Inferno (Page 119)

Follow deep into the sunken palace …

Before he could say a word, his attention shifted to the arrival of a new shadow on the wall … a humanoid shape with a long, beaked nose.

Oh, dear God …

The shadow began speaking now, its words muffled, whispering across the water with an eerily poetic rhythm.

“I am your salvation. I am the Shade.”

For the next several minutes, Langdon watched the most terrifying film he had ever witnessed. Clearly the ravings of a lunatic genius, the soliloquy of Bertrand Zobrist—delivered in the guise of the plague doctor—was laden with references to Dante’s Inferno and carried a very clear message: human population growth was out of control, and the very survival of mankind was hanging in the balance.

Onscreen, the voice intoned:

“To do nothing is to welcome Dante’s hell … cramped and starving, weltering in Sin. And so boldly I have taken action. Some will recoil in horror, but all salvation comes at a price. One day the world will grasp the beauty of my sacrifice.”

Langdon recoiled as Zobrist himself abruptly appeared, dressed as the plague doctor, and then tore off his mask. Langdon stared at the gaunt face and wild green eyes, realizing that he was finally seeing the face of the man who was at the center of this crisis. Zobrist began professing his love to someone he called his inspiration.

“I have left the future in your gentle hands. My work below is done. And now the hour has come for me to climb again to the world above … and rebehold the stars.”

As the video ended, Langdon recognized Zobrist’s final words as a near duplicate of Dante’s final words in the Inferno.

In the darkness of the conference room, Langdon realized that all the moments of fear he had experienced today had just crystallized into a single, terrifying reality.

Bertrand Zobrist now had a face … and a voice.

The conference room lights came up, and Langdon saw all eyes trained expectantly on him.

Elizabeth Sinskey’s expression seemed frozen as she stood up and nervously stroked her amulet. “Professor, obviously our time is very short. The only good news so far is that we’ve had no cases of pathogen detection, or reported illness, so we’re assuming the suspended Solublon bag is still intact. But we don’t know where to look. Our goal is to neutralize this threat by containing the bag before it ruptures. The only way we can do that, of course, is to find its location immediately.”

Agent Brüder stood up now, staring intently at Langdon. “We’re assuming you came to Venice because you learned that this is where Zobrist hid his plague.”

Langdon gazed out at the assembly before him, faces taut with fear, everyone hoping for a miracle, and he wished he had better news to offer them.

“We’re in the wrong country,” Langdon announced. “What you’re looking for is nearly a thousand miles from here.”

Langdon’s insides reverberated with the deep thrum of The Mendacium’s engines as the ship powered through its wide turn, banking back toward the Venice Airport. On board, all hell had broken loose. The provost had dashed off, shouting orders to his crew. Elizabeth Sinskey had grabbed her phone and called the pilots of the WHO’s C-130 transport plane, demanding they be prepped as soon as possible to fly out of the Venice Airport. And Agent Brüder had jumped on a laptop to see if he could coordinate some kind of international advance team at their final destination.

A world away.

The provost now returned to the conference room and urgently addressed Brüder. “Any further word from the Venetian authorities?”

Brüder shook his head. “No trace. They’re looking, but Sienna Brooks has vanished.”

Langdon did a double take. They’re looking for Sienna?

Sinskey finished her phone call and also joined the conversation. “No luck finding her?”

The provost shook his head. “If you’re agreeable, I think the WHO should authorize the use of force if necessary to bring her in.”

Langdon jumped to his feet. “Why?! Sienna Brooks is not involved in any of this!”

The provost’s dark eyes cut to Langdon. “Professor, there are some things I have to tell you about Ms. Brooks.”

CHAPTER 79

Pushing past the crush of tourists on the Rialto Bridge, Sienna Brooks began running again, sprinting west along the canal-front walkway of the Fondamenta Vin Castello.

They’ve got Robert.

She could still see his desperate eyes gazing up at her as the soldiers dragged him back down the light well into the crypt. She had little doubt that his captors would quickly persuade him, one way or another, to reveal everything he had figured out.

We’re in the wrong country.

Far more tragic, though, was her knowledge that his captors would waste no time revealing to Langdon the true nature of the situation.

I’m so sorry, Robert.

For everything.

Please know I had no choice.

Strangely, Sienna missed him already. Here, amid the masses of Venice, she felt a familiar loneliness settling in.

The feeling was nothing new.

Since childhood, Sienna Brooks had felt alone.

Growing up with an exceptional intellect, Sienna had spent her youth feeling like a stranger in a strange land … an alien trapped on a lonely world. She tried to make friends, but her peers immersed themselves in frivolities that held no interest to her. She tried to respect her elders, but most adults seemed like nothing more than aging children, lacking even the most basic understanding of the world around them, and, most troubling, lacking any curiosity or concern about it.

I felt I was a part of nothing.