Page 120 of The Secret of Secrets

No, I mean phone.

Langdon walked toward the vintage club chair, whose leather cushion he had noticed was deeply indented from use. “She said this library is the most private room in the house…and where she makes all her calls. So where’s her phone?”

“She has a mobile,” Katherine said.

Langdon shook his head. “Her legal attaché told me landlines are required for all official business.”

Taking a seat in the worn leather chair, Langdon looked around, eyeing its unusual side table—an octagonal pillar whose unique Beaux Arts design was popular in the late 1800s during alcohol prohibitions. Gripping the lip of the tabletop, he lifted. The tabletop hinged open to reveal the cavity within. As Langdon imagined, this cabinet contained not hidden alcohol, but rather the ambassador’s hardwired telephone.

He reached in, lifted it out, and placed the phone on his lap.

“You’re ridiculous,” Katherine said.

“Lucky guess.” Langdon lifted the receiver to his ear, hearing a dial tone.

“Do you really think you should use that phone?” Katherine looked wary.

“Why not?” he replied, dialing. “It’s probably the safest line in the country.”

Chapter 77

Buoyed by the double espresso, Jonas Faukman had now left the children’s publishing floor and returned to his office with a clear mission—to figure out exactly why Katherine’s manuscript had been hacked, particularly by such a formidable entity. Alex Conan had joined him, eager to help—at least until his boss summoned him for the inevitable interrogation.

Faukman was at his desk computer, and the tech was seated opposite him with an open laptop. They had just begun to work when the piercing ring of Faukman’s office phone broke the silence.

A business call at 5:15 a.m.? Faukman wondered. When he saw the caller ID was a European exchange, he lunged for the phone and pressed the speaker button. “Hello?!”

“Jonas!” The familiar baritone of Robert Langdon crackled through the room. “Thank God, you’re safe! I tried your cell and home numbers. What are you doing at your office so early?!”

“Jesus, Robert…” Faukman’s heart pounded. “We thought you were…”

“I know what you heard,” Langdon said, “Katherine told me, but it was just my phone that drowned, not me.”

“Katherine is with you?”

“She is, and we’re both relieved to hear your voice. The last we heard, you were missing.”

“That’s a long story to be told over martinis,” Faukman said. “As you probably know, Katherine’s manuscript is gone. We were hacked, and it was deleted right out of the PRH system.”

“I heard. Is there any chance of resurrecting a backup from the server?”

Faukman glanced at Alex, who was shaking his head.

“It was wiped clean,” Faukman replied dejectedly. “I don’t know what to say.”

Langdon let out a sigh. “Too bad they didn’t delete my last book instead.”

Harsh but true, Faukman thought. Langdon’s last book—Symbols, Semiotics, and the Evolution of Language—had gotten rave reviews but never found an audience outside academia. “I was told Katherine printed a hard copy of her manuscript. Is that true?”

“Yes…but that one’s gone as well.”

Faukman took a deep breath. “Okay, let’s focus on what matters—you’re both safe. We can deal with the book later.”

“Well, that’s why I’m calling,” Langdon said. “I’m actually not sure we’re safe. We’re with the U.S. ambassador at her private residence, but it’s a peculiar situation. I’m not even supposed to be calling—”

“Wait! You’re with the American ambassador?!” Faukman tried not to sound panicked. “Robert, I would be very careful about trusting anyone in our government. Our tech here traced the PRH hackers back to an extremely powerful organization.” He recalled the strange hyphenated name that Alex had typed earlier in the PRH Security Center. “The organization is called In-Q-Tel.”

“Never heard of them.”