Psychiatrists diverged wildly over how these stark dissimilarities between alters could be possible, and some skeptics even accused DID patients of being skilled actors looking for attention. However, when patients submitted to rigorous testing involving MRIs, lie detectors, and sophisticated lines of interrogation, the results were always the same—there were indeed multiple discrete individuals existing within one body.

  Some of the alters were aware of the others living with them in what was known as “the system.” These alters were called “co-conscious.” In contrast, some alters were oblivious that the system even existed, believing instead that they were alone in the body. They often suffered memory gaps when stronger alters blocked them out, taking over the forefront of the mind in an action known as “fronting.”

  Now, as Katherine stood with Langdon in the dingy foyer, she felt her attention fixated on the strand of blond hair that he had pulled from the skullcap. His conclusion was shocking…and logical. He believes The Golěm and Sasha are the same person.

  If Robert was right, then finding Sasha was no longer a possibility. Tragically, the psychological condition that had arisen to save Sasha Vesna’s life had also likely ended it. The Golěm must have died in the explosion…taking Sasha with him.

  The Golěm finished dressing and scrutinized himself in the mirror. Her image always felt foreign to him, and yet this was how he found himself most often existing in the world—dressed as Sasha, wearing the clothing she donned every morning.

  Today’s attire—jeans, a white blouse, tennis shoes, and a parka—were clothes The Golěm had left in Sasha’s office for this very moment. The look was not flattering, and her hair was matted and wet, but it made her a pitiable figure…and she was in desperate need of pity.

  Please help Sasha…

  The Golěm had done his best to be a silent partner in Sasha’s life, hiding back in the deepest recesses of her mind, watching as she bravely navigated her new life…the life she deserved. Like any caring guardian, The Golěm occasionally intervened for Sasha’s own protection. He would step forward and quietly grab the reins, taking over Sasha’s body, effortlessly mimicking her voice and demeanor. These interventions were to protect her…to shield her from dangerous situations, painful information, or difficult decisions she was not prepared to make.

  For Sasha, these moments were brief blank spots in her life and memory, akin to daydreaming while driving a car and arriving at your destination with no recollection of how you got there. She accepted that her memory was occasionally spotty. The Golěm’s interventions had become less frequent recently because Sasha had been as happy as he had ever seen her.

  The reason for her happiness was Michael Harris.

  Sasha was in love.

  The handsome attaché had entered her life by chance, or so it had seemed, and while The Golěm was uncomfortable with their growing physical relationship, he had chosen not to intervene. Sasha deserved a first love, and Michael seemed like a decent man.

  As it turned out, appearances were deceptive.

  Three weeks earlier, The Golěm had been lying on the hemp mat in his svatyně, enjoying a postictal bliss, when he heard someone in the apartment below. Puzzled, he pressed his ear to the floor and heard what sounded like someone searching Sasha’s flat. Before he could get dressed and run downstairs, a voice began talking loudly in the space below.

  The voice belonged to Michael Harris.

  Stunned, The Golěm found himself listening to a phone conversation between Harris and the U.S. ambassador. The call revealed not only that Harris had ulterior motives for befriending Sasha, but also that the kindness shown by Sasha’s trusted mentor, Dr. Brigita Gessner, might also be disingenuous.

  In a matter of seconds, The Golěm reassessed the charmed life he thought Sasha had found. He was well aware of the extensive medical treatments she had undergone, and yet his belief was always that Brigita Gessner had benevolently cured Sasha of her ailments—and continued to administer procedures to perfect the results.

  Now The Golěm saw a different reality. From that moment on, he was almost always present, watching through Sasha’s eyes, observing, listening, guiding, and awaiting his opportunity to reveal the truth. Last night, The Golěm had finally seized his opportunity, isolating Gessner in her lab and immortalizing the treachery. His recorded confession of Gessner had covered it all…surgeries, implants, Dmitri’s death, psychedelic drugs, Mr. Finch, the CIA, and their true objective in Prague.

  Threshold is now gone, The Golěm reveled as he exited the lab’s bathroom into the hallway. He hoped Robert Langdon and Katherine Solomon had escaped; the American professor had shown significant kindness to Sasha today, and his scientist friend understood the universe in ways that only those like The Golěm could truly grasp.

  The day, while ending in triumph, had presented no shortage of unforeseen challenges. The Golěm’s first shock had been encountering ÚSZI officers at the bastion; his second seeing Langdon crouched over Gessner’s body; and his third—no doubt triggered by the first two—an epileptic seizure in Gessner’s lab that he was unable to stop.

  The challenge with seizures was that The Golěm’s brain always rebooted to its original default state—Sasha. She always awoke alone and vulnerable. Post-seizure, Sasha’s consciousness was fully present and in control until The Golěm could flicker back online after several minutes and take over. For this reason, he kept his svatyně pitch-black when he received the Ether, ensuring Sasha would always awaken to darkness rather than to an unfamiliar room.

  This morning, following his seizure beside Gessner’s body, The Golěm had wrestled his consciousness back to the forefront and found himself cradled in the arms of Robert Langdon. Realizing his descent to Threshold would have to wait, The Golěm persuaded Langdon to flee the bastion—ostensibly with Sasha—but as the professor descended the snowy slope to Folimanka Park, The Golěm had been with him every step, watching through Sasha’s eyes.

  At Sasha’s apartment, Harris’s imminent arrival provided the perfect opportunity to punish Sasha’s cruelest betrayer, so The Golěm had sent Langdon out of harm’s way by improvising a simple illusion—a slip of paper; a knock on the door; a momentary retreat back into the bathroom. Langdon found the message and dashed into the alleyway in his socks, never noticing The Golěm watching from Sasha’s window.

  Less than an hour ago, here at the bastion, a female operative had attacked him, and he could still see her startled expression as she desperately drove her hands up into The Golěm’s chest…and encountered the soft shape of Sasha’s breasts.

  I am not as you think I am.

  And then, his final challenge, downstairs in Threshold. Having lost his magnetic wand, The Golěm was hit by another seizure and frantically searched the domed chamber for a safe place to ride it out, finally opting for the padded interior of one of the EPR pods. It was a place he knew well.

  I have died there many times.

  The Golěm shuddered as he now recalled the true nature of Gessner’s experiments—pushing Sasha to the brink and pulling her back—over and over. At the time, he had believed in Gessner’s generosity and had done his best to absorb the pain of those events, to shield Sasha from the discomfort and fear. Fortunately, Sasha could not recall the many times Gessner had drugged her and wheeled her through Threshold to perform various experiments in the operating suite and pod room.

  But I remember, The Golěm thought.

  The faint wisps of recollection still haunted him.

  Another life, he told himself. That was the past.

  The future was getting close now, the future he had planned for Sasha, the future she deserved. Soon I will set her free and vanish. All that remained was to ascend from this subterranean world…and make his way to the United States embassy.

  CHAPTER 124

  Langdon stood in Sasha Vesna’s kitchen, still grappling with what he and Katherine had uncovered. Sasha’s two Siamese cats were twisting affectionately around his ankles, and the scent of Russian Caravan tea still hung in the air. Even so, her home felt utterly foreign to him now.

  When I was here, I was probably not talking to the real Sasha.

  The revelation was deeply disturbing, and yet Sasha’s psychological condition answered a lot of questions—The Golěm’s access to Crucifix Bastion…Sasha’s memory loss…the strange flat upstairs…and perhaps even why Langdon had been given a key to Sasha’s apartment and urged to return. Did he want me to find Harris’s body and deliver the envelope to the ambassador? Either way, the realization about Sasha’s identity was providing aspects of clarity.

  Katherine joined him in the kitchen after looking around the apartment. “I wonder,” she ventured, “if Threshold chose epileptics as test subjects because of their natural predisposition to out-of-body experiences…or because epileptics provided Brigita the perfect cover to do brain surgery without raising suspicion.”

  It was a good question, and Langdon imagined it might have been both. “Either way, it’s unforgivable. I suspect something went terribly wrong with Dmitri and he is dead, as his records suggested.”

  A long silence hung between them as Langdon scanned the sweet, even childlike, decorations around the kitchen.

  “And what about these two?” Katherine asked, crouching down and petting Sasha’s immaculately groomed cats. “When is the last time they were fed?”

  True, Langdon thought. Someone will need to adopt them. He went to the cupboard beneath the sink and pulled out their bag of cat food.

  “I’ll do it,” Katherine said, taking the bag. “You should make the call.”

  Langdon went to the phone on the wall and dialed the number that Scott Kerble had given him. As the line began to ring, he wondered what he would say when Kerble asked about Sasha Vesna. We didn’t find her. She died in Threshold. By the way, she killed Michael Harris. Langdon was still trying to comprehend that Sasha could have deeply loved Harris at the same time her protector knew the truth about Harris and loathed him. Two people. One body.

  Langdon recalled hearing once of a court case involving an alleged rapist, William Milligan, who had proven in a lie detector test that he had no recollection of his alleged crimes. As it turned out, Milligan was an unwitting sufferer of DID; one of his alters had committed the crimes without his knowledge. Milligan was acquitted and placed in a psychiatric facility.

  Before modern psychiatric care, many of those exhibiting a split personality were taken to the only psychiatric professionals available—priests. The Church frequently diagnosed them with “demonic possession” and prescribed a common treatment plan: “exorcism.” To this day, the Rite of Exorcism was still performed regularly on individuals with mental disorders, and while Langdon had always been horrified by this, he had to admit that Katherine’s description of nonlocal consciousness added a new perspective.

  Perhaps an exorcist is not trying to coax a demon out of a body…but rather trying to retune the body’s receiver to block the unwanted station.

  “Kerble here,” a familiar voice said on the phone, pulling Langdon back to the moment.

  “Hello, this is Robert Langdon.”

  “We’ve been expecting your call, sir. Please hold for Ambassador Nagel.”

  Langdon was surprised the ambassador was available to speak. I thought she was under arrest. It appeared something had shifted at the embassy.

  “Professor,” the ambassador’s voice chimed in on the line. “I can’t tell you how relieved I am that you’re both safe. Scott told me it was…quite close.”

  “I’m not sure it could have been any closer,” Langdon said. “And we heard you were arrested by the CIA director?”

  “Yes, although Director Judd claimed the detainment was a temporary protective custody to ensure my safety.”

  “Do you believe him?”

  “I’d like to,” Nagel said. “He claimed he was concerned Finch might…I don’t know. Anyhow, I’ve had no contact from Finch since our last phone call.”

  “Finch is dead,” Langdon said bluntly. “We saw him at Threshold just before the blast. Katherine and I were the last ones out, and Finch—”

  “Okay,” she interrupted, sounding shaken. “Not on the phone. We’ll discuss it in person.”

  “We have a lot to share,” Langdon said. “Is the embassy a safe place to talk?”

  “I’m not confident of that,” Nagel replied. “I’d suggest your hotel, but it’s too obvious, and I really can’t promise we’d be safe. Not yet.” She paused a moment. “Are you familiar with the Dripstone Wall?”

  “I am,” Langdon said, puzzled that she would mention such a public place…especially one that was notoriously creepy. “It’s near the embassy, but I’m not sure—”

  “Get there as fast as you can.”

  At ÚZSI headquarters, Lieutenant Pavel was solemnly gathering the last of his personal belongings from his locker. His lengthy interrogation at the hands of his new superior officer had resulted in his demotion and a three-month probationary leave.

  I won’t be coming back, Pavel knew.

  Everything was different now. Although his recollection of the day was foggy, Pavel would never forget the image of his uncle lying dead in an icy ravine. The captain’s death had been officially cataloged as an accident, and as much as Pavel wanted to protest, he was in no position. Moreover, any further ÚZSI investigation had been shut down by the U.S. ambassador, who held all the cards after uncovering Janáček’s deceitful methods in detaining two prominent Americans.

  Pavel exited the building and trudged toward the bus stop. When he arrived, there was a young woman waiting for the bus. She had a kind face, and Pavel gave her a weary smile.

  “To je ale zima,” he said politely. It’s so cold.

  The woman immediately turned away and relocated to the far end of the stop.

  Pavel felt suddenly very alone in the world.

  When the bus arrived, Pavel boarded and moved toward the back. None of the other passengers glanced up, their eyes all focused downward on their devices. Pavel took a seat and pulled out his own phone, reflexively opening Dream Zone, his virtual dating simulator.

  Several new requests pinged in, and he expected to feel the glimmer of warmth that always accompanied the hope of fresh possibilities. Tonight, however, the phone felt cold in his hand. He gazed into its glare a long moment and then startled himself by powering it off and sliding it back into his pocket. Then, closing his eyes, he said a prayer for his uncle and listened to the hum of the bus as it carried him home.

  CHAPTER 125

  The Dripstone Wall, one of Prague’s more surreal ancient attractions, resembles a towering cliff of melted rock. Rising over forty feet above Wallenstein Garden, this mysterious seventeenth-century sculpture gives the impression of a river of molten lava, hardened mid-flow into a wall of fluid stalactites, bulbous outcroppings, and amorphous hollows.

  Formally known as the Grotto, it remains to this day one of Prague’s eeriest destinations. The organic undulations in its stone surface have an almost phantasmagorical quality, and visitors enjoy pointing out the various grotesque faces they see peering out at them. For centuries, church officials have petitioned to tear down the wall, claiming it is haunted and invites the emergence of evil spirits. Tourists regularly complain of nightmares after visiting the wall, and several prominent dignitaries have found themselves nauseous while standing before it.

  Ambassador Nagel was not one of them.

  I find it calming, she thought, gazing up at the wall before her. The Grotto looked especially beautiful right now, muted and pale in the fading afternoon light, with wisps of white snow settled in the nooks and crannies of the countless faces.

  As Nagel waited in the dimming light, she saw fresh faces materialize in the wall before her. She had learned that only a fraction of the faces she saw were actually there, intended by the architect. The others, as it turned out, were faces she was hallucinating—a psychological phenomenon known as pareidolia. The brain had a natural inclination to conjure meaningful shapes out of nebulous contours, and humans saw faces in everything—from clouds to fabric patterns to bowls of soup to shadows on a lake. All it took was two dots and a line, and most human brains made the same connection.

  From her work at the CIA, Nagel was convinced that conspiracy theorists suffered a kind of cognitive pareidolia, seeing suspicious patterns where no patterns existed…hallucinating order out of chaos.

  Everett Finch was the opposite. He spotted real patterns and used them to manufacture chaos…all in an effort to preserve some kind of order in the world. News of Finch’s death had granted Nagel a reprieve, and yet it was not something she would ever celebrate. She had learned one simple truth in her career at CIA: Good and evil do not exist in pure form. Finch’s ruthlessness, she knew, was fueled by his deep commitment to an agency that was trying to gain a foothold in the brave new world of brain technology.

  “The owls are sleeping,” a deep voice spoke behind her, echoing off the Dripstone Wall’s looming surface.

  For a moment, Nagel thought she had just overheard some kind of secret spy phrase, but when she turned, she saw two familiar faces. Robert Langdon and Katherine Solomon were approaching past the garden’s aviary where Wallenstein’s resident owls were perched motionless, with their heads tucked into their shoulder feathers.

  Nagel smiled and shook their hands as her ever-present guardian, Scott Kerble, emerged from the shadows and joined the group. Langdon and Solomon still had no coats, but fortunately, this conversation was not intended to be held outdoors. “Follow me,” she said, leading them toward the Dripstone Wall. “We’ll talk inside.”

  Langdon glanced up at the solid cliff, clearly puzzled. “Inside…where?”

  Without a word, Nagel led the entourage toward the base of the wall and stopped at a tiny wooden door—no more than four feet tall—surrounded by frightening skull-like formations. Langdon’s expression of incredulity was complete when Nagel pulled out a key and unlocked the door.