Dan Brown - Inferno

“Yes,” Langdon said, “mumbling ‘Vasari, Vasari.’ ”

“Yes, but before that … before we got out the recorder, in the first moments after you arrived, you said one other thing I remember. You only said it once, but I’m positive I understood.”

“What did I say?”

Sienna glanced up toward the drone and then back at Langdon. “You said, ‘I hold the key to finding it … if I fail, then all is death.’ ”

Langdon could only stare.

Sienna continued. “I thought you were referring to the object in your jacket pocket, but now I’m not so sure.”

If I fail, then all is death? The words hit Langdon hard. The haunting images of death flickered before him … Dante’s inferno, the biohazard symbol, the plague doctor. Yet again, the face of the beautiful silver-haired woman pleaded with him across the bloodred river. Seek and find! Time is running out!

Sienna’s voice pulled him back. “Whatever this projector ultimately points to … or whatever you’re trying to find, it must be something extremely dangerous. The fact that people are trying to kill us …” Her voice cracked slightly, and she took a moment to regroup. “Think about it. They just shot at you in broad daylight … shot at me —an innocent bystander. Nobody seems to be looking to negotiate. Your own government turned on you … you called them for help, and they sent someone to kill you.”

Langdon stared vacantly at the ground. Whether the U.S. Consulate had shared Langdon’s location with the assassin, or whether the consulate itself had sent the assassin, was irrelevant. The upshot was the same. My own government is not on my side.

Langdon looked into Sienna’s brown eyes and saw bravery there. What have I gotten her involved in? “I wish I knew what we were looking for. That would help put all of this into perspective.”

Sienna nodded. “Whatever it is, I think we need to find it. At least it would give us leverage.”

Her logic was hard to refute. Still Langdon felt something nagging at him. If I fail, then all is death. All morning he’d been running up against macabre symbols of biohazards, plagues, and Dante’s hell. Admittedly, he had no clear proof of what he was looking for, but he would be naive not to consider at least the possibility that this situation involved a deadly disease or large-scale biological threat. But if this were true, why would his own government be trying to eliminate him?

Do they think I’m somehow involved in a potential attack?

It made no sense at all. There was something else going on here.

Langdon thought again of the silver-haired woman. “There’s also the woman from my visions. I feel I need to find her.”

“Then trust your feelings,” Sienna said. “In your condition, the best compass you have is your subconscious mind. It’s basic psychology — if your gut is telling you to trust that woman, then I think you should do exactly what she keeps telling you to do.”

“Seek and find,” they said in unison.

Langdon exhaled, knowing his path was clear.

All I can do is keep swimming down this tunnel.

With hardening resolve, he turned and began taking in his surroundings, trying to get his bearings. Which way out of the gardens?

They were standing beneath the trees at the edge of a wide-open plaza where several paths intersected. In the distance to their left, Langdon spied an elliptical-shaped lagoon with a small island adorned with lemon trees and statuary. The Isolotto , he thought, recognizing the famous sculpture of Perseus on a half-submerged horse bounding through the water.

“The Pitti Palace is that way,” Langdon said, pointing east, away from the Isolotto, toward the garden’s main thoroughfare — the Viottolone, which ran east — west along the entire length of the grounds. The Viottolone was as wide as a two-lane road and lined by a row of slender, four-hundred-year-old cypress trees.

“There’s no cover,” Sienna said, eyeing the uncamouflaged avenue and motioning up at the circling drone.

“You’re right,” Langdon said with a lopsided grin. “Which is why we’re taking the tunnel beside it.”

He pointed again, this time to a dense hedgerow adjacent to the mouth of the Viottolone. The wall of dense greenery had a small arched opening cut into it. Beyond the opening, a slender footpath stretched out into the distance — a tunnel running parallel with the Viottolone. It was enclosed on either side by a phalanx of pruned holm oaks, which had been carefully trained since the 1600s to arch inward over the path, intertwining overhead and providing an awning of foliage. The pathway’s name, La Cerchiata — literally “circular” or “hooped”—derived from its canopy of curved trees resembling barrel stays or cerchi .

Sienna hurried over to the opening and peered into the shaded channel. Immediately she turned back to him with a smile. “Better.”

Wasting no time, she slipped through the opening and hurried off among the trees.

Langdon had always considered La Cerchiata one of Florence’s most peaceful spots. Today, however, as he watched Sienna disappear down the darkened allée, he thought again of the Grecian free divers swimming into corral tunnels and praying they’d reach an exit.

Langdon quickly said his own little prayer and hurried after her.

A half mile behind them, outside the Art Institute, Agent Brüder strode through a bustle of police and students, his icy gaze parting the crowds before him. He made his way to the makeshift command post that his surveillance specialist had set up on the hood of his black van.

“From the aerial drone,” the specialist said, handing Brüder a tablet screen. “Taken a few minutes ago.”

Brüder examined the video stills, pausing on a blurry enlargement of two faces — a dark-haired man and a blond ponytailed woman — both huddled in the shadows and peering skyward through a canopy of trees.

Robert Langdon.

Sienna Brooks.

Zero doubt.

Brüder turned his attention to the map of the Boboli Gardens, which was spread out on the hood. They made a poor choice , he thought, eyeing the garden layout. While it was sprawling and intricate, with plenty of hiding places, the gardens also appeared to be surrounded on all sides by high walls. The Boboli Gardens were the closest thing to a natural killbox that Brüder had ever seen in the field.

They’ll never get out.

“Local authorities are sealing all exits,” the agent said. “And commencing a sweep.”

“Keep me informed,” Brüder said.

Slowly, he raised his eyes to the van’s thick polycarbonate window, beyond which he could see the silver-haired woman seated in the back of the vehicle.

The drugs they had given her had definitely dulled her senses — more than Brüder had imagined. Nonetheless, he could tell by the fearful look in her eyes that she still had a firm grasp on precisely what was going on.

She does not look happy , Brüder thought. Then again, why would she?

A spire of water shot twenty feet in the air.

Langdon watched it fall gently back to earth and knew they were getting close. They had reached the end of La Cerchiata’s leafy tunnel and dashed across an open lawn into a grove of cork trees. Now they were looking out at the Boboli’s most famous spouting fountain — Stoldo Lorenzi’s bronze of Neptune clutching his three-pronged trident. Irreverently known by locals as “The Fountain of the Fork,” this water feature was considered the central point of the gardens.

Sienna stopped at the edge of the grove and peered upward through the trees. “I don’t see the drone.”