Page 86 of The Secret of Secrets

Shit. The ambassador had a way of getting to the point. Dana picked up a pen and signed the NDA.

“Ms. Daněk,” she began, “your visit to the Four Seasons was reckless…and unfortunate. You were not supposed to witness what you saw.”

I gathered as much when that woman’s gun was aimed at my face. “Yes, ma’am. I would be happy to forget what I saw and simply contin—”

“Let’s be honest, you won’t forget what you saw. And now you’ve left me no choice but to make sure you understand what you saw.”

Chapter 55

Langdon sat at the back of the Petřín Funicular as the all-but-empty train descended the steep ridge. Confident he had evaded Pavel, at least for now, Langdon closed his eyes and took a deep breath, attempting to make sense of what had just happened.

Whoever had lured him to Petřín Tower clearly knew Katherine was missing. I have Katherine. Whether or not that statement was true, it now seemed entirely possible that the note was intended as a means to isolate Langdon…or perhaps to isolate Sasha.

Langdon felt guilty for leaving the young Russian woman alone and unprotected, although judging from her encounter with Pavel, Sasha Vesna clearly could take care of herself. And she’s armed with Pavel’s gun, Langdon reminded himself, hoping that Michael Harris had arrived at her apartment by now. He also hoped Harris would have some information about Katherine’s whereabouts.

Langdon focused again on the one piece of information he did have—the strangely encoded email Katherine had sent him earlier this morning. But even that seemed to be unhelpful. Gibberish. The image flashed through his mind.

Just to be certain he had not made a mistake, Langdon performed the Enochian transliteration once again but ended up with the same meaningless string of letters.

LXXEDOC

Maybe she confused recto and verso? he thought, trying to imagine why her message to him seemed nonsensical.

Recto and verso—front and back—were the terms used by iconographers to designate which page of an open book should be read first…in other words, the direction in which a language should be read. Enochian was a right-to-left language—like Hebrew, Arabic, or Farsi—the opposite of English. Was it possible that the app had failed to reverse the text direction during encryption? Or maybe that Katherine had mistakenly reversed it, thereby doubling up and causing it to encrypt incorrectly?

Langdon transliterated the letters again, backward this time, and within a moment he knew his instincts had been correct.

A new word emerged in his mind.

CODEXXL

Code XXL—much closer to English.

Nonetheless, Langdon had no idea what Code XXL was referring to.

What am I missing here? He closed his eyes, again picturing the line.

CODEXXL

Suddenly, it dawned on him, and he realized his mistake.

I put the space in the wrong place…

Katherine was not saying CODE XXL…she was saying CODEX XL.

It was an allusion Langdon understood perfectly—as would Katherine. “Codex XL” was a crystal-clear reference to an enigmatic artifact that was located right here in the heart of Prague. They had actually visited it just yesterday.

The Devil’s Bible!

Officially known as the Codex Gigas, the “Devil’s Bible” was a mysterious object with a bizarre—some claimed haunted—history. It was the largest book in the world, measuring three feet by nearly two feet, and weighed an astounding 165 pounds. Normally housed in the Swedish National Library, it was currently on loan to the Klementinum here in Prague. While visiting the exhibit with Katherine yesterday, Langdon had mentioned that the codex bore more than a dozen different historical titles—so many, in fact, that one of his students had given it the humorous and simple nickname “Codex XL,” a reference to its extra-large size.

As the train trundled down the mountain, Langdon realized that Katherine’s cleverly encrypted message should have provided him some clarity, but instead it presented a new list of questions. Is she afraid someone is reading her email? Is she trying to remind me about something in the book…or maybe of something that happened there yesterday?

Langdon pictured the exhibit they had visited. The priceless Devil’s Bible was locked in a colossal, bulletproof, fireproof display case within the Klementinum, about a mile from where he was now. Langdon had first seen the codex years ago in Sweden in the Kungliga Biblioteket, but when he discovered that it was on tour here in Prague, he had insisted he and Katherine go see it.

“Codex Gigas literally means ‘gigantic book,’ ” he told her excitedly as they stood before the imposing object. He pointed at the book’s thick spine. “It has a wooden plank binding that contains more than three hundred pages of hand-scraped vellum, crafted from the skins of a hundred and sixty donkeys. The pages are meticulously calligraphed and include not only the complete Latin Bible but also assorted medical texts, histories, magic formulae, conjurations, and incantations. It even includes an elaborate exorcism—”

“Stop, Robert,” she said, smiling and affectionately squeezing his hand. “You had me at a hundred and sixty donkeys.”