“The Pitti Palace is that way,” Langdon said, pointing east, away from the Isolotto, toward the garden’s main thoroughfare — the Viottolone, which ran east — west along the entire length of the grounds. The Viottolone was as wide as a two-lane road and lined by a row of slender, four-hundred-year-old cypress trees.
“There’s no cover,” Sienna said, eyeing the uncamouflaged avenue and motioning up at the circling drone.
“You’re right,” Langdon said with a lopsided grin. “Which is why we’re taking the tunnel beside it.”
He pointed again, this time to a dense hedgerow adjacent to the mouth of the Viottolone. The wall of dense greenery had a small arched opening cut into it. Beyond the opening, a slender footpath stretched out into the distance — a tunnel running parallel with the Viottolone. It was enclosed on either side by a phalanx of pruned holm oaks, which had been carefully trained since the 1600s to arch inward over the path, intertwining overhead and providing an awning of foliage. The pathway’s name, La Cerchiata — literally “circular” or “hooped”—derived from its canopy of curved trees resembling barrel stays or cerchi.
Sienna hurried over to the opening and peered into the shaded channel. Immediately she turned back to him with a smile. “Better.”
Wasting no time, she slipped through the opening and hurried off among the trees.
Langdon had always considered La Cerchiata one of Florence’s most peaceful spots. Today, however, as he watched Sienna disappear down the darkened allée, he thought again of the Grecian free divers swimming into corral tunnels and praying they’d reach an exit.
Langdon quickly said his own little prayer and hurried after her.
A half mile behind them, outside the Art Institute, Agent Brüder strode through a bustle of police and students, his icy gaze parting the crowds before him. He made his way to the makeshift command post that his surveillance specialist had set up on the hood of his black van.
“From the aerial drone,” the specialist said, handing Brüder a tablet screen. “Taken a few minutes ago.”
Brüder examined the video stills, pausing on a blurry enlargement of two faces — a dark-haired man and a blond ponytailed woman — both huddled in the shadows and peering skyward through a canopy of trees.
Robert Langdon.
Sienna Brooks.
Zero doubt.
Brüder turned his attention to the map of the Boboli Gardens, which was spread out on the hood. They made a poor choice, he thought, eyeing the garden layout. While it was sprawling and intricate, with plenty of hiding places, the gardens also appeared to be surrounded on all sides by high walls. The Boboli Gardens were the closest thing to a natural killbox that Brüder had ever seen in the field.
They’ll never get out.
“Local authorities are sealing all exits,” the agent said. “And commencing a sweep.”
“Keep me informed,” Brüder said.
Slowly, he raised his eyes to the van’s thick polycarbonate window, beyond which he could see the silver-haired woman seated in the back of the vehicle.
The drugs they had given her had definitely dulled her senses — more than Brüder had imagined. Nonetheless, he could tell by the fearful look in her eyes that she still had a firm grasp on precisely what was going on.
She does not look happy, Brüder thought. Then again, why would she?
CHAPTER 26
A spire of water shot twenty feet in the air.
Langdon watched it fall gently back to earth and knew they were getting close. They had reached the end of La Cerchiata’s leafy tunnel and dashed across an open lawn into a grove of cork trees. Now they were looking out at the Boboli’s most famous spouting fountain — Stoldo Lorenzi’s bronze of Neptune clutching his three-pronged trident. Irreverently known by locals as “The Fountain of the Fork,” this water feature was considered the central point of the gardens.
Sienna stopped at the edge of the grove and peered upward through the trees. “I don’t see the drone.”
Langdon no longer heard it either, and yet the fountain was quite loud.
“Must have needed to refuel,” Sienna said. “This is our chance. Which way?”
Langdon led her to the left, and they began descending a steep incline. As they emerged from the trees, the Pitti Palace came into view.
“Nice little house,” Sienna whispered.
“Typical Medici understatement,” he replied wryly.
Still almost a quarter mile away, the Pitti Palace’s stone facade dominated the landscape, stretching out to their left and right. Its exterior of bulging, rusticated stonework lent the building an air of unyielding authority that was further accentuated by a powerful repetition of shuttered windows and arch-topped apertures. Traditionally, formal palaces were situated on high ground so that anyone in the gardens had to look uphill at the building. The Pitti Palace, however, was situated in a low valley near the Arno River, meaning that people in the Boboli Gardens looked downhill at the palace.
This effect was only more dramatic. One architect had described the palace as appearing to have been built by nature herself … as if the massive stones in a landslide had tumbled down the long escarpment and landed in an elegant, barricade-like pile at the bottom. Despite its less defensible position in the low ground, the solid stone structure of the Pitti Palace was so imposing that Napoleon had once used it as a power base while in Florence.
“Look,” Sienna said, pointing to the nearest doors of the palace. “Good news.”
Langdon had seen it, too. On this strange morning, the most welcome sight was not the palace itself, but the tourists streaming out of the building into the lower gardens. The palace was open, which meant that Langdon and Sienna would have no trouble slipping inside and passing through the building to escape the gardens. Once outside the palace, Langdon knew they would see the Arno River to their right, and beyond that, the spires of the old city.
He and Sienna kept moving, half jogging now down the steep embankment. As they descended, they traversed the Boboli Amphitheater — the site of the very first opera performance in history — which lay nestled like a horseshoe on the side of a hill. Beyond that, they passed the obelisk of Ramses II and the unfortunate piece of “art” that was positioned at its base. The guidebooks referred to the piece as “a colossal stone basin from Rome’s Baths of Caracalla,” but Langdon always saw it for what it truly was — the world’s largest bathtub. They really need to put that thing somewhere else.
They finally reached the rear of the palace and slowed to a calm walk, mixing inconspicuously with the first tourists of the day. Moving against the tide, they descended a narrow tunnel into the cortile, an inner courtyard where visitors were seated enjoying a morning espresso in the palace’s makeshift café. The smell of fresh-ground coffee filled the air, and Langdon felt a sudden longing to sit down and enjoy a civilized breakfast. Today’s not the day, he thought as they pressed on, entering the wide stone passageway that led toward the palace’s main doors.
As they neared the doorway, Langdon and Sienna collided with a growing bottleneck of stalled tourists who seemed to be assembling in the portico to observe something outside. Langdon peered through the crowd to the area in front of the palace.
The Pitti’s grand entrance was as blunt and unwelcoming as he recalled it. Rather than a manicured lawn and landscaping, the front yard was a vast expanse of pavement that stretched across an entire hillside, flowing down to the Via dei Guicciardini like a massive paved ski slope.
At the bottom of the hill, Langdon now saw the reason for the crowd of onlookers.
Down in Piazza dei Pitti, a half-dozen police cars had streamed in from all directions. A small army of officers were advancing up the hill, unholstering their weapons and fanning out to secure the front of the palace.