CHAPTER 49

IN THE SECRET study of Duchess Bianca Cappello, Agent Brü der had heard a sickening thud followed by a growing commotion in the Hall of the Five Hundred. He rushed to the grate in the wall and peered through it. The scene on the elegant stone floor below took him several seconds to process.

The pregnant museum administrator had arrived beside him at the grate, immediately covering her mouth in mute terror at the sight below—a crumpled figure surrounded by panicked tourists. As the woman’s gaze shifted slowly upward to the ceiling of the Hall of the Five Hundred, she let out a pained whimper. Brü der looked up, following her gaze to a circular ceiling panel—a painted canvas with a large tear across the center.

He turned to the woman. “How do we get up there!? ”

At the other end of the building, Langdon and Sienna descended breathlessly from the attic and burst through a doorway. Within a matter of seconds, Langdon had found the small alcove, deftly hidden behind a crimson curtain. He had recalled it clearly from his secret passages tour.

The Duke of Athens Stairway.

The sound of running footsteps and shouting seemed to be coming from all directions now, and Langdon knew their time was short. He pulled aside the curtain, and he and Sienna slipped through onto a small landing.

Without a word, they began to descend the stone staircase. The passage had been designed as a series of frighteningly narrow switchback stairs. The deeper they went, the tighter it seemed to get. Just as Langdon felt as if the walls were moving in to crush him, thankfully, they could go no farther.

Ground level.

The space at the bottom of the stairs was a tiny stone chamber, and although its exit had to be one of the smallest doors on earth, it was a welcome sight. Only about four feet high, the door was made of heavy wood with iron rivets and a heavy interior bolt to keep people out.

“I can hear street sounds beyond the door, ” Sienna whispered, still looking shaken. “What’s on the other side? ”

“The Via della Ninna, ” Langdon replied, picturing the crowded pedestrian walkway. “But there may be police. ”

“They won’t recognize us. They’ll be looking for a blond girl and a dark-haired man. ”

Langdon eyed her strangely. “Which is precisely what we are …”

Sienna shook her head, a melancholy resolve crossing her face. “I didn’t want you to see me like this, Robert, but unfortunately it’s what I look like at the moment. ” Abruptly, Sienna reached up and grabbed a handful of her blond hair. Then she yanked down, and all of her hair slid off in a single motion.

Langdon recoiled, startled both by the fact that Sienna wore a wig and by her altered appearance without it. Sienna Brooks was in fact totally bald, her bare scalp smooth and pale, like a cancer patient undergoing chemotherapy. On top of it all, she’s ill?

“I know, ” she said. “Long story. Now bend down. ” She held up the wig, clearly intending to put it on Langdon’s head.

Is she serious? Langdon halfheartedly bent over, and Sienna wedged the blond hair onto his head. The wig barely fit, but she arranged it as best as she could. Then she stepped back and assessed him. Not quite satisfied, she reached up, loosened his tie, and slipped the loop up onto his forehead, retightening it like a bandanna and securing the ill-fitting wig to his head.

Sienna now set to work on herself, rolling up her pant legs and pushing her socks down around her ankles. When she stood up, she had a sneer on her lips. The lovely Sienna Brooks was now a punk-rock skinhead. The former Shakespearean actress’s transformation was startling.

“Remember, ” she said, “ninety percent of personal recognition is body language, so when you move, move like an aging rocker. ”

Aging, I can do, Langdon thought. Rocker, I’m not so sure.

Before Langdon could argue the point, Sienna had unbolted the tiny door and swung it open. She ducked low and exited onto the crowded cobblestone street. Langdon followed, nearly on all fours as he emerged into the daylight.

Aside from a few startled glances at the mismatched couple emerging from the tiny door in the foundation of Palazzo Vecchio, nobody gave them a second look. Within seconds, Langdon and Sienna were moving east, swallowed up by the crowd.

The man in the Plume Paris eyeglasses picked at his bleeding skin as he snaked through the crowd, keeping a safe distance behind Robert Langdon and Sienna Brooks. Despite their clever disguises, he had spotted them emerging from the tiny door on the Via della Ninna and had immediately known who they were.

He had tailed them only a few blocks before he got winded, his chest aching acutely, forcing him to take shallow breaths. He felt like he’d been punched in the sternum.

Gritting his teeth against the pain, he forced his attention back to Langdon and Sienna as he continued to follow them through the streets of Florence.

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