Zobrist abandoned Sienna?
“Sienna tried to contact me for information,” the provost said, “but I refused to take her calls. I had to respect my client’s wishes.”
“Two weeks ago,” Sinskey continued, “Zobrist walked into a bank in Florence and anonymously rented a safe-deposit box. After he left, our watch list got word that the bank’s new facial-recognition software had identified the disguised man as Bertrand Zobrist. My team flew to Florence and it took a week to locate his safe house, which was empty, but inside we found evidence that he had created some kind of highly contagious pathogen and hidden it somewhere else.”
Sinskey paused. “We were desperate to find him. The following morning, before sunrise, we spotted him walking along the Arno, and we immediately gave chase. That’s when he fled up the Badia tower and jumped to his death.”
“He may have been planning to do that anyway,” the provost added. “He was convinced he did not have long to live.”
“As it turned out,” Sinskey said, “Sienna had been searching for him as well. Somehow, she found out that we had mobilized to Florence, and she tailed our movements, thinking we might have located him. Unfortunately, she was there in time to see Zobrist jump.” Sinskey sighed. “I suspect it was very traumatic for her to watch her lover and mentor fall to his death.”
Langdon felt ill, barely able to comprehend what they were telling him. The only person in this entire scenario whom he trusted was Sienna, and these people were telling him that she was not who she claimed to be? No matter what they said, he could not believe Sienna would condone Zobrist’s desire to create a plague.
Or would she?
Would you kill half the population today, Sienna had asked him, in order to save our species from extinction?
Langdon felt a chill.
“Once Zobrist was dead,” Sinskey explained, “I used my influence to force the bank to open Zobrist’s safe-deposit box, which ironically turned out to contain a letter to me … along with a strange little device.”
“The projector,” Langdon ventured.
“Exactly. His letter said he wanted me to be the first to visit ground zero, which nobody would ever find without following his Map of Hell.”
Langdon pictured the modified Botticelli painting that shone out of the tiny projector.
The provost added, “Zobrist had contracted me to deliver to Dr. Sinskey the contents of the safe-deposit box, but not until after tomorrow morning. When Dr. Sinskey came into possession of it early, we panicked and took action, trying to recover it in accordance with our client’s wishes.”
Sinskey looked at Langdon. “I didn’t have much hope of understanding the map in time, so I recruited you to help me. Are you remembering any of this, now?”
Langdon shook his head.
“We flew you quietly to Florence, where you had made an appointment with someone you thought could help.”
Ignazio Busoni.
“You met with him last night,” Sinskey said, “and then you disappeared. We thought something had happened to you.”
“And in fact,” the provost said, “something did happen to you. In an effort to recover the projector, we had an agent of mine named Vayentha tail you from the airport. She lost you somewhere around the Piazza della Signoria.” He scowled. “Losing you was a critical error. And Vayentha had the nerve to blame it on a bird.”
“I’m sorry?”
“A cooing dove. By Vayentha’s account, she was in perfect position, watching you from a darkened alcove, when a group of tourists passed. She said a dove suddenly cooed loudly from a window box over her head, causing the tourists to stop and block Vayentha in. By the time she could slip back into the alley, you were gone.” He shook his head in disgust. “Anyway, she lost you for several hours. Finally, she picked up your trail again—and by this time you had been joined by another man.”
Ignazio, Langdon thought. He and I must have been exiting the Palazzo Vecchio with the mask.
“She successfully tailed you both in the direction of the Piazza della Signoria, but the two of you apparently saw her and decided to flee, going in separate directions.”
That makes sense, Langdon thought. Ignazio fled with the mask and hid it in the baptistry before he had a heart attack.
“Then Vayentha made a terrible mistake,” the provost said.
“She shot me in the head?”
“No, she revealed herself too early. She pulled you in for interrogation before you actually knew anything. We needed to know if you had deciphered the map or told Dr. Sinskey what she needed to know. You refused to say a word. You said you would die first.”
I was looking for a deadly plague! I probably thought you were mercenaries looking to obtain a biological weapon!
The ship’s massive engines suddenly shifted into reverse, slowing the vessel as it neared the loading dock for the airport. In the distance, Langdon could see the nondescript hull of a C-130 transport plane fueling. The fuselage bore the inscription WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION.
At that moment Brüder arrived, his expression grim. “I’ve just learned that the only qualified response team within five hours of the site is us, which means we’re on our own.”
Sinskey slumped. “Coordination with local authorities?”
Brüder looked wary. “Not yet. That’s my recommendation. We don’t have an exact location at the moment, so there’s nothing they could do. Moreover, a containment operation is well beyond the scope of their expertise, and we run the real risk of their doing more damage than good.”