Dan Brown - Origin

“Obviously, I can’t marry Julián,” Ambra said quietly. “I keep thinking he’ll break off the engagement now that he knows I can’t have children. His bloodline has held the crown for most of the last four centuries. Something tells me that a museum administrator from Bilbao will not be the reason the lineage ends.”

The speaker overhead crackled, and the pilots announced that it was time to prepare for their landing in Barcelona.

Jarred from her ruminations about the prince, Ambra stood and began tidying up the cabin — rinsing their glasses in the galley and disposing of the uneaten food.

“Professor,” Winston chimed from Edmond’s phone on the table, “I thought you should be aware that there is new information now going viral online — strong evidence suggesting a secret link between Bishop Valdespino and the assassin Admiral Ávila.”

Langdon was alarmed by the news.

“Unfortunately, there is more,” Winston added. “As you know, Kirsch’s secret meeting with Bishop Valdespino included two other religious leaders — a prominent rabbi and a well-loved imam. Last night, the imam was found dead in the desert near Dubai. And, in the last few minutes, there is troubling news coming out of Budapest: it seems the rabbi has been found dead of an apparent heart attack.”

Langdon was stunned.

“Bloggers,” Winston said, “are already questioning the coincidental timing of their deaths.”

Langdon nodded in mute disbelief. One way or the other, Bishop Antonio Valdespino was now the only living person on earth who knew what Kirsch had discovered.

When the Gulfstream G550 touched down onto the lone runway at Sabadell Airport in the foothills of Barcelona, Ambra was relieved to see no signs of waiting paparazzi or press.

According to Edmond, in order to avoid dealing with starstruck fans at Barcelona’s El-Prat Airport, he chose to keep his plane at this small jetport.

That was not the real reason , Ambra knew.

In reality, Edmond loved attention, and admitted to keeping his plane at Sabadell only to have an excuse to drive the winding roads to his home in his favorite sports car — a Tesla Model X P90D that Elon Musk had allegedly hand-delivered to him as a gift. Supposedly, Edmond had once challenged his jet pilots to a one-mile drag race on the runway — Gulfstream vs. Tesla — but his pilots had done the math and declined.

I’ll miss Edmond , Ambra thought ruefully. Yes, he was self-indulgent and brash, but his brilliant imagination deserved so much more from life than what happened to him tonight. I just hope we can honor him by unveiling his discovery.

When the plane arrived inside Edmond’s single-plane hangar and powered down, Ambra could see that everything here was quiet. Apparently, she and Professor Langdon were still flying under the radar.

As she led the way down the jet’s staircase, Ambra breathed deeply, trying to clear her head. The second glass of wine had taken hold, and she regretted drinking it. Stepping down onto the cement floor of the hangar, she faltered slightly and felt Langdon’s strong hand on her shoulder, steadying her.

“Thanks,” she whispered, smiling back at the professor, whose two cups of coffee had left him looking wide-awake and wired.

“We should get out of sight as quickly as possible,” Langdon said, eyeing the sleek black SUV parked in the corner. “I assume that’s the vehicle you told me about?”

She nodded. “Edmond’s secret love.”

“Odd license plate.”

Ambra eyed the car’s vanity plate and chuckled.

“Well,” she explained, “Edmond told me that Google and NASA recently acquired a groundbreaking supercomputer called D-Wave — one of the world’s first ‘quantum’ computers. He tried to explain it to me, but it was pretty complicated — something about superpositions and quantum mechanics and creating an entirely new breed of machine. Anyhow, Edmond said he wanted to build something that would blow D-Wave out of the water. He planned to call his new computer E-Wave.”

“E for Edmond,” Langdon mused.

And E is one step beyond D , Ambra thought, recalling Edmond’s story about the famous computer in 2001: A Space Odyssey , which, according to urban legend, had been named HAL because each letter occurred alphabetically one letter ahead of IBM.

“And the car key?” Langdon asked. “You said you know where he hides it.”

“He doesn’t use a key.” Ambra held up Edmond’s phone. “He showed me this when we came here last month.” She touched the phone screen, launched the Tesla app, and selected the summon command.

Instantly, in the corner of the hangar, the SUV’s headlights blazed to life, and the Tesla — without the slightest sound — slid smoothly up beside them and stopped.

Langdon cocked his head, looking unnerved by the prospect of a car that drove itself.

“Don’t worry,” Ambra assured him. “I’ll let you drive to Edmond’s apartment.”

Langdon nodded his agreement and began circling around to the driver’s side. As he passed the front of the car, he paused, staring down at the license plate and laughing out loud.

Ambra knew exactly what had amused him — Edmond’s license-plate frame: AND THE GEEK SHALL INHERIT THE EARTH.

“Only Edmond,” Langdon said as he climbed in behind the wheel. “Subtlety was never his forte.”

“He loved this car,” Ambra said, getting in next to Langdon. “Fully electric and faster than a Ferrari.”

Langdon shrugged, eyeing the high-tech dashboard. “I’m not really a car guy.”

Ambra smiled. “You will be.”

As Ávila’s Uber raced eastward through the darkness, the admiral wondered how many times during his years as a naval officer he had made port in Barcelona.

His previous life seemed a world away now, having ended in a fiery flash in Seville. Fate was a cruel and unpredictable mistress, and yet there seemed an eerie equilibrium about her now. The same fate that had torn out his soul in the Cathedral of Seville had now granted him a second life — a fresh start born within the sanctuary walls of a very different cathedral.

Ironically, the person who had taken him there was a simple physical therapist named Marco.

“A meeting with the pope?” Ávila had asked his trainer months ago, when Marco first proposed the idea. “Tomorrow? In Rome?”

“Tomorrow in Spain ,” Marco had replied. “The pope is here.”

Ávila eyed him as if he were crazy. “The media have said nothing about His Holiness being in Spain.”

“A little trust, Admiral,” Marco replied with a laugh. “Unless you’ve got somewhere else to be tomorrow?”

Ávila glanced down at his injured leg.

“We’ll leave at nine,” Marco prompted. “I promise our little trip will be far less painful than rehab.”

The next morning, Ávila got dressed in a navy uniform that Marco had retrieved from Ávila’s home, grabbed a pair of crutches, and hobbled out to Marco’s car — an old Fiat. Marco drove out of the hospital lot and headed south on Avenida de la Raza, eventually leaving the city and getting on Highway N-IV heading south.

“Where are we going?” Ávila asked, suddenly uneasy.

“Relax,” Marco said, smiling. “Just trust me. It’ll only take half an hour.”

Ávila knew there was nothing but parched pastureland on the N-IV for at least another 150 kilometers. He was beginning to think he had made a terrible mistake. Half an hour into the journey, they approached the eerie ghost town of El Torbiscal — a once prosperous farming village whose population had recently dwindled to zero. Where in the world is he taking me?! Marco drove on for several minutes, then exited the highway and turned north.