Langdon padded out into the field along with the other equally flabbergasted guests, most of whom were now choosing spots on the vast lawn to spread out their blankets. The manicured grassy area was about the size of a hockey rink and bounded all around by trees, fescue, and cattails, which rustled in the breeze.

It had taken Langdon several moments to realize this was all an illusion—a tremendous work of art.

I’m inside an elaborate planetarium, he thought, marveling at the impeccable attention to detail.

The star-filled sky above was a projection, complete with a moon, scudding clouds, and distant rolling hills. The rustling trees and grasses were truly there—either superb fakes or a small forest of living plants in concealed pots. This nebulous perimeter of vegetation cleverly disguised the enormous room’s hard edges, giving the impression of a natural environment.

Langdon crouched down and felt the grass, which was soft and lifelike, but entirely dry. He’d read about the new synthetic turfs that were fooling even professional athletes, and yet Kirsch had gone a step further and created slightly uneven ground, with small swales and mounds as in a real meadow.

Langdon recalled the first time he had been fooled by his senses. He was a child in a small boat drifting through a moonlit harbor where a pirate ship was engaged in a deafening cannon battle. Langdon’s young mind had been incapable of accepting that he was not in a harbor at all, but in fact he was in a cavernous underground theater that had been flooded with water to create this illusion for the classic Disney World ride Pirates of the Caribbean.

Tonight, the effect was staggeringly realistic, and as the guests around him took it in, Langdon could see that their wonder and delight mirrored his own. He had to give Edmond credit—not so much for creating this amazing illusion, but for persuading hundreds of adults to kick off their fancy shoes, lie down on the lawn, and gaze up at the heavens.

We used to do this as kids, but somewhere along the way, we stopped.

Langdon reclined and placed his head on the pillow, letting his body melt into the soft grass.

Overhead, the stars twinkled, and for an instant, Langdon was a teenager again, lying on the lush fairways of the Bald Peak golf course at midnight with his best friend, pondering the mysteries of life. With a little luck, Langdon mused, Edmond Kirsch might solve some of those mysteries for us tonight.

At the rear of the theater, Admiral Luis Ávila took one final survey of the room and moved silently backward, slipping out unseen through the same curtain through which he had just entered. Alone in the entry tunnel, he ran a hand along the fabric walls until he located a seam. As quietly as possible, he pulled apart the Velcro closure, stepped through the wall, and resealed the cloth behind him.

All illusions evaporated.

Ávila was no longer standing in a meadow.

He was in an enormous rectangular space that was dominated by a sprawling oval-shaped bubble. A room built within a room. The construction before him—a domed theater of sorts—was surrounded by a towering exoskeleton of scaffolding that supported a tangle of cables, lights, and audio speakers. Pointing inward, a shimmering array of video projectors glowed in unison, casting wide beams of light downward onto the translucent surface of the dome, and creating the illusion within of a starlit sky and rolling hills.

Ávila admired Kirsch’s knack for drama, although the futurist could never have imagined just how dramatic his night would soon turn out to be.

Remember what is at stake. You are a soldier in a noble war. Part of a greater whole.

Ávila had rehearsed this mission in his mind numerous times. He reached into his pocket and pulled out the oversized rosary beads. At that moment, from an overhead bank of speakers inside the dome, a man’s voice thundered down like the voice of God.

“Good evening, friends. My name is Edmond Kirsch.”

CHAPTER 16

IN BUDAPEST, RABBI Köves paced nervously in the dim light of his házikó study. Clutching his TV remote, he flipped anxiously through the channels as he awaited further news from Bishop Valdespino.

On television, several news channels had interrupted their regular programming during the past ten minutes to carry the live feed coming out of the Guggenheim. Commentators were discussing Kirsch’s accomplishments and speculating about his mysterious upcoming announcement. Köves cringed at the snowballing level of interest.

I have seen this announcement already.

Three days ago, on the mountain of Montserrat, Edmond Kirsch had previewed an alleged “rough-cut” version for Köves, al-Fadl, and Valdespino. Now, Köves suspected, the world was about to see the same exact program.

Tonight everything will change, he thought sadly.

The phone rang and jolted Köves from his contemplation. He seized the handset.

Valdespino began without preamble. “Yehuda, I’m afraid I have some more bad news.” In a somber voice, he conveyed a bizarre report that was now coming out of the United Arab Emirates.

Köves covered his mouth in horror. “Allamah al-Fadl … committed suicide?”

“That is what the authorities are speculating. He was found a short time ago, deep in the desert … as if he had simply walked out there to die.” Valdespino paused. “All I can guess is that the strain of the last few days was too much for him.”

Köves considered the possibility, feeling a wave of heartbreak and confusion. He too had been struggling with the implications of Kirsch’s discovery, and yet the idea that Allamah al-Fadl would kill himself in despair seemed wholly unlikely.

“Something is wrong here,” Köves declared. “I don’t believe he would do such a thing.”