Page 178 of The Secret of Secrets

And so we wait, he decided, having immediately called for backup upon finding Housemore’s body. Help is on the way.

The interrogation would take place in Threshold, Finch had proudly decided. His facility offered superb secrecy and efficacy. The EPR pods could be used extremely persuasively, and the Threshold pharmacy burgeoned with interrogational aids, including memory impairment drugs should it become necessary that “none of this ever happened.”

As Finch moved slowly toward his captives, he felt confident the situation was entirely under his control. His lone oversight—a minor one—had been failure to check the rounds in Housemore’s gun, but having seen no signs of a gunfight upstairs, he was nearly certain her SIG Sauer P226 had a nearly full magazine.

Finch preferred not to use the weapon—at least not yet—but he knew he would have no choice if Langdon and Solomon decided to rush him. I have to keep them calm. The most effective manipulation to control captives was to distract them with other thoughts. Conveniently, Langdon and Solomon were still apparently thunderstruck by what they had found down here, and the more Finch explained about Threshold, the clearer it would become to the agency that Langdon and Solomon knew far too much to go free. Ever.

“There’s no need to shoot,” Langdon declared as Finch arrived before them, gun leveled at their chests. “We’ll sign your NDAs. Just tell us what you need.”

“Oh, that moment has passed,” Finch replied coolly. “You’ve broken into a top secret facility, and you’ve seen entirely too much.”

“True,” Solomon declared, her tone indignant. “I saw you stole my patent.”

Her apparent lack of fear told Finch that she had yet to grasp the true peril of her situation. “We stole nothing, Dr. Solomon,” he said calmly. “You held no patent. As you may recall, it was denied.”

“But why all the tactical maneuvers?!” Langdon demanded. “Why not simply contact Katherine or her publisher and explain—”

“Because we’re not suicidal,” Finch shot back. “Ask Dr. Solomon how she feels about sharing research with the U.S. military. She gave a damning podcast interview about it once. I could not risk her going public and sharing the agency’s concerns. Besides, Mr. Langdon, we had no time. This all came to a head last night very quickly—”

“What experiments are you running here?!” Katherine interrupted, surveying the EPR pods with undisguised amazement. “Are you studying death?”

“How much would you like to know?” Finch asked, nodding ominously toward the pod closest to them. “Get in and I’ll show you.”

“That won’t be necessary,” Langdon said. “Take your classified binder back. We’ll sign NDAs. We’ve seen some of your facility, but we understood almost nothing.”

Finch chuckled. “Bright people playing dumb? That’s never very convincing, Professor. Allow me to enlighten you.”

“Please don’t,” Langdon said. “I think we’d prefer not to know what you’re doing down here.”

“Well, that hardly seems fair,” Finch said with a smile. “Considering Dr. Solomon helped build it.”

The Golěm had stepped onto the pneumatic lift to ascend back to the domed chamber when the gunshot rang out. Alarmed, he immediately stepped off, waiting in silence beneath the opening.

The conversation above was perfectly audible.

An armed man had just taken two hostages in the dome, and he had addressed them as Dr. Solomon and Robert Langdon. Why the two Americans were down here, The Golěm had no idea, but neither one of them deserved to die.

The man with the gun, however, most certainly did. The Golěm had quickly realized that this was Everett Finch, who, according to Gessner, was the mastermind behind Threshold.

The head of the snake. Here in the flesh.

The universe had just offered The Golěm an unexpected gift—the opportunity to eliminate Sasha’s ultimate betrayer…the man who had created this house of horrors.

As alluring a prospect as it was to kill Finch, the task seemed nearly impossible. The Golěm had only a stun gun with a single discharge remaining—no match for a firearm—and if he ascended on the pneumatic platform, he would rise out of the floor in plain view at the back of the domed chamber, totally exposed.

The clock is ticking, he reminded himself, estimating he had only fifteen minutes or so before this room detonated and became a catastrophic pressure bomb.

Waiting here too long was certain death, and he wondered if he should run back through the long utilities passageway to the SMES vault and try to abort the blast. The airtight portal’s turn wheel had required substantial effort to seal on his way out, and he feared that the energy required to open it again might prove too much for him.

A dangerous gamble without my wand, he thought.

The Golěm felt ready to trade his life for Mr. Finch’s, but he knew he could not make that decision for Sasha. If he didn’t escape and release her, she would never again see the light of day.

Chapter 112

In the spectral glow of the dome, surrounded by suspended-animation pods, Robert Langdon stood beside Katherine and studied their captor. Having positioned himself a safe five yards away, Everett Finch was leaning comfortably against a pod, his gun leveled.

Considering the tense circumstances, Finch’s demeanor seemed unsettlingly serene. There was an icy detachment about this man that suggested he was capable of doing whatever was necessary.