Page 99 of The Secret of Secrets (Robert Langdon #6)
As the elevator continued to drop deeper into the ridge beneath Crucifix Bastion, Robert Langdon found himself fighting a wave of anxiety. He had been so focused on the task of gaining access to the facility that he had not fully imagined the route he would need to take to get there.
I’m enclosed in a narrow shaft, surrounded by thousands of tons of rock.
He also had no idea what to expect when the elevator doors opened. The ambassador had told them Threshold was not yet up and running, and as such, she doubted they would encounter any security personnel once inside. But there was no way to know for sure.
Langdon also found himself considering the dilemma that had arisen several minutes earlier.
Someone took Gessner’s access card…and removed her thumb.
Obviously, the grisly crime had been committed to gain access to Threshold, but the question was, when had this occurred?
Had intruders come and gone hours earlier…
or were they still in the facility? And if they were still here… how dangerous were they?
Katherine shifted her weight in the roomy elevator. “It’s a long way down,” she said in the silence, starting to look unnerved by the lengthy descent.
Langdon was trying hard not to think about it. “Phone is dead,” he said absently, noticing the screen was now black. Katherine took the device from him and dropped it into her shoulder bag.
Finally, the elevator began to slow. They pressed into the corner of the carriage, out of the sight line of the door, as the lift glided smoothly to a stop. Neither of them breathed.
The doors slid open.
Huddled in the corner, Langdon and Katherine waited for any sounds or signs of movement outside, but there were none. Langdon carefully leaned to one side and peered out.
The space outside was pitch-black.
Beyond the small fan of light spilling out of the elevator, Langdon could see nothing. He had never considered that because Threshold was not yet operational, there might not be power at the moment.
We’re deep underground. No lights. No windows. We could be in a massive cave, for all we know.
He felt his heart rate climbing as he inched out of the lift, taking an uncertain step into the darkness.
Before his foot had even touched the floor, a bank of floodlights blazed to life overhead, momentarily blinding him.
He covered his eyes, hoping the lights had been activated automatically by a motion sensor…
and not by an interrogation team or a firing squad.
Slowly, he lowered his hand, squinting at the scene before him.
As the image came into focus, he stared in disbelief.
You’ve got to be kidding…
They had clearly departed Crucifix Bastion. All the ancient, organic touches were now gone. The new world into which Langdon had just stepped was sleek, futuristic, and pure tech.
“Unbelievable,” Katherine whispered, emerging behind him. “This looks expensive.”
Langdon guessed the facility was probably funded through In-Q-Tel investments, outside the black budget, with no congressional oversight.
Katherine walked onto the narrow metal platform outside the elevator, marveling at her surroundings. “It’s like…a tiny subway station.”
Some kind of futuristic monorail, Langdon thought, peering down into the concrete channel beneath them, where a single narrow-gauge rail extended away from the platform into a circular tunnel and disappeared into darkness.
The tunnel opening looked very tight, not nearly wide enough to handle a normal subway car, and yet when Langdon saw the vehicle that ran on this track, he realized the opening was plenty large enough.
The car was a long, slender, open-air deck—more of a movable platform than a car—with two long benches that faced each other on either side. At the back, there was a section that looked like it was for transporting supplies, which currently included two wheelchairs strapped into place.
Langdon was reminded that there was a similar underground system connecting buildings on Capitol Hill. Unlike the quaint, boxy tram cars in D.C., however, this system looked minimalist, sleek, and efficient.
“I’m glad it’s at this end of the line,” Katherine said, moving toward the car. “That seems like a good omen.”
Langdon immediately grasped her meaning.
If the transport was here, that meant that whoever had taken Brigita’s card must have already been to Threshold and come back this way to exit.
“Excellent point,” he said, relaxing slightly.
“Also, the motion-sensor lights were off, so it seems like we’re alone. ”
Katherine stepped onto the deck, and Langdon joined her. As they boarded the transport, a low electric hum came to life beneath them, and the platform seemed to rise an inch or two.
Someone or something knows we’re here, Langdon thought, hoping this train was fully automated…and not that someone was watching them and had just powered up the system.
“Maglev,” Katherine said. “We’ve got one in California.”
Like anyone who had played with magnets as a kid, Langdon was familiar with the repulsive effect that the same magnetic poles had on each other—a force strong enough, in this case, to levitate a platform and make it “hover” essentially friction-free.
“I don’t see any controls,” Katherine said. “I guess we just sit down?”
It was as good a guess as any, and Langdon took a seat beside her, both of them facing the right-hand side of the car. Within seconds, three low chimes echoed through the station, and the platform began moving forward, picking up speed.
With the exception of the electric hum, the motion was silent.
The rapid acceleration was startlingly smooth, and within seconds they were plunging into the opening of the tunnel, hurtling through the darkness in perfect silence except for the sound of air rushing past them.
The tram’s headlight illuminated only a small portion of the single track directly in front of the car. In the darkness, it felt as if they had accelerated to an alarming speed, and it was hard to gauge how far they had traveled.
Suddenly, Katherine grabbed Langdon’s arm and gasped, pointing down the tunnel ahead of them.
Langdon had just spotted it too. Dead ahead, on the one-lane track, a headlight was approaching—another transport hurtling toward them on a collision course.
Clearly, Langdon and Katherine were not supposed to have taken this tram.
“There’s got to be an emergency brake!” Katherine shouted, turning in her seat and scanning their surroundings.
Langdon wheeled in desperation to either side, looking for anywhere they could leap off, but concrete walls enveloped them tightly on both sides.
The blinding headlight was racing toward them, now only seconds from a head-on collision.
Langdon and Katherine grabbed hands and braced for impact, but suddenly their tram shifted smoothly to the left, while the oncoming tram shifted in the opposite direction, and the cars swooshed harmlessly past each other in a slightly wider section of tunnel.
An instant later, their car shifted back to center, and the tunnel narrowed again to a single lane.
Langdon exhaled, his heart still crashing in his chest. “It’s a passing loop,” he said, voice shaky. “Computer-timed.”
Katherine let out a deep sigh of relief and gave his hand a tight squeeze.
While the passing loop was an efficient way to avoid digging a two-lane tunnel, it had just brought Langdon closer to a near-death experience than he ever cared to be.
The tram sped on another ten seconds and then began decelerating again, gliding to a comfortable stop at an identical station, a deserted metal platform devoid of any signage.
Once they stepped off, the electronic hum disappeared, and the transport dropped an inch or two back into its dormant position.
“A two-tram system,” Katherine said, “which means we can’t be sure that whoever entered before us…is already gone.”
Langdon nodded. There’s always one car at either end.
His best guess was that they were now somewhere beneath the northern edge of Folimanka Park, abutting the deepest reaches of the sprawling 1950s bomb shelter.
Rather than an elevator door, this platform had an archway opening with no door. Langdon and Katherine stepped through and found their path blocked by an imposing security checkpoint—X-ray conveyer belt, body scanner, more biometrics, two guard desks—all of which were currently unmanned.
This place will be a fortress when it’s up and running, Langdon realized as they sidestepped through the body scanner and exited the checkpoint into a main hallway.
So far, Langdon had seen no signage anywhere to indicate this was a CIA facility. But as they arrived at a set of double glass doors, he saw a single word, in a small font, stenciled into the glass.
Confirmation.
Langdon reached for the doors, but they swung open automatically, the hallway beyond immediately illuminating.
The light in this hall was more of a soft glow than the blazing spotlights they had seen prior.
Two strips of muted floor lighting ran along the base of the corridor walls, stretching away from them in two parallel lines, reminiscent of an airport runway.
The immaculate flooring was black terrazzo tile and resembled a strip of polished basalt. The walls here were silver metal, most likely a chrome veneer, and glistened in the baseboard lighting. The air carried the scent of fresh paint, concrete, and cleaning supplies.
Walking briskly, Langdon and Katherine headed down the corridor, their footsteps echoing off the hard interior.
After about twenty yards, they paused at an intersection where a secondary hallway branched off to their right.
Tiled in a pale green, this hallway was completely dark, and Langdon could see only a few office doors before everything was black.
A sign read: Support .
Langdon’s gut told him that sorting through offices and files would be a waste of precious time. They needed hard evidence that showed what was going on in Threshold, and there was really only one way to do that.
We need to find the heart of the facility.
Conveniently, ahead of them on the black tile, Langdon saw a single word stenciled in bold letters: Operations.
As they moved down the long, straight hallway, floor lighting ahead continued to come on automatically. They came to an alcove, which contained an oversized metal door that bore a familiar symbol.
The caduceus? Langdon was surprised to find a medical symbol in a CIA facility, but there it was, prominently displayed.
Iconographically, he knew this symbol was frequently misused, as it was here.
The caduceus was actually the ancient symbol of Hermes, the Greek god of travel and commerce.
The more accurate symbol would have been the Rod of Asclepius—the staff of the Greek god of healing—a similar icon with no wings and only a single snake, rather than the caduceus double snake.
Embarrassingly, in 1902, the U.S. Army Medical Corps had mistakenly emblazoned the caduceus on their uniforms, and to this day the symbol was displayed in error by U.S. doctors and hospitals.
Katherine walked over and opened the door.
Langdon followed her through, into a suite of rooms that appeared to be a small hospital.
A medical examination room was equipped with advanced diagnostic and imaging equipment.
A narrow supply closet contained shelves stocked high with unopened medical supplies.
A private room contained two beds surrounded by more medical gear than Langdon had seen even in an intensive care unit.
Eerily, that room was marked Recovery .
Recovery from what?
As they pushed deeper into the suite, they came upon a small, ride-on forklift with a massive crate in its tongs. Katherine crouched down to read the labels on the crate. “NIRS,” she said. “Near-infrared spectroscopy. Advanced real-time imaging.”
“In a medical facility?” Langdon associated NIRS with astronomy.
“Neuroscientists use it to analyze brain activity by assessing oxygen saturation.” Katherine stood, a look of concern in her eyes. “I don’t understand…Why would the CIA build a secret hospital under Folimanka Park?”
Langdon was wondering the same thing as he walked over to a set of swinging doors and cautiously pushed them open a crack. There was only darkness within. He pushed a bit farther, and the lights inside blazed to life.
When he stepped through the doors, he found himself in a surgical scrub room. On the far wall, a plate-glass window offered a view of the adjoining chamber—a glistening white operating room. There, suspended ominously over a sleek surgical table, hung a device unlike anything Langdon had ever seen.
“I don’t know what that machine is…” he whispered as Katherine arrived behind him. “But it looks terrifying.”