Today, however, Langdon was more interested in hurrying past the Apotheosis than in studying it. As he hastened his pace, he turned his head ever so slightly to whisper back to Sienna that they were nearly there.
As he did so, his right foot missed the center of the plank and his borrowed loafer landed half off the edge. His ankle rolled, and Langdon lurched forward, half stumbling, half running, trying to make a quick stutter step to regain his balance.
But it was too late.
His knees hit the plank hard, and his hands strained desperately forward, trying to reach the crossing strut. The flashlight went clattering into the dark space beneath them, landing on the canvas, which caught it like a net. Langdon’s legs pumped, barely propelling him to safety on the next strut as the plank fell away beneath him, landing with a crash eight feet below on the wooden lacunar surrounding the canvas of Vasari’s Apotheosis.
The sound echoed through the garret.
Horrified, Langdon scrambled to his feet and turned back toward Sienna.
In the dim glow of the abandoned flashlight, which lay on the canvas below, Langdon could see that Sienna was standing on the strut behind him, now trapped, with no way across. Her eyes conveyed what Langdon already knew. The noise of the falling plank had almost certainly given them away.
Vayentha’s eyes bolted upward to the ornate ceiling.
“Rats in the attic?” the man with the camcorder joked nervously as the sound reverberated down.
Big rats, Vayentha thought, gazing up at the circular painting in the center of the hall’s ceiling. A small cloud of dust was now filtering down from between the lacunars, and Vayentha could swear she saw a slight bulge in the canvas … almost as if someone were pushing on it from the other side.
“Maybe one of the officers dropped his gun off the viewing platform,” the man said, eyeing the lump in the painting. “What do you think they’re looking for? All this activity is very exciting.”
“A viewing platform?” Vayentha demanded. “People can actually go up there?”
“Sure.” He motioned to the museum entrance. “Just inside that door is a door that leads up to a catwalk in the attic. You can see Vasari’s truss work. It’s incredible.”
Brüder’s voice suddenly echoed again across the Hall of the Five Hundred. “So where the hell did they go?!”
His words, like his anguished yell a little earlier, had emanated from behind a lattice grate positioned high on the wall to Vayentha’s left. Brüder was apparently in a room behind the grate … a full story beneath the room’s ornate ceiling.
Vayentha’s eyes climbed again to the bulge in the canvas overhead.
Rats in the attic, she thought. Trying to find a way out.
She thanked the man with the camcorder and drifted quickly toward the museum entrance. The door was closed, but with all the officers running in and out, she suspected that it was unlocked.
Sure enough, her instincts were correct.
CHAPTER 47
Outside in the piazza, amid the chaos of arriving police, a middle-aged man stood in the shadows of the Loggia dei Lanzi, where he had been observing the activity with great interest. The man wore Plume Paris spectacles, a paisley necktie, and a tiny gold stud in one ear.
As he watched the commotion, he caught himself scratching at his neck again. The man had developed a rash overnight, which seemed to be getting worse, manifesting in small pustules on his jawline, neck, cheeks, and over his eyes.
When he glanced down at his fingernails, he saw they were bloody. He took out his handkerchief and wiped his fingers, also dabbing the bloody pustules on his neck and cheeks.
When he had cleaned himself up, he returned his gaze to the two black vans parked outside the palazzo. The closest van contained two people in the backseat.
One was an armed soldier in black.
The other was an older, but very beautiful silver-haired woman wearing a blue amulet.
The soldier looked as if he were preparing a hypodermic syringe.
Inside the van, Dr. Elizabeth Sinskey gazed absently out at the palazzo, wondering about how this crisis had deteriorated to such an extent.
“Ma’am,” a deep voice said beside her.
She turned groggily to the soldier accompanying her. He was gripping her forearm and holding up a syringe. “Just be still.”
The sharp stab of a needle pierced her flesh.
The soldier completed the injection. “Now go back to sleep.”
As she closed her eyes, she could have sworn she saw a man studying her from the shadows. He wore designer glasses and a preppie necktie. His face was rashy and red. For a moment she thought she knew him, but when she opened her eyes for another look, the man had disappeared.
CHAPTER 48
In the darkness of the garret, Langdon and Sienna were now separated by a twenty-foot expanse of open air. Eight feet beneath them, the fallen plank had come to rest across the wooden framing that supported the canvas bearing Vasari’s Apotheosis. The large flashlight, still glowing, was resting on the canvas itself, creating a small indentation, like a stone on a trampoline.
“The plank behind you,” Langdon whispered. “Can you drag it across to reach this strut?”
Sienna eyed the plank. “Not without the other end falling into the canvas.”
Langdon had feared as much; the last thing they needed now was to send a two-by-six crashing through a Vasari canvas.
“I’ve got an idea,” Sienna said, now moving sideways along the strut, heading for the sidewall. Langdon followed on his beam, the footing becoming more treacherous with each step as they ventured away from the flashlight beam. By the time they reached the sidewall, they were almost entirely in darkness.