Poet's Corner, Westminster Abbey – 9:54 a.m.
The centuries-old air inside the Abbey felt suddenly thinner.
Erasmus Lowell stepped forward, his eyes gleaming with unsettling calm. He looked older than Langdon remembered—gaunt cheeks, hair now white and slicked back—but his posture was commanding, like a man used to moving unseen behind history's curtain.
"I thought you died in Geneva," Langdon said, keeping his voice even.
Lowell smiled. "Only intellectually. The body survives. The mind… evolves." Lenka instinctively placed herself between him and Katherine.
Lowell nodded approvingly. "Still travelling with protectors, Robert. But do you even know what it is you're protecting?" He gestured toward the brass cylinder in Lenka's hands. "You hold not a scroll, but a key. One that unlocks the raw memory of humanity. No more myths. No more religions built on selective amnesia. Just clarity." Katherine spoke up. "We don't want to destroy belief. We want to give people the choice." Lowell's eyes flashed. "Choice?" He stepped closer, voice lowering. "When you give man the full burden of his memory, he crumbles. Guilt, war, the mistakes of every ancestor etched into his spine. Memory is a chain. I intend to wield it—or break it." Langdon looked into the eyes of his former mentor and saw something horrifying:
zeal.
"Why show yourself now?" Langdon asked. "Why not stay in the shadows?" Lowell smirked. "Because I need your help to find the last node." Langdon blinked. "What node?" Lowell reached into his coat and pulled out a folded, time-stained map—an ancient star chart overlaid with a geometric lattice of city names: Prague. London.
And one more, circled in deep red:
New York.
Lowell tapped the final name. "The amplifier you saw in Prague? It was only one-third of the network. A global resonance triad. The last activation point lies beneath Manhattan." Katherine stepped back. "You want to trigger the entire network." Lowell nodded. "And record the collective soul of mankind. One clean download." Langdon said nothing.
Lowell stepped forward, eyes narrowing. "Come with me, Robert. Help me finish it. Or I will take it from you—by force, if I must." Silence.
Then, from the distance, the sound of security boots echoing through the Abbey halls.
Lowell smiled again. "You have until sundown to decide. After that… memory belongs to the highest bidder." He turned and vanished into the crowd just as the guards arrived.
Langdon stared at the spot where he'd stood, the implications crashing down like thunder.
Katherine's voice shook. "We have to stop him." Langdon looked at the ancient map, the name New York glowing like a countdown.
"We will," he said.
"But not here."