THE LANGDON CODE
By
HJ BENNETT
The door to Room 413 was closed. A sign on the door read STRICT ISOLATION. The patient assigned to Room 413 was Dr. Grant Noble, but the occupant was really someone else. The sign was there to keep people away.
Robert Langdon was lying in bed wearing a hospital gown instead of his trademark Harris Tweed. He hadn't felt this bad since he was fished out of the Tiber River following a freefall from a helicopter carrying enough antimatter to obliterate the Vatican.
Langdon barely noticed when the door to his room opened. A nurse entered holding a specimen container in one hand and a long, snake-like object in the other. Since Langdon was an expert in symbology and not medical instrumentation, he was ill prepared for what was to follow.
"Do you know what I've come for Doctor Noble?" the nurse asked.
"I-I-I don't have it," Langdon stammered. "The cryptex broke when I was searching for the Holy Grail last year."
"I don't know what you're talking about," the nurse lied. "I need a urine specimen for Dr. Keating and you haven't been able to go since surgery."
Langdon was delirious with fever, but he thought he recognized his assailant- the thinning white hair, the pale skin, the penetrating eyes. Think, he said to himself. Think. As he slipped in and out of consciousness, Langdon tried to remember, but he couldn't.
The nurse placed the catheter at the business end of her patient and thrust the tube into his bladder. After she got what she came for, the nurse looked at Langdon and smiled. All is going according to plan, she thought. The Director will be pleased.
Then, as silently as she entered the room, she was gone.
Surgical resident Peter Robbins was examining a pathetic looking ham sandwich when his beeper went off. He had been up all night with a perforated appendix, so his reaction time was a little slower than normal.
"Damn," he said, burning himself on a mouthful of day-old coffee.
Robbins had an outside call. Since he was running on caffeine and adrenalin, the
last thing he needed was a private attending asking him to assist in the operating room.
As he was getting ready to find a phone, Marie Cousteau sat down beside him.
"Rough night on call?" she asked.
"The usual," he replied.
Marie Cousteau was one of the hospital's anesthesiologists. She finished her residency two years ago, which meant she still remembered how brutal it was to be on call, especially at a prestigious New England medical center. Marie pulled off her operating room cap, which revealed lustrous shoulder-length auburn hair.
Since he spent most of his time in the operating room looking at diseased organs, Robbins could barely take his eyes off the beautiful anesthesiologist sitting next to him. At a little over six feet, with a physique crafted from a lifetime of yoga and water polo, Robbins knew a good body when he saw one. But any thoughts he had of spending time with Marie would have to wait. The chairman expected his residents to respond promptly when they were paged.
"This is Dr. Robbins."
"Peter, I can't believe my luck. Are you still on call?"
"It's 6:57. You've got me for three more minutes."
"I need to meet with you right away. It's a matter of life and death."
"Who is this?" Robbins asked.
