Still looking averse to the plan, Anderson extracted his sidearm very, very slowly, gazing down at it with uncertainty.
"Oh, for God's sake!" Sato's tiny hands shot out, and she grabbed the weapon from him. She stuffed the flashlight into his now empty palm. "Shine the damned light." She handled the gun with the confidence of someone who had trained with weapons, wasting no time turning off the pistol's safety, cocking the weapon, and aiming at the lock.
"Wait!" Langdon yelled, but he was too late.
The gun roared three times.
Langdon's eardrums felt like they had exploded. Is she insane?! The gunshots in the tiny space had been deafening.
Anderson also looked shaken, his hand wavering a bit as he shone the flashlight on the bullet- riddled door.
The lock mechanism was now in tatters, the wood surrounding it entirely pulverized. The lock had released, the door now having fallen ajar.
Sato extended the pistol and pressed the tip of the barrel against the door, giving it a push. The door swung fully into the blackness beyond.
Langdon peered in but could see nothing in the darkness. What in the world is that smell? An unusual, fetid odor wafted out of the darkness.
Anderson stepped into the doorway and shone the light on the floor, tracing carefully down the length of the barren dirt floor. This room was like the others--a long, narrow space. The sidewalls were rugged stone, giving the room the feel of an ancient prison cell. But that smell . . . "There's nothing here," Anderson said, moving the beam farther down the chamber floor. Finally, as the beam reached the end of the floor, he raised it up to illuminate the chamber's farthest wall.
"My God . . . !" Anderson shouted.
Everyone saw it and jumped back.
Langdon stared in disbelief at the deepest recess of the chamber.
To his horror, something was staring back.
CHAPTER 36
"What in God's name . . . ?" At the threshold of SBB13, Anderson fumbled with his light and retreated a step.
Langdon also recoiled, as did Sato, who looked startled for the first time all night.
Sato aimed the gun at the back wall and motioned for Anderson to shine the light again. Anderson raised the light. The beam was dim by the time it reached the far wall, but the light was enough to illuminate the shape of a pallid and ghostly face, staring back at them through lifeless sockets.
A human skull.
The skull sat atop a rickety wooden desk positioned against the rear wall of the chamber. Two human leg bones sat beside the skull, along with a collection of other items that were meticulously arranged on the desk in shrinelike fashion--an antique hourglass, a crystal flask, a candle, two saucers of pale powder, and a sheet of paper. Propped against the wall beside the desk stood the fearsome shape of a long scythe, its curved blade as familiar as that of the grim reaper.
Sato stepped into the room. "Well, now . . . it appears Peter Solomon keeps more secrets than I imagined."
Anderson nodded, inching after her. "Talk about skeletons in your closet." He raised the light and surveyed the rest of the empty chamber. "And that smell?" he added, crinkling his nose. "What is it?" "Sulfur," Langdon replied evenly behind them. "There should be two saucers on the desk. The saucer on the right will contain salt. And the other sulfur."
Sato wheeled in disbelief. "How the hell would you know that?!"
"Because, ma'am, there are rooms exactly like this all over the world."
One story above the subbasement, Capitol security guard Nunez escorted the Architect of the Capitol, Warren Bellamy, down the long hallway that ran the length of the eastern basement. Nunez could have sworn that he had just heard three gunshots down here, muffled and underground.
There's no way.
"Subbasement door is open," Bellamy said, squinting down the hallway at a door that stood ajar in the distance.
Strange evening indeed, Nunez thought. Nobody goes down there. "I'll be glad to find out what's going on," he said, reaching for his radio.
"Go back to your duties," Bellamy said. "I'm fine from here."
Nunez shifted uneasily. "You sure?"
Warren Bellamy stopped, placing a firm hand on Nunez's shoulder. "Son, I've worked here for twenty-five years. I think I can find my way."
CHAPTER 37
Mal'akh had seen some eerie spaces in his life, but few rivaled the unearthly world of Pod 3. Wet Pod. The massive room looked as if a mad scientist had taken over a Walmart and packed every aisle and shelf with specimen jars of all shapes and sizes. Lit like a photographic darkroom, the space was bathed in a reddish haze of "safelight" that emanated from beneath the shelves, filtering upward and illuminating the ethanol-filled containers. The clinical smell of preservative chemicals was nauseating.
"This pod houses over twenty thousand species," the chubby girl was saying. "Fish, rodents, mammals, reptiles." "All dead, I hope?" Mal'akh asked, making a show of sounding nervous.
The girl laughed. "Yes, yes. All very much dead. I'll admit, I didn't dare come in for at least six months after I started work."
Mal'akh could understand why. Everywhere he looked there were specimen jars of dead life- forms--salamanders, jellyfish, rats, bugs, birds, and other things he could not begin to identify. As if this collection were not unsettling enough on its own, the hazy red safelights that protected these photosensitive specimens from long-term light exposure gave the visitor the feeling he was standing inside a giant aquarium, where lifeless creatures were somehow congregating to watch from the shadows.
"That's a coelacanth," the girl said, pointing to a big Plexiglas container that held the ugliest fish Mal'akh had ever seen. "They were thought to be extinct with the dinosaurs, but this was caught off Africa a few years back and donated to the Smithsonian."
Lucky you, Mal'akh thought, barely listening. He was busy scanning the walls for security cameras. He saw only one--trained on the entry door--not surprising, considering that entrance was probably the only way in.
"And here is what you wanted to see . . ." she said, leading him to the giant tank he had seen from the window. "Our longest specimen." She swept her arm out over the vile creature like a game-show host displaying a new car. "Architeuthis."
The squid tank looked like a series of glass phone booths had been laid on their sides and fused end to end. Within the long, clear Plexiglas coffin hovered a sickeningly pale and amorphous shape. Mal'akh gazed down at the bulbous, saclike head and its basketball-size eyes. "Almost makes your coelacanth look handsome," he said.
"Wait till you see her lit."
Trish flipped back the long lid of the tank. Ethanol fumes wafted out as she reached down into the tank and flipped a switch just above the liquid line. A string of fluorescent lights flickered to life along the entire base of the tank. Architeuthis was now shining in all her glory--a colossal head attached to a slithery mass of decaying tentacles and razor-sharp suckers.
She began talking about how Architeuthis could beat a sperm whale in a fight.
Mal'akh heard only empty prattling.
The time had come.
Trish Dunne always felt a bit uneasy in Pod 3, but the chill that had just run through her felt different.
Visceral. Primal. She tried to ignore it, but it grew quickly now, clawing deeply at her. Although Trish could not seem to place the source of her anxiety, her gut was clearly telling her it was time to leave.
"Anyhow, that's the squid," she said, reaching into the tank and turning off the display light. "We should probably get back to Katherine's--"