Page 22 of The Secret of Secrets (Robert Langdon #6)

This morning, the embassy’s media liaison—Dana Daněk—was alone in her office, organizing the daily agenda.

She was a thirty-four-year-old Praguer who had perfected her English while modeling in London in her twenties.

After returning to Prague and earning a computer degree, she’d applied for a post at the U.S.

embassy and landed in the public relations department.

Dana’s office felt colder than usual on this snowy morning, and she walked over to the classic steam radiator, bending over to turn it on for some extra heat.

“Pěkny vyhled,” a deep voice said behind her. Nice view.

She turned and swooned a bit as she always did when she saw the striking legal attaché, Michael Harris.

He treated her politely inside the office; of course, it was how he treated her outside the office and in his bedroom that she found most appealing.

Beyond his physical talents, Harris had a lightness about him that always lifted her mood.

“You’re on the wrong floor,” Dana said playfully, having heard that Harris had requested an emergency meeting with the ambassador. “She’s upstairs in her office, waiting for you.”

“Could you do something for me?” Harris replied, sounding surprisingly serious. “It’s important.”

She nodded. Anything your heart desires, Michael Harris.

Harris quickly described his request.

Dana stared at him, trying to gauge if he might be joking. “I’m sorry…a woman wearing a spiked tiara?”

Harris nodded. “She was on Charles Bridge just before seven o’clock this morning. I only need to know where she came from and where she went afterward.”

The request was unusual. Dana’s access to the camera system was technically restricted to assessing specific incidents that impacted public relations—public rallies, demonstrations, protests, and so forth. This felt like something…else.

“Don’t worry,” he pressed. “I’ve got your back.”

I certainly hope so, she thought. The two of them shared a perilous secret—an illicit office romance—which was strictly forbidden among embassy employees.

“I’ll see what I can find,” she said.

He gave her shoulder a little squeeze. “Thanks. I’ll stop back after my meeting.”

Dana watched him go. You want me to track a woman wearing a spiked tiara…Why?

In recent weeks, Michael had been uncharacteristically secretive, especially about his evening activities. He was increasingly unavailable to meet Dana after work and had become evasive when asked what he was doing instead. Dana was starting to suspect there was another woman.

Feeling a sudden wave of jealousy, Dana wondered if maybe his request to track this woman might be a personal matter.

Her suspicion was absurd, of course; the embassy’s legal attaché, of all people, would know never to use official resources for a personal matter, and Dana would be the last person Harris would ask to research another woman.

Still, he’s using me, she knew.

Nonetheless, Dana settled in behind her desk and logged into the embassy’s surveillance interface. “All right, Michael, let’s see what we can find.”

After the Czech Republic had joined NATO in 1999, more than eleven hundred surveillance cameras had been positioned in Prague as part of a U.S.

-funded classified surveillance partnership known as Echelon.

Despite strict Czech laws governing access to the cameras, the U.S.

had built the network and had given its embassies, with a few exceptions, full access…

a point of sharp contention for Czech authorities.

Dana Daněk was not entirely comfortable with the surveillance either, and yet citizens of Central Europe had little choice but to accept Echelon’s watchful eyes monitoring their daily lives—including, in Dana’s case, her occasionally sneaking in and out of Michael Harris’s flat at all hours of the night.

Nobody is monitoring my activity, she assured herself. There is simply too much data.

Even so, civilian privacy campaigns like @ReclaimYourFace regularly held anti-American protests against Prague’s ubiquitous security cameras. The embassy’s counterargument was both simple and true: Most citizens prefer to be monitored…than to be blown up by terrorists.

With that thought in mind, Dana moved her cursor across a detailed map of Prague, navigated to Charles Bridge, and called up its recently archived security footage.