Ambra and Langdon stopped short.

This can’t be right, Langdon thought, staring up at the unmistakable symbol above them. Edmond’s computer lab has a giant crucifix on the roof?

Langdon took several more steps and emerged from the trees. As he did, the building’s entire facade came into view, and it was a surprising sight—an ancient Gothic church with a large rose window, two stone steeples, and an elegant doorway adorned with bas-reliefs of Catholic saints and the Virgin Mary.

Ambra looked horrified. “Robert, I think we just broke our way onto the grounds of a Catholic church. We’re in the wrong place.”

Langdon spotted a sign in front of the church and began to laugh. “No, I think we’re in the exact right place.”

This facility had been in the news a few years ago, but Langdon had never realized it was in Barcelona. A high-tech lab built inside a decommissioned Catholic church. Langdon had to admit it seemed the ultimate sanctuary for an irreverent atheist to build a godless computer. As he gazed up at the now defunct church, he felt a chill to realize the prescience with which Edmond had chosen his password.

The dark religions are departed & sweet science reigns.

Langdon drew Ambra’s attention to the sign.

It read:

BARCELONA SUPERCOMPUTING CENTER

CENTRO NACIONAL DE SUPERCOMPUTACIÓN

Ambra turned to him with a look of disbelief. “Barcelona has a supercomputing center inside a Catholic church?”

“It does.” Langdon smiled. “Sometimes truth is stranger than fiction.”

CHAPTER 81

THE TALLEST CROSS in the world is in Spain.

Erected on a mountaintop eight miles north of the monastery of El Escorial, the massive cement cross soars a bewildering five hundred feet in the air above a barren valley, where it can be seen from more than a hundred miles away.

The rocky gorge beneath the cross—aptly named the Valley of the Fallen—is the final resting place of more than forty thousand souls, victims of both sides of the bloody Spanish Civil War.

What are we doing here? Julián wondered as he followed the Guardia out onto the viewing esplanade at the base of the mountain beneath the cross. This is where my father wants to meet?

Walking beside him, Valdespino looked equally confused. “This makes no sense,” he whispered. “Your father always despised this place.”

Millions despise this place, Julián thought.

Conceived in 1940 by Franco himself, the Valley of the Fallen had been billed as “a national act of atonement”—an attempt to reconcile victors and vanquished. Despite its “noble aspiration,” the monument sparked controversy to this day because it was built by a workforce that included convicts and political prisoners who had opposed Franco—many of whom died from exposure and starvation during construction.

In the past, some parliamentary members had even gone so far as to compare this place to a Nazi concentration camp. Julián suspected his father secretly felt the same way, even if he could never say so openly. For most Spaniards, the site was regarded as a monument to Franco, built by Franco—a colossal shrine to honor himself. The fact that Franco was now entombed in it only added fuel to the critics’ fire.

Julián recalled the one time he had been here—another childhood outing with his father to learn about his country. The king had shown him around and quietly whispered, Look carefully, son. One day you’ll tear this down.

Now, as Julián followed the Guardia up the stairs toward the austere facade carved into the mountainside, he began to realize where they were going. A sculpted bronze door loomed before them—a portal into the face of the mountain itself—and Julián recalled stepping through that door as a boy, utterly transfixed by what lay beyond.

After all, the true miracle of this mountaintop was not the towering cross above it; the true miracle was the secret space inside it.

Hollowed out within the granite peak was a man-made cavern of unfathomable proportions. The hand-excavated cavern tunneled back nearly nine hundred feet into the mountain, where it opened up into a gaping chamber, meticulously and elegantly finished, with glimmering tile floors and a soaring frescoed cupola that spanned nearly a hundred and fifty feet from side to side. I’m inside a mountain, young Julián had thought. I must be dreaming!

Now, years later, Prince Julián had returned.

Here at the behest of my dying father.

As the group neared the iron portal, Julián gazed up at the austere bronze pietà above the door. Beside him, Bishop Valdespino crossed himself, although Julián sensed the gesture was more out of trepidation than faith.

CHAPTER 82

ConspiracyNet.com

BREAKING NEWS

BUT … WHO IS THE REGENT?

Evidence has now surfaced proving that assassin Luis Ávila was taking his kill orders directly from an individual he called the Regent.

The identity of the Regent remains a mystery, although this person’s title may provide some clues. According to dictionary.com, a “regent” is someone appointed to oversee an organization while its leader is incapacitated or absent.

From our User Survey “Who Is the Regent?”—our top three answers currently are:

1. Bishop Antonio Valdespino taking over for the ailing Spanish king

2. A Palmarian pope who believes he is the legitimate pontiff

3. A Spanish military officer claiming to be acting on behalf of his country’s incapacitated commander in chief, the king

More news as we have it!

#WHOISTHEREGENT

CHAPTER 83

LANGDON AND AMBRA scanned the facade of the large chapel and found the entrance to the Barcelona Supercomputing Center at the southern tip of the church’s nave. Here, an ultramodern Plexiglas vestibule had been affixed to the outside of the rustic facade, giving the church the hybrid appearance of a building caught between centuries.