Ambra’s eyes widened. “Forty-seven?! Edmond, you can’t even remember the four-digit PIN for your museum security card! How are you going to remember forty-seven random characters?”
He laughed again at her alarm. “I don’t have to; they’re not random.” He lowered his voice. “My password is actually my favorite line of poetry.”
Ambra felt confused. “You used a line of poetry as a password?”
“Why not? My favorite line of poetry has exactly forty-seven letters.”
“Well, it doesn’t sound very secure.”
“No? You think you can guess my favorite line of poetry?”
“I didn’t even know you like poetry.”
“Exactly. Even if someone found out that my password was a line of poetry, and even if someone guessed the exact line out of millions of possibilities, they would still need to guess the very long phone number I use to dial into my secure server.”
“The phone number you just speed-dialed from your phone?”
“Yes, a phone that has its own access PIN and never leaves my breast pocket.”
Ambra threw up her hands, smiling playfully. “Okay, you’re the boss,” she said. “By the way, who’s your favorite poet?”
“Nice try,” he said, wagging his finger. “You’ll have to wait till Saturday. The line of poetry I’ve chosen is perfect.” He grinned. “It’s about the future—a prophecy—and I’m happy to say it’s already coming true.”
Now, as her thoughts returned to the present, Ambra glanced over at Edmond’s body, and realized with a rush of panic that she was no longer able to see Langdon.
Where is he?!
More alarming, she now spotted the second Guardia officer—Agent Díaz—climbing back into the dome through the slit cut into the fabric wall. Díaz scanned the dome and then began moving directly toward Ambra.
He’ll never let me out of here!
Suddenly Langdon was beside her. He placed his hand gently on the small of her back and began guiding her away, the two of them moving briskly toward the far end of the dome—the passageway through which everyone had entered.
“Ms. Vidal!” Díaz shouted. “Where are you two going?!”
“We’ll be right back,” Langdon called, hastening her across the deserted expanse, moving in a direct line toward the rear of the room and the exit tunnel.
“Mr. Langdon!” It was Agent Fonseca’s voice, shouting behind them. “You are forbidden to leave this room!”
Ambra felt Langdon’s hand pressing more urgently on her back.
“Winston,” Langdon whispered into his headset. “Now!”
A moment later, the entire dome went black.
CHAPTER 28
AGENT FONSECA AND his partner Díaz dashed through the darkened dome, illuminating the way with their cell-phone flashlights and plunging into the tunnel through which Langdon and Ambra had just disappeared.
Halfway up the tunnel, Fonseca found Ambra’s phone lying on the carpeted floor. The sight of it stunned him.
Ambra jettisoned her phone?
The Guardia Real, with Ambra’s permission, used a very simple tracking application to keep tabs on her location at all times. There could be only one explanation for her leaving her phone behind: she wanted to escape their protection.
The notion made Fonseca extremely nervous, although not nearly as nervous as the prospect of having to inform his boss that the future queen consort of Spain was now missing. The Guardia commander was obsessive and ruthless when it came to protecting the prince’s interests. Tonight, the commander had personally tasked Fonseca with the simplest of directives: “Keep Ambra Vidal safe and out of trouble at all times.”
I can’t keep her safe if I don’t know where she is!
The two agents hurried on to the end of the tunnel and arrived at the darkened anteroom, which now looked like a convention of ghosts—a host of pale shell-shocked faces illuminated by their cell-phone screens as they communicated to the outside world, relaying what they had just witnessed.
“Turn on the lights!” several people were shouting.
Fonseca’s phone rang, and he answered.
“Agent Fonseca, this is museum security,” said a young woman in terse Spanish. “We know you’ve lost lights up there. It appears to be a computer malfunction. We’ll have power back momentarily.”
“Are the internal security feeds still up?” Fonseca demanded, knowing the cameras were all equipped with night vision.
“They are, yes.”
Fonseca scanned the darkened room. “Ambra Vidal just entered the anteroom outside the main theater. Can you see where she went?”
“One moment, please.”
Fonseca waited, heart pounding with frustration. He had just received word that Uber was experiencing difficulties tracking the shooter’s getaway car.
Could anything else go wrong tonight?
Fatefully, tonight was his first time on Ambra Vidal’s detail. Normally, as a senior officer, Fonseca was assigned only to Prince Julián himself, and yet, this morning, his boss had taken him aside and informed him: “Tonight, Ms. Vidal will be hosting an event against the wishes of Prince Julián. You will accompany her and make sure she is safe.”
Fonseca never imagined that the event Ambra was hosting would turn out to be an all-out assault on religion, culminating in a public assassination. He was still trying to digest Ambra’s angry refusal to take Prince Julián’s concerned call.
It all seemed inconceivable, and yet her bizarre behavior was only escalating. By all appearances, Ambra Vidal was attempting to ditch her security detail so she could run off with an American professor.