Page 106 of The Secret of Secrets

Katherine was relieved to see Langdon descending from the balcony, his body silhouetted by the dim light from the trapdoor that he had opened above.

“We need fire,” he said urgently as he joined her on the landing. “Tell me you have a lighter or matches.”

“I’m sorry, what?”

“Smoke. We need smoke if we’re going to get out of here.” The urgency in Langdon’s eyes sent a very clear message: what he had seen from the balcony had alarmed him…and also perhaps offered a solution. “Katherine, we have about two minutes until a deranged gunman comes charging down these stairs.”

“I…I’m not sure what I might have. My bag is at the bottom of—”

“Let’s get it—now!”

With Langdon close on her heels, Katherine descended the stairs, having now deciphered Langdon’s logic. If the sound of gunfire hadn’t drawn in the museum staff, nothing else would…except, perhaps, the threat of fire in an ancient library.

Yesterday, when she had been here with Langdon, he had pointed out Jan Hiebl’s meticulous fresco on the ceiling, bemoaning the presence of the three ugly metallic disks that had been installed in the 1970s, interspersed throughout the painting. Katherine suspected Langdon was now pleased these little disks had been installed, despite their being eyesores.

Smoke detectors.

Reaching the bottom of the stairs, Katherine found her shoulder bag and hoisted it up onto the first step. The bag was unusually heavy today, as it contained her manuscript—a stack of more than four hundred pages—along with a large bottle of water. Reaching to the bottom of the bag, she began rummaging semi-blindly through the contents looking for some means to start a fire.

Katherine knew she had no matches or lighter in her bag, although as the plethora of “survival” shows on television had demonstrated, fire could be created using all kinds of everyday items—cell phones, magnifying glasses, batteries, steel wool. But as she rooted through her bag, Katherine realized it was a dead end.

“I’ve got nothing,” she whispered to Langdon, who was just above her on the stairs. “No matches. No lighter. My cell phone is in a dumpster. I have gloves, lip balm, a brochure for the museum, a granola bar, a bottle of wat—”

“Granola bar? From the hotel?”

“Yes. The minibar.”

“That’ll work.”

Combustible granola?

“Batteries?” Langdon pressed. “Anything electronic? Penlight, key fob, earbuds, anything?”

“No, Robert, I’m sorry.” She paused. “Although…my bag came with a Clutch in the lining. I don’t know—”

“Clutch? What is that?”

“A phone charger for purses,” she said, opening the bag. She pulled aside her bulky manuscript and showed Langdon the nub of a phone charger cable sticking out of the interior lining. “Kind of a Cuyana gimmick, but it’s handy. I charged it before the trip, but I don’t know how much—”

“Stay right here,” Langdon said, taking the bag. “I’ll tell you what to do in a minute.”

Without another word, he rushed back up the spiral staircase.

I hope she forgives me for this, Langdon thought with trepidation.

Sixty seconds had passed since he’d left her downstairs, and he was now crouched on the landing halfway up the stairs. He had located the granola bar and placed it with the stack of manuscript pages that he’d already set aside. Now he was groping around the bag’s silk lining, finally feeling a hard rectangle in a Velcro pocket. He extracted it. This is a charger? Katherine’s ultrathin Clutch looked more like a pink credit card with a tail. I hope it still has juice.

Raising the Clutch to his mouth, he placed its power cable between his teeth, yanked hard, and snapped off the connector plug. Then he pulled the two wires apart, stripped each with his teeth, and tapped the two bare wires briefly together.

A bright spark lit up the dark space momentarily.

He hoped it would be enough.

Langdon laid the charger flat on the manuscript pages and picked up the granola bar, which, as anticipated, had a thin foil wrapper. He tore off the foil and peeled away a narrow strip, rolling it between his fingers to create a kind of foil thread. Then he attached one end of the foil filament to one of the Clutch’s bare wires, leaving the other end dangling.

In theory, once he connected the loose end and completed the circuit, electricity would flow through the foil. Being a poor conductor, the foil would create resistance, resulting in a buildup of heat…that would ultimately ignite the foil.

Briefly.