Page 93 of The Secret of Secrets (Robert Langdon #6)

Jonas Faukman scowled at ChatGPT’s latest search results.

Despite using varied prompts and approaches, his efforts to find any link between Katherine’s work and In-Q-Tel’s investments had turned up nothing but far-flung offerings that felt more like a disjointed game of Mad Libs than anything intelligent—artificial or otherwise.

Frustrated, he abandoned his computer and walked to the window, gazing north up Broadway toward Central Park. In the dawn light, on the horizon line behind the “pencil towers” on Billionaires’ Row, storm clouds were gathering.

He stood a while, lost in thought, and finally returned to his computer to continue his search. As he took his seat, he noticed he had a new email.

The subject line startled and excited him.

A Message from Robert Langdon

Faukman had been waiting over an hour for a phone call and was feeling increasingly anxious that something had gone wrong at the ambassador’s residence.

The relief he felt seeing the email, however, was short-lived.

Despite the subject line, Faukman now saw that the sender’s address was that of U.S.

Ambassador Heide Nagel…the former CIA general counsel.

She’s sending a message for him?

Faukman could think of nobody in Prague he trusted less at the moment. If Robert was truly safe, then the ambassador should simply have let him call.

Until I hear Robert’s voice, I won’t believe a word of this email.

He debated whether to open the message, envisioning a virus or yet another hack, but at this point he figured he had nothing left to lose. Warily, he clicked open the message, puzzled to see what appeared to be a meaningless string of letters.

ROT13EY&XFETHQ

It took him a moment to realize that the first five characters did indeed have meaning.

ROT13 was the name of a rotational cipher in which every letter was substituted for the letter occurring thirteen places away from it in the alphabet.

Faukman knew this only because several years ago, while editing a book on ancient encryption techniques, the book’s author had regularly sent him texts playfully encrypted with ROT13.

That author had been Robert Langdon.

With a swell of optimism, Faukman grabbed a pencil and applied the simple decryption scheme. Then he examined the result.

RL&KSRGUD

His confusion lasted only a moment before he laughed out loud, half from amusement and half from relief.

Only Robert could have written this message.

Langdon and Faukman often commiserated over the decline of written language due to the proliferation of “textese” emoticons and abbreviations.

The trend was so distressing to Faukman that he’d written a piece about it for The New Yorker, including one particularly overwrought sentence that Langdon mocked mercilessly.

Faukman had written: To save a single keystroke by typing “gud” instead of “good” is not only indecorous, it is an abomination of indolence.

Still chuckling over Langdon’s message, Faukman was tempted to reply: Your message is not only adroit, it brings propitious consolation.