourists who apparently couldn’t decipher the building’s schedule, which was written in

international time.

APERTURA 1300–1700.

The man with the rash checked his watch. It was 10:02 A.M. The baptistry was closed

for another few hours. He watched the docent for a while and then made up his mind. He

removed the gold stud from his ear and pocketed it. Then he pulled out his wallet and

checked its contents. In addition to assorted credit cards and a wad of euros, he was

carrying over three thousand U.S. dollars in cash.

Thankfully, avarice was an international sin.

CHAPTER 57

PECCATUM … PECCATUM … PECCATUM …

The seven Ps written on the back of Dante’s death mask immediately pulled Langdon’s

thoughts back into the text of The Divine Comedy. For a moment he was back onstage in

Vienna, presenting his lecture “Divine Dante: Symbols of Hell.”

“We have now descended,” his voice resounded over the speakers, “passing down

through the nine rings of hell to the center of the earth, coming face-to-face with Satan

himself.”

Langdon moved from slide to slide through a series of three-headed Satans from

various works of art—Botticelli’s Mappa, the Florence baptistry’s mosaic, and Andrea di

Cione’s terrifying black demon, its fur soiled with the crimson blood of its victims.

“Together,” Langdon continued, “we have climbed down the shaggy chest of Satan,

reversed direction as gravity shifted, and emerged from the gloomy underworld … once

again to see the stars.”

Langdon advanced slides until he reached an image he had shown earlier—the iconic

Domenico di Michelino painting from inside the duomo, which depicted the red-robed

Dante standing outside the walls of Florence. “And if you look carefully … you will see

those stars.”

Langdon pointed to the star-filled sky that arched above Dante’s head. “As you see, the

heavens are constructed in a series of nine concentric spheres around the earth. This

nine-tiered structure of paradise is intended to reflect and balance the nine rings of the

underworld. As you’ve probably noticed, the number nine is a recurring theme for Dante.”

Langdon paused, taking a sip of water and letting the crowd catch their breath after

their harrowing descent and final exit from hell.

“So, after enduring the horrors of the inferno, you must all be very excited to move

toward paradise. Unfortunately, in the world of Dante, nothing is ever simple.” He heaved

a dramatic sigh. “To ascend to paradise we all must—both figuratively and literally—climb

a mountain.”

Langdon pointed to the Michelino painting. On the horizon, behind Dante, the audience

could see a single cone-shaped mountain rising into the heavens. Spiraling up the

mountain, a pathway circled the cone repeatedly—nine times—ascending in ever-

tightening terraces toward the top. Along the pathway, naked figures trudged upward in

misery, enduring various penances on the way.

“I give you Mount Purgatory,” Langdon announced. “And sadly, this grueling, nine-

ringed ascent is the only route from the depths of inferno to the glory of paradise. On this

path, you can see the repentant souls ascending … each paying an appropriate price for a

given sin. The envious must climb with their eyes sewn shut so they cannot covet; the

prideful must carry huge stones on their backs to bend them low in a humble manner; the

gluttonous must climb without food or water, thereby suffering excruciating hunger; and

the lustful must ascend through hot flames to purge themselves of passion’s heat.” He

paused. “But before you are permitted the great privilege of climbing this mountain and

purging your sins, you must speak to this individual.”

Langdon switched slides to a close-up of the Michelino painting, wherein a winged

angel sat on a throne at the foot of Mount Purgatory. At the angel’s feet, a line of

penitent sinners awaited admittance to the upward path. Strangely, the angel was

wielding a long sword, the point of which he seemed to be stabbing into the face of the

first person in line.

“Who knows,” Langdon called out, “what this angel is doing?”

“Stabbing someone in the head?” a voice ventured.

“Nope.”

Another voice. “Stabbing someone in the eye?”

Langdon shook his head. “Anyone else?”

A voice way in the back spoke firmly. “Writing on his forehead.”

Langdon smiled. “It appears someone back there knows his Dante.” He motioned again

to the painting. “I realize it looks like the angel is stabbing this poor fellow in the

forehead, but he is not. According to Dante’s text, the angel who guards purgatory uses

the tip of his sword to write something on his visitors’ foreheads before they enter. ‘And

what does he write?’ you ask.”

Langdon paused for effect. “Strangely, he writes a single letter … which is repeated

seven times. Does anyone know what letter the angel writes seven times on Dante’s

forehead?”

“P!” shouted a voice in the crowd.

Langdon smiled. “Yes. The letter P. This P signifies peccatum—the Latin word for ‘sin.’

And the fact that it is written seven times is symbolic of the Septem Peccata Mortalia,

also known as—”

“The Seven Deadly Sins!” someone else shouted.

“Bingo. And so, only by ascending through each level of purgatory can you atone for

your sins. With each new level that you ascend, an angel cleanses one of the Ps from

your forehead until you reach the top, arriving with your brow cleansed of the seven Ps …

and your soul purged of all sin.” He winked. “The place is called purgatory for a reason.”

Langdon emerged from his thoughts to see Sienna staring at him over the baptismal

font. “The seven Ps?” she said, pulling him back to the present and motioning down to

Dante’s death mask. “You say it’s a message? Telling us what to do?”

Langdon quickly explained Dante’s vision of Mount Purgatory, the Ps representing the

Seven Deadly Sins, and the process of cleansing them from the forehead.

“Obviously,” Langdon concluded, “Bertrand Zobrist, as the Dante fanatic that he was,

would be familiar with the seven Ps and the process of cleansing them from the forehead

as a means of moving forward toward paradise.”

Sienna looked doubtful. “You think Bertrand Zobrist put those Ps on the mask because

he wants us to … literally wipe them off the death mask? That’s what you think we’re

supposed to do?”

“I realize it’s—”

“Robert, even if we wipe off the letters, how does that help us?! We’ll just end up with

a totally blank mask.”

“Maybe.” Langdon offered a hopeful grin. “Maybe not. I think there’s more there than

meets the eye.” He motioned down to the mask. “Remember how I told you that the

back of the mask was lighter in color because of uneven aging?”

“Yes.”

“I may have been wrong,” he said. “The color difference seems too stark to be aging,

and the texture of the back has teeth.”

“Teeth?”

Langdon showed her that the texture on the back was far rougher than that of the front

… and also far grittier, like sandpaper. “In the art world, this rough texture is called teeth,

and painters prefer to paint on a surface that has teeth because the paint sticks to it

better.”

“I’m not following.”

Langdon smiled. “Do you know what gesso is?”

“Sure, painters use it to prime canvases and—” She stopped short, his meaning

apparently registering.

“Exactly,” Langdon said. “They use gesso to create a clean white toothy surface, and

sometimes to cover up unwanted paintings if they want to reuse a canvas.”

Now Sienna looked excited. “And you think maybe Zobrist covered the back of the

death mask with gesso?”

“It would explain the teeth and the lighter color. It also might explain why he would

want us to wipe off the seven Ps.”

Sienna looked puzzled by this last point.

“Smell this,” Langdon said, raising the mask to her face like a priest offering

Communion.

Sienna cringed. “Gesso smells like a wet dog?”

“Not all gesso. Regular gesso smells like chalk. Wet dog is acrylic gesso.”

“Meaning …?”

“Meaning it’s water soluble.”

Sienna cocked her head, and Langdon could sense the wheels turning. She shifted her

gaze slowly to the mask and then suddenly back to Langdon, her eyes wide. “You think

there’s something under the gesso?”

“It would explain a lot.”

Sienna immediately gripped the hexagonal wooden font covering and rotated it

partway off, exposing the water below. She grabbed a fresh linen towel and plunged it

into the baptismal water. Then she held out the dripping cloth for Langdon. “You should

do it.”

Langdon placed the mask facedown in his left palm and took the wet linen. Shaking out

the excess water, he began dabbing the damp cloth on the inside of Dante’s forehead,

moistening the area with the seven calligraphic Ps. After several dabs with his index

finger, he redipped the cloth in the font and continued. The ink began smearing.

“The gesso is dissolving,” he said excitedly. “The ink is coming off with it.”

As he performed the process a third time, Langdon began speaking in a pious and

somber monotone, which resonated in the baptistry. “Through baptism, the Lord Jesus

Christ has freed you from sin and brought you to new life through water and the Holy

Spirit.”

Sienna stared at Langdon like he’d lost his mind.

He shrugged. “It seemed appropriate.”

She rolled her eyes and turned back to the mask. As Langdon continued applying

water, the original plaster beneath the gesso became visible, its yellowish hue more in

keeping with what Langdon would have expected from an artifact this old. When the last

of the Ps had disappeared, he dried the area with a clean linen and held the mask up for

Sienna to observe.

She gasped out loud.

Precisely as Langdon had anticipated, there was indeed something hidden beneath the

gesso—a second layer of calligraphy—nine letters written directly onto the pale yellow

surface of the original plaster.

This time, however, the letters formed a word.

CHAPTER 58

“ ‘POSSESSED’?” SIENNA DEMANDED. “I don’t understand.”

I’m not sure I do either. Langdon studied the text that had materialized beneath the

seven Ps—a single word emblazoned across the inside of Dante’s forehead.

possessed

“As in … possessed by the devil?” Sienna asked.

Possibly. Langdon turned his gaze overhead to the mosaic of Satan consuming the

wretched souls who had never been able to purge themselves of sin. Dante … possessed?

It didn’t seem to make much sense.

“There’s got to be more,” Sienna contended, taking the mask from Langdon’s hands

and studying it more closely. After a moment she began nodding. “Yes, look at the ends

of the word … there’s more text on either side.”

Langdon looked again, now seeing the faint shadow of additional text showing through

the moist gesso at either end of the word possessed.

Eagerly, Sienna grabbed the cloth and continued dabbing around the word until more

text materialized, written on a gentle curve.

O you possessed of sturdy intelect

Langdon let out a low whistle. “ ‘O, you possessed of sturdy intellect … observe the

teachings hidden here … beneath the veil of verses so obscure.’ ”

Sienna stared at him. “I’m sorry?”

“It’s taken from one of the most famous stanzas of Dante’s Inferno,” Langdon said

excitedly. “It’s Dante urging his smartest readers to seek the wisdom hidden within his

cryptic verse.”

Langdon often cited this exact line when teaching literary symbolism; the line was as

close an example as existed to an author waving his arms wildly and shouting: “Hey,

readers! There is a symbolic double meaning here!”

Sienna began rubbing the back of the mask, more vigorously now.

“Careful with that!” Langdon urged.

“You’re right,” Sienna announced, zealously wiping away gesso. “The rest of Dante’s

quote is here—just as you recalled it.” She paused to dip the cloth back in the font and

rinse it out.

Langdon looked on in dismay as the water in the baptismal font turned cloudy with

dissolved gesso. Our apologies to San Giovanni, he thought, uneasy that this sacred font

was being used as a sink.

When Sienna raised the cloth from the water, it was dripping. She barely wrung it out

before placing the soggy cloth in the center of the mask and swishing it around as if she

were cleaning a soup bowl.

“Sienna!” Langdon admonished. “That’s an ancient—”

“The whole back side has text!” she announced as she scoured the inside of the mask.

“And it’s written in …” She paused, cocking her head to the left and rotating the mask to

the right, as if trying to read sideways.

“Written in what?” Langdon demanded, unable to see.

Sienna finished cleaning the mask and dried it off with a fresh cloth. Then she set it

down in front of him so they could both study the result.

When Langdon saw the inside of the mask, he did a double take. The entire concave

surface was covered in text, what had to be nearly a hundred words. Beginning at the top

with the line O you possessed of sturdy intellect, the text continued in a single, unbroken

line … curling down the right side of the mask to the bottom, where it turned upside

down and continued back across the bottom, returning up the left side of the mask to the

beginning, where it repeated a similar path in a slightly smaller loop.

The path of the text was eerily reminiscent of Mount Purgatory’s spiraling pathway to

paradise. The symbologist in Langdon instantly identified the precise spiral. Symmetrical

clockwise Archimedean. He had also noted that the number of revolutions from the first

word, O, to the final period in the center was a familiar number.

Nine.

Barely breathing, Langdon turned the mask in slow circles, reading the text as it curled

ever inward around the concave bowl, funneling toward the center.

“The first stanza is Dante, almost verbatim,” Langdon said. “ ‘O you possessed of

sturdy intellect, observe the teaching that is hidden here … beneath the veil of verses so

obscure.’ ”

“And the rest?” Sienna pressed.

Langdon shook his head. “I don’t think so. It’s written in a similar verse pattern, but I

don’t recognize the text as Dante’s. It looks like someone is imitating his style.”

“Zobrist,” Sienna whispered. “It has to be.”

Langdon nodded. It was as good a guess as any. Zobrist, after all, by altering

Botticelli’s Mappa dell’Inferno, had already revealed his proclivity for collaborating with

the masters and modifying great works of art to suit his needs.

“The rest of the text is very strange,” Langdon said, again rotating the mask and

reading inward. “It talks about … severing the heads from horses … plucking up the bones

of the blind.” He skimmed ahead to the final line, which was written in a tight circle at

the very center of the mask. He drew a startled breath. “It also mentions ‘bloodred

waters.’ ”

Sienna’s eyebrows arched. “Just like your visions of the silver-haired woman?”

Langdon nodded, puzzling over the text. The bloodred waters … of the lagoon that

reflects no stars?

“Look,” she whispered, reading over his shoulder and pointing to a single word partway

through the spiral. “A specific location.”

Langdon’s eyes found the word, which he had skimmed over on his first pass. It was

the name of one of the most spectacular and unique cities in the world. Langdon felt a

chill, knowing it also happened to be the city in which Dante Alighieri famously became

infected with the deadly disease that killed him.

Venice.

Langdon and Sienna studied the cryptic verses in silence for several moments. The

poem was disturbing and macabre, and hard to decipher. Use of the words doge and

lagoon confirmed for Langdon beyond any doubt that the poem was indeed referencing

Venice—a unique Italian water-world city made up of hundreds of interconnected lagoons

and ruled for centuries by a Venetian head of state known as a doge.

At a glance, Langdon could not discern exactly where in Venice this poem was pointing,

but it definitely seemed to be urging the reader to follow its directions.

Place thine ear to the ground, listening for the sounds of trickling water.

“It’s pointing underground,” Sienna said, reading along with him.

Langdon gave an uneasy nod as he read the next line.

Follow deep into the sunken palace … for here, in the darkness, the chthonic monster

waits.

“Robert?” Sienna asked uneasily. “What kind of monster?”

“Chthonic,” Langdon replied. “The c-h is silent. It means ‘dwelling beneath the earth.’ ”

Before Langdon could continue, the loud clunk of a dead bolt echoed across the

baptistry. The tourist entrance had apparently just been unlocked from outside.

“Grazie mille,” said the man with the rash on his face. A thousand thanks.

The baptistry docent nodded nervously as he pocketed the five hundred dollars cash

and glanced around to make sure nobody was watching.

“Cinque minuti,” the docent reminded, discreetly swinging open the unbolted door just

wide enough for the man with the rash to slip inside. The docent closed the door, sealing

the man inside and blocking out all sound from outside. Five minutes.

Initially the docent had refused to take pity on the man who claimed to have come all

the way from America to pray at the Baptistry of San Giovanni in hopes of curing his

terrible skin disease. Eventually, though, he had been inspired to become sympathetic,

aided no doubt by an offer of five hundred dollars for five minutes alone in the baptistry

… combined with the growing fear that this contagious-looking person would stand there

beside him for the next three hours until the building opened.

Now, as he moved stealthily into the octagonal sanctuary, the man felt his eyes drawn

reflexively upward. Holy shit. The ceiling was like nothing he’d ever seen. A three-headed

demon stared down directly at him, and he quickly lowered his gaze to the floor.

The space appeared to be deserted.

Where the hell are they?

As the man scanned the room, his eyes fell on the main altar. It was a massive

rectangular block of marble, set back in a niche, behind a barrier of stanchions and swags

to keep spectators away.

The altar appeared to be the only hiding place in the entire room. Moreover, one of the

swags was swinging slightly … as if it had just been disturbed.

Behind the altar, Langdon and Sienna crouched in silence. They had barely had time to

collect the dirty towels and straighten the font cover before diving out of sight behind the

main altar, with the death mask carefully in tow. The plan was to hide here until the

room filled up with tourists, and then discreetly exit among the crowd.

The baptistry’s north door had definitely just been opened—at least for a moment—

because Langdon had heard sounds emanating from the piazza, but then just as abruptly,

the door had been closed, and all had gone quiet again.

Now, back in the silence, Langdon heard a single set of footsteps moving across the

stone floor.

A docent? Checking the room before opening it to tourists later today?

He had not had time to extinguish the spotlight over the baptismal font and wondered

if the docent would notice. Apparently not. The footsteps were moving briskly in their

direction, pausing just in front of the altar at the swag that Langdon and Sienna had just

vaulted over.

There was a long silence.

“Robert, it’s me,” a man’s voice said angrily. “I know you’re back there. Get the hell out

here and explain yourself.”

CHAPTER 59

THERE’S NO POINT in pretending I’m not here.

Langdon motioned for Sienna to remain crouched safely out of sight, holding the Dante

death mask, which he had resealed in the Ziploc bag.

Then, slowly, Langdon rose to his feet. Standing like a priest behind the altar of the

baptistry, Langdon gazed out at his congregation of one. The stranger facing him had

sandy-brown hair, designer glasses, and a terrible rash on his face and neck. He

scratched nervously at his irritated neck, his swollen eyes flashing daggers of confusion

and anger.

“You want to tell me what the hell you’re doing, Robert?!” he demanded, stepping over

the swag and advancing toward Langdon. His accent was American.

“Sure,” Langdon replied politely. “But first, tell me who you are.”

The man stopped short, looking incredulous. “What did you say?!”

Langdon sensed something vaguely familiar in the man’s eyes … his voice, too, maybe.

I’ve met him … somehow, somewhere. Langdon repeated his question calmly. “Please tell

me who you are and how I know you.”

The man threw up his hands in disbelief. “Jonathan Ferris? World Health Organization?

The guy who flew to Harvard University and picked you up!?”

Langdon tried to process what he was hearing.

“Why haven’t you called in?!” the man demanded, still scratching at his neck and

cheeks, which looked red and blistered. “And who the hell is the woman I saw you come

in here with?! Is she the one you’re working for now?”

Sienna scrambled to her feet beside Langdon and immediately took charge. “Dr. Ferris?

I’m Sienna Brooks. I’m also a doctor. I work here in Florence. Professor Langdon was shot

in the head last night. He has retrograde amnesia, and he doesn’t know who you are or

what happened to him over the last two days. I’m here because I’m helping him.”

As Sienna’s words echoed through the empty baptistry, the man cocked his head,

puzzled, as if her meaning had not quite registered. After a dazed beat, he staggered

back a step, steadying himself on one of the stanchions.

“Oh … my God,” he stammered. “That explains everything.”

Langdon watched the anger drain from the man’s face.

“Robert,” the newcomer whispered, “we thought you had …” He shook his head as if

trying to get the pieces to fall into place. “We thought you had switched sides … that

maybe they had paid you off … or threatened you … We just didn’t know!”

“I’m the only one he’s spoken to,” Sienna said. “All he knows is he woke up last night in

my hospital with people trying to kill him. Also, he’s been having terrible visions—dead

bodies, plague victims, and some woman with silver hair and a serpent amulet telling him

—”

“Elizabeth!” the man blurted. “That’s Dr. Elizabeth Sinskey! Robert, she’s the person

who recruited you to help us!”

“Well, if that’s her,” Sienna said, “I hope you know that she’s in trouble. We saw her

trapped in the back of a van full of soldiers, and she looked like she’d been drugged or

something.”

The man nodded slowly, closing his eyes. His eyelids looked puffy and red.

“What’s wrong with your face?” Sienna demanded.

He opened his eyes. “I’m sorry?”

“Your skin? It looks like you contracted something. Are you ill?”

The man looked taken aback, and while Sienna’s question was certainly blunt to the

point of rudeness, Langdon had wondered the same thing. Considering the number of

plague references he’d encountered today, the sight of red, blistering skin was unsettling.

“I’m fine,” the man said. “It was the damned hotel soap. I’m deathly allergic to soy,

and most of these perfumed Italian soaps are soy-based. Stupid me for not checking.”

Sienna heaved a sigh of relief, her shoulders relaxing now. “Thank God you didn’t eat

it. Contact dermatitis beats anaphylactic shock.”

They shared an awkward laugh.

“Tell me,” Sienna ventured, “does the name Bertrand Zobrist mean anything to you?”

The man froze, looking as if he’d just come face-to-face with the three-headed devil.

“We believe we just found a message from him,” Sienna said. “It points to someplace

in Venice. Does that make any sense to you?”

The man’s eyes were wild now. “Jesus, yes! Absolutely! Where is it pointing!?”

Sienna drew a breath, clearly prepared to tell this man everything about the spiraling

poem she and Langdon had just discovered on the mask, but Langdon instinctively placed

a quieting hand on hers. The man certainly appeared to be an ally, but after today’s

events, Langdon’s gut told him to trust no one. Moreover, the man’s tie rang a bell, and

he sensed he might very well be the same man he had seen praying in the small Dante

church earlier. Was he following us?

“How did you find us in here?” Langdon demanded.

The man still looked puzzled that Langdon was not recalling things. “Robert, you called

me last night to say you had set up a meeting with a museum director named Ignazio

Busoni. Then you disappeared. You never called in. When I heard Ignazio Busoni had

been found dead, I got worried. I’ve been over here looking for you all morning. I saw the

police activity outside the Palazzo Vecchio, and while waiting to find out what happened,

by chance I saw you crawling out of a tiny door with …” He glanced over at Sienna,

apparently drawing a blank.

“Sienna,” she prompted. “Brooks.”

“I’m sorry … with Dr. Brooks. I followed you hoping to learn what the hell you were

doing.”

“I saw you in the Cerchi church, praying, didn’t I?”

“Yes! I was trying to figure out what you were doing, but it made no sense! You

seemed to leave the church like a man on a mission, and so I followed you. When I saw

you sneak into the baptistry, I decided it was time to confront you. I paid off the docent

for a couple minutes alone in here.”

“Gutsy move,” Langdon noted, “if you thought I had turned on you.”

The man shook his head. “Something told me you would never do that. Professor

Robert Langdon? I knew there had to be some other explanation. But amnesia?

Incredible. I never would have guessed.”

The man with the rash began scratching nervously again. “Listen, I was given only five

minutes. We need to get out of here, now. If I found you, then the people trying to kill

you might find you, too. There is a lot going on that you don’t understand. We need to

get to Venice. Immediately. The trick will be getting out of Florence unseen. The people

who have Dr. Sinskey … the ones chasing you … they have eyes everywhere.” He

motioned toward the door.

Langdon held his ground, finally feeling like he was about to get some answers. “Who

are the soldiers in black suits? Why are they trying to kill me?”

“Long story,” the man said. “I’ll explain on the way.”

Langdon frowned, not entirely liking this answer. He motioned to Sienna and ushered

her off to one side, talking to her in hushed tones. “Do you trust him? What do you

think?”

Sienna looked at Langdon like he was crazy for asking. “What do I think? I think he’s

with the World Health Organization! I think he’s our best bet for getting answers!”

“And the rash?”

Sienna shrugged. “It’s exactly what he says—severe contact dermatitis.”

“And if it’s not what he says?” Langdon whispered. “If it’s … something else?”

“Something else?” She gave him an incredulous look. “Robert, it’s not the plague, if

that’s what you’re asking. He’s a doctor, for heaven’s sake. If he had a deadly disease

and knew he was contagious, he wouldn’t be reckless enough to be out infecting the

world.”

“What if he didn’t realize he had the plague?”

Sienna pursed her lips, thinking a moment. “Then I’m afraid you and I are already

screwed … along with everyone in the general area.”

“You know, your bedside manner could use some work.”

“Just being honest.” Sienna handed Langdon the Ziploc bag containing the death mask.

“You can carry our little friend.”

As the two returned to Dr. Ferris, they could see that he was just ending a quiet phone

call.

“I just called my driver,” the man said. “He’ll meet us out in front by the—” Dr. Ferris

stopped short, staring down at Langdon’s hand and seeing, for the first time, the dead

face of Dante Alighieri.

“Christ!” Ferris said, recoiling. “What the hell is that?!”

“Long story,” Langdon replied. “I’ll explain on the way.”

CHAPTER 60

NEW YORK EDITOR Jonas Faukman awoke to the sound of his home-office line ringing. He

rolled over and checked the clock: 4:28 A.M.

In the world of book publishing, late-night emergencies were as rare as overnight

success. Unnerved, Faukman slipped out of bed and hurried down the hall into his office.

“Hello?” The voice on the line was a familiar deep baritone. “Jonas, thank heaven

you’re home. It’s Robert. I hope I didn’t wake you.”

“Of course you woke me! It’s four o’clock in the morning!”

“Sorry, I’m overseas.”

They don’t teach time zones at Harvard?

“I’m in some trouble, Jonas, and I need a favor.” Langdon’s voice sounded tense. “It

involves your corporate NetJets card.”

“NetJets?” Faukman gave an incredulous laugh. “Robert, we’re in book publishing. We

don’t have access to private jets.”

“We both know you’re lying, my friend.”

Faukman sighed. “Okay, let me rephrase that. We don’t have access to private jets for

authors of tomes about religious history. If you want to write Fifty Shades of Iconography,

we can talk.”

“Jonas, whatever the flight costs, I’ll pay you back. You have my word. Have I ever

broken a promise to you?”

Other than missing your last deadline by three years? Nevertheless Faukman sensed

the urgency in Langdon’s tone. “Tell me what’s going on. I’ll try to help.”

“I don’t have time to explain, but I really need you to do this for me. It’s a matter of life

and death.”

Faukman had worked with Langdon long enough to be familiar with his wry sense of

humor, but he heard no trace of joking in Langdon’s anxious tone at that moment. The

man is dead serious. Faukman exhaled, and made up his mind. My finance manager is

going to crucify me. Thirty seconds later, Faukman had written down the details of

Langdon’s specific flight request.

“Is everything okay?” Langdon asked, apparently sensing his editor’s hesitation and

surprise over the details of the flight request.

“Yeah, I just thought you were in the States,” Faukman said. “I’m surprised to learn

you’re in Italy.”

“You and me both,” Langdon said. “Thanks again, Jonas. I’m heading for the airport

now.”

NetJets’ U.S. operations center is located in Columbus, Ohio, with a flight support team

on call around the clock.

Owner services representative Deb Kier had just received a call from a corporate

fractional owner in New York. “One moment, sir,” she said, adjusting her headset and

typing at her terminal. “Technically that would be a NetJets Europe flight, but I can help

you with it.” She quickly patched into the NetJets Europe system, centered in Paço de

Arcos, Portugal, and checked the current positioning of their jets in and around Italy.

“Okay, sir,” she said, “it looks like we have a Citation Excel positioned in Monaco, which

we could have routed to Florence in just under an hour. Would that be adequate for Mr.

Langdon?”

“Let’s hope so,” the man from the publishing company replied, sounding exhausted and

a bit annoyed. “We do appreciate it.”

“Entirely our pleasure,” Deb said. “And Mr. Langdon would like to fly to Geneva?”

“Apparently.”

Deb kept typing. “All set,” she finally said. “Mr. Langdon is confirmed out of Tassignano

FBO in Lucca, which is about fifty miles west of Florence. He will be departing at eleven-

twenty A.M. local time. Mr. Langdon needs to be at the FBO ten minutes before wheels up.

You’ve requested no ground transportation, no catering, and you’ve given me his passport

information, so we’re all set. Will there be anything else?”

“A new job?” he said with a laugh. “Thanks. You’ve been very helpful.”

“Our pleasure. Have a nice night.” Deb ended the call and turned back to her screen to

complete the reservation. She entered Robert Langdon’s passport information and was

about to continue when her screen began flashing a red alert box. Deb read the message,

her eyes widening.

This must be a mistake.

She tried entering Langdon’s passport again. The blinking warning came up again. This

same alert would have shown up on any airline computer in the world had Langdon tried

to book a flight.

Deb Kier stared a long moment in disbelief. She knew NetJets took customer privacy

very seriously, and yet this alert trumped all of their corporate privacy regulations.

Deb Kier immediately called the authorities.

Agent Brüder snapped his mobile phone shut and began herding his men back into the

vans.

“Langdon’s on the move,” he announced. “He’s taking a private jet to Geneva. Wheels

up in just under an hour out of Lucca FBO, fifty miles west. If we move, we can get there

before he takes off.”

At that same moment a hired Fiat sedan was racing northward along the Via dei Panzani,

leaving the Piazza del Duomo behind and making its way toward Florence’s Santa Maria

Novella train station.

In the backseat, Langdon and Sienna huddled low while Dr. Ferris sat in front with the

driver. The reservation with NetJets had been Sienna’s idea. With luck, it would provide

enough misdirection to allow the three of them to pass safely through the Florence train

station, which undoubtedly would otherwise have been packed with police. Fortunately,

Venice was only two hours away by train, and domestic train travel required no passport.

Langdon looked to Sienna, who seemed to be studying Dr. Ferris with concern. The

man was in obvious pain, his breathing labored, as if it hurt every time he inhaled.

I hope she’s right about his ailment, Langdon thought, eyeing the man’s rash and

picturing all the germs floating around in the cramped little car. Even his fingertips looked

like they were puffy and red. Langdon pushed the concern from his mind and looked out

the window.

As they approached the train station, they passed the Grand Hotel Baglioni, which

often hosted events for an art conference Langdon attended every year. Seeing it,

Langdon realized he was about to do something he had never before done in his life.

I’m leaving Florence without visiting the David.

With quiet apologies to Michelangelo, Langdon turned his eyes to the train station

ahead … and his thoughts to Venice.

CHAPTER 61

LANGDON’S GOING TO Geneva?

Dr. Elizabeth Sinskey felt increasingly ill as she rocked groggily in the backseat of the

van, which was now racing out of Florence, heading west toward a private airfield outside

of the city.

Geneva makes no sense, Sinskey told herself.

The only relevant connection to Geneva was that it was the site of the WHO’s world

headquarters. Is Langdon looking for me there? It seemed nonsensical considering that

Langdon knew Sinskey was here in Florence.

Another thought now struck her.

My God … is Zobrist targeting Geneva?

Zobrist was a man who was attuned to symbolism, and creating a “ground zero” at the

World Health Organization’s headquarters admittedly had some elegance to it,

considering his yearlong battle with Sinskey. Then again, if Zobrist was looking for a

receptive flash point for a plague, Geneva was a poor choice. Relative to other

metropolises, the city was geographically isolated and was rather cold this time of year.

Most plagues took root in overcrowded, warmer environments. Geneva was more than a

thousand feet above sea level, and hardly a suitable place to start a pandemic. No matter

how much Zobrist despises me.

So the question remained—why was Langdon going there? The American professor’s

bizarre travel destination was yet another entry in the growing list of his inexplicable

behaviors that began last night, and despite her best efforts, Sinskey was having a very

hard time coming up with any rational explanation for them.

Whose side is he on?

Admittedly, Sinskey had known Langdon only a few days, but she was usually a good

judge of character, and she refused to believe that a man like Robert Langdon could be

seduced with money. And yet, he broke contact with us last night. Now he seemed to be

running around like some kind of rogue operative. Was he somehow persuaded to think

that Zobrist’s actions make some kind of twisted sense?

The thought gave her a chill.

No, she assured herself. I know his reputation too well; he’s better than that.

Sinskey had first met Robert Langdon four nights before in the gutted hull of a retasked

C-130 transport plane, which served as the World Health Organization’s mobile

coordination center.

It had been just past seven when the plane landed at Hanscom Field, less than fifteen

miles from Cambridge, Massachusetts. Sinskey was not sure what to expect from the

celebrated academic whom she had contacted by phone, but she was pleasantly

surprised when he strode confidently up the gangplank into the rear of the plane and

greeted her with a carefree smile.

“Dr. Sinskey, I presume?” Langdon firmly shook her hand.

“Professor, it’s an honor to meet you.”

“The honor’s mine. Thanks for all you do.”

Langdon was a tall man, with urbane good looks and a deep voice. His clothing at the

moment, Sinskey had to assume, was his classroom attire—a tweed jacket, khaki slacks,

and loafers—which made sense considering the man had essentially been scooped off his

campus with no warning. He also looked younger and far more fit than she’d imagined,

which only served to remind Elizabeth of her own age. I could almost be his mother.

She gave him a tired smile. “Thank you for coming, Professor.”

Langdon motioned to the humorless associate whom Sinskey had sent to collect him.

“Your friend here didn’t give me much chance to reconsider.”

“Good. That’s what I pay him for.”

“Nice amulet,” Langdon said, eyeing her necklace. “Lapis lazuli?”

Sinskey nodded and glanced down at her blue stone amulet, fashioned into the iconic

symbol of a snake wrapped around a vertical rod. “The modern symbol for medicine. As

I’m sure you know, it’s called a caduceus.”

Langdon glanced up suddenly, as if there was something he wanted to say.

She waited. Yes?

Apparently thinking better of his impulse, he gave a polite smile and changed the

subject. “So why am I here?”

Elizabeth motioned to a makeshift conference area around a stainless-steel table.

“Please, sit. I have something I need you to look at.”

Langdon ambled toward the table, and Elizabeth noted that while the professor

seemed intrigued by the prospect of a secret meeting, he did not appear at all unsettled

by it. Here is a man comfortable in his own skin. She wondered if he would appear as

relaxed once he found out why he had been brought here.

Elizabeth got Langdon settled and then, with no preamble, she presented the object

she and her team had confiscated from a Florence safe-deposit box less than twelve

hours earlier.

Langdon studied the small carved cylinder for a long moment before giving her a quick

synopsis of what she already knew. The object was an ancient cylinder seal that could be

used for printmaking. It bore a particularly gruesome image of a three-headed Satan

along with a single word: saligia.

“Saligia,” Langdon said, “is a Latin mnemonic for—”

“The Seven Deadly Sins,” Elizabeth said. “Yes, we looked it up.”

“Okay …” Langdon sounded puzzled. “Is there some reason you wanted me to look at

this?”

“Actually, yes.” Sinskey took the cylinder back and began shaking it violently, the

agitator ball rattling back and forth.

Langdon looked puzzled by her action, but before he could ask what she was doing, the

end of the cylinder began to glow, and she pointed it at a smooth patch of insulation on

the wall of the gutted plane.

Langdon let out a low whistle and moved toward the projected image.

“Botticelli’s Map of Hell,” Langdon announced. “Based on Dante’s Inferno. Although I’m

guessing you probably already know that.”

Elizabeth nodded. She and her team had used the Internet to identify the painting,

which Sinskey had been surprised to learn was a Botticelli, a painter best known for his

bright, idealized masterpieces Birth of Venus and Springtime. Sinskey loved both of those

works despite the fact that they portrayed fertility and the creation of life, which only

served to remind her of her own tragic inability to conceive—the lone significant regret in

her otherwise very productive life.

“I was hoping,” Sinskey said, “that you could tell me about the symbolism hidden in

this painting.”

Langdon looked irritated for the first time all night. “Is that why you called me in? I

thought you said it was an emergency.”

“Humor me.”

Langdon heaved a patient sigh. “Dr. Sinskey, generally speaking, if you want to know

about a specific painting, you should contact the museum that contains the original. In

this case, that would be the Vatican’s Biblioteca Apostolica. The Vatican has a number of

superb iconographers who—”

“The Vatican hates me.”

Langdon gave her a startled look. “You, too? I thought I was the only one.”

She smiled sadly. “The WHO feels strongly that the widespread availability of

contraception is one of the keys to global health—both to combat sexually transmitted

diseases like AIDS and also for general population control.”

“And the Vatican feels differently.”

“Quite. They have spent enormous amounts of energy and money indoctrinating third-

world countries into a belief in the evils of contraception.”

“Ah, yes,” Langdon said with a knowing smile. “Who better than a bunch of celibate

male octogenarians to tell the world how to have sex?”

Sinskey was liking the professor more and more every second.

She shook the cylinder to recharge it and then projected the image on the wall again.

“Professor, take a closer look.”

Langdon walked toward the image, studying it, still moving closer. Suddenly he

stopped short. “That’s strange. It’s been altered.”

That didn’t take him long. “Yes, it has, and I want you to tell me what the alterations

mean.”

Langdon fell silent, scanning the entire image, pausing to take in the ten letters that

spelled catrovacer … and then the plague mask … and also the strange quote around the

border about “the eyes of death.”

“Who did this?” Langdon demanded. “Where did it come from?”

“Actually, the less you know right now the better. What I’m hoping is that you’ll be able

to analyze these alterations and tell us what they mean.” She motioned to a desk in the

corner.

“Here? Right now?”

She nodded. “I know it’s an imposition, but I can’t stress enough how important this is

to us.” She paused. “It could well be a matter of life and death.”

Langdon studied her with concern. “Deciphering this may take a while, but I suppose if

it’s that important to you—”

“Thank you,” Sinskey interjected before he could change his mind. “Is there anyone you

need to call?”

Langdon shook his head and told her he had been planning on a quiet weekend alone.

Perfect. Sinskey got him settled at his desk with the projector, paper, pencil, and a

laptop with a secure satellite connection. Langdon looked deeply puzzled about why the

WHO would be interested in a modified painting by Botticelli, but he dutifully set to work.

Dr. Sinskey imagined he might end up studying the image for hours with no

breakthrough, and so she settled in to get some work of her own done. From time to time

she could hear him shaking the projector and scribbling on his notepad. Barely ten

minutes had passed when Langdon set down his pencil and announced, “Cerca trova.”

Sinskey glanced over. “What?”

“Cerca trova,” he repeated. “Seek and ye shall find. That’s what this code says.”

Sinskey hurried over and sat down close beside him, listening with fascination as

Langdon explained how the levels of Dante’s inferno had been scrambled, and that, when

they were replaced in their proper sequence, they spelled the Italian phrase cerca trova.

Seek and find? Sinskey wondered. That’s this lunatic’s message to me? The phrase

sounded like a direct challenge. The disturbing memory of the madman’s final words to

her during their meeting at the Council on Foreign Relations replayed in her mind: Then it

appears our dance has begun.

“You just went white,” Langdon said, studying her thoughtfully. “I take it this is not the

message you were hoping for?”

Sinskey gathered herself, straightening the amulet on her neck. “Not exactly. Tell me …

do you believe this map of hell is suggesting I seek something?”

“Yes. Cerca trova.”

“And does it suggest where I seek?”

Langdon stroked his chin as other WHO staff began gathering around, looking eager for

information. “Not overtly … no, although I’ve got a pretty good idea where you’ll want to

start.”

“Tell me,” Sinskey demanded, more forcefully than Langdon would have expected.

“Well, how do you feel about Florence, Italy?”

Sinskey set her jaw, doing her best not to react. Her staff members, however, were

less controlled. All of them exchanged startled glances. One grabbed a phone and placed

a call. Another hurried through a door toward the front of the plane.

Langdon looked bewildered. “Was it something I said?”

Absolutely, Sinskey thought. “What makes you say Florence?”

“Cerca trova,” he replied, quickly recounting a long-standing mystery involving a Vasari

fresco at the Palazzo Vecchio.

Florence it is, Sinskey thought, having heard enough. Obviously, it could not be mere

coincidence that her nemesis had jumped to his death not more than three blocks from

the Palazzo Vecchio in Florence.

“Professor,” she said, “when I showed you my amulet earlier and called it a caduceus,

you paused, as if you wanted to say something, but then you hesitated and seemed to

change your mind. What were you going to say?”

Langdon shook his head. “Nothing. It’s foolish. Sometimes the professor in me can be a

little overbearing.”

Sinskey stared into his eyes. “I ask because I need to know I can trust you. What were

you going to say?”

Langdon swallowed and cleared his throat. “Not that it matters, but you said your

amulet is the ancient symbol of medicine, which is correct. But when you called it a

caduceus, you made a very common mistake. The caduceus has two snakes on the staff

and wings at the top. Your amulet has a single snake and no wings. Your symbol is called

—”

“The Rod of Asclepius.”

Langdon cocked his head in surprise. “Yes. Exactly.”

“I know. I was testing your truthfulness.”

“I’m sorry?”

“I was curious to know if you would tell me the truth, no matter how uncomfortable it

might make me.”

“Sounds like I failed.”

“Don’t do it again. Total honesty is the only way you and I will be able to work together

on this.”

“Work together? Aren’t we done here?”

“No, Professor, we’re not done. I need you to come to Florence to help me find

something.”

Langdon stared in disbelief. “Tonight?”

“I’m afraid so. I have yet to tell you about the truly critical nature of this situation.”

Langdon shook his head. “It doesn’t matter what you tell me. I don’t want to fly to

Florence.”

“Neither do I,” she said grimly. “But unfortunately our time is running out.”

CHAPTER 62

THE NOON SUN glinted off the sleek roof of Italy’s high-velocity Frecciargento train as it

raced northward, cutting a graceful arc across the Tuscan countryside. Despite traveling

away from Florence at 174 miles per hour, the “silver arrow” train made almost no noise,

its soft repetitive clicking and gently swaying motion having an almost soothing effect on

those who rode it.

For Robert Langdon, the last hour had been a blur.

Now, aboard the high-speed train, Langdon, Sienna, and Dr. Ferris were seated in one

of the Frecciargento’s private salottini—a small, executive-class berth with four leather

seats and a foldout table. Ferris had rented the entire cabin using his credit card, along

with an assortment of sandwiches and mineral water, which Langdon and Sienna had

ravenously consumed after cleaning up in the restroom next to their private berth.

As the three of them settled in for the two-hour train ride to Venice, Dr. Ferris

immediately turned his gaze to the Dante death mask, which sat on the table between

them in its Ziploc bag. “We need to figure out precisely where in Venice this mask is

leading us.”

“And quickly,” Sienna added, urgency in her voice. “It’s probably our only hope of

preventing Zobrist’s plague.”

“Hold on,” Langdon said, placing a defensive hand atop the mask. “You promised that

once we were safely aboard this train you would give me some answers about the last

few days. So far, all I know is that the WHO recruited me in Cambridge to help decipher

Zobrist’s version of La Mappa. Other than that, you’ve told me nothing.”

Dr. Ferris shifted uncomfortably and began scratching again at the rash on his face and

neck. “I can see you’re frustrated,” he said. “I’m sure it’s unsettling not to remember what

happened, but medically speaking …” He glanced over at Sienna for confirmation and

then continued. “I strongly recommend you not expend energy trying to recall specifics

you can’t remember. With amnesia victims, it’s best just to let the forgotten past remain

forgotten.”

“Let it be?!” Langdon felt his anger rising. “The hell with that! I need some answers!

Your organization brought me to Italy, where I was shot and lost several days of my life!

I want to know how it happened!”

“Robert,” Sienna intervened, speaking softly in a clear attempt to calm him down. “Dr.

Ferris is right. It definitely would not be healthy for you to be overwhelmed by a deluge of

information all at once. Think about the tiny snippets you do remember—the silver-haired

woman, ‘seek and find,’ the writhing bodies from La Mappa—those images flooded into

your mind in a series of jumbled, uncontrollable flashbacks that left you nearly

incapacitated. If Dr. Ferris starts recounting the past few days, he will almost certainly

dislodge other memories, and your hallucinations could start all over again. Retrograde

amnesia is a serious condition. Triggering misplaced memories can be extremely

disruptive to the psyche.”

The thought had not occurred to Langdon.

“You must feel quite disoriented,” Ferris added, “but at the moment we need your

psyche intact so we can move forward. It’s imperative that we figure out what this mask

is trying to tell us.”

Sienna nodded.

The doctors, Langdon noted silently, seemed to agree.

Langdon sat quietly, trying to overcome his feelings of uncertainty. It was a strange

sensation to meet a total stranger and realize you had actually known him for several

days. Then again, Langdon thought, there is something vaguely familiar about his eyes.

“Professor,” Ferris said sympathetically, “I can see that you’re not sure you trust me,

and this is understandable considering all you’ve been through. One of the common side

effects of amnesia is mild paranoia and distrust.”

That makes sense, Langdon thought, considering I can’t even trust my own mind.

“Speaking of paranoia,” Sienna joked, clearly trying to lighten the mood, “Robert saw

your rash and thought you’d been stricken with the Black Plague.”

Ferris’s puffy eyes widened, and he laughed out loud. “This rash? Believe me,

Professor, if I had the plague, I would not be treating it with an over-the-counter

antihistamine.” He pulled a small tube of medicine from his pocket and tossed it to

Langdon. Sure enough, it was a half-empty tube of anti-itch cream for allergic reactions.

“Sorry about that,” Langdon said, feeling foolish. “Long day.”

“No worries,” Ferris said.

Langdon turned toward the window, watching the muted hues of the Italian

countryside blur together in a peaceful collage. The vineyards and farms were becoming

scarcer now as the flatlands gave way to the foothills of the Apennines. Soon the train

would navigate the sinuous mountain pass and then descend again, powering eastward

toward the Adriatic Sea.

I’m headed for Venice, he thought. To look for a plague.

This strange day had left Langdon feeling as if he were moving through a landscape

composed of nothing but vague shapes with no particular details. Like a dream. Ironically,

nightmares usually woke people up … but Langdon felt as if he had awoken into one.

“Lira for your thoughts,” Sienna whispered beside him.

Langdon glanced up, smiling wearily. “I keep thinking I’ll wake up at home and discover

this was all a bad dream.”

Sienna cocked her head, looking demure. “You wouldn’t miss me if you woke up and

found out I wasn’t real?”

Langdon had to grin. “Yes, actually, I would miss you a little.”

She patted his knee. “Stop daydreaming, Professor, and get to work.”

Langdon reluctantly turned his eyes to the crinkled face of Dante Alighieri, which stared

blankly up from the table before him. Gently, Langdon picked up the plaster mask and

turned it over in his hands, gazing down into the concave interior at the first line of spiral

text:

O you possessed of sturdy intelect …

Langdon doubted he qualified at the moment.

Nonetheless, he set to work.

Two hundred miles ahead of the speeding train, The Mendacium remained anchored in

the Adriatic. Belowdecks, facilitator Laurence Knowlton heard the soft rap of knuckles on

his glass cubicle and touched a button beneath his desk, turning the opaque wall into a

transparent one. Outside, a small, tanned form materialized.

The provost.

He looked grim.

Without a word, he entered, locked the cubicle door, and threw the switch that turned

the glass room opaque again. He smelled of alcohol.

“The video that Zobrist left us,” the provost said.

“Yes, sir?”

“I want to see it. Now.”

CHAPTER 63

ROBERT LANGDON HAD now finished transcribing the spiral text from the death mask onto

paper so they could analyze it more closely. Sienna and Dr. Ferris huddled in close to

help, and Langdon did his best to ignore Ferris’s ongoing scratching and labored

breathing.

He’s fine, Langdon told himself, forcing his attention to the verse before him.

O you possessed of sturdy intelect,

observe the teaching that is hidden here …

beneath the veil of verses so obscure.

“As I mentioned earlier,” Langdon began, “the opening stanza of Zobrist’s poem is

taken verbatim from Dante’s Inferno—an admonition to the reader that the words carry a

deeper meaning.”

Dante’s allegorical work was so replete with veiled commentary on religion, politics,

and philosophy that Langdon often suggested to his students that the Italian poet be

studied much as one might study the Bible—reading between the lines in an effort to

understand the deeper meaning.

“Scholars of medieval allegory,” Langdon continued, “generally divide their analyses

into two categories—‘text’ and ‘image’ … text being the literal content of the work, and

image being the symbolic message.”

“Okay,” Ferris said eagerly. “So the fact that the poem begins with this line—”

“Suggests,” Sienna interjected, “that our superficial reading may reveal only part of the

story. The true meaning may be hidden.”

“Something like that, yes.” Langdon returned his gaze to the text and continued

reading aloud.

Seek the treacherous doge of Venice

who severed the heads from horses …

and plucked up the bones of the blind.

“Well,” Langdon said, “I’m not sure about headless horses and the bones of the blind,

but it sounds like we’re supposed to locate a specific doge.”

“I assume … a doge’s grave?” Sienna asked. “Or a statue or portrait?” Langdon replied.

“There haven’t been doges for centuries.”

The doges of Venice were similar to the dukes of the other Italian city-states, and more

than a hundred of them had ruled Venice over the course of a thousand years, beginning

in A.D. 697. Their lineage had ended in the late eighteenth century with Napoleon’s

conquest, but their glory and power still remain subjects of intense fascination for

historians.

“As you may know,” Langdon said, “Venice’s two most popular tourist attractions—the

Doge’s Palace and St. Mark’s Basilica—were built by the doges, for the doges. Many of

them are buried right there.”

“And do you know,” Sienna asked, eyeing the poem, “if there was a doge who was

considered to be particularly dangerous?”

Langdon glanced down at the line in question. Seek the treacherous doge of Venice.

“None that I know of, but the poem doesn’t use the word ‘dangerous’; it uses the word

‘treacherous.’ There’s a difference, at least in the world of Dante. Treachery is one of the

Seven Deadly Sins—the worst of them, actually—punished in the ninth and final ring of

hell.”

Treachery, as defined by Dante, was the act of betraying a loved one. History’s most

notorious example of the sin had been Judas’s betrayal of his beloved Jesus, an act Dante

considered so vile that he had Judas banished to the inferno’s innermost core—a region

named Judecca, after its most dishonorable resident.

“Okay,” Ferris said, “so we’re looking for a doge who committed an act of treachery.”

Sienna nodded her agreement. “That will help us limit the list of possibilities.” She

paused, eyeing the text. “But this next line … a doge who ‘severed the heads from

horses’?” She raised her eyes to Langdon. “Is there a doge who cut off horses’ heads?”

The image Sienna evoked in his mind reminded Langdon of the gruesome scene from

The Godfather. “Doesn’t ring a bell. But according to this, he also ‘plucked up the bones

of the blind.’ ” He glanced over at Ferris. “Your phone has Internet, right?”

Ferris quickly pulled out his phone and held up his swollen, rashy fingertips. “The

buttons might be difficult for me to manage.”

“I’ve got it,” Sienna said, taking his phone. “I’ll run a search for Venetian doges, cross-

referenced with headless horses and the bones of the blind.” She began typing rapidly on

the tiny keyboard.

Langdon skimmed the poem another time, and then continued reading aloud.

Kneel within the gilded mouseion of holy wisdom,

and place thine ear to the ground,

listening for the sounds of trickling water.

“I’ve never heard of a mouseion,” Ferris said.

“It’s an ancient word meaning a temple protected by muses,” Langdon replied. “In the

days of the early Greeks, a mouseion was a place where the enlightened gathered to

share ideas, and discuss literature, music, and art. The first mouseion was built by

Ptolemy at the Library of Alexandria centuries before the birth of Christ, and then

hundreds more cropped up around the world.”

“Dr. Brooks,” Ferris said, glancing hopefully at Sienna. “Can you look and see if there’s

a mouseion in Venice?”

“Actually there are dozens of them,” Langdon said with a playful smile. “Now they’re

called museums.”

“Ahhh …” Ferris replied. “I guess we’ll have to cast a wider net.” Sienna kept typing into

the phone, having no trouble multitasking as she calmly took inventory. “Okay, so we’re

looking for a museum where we can find a doge who severed the heads from horses and

plucked up the bones of the blind. Robert, is there a particular museum that might be a

good place to look?”

Langdon was already considering all of Venice’s best-known museums—the Gallerie

dell’Accademia, the Ca’ Rezzonico, the Palazzo Grassi, the Peggy Guggenheim Collection,

the Museo Correr—but none of them seemed to fit the description.

He glanced back at the text.

Kneel within the gilded mouseion of holy wisdom …

Langdon smiled wryly. “Venice does have one museum that perfectly qualifies as a

‘gilded mouseion of holy wisdom.’ ”

Both Ferris and Sienna looked at him expectantly.

“St. Mark’s Basilica,” he declared. “The largest church in Venice.”

Ferris looked uncertain. “The church is a museum?”

Langdon nodded. “Much like the Vatican Museum. And what’s more, the interior of St.

Mark’s is famous for being adorned, in its entirety, in solid gold tiles.”

“A gilded mouseion,” Sienna said, sounding genuinely excited.

Langdon nodded, having no doubt that St. Mark’s was the gilded temple referenced in

the poem. For centuries, the Venetians had called St. Mark’s La Chiesa d’Oro—the Church

of Gold—and Langdon considered its interior the most dazzling of any church in the world.

“The poem says to ‘kneel’ there,” Ferris added. “And a church is a logical place to

kneel.”

Sienna was typing furiously again. “I’ll add St. Mark’s to the search. That must be

where we need to look for the doge.”

Langdon knew they would find no shortage of doges in St. Mark’s—which was, quite

literally, the basilica of the doges. He felt encouraged as he returned his eyes to the

poem.

Kneel within the gilded mouseion of holy wisdom,

and place thine ear to the ground,

listening for the sounds of trickling water.

Trickling water? Langdon wondered. Is there water under St. Mark’s? The question, he

realized, was foolish. There was water under the entire city. Every building in Venice was

slowly sinking and leaking. Langdon pictured the basilica and tried to imagine where

inside one might kneel to listen for trickling water. And once we hear it … what do we do?

Langdon returned to the poem and finished reading aloud.

Folow deep into the sunken palace …

for here, in the darkness, the chthonic monster waits,

submerged in the bloodred waters …

of the lagoon that reflects no stars.

“Okay,” Langdon said, disturbed by the image, “apparently, we follow the sounds of

trickling water … to some kind of sunken palace.”

Ferris scratched at his face, looking unnerved. “What’s a chthonic monster?”

“Subterranean,” Sienna offered, her fingers still working the phone. “ ‘Chthonic’ means

‘beneath the earth.’ ”

“Partly, yes,” Langdon said. “Although the word has a further historic implication—one

commonly associated with myths and monsters. Chthonics are an entire category of

mythical gods and monsters—Erinyes, Hecate, and Medusa, for example. They’re called

chthonics because they reside in the underworld and are associated with hell.” Langdon

paused. “Historically, they emerge from the earth and come aboveground to wreak havoc

in the human world.”

There was a long silence, and Langdon sensed they were all thinking the same thing.

This chthonic monster … could only be Zobrist’s plague.

for here, in the darkness, the chthonic monster waits,

submerged in the bloodred waters …

of the lagoon that reflects no stars.

“Anyway,” Langdon said, trying to stay on track, “we’re obviously looking for an

underground location, which at least explains the last line of the poem referencing ‘the

lagoon that reflects no stars.’ ”

“Good point,” Sienna said, glancing up now from Ferris’s phone. “If a lagoon is

subterranean, it couldn’t reflect the sky. But does Venice have subterranean lagoons?”

“None that I know of,” Langdon replied. “But in a city built on water, there are probably

endless possibilities.”

“What if the lagoon is indoors?” Sienna asked suddenly, eyeing them both. “The poem

refers to ‘the darkness’ of ‘the sunken palace.’ You mentioned earlier that the Doge’s

Palace is connected to the basilica, right? That means those structures have a lot of what

the poem mentions—a mouseion of holy wisdom, a palace, relevance to doges—and it’s

all located right there on Venice’s main lagoon, at sea level.”

Langdon considered this. “You think the poem’s ‘sunken palace’ is the Doge’s Palace?”

“Why not? The poem tells us first to kneel at St. Mark’s Basilica, then to follow the

sounds of trickling water. Maybe the sounds of water lead next door to the Doge’s Palace.

It could have a submerged foundation or something.”

Langdon had visited the Doge’s Palace many times and knew that it was absolutely

massive. A sprawling complex of buildings, the palace housed a grand-scale museum, a

veritable labyrinth of institutional chambers, apartments, and courtyards, and a prison

network so vast that it was housed in multiple buildings.

“You may be right,” Langdon said, “but a blind search of that palace would take days. I

suggest we do exactly as the poem tells us. First, we go to St. Mark’s Basilica and find the

tomb or statue of this treacherous doge, and then we kneel down.”

“And then?” Sienna asked.

“And then,” Langdon said with a sigh, “we pray like hell that we hear trickling water …

and it leads us somewhere.”

In the silence that followed, Langdon pictured the anxious face of Elizabeth Sinskey as

he had seen it in his hallucinations, calling to him across the water. Time is short. Seek

and find! He wondered where Sinskey was now … and if she was all right. The soldiers in

black had no doubt realized by now that Langdon and Sienna had escaped. How long

until they come after us?

As Langdon returned his eyes to the poem, he fought off a wave of exhaustion. He

eyed the final line of verse, and another thought occurred to him. He wondered if it was

even worth mentioning. The lagoon that reflects no stars. It was probably irrelevant to

their search, but he decided to share it nonetheless. “There’s another point I should

mention.”

Sienna glanced up from the cell phone.

“The three sections of Dante’s Divine Comedy,” Langdon said. “ Inferno, Purgatorio, and

Paradiso. They all end with the exact same word.”

Sienna looked surprised.

“What word is that?” Ferris asked.

Langdon pointed to the bottom of the text he had transcribed. “The same word that

ends this poem—‘stars.’ ” He picked up Dante’s death mask and pointed to the very

center of the spiral text.

The lagoon that reflects no stars.

“What’s more,” Langdon continued, “in the finale of the Inferno, we find Dante listening

to the sound of trickling water inside a chasm and following it through an opening …

which leads him out of hell.”

Ferris blanched slightly. “Jesus.”

Just then, a deafening rush of air filled the cabin as the Frecciargento plunged into a

mountain tunnel.

In the darkness, Langdon closed his eyes and tried to allow his mind to relax. Zobrist

may have been a lunatic, he thought, but he certainly had a sophisticated grasp of Dante.

CHAPTER 64

LAURENCE KNOWLTON FELT a wave of relief wash over him.

The provost changed his mind about watching Zobrist’s video.

Knowlton practically dove for the crimson memory stick and inserted it into his

computer so he could share it with his boss. The weight of Zobrist’s bizarre nine-minute

message had been haunting the facilitator, and he was eager to have another set of eyes

watch it.

This will no longer be on me.

Knowlton held his breath as he began the playback.

The screen darkened, and the sounds of gently lapping water filled the cubicle. The

camera moved through the reddish haze of the underground cavern, and although the

provost showed no visible reaction, Knowlton sensed that the man was as alarmed as he

was bewildered.

The camera paused its forward motion and tipped downward at the surface of the

lagoon, where it plunged beneath the water, diving several feet to reveal the polished

titanium plaque bolted to the floor.

IN THIS PLACE, ON THIS DATE,

THE WORLD WAS CHANGED FOREVER.

The provost flinched ever so slightly. “Tomorrow,” he whispered, eyeing the date. “And

do we know where ‘this place’ might be?”

Knowlton shook his head.

The camera panned left now, revealing the submerged plastic sack of gelatinous,

yellow-brown fluid.

“What in God’s name?!” The provost pulled up a chair and settled in, staring at the

undulating bubble, suspended like a tethered balloon beneath the water.

An uncomfortable silence settled over the room as the video progressed. Soon the

screen went dark, and then a strange, beak-nosed shadow appeared on the cavern wall

and began talking in its arcane language.

I am the Shade …

Driven underground, I must speak to the world from deep within the earth, exiled to this gloomy cavern where

the bloodred waters colect in the lagoon that reflects no stars.

But this is my paradise … the perfect womb for my fragile child.

Inferno.

The provost glanced up. “Inferno?”

Knowlton shrugged. “As I said, it’s disturbing.”

The provost returned his eyes to the screen, watching intently.

The beak-nosed shadow continued speaking for several minutes, talking of plagues, of

the population’s need for purging, of his own glorious role in the future, of his battle

against the ignorant souls who had been trying to stop him, and of the faithful few who

realized that drastic action was the only way to save the planet.

Whatever this war was about, Knowlton had been wondering all morning if the

Consortium might be fighting on the wrong side.

The voice continued.

I have forged a masterpiece of salvation, and yet my efforts have been rewarded not with trumpets and laurels

… but with threats of death.

I do not fear death … for death transforms visionaries into martyrs … converts noble ideas into powerful

movements.

Jesus. Socrates. Martin Luther King.

One day soon I wil join them.

The masterpiece I have created is the work of God Himself … a gift from the One who imbued me with the

intelect, tools, and courage required to forge such a creation.

Now the day grows near.

Inferno sleeps beneath me, preparing to spring from its watery womb … under the watchful eye of the chthonic

monster and al her Furies.

Despite the virtue of my deeds, like you, I am no stranger to Sin. Even I am guilty of the darkest of the seven

—that lone temptation from which so few find sanctuary.

Pride.

By recording this very message I have succumbed to Pride’s goading pul … eager to ensure that the world

would know my work.

And why not?

Mankind should know the source of his own salvation … the name of he who sealed the yawning gates of hel

forever!

With each passing hour, the outcome grows more certain. Mathematics—as relentless as the law of gravity—is

nonnegotiable. The same exponential blossoming of life that has nearly kiled Mankind shal also be his deliverance.

The beauty of a living organism—be it good or evil—is that it wil folow the law of God with singular vision.

Be fruitful and multiply.

And so I fight fire … with fire.

“That’s enough,” the provost interrupted so quietly that Knowlton barely heard him.

“Sir?”

“Stop the video.”

Knowlton paused the playback. “Sir, the end is actually the most frightening part.”

“I’ve seen enough.” The provost looked ill. He paced the cubicle for several moments

and then turned suddenly. “We need to make contact with FS-2080.”

Knowlton considered the move.

FS-2080 was the code name of one of the provost’s trusted contacts—the same contact

who had referred Zobrist to the Consortium as a client. The provost was no doubt at this

very moment chiding himself for trusting FS-2080’s judgment; the recommendation of

Bertrand Zobrist as a client had brought chaos into the Consortium’s delicately structured

world.

FS-2080 is the reason for this crisis.

The growing chain of calamities surrounding Zobrist only seemed to be getting worse,

not merely for the Consortium, but quite possibly … for the world.

“We need to discover Zobrist’s true intentions,” the provost declared. “I want to know

exactly what he created, and if this threat is real.”

Knowlton knew that if anyone had the answers to these questions, it would be FS-

2080. Nobody knew Bertrand Zobrist better. It was time for the Consortium to break

protocol and assess what kind of insanity the organization might have unwittingly

supported over the past year.

Knowlton considered the possible ramifications of confronting FS-2080 directly. The

mere act of initiating contact carried certain risks.

“Obviously, sir,” Knowlton said, “if you reach out to FS-2080, you’ll need to do so very

delicately.”

The provost’s eyes flashed with anger as he pulled out his cell phone. “We’re well past

delicate.”

Seated with his two traveling partners in the Frecciargento’s private cabin, the man with

the paisley necktie and Plume Paris glasses did his best not to scratch at his still-

worsening rash. The pain in his chest seemed to have increased as well.

As the train finally emerged from the tunnel, the man gazed over at Langdon, who

opened his eyes slowly, apparently returning from far-off thoughts. Beside him, Sienna

began eyeing the man’s cell phone, which she had set down as the train sped through the

tunnel, while there was no signal.

Sienna appeared eager to continue her Internet search, but before she could reach for

the phone, it suddenly began vibrating, emitting a series of staccato pings.

Knowing the ring well, the man with the rash immediately grabbed the phone and eyed

the illuminated screen, doing his best to hide his surprise.

“Sorry,” he said, standing up. “Ailing mother. I’ve got to take this.”

Sienna and Langdon gave him understanding nods as the man excused himself and

exited the cabin, moving quickly down the passageway into a nearby restroom.

The man with the rash locked the restroom door as he took the call. “Hello?”

The voice on the line was grave. “It’s the provost.”

CHAPTER 65

THE FRECCIARGENTO’S RESTROOM was no larger than the restroom on a commercial airliner,

with barely enough room to turn around. The man with the skin rash finished his phone

call with the provost and pocketed his phone.

The ground has shifted, he realized. The entire landscape was suddenly upside down,

and he needed a moment to get his bearings.

My friends are now my enemies.

The man loosened his paisley tie and stared at his pustuled face in the mirror. He

looked worse than he thought. His face was of little concern, though, compared to the

pain in his chest.

Hesitantly, he unfastened several buttons and pulled open his shirt.

He forced his eyes to the mirror … and studied his bare chest.

Jesus.

The black area was growing.

The skin on the center of his chest was a deep hue of bluish black. The area had begun

last night as the size of a golf ball, but now it was the size of an orange. He gently

touched the tender flesh and winced.

Hurriedly, he rebuttoned his shirt, hoping he would have the strength to carry out what

he needed to do.

The next hour will be critical, he thought. A delicate series of maneuvers.

He closed his eyes and gathered himself, working through what needed to happen. My

friends have become my enemies, he thought again.

He took several deep, painful breaths, hoping it might calm his nerves. He knew he

needed to stay serene if he was going to keep his intentions hidden.

Inner calm is critical to persuasive acting.

The man was no stranger to deception, and yet his heart was pounding wildly now. He

took another deep, throbbing breath. You’ve been deceiving people for years, he

reminded himself. It’s what you do.

Steeling himself, he prepared to return to Langdon and Sienna.

My final performance, he thought.

As a final precaution before exiting the restroom, he removed the battery from his cell

phone, making sure the device was now inoperative.

He looks pale, Sienna thought as the man with the rash reentered the cabin and settled

into his seat with a pained sigh.

“Is everything okay?” Sienna asked, genuinely concerned.

He nodded. “Thanks, yes. Everything’s fine.”

Apparently having received all the information the man intended to share, Sienna

changed tacks. “I need your phone again,” she said. “If you don’t mind, I want to keep

searching for more on the doge. Maybe we can get some answers before we visit St.

Mark’s.”

“No problem,” he said, taking his phone from his pocket and checking the display. “Oh,

damn. My battery was dying during that call. Looks like it’s dead now.” He glanced at his

watch. “We’ll be in Venice soon. We’ll just have to wait.”

Five miles off the coast of Italy, aboard The Mendacium, facilitator Knowlton watched in

silence as the provost stalked around the perimeter of the cubicle like a caged animal.

Following the phone call, the provost’s wheels were clearly turning, and Knowlton knew

better than to utter a sound while the provost was thinking.

Finally, the deeply tanned man spoke, his voice as tight as Knowlton could remember.

“We have no choice. We need to share this video with Dr. Elizabeth Sinskey.”

Knowlton sat stock-still, not wanting to show his surprise. The silver-haired devil? The

one we’ve helped Zobrist evade all year? “Okay, sir. Should I find a way to e-mail the

video to her?”

“God, no! And risk leaking the video to the public? It would be mass hysteria. I want

Dr. Sinskey aboard this ship as soon as you can get her here.”

Knowlton stared in disbelief. He wants to bring the director of the WHO on board The

Mendacium? “Sir, this breach of our secrecy protocol obviously risks—”

“Just do it, Knowlton! NOW!”

CHAPTER 66

FS-2080 GAZED OUT the window of the speeding Frecciargento, watching Robert Langdon’s

reflection in the glass. The professor was still brainstorming possible solutions to the

death-mask riddle that Bertrand Zobrist had composed.

Bertrand, thought FS-2080. God, I miss him.

The pangs of loss felt fresh. The night the two had met still felt like a magical dream.

Chicago. The blizzard.

January, six years ago … but it still feels like yesterday. I am trudging through

snowbanks along the windswept Magnificent Mile, collar upturned against the blinding

whiteout. Despite the cold, I tell myself that nothing will keep me from my destination.

Tonight is my chance to hear the great Bertrand Zobrist speak … in person.

I have read everything the man has ever written, and I know I am lucky to have one of

the five hundred tickets that were printed for the event.

When I arrive at the hall, half numb from the wind, I feel a surge of panic to discover

the room nearly empty. Has the speech been canceled?! The city is in near shutdown due

to the weather … has it kept Zobrist from coming tonight?!

Then he is there.

A towering, elegant form takes the stage.

He is tall … so very tall … with vibrant green eyes that seem to hold all the mysteries

of the world in their depths. He looks out over the empty hall—only a dozen or so

stalwart fans—and I feel ashamed that the hall is nearly empty.

This is Bertrand Zobrist!

There is a terrible moment of silence as he stares at us, his face stern. Then, without

warning, he bursts out laughing, his green eyes glimmering. “To hell with this empty

auditorium,” he declares. “My hotel is next door. Let’s go to the bar!”

A cheer goes up, and a small group migrates next door to a hotel bar, where we crowd

into a big booth and order drinks. Zobrist regales us with tales of his research, his rise to

celebrity, and his thoughts about the future of genetic engineering. As the drinks flow, the

topic turns to Zobrist’s newfound passion for Transhumanist philosophy.

“I believe Transhumanism is mankind’s only hope for long-term survival,” Zobrist

preaches, pulling aside his shirt and showing them all the “H+” tattoo inscribed on his

shoulder. “As you can see, I’m fully committed.”

I feel as if I’m having a private audience with a rock star. I never imagined the lauded

“genius of genetics” would be so charismatic or beguiling in person. Every time Zobrist

glances over at me, his green eyes ignite a wholly unexpected feeling inside me … the

deep pull of sexual attraction.

As the night wears on, the group slowly thins as the guests excuse themselves to get

back to reality. By midnight, I am seated all alone with Bertrand Zobrist.

“Thank you for tonight,” I say to him, a little tipsy from one drink too many. “You’re an

amazing teacher.”

“Flattery?” Zobrist smiles and leans closer, our legs touching now. “It will get you

everywhere.”

The flirtation is clearly inappropriate, but it is a snowy night in a deserted Chicago

hotel, and it feels as if the entire world has stopped.

“So what do you think?” Zobrist says. “Nightcap in my room?”

I freeze, knowing I must look like a deer in the headlights.

Zobrist’s eyes twinkle warmly. “Let me guess,” he whispers. “You’ve never been with a

famous man.”

I feel myself flush, fighting to hide a surge of emotions—embarrassment, excitement,

fear. “Actually, to be honest,” I say to him, “I’ve never been with any man.”

Zobrist smiles and inches closer. “I’m not sure what you’ve been waiting for, but please

let me be your first.”

In that moment all the awkward sexual fears and frustrations of my childhood

disappear … evaporating into the snowy night.

For the first time ever, I feel a yearning unfettered by shame.

I want him.

Ten minutes later, we are in Zobrist’s hotel room, naked in each other’s arms. Zobrist

takes his time, his patient hands coaxing sensations I’ve never felt before out of my

inexperienced body.

This is my choice. He didn’t force me.

In the cocoon of Zobrist’s embrace, I feel as if everything is right in the world. Lying

there, staring out the window at the snowy night, I know I will follow this man anywhere.

The Frecciargento train slowed suddenly, and FS-2080 emerged from the blissful

memory and back into the depressing present.

Bertrand … you’re gone.

Their first night together had been the first step of an incredible journey.

I became more than his lover. I became his disciple.

“Libertà Bridge,” Langdon said. “We’re almost there.”

FS-2080 nodded mournfully, staring out at the waters of the Laguna Veneta,

remembering sailing here once with Bertrand … a peaceful image that dissolved now into

a horrific memory from a week before.

I was there when he jumped off the Badia tower.

Mine were the last eyes he ever saw.

CHAPTER 67

THE NETJETS CITATION Excel bounced through heavy turbulence as it rocketed skyward out of

Tassignano Airport and banked toward Venice. On board, Dr. Elizabeth Sinskey barely

noticed the bumpy departure as she absently stroked her amulet and gazed out the

window into empty space.

They had finally stopped giving her the injections, and Sinskey’s mind was already

feeling clearer. In the seat beside her, Agent Brüder remained silent, probably pondering

the bizarre turn of events that had just transpired.

Everything is upside down, Sinskey thought, still struggling to believe what she had just

witnessed.

Thirty minutes ago, they had stormed the tiny airfield to intercept Langdon as he

boarded the private jet he had summoned. Instead of finding the professor, however,

they discovered an idling Citation Excel and two NetJets pilots pacing the tarmac and

checking their watches.

Robert Langdon was a no-show.

Then came the phone call.

When the cell phone rang, Sinskey was where she had been all day—in the backseat of

the black van. Agent Brüder entered the vehicle with a stupefied look on his face as he

handed her his phone.

“Urgent call for you, ma’am.”

“Who is it?” she asked.

“He asked me to tell you only that he has pressing information to give you about

Bertrand Zobrist.”

Sinskey grabbed the phone. “This is Dr. Elizabeth Sinskey.”

“Dr. Sinskey, you and I have never met, but my organization has been responsible for

hiding Bertrand Zobrist from you for the last year.”

Sinskey sat bolt upright. “Whoever the hell you are, you’ve been harboring a criminal!”

“We’ve done nothing illegal, but that’s not—”

“The hell you haven’t!”

The man on the line took a long, patient breath, speaking very softly now. “You and I

will have plenty of time to debate the ethics of my actions. I know you don’t know me,

but I do know quite a bit about you. Mr. Zobrist has been paying me handsomely to keep

you and others away from him for the past year. I am now breaching my own strict

protocol by contacting you. And yet, I believe we have no choice but to pool our

resources. Bertrand Zobrist, I fear, may have done something terrible.”

Sinskey could not fathom who this man was. “You’re just figuring this out now?!”

“Yes, that is correct. Just now.” His tone was earnest.

Sinskey tried to shake off the cobwebs. “Who are you?”

“Someone who wants to help you before it’s too late. I’m in possession of a video

message created by Bertrand Zobrist. He asked me to release it to the world …

tomorrow. I think you need to see it immediately.”

“What does it say?”

“Not on the phone. We need to meet.”

“How do I know I can trust you?”

“Because I’m about to tell you where Robert Langdon is … and why he’s acting so

strangely.”

Sinskey reeled at the mention of Langdon’s name, and she listened in astonishment to

the outlandish explanation. This man seemed to have been complicit with her enemy for

the last year, and yet, as she listened to the details, Sinskey’s gut told her she needed to

trust what he was saying.

I have no choice but to comply.

Their combined resources made short work of commandeering the “jilted” NetJets

Citation Excel. Sinskey and the soldiers were now in pursuit, racing toward Venice, where,

according to this man’s information, Langdon and his two traveling companions were at

this very moment arriving by train. It was too late to summon the local authorities, but

the man on the line claimed to know where Langdon was headed.

St. Mark’s Square? Sinskey felt a chill as she imagined the crowds in Venice’s most

populated area. “How do you know this?”

“Not on the phone,” the man said. “But you should be aware that Robert Langdon is

unwittingly traveling with a very dangerous individual.”

“Who?!” Sinskey demanded.

“One of Zobrist’s closest confidants.” The man sighed heavily. “Someone I trusted.

Foolishly, apparently. Someone I believe may now be a severe threat.”

As the private jet headed for Venice’s Marco Polo Airport carrying Sinskey and the six

soldiers, Sinskey’s thoughts returned to Robert Langdon. He lost his memory? He recalls

nothing? The strange news, while explaining several things, made Sinskey feel even

worse than she already did about involving the distinguished academic in this crisis.

I left him no choice.

Almost two days ago, when Sinskey recruited Langdon, she hadn’t even let him go back

to his house for his passport. Instead, she had arranged for his quiet passage through the

Florence Airport as a special liaison to the World Health Organization.

As the C-130 lumbered into the air and pointed east across the Atlantic, Sinskey had

glanced at Langdon beside her and noticed he did not look well. He was staring intently

at the sidewall of the windowless hull.

“Professor, you do realize this plane has no windows? Until recently, it was used as a

military transport.”

Langdon turned, his face ashen. “Yes, I noticed that the moment I stepped aboard. I’m

not so good in enclosed spaces.”

“So you’re pretending to look out an imaginary window?”

He gave a sheepish smile. “Something like that, yes.”

“Well, look at this instead.” She pulled out a photo of her lanky, green-eyed nemesis

and laid it in front of him. “This is Bertrand Zobrist.”

Sinskey had already told Langdon about her confrontation with Zobrist at the Council

on Foreign Relations, the man’s passion for the Population Apocalypse Equation, his

widely circulated comments about the global benefits of the Black Plague, and, most

ominously, his total disappearance from sight over the past year.

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