Page 83 of The Secret of Secrets (Robert Langdon #6)
The eighteen-meter swimming pool beneath Petschek Villa was built in the style of a traditional Roman bath. Encircled by a double ring of forty-eight red marble columns, the azure and white pool was heated by twin coal furnaces and was considered the mansion’s most opulent luxury.
According to lore, the pool was used for only one season before Otto Petschek’s daughter caught pneumonia in it and nearly died. Petschek immediately emptied the pool and declared it forever off-limits.
Robert Langdon stood at the foot of the empty and forgotten pool, scanning the subterranean space for any exit other than the narrow stairs that he and Katherine had just descended in a frantic attempt to find a way out of the house.
“Of course you’d find a pool, ” Katherine whispered in the reverberant space. “Too bad it’s empty, or you could take your second swim of the day.”
Third, Langdon thought. If you count the Vltava.
Langdon had hoped the stairs might descend to a basement exit so they would be able to flee the ambassador’s residence, but the pool room had no exits.
Dead end. Overhead, the frantic footfalls of the ambassador echoed down through the vents as she rushed around the south wing, no doubt looking for her missing guests.
Apparently, she knew her house well enough to calculate their limited options for escape, and it took her less than thirty seconds to appear on the staircase, descending toward the pool.
Langdon half expected Ambassador Nagel to arrive with a U.S.
Marine at her side, but when she came down the stairs, she was alone.
Without a word, she marched over to where they were standing and held up the two NDAs that Langdon and Katherine had left unsigned on the coffee table.
Then she tore the documents into pieces, letting the scraps flutter down onto the empty pool tile.
Langdon watched in confusion. What is she doing?
Having fully shredded the papers, the ambassador fixed them both with a serious gaze and raised an index finger to her lips, admonishing them not to say a word. Then she pulled out her cell phone, touched a few buttons, and placed an outbound call…on speakerphone.
“Finch,” a man’s voice answered, crackling out of the speaker. “Everything under control?” His accent was American with a touch of a Southern drawl.
“Yes, we’re just waiting,” the ambassador said. “How far out are you?”
“Just landing. I’ll be there within the hour.”
“ Please tell me you have news on Michael Harris,” Nagel said urgently. “I’m worried about his safety.”
“If Harris is blown,” the man replied, “there’s nothing we can do about it now. He’s probably irrelevant at this point, anyway. He confirmed for us that Sasha is not talking, and that’s—”
“Irrelevant?!” Nagel demanded. “Michael is involved in this…at your command.”
“Forget about Harris. Just stay focused on the task at hand. Where are you, by the way? Your voice is echoing.”
“In my bathroom. I needed privacy to call.”
“Where are Langdon and Solomon?”
“I left them in the library,” she said, “and told them to relax until you arrive.”
Langdon shot Katherine a startled look.
“Did you admit the hotel surveillance?” Finch asked.
“I did,” Nagel replied. “As you suggested.”
“And it worked?” the man asked.
“Like a charm.”
“They both signed the NDAs?”
“They did,” the ambassador said without hesitation. “Your nondisclosures are signed, sealed, and locked in my personal safe.”
“Excellent,” Finch said, sounding relieved. “It will be good to have leverage on Langdon as well.”
Langdon and Katherine were now staring at each other in utter bewilderment.
“And just to confirm,” the man said, “you have physical proof that the hard-copy manuscript in question was burned?”
“Yes, my team collected the only remains—there’re a few charred scraps. I’ll send photos.”
“And you say the author burned it herself ?”
“It is my understanding that both Langdon and Solomon burned the manuscript because they felt they were in danger from a rogue úZSI agent…and also, obviously, from you. ”
“It was a gutsy choice,” the man mused. “I’ll believe it when I look them in the eyes. If that manuscript is truly gone… and they both signed NDAs…then we may be very close to ending this.”
“I hope so.”
“And Crucifix Bastion?” the man asked. “You’re confident úZSI has agreed to stand down? I don’t want anyone near Gessner’s lab or her work.”
“Confirmed. Nobody is up there now.”
“Good,” he said, sounding relieved. “I want you to send a Marine security detail up there immediately. Obviously, my main concern is our primary facility—but we can’t afford any leaks at the bastion either.
Have your team secure it, and I’ll go up in person to assess after our meeting at your residence. ”
“Understood,” Nagel replied. “I’ll send a team up right away.”
“See you shortly,” he said.
The line went dead.
In the silence, the ambassador double-checked that the call was indeed ended, and then she raised her eyes to Langdon and Katherine and let out a weary sigh.
“What in the world just happened?!” Katherine demanded.
The ambassador glanced overhead at the ceiling vents and, apparently not wanting to risk being overheard, led Langdon and Katherine into the pool’s utility room, where a single bulb illuminated two antique, cast-iron water boilers, which, despite nearly a century of nonuse, still smelled of coal.
“The first thing you should know,” the ambassador said quietly, closing the door behind them, “is the man I just spoke to works for the Central Intelligence Agency.”
Langdon stepped back, feigning surprise despite having been warned by Jonas. “I’m sorry?”
Nagel nodded. “His name is Everett Finch, and he used to run the agency’s Directorate of Science and Technology.” She paused. “I should add that I also worked for the CIA. I was an attorney.”
And there it is, Langdon thought, not sure whether he was relieved or unsettled that the ambassador had simply laid it out.
Nagel now confirmed what Faukman had told Langdon on the phone—the CIA quietly ran a venture capital firm named In-Q-Tel, Q for short, which invested in national security technologies and protected their investments aggressively.
“The CIA runs an investment bank?” Katherine asked.
“More for patriotism than profit,” Nagel explained.
“U.S. intelligence budgets have been slashed in recent years, and the CIA functions under an oath to defend the nation from all enemies—including the shortsightedness of our own Pollyanna politicians—and so the agency feels morally empowered, if not obligated, to find outside funding to facilitate important CIA programs that otherwise could not exist.”
As Langdon listened, he realized that a project funded with Q money would bypass all traditional congressional oversight associated with a black-budget allocation, meaning the CIA could essentially do whatever it wanted and answer to no one.
“A few years ago, the CIA director transferred Everett Finch to London and assigned him an off-book posting in Q’s European headquarters.
His duties are confidential, but he seems to have been given carte blanche, and as you’ve no doubt figured out, Finch is gravely concerned about Katherine’s manuscript. ”
“Why?” Katherine pressed.
“All I know,” Nagel replied, “is Finch considers your manuscript a threat to one of Q’s most important investments. For this reason, it is deemed a matter of national security, which affords Finch dangerous latitude in how he chooses to deal with you.”
Langdon felt increasingly trapped down here in the windowless basement.
“But how is it a threat?!” Katherine pressed. “I’ve been trying to imagine how anything I’ve writ—”
“I don’t know. I have no specifics. Only orders—to force you to sign an NDA.”
“But if the CIA thinks my book is a national security risk,” Katherine said, “then why not just call my publisher, cite national security, and demand I remove the dangerous material?”
“As former CIA counsel,” Nagel replied, “I can tell you that isolating specific passages reveals too much about the CIA’s concerns.
It would shine a light on precisely what they are trying to keep secret.
Moreover, your publisher could simply refuse the CIA’s request and publish the full text under the banner: Read the book the CIA doesn’t want you to read … ”
Langdon knew she was right. The Vatican regularly made that mistake, fanning sales of popular books by insisting they were “anti-Catholic” and attempting to forbid Catholics to read them.
“Did you read these NDAs?” Langdon asked.
“Blanket verbal,” Nagel said, nodding. “Dangerously general. It basically means you would have a recorded conversation with Finch, and anything mentioned therein would immediately be considered ‘protected information.’ Depending on what Finch says to you, that NDA would have the legal teeth to shut down Katherine’s book immediately and permanently. ”
Langdon’s thoughts again churned through all that Katherine had told him about her manuscript and her discoveries—brain filters, GABA, nonlocal consciousness. Why would the CIA care about any of it?
“You just told us,” Langdon pressed, “that Mr. Finch believes Katherine’s book poses a threat to one of Q’s most important investments…which begs an obvious question: Do you know what that investment is?”
“I know it relates to a top secret CIA facility here in Prague.”
“In Prague ?” Langdon was surprised. “You’re kidding. What do they do there?”
Nagel shook her head with frustration. “I don’t know. All I can say is the facility has a code name. They call it ‘Threshold.’?”