«You don’t understand, Professor. It was not
«What?» Langdon replied, his voice barely a whisper.
«Mr. Solomon told me how to find the portal, and he confessed to me that only one man on earth could unlock it. And he said that man is
«If Peter said that, he was mistaken. . or lying.»
«I think not. He was in a fragile state when he confessed that fact, and I am inclined to believe him.»
Langdon felt a stab of anger. «I’m warning you, if you hurt Peter in any — »
«It’s far too late for
«As above, so below,» the man said.
Langdon felt a deepening chill. This strange response was an ancient Hermetic adage that proclaimed a belief in the physical connection between heaven and earth.
«It really hasn’t dawned on you yet, has it? Why you were chosen?»
«No,» Langdon said.
«It
Then the line went dead.
Langdon stood rigid for several terrifying moments, trying to process what had just happened.
Suddenly, in the distance, he heard an unexpected sound.
It was coming from the Rotunda.
Someone was screaming.
CHAPTER 10
Robert Langdon had entered the capitol rotunda many times in his life, but never at a full sprint. as he ran through the north entrance, he spotted a group of tourists clustered in the center of the room. a small boy was screaming, and his parents were trying to console him. others were crowding around, and several security guards were doing their best to restore order.
«He pulled it out of his sling,» someone said frantically, «and just
As Langdon drew nearer, he got his first glimpse of what was causing all the commotion. Admittedly, the object on the Capitol floor was odd, but its presence hardly warranted screaming.
The device on the floor was one Langdon had seen many times. The Harvard art department had dozens of these — life-size plastic models used by sculptors and painters to help them render the human body’s most complex feature, which, surprisingly, was not the human face but rather the human hand.
Mannequin hands, or
As Langdon drew nearer, though, he realized this handequin was unusual. Its plastic surface was not smooth like most. Instead, the surface was mottled and slightly wrinkled, and appeared almost. .
Langdon stopped abruptly.
Now he saw the blood.
The severed wrist appeared to have been skewered onto a spiked wooden base so that it would stand up. A wave of nausea rushed over him. Langdon inched closer, unable to breathe, seeing now that the tips of the index finger and thumb had been decorated with tiny tattoos. the tattoos, however, were not what held langdon’s attention. his gaze moved instantly to the familiar golden ring on the fourth finger.
Langdon recoiled. His world began to spin as he realized he was looking at the severed right hand of Peter Solomon.
CHAPTER 11
For three years, Peter Solomon had always been the first to arrive for their weekly seven P.M. Sunday-night meetings. It was their private family ritual, a way to remain connected before the start of a new week, and for Peter to stay up-to-date on Katherine’s work at the lab.
Her footsteps clicked rhythmically down the cement corridor that ran like a spine through the SMSC. Known as «The Street,» the corridor connected the building’s five massive storage pods. Forty feet overhead, a circulatory system of orange ductwork throbbed with the heartbeat of the building — the pulsing sounds of thousands of cubic feet of filtered air being circulated.
Normally, during her nearly quarter-mile walk to her lab, Katherine felt calmed by the breathing sounds of the building. Tonight, however, the pulsing had her on edge. What she had learned about her brother today would have troubled anyone, and yet because Peter was the only family she had in the world, Katherine felt especially disturbed to think he might be keeping secrets from her.
As far as she knew, he had kept a secret from her only
At one point, they walked past a heavy door with a small window. katherine caught a glimpse of what lay beyond and gasped. «what in the world is
Her brother chuckled and kept walking. «Pod Three. It’s called Wet Pod. Pretty unusual sight, isn’t it?»
«What I really want to show you is in Pod Five,» her brother said, guiding her down the seemingly endless corridor. «It’s our newest addition. It was built to house artifacts from the basement of the National Museum of Natural History. That collection is scheduled for relocation here in about five years, which means Pod Five is sitting empty at the moment.»
Katherine glanced over. «Empty? So why are we looking at it?»
Her brother’s gray eyes flashed a familiar mischief. «It occurred to me that because nobody is using the space, maybe
«Me?»
