Inferno (Page 126)

Langdon was reeling.

“This is what my company does,” the provost said. “We’re very good at creating illusions.”

“What about Sienna?” Langdon asked, rubbing his eyes.

“I needed to make a judgment call, and I chose to work with her. My priority was to protect my client’s project from Dr. Sinskey, and Sienna and I shared that desire. To gain your trust, Sienna saved you from the assassin and helped you escape into a rear alleyway. The waiting taxi was also ours, with another radio-controlled squib on the rear windshield to create the final effect as you fled. The taxi took you to an apartment that we had hastily put together.”

Sienna’s meager apartment, Langdon thought, now understanding why it looked like it had been furnished from a yard sale. And it also explained the convenient coincidence of Sienna’s “neighbor” having clothing that fit him perfectly.

The entire thing had been staged.

Even the desperate phone call from Sienna’s friend at the hospital had been phony. Sienna, eez Danikova!

“When you phoned the U.S. Consulate,” the provost said, “you phoned a number that Sienna looked up for you. It was a number that rang on The Mendacium.”

“I never reached the consulate …”

“No, you didn’t.”

Stay where you are, the fake consulate employee had urged him. I’ll send someone for you right away. Then, when Vayentha showed up, Sienna had conveniently spotted her across the street and connected the dots. Robert, your own government is trying to kill you! You can’t involve any authorities! Your only hope is to figure out what that projector means.

The provost and his mysterious organization—whatever the hell it was—had effectively retasked Langdon to stop working for Sinskey and start working for them. Their illusion was complete.

Sienna played me perfectly, he thought, feeling more sad than angry. He had grown fond of her in the short time they’d been together. Most troubling to Langdon was the distressing question of how a soul as bright and warm as Sienna’s could give itself over entirely to Zobrist’s maniacal solution for overpopulation.

I can tell you without a doubt, Sienna had said to him earlier, that without some kind of drastic change, the end of our species is coming … The mathematics is indisputable.

“And the articles about Sienna?” Langdon asked, recalling the Shakespeare playbill and the pieces about her staggeringly high IQ.

“Authentic,” the provost replied. “The best illusions involve as much of the real world as possible. We didn’t have much time to set up, and so Sienna’s computer and real-world personal files were almost all we had to work with. You were never really intended to see any of that unless you began doubting her authenticity.”

“Nor use her computer,” Langdon said.

“Yes, that was where we lost control. Sienna never expected Sinskey’s SRS team to find the apartment, so when the soldiers moved in, Sienna panicked and had to improvise. She fled on the moped with you, trying to keep the illusion alive. As the entire mission unraveled, I had no choice but to disavow Vayentha, although she broke protocol and pursued you.”

“She almost killed me,” Langdon said, recounting for the provost the showdown in the attic of the Palazzo Vecchio, when Vayentha raised her handgun and aimed point-blank at Langdon’s chest. This will only hurt for an instant … but it’s my only choice. Sienna had then darted out and pushed her over the railing, where Vayentha plunged to her death.

The provost sighed audibly, considering what Langdon had just said. “I doubt Vayentha was trying to kill you … her gun fires only blanks. Her only hope of redemption at that point was to take control of you. She probably thought if she shot you with a blank, she could make you understand she was not an assassin after all and that you were caught up in an illusion.”

The provost paused, thinking a bit, and then continued. “Whether Sienna actually meant to kill Vayentha or was only trying to interfere with the shot, I won’t venture to guess. I’m beginning to realize that I don’t know Sienna Brooks as well as I thought.”

Me neither, Langdon agreed, although as he recalled the look of shock and remorse on the young woman’s face, he sensed that what she had done to the spike-haired operative was very likely a mistake.

Langdon felt unmoored … and utterly alone. He turned toward the window, longing to gaze out at the world below, but all he could see was the wall of the fuselage.

I’ve got to get out of here.

“Are you okay?” the provost asked, eyeing Langdon with concern.

“No,” Langdon replied. “Not even close.”

He’ll survive, the provost thought. He’s merely trying to process his new reality.

The American professor looked as if he had just been snatched up off the ground by a tornado, spun around, and dumped in a foreign land, leaving him shell-shocked and disoriented.

Individuals targeted by the Consortium seldom realized the truth behind the staged events they had witnessed, and if they did, the provost certainly was never present to view the aftermath. Today, in addition to the guilt he felt at seeing firsthand Langdon’s bewilderment, the man was burdened by an overwhelming sense of responsibility for the current crisis.

I accepted the wrong client. Bertrand Zobrist.

I trusted the wrong person. Sienna Brooks.

Now the provost was flying toward the eye of the storm—the epicenter of what might well be a deadly plague that had the potential to wreak havoc across the entire world. If he emerged alive from all this, he suspected that his Consortium would never survive the fallout. There would be endless inquiries and accusations.