“You should turn on your phone too,” she said, “so we both have access to Winston.”
“You’re not worried about being tracked if we turn these on?”
Ambra shook her head. “The authorities haven’t had time to get the necessary court order, so I think it’s worth the risk—especially if Winston can update us on the Guardia’s progress and the situation at the airport.”
Uneasy, Langdon turned on his phone and watched it come to life. As the home screen materialized, he squinted into the light and felt a twinge of vulnerability, as if he had just become instantly locatable to every satellite in space.
You’ve seen too many spy movies, he told himself.
All at once, Langdon’s phone began pinging and vibrating as a backlog of messages from this evening began pouring in. To his astonishment, Langdon had received more than two hundred texts and e-mails since turning off his phone.
As he scanned the in-box, he saw the messages were all from friends and colleagues. The earlier e-mails had congratulatory header lines—Great lecture! I can’t believe you’re there!—but then, very suddenly, the tone of the headers turned anxious and deeply concerned, including a message from his book editor, Jonas Faukman: MY GOD—ROBERT, ARE YOU OKAY??!! Langdon had never seen his scholarly editor employ all caps or double punctuation.
Until now, Langdon had been feeling wonderfully invisible in the darkness of Bilbao’s waterways, as if the museum were a fading dream.
It’s all over the world, he realized. News of Kirsch’s mysterious discovery and brutal murder … along with my name and face.
“Winston has been trying to reach us,” Ambra said, staring into the glow of Kirsch’s cell phone. “Edmond has received fifty-three missed calls in the last half hour, all from the same number, all exactly thirty seconds apart.” She chuckled. “Tireless persistence is among Winston’s many virtues.”
Just then, Edmond’s phone began ringing.
Langdon smiled at Ambra. “I wonder who it is.”
She held out the phone to him. “Answer it.”
Langdon took the phone and pressed the speaker button. “Hello?”
“Professor Langdon,” chimed Winston’s voice with its familiar British accent. “I’m glad we’re back in contact. I’ve been trying to reach you.”
“Yes, we can see that,” Langdon replied, impressed that the computer sounded so utterly calm and unruffled after fifty-three consecutive failed calls.
“There have been some developments,” Winston said. “There is a possibility that the airport authorities will be alerted to your names before you arrive. Once again, I will suggest you follow my directions very carefully.”
“We’re in your hands, Winston,” Langdon said. “Tell us what to do.”
“First thing, Professor,” Winston said, “if you have not yet jettisoned your cell phone, you need to do so immediately.”
“Really?” Langdon gripped his phone more tightly. “Don’t the authorities need a court order before anyone—”
“On an American cop show perhaps, but you are dealing with Spain’s Guardia Real and the Royal Palace. They will do what is necessary.”
Langdon eyed his phone, feeling strangely reluctant to part with it. My whole life is in there.
“What about Edmond’s phone?” Ambra asked, sounding alarmed.
“Untraceable,” Winston replied. “Edmond was always concerned about hacking and corporate espionage. He personally wrote an IMEI/IMSI veiling program that varies his phone’s C2 values to outsmart any GSM interceptors.”
Of course he did, Langdon thought. For the genius who created Winston, outsmarting a local phone company would be a cakewalk.
Langdon frowned at his own apparently inferior phone. Just then Ambra reached over and gently pried it from his hands. Without a word, she held it over the railing and let go. Langdon watched the phone plummet down and splash into the dark waters of the Nervión River. As it disappeared beneath the surface, he felt a pang of loss, staring back after it as the boat raced on.
“Robert,” Ambra whispered, “just remember the wise words of Disney’s Princess Elsa.”
Langdon turned. “I’m sorry?”
Ambra smiled softly. “Let it go.”
CHAPTER 36
“SU MISIÓN TODAVÍA no ha terminado,” declared the voice on Ávila’s phone. Your mission is not yet complete.
Ávila sat up at attention in the backseat of the Uber as he listened to his employer’s news.
“We’ve had an unexpected complication,” his contact said in rapid Spanish. “We need you to redirect to Barcelona. Right away.”
Barcelona? Ávila had been told he would be traveling to Madrid for further service.
“We have reason to believe,” the voice continued, “that two associates of Mr. Kirsch are traveling to Barcelona tonight in hopes of finding a way to trigger Mr. Kirsch’s presentation remotely.”
Ávila stiffened. “Is that possible?”
“We’re not sure yet, but if they succeed, obviously it will undo all of your hard work. I need a man on the ground in Barcelona right away. Discreetly. Get there as fast as you can, and call me.”
With that, the connection was terminated.
The bad news felt strangely welcome to Ávila. I am still needed. Barcelona was farther than Madrid but still only a few hours at top speed on a superhighway in the middle of the night. Without wasting a moment, Ávila raised his gun and pressed it against the Uber driver’s head. The man’s hands tensed visibly on the wheel.
“Llévame a Barcelona,” Ávila commanded.
The driver took the next exit, toward Vitoria-Gasteiz, eventually accelerating onto the A-1 highway, heading east. The only other vehicles on the road at this hour were thundering tractor trailers, all racing to complete their runs to Pamplona, to Huesca, to Lleida, and finally to one of the largest port cities on the Mediterranean Sea—Barcelona.
Ávila could scarcely believe the strange sequence of events that had brought him to this moment. From the depths of my deepest despair, I have risen to the moment of my most glorious service.
For a dark instant, Ávila was back in that bottomless pit, crawling across the smoke-filled altar at the Cathedral of Seville, searching the bloodstained rubble for his wife and child, only to realize they were gone forever.
For weeks after the attack, Ávila did not leave his home. He lay trembling on his couch, consumed by an endless waking nightmare of fiery demons that dragged him into a dark abyss, shrouding him in blackness, rage, and suffocating guilt.
“The abyss is purgatory,” a nun whispered beside him, one of the hundreds of grief counselors trained by the Church to assist survivors. “Your soul is trapped in a dark limbo. Absolution is the only escape. You must find a way to forgive the people who did this, or your rage will consume you whole.” She made the sign of the cross. “Forgiveness is your only salvation.”
Forgiveness? Ávila tried to speak, but demons clenched his throat. At the moment, revenge felt like the only salvation. But revenge against whom? Responsibility for the bombing had never been claimed.
“I realize acts of religious terrorism seem unforgivable,” the nun continued. “And yet, it may be helpful to remember that our own faith waged a centuries-long Inquisition in the name of our God. We killed innocent women and children in the name of our beliefs. For this, we have had to ask forgiveness from the world, and from ourselves. And through time, we have healed.”