The plague mask.
“Is there a plague doctor in Botticelli’s original?” Sienna asked.
“Absolutely not. That figure has been added.”
“And did Botticelli sign his original?”
Langdon couldn’t recall, but as his eyes moved to the lower right-hand corner where a signature normally would be, he realized why she had asked. There was no signature, and yet barely visible along La Mappa’s dark brown border was a line of text in tiny block letters: la verità è visibile solo attraverso gli occhi della morte.
Langdon knew enough Italian to understand the gist. “ ‘The truth can be glimpsed only through the eyes of death.’ ”
Sienna nodded. “Bizarre.”
The two of them stood in silence as the morbid image before them slowly began to fade. Dante’s Inferno, Langdon thought. Inspiring foreboding pieces of art since 1330.
Langdon’s course on Dante always included an entire section on the illustrious artwork inspired by the Inferno. In addition to Botticelli’s celebrated Map of Hell, there was Rodin’s timeless sculpture of The Three Shades from The Gates of Hell … Stradanus’s illustration of Phlegyas paddling through submerged bodies on the river Styx … William Blake’s lustful sinners swirling through an eternal tempest … Bouguereau’s strangely erotic vision of Dante and Virgil watching two nude men locked in battle … Bayros’s tortured souls huddling beneath a hail-like torrent of scalding pellets and droplets of fire … Salvador Dalí’s eccentric series of watercolors and woodcuts … and Doré’s huge collection of black-and-white etchings depicting everything from the tunneled entrance to Hades … to winged Satan himself.
Now it seemed that Dante’s poetic vision of hell had not only influenced the most revered artists throughout history. It had also, apparently, inspired yet another individual—a twisted soul who had digitally altered Botticelli’s famous painting, adding ten letters, a plague doctor, and then signing it with an ominous phrase about seeing the truth through the eyes of death. This artist had then stored the image on a high-tech projector sheathed in a freakishly carved bone.
Langdon couldn’t imagine who would have created such an artifact, and yet, at the moment, this issue seemed secondary to a far more unnerving question.
Why the hell am I carrying it?
As Sienna stood with Langdon in the kitchen and pondered her next move, the unexpected roar of a high-horsepower engine echoed up from the street below. It was followed by a staccato burst of screeching tires and car doors slamming.
Puzzled, Sienna hurried to the window and peered outside.
A black, unmarked van had skidded to a stop in the street below. Out of the van flowed a team of men, all dressed in black uniforms with circular green medallions on their left shoulders. They gripped automatic rifles and moved with fierce, military efficiency. Without hesitation, four soldiers dashed toward the entrance of the apartment building.
Sienna felt her blood go cold. “Robert!” she shouted. “I don’t know who they are, but they found us!”
Down in the street, Agent Christoph Brüder shouted orders to his men as they rushed into the building. He was a powerfully built man whose military background had imbued him with an emotionless sense of duty and respect for the command chain. He knew his mission, and he knew the stakes.
The organization for whom he worked contained many divisions, but Brüder’s division—Surveillance and Response Support—was summoned only when a situation reached “crisis” status.
As his men disappeared into the apartment building, Brüder stood watch at the front door, pulling out his comm device and contacting the person in charge.
“It’s Brüder,” he said. “We’ve successfully tracked Langdon through his computer IP address. My team is moving in. I’ll alert you when we have him.”
High above Brüder, on the rooftop terrace of Pensione la Fiorentina, Vayentha stared down in horrified disbelief at the agents dashing into the apartment building.
What the hell are THEY doing here?!
She ran a hand through her spiked hair, suddenly grasping the dire consequences of her botched assignment last night. With the single coo of a dove, everything had spiraled wildly out of control. What had begun as a simple mission … had now turned into a living nightmare.
If the SRS team is here, then it’s all over for me.
Vayentha desperately grabbed her Sectra Tiger XS communications device and called the provost.
“Sir,” she stammered. “The SRS team is here! Brüder’s men are swarming the apartment building across the street!”
She awaited a response, but when it came, she heard only sharp clicks on the line, then an electronic voice, which calmly stated, “Disavowal protocol commencing.”
Vayentha lowered the phone and looked at the screen just in time to see the comm device go dead.
As the blood drained from her face, Vayentha forced herself to accept what was happening. The Consortium had just severed all ties with her.
No links. No association.
I’ve been disavowed.
The shock lasted only an instant.
Then the fear set in.
CHAPTER 16
“Hurry, Robert!” Sienna urged. “Follow me!”
Langdon’s thoughts were still consumed by grim images of Dante’s underworld as he charged out the door into the hall of the apartment building. Until this instant, Sienna Brooks had managed the morning’s substantial stress with a kind of detached poise, but now her calm demeanor had grown taut with an emotion Langdon had yet to see in her—true fear.