In addition to the approving glances of the other guests, the woman in white held the full attention of two sleek security officers who shadowed her closely. The men moved with the wary confidence of panthers and wore matching blue blazers with embroidered crests and the large initials GR.
ávila was not surprised by their presence, and yet the sight of them made his pulse quicken. As a former member of the Spanish armed forces, he knew full well what GR signified. These two security escorts would be armed and as well trained as any bodyguards on earth.
If they are present, I must take every precaution, ávila told himself.
“Hey!” a man’s voice barked, directly behind him.
ávila spun around.
A paunchy man in a tuxedo and a black cowboy hat was smiling broadly at him. “Great costume!” the man said, pointing to ávila’s military uniform. “Where does someone get something like that?”
ávila stared, fists clenching reflexively. Through a lifetime of service and sacrifice, he thought. “No hablo inglés,” ávila replied with a shrug, and continued up the stairs.
On the second floor, ávila found a long hallway and followed signs to a remote restroom at the far end. He was about to enter when the lights throughout the museum faded off and on—the first gentle nudge urging guests to start heading upstairs for the presentation.
ávila entered the deserted restroom, chose the last stall, and locked himself inside. Alone now, he felt the familiar demons trying to surface within him, threatening to drag him back into the abyss.
Five years, and the memories still haunt me.
Angrily, ávila pushed the horrors from his mind and retrieved the rosary beads from his pocket. Gently, he looped them over the coat hook on the door. As the beads and crucifix swung peacefully before him, he admired his handiwork. The devout might be horrified that anyone could defile the rosary by creating an object like this. Even so, ávila had been assured by the Regent that desperate times afforded a certain flexibility in the rules of absolution.
When the cause is this holy, the Regent had promised, God’s forgiveness is guaranteed.
As with the protection of his soul, ávila’s body had also been guaranteed deliverance from evil. He glanced down at the tattoo on his palm.
Like the ancient crismón of Christ, the icon was a symbol constructed entirely of letters. ávila had inscribed it there three days ago with iron gall and a needle, precisely as he had been instructed, and the spot was still tender and red. If he were captured, the Regent assured him, all he had to do was make his palm visible to his captors, and within hours, he would be released.
We occupy the highest levels of government, the Regent had said.
ávila had already witnessed their startling influence, and it felt like a mantle of protection all around him. There still exist those who respect the ancient ways. One day ávila hoped to join the ranks of this elite, but for the moment, he felt honored to play any role at all.
In the solitude of the bathroom, ávila took out his phone and dialed the secure number he had been given.
The voice on the line answered on the first ring. “?Sí?”
“Estoy en posición,” ávila replied, awaiting final instructions.
“Bien,” the Regent said. “Tendrás una sola oportunidad. Aprovecharla será crucial.” You will have only one chance. Seizing it will be crucial.
CHAPTER 11
Thirty kilometers up the coastline from Dubai’s glistening skyscrapers, man-made islands, and celebrity party villas lies the city of Sharjah—the ultraconservative Islamic cultural capital of the United Arab Emirates.
With more than six hundred mosques and the region’s finest universities, Sharjah stands as a pinnacle of spirituality and learning—a position fueled by massive oil reserves and a ruler who places the education of his people above all else.
Tonight, the family of Sharjah’s beloved allamah, Syed al-Fadl, had gathered in private to hold a vigil. Instead of praying the traditional tahajjud, the night vigil prayer, they prayed for the return of their cherished father, uncle, and husband, who had mysteriously disappeared yesterday without a trace.
The local press had just announced that one of Syed’s colleagues was claiming that the normally composed allamah had seemed “strangely agitated” upon his return from the Parliament of the World’s Religions two days ago. In addition, the colleague said he had overheard Syed engaged in a rare heated phone argument shortly after his return. The dispute was in English, and therefore indecipherable to him, but the colleague swore he had heard Syed repeatedly mention a single name.
Edmond Kirsch.
CHAPTER 12
Langdon’s thoughts swirled as he emerged from the spiral structure. His conversation with Kirsch had been both exciting and alarming. Whether or not Kirsch’s claims were exaggerated, the computer scientist clearly had discovered something that he believed would cause a paradigm shift in the world.
A discovery as important as the findings of Copernicus?
When Langdon finally emerged from the coiled sculpture, he felt slightly dizzy. He retrieved the headset he had left on the floor earlier.
“Winston?” he said, pulling on the device. “Hello?”
A faint click, and the computerized British docent was back. “Hello, Professor. Yes, I’m here. Mr. Kirsch asked me to take you up the service elevator because time is too short to return to the atrium. He also thought you would appreciate our oversized service elevator.”
“Nice of him. He knows I’m claustrophobic.”
“Now I do too. And I will not forget it.”
Winston guided Langdon through the side door into a cement hallway and elevator bay. As promised, the elevator carriage was enormous, clearly designed to transport oversized artwork.
“Top button,” Winston said as Langdon stepped inside. “Third floor.”
When they arrived at their destination, Langdon stepped out.
“Righto,” Winston’s cheery voice chimed in Langdon’s head. “We’ll go through the gallery on your left. It’s the most direct way to the auditorium.”
Langdon followed Winston’s directions through an expansive gallery displaying a series of bizarre art installations: a steel cannon that apparently shot gooey globs of red wax at a white wall; a wire-mesh canoe that clearly would not float; an entire miniature city made of burnished metal blocks.
As they crossed the gallery toward the exit, Langdon found himself staring in utter bewilderment at a massive piece that dominated the space.
It’s official, he decided, I’ve found the strangest piece in this museum.
Spanning the width of the entire room, a multitude of timber wolves were dynamically posed, sprinting in a long line across the gallery where they leaped high in the air and collided violently with a transparent glass wall, resulting in a mounting pile of dead wolves.
“It’s called Head On,” Winston offered, unprompted. “Ninety-nine wolves racing blindly into a wall to symbolize a herd mentality, a lack of courage in diverging from the norm.”
The irony of the symbolism struck Langdon. I suspect Edmond will be diverging dramatically from the norm this evening.
“Now, if you’ll continue straight ahead,” Winston said, “you’ll find the exit to the left of that colorful diamond-shaped piece. The artist is one of Edmond’s favorites.”
Langdon spotted the brightly colored painting up ahead and instantly recognized the trademark squiggles, primary colors, and playful floating eye.
Joan Miró, Langdon thought, having always liked the famous Barcelonan’s playful work, which felt like a cross between a child’s coloring book and a surrealist stained-glass window.
As Langdon drew even with the piece, however, he stopped short, startled to see that the surface was utterly smooth, with no visible brushstrokes. “It’s a reproduction?”
“No, that’s the original,” Winston replied.
Langdon looked closer. The work had clearly been printed by a large-format printer. “Winston, this is a print. It’s not even on canvas.”
“I don’t work on canvas,” Winston replied. “I create art virtually, and then Edmond prints it for me.”
“Hold on,” Langdon said in disbelief. “This is yours?”