Page 25 of The Secret of Secrets (Robert Langdon #6)

Jonas Faukman had experienced plenty of terrifying moments before—leaping out of a helicopter with no parachute, nearly drowning at the hand of a cunning psychopath, dodging bullets while clinging to a steep rooftop—but those scenarios had all played out in the pages of the suspense novels he had edited.

Now the terror was real.

The bag on his head was making it increasingly difficult to breathe, and his hands were bound behind his back.

He was lying on the hard metal floor of a vehicle that had been moving fast on a highway for at least ten minutes.

He heard the phone in his coat pocket buzz several times, but he had no way to reach it.

From all Faukman could discern, he had been abducted by two men, both American by the sound of their voices, and they had rifled through his backpack.

They have the manuscript.

His fear was underscored by bewilderment.

Why?

The van suddenly pulled off the highway, wound along surface streets, and then abruptly stopped.

When his captors finally ripped the bag off his head, Faukman found himself face-to-face with a powerfully built, thirtysomething man with a military buzz cut.

Dressed all in black, the man had positioned himself alarmingly close, seated on a milk crate directly in front of Faukman, staring at him with ice-cold eyes.

Petrified, Faukman looked past his captor and through the windshield. All he saw were trees and darkness. He could hear heavy machinery thrumming in the distance. Where the hell am I?

Faukman’s second abductor—a slightly smaller man—was in the front passenger seat, typing on a laptop. The guy from the sidewalk with the clipboard.

“Ready,” the guy on the laptop said.

His partner with the buzz cut reached up to a video camera mounted on the van’s ceiling and swiveled it directly into Faukman’s face.

Survival rule number one, Faukman reminded himself. Never show fear.

“That’s a cool camera,” Faukman managed. “Are we making a TikTok?”

The man glanced down, looking surprised by Faukman’s insolence.

Faukman tried to sound calm. “Or are we just doing a ransom video to send to my family?”

“You don’t have a family,” the man said flatly. “You’re not married, you work six days a week, and you haven’t left the country in more than four years.”

Jesus! Who are these guys?

Faukman’s first guess had been U.S. military, but it was hard to know these days.

He had published a nonfiction book a few years back about the secret world of modern mercenaries—trained specialty contractors with mysterious names like Blackwater, Triple Canopy, Wackenhut, and International Development Solutions.

The truth was, these two operatives could be working for anyone.

Buzzcut pulled a small tablet from his coat, scrolled through it, and then shoved it in Faukman’s face. “Do you recognize this place?”

Faukman eyed the photo. It took him a moment to understand the visual. What the hell?! It was his own living room. From the looks of it, his airy apartment on the Upper East Side had been ransacked…artwork knocked off walls, bookshelves emptied, couches shredded, tables overturned.

“What were we looking for?” Buzzcut said. “Take a guess.”

Faukman eyed the man’s close-cropped hair. “A better barber?”

Buzzcut lunged forward without warning and drove a mammoth fist into Faukman’s stomach. The editor doubled over, falling on his side, gasping for breath.

“Try again,” the man said, yanking him back up onto his knees. “What were we looking for?”

“I…don’t…know,” Faukman said, barely able to breathe.

The man on the laptop studied some data that appeared on-screen and shook his head. “He’s lying.”

“I will ask you one last time,” Buzzcut said. “And before you answer, let me introduce you to Avatar.” He pointed to the video camera overhead. “This is an AI engine that tracks your eye movement, facial microchanges, and postural shifts. It’s a state-of-the-art veracity analysis system.”

Veracity analysis system? Faukman decided not to chide the thug for using a ten-dollar term for a five-dollar gizmo, but at least it explained the video camera.

The man on the milk crate leaned forward until his face was uncomfortably close.

“We know everything about you, Jonas. We know you work late at night, you go running in Central Park when you don’t have a business lunch, and you drink gin martinis with your authors at the White Horse Tavern.

So don’t screw with me. Let me ask you one very simple question. ”

Faukman waited, his stomach still knotted in pain.

“The manuscript we found in your backpack,” Buzzcut said. “Is that your only copy?”

Faukman knew what answer they were hoping to hear. Unfortunately, telling the truth right now meant instantly losing his negotiating power…and, quite possibly, his life.

Seeing precious few options, Faukman closed his eyes and pictured the hero from one of his most popular thriller series—a spy who consistently beat lie detectors using three simple steps, which Faukman now attempted to employ.

First, he lowered his shoulders and released all tension in his abdomen.

Second, he touched his index finger and thumb very lightly together and slowed his breathing.

Third, he held in his mind’s eye a clear mental image of the truth he wished were true—in this case, an image of a dozen extra manuscripts sitting safely on his desk at Random House.

He felt much calmer.

“No,” Faukman said with as even a tone as possible. “The manuscript in my bag is not the only copy. There are many others.”

Laptop studied his computer and almost immediately shook his head. “Lying.”

Goddamn it, Jonas! It’s called fiction for a reason!

Buzzcut raised a fist once more, preparing to punch him again in the gut.

“Wait!” Faukman said. “I was talking about the digital copies on the PRH servers.”

Buzzcut looked almost amused. “Mr. Faukman, we deleted all the digital copies, which is the reason you were rushing off to the copy center, was it not?”

Faukman fell silent, heart racing wildly. He could hear loud machinery beyond the van, possibly the whine of industrial engines.

“Let me make this very simple for you,” Buzzcut said. “Other than the one in your backpack and those from the PRH servers, do you know of any other versions of this manuscript—digital, hard copy, or otherwise?”

Faukman shook his head. “No, the manuscript in my bag is the only remaining copy.”

“ Was the only remaining copy,” Buzzcut corrected. “We’ve already destroyed it.”

Alone in the PRH security center, Alex Conan was aghast.

This can’t be.

He stabbed at his keyboard, refreshing the page, hoping the information before him was wrong, but the same chilling image kept appearing…and reappearing.

God, no…

Minutes earlier, with no sign of Faukman and having been unable to reach either Katherine Solomon or Robert Langdon, Alex had decided to take bold action.

You have skills. You have access.

Alex had employed both, and despite the dubious legality of his methods, he had managed to access information he was not supposed to have in order to track them down.

A disturbing image now sat on his screen.

Alex tried to conjure any benign explanation for what he was looking at, but his mind kept returning to the only logical conclusion… a chilling one.

Whoever wants to kill this PRH book…has killed a PRH author.