Dan Brown - Inferno - A Novel

Even if Zobrist never returned to the site .

The sudden jolt of the plane touching down jarred Langdon back to his jump seat in the cockpit. The pilots braked hard and then taxied to a remote hangar, where they brought the massive plane to a stop.

Langdon half expected to be greeted by an army of WHO employees in hazmat suits. Strangely, the only party awaiting their arrival was the driver of a large white van that bore the emblem of a bright red, equal-armed cross.

The Red Cross is here? Langdon looked again, realizing it was the other entity that used the red cross. The Swiss embassy .

He unbuckled and located Sinskey as everyone prepared to deplane. “Where is everyone?” Langdon demanded. “The WHO team? The Turkish authorities? Is everyone already over at Hagia Sophia?”

Sinskey gave him an uneasy glance. “Actually,” she explained, “we have decided against alerting local authorities. We already have the ECDC’s finest SRS team with us, and it seems preferable to keep this a quiet operation for the moment, rather than creating a possible widespread panic.”

Nearby, Langdon could see Brüder and his team zipping up large black duffel bags that contained all kinds of hazmat gear—biosuits, respirators, and electronic detection equipment.

Brüder heaved his bag over his shoulder and came over. “We’re a go. We’ll enter the building, find Dandolo’s tomb, listen for water as the poem suggests, and then my team and I will reassess and decide whether to call in other authorities for support.”

Langdon already saw problems with the plan. “Hagia Sophia closes at sunset, so without local authorities, we can’t even get in.”

“We’re fine,” Sinskey said. “I have a contact in the Swiss embassy who contacted the Hagia Sophia Museum curator and asked for a private VIP tour as soon as we arrive. The curator agreed.”

Langdon almost laughed out loud. “A VIP tour for the director of the World Health Organization? And an army of soldiers carrying hazmat duffels? You don’t think that might raise a few eyebrows?”

“The SRS team and gear will stay in the car while Brüder, you, and I assess the situation,” Sinskey said. “Also, for the record, I’m not the VIP. You are.”

“I beg your pardon?!”

“We told the museum that a famous American professor had flown in with a research team to write an article on the symbols of Hagia Sofia, but their plane was delayed five hours and he missed his window to see the building. Since he and his team were leaving tomorrow morning, we were hoping—”

“Okay,” Langdon said. “I get the gist.”

“The museum is sending an employee to meet us there personally. As it turns out, he’s a big fan of your writings on Islamic art.” Sinskey gave him a tired smile, clearly trying to look optimistic. “We’ve been assured that you’ll have access to every corner of the building.”

“And more important,” Brüder declared, “we’ll have the entire place to ourselves.”

CHAPTER 85

Robert Langdon gazed blankly out the window of the van as it sped along the waterfront highway connecting Atatürk Airport to the center of Istanbul. The Swiss officials had somehow facilitated a modified customs process, and Langdon, Sinskey, and the others in the group had been en route in a matter of minutes.

Sinskey had ordered the provost and Ferris to remain aboard the C-130 with several WHO staff members and to continue trying to track the whereabouts of Sienna Brooks.

While nobody truly believed Sienna could reach Istanbul in time, there were fears she might phone one of Zobrist’s disciples in Turkey and ask for assistance in realizing Zobrist’s delusional plan before Sinskey’s team could interfere.

Would Sienna really commit mass murder? Langdon was still struggling to accept all that had happened today. It pained him to do so, but he was forced to accept the truth. You never knew her, Robert. She played you .

A light rain had begun to fall over the city, and Langdon felt suddenly weary as he listened to the repetitive swish of the windshield wipers. To his right, out on the Sea of Marmara, he could see the running lights of luxury yachts and massive tankers powering to and from the city port up ahead. All along the waterfront, illuminated minarets rose slender and elegant above their domed mosques, silent reminders that while Istanbul was a modern, secular city, its core was grounded in religion.

Langdon had always found this ten-mile strip of highway one of the prettiest drives in Europe. A perfect example of Istanbul’s clash of old and new, the road followed part of Constantine’s wall, which had been built more than sixteen centuries before the birth of the man for whom this avenue was now named—John F. Kennedy. The U.S. president had been a great admirer of Kemal Atatürk’s vision for a Turkish republic springing from the ashes of a fallen empire.

Providing unparalleled views of the sea, Kennedy Avenue wound through spectacular groves and historic parks, past the harbor in Yenikapi, and eventually threaded its way between the city limits and the Strait of Bosporus, where it continued northward all the way around the Golden Horn. There, high above the city, rose the Ottoman stronghold of Topkapi Palace. With its strategic view of the Bosporus waterway, the palace was a favorite among tourists, who visited to admire both the vistas and the staggering collection of Ottoman treasure that included the cloak and sword said to have belonged to the Prophet Muhammad himself.

We won’t be going that far , Langdon knew, picturing their destination, Hagia Sophia, which rose out of the city center not far ahead.

As they pulled off Kennedy Avenue and began snaking into the densely populated city, Langdon stared out at the crowds of people on the streets and sidewalks and felt haunted by the day’s conversations.

Overpopulation.

The plague.

Zobrist’s twisted aspirations.

Even though Langdon had understood all along exactly where this SRS mission was headed, he had not fully processed it until this moment. We are going to ground zero . He pictured the slowly dissolving bag of yellow-brown fluid and wondered how he had let himself get into this position.

The strange poem that Langdon and Sienna had unveiled on the back of Dante’s death mask had eventually guided him here, to Istanbul. Langdon had directed the SRS team to Hagia Sophia, and knew there would be more to do once they arrived.

Kneel within the gilded mouseion of holy wisdom ,

and place thine ear to the ground ,

listening for the sounds of trickling water .

Follow deep into the sunken palace …

for here, in the darkness, the chthonic monster waits ,

submerged in the bloodred waters …

of the lagoon that reflects no stars .

Langdon again felt troubled to know that the final canto of Dante’s Inferno ended in a nearly identical scene: After a long descent through the underworld, Dante and Virgil reach the lowest point of hell. Here, with no way out, they hear the sounds of trickling water running through stones beneath them, and they follow the rivulet through cracks and crevices … ultimately finding safety.

Dante wrote: “A place is there below … which not by sight is known, but by the sound of a rivulet, which descends along the hollow of a rock … and by that hidden way, my guide and I did enter, to return to the fair world.”

Dante’s scene had clearly been the inspiration for Zobrist’s poem, although in this case, it seemed Zobrist had flipped everything upside down. Langdon and the others would indeed be following the sounds of trickling water, but unlike Dante, they would not be heading away from the inferno … but directly into it.