Inferno (Page 79)

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 sun-ray 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.