Page 69 of The Secret of Secrets (Robert Langdon #6)

Under different circumstances, Lieutenant Pavel might have tried to appreciate the serenity of this ancient library, but today he had no room in his life for calm. The rage growing within him was unlike anything he had ever felt.

My captain, my uncle…murdered.

“Professor!” he bellowed into the empty space, pulling out his weapon and scanning the balcony above him. “I know you are up there! Stand up!”

No movement.

Silence.

“Show yourself now!”

Pavel rotated slowly, allowing his weapon to trace a slow line around the entire perimeter of the walkway.

Nothing.

Turning toward the corner of the room where the docent had indicated there was a concealed staircase, Pavel moved stealthily across the floor and located a portion of bookcase that was discreetly cut out into a doorway.

He grabbed the tiny brass handle and pulled, but the door moved only slightly before it stopped.

He tried again. The door was somehow locked from within.

Bracing himself, Pavel pulled on the handle with all his strength, but the door moved only a reluctant half inch before the brass handle tore free of the historic bookshelf, sending Pavel tumbling backward onto the hard parquet.

The collision with the floor sent searing pain through his already pounding skull.

Incensed, the lieutenant leaped to his feet, aimed his gun at the bookshelf door, and squeezed the trigger.

With an explosive echo, a bullet passed through the bookcase and clanged loudly off something metal on the other side, perhaps the spiral staircase the docent had told him led to the second floor.

Pavel did not hear a body hit the floor. He considered emptying his entire weapon into the bookcase, but he knew better.

Trpělivost, the ghost of his captain whispered. Patience is a weapon.

Pavel lowered his pistol.

If the sound of a gunshot had not caused the docents to come running in, then nothing would. Time was on Pavel’s side, and he had already formulated an idea.

At the far end of the room stood an antique ladder leaning against a bookcase. Designed to retrieve books from the highest shelves on the first floor, the ladder was not long enough to reach all the way up to the balcony.

His eye moved to the transparent display case at the far end of the room.

The heavy Plexiglas cube was almost as tall as Pavel himself and looked to be bulletproof—a perfect base for a ladder.

If Pavel could get the ladder to reach the balcony, he could climb over, circle around to the top of the spiral staircase… and attack from above.

Trpělivost, he thought. Patience, my captain.

Inside the alcove, Katherine and Langdon crouched in terror, having just heard a bullet whiz into the cramped space and hit the metal staircase below them. It had exploded with a bright spark and deafening clang.

A minute earlier, upon hearing Pavel’s voice and the slam of the outer doors being locked, Langdon had quickly retied Katherine’s full-length Canada Goose coat around the banister as tightly as he could.

Then they had climbed halfway up the spiral stairs, waiting on the landing between floors so they could quickly flee either up or down.

Pavel had just made it clear he would shoot first and ask questions later.

We’re locked in this library with a madman.

Langdon wondered if Pavel’s head injury had left him truly unmoored, or whether the lieutenant had received official clearance to use deadly force.

Clearance from whom? Considering everything Langdon had now learned, there existed the unsettling notion that Pavel had been tasked by someone to track down Katherine’s manuscript and destroy it.

And destroy us along with it.

Langdon sensed their only hope was to alert the embassy or the local police immediately. The problem was that they had no phones, and if they yelled for help, Pavel would be the only person who would hear them.

“Are you okay?” Langdon whispered into the darkness.

“Not in the least,” Katherine’s voice replied. “And you?”

Langdon found her hand and squeezed it. “Don’t move. Stay on this landing. I’ll go up and see if there’s any other way out of here.”

In total blackness, Langdon groped his way up the rest of the tiny staircase until he felt the trapdoor above him. He gently pushed up, and the small square of wood hinged open a crack.

Light poured through the opening, and Langdon squinted as he lifted the panel, inching his head upward until his eyes were at floor level.

Peeking out from beneath the trapdoor, he surveyed the balcony for any possible exits—even a window out to the roof.

Nothing. Just walls of ancient books that climbed up to the stunning ceiling fresco that arched overhead.

Langdon eased the trapdoor all the way open and gently laid it down on the balcony floor.

He climbed one more stair until he was able to peer down through the balcony railing.

Below, at the far end of the library, Pavel was visible with his back to Langdon, his face pressed against the display case for the Devil’s Bible… as if intensely examining the artifact.

Pavel did not strike Langdon as a man who would be interested in an ancient codex, especially at this moment, but then Langdon heard a high-pitched screech and saw the case move several inches.

The muscular lieutenant, he realized, was not admiring the codex, but rather attempting to push its massive display case across the floor.

Why? That cube must weigh a thousand pounds!

Langdon was distressed to see the deep scratches being carved into the magnificent parquet floor, although he was far more alarmed to see the antique ladder lying on the floor near the display case.

In an instant, Pavel’s intentions became clear.

He’s coming up here. The transparent cube certainly looked sturdy enough to support the base of a ladder, and Pavel was apparently strong enough to move it.

The case shifted a few inches with each heave, creeping toward the side of the room.

Moving it close enough would take time and patience, but it appeared Pavel had adequate quantities of both.

If he flushes us out, there’s nowhere else to hide. No escape from this locked room.

Langdon searched intently for a solution, and his eyes moved skyward, as they often did when he hoped for inspiration.

Staring into the colorful expanse of the fresco arching overhead, he found himself fully enveloped by the beauty of the work—a depiction of Jesuit saints engrossed in reading and writing among the clouds, underscoring the importance of knowledge.

Think, Robert.

As he gazed into the lofty depiction of paradise, his eye halted unexpectedly on an incongruous object disguised among the billowing clouds in the fresco.

It was a small, metallic disk.

A glistening halo of sorts…

This metal disk, Langdon knew, had most certainly not been placed there by the artist, and as distasteful as he found its intrusion into the fresco, when Langdon’s eyes beheld it, he felt as if the heavens had just opened up…and offered a road to salvation.