Page 111 of The Secret of Secrets (Robert Langdon #6)

Ambassador Nagel hurried down the embassy’s marble staircase, feeling somewhat unsteady, which wasn’t all that surprising considering she had just strong-armed the CIA director and drained an afternoon cocktail.

Where the hell is Dana?

Sergeant Scott Kerble had promised to escort the publicity liaison upstairs to speak to the ambassador, but Dana had never shown up. Oddly, Kerble was nowhere to be seen either.

When Nagel arrived at Dana’s office, the willowy publicity liaison was on her hands and knees, tearfully packing up personal belongings and piling them into a cardboard box. Dana glanced up, bloodshot eyes flashing disdain, then went back to packing.

Not good.

The ambassador took a moment and centered herself before speaking. “Ms. Daněk, did Scott Kerble ask you to come to my office?”

“He did.”

“And you ignored him?”

“I don’t work for you anymore,” she said bitterly.

Nagel took a deep breath, entering and closing the door behind her. “Dana, I can see you’re upset. I too cared deeply for Michael Harris, but—”

“To je le?,” she muttered without looking up.

“I did care about Michael,” she insisted, “and I will never forgive myself for putting him in harm’s way. I was pressured by my superiors. It was wrong, and I’m ashamed. I will explain it all to you at some point, but right now it’s critical we locate Sasha Vesna, and I desperately need your help.”

“Why would I ever help you?!” Dana fired back. “You should have known better than to force Michael into a romance with a stranger—a stranger who ended up killing him!”

“Sasha did not kill Michael,” Nagel assured her. “The truth is that Sasha is in substantial danger herself—probably from the same person who killed Michael—and I need you to help me find her as soon as possible.”

“Why do you care so much about her?”

Nagel moved closer and lowered her voice to a whisper.

“Dana, I’m ashamed to say this, but like Michael…

Sasha is a victim of my government.” She’s a CIA asset…

and doesn’t even know it. “I feel a duty to help her.” She paused, holding Dana’s gaze.

“And I believe Michael would have wanted you to help Sasha too.”

The statuesque young woman shivered suddenly, wrapping her arms around herself and setting her jaw tightly as if trying to fend off tears. Nagel was reminded that when someone was as strikingly beautiful as Dana Daněk, it was easy to forget their human frailties.

“I could never trust you again,” Dana said, her voice cracking.

“I’ve got absolutely nothing left to lose,” Nagel replied. “Dana, I’m trying to buy my soul back at any cost. And for whatever it’s worth, I just burned my last bridge. I called my old boss and threatened the U.S. government.”

Dana looked skeptical. “Your old boss? You threatened the director of the CIA?”

“I did.” Nagel gave her a tight smile. “As I said, nothing left to lose. I’ve just learned some extremely disturbing news about a program I helped facilitate, and my only hope of stopping it and proving my own innocence is a video I just received—a deathbed confession by the program’s principl—”

“Ambassador?” a man said behind her.

Nagel spun to see the face of Sergeant Scott Kerble, peering through the narrow opening of the door he had just quietly opened.

“Most people knock,” Dana snapped.

“Scott?” Nagel said. “Where were you? You were supposed—”

“I’m sorry, ma’am.” His voice sounded uncharacteristically stern. “I’m afraid I’ve been ordered to detain you.”

Nagel eyed her trusted security guard, having little doubt what had just transpired. “Ordered by the director of the CIA?”

“Please come with me.”

“You can’t arrest the ambassador!” Dana said. “She’s your boss!”

Kerble shook his head. “We’re U.S. military.”

Dana looked at Nagel, who confirmed it with a nod. Unfortunately, Marine security guards took their orders from much higher up the food chain. The ambassador now deeply regretted her decision to entrust Kerble with the diplomatic pouch. My only copy of the video…

“Madam Ambassador?” Kerble looked genuinely uncomfortable. “Please come with me.”

“Of course, Scott. I just need a moment. Ms. Daněk has tendered her resignation, and I’d like a private moment to say goodb—”

“Hands in front of you!” a deep voice commanded as the door swung open to reveal two other Marines waiting behind Kerble. They apparently felt duty bound to support their lead agent whose courtesy was getting him nowhere.

“Handcuffs won’t be necessary,” Nagel said. “I’ll come quietly, but I’d like a quick word with Ms.—”

“That’s not possible,” the first Marine barked, moving through the door. “Show me your wrists, ma’am.”

Incredulous, Nagel looked to Kerble, whose expression had turned decidedly colder in the presence of his fellow agents.

“Give him your wrists,” Kerble commanded. “And not another word with Ms. Daněk. We have orders. No further contact with anyone. We’ve sealed your office and will be searching it, along with the rest of the embassy.”

“Searching?” Nagel could feel her only leverage slipping away. “For… what ?”

Kerble ignored the question and turned to Dana. “Ms. Daněk, if you have tendered your resignation, you will need to exit the embassy immediately. Do you understand?”

“I do…but—”

“Are those your personal items in that box?”

Dana nodded.

Kerble walked over to the box, peered inside, and then glanced back at Nagel, catching her eye for an instant as the other Marines focused on binding her wrists.

She watched as Kerble leaned over Dana’s desk and jotted something on a sticky note.

Then, in one smooth motion, he reached into his uniform’s breast pocket, extracted the diplomatic pouch Nagel had given him, affixed the sticky note to it, and slid the pouch into the box, tucking it out of sight beneath Dana’s belongings.

Did he really just do that?!

Stone-faced, Kerble marched back toward Nagel, who was now restrained with a set of standard-issue nylon flex cuffs. “Madam Ambassador,” he said, “I would suggest you follow the orders of these men without hesitation. It is for your own safety.”

Before Nagel could reply, Kerble had turned back to Dana.

“Ms. Daněk!” he said sternly, leaving no doubt who was in charge. “Time’s up—collect your box of personal items and vacate these premises immediately!”

Dana looked frightened as she grabbed her cardboard box and rushed past the handcuffed ambassador, heading straight for the exit.

Nagel is in some serious trouble.

Scott Kerble watched as his officers escorted the ambassador down the service stairwell toward the basement.

Having served diplomats his entire career, Kerble had never met one he more admired or trusted than Heide Nagel.

His impulsive decision to break ranks and protect her had been a reflex…

a gut instinct…and he had done it at no small risk to his career.

Something is not right here…

CIA Director Gregory Judd had offered Kerble’s team no details—only a direct order; the ambassador was to be locked in the embassy’s situation room, under guard, and detained until further notice.

Wildly irregular.

Stranger still, the director had ordered an exhaustive search of the ambassador’s private office to collect any and all digital media—computers, hard drives, DVDs, USBs, etc.

—which made sense in only two scenarios.

Either they suspected Nagel was a spy, which was absurd, or the director was afraid she had information that would be damaging to the agency itself.

Kerble felt confident that whatever the director was hoping to confiscate had just left the building…in a cardboard box with Dana Daněk.

Keep it safe, the ambassador had told him. Mention it to no one.

Kerble had no idea what the contents of the pouch might be, but he knew Dana would never dare open it. Moreover, the CIA director would be the last person Dana would ever call about it.

Just to be certain, Kerble had added a safely anonymous sticky note to the pouch:

D— Tell no one about this. Someone will contact you.

The pouch is safe, he thought. At least for the moment.

Kerble had said nothing to his colleagues. Nor had he mentioned the ambassador’s aberrant behavior—including her arrival to the embassy on foot and unescorted. Nagel is the most ethical person I’ve ever met, he reminded himself. She’s clearly caught up in something I don’t understand.

Considering the ambassador was now in custody, he thought it prudent to recover her private SUV, get it off the street, and store it in the embassy’s parking courtyard with the rest of the fleet.

Kerble went to the security office and retrieved the emergency set of keys they kept for all embassy vehicles.

Then he turned to a computer terminal to pull up the location of the concealed tracking device that existed in any vehicle that might carry the ambassador.

Kerble knew the SUV was close by, since the ambassador had walked back to the residence, but using the GPS coordinates would save him precious time wandering the streets.

He waited a moment as the tracker was activated. When the blinking dot appeared on the map of Prague, Kerble stared in confusion. The vehicle was most definitely not parked nearby, as expected. Instead, it was parked three miles away…on the ridgeline above Folimanka Park.

Several stories underground, The Golěm strode across the SMES vault toward the twelve Cryofab tanks of liquid helium.

The top of each massive flask terminated in a reinforced electronic bayonet and valve connected to an insulated pipe that fed the SMES.

On the wall near the tanks glowed a control panel bearing a diagram of all twelve canisters and their various statuses.

By all appearances, the screen regulated the flow of helium to each canister. The Golěm had no idea how to use this panel, nor did he have any intention of trying. What he was planning required no subtlety. There was a very simple way to halt the flow of the supercooled liquid into the SMES.

He approached the first canister, a bulbous stainless-steel flask taller than he was. His clay-caked face reflected back at him. I am not a monster, he reminded himself, knowing his outer shell, like everyone’s, was a mirage that shrouded the truth within. I am her protector.

As expected, at the top of each tank beside the clutter of electronic connectors and valves, there was a manual cutoff—a handwheel valve that one could turn in emergencies to stop the flow of helium.

As simple as turning off a garden hose.

According to everything he had read, the slow chain reaction would begin as soon as the flow of helium was halted, causing the superconducting coils to begin to heat up, losing some of their conductivity, resisting the current…and commencing a deadly feedback loop.

Heat Resistance Heat Resistance Heat…

Once I close the valves, he estimated, I’ll have about twenty minutes.

After that time, the coils would heat up and reach critical temperature—the “quench limit” when all the liquid helium in the system would begin to boil…

converting to gas. The Golěm pictured the quench vent above him, which was now sealed shut, and he imagined the rapidly expanding cloud of helium gas trying to escape safely in a geyser of icy helium vapor.

No longer possible, he thought. Today will be a different scenario.

The rapidly expanding gas cloud would find no escape and would begin applying enormous pressure to every square inch of this airtight chamber.

Including on the rupture disks.

The Golěm took a deep breath and surveyed the line of canisters.

He could already imagine the pressure in the vault climbing…

pressing out against the thick concrete walls…

causing the rupture disks in each tank to fail.

Very suddenly, there would be some twenty thousand liters of liquid helium exposed to open air.

The chain reaction would be instantaneous and unstoppable—a catastrophic expansion event—as violent and destructive as igniting a powerful warhead in this small space.