Dan Brown - Origin

Langdon reached out and pulled the cabinet handle.

Locked.

He glanced toward the spiral staircase, wondering whether he should simply dash upstairs and ask Winston to run a search on all of William Blake’s poetry. The sound of sirens had been replaced by the distant thrum of helicopter blades and voices yelling in the stairwell outside Edmond’s door.

They’re here.

Langdon eyed the cabinet and noted the faint greenish tint of modern museum-grade UV glass.

He whipped off his jacket, held it over the glass, turned his body, and without hesitation, rammed his elbow into the pane. With a muffled crunch, the cabinet door shattered. Carefully, Langdon reached through the jagged shards, unlocking the door. Then he swung the door open and gently lifted out the leather box.

Even before Langdon set the box on the floor, he could tell that something was wrong. It’s not heavy enough. Blake’s complete works seemed to weigh almost nothing.

Langdon set down the box and carefully raised the lid.

Just as he feared... empty.

He exhaled, staring into the vacant container. Where the hell is Edmond’s book?!

He was about to close the box when Langdon noticed something unexpected taped to the inside of the lid — an elegantly embossed ivory note card.

Langdon read the text on the card.

Then, in utter disbelief, he read it again.

Seconds later, he was racing up the spiral staircase toward the roof.

At that instant, on the second floor of Madrid’s Royal Palace, director of electronic security Suresh Bhalla was moving quietly through Prince Julián’s private apartment. After locating the digital wall safe, he entered the master override code that was kept for emergencies.

The safe popped open.

Inside, Suresh saw two phones — a secure palace-issued smartphone that belonged to Prince Julián and an iPhone that, he deduced, in all likelihood was the property of Bishop Valdespino.

He grabbed the iPhone.

Am I really doing this?

Again he pictured the message from monte@iglesia.org.

i hacked valdespino’s texts.

he has dangerous secrets.

the palace should access his sms records.

now.

Suresh wondered what secrets the bishop’s texts could possibly reveal... and why the informant had decided to give the Royal Palace a heads-up.

Perhaps the informant is trying to protect the palace from collateral damage?

All Suresh knew was that if there was information that was of danger to the royal family, it was his job to access it.

He had already considered obtaining an emergency subpoena, but the PR risks and the delay made it impractical. Fortunately, Suresh had far more discreet and expedient methods at his disposal.

Holding Valdespino’s phone, he pressed the home button and the screen lit up.

Locked with a password.

No problem.

“Hey, Siri,” Suresh said, holding the phone to his mouth. “What time is it?”

Still in locked mode, the phone displayed a clock. On this clock screen, Suresh ran through a series of simple commands — creating a new time zone for the clock, asking to share the time zone via SMS, adding a photo, and then, rather than trying to send the text, hitting the home button.

Click .

The phone unlocked.

This simple hack compliments of YouTube , Suresh thought, amused that iPhone users believed their password offered them any privacy at all.

Now, with full access to Valdespino’s phone, Suresh opened the iMessage app, fully anticipating that he would have to restore Valdespino’s deleted texts by tricking the iCloud backup into rebuilding the catalog.

Sure enough, he found the bishop’s text history entirely empty.

Except for one message , he realized, seeing a lone inbound text that had arrived a couple of hours ago from a blocked number.

Suresh clicked open the text and read the three-line message. For a moment, he thought he was hallucinating.

This can’t be true!

Suresh read the message again. The text was absolute proof of Valdespino’s involvement in acts of unthinkable treachery and deceit.

Not to mention arrogance , Suresh thought, stunned that the old cleric would feel so invulnerable as to communicate a message like this electronically.

If this text goes public...

Suresh shuddered at the possibility and immediately ran downstairs to find Mónica Martín.

As the EC145 helicopter streaked in low over the city, Agent Díaz stared down at the sprawl of lights beneath him. Despite the late hour, he could see the flicker of televisions and computers in the majority of apartment windows, painting the city with a faint blue haze.

The whole world is watching.

It made him nervous. He could feel this night spiraling wildly out of control, and he feared this growing crisis was headed for a disturbing conclusion.

In front of him, Agent Fonseca shouted and pointed into the distance directly ahead. Díaz nodded, spotting their target at once.

Hard to miss .

Even from a distance, the pulsating cluster of spinning blue police lights was unmistakable.

God help us.

Just as Díaz had feared, Casa Milà was overrun by local police cars. The Barcelona authorities had responded to an anonymous tip on the heels of Mónica Martín’s press announcement from the Royal Palace.

Robert Langdon has kidnapped the future queen of Spain.

The palace needs the public’s help in finding them.

A blatant lie , Díaz knew. With my own eyes I saw them leave the Guggenheim together.

While Martín’s ploy had been effective, it had set in motion an incredibly dangerous game. Creating a public manhunt by involving local authorities was perilous — not just for Robert Langdon, but for the future queen, who now had a very good chance of being caught in the cross fire of a bunch of amateur local cops. If the palace’s goal was to keep the future queen safe, this was definitely not the way to do it.

Commander Garza would never have permitted this situation to escalate so far.

Garza’s arrest remained a mystery to Díaz, who had no doubt that the charges against his commander were just as fictitious as those against Langdon.

Nonetheless, Fonseca had taken the call and received his orders.

Orders from above Garza’s head.

As the helicopter neared Casa Milà, Agent Díaz surveyed the scene below and realized there would be no safe place to land. The broad avenue and corner plaza in front of the building were packed with media trucks, police cars, and crowds of onlookers.

Díaz looked down at the building’s famous rooftop — an undulating figure eight of sloping pathways and staircases that wound above the building and provided visitors with breathtaking views of the Barcelona skyline... as well as views down into the building’s two gaping light wells, each of which dropped nine stories to interior courtyards.

No landing there.

In addition to the heaving hills and valleys of the terrain, the roof deck was protected by towering Gaudí chimneys that resembled futuristic chess pieces — helmeted sentinels that allegedly had so impressed film-maker George Lucas that he’d used them as models for his menacing storm troopers in Star Wars.

Díaz glanced away to scan the neighboring buildings for possible landing sites, but his gaze suddenly stopped on an unexpected vision atop Casa Milà.

A small figure stood among the huge statues.

Poised at a railing near the edge of the roof, the person was dressed in white, starkly illuminated by the upward-facing media lights in the plaza below. For an instant, the vision reminded Díaz of seeing the pope on his balcony over St. Peter’s Square, addressing his followers.