At Crucifix Bastion, Captain Oldrich Janáček finishes phone calls and looks into the ravine, exhilarated by the morning’s chaos. He privately frames the day as a chance to reassert control after years of frustration policing a tourist-swamped Prague.

Janáček reflects on how his career stalled after he jailed a group of drunken American college students, only to be undermined when one student’s U.S. senator father intervened through the embassy. The fallout—release of the students and a lawsuit—left Janáček professionally damaged and resentful of American influence.

Now, with a demolition team reportedly en route and a press conference scheduled in an hour, Janáček imagines staging a public spectacle: escorting Robert Langdon and Katherine Solomon out in handcuffs and blaming them for endangering lives to promote a book. He admits to himself that the narrative is not fully honest, but believes it will hold because his nephew Pavel helped conceal his tracks and ÚZSI protects its own.

Janáček’s confidence breaks when the U.S. ambassador calls. The ambassador, with Attaché Harris beside her, insists there is no way Langdon or Katherine Solomon planted a bomb and warns that Janáček lacks key context; Janáček responds with hostility and asserts his authority at the Bastion.

The ambassador abruptly cuts him off with a single shouted Czech phrase—"A DOST!"—and then delivers six quiet words. Janáček is stunned, and the call instantly changes his understanding of the situation and his sense of control.