Inferno (Page 144)

Maybe.

Affixed to the top of the bus was a destination sign—a programmable matrix of lights displaying a single word: GALATA.

Langdon rushed up the street toward an elderly man who was standing outside a restaurant under an awning. He was nicely dressed in an embroidered tunic and a white turban.

“Excuse me,” Langdon said breathless, arriving before him. “Do you speak English?”

“Of course,” the man said, looking unnerved by the urgency of Langdon’s tone.

“Galata?! That’s a place?”

“Galata?” the man replied. “Galata Bridge? Galata Tower? Galata-port?”

Langdon pointed to the departing otobüs. “Galata! Where is the bus going!”

The man in the turban looked after the departing bus and considered it a moment. “Galata Bridge,” he replied. “It departs the old city and crosses the waterway.”

Langdon groaned, his eyes making another frantic pass of the street but seeing no hint of Sienna. Sirens blared everywhere now, as emergency response vehicles tore past them in the direction of the cistern.

“What’s happening?” the man demanded, looking alarmed. “Is everything okay?”

Langdon took another look at the departing bus and knew it was a gamble, but he had no other choice.

“No, sir,” Langdon replied. “There’s an emergency, and I need your help.” He motioned to the curb, where a valet had just delivered a slick, silver Bentley. “Is that your car?”

“It is, but—”

“I need a ride,” Langdon said. “I know we’ve never met, but something catastrophic is happening. It’s a matter of life and death.”

The turbaned man stared into the professor’s eyes a long moment, as if searching his soul. Finally he nodded. “Then you’d better get in.”

As the Bentley roared away from the curb, Langdon found himself gripping his seat. The man was clearly an experienced driver and seemed to enjoy the challenge of weaving in and out of traffic, playing catch-up with the bus.

It took him less than three blocks to position his Bentley directly behind the otobüs. Langdon leaned forward in his seat, squinting at the rear window. The interior lights were dim, and the only things Langdon could make out were the vague silhouettes of the passengers.

“Stay with the bus, please,” Langdon said. “And do you have a phone?”

The man produced a cell phone from his pocket and handed it to his passenger, who thanked him profusely before realizing that he had no idea whom to call. He had no contact numbers for Sinskey or Brüder, and calling the WHO’s offices in Switzerland could take forever.

“How do I reach the local police?” Langdon asked.

“One-five-five,” the man replied. “Anywhere in Istanbul.”

Langdon dialed the three numbers and waited. The line seemed to ring forever. Finally a recorded voice answered, conveying both in Turkish and English that due to high call volume, he would need to hold. Langdon wondered if the reason for the call volume was the crisis at the cistern.

The sunken palace was now probably in a state of total pandemonium. He pictured Brüder wading out in the lagoon and wondered what he had discovered out there. Langdon had a sinking feeling he already knew.

Sienna had gotten into the water before him.

Up ahead, the bus’s brake lights flashed, and the transport pulled over to a curbside bus stop. The Bentley’s driver pulled over as well, idling about fifty feet behind the bus, providing Langdon a perfect view of the passengers getting on and off. Only three people disembarked—all of them men—and yet Langdon studied each carefully, fully aware of Sienna’s skills for disguise.

His eyes shifted again to the rear window. It was tinted, but the lights inside were now fully illuminated, and Langdon could see the people on board more clearly. He leaned forward, craning his neck, holding his face close to the Bentley’s windshield as he searched for Sienna.

Please don’t tell me I gambled wrong!

Then he saw her.

In the rearmost part of the vehicle, facing away from him, a pair of slender shoulders sloped up to the back of a shaved head.

It could only be Sienna.

As the bus accelerated, the interior lights faded once more. In the fleeting second before it disappeared into darkness, the head turned backward, glancing out the rear window.

Langdon lowered himself down in the seat, into the shadows of the Bentley. Did she see me? His turbaned driver was already pulling out again, tailing the bus.

The road was descending toward the water now, and up ahead Langdon could see the lights of a low-slung bridge that stretched out over the water. The bridge looked completely deadlocked with traffic. In fact, the entire area near its entrance looked congested.

“Spice Bazaar,” the man said. “Very popular on rainy nights.”

The man pointed down to the water’s edge, where an incredibly long building sat in the shadow of one of Istanbul’s more spectacular mosques—the New Mosque, if Langdon were not mistaken, judging from the height of its famed twin minarets. The Spice Bazaar looked larger than most American malls, and Langdon could see people streaming in and out of its enormous arched doorway.

“Alo?!” a tiny voice declared somewhere in the car. “Acil Durum! Alo?!”

Langdon glanced down at the phone in his hand. The police.

“Yes, hello!” Langdon blurted, raising the receiver. “My name is Robert Langdon. I’m working with the World Health Organization. You have a major crisis at the city cistern, and I’m tailing the person responsible. She’s on a bus near the Spice Bazaar, heading for—”