Inferno: A Novel (65 page)

“The bag has dissolved,” Brüder’s voice snapped loudly. “The contagion is in the water!”

A cold sweat gripped Dr. Sinskey as she raised her eyes and tried to process the sprawling underground world now spread out before her. Through the reddish haze, she saw a vast expanse of water from which sprang hundreds of columns. Most of all, however, she saw people.

Hundreds of people.

Sinskey stared out at the unsuspecting crowd, all of them confined in Zobrist’s underground death trap. She reacted on instinct. “Agent Brüder, come up at once. We’ll begin evacuating people immediately.”

Brüder’s reply was instantaneous. “Absolutely not! Seal the doors! Nobody gets out of here!”

As director of the World Health Organization, Elizabeth Sinskey was accustomed to having her orders followed without question. For an instant, she thought she had misunderstood the lead SRS agent’s words.
Seal the doors?!

“Dr. Sinskey!” Brüder shouted over the music. “Do you read me?! Close the goddamn doors!”

Brüder repeated the command, but it was unnecessary. Sinskey knew he was correct. In the face of a possible pandemic, containment was the only viable option.

Sinskey reflexively reached up and gripped her lapis lazuli amulet.
Sacrifice the few to save the many
. With a hardening resolve, she raised the radio to her lips. “Confirmed, Agent Brüder. I’ll give the order to seal the doors.”

Sinskey was about to turn away from the horror of the cistern and give the command to seal the area when she sensed a sudden commotion in the crowd.

Not far away, a woman in a black burka was dashing toward her along a crowded boardwalk, knocking people out of the way as she ran. The veiled woman seemed to be headed directly for Sinskey and the exit.

She’s being chased
, Sinskey realized, spotting a man running behind her.

Then Sinskey froze.
That’s Langdon!

Sinskey’s eyes whipped back to the woman in the burka, who was approaching fast and now shouting something in Turkish to all the people on the boardwalk. Sinskey didn’t speak Turkish, but judging from the panicked reaction of the people, the woman’s words were the equivalent of shouting “Fire!” in a crowded theater.

A ripple of panic swept through the crowd, and suddenly it was not only the veiled woman and Langdon who were dashing for the stairs. Everyone was.

Sinskey turned her back to the oncoming stampede and began shouting desperately up the stairs to her team.

“Lock the doors!” Sinskey screamed. “Seal the cistern! NOW!”

By the time Langdon skidded around the corner into the stairwell, Sinskey was halfway up the stairs, clambering toward the surface, shouting wildly to close the doors. Sienna Brooks was close on her heels, struggling with her heavy, wet burka as she lumbered up the stairs.

Bounding after them, Langdon could feel a tidal wave of terrified concertgoers surging up behind him.

“Seal the exit!” Sinskey shouted again.

Langdon’s long legs carried him three steps at a time, gaining fast on Sienna. Above, he could see the cistern’s heavy double doors begin to swing inward.

Too slow
.

Sienna overtook Sinskey, grabbing her shoulder and using it as leverage to launch past her, clambering wildly over her toward the exit. Sinskey stumbled forward onto her knees, her beloved amulet hitting the cement stairs and breaking in half.

Langdon fought the instinct to stop and help the fallen woman, but instead, he hurtled past her, sprinting toward the top landing.

Sienna was only a few feet away now, almost within reach, but she had attained the landing, and the doors were not closing fast enough. Without breaking stride, Sienna deftly angled her slender body and leaped sideways through the narrow opening.

She was halfway through the doors when her burka snagged on a latch, halting her in her tracks, wedged in the middle of the doorway, mere inches from freedom. As she writhed to escape, Langdon’s hand shot out and seized a clump of her burka. He held fast, pulling back, trying to reel her in, but she wriggled frantically and suddenly Langdon was holding only a wet clump of fabric.

The doors slammed onto the fabric, barely missing Langdon’s hands. The wadded cloth was now pinched in the doorway, making it impossible for the men outside to push the doors all the way closed.

Through the narrow slit, Langdon could see Sienna Brooks sprinting across a busy street, her bald head shining in the streetlights. She was wearing the same sweater and blue jeans she had been wearing all day, and Langdon suddenly felt a fiery, upwelling sense of betrayal.

The feeling lasted only an instant. A sudden, crushing weight rammed Langdon hard against the door.

The stampede had arrived behind him.

The stairwell echoed with shouts of terror and confusion as the sounds of the symphony orchestra deteriorated into a confused cacophony below. Langdon could feel the pressure on his back increasing as the bottleneck thickened. His rib cage began to compress painfully against the door.

Then the doors exploded outward, and Langdon was launched into the night like a cork from a bottle of champagne. He stumbled across the sidewalk, nearly falling into the street. Behind him, a stream of humanity was flowing up out of the earth like ants escaping from a poisoned anthill.

The SRS agents, hearing the sounds of chaos, now emerged from behind the building. Their appearance in full hazmat gear and respirators immediately amplified the panic.

Langdon turned away and peered across the street after Sienna. All he could see was traffic and lights and confusion.

Then, for a fleeting instant, down the street to his left, the pale flash of a bald head shone in the night, darting along a crowded sidewalk and disappearing around a corner.

Langdon shot a desperate glance behind him, searching for Sinskey, or the police, or an SRS agent who was not wearing a bulky hazmat suit.

Nothing.

Langdon knew he was on his own.

Without hesitation, he sprinted after Sienna.

Far below, in the deepest recesses of the cistern, Agent Brüder stood all alone in the waist-deep water. The sounds of pandemonium echoed through the darkness as frenzied tourists and musicians shoved their way toward the exit and disappeared up the stairs.

The doors were never sealed
, Brüder realized to his horror.
Containment has failed
.

Robert Langdon was not a runner, but years of swimming made for powerful legs, and his stride was long. He reached the corner in a matter of seconds and rounded it, finding himself on a wider avenue. His eyes urgently scanned the sidewalks.

She’s got to be here!

The rain had stopped, and from this corner, Langdon could clearly see the entire well-lit street. There was nowhere to hide.

And yet Sienna seemed to have vanished.

Langdon came to a stop, hands on his hips, panting as he surveyed the rain-soaked street before him. The only movement he saw was fifty yards ahead, where one of Istanbul’s modern
otobüs
es was pulling away from the curb and powering up the avenue.

Did Sienna jump on a city bus?

It seemed far too risky. Would she really trap herself on a bus when she knew everyone would be looking for her? Then again, if she believed nobody had seen her round the corner, and if the bus had been just pulling away by chance, offering a perfectly timed opportunity …

Maybe
.

Affixed to the top of the bus was a destination sign—a programmable matrix of lights displaying a single word:
GALATA
.

Langdon rushed up the street toward an elderly man who was standing outside a restaurant under an awning. He was nicely dressed in an embroidered tunic and a white turban.

“Excuse me,” Langdon said breathless, arriving before him. “Do you speak English?”

“Of course,” the man said, looking unnerved by the urgency of Langdon’s tone.

“
Galata?!
That’s a place?”

“Galata?” the man replied. “Galata Bridge? Galata Tower? Galata-port?”

Langdon pointed to the departing
otobüs
. “Galata! Where is the bus going!”

The man in the turban looked after the departing bus and considered it a moment. “Galata Bridge,” he replied. “It departs the old city and crosses the waterway.”

Langdon groaned, his eyes making another frantic pass of the street but seeing no hint of Sienna. Sirens blared everywhere now, as emergency response vehicles tore past them in the direction of the cistern.

“What’s happening?” the man demanded, looking alarmed. “Is everything okay?”

Langdon took another look at the departing bus and knew it was a gamble, but he had no other choice.

“No, sir,” Langdon replied. “There’s an emergency, and I need your help.” He motioned to the curb, where a valet had just delivered a slick, silver Bentley. “Is that your car?”

“It is, but—”

“I need a ride,” Langdon said. “I know we’ve never met, but something catastrophic is happening. It’s a matter of life and death.”

The turbaned man stared into the professor’s eyes a long moment, as if searching his soul. Finally he nodded. “Then you’d better get in.”

As the Bentley roared away from the curb, Langdon found himself gripping his seat. The man was clearly an experienced driver and seemed to enjoy the challenge of weaving in and out of traffic, playing catch-up with the bus.

It took him less than three blocks to position his Bentley directly behind the
otobüs
. Langdon leaned forward in his seat, squinting at the rear window. The interior lights were dim, and the only things Langdon could make out were the vague silhouettes of the passengers.

“Stay with the bus, please,” Langdon said. “And do you have a phone?”

The man produced a cell phone from his pocket and handed it to his passenger, who thanked him profusely before realizing that he had no idea whom to call. He had no contact numbers for Sinskey or Brüder, and calling the WHO’s offices in Switzerland could take forever.

“How do I reach the local police?” Langdon asked.

“One-five-five,” the man replied. “Anywhere in Istanbul.”

Langdon dialed the three numbers and waited. The line seemed to ring forever. Finally a recorded voice answered, conveying both in Turkish and English that due to high call volume, he would need to hold. Langdon wondered if the reason for the call volume was the crisis at the cistern.

The sunken palace was now probably in a state of total pandemonium. He pictured Brüder wading out in the lagoon and wondered what he had discovered out there. Langdon had a sinking feeling he already knew.

Sienna had gotten into the water before him
.

Up ahead, the bus’s brake lights flashed, and the transport pulled over to a curbside bus stop. The Bentley’s driver pulled over as well, idling about fifty feet behind the bus, providing Langdon a perfect view of the passengers getting on and off. Only three people disembarked—all of them men—and yet Langdon studied each carefully, fully aware of Sienna’s skills for disguise.

His eyes shifted again to the rear window. It was tinted, but the lights inside were now fully illuminated, and Langdon could see the people on board more clearly. He leaned forward, craning his neck, holding his face close to the Bentley’s windshield as he searched for Sienna.

Please don’t tell me I gambled wrong!

Then he saw her.

In the rearmost part of the vehicle, facing away from him, a pair of slender shoulders sloped up to the back of a shaved head.

It could only be Sienna
.

As the bus accelerated, the interior lights faded once more. In the fleeting second before it disappeared into darkness, the head turned backward, glancing out the rear window.

Langdon lowered himself down in the seat, into the shadows of the Bentley.
Did she see me?
His turbaned driver was already pulling out again, tailing the bus.

The road was descending toward the water now, and up ahead Langdon could see the lights of a low-slung bridge that stretched out over the water. The bridge looked completely deadlocked with traffic. In fact, the entire area near its entrance looked congested.