Dan Brown - Origin

Like a ghost, the Tesla made its way silently through the garage door, and the crowd broke into emotional applause to see Edmond’s beloved car, as it had done so many times before, begin its descent down the spiral ramp into Barcelona’s very first subterranean parking facility.

“I didn’t know you were so claustrophobic,” Ambra whispered, lying beside Langdon on the floor of the Tesla. They were crammed into the small area between the second and third row of seats, hidden beneath a black vinyl car cover that Ambra had taken from the cargo area, invisible through the tinted windows.

“I’ll survive,” Langdon managed shakily, more nervous about the self-driving car than his phobia. He could feel the vehicle winding down a steep spiral ramp and feared it would crash at any moment.

Two minutes earlier, while they were double-parked on Carrer de Provença, outside the DANiEL ViOR jewelry shop, Winston had given them crystal-clear directions.

Ambra and Langdon, without exiting the car, had climbed back to the Model X’s third row of seats, and then with the press of a single button on the phone, Ambra had activated the car’s customized self-park feature.

In the darkness, Langdon had felt the car driving itself slowly down the street. And with Ambra’s body pressed against his in the tight space, he could not help but recall his first teenage experience in the backseat of a car with a pretty girl. I was more nervous back then , he thought, which seemed ironic considering he was now lying in a driverless car spooning the future queen of Spain.

Langdon felt the car straighten out at the bottom of the ramp, make a few slow turns, and then slide to a full stop.

“You have arrived,” Winston said.

Immediately Ambra pulled back the tarp and carefully sat up, peering out the window. “Clear,” she said, clambering out.

Langdon got out after her, relieved to be standing in the open air of the garage.

“Elevators are in the main foyer,” Ambra said, motioning up the winding driveway ramp.

Langdon’s gaze, however, was suddenly transfixed by a wholly unexpected sight. Here, in this underground parking garage, on the cement wall directly in front of Edmond’s parking space, hung an elegantly framed painting of a seaside landscape.

“Ambra?” Langdon said. “Edmond decorated his parking spot with a painting ?”

She nodded. “I asked him the same question. He told me it was his way of being welcomed home every night by a radiant beauty.”

Langdon chuckled. Bachelors.

“The artist is someone Edmond revered greatly,” Winston said, his voice now transferring automatically to Kirsch’s cell phone in Ambra’s hand. “Do you recognize him?”

Langdon did not. The painting seemed to be nothing more than an accomplished watercolor seascape — nothing like Edmond’s usual avant-garde taste.

“It’s Churchill,” Ambra said. “Edmond quoted him all the time.”

Churchill. Langdon needed a moment to realize she was referring to none other than Winston Churchill himself, the celebrated British statesman who, in addition to being a military hero, historian, orator, and Nobel Prize — winning author, was an artist of remarkable talent. Langdon now recalled Edmond quoting the British prime minister once in response to a comment someone made about religious people hating him: You have enemies? Good. That means you’ve stood up for something!

“It was the diversity of Churchill’s talents that most impressed Edmond,” Winston said. “Humans rarely display proficiency across such a broad spectrum of activities.”

“And that’s why Edmond named you ‘Winston’?”

“It is,” the computer replied. “High praise from Edmond.”

Glad I asked , Langdon thought, having imagined Winston’s name was an allusion to Watson — the IBM computer that had dominated the Jeopardy! television game show a decade ago. No doubt Watson was probably now considered a primitive, single-celled bacterium on the evolutionary scale of synthetic intelligence.

“Okay, then,” Langdon said, motioning to the elevators. “Let’s head upstairs and try to find what we came for.”

At that precise moment, inside Madrid’s Almudena Cathedral, Commander Diego Garza was clutching his phone and listening in disbelief as the palace’s PR coordinator, Mónica Martín, gave him an update.

Valdespino and Prince Julián left the safety of the compound?

Garza could not begin to imagine what they were thinking.

They’re driving around Madrid in an acolyte’s car? That’s madness!

“We can contact the transportation authorities,” Martín said. “Suresh believes they can use traffic cams to help track—”

“No!” Garza declared. “Alerting anyone to the fact that the prince is outside the palace without security is far too dangerous! His safety is our primary concern.”

“Understood, sir,” Martín said, sounding suddenly uneasy. “There’s something else you should know. It’s about a missing phone record.”

“Hold on,” Garza said, distracted by the arrival of his four Guardia agents, who, to his mystification, strode over and encircled him. Before Garza could react, his agents had skillfully relieved him of his sidearm and phone.

“Commander Garza,” his lead agent said, stone-faced. “I have direct orders to place you under arrest.”

Casa Milà is built in the shape of an infinity sign — an endless curve that doubles back over itself and forms two undulating chasms that penetrate the building. Each of these open-air light wells is nearly a hundred feet deep, crumpled like a partially collapsed tube, and from the air they resembled two massive sinkholes in the roof of the building.

From where Langdon stood at the base of the narrower light well, the effect looking skyward was decidedly unsettling — like being lodged in the throat of a giant beast.

Beneath Langdon’s feet, the stone floor was sloped and uneven. A helix staircase spiraled up the interior of the shaft, its railing forged of wrought iron latticework that mimicked the uneven chambers of a sea sponge. A small jungle of twisting vines and swooping palms spilled over the banisters as if about to overgrow the entire space.

Living architecture , Langdon mused, marveling at Gaudí’s ability to imbue his work with an almost biological quality.

Langdon’s eyes climbed higher again, up the sides of the “gorge,” scaling the curved walls, where a quilt of brown and green tiles intermingled with muted frescoes depicting plants and flowers that seemed to be growing up toward the oblong patch of night sky at the top of the open shaft.

“Elevators are this way,” Ambra whispered, leading him around the edge of the courtyard. “Edmond’s apartment is all the way up.”

As they boarded the uncomfortably small elevator, Langdon pictured the building’s top-floor garret, which he had visited once to see the small Gaudí exhibit housed there. As he recalled, the Casa Milà attic was a dark, sinuous series of rooms with very few windows.

“Edmond could live anywhere ,” Langdon said as the elevator began to climb. “I still can’t believe he leased an attic .”

“It’s a strange apartment,” Ambra agreed. “But as you know, Edmond was eccentric.”

When the elevator reached the top floor, they disembarked into an elegant hallway and climbed an additional set of winding stairs to a private landing at the very top of the building.

“This is it,” Ambra said, motioning to a sleek metal door that had no knob or keyhole. The futuristic portal looked entirely out of place in this building and clearly had been added by Edmond.