Inferno: (Robert Langdon Book 4)

stolen pieces of art.”
    Langdon had always believed that this dubious honor belonged to the Ghent Altarpiece and paid a quick visit to the ARCA Web site to confirm his theory. The Association for Research into Crimes Against Artoffered no definitive ranking, but they did offer a concise history of the sculptures’ troubled life as a target of pillage and plunder.
    The four copper horses had been cast in the fourth century by an unknown Greek sculptor on the island of Chios, where they remained until Theodosius II whisked them off to Constantinople for display at the Hippodrome. Then, during the Fourth Crusade, when Venetian forces sacked Constantinople, the ruling doge demanded the four precious statues be transported via ship all the way back to Venice, a nearly impossible feat because of their size and weight. The horses arrived in Venice in 1254, and were installed in front of the facade of St. Mark’s Cathedral.
    More than half a millennium later, in 1797, Napoleon conquered Venice and took the horses for himself. They were transported to Paris and prominently displayed atop the Arc de Triomphe. Finally, in 1815, following Napoleon’s defeat at Waterloo and his exile, the horses were winched down from the Arc de Triomphe and shipped on a barge back to Venice, where they were reinstalled on the front balcony of St. Mark’s Basilica.
    Although Langdon had been fairly familiar with the history of the horses, the ARCA site contained a passage that startled him.
    The decorative collars were added to the horses’ necks in 1204 by the Venetians to conceal where the heads had been severed to facilitate their transportation by ship from Constantinople to Venice.
    The doge ordered the heads cut off the Horses of St. Mark’s? It seemed unthinkable to Langdon.
    “Robert?!” Sienna’s voice was calling.
    Langdon emerged from his thoughts, turning to see Sienna pushing her way through the crowd with Ferris close at her side.
    “The horses in the poem!” Langdon shouted excitedly. “I figured it out!”
    “What?” Sienna looked confused.
    “We’re looking for a treacherous doge who severed the heads from horses!”
    “Yes?”
    “The poem isn’t referring to live horses.” Langdon pointed high on the facade of St. Mark’s, where a shaft of bright sun was illuminating the four copper statues. “It’s referring to those horses!”

CHAPTER 73
    ON BOARD THE Mendacium , Dr. Elizabeth Sinskey’s hands were trembling. She watched the video in the provost’s study, and although she had seen some terrifying things in her life, this inexplicable movie that Bertrand Zobrist had made before his suicide left her feeling as cold as death.
    On the screen before her, the shadow of a beaked face wavered, projected on the dripping wall of an underground cavern. The silhouette continued speaking, proudly describing his masterpiece—the creation called Inferno—which would save the world by culling the population.
    God save us , Sinskey thought. “We must …” she said, her voice quavering. “We must find that underground location. It may not be too late.”
    “Keep watching,” the provost replied. “It gets stranger.”
    Suddenly the shadow of the mask grew larger on the wet wall, looming hugely before her, until a figure stepped suddenly into the frame.
    Holy shit.
    Sinskey was staring at a fully outfitted plague doctor—complete with the black cloak and chilling beaked mask. The plague doctor was walking directly toward the camera, his mask filling the entire screen to terrifying effect.
    “ ‘The darkest places in hell,’ ” he whispered, “ ‘are reserved for those who maintain their neutrality in times of moral crisis.’ ”
    Sinskey felt goose bumps on her neck. It was the same quotation that Zobrist had left for her at the airline counter when she had eluded him in New York a year ago.
    “I know,” the plague doctor continued, “that there are those who call me monster.” He paused, and Sinskey sensed his words were directed at her. “I know there are those who think me a heartless beast who hides behind a mask.” He paused again, stepping closer still to the camera. “But I am not faceless. Nor am I heartless.”
    With that, Zobrist pulled off his mask and lowered the hood of his cloak—his face laid bare. Sinskey stiffened, staring into the familiargreen eyes she had last seen in the darkness of the CFR. His eyes in the video had the same passion and fire, but there was something else