Inferno (Page 141)

For a moment Brüder didn’t breathe. Move slowly, he told himself. Create no turbulence.

Above him on the boardwalk, Langdon stood at the railing, scanning the surrounding boardwalks.

“All set,” Langdon whispered. “Nobody sees you.”

Brüder turned and faced the huge upside-down head of Medusa, which was brightly lit by a red spotlight. The inverted monster looked even larger now that Brüder was down at her level.

“Follow Medusa’s gaze across the lagoon,” Langdon whispered. “Zobrist had a flair for symbolism and dramatics … I wouldn’t be surprised if he placed his creation directly in the lethal sight line of Medusa.”

Great minds think alike. Brüder felt grateful that the American professor had insisted on making the descent with him; Langdon’s expertise had guided them almost immediately to this distant corner of the cistern.

As the strains of the Dante Symphony continued to reverberate in the distance, Brüder took out his waterproof Tovatec penlight and submerged it beneath the water, flipping the switch. A bright halogen beam pierced the water, illuminating the cistern floor before him.

Easy, Brüder reminded himself. Don’t disturb a thing.

Without another word, he began his careful journey out into the lagoon, wading in slow motion through the water, moving his flashlight methodically back and forth like an underwater minesweeper.

At the railing, Langdon had begun to feel an unsettling tightness in his throat. The air in the cistern, despite the humidity, tasted stale and oxygen-depleted to him. As Brüder waded carefully out into the lagoon, the professor reassured himself that everything would be fine.

We arrived in time.

It’s all intact.

Brüder’s team can contain this.

Even so, Langdon felt jumpy. As a lifelong claustrophobe, he knew he would be anxious down here under any circumstances. Something about thousands of tons of earth hovering overhead … supported by nothing but decaying pillars.

He pushed the thought from his mind and took another glance behind him for anyone taking undue interest.

Nothing.

The only people nearby were standing on various other boardwalks, and they were all looking in the opposite direction, toward the orchestra. No one seemed to have noticed Brüder slowly wading across the water in this deep corner of the cistern.

Langdon returned his gaze to the SRS team leader, whose submerged halogen beam still oscillated eerily in front of him, lighting the way.

As Langdon looked on, his peripheral vision suddenly picked up movement to his left—an ominous black form rising out of the water in front of Brüder. Langdon wheeled and stared into the looming darkness, half expecting to see some kind of leviathan rearing up from beneath the surface.

Brüder had stopped short, apparently having seen it, too.

In the far corner, a wavering black shape rose some thirty feet up the wall. The ghostly silhouette looked nearly identical to that of the plague doctor who’d appeared in Zobrist’s video.

It’s a shadow, Langdon realized, exhaling. Brüder’s shadow.

The shadow had been cast as Brüder moved past a submerged spotlight in the lagoon, exactly, it seemed, as Zobrist’s shadow had done in the video.

“This is the spot,” Langdon called out to Brüder. “You’re close.”

Brüder nodded and continued inching his way out into the lagoon. Langdon moved along the railing, staying even with him. As the agent moved farther and farther away, Langdon stole another quick glance toward the orchestra to make sure Brüder had not been noticed.

Nothing.

As Langdon again returned his gaze to the lagoon, a glint of reflected light caught his eye on the boardwalk at his feet.

He looked down and saw a tiny puddle of red liquid.

Blood.

Strangely, Langdon was standing in it.

Am I bleeding?

Langdon felt no pain, and yet he frantically began searching himself for some injury or possible reaction to an unseen toxin in the air. He checked his nose for a possible bleed, his fingernails, his ears.

Baffled as to where the blood had come from, Langdon glanced around, confirming that he was indeed alone on the deserted walkway.

Langdon looked down at the puddle again, and this time he noticed a tiny rivulet flowing along the boardwalk and collecting in the low spot at his feet. The red liquid, it seemed, was coming from somewhere up ahead and trickling down an incline in the boardwalk.

Someone is injured up there, Langdon sensed. He glanced quickly out at Brüder, who was nearing the center of the lagoon.

Langdon strode quickly up the boardwalk, following the rivulet. As he advanced toward the dead end, the rivulet became wider, flowing freely. What in the world? At this point it turned into a small stream. He broke into a jog, following the flowing liquid all the way to the wall, where the boardwalk suddenly ended.

Dead end.

In the murky darkness, he found a large pool, which was glistening red, as if someone had just been slaughtered here.

In that instant, as Langdon watched the red liquid dripping off the boardwalk into the cistern, he realized that his original assessment was mistaken.

It’s not blood.

The red lights of the vast space, combined with the red hue of the boardwalk, had created an illusion, giving these clear droplets a reddish-black tint.

It’s just water.

Instead of bringing a sense of relief, the revelation infused him with blunt fear. He stared down at the puddle of water, now seeing splashes on the banister … and footprints.

Someone climbed out of the water here.

Langdon spun to call out to Brüder, but he was too far away and the music had progressed into a fortissimo of brass and timpani. It was deafening. Langdon suddenly felt a presence beside him.