Page 46 of The Secret of Secrets (Robert Langdon #6)

Robert Langdon paced anxiously around Sasha Vesna’s small kitchen, his soaking-wet socks leaving footprints on her tile floor.

This can’t be happening.

He stared again at the slip of paper that had appeared moments earlier under Sasha’s door.

The handwritten note had jarred his world from its axis.

I have Katherine.

Come to Pet?ín Tower.

His mind raced with agonizing questions.

Who are you? What have you done with her? Why Pet?ín Tower?

Prague’s two-hundred-foot Pet?ín Tower was not far from the city’s center, situated atop a heavily wooded hill. The forest’s storied history of virgin sacrifices did little to calm his nerves.

Langdon could imagine no possible motive for anyone abducting Katherine Solomon. Come to Pet?ín Tower…why?

“We must have been followed here,” Sasha said, sounding frightened. “Maybe from the taxi stand? Maybe this is úZSI, but—”

“Why the hell would úZSI kidnap Katherine?!”

“I don’t know.” Sasha looked distraught. “Michael will know what to—”

“I can’t wait for Michael,” Langdon interrupted, hurrying up the hallway to find his shoes. “I’ve got to go right now. ” Katherine is in danger. I need to get there as soon as possible. As he slid his wet socks into his loafers, Sasha opened the hall closet and reached for her coat.

“No, Sasha,” he interjected, “the best thing you can do is to stay here, meet with Michael, have him take you to the U.S. embassy, and tell them everything you know. Everything. Including what happened with Brigita, the úZSI agent, this note, my going to Pet?ín Tower, everything.”

Langdon had already witnessed Sasha’s spontaneous capacity for abrupt violence, and he could not afford to show up at Pet?ín Tower accompanied by a wild card.

“Okay,” she said, reaching into her handbag, “but if you’re going alone, at least take this. ” She pulled out Pavel’s weapon.

Langdon recoiled instinctively. He had always been unnerved by weapons and knew enough about confrontation not to add a gun to the mix if not necessary.

He had no desire to carry a stolen úZSI weapon through the streets of Prague, especially as he had no way to transport it except tucked into the waist of his pants, a technique that, every time he saw it in the movies, seemed an insane risk.

“I’d feel better if you kept it,” he said. “Obviously, whoever left that note knows where you live. Hide it in a kitchen cupboard…and if you desperately need it, you’ll know where it is.”

Sasha thought for a moment and then nodded.

“Okay, but this you should take.” She walked to a hook on the wall and removed a plastic key ring with a single key.

“My spare key. If you and Katherine need a safe place to go or hide, come here. I don’t know what Michael will suggest we do, so we might not be here when you come, but at least you’ll have a way in. ”

“Thank you,” Langdon said, doubting he would be back. Nonetheless, he accepted her generosity, noting that her key ring was a plastic cutout of a spread-eagle cat, with the words “Krazy Kitten.” He slipped it into his pocket. “I’ll find a phone and call you as soon as I know what’s happening.”

“You’ll need my number.”

“I have Michael’s cell.”

She looked surprised. “He gave you his private line?”

“I saw you dial it in the car,” Langdon said.

“And you remember it?”

“Weird brain,” Langdon said. “I don’t forget things.”

“That must be nice,” she said. “I have the opposite problem. I can’t remember things. Memories get muddled…lots of blanks.”

“From the epilepsy?”

“Yes, but Brigita was working with me on that…”

Langdon gave a comforting smile. “It sounds like Dr. Gessner was very good to you.”

“She saved my life.” Sasha looked melancholy. “I hope I don’t forget her too.”

“You won’t,” Langdon assured her, reaching for the door. “And trust me, remembering everything is not always a blessing.”