standing in the right location. And while he was not yet sure why, he had the distinct sense that he was moments away from finding what he had come here seeking.
Agent Brüder stared blankly at the red velvet pantaloons and tunic in the display case before him and cursed under his breath. His SRS team had searched the entire costume gallery, and Langdon and Sienna Brooks were nowhere to be found.
Surveillance and Response Support, he thought angrily. Since when does a college professor elude SRS? Where the hell did they go!
“Every exit was sealed,” one of his men insisted. “The only possibility is that they are still in the gardens.”
While this seemed logical, Brüder had the sinking sensation that Langdon and Sienna Brooks had found some other way out.
“Get the drone back in the air,” Brüder snapped. “And tell the local authorities to widen the search area outside the walls.” Goddamn it!
As his men dashed off, Brüder grabbed his phone and called the person in charge. “It’s Brüder,” he said. “I’m afraid we’ve got a serious problem. A number of them actually.”
CHAPTER 36
The truth can be glimpsed only through the eyes of death.
Sienna repeated the words to herself as she continued to search every inch of Vasari’s brutal battle scene, hoping something might stand out.
She saw eyes of death everywhere.
Which ones are we looking for?!
She wondered if maybe the eyes of death were a reference to all the rotting corpses strewn across Europe by the Black Death.
At least that would explain the plague mask …
Out of the blue, a childhood nursery rhyme jumped into Sienna’s mind: Ring around the rosie. A pocketful of posies. Ashes, ashes. We all fall down.
She used to recite the poem as a schoolgirl in England until she heard that it derived from the Great Plague of London in 1665. Allegedly, a ring around the rosie was a reference to a rose-colored pustule on the skin that developed a ring around it and indicated that one was infected. Sufferers would carry a pocketful of posies in an effort to mask the smell of their own decaying bodies as well as the stench of the city itself, where hundreds of plague victims dropped dead daily, their bodies then cremated. Ashes, ashes. We all fall down.
“For the love of God,” Langdon blurted suddenly, wheeling around toward the opposite wall.
Sienna looked over. “What’s wrong?”
“That’s the name of a piece of art that was once on display here. For the Love of God.”
Bewildered, Sienna watched Langdon hurry across the room to a small glass door, which he tried to open. It was locked. He put his face to the glass, cupping his hands around his eyes and peering inside.
Whatever Langdon was looking for, Sienna hoped he spotted it in a hurry; the custodian had just reappeared, now with a look of deepening suspicion at the sight of Langdon sauntering off to snoop at a locked door.
Sienna waved cheerfully to the custodian, but the man glared at her for a long cold beat and then disappeared.
Lo Studiolo.
Positioned behind a glass door, directly opposite the hidden words cerca trova in the Hall of the Five Hundred, was nestled a tiny windowless chamber. Designed by Vasari as a secret study for Francesco I, the rectangular Studiolo rose to a rounded, barrel-vaulted ceiling, which gave those inside the feeling of being inside a giant treasure chest.
Fittingly, the interior glistened with objects of beauty. More than thirty rare paintings adorned the walls and ceiling, mounted so close to one another that they left virtually no empty wall space. The Fall of Icarus … An Allegory of Human Life … Nature Presenting Prometheus with Spectacular Gems …
As Langdon peered through the glass into the dazzling space beyond, he whispered to himself, “The eyes of death.”
Langdon had first been inside Lo Studiolo during a private secret passages tour of the palazzo a few years back and had been stunned to learn about the plethora of hidden doors, stairs, and passageways that honeycombed the palazzo, including several hidden behind paintings inside Lo Studiolo.
The secret passages, however, were not what had just sparked Langdon’s interest. Instead he had flashed on a bold piece of modern art that he had once seen on display here—For the Love of God—a controversial piece by Damien Hirst, which had caused an uproar when it was shown inside Vasari’s famed Studiolo.
A life-size cast of a human skull in solid platinum, its surface had been entirely covered with more than eight thousand glittering, pavé-set diamonds.