Inferno: (Robert Langdon Book 4)

struggled to get him back to his feet, cursing out loud the fact that he had been sedated.
    As they neared the end of the alley, Langdon stumbled again. This time she left him on the ground, rushing into the street and yelling to someone in the distance. Langdon could make out the faint green light of a taxi parked in front of the hospital. The car didn’t move, its driver undoubtedly asleep. Dr. Brooks screamed and waved her arms wildly. Finally the taxi’s headlights came on and it moved lazily toward them.
    Behind Langdon in the alley, a door burst open, followed by the soundof rapidly approaching footsteps. He turned and saw the dark figure bounding toward him. Langdon tried to get back to his feet, but the doctor was already grabbing him, forcing him into the backseat of an idling Fiat taxi. He landed half on the seat and half on the floor as Dr. Brooks dove on top of him, yanking the door shut.
    The sleepy-eyed driver turned and stared at the bizarre duo that had just tumbled into his cab—a young, ponytailed woman in scrubs and a man in a half-torn johnny with a bleeding arm. He clearly was about ready to tell them to get the hell out of his car, when the side mirror exploded. The woman in black leather sprinted out of the alley, gun extended. Her pistol hissed again just as Dr. Brooks grabbed Langdon’s head, pulling it down. The rear window exploded, showering them with glass.
    The driver needed no further encouragement. He slammed his foot down on the gas, and the taxi peeled out.
    Langdon teetered on the brink of consciousness. Someone is trying to kill me?
    Once they had rounded a corner, Dr. Brooks sat up and grabbed Langdon’s bloody arm. The catheter was protruding awkwardly from a hole in his flesh.
    “Look out the window,” she commanded.
    Langdon obeyed. Outside, ghostly tombstones rushed by in the darkness. It seemed somehow fitting that they were passing a cemetery. Langdon felt the doctor’s fingers probing gently for the catheter and then, without warning, she wrenched it out.
    A searing bolt of pain traveled directly to Langdon’s head. He felt his eyes rolling back, and then everything went black.

CHAPTER 5
    THE SHRILL RING of his phone drew the provost’s gaze from the calming mist of the Adriatic, and he quickly stepped back into his stateroom office.
    It’s about time , he thought, eager for news.
    The computer screen on his desk had flickered to life, informing him that the incoming call was from a Swedish Sectra Tiger XS personal voice-encrypting phone, which had been redirected through four untraceable routers before being connected to his ship.
    He donned his headset. “This is the provost,” he answered, his words slow and meticulous. “Go ahead.”
    “It’s Vayentha,” the voice replied.
    The provost sensed an unusual nervousness in her tone. Field agents rarely spoke to the provost directly, and even more rarely did they remain in his employ after a debacle like the one last night. Nonetheless, the provost had required an agent on-site to help remedy the crisis, and Vayentha had been the best person for the job.
    “I have an update,” Vayentha said.
    The provost was silent, his cue for her to continue.
    When she spoke, her tone was emotionless, clearly an attempt at professionalism. “Langdon has escaped,” she said. “He has the object.”
    The provost sat down at his desk and remained silent for a very long time. “Understood,” he finally said. “I imagine he will reach out to the authorities as soon as he possibly can.”

    Two decks beneath the provost, in the ship’s secure control center, senior facilitator Laurence Knowlton sat in his private cubicle and noticed that the provost’s encrypted call had ended. He hoped the news was good. The provost’s tension had been palpable for the past two days, and every operative on board sensed there was some kind of high-stakes operation going on.
    The stakes are inconceivably high, and Vayentha had better get it right this time.
    Knowlton was accustomed to quarterbacking carefully constructed game plans, but this particular scenario had disintegrated into chaos, and the provost had taken over personally.
    We’ve moved into uncharted territory.
    Although a half-dozen other missions were currently in process around the world, all of them were being serviced by the Consortium’s various field offices, freeing the provost and his staff aboard The Mendacium to focus exclusively on this one.
    Their client had