Page 127 of The Secret of Secrets

Langdon knew she was right. The Vatican regularly made that mistake, fanning sales of popular books by insisting they were “anti-Catholic” and attempting to forbid Catholics to read them.

“Did you read these NDAs?” Langdon asked.

“Blanket verbal,” Nagel said, nodding. “Dangerously general. It basically means you would have a recorded conversation with Finch, and anything mentioned therein would immediately be considered ‘protected information.’ Depending on what Finch says to you, that NDA would have the legal teeth to shut down Katherine’s book immediately and permanently.”

Langdon’s thoughts again churned through all that Katherine had told him about her manuscript and her discoveries—brain filters, GABA, nonlocal consciousness. Why would the CIA care about any of it?

“You just told us,” Langdon pressed, “that Mr. Finch believes Katherine’s book poses a threat to one of Q’s most important investments…which begs an obvious question: Do you know what that investment is?”

“I know it relates to a top secret CIA facility here in Prague.”

“In Prague?” Langdon was surprised. “You’re kidding. What do they do there?”

Nagel shook her head with frustration. “I don’t know. All I can say is the facility has a code name. They call it ‘Threshold.’ ”

Chapter 81

“I have been provided very few details,” Nagel said as the three of them huddled in the dingy boiler room beneath the villa. “The agency claims I’m insulated for my own safety. All I know is the CIA director himself considers Threshold the agency’s single most important endeavor…absolutely critical to future security.”

The bold statement hung in the air.

“And you’re not involved?” Langdon asked.

“Only as a political facilitator,” she said. “Three years ago, behind my back, the CIA orchestrated my embassy posting here so I could be their diplomatic pawn—an agency insider who would answer to Finch and help cut through the legal red tape involved in secretly building the Threshold facility.”

“And you still don’t know what kind of operation it is?” he asked.

Nagel shook her head. “I know it’s a science research facility. From what little Finch has said and judging by Brigita Gessner’s prominent involvement, I’m fairly certain they’re doing brain research of some sort…perhaps in human consciousness—but the intense military security means there’s far more going on down there than simple scientific curiosity.”

Katherine seemed riveted. “Is the facility up and running?”

“The structure is complete but not yet fully operational. I know they’ve done some isolated testing…which I gather was successful because they’re now gearing up to begin in earnest; they’re currently training staff off-site in the U.S. and expect the facility to be live within a matter of weeks.”

“And this facility is here in Prague?” she asked.

Nagel paused, as if debating one last time whether to reveal the details. “Technically beneath Prague,” she said. “The whole thing is subterranean.”

For an instant, Langdon flashed on the lower floor of Gessner’s small lab. “Not Crucifix Bastion, I assume?”

“No,” the ambassador replied. “That’s Brigita Gessner’s private research lab. The CIA invested in her technologies, but the Threshold facility lies elsewhere. It’s actually not far from the bastion, but it has over ten thousand square feet of space.”

Ten thousand square feet? All underground?! “How could anyone possibly build something that big in total secrecy underneath a city like this?”

Nagel shrugged. “Pretty simple, actually—the basic structure was already there. The CIA took it over and rebuilt it.” She paused. “Although, publicly, it was the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers that took it over.”

Langdon needed only a moment to put the pieces together.

In the 1950s, one of Europe’s largest Soviet-era bomb shelters had been built in Prague. The massive network of dank subterranean chambers was said to contain space for some 1,500 people along with its own power station, air-filtration system, showers, toilets, gathering hall, and even its own morgue. The bunker was long since abandoned, although a portion of it was still open today as a tourist attraction.

“Folimanka Shelter…” Langdon whispered, amazed to realize he had literally walked over parts of the bunker earlier today; it was buried beneath the sprawling expanse of Folimanka Park.

Langdon had never been inside, but he’d seen the tourist entrance—a cement tunnel festooned with colorful spray-painted graffiti depicting atomic bomb explosions and the words Kryt Folimanka, which Langdon had assumed meant Folimanka Crypt but was informed meant Folimanka Shelter.

The well-known tourist portion of the bunker—located at the easternmost edge of Folimanka Park—was relatively shallow, in fair condition, and perfectly safe to tour. The larger portion of the bunker, however, extended deeper and farther out into Folimanka Park. Over the decades, its vast network of tunnels and chambers had flooded, fallen into disrepair, and were sealed off and forgotten.

The ambassador quickly described how the CIA had managed to take control of the abandoned portion of the bunker. As a fellow member of NATO, the U.S. government regularly cooperated on military matters and political affairs here. From time to time, this also meant lending civil assistance for infrastructure—in the case of Folimanka Park, figuring out how to save the vast expanse, which city officials announced had begun to sag and they feared might one day collapse into the abandoned hollows of the decaying bunkers beneath it.

The cavalry had arrived in the form of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, who dug a new entry tunnel at the western end of the park and began the multiyear project of draining, sealing, and reinforcing the expansive system of bunkers.