Origin

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 brush-strokes. “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?”