Origin: (Robert Langdon Book 5)

by Dan Brown

  For centuries, the legacy of the Catholic kings had served as Spain’s moral center. In recent years, though, the country’s bedrock of faith seemed to be dissolving, and Spain found herself locked in a violent tug-of-war between the very old and the very new.

  A growing number of liberals were now flooding blogs and social media with rumors suggesting that once Julián was finally able to emerge from his father’s shadow, he would reveal his true self—a bold, progressive, secular leader finally willing to follow the lead of so many European countries and abolish the monarchy entirely.

  Julián’s father had always been very active in his role as king, leaving Julián little room to participate in politics. The king openly stated that he believed Julián should enjoy his youth, and not until the prince was married and settled down did it make sense for him to engage in matters of state. And so Julián’s first forty years—endlessly chronicled in the Spanish press—had been a life of private schools, horseback riding, ribbon cuttings, fund-raisers, and world travel. Despite having accomplished little of note in his life, Prince Julián was, without a doubt, Spain’s most eligible bachelor.

  Over the years, the handsome forty-two-year-old prince had publicly dated countless eligible women, and while he had a reputation for being a hopeless romantic, nobody had ever quite stolen his heart. In recent months, however, Julián had been spotted several times with a beautiful woman who, despite looking like a retired fashion model, was in fact the highly respected director of Bilbao’s Guggenheim Museum.

  The media immediately hailed Ambra Vidal as “a perfect match for a modern king.” She was cultured, successful, and most importantly, not a scion of one of Spain’s noble families. Ambra Vidal was of the people.

  The prince apparently agreed with their assessment, and after only a very short courtship, Julián proposed to her—in a most unexpected and romantic way—and Ambra Vidal accepted.

  In the weeks that followed, the press reported daily on Ambra Vidal, noting that she was turning out to be much more than a pretty face. She quickly revealed herself as a fiercely independent woman who, despite being the future queen consort of Spain, flatly refused to permit the Guardia Real to interfere with her daily schedule or let their agents provide her with protection at anything other than a major public event.

  When the commander of the Guardia Real discreetly suggested Ambra start wearing clothing that was more conservative and less formfitting, Ambra made a public joke out of it, saying she had been reprimanded by the commander of the “Guardarropía Real”—the Royal Wardrobe.

  The liberal magazines splashed her face all over their covers. “Ambra! Spain’s Beautiful Future!” When she refused an interview, they hailed her as “independent”; when she granted an interview, they hailed her as “accessible.”

  Conservative magazines countered by deriding the brash new queen-to-be as a power-hungry opportunist who would be a dangerous influence on the future king. As evidence, they cited her blatant disregard for the prince’s reputation.

  Their initial concern centered on Ambra’s habit of addressing Prince Julián by his first name alone, eschewing the traditional custom of referring to him as Don Julián or su alteza.

  Their second concern, however, seemed far more serious. For the past several weeks, Ambra’s work schedule had made her almost entirely unavailable to the prince, and yet she had been sighted repeatedly in Bilbao, having lunch near the museum with an outspoken atheist—American technologist Edmond Kirsch.

  Despite Ambra’s insistence that the lunches were simply planning meetings with one of the museum’s major donors, sources inside the palace suggested that Julián’s blood was beginning to boil.

  Not that anyone could blame him.

  The truth of the matter was that Julián’s stunning fiancée—only weeks after their engagement—had been choosing to spend most of her time with another man.

  CHAPTER 23

  LANGDON’S FACE REMAINED pressed hard into the turf. The weight of the agent on top of him was crushing.

  Strangely, he felt nothing.

  Langdon’s emotions were scattered and numb—twisting layers of sadness, fear, and outrage. One of the world’s most brilliant minds—a dear friend—had just been publicly executed in the most brutal manner. He was killed only moments before he revealed the greatest discovery of his life.

  Langdon now realized that the tragic loss of human life was accompanied by a second loss—a scientific one.

  Now the world may never know what Edmond found.

  Langdon flushed with sudden anger, followed by steely determination.

  I will do everything possible to find out who is responsible for this. I will honor your legacy, Edmond. I will find a way to share your discovery with the world.

  “You knew,” the guard’s voice rasped, close in his ear. “You were heading for the podium like you expected something to happen.”

  “I … was … warned,” Langdon managed, barely able to breathe.

  “Warned by whom?!”

  Langdon could feel his transducer headset twisted and askew on his cheek. “The headset on my face … it’s an automated docent. Edmond Kirsch’s computer warned me. It found an anomaly on the guest list—a retired admiral from the Spanish navy.”

  The guard’s head was now close enough to Langdon’s ear that he could hear the man’s radio earpiece crackle to life. The voice in the transmission was breathless and urgent, and although Langdon’s Spanish was spotty, he heard enough to decipher the bad news.

  … el asesino ha huido …

  The assassin had escaped.

  … salida bloqueada …

  An exit had been blocked.

  … uniforme militar blanco …

  As the words “military uniform” were spoken, the guard on top of Langdon eased off the pressure. “¿Uniforme naval?” he asked his partner. “Blanco … ¿Como de almirante?”

  The response was affirmative.

  A naval uniform, Langdon realized. Winston was right.

  The guard released Langdon and got off him. “Roll over.”

  Langdon twisted painfully onto his back and propped himself up on his elbows. His head was spinning and his chest felt bruised.

  “Don’t move,” the guard said.

  Langdon had no intention of moving; the officer standing over him was about two hundred pounds of solid muscle and had already shown he was dead serious about his job.

  “¡Inmediatamente!” the guard barked into his radio, continuing with an urgent request for support from local authorities and roadblocks around the museum.

  … policía local … bloqueos de carretera …

  From his position on the floor, Langdon could see Ambra Vidal, still on the ground near the sidewall. She tried to stand up, but faltered, collapsing on her hands and knees.

  Somebody help her!

  But the guard was now shouting across the dome, seeming to address nobody in particular. “¡Luces! ¡Y cobertura de móvil!” I need lights and phone service!

  Langdon reached up and straightened the transducer headset on his face.

  “Winston, are you there?”

  The guard turned, eyeing Langdon strangely.

  “I am here.” Winston’s voice was flat.

  “Winston, Edmond was shot. We need the lights back on right away. We need cellular service restored. Can you control that? Or contact someone who can?”

  Seconds later, the lights in the dome rose abruptly, dissolving the magical illusion of a moonlit meadow and illuminating a deserted expanse of artificial turf scattered with abandoned blankets.

  The guard seemed startled by Langdon’s apparent power. After a moment, he reached down and pulled Langdon to his feet. The two men faced each other in the stark light.

  The agent was tall, the same height as Langdon, with a shaved head and a muscular body that strained at his blue blazer. His face was pale with muted features that set off his sharp eyes, which, at the moment, were focused like lasers on La
ngdon.

  “You were in the video tonight. You’re Robert Langdon.”

  “Yes. Edmond Kirsch was my student and friend.”

  “I am Agent Fonseca with the Guardia Real,” he announced in perfect English. “Tell me how you knew about the navy uniform.”

  Langdon turned toward Edmond’s body, which lay motionless on the grass beside the podium. Ambra Vidal knelt beside the body along with two museum security guards and a staff paramedic, who had already abandoned efforts to revive him. Ambra gently covered the corpse with a blanket.

  Clearly, Edmond was gone.

  Langdon felt nauseated, unable to pull his eyes from his murdered friend.

  “We can’t help him,” the guard snapped. “Tell me how you knew.”

  Langdon returned his eyes to the guard, whose tone left no room for misinterpretation. It was an order.

  Langdon quickly relayed what Winston had told him—that the docent program had flagged one of the guest’s headsets as having been abandoned, and when a human docent found the headset in a trash receptacle, they checked which guest had been assigned that headset, alarmed to find that he was a last-minute write-in on the guest list.

  “Impossible.” The guard’s eyes narrowed. “The guest list was locked yesterday. Everyone underwent a background check.”

  “Not this man,” Winston’s voice announced in Langdon’s headset. “I was concerned and ran the guest’s name, only to find he was a former Spanish navy admiral, discharged for alcoholism and post-traumatic stress suffered in a terrorist attack in Seville five years ago.”

  Langdon relayed the information to the guard.

  “The bombing of the cathedral?” The guard looked incredulous.

  “Furthermore,” Winston told Langdon, “I found the officer had no connection whatsoever to Mr. Kirsch, which concerned me, and so I contacted museum security to set off alarms, but without more conclusive information, they argued we should not ruin Edmond’s event—especially while it was being live-streamed to the world. Knowing how hard Edmond worked on tonight’s program, their logic made sense to me, and so I immediately contacted you, Robert, in hopes you could spot this man so I could discreetly guide a security team to him. I should have taken stronger action. I failed Edmond.”

  Langdon found it somewhat unnerving that Edmond’s machine seemed to experience guilt. He glanced back toward Edmond’s covered body and saw Ambra Vidal approaching.

  Fonseca ignored her, still focused directly on Langdon. “The computer,” he asked, “did it give you a name for the naval officer in question?”

  Langdon nodded. “His name is Admiral Luis Ávila.”

  As he spoke the name, Ambra stopped short and stared at Langdon, a look of utter horror on her face.

  Fonseca noted her reaction and immediately moved toward her. “Ms. Vidal? You’re familiar with the name?”

  Ambra seemed unable to reply. She lowered her gaze and stared at the floor as if she had just seen a ghost.

  “Ms. Vidal,” Fonseca repeated. “Admiral Luis Ávila—do you know this name?”

  Ambra’s shell-shocked expression left little doubt that she did indeed know the killer. After a stunned moment, she blinked twice and her dark eyes began to clear, as if she were emerging from a trance. “No … I don’t know the name,” she whispered, glancing at Langdon and then back at her security guard. “I was just … shocked to hear that the killer was an officer of the Spanish navy.”

  She’s lying, Langdon sensed, puzzled as to why she would attempt to disguise her reaction. I saw it. She recognized that man’s name.

  “Who was in charge of the guest list?!” Fonseca demanded, taking another step toward Ambra. “Who added this man’s name?”

  Ambra’s lips were trembling now. “I … I have no idea.”

  The guard’s questions were interrupted by a sudden cacophony of cell phones ringing and beeping throughout the dome. Winston had apparently found a way to restore cell service, and one of the phones now ringing was in Fonseca’s blazer pocket.

  The Guardia agent reached for his phone and, seeing the caller ID, took a deep breath and answered. “Ambra Vidal está a salvo,” he announced.

  Ambra Vidal is safe. Langdon moved his gaze to the distraught woman. She was already looking at him. When their eyes met, they held each other’s stare for a long moment.

  Then Langdon heard Winston’s voice materialize in his headset.

  “Professor,” Winston whispered. “Ambra Vidal knows very well how Luis Ávila got onto the guest list. She added his name herself.”

  Langdon needed a moment to make sense of the information.

  Ambra Vidal herself placed the killer on the guest list?

  And now she’s lying about it?!

  Before Langdon could fully process this information, Fonseca was handing his cell phone to Ambra.

  The agent said, “Don Julián quiere hablar con usted.”

  Ambra seemed almost to recoil from the phone. “Tell him I’m fine,” she replied. “I’ll call him in a little while.”

  The guard’s expression was one of utter disbelief. He covered the phone and whispered to Ambra, “Su alteza Don Julián, el príncipe, ha pedido—”

  “I don’t care if he’s the prince,” she fired back. “If he’s going to be my husband, he will have to learn to give me space when I need it. I just witnessed a murder, and I need a minute to myself! Tell him I’ll call him shortly.”

  Fonseca stared at the woman, his eyes flashing an emotion that bordered on contempt. Then he turned and walked off to continue his call in private.

  For Langdon, the bizarre exchange had solved one small mystery. Ambra Vidal is engaged to Prince Julián of Spain? This news explained the celebrity treatment she was receiving and also the presence of the Guardia Real, although it certainly did not explain her refusal to accept her fiancé’s call. The prince must be worried to death if he saw this on television.

  Almost instantly, Langdon was struck by a second, far darker revelation.

  Oh my God … Ambra Vidal is connected to Madrid’s Royal Palace.

  The unexpected coincidence sent a chill through him as he recalled Edmond’s threatening voice mail from Bishop Valdespino.

  CHAPTER 24

  TWO HUNDRED YARDS from Madrid’s Royal Palace, inside Almudena Cathedral, Bishop Valdespino had momentarily stopped breathing. He still wore his ceremonial robes and was seated at his office laptop, riveted by the images being transmitted from Bilbao.

  This will be a massive news story.

  From all he could see, the global media were already going wild. The top news outlets were lining up authorities on science and religion to speculate about Kirsch’s presentation, while everyone else offered hypotheses as to who murdered Edmond Kirsch and why. The media seemed to concur that, by all appearances, someone out there was deadly serious about making sure Kirsch’s discovery never saw the light of day.

  After a long moment of reflection, Valdespino took out his cell phone and placed a call.

  Rabbi Köves answered on the first ring. “Terrible!” The rabbi’s voice was nearly a shriek. “I was watching on television! We need to go to the authorities right now and tell them what we know!”

  “Rabbi,” Valdespino replied, his tone measured. “I agree this is a horrifying turn of events. But before we take action, we need to think.”

  “There is nothing to think about!” Köves fired back. “Clearly, someone will stop at nothing to bury Kirsch’s discovery, and they are butchers! I am convinced they also killed Syed. They must know who we are and will be coming for us next. You and I have a moral obligation to go to the authorities and tell them what Kirsch told us.”

  “A moral obligation?” Valdespino challenged. “It sounds more like you want to make the information public so nobody has a motive to silence you and me personally.”

  “Certainly, our safety is a consideration,” the rabbi argued, “but we also have a moral obligation to the world. I realize this discover
y will call into question some fundamental religious beliefs, but if there is one thing I have learned in my long life, it is that faith always survives, even in the face of great hardship. I believe faith will survive this too, even if we reveal Kirsch’s findings.”

  “I hear you, my friend,” the bishop finally said, maintaining as even a tone as possible. “I can hear the resolution in your voice, and I respect your thinking. I want you to know that I am open to discussion, and even to being swayed in my thinking. And yet, I beseech you, if we are going to unveil this discovery to the world, let us do it together. In the light of day. With honor. Not in desperation on the heels of this horrific assassination. Let us plan it, rehearse it, and frame the news properly.”

  Köves said nothing, but Valdespino could hear the old man breathing.

  “Rabbi,” the bishop continued, “at the moment, the single most pressing issue is our personal safety. We are dealing with killers, and if you make yourself too visible—for example, by going to the authorities or to a television station—it could end violently. I’m fearful for you in particular; I have protection here inside the palace complex, but you … you are alone in Budapest! Clearly, Kirsch’s discovery is a life-and-death matter. Please let me arrange for your protection, Yehuda.”

  Köves fell silent a moment. “From Madrid? How can you possibly—”

  “I have the security resources of the royal family at my disposal. Remain inside your home with your doors locked. I will request that two Guardia Real agents collect you and bring you to Madrid, where we can make sure you are safe in the palace complex and where you and I can sit down face-to-face and discuss how best to move forward.”

  “If I come to Madrid,” the rabbi said tentatively, “what if you and I cannot agree on how to proceed?”

  “We will agree,” the bishop assured him. “I know I am old-fashioned, but I am also a realist, like yourself. Together we will find the best course of action. I have faith in that.”