The original entrance inside the palace had been sealed for many years.
“And are there any other hidden exits from the Boboli Gardens? Other than the traditional gates?”
“No, signore. Big walls everywhere. This only secret exit.”
The soldier nodded. “Thank you for your help.” He motioned for Ernesto to close and lock the door.
Puzzled, Ernesto obeyed. Then he headed back up the corridor, unlocked the steel grate, moved through it, relocked it behind him, and returned to his football match.
CHAPTER 30
Langdon and Sienna had seized an opportunity.
While the muscular soldier was pounding on the door, they had crawled deeper into the grotto and were now huddled in the final chamber. The tiny space was adorned with rough-hewn mosaics and satyrs. At its center stood a life-size sculpture of a Bathing Venus, who, fittingly, seemed to be glancing nervously over her shoulder.
Langdon and Sienna had ensconced themselves on the far side of the statue’s narrow plinth, where they now waited, staring back at the single globular stalagmite that climbed the deepest wall of the grotto.
“All exits confirmed secure!” shouted a soldier somewhere outside. He was speaking English with a faint accent that Langdon couldn’t place. “Send the drone back up. I’ll check this cave here.”
Langdon could feel Sienna’s body tighten beside him.
Seconds later, heavy boots were padding into the grotto. The footsteps advanced quickly through the first chamber, growing louder still as they entered the second chamber, coming directly toward them.
Langdon and Sienna huddled closer.
“Hey!” a different voice shouted in the distance. “We’ve got them!”
The footsteps stopped short.
Langdon could now hear someone running loudly down the gravel walkway toward the grotto. “Positive ID!” the breathless voice declared. “We just spoke to a couple of tourists. A few minutes ago, the man and the woman asked them directions to the palace’s costume gallery … which is over at the west end of the palazzo.”
Langdon glanced at Sienna, who seemed to be smiling ever so faintly.
The soldier regained his breath, continuing. “The western exits were the first to be sealed … and confidence is high that we’ve got them trapped inside the gardens.”
“Execute your mission,” the nearer soldier replied. “And call me the instant you’ve succeeded.”
There was a flurry of departing footsteps on gravel, the sound of the drone lifting off again, and then, thankfully … total silence.
Langdon was about to twist sideways in order to peer around the plinth, when Sienna grabbed his arm, stopping him. She held a finger to her lips and nodded at a faint humanoid shadow on the rear wall. The lead soldier was still standing silently in the mouth of the grotto.
What is he waiting for?!
“It’s Brüder,” he said suddenly. “We’ve got them cornered. I should have confirmation for you shortly.”
The man had placed a phone call, and his voice sounded unnervingly close, as if he were standing right beside them. The cavern was acting like a parabolic microphone, collecting all the sound and focusing it at the rear.
“There’s more,” Brüder said. “I just received an update from forensics. The woman’s apartment appears to be a sublet. Underfurnished. Clearly short term. We located the biotube, but the projector was not present. I repeat, the projector was not present. We assume it’s still in Langdon’s possession.”
Langdon felt a chill to hear the soldier speak his own name.
The footsteps grew louder, and Langdon realized that the man was moving into the grotto. His gait lacked the intensity of a few moments before and sounded now as if he were simply wandering, exploring the grotto as he talked on the phone.
“Correct,” the man said. “Forensics also confirmed a single outbound call shortly before we stormed the apartment.”
The U.S. Consulate, Langdon thought, remembering his phone conversation and the quick arrival of the spike-haired assassin. The woman seemed to have disappeared, replaced by an entire team of trained soldiers.
We can’t outrun them forever.
The sound of the soldier’s boots on the stone floor was now only about twenty feet away and closing. The man had entered the second chamber, and if he continued to the end, he would certainly spot the two of them crouched behind Venus’s narrow base.
“Sienna Brooks,” the man declared suddenly, the words crystal clear.
Sienna startled beside Langdon, her eyes reeling upward, clearly expecting to see the soldier staring down at her. But nobody was there.
“They’re going through her laptop now,” the voice continued, about ten feet away. “I don’t have a report yet, but it is definitely the same machine we traced when Langdon accessed his Harvard e-mail account.”