Page 134 of The Secret of Secrets

They had all agreed with Langdon’s proposed goal—to get inside the actual facility and gather classified information to protect themselves—but according to Nagel, the bomb shelter entrance was a heavily barricaded driveway that descended to a checkpoint with video surveillance, armed army personnel, and biometric security.

Katherine was beginning to wonder if maybe this had all been a clever bluff by Robert to escape the ambassador’s residence. But if that’s true…now what?

“Before we go any farther,” Nagel said, slowing to a stop on the side of a quiet street in her residential neighborhood, “I need to know your plan for entering the facility.” She put the car in park and turned to face Langdon in the front seat.

“Fair enough,” Langdon said. “It should actually be quite simple.” He paused, an uneasy smile parting his lips. “Provided my logic is sound.”

Nagel was not smiling. “Go on.”

For the next sixty seconds, Langdon outlined exactly how and why he believed he could get them access to Threshold. When he was finished, the inquisitive look on Nagel’s face had turned to one of shock, matching Katherine’s own feelings of surprise. Langdon’s explanation was, in his own particular fashion, utterly unexpected…perfectly logical…and surprisingly simple.

“I don’t know what I thought you were going to say,” Nagel said, “but it was not that.” She sounded suddenly hopeful. “I must admit, the thought had never occurred to me.”

Langdon nodded. “I imagine they hope it never occurs to anyone.”

Nagel put the SUV into gear and pulled out, driving faster now, heading southward toward the river. Nobody said another word.

In the backseat, Katherine felt rising anticipation to think she might finally learn how her work could be a threat to a classified CIA project. What in the world are they doing at Threshold that relates to my manuscript?

The code name Threshold sounded generic and nondescript, revealing nothing about the nature of the CIA project. This was apparently standard practice, Katherine concluded, running through a list of declassified CIA code names mentioned by the press from time to time: Bluebook, Artichoke, Mongoose, Phoenix, Stargate…

In that moment, Katherine felt an unexpected connection emerge. “Psychotronics,” she declared.

Nagel glanced over her shoulder. “I’m sorry?”

Langdon turned, looking equally puzzled.

“Psychotronics,” she repeated. “It’s the term the Russians used for their early research into paranormal phenomena—mind reading, ESP, thought control, altered states of consciousness. Psychotronics is considered the precursor to modern noetic science.”

“Ah yes, I’d forgotten the name,” Nagel said. “Russia invested a billion dollars in psychotronics during the Cold War—the world’s first ‘neuro-military’ initiative—mind control, psycho-surveillance, brain-related tactics, that sort of thing. The CIA, of course, found out about the program, panicked, jumped on board, and initiated our own series of highly classified, neuro-military research programs.”

“And one of those projects,” Katherine said, “was called Stargate.”

“It was,” Nagel replied, revving the SUV to make the light at a bustling six-way intersection. “But as you probably know, Stargate was a fiasco—one of the agency’s most humiliating public failures. When Stargate was discovered, the agency was mercilessly mocked for spending millions on pseudoscience, parlor tricks, and attempts to train ‘magical ghost spies.’ In the end, it turned out the CIA had been baited by Russian disinformation and tricked into chasing our tail on fringe science that was never going to work.”

Not exactly fringe, Katherine bristled, but she held her tongue. Despite its failures and embarrassing history, Stargate’s attempts to explore paranormal brain phenomena fell under what scientists would now term metaphysics or parapsychology.

“Why did you mention Stargate?” Langdon asked. “Did you write about it in your manuscript?”

“No,” Katherine said. “But it occurs to me that Stargate was one of the very first attempts to test the possibility of nonlocal consciousness.”

“Oh?” Langdon turned, looking surprised. “So the CIA did work in nonlocal consciousness?”

“In a sense, yes,” Katherine said. “Stargate tried to develop a never-before-imagined surveillance technique called ‘remote viewing.’ It consists of a ‘viewer’ sitting in a quiet location, meditating until he falls into a trance, and then projecting his consciousness out of his body…freeing it from its local bonds…and letting it materialize effortlessly anywhere in the world so the consciousness can ‘view’ what is happening in remote locations.”

Langdon arched an eyebrow, looking extremely skeptical.

Thanks, Robert, she thought, considering remote viewing essentially defined her theory of nonlocal consciousness. A mind unrestrained by locality.

“The ultimate goal of Stargate,” Nagel added, “from a military perspective, was to train a psychic spy whose consciousness could hover inside the Kremlin, observe a meeting, private conversation, or military strategy session, and then ‘return’ home to report what had transpired.”

“Hard to imagine it didn’t work,” Langdon said sarcastically.

Katherine leaned forward in her seat, speaking forcefully now. “For the record, Robert, you wrote about remote viewing and nonlocal consciousness long before I did.”

“What? I’ve never written about eith—”

“You called them ‘astral projection’ and ‘untethered KA.’ ”