As Langdon’s eyes adjusted to the grotto’s dark interior, he surveyed their unusual surroundings, wondering if there was any other exit. He saw nothing promising. The interior of the cavern was adorned with sculpted animals and humans, all in various stages of consumption by the strange oozing walls. Dejected, Langdon raised his eyes to the ceiling of stalactites hanging ominously overhead.
A good place to die.
The Buontalenti Grotto—so named for its architect, Bernardo Buontalenti—was arguably the most curious-looking space in all of Florence. Intended as a kind of fun house for young guests at the Pitti Palace, the three-chambered suite of caverns was decorated in a blend of naturalistic fantasy and Gothic excess, composed of what appeared to be dripping concretions and flowing pumice that seemed either to be consuming or exuding the multitude of carved figures. In the days of the Medici, the grotto was accented by having water flow down the interior walls, which served both to cool the space during the hot Tuscan summers and to create the effect of an actual cavern.
Langdon and Sienna were hidden in the first and largest chamber behind an indistinct central fountain. They were surrounded by colorful figures of shepherds, peasants, musicians, animals, and even copies of Michelangelo’s four prisoners, all of which seemed to be struggling to break free of the fluid-looking rock that engulfed them. High above, the morning light filtered down through an oculus in the ceiling, which had once held a giant glass ball filled with water in which bright red carp swam in the sunlight.
Langdon wondered how the original Renaissance visitors here would have reacted at the sight of a real-life helicopter—a fantastical dream of Italy’s own Leonardo da Vinci—hovering outside the grotto.
It was at that moment that the drone’s shrill whine stopped. It hadn’t faded away; rather, it had just … abruptly stopped.
Puzzled, Langdon peered out from behind the fountain and saw that the drone had landed. It was now sitting idle on the gravel plaza, looking much less ominous, especially because the stingerlike video lens on the front was facing away from them, off to one side, in the direction of the little gray door.
Langdon’s sense of relief was fleeting. A hundred yards behind the drone, near the statue of the dwarf and turtle, three heavily armed soldiers were now striding purposefully down the stairs, heading directly toward the grotto.
The soldiers were dressed in familiar black uniforms with green medallions on their shoulders. Their muscular lead man had vacant eyes that reminded Langdon of the plague mask in his visions.
I am death.
Langdon did not see their van or the mysterious silver-haired woman anywhere.
I am life.
As the soldiers approached, one of them stopped at the bottom of the stairs and turned around, facing backward, apparently to prevent anyone else from descending into this area. The other two kept coming toward the grotto.
Langdon and Sienna sprang into motion again—although probably only delaying the inevitable—shuffling backward on all fours into the second cavern, which was smaller, deeper, and darker. It, too, was dominated by a central piece of art—in this case, a statue of two intertwined lovers—behind which Langdon and Sienna now hid anew.
Veiled in shadow, Langdon carefully peered out around the base of the statue and watched their approaching assailants. As the two soldiers reached the drone, one stopped and crouched down to tend to it, picking it up and examining the camera.
Did the device spot us? Langdon wondered, fearing he knew the answer.
The third and last soldier, the muscular one with the cold eyes, was still moving with icy focus in Langdon’s direction. The man approached until he was nearly at the mouth of the cave. He’s coming in. Langdon prepared to pull back behind the statue and tell Sienna it was over, but in that instant, he witnessed something unexpected.
The soldier, rather than entering the grotto, suddenly peeled off to the left and disappeared.
Where is he going?! He doesn’t know we’re here?
A few moments later, Langdon heard pounding—a fist knocking on wood.
The little gray door, Langdon thought. He must know where it leads.
Pitti Palace security guard Ernesto Russo had always wanted to play European football, but at twenty-nine years old and overweight, he had finally begun to accept that his childhood dream would never come true. For the past three years, Ernesto had worked as a guard here at the Pitti Palace, always in the same closet-size office, always with the same dull job.
Ernesto was no stranger to curious tourists knocking on the little gray door outside the office in which he was stationed, and he usually just ignored them until they stopped. Today, however, the banging was intense and continuous.
Annoyed, he refocused on his television set, which was loudly playing a football rerun—Fiorentina versus Juventus. The knocking only grew louder. Finally, cursing the tourists, he marched out of his office down the narrow corridor toward the sound. Halfway there, he stopped at the massive steel grate that remained sealed across this hallway except at a few specific hours.
He entered the combination on the padlock and unlocked the grate, pulling it to one side. After stepping through, he followed protocol and relocked the grate behind him. Then he walked to the gray wooden door.
“È chiuso!” he yelled through the door, hoping the person outside would hear. “Non si può entrare!”
The banging continued.
Ernesto gritted his teeth. New Yorkers, he wagered. They want what they want. The only reason their Red Bulls soccer team was having any success on the world stage was that they’d pilfered one of Europe’s best coaches.