Langdon’s jaw tightened as he watched the chopper streak off in the direction from which it had appeared—the Porta Romana and the Art Institute.
“I don’t know what you did,” Sienna said, “but some powerful people are clearly very eager to find you.”
The helicopter banked yet again and began a slow pass along the perimeter wall they had just jumped.
“Someone at the Art Institute must have seen us and said something,” Sienna said, heading down the path. “We’ve got to get out of here. Now.”
As the drone buzzed away toward the far end of the gardens, Langdon used his foot to erase the letters he’d written on the pathway and then hurried after Sienna. His mind swirled with thoughts of cerca trova, the Giorgio Vasari mural, as well as with Sienna’s revelation that Langdon must have already deciphered the projector’s message. Seek and ye shall find.
Suddenly, just as they entered a second glade, a startling thought hit Langdon. He skidded to a stop on the wooded path, a bemused look on his face.
Sienna stopped, too. “Robert? What is it?!”
“I’m innocent,” he declared.
“What are you talking about?”
“The people chasing me … I assumed it was because I had done something terrible.”
“Yes, at the hospital you kept repeating ‘very sorry.’ ”
“I know. But I thought I was speaking English.”
Sienna looked at him with surprise. “You were speaking English!”
Langdon’s blue eyes were now filled with excitement. “Sienna, when I kept saying ‘very sorry,’ I wasn’t apologizing. I was mumbling about the secret message in the mural at Palazzo Vecchio!” He could still hear the recording of his own delirious voice. Ve … sorry. Ve … sorry.
Sienna looked lost.
“Don’t you see?!” Langdon was grinning now. “I wasn’t saying ‘very sorry, very sorry.’ I was saying the artist’s name—Va … sari, Vasari!”
CHAPTER 24
Vayentha hit the brakes hard.
Her motorcycle fishtailed, screeching loudly as it left a long skid mark on the Viale del Poggio Imperiale, finally coming to an abrupt stop behind an unexpected line of traffic. The Viale del Poggio was at a standstill.
I don’t have time for this!
Vayentha craned her neck over the cars, trying to see what was causing the holdup. She had already been forced to drive in a wide circle to avoid the SRS team and all the chaos at the apartment building, and now she needed to get into the old city to clear out of the hotel room where she had been stationed for the last few days of this mission.
I’ve been disavowed—I need to get the hell out of town!
Her string of bad luck, however, seemed to be continuing. The route she had selected into the old city appeared to be blocked. In no mood to wait, Vayentha revved the bike off to one side of the traffic and sped along the narrow breakdown lane until she could see the snarled intersection. Up ahead was a clogged rotary where six major thoroughfares converged. This was the Porta Romana—one of Florence’s most trafficked intersections—the gateway to the old city.
What the hell is going on here?!
Vayentha now saw that the entire area was swarming with police—a roadblock or checkpoint of some sort. Moments later, she spotted something at the center of the action that left her baffled—a familiar black van around which several black-clad agents were calling out orders to the local authorities.
These men, without a doubt, were members of the SRS team, and yet Vayentha could not imagine what they were doing here.
Unless …
Vayentha swallowed hard, scarcely daring to imagine the possibility. Has Langdon eluded Brüder as well? It seemed unthinkable; the chances of escape had been near zero. Then again, Langdon was not working alone, and Vayentha had experienced firsthand how resourceful the blond woman could be.
Nearby, a police officer appeared, walking from car to car, showing a photo of a handsome man with thick brown hair. Vayentha instantly recognized the photo as a press shot of Robert Langdon. Her heart soared.
Brüder missed him …
Langdon is still in play!
An experienced strategist, Vayentha immediately began assessing how this development changed her situation.
Option one—flee as required.
Vayentha had blown a critical job for the provost and had been disavowed because of it. If she were lucky, she would face a formal inquiry and probable career termination. If, however, she were unlucky and had underestimated the severity of her employer, she might spend the rest of her life looking over her shoulder and wondering if the Consortium was lurking just out of sight.