Page 115 of The Secret of Secrets (Robert Langdon #6)
A death lab.
As Langdon began to grasp the implications of Katherine’s startling revelation, he felt a rush of new questions. Why would the CIA be studying death? What are they hoping to find?
As intellectually exciting as Langdon found the prospect of understanding death, he feared this room served a far darker purpose than simply studying human consciousness or death.
The horror of subjecting someone to the “death state” for any reason other than life support seemed unconscionable.
Even if the patient is drugged or cannot recall the experience…
“I need to know everything about this research,” Katherine said, moving deeper into the array of pods.
“We need to keep moving,” Langdon urged, firing a nervous glance back toward the entryway.
He quickly joined her and motioned to the far side of the dome, where a sign read Systems / Utilities . He doubted a utilities room would have an exit, but at least it might offer somewhere better to hide, and Langdon saw no better option. No way out.
They hurried through the maze of pods, and halfway across the dome, Langdon could see that the utility area was accessed not through a door…but rather through a large rectangular opening in the floor.
Farther underground?
Whether the opening had stairs, a ladder, or some kind of lift, the idea of descending any deeper into the earth was one Langdon did not relish.
As it turned out, descending was not an option anyway.
An ear-piercing gunshot rang out behind them. The roar of the weapon reverberated in the dome overhead. Langdon and Katherine both wheeled around, frozen in their tracks, as the silver-haired man in the dark suit approached with his weapon leveled at them both.
“Dr. Solomon and Professor Langdon, I presume?” he said calmly. His voice was familiar—the same Southern drawl Langdon had heard on the speakerphone with the ambassador.
Finch.
“You’re playing a dangerous game,” he said, approaching. “And I’m afraid it’s not going to end well for you.”
Finch knew there was nothing as arresting as the sound of gunfire in an enclosed space.
In movies, it made people flee, but in real life it had a paralyzing effect.
He took pleasure seeing Langdon and Solomon rooted in place, arms raised, showing their palms—the universal sign of surrender.
His targets were now in reaction mode, and Finch held all the cards.
“Set down your bag, Dr. Solomon,” he commanded in case she had a weapon in it.
Solomon obeyed, laying her shoulder bag on the floor. As she did, Finch saw the bag contained a thick black binder…no doubt one of the classified documents they’d collected along the way.
You’re making this easy for me.
By all accounts, these two intruders had just broken into a secret government project and stolen top secret material.
If Finch shot them dead, there would be no investigation, especially since they had made it this far into the restricted facility.
Ironically, death was precisely what this room was designed for.
Nonetheless, Finch would need to interrogate them first…
and find out who else was involved in this, and how.
Ambassador Nagel was clearly guilty, having not only crossed Finch but also threatened the agency.
Extremely bad idea. Director Judd had no doubt detained the ambassador by now and would deal with her appropriately.
The wild card is Sasha Vesna, he thought, remembering the epilepsy wand he had found upstairs. He was still struggling to accept that Sasha had murdered two people. Questions for later, he told himself. Right now, manage the issue at hand…my two captives.
Strategically, it made no sense for Finch to march Langdon and Solomon out of the building at gunpoint.
Despite being an extremely fit seventy, Finch’s diminutive stature would prove no match for the six-foot Langdon should anything go wrong, and the trek back to the bastion offered far too many chances for a surprise attack.
Threshold’s secondary access point was closer, but it was currently being used for construction, and it was manned by U.S.
soldiers. Finch exiting with two Americans at gunpoint would raise too many questions.
And so we wait, he decided, having immediately called for backup upon finding Housemore’s body. Help is on the way.
The interrogation would take place in Threshold, Finch had proudly decided.
His facility offered superb secrecy and efficacy.
The EPR pods could be used extremely persuasively, and the Threshold pharmacy burgeoned with interrogational aids, including memory impairment drugs should it become necessary that “none of this ever happened.”
As Finch moved slowly toward his captives, he felt confident the situation was entirely under his control.
His lone oversight—a minor one—had been failure to check the rounds in Housemore’s gun, but having seen no signs of a gunfight upstairs, he was nearly certain her SIG Sauer P226 had a nearly full magazine.
Finch preferred not to use the weapon—at least not yet—but he knew he would have no choice if Langdon and Solomon decided to rush him.
I have to keep them calm. The most effective manipulation to control captives was to distract them with other thoughts.
Conveniently, Langdon and Solomon were still apparently thunderstruck by what they had found down here, and the more Finch explained about Threshold, the clearer it would become to the agency that Langdon and Solomon knew far too much to go free. Ever.
“There’s no need to shoot,” Langdon declared as Finch arrived before them, gun leveled at their chests. “We’ll sign your NDAs. Just tell us what you need.”
“Oh, that moment has passed,” Finch replied coolly. “You’ve broken into a top secret facility, and you’ve seen entirely too much.”
“True,” Solomon declared, her tone indignant. “I saw you stole my patent.”
Her apparent lack of fear told Finch that she had yet to grasp the true peril of her situation. “We stole nothing, Dr. Solomon,” he said calmly. “You held no patent. As you may recall, it was denied.”
“But why all the tactical maneuvers?!” Langdon demanded. “Why not simply contact Katherine or her publisher and explain—”
“Because we’re not suicidal,” Finch shot back.
“Ask Dr. Solomon how she feels about sharing research with the U.S. military. She gave a damning podcast interview about it once. I could not risk her going public and sharing the agency’s concerns.
Besides, Mr. Langdon, we had no time. This all came to a head last night very quickly—”
“What experiments are you running here?!” Katherine interrupted, surveying the EPR pods with undisguised amazement. “Are you studying death ?”
“How much would you like to know?” Finch asked, nodding ominously toward the pod closest to them. “Get in and I’ll show you.”
“That won’t be necessary,” Langdon said. “Take your classified binder back. We’ll sign NDAs. We’ve seen some of your facility, but we understood almost nothing.”
Finch chuckled. “Bright people playing dumb? That’s never very convincing, Professor. Allow me to enlighten you.”
“Please don’t,” Langdon said. “I think we’d prefer not to know what you’re doing down here.”
“Well, that hardly seems fair,” Finch said with a smile. “Considering Dr. Solomon helped build it.”
The Golěm had stepped onto the pneumatic lift to ascend back to the domed chamber when the gunshot rang out. Alarmed, he immediately stepped off, waiting in silence beneath the opening.
The conversation above was perfectly audible.
An armed man had just taken two hostages in the dome, and he had addressed them as Dr. Solomon and Robert Langdon. Why the two Americans were down here, The Golěm had no idea, but neither one of them deserved to die.
The man with the gun, however, most certainly did. The Golěm had quickly realized that this was Everett Finch, who, according to Gessner, was the mastermind behind Threshold.
The head of the snake. Here in the flesh.
The universe had just offered The Golěm an unexpected gift—the opportunity to eliminate Sasha’s ultimate betrayer…the man who had created this house of horrors.
As alluring a prospect as it was to kill Finch, the task seemed nearly impossible.
The Golěm had only a stun gun with a single discharge remaining—no match for a firearm—and if he ascended on the pneumatic platform, he would rise out of the floor in plain view at the back of the domed chamber, totally exposed.
The clock is ticking, he reminded himself, estimating he had only fifteen minutes or so before this room detonated and became a catastrophic pressure bomb.
Waiting here too long was certain death, and he wondered if he should run back through the long utilities passageway to the SMES vault and try to abort the blast. The airtight portal’s turn wheel had required substantial effort to seal on his way out, and he feared that the energy required to open it again might prove too much for him.
A dangerous gamble without my wand, he thought.
The Golěm felt ready to trade his life for Mr. Finch’s, but he knew he could not make that decision for Sasha. If he didn’t escape and release her, she would never again see the light of day.