Dan Brown - Inferno

Sienna calculated that their chances of getting across the open area to the sheltered path were very slim. Tourists were gathering there, watching the police with curiosity. The faint thrum of the drone became audible again, approaching in the distance.

“Now or never,” Langdon said, grabbing her hand and pulling her with him out into the open plaza, where they began winding through the crowd of gathering tourists. Sienna fought the urge to break into a run, but Langdon held firmly on to her, walking briskly but calmly through the throng.

When they finally reached the opening to the pathway, Sienna glanced back over her shoulder to see if they had been detected. The only police officers in sight were all facing the other way, their eyes turned skyward toward the sound of the incoming drone.

She faced front and hurried with Langdon down the path.

Before them now, the skyline of old Florence poked above the trees, visible directly ahead in the distance. She saw the red-tiled cupola of the Duomo and the green, red, and white spire of Giotto’s bell tower. For an instant, she could also make out the crenellated spire of the Palazzo Vecchio — their seemingly impossible destination — but as they descended the pathway, the high perimeter walls blotted out the view, engulfing them again.

By the time they reached the bottom of the hill, Sienna was out of breath and wondering if Langdon had any idea where they were going. The path led directly into a maze garden, but Langdon confidently turned left into a wide gravel patio, which he skirted, staying behind a hedge in the shadows of the overhanging trees. The patio was deserted, more of an employee parking lot than a tourist area.

“Where are we going?!” Sienna finally asked, breathless.

“Almost there.”

Almost where? The entire patio was enclosed by walls that were at least three stories tall. The only exit Sienna saw was a vehicle gateway on the left, which was sealed by a massive wrought-iron grate that looked like it dated back to the original palace in the days of marauding armies. Beyond the barricade, she could see police gathered in the Piazza dei Pitti.

Staying along the perimeter vegetation, Langdon pushed onward, heading directly for the wall in front of them. Sienna scanned the sheer face for any open doorway, but all she saw was a niche containing what had to be the most hideous statue she had ever seen.

Good God, the Medici could afford any artwork on earth, and they chose this?

The statue before them depicted an obese, naked dwarf straddling a giant turtle. The dwarf’s testicles were squashed against the turtle’s shell, and the turtle’s mouth was dribbling water, as if he were ill.

“I know,” Langdon said, without breaking stride. “That’s Braccio di Bartolo —a famous court dwarf. If you ask me, they should put him out back in the giant bathtub.”

Langdon turned sharply to his right, heading down a set of stairs that Sienna had been unable to see until now.

A way out?!

The flash of hope was short-lived.

As she turned the corner and headed down the stairs behind Langdon, she realized they were dashing into a dead end — a cul-de-sac whose walls were twice as high as the others.

Furthermore, Sienna now sensed that their long journey was about to terminate at the mouth of a gaping cavern … a deep grotto carved out of the rear wall. This can’t be where he’s taking us!

Over the cave’s yawning entrance, daggerlike stalactites loomed portentously. In the cavity beyond, oozing geological features twisted and dripped down the walls as if the stone were melting … morphing into shapes that included, to Sienna’s alarm, half-buried humanoids extruding from the walls as if being consumed by the stone. The entire vision reminded Sienna of something out of Botticelli’s Mappa dell’Inferno.

Langdon, for some reason, seemed unfazed, and continued running directly toward the cave’s entrance. He’d made a comment earlier about Vatican City, but Sienna was fairly certain there were no freakish caverns inside the walls of the Holy See.

As they drew nearer, Sienna’s eyes moved to the sprawling entablature above the entrance — a ghostly compilation of stalactites and nebulous stone extrusions that seemed to be engulfing two reclining women, who were flanked by a shield embedded with six balls, or palle , the famed crest of the Medici.

Langdon suddenly cut to his left, away from the entrance and toward a feature Sienna had previously missed — a small gray door to the left of the cavern. Weathered and wooden, it appeared of little significance, like a storage closet or room for landscaping supplies.

Langdon rushed to the door, clearly hoping he could open it, but the door had no handle — only a brass keyhole — and, apparently, could be opened only from within.

“Damn it!” Langdon’s eyes now shone with concern, his earlier hopefulness all but erased. “I had hoped—”

Without warning, the piercing whine of the drone echoed loudly off the high walls around them. Sienna turned to see the drone rising up over the palace and clawing its way in their direction.

Langdon clearly saw it, too, because he grabbed Sienna’s hand and dashed toward the cavern. They ducked out of sight in the nick of time beneath the grotto’s stalactite overhang.

A fitting end , she thought. Dashing through the gates of hell.

A quarter mile to the east, Vayentha parked her motorcycle. She had crossed into the old city via the Ponte alle Grazie and then circled around to the Ponte Vecchio — the famed pedestrian bridge connecting the Pitti Palace to the old city. After locking her helmet to the bike, she strode out onto the bridge and mixed with the early-morning tourists.

A cool March breeze blew steadily up the river, ruffling Vayentha’s short spiked hair, reminding her that Langdon knew what she looked like. She paused at the stall of one of the bridge’s many vendors and bought an AMO FIRENZE baseball cap, pulling it low over her face.

She smoothed her leather suit over the bulge of her handgun and took up a position near the center of the bridge, casually leaning against a pillar and facing the Pitti Palace. From here she was able to survey all the pedestrians crossing the Arno into the heart of Florence.

Langdon is on foot , she told herself. If he finds a way around the Porta Romana, this bridge is his most logical route into the old city.

To the west, in the direction of the Pitti Palace, she could hear sirens and wondered if this was good or bad news. Are they still looking for him? Or have they caught him? As Vayentha strained her ears for some indication as to what was going on, a new sound suddenly became audible — a high-pitched whine somewhere overhead. Her eyes turned instinctively skyward, and she spotted it at once — a small remote-controlled helicopter rising fast over the palace and swooping down over the treetops in the direction of the northeast corner of the Boboli Gardens.

A surveillance drone , Vayentha thought with a surge of hope. If it’s in the air, Brüder has yet to find Langdon.

The drone was approaching fast. Apparently it was surveying the northeast corner of the gardens, the area closest to Ponte Vecchio and Vayentha’s position, which gave her additional encouragement.

If Langdon eluded Brüder, he would definitely be moving in this direction.

As Vayentha watched, however, the drone suddenly dive-bombed out of sight behind the high stone wall. She could hear it hovering in place somewhere below the tree line … apparently having located something of interest.