Origin

I will do everything possible to find out who is responsible for this. I will honor your legacy, Edmond. I will find a way to share your discovery with the world.

“You knew,” the guard’s voice rasped, close in his ear. “You were heading for the podium like you expected something to happen.”

“I … was … warned,” Langdon managed, barely able to breathe.

“Warned by whom?!”

Langdon could feel his transducer headset twisted and askew on his cheek. “The headset on my face … it’s an automated docent. Edmond Kirsch’s computer warned me. It found an anomaly on the guest list—a retired admiral from the Spanish navy.”

The guard’s head was now close enough to Langdon’s ear that he could hear the man’s radio earpiece crackle to life. The voice in the transmission was breathless and urgent, and although Langdon’s Spanish was spotty, he heard enough to decipher the bad news.

… el asesino ha huido …

The assassin had escaped.

… salida bloqueada …

An exit had been blocked.

… uniforme militar blanco …

As the words “military uniform” were spoken, the guard on top of Langdon eased off the pressure. “¿Uniforme naval?” he asked his partner. “Blanco … ¿Como de almirante?”

The response was affirmative.

A naval uniform, Langdon realized. Winston was right.

The guard released Langdon and got off him. “Roll over.”

Langdon twisted painfully onto his back and propped himself up on his elbows. His head was spinning and his chest felt bruised.

“Don’t move,” the guard said.

Langdon had no intention of moving; the officer standing over him was about two hundred pounds of solid muscle and had already shown he was dead serious about his job.

“¡Inmediatamente!” the guard barked into his radio, continuing with an urgent request for support from local authorities and roadblocks around the museum.

… policía local … bloqueos de carretera …

From his position on the floor, Langdon could see Ambra Vidal, still on the ground near the sidewall. She tried to stand up, but faltered, collapsing on her hands and knees.

Somebody help her!

But the guard was now shouting across the dome, seeming to address nobody in particular. “¡Luces! ¡Y cobertura de móvil!” I need lights and phone service!

Langdon reached up and straightened the transducer headset on his face.

“Winston, are you there?”

The guard turned, eyeing Langdon strangely.

“I am here.” Winston’s voice was flat.

“Winston, Edmond was shot. We need the lights back on right away. We need cellular service restored. Can you control that? Or contact someone who can?”

Seconds later, the lights in the dome rose abruptly, dissolving the magical illusion of a moonlit meadow and illuminating a deserted expanse of artificial turf scattered with abandoned blankets.

The guard seemed startled by Langdon’s apparent power. After a moment, he reached down and pulled Langdon to his feet. The two men faced each other in the stark light.

The agent was tall, the same height as Langdon, with a shaved head and a muscular body that strained at his blue blazer. His face was pale with muted features that set off his sharp eyes, which, at the moment, were focused like lasers on Langdon.

“You were in the video tonight. You’re Robert Langdon.”

“Yes. Edmond Kirsch was my student and friend.”

“I am Agent Fonseca with the Guardia Real,” he announced in perfect English. “Tell me how you knew about the navy uniform.”

Langdon turned toward Edmond’s body, which lay motionless on the grass beside the podium. Ambra Vidal knelt beside the body along with two museum security guards and a staff paramedic, who had already abandoned efforts to revive him. Ambra gently covered the corpse with a blanket.

Clearly, Edmond was gone.

Langdon felt nauseated, unable to pull his eyes from his murdered friend.

“We can’t help him,” the guard snapped. “Tell me how you knew.”

Langdon returned his eyes to the guard, whose tone left no room for misinterpretation. It was an order.

Langdon quickly relayed what Winston had told him—that the docent program had flagged one of the guest’s headsets as having been abandoned, and when a human docent found the headset in a trash receptacle, they checked which guest had been assigned that headset, alarmed to find that he was a last-minute write-in on the guest list.

“Impossible.” The guard’s eyes narrowed. “The guest list was locked yesterday. Everyone underwent a background check.”