Robert Langdon rides cramped in the backseat of an ÚZSI Škoda as Captain Oldřich Janáček speeds south along the Vltava through Prague, the car filled with hot air and cigarette smoke. Langdon watches landmarks pass to fight claustrophobia while Janáček takes hushed calls in Czech and the young, muscular lieutenant driving weaves aggressively through traffic.

Janáček turns and tells Langdon that, once they reach Crucifix Bastion, he will separate Langdon from Katherine Solomon and question Katherine alone so the two Americans cannot “coordinate” their accounts. Langdon insists he has told the truth, but he worries Janáček has already decided Katherine and Langdon engineered the chaos for personal gain.

As the car climbs toward Folimanka Park, Langdon fixates on the one fact he cannot explain: Katherine’s dream accurately foreshadowed what happened on Charles Bridge, despite her telling no one and going straight back to sleep. Langdon considers the possibility that Katherine experienced genuine precognition, even though he has always dismissed prophecy and clairvoyance as human wishful thinking.

Langdon recalls how he teaches students to doubt “seers” like Nostradamus, emphasizing vagueness and coincidence, and how he demonstrates the Barnum effect by giving every student the same “astrology” reading that still feels personally accurate. The lesson underscores Langdon’s belief that people often see meaning where none exists.

The sedan emerges from the trees and Langdon spots Crucifix Bastion on the ridgeline, recognizing it as Dr. Brigita Gessner’s recently renovated fortress laboratory. He remembers Gessner boasting about its isolation, thick stone walls, and electromagnetic shielding for private neuroimaging work, and Langdon is seized by an inexplicable sense of danger for Katherine as they approach.