Page 148 of The Secret of Secrets

Langdon glanced down at Brigita’s mangled hand and hesitated. Katherine stepped in, gently taking the phone from him. Seemingly unfazed by touching the body, Katherine manipulated Gessner’s index finger onto the phone.

When the phone pinged for a third and final time, Langdon assumed they could now use the phone to take the elevator to Threshold. Katherine, however, was unsmiling as she studied the screen.

“Bad news,” she groaned. “It’s got another safety feature.” She held up the phone. “Authentication lasts only ten seconds.”

On-screen, Langdon watched a descending countdown clock tick down to zero. The card deactivated and returned to its initial password screen, requiring the entire three-step authorization process all over again.

Damn.

“And her battery is about to die,” Katherine added. “Literally any minute.”

Think, Robert. He had seen no charger in Gessner’s briefcase, and he was now feeling a deepening weight of guilt for having convinced Katherine and the ambassador to risk everything on his plan.

For a moment, Langdon wondered if they could remove Gessner’s IVs, lift her body out of the pod, and somehow transport her to the elevator. There’s no time. Moreover, removing the dead body and further tainting a crime scene would only incriminate them further.

“We’ve got to find a way into Threshold, Robert…We’re so close!”

Katherine’s comment, of course, was figurative…and yet, for some reason, her words registered literally. We’re so close.

How close exactly? he wondered, picturing the long, inlaid hallway outside this room…and the elevator and RFID reader at the far end. Ten seconds close?

Usain Bolt had set a world record by running one hundred meters in 9.58 seconds.

The hallway must be less than half that…forty yards at most.

Katherine returned, shaking her head, and Langdon immediately told her his plan.

“Sprint?” she challenged. “I don’t see—”

“Ten seconds is longer than it seems,” he said.

“I know you run often, Robert, but in loafers on polished wood floors?”

“It’s worth a shot,” Langdon argued. “I think I can make it.”

Katherine checked the phone’s battery, eyes widening. “Then you’d better make it on your first try.”

She immediately began the three-step authorization as Langdon positioned himself beside her, hand extended as if prepared to receive a baton. When the phone pinged for the third time, Katherine slapped it into his palm, and he instantly took off across the room, clutching the phone tightly. As he reached the door, he grabbed the frame and slingshotted himself around the corner, launching into a full sprint down the hall, his loafers finding tentative traction on the smooth wood.

Langdon flew past the bathroom, VR lab, imaging lab, and then the offices, now spotting the black circle of the RFID reader on the wall beside the elevator.

Twenty more yards…

Faster!

As he neared the elevator, he held the phone out in front of him…and saw the display counting down.

Three…two…

I’m not going to make it.

Katherine rounded the corner into the hallway just as Langdon crashed at full speed into the elevator door and slammed the phone against the reader. He slumped over, lowering the device, putting his hand on his knees as he caught his breath.

He didn’t reach it in time…

But as she moved toward him, Langdon’s huddled frame suddenly transformed into a silhouette as the elevator doors slid open, and light poured out from the interior.

“You did it!” she called, rushing down the hallway to Langdon, who was holding the elevator door open, still panting.