Inferno: A Novel
Page 46
Brüder repeated the command, but it was unnecessary. Sinskey knew he was correct. In the face of a possible pandemic, containment was the only viable option.
Sinskey reflexively reached up and gripped her lapis lazuli amulet. Sacrifice the few to save the many. With a hardening resolve, she raised the radio to her lips. “Confirmed, Agent Brüder. I’ll give the order to seal the doors.”
Sinskey was about to turn away from the horror of the cistern and give the command to seal the area when she sensed a sudden commotion in the crowd.
Not far away, a woman in a black burka was dashing toward her along a crowded boardwalk, knocking people out of the way as she ran. The veiled woman seemed to be headed directly for Sinskey and the exit.
She’s being chased, Sinskey realized, spotting a man running behind her.
Then Sinskey froze. That’s Langdon!
Sinskey’s eyes whipped back to the woman in the burka, who was approaching fast and now shouting something in Turkish to all the people on the boardwalk. Sinskey didn’t speak Turkish, but judging from the panicked reaction of the people, the woman’s words were the equivalent of shouting “Fire!” in a crowded theater.
A ripple of panic swept through the crowd, and suddenly it was not only the veiled woman and Langdon who were dashing for the stairs. Everyone was.
Sinskey turned her back to the oncoming stampede and began shouting desperately up the stairs to her team.
“Lock the doors!” Sinskey screamed. “Seal the cistern! NOW!”
By the time Langdon skidded around the corner into the stairwell, Sinskey was halfway up the stairs, clambering toward the surface, shouting wildly to close the doors. Sienna Brooks was close on her heels, struggling with her heavy, wet burka as she lumbered up the stairs.
Bounding after them, Langdon could feel a tidal wave of terrified concertgoers surging up behind him.
“Seal the exit!” Sinskey shouted again.
Langdon’s long legs carried him three steps at a time, gaining fast on Sienna. Above, he could see the cistern’s heavy double doors begin to swing inward.
Too slow.
Sienna overtook Sinskey, grabbing her shoulder and using it as leverage to launch past her, clambering wildly over her toward the exit. Sinskey stumbled forward onto her knees, her beloved amulet hitting the cement stairs and breaking in half.
Langdon fought the instinct to stop and help the fallen woman, but instead, he hurtled past her, sprinting toward the top landing.
Sienna was only a few feet away now, almost within reach, but she had attained the landing, and the doors were not closing fast enough. Without breaking stride, Sienna deftly angled her slender body and leaped sideways through the narrow opening.
She was halfway through the doors when her burka snagged on a latch, halting her in her tracks, wedged in the middle of the doorway, mere inches from freedom. As she writhed to escape, Langdon’s hand shot out and seized a clump of her burka. He held fast, pulling back, trying to reel her in, but she wriggled frantically and suddenly Langdon was holding only a wet clump of fabric.
The doors slammed onto the fabric, barely missing Langdon’s hands. The wadded cloth was now pinched in the doorway, making it impossible for the men outside to push the doors all the way closed.
Through the narrow slit, Langdon could see Sienna Brooks sprinting across a busy street, her bald head shining in the streetlights. She was wearing the same sweater and blue jeans she had been wearing all day, and Langdon suddenly felt a fiery, upwelling sense of betrayal.
The feeling lasted only an instant. A sudden, crushing weight rammed Langdon hard against the door.
The stampede had arrived behind him.
The stairwell echoed with shouts of terror and confusion as the sounds of the symphony orchestra deteriorated into a confused cacophony below. Langdon could feel the pressure on his back increasing as the bottleneck thickened. His rib cage began to compress painfully against the door.
Then the doors exploded outward, and Langdon was launched into the night like a cork from a bottle of champagne. He stumbled across the sidewalk, nearly falling into the street. Behind him, a stream of humanity was flowing up out of the earth like ants escaping from a poisoned anthill.
The SRS agents, hearing the sounds of chaos, now emerged from behind the building. Their appearance in full hazmat gear and respirators immediately amplified the panic.
Langdon turned away and peered across the street after Sienna. All he could see was traffic and lights and confusion.
Then, for a fleeting instant, down the street to his left, the pale flash of a bald head shone in the night, darting along a crowded sidewalk and disappearing around a corner.
Langdon shot a desperate glance behind him, searching for Sinskey, or the police, or an SRS agent who was not wearing a bulky hazmat suit.
Nothing.
Langdon knew he was on his own.
Without hesitation, he sprinted after Sienna.
Far below, in the deepest recesses of the cistern, Agent Brüder stood all alone in the waist-deep water. The sounds of pandemonium echoed through the darkness as frenzied tourists and musicians shoved their way toward the exit and disappeared up the stairs.
The doors were never sealed, Brüder realized to his horror. Containment has failed.
CHAPTER 94
Robert Langdon was not a runner, but years of swimming made for powerful legs, and his stride was long. He reached the corner in a matter of seconds and rounded it, finding himself on a wider avenue. His eyes urgently scanned the sidewalks.
She’s got to be here!
The rain had stopped, and from this corner, Langdon could clearly see the entire well-lit street. There was nowhere to hide.
And yet Sienna seemed to have vanished.
Langdon came to a stop, hands on his hips, panting as he surveyed the rain-soaked street before him. The only movement he saw was fifty yards ahead, where one of Istanbul’s modern otobüses was pulling away from the curb and powering up the avenue.
Did Sienna jump on a city bus?
It seemed far too risky. Would she really trap herself on a bus when she knew everyone would be looking for her? Then again, if she believed nobody had seen her round the corner, and if the bus had been just pulling away by chance, offering a perfectly timed opportunity …
Maybe.
Affixed to the top of the bus was a destination sign—a programmable matrix of lights displaying a single word: GALATA.
Langdon rushed up the street toward an elderly man who was standing outside a restaurant under an awning. He was nicely dressed in an embroidered tunic and a white turban.
“Excuse me,” Langdon said breathless, arriving before him. “Do you speak English?”
“Of course,” the man said, looking unnerved by the urgency of Langdon’s tone.
“Galata?! That’s a place?”
“Galata?” the man replied. “Galata Bridge? Galata Tower? Galata-port?”
Langdon pointed to the departing otobüs. “Galata! Where is the bus going!”
The man in the turban looked after the departing bus and considered it a moment. “Galata Bridge,” he replied. “It departs the old city and crosses the waterway.”
Langdon groaned, his eyes making another frantic pass of the street but seeing no hint of Sienna. Sirens blared everywhere now, as emergency response vehicles tore past them in the direction of the cistern.
“What’s happening?” the man demanded, looking alarmed. “Is everything okay?”
Langdon took another look at the departing bus and knew it was a gamble, but he had no other choice.
“No, sir,” Langdon replied. “There’s an emergency, and I need your help.” He motioned to the curb, where a valet had just delivered a slick, silver Bentley. “Is that your car?”
“It is, but—”
“I need a ride,” Langdon said. “I know we’ve never met, but something catastrophic is happening. It’s a matter of life and death.”
As the Bentley roared away from the curb, Langdon found himself gripping his seat. The man was clearly an experienced driver and seemed to enjoy the challenge of weaving in and out of traffic, playing catch-up with the bus.
It took him less than three blocks to position his Bentley directly behind the otobüs. Langdon leaned forward in his seat, squinting at the rear window. The interior lights were dim, and the only things Langdon could make out were the vague silhouettes of the passengers.
“Stay with the bus, please,” Langdon said. “And do you have a phone?”
The man produced a cell phone from his pocket and handed it to his passenger, who thanked him profusely before realizing that he had no idea whom to call. He had no contact numbers for Sinskey or Brüder, and calling the WHO’s offices in Switzerland could take forever.
“How do I reach the local police?” Langdon asked.
“One-five-five,” the man replied. “Anywhere in Istanbul.”
Langdon dialed the three numbers and waited. The line seemed to ring forever. Finally a recorded voice answered, conveying both in Turkish and English that due to high call volume, he would need to hold. Langdon wondered if the reason for the call volume was the crisis at the cistern.
The sunken palace was now probably in a state of total pandemonium. He pictured Brüder wading out in the lagoon and wondered what he had discovered out there. Langdon had a sinking feeling he already knew.
Sienna had gotten into the water before him.
Up ahead, the bus’s brake lights flashed, and the transport pulled over to a curbside bus stop. The Bentley’s driver pulled over as well, idling about fifty feet behind the bus, providing Langdon a perfect view of the passengers getting on and off. Only three people disembarked—all of them men—and yet Langdon studied each carefully, fully aware of Sienna’s skills for disguise.
His eyes shifted again to the rear window. It was tinted, but the lights inside were now fully illuminated, and Langdon could see the people on board more clearly. He leaned forward, craning his neck, holding his face close to the Bentley’s windshield as he searched for Sienna.
Please don’t tell me I gambled wrong!
Then he saw her.
In the rearmost part of the vehicle, facing away from him, a pair of slender shoulders sloped up to the back of a shaved head.
It could only be Sienna.
As the bus accelerated, the interior lights faded once more. In the fleeting second before it disappeared into darkness, the head turned backward, glancing out the rear window.
Langdon lowered himself down in the seat, into the shadows of the Bentley. Did she see me? His turbaned driver was already pulling out again, tailing the bus.
The road was descending toward the water now, and up ahead Langdon could see the lights of a low-slung bridge that stretched out over the water. The bridge looked completely deadlocked with traffic. In fact, the entire area near its entrance looked congested.
“Spice Bazaar,” the man said. “Very popular on rainy nights.”
The man pointed down to the water’s edge, where an incredibly long building sat in the shadow of one of Istanbul’s more spectacular mosques—the New Mosque, if Langdon were not mistaken, judging from the height of its famed twin minarets. The Spice Bazaar looked larger than most American malls, and Langdon could see people streaming in and out of its enormous arched doorway.
“Alo?!” a tiny voice declared somewhere in the car. “Acil Durum! Alo?!”
Langdon glanced down at the phone in his hand. The police.
“Yes, hello!” Langdon blurted, raising the receiver. “My name is Robert Langdon. I’m working with the World Health Organization. You have a major crisis at the city cistern, and I’m tailing the person responsible. She’s on a bus near the Spice Bazaar, heading for—”
“One moment, please,” the operator said. “Let me connect you with dispatch.”
“No, wait!” But Langdon was on hold again.
The Bentley’s driver turned to him with a look of fear. “A crisis at the cistern?!”
Langdon was about to explain when the driver’s face suddenly glowed red, like a demon.
Brake lights!
The driver’s head whipped around and the Bentley skidded to a stop directly behind the bus. The interior lights flickered on again and Langdon could see Sienna as plain as day. She was standing at the back door, yanking repeatedly on the emergency stop cord and banging to get off the bus.
She saw me, Langdon realized. No doubt Sienna had also seen the traffic on Galata Bridge and knew she could not afford to get caught in it.
Langdon opened his door in a flash, but Sienna had already bolted from the bus and was sprinting into the night. Langdon tossed the cell phone back to its owner. “Tell the police what happened! Tell them to surround this area!”
The turbaned man gave a frightened nod.
“And thank you!” Langdon shouted. “Teşekkürler!”
With that, Langdon dashed down the hill after Sienna, who was running directly toward the crowds milling around the Spice Bazaar.
CHAPTER 95
Istanbul’s three-hundred-year-old Spice Bazaar is one of the largest covered marketplaces in the world. Built in the shape of an L, the sprawling complex has eighty-eight vaulted rooms divided into hundreds of stalls, where local merchants zealously hawk a mind-boggling array of edible pleasures from around the world—spices, fruits, herbs, and Istanbul’s ubiquitous candylike confection, Turkish delight.
The bazaar’s entryway—a massive stone portal with a Gothic arch—is located on the corner of Çiçek Pazari and Tahmis Street, and is said to witness the passage of more than three hundred thousand visitors a day.
Tonight, as Langdon approached the swarming entrance, he felt as if all three hundred thousand were here at that very moment. He was still running hard, his eyes never leaving Sienna. She was now only twenty yards ahead of him, racing directly toward the bazaar’s gateway and showing no signs of stopping.
Sienna reached the arched portal and came up hard against the crowd. She snaked through the people, clawing her way inside. The moment she crossed the threshold, she stole a glance backward. Langdon saw in her eyes a frightened little girl, running scared … desperate and out of control.
“Sienna!” he shouted.
But she plunged into the sea of humanity and was gone.
Langdon dove in after her, bumping, pushing, craning his neck until he spotted her weaving down the bazaar’s western hallway to his left.
Burgeoning casks of exotic spices lined the way—Indian curry, Iranian saffron, Chinese flower tea—their dazzling colors creating a tunnel of yellows, browns, and golds. With every step, Langdon smelled a new aroma—pungent mushrooms, bitter roots, musky oils—all wafting through the air with a deafening chorus of languages from around the world. The result was an overwhelming rush of sensory stimuli … set against the unceasing thrum of people.
Thousands of people.
A wrenching feeling of claustrophobia gripped Langdon, and he almost pulled up before gathering himself again and forcing his way deeper into the bazaar. He could see Sienna just ahead, pushing through the masses with adamant force. She clearly was taking this ride to the end … wherever that might be for her.
For a moment Langdon wondered why he was chasing her.
For justice? Considering what Sienna had done, Langdon could not begin to fathom what kind of punishment awaited her if she were caught.
To prevent a pandemic? Whatever had been done was done.
As Langdon pushed through the ocean of strangers, he suddenly realized why he wanted so badly to stop Sienna Brooks.
I want answers.
Only ten yards ahead, Sienna was headed for an exit door at the end of the western arm of the bazaar. She stole another quick glance behind her, looking alarmed to see L
angdon so close. As she turned again, facing front, she tripped and fell.
Sienna’s head snapped forward, colliding with the shoulder of the person in front of her. As he went down, her right hand shot out, searching for anything to break her fall. She found only the rim of a barrel of dried chestnuts, which she seized in desperation, pulling it over on top of her and sending a landslide of nuts across the floor.
It took Langdon three strides to reach the spot where she had fallen. He looked down at the floor but saw only the toppled barrel and the chestnuts. No Sienna.
The shopkeeper was screaming wildly.
Where did she go?!
Langdon spun in a circle, but Sienna had somehow vanished. By the time his gaze landed on the western exit only fifteen yards ahead, he knew that her dramatic fall had been anything but accidental.
Langdon raced to the exit and burst out into an enormous plaza, also crowded with people. He stared into the plaza, searching in vain.
Directly ahead, on the far side of a multilane highway, Galata Bridge stretched out across the wide waters of the Golden Horn. The dual minarets of the New Mosque rose to Langdon’s right, shining brightly over the plaza. And to his left was nothing but open plaza … packed with people.
The sound of blaring car horns drew Langdon’s gaze ahead again, toward the highway that separated the plaza from the water. He saw Sienna, already a hundred yards away, darting through speeding traffic and narrowly avoiding being crushed between two trucks. She was headed for the sea.
To Langdon’s left, on the banks of the Golden Horn, a transportation hub bustled with activity—ferry docks, otobüses, taxis, tour boats.
Langdon sprinted hard across the plaza toward the highway. When he reached the guardrail, he timed his leap with the oncoming headlights and safely bounded across the first of several two-lane highways. For fifteen seconds, assaulted by blinding headlights and angry car horns, Langdon managed to advance from median to median—stopping, starting, weaving, until he finally vaulted over the final guardrail onto the grassy banks of the sea.
Although he could still see her, Sienna was a long way ahead, eschewing the taxi stand and idling buses and heading directly for the docks, where Langdon saw all manner of boats moving in and out—tourist barges, water taxis, private fishing boats, speedboats. Out across the water, city lights twinkled on the western side of the Golden Horn, and Langdon had no doubt that if Sienna reached the other side, there would be no hope of finding her, probably ever.