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.
“Down there,” Sienna whispered, pointing into the obscurity below them. “At the edge of the frame. It’s got to be mounted to the wall. It should hold me.”
Before Langdon could protest, Sienna was climbing down off the strut, using a series of supporting beams as a ladder. She eased herself down onto the edge of the wooden lacunar. It creaked once, but held. Then, inching along the wall, Sienna began moving in Langdon’s direction as if she were inching across the ledge of a high building. The lacunar creaked again.
Thin ice, Langdon thought. Stay near shore.
As Sienna reached the halfway point, approaching the strut on which he stood in the darkness, Langdon felt a sudden renewed hope that they might indeed get out of here in time.
Suddenly, somewhere in the darkness ahead, a door slammed and he heard fast-moving footsteps approaching along the walkway. The beam of a flashlight now appeared, sweeping the area, getting closer every second. Langdon felt his hopes sink. Someone was coming their way—moving along the main walkway and cutting off their escape route.
“Sienna, keep going,” he whispered, reacting on instinct. “Continue the entire length of the wall. There’s an exit at the far end. I’ll run interference.”
“No!” Sienna whispered urgently. “Robert, come back!”
But Langdon was already on the move, heading back along the strut toward the central spine of the garret, leaving Sienna in the darkness, inching across the sidewall, eight feet below him.
When Langdon arrived at the center of the garret, a faceless silhouette with a flashlight had just arrived on the raised viewing platform. The person halted at the low guardrail and aimed the flashlight beam down into Langdon’s eyes.
The glare was blinding, and Langdon immediately raised his arms in surrender. He could not have felt more vulnerable—balanced high above the Hall of the Five Hundred, blinded by a bright light.
Langdon waited for a gunshot or for an authoritative command, but there was only silence. After a moment the beam swung away from his face and began probing the darkness behind him, apparently looking for something … or someone else. As the beam left his eyes, Langdon could just make out the silhouette of the person now blocking his escape route. It was a woman, lean and dressed all in black. He had no doubt that beneath her baseball cap was a head of spiked hair.
Langdon’s muscles tightened instinctively as his mind flooded with images of Dr. Marconi dying on the hospital floor.
She found me. She’s here to finish the job.
Langdon flashed on an image of Greek free divers swimming deep into a tunnel, far past the point of no return, and then colliding with a stony dead end.
The assassin swung her flashlight beam back down into Langdon’s eyes.
“Mr. Langdon,” she whispered. “Where is your friend?”
Langdon felt a chill. This killer is here for both of us.
Langdon made a show of glancing away from Sienna, over his shoulder into