Physicist Leonardo Vetra smelled burning flesh, and he knew it was his own.
He stared up in terror at the dark figure looming over him. “What do you
want!”
“La chiave,” the raspy voice replied. “The password.”
“But . . . I don’t—”
The intruder pressed down again, grinding the white hot object deeper into
Vetra’s chest. There was the hiss of broiling flesh.
Vetra cried out in agony. “There is no password!” He felt himself drifting
toward unconsciousness.
The figure glared. “Ne avevo paura. I was afraid of that.”
Vetra fought to keep his senses, but the darkness was closing in. His only
solace was in knowing his attacker would never obtain what he had come for.
A moment later, however, the figure produced a blade and brought it to Vetra’s
face. The blade hovered. Carefully. Surgically.
“For the love of God!” Vetra screamed. But it was too late.
High atop the steps of the Pyramid of Giza a young woman laughed and called
down to him. “Robert, hurry up! I knew I should have married a younger
man!” Her smile was magic.
He struggled to keep up, but his legs felt like stone. “Wait,” he begged.
“Please . . .”
As he climbed, his vision began to blur. There was a thundering in his ears. I
must reach her! But when he looked up again, the woman had disappeared. In
her place stood an old man with rotting teeth. The man stared down, curling
his lips into a lonely grimace. Then he let out a scream of anguish that
resounded across the desert.
Robert Langdon awoke with a start from his nightmare. The phone beside
his bed was ringing. Dazed, he picked up the receiver.
“Hello?”
“I’m looking for Robert Langdon,” a man’s voice said.
Langdon sat up in his empty bed and tried to clear his mind. “This . . . is
Robert Langdon.” He squinted at his digital clock. It was 5:18 A.M.
“I must see you immediately.”
“Who is this?”
“My name is Maximilian Kohler. I’m a discrete particle physicist.”
“A what?” Langdon could barely focus. “Are you sure you’ve got the right
Langdon?”
“You’re a professor of religious iconology at Harvard University. You’ve
written three books on symbology and—”
“Do you know what time it is?”
“I apologize. I have something you need to see. I can’t discuss it on the
phone.”
A knowing groan escaped Langdon’s lips. This had happened before. One of
the perils of writing books about religious symbology was the calls from
religious zealots who wanted him to confirm their latest sign from God. Last
month a stripper from Oklahoma had promised Langdon the best sex of his life
if he would fly down and verify the authenticity of a cruciform that had
magically appeared on her bed sheets. The Shroud of Tulsa, Langdon had called
it.
“How did you get my number?” Langdon tried to be polite, despite the hour.
“On the Worldwide Web. The site for your book.”
Langdon frowned. He was damn sure his book’s site did not include his
home phone number. The man was obviously lying.
“I need to see you,” the caller insisted. “I’ll pay you well.”
Now Langdon was getting mad. “I’m sorry, but I really—”
“If you leave immediately, you can be here by—”
“I’m not going anywhere! It’s five o’clock in the morning!” Langdon hung up
and collapsed back in bed. He closed his eyes and tried to fall back asleep. It
was no use. The dream was emblazoned in his mind. Reluctantly, he put on his
robe and went downstairs.
Robert Langdon wandered barefoot through his deserted Massachusetts
Victorian home and nursed his ritual insomnia remedy—a mug of steaming
Nestlé’s Quik. The April moon filtered through the bay windows and played
on the oriental carpets. Langdon’s colleagues often joked that his place looked
more like an anthropology museum than a home. His shelves were packed
with religious artifacts from around the world—an ekuaba from Ghana, a gold
cross from Spain, a cycladic idol from the Aegean, and even a rare woven
boccus from Borneo, a young warrior’s symbol of perpetual youth.
As Langdon sat on his brass Maharishi’s chest and savored the warmth of
the chocolate, the bay window caught his reflection. The image was distorted
and pale . . . like a ghost. An aging ghost, he thought, cruelly reminded that his
youthful spirit was living in a mortal shell.
Although not overly handsome in a classical sense, the forty-five-year-old
Langdon had what his female colleagues referred to as an “erudite” appeal—
wisps of gray in his thick brown hair, probing blue eyes, an arrestingly deep
voice, and the strong, carefree smile of a collegiate athlete. A varsity diver in
prep school and college, Langdon still had the body of a swimmer, a toned, six-
foot physique that he vigilantly maintained with fifty laps a day in the
university pool.
Langdon’s friends had always viewed him as a bit of an enigma—a man
caught between centuries. On weekends he could be seen lounging on the
quad in blue jeans, discussing computer graphics or religious history with
students; other times he could be spotted in his Harris tweed and paisley vest,
photographed in the pages of upscale art magazines at museum openings
where he had been asked to lecture.
Although a tough teacher and strict disciplinarian, Langdon was the first to
embrace what he hailed as the “lost art of good clean fun.” He relished
recreation with an infectious fanaticism that had earned him a fraternal
acceptance among his students. His campus nickname—“The Dolphin”—was
a reference both to his affable nature and his legendary ability to dive into a
pool and outmaneuver the entire opposing squad in a water polo match.
As Langdon sat alone, absently gazing into the darkness, the silence of his
home was shattered again, this time by the ring of his fax machine. Too
exhausted to be annoyed, Langdon forced a tired chuckle.
God’s people, he thought. Two thousand years of waiting for their Messiah, and
they’re still persistent as hell.
Wearily, he returned his empty mug to the kitchen and walked slowly to his
oak-paneled study. The incoming fax lay in the tray. Sighing, he scooped up the
paper and looked at it.
Instantly, a wave of nausea hit him.
The image on the page was that of a human corpse. The body had been
stripped naked, and its head had been twisted, facing completely backward.
On the victim’s chest was a terrible burn. The man had been branded . . .
imprinted with a single word. It was a word Langdon knew well. Very well.
He stared at the ornate lettering in disbelief.
