The tech spun toward Faukman with eyes flashing fear.

  Yes, I’m scared too, Faukman thought, having just realized that the entry beep Alex heard was not a paranoid imagination; someone had indeed entered this control room and was now hiding somewhere among the gear racks behind them.

  And now they are listening to us. A moment earlier, Faukman had noticed a barely perceptible dot of blue light reflected in the glass of the framed illustration nearby. Editing spy thrillers just paid off. Some would have assumed the dot was a laser sight from a gun, but this dot was blue, not red, and it was aimed at a sheet of glass.

  “This site is interesting,” Faukman said, calmly deleting his first message and typing another.

  WHO IS RESPONSIBLE FOR HACK?

  Alex’s face was pale as Faukman pushed the keyboard back to him.

  Taking a deep breath, the tech dutifully tapped out his reply.

  Faukman studied the bizarre, hyphenated word that Alex had typed. It was unfamiliar to him. He gave the tech a confused shrug and anxiously mouthed, “Who…is…that?”

  Alex began typing again—this time a short acronym.

  Faukman stared at it in mute shock. No.

  On any other morning, Faukman would never have believed what had just appeared on the screen, but considering all that had transpired tonight, the information certainly answered a lot of questions.

  Fuck.

  The question now was what Faukman was going to do about his current predicament. The answer, he suspected, lay in his skills with dialogue…and also in understanding the subtle difference between two very similar words.

  Misinformation and disinformation.

  CHAPTER 63

  Inside the Baroque Library, Langdon scanned and rescanned the faces of the crowd of visitors, finally accepting that he had arrived here too late.

  She’s gone.

  Two hours had passed since Katherine sent him the encrypted email telling him to come to this place; even if she had been here earlier, her ticket would have expired, and the docents would have asked her to leave.

  As Langdon gazed down at the Codex Gigas, splayed open in its protective glass cube, the illustration of the “Diaper Devil” seemed to be staring back mockingly. Just yesterday, he and Katherine had stood on this very spot, hand in hand, happily discussing the mysteries of this incredible book.

  Katherine had been intrigued by the legend of the Devil’s Bible, but it had been the architecture of the lush library itself that most captured her imagination. Spellbound by its beauty, she asked him about the parquet floor, the frescoes, and what she referred to as the “faux balcony.”

  “What do you mean by faux?” Langdon questioned, surprised.

  “It’s decorative, right?” She pointed up at the balcony that encircled the entire room. “Look…there’s no way to get to it—no ladders or doors entering from above.”

  Langdon had to laugh. Leave it to a scientist to notice the inconsistency. Most tourists who admired the suspended walkway around the room never spotted the obvious riddle: there was no visible means to access it.

  “Follow me,” Langdon whispered, nodding discreetly to his right. He walked her into the corner of the library, and then, double-checking that the rest of the patrons were focused on the Bible, he gently grabbed a section of bookcase and tugged it toward him. The case hinged silently outward, revealing a dark alcove, in which a spiral staircase ascended to an opening in the balcony floor.

  “And of course you knew that,” she said, rolling her eyes.

  Langdon’s warm memories of yesterday dissolved as an authoritative voice suddenly broke the silence and began shouting at the library door.

  “Dámy a pánové!” a man yelled. “Opusťte výstavu! Požární poplach!”

  Many of the Czech visitors exchanged startled looks and began moving immediately toward the exit. A smattering of foreign tourists glanced at them and followed.

  “Fire emergency!” the same voice shouted. “Go to the exit! Now!”

  Fire? Langdon smelled nothing. Really?

  He peered toward the crush of tourists now crowding through the library’s lone exit. Beyond the crowd, in the hallway, a muscular man in a blue ÚZSI uniform was overseeing the library evacuation…intently studying each person who exited, even halting one or two to scrutinize their faces more closely.

  Langdon recognized him immediately. Lieutenant Pavel.

  He had no idea how the man had located him so quickly—or so accurately—but there he was, sorting through the crowd.

  It’s a fake emergency, Langdon sensed. So he can trap me.

  Considering Pavel had already fired his weapon at Langdon in the Mirror Maze, there was no guarantee he wouldn’t simply shoot him on sight once the last person had exited the library.

  Scanning the room for anywhere to hide, Langdon saw only the line of globes and the codex’s transparent display case. Neither offered much help. In desperation, he turned his eyes toward the upper balcony and then down to the hinged bookcase in the corner of the room.

  Even if Langdon ascended to the balcony, there was no exit up there. The bookcase is a dead end. But hiding on the hidden staircase might buy him a few extra minutes. Museum security would find him eventually, of course, but anything was better than being alone with an unhinged, trigger-happy ÚZSI officer.

  Before Pavel had a chance to see him, Langdon slipped away from the mass of exiting guests and moved back toward the bookcase. When he arrived, he grabbed the door and pulled it toward himself.

  The door didn’t budge.

  Puzzled, he pulled again.

  Have they locked it?

  Installing a lock on this bookcase made no sense whatsoever, and besides, the door had been open just yesterday when he and Kath—

  An unexpected thought materialized.

  Inexplicable…and yet…

  Startled by the possibility, Langdon put his mouth close to the partition and whispered, “Katherine?”

  Langdon heard a rustling within, as if someone was unlashing whatever was holding the door closed. A moment later, the bookcase swung open.

  Langdon found himself staring into the tear-filled eyes of Katherine Solomon.

  Without hesitation, he moved into her arms, letting the bookcase swing closed behind them. As they held each other in the darkness of the tiny alcove, Langdon could hear her quietly weeping.

  “Thank God,” she managed. “I thought you were dead.”

  “I’m right here,” he whispered.

  CHAPTER 64

  In the blackness of the alcove, Katherine pressed her body into Langdon’s, holding on tight, neither one saying a word. Whatever chaos currently existed outside this small space, they were now alone in the world, at least for this brief moment, safe and together.

  I thought I might never see him again, Katherine thought.

  It felt like an eternity that she had been hiding in here, terrified for her life and also devastated that she might have lost the man with whom she was falling in love. To be without him would have been the cruelest of twists; for years Katherine had felt powerfully drawn to Langdon’s effortless charm, and yet for some reason, she’d always resisted letting it become romantic. Perhaps it had been the fear of losing him as a friend, but even so, every time their paths had crossed, she had found herself secretly wondering if one day, after decades of friendship, the time might be right.

  And now…at last, it was.

  Overcome with emotion, Katherine held Langdon tighter, savoring the seamless fit of their embrace and the warmth of his body.

  “You feel cold,” Langdon whispered. “Are you okay? Where’s your coat?”

  “I used it to tie the door shut,” she said, having lashed one sleeve to the spiral railing and the other to the handle on the door so nobody could pull open the bookcase. “This alcove was the only place I could think to hide.”

  “But why are you hiding?!” he asked, sounding thoroughly confused.

  Katherine explained how she had received a panicked voicemail this morning from a PRH systems tech named Alex. She had called him back, and he frantically warned her that someone had hacked into the PRH server…and deleted all traces of her manuscript.

  “What?!” Langdon sounded aghast. “Your manuscript is gone?”

  “Apparently so,” she said. “And the tech was terrified. He told me…” Katherine paused, her voice catching with emotion. “Robert…he said he thought you had drowned.”

  Langdon pulled away, trying to see her face in the darkness. “He told you I was dead?!”

  “He feared as much, yes,” Katherine replied, her voice frail and emotional. “He said he had tracked your phone to the middle of the Vltava River…and the signal disappeared. I was too upset to ask questions, and he told me to dump my phone immediately, get off the street, and hide somewhere safe until he had more information. The problem was that he couldn’t reach us anywhere, and it seemed like whoever had deleted my manuscript had come after all three of us! He also told me Jonas has entirely disappeared!”

  Langdon could barely get his head around what he was hearing. Jonas is missing? “But why would anyone target your manuscript? Or any of us?!”

  “I have no idea,” she said, pulling him even closer, her sweet-smelling hair falling against his cheek. “I’m just relieved you’re safe.”

  “Katherine,” he whispered. “I have no idea what’s going on here…but I’m so sorry you’ve had to go through it.” He knew he needed to share the details of his own chaotic morning, but for the moment he was still trying to figure out what to do next. “And you’re certain your manuscript is…gone?”

  “According to Alex, yes,” she said. “Deleted from all servers. The only good news is that this morning, on my way out of the hotel, I noticed the business office was deserted, and I decided to take advantage of the private moment to print a hard copy of the manuscript for you to read.”

  For the last several days, Katherine had said she was almost ready to give him his own reading copy, but publishing decorum required that her editor receive the manuscript first…which he now had.

  “I printed your copy, but as I was about to go upstairs and lock it in our suite’s safe, a fire alarm went off at the hotel, and I had to evacuate the building!”

  To his amazement, Langdon realized that Katherine had been just around the corner in the business center when he sprinted through the lobby and pulled the alarm. My God, I just missed her.

  “The hard copy you printed,” Langdon asked, able to see nothing in the darkness. “Did you manage to put it somewhere safe?”

  “I have it right here in my bag!” she said. “When I told Alex I was carrying it, he said it might turn out to be the only remaining copy, and he urged me to take it somewhere secure until we could figure out what was going on. I was just down the street at the time, so I came here.”

  Langdon held her tighter.

  “I trusted you were alive, Robert—I could feel it, whatever Alex said about you drowning. I wanted to call and tell you where I would be waiting for you. The problem was, he warned me someone was probably monitoring our communications.”

  “So you emailed me in code before you dumped your phone,” Langdon said, feeling the pieces now fall into place.

  “Yes. Enochian and Codex XL. It was as obscure a message as I could think of, but I knew you’d understand.”

  Langdon couldn’t help but smile. “That’s actually pretty damn clever, Katherine Solomon.”

  “It wasn’t very hard.” She laughed and kissed him tenderly on the cheek. “I just asked myself: What would you do?”

  In the hallway outside the Baroque Library, Lieutenant Pavel watched the last of the tourists exit.

  Where the hell is Robert Langdon?

  Five minutes earlier, Pavel had shown Langdon’s photo to the museum docent checking tickets at the library entrance. The man had confirmed that the tall American had indeed entered this library shortly before Pavel arrived and, to the best of the docent’s knowledge, had not yet exited.

  So where is he?!

  “Is there another way out?” Pavel demanded. “Jiný východ?!”

  The frightened docent shook his head. “Žádný tu není.”

  Pavel stepped through the doorway and scanned the long rectangular chamber. It was essentially a wide hallway with towering bookcases for walls, offering nowhere to hide. A procession of antique globes ran down the center of the room toward a huge transparent display case of some sort—neither of which provided much cover.

  It was then that Pavel noticed the balcony.

  Very clever, Professor.

  The library’s wraparound loggia was high enough that Langdon could remain out of sight simply by lying flat on the elevated floor. Pavel looked around the room and saw no stairs, doors, or access to the upper level.

  He summoned the docent and pointed to the balcony. “How do you get up there?” he said quietly, towering over the thin young man.

  The docent pointed nervously to the corner of the library on the left of the entrance. “There’s a door in the bookcase…and a spiral staircase behind it.”

  Pavel considered his options. “Seal the library!” he commanded. “Get out and keep the doors locked. The man trapped inside is extremely dangerous. Do not open these doors for any reason—no matter what you hear! Including gunfire. Is that clear?!”

  The docent went pale and nodded, wasting no time rushing back into the hallway and heaving the doors closed behind him. The slam resonated through the empty room, and Pavel heard multiple dead bolts clank into place.

  Alone now, Pavel turned and faced the silent chamber.

  Just you and me, Professor…in this beautiful killing box.

  CHAPTER 65

  The historic Old-New Synagogue is nestled in the neighborhood of Josefov—once the original walled Jewish ghetto of Prague. As the oldest active synagogue in Europe, it has been a silent witness to the changing tides of history since the late thirteenth century. Despite the encroachments of time and tumultuous events that Prague has endured, the synagogue remains unscathed—a testament to the resilience of faith and tradition.

  According to legend, the stones for this temple were brought by angels from Jerusalem “on condition” that the stones would be returned to Jerusalem upon the arrival of the Messiah. Many scholars believe that this gift “on condition”—in Hebrew, al tnay—was confused with the Yiddish alt-nay, which literally means Old-New, hence the building’s unusual name.

  A spiritual oasis…in a desert of materialism, The Golěm thought, gazing ahead at the synagogue’s austere stone facade, which was flanked closely by the storefronts of Hermès, Montblanc, and Valentino. The modern world had encroached upon every corner of this ancient ghetto, swallowing up its somber residences until barely a trace remained of the perilous streets once patrolled by the original mythical golem, who had been created on this spot centuries ago.

  In many ways, the synagogue was where The Golěm had been born as well. Shortly after arriving in Prague, he had been walking aimlessly past this building when he heard a tour guide narrating the legend of the Jewish ghetto’s great protector—a guardian soul inserted into the body of a clay monster. The story felt familiar and personal. As if drawn by some unseen gravity, The Golěm had entered the temple.

  Inside, the air was deathly still, infused with an almost mystical energy. Behind the altar, the sacred ark stood sentinel, harboring the ancient Torah scrolls inspired by the eternal dialogue between the earthly and the divine. The Golěm felt comforted by the silence and dim light. He took a seat on a wooden pew whose surface was worn smooth by generations of the faithful, and it was there, by the fragile light of medieval chandeliers, that he had picked up an informational pamphlet…and he had begun to read.

  He found himself captivated by the legend of the golem and its creator, a powerful rabbi named Judah Loew ben Bezalel, also revered as the Maharal of Prague. In addition to being a scholar of Jewish mysticism and the Talmud, Rabbi Loew had been a mathematician, astronomer, philosopher, and Kabbalist who had written extensively, including an important text known as Gur Aryeh al HaTorah.

  Later that night, The Golěm had quietly read the rabbi’s text, which he had purchased in the gift shop beside the synagogue. As he consumed the ancient words, The Golěm was stunned to find himself on every page…the Truth as he already understood it!

  Reality has many different levels.

  Guf, nefesh, sechel…

  A solitary soul can fuse with another to form a new entity.

  Yesodot, taarovot, tarkovot.

  Souls are reborn again and again.

  Gilgul neshamot…

  That fateful night, as he studied the cycle of souls, he was struck by the realization that he, like the original golem, had materialized with clarity and without preamble into this realm, a blank soul awaking inside a physical form that felt so foreign to him as to be repulsive.

  He recalled that first moment inside the dank mental institution when, inspired by an act of unspeakable cruelty, The Golěm had suddenly perceived himself and felt purpose…rising up out of nothingness…seeing a helpless woman being beaten senseless by a night nurse. He had launched himself forward and struck the nurse to the ground, strangling her unrelentingly until the life left her.

  Then he had stood over his victim and savored his victory, empowered by his first act of service in this realm. The woman he saved had not been conscious to witness his act of valor. Nor had she felt him transporting her beaten body back to her bed, where he tended to her wounds and then slipped back into the darkness…beginning to understand who he was and why he had been summoned.

  I am her protector.

  From then on, he served as a silent guardian within those prison walls, watching from the shadows, confirming she was safe. Not until that night in Prague, reading the words of Rabbi Loew, had it finally dawned on The Golěm why the Jewish legend felt so familiar…and the real reason why he had been brought to Prague.

  I am The Golěm.