Page 70 of The Secret of Secrets (Robert Langdon #6)
Field Officer Housemore arrived at Crucifix Bastion to discover no vehicles parked outside, no signs of life, and the front door destroyed. What happened here? Sidearm raised, she stepped cautiously into the glass-strewn entryway, her shoes crunching on the scattered shards.
Housemore was relieved to find the steel access door marked Lab was intact and locked. She moved down the hall into Gessner’s reception area and office.
Where is everyone?
She placed a Signal call to Mr. Finch, relaying what she had found.
“My jet just took off from London,” Finch replied, an unusual tension in his voice. “Secure the building—nobody in or out. Use deadly force if necessary.”
With that he was gone.
On the fourth floor of Random House Tower, concealed in the warren of loudly humming computer banks, operative Chinburg adjusted his headphones and listened intently to the conversation now taking place about forty feet away between Jonas Faukman and Alex Conan.
The beam of his laser microphone was aimed at the smoothest surface he could find—a pane of glass that covered an illustration of a sinking ship.
Conveniently, the illustration included a blue ocean, on which the blue dot of light was fairly well disguised.
More importantly, the illustration hung very close to where Faukman and his tech were talking, close enough that the sound of their voices caused microvibrations in the surface of the glass, which in turn caused microfluctuations in the laser beam.
An interferometer then analyzed the interference patterns in the light beam and “translated” the vibrations back into audio.
Chinburg could hear every word. And I’m not the only one listening.
Somewhere on his private jet over Europe, Mr. Finch was patched in via satellite and Voice-Over-Wi-Fi, listening in real time.
Chinburg was certain their boss would be pleased.
Until only a few moments ago, the entire team was concerned that the PRH tech might indeed have found a way to identify Q as the source of the hack.
Not even close.
Chinburg smirked, listening to his headphones with amusement as the editor seethed at the young tech. “Library Genesis!” Faukman spat. “We were hacked by Library-Fucking-Genesis! One of the most notorious piracy outfits in the world! How could you have let them into our servers, Alex!”
Chinburg had certainly heard of the elusive organization, known among hackers as LibGen.
Established more than a decade ago by Russian scientists, LibGen was the Internet’s largest “shadow library” of pirated academic and literary works.
Despite numerous legal challenges and lawsuits from major publishers, LibGen had managed to persist, thanks to an ingeniously decentralized structure of mirror sites and backup domains.
The tech got it wrong. We’re in the clear.
Chinburg was relieved, sensing it could have gone the other way. His team had expedited the attack by repurposing existing code that, in this new era of AI-enhanced web scouring, could potentially have led back to Q’s operational division.
Thankfully, the tech missed it.
Chinburg’s best guess was that LibGen had attempted to hack PRH at some point in the recent past, and tonight the tech had discovered a digital artifact from that older hack.
Faukman continued to rail against the infamous piracy group while the tech was typing furiously, most likely searching for more information…or possibly crafting his resignation letter.
Keep searching, Chinburg thought. You’re barking up the wrong tree.
Just then, Chinburg felt a pulse on his phone, and he checked the screen.
It was a secure message from Mr. Finch, who had apparently heard enough.
Mission Complete. Pull Out Now.
Downstairs in the lobby, incapacitated on the floor behind the counter, security guard Mark Dole was still kicking himself for not handling this situation better.
It all happened so fast…I failed when it counted most.
The muscle-bound thug who had stolen Dole’s seat and security cap was now going through Dole’s phone and wallet, taking notes.
Dole wished he’d had the foresight to dial 911 when these guys arrived. The Midtown North Precinct was just a few blocks away, and officers could have arrived in minutes.
The elevator pinged, and Dole heard the second intruder returning to the lobby.
“All set,” the arriving man said. “They’re convinced we’re book pirates—we’re clear.”
“Hilarious.” The big guy swiveled around and knelt down beside Dole. “Your bosses are clueless, Mark. I hope you’re smarter…smart enough never to mention we were here.”
Dole stared into the man’s steely eyes.
“By the way,” the thug added, “your kids are cute. I see you live in Sunset Park. Brooklyn’s not a bad commute, and your place on Forty-Sixth looks close to the park for the kids. You’ve got a peaceful life.”
Dole understood his meaning.
The man hoisted Dole to his feet, screwed the security cap back onto his head, clipped the zip ties, and left Dole’s wallet and phone on the front desk. “No harm done. Now get back to work.”
Dole watched the two men stride nonchalantly across the lobby toward the four exit doors—two swinging doors and two revolving doors.
They were headed for the swinging door through which they’d entered, but before they got there, Dole touched one of two buttons under the counter, silently engaging all the automatic locks.
The muscle-bound man arrived at the swinging door and found it locked. “Hey, ping us out!”
“Can’t do that,” Dole lied.
The man turned, looking incredulous. “You really want to lock us in here with you?”
“No,” Dole said. “I mean I literally can’t. I don’t have control over the doors. They’re automated. Green building and all that. Conserving heat in the lobby. During the winter months, only the revolving doors—”
“We just came through this goddamned door!”
“ Inbound with an employee key card. Outbound all employees must use the revolving doors. Even assholes.”
“You’re lucky we’re in a hurry,” the man said, moving with his partner toward one of the revolving doors. Dole quickly pressed the button under the counter again, now silently unlocking all four doors.
The revolving doors at Random House Tower were oversized, which meant that most small groups shared the same compartment.
Dole was pleased to see the two thugs were no exception.
As they stepped into a single partition and pushed outward, the door began to rotate counterclockwise.
Dole calmly watched, his finger hovering over the lock button.
When the door had made a perfect quarter turn, Dole pressed the button a third time, reengaging all the locks.
The revolving door abruptly stalled, mid-turn, sealing his two attackers in a tiny glass prison.
As Dole dialed 911, a muffled string of profanity echoed across the lobby.
Shout all you like, Dole thought. Nobody threatens my kids.
For two full minutes after the laser-microphone dot had disappeared and the door had clicked shut, Jonas Faukman had continued his theatrical rant against the LibGen book pirates, just to be certain the eavesdropper was really gone.
It was clear that book piracy had nothing to do with the PRH hack, but the truth was infinitely more disturbing.
Faukman was still reeling from seeing the acronym that Alex had typed, questioning why this group would mount a coordinated international campaign against Katherine Solomon and her unpublished book. They certainly had the resources and influence to do so.
With a rush of dread, Faukman realized that Alex’s panic about Robert Langdon and Katherine Solomon suddenly seemed much more plausible. It also occurred to him that whoever had broken into Random House Tower would have had to get past the good-natured night watchman, Mark Dole.
Faukman immediately phoned down to the security desk to check on him.
No answer. Dammit.
Fearing the worst, Faukman ran for the elevators.
When he reached the ground floor, he dashed around the corner into the lobby, bracing himself for the worst. But the scene before him was perfectly calm, and unexpected.
Night watchman Mark Dole was very much alive and well, coolly giving a statement to a pair of metro police officers.
The police are here?
Faukman was relieved to see Dole unharmed, and the editor’s attention shifted immediately to the two handcuffed men on the floor near the revolving door, both looking furious.
My God…is that…?
Faukman could not begin to imagine what had transpired down here, but he made no effort to hide his delight as he walked across the lobby toward the two captives, who were restrained and lying on their sides.
“Hey! Welcome to Random House!” Faukman gushed. “I had no idea you guys were readers.”
“You don’t want to do this,” Buzzcut hissed, glaring up at him. “You don’t know who we work for.”
“For whom you work,” Faukman corrected, frowning. “I thought we went through this.”
“Fuck off!” he snapped, his eyes smoldering with rage.
Faukman crouched down and smiled. “You know, Buzz, if you went to the library as often as the gym, you’d realize that every great story has the same ending.” He winked. “The bad guys always lose.”