Den Braun. Kod da Vinchi (engl)
FOR BLYTHE... AGAIN. MORE THAN EVER.
First and foremost, to my friend and editor, Jason Kaufman, for working
so hard on this project and for truly understanding what this book is all
about. And to the incomparable Heide Lange--tireless champion of The Da
Vinci Code, agent extraordinaire, and trusted friend.
I cannot fully express my gratitude to the exceptional team at
Doubleday, for their generosity, faith, and superb guidance. Thank you
especially to Bill Thomas and Steve Rubin, who believed in this book from
the start. My thanks also to the initial core of early in-house supporters,
headed by Michael Palgon, Suzanne Herz, Janelle Moburg, Jackie Everly, and
Adrienne Sparks, as well as to the talented people of Doubleday's sales
force.
For their generous assistance in the research of the book, I would like
to acknowledge the Louvre Museum, the French Ministry of Culture, Project
Gutenberg, Bibliothuque Nationale, the Gnostic Society Library, the
Department of Paintings Study and Documentation Service at the Louvre,
Catholic World News, Royal Observatory Greenwich, London Record Society, the
Muniment Collection at Westminster Abbey, John Pike and the Federation of
American Scientists, and the five members of Opus Dei (three active, two
former) who recounted their stories, both positive and negative, regarding
their experiences inside Opus Dei.
My gratitude also to Water Street Bookstore for tracking down so many
of my research books, my father Richard Brown--mathematics teacher and
author--for his assistance with the Divine Proportion and the Fibonacci
Sequence, Stan Planton, Sylvie Baudeloque, Peter McGuigan, Francis
McInerney, Margie Wachtel, Andru Vernet, Ken Kelleher at Anchorball Web
Media, Cara Sottak, Karyn Popham, Esther Sung, Miriam Abramowitz, William
Tunstall-Pedoe, and Griffin Wooden Brown.
And finally, in a novel drawing so heavily on the sacred feminine, I
would be remiss if I did not mention the two extraordinary women who have
touched my life. First, my mother, Connie Brown--fellow scribe, nurturer,
musician, and role model. And my wife, Blythe--art historian, painter,
front-line editor, and without a doubt the most astonishingly talented woman
I have ever known.
The Priory of Sion--a European secret society founded in 1099--is a
real organization. In 1975 Paris's Bibliothuque Nationale discovered
parchments known as Les Dossiers Secrets, identifying numerous members of
the Priory of Sion, including Sir Isaac Newton, Botticelli, Victor Hugo, and
Leonardo da Vinci.
The Vatican prelature known as Opus Dei is a deeply devout Catholic
sect that has been the topic of recent controversy due to reports of
brainwashing, coercion, and a dangerous practice known as "corporal
mortification." Opus Dei has just completed construction of a $47 million
World Headquarters at 243 Lexington Avenue in New York City.
All descriptions of artwork, architecture, documents, and secret
rituals in this novel are accurate.
Louvre Museum, Paris 10:46 P.M.
Renowned curator Jacques Sauniure staggered through the vaulted archway
of the museum's Grand Gallery. He lunged for the nearest painting he could
see, a Caravaggio. Grabbing the gilded frame, the seventy-six-year-old man
heaved the masterpiece toward himself until it tore from the wall and
Sauniure collapsed backward in a heap beneath the canvas.
As he had anticipated, a thundering iron gate fell nearby, barricading
the entrance to the suite. The parquet floor shook. Far off, an alarm began
to ring.
The curator lay a moment, gasping for breath, taking stock. I am still
alive. He crawled out from under the canvas and scanned the cavernous space
for someplace to hide.
A voice spoke, chillingly close. "Do not move."
On his hands and knees, the curator froze, turning his head slowly.
Only fifteen feet away, outside the sealed gate, the mountainous
silhouette of his attacker stared through the iron bars. He was broad and
tall, with ghost-pale skin and thinning white hair. His irises were pink
with dark red pupils. The albino drew a pistol from his coat and aimed the
barrel through the bars, directly at the curator. "You should not have run."
His accent was not easy to place. "Now tell me where it is."
"I told you already," the curator stammered, kneeling defenseless on
the floor of the gallery. "I have no idea what you are talking about!"
"You are lying." The man stared at him, perfectly immobile except for
the glint in his ghostly eyes. "You and your brethren possess something that
is not yours."
The curator felt a surge of adrenaline. How could he possibly know
this?
"Tonight the rightful guardians will be restored. Tell me where it is
hidden, and you will live." The man leveled his gun at the curator's head.
"Is it a secret you will die for?"
Sauniure could not breathe.
The man tilted his head, peering down the barrel of his gun.
Sauniure held up his hands in defense. "Wait," he said slowly. "I will
tell you what you need to know." The curator spoke his next words carefully.
The lie he told was one he had rehearsed many times... each time praying he
would never have to use it.
When the curator had finished speaking, his assailant smiled smugly.
"Yes. This is exactly what the others told me."
Sauniure recoiled. The others?
"I found them, too," the huge man taunted. "All three of them. They
confirmed what you have just said."
It cannot be! The curator's true identity, along with the identities of
his three sunuchaux, was almost as sacred as the ancient secret they
protected. Sauniure now realized his sunuchaux, following strict procedure,
had told the same lie before their own deaths. It was part of the protocol.
The attacker aimed his gun again. "When you are gone, I will be the
only one who knows the truth."
The truth. In an instant, the curator grasped the true horror of the
situation. If I die, the truth will be lost forever. Instinctively, he tried
to scramble for cover.
The gun roared, and the curator felt a searing heat as the bullet
lodged in his stomach. He fell forward... struggling against the pain.
Slowly, Sauniure rolled over and stared back through the bars at his
attacker.
The man was now taking dead aim at Sauniure's head.
Sauniure closed his eyes, his thoughts a swirling tempest of fear and
regret.
The click of an empty chamber echoed through the corridor.
The curator's eyes flew open.
The man glanced down at his weapon, looking almost amused. He reached
for a second clip, but then seemed to reconsider, smirking calmly at
Sauniure's gut. "My work here is done."
The curator looked down and saw the bullet hole in his white linen
shirt. It was framed by a small circle of blood a few inches below his
breastbone. My stomach. Almost cruelly, the bullet had missed his heart. As
a veteran of la Guerre d'Algurie, the curator had witnessed this horribly
drawn-out death before. For fifteen minutes, he would survive as his stomach
acids seeped into his chest cavity, slowly poisoning him from within.
"Pain is good, monsieur," the man said.
Then he was gone.
Alone now, Jacques Sauniure turned his gaze again to the iron gate. He
was trapped, and the doors could not be reopened for at least twenty
minutes. By the time anyone got to him, he would be dead. Even so, the fear
that now gripped him was a fear far greater than that of his own death.
I must pass on the secret.
Staggering to his feet, he pictured his three murdered brethren. He
thought of the generations who had come before them... of the mission with
which they had all been entrusted.
An unbroken chain of knowledge.
Suddenly, now, despite all the precautions... despite all the
fail-safes... Jacques Sauniure was the only remaining link, the sole
guardian of one of the most powerful secrets ever kept.
Shivering, he pulled himself to his feet.
I must find some way....
He was trapped inside the Grand Gallery, and there existed only one
person on earth to whom he could pass the torch. Sauniure gazed up at the
walls of his opulent prison. A collection of the world's most famous
paintings seemed to smile down on him like old friends.
Wincing in pain, he summoned all of his faculties and strength. The
desperate task before him, he knew, would require every remaining second of
his life.
Robert Langdon awoke slowly.
A telephone was ringing in the darkness--a tinny, unfamiliar ring. He
fumbled for the bedside lamp and turned it on. Squinting at his surroundings
he saw a plush Renaissance bedroom with Louis XVI furniture, hand-frescoed
walls, and a colossal mahogany four-poster bed.
Where the hell am I?
The jacquard bathrobe hanging on his bedpost bore the monogram: HOTEL
RITZ PARIS.
Slowly, the fog began to lift.
Langdon picked up the receiver. "Hello?"
"Monsieur Langdon?" a man's voice said. "I hope I have not awoken you?"
Dazed, Langdon looked at the bedside clock. It was 12:32 A.M. He had
been asleep only an hour, but he felt like the dead.
"This is the concierge, monsieur. I apologize for this intrusion, but
you have a visitor. He insists it is urgent."
Langdon still felt fuzzy. A visitor? His eyes focused now on a crumpled
flyer on his bedside table.
THE AMERICAN UNIVERSITY OF PARIS
proudly presents
AN EVENING WITH ROBERT LANGDON
PROFESSOR OF RELIGIOUS SYMBOLOGY,
HARVARD UNIVERSITY
Langdon groaned. Tonight's lecture--a slide show about pagan symbolism
hidden in the stones of Chartres Cathedral--had probably ruffled some
conservative feathers in the audience. Most likely, some religious scholar
had trailed him home to pick a fight.
"I'm sorry," Langdon said, "but I'm very tired and--"
"Mais, monsieur," the concierge pressed, lowering his voice to an
urgent whisper. "Your guest is an important man."
Langdon had little doubt. His books on religious paintings and cult
symbology had made him a reluctant celebrity in the art world, and last year
Langdon's visibility had increased a hundredfold after his involvement in a
widely publicized incident at the Vatican. Since then, the stream of
self-important historians and art buffs arriving at his door had seemed
never-ending.
"If you would be so kind," Langdon said, doing his best to remain
polite, "could you take the man's name and number, and tell him I'll try to
call him before I leave Paris on Tuesday? Thank you." He hung up before the
concierge could protest.
Sitting up now, Langdon frowned at his bedside Guest Relations
Handbook, whose cover boasted: SLEEP LIKE A BABY IN THE CITY OF LIGHTS.
SLUMBER AT THE PARIS RITZ. He turned and gazed tiredly into the full-length
mirror across the room. The man staring back at him was a stranger--tousled
and weary.
You need a vacation, Robert.
The past year had taken a heavy toll on him, but he didn't appreciate
seeing proof in the mirror. His usually sharp blue eyes looked hazy and
drawn tonight. A dark stubble was shrouding his strong jaw and dimpled chin.
Around his temples, the gray highlights were advancing, making their way
deeper into his thicket of coarse black hair. Although his female colleagues
insisted the gray only accentuated his bookish appeal, Langdon knew better.
If Boston Magazine could see me now.
Last month, much to Langdon's embarrassment, Boston Magazine had listed
him as one of that city's top ten most intriguing people--a dubious honor
that made him the brunt of endless ribbing by his Harvard colleagues.
Tonight, three thousand miles from home, the accolade had resurfaced to
haunt him at the lecture he had given.
"Ladies and gentlemen..." the hostess had announced to a full house at
the American University of Paris's Pavilion Dauphine, "Our guest tonight
needs no introduction. He is the author of numerous books: The Symbology of
Secret Sects, The An of the Illuminati, The Lost Language of Ideograms, and
when I say he wrote the book on Religious Iconology, I mean that quite
literally. Many of you use his textbooks in class."
The students in the crowd nodded enthusiastically.
"I had planned to introduce him tonight by sharing his impressive
curriculum vitae. However..." She glanced playfully at Langdon, who was
seated onstage. "An audience member has just handed me a far more, shall we
say... intriguing introduction."
She held up a copy of Boston Magazine.
Langdon cringed. Where the hell did she get that?
The hostess began reading choice excerpts from the inane article, and
Langdon felt himself sinking lower and lower in his chair. Thirty seconds
later, the crowd was grinning, and the woman showed no signs of letting up.
"And Mr. Langdon's refusal to speak publicly about his unusual role in last
year's Vatican conclave certainly wins him points on our intrigue-o-meter."
The hostess goaded the crowd. "Would you like to hear more?"
The crowd applauded.
Somebody stop her, Langdon pleaded as she dove into the article again.
"Although Professor Langdon might not be considered hunk-handsome like
some of our younger awardees, this forty-something academic has more than
his share of scholarly allure. His captivating presence is punctuated by an
unusually low, baritone speaking voice, which his female students describe
as 'chocolate for the ears.' "
The hall erupted in laughter.
Langdon forced an awkward smile. He knew what came next--some
ridiculous line about "Harrison Ford in Harris tweed"--and because this
evening he had figured it was finally safe again to wear his Harris tweed
and Burberry turtleneck, he decided to take action.
"Thank you, Monique," Langdon said, standing prematurely and edging her
away from the podium. "Boston Magazine clearly has a gift for fiction." He
turned to the audience with an embarrassed sigh. "And if I find which one of
you provided that article, I'll have the consulate deport you."
The crowd laughed.
"Well, folks, as you all know, I'm here tonight to talk about the power
of symbols..."
The ringing of Langdon's hotel phone once again broke the silence.
Groaning in disbelief, he picked up. "Yes?"
As expected, it was the concierge. "Mr. Langdon, again my apologies. I
am calling to inform you that your guest is now en route to your room. I
thought I should alert you."
Langdon was wide awake now. "You sent someone to my room?"
"I apologize, monsieur, but a man like this... I cannot presume the
authority to stop him."
"Who exactly is he?"
But the concierge was gone.
Almost immediately, a heavy fist pounded on Langdon's door.
Uncertain, Langdon slid off the bed, feeling his toes sink deep into
the savonniere carpet. He donned the hotel bathrobe and moved toward the
door. "Who is it?"
"Mr. Langdon? I need to speak with you." The man's English was
accented--a sharp, authoritative bark. "My name is Lieutenant Jerome Collet.
Direction Centrale Police Judiciaire."
Langdon paused. The Judicial Police? The DCPJ was the rough equivalent
of the U.S. FBI.
Leaving the security chain in place, Langdon opened the door a few
inches. The face staring back at him was thin and washed out. The man was
exceptionally lean, dressed in an official-looking blue uniform.
"May I come in?" the agent asked.
Langdon hesitated, feeling uncertain as the stranger's sallow eyes
studied him. "What is this all about?"
"My capitaine requires your expertise in a private matter."
"Now?" Langdon managed. "It's after midnight."
"Am I correct that you were scheduled to meet with the curator of the
Louvre this evening?"
Langdon felt a sudden surge of uneasiness. He and the revered curator
Jacques Sauniure had been slated to meet for drinks after Langdon's lecture
tonight, but Sauniure had never shown up. "Yes. How did you know that?"
"We found your name in his daily planner."
"I trust nothing is wrong?"
The agent gave a dire sigh and slid a Polaroid snapshot through the
narrow opening in the door.
When Langdon saw the photo, his entire body went rigid.
"This photo was taken less than an hour ago. Inside the Louvre."
As Langdon stared at the bizarre image, his initial revulsion and shock
gave way to a sudden upwelling of anger. "Who would do this!"
"We had hoped that you might help us answer that very question,
considering your knowledge in symbology and your plans to meet with him."
Langdon stared at the picture, his horror now laced with fear. The
image was gruesome and profoundly strange, bringing with it an unsettling
sense of duju vu. A little over a year ago, Langdon had received a
photograph of a corpse and a similar request for help. Twenty-four hours
later, he had almost lost his life inside Vatican City. This photo was
entirely different, and yet something about the scenario felt disquietingly
familiar.
The agent checked his watch. "My capitaine is waiting, sir."
Langdon barely heard him. His eyes were still riveted on the picture.
"This symbol here, and the way his body is so oddly..."
"Positioned?" the agent offered.
Langdon nodded, feeling a chill as he looked up. "I can't imagine who
would do this to someone."
The agent looked grim. "You don't understand, Mr. Langdon. What you see
in this photograph..." He paused. "Monsieur Sauniure did that to himself."
One mile away, the hulking albino named Silas limped through the front
gate of the luxurious brownstone residence on Rue La Bruyure. The spiked
cilice belt that he wore around his thigh cut into his flesh, and yet his
soul sang with satisfaction of service to the Lord.
Pain is good.
His red eyes scanned the lobby as he entered the residence. Empty. He
climbed the stairs quietly, not wanting to awaken any of his fellow
numeraries. His bedroom door was open; locks were forbidden here. He
entered, closing the door behind him.
The room was spartan--hardwood floors, a pine dresser, a canvas mat in
the corner that served as his bed. He was a visitor here this week, and yet
for many years he had been blessed with a similar sanctuary in New York
City.
The Lord has provided me shelter and purpose in my life.
Tonight, at last, Silas felt he had begun to repay his debt. Hurrying
to the dresser, he found the cell phone hidden in his bottom drawer and
placed a call.
"Yes?" a male voice answered.
"Teacher, I have returned."
"Speak," the voice commanded, sounding pleased to hear from him.
"All four are gone. The three sunuchaux... and the Grand Master
himself."
There was a momentary pause, as if for prayer. "Then I assume you have
the information?"
"All four concurred. Independently."
"And you believed them?"
"Their agreement was too great for coincidence."
An excited breath. "Excellent. I had feared the brotherhood's
reputation for secrecy might prevail."
"The prospect of death is strong motivation."
"So, my pupil, tell me what I must know."
Silas knew the information he had gleaned from his victims would come
as a shock. "Teacher, all four confirmed the existence of the clef de
voute... the legendary keystone."
He heard a quick intake of breath over the phone and could feel the
Teacher's excitement. "The keystone. Exactly as we suspected."
According to lore, the brotherhood had created a map of stone--a clef
de voute... or keystone--an engraved tablet that revealed the final resting
place of the brotherhood's greatest secret... information so powerful that
its protection was the reason for the brotherhood's very existence.
"When we possess the keystone," the Teacher said, "we will be only one
step away."
"We are closer than you think. The keystone is here in Paris."
"Paris? Incredible. It is almost too easy."
Silas relayed the earlier events of the evening... how all four of his
victims, moments before death, had desperately tried to buy back their
godless lives by telling their secret. Each had told Silas the exact same
thing--that the keystone was ingeniously hidden at a precise location inside
one of Paris's ancient churches--the Eglise de Saint-Sulpice.
"Inside a house of the Lord," the Teacher exclaimed. "How they mock
us!"
"As they have for centuries."
The Teacher fell silent, as if letting the triumph of this moment
settle over him. Finally, he spoke. "You have done a great service to God.
We have waited centuries for this. You must retrieve the stone for me.
Immediately. Tonight. You understand the stakes."
Silas knew the stakes were incalculable, and yet what the Teacher was
now commanding seemed impossible. "But the church, it is a fortress.
Especially at night. How will I enter?"
With the confident tone of a man of enormous influence, the Teacher
explained what was to be done.
When Silas hung up the phone, his skin tingled with anticipation.
One hour, he told himself, grateful that the Teacher had given him time
to carry out the necessary penance before entering a house of God. I must
purge my soul of today's sins. The sins committed today had been holy in
purpose. Acts of war against the enemies of God had been committed for
centuries. Forgiveness was assured.
Even so, Silas knew, absolution required sacrifice.
Pulling his shades, he stripped naked and knelt in the center of his
room. Looking down, he examined the spiked cilice belt clamped around his
thigh. All true followers of The Way wore this device--a leather strap,
studded with sharp metal barbs that cut into the flesh as a perpetual
reminder of Christ's suffering. The pain caused by the device also helped
counteract the desires of the flesh.
Although Silas already had worn his cilice today longer than the
requisite two hours, he knew today was no ordinary day. Grasping the buckle,
he cinched it one notch tighter, wincing as the barbs dug deeper into his
flesh. Exhaling slowly, he savored the cleansing ritual of his pain.
Pain is good, Silas whispered, repeating the sacred mantra of Father
Josemarua Escrivu--the Teacher of all Teachers. Although Escrivu had died in
1975, his wisdom lived on, his words still whispered by thousands of
faithful servants around the globe as they knelt on the floor and performed
the sacred practice known as "corporal mortification."
Silas turned his attention now to a heavy knotted rope coiled neatly on
the floor beside him. The Discipline. The knots were caked with dried blood.
Eager for the purifying effects of his own agony, Silas said a quick prayer.
Then, gripping one end of the rope, he closed his eyes and swung it hard
over his shoulder, feeling the knots slap against his back. He whipped it
over his shoulder again, slashing at his flesh. Again and again, he lashed.
Castigo corpus meum.
Finally, he felt the blood begin to flow.
The crisp April air whipped through the open window of the Citroun ZX
as it skimmed south past the Opera House and crossed Place Vendume. In the
passenger seat, Robert Langdon felt the city tear past him as he tried to
clear his thoughts. His quick shower and shave had left him looking
reasonably presentable but had done little to ease his anxiety. The
frightening image of the curator's body remained locked in his mind.
Jacques Sauniure is dead.
Langdon could not help but feel a deep sense of loss at the curator's
death. Despite Sauniure's reputation for being reclusive, his recognition
for dedication to the arts made him an easy man to revere. His books on the
secret codes hidden in the paintings of Poussin and Teniers were some of
Langdon's favorite classroom texts. Tonight's meeting had been one Langdon
was very much looking forward to, and he was disappointed when the curator
had not shown.
Again the image of the curator's body flashed in his mind. Jacques
Sauniure did that to himself? Langdon turned and looked out the window,
forcing the picture from his mind.
Outside, the city was just now winding down--street vendors wheeling
carts of candied amandes, waiters carrying bags of garbage to the curb, a
pair of late night lovers cuddling to stay warm in a breeze scented with
jasmine blossom. The Citroun navigated the chaos with authority, its
dissonant two-tone siren parting the traffic like a knife.
"Le capitaine was pleased to discover you were still in Paris tonight,"
the agent said, speaking for the first time since they'd left the hotel. "A
fortunate coincidence."
Langdon was feeling anything but fortunate, and coincidence was a
concept he did not entirely trust. As someone who had spent his life
exploring the hidden interconnectivity of disparate emblems and ideologies,
Langdon viewed the world as a web of profoundly intertwined histories and
events. The connections may be invisible, he often preached to his symbology
classes at Harvard, but they are always there, buried just beneath the
surface.
"I assume," Langdon said, "that the American University of Paris told
you where I was staying?"
The driver shook his head. "Interpol."
Interpol, Langdon thought. Of course. He had forgotten that the
seemingly innocuous request of all European hotels to see a passport at
check-in was more than a quaint formality--it was the law. On any given
night, all across Europe, Interpol officials could pinpoint exactly who was
sleeping where. Finding Langdon at the Ritz had probably taken all of five
seconds.
As the Citroun accelerated southward across the city, the illuminated
profile of the Eiffel Tower appeared, shooting skyward in the distance to
the right. Seeing it, Langdon thought of Vittoria, recalling their playful
promise a year ago that every six months they would meet again at a
different romantic spot on the globe. The Eiffel Tower, Langdon suspected,
would have made their list. Sadly, he last kissed Vittoria in a noisy
airport in Rome more than a year ago.
"Did you mount her?" the agent asked, looking over.
Langdon glanced up, certain he had misunderstood. "I beg your pardon?"
"She is lovely, no?" The agent motioned through the windshield toward
the Eiffel Tower. "Have you mounted her?"
Langdon rolled his eyes. "No, I haven't climbed the tower."
"She is the symbol of France. I think she is perfect."
Langdon nodded absently. Symbologists often remarked that France--a
country renowned for machismo, womanizing, and diminutive insecure leaders
like Napoleon and Pepin the Short--could not have chosen a more apt national
emblem than a thousand-foot phallus.
When they reached the intersection at Rue de Rivoli, the traffic light
was red, but the Citroun didn't slow. The agent gunned the sedan across the
junction and sped onto a wooded section of Rue Castiglione, which served as
the northern entrance to the famed Tuileries Gardens--Paris's own version of
Central Park. Most tourists mistranslated Jardins des Tuileries as relating
to the thousands of tulips that bloomed here, but Tuileries was actually a
literal reference to something far less romantic. This park had once been an
enormous, polluted excavation pit from which Parisian contractors mined clay
to manufacture the city's famous red roofing tiles--or tuiles.
As they entered the deserted park, the agent reached under the dash and
turned off the blaring siren. Langdon exhaled, savoring the sudden quiet.
Outside the car, the pale wash of halogen headlights skimmed over the
crushed gravel parkway, the rugged whir of the tires intoning a hypnotic
rhythm. Langdon had always considered the Tuileries to be sacred ground.
These were the gardens in which Claude Monet had experimented with form and
color, and literally inspired the birth of the Impressionist movement.
Tonight, however, this place held a strange aura of foreboding.
The Citroun swerved left now, angling west down the park's central
boulevard. Curling around a circular pond, the driver cut across a desolate
avenue out into a wide quadrangle beyond. Langdon could now see the end of
the Tuileries Gardens, marked by a giant stone archway.
Arc du Carrousel.
Despite the orgiastic rituals once held at the Arc du Carrousel, art
aficionados revered this place for another reason entirely. From the
esplanade at the end of the Tuileries, four of the finest art museums in the
world could be seen... one at each point of the compass.
Out the right-hand window, south across the Seine and Quai Voltaire,
Langdon could see the dramatically lit facade of the old train station--now
the esteemed Musue d'Orsay. Glancing left, he could make out the top of the
ultramodern Pompidou Center, which housed the Museum of Modern Art. Behind
him to the west, Langdon knew the ancient obelisk of Ramses rose above the
trees, marking the Musue du Jeu de Paume.
But it was straight ahead, to the east, through the archway, that
Langdon could now see the monolithic Renaissance palace that had become the
most famous art museum in the world.
Musue du Louvre.
Langdon felt a familiar tinge of wonder as his eyes made a futile
attempt to absorb the entire mass of the edifice. Across a staggeringly
expansive plaza, the imposing facade of the Louvre rose like a citadel
against the Paris sky. Shaped like an enormous horseshoe, the Louvre was the
longest building in Europe, stretching farther than three Eiffel Towers laid
end to end. Not even the million square feet of open plaza between the
museum wings could challenge the majesty of the facade's breadth. Langdon
had once walked the Louvre's entire perimeter, an astonishing three-mile
journey.
Despite the estimated five days it would take a visitor to properly
appreciate the 65,300 pieces of art in this building, most tourists chose an
abbreviated experience Langdon referred to as "Louvre Lite"--a full sprint
through the museum to see the three most famous objects: the Mona Lisa,
Venus de Milo, and Winged Victory. Art Buchwald had once boasted he'd seen
all three masterpieces in five minutes and fifty-six seconds.
The driver pulled out a handheld walkie-talkie and spoke in rapid-fire
French. "Monsieur Langdon est arrivu. Deux minutes."
An indecipherable confirmation came crackling back.
The agent stowed the device, turning now to Langdon. "You will meet the
capitaine at the main entrance."
The driver ignored the signs prohibiting auto traffic on the plaza,
revved the engine, and gunned the Citroun up over the curb. The Louvre's
main entrance was visible now, rising boldly in the distance, encircled by
seven triangular pools from which spouted illuminated fountains.
La Pyramide.
The new entrance to the Paris Louvre had become almost as famous as the
museum itself. The controversial, neomodern glass pyramid designed by
Chinese-born American architect I. M. Pei still evoked scorn from
traditionalists who felt it destroyed the dignity of the Renaissance
courtyard. Goethe had described architecture as frozen music, and Pei's
critics described this pyramid as fingernails on a chalkboard. Progressive
admirers, though, hailed Pei's seventy-one-foot-tall transparent pyramid as
a dazzling synergy of ancient structure and modern method--a symbolic link
between the old and new--helping usher the Louvre into the next millennium.
"Do you like our pyramid?" the agent asked.
Langdon frowned. The French, it seemed, loved to ask Americans this. It
was a loaded question, of course. Admitting you liked the pyramid made you a
tasteless American, and expressing dislike was an insult to the French.
"Mitterrand was a bold man," Langdon replied, splitting the difference.
The late French president who had commissioned the pyramid was said to have
suffered from a "Pharaoh complex." Singlehandedly responsible for filling
Paris with Egyptian obelisks, art, and artifacts.
Franuois Mitterrand had an affinity for Egyptian culture that was so
all-consuming that the French still referred to him as the Sphinx.
"What is the captain's name?" Langdon asked, changing topics.
"Bezu Fache," the driver said, approaching the pyramid's main entrance.
"We call him le Taureau."
Langdon glanced over at him, wondering if every Frenchman had a
mysterious animal epithet. "You call your captain the Bull?"
The man arched his eyebrows. "Your French is better than you admit,
Monsieur Langdon."
My French stinks, Langdon thought, but my zodiac iconography is pretty
good. Taurus was always the bull. Astrology was a symbolic constant all over
the world.
The agent pulled the car to a stop and pointed between two fountains to
a large door in the side of the pyramid. "There is the entrance. Good luck,
monsieur."
"You're not coming?"
"My orders are to leave you here. I have other business to attend to."
Langdon heaved a sigh and climbed out. It's your circus.
The agent revved his engine and sped off.
As Langdon stood alone and watched the departing taillights, he
realized he could easily reconsider, exit the courtyard, grab a taxi, and
head home to bed. Something told him it was probably a lousy idea.
As he moved toward the mist of the fountains, Langdon had the uneasy
sense he was crossing an imaginary threshold into another world. The
dreamlike quality of the evening was settling around him again. Twenty
minutes ago he had been asleep in his hotel room. Now he was standing in
front of a transparent pyramid built by the Sphinx, waiting for a policeman
they called the Bull.
I'm trapped in a Salvador Dali painting, he thought.
Langdon strode to the main entrance--an enormous revolving door. The
foyer beyond was dimly lit and deserted.
Do I knock?
Langdon wondered if any of Harvard's revered Egyptologists had ever
knocked on the front door of a pyramid and expected an answer. He raised his
hand to bang on the glass, but out of the darkness below, a figure appeared,
striding up the curving staircase. The man was stocky and dark, almost
Neanderthal, dressed in a dark double-breasted suit that strained to cover
his wide shoulders. He advanced with unmistakable authority on squat,
powerful legs. He was speaking on his cell phone but finished the call as he
arrived. He motioned for Langdon to enter.
"I am Bezu Fache," he announced as Langdon pushed through the revolving
door. "Captain of the Central Directorate Judicial Police." His tone was
fitting--a guttural rumble... like a gathering storm.
Langdon held out his hand to shake. "Robert Langdon."
Fache's enormous palm wrapped around Langdon's with crushing force.
"I saw the photo," Langdon said. "Your agent said Jacques Sauniure
himself did--"
"Mr. Langdon," Fache's ebony eyes locked on. "What you see in the photo
is only the beginning of what Sauniure did."
Captain Bezu Fache carried himself like an angry ox, with his wide
shoulders thrown back and his chin tucked hard into his chest. His dark hair
was slicked back with oil, accentuating an arrow-like widow's peak that
divided his jutting brow and preceded him like the prow of a battleship. As
he advanced, his dark eyes seemed to scorch the earth before him, radiating
a fiery clarity that forecast his reputation for unblinking severity in all
matters.
Langdon followed the captain down the famous marble staircase into the
sunken atrium beneath the glass pyramid. As they descended, they passed
between two armed Judicial Police guards with machine guns. The message was
clear: Nobody goes in or out tonight without the blessing of Captain Fache.
Descending below ground level, Langdon fought a rising trepidation.
Fache's presence was anything but welcoming, and the Louvre itself had an
almost sepulchral aura at this hour. The staircase, like the aisle of a dark
movie theater, was illuminated by subtle tread-lighting embedded in each
step. Langdon could hear his own footsteps reverberating off the glass
overhead. As he glanced up, he could see the faint illuminated wisps of mist
from the fountains fading away outside the transparent roof.
"Do you approve?" Fache asked, nodding upward with his broad chin.
Langdon sighed, too tired to play games. "Yes, your pyramid is
magnificent."
Fache grunted. "A scar on the face of Paris."
Strike one. Langdon sensed his host was a hard man to please. He
wondered if Fache had any idea that this pyramid, at President Mitterrand's
explicit demand, had been constructed of exactly 666 panes of glass--a
bizarre request that had always been a hot topic among conspiracy buffs who
claimed 666 was the number of Satan.
Langdon decided not to bring it up.
As they dropped farther into the subterranean foyer, the yawning space
slowly emerged from the shadows. Built fifty-seven feet beneath ground
level, the Louvre's newly constructed 70,000-square-foot lobby spread out
like an endless grotto. Constructed in warm ocher marble to be compatible
with the honey-colored stone of the Louvre facade above, the subterranean
hall was usually vibrant with sunlight and tourists. Tonight, however, the
lobby was barren and dark, giving the entire space a cold and crypt-like
atmosphere.
"And the museum's regular security staff?" Langdon asked.
"En quarantaine," Fache replied, sounding as if Langdon were
questioning the integrity of Fache's team. "Obviously, someone gained entry
tonight who should not have. All Louvre night wardens are in the Sully Wing
being questioned. My own agents have taken over museum security for the
evening."
Langdon nodded, moving quickly to keep pace with Fache.
"How well did you know Jacques Sauniure?" the captain asked.
"Actually, not at all. We'd never met."
Fache looked surprised. "Your first meeting was to be tonight?"
"Yes. We'd planned to meet at the American University reception
following my lecture, but he never showed up."
Fache scribbled some notes in a little book. As they walked, Langdon
caught a glimpse of the Louvre's lesser-known pyramid--La Pyramide
Inversue--a huge inverted skylight that hung from the ceiling like a
stalactite in an adjoining section of the entresol. Fache guided Langdon up
a short set of stairs to the mouth of an arched tunnel, over which a sign
read: DENON. The Denon Wing was the most famous of the Louvre's three main
sections.
"Who requested tonight's meeting?" Fache asked suddenly. "You or he?"
The question seemed odd. "Mr. Sauniure did," Langdon replied as they
entered the tunnel. "His secretary contacted me a few weeks ago via e-mail.
She said the curator had heard I would be lecturing in Paris this month and
wanted to discuss something with me while I was here."
"Discuss what?"
"I don't know. Art, I imagine. We share similar interests."
Fache looked skeptical. "You have no idea what your meeting was about?"
Langdon did not. He'd been curious at the time but had not felt
comfortable demanding specifics. The venerated Jacques Sauniure had a
renowned penchant for privacy and granted very few meetings; Langdon was
grateful simply for the opportunity to meet him.
"Mr. Langdon, can you at least guess what our murder victim might have
wanted to discuss with you on the night he was killed? It might be helpful."
The pointedness of the question made Langdon uncomfortable. "I really
can't imagine. I didn't ask. I felt honored to have been contacted at all.
I'm an admirer of Mr. Sauniure's work. I use his texts often in my classes."
Fache made note of that fact in his book.
The two men were now halfway up the Denon Wing's entry tunnel, and
Langdon could see the twin ascending escalators at the far end, both
motionless.
"So you shared interests with him?" Fache asked.
"Yes. In fact, I've spent much of the last year writing the draft for a
book that deals with Mr. Sauniure's primary area of expertise. I was looking
forward to picking his brain."
Fache glanced up. "Pardon?"
The idiom apparently didn't translate. "I was looking forward to
learning his thoughts on the topic."
"I see. And what is the topic?"
Langdon hesitated, uncertain exactly how to put it. "Essentially, the
manuscript is about the iconography of goddess worship--the concept of
female sanctity and the art and symbols associated with it."
Fache ran a meaty hand across his hair. "And Sauniure was knowledgeable
about this?"
"Nobody more so."
"I see."
Langdon sensed Fache did not see at all. Jacques Sauniure was
considered the premiere goddess iconographer on earth. Not only did Sauniure
have a personal passion for relics relating to fertility, goddess cults,
Wicca, and the sacred feminine, but during his twenty-year tenure as
curator, Sauniure had helped the Louvre amass the largest collection of
goddess art on earth--labrys axes from the priestesses' oldest Greek shrine
in Delphi, gold caducei wands, hundreds of Tjet ankhs resembling small
standing angels, sistrum rattles used in ancient Egypt to dispel evil
spirits, and an astonishing array of statues depicting Horus being nursed by
the goddess Isis.
"Perhaps Jacques Sauniure knew of your manuscript?" Fache offered. "And
he called the meeting to offer his help on your book."
Langdon shook his head. "Actually, nobody yet knows about my
manuscript. It's still in draft form, and I haven't shown it to anyone
except my editor."
Fache fell silent.
Langdon did not add the reason he hadn't yet shown the manuscript to
anyone else. The three-hundred-page draft--tentatively titled Symbols of the
Lost Sacred Feminine--proposed some very unconventional interpretations of
established religious iconography which would certainly be controversial.
Now, as Langdon approached the stationary escalators, he paused,
realizing Fache was no longer beside him. Turning, Langdon saw Fache
standing several yards back at a service elevator.
"We'll take the elevator," Fache said as the lift doors opened. "As I'm
sure you're aware, the gallery is quite a distance on foot."
Although Langdon knew the elevator would expedite the long, two-story
climb to the Denon Wing, he remained motionless.
"Is something wrong?" Fache was holding the door, looking impatient.
Langdon exhaled, turning a longing glance back up the open-air
escalator. Nothing's wrong at all, he lied to himself, trudging back toward
the elevator. As a boy, Langdon had fallen down an abandoned well shaft and
almost died treading water in the narrow space for hours before being
rescued. Since then, he'd suffered a haunting phobia of enclosed
spaces--elevators, subways, squash courts. The elevator is a perfectly safe
machine, Langdon continually told himself, never believing it. It's a tiny
metal box hanging in an enclosed shaft! Holding his breath, he stepped into
the lift, feeling the familiar tingle of adrenaline as the doors slid shut.
Two floors. Ten seconds.
"You and Mr. Sauniure," Fache said as the lift began to move, "you
never spoke at all? Never corresponded? Never sent each other anything in
the mail?"
Another odd question. Langdon shook his head. "No. Never." Fache cocked
his head, as if making a mental note of that fact. Saying nothing, he stared
dead ahead at the chrome doors.
As they ascended, Langdon tried to focus on anything other than the
four walls around him. In the reflection of the shiny elevator door, he saw
the captain's tie clip--a silver crucifix with thirteen embedded pieces of
black onyx. Langdon found it vaguely surprising. The symbol was known as a
crux gemmata--a cross bearing thirteen gems--a Christian ideogram for Christ
and His twelve apostles. Somehow Langdon had not expected the captain of the
French police to broadcast his religion so openly. Then again, this was
France; Christianity was not a religion here so much as a birthright.
"It's a crux gemmata" Fache said suddenly.
Startled, Langdon glanced up to find Fache's eyes on him in the
reflection.
The elevator jolted to a stop, and the doors opened.
Langdon stepped quickly out into the hallway, eager for the wide-open
space afforded by the famous high ceilings of the Louvre galleries. The
world into which he stepped, however, was nothing like he expected.
Surprised, Langdon stopped short.
Fache glanced over. "I gather, Mr. Langdon, you have never seen the
Louvre after hours?"
I guess not, Langdon thought, trying to get his bearings.
Usually impeccably illuminated, the Louvre galleries were startlingly
dark tonight. Instead of the customary flat-white light flowing down from
above, a muted red glow seemed to emanate upward from the
baseboards--intermittent patches of red light spilling out onto the tile
floors.
As Langdon gazed down the murky corridor, he realized he should have
anticipated this scene. Virtually all major galleries employed red service
lighting at night--strategically placed, low-level, noninvasive lights that
enabled staff members to navigate hallways and yet kept the paintings in
relative darkness to slow the fading effects of overexposure to light.
Tonight, the museum possessed an almost oppressive quality. Long shadows
encroached everywhere, and the usually soaring vaulted ceilings appeared as
a low, black void.
"This way," Fache said, turning sharply right and setting out through a
series of interconnected galleries.
Langdon followed, his vision slowly adjusting to the dark. All around,
large-format oils began to materialize like photos developing before him in
an enormous darkroom... their eyes following as he moved through the rooms.
He could taste the familiar tang of museum air--an arid, deionized essence
that carried a faint hint of carbon--the product of industrial, coal-filter
dehumidifiers that ran around the clock to counteract the corrosive carbon
dioxide exhaled by visitors.
Mounted high on the walls, the visible security cameras sent a clear
message to visitors: We see you. Do not touch anything.
"Any of them real?" Langdon asked, motioning to the cameras.
Fache shook his head. "Of course not."
Langdon was not surprised. Video surveillance in museums this size was
cost-prohibitive and ineffective. With acres of galleries to watch over, the
Louvre would require several hundred technicians simply to monitor the
feeds. Most large museums now used "containment security." Forget keeping
thieves out. Keep them in. Containment was activated after hours, and if an
intruder removed a piece of artwork, compartmentalized exits would seal
around that gallery, and the thief would find himself behind bars even
before the police arrived.
The sound of voices echoed down the marble corridor up ahead. The noise
seemed to be coming from a large recessed alcove that lay ahead on the
right. A bright light spilled out into the hallway.
"Office of the curator," the captain said.
As he and Fache drew nearer the alcove, Langdon peered down a short
hallway, into Sauniure's luxurious study--warm wood, Old Master paintings,
and an enormous antique desk on which stood a two-foot-tall model of a
knight in full armor. A handful of police agents bustled about the room,
talking on phones and taking notes. One of them was seated at Sauniure's
desk, typing into a laptop. Apparently, the curator's private office had
become DCPJ's makeshift command post for the evening.
"Messieurs," Fache called out, and the men turned. "Ne nous durangez
pas sous aucun prutexte. Entendu?"
Everyone inside the office nodded their understanding.
Langdon had hung enough NE PAS DERANGER signs on hotel room doors to
catch the gist of the captain's orders. Fache and Langdon were not to be
disturbed under any circumstances.
Leaving the small congregation of agents behind, Fache led Langdon
farther down the darkened hallway. Thirty yards ahead loomed the gateway to
the Louvre's most popular section--la Grande Galerie--a seemingly endless
corridor that housed the Louvre's most valuable Italian masterpieces.
Langdon had already discerned that this was where Sauniure's body lay; the
Grand Gallery's famous parquet floor had been unmistakable in the Polaroid.
As they approached, Langdon saw the entrance was blocked by an enormous
steel grate that looked like something used by medieval castles to keep out
marauding armies.
"Containment security," Fache said, as they neared the grate.
Even in the darkness, the barricade looked like it could have
restrained a tank. Arriving outside, Langdon peered through the bars into
the dimly lit caverns of the Grand Gallery.
"After you, Mr. Langdon," Fache said.
Langdon turned. After me, where?
Fache motioned toward the floor at the base of the grate.
Langdon looked down. In the darkness, he hadn't noticed. The barricade
was raised about two feet, providing an awkward clearance underneath.
"This area is still off limits to Louvre security," Fache said. "My
team from Police Technique et Scientifique has just finished their
investigation." He motioned to the opening. "Please slide under."
Langdon stared at the narrow crawl space at his feet and then up at the
massive iron grate. He's kidding, right? The barricade looked like a
guillotine waiting to crush intruders.
Fache grumbled something in French and checked his watch. Then he
dropped to his knees and slithered his bulky frame underneath the grate. On
the other side, he stood up and looked back through the bars at Langdon.
Langdon sighed. Placing his palms flat on the polished parquet, he lay
on his stomach and pulled himself forward. As he slid underneath, the nape
of his Harris tweed snagged on the bottom of the grate, and he cracked the
back of his head on the iron.
Very suave, Robert, he thought, fumbling and then finally pulling
himself through. As he stood up, Langdon was beginning to suspect it was
going to be a very long night.
Murray Hill Place--the new Opus Dei World Headquarters and conference
center--is located at 243 Lexington Avenue in New York City. With a price
tag of just over $47 million, the 133,000-square-foot tower is clad in red
brick and Indiana limestone. Designed by May & Pinska, the building
contains over one hundred bedrooms, six dining rooms, libraries, living
rooms, meeting rooms, and offices. The second, eighth, and sixteenth floors
contain chapels, ornamented with mill-work and marble. The seventeenth floor
is entirely residential. Men enter the building through the main doors on
Lexington Avenue. Women enter through a side street and are "acoustically
and visually separated" from the men at all times within the building.
Earlier this evening, within the sanctuary of his penthouse apartment,
Bishop Manuel Aringarosa had packed a small travel bag and dressed in a
traditional black cassock. Normally, he would have wrapped a purple cincture
around his waist, but tonight he would be traveling among the public, and he
preferred not to draw attention to his high office. Only those with a keen
eye would notice his 14-karat gold bishop's ring with purple amethyst, large
diamonds, and hand-tooled mitre-crozier appliquu. Throwing the travel bag
over his shoulder, he said a silent prayer and left his apartment,
descending to the lobby where his driver was waiting to take him to the
airport.
Now, sitting aboard a commercial airliner bound for Rome, Aringarosa
gazed out the window at the dark Atlantic. The sun had already set, but
Aringarosa knew his own star was on the rise. Tonight the battle will be
won, he thought, amazed that only months ago he had felt powerless against
the hands that threatened to destroy his empire.
As president-general of Opus Dei, Bishop Aringarosa had spent the last
decade of his life spreading the message of "God's Work"--literally, Opus
Dei. The congregation, founded in 1928 by the Spanish priest Josemarua
Escrivu, promoted a return to conservative Catholic values and encouraged
its members to make sweeping sacrifices in their own lives in order to do
the Work of God.
Opus Dei's traditionalist philosophy initially had taken root in Spain
before Franco's regime, but with the 1934 publication of Josemarua Escrivu's
spiritual book The Way--999 points of meditation for doing God's Work in
one's own life--Escrivu's message exploded across the world. Now, with over
four million copies of The Way in circulation in forty-two languages, Opus
Dei was a global force. Its residence halls, teaching centers, and even
universities could be found in almost every major metropolis on earth. Opus
Dei was the fastest-growing and most financially secure Catholic
organization in the world. Unfortunately, Aringarosa had learned, in an age
of religious cynicism, cults, and televangelists, Opus Dei's escalating
wealth and power was a magnet for suspicion.
"Many call Opus Dei a brainwashing cult," reporters often challenged.
"Others call you an ultraconservative Christian secret society. Which are
you?"
"Opus Dei is neither," the bishop would patiently reply. "We are a
Catholic Church. We are a congregation of Catholics who have chosen as our
priority to follow Catholic doctrine as rigorously as we can in our own
daily lives."
"Does God's Work necessarily include vows of chastity, tithing, and
atonement for sins through self-flagellation and the cilice?"
"You are describing only a small portion of the Opus Dei population,"
Aringarosa said. "There are many levels of involvement. Thousands of Opus
Dei members are married, have families, and do God's Work in their own
communities. Others choose lives of asceticism within our cloistered
residence halls. These choices are personal, but everyone in Opus Dei shares
the goal of bettering the world by doing the Work of God. Surely this is an
admirable quest."
Reason seldom worked, though. The media always gravitated toward
scandal, and Opus Dei, like most large organizations, had within its
membership a few misguided souls who cast a shadow over the entire group.
Two months ago, an Opus Dei group at a midwestern university had been
caught drugging new recruits with mescaline in an effort to induce a
euphoric state that neophytes would perceive as a religious experience.
Another university student had used his barbed cilice belt more often than
the recommended two hours a day and had given himself a near lethal
infection. In Boston not long ago, a disillusioned young investment banker
had signed over his entire life savings to Opus Dei before attempting
suicide.
Misguided sheep, Aringarosa thought, his heart going out to them.
Of course the ultimate embarrassment had been the widely publicized
trial of FBI spy Robert Hanssen, who, in addition to being a prominent
member of Opus Dei, had turned out to be a sexual deviant, his trial
uncovering evidence that he had rigged hidden video cameras in his own
bedroom so his friends could watch him having sex with his wife. "Hardly the
pastime of a devout Catholic," the judge had noted.
Sadly, all of these events had helped spawn the new watch group known
as the Opus Dei Awareness Network (ODAN). The group's popular
website--www.odan.org--relayed frightening stories from former Opus Dei
members who warned of the dangers of joining. The media was now referring to
Opus Dei as "God's Mafia" and "the Cult of Christ."
We fear what we do not understand, Aringarosa thought, wondering if
these critics had any idea how many lives Opus Dei had enriched. The group
enjoyed the full endorsement and blessing of the Vatican. Opus Dei is a
personal prelature of the Pope himself.
Recently, however, Opus Dei had found itself threatened by a force
infinitely more powerful than the media... an unexpected foe from which
Aringarosa could not possibly hide. Five months ago, the kaleidoscope of
power had been shaken, and Aringarosa was still reeling from the blow.
"They know not the war they have begun," Aringarosa whispered to
himself, staring out the plane's window at the darkness of the ocean below.
For an instant, his eyes refocused, lingering on the reflection of his
awkward face--dark and oblong, dominated by a flat, crooked nose that had
been shattered by a fist in Spain when he was a young missionary. The
physical flaw barely registered now. Aringarosa's was a world of the soul,
not of the flesh.
As the jet passed over the coast of Portugal, the cell phone in
Aringarosa's cassock began vibrating in silent ring mode. Despite airline
regulations prohibiting the use of cell phones during flights, Aringarosa
knew this was a call he could not miss. Only one man possessed this number,
the man who had mailed Aringarosa the phone.
Excited, the bishop answered quietly. "Yes?"
"Silas has located the keystone," the caller said. "It is in Paris.
Within the Church of Saint-Sulpice."
Bishop Aringarosa smiled. "Then we are close."
"We can obtain it immediately. But we need your influence."
"Of course. Tell me what to do."
When Aringarosa switched off the phone, his heart was pounding. He
gazed once again into the void of night, feeling dwarfed by the events he
had put into motion.
Five hundred miles away, the albino named Silas stood over a small
basin of water and dabbed the blood from his back, watching the patterns of
red spinning in the water. Purge me with hyssop and I shall be clean, he
prayed, quoting Psalms. Wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.
Silas was feeling an aroused anticipation that he had not felt since
his previous life. It both surprised and electrified him. For the last
decade, he had been following The Way, cleansing himself of sins...
rebuilding his life... erasing the violence in his past. Tonight, however,
it had all come rushing back. The hatred he had fought so hard to bury had
been summoned. He had been startled how quickly his past had resurfaced. And
with it, of course, had come his skills. Rusty but serviceable.
Jesus' message is one of peace... of nonviolence... of love. This was
the message Silas had been taught from the beginning, and the message he
held in his heart. And yet this was the message the enemies of Christ now
threatened to destroy. Those who threaten God with force will be met with
force. Immovable and steadfast.
For two millennia, Christian soldiers had defended their faith against
those who tried to displace it. Tonight, Silas had been called to battle.
Drying his wounds, he donned his ankle-length, hooded robe. It was
plain, made of dark wool, accentuating the whiteness of his skin and hair.
Tightening the rope-tie around his waist, he raised the hood over his head
and allowed his red eyes to admire his reflection in the mirror. The wheels
are in motion.
Having squeezed beneath the security gate, Robert Langdon now stood
just inside the entrance to the Grand Gallery. He was staring into the mouth
of a long, deep canyon. On either side of the gallery, stark walls rose
thirty feet, evaporating into the darkness above. The reddish glow of the
service lighting sifted upward, casting an unnatural smolder across a
staggering collection of Da Vincis, Titians, and Caravaggios that hung
suspended from ceiling cables. Still lifes, religious scenes, and landscapes
accompanied portraits of nobility and politicians.
Although the Grand Gallery housed the Louvre's most famous Italian art,
many visitors felt the wing's most stunning offering was actually its famous
parquet floor. Laid out in a dazzling geometric design of diagonal oak
slats, the floor produced an ephemeral optical illusion--a multi-dimensional
network that gave visitors the sense they were floating through the gallery
on a surface that changed with every step.
As Langdon's gaze began to trace the inlay, his eyes stopped short on
an unexpected object lying on the floor just a few yards to his left,
surrounded by police tape. He spun toward Fache. "Is that... a Caravaggio on
the floor?"
Fache nodded without even looking.
The painting, Langdon guessed, was worth upward of two million dollars,
and yet it was lying on the floor like a discarded poster. "What the devil
is it doing on the floor!"
Fache glowered, clearly unmoved. "This is a crime scene, Mr. Langdon.
We have touched nothing. That canvas was pulled from the wall by the
curator. It was how he activated the security system."
Langdon looked back at the gate, trying to picture what had happened.
"The curator was attacked in his office, fled into the Grand Gallery,
and activated the security gate by pulling that painting from the wall. The
gate fell immediately, sealing off all access. This is the only door in or
out of this gallery."
Langdon felt confused. "So the curator actually captured his attacker
inside the Grand Gallery?"
Fache shook his head. "The security gate separated Sauniure from his
attacker. The killer was locked out there in the hallway and shot Sauniure
through this gate." Fache pointed toward an orange tag hanging from one of
the bars on the gate under which they had just passed. "The PTS team found
flashback residue from a gun. He fired through the bars. Sauniure died in
here alone."
Langdon pictured the photograph of Sauniure's body. They said he did
that to himself. Langdon looked out at the enormous corridor before them.
"So where is his body?"
Fache straightened his cruciform tie clip and began to walk. "As you
probably know, the Grand Gallery is quite long."
The exact length, if Langdon recalled correctly, was around fifteen
hundred feet, the length of three Washington Monuments laid end to end.
Equally breathtaking was the corridor's width, which easily could have
accommodated a pair of side-by-side passenger trains. The center of the
hallway was dotted by the occasional statue or colossal porcelain urn, which
served as a tasteful divider and kept the flow of traffic moving down one
wall and up the other.
Fache was silent now, striding briskly up the right side of the
corridor with his gaze dead ahead. Langdon felt almost disrespectful to be
racing past so many masterpieces without pausing for so much as a glance.
Not that I could see anything in this lighting, he thought.
The muted crimson lighting unfortunately conjured memories of Langdon's
last experience in noninvasive lighting in the Vatican Secret Archives. This
was tonight's second unsettling parallel with his near-death in Rome. He
flashed on Vittoria again. She had been absent from his dreams for months.
Langdon could not believe Rome had been only a year ago; it felt like
decades. Another life. His last correspondence from Vittoria had been in
December--a postcard saying she was headed to the Java Sea to continue her
research in entanglement physics... something about using satellites to
track manta ray migrations. Langdon had never harbored delusions that a
woman like Vittoria Vetra could have been happy living with him on a college
campus, but their encounter in Rome had unlocked in him a longing he never
imagined he could feel. His lifelong affinity for bachelorhood and the
simple freedoms it allowed had been shaken somehow... replaced by an
unexpected emptiness that seemed to have grown over the past year.
They continued walking briskly, yet Langdon still saw no corpse.
"Jacques Sauniure went this far?"
"Mr. Sauniure suffered a bullet wound to his stomach. He died very
slowly. Perhaps over fifteen or twenty minutes. He was obviously a man of
great personal strength."
Langdon turned, appalled. "Security took fifteen minutes to get here?"
"Of course not. Louvre security responded immediately to the alarm and
found the Grand Gallery sealed. Through the gate, they could hear someone
moving around at the far end of the corridor, but they could not see who it
was. They shouted, but they got no answer. Assuming it could only be a
criminal, they followed protocol and called in the Judicial Police. We took
up positions within fifteen minutes. When we arrived, we raised the
barricade enough to slip underneath, and I sent a dozen armed agents inside.
They swept the length of the gallery to corner the intruder."
"And?"
"They found no one inside. Except..." He pointed farther down the hall.
"Him."
Langdon lifted his gaze and followed Fache's outstretched finger. At
first he thought Fache was pointing to a large marble statue in the middle
of the hallway. As they continued, though, Langdon began to see past the
statue. Thirty yards down the hall, a single spotlight on a portable pole
stand shone down on the floor, creating a stark island of white light in the
dark crimson gallery. In the center of the light, like an insect under a
microscope, the corpse of the curator lay naked on the parquet floor.
"You saw the photograph," Fache said, "so this should be of no
surprise."
Langdon felt a deep chill as they approached the body. Before him was
one of the strangest images he had ever seen.
The pallid corpse of Jacques Sauniure lay on the parquet floor exactly
as it appeared in the photograph. As Langdon stood over the body and
squinted in the harsh light, he reminded himself to his amazement that
Sauniure had spent his last minutes of life arranging his own body in this
strange fashion.
Sauniure looked remarkably fit for a man of his years... and all of his
musculature was in plain view. He had stripped off every shred of clothing,
placed it neatly on the floor, and laid down on his back in the center of
the wide corridor, perfectly aligned with the long axis of the room. His
arms and legs were sprawled outward in a wide spread eagle, like those of a
child making a snow angel... or, perhaps more appropriately, like a man
being drawn and quartered by some invisible force.
Just below Sauniure's breastbone, a bloody smear marked the spot where
the bullet had pierced his flesh. The wound had bled surprisingly little,
leaving only a small pool of blackened blood.
Sauniure's left index finger was also bloody, apparently having been
dipped into the wound to create the most unsettling aspect of his own
macabre deathbed; using his own blood as ink, and employing his own naked
abdomen as a canvas, Sauniure had drawn a simple symbol on his flesh--five
straight lines that intersected to form a five-pointed star.
The pentacle.
The bloody star, centered on Sauniure's navel, gave his corpse a
distinctly ghoulish aura. The photo Langdon had seen was chilling enough,
but now, witnessing the scene in person, Langdon felt a deepening
uneasiness.
He did this to himself.
"Mr. Langdon?" Fache's dark eyes settled on him again.
"It's a pentacle," Langdon offered, his voice feeling hollow in the
huge space. "One of the oldest symbols on earth. Used over four thousand
years before Christ."
"And what does it mean?"
Langdon always hesitated when he got this question. Telling someone
what a symbol "meant" was like telling them how a song should make them
feel--it was different for all people. A white Ku Klux Klan headpiece
conjured images of hatred and racism in the United States, and yet the same
costume carried a meaning of religious faith in Spain.
"Symbols carry different meanings in different settings," Langdon said.
"Primarily, the pentacle is a pagan religious symbol."
Fache nodded. "Devil worship."
"No," Langdon corrected, immediately realizing his choice of vocabulary
should have been clearer.
Nowadays, the term pagan had become almost synonymous with devil
worship--a gross misconception. The word's roots actually reached back to
the Latin paganus, meaning country-dwellers. "Pagans" were literally
unindoctrinated country-folk who clung to the old, rural religions of Nature
worship. In fact, so strong was the Church's fear of those who lived in the
rural villes that the once innocuous word for "villager"--villain--came to
mean a wicked soul.
"The pentacle," Langdon clarified, "is a pre-Christian symbol that
relates to Nature worship. The ancients envisioned their world in two
halves--masculine and feminine. Their gods and goddesses worked to keep a
balance of power. Yin and yang. When male and female were balanced, there
was harmony in the world. When they were unbalanced, there was chaos."
Langdon motioned to Sauniure's stomach. "This pentacle is representative of
the female half of all things--a concept religious historians call the
'sacred feminine' or the 'divine goddess.' Sauniure, of all people, would
know this."
"Sauniure drew a goddess symbol on his stomach?"
Langdon had to admit, it seemed odd. "In its most specific
interpretation, the pentacle symbolizes Venus--the goddess of female sexual
love and beauty."
Fache eyed the naked man, and grunted.
"Early religion was based on the divine order of Nature. The goddess
Venus and the planet Venus were one and the same. The goddess had a place in
the nighttime sky and was known by many names--Venus, the Eastern Star,
Ishtar, Astarte--all of them powerful female concepts with ties to Nature
and Mother Earth."
Fache looked more troubled now, as if he somehow preferred the idea of
devil worship.
Langdon decided not to share the pentacle's most astonishing
property--the graphic origin of its ties to Venus. As a young astronomy
student, Langdon had been stunned to learn the planet Venus traced a perfect
pentacle across the ecliptic sky every four years. So astonished were the
ancients to observe this phenomenon, that Venus and her pentacle became
symbols of perfection, beauty, and the cyclic qualities of sexual love. As a
tribute to the magic of Venus, the Greeks used her four-year cycle to
organize their Olympiads. Nowadays, few people realized that the four-year
schedule of modern Olympic Games still followed the cycles of Venus. Even
fewer people knew that the five-pointed star had almost become the official
Olympic seal but was modified at the last moment--its five points exchanged
for five intersecting rings to better reflect the games' spirit of inclusion
and harmony.
"Mr. Langdon," Fache said abruptly. "Obviously, the pentacle must also
relate to the devil. Your American horror movies make that point clearly."
Langdon frowned. Thank you, Hollywood. The five-pointed star was now a
virtual clichu in Satanic serial killer movies, usually scrawled on the wall
of some Satanist's apartment along with other alleged demonic symbology.
Langdon was always frustrated when he saw the symbol in this context; the
pentacle's true origins were actually quite godly.
"I assure you," Langdon said, "despite what you see in the movies, the
pentacle's demonic interpretation is historically inaccurate. The original
feminine meaning is correct, but the symbolism of the pentacle has been
distorted over the millennia. In this case, through bloodshed."
"I'm not sure I follow."
Langdon glanced at Fache's crucifix, uncertain how to phrase his next
point. "The Church, sir. Symbols are very resilient, but the pentacle was
altered by the early Roman Catholic Church. As part of the Vatican's
campaign to eradicate pagan religions and convert the masses to
Christianity, the Church launched a smear campaign against the pagan gods
and goddesses, recasting their divine symbols as evil."
"Go on."
"This is very common in times of turmoil," Langdon continued. "A newly
emerging power will take over the existing symbols and degrade them over
time in an attempt to erase their meaning. In the battle between the pagan
symbols and Christian symbols, the pagans lost; Poseidon's trident became
the devil's pitchfork, the wise crone's pointed hat became the symbol of a
witch, and Venus's pentacle became a sign of the devil." Langdon paused.
"Unfortunately, the United States military has also perverted the pentacle;
it's now our foremost symbol of war. We paint it on all our fighter jets and
hang it on the shoulders of all our generals." So much for the goddess of
love and beauty.
"Interesting." Fache nodded toward the spread-eagle corpse. "And the
positioning of the body? What do you make of that?"
Langdon shrugged. "The position simply reinforces the reference to the
pentacle and sacred feminine."
Fache's expression clouded. "I beg your pardon?"
"Replication. Repeating a symbol is the simplest way to strengthen its
meaning. Jacques Sauniure positioned himself in the shape of a five-pointed
star." If one pentacle is good, two is better.
Fache's eyes followed the five points of Sauniure's arms, legs, and
head as he again ran a hand across his slick hair. "Interesting analysis."
He paused. "And the nudity?" He grumbled as he spoke the word, sounding
repulsed by the sight of an aging male body. "Why did he remove his
clothing?"
Damned good question, Langdon thought. He'd been wondering the same
thing ever since he first saw the Polaroid. His best guess was that a naked
human form was yet another endorsement of Venus--the goddess of human
sexuality. Although modern culture had erased much of Venus's association
with the male/female physical union, a sharp etymological eye could still
spot a vestige of Venus's original meaning in the word "venereal." Langdon
decided not to go there.
"Mr. Fache, I obviously can't tell you why Mr. Sauniure drew that
symbol on himself or placed himself in this way, but I can tell you that a
man like Jacques Sauniure would consider the pentacle a sign of the female
deity. The correlation between this symbol and the sacred feminine is widely
known by art historians and symbologists."
"Fine. And the use of his own blood as ink?"
"Obviously he had nothing else to write with."
Fache was silent a moment. "Actually, I believe he used blood such that
the police would follow certain forensic procedures."
"I'm sorry?"
"Look at his left hand."
Langdon's eyes traced the length of the curator's pale arm to his left
hand but saw nothing. Uncertain, he circled the corpse and crouched down,
now noting with surprise that the curator was clutching a large, felt-tipped
marker.
"Sauniure was holding it when we found him," Fache said, leaving
Langdon and moving several yards to a portable table covered with
investigation tools, cables, and assorted electronic gear. "As I told you,"
he said, rummaging around the table, "we have touched nothing. Are you
familiar with this kind of pen?"
Langdon knelt down farther to see the pen's label.
STYLO DE LUMIERE NOIRE.
He glanced up in surprise.
The black-light pen or watermark stylus was a specialized felt-tipped
marker originally designed by museums, restorers, and forgery police to
place invisible marks on items. The stylus wrote in a noncorrosive,
alcohol-based fluorescent ink that was visible only under black light.
Nowadays, museum maintenance staffs carried these markers on their daily
rounds to place invisible "tick marks" on the frames of paintings that
needed restoration.
As Langdon stood up, Fache walked over to the spotlight and turned it
off. The gallery plunged into sudden darkness.
Momentarily blinded, Langdon felt a rising uncertainty. Fache's
silhouette appeared, illuminated in bright purple. He approached carrying a
portable light source, which shrouded him in a violet haze.
"As you may know," Fache said, his eyes luminescing in the violet glow,
"police use black-light illumination to search crime scenes for blood and
other forensic evidence. So you can imagine our surprise..." Abruptly, he
pointed the light down at the corpse.
Langdon looked down and jumped back in shock.
His heart pounded as he took in the bizarre sight now glowing before
him on the parquet floor. Scrawled in luminescent handwriting, the curator's
final words glowed purple beside his corpse. As Langdon stared at the
shimmering text, he felt the fog that had surrounded this entire night
growing thicker.
Langdon read the message again and looked up at Fache. "What the hell
does this mean!"
Fache's eyes shone white. "That, monsieur, is precisely the question
you are here to answer."
Not far away, inside Sauniure's office, Lieutenant Collet had returned
to the Louvre and was huddled over an audio console set up on the curator's
enormous desk. With the exception of the eerie, robot-like doll of a
medieval knight that seemed to be staring at him from the corner of
Sauniure's desk, Collet was comfortable. He adjusted his AKG headphones and
checked the input levels on the hard-disk recording system. All systems were
go. The microphones were functioning flawlessly, and the audio feed was
crystal clear.
Le moment de vuritu, he mused.
Smiling, he closed his eyes and settled in to enjoy the rest of the
conversation now being taped inside the Grand Gallery.
The modest dwelling within the Church of Saint-Sulpice was located on
the second floor of the church itself, to the left of the choir balcony. A
two-room suite with a stone floor and minimal furnishings, it had been home
to Sister Sandrine Bieil for over a decade. The nearby convent was her
formal residence, if anyone asked, but she preferred the quiet of the church
and had made herself quite comfortable upstairs with a bed, phone, and hot
plate.
As the church's conservatrice d'affaires, Sister Sandrine was
responsible for overseeing all nonreligious aspects of church
operations--general maintenance, hiring support staff and guides, securing
the building after hours, and ordering supplies like communion wine and
wafers.
Tonight, asleep in her small bed, she awoke to the shrill of her
telephone. Tiredly, she lifted the receiver.
"Soeur Sandrine. Eglise Saint-Sulpice."
"Hello, Sister," the man said in French.
Sister Sandrine sat up. What time is it? Although she recognized her
boss's voice, in fifteen years she had never been awoken by him. The abbu
was a deeply pious man who went home to bed immediately after mass.
"I apologize if I have awoken you, Sister," the abbu said, his own
voice sounding groggy and on edge. "I have a favor to ask of you. I just
received a call from an influential American bishop. Perhaps you know him?
Manuel Aringarosa?"
"The head of Opus Dei?" Of course I know of him. Who in the Church
doesn't? Aringarosa's conservative prelature had grown powerful in recent
years. Their ascension to grace was jump-started in 1982 when Pope John Paul
II unexpectedly elevated them to a "personal prelature of the Pope,"
officially sanctioning all of their practices. Suspiciously, Opus Dei's
elevation occurred the same year the wealthy sect allegedly had transferred
almost one billion dollars into the Vatican's Institute for Religious
Works--commonly known as the Vatican Bank--bailing it out of an embarrassing
bankruptcy. In a second maneuver that raised eyebrows, the Pope placed the
founder of Opus Dei on the "fast track" for sainthood, accelerating an often
century-long waiting period for canonization to a mere twenty years. Sister
Sandrine could not help but feel that Opus Dei's good standing in Rome was
suspect, but one did not argue with the Holy See.
"Bishop Aringarosa called to ask me a favor," the abbu told her, his
voice nervous. "One of his numeraries is in Paris tonight...."
As Sister Sandrine listened to the odd request, she felt a deepening
confusion. "I'm sorry, you say this visiting Opus Dei numerary cannot wait
until morning?"
"I'm afraid not. His plane leaves very early. He has always dreamed of
seeing Saint-Sulpice."
"But the church is far more interesting by day. The sun's rays through
the oculus, the graduated shadows on the gnomon, this is what makes
Saint-Sulpice unique."
"Sister, I agree, and yet I would consider it a personal favor if you
could let him in tonight. He can be there at... say one o'clock? That's in
twenty minutes."
Sister Sandrine frowned. "Of course. It would be my pleasure."
The abbu thanked her and hung up.
Puzzled, Sister Sandrine remained a moment in the warmth of her bed,
trying to shake off the cobwebs of sleep. Her sixty-year-old body did not
awake as fast as it used to, although tonight's phone call had certainly
roused her senses. Opus Dei had always made her uneasy. Beyond the
prelature's adherence to the arcane ritual of corporal mortification, their
views on women were medieval at best. She had been shocked to learn that
female numeraries were forced to clean the men's residence halls for no pay
while the men were at mass; women slept on hardwood floors, while the men
had straw mats; and women were forced to endure additional requirements of
corporal mortification... all as added penance for original sin. It seemed
Eve's bite from the apple of knowledge was a debt women were doomed to pay
for eternity. Sadly, while most of the Catholic Church was gradually moving
in the right direction with respect to women's rights, Opus Dei threatened
to reverse the progress. Even so, Sister Sandrine had her orders.
Swinging her legs off the bed, she stood slowly, chilled by the cold
stone on the soles of her bare feet. As the chill rose through her flesh,
she felt an unexpected apprehension.
Women's intuition?
A follower of God, Sister Sandrine had learned to find peace in the
calming voices of her own soul. Tonight, however, those voices were as
silent as the empty church around her.
Langdon couldn't tear his eyes from the glowing purple text scrawled
across the parquet floor. Jacques Sauniure's final communication seemed as
unlikely a departing message as any Langdon could imagine.
The message read:
13-3-2-21-1-1-8-5
O, Draconian devil!
Oh, lame saint!
Although Langdon had not the slightest idea what it meant, he did
understand Fache's instinct that the pentacle had something to do with devil
worship.
O, Draconian devil!
Sauniure had left a literal reference to the devil. Equally as bizarre
was the series of numbers. "Part of it looks like a numeric cipher."
"Yes," Fache said. "Our cryptographers are already working on it. We
believe these numbers may be the key to who killed him. Maybe a telephone
exchange or some kind of social identification. Do the numbers have any
symbolic meaning to you?"
Langdon looked again at the digits, sensing it would take him hours to
extract any symbolic meaning. If Sauniure had even intended any. To Langdon,
the numbers looked totally random. He was accustomed to symbolic
progressions that made some semblance of sense, but everything here--the
pentacle, the text, the numbers--seemed disparate at the most fundamental
level.
"You alleged earlier," Fache said, "that Sauniure's actions here were
all in an effort to send some sort of message... goddess worship or
something in that vein? How does this message fit in?"
Langdon knew the question was rhetorical. This bizarre communiquu
obviously did not fit Langdon's scenario of goddess worship at all.
O, Draconian devil? Oh, lame saint?
Fache said, "This text appears to be an accusation of some sort.
Wouldn't you agree?"
Langdon tried to imagine the curator's final minutes trapped alone in
the Grand Gallery, knowing he was about to die. It seemed logical. "An
accusation against his murderer makes sense, I suppose."
"My job, of course, is to put a name to that person. Let me ask you
this, Mr. Langdon. To your eye, beyond the numbers, what about this message
is most strange?"
Most strange? A dying man had barricaded himself in the gallery, drawn
a pentacle on himself, and scrawled a mysterious accusation on the floor.
What about the scenario wasn't strange?
"The word 'Draconian'?" he ventured, offering the first thing that came
to mind. Langdon was fairly certain that a reference to Draco--the ruthless
seventh-century B.C. politician--was an unlikely dying thought. " 'Draconian
devil' seems an odd choice of vocabulary."
"Draconian?" Fache's tone came with a tinge of impatience now.
"Sauniure's choice of vocabulary hardly seems the primary issue here."
Langdon wasn't sure what issue Fache had in mind, but he was starting
to suspect that Draco and Fache would have gotten along well.
"Sauniure was a Frenchman," Fache said flatly. "He lived in Paris. And
yet he chose to write this message..."
"In English," Langdon said, now realizing the captain's meaning.
Fache nodded. "Prucisument. Any idea why?"
Langdon knew Sauniure spoke impeccable English, and yet the reason he
had chosen English as the language in which to write his final words escaped
Langdon. He shrugged.
Fache motioned back to the pentacle on Sauniure's abdomen. "Nothing to
do with devil worship? Are you still certain?"
Langdon was certain of nothing anymore. "The symbology and text don't
seem to coincide. I'm sorry I can't be of more help."
"Perhaps this will clarify." Fache backed away from the body and raised
the black light again, letting the beam spread out in a wider angle. "And
now?"
To Langdon's amazement, a rudimentary circle glowed around the
curator's body. Sauniure had apparently lay down and swung the pen around
himself in several long arcs, essentially inscribing himself inside a
circle.
In a flash, the meaning became clear.
"The Vitruvian Man," Langdon gasped. Sauniure had created a life-sized
replica of Leonardo da Vinci's most famous sketch.
Considered the most anatomically correct drawing of its day, Da Vinci's
The Vitruvian Man had become a modern-day icon of culture, appearing on
posters, mouse pads, and T-shirts around the world. The celebrated sketch
consisted of a perfect circle in which was inscribed a nude male... his arms
and legs outstretched in a naked spread eagle.
Da Vinci. Langdon felt a shiver of amazement. The clarity of Sauniure's
intentions could not be denied. In his final moments of life, the curator
had stripped off his clothing and arranged his body in a clear image of
Leonardo da Vinci's Vitruvian Man.
The circle had been the missing critical element. A feminine symbol of
protection, the circle around the naked man's body completed Da Vinci's
intended message--male and female harmony. The question now, though, was why
Sauniure would imitate a famous drawing.
"Mr. Langdon," Fache said, "certainly a man like yourself is aware that
Leonardo da Vinci had a tendency toward the darker arts."
Langdon was surprised by Fache's knowledge of Da Vinci, and it
certainly went a long way toward explaining the captain's suspicions about
devil worship. Da Vinci had always been an awkward subject for historians,
especially in the Christian tradition. Despite the visionary's genius, he
was a flamboyant homosexual and worshipper of Nature's divine order, both of
which placed him in a perpetual state of sin against God. Moreover, the
artist's eerie eccentricities projected an admittedly demonic aura: Da Vinci
exhumed corpses to study human anatomy; he kept mysterious journals in
illegible reverse handwriting; he believed he possessed the alchemic power
to turn lead into gold and even cheat God by creating an elixir to postpone
death; and his inventions included horrific, never-before-imagined weapons
of war and torture.
Misunderstanding breeds distrust, Langdon thought.
Even Da Vinci's enormous output of breathtaking Christian art only
furthered the artist's reputation for spiritual hypocrisy. Accepting
hundreds of lucrative Vatican commissions, Da Vinci painted Christian themes
not as an expression of his own beliefs but rather as a commercial
venture--a means of funding a lavish lifestyle. Unfortunately, Da Vinci was
a prankster who often amused himself by quietly gnawing at the hand that fed
him. He incorporated in many of his Christian paintings hidden symbolism
that was anything but Christian--tributes to his own beliefs and a subtle
thumbing of his nose at the Church. Langdon had even given a lecture once at
the National Gallery in London entitled: "The Secret Life of Leonardo: Pagan
Symbolism in Christian Art."
"I understand your concerns," Langdon now said, "but Da Vinci never
really practiced any dark arts. He was an exceptionally spiritual man,
albeit one in constant conflict with the Church." As Langdon said this, an
odd thought popped into his mind. He glanced down at the message on the
floor again. O, Draconian devil! Oh, lame saint!
"Yes?" Fache said.
Langdon weighed his words carefully. "I was just thinking that Sauniure
shared a lot of spiritual ideologies with Da Vinci, including a concern over
the Church's elimination of the sacred feminine from modern religion. Maybe,
by imitating a famous Da Vinci drawing, Sauniure was simply echoing some of
their shared frustrations with the modern Church's demonization of the
goddess."
Fache's eyes hardened. "You think Sauniure is calling the Church a lame
saint and a Draconian devil?"
Langdon had to admit it seemed far-fetched, and yet the pentacle seemed
to endorse the idea on some level. "All I am saying is that Mr. Sauniure
dedicated his life to studying the history of the goddess, and nothing has
done more to erase that history than the Catholic Church. It seems
reasonable that Sauniure might have chosen to express his disappointment in
his final good-bye."
"Disappointment?" Fache demanded, sounding hostile now. "This message
sounds more enraged than disappointed, wouldn't you say?"
Langdon was reaching the end of his patience. "Captain, you asked for
my instincts as to what Sauniure is trying to say here, and that's what I'm
giving you."
"That this is an indictment of the Church?" Fache's jaw tightened as he
spoke through clenched teeth. "Mr. Langdon, I have seen a lot of death in my
work, and let me tell you something. When a man is murdered by another man,
I do not believe his final thoughts are to write an obscure spiritual
statement that no one will understand. I believe he is thinking of one thing
only." Fache's whispery voice sliced the air. "La vengeance. I believe
Sauniure wrote this note to tell us who killed him." Langdon stared. "But
that makes no sense whatsoever."
"No?"
"No," he fired back, tired and frustrated. "You told me Sauniure was
attacked in his office by someone he had apparently invited in."
"Yes."
"So it seems reasonable to conclude that the curator knew his
attacker."
Fache nodded. "Go on."
"So if Sauniure knew the person who killed him, what kind of indictment
is this?" He pointed at the floor. "Numeric codes? Lame saints? Draconian
devils? Pentacles on his stomach? It's all too cryptic."
Fache frowned as if the idea had never occurred to him. "You have a
point."
"Considering the circumstances," Langdon said, "I would assume that if
Sauniure wanted to tell you who killed him, he would have written down
somebody's name."
As Langdon spoke those words, a smug smile crossed Fache's lips for the
first time all night. "Prucisument," Fache said. "Prucisument."
I am witnessing the work of a master, mused Lieutenant Collet as he
tweaked his audio gear and listened to Fache's voice coming through the
headphones. The agent supurieur knew it was moments like these that had
lifted the captain to the pinnacle of French law enforcement.
Fache will do what no one else dares.
The delicate art of cajoler was a lost skill in modern law enforcement,
one that required exceptional poise under pressure. Few men possessed the
necessary sangfroid for this kind of operation, but Fache seemed born for
it. His restraint and patience bordered on the robotic.
Fache's sole emotion this evening seemed to be one of intense resolve,
as if this arrest were somehow personal to him. Fache's briefing of his
agents an hour ago had been unusually succinct and assured. I know who
murdered Jacques Sauniure, Fache had said. You know what to do. No mistakes
tonight.
And so far, no mistakes had been made.
Collet was not yet privy to the evidence that had cemented Fache's
certainty of their suspect's guilt, but he knew better than to question the
instincts of the Bull. Fache's intuition seemed almost supernatural at
times. God whispers in his ear, one agent had insisted after a particularly
impressive display of Fache's sixth sense. Collet had to admit, if there was
a God, Bezu Fache would be on His A-list. The captain attended mass and
confession with zealous regularity--far more than the requisite holiday
attendance fulfilled by other officials in the name of good public
relations. When the Pope visited Paris a few years back, Fache had used all
his muscle to obtain the honor of an audience. A photo of Fache with the
Pope now hung in his office. The Papal Bull, the agents secretly called it.
Collet found it ironic that one of Fache's rare popular public stances
in recent years had been his outspoken reaction to the Catholic pedophilia
scandal. These priests should be hanged twice! Fache had declared. Once for
their crimes against children. And once for shaming the good name of the
Catholic Church. Collet had the odd sense it was the latter that angered
Fache more.
Turning now to his laptop computer, Collet attended to the other half
of his responsibilities here tonight--the GPS tracking system. The image
onscreen revealed a detailed floor plan of the Denon Wing, a structural
schematic uploaded from the Louvre Security Office. Letting his eyes trace
the maze of galleries and hallways, Collet found what he was looking for.
Deep in the heart of the Grand Gallery blinked a tiny red dot.
La marque.
Fache was keeping his prey on a very tight leash tonight. Wisely so.
Robert Langdon had proven himself one cool customer.
To ensure his conversation with Mr. Langdon would not be interrupted,
Bezu Fache had turned off his cellular phone. Unfortunately, it was an
expensive model equipped with a two-way radio feature, which, contrary to
his orders, was now being used by one of his agents to page him.
"Capitaine?" The phone crackled like a walkie-talkie.
Fache felt his teeth clench in rage. He could imagine nothing important
enough that Collet would interrupt this surveillance cachue--especially at
this critical juncture.
He gave Langdon a calm look of apology. "One moment please." He pulled
the phone from his belt and pressed the radio transmission button. "Oui?"
"Capitaine, un agent du Dupartement de Cryptographie est arrivu."
Fache's anger stalled momentarily. A cryptographer? Despite the lousy
timing, this was probably good news. Fache, after finding Sauniure's cryptic
text on the floor, had uploaded photographs of the entire crime scene to the
Cryptography Department in hopes someone there could tell him what the hell
Sauniure was trying to say. If a code breaker had now arrived, it most
likely meant someone had decrypted Sauniure's message.
"I'm busy at the moment," Fache radioed back, leaving no doubt in his
tone that a line had been crossed. "Ask the cryptographer to wait at the
command post. I'll speak to him when I'm done."
"Her," the voice corrected. "It's Agent Neveu."
Fache was becoming less amused with this call every passing moment.
Sophie Neveu was one of DCPJ's biggest mistakes. A young Parisian
duchiffreuse who had studied cryptography in England at the Royal Holloway,
Sophie Neveu had been foisted on Fache two years ago as part of the
ministry's attempt to incorporate more women into the police force. The
ministry's ongoing foray into political correctness, Fache argued, was
weakening the department. Women not only lacked the physicality necessary
for police work, but their mere presence posed a dangerous distraction to
the men in the field. As Fache had feared, Sophie Neveu was proving far more
distracting than most.
At thirty-two years old, she had a dogged determination that bordered
on obstinate. Her eager espousal of Britain's new cryptologic methodology
continually exasperated the veteran French cryptographers above her. And by
far the most troubling to Fache was the inescapable universal truth that in
an office of middle-aged men, an attractive young woman always drew eyes
away from the work at hand.
The man on the radio said, "Agent Neveu insisted on speaking to you
immediately, Captain. I tried to stop her, but she's on her way into the
gallery."
Fache recoiled in disbelief. "Unacceptable! I made it very clear--"
For a moment, Robert Langdon thought Bezu Fache was suffering a stroke.
The captain was mid-sentence when his jaw stopped moving and his eyes
bulged. His blistering gaze seemed fixated on something over Langdon's
shoulder. Before Langdon could turn to see what it was, he heard a woman's
voice chime out behind him.
"Excusez-moi, messieurs."
Langdon turned to see a young woman approaching. She was moving down
the corridor toward them with long, fluid strides... a haunting certainty to
her gait. Dressed casually in a knee-length, cream-colored Irish sweater
over black leggings, she was attractive and looked to be about thirty. Her
thick burgundy hair fell unstyled to her shoulders, framing the warmth of
her face. Unlike the waifish, cookie-cutter blondes that adorned Harvard
dorm room walls, this woman was healthy with an unembellished beauty and
genuineness that radiated a striking personal confidence.
To Langdon's surprise, the woman walked directly up to him and extended
a polite hand. "Monsieur Langdon, I am Agent Neveu from DCPJ's Cryptology
Department." Her words curved richly around her muted Anglo-Franco accent.
"It is a pleasure to meet you."
Langdon took her soft palm in his and felt himself momentarily fixed in
her strong gaze. Her eyes were olive-green--incisive and clear.
Fache drew a seething inhalation, clearly preparing to launch into a
reprimand.
"Captain," she said, turning quickly and beating him to the punch,
"please excuse the interruption, but--"
"Ce n'est pas le moment!" Fache sputtered.
"I tried to phone you." Sophie continued in English, as if out of
courtesy to Langdon. "But your cell phone was turned off."
"I turned it off for a reason," Fache hissed. "I am speaking to Mr.
Langdon."
"I've deciphered the numeric code," she said flatly.
Langdon felt a pulse of excitement. She broke the code?
Fache looked uncertain how to respond.
"Before I explain," Sophie said, "I have an urgent message for Mr.
Langdon."
Fache's expression turned to one of deepening concern. "For Mr.
Langdon?"
She nodded, turning back to Langdon. "You need to contact the U.S.
Embassy, Mr. Langdon. They have a message for you from the States."
Langdon reacted with surprise, his excitement over the code giving way
to a sudden ripple of concern. A message from the States? He tried to
imagine who could be trying to reach him. Only a few of his colleagues knew
he was in Paris.
Fache's broad jaw had tightened with the news. "The U.S. Embassy?" he
demanded, sounding suspicious. "How would they know to find Mr. Langdon
here?"
Sophie shrugged. "Apparently they called Mr. Langdon's hotel, and the
concierge told them Mr. Langdon had been collected by a DCPJ agent."
Fache looked troubled. "And the embassy contacted DCPJ Cryptography?"
"No, sir," Sophie said, her voice firm. "When I called the DCPJ
switchboard in an attempt to contact you, they had a message waiting for Mr.
Langdon and asked me to pass it along if I got through to you."
Fache's brow furrowed in apparent confusion. He opened his mouth to
speak, but Sophie had already turned back to Langdon.
"Mr. Langdon," she declared, pulling a small slip of paper from her
pocket, "this is the number for your embassy's messaging service. They asked
that you phone in as soon as possible." She handed him the paper with an
intent gaze. "While I explain the code to Captain Fache, you need to make
this call."
Langdon studied the slip. It had a Paris phone number and extension on
it. "Thank you," he said, feeling worried now. "Where do I find a phone?"
Sophie began to pull a cell phone from her sweater pocket, but Fache
waved her off. He now looked like Mount Vesuvius about to erupt. Without
taking his eyes off Sophie, he produced his own cell phone and held it out.
"This line is secure, Mr. Langdon. You may use it."
Langdon felt mystified by Fache's anger with the young woman. Feeling
uneasy, he accepted the captain's phone. Fache immediately marched Sophie
several steps away and began chastising her in hushed tones. Disliking the
captain more and more, Langdon turned away from the odd confrontation and
switched on the cell phone. Checking the slip of paper Sophie had given him,
Langdon dialed the number.
The line began to ring.
One ring... two rings... three rings...
Finally the call connected.
Langdon expected to hear an embassy operator, but he found himself
instead listening to an answering machine. Oddly, the voice on the tape was
familiar. It was that of Sophie Neveu.
"Bonjour, vous utes bien chez Sophie Neveu," the woman's voice said.
"Je suis absenle pour le moment, mais..."
Confused, Langdon turned back toward Sophie. "I'm sorry, Ms. Neveu? I
think you may have given me--"
"No, that's the right number," Sophie interjected quickly, as if
anticipating Langdon's confusion. "The embassy has an automated message
system. You have to dial an access code to pick up your messages."
Langdon stared. "But--"
"It's the three-digit code on the paper I gave you."
Langdon opened his mouth to explain the bizarre error, but Sophie
flashed him a silencing glare that lasted only an instant. Her green eyes
sent a crystal-clear message.
Don't ask questions. Just do it.
Bewildered, Langdon punched in the extension on the slip of paper: 454.
Sophie's outgoing message immediately cut off, and Langdon heard an
electronic voice announce in French: "You have one new message." Apparently,
454 was Sophie's remote access code for picking up her messages while away
from home.
I'm picking up this woman's messages?
Langdon could hear the tape rewinding now. Finally, it stopped, and the
machine engaged. Langdon listened as the message began to play. Again, the
voice on the line was Sophie's.
"Mr. Langdon," the message began in a fearful whisper. "Do not react to
this message. Just listen calmly. You are in danger right now. Follow my
directions very closely."
Silas sat behind the wheel of the black Audi the Teacher had arranged
for him and gazed out at the great Church of Saint-Sulpice. Lit from beneath
by banks of floodlights, the church's two bell towers rose like stalwart
sentinels above the building's long body. On either flank, a shadowy row of
sleek buttresses jutted out like the ribs of a beautiful beast.
The heathens used a house of God to conceal their keystone. Again the
brotherhood had confirmed their legendary reputation for illusion and
deceit. Silas was looking forward to finding the keystone and giving it to
the Teacher so they could recover what the brotherhood had long ago stolen
from the faithful.
How powerful that will make Opus Dei.
Parking the Audi on the deserted Place Saint-Sulpice, Silas exhaled,
telling himself to clear his mind for the task at hand. His broad back still
ached from the corporal mortification he had endured earlier today, and yet
the pain was inconsequential compared with the anguish of his life before
Opus Dei had saved him.
Still, the memories haunted his soul.
Release your hatred, Silas commanded himself. Forgive those who
trespassed against you.
Looking up at the stone towers of Saint-Sulpice, Silas fought that
familiar undertow... that force that often dragged his mind back in time,
locking him once again in the prison that had been his world as a young man.
The memories of purgatory came as they always did, like a tempest to his
senses... the reek of rotting cabbage, the stench of death, human urine and
feces. The cries of hopelessness against the howling wind of the Pyrenees
and the soft sobs of forgotten men.
Andorra, he thought, feeling his muscles tighten.
Incredibly, it was in that barren and forsaken suzerain between Spain
and France, shivering in his stone cell, wanting only to die, that Silas had
been saved.
He had not realized it at the time.
The light came long after the thunder.
His name was not Silas then, although he didn't recall the name his
parents had given him. He had left home when he was seven. His drunken
father, a burly dockworker, enraged by the arrival of an albino son, beat
his mother regularly, blaming her for the boy's embarrassing condition. When
the boy tried to defend her, he too was badly beaten.
One night, there was a horrific fight, and his mother never got up. The
boy stood over his lifeless mother and felt an unbearable up-welling of
guilt for permitting it to happen.
This is my fault!
As if some kind of demon were controlling his body, the boy walked to
the kitchen and grasped a butcher knife. Hypnotically, he moved to the
bedroom where his father lay on the bed in a drunken stupor. Without a word,
the boy stabbed him in the back. His father cried out in pain and tried to
roll over, but his son stabbed him again, over and over until the apartment
fell quiet.
The boy fled home but found the streets of Marseilles equally
unfriendly. His strange appearance made him an outcast among the other young
runaways, and he was forced to live alone in the basement of a dilapidated
factory, eating stolen fruit and raw fish from the dock. His only companions
were tattered magazines he found in the trash, and he taught himself to read
them. Over time, he grew strong. When he was twelve, another drifter--a girl
twice his age--mocked him on the streets and attempted to steal his food.
The girl found herself pummeled to within inches of her life. When the
authorities pulled the boy off her, they gave him an ultimatum--leave
Marseilles or go to juvenile prison.
The boy moved down the coast to Toulon. Over time, the looks of pity on
the streets turned to looks of fear. The boy had grown to a powerful young
man. When people passed by, he could hear them whispering to one another. A
ghost, they would say, their eyes wide with fright as they stared at his
white skin. A ghost with the eyes of a devil!
And he felt like a ghost... transparent... floating from seaport to
seaport.
People seemed to look right through him.
At eighteen, in a port town, while attempting to steal a case of cured
ham from a cargo ship, he was caught by a pair of crewmen. The two sailors
who began to beat him smelled of beer, just as his father had. The memories
of fear and hatred surfaced like a monster from the deep. The young man
broke the first sailor's neck with his bare hands, and only the arrival of
the police saved the second sailor from a similar fate.
Two months later, in shackles, he arrived at a prison in Andorra.
You are as white as a ghost, the inmates ridiculed as the guards
marched him in, naked and cold. Mira el espectro! Perhaps the ghost will
pass right through these walls!
Over the course of twelve years, his flesh and soul withered until he
knew he had become transparent.
I am a ghost.
I am weightless.
Yo soy un espectro... palido coma una fantasma... caminando este mundo
a solas.
One night the ghost awoke to the screams of other inmates. He didn't
know what invisible force was shaking the floor on which he slept, nor what
mighty hand was trembling the mortar of his stone cell, but as he jumped to
his feet, a large boulder toppled onto the very spot where he had been
sleeping. Looking up to see where the stone had come from, he saw a hole in
the trembling wall, and beyond it, a vision he had not seen in over ten
years. The moon.
Even while the earth still shook, the ghost found himself scrambling
through a narrow tunnel, staggering out into an expansive vista, and
tumbling down a barren mountainside into the woods. He ran all night, always
downward, delirious with hunger and exhaustion.
Skirting the edges of consciousness, he found himself at dawn in a
clearing where train tracks cut a swath across the forest. Following the
rails, he moved on as if dreaming. Seeing an empty freight car, he crawled
in for shelter and rest. When he awoke the train was moving. How long? How
far? A pain was growing in his gut. Am I dying? He slept again. This time he
awoke to someone yelling, beating him, throwing him out of the freight car.
Bloody, he wandered the outskirts of a small village looking in vain for
food. Finally, his body too weak to take another step, he lay down by the
side of the road and slipped into unconsciousness.
The light came slowly, and the ghost wondered how long he had been
dead. A day? Three days? It didn't matter. His bed was soft like a cloud,
and the air around him smelled sweet with candles. Jesus was there, staring
down at him. I am here, Jesus said. The stone has been rolled aside, and you
are born again.
He slept and awoke. Fog shrouded his thoughts. He had never believed in
heaven, and yet Jesus was watching over him. Food appeared beside his bed,
and the ghost ate it, almost able to feel the flesh materializing on his
bones. He slept again. When he awoke, Jesus was still smiling down,
speaking. You are saved, my son. Blessed are those who follow my path.
Again, he slept.
It was a scream of anguish that startled the ghost from his slumber.
His body leapt out of bed, staggered down a hallway toward the sounds of
shouting. He entered into a kitchen and saw a large man beating a smaller
man. Without knowing why, the ghost grabbed the large man and hurled him
backward against a wall. The man fled, leaving the ghost standing over the
body of a young man in priest's robes. The priest had a badly shattered
nose. Lifting the bloody priest, the ghost carried him to a couch.
"Thank you, my friend," the priest said in awkward French. "The
offertory money is tempting for thieves. You speak French in your sleep. Do
you also speak Spanish?"
The ghost shook his head.
"What is your name?" he continued in broken French.
The ghost could not remember the name his parents had given him. All he
heard were the taunting gibes of the prison guards.
The priest smiled. "No hay problema. My name is Manuel Aringarosa. I am
a missionary from Madrid. I was sent here to build a church for the Obra de
Dios."
"Where am I?" His voice sounded hollow.
"Oviedo. In the north of Spain."
"How did I get here?"
"Someone left you on my doorstep. You were ill. I fed you. You've been
here many days."
The ghost studied his young caretaker. Years had passed since anyone
had shown any kindness. "Thank you, Father."
The priest touched his bloody lip. "It is I who am thankful, my
friend."
When the ghost awoke in the morning, his world felt clearer. He gazed
up at the crucifix on the wall above his bed. Although it no longer spoke to
him, he felt a comforting aura in its presence. Sitting up, he was surprised
to find a newspaper clipping on his bedside table. The article was in
French, a week old. When he read the story, he filled with fear. It told of
an earthquake in the mountains that had destroyed a prison and freed many
dangerous criminals.
His heart began pounding. The priest knows who I am! The emotion he
felt was one he had not felt for some time. Shame. Guilt. It was accompanied
by the fear of being caught. He jumped from his bed. Where do I run?
"The Book of Acts," a voice said from the door.
The ghost turned, frightened.
The young priest was smiling as he entered. His nose was awkwardly
bandaged, and he was holding out an old Bible. "I found one in French for
you. The chapter is marked."
Uncertain, the ghost took the Bible and looked at the chapter the
priest had marked.
Acts 16.
The verses told of a prisoner named Silas who lay naked and beaten in
his cell, singing hymns to God. When the ghost reached Verse 26, he gasped
in shock.
"...And suddenly, there was a great earthquake, so that the foundations
of the prison were shaken, and all the doors fell open."
His eyes shot up at the priest.
The priest smiled warmly. "From now on, my friend, if you have no other
name, I shall call you Silas."
The ghost nodded blankly. Silas. He had been given flesh. My name is
Silas.
"It's time for breakfast," the priest said. "You will need your
strength if you are to help me build this church."
Twenty thousand feet above the Mediterranean, Alitalia flight 1618
bounced in turbulence, causing passengers to shift nervously. Bishop
Aringarosa barely noticed. His thoughts were with the future of Opus Dei.
Eager to know how plans in Paris were progressing, he wished he could phone
Silas. But he could not. The Teacher had seen to that.
"It is for your own safety," the Teacher had explained, speaking in
English with a French accent. "I am familiar enough with electronic
communications to know they can be intercepted. The results could be
disastrous for you."
Aringarosa knew he was right. The Teacher seemed an exceptionally
careful man. He had not revealed his own identity to Aringarosa, and yet he
had proven himself a man well worth obeying. After all, he had somehow
obtained very secret information. The names of the brotherhood's four top
members! This had been one of the coups that convinced the bishop the
Teacher was truly capable of delivering the astonishing prize he claimed he
could unearth.
"Bishop," the Teacher had told him, "I have made all the arrangements.
For my plan to succeed, you must allow Silas to answer only to me for
several days. The two of you will not speak. I will communicate with him
through secure channels."
"You will treat him with respect?"
"A man of faith deserves the highest."
"Excellent. Then I understand. Silas and I shall not speak until this
is over."
"I do this to protect your identity, Silas's identity, and my
investment."
"Your investment?"
"Bishop, if your own eagerness to keep abreast of progress puts you in
jail, then you will be unable to pay me my fee."
The bishop smiled. "A fine point. Our desires are in accord. Godspeed."
Twenty million euro, the bishop thought, now gazing out the plane's
window. The sum was approximately the same number of U.S. dollars. A
pittance for something so powerful.
He felt a renewed confidence that the Teacher and Silas would not fail.
Money and faith were powerful motivators.
"Une plaisanterie numurique?" Bezu Fache was livid, glaring at Sophie
Neveu in disbelief. A numeric joke? "Your professional assessment of
Sauniure's code is that it is some kind of mathematical prank?"
Fache was in utter incomprehension of this woman's gall. Not only had
she just barged in on Fache without permission, but she was now trying to
convince him that Sauniure, in his final moments of life, had been inspired
to leave a mathematical gag?
"This code," Sophie explained in rapid French, "is simplistic to the
point of absurdity. Jacques Sauniure must have known we would see through it
immediately." She pulled a scrap of paper from her sweater pocket and handed
it to Fache. "Here is the decryption."
Fache looked at the card.
1-1-2-3-5-8-13-21
"This is it?" he snapped. "All you did was put the numbers in
increasing order!"
Sophie actually had the nerve to give a satisfied smile. "Exactly."
Fache's tone lowered to a guttural rumble. "Agent Neveu, I have no idea
where the hell you're going with this, but I suggest you get there fast." He
shot an anxious glance at Langdon, who stood nearby with the phone pressed
to his ear, apparently still listening to his phone message from the U.S.
Embassy. From Langdon's ashen expression, Fache sensed the news was bad.
"Captain," Sophie said, her tone dangerously defiant, "the sequence of
numbers you have in your hand happens to be one of the most famous
mathematical progressions in history."
Fache was not aware there even existed a mathematical progression that
qualified as famous, and he certainly didn't appreciate Sophie's off-handed
tone.
"This is the Fibonacci sequence," she declared, nodding toward the
piece of paper in Fache's hand. "A progression in which each term is equal
to the sum of the two preceding terms."
Fache studied the numbers. Each term was indeed the sum of the two
previous, and yet Fache could not imagine what the relevance of all this was
to Sauniure's death.
"Mathematician Leonardo Fibonacci created this succession of numbers in
the thirteenth-century. Obviously there can be no coincidence that all of
the numbers Sauniure wrote on the floor belong to Fibonacci's famous
sequence."
Fache stared at the young woman for several moments. "Fine, if there is
no coincidence, would you tell me why Jacques Sauniure chose to do this.
What is he saying? What does this mean?"
She shrugged. "Absolutely nothing. That's the point. It's a simplistic
cryptographic joke. Like taking the words of a famous poem and shuffling
them at random to see if anyone recognizes what all the words have in
common."
Fache took a menacing step forward, placing his face only inches from
Sophie's. "I certainly hope you have a much more satisfying explanation than
that."
Sophie's soft features grew surprisingly stern as she leaned in.
"Captain, considering what you have at stake here tonight, I thought you
might appreciate knowing that Jacques Sauniure might be playing games with
you. Apparently not. I'll inform the director of Cryptography you no longer
need our services."
With that, she turned on her heel, and marched off the way she had
come.
Stunned, Fache watched her disappear into the darkness. Is she out of
her mind? Sophie Neveu had just redefined le suicide professionnel.
Fache turned to Langdon, who was still on the phone, looking more
concerned than before, listening intently to his phone message. The U.S.
Embassy. Bezu Fache despised many things... but few drew more wrath than the
U.S. Embassy.
Fache and the ambassador locked horns regularly over shared affairs of
state--their most common battleground being law enforcement for visiting
Americans. Almost daily, DCPJ arrested American exchange students in
possession of drugs, U.S. businessmen for soliciting underage Prostitutes,
American tourists for shoplifting or destruction of property. Legally, the
U.S. Embassy could intervene and extradite guilty citizens back to the
United States, where they received nothing more than a slap on the wrist.
And the embassy invariably did just that.
L'umasculation de la Police Judiciaire, Fache called it. Paris Match
had run a cartoon recently depicting Fache as a police dog, trying to bite
an American criminal, but unable to reach because it was chained to the U.S.
Embassy.
Not tonight, Fache told himself. There is far too much at stake.
By the time Robert Langdon hung up the phone, he looked ill.
"Is everything all right?" Fache asked.
Weakly, Langdon shook his head.
Bad news from home, Fache sensed, noticing Langdon was sweating
slightly as Fache took back his cell phone.
"An accident," Langdon stammered, looking at Fache with a strange
expression. "A friend..." He hesitated. "I'll need to fly home first thing
in the morning."
Fache had no doubt the shock on Langdon's face was genuine, and yet he
sensed another emotion there too, as if a distant fear were suddenly
simmering in the American's eyes. "I'm sorry to hear that," Fache said,
watching Langdon closely. "Would you like to sit down?" He motioned toward
one of the viewing benches in the gallery.
Langdon nodded absently and took a few steps toward the bench. He
paused, looking more confused with every moment. "Actually, I think I'd like
to use the rest room."
Fache frowned inwardly at the delay. "The rest room. Of course. Let's
take a break for a few minutes." He motioned back down the long hallway in
the direction they had come from. "The rest rooms are back toward the
curator's office."
Langdon hesitated, pointing in the other direction toward the far end
of the Grand Gallery corridor. "I believe there's a much closer rest room at
the end."
Fache realized Langdon was right. They were two thirds of the way down,
and the Grand Gallery dead-ended at a pair of rest rooms. "Shall I accompany
you?"
Langdon shook his head, already moving deeper into the gallery. "Not
necessary. I think I'd like a few minutes alone."
Fache was not wild about the idea of Langdon wandering alone down the
remaining length of corridor, but he took comfort in knowing the Grand
Gallery was a dead end whose only exit was at the other end--the gate under
which they had entered. Although French fire regulations required several
emergency stairwells for a space this large, those stairwells had been
sealed automatically when Sauniure tripped the security system. Granted,
that system had now been reset, unlocking the stairwells, but it didn't
matter--the external doors, if opened, would set off fire alarms and were
guarded outside by DCPJ agents. Langdon could not possibly leave without
Fache knowing about it.
"I need to return to Mr. Sauniure's office for a moment," Fache said.
"Please come find me directly, Mr. Langdon. There is more we need to
discuss."
Langdon gave a quiet wave as he disappeared into the darkness.
Turning, Fache marched angrily in the opposite direction. Arriving at
the gate, he slid under, exited the Grand Gallery, marched down the hall,
and stormed into the command center at Sauniure's office.
"Who gave the approval to let Sophie Neveu into this building!" Fache
bellowed.
Collet was the first to answer. "She told the guards outside she'd
broken the code."
Fache looked around. "Is she gone?"
"She's not with you?"
"She left." Fache glanced out at the darkened hallway. Apparently
Sophie had been in no mood to stop by and chat with the other officers on
her way out.
For a moment, Fache considered radioing the guards in the entresol and
telling them to stop Sophie and drag her back up here before she could leave
the premises. He thought better of it. That was only his pride talking...
wanting the last word. He'd had enough distractions tonight.
Deal with Agent Neveu later, he told himself, already looking forward
to firing her.
Pushing Sophie from his mind, Fache stared for a moment at the
miniature knight standing on Sauniure's desk. Then he turned back to Collet.
"Do you have him?"
Collet gave a curt nod and spun the laptop toward Fache. The red dot
was clearly visible on the floor plan overlay, blinking methodically in a
room marked TOILETTES PUBLIQUES.
"Good," Fache said, lighting a cigarette and stalking into the hall.
I've got a phone call to make. Be damned sure the rest room is the only
place Langdon goes."
Robert Langdon felt light-headed as he trudged toward the end of the
Grand Gallery. Sophie's phone message played over and over in his mind. At
the end of the corridor, illuminated signs bearing the international
stick-figure symbols for rest rooms guided him through a maze-like series of
dividers displaying Italian drawings and hiding the rest rooms from sight.
Finding the men's room door, Langdon entered and turned on the lights.
The room was empty.
Walking to the sink, he splashed cold water on his face and tried to
wake up. Harsh fluorescent lights glared off the stark tile, and the room
smelled of ammonia. As he toweled off, the rest room's door creaked open
behind him. He spun.
Sophie Neveu entered, her green eyes flashing fear. "Thank God you
came. We don't have much time."
Langdon stood beside the sinks, staring in bewilderment at DCPJ
cryptographer Sophie Neveu. Only minutes ago, Langdon had listened to her
phone message, thinking the newly arrived cryptographer must be insane. And
yet, the more he listened, the more he sensed Sophie Neveu was speaking in
earnest. Do not react to this message. Just listen calmly. You are in danger
right now. Follow my directions very closely. Filled with uncertainty,
Langdon had decided to do exactly as Sophie advised. He told Fache that the
phone message was regarding an injured friend back home. Then he had asked
to use the rest room at the end of the Grand Gallery.
Sophie stood before him now, still catching her breath after doubling
back to the rest room. In the fluorescent lights, Langdon was surprised to
see that her strong air actually radiated from unexpectedly soft features.
Only her gaze was sharp, and the juxtaposition conjured images of a
multilayered Renoir portrait... veiled but distinct, with a boldness that
somehow retained its shroud of mystery.
"I wanted to warn you, Mr. Langdon..." Sophie began, still catching her
breath, "that you are sous surveillance cachue. Under a guarded
observation." As she spoke, her accented English resonated off the tile
walls, giving her voice a hollow quality.
"But... why?" Langdon demanded. Sophie had already given him an
explanation on the phone, but he wanted to hear it from her lips.
"Because," she said, stepping toward him, "Fache's primary suspect in
this murder is you."
Langdon was braced for the words, and yet they still sounded utterly
ridiculous. According to Sophie, Langdon had been called to the Louvre
tonight not as a symbologist but rather as a suspect and was currently the
unwitting target of one of DCPJ's favorite interrogation
methods--surveillance cachue--a deft deception in which the police calmly
invited a suspect to a crime scene and interviewed him in hopes he would get
nervous and mistakenly incriminate himself.
"Look in your jacket's left pocket," Sophie said. "You'll find proof
they are watching you."
Langdon felt his apprehension rising. Look in my pocket? It sounded
like some kind of cheap magic trick.
"Just look."
Bewildered, Langdon reached his hand into his tweed jacket's left
pocket--one he never used. Feeling around inside, he found nothing. What the
devil did you expect? He began wondering if Sophie might just be insane
after all. Then his fingers brushed something unexpected. Small and hard.
Pinching the tiny object between his fingers, Langdon pulled it out and
stared in astonishment. It was a metallic, button-shaped disk, about the
size of a watch battery. He had never seen it before. "What the...?"
"GPS tracking dot," Sophie said. "Continuously transmits its location
to a Global Positioning System satellite that DCPJ can monitor. We use them
to monitor people's locations. It's accurate within two feet anywhere on the
globe. They have you on an electronic leash. The agent who picked you up at
the hotel slipped it inside your pocket before you left your room."
Langdon flashed back to the hotel room... his quick shower, getting
dressed, the DCPJ agent politely holding out Langdon's tweed coat as they
left the room. It's cool outside, Mr. Langdon, the agent had said. Spring in
Paris is not all your song boasts. Langdon had thanked him and donned the
jacket.
Sophie's olive gaze was keen. "I didn't tell you about the tracking dot
earlier because I didn't want you checking your pocket in front of Fache. He
can't know you've found it."
Langdon had no idea how to respond.
"They tagged you with GPS because they thought you might run." She
paused. "In fact, they hoped you would run; it would make their case
stronger."
"Why would I run!" Langdon demanded. "I'm innocent!"
"Fache feels otherwise."
Angrily, Langdon stalked toward the trash receptacle to dispose of the
tracking dot.
"No!" Sophie grabbed his arm and stopped him. "Leave it in your pocket.
If you throw it out, the signal will stop moving, and they'll know you found
the dot. The only reason Fache left you alone is because he can monitor
where you are. If he thinks you've discovered what he's doing..." Sophie did
not finish the thought. Instead, she pried the metallic disk from Langdon's
hand and slid it back into the pocket of his tweed coat. "The dot stays with
you. At least for the moment."
Langdon felt lost. "How the hell could Fache actually believe I killed
Jacques Sauniure!"
"He has some fairly persuasive reasons to suspect you." Sophie's
expression was grim. "There is a piece of evidence here that you have not
yet seen. Fache has kept it carefully hidden from you."
Langdon could only stare.
"Do you recall the three lines of text that Sauniure wrote on the
floor?"
Langdon nodded. The numbers and words were imprinted on Langdon's mind.
Sophie's voice dropped to a whisper now. "Unfortunately, what you saw
was not the entire message. There was a fourth line that Fache photographed
and then wiped clean before you arrived."
Although Langdon knew the soluble ink of a watermark stylus could
easily be wiped away, he could not imagine why Fache would erase evidence.
"The last line of the message," Sophie said, "was something Fache did
not want you to know about." She paused. "At least not until he was done
with you."
Sophie produced a computer printout of a photo from her sweater pocket
and began unfolding it. "Fache uploaded images of the crime scene to the
Cryptology Department earlier tonight in hopes we could figure out what
Sauniure's message was trying to say. This is a photo of the complete
message." She handed the page to Langdon.
Bewildered, Langdon looked at the image. The close-up photo revealed
the glowing message on the parquet floor. The final line hit Langdon like a
kick in the gut.
13-3-2-21-1-1-8-5
O, Draconian devil!
Oh, lame saint!
P.S. Find Robert Langdon
For several seconds, Langdon stared in wonder at the photograph of
Sauniure's postscript. P.S. Find Robert Langdon. He felt as if the floor
were tilting beneath his feet. Sauniure left a postscript with my name on
it? In his wildest dreams, Langdon could not fathom why.
"Now do you understand," Sophie said, her eyes urgent, "why Fache
ordered you here tonight, and why you are his primary suspect?"
The only thing Langdon understood at the moment was why Fache had
looked so smug when Langdon suggested Sauniure would have accused his killer
by name.
Find Robert Langdon.
"Why would Sauniure write this?" Langdon demanded, his confusion now
giving way to anger. "Why would I want to kill Jacques Sauniure?"
"Fache has yet to uncover a motive, but he has been recording his
entire conversation with you tonight in hopes you might reveal one."
Langdon opened his mouth, but still no words came.
"He's fitted with a miniature microphone," Sophie explained. "It's
connected to a transmitter in his pocket that radios the signal back to the
command post."
"This is impossible," Langdon stammered. "I have an alibi. I went
directly back to my hotel after my lecture. You can ask the hotel desk."
"Fache already did. His report shows you retrieving your room key from
the concierge at about ten-thirty. Unfortunately, the time of the murder was
closer to eleven. You easily could have left your hotel room unseen."
"This is insanity! Fache has no evidence!"
Sophie's eyes widened as if to say: No evidence? "Mr. Langdon, your
name is written on the floor beside the body, and Sauniure's date book says
you were with him at approximately the time of the murder." She paused.
"Fache has more than enough evidence to take you into custody for
questioning."
Langdon suddenly sensed that he needed a lawyer. "I didn't do this."
Sophie sighed. "This is not American television, Mr. Langdon. In
France, the laws protect the police, not criminals. Unfortunately, in this
case, there is also the media consideration. Jacques Sauniure was a very
prominent and well-loved figure in Paris, and his murder will be news in the
morning. Fache will be under immediate pressure to make a statement, and he
looks a lot better having a suspect in custody already. Whether or not you
are guilty, you most certainly will be held by DCPJ until they can figure
out what really happened."
Langdon felt like a caged animal. "Why are you telling me all this?"
"Because, Mr. Langdon, I believe you are innocent." Sophie looked away
for a moment and then back into his eyes. "And also because it is partially
my fault that you're in trouble."
"I'm sorry? It's your fault Sauniure is trying to frame me?"
"Sauniure wasn't trying to frame you. It was a mistake. That message on
the floor was meant for me."
Langdon needed a minute to process that one. "I beg your pardon?"
"That message wasn't for the police. He wrote it for me. I think he was
forced to do everything in such a hurry that he just didn't realize how it
would look to the police." She paused. "The numbered code is meaningless.
Sauniure wrote it to make sure the investigation included cryptographers,
ensuring that I would know as soon as possible what had happened to him."
Langdon felt himself losing touch fast. Whether or not Sophie Neveu had
lost her mind was at this point up for grabs, but at least Langdon now
understood why she was trying to help him. P.S. Find Robert Langdon. She
apparently believed the curator had left her a cryptic postscript telling
her to find Langdon. "But why do you think his message was for you?"
"The Vitruvian Man," she said flatly. "That particular sketch has
always been my favorite Da Vinci work. Tonight he used it to catch my
attention."
"Hold on. You're saying the curator knew your favorite piece of art?"
She nodded. "I'm sorry. This is all coming out of order. Jacques Sauniure
and I..."
Sophie's voice caught, and Langdon heard a sudden melancholy there, a
painful past, simmering just below the surface. Sophie and Jacques Sauniure
apparently had some kind of special relationship. Langdon studied the
beautiful young woman before him, well aware that aging men in France often
took young mistresses. Even so, Sophie Neveu as a "kept woman" somehow
didn't seem to fit.
"We had a falling-out ten years ago," Sophie said, her voice a whisper
now. "We've barely spoken since. Tonight, when Crypto got the call that he
had been murdered, and I saw the images of his body and text on the floor, I
realized he was trying to send me a message."
"Because of The Vitruvian Man?"
"Yes. And the letters P.S."
"Post Script?"
She shook her head. "P.S. are my initials."
"But your name is Sophie Neveu."
She looked away. "P.S. is the nickname he called me when I lived with
him." She blushed. "It stood for Princesse Sophie"
Langdon had no response.
"Silly, I know," she said. "But it was years ago. When I was a little
girl."
"You knew him when you were a little girl?"
"Quite well," she said, her eyes welling now with emotion. "Jacques
Sauniure was my grandfather."
"Where's Langdon?" Fache demanded, exhaling the last of a cigarette as
he paced back into the command post.
"Still in the men's room, sir." Lieutenant Collet had been expecting
the question.
Fache grumbled, "Taking his time, I see."
The captain eyed the GPS dot over Collet's shoulder, and Collet could
almost hear the wheels turning. Fache was fighting the urge to go check on
Langdon. Ideally, the subject of an observation was allowed the most time
and freedom possible, lulling him into a false sense of security. Langdon
needed to return of his own volition. Still, it had been almost ten minutes.
Too long.
"Any chance Langdon is onto us?" Fache asked.
Collet shook his head. "We're still seeing small movements inside the
men's room, so the GPS dot is obviously still on him. Perhaps he feels ill?
If he had found the dot, he would have removed it and tried to run."
Fache checked his watch. "Fine."
Still Fache seemed preoccupied. All evening, Collet had sensed an
atypical intensity in his captain. Usually detached and cool under pressure,
Fache tonight seemed emotionally engaged, as if this were somehow a personal
matter for him.
Not surprising, Collet thought. Fache needs this arrest desperately.
Recently the Board of Ministers and the media had become more openly
critical of Fache's aggressive tactics, his clashes with powerful foreign
embassies, and his gross overbudgeting on new technologies. Tonight, a
high-tech, high-profile arrest of an American would go a long way to silence
Fache's critics, helping him secure the job a few more years until he could
retire with the lucrative pension. God knows he needs the pension, Collet
thought. Fache's zeal for technology had hurt him both professionally and
personally. Fache was rumored to have invested his entire savings in the
technology craze a few years back and lost his shirt. And Fache is a man who
wears only the finest shirts.
Tonight, there was still plenty of time. Sophie Neveu's odd
interruption, though unfortunate, had been only a minor wrinkle. She was
gone now, and Fache still had cards to play. He had yet to inform Langdon
that his name had been scrawled on the floor by the victim. P.S. Find Robert
Langdon. The American's reaction to that little bit of evidence would be
telling indeed.
"Captain?" one of the DCPJ agents now called from across the office. "I
think you better take this call." He was holding out a telephone receiver,
looking concerned.
"Who is it?" Fache said.
The agent frowned. "It's the director of our Cryptology Department."
"And?"
"It's about Sophie Neveu, sir. Something is not quite right."
It was time.
Silas felt strong as he stepped from the black Audi, the nighttime
breeze rustling his loose-fitting robe. The winds of change are in the air.
He knew the task before him would require more finesse than force, and he
left his handgun in the car. The thirteen-round Heckler Koch USP 40 had been
provided by the Teacher.
A weapon of death has no place in a house of God.
The plaza before the great church was deserted at this hour, the only
visible souls on the far side of Place Saint-Sulpice a couple of teenage
hookers showing their wares to the late night tourist traffic. Their nubile
bodies sent a familiar longing to Silas's loins. His thigh flexed
instinctively, causing the barbed cilice belt to cut painfully into his
flesh.
The lust evaporated instantly. For ten years now, Silas had faithfully
denied himself all sexual indulgence, even self-administered. It was The
Way. He knew he had sacrificed much to follow Opus Dei, but he had received
much more in return. A vow of celibacy and the relinquishment of all
personal assets hardly seemed a sacrifice. Considering the poverty from
which he had come and the sexual horrors he had endured in prison, celibacy
was a welcome change.
Now, having returned to France for the first time since being arrested
and shipped to prison in Andorra, Silas could feel his homeland testing him,
dragging violent memories from his redeemed soul. You have been reborn, he
reminded himself. His service to God today had required the sin of murder,
and it was a sacrifice Silas knew he would have to hold silently in his
heart for all eternity.
The measure of your faith is the measure of the pain you can endure,
the Teacher had told him. Silas was no stranger to pain and felt eager to
prove himself to the Teacher, the one who had assured him his actions were
ordained by a higher power.
"Hago la obra de Dios," Silas whispered, moving now toward the church
entrance.
Pausing in the shadow of the massive doorway, he took a deep breath. It
was not until this instant that he truly realized what he was about to do,
and what awaited him inside.
The keystone. It will lead us to our final goal.
He raised his ghost-white fist and banged three times on the door.
Moments later, the bolts of the enormous wooden portal began to move.
Sophie wondered how long it would take Fache to figure out she had not
left the building. Seeing that Langdon was clearly overwhelmed, Sophie
questioned whether she had done the right thing by cornering him here in the
men's room.
What else was I supposed to do?
She pictured her grandfather's body, naked and spread-eagle on the
floor. There was a time when he had meant the world to her, yet tonight,
Sophie was surprised to feel almost no sadness for the man. Jacques Sauniure
was a stranger to her now. Their relationship had evaporated in a single
instant one March night when she was twenty-two. Ten years ago. Sophie had
come home a few days early from graduate university in England and
mistakenly witnessed her grandfather engaged in something Sophie was
obviously not supposed to see. It was an image she barely could believe to
this day.
If I hadn't seen it with my own eyes...
Too ashamed and stunned to endure her grandfather's pained attempts to
explain, Sophie immediately moved out on her own, taking money she had
saved, and getting a small flat with some roommates. She vowed never to
speak to anyone about what she had seen. Her grandfather tried desperately
to reach her, sending cards and letters, begging Sophie to meet him so he
could explain. Explain how!? Sophie never responded except once--to forbid
him ever to call her or try to meet her in public. She was afraid his
explanation would be more terrifying than the incident itself.
Incredibly, Sauniure had never given up on her, and Sophie now
possessed a decade's worth of correspondence unopened in a dresser drawer.
To her grandfather's credit, he had never once disobeyed her request and
phoned her.
Until this afternoon.
"Sophie?" His voice had sounded startlingly old on her answering
machine. "I have abided by your wishes for so long... and it pains me to
call, but I must speak to you. Something terrible has happened."
Standing in the kitchen of her Paris flat, Sophie felt a chill to hear
him again after all these years. His gentle voice brought back a flood of
fond childhood memories.
"Sophie, please listen." He was speaking English to her, as he always
did when she was a little girl. Practice French at school. Practice English
at home. "You cannot be mad forever. Have you not read the letters that I've
sent all these years? Do you not yet understand?" He paused. "We must speak
at once. Please grant your grandfather this one wish. Call me at the Louvre.
Right away. I believe you and I are in grave danger." Sophie stared at the
answering machine. Danger? What was he talking about?
"Princess..." Her grandfather's voice cracked with an emotion Sophie
could not place. "I know I've kept things from you, and I know it has cost
me your love. But it was for your own safety. Now you must know the truth.
Please, I must tell you the truth about your family."
Sophie suddenly could hear her own heart. My family? Sophie's parents
had died when she was only four. Their car went off a bridge into
fast-moving water. Her grandmother and younger brother had also been in the
car, and Sophie's entire family had been erased in an instant. She had a box
of newspaper clippings to confirm it.
His words had sent an unexpected surge of longing through her bones. My
family! In that fleeting instant, Sophie saw images from the dream that had
awoken her countless times when she was a little girl: My family is alive!
They are coming home! But, as in her dream, the pictures evaporated into
oblivion.
Your family is dead, Sophie. They are not coming home.
"Sophie..." her grandfather said on the machine. "I have been waiting
for years to tell you. Waiting for the right moment, but now time has run
out. Call me at the Louvre. As soon as you get this. I'll wait here all
night. I fear we both may be in danger. There's so much you need to know."
The message ended.
In the silence, Sophie stood trembling for what felt like minutes. As
she considered her grandfather's message, only one possibility made sense,
and his true intent dawned.
It was bait.
Obviously, her grandfather wanted desperately to see her. He was trying
anything. Her disgust for the man deepened. Sophie wondered if maybe he had
fallen terminally ill and had decided to attempt any ploy he could think of
to get Sophie to visit him one last time. If so, he had chosen wisely.
My family.
Now, standing in the darkness of the Louvre men's room, Sophie could
hear the echoes of this afternoon's phone message. Sophie, we both may be in
danger. Call me.
She had not called him. Nor had she planned to. Now, however, her
skepticism had been deeply challenged. Her grandfather lay murdered inside
his own museum. And he had written a code on the floor.
A code for her. Of this, she was certain.
Despite not understanding the meaning of his message, Sophie was
certain its cryptic nature was additional proof that the words were intended
for her. Sophie's passion and aptitude for cryptography were a product of
growing up with Jacques Sauniure--a fanatic himself for codes, word games,
and puzzles. How many Sundays did we spend doing the cryptograms and
crosswords in the newspaper?
At the age of twelve, Sophie could finish the Le Monde crossword
without any help, and her grandfather graduated her to crosswords in
English, mathematical puzzles, and substitution ciphers. Sophie devoured
them all. Eventually she turned her passion into a profession by becoming a
codebreaker for the Judicial Police.
Tonight, the cryptographer in Sophie was forced to respect the
efficiency with which her grandfather had used a simple code to unite two
total strangers--Sophie Neveu and Robert Langdon.
The question was why?
Unfortunately, from the bewildered look in Langdon's eyes, Sophie
sensed the American had no more idea than she did why her grandfather had
thrown them together.
She pressed again. "You and my grandfather had planned to meet tonight.
What about?"
Langdon looked truly perplexed. "His secretary set the meeting and
didn't offer any specific reason, and I didn't ask. I assumed he'd heard I
would be lecturing on the pagan iconography of French cathedrals, was
interested in the topic, and thought it would be fun to meet for drinks
after the talk."
Sophie didn't buy it. The connection was flimsy. Her grandfather knew
more about pagan iconography than anyone else on earth. Moreover, he an
exceptionally private man, not someone prone to chatting with random
American professors unless there were an important reason.
Sophie took a deep breath and probed further. "My grandfather called me
this afternoon and told me he and I were in grave danger. Does that mean
anything to you?"
Langdon's blue eyes now clouded with concern. "No, but considering what
just happened..."
Sophie nodded. Considering tonight's events, she would be a fool not to
be frightened. Feeling drained, she walked to the small plate-glass window
at the far end of the bathroom and gazed out in silence through the mesh of
alarm tape embedded in the glass. They were high up--forty feet at least.
Sighing, she raised her eyes and gazed out at Paris's dazzling
landscape. On her left, across the Seine, the illuminated Eiffel Tower.
Straight ahead, the Arc de Triomphe. And to the right, high atop the sloping
rise of Montmartre, the graceful arabesque dome of Sacru-Coeur, its polished
stone glowing white like a resplendent sanctuary.
Here at the westernmost tip of the Denon Wing, the north-south
thoroughfare of Place du Carrousel ran almost flush with the building with
only a narrow sidewalk separating it from the Louvre's outer wall. Far
below, the usual caravan of the city's nighttime delivery trucks sat idling,
waiting for the signals to change, their running lights seeming to twinkle
mockingly up at Sophie.
"I don't know what to say," Langdon said, coming up behind her. "Your
grandfather is obviously trying to tell us something. I'm sorry I'm so
little help."
Sophie turned from the window, sensing a sincere regret in Langdon's
deep voice. Even with all the trouble around him, he obviously wanted to
help her. The teacher in him, she thought, having read DCPJ's workup on
their suspect. This was an academic who clearly despised not understanding.
We have that in common, she thought.
As a codebreaker, Sophie made her living extracting meaning from
seemingly senseless data. Tonight, her best guess was that Robert Langdon,
whether he knew it or not, possessed information that she desperately
needed. Princesse Sophie, Find Robert Langdon. How much clearer could her
grandfather's message be? Sophie needed more time with Langdon. Time to
think. Time to sort out this mystery together. Unfortunately, time was
running out.
Gazing up at Langdon, Sophie made the only play she could think of.
"Bezu Fache will be taking you into custody at any minute. I can get you out
of this museum. But we need to act now."
Langdon's eyes went wide. "You want me to run?"
"It's the smartest thing you could do. If you let Fache take you into
custody now, you'll spend weeks in a French jail while DCPJ and the U.S.
Embassy fight over which courts try your case. But if we get you out of
here, and make it to your embassy, then your government will protect your
rights while you and I prove you had nothing to do with this murder."
Langdon looked not even vaguely convinced. "Forget it! Fache has armed
guards on every single exit! Even if we escape without being shot, running
away only makes me look guilty. You need to tell Fache that the message on
the floor was for you, and that my name is not there as an accusation."
"I will do that," Sophie said, speaking hurriedly, "but after you're
safely inside the U.S. Embassy. It's only about a mile from here, and my car
is parked just outside the museum. Dealing with Fache from here is too much
of a gamble. Don't you see? Fache has made it his mission tonight to prove
you are guilty. The only reason he postponed your arrest was to run this
observance in hopes you did something that made his case stronger."
"Exactly. Like running!"
The cell phone in Sophie's sweater pocket suddenly began ringing. Fache
probably. She reached in her sweater and turned off the phone.
"Mr. Langdon," she said hurriedly, "I need to ask you one last
question." And your entire future may depend on it. "The writing on the
floor is obviously not proof of your guilt, and yet Fache told our team he
is certain you are his man. Can you think of any other reason he might be
convinced you're guilty?"
Langdon was silent for several seconds. "None whatsoever."
Sophie sighed. Which means Fache is lying. Why, Sophie could not begin
to imagine, but that was hardly the issue at this point. The fact remained
that Bezu Fache was determined to put Robert Langdon behind bars tonight, at
any cost. Sophie needed Langdon for herself, and it was this dilemma that
left Sophie only one logical conclusion.
I need to get Langdon to the U.S. Embassy.
Turning toward the window, Sophie gazed through the alarm mesh embedded
in the plate glass, down the dizzying forty feet to the pavement below. A
leap from this height would leave Langdon with a couple of broken legs. At
best.
Nonetheless, Sophie made her decision.
Robert Langdon was about to escape the Louvre, whether he wanted to or
not.
"What do you mean she's not answering?" Fache looked incredulous.
"You're calling her cell phone, right? I know she's carrying it."
Collet had been trying to reach Sophie now for several minutes. "Maybe
her batteries are dead. Or her ringer's off."
Fache had looked distressed ever since talking to the director of
Cryptology on the phone. After hanging up, he had marched over to Collet and
demanded he get Agent Neveu on the line. Now Collet had failed, and Fache
was pacing like a caged lion.
"Why did Crypto call?" Collet now ventured.
Fache turned. "To tell us they found no references to Draconian devils
and lame saints."
"That's all?"
"No, also to tell us that they had just identified the numerics as
Fibonacci numbers, but they suspected the series was meaningless."
Collet was confused. "But they already sent Agent Neveu to tell us
that."
Fache shook his head. "They didn't send Neveu."
"What?"
"According to the director, at my orders he paged his entire team to
look at the images I'd wired him. When Agent Neveu arrived, she took one
look at the photos of Sauniure and the code and left the office without a
word. The director said he didn't question her behavior because she was
understandably upset by the photos."
"Upset? She's never seen a picture of a dead body?"
Fache was silent a moment. "I was not aware of this, and it seems
neither was the director until a coworker informed him, but apparently
Sophie Neveu is Jacques Sauniure's granddaughter."
Collet was speechless.
"The director said she never once mentioned Sauniure to him, and he
assumed it was because she probably didn't want preferential treatment for
having a famous grandfather."
No wonder she was upset by the pictures. Collet could barely conceive
of the unfortunate coincidence that called in a young woman to decipher a
code written by a dead family member. Still, her actions made no sense. "But
she obviously recognized the numbers as Fibonacci numbers because she came
here and told us. I don't understand why she would leave the office without
telling anyone she had figured it out."
Collet could think of only one scenario to explain the troubling
developments: Sauniure had written a numeric code on the floor in hopes
Fache would involve cryptographers in the investigation, and therefore
involve his own granddaughter. As for the rest of the message, was Sauniure
communicating in some way with his granddaughter? If so, what did the
message tell her? And how did Langdon fit in?
Before Collet could ponder it any further, the silence of the deserted
museum was shattered by an alarm. The bell sounded like it was coming from
inside the Grand Gallery.
"Alarme!" one of the agents yelled, eyeing his feed from the Louvre
security center. "Grande Galerie! Toilettes Messieurs!"
Fache wheeled to Collet. "Where's Langdon?"
"Still in the men's room!" Collet pointed to the blinking red dot on
his laptop schematic. "He must have broken the window!" Collet knew Langdon
wouldn't get far. Although Paris fire codes required windows above fifteen
meters in public buildings be breakable in case of fire, exiting a Louvre
second-story window without the help of a hook and ladder would be suicide.
Furthermore, there were no trees or grass on the western end of the Denon
Wing to cushion a fall. Directly beneath that rest room window, the two-lane
Place du Carrousel ran within a few feet of the outer wall. "My God," Collet
exclaimed, eyeing the screen. "Langdon's moving to the window ledge!"
But Fache was already in motion. Yanking his Manurhin MR-93 revolver
from his shoulder holster, the captain dashed out of the office.
Collet watched the screen in bewilderment as the blinking dot arrived
at the window ledge and then did something utterly unexpected. The dot moved
outside the perimeter of the building.
What's going on? he wondered. Is Langdon out on a ledge or--
"Jesu!" Collet jumped to his feet as the dot shot farther outside the
wall. The signal seemed to shudder for a moment, and then the blinking dot
came to an abrupt stop about ten yards outside the perimeter of the
building.
Fumbling with the controls, Collet called up a Paris street map and
recalibrated the GPS. Zooming in, he could now see the exact location of the
signal.
It was no longer moving.
It lay at a dead stop in the middle of Place du Carrousel.
Langdon had jumped.
Fache sprinted down the Grand Gallery as Collet's radio blared over the
distant sound of the alarm.
"He jumped!" Collet was yelling. "I'm showing the signal out on Place
du Carrousel! Outside the bathroom window! And it's not moving at all!
Jesus, I think Langdon has just committed suicide!"
Fache heard the words, but they made no sense. He kept running. The
hallway seemed never-ending. As he sprinted past Sauniure's body, he set his
sights on the partitions at the far end of the Denon Wing. The alarm was
getting louder now.
"Wait!" Collet's voice blared again over the radio. "He's moving! My
God, he's alive. Langdon's moving!"
Fache kept running, cursing the length of the hallway with every step.
"Langdon's moving faster!" Collet was still yelling on the radio. "He's
running down Carrousel. Wait... he's picking up speed. He's moving too
fast!"
Arriving at the partitions, Fache snaked his way through them, saw the
rest room door, and ran for it.
The walkie-talkie was barely audible now over the alarm. "He must be in
a car! I think he's in a car! I can't--"
Collet's words were swallowed by the alarm as Fache finally burst into
the men's room with his gun drawn. Wincing against the piercing shrill, he
scanned the area.
The stalls were empty. The bathroom deserted. Fache's eyes moved
immediately to the shattered window at the far end of the room. He ran to
the opening and looked over the edge. Langdon was nowhere to be seen. Fache
could not imagine anyone risking a stunt like this. Certainly if he had
dropped that far, he would be badly injured.
The alarm cut off finally, and Collet's voice became audible again over
the walkie-talkie.
"...moving south... faster... crossing the Seine on Pont du Carrousel!"
Fache turned to his left. The only vehicle on Pont du Carrousel was an
enormous twin-bed Trailor delivery truck moving southward away from the
Louvre. The truck's open-air bed was covered with a vinyl tarp, roughly
resembling a giant hammock. Fache felt a shiver of apprehension. That truck,
only moments ago, had probably been stopped at a red light directly beneath
the rest room window.
An insane risk, Fache told himself. Langdon had no way of knowing what
the truck was carrying beneath that tarp. What if the truck were carrying
steel? Or cement? Or even garbage? A forty-foot leap? It was madness.
"The dot is turning!" Collet called. "He's turning right on Pont des
Saints-Peres!"
Sure enough, the Trailor truck that had crossed the bridge was slowing
down and making a right turn onto Pont des Saints-Peres. So be it, Fache
thought. Amazed, he watched the truck disappear around the corner. Collet
was already radioing the agents outside, pulling them off the Louvre
perimeter and sending them to their patrol cars in pursuit, all the while
broadcasting the truck's changing location like some kind of bizarre
play-by-play.
It's over, Fache knew. His men would have the truck surrounded within
minutes. Langdon was not going anywhere.
Stowing his weapon, Fache exited the rest room and radioed Collet.
"Bring my car around. I want to be there when we make the arrest."
As Fache jogged back down the length of the Grand Gallery, he wondered
if Langdon had even survived the fall.
Not that it mattered.
Langdon ran. Guilty as charged.
Only fifteen yards from the rest room, Langdon and Sophie stood in the
darkness of the Grand Gallery, their backs pressed to one of the large
partitions that hid the bathrooms from the gallery. They had barely managed
to hide themselves before Fache had darted past them, gun drawn, and
disappeared into the bathroom.
The last sixty seconds had been a blur.
Langdon had been standing inside the men's room refusing to run from a
crime he didn't commit, when Sophie began eyeing the plate-glass window and
examining the alarm mesh running through it. Then she peered downward into
the street, as if measuring the drop.
"With a little aim, you can get out of here," she said.
Aim? Uneasy, he peered out the rest room window.
Up the street, an enormous twin-bed eighteen-wheeler was headed for the
stoplight beneath the window. Stretched across the truck's massive cargo bay
was a blue vinyl tarp, loosely covering the truck's load. Langdon hoped
Sophie was not thinking what she seemed to be thinking.
"Sophie, there's no way I'm jump--"
"Take out the tracking dot."
Bewildered, Langdon fumbled in his pocket until he found the tiny
metallic disk. Sophie took it from him and strode immediately to the sink.
She grabbed a thick bar of soap, placed the tracking dot on top of it, and
used her thumb to push the disk down hard into the bar. As the disk sank
into the soft surface, she pinched the hole closed, firmly embedding the
device in the bar.
Handing the bar to Langdon, Sophie retrieved a heavy, cylindrical trash
can from under the sinks. Before Langdon could protest, Sophie ran at the
window, holding the can before her like a battering ram. Driving the bottom
of the trash can into the center of the window, she shattered the glass.
Alarms erupted overhead at earsplitting decibel levels.
"Give me the soap!" Sophie yelled, barely audible over the alarm.
Langdon thrust the bar into her hand.
Palming the soap, she peered out the shattered window at the
eighteen-wheeler idling below. The target was plenty big--an expansive,
stationary tarp--and it was less than ten feet from the side of the
building. As the traffic lights prepared to change, Sophie took a deep
breath and lobbed the bar of soap out into the night.
The soap plummeted downward toward the truck, landing on the edge of
the tarp, and sliding downward into the cargo bay just as the traffic light
turned green.
"Congratulations," Sophie said, dragging him toward the door. "You just
escaped from the Louvre."
Fleeing the men's room, they moved into the shadows just as Fache
rushed past.
Now, with the fire alarm silenced, Langdon could hear the sounds of
DCPJ sirens tearing away from the Louvre. A police exodus. Fache had hurried
off as well, leaving the Grand Gallery deserted.
"There's an emergency stairwell about fifty meters back into the Grand
Gallery," Sophie said. "Now that the guards are leaving the perimeter, we
can get out of here."
Langdon decided not to say another word all evening. Sophie Neveu was
clearly a hell of a lot smarter than he was.
The Church of Saint-Sulpice, it is said, has the most eccentric history
of any building in Paris. Built over the ruins of an ancient temple to the
Egyptian goddess Isis, the church possesses an architectural footprint
matching that of Notre Dame to within inches. The sanctuary has played host
to the baptisms of the Marquis de Sade and Baudelaire, as well as the
marriage of Victor Hugo. The attached seminary has a well-documented history
of unorthodoxy and was once the clandestine meeting hall for numerous secret
societies.
Tonight, the cavernous nave of Saint-Sulpice was as silent as a tomb,
the only hint of life the faint smell of incense from mass earlier that
evening. Silas sensed an uneasiness in Sister Sandrine's demeanor as she led
him into the sanctuary. He was not surprised by this. Silas was accustomed
to people being uncomfortable with his appearance.
"You're an American," she said.
"French by birth," Silas responded. "I had my calling in Spain, and I
now study in the United States."
Sister Sandrine nodded. She was a small woman with quiet eyes. "And you
have never seen Saint-Sulpice?"
"I realize this is almost a sin in itself."
"She is more beautiful by day."
"I am certain. Nonetheless, I am grateful that you would provide me
this opportunity tonight."
"The abbu requested it. You obviously have powerful friends."
You have no idea, Silas thought.
As he followed Sister Sandrine down the main aisle, Silas was surprised
by the austerity of the sanctuary. Unlike Notre Dame with its colorful
frescoes, gilded altar-work, and warm wood, Saint-Sulpice was stark and
cold, conveying an almost barren quality reminiscent of the ascetic
cathedrals of Spain. The lack of decor made the interior look even more
expansive, and as Silas gazed up into the soaring ribbed vault of the
ceiling, he imagined he was standing beneath the hull of an enormous
overturned ship.
A fitting image, he thought. The brotherhood's ship was about to be
capsized forever. Feeling eager to get to work, Silas wished Sister Sandrine
would leave him. She was a small woman whom Silas could incapacitate easily,
but he had vowed not to use force unless absolutely necessary. She is a
woman of the cloth, and it is not her fault the brotherhood chose her church
as a hiding place for their keystone. She should not be punished for the
sins of others.
"I am embarrassed, Sister, that you were awoken on my behalf."
"Not at all. You are in Paris a short time. You should not miss
Saint-Sulpice. Are your interests in the church more architectural or
historical?"
"Actually, Sister, my interests are spiritual."
She gave a pleasant laugh. "That goes without saying. I simply wondered
where to begin your tour."
Silas felt his eyes focus on the altar. "A tour is unnecessary. You
have been more than kind. I can show myself around."
"It is no trouble," she said. "After all, I am awake."
Silas stopped walking. They had reached the front pew now, and the
altar was only fifteen yards away. He turned his massive body fully toward
the small woman, and he could sense her recoil as she gazed up into his red
eyes. "If it does not seem too rude, Sister, I am not accustomed to simply
walking into a house of God and taking a tour. Would you mind if I took some
time alone to pray before I look around?"
Sister Sandrine hesitated. "Oh, of course. I shall wait in the rear of
the church for you."
Silas put a soft but heavy hand on her shoulder and peered down.
"Sister, I feel guilty already for having awoken you. To ask you to stay
awake is too much. Please, you should return to bed. I can enjoy your
sanctuary and then let myself out."
She looked uneasy. "Are you sure you won't feel abandoned?"
"Not at all. Prayer is a solitary joy."
"As you wish."
Silas took his hand from her shoulder. "Sleep well, Sister. May the
peace of the Lord be with you."
"And also with you." Sister Sandrine headed for the stairs. "Please be
sure the door closes tightly on your way out."
"I will be sure of it." Silas watched her climb out of sight. Then he
turned and knelt in the front pew, feeling the cilice cut into his leg.
Dear God, I offer up to you this work I do today....
Crouching in the shadows of the choir balcony high above the altar,
Sister Sandrine peered silently through the balustrade at the cloaked monk
kneeling alone. The sudden dread in her soul made it hard to stay still. For
a fleeting instant, she wondered if this mysterious visitor could be the
enemy they had warned her about, and if tonight she would have to carry out
the orders she had been holding all these years. She decided to stay there
in the darkness and watch his every move.
Emerging from the shadows, Langdon and Sophie moved stealthily up the
deserted Grand Gallery corridor toward the emergency exit stairwell.
As he moved, Langdon felt like he was trying to assemble a jigsaw
puzzle in the dark. The newest aspect of this mystery was a deeply troubling
one: The captain of the Judicial Police is trying to frame me for murder
"Do you think," he whispered, "that maybe Fache wrote that message on
the floor?"
Sophie didn't even turn. "Impossible."
Langdon wasn't so sure. "He seems pretty intent on making me look
guilty. Maybe he thought writing my name on the floor would help his case?"
"The Fibonacci sequence? The P.S.? All the Da Vinci and goddess
symbolism? That had to be my grandfather."
Langdon knew she was right. The symbolism of the clues meshed too
perfectly--the pentacle, The Vitruvian Man, Da Vinci, the goddess, and even
the Fibonacci sequence. A coherent symbolic set, as iconographers would call
it. All inextricably tied.
"And his phone call to me this afternoon," Sophie added. "He said he
had to tell me something. I'm certain his message at the Louvre was his
final effort to tell me something important, something he thought you could
help me understand."
Langdon frowned. O, Draconian devil! Oh, lame saint.! He wished he
could comprehend the message, both for Sophie's well-being and for his own.
Things had definitely gotten worse since he first laid eyes on the cryptic
words. His fake leap out the bathroom window was not going to help Langdon's
popularity with Fache one bit. Somehow he doubted the captain of the French
police would see the humor in chasing down and arresting a bar of soap.
"The doorway isn't much farther," Sophie said.
"Do you think there's a possibility that the numbers in your
grandfather's message hold the key to understanding the other lines?"
Langdon had once worked on a series of Baconian manuscripts that contained
epigraphical ciphers in which certain lines of code were clues as to how to
decipher the other lines.
"I've been thinking about the numbers all night. Sums, quotients,
products. I don't see anything. Mathematically, they're arranged at random.
Cryptographic gibberish."
"And yet they're all part of the Fibonacci sequence. That can't be
coincidence."
"It's not. Using Fibonacci numbers was my grandfather's way of waving
another flag at me--like writing the message in English, or arranging
himself like my favorite piece of art, or drawing a pentacle on himself. All
of it was to catch my attention."
"The pentacle has meaning to you?"
"Yes. I didn't get a chance to tell you, but the pentacle was a special
symbol between my grandfather and me when I was growing up. We used to play
Tarot cards for fun, and my indicator card always turned out to be from the
suit of pentacles. I'm sure he stacked the deck, but pentacles got to be our
little joke."
Langdon felt a chill. They played Tarot? The medieval Italian card game
was so replete with hidden heretical symbolism that Langdon had dedicated an
entire chapter in his new manuscript to the Tarot. The game's twenty-two
cards bore names like The Female Pope, The Empress, and The Star.
Originally, Tarot had been devised as a secret means to pass along
ideologies banned by the Church. Now, Tarot's mystical qualities were passed
on by modern fortune-tellers.
The Tarot indicator suit for feminine divinity is pentacles, Langdon
thought, realizing that if Sauniure had been stacking his granddaughter's
deck for fun, pentacles was an apropos inside joke.
They arrived at the emergency stairwell, and Sophie carefully pulled
open the door. No alarm sounded. Only the doors to the outside were wired.
Sophie led Langdon down a tight set of switchback stairs toward the ground
level, picking up speed as they went.
"Your grandfather," Langdon said, hurrying behind her, "when he told
you about the pentacle, did he mention goddess worship or any resentment of
the Catholic Church?"
Sophie shook her head. "I was more interested in the mathematics of
it--the Divine Proportion, PHI, Fibonacci sequences, that sort of thing."
Langdon was surprised. "Your grandfather taught you about the number
PHI?"
"Of course. The Divine Proportion." Her expression turned sheepish. "In
fact, he used to joke that I was half divine... you know, because of the
letters in my name."
Langdon considered it a moment and then groaned.
s-o-PHI-e.
Still descending, Langdon refocused on PHI. He was starting to realize
that Sauniure's clues were even more consistent than he had first imagined.
Da Vinci... Fibonacci numbers... the pentacle.
Incredibly, all of these things were connected by a single concept so
fundamental to art history that Langdon often spent several class periods on
the topic.
PHI.
He felt himself suddenly reeling back to Harvard, standing in front of
his "Symbolism in Art" class, writing his favorite number on the chalkboard.
Langdon turned to face his sea of eager students. "Who can tell me what
this number is?"
A long-legged math major in back raised his hand. "That's the number
PHI." He pronounced it fee.
"Nice job, Stettner," Langdon said. "Everyone, meet PHI."
"Not to be confused with PI," Stettner added, grinning. "As we
mathematicians like to say: PHI is one H of a lot cooler than PI!"
Langdon laughed, but nobody else seemed to get the joke.
Stettner slumped.
"This number PHI," Langdon continued, "one-point-six-one-eight, is a
very important number in art. Who can tell me why?"
Stettner tried to redeem himself. "Because it's so pretty?"
Everyone laughed.
"Actually," Langdon said, "Stettner's right again. PHI is generally
considered the most beautiful number in the universe."
The laughter abruptly stopped, and Stettner gloated.
As Langdon loaded his slide projector, he explained that the number PHI
was derived from the Fibonacci sequence--a progression famous not only
because the sum of adjacent terms equaled the next term, but because the
quotients of adjacent terms possessed the astonishing property of
approaching the number 1.618--PHI!
Despite PHI's seemingly mystical mathematical origins, Langdon
explained, the truly mind-boggling aspect of PHI was its role as a
fundamental building block in nature. Plants, animals, and even human beings
all possessed dimensional properties that adhered with eerie exactitude to
the ratio of PHI to 1.
"PHI's ubiquity in nature," Langdon said, killing the lights, "clearly
exceeds coincidence, and so the ancients assumed the number PHI must have
been preordained by the Creator of the universe. Early scientists heralded
one-point-six-one-eight as the Divine Proportion."
"Hold on," said a young woman in the front row. "I'm a bio major and
I've never seen this Divine Proportion in nature."
"No?" Langdon grinned. "Ever study the relationship between females and
males in a honeybee community?"
"Sure. The female bees always outnumber the male bees."
"Correct. And did you know that if you divide the number of female bees
by the number of male bees in any beehive in the world, you always get the
same number?"
"You do?"
"Yup. PHI."
The girl gaped. "NO WAY!"
"Way!" Langdon fired back, smiling as he projected a slide of a spiral
seashell. "Recognize this?"
"It's a nautilus," the bio major said. "A cephalopod mollusk that pumps
gas into its chambered shell to adjust its buoyancy."
"Correct. And can you guess what the ratio is of each spiral's diameter
to the next?"
The girl looked uncertain as she eyed the concentric arcs of the
nautilus spiral.
Langdon nodded. "PHI. The Divine Proportion. One-point-six-one-eight to
one."
The girl looked amazed.
Langdon advanced to the next slide--a close-up of a sunflower's seed
head. "Sunflower seeds grow in opposing spirals. Can you guess the ratio of
each rotation's diameter to the next?"
"PHI?" everyone said.
"Bingo." Langdon began racing through slides now--spiraled pinecone
petals, leaf arrangement on plant stalks, insect segmentation--all
displaying astonishing obedience to the Divine Proportion.
"This is amazing!" someone cried out.
"Yeah," someone else said, "but what does it have to do with art?"
"Aha!" Langdon said. "Glad you asked." He pulled up another slide--a
pale yellow parchment displaying Leonardo da Vinci's famous male nude--The
Vitruvian Man--named for Marcus Vitruvius, the brilliant Roman architect who
praised the Divine Proportion in his text De Architectura.
"Nobody understood better than Da Vinci the divine structure of the
human body. Da Vinci actually exhumed corpses to measure the exact
proportions of human bone structure. He was the first to show that the human
body is literally made of building blocks whose proportional ratios always
equal PHI."
Everyone in class gave him a dubious look.
"Don't believe me?" Langdon challenged. "Next time you're in the
shower, take a tape measure."
A couple of football players snickered.
"Not just you insecure jocks," Langdon prompted. "All of you. Guys and
girls. Try it. Measure the distance from the tip of your head to the floor.
Then divide that by the distance from your belly button to the floor. Guess
what number you get."
"Not PHI!" one of the jocks blurted out in disbelief.
"Yes, PHI," Langdon replied. "One-point-six-one-eight. Want another
example? Measure the distance from your shoulder to your fingertips, and
then divide it by the distance from your elbow to your fingertips. PHI
again. Another? Hip to floor divided by knee to floor. PHI again. Finger
joints. Toes. Spinal divisions. PHI. PHI. PHI. My friends, each of you is a
walking tribute to the Divine Proportion."
Even in the darkness, Langdon could see they were all astounded. He
felt a familiar warmth inside. This is why he taught. "My friends, as you
can see, the chaos of the world has an underlying order. When the ancients
discovered PHI, they were certain they had stumbled across God's building
block for the world, and they worshipped Nature because of that. And one can
understand why. God's hand is evident in Nature, and even to this day there
exist pagan, Mother Earth-revering religions. Many of us celebrate nature
the way the pagans did, and don't even know it. May Day is a perfect
example, the celebration of spring... the earth coming back to life to
produce her bounty. The mysterious magic inherent in the Divine Proportion
was written at the beginning of time. Man is simply playing by Nature's
rules, and because art is man's attempt to imitate the beauty of the
Creator's hand, you can imagine we might be seeing a lot of instances of the
Divine Proportion in art this semester."
Over the next half hour, Langdon showed them slides of artwork by
Michelangelo, Albrecht Durer, Da Vinci, and many others, demonstrating each
artist's intentional and rigorous adherence to the Divine Proportion in the
layout of his compositions. Langdon unveiled PHI in the architectural
dimensions of the Greek Parthenon, the pyramids of Egypt, and even the
United Nations Building in New York. PHI appeared in the organizational
structures of Mozart's sonatas, Beethoven's Fifth Symphony, as well as the
works of Bartuk, Debussy, and Schubert. The number PHI, Langdon told them,
was even used by Stradivarius to calculate the exact placement of the
f-holes in the construction of his famous violins.
"In closing," Langdon said, walking to the chalkboard, "we return to
symbols" He drew five intersecting lines that formed a five-pointed star.
"This symbol is one of the most powerful images you will see this term.
Formally known as a pentagram--or pentacle, as the ancients called it--this
symbol is considered both divine and magical by many cultures. Can anyone
tell me why that might be?"
Stettner, the math major, raised his hand. "Because if you draw a
pentagram, the lines automatically divide themselves into segments according
to the Divine Proportion."
Langdon gave the kid a proud nod. "Nice job. Yes, the ratios of line
segments in a pentacle all equal PHI, making this symbol the ultimate
expression of the Divine Proportion. For this reason, the five-pointed star
has always been the symbol for beauty and perfection associated with the
goddess and the sacred feminine."
The girls in class beamed.
"One note, folks. We've only touched on Da Vinci today, but we'll be
seeing a lot more of him this semester. Leonardo was a well-documented
devotee of the ancient ways of the goddess. Tomorrow, I'll show you his
fresco The Last Supper, which is one of the most astonishing tributes to the
sacred feminine you will ever see."
"You're kidding, right?" somebody said. "I thought The Last Supper was
about Jesus!"
Langdon winked. "There are symbols hidden in places you would never
imagine."
"Come on," Sophie whispered. "What's wrong? We're almost there. Hurry!"
Langdon glanced up, feeling himself return from faraway thoughts. He
realized he was standing at a dead stop on the stairs, paralyzed by sudden
revelation.
O, Draconian devil! Oh, lame saint!
Sophie was looking back at him.
It can't be that simple, Langdon thought.
But he knew of course that it was.
There in the bowels of the Louvre... with images of PHI and Da Vinci
swirling through his mind, Robert Langdon suddenly and unexpectedly
deciphered Sauniure's code.
"O, Draconian devil!" he said. "Oh, lame saint! It's the simplest kind
of code!"
Sophie was stopped on the stairs below him, staring up in confusion. A
code? She had been pondering the words all night and had not seen a code.
Especially a simple one.
"You said it yourself." Langdon's voice reverberated with excitement.
"Fibonacci numbers only have meaning in their proper order. Otherwise
they're mathematical gibberish."
Sophie had no idea what he was talking about. The Fibonacci numbers?
She was certain they had been intended as nothing more than a means to get
the Cryptography Department involved tonight. They have another purpose? She
plunged her hand into her pocket and pulled out the printout, studying her
grandfather's message again.
13-3-2-21-1-1-8-5
O, Draconian devil!
Oh, lame saint!
What about the numbers?
"The scrambled Fibonacci sequence is a clue," Langdon said, taking the
printout. "The numbers are a hint as to how to decipher the rest of the
message. He wrote the sequence out of order to tell us to apply the same
concept to the text. O, Draconian devil? Oh, lame saint? Those lines mean
nothing. They are simply letters written out of order."
Sophie needed only an instant to process Langdon's implication, and it
seemed laughably simple. "You think this message is... une anagramme?" She
stared at him. "Like a word jumble from a newspaper?"
Langdon could see the skepticism on Sophie's face and certainly
understood. Few people realized that anagrams, despite being a trite modern
amusement, had a rich history of sacred symbolism.
The mystical teachings of the Kabbala drew heavily on
anagrams--rearranging the letters of Hebrew words to derive new meanings.
French kings throughout the Renaissance were so convinced that anagrams held
magic power that they appointed royal anagrammatists to help them make
better decisions by analyzing words in important documents. The Romans
actually referred to the study of anagrams as ars magna--"the great art."
Langdon looked up at Sophie, locking eyes with her now. "Your
grandfather's meaning was right in front of us all along, and he left us
more than enough clues to see it."
Without another word, Langdon pulled a pen from his jacket pocket and
rearranged the letters in each line.
O, Draconian devil! Oh, lame saint!
was a perfect anagram of...
Leonardo da Vinci! The Mona Lisa!
The Mona Lisa.
For an instant, standing in the exit stairwell, Sophie forgot all about
trying to leave the Louvre.
Her shock over the anagram was matched only by her embarrassment at not
having deciphered the message herself. Sophie's expertise in complex
cryptanalysis had caused her to overlook simplistic word games, and yet she
knew she should have seen it. After all, she was no stranger to
anagrams--especially in English.
When she was young, often her grandfather would use anagram games to
hone her English spelling. Once he had written the English word "planets"
and told Sophie that an astonishing sixty-two other English words of varying
lengths could be formed using those same letters. Sophie had spent three
days with an English dictionary until she found them all.
"I can't imagine," Langdon said, staring at the printout, "how your
grandfather created such an intricate anagram in the minutes before he
died."
Sophie knew the explanation, and the realization made her feel even
worse. I should have seen this! She now recalled that her grandfather--a
wordplay aficionado and art lover--had entertained himself as a young man by
creating anagrams of famous works of art. In fact, one of his anagrams had
gotten him in trouble once when Sophie was a little girl. While being
interviewed by an American art magazine, Sauniure had expressed his distaste
for the modernist Cubist movement by noting that Picasso's masterpiece Les
Demoiselles d'Avignon was a perfect anagram of vile meaningless doodles.
Picasso fans were not amused.
"My grandfather probably created this Mona Lisa anagram long ago,"
Sophie said, glancing up at Langdon. And tonight he was forced to use it as
a makeshift code. Her grandfather's voice had called out from beyond with
chilling precision.
Leonardo da Vinci!
The Mona Lisa!
Why his final words to her referenced the famous painting, Sophie had
no idea, but she could think of only one possibility. A disturbing one.
Those were not his final words....
Was she supposed to visit the Mona Lisa? Had her grandfather left her a
message there? The idea seemed perfectly plausible. After all, the famous
painting hung in the Salle des Etats--a private viewing chamber accessible
only from the Grand Gallery. In fact, Sophie now realized, the doors that
opened into the chamber were situated only twenty meters from where her
grandfather had been found dead.
He easily could have visited the Mona Lisa before he died.
Sophie gazed back up the emergency stairwell and felt torn. She knew
she should usher Langdon from the museum immediately, and yet instinct urged
her to the contrary. As Sophie recalled her first childhood visit to the
Denon Wing, she realized that if her grandfather had a secret to tell her,
few places on earth made a more apt rendezvous than Da Vinci's Mona Lisa.
"She's just a little bit farther," her grandfather had whispered,
clutching Sophie's tiny hand as he led her through the deserted museum after
hours.
Sophie was six years old. She felt small and insignificant as she gazed
up at the enormous ceilings and down at the dizzying floor. The empty museum
frightened her, although she was not about to let her grandfather know that.
She set her jaw firmly and let go of his hand.
"Up ahead is the Salle des Etats," her grandfather said as they
approached the Louvre's most famous room. Despite her grandfather's obvious
excitement, Sophie wanted to go home. She had seen pictures of the Mona Lisa
in books and didn't like it at all. She couldn't understand why everyone
made such a fuss.
"C'est ennuyeux," Sophie grumbled.
"Boring," he corrected. "French at school. English at home."
"Le Louvre, c'est pas chez moi!" she challenged.
He gave her a tired laugh. "Right you are. Then let's speak English
just for fun."
Sophie pouted and kept walking. As they entered the Salle des Etats,
her eyes scanned the narrow room and settled on the obvious spot of
honor--the center of the right-hand wall, where a lone portrait hung behind
a protective Plexiglas wall. Her grandfather paused in the doorway and
motioned toward the painting.
"Go ahead, Sophie. Not many people get a chance to visit her alone."
Swallowing her apprehension, Sophie moved slowly across the room. After
everything she'd heard about the Mona Lisa, she felt as if she were
approaching royalty. Arriving in front of the protective Plexiglas, Sophie
held her breath and looked up, taking it in all at once.
Sophie was not sure what she had expected to feel, but it most
certainly was not this. No jolt of amazement. No instant of wonder. The
famous face looked as it did in books. She stood in silence for what felt
like forever, waiting for something to happen.
"So what do you think?" her grandfather whispered, arriving behind her.
"Beautiful, yes?"
"She's too little."
Sauniure smiled. "You're little and you're beautiful."
I am not beautiful, she thought. Sophie hated her red hair and
freckles, and she was bigger than all the boys in her class. She looked back
at the Mona Lisa and shook her head. "She's even worse than in the books.
Her face is... brumeux."
"Foggy," her grandfather tutored.
"Foggy," Sophie repeated, knowing the conversation would not continue
until she repeated her new vocabulary word.
"That's called the sfumato style of painting," he told her, "and it's
very hard to do. Leonardo da Vinci was better at it than anyone."
Sophie still didn't like the painting. "She looks like she knows
something... like when kids at school have a secret."
Her grandfather laughed. "That's part of why she is so famous. People
like to guess why she is smiling."
"Do you know why she's smiling?"
"Maybe." Her grandfather winked. "Someday I'll tell you all about it."
Sophie stamped her foot. "I told you I don't like secrets!"
"Princess," he smiled. "Life is filled with secrets. You can't learn
them all at once."
"I'm going back up," Sophie declared, her voice hollow in the
stairwell.
"To the Mona Lisa?" Langdon recoiled. "Now?"
Sophie considered the risk. "I'm not a murder suspect. I'll take my
chances. I need to understand what my grandfather was trying to tell me."
"What about the embassy?"
Sophie felt guilty turning Langdon into a fugitive only to abandon him,
but she saw no other option. She pointed down the stairs to a metal door.
"Go through that door, and follow the illuminated exit signs. My grandfather
used to bring me down here. The signs will lead you to a security turnstile.
It's monodirectional and opens out." She handed Langdon her car keys. "Mine
is the red SmartCar in the employee lot. Directly outside this bulkhead. Do
you know how to get to the embassy?"
Langdon nodded, eyeing the keys in his hand.
"Listen," Sophie said, her voice softening. "I think my grandfather may
have left me a message at the Mona Lisa--some kind of clue as to who killed
him. Or why I'm in danger." Or what happened to my family. "I have to go
see."
"But if he wanted to tell you why you were in danger, why wouldn't he
simply write it on the floor where he died? Why this complicated word game?"
"Whatever my grandfather was trying to tell me, I don't think he wanted
anyone else to hear it. Not even the police." Clearly, her grandfather had
done everything in his power to send a confidential transmission directly to
her. He had written it in code, included her secret initials, and told her
to find Robert Langdon--a wise command, considering the American symbologist
had deciphered his code. "As strange as it may sound," Sophie said, "I think
he wants me to get to the Mona Lisa before anyone else does."
"I'll come."
"No! We don't know how long the Grand Gallery will stay empty. You have
to go."
Langdon seemed hesitant, as if his own academic curiosity were
threatening to override sound judgment and drag him back into Fache's hands.
"Go. Now." Sophie gave him a grateful smile. "I'll see you at the
embassy, Mr. Langdon."
Langdon looked displeased. "I'll meet you there on one condition," he
replied, his voice stern.
She paused, startled. "What's that?"
"That you stop calling me Mr. Langdon."
Sophie detected the faint hint of a lopsided grin growing across
Langdon's face, and she felt herself smile back. "Good luck, Robert."
When Langdon reached the landing at the bottom of the stairs, the
unmistakable smell of linseed oil and plaster dust assaulted his nostrils.
Ahead, an illuminated SORTIE/EXIT displayed an arrow pointing down a long
corridor.
Langdon stepped into the hallway.
To the right gaped a murky restoration studio out of which peered an
army of statues in various states of repair. To the left, Langdon saw a
suite of studios that resembled Harvard art classrooms--rows of easels,
paintings, palettes, framing tools--an art assembly line.
As he moved down the hallway, Langdon wondered if at any moment he
might awake with a start in his bed in Cambridge. The entire evening had
felt like a bizarre dream. I'm about to dash out of the Louvre... a
fugitive.
Sauniure's clever anagrammatic message was still on his mind, and
Langdon wondered what Sophie would find at the Mona Lisa... if anything. She
had seemed certain her grandfather meant for her to visit the famous
painting one more time. As plausible an interpretation as this seemed,
Langdon felt haunted now by a troubling paradox.
P.S. Find Robert Langdon.
Sauniure had written Langdon's name on the floor, commanding Sophie to
find him. But why? Merely so Langdon could help her break an anagram?
It seemed quite unlikely.
After all, Sauniure had no reason to think Langdon was especially
skilled at anagrams. We've never even met. More important, Sophie had stated
flat out that she should have broken the anagram on her own. It had been
Sophie who spotted the Fibonacci sequence, and, no doubt, Sophie who, if
given a little more time, would have deciphered the message with no help
from Langdon.
Sophie was supposed to break that anagram on her own. Langdon was
suddenly feeling more certain about this, and yet the conclusion left an
obvious gaping lapse in the logic of Sauniure's actions.
Why me? Langdon wondered, heading down the hall. Why was Sauniure's
dying wish that his estranged granddaughter find me? What is it that
Sauniure thinks I know?
With an unexpected jolt, Langdon stopped short. Eyes wide, he dug in
his pocket and yanked out the computer printout. He stared at the last line
of Sauniure's message.
P.S. Find Robert Langdon.
He fixated on two letters.
P.S.
In that instant, Langdon felt Sauniure's puzzling mix of symbolism fall
into stark focus. Like a peal of thunder, a career's worth of symbology and
history came crashing down around him. Everything Jacques Sauniure had done
tonight suddenly made perfect sense.
Langdon's thoughts raced as he tried to assemble the implications of
what this all meant. Wheeling, he stared back in the direction from which he
had come.
Is there time?
He knew it didn't matter.
Without hesitation, Langdon broke into a sprint back toward the stairs.
Kneeling in the first pew, Silas pretended to pray as he scanned the
layout of the sanctuary. Saint-Sulpice, like most churches, had been built
in the shape of a giant Roman cross. Its long central section--the nave--led
directly to the main altar, where it was transversely intersected by a
shorter section, known as the transept. The intersection of nave and
transept occurred directly beneath the main cupola and was considered the
heart of the church... her most sacred and mystical point.
Not tonight, Silas thought. Saint-Sulpice hides her secrets elsewhere.
Turning his head to the right, he gazed into the south transept, toward
the open area of floor beyond the end of the pews, to the object his victims
had described.
There it is.
Embedded in the gray granite floor, a thin polished strip of brass
glistened in the stone... a golden line slanting across the church's floor.
The line bore graduated markings, like a ruler. It was a gnomon, Silas had
been told, a pagan astronomical device like a sundial. Tourists, scientists,
historians, and pagans from around the world came to Saint-Sulpice to gaze
upon this famous line.
The Rose Line.
Slowly, Silas let his eyes trace the path of the brass strip as it made
its way across the floor from his right to left, slanting in front of him at
an awkward angle, entirely at odds with the symmetry of the church. Slicing
across the main altar itself, the line looked to Silas like a slash wound
across a beautiful face. The strip cleaved the communion rail in two and
then crossed the entire width of the church, finally reaching the corner of
the north transept, where it arrived at the base of a most unexpected
structure.
A colossal Egyptian obelisk.
Here, the glistening Rose Line took a ninety-degree vertical turn and
continued directly up the face of the obelisk itself, ascending thirty-three
feet to the very tip of the pyramidical apex, where it finally ceased.
The Rose Line, Silas thought. The brotherhood hid the keystone at the
Rose Line.
Earlier tonight, when Silas told the Teacher that the Priory keystone
was hidden inside Saint-Sulpice, the Teacher had sounded doubtful. But when
Silas added that the brothers had all given him a precise location, with
relation to a brass line running through Saint-Sulpice, the Teacher had
gasped with revelation. "You speak of the Rose Line!"
The Teacher quickly told Silas of Saint-Sulpice's famed architectural
oddity--a strip of brass that segmented the sanctuary on a perfect
north-south axis. It was an ancient sundial of sorts, a vestige of the pagan
temple that had once stood on this very spot. The sun's rays, shining
through the oculus on the south wall, moved farther down the line every day,
indicating the passage of time, from solstice to solstice.
The north-south stripe had been known as the Rose Line. For centuries,
the symbol of the Rose had been associated with maps and guiding souls in
the proper direction. The Compass Rose--drawn on almost every map--indicated
North, East, South, and West. Originally known as the Wind Rose, it denoted
the directions of the thirty-two winds, blowing from the directions of eight
major winds, eight half-winds, and sixteen quarter-winds. When diagrammed
inside a circle, these thirty-two points of the compass perfectly resembled
a traditional thirty-two petal rose bloom. To this day, the fundamental
navigational tool was still known as a Compass Rose, its northernmost
direction still marked by an arrowhead... or, more commonly, the symbol of
the fleur-de-lis.
On a globe, a Rose Line--also called a meridian or longitude--was any
imaginary line drawn from the North Pole to the South Pole. There were, of
course, an infinite number of Rose Lines because every point on the globe
could have a longitude drawn through it connecting north and south poles.
The question for early navigators was which of these lines would be called
the Rose Line--the zero longitude--the line from which all other longitudes
on earth would be measured.
Today that line was in Greenwich, England.
But it had not always been.
Long before the establishment of Greenwich as the prime meridian, the
zero longitude of the entire world had passed directly through Paris, and
through the Church of Saint-Sulpice. The brass marker in Saint-Sulpice was a
memorial to the world's first prime meridian, and although Greenwich had
stripped Paris of the honor in 1888, the original Rose Line was still
visible today.
"And so the legend is true," the Teacher had told Silas. "The Priory
keystone has been said to lie 'beneath the Sign of the Rose.' "
Now, still on his knees in a pew, Silas glanced around the church and
listened to make sure no one was there. For a moment, he thought he heard a
rustling in the choir balcony. He turned and gazed up for several seconds.
Nothing.
I am alone.
Standing now, he faced the altar and genuflected three times. Then he
turned left and followed the brass line due north toward the obelisk.
At that moment, at Leonardo da Vinci International Airport in Rome, the
jolt of tires hitting the runway startled Bishop Aringarosa from his
slumber.
I drifted off, he thought, impressed he was relaxed enough to sleep.
"Benvenuto a Roma," the intercom announced.
Sitting up, Aringarosa straightened his black cassock and allowed
himself a rare smile. This was one trip he had been happy to make. I have
been on the defensive for too long. Tonight, however, the rules had changed.
Only five months ago, Aringarosa had feared for the future of the Faith.
Now, as if by the will of God, the solution had presented itself.
Divine intervention.
If all went as planned tonight in Paris, Aringarosa would soon be in
possession of something that would make him the most powerful man in
Christendom.
Sophie arrived breathless outside the large wooden doors of the Salle
des Etats--the room that housed the Mona Lisa. Before entering, she gazed
reluctantly farther down the hall, twenty yards or so, to the spot where her
grandfather's body still lay under the spotlight.
The remorse that gripped her was powerful and sudden, a deep sadness
laced with guilt. The man had reached out to her so many times over the past
ten years, and yet Sophie had remained immovable--leaving his letters and
packages unopened in a bottom drawer and denying his efforts to see her. He
lied to me! Kept appalling secrets! What was I supposed to do? And so she
had blocked him out. Completely.
Now her grandfather was dead, and he was talking to her from the grave.
The Mona Lisa.
She reached for the huge wooden doors, and pushed. The entryway yawned
open. Sophie stood on the threshold a moment, scanning the large rectangular
chamber beyond. It too was bathed in a soft red light. The Salle des Etats
was one of this museum's rare culs-de-sac--a dead end and the only room off
the middle of the Grand Gallery. This door, the chamber's sole point of
entry, faced a dominating fifteen-foot Botticelli on the far wall. Beneath
it, centered on the parquet floor, an immense octagonal viewing divan served
as a welcome respite for thousands of visitors to rest their legs while they
admired the Louvre's most valuable asset.
Even before Sophie entered, though, she knew she was missing something.
A black light. She gazed down the hall at her grandfather under the lights
in the distance, surrounded by electronic gear. If he had written anything
in here, he almost certainly would have written it with the watermark
stylus.
Taking a deep breath, Sophie hurried down to the well-lit crime scene.
Unable to look at her grandfather, she focused solely on the PTS tools.
Finding a small ultraviolet penlight, she slipped it in the pocket of her
sweater and hurried back up the hallway toward the open doors of the Salle
des Etats.
Sophie turned the corner and stepped over the threshold. Her entrance,
however, was met by an unexpected sound of muffled footsteps racing toward
her from inside the chamber. There's someone in here! A ghostly figure
emerged suddenly from out of the reddish haze. Sophie jumped back.
"There you are!" Langdon's hoarse whisper cut the air as his silhouette
slid to a stop in front of her.
Her relief was only momentary. "Robert, I told you to get out of here!
If Fache--"
"Where were you?"
"I had to get the black light," she whispered, holding it up. "If my
grandfather left me a message--"
"Sophie, listen." Langdon caught his breath as his blue eyes held her
firmly. "The letters P.S.... do they mean anything else to you? Anything at
all?"
Afraid their voices might echo down the hall, Sophie pulled him into
the Salle des Etats and closed the enormous twin doors silently, sealing
them inside. "I told you, the initials mean Princess Sophie."
"I know, but did you ever see them anywhere else? Did your grandfather
ever use P.S. in any other way? As a monogram, or maybe on stationery or a
personal item?"
The question startled her. How would Robert know that? Sophie had
indeed seen the initials P.S. once before, in a kind of monogram. It was the
day before her ninth birthday. She was secretly combing the house, searching
for hidden birthday presents. Even then, she could not bear secrets kept
from her. What did Grand-pure get for me this year? She dug through
cupboards and drawers. Did he get me the doll I wanted? Where would he hide
it?
Finding nothing in the entire house, Sophie mustered the courage to
sneak into her grandfather's bedroom. The room was off-limits to her, but
her grandfather was downstairs asleep on the couch.
I'll just take a fast peek!
Tiptoeing across the creaky wood floor to his closet, Sophie peered on
the shelves behind his clothing. Nothing. Next she looked under the bed.
Still nothing. Moving to his bureau, she opened the drawers and one by one
began pawing carefully through them. There must be something for me here! As
she reached the bottom drawer, she still had not found any hint of a doll.
Dejected, she opened the final drawer and pulled aside some black clothes
she had never seen him wear. She was about to close the drawer when her eyes
caught a glint of gold in the back of the drawer. It looked like a pocket
watch chain, but she knew he didn't wear one. Her heart raced as she
realized what it must be.
A necklace!
Sophie carefully pulled the chain from the drawer. To her surprise, on
the end was a brilliant gold key. Heavy and shimmering. Spellbound, she held
it up. It looked like no key she had ever seen. Most keys were flat with
jagged teeth, but this one had a triangular column with little pockmarks all
over it. Its large golden head was in the shape of a cross, but not a normal
cross. This was an even-armed one, like a plus sign. Embossed in the middle
of the cross was a strange symbol--two letters intertwined with some kind of
flowery design.
"P.S.," she whispered, scowling as she read the letters. Whatever could
this be?
"Sophie?" her grandfather spoke from the doorway.
Startled, she spun, dropping the key on the floor with a loud clang.
She stared down at the key, afraid to look up at her grandfather's face.
"I... was looking for my birthday present," she said, hanging her head,
knowing she had betrayed his trust.
For what seemed like an eternity, her grandfather stood silently in the
doorway. Finally, he let out a long troubled breath. "Pick up the key,
Sophie."
Sophie retrieved the key.
Her grandfather walked in. "Sophie, you need to respect other people's
privacy." Gently, he knelt down and took the key from her. "This key is very
special. If you had lost it..."
Her grandfather's quiet voice made Sophie feel even worse. "I'm sorry,
Grand-pure. I really am." She paused. "I thought it was a necklace for my
birthday."
He gazed at her for several seconds. "I'll say this once more, Sophie,
because it's important. You need to learn to respect other people's
privacy."
"Yes, Grand-pure."
"We'll talk about this some other time. Right now, the garden needs to
be weeded."
Sophie hurried outside to do her chores.
The next morning, Sophie received no birthday present from her
grandfather. She hadn't expected one, not after what she had done. But he
didn't even wish her happy birthday all day. Sadly, she trudged up to bed
that night. As she climbed in, though, she found a note card lying on her
pillow. On the card was written a simple riddle. Even before she solved the
riddle, she was smiling. I know what this is! Her grandfather had done this
for her last Christmas morning.
A treasure hunt!
Eagerly, she pored over the riddle until she solved it. The solution
pointed her to another part of the house, where she found another card and
another riddle. She solved this one too, racing on to the next card. Running
wildly, she darted back and forth across the house, from clue to clue, until
at last she found a clue that directed her back to her own bedroom. Sophie
dashed up the stairs, rushed into her room, and stopped in her tracks. There
in the middle of the room sat a shining red bicycle with a ribbon tied to
the handlebars. Sophie shrieked with delight.
"I know you asked for a doll," her grandfather said, smiling in the
corner. "I thought you might like this even better."
The next day, her grandfather taught her to ride, running beside her
down the walkway. When Sophie steered out over the thick lawn and lost her
balance, they both went tumbling onto the grass, rolling and laughing.
"Grand-pure," Sophie said, hugging him. "I'm really sorry about the
key."
"I know, sweetie. You're forgiven. I can't possibly stay mad at you.
Grandfathers and granddaughters always forgive each other."
Sophie knew she shouldn't ask, but she couldn't help it. "What does it
open? I never saw a key like that. It was very pretty."
Her grandfather was silent a long moment, and Sophie could see he was
uncertain how to answer. Grand-pure never lies. "It opens a box," he finally
said. "Where I keep many secrets."
Sophie pouted. "I hate secrets!"
"I know, but these are important secrets. And someday, you'll learn to
appreciate them as much as I do."
"I saw letters on the key, and a flower."
"Yes, that's my favorite flower. It's called a fleur-de-lis. We have
them in the garden. The white ones. In English we call that kind of flower a
lily."
"I know those! They're my favorite too!"
"Then I'll make a deal with you." Her grandfather's eyebrows raised the
way they always did when he was about to give her a challenge. "If you can
keep my key a secret, and never talk about it ever again, to me or anybody,
then someday I will give it to you."
Sophie couldn't believe her ears. "You will?"
"I promise. When the time comes, the key will be yours. It has your
name on it."
Sophie scowled. "No it doesn't. It said P.S. My name isn't P.S.!"
Her grandfather lowered his voice and looked around as if to make sure
no one was listening. "Okay, Sophie, if you must know, P.S. is a code. It's
your secret initials."
Her eyes went wide. "I have secret initials?"
"Of course. Granddaughters always have secret initials that only their
grandfathers know."
"P.S.?"
He tickled her. "Princesse Sophie."
She giggled. "I'm not a princess!"
He winked. "You are to me."
From that day on, they never again spoke of the key. And she became his
Princess Sophie.
Inside the Salle des Etats, Sophie stood in silence and endured the
sharp pang of loss.
"The initials," Langdon whispered, eyeing her strangely. "Have you seen
them?"
Sophie sensed her grandfather's voice whispering in the corridors of
the museum. Never speak of this key, Sophie. To me or to anyone. She knew
she had failed him in forgiveness, and she wondered if she could break his
trust again. P.S. Find Robert Langdon. Her grandfather wanted Langdon to
help. Sophie nodded. "Yes, I saw the initials P.S. once. When I was very
young."
"Where?"
Sophie hesitated. "On something very important to him."
Langdon locked eyes with her. "Sophie, this is crucial. Can you tell me
if the initials appeared with a symbol? A fleur-de-lis?"
Sophie felt herself staggering backward in amazement. "But... how could
you possibly know that!"
Langdon exhaled and lowered his voice. "I'm fairly certain your
grandfather was a member of a secret society. A very old covert
brotherhood."
Sophie felt a knot tighten in her stomach. She was certain of it too.
For ten years she had tried to forget the incident that had confirmed that
horrifying fact for her. She had witnessed something unthinkable.
Unforgivable.
"The fleur-de-lis," Langdon said, "combined with the initials P.S.,
that is the brotherhood's official device. Their coat of arms. Their logo."
"How do you know this?" Sophie was praying Langdon was not going to
tell her that he himself was a member.
"I've written about this group," he said, his voice tremulous with
excitement. "Researching the symbols of secret societies is a specialty of
mine. They call themselves the Prieuru de Sion--the Priory of Sion. They're
based here in France and attract powerful members from all over Europe. In
fact, they are one of the oldest surviving secret societies on earth."
Sophie had never heard of them.
Langdon was talking in rapid bursts now. "The Priory's membership has
included some of history's most cultured individuals: men like Botticelli,
Sir Isaac Newton, Victor Hugo." He paused, his voice brimming now with
academic zeal. "And, Leonardo da Vinci."
Sophie stared. "Da Vinci was in a secret society?"
"Da Vinci presided over the Priory between 1510 and 1519 as the
brotherhood's Grand Master, which might help explain your grandfather's
passion for Leonardo's work. The two men share a historical fraternal bond.
And it all fits perfectly with their fascination for goddess iconology,
paganism, feminine deities, and contempt for the Church. The Priory has a
well-documented history of reverence for the sacred feminine."
"You're telling me this group is a pagan goddess worship cult?"
"More like the pagan goddess worship cult. But more important, they are
known as the guardians of an ancient secret. One that made them immeasurably
powerful."
Despite the total conviction in Langdon's eyes, Sophie's gut reaction
was one of stark disbelief. A secret pagan cult? Once headed by Leonardo da
Vinci? It all sounded utterly absurd. And yet, even as she dismissed it, she
felt her mind reeling back ten years--to the night she had mistakenly
surprised her grandfather and witnessed what she still could not accept.
Could that explain--?
"The identities of living Priory members are kept extremely secret,"
Langdon said, "but the P.S. and fleur-de-lis that you saw as a child are
proof. It could only have been related to the Priory."
Sophie realized now that Langdon knew far more about her grandfather
than she had previously imagined. This American obviously had volumes to
share with her, but this was not the place. "I can't afford to let them
catch you, Robert. There's a lot we need to discuss. You need to go!"
Langdon heard only the faint murmur of her voice. He wasn't going
anywhere. He was lost in another place now. A place where ancient secrets
rose to the surface. A place where forgotten histories emerged from the
shadows.
Slowly, as if moving underwater, Langdon turned his head and gazed
through the reddish haze toward the Mona Lisa.
The fleur-de-lis... the flower of Lisa... the Mona Lisa.
It was all intertwined, a silent symphony echoing the deepest secrets
of the Priory of Sion and Leonardo da Vinci.
A few miles away, on the riverbank beyond Les Invalides, the bewildered
driver of a twin-bed Trailor truck stood at gunpoint and watched as the
captain of the Judicial Police let out a guttural roar of rage and heaved a
bar of soap out into the turgid waters of the Seine.
Silas gazed upward at the Saint-Sulpice obelisk, taking in the length
of the massive marble shaft. His sinews felt taut with exhilaration. He
glanced around the church one more time to make sure he was alone. Then he
knelt at the base of the structure, not out of reverence, but out of
necessity.
The keystone is hidden beneath the Rose Line.
At the base of the Sulpice obelisk.
All the brothers had concurred.
On his knees now, Silas ran his hands across the stone floor. He saw no
cracks or markings to indicate a movable tile, so he began rapping softly
with his knuckles on the floor. Following the brass line closer to the
obelisk, he knocked on each tile adjacent to the brass line. Finally, one of
them echoed strangely.
There's a hollow area beneath the floor!
Silas smiled. His victims had spoken the truth.
Standing, he searched the sanctuary for something with which to break
the floor tile.
High above Silas, in the balcony, Sister Sandrine stifled a gasp. Her
darkest fears had just been confirmed. This visitor was not who he seemed.
The mysterious Opus Dei monk had come to Saint-Sulpice for another purpose.
A secret purpose.
You are not the only one with secrets, she thought.
Sister Sandrine Bieil was more than the keeper of this church. She was
a sentry. And tonight, the ancient wheels had been set in motion. The
arrival of this stranger at the base of the obelisk was a signal from the
brotherhood.
It was a silent call of distress.
The U.S. Embassy in Paris is a compact complex on Avenue Gabriel, just
north of the Champs-Elysues. The three-acre compound is considered U.S.
soil, meaning all those who stand on it are subject to the same laws and
protections as they would encounter standing in the United States.
The embassy's night operator was reading Time magazine's International
Edition when the sound of her phone interrupted.
"U.S. Embassy," she answered.
"Good evening." The caller spoke English accented with French. "I need
some assistance." Despite the politeness of the man's words, his tone
sounded gruff and official. "I was told you had a phone message for me on
your automated system. The name is Langdon. Unfortunately, I have forgotten
my three-digit access code. If you could help me, I would be most grateful."
The operator paused, confused. "I'm sorry, sir. Your message must be
quite old. That system was removed two years ago for security precautions.
Moreover, all the access codes were five-digit. Who told you we had a
message for you?"
"You have no automated phone system?"
"No, sir. Any message for you would be handwritten in our services
department. What was your name again?"
But the man had hung up.
Bezu Fache felt dumbstruck as he paced the banks of the Seine. He was
certain he had seen Langdon dial a local number, enter a three-digit code,
and then listen to a recording. But if Langdon didn't phone the embassy,
then who the hell did he call?
It was at that moment, eyeing his cellular phone, that Fache realized
the answers were in the palm of his hand. Langdon used my phone to place
that call.
Keying into the cell phone's menu, Fache pulled up the list of recently
dialed numbers and found the call Langdon had placed.
A Paris exchange, followed by the three-digit code 454.
Redialing the phone number, Fache waited as the line began ringing.
Finally a woman's voice answered. "Bonjour, vous utes bien chez Sophie
Neveu," the recording announced. "Je suis absente pour le moment, mais..."
Fache's blood was boiling as he typed the numbers 4... 5... 4.
Despite her monumental reputation, the Mona Lisa was a mere thirty-one
inches by twenty-one inches--smaller even than the posters of her sold in
the Louvre gift shop. She hung on the northwest wall of the Salle des Etats
behind a two-inch-thick pane of protective Plexiglas. Painted on a poplar
wood panel, her ethereal, mist-filled atmosphere was attributed to Da
Vinci's mastery of the sfumato style, in which forms appear to evaporate
into one another.
Since taking up residence in the Louvre, the Mona Lisa--or La Jaconde
as they call her in France--had been stolen twice, most recently in 1911,
when she disappeared from the Louvre's "satte impunutrable"--Le Salon Carre.
Parisians wept in the streets and wrote newspaper articles begging the
thieves for the painting's return. Two years later, the Mona Lisa was
discovered hidden in the false bottom of a trunk in a Florence hotel room.
Langdon, now having made it clear to Sophie that he had no intention of
leaving, moved with her across the Salle des Etats. The Mona Lisa was still
twenty yards ahead when Sophie turned on the black light, and the bluish
crescent of penlight fanned out on the floor in front of them. She swung the
beam back and forth across the floor like a minesweeper, searching for any
hint of luminescent ink.
Walking beside her, Langdon was already feeling the tingle of
anticipation that accompanied his face-to-face reunions with great works of
art. He strained to see beyond the cocoon of purplish light emanating from
the black light in Sophie's hand. To the left, the room's octagonal viewing
divan emerged, looking like a dark island on the empty sea of parquet.
Langdon could now begin to see the panel of dark glass on the wall.
Behind it, he knew, in the confines of her own private cell, hung the most
celebrated painting in the world.
The Mona Lisa's status as the most famous piece of art in the world,
Langdon knew, had nothing to do with her enigmatic smile. Nor was it due to
the mysterious interpretations attributed her by many art historians and
conspiracy buffs. Quite simply, the Mona Lisa was famous because Leonardo da
Vinci claimed she was his finest accomplishment. He carried the painting
with him whenever he traveled and, if asked why, would reply that he found
it hard to part with his most sublime expression of female beauty.
Even so, many art historians suspected Da Vinci's reverence for the
Mona Lisa had nothing to do with its artistic mastery. In actuality, the
painting was a surprisingly ordinary sfumato portrait. Da Vinci's veneration
for this work, many claimed, stemmed from something far deeper: a hidden
message in the layers of paint. The Mona Lisa was, in fact, one of the
world's most documented inside jokes. The painting's well-documented collage
of double entendres and playful allusions had been revealed in most art
history tomes, and yet, incredibly, the public at large still considered her
smile a great mystery.
No mystery at all, Langdon thought, moving forward and watching as the
faint outline of the painting began to take shape. No mystery at all.
Most recently Langdon had shared the Mona Lisa's secret with a rather
unlikely group--a dozen inmates at the Essex County Penitentiary. Langdon's
jail seminar was part of a Harvard outreach program attempting to bring
education into the prison system--Culture for Convicts, as Langdon's
colleagues liked to call it.
Standing at an overhead projector in a darkened penitentiary library,
Langdon had shared the Mona Lisa's secret with the prisoners attending
class, men whom he found surprisingly engaged--rough, but sharp. "You may
notice," Langdon told them, walking up to the projected image of the Mona
Lisa on the library wall, "that the background behind her face is uneven."
Langdon motioned to the glaring discrepancy. "Da Vinci painted the horizon
line on the left significantly lower than the right."
"He screwed it up?" one of the inmates asked.
Langdon chuckled. "No. Da Vinci didn't do that too often. Actually,
this is a little trick Da Vinci played. By lowering the countryside on the
left, Da Vinci made Mona Lisa look much larger from the left side than from
the right side. A little Da Vinci inside joke. Historically, the concepts of
male and female have assigned sides--left is female, and right is male.
Because Da Vinci was a big fan of feminine principles, he made Mona Lisa
look more majestic from the left than the right."
"I heard he was a fag," said a small man with a goatee.
Langdon winced. "Historians don't generally put it quite that way, but
yes, Da Vinci was a homosexual."
"Is that why he was into that whole feminine thing?"
"Actually, Da Vinci was in tune with the balance between male and
female. He believed that a human soul could not be enlightened unless it had
both male and female elements."
"You mean like chicks with dicks?" someone called.
This elicited a hearty round of laughs. Langdon considered offering an
etymological sidebar about the word hermaphrodite and its ties to Hermes and
Aphrodite, but something told him it would be lost on this crowd.
"Hey, Mr. Langford," a muscle-bound man said. "Is it true that the Mona
Lisa is a picture of Da Vinci in drag? I heard that was true."
"It's quite possible," Langdon said. "Da Vinci was a prankster, and
computerized analysis of the Mona Lisa and Da Vinci's self-portraits confirm
some startling points of congruency in their faces. Whatever Da Vinci was up
to," Langdon said, "his Mona Lisa is neither male nor female. It carries a
subtle message of androgyny. It is a fusing of both."
"You sure that's not just some Harvard bullshit way of saying Mona Lisa
is one ugly chick."
Now Langdon laughed. "You may be right. But actually Da Vinci left a
big clue that the painting was supposed to be androgynous. Has anyone here
ever heard of an Egyptian god named Amon?"
"Hell yes!" the big guy said. "God of masculine fertility!"
Langdon was stunned.
"It says so on every box of Amon condoms." The muscular man gave a wide
grin. "It's got a guy with a ram's head on the front and says he's the
Egyptian god of fertility."
Langdon was not familiar with the brand name, but he was glad to hear
the prophylactic manufacturers had gotten their hieroglyphs right. "Well
done. Amon is indeed represented as a man with a ram's head, and his
promiscuity and curved horns are related to our modern sexual slang 'horny.'
"
"No shit!"
"No shit," Langdon said. "And do you know who Amon's counterpart was?
The Egyptian goddess of fertility?"
The question met with several seconds of silence.
"It was Isis," Langdon told them, grabbing a grease pen. "So we have
the male god, Amon." He wrote it down. "And the female goddess, Isis, whose
ancient pictogram was once called L'ISA."
Langdon finished writing and stepped back from the projector.
AMON L'ISA
"Ring any bells?" he asked.
"Mona Lisa... holy crap," somebody gasped.
Langdon nodded. "Gentlemen, not only does the face of Mona Lisa look
androgynous, but her name is an anagram of the divine union of male and
female. And that, my friends, is Da Vinci's little secret, and the reason
for Mona Lisa's knowing smile."
"My grandfather was here," Sophie said, dropping suddenly to her knees,
now only ten feet from the Mona Lisa. She pointed the black light
tentatively to a spot on the parquet floor.
At first Langdon saw nothing. Then, as he knelt beside her, he saw a
tiny droplet of dried liquid that was luminescing. Ink? Suddenly he recalled
what black lights were actually used for. Blood. His senses tingled. Sophie
was right. Jacques Sauniure had indeed paid a visit to the Mona Lisa before
he died.
"He wouldn't have come here without a reason," Sophie whispered,
standing up. "I know he left a message for me here." Quickly striding the
final few steps to the Mona Lisa, she illuminated the floor directly in
front of the painting. She waved the light back and forth across the bare
parquet.
"There's nothing here!"
At that moment, Langdon saw a faint purple glimmer on the protective
glass before the Mona Lisa. Reaching down, he took Sophie's wrist and slowly
moved the light up to the painting itself.
They both froze.
On the glass, six words glowed in purple, scrawled directly across the
Mona Lisa's face.
Seated at Sauniure's desk, Lieutenant Collet pressed the phone to his
ear in disbelief. Did I hear Fache correctly? "A bar of soap? But how could
Langdon have known about the GPS dot?"
"Sophie Neveu," Fache replied. "She told him."
"What! Why?"
"Damned good question, but I just heard a recording that confirms she
tipped him off."
Collet was speechless. What was Neveu thinking? Fache had proof that
Sophie had interfered with a DCPJ sting operation? Sophie Neveu was not only
going to be fired, she was also going to jail. "But, Captain... then where
is Langdon now?"
"Have any fire alarms gone off there?"
"No, sir."
"And no one has come out under the Grand Gallery gate?"
"No. We've got a Louvre security officer on the gate. Just as you
requested."
"Okay, Langdon must still be inside the Grand Gallery."
"Inside? But what is he doing?"
"Is the Louvre security guard armed?"
"Yes, sir. He's a senior warden."
"Send him in," Fache commanded. "I can't get my men back to the
perimeter for a few minutes, and I don't want Langdon breaking for an exit."
Fache paused. "And you'd better tell the guard Agent Neveu is probably in
there with him."
"Agent Neveu left, I thought."
"Did you actually see her leave?"
"No, sir, but--"
"Well, nobody on the perimeter saw her leave either. They only saw her
go in."
Collet was flabbergasted by Sophie Neveu's bravado. She's still inside
the building?
"Handle it," Fache ordered. "I want Langdon and Neveu at gunpoint by
the time I get back."
As the Trailor truck drove off, Captain Fache rounded up his men.
Robert Langdon had proven an elusive quarry tonight, and with Agent Neveu
now helping him, he might be far harder to corner than expected.
Fache decided not to take any chances.
Hedging his bets, he ordered half of his men back to the Louvre
perimeter. The other half he sent to guard the only location in Paris where
Robert Langdon could find safe harbor.
Inside the Salle des Etats, Langdon stared in astonishment at the six
words glowing on the Plexiglas. The text seemed to hover in space, casting a
jagged shadow across Mona Lisa's mysterious smile.
"The Priory," Langdon whispered. "This proves your grandfather was a
member!"
Sophie looked at him in confusion. "You understand this?"
"It's flawless," Langdon said, nodding as his thoughts churned. "It's a
proclamation of one of the Priory's most fundamental philosophies!"
Sophie looked baffled in the glow of the message scrawled across the
Mona Lisa's face.
SO DARK THE CON OF MAN
"Sophie," Langdon said, "the Priory's tradition of perpetuating goddess
worship is based on a belief that powerful men in the early Christian church
'conned' the world by propagating lies that devalued the female and tipped
the scales in favor of the masculine."
Sophie remained silent, staring at the words.
"The Priory believes that Constantine and his male successors
successfully converted the world from matriarchal paganism to patriarchal
Christianity by waging a campaign of propaganda that demonized the sacred
feminine, obliterating the goddess from modern religion forever."
Sophie's expression remained uncertain. "My grandfather sent me to this
spot to find this. He must be trying to tell me more than that."
Langdon understood her meaning. She thinks this is another code.
Whether a hidden meaning existed here or not, Langdon could not immediately
say. His mind was still grappling with the bold clarity of Sauniure's
outward message.
So dark the con of man, he thought. So dark indeed.
Nobody could deny the enormous good the modern Church did in today's
troubled world, and yet the Church had a deceitful and violent history.
Their brutal crusade to "reeducate" the pagan and feminine-worshipping
religions spanned three centuries, employing methods as inspired as they
were horrific.
The Catholic Inquisition published the book that arguably could be
called the most blood-soaked publication in human history. Malleus
Maleficarum--or The Witches' Hammer--indoctrinated the world to "the dangers
of freethinking women" and instructed the clergy how to locate, torture, and
destroy them. Those deemed "witches" by the Church included all female
scholars, priestesses, gypsies, mystics, nature lovers, herb gatherers, and
any women "suspiciously attuned to the natural world." Midwives also were
killed for their heretical practice of using medical knowledge to ease the
pain of childbirth--a suffering, the Church claimed, that was God's rightful
punishment for Eve's partaking of the Apple of Knowledge, thus giving birth
to the idea of Original Sin. During three hundred years of witch hunts, the
Church burned at the stake an astounding five million women.
The propaganda and bloodshed had worked.
Today's world was living proof.
Women, once celebrated as an essential half of spiritual enlightenment,
had been banished from the temples of the world. There were no female
Orthodox rabbis, Catholic priests, nor Islamic clerics. The once hallowed
act of Hieros Gamos--the natural sexual union between man and woman through
which each became spiritually whole--had been recast as a shameful act. Holy
men who had once required sexual union with their female counterparts to
commune with God now feared their natural sexual urges as the work of the
devil, collaborating with his favorite accomplice... woman.
Not even the feminine association with the left-hand side could escape
the Church's defamation. In France and Italy, the words for "left"--gauche
and sinistra--came to have deeply negative overtones, while their right-hand
counterparts rang of righteousness, dexterity, and correctness. To this day,
radical thought was considered left wing, irrational thought was left brain,
and anything evil, sinister.
The days of the goddess were over. The pendulum had swung. Mother Earth
had become a man's world, and the gods of destruction and war were taking
their toll. The male ego had spent two millennia running unchecked by its
female counterpart. The Priory of Sion believed that it was this
obliteration of the sacred feminine in modern life that had caused what the
Hopi Native Americans called koyanisquatsi--"life out of balance"--an
unstable situation marked by testosterone-fueled wars, a plethora of
misogynistic societies, and a growing disrespect for Mother Earth.
"Robert!" Sophie said, her whisper yanking him back. "Someone's
coming!"
He heard the approaching footsteps out in the hallway.
"Over here!" Sophie extinguished the black light and seemed to
evaporate before Langdon's eyes.
For an instant he felt totally blind. Over where! As his vision cleared
he saw Sophie's silhouette racing toward the center of the room and ducking
out of sight behind the octagonal viewing bench. He was about to dash after
her when a booming voice stopped him cold.
"Arrutez!" a man commanded from the doorway.
The Louvre security agent advanced through the entrance to the Salle
des Etats, his pistol outstretched, taking deadly aim at Langdon's chest.
Langdon felt his arms raise instinctively for the ceiling.
"Couchez-vous!" the guard commanded. "Lie down!"
Langdon was face first on the floor in a matter of seconds. The guard
hurried over and kicked his legs apart, spreading Langdon out.
"Mauvaise idue, Monsieur Langdon," he said, pressing the gun hard into
Langdon's back. "Mauvaise idue."
Face down on the parquet floor with his arms and legs spread wide,
Langdon found little humor in the irony of his position. The Vitruvian Man,
he thought. Face down.
Inside Saint-Sulpice, Silas carried the heavy iron votive candle holder
from the altar back toward the obelisk. The shaft would do nicely as a
battering ram. Eyeing the gray marble panel that covered the apparent hollow
in the floor, he realized he could not possibly shatter the covering without
making considerable noise.
Iron on marble. It would echo off the vaulted ceilings.
Would the nun hear him? She should be asleep by now. Even so, it was a
chance Silas preferred not to take. Looking around for a cloth to wrap
around the tip of the iron pole, he saw nothing except the altar's linen
mantle, which he refused to defile. My cloak, he thought. Knowing he was
alone in the great church, Silas untied his cloak and slipped it off his
body. As he removed it, he felt a sting as the wool fibers stuck to the
fresh wounds on his back.
Naked now, except for his loin swaddle, Silas wrapped his cloak over
the end of the iron rod. Then, aiming at the center of the floor tile, he
drove the tip into it. A muffled thud. The stone did not break. He drove the
pole into it again. Again a dull thud, but this time accompanied by a crack.
On the third swing, the covering finally shattered, and stone shards fell
into a hollow area beneath the floor.
A compartment!
Quickly pulling the remaining pieces from the opening, Silas gazed into
the void. His blood pounded as he knelt down before it. Raising his pale
bare arm, he reached inside.
At first he felt nothing. The floor of the compartment was bare, smooth
stone. Then, feeling deeper, reaching his arm in under the Rose Line, he
touched something! A thick stone tablet. Getting his fingers around the
edge, he gripped it and gently lifted the tablet out. As he stood and
examined his find, he realized he was holding a rough-hewn stone slab with
engraved words. He felt for an instant like a modern-day Moses.
As Silas read the words on the tablet, he felt surprise. He had
expected the keystone to be a map, or a complex series of directions,
perhaps even encoded. The keystone, however, bore the simplest of
inscriptions.
Job 38:11
A Bible verse? Silas was stunned with the devilish simplicity. The
secret location of that which they sought was revealed in a Bible verse? The
brotherhood stopped at nothing to mock the righteous!
Job. Chapter thirty-eight. Verse eleven.
Although Silas did not recall the exact contents of verse eleven by
heart, he knew the Book of Job told the story of a man whose faith in God
survived repeated tests. Appropriate, he thought, barely able to contain his
excitement.
Looking over his shoulder, he gazed down the shimmering Rose Line and
couldn't help but smile. There atop the main altar, propped open on a gilded
book stand, sat an enormous leather-bound Bible.
Up in the balcony, Sister Sandrine was shaking. Moments ago, she had
been about to flee and carry out her orders, when the man below suddenly
removed his cloak. When she saw his alabaster-white flesh, she was overcome
with a horrified bewilderment. His broad, pale back was soaked with
blood-red slashes. Even from here she could see the wounds were fresh.
This man has been mercilessly whipped!
She also saw the bloody cilice around his thigh, the wound beneath it
dripping. What kind of God would want a body punished this way? The rituals
of Opus Dei, Sister Sandrine knew, were not something she would ever
understand. But that was hardly her concern at this instant. Opus Dei is
searching for the keystone. How they knew of it, Sister Sandrine could not
imagine, although she knew she did not have time to think.
The bloody monk was now quietly donning his cloak again, clutching his
prize as he moved toward the altar, toward the Bible.
In breathless silence, Sister Sandrine left the balcony and raced down
the hall to her quarters. Getting on her hands and knees, she reached
beneath her wooden bed frame and retrieved the sealed envelope she had
hidden there years ago.
Tearing it open, she found four Paris phone numbers.
Trembling, she began to dial.
Downstairs, Silas laid the stone tablet on the altar and turned his
eager hands to the leather Bible. His long white fingers were sweating now
as he turned the pages. Flipping through the Old Testament, he found the
Book of Job. He located chapter thirty-eight. As he ran his finger down the
column of text, he anticipated the words he was about to read.
They will lead the way!
Finding verse number eleven, Silas read the text. It was only seven
words. Confused, he read it again, sensing something had gone terribly
wrong. The verse simply read:
HITHERTO SHALT THOU COME, BUT NO FURTHER.
Security warden Claude Grouard simmered with rage as he stood over his
prostrate captive in front of the Mona Lisa. This bastard killed Jacques
Sauniure! Sauniure had been like a well-loved father to Grouard and his
security team.
Grouard wanted nothing more than to pull the trigger and bury a bullet
in Robert Langdon's back. As senior warden, Grouard was one of the few
guards who actually carried a loaded weapon. He reminded himself, however,
that killing Langdon would be a generous fate compared to the misery about
to be communicated by Bezu Fache and the French prison system.
Grouard yanked his walkie-talkie off his belt and attempted to radio
for backup. All he heard was static. The additional electronic security in
this chamber always wrought havoc with the guards' communications. I have to
move to the doorway. Still aiming his weapon at Langdon, Grouard began
backing slowly toward the entrance. On his third step, he spied something
that made him stop short.
What the hell is that!
An inexplicable mirage was materializing near the center of the room. A
silhouette. There was someone else in the room? A woman was moving through
the darkness, walking briskly toward the far left wall. In front of her, a
purplish beam of light swung back and forth across the floor, as if she were
searching for something with a colored flashlight.
"Qui est lu?" Grouard demanded, feeling his adrenaline spike for a
second time in the last thirty seconds. He suddenly didn't know where to aim
his gun or what direction to move.
"PTS," the woman replied calmly, still scanning the floor with her
light.
Police Technique et Scientifique. Grouard was sweating now. I thought
all the agents were gone! He now recognized the purple light as ultraviolet,
consistent with a PTS team, and yet he could not understand why DCPJ would
be looking for evidence in here.
"Votre nom!" Grouard yelled, instinct telling him something was amiss.
"Rupondez!"
"C'est mot," the voice responded in calm French. "Sophie Neveu."
Somewhere in the distant recesses of Grouard's mind, the name
registered. Sophie Neveu? That was the name of Sauniure's granddaughter,
wasn't it? She used to come in here as a little kid, but that was years ago.
This couldn't possibly be her! And even if it were Sophie Neveu, that was
hardly a reason to trust her; Grouard had heard the rumors of the painful
falling-out between Sauniure and his granddaughter.
"You know me," the woman called. "And Robert Langdon did not kill my
grandfather. Believe me."
Warden Grouard was not about to take that on faith. I need backup!
Trying his walkie-talkie again, he got only static. The entrance was still a
good twenty yards behind him, and Grouard began backing up slowly, choosing
to leave his gun trained on the man on the floor. As Grouard inched
backward, he could see the woman across the room raising her UV light and
scrutinizing a large painting that hung on the far side of the Salle des
Etats, directly opposite the Mona Lisa.
Grouard gasped, realizing which painting it was.
What in the name of God is she doing?
Across the room, Sophie Neveu felt a cold sweat breaking across her
forehead. Langdon was still spread-eagle on the floor. Hold on, Robert.
Almost there. Knowing the guard would never actually shoot either of them,
Sophie now turned her attention back to the matter at hand, scanning the
entire area around one masterpiece in particular--another Da Vinci. But the
UV light revealed nothing out of the ordinary. Not on the floor, on the
walls, or even on the canvas itself.
There must be something here!
Sophie felt totally certain she had deciphered her grandfather's
intentions correctly.
What else could he possibly intend?
The masterpiece she was examining was a five-foot-tall canvas. The
bizarre scene Da Vinci had painted included an awkwardly posed Virgin Mary
sitting with Baby Jesus, John the Baptist, and the Angel Uriel on a perilous
outcropping of rocks. When Sophie was a little girl, no trip to the Mona
Lisa had been complete without her grandfather dragging her across the room
to see this second painting.
Grand-pure, I'm here! But I don't see it!
Behind her, Sophie could hear the guard trying to radio again for help.
Think!
She pictured the message scrawled on the protective glass of the Mona
Lisa. So dark the con of man. The painting before her had no protective
glass on which to write a message, and Sophie knew her grandfather would
never have defaced this masterpiece by writing on the painting itself. She
paused. At least not on the front. Her eyes shot upward, climbing the long
cables that dangled from the ceiling to support the canvas.
Could that be it? Grabbing the left side of the carved wood frame, she
pulled it toward her. The painting was large and the backing flexed as she
swung it away from the wall. Sophie slipped her head and shoulders in behind
the painting and raised the black light to inspect the back.
It took only seconds to realize her instinct had been wrong. The back
of the painting was pale and blank. There was no purple text here, only the
mottled brown backside of aging canvas and--
Wait.
Sophie's eyes locked on an incongruous glint of lustrous metal lodged
near the bottom edge of the frame's wooden armature. The object was small,
partially wedged in the slit where the canvas met the frame. A shimmering
gold chain dangled off it.
To Sophie's utter amazement, the chain was affixed to a familiar gold
key. The broad, sculpted head was in the shape of a cross and bore an
engraved seal she had not seen since she was nine years old. A fleur-de-lis
with the initials P.S. In that instant, Sophie felt the ghost of her
grandfather whispering in her ear. When the time comes, the key will be
yours. A tightness gripped her throat as she realized that her grandfather,
even in death, had kept his promise. This key opens a box, his voice was
saying, where I keep many secrets.
Sophie now realized that the entire purpose of tonight's word game had
been this key. Her grandfather had it with him when he was killed. Not
wanting it to fall into the hands of the police, he hid it behind this
painting. Then he devised an ingenious treasure hunt to ensure only Sophie
would find it.
"Au secours!" the guard's voice yelled.
Sophie snatched the key from behind the painting and slipped it deep in
her pocket along with the UV penlight. Peering out from behind the canvas,
she could see the guard was still trying desperately to raise someone on the
walkie-talkie. He was backing toward the entrance, still aiming the gun
firmly at Langdon.
"Au secours!" he shouted again into his radio.
Static.
He can't transmit, Sophie realized, recalling that tourists with cell
phones often got frustrated in here when they tried to call home to brag
about seeing the Mona Lisa. The extra surveillance wiring in the walls made
it virtually impossible to get a carrier unless you stepped out into the
hall. The guard was backing quickly toward the exit now, and Sophie knew she
had to act immediately.
Gazing up at the large painting behind which she was partially
ensconced, Sophie realized that Leonardo da Vinci, for the second time
tonight, was there to help.
Another few meters, Grouard told himself, keeping his gun leveled.
"Arrutez! Ou je la dutruis!" the woman's voice echoed across the room.
Grouard glanced over and stopped in his tracks. "Mon dieu, non!"
Through the reddish haze, he could see that the woman had actually
lifted the large painting off its cables and propped it on the floor in
front of her. At five feet tall, the canvas almost entirely hid her body.
Grouard's first thought was to wonder why the painting's trip wires hadn't
set off alarms, but of course the artwork cable sensors had yet to be reset
tonight. What is she doing!
When he saw it, his blood went cold.
The canvas started to bulge in the middle, the fragile outlines of the
Virgin Mary, Baby Jesus, and John the Baptist beginning to distort.
"Non!" Grouard screamed, frozen in horror as he watched the priceless
Da Vinci stretching. The woman was pushing her knee into the center of the
canvas from behind! "NON!"
Grouard wheeled and aimed his gun at her but instantly realized it was
an empty threat. The canvas was only fabric, but it was utterly
impenetrable--a six-million-dollar piece of body armor.
I can't put a bullet through a Da Vinci!
"Set down your gun and radio," the woman said in calm French, "or I'll
put my knee through this painting. I think you know how my grandfather would
feel about that."
Grouard felt dizzy. "Please... no. That's Madonna of the Rocks!" He
dropped his gun and radio, raising his hands over his head.
"Thank you," the woman said. "Now do exactly as I tell you, and
everything will work out fine."
Moments later, Langdon's pulse was still thundering as he ran beside
Sophie down the emergency stairwell toward the ground level. Neither of them
had said a word since leaving the trembling Louvre guard lying in the Salle
des Etats. The guard's pistol was now clutched tightly in Langdon's hands,
and he couldn't wait to get rid of it. The weapon felt heavy and dangerously
foreign.
Taking the stairs two at a time, Langdon wondered if Sophie had any
idea how valuable a painting she had almost ruined. Her choice in art seemed
eerily pertinent to tonight's adventure. The Da Vinci she had grabbed, much
like the Mona Lisa, was notorious among art historians for its plethora of
hidden pagan symbolism.
"You chose a valuable hostage," he said as they ran.
"Madonna of the Rocks," she replied. "But I didn't choose it, my
grandfather did. He left me a little something behind the painting."
Langdon shot her a startled look. "What!? But how did you know which
painting? Why Madonna of the Rocks?"
"So dark the con of man." She flashed a triumphant smile. "I missed the
first two anagrams, Robert. I wasn't about to miss the third."
"They're dead!" Sister Sandrine stammered into the telephone in her
Saint-Sulpice residence. She was leaving a message on an answering machine.
"Please pick up! They're all dead!"
The first three phone numbers on the list had produced terrifying
results--a hysterical widow, a detective working late at a murder scene, and
a somber priest consoling a bereaved family. All three contacts were dead.
And now, as she called the fourth and final number--the number she was not
supposed to call unless the first three could not be reached--she got an
answering machine. The outgoing message offered no name but simply asked the
caller to leave a message.
"The floor panel has been broken!" she pleaded as she left the message.
"The other three are dead!"
Sister Sandrine did not know the identities of the four men she
protected, but the private phone numbers stashed beneath her bed were for
use on only one condition.
If that floor panel is ever broken, the faceless messenger had told
her, it means the upper echelon has been breached. One of us has been
mortally threatened and been forced to tell a desperate lie. Call the
numbers. Warn the others. Do not fail us in this.
It was a silent alarm. Foolproof in its simplicity. The plan had amazed
her when she first heard it. If the identity of one brother was compromised,
he could tell a lie that would start in motion a mechanism to warn the
others. Tonight, however, it seemed that more than one had been compromised.
"Please answer," she whispered in fear. "Where are you?"
"Hang up the phone," a deep voice said from the doorway.
Turning in terror, she saw the massive monk. He was clutching the heavy
iron candle stand. Shaking, she set the phone back in the cradle.
"They are dead," the monk said. "All four of them. And they have played
me for a fool. Tell me where the keystone is."
"I don't know!" Sister Sandrine said truthfully. "That secret is
guarded by others." Others who are dead!
The man advanced, his white fists gripping the iron stand. "You are a
sister of the Church, and yet you serve them?"
"Jesus had but one true message," Sister Sandrine said defiantly. "I
cannot see that message in Opus Dei."
A sudden explosion of rage erupted behind the monk's eyes. He lunged,
lashing out with the candle stand like a club. As Sister Sandrine fell, her
last feeling was an overwhelming sense of foreboding.
All four are dead.
The precious truth is lost forever.
The security alarm on the west end of the Denon Wing sent the pigeons
in the nearby Tuileries Gardens scattering as Langdon and Sophie dashed out
of the bulkhead into the Paris night. As they ran across the plaza to
Sophie's car, Langdon could hear police sirens wailing in the distance.
"That's it there," Sophie called, pointing to a red snub-nosed
two-seater parked on the plaza.
She's kidding, right? The vehicle was easily the smallest car Langdon
had ever seen.
"SmartCar," she said. "A hundred kilometers to the liter."
Langdon had barely thrown himself into the passenger seat before Sophie
gunned the SmartCar up and over a curb onto a gravel divider. He gripped the
dash as the car shot out across a sidewalk and bounced back down over into
the small rotary at Carrousel du Louvre.
For an instant, Sophie seemed to consider taking the shortcut across
the rotary by plowing straight ahead, through the median's perimeter hedge,
and bisecting the large circle of grass in the center.
"No!" Langdon shouted, knowing the hedges around Carrousel du Louvre
were there to hide the perilous chasm in the center--La Pyramide
Inversue--the upside-down pyramid skylight he had seen earlier from inside
the museum. It was large enough to swallow their Smart-Car in a single gulp.
Fortunately, Sophie decided on the more conventional route, jamming the
wheel hard to the right, circling properly until she exited, cut left, and
swung into the northbound lane, accelerating toward Rue de Rivoli.
The two-tone police sirens blared louder behind them, and Langdon could
see the lights now in his side view mirror. The SmartCar engine whined in
protest as Sophie urged it faster away from the Louvre. Fifty yards ahead,
the traffic light at Rivoli turned red. Sophie cursed under her breath and
kept racing toward it. Langdon felt his muscles tighten.
"Sophie?"
Slowing only slightly as they reached the intersection, Sophie flicked
her headlights and stole a quick glance both ways before flooring the
accelerator again and carving a sharp left turn through the empty
intersection onto Rivoli. Accelerating west for a quarter of a mile, Sophie
banked to the right around a wide rotary. Soon they were shooting out the
other side onto the wide avenue of Champs-Elysues.
As they straightened out, Langdon turned in his seat, craning his neck
to look out the rear window toward the Louvre. The police did not seem to be
chasing them. The sea of blue lights was assembling at the museum.
His heartbeat finally slowing, Langdon turned back around. "That was
interesting."
Sophie didn't seem to hear. Her eyes remained fixed ahead down the long
thoroughfare of Champs-Elysues, the two-mile stretch of posh storefronts
that was often called the Fifth Avenue of Paris. The embassy was only about
a mile away, and Langdon settled into his seat. So dark the con of man.
Sophie's quick thinking had been impressive. Madonna of the Rocks.
Sophie had said her grandfather left her something behind the painting.
A final message? Langdon could not help but marvel over Sauniure's brilliant
hiding place; Madonna of the Rocks was yet another fitting link in the
evening's chain of interconnected symbolism. Sauniure, it seemed, at every
turn, was reinforcing his fondness for the dark and mischievous side of
Leonardo da Vinci.
Da Vinci's original commission for Madonna of the Rocks had come from
an organization known as the Confraternity of the Immaculate Conception,
which needed a painting for the centerpiece of an altar triptych in their
church of San Francesco in Milan. The nuns gave Leonardo specific
dimensions, and the desired theme for the painting--the Virgin Mary, baby
John the Baptist, Uriel, and Baby Jesus sheltering in a cave. Although Da
Vinci did as they requested, when he delivered the work, the group reacted
with horror. He had filled the painting with explosive and disturbing
details.
The painting showed a blue-robed Virgin Mary sitting with her arm
around an infant child, presumably Baby Jesus. Opposite Mary sat Uriel, also
with an infant, presumably baby John the Baptist. Oddly, though, rather than
the usual Jesus-blessing-John scenario, it was baby John who was blessing
Jesus... and Jesus was submitting to his authority! More troubling still,
Mary was holding one hand high above the head of infant John and making a
decidedly threatening gesture--her fingers looking like eagle's talons,
gripping an invisible head. Finally, the most obvious and frightening image:
Just below Mary's curled fingers, Uriel was making a cutting gesture with
his hand--as if slicing the neck of the invisible head gripped by Mary's
claw-like hand.
Langdon's students were always amused to learn that Da Vinci eventually
mollified the confraternity by painting them a second, "watered-down"
version of Madonna of the Rocks in which everyone was arranged in a more
orthodox manner. The second version now hung in London's National Gallery
under the name Virgin of the Rocks, although Langdon still preferred the
Louvre's more intriguing original.
As Sophie gunned the car up Champs-Elysues, Langdon said, "The
painting. What was behind it?"
Her eyes remained on the road. "I'll show you once we're safely inside
the embassy."
"You'll show it to me?" Langdon was surprised. "He left you a physical
object?"
Sophie gave a curt nod. "Embossed with a fleur-de-lis and the initials
P.S."
Langdon couldn't believe his ears.
We're going to make it, Sophie thought as she swung the SmartCar's
wheel to the right, cutting sharply past the luxurious Hutel de Crillon into
Paris's tree-lined diplomatic neighborhood. The embassy was less than a mile
away now. She was finally feeling like she could breathe normally again.
Even as she drove, Sophie's mind remained locked on the key in her
pocket, her memories of seeing it many years ago, the gold head shaped as an
equal-armed cross, the triangular shaft, the indentations, the embossed
flowery seal, and the letters P.S.
Although the key barely had entered Sophie's thoughts through the
years, her work in the intelligence community had taught her plenty about
security, and now the key's peculiar tooling no longer looked so mystifying.
A laser-tooled varying matrix. Impossible to duplicate. Rather than teeth
that moved tumblers, this key's complex series of laser-burned pockmarks was
examined by an electric eye. If the eye determined that the hexagonal
pockmarks were correctly spaced, arranged, and rotated, then the lock would
open.
Sophie could not begin to imagine what a key like this opened, but she
sensed Robert would be able to tell her. After all, he had described the
key's embossed seal without ever seeing it. The cruciform on top implied the
key belonged to some kind of Christian organization, and yet Sophie knew of
no churches that used laser-tooled varying matrix keys.
Besides, my grandfather was no Christian....
Sophie had witnessed proof of that ten years ago. Ironically, it had
been another key--a far more normal one--that had revealed his true nature
to her.
The afternoon had been warm when she landed at Charles de Gaulle
Airport and hailed a taxi home. Grand-pure will be so surprised to see me,
she thought. Returning from graduate school in Britain for spring break a
few days early, Sophie couldn't wait to see him and tell him all about the
encryption methods she was studying.
When she arrived at their Paris home, however, her grandfather was not
there. Disappointed, she knew he had not been expecting her and was probably
working at the Louvre. But it's Saturday afternoon, she realized. He seldom
worked on weekends. On weekends, he usually--
Grinning, Sophie ran out to the garage. Sure enough, his car was gone.
It was the weekend. Jacques Sauniure despised city driving and owned a car
for one destination only--his vacation chuteau in Normandy, north of Paris.
Sophie, after months in the congestion of London, was eager for the smells
of nature and to start her vacation right away. It was still early evening,
and she decided to leave immediately and surprise him. Borrowing a friend's
car, Sophie drove north, winding into the deserted moon-swept hills near
Creully. She arrived just after ten o'clock, turning down the long private
driveway toward her grandfather's retreat. The access road was over a mile
long, and she was halfway down it before she could start to see the house
through the trees--a mammoth, old stone chuteau nestled in the woods on the
side of a hill.
Sophie had half expected to find her grandfather asleep at this hour
and was excited to see the house twinkling with lights. Her delight turned
to surprise, however, when she arrived to find the driveway filled with
parked cars--Mercedeses, BMWs, Audis, and a Rolls-Royce.
Sophie stared a moment and then burst out laughing. My grand-pure, the
famous recluse! Jacques Sauniure, it seemed, was far less reclusive than he
liked to pretend. Clearly he was hosting a party while Sophie was away at
school, and from the looks of the automobiles, some of Paris's most
influential people were in attendance.
Eager to surprise him, she hurried to the front door. When she got
there, though, she found it locked. She knocked. Nobody answered. Puzzled,
she walked around and tried the back door. It too was locked. No answer.
Confused, she stood a moment and listened. The only sound she heard was
the cool Normandy air letting out a low moan as it swirled through the
valley.
No music.
No voices.
Nothing.
In the silence of the woods, Sophie hurried to the side of the house
and clambered up on a woodpile, pressing her face to the living room window.
What she saw inside made no sense at all.
"Nobody's here!"
The entire first floor looked deserted.
Where are all the people?
Heart racing, Sophie ran to the woodshed and got the spare key her
grandfather kept hidden under the kindling box. She ran to the front door
and let herself in. As she stepped into the deserted foyer, the control
panel for the security system started blinking red--a warning that the
entrant had ten seconds to type the proper code before the security alarms
went off.
He has the alarm on during a party?
Sophie quickly typed the code and deactivated the system.
Entering, she found the entire house uninhabited. Upstairs too. As she
descended again to the deserted living room, she stood a moment in the
silence, wondering what could possibly be happening.
It was then that Sophie heard it.
Muffled voices. And they seemed to be coming from underneath her.
Sophie could not imagine. Crouching, she put her ear to the floor and
listened. Yes, the sound was definitely coming from below. The voices seemed
to be singing, or... chanting? She was frightened. Almost more eerie than
the sound itself was the realization that this house did not even have a
basement.
At least none I've ever seen.
Turning now and scanning the living room, Sophie's eyes fell to the
only object in the entire house that seemed out of place--her grandfather's
favorite antique, a sprawling Aubusson tapestry. It usually hung on the east
wall beside the fireplace, but tonight it had been pulled aside on its brass
rod, exposing the wall behind it.
Walking toward the bare wooden wall, Sophie sensed the chanting getting
louder. Hesitant, she leaned her ear against the wood. The voices were
clearer now. People were definitely chanting... intoning words Sophie could
not discern.
The space behind this wall is hollow!
Feeling around the edge of the panels, Sophie found a recessed
fingerhold. It was discreetly crafted. A sliding door. Heart pounding, she
placed her finger in the slot and pulled it. With noiseless precision, the
heavy wall slid sideways. From out of the darkness beyond, the voices echoed
up.
Sophie slipped through the door and found herself on a rough-hewn stone
staircase that spiraled downward. She'd been coming to this house since she
was a child and yet had no idea this staircase even existed!
As she descended, the air grew cooler. The voices clearer. She heard
men and women now. Her line of sight was limited by the spiral of the
staircase, but the last step was now rounding into view. Beyond it, she
could see a small patch of the basement floor--stone, illuminated by the
flickering orange blaze of firelight.
Holding her breath, Sophie inched down another few steps and crouched
down to look. It took her several seconds to process what she was seeing.
The room was a grotto--a coarse chamber that appeared to have been
hollowed from the granite of the hillside. The only light came from torches
on the walls. In the glow of the flames, thirty or so people stood in a
circle in the center of the room.
I'm dreaming, Sophie told herself. A dream. What else could this be?
Everyone in the room was wearing a mask. The women were dressed in
white gossamer gowns and golden shoes. Their masks were white, and in their
hands they carried golden orbs. The men wore long black tunics, and their
masks were black. They looked like pieces in a giant chess set. Everyone in
the circle rocked back and forth and chanted in reverence to something on
the floor before them... something Sophie could not see.
The chanting grew steady again. Accelerating. Thundering now. Faster.
The participants took a step inward and knelt. In that instant, Sophie could
finally see what they all were witnessing. Even as she staggered back in
horror, she felt the image searing itself into her memory forever. Overtaken
by nausea, Sophie spun, clutching at the stone walls as she clambered back
up the stairs. Pulling the door closed, she fled the deserted house, and
drove in a tearful stupor back to Paris.
That night, with her life shattered by disillusionment and betrayal,
she packed her belongings and left her home. On the dining room table, she
left a note.
I WAS THERE. DON'T TRY TO FIND ME.
Beside the note, she laid the old spare key from the chuteau's
woodshed.
"Sophie! Langdon's voice intruded. "Stop! Stop!"
Emerging from the memory, Sophie slammed on the brakes, skidding to a
halt. "What? What happened?!"
Langdon pointed down the long street before them.
When she saw it, Sophie's blood went cold. A hundred yards ahead, the
intersection was blocked by a couple of DCPJ police cars, parked askew,
their purpose obvious. They've sealed off Avenue Gabriel!
Langdon gave a grim sigh. "I take it the embassy is off-limits this
evening?"
Down the street, the two DCPJ officers who stood beside their cars were
now staring in their direction, apparently curious about the headlights that
had halted so abruptly up the street from them.
Okay, Sophie, turn around very slowly.
Putting the SmartCar in reverse, she performed a composed three-point
turn and reversed her direction. As she drove away, she heard the sound of
squealing tires behind them. Sirens blared to life.
Cursing, Sophie slammed down the accelerator.
Sophie's SmartCar tore through the diplomatic quarter, weaving past
embassies and consulates, finally racing out a side street and taking a
right turn back onto the massive thoroughfare of Champs-Elysues.
Langdon sat white-knuckled in the passenger seat, twisted backward,
scanning behind them for any signs of the police. He suddenly wished he had
not decided to run. You didn't, he reminded himself. Sophie had made the
decision for him when she threw the GPS dot out the bathroom window. Now, as
they sped away from the embassy, serpentining through sparse traffic on
Champs-Elysues, Langdon felt his options deteriorating. Although Sophie
seemed to have lost the police, at least for the moment, Langdon doubted
their luck would hold for long.
Behind the wheel Sophie was fishing in her sweater pocket. She removed
a small metal object and held it out for him. "Robert, you'd better have a
look at this. This is what my grandfather left me behind Madonna of the
Rocks."
Feeling a shiver of anticipation, Langdon took the object and examined
it. It was heavy and shaped like a cruciform. His first instinct was that he
was holding a funeral pieu--a miniature version of a memorial spike designed
to be stuck into the ground at a gravesite. But then he noted the shaft
protruding from the cruciform was prismatic and triangular. The shaft was
also pockmarked with hundreds of tiny hexagons that appeared to be finely
tooled and scattered at random.
"It's a laser-cut key," Sophie told him. "Those hexagons are read by an
electric eye."
A key? Langdon had never seen anything like it.
"Look at the other side," she said, changing lanes and sailing through
an intersection.
When Langdon turned the key, he felt his jaw drop. There, intricately
embossed on the center of the cross, was a stylized fleur-de-lis with the
initials P.S.! "Sophie," he said, "this is the seal I told you about! The
official device of the Priory of Sion."
She nodded. "As I told you, I saw the key a long time ago. He told me
never to speak of it again."
Langdon's eyes were still riveted on the embossed key. Its high-tech
tooling and age-old symbolism exuded an eerie fusion of ancient and modern
worlds.
"He told me the key opened a box where he kept many secrets."
Langdon felt a chill to imagine what kind of secrets a man like Jacques
Sauniure might keep. What an ancient brotherhood was doing with a futuristic
key, Langdon had no idea. The Priory existed for the sole purpose of
protecting a secret. A secret of incredible power. Could this key have
something to do with it? The thought was overwhelming. "Do you know what it
opens?"
Sophie looked disappointed. "I was hoping you knew."
Langdon remained silent as he turned the cruciform in his hand,
examining it.
"It looks Christian," Sophie pressed.
Langdon was not so sure about that. The head of this key was not the
traditional long-stemmed Christian cross but rather was a square cross--with
four arms of equal length--which predated Christianity by fifteen hundred
years. This kind of cross carried none of the Christian connotations of
crucifixion associated with the longer-stemmed Latin Cross, originated by
Romans as a torture device. Langdon was always surprised how few Christians
who gazed upon "the crucifix" realized their symbol's violent history was
reflected in its very name: "cross" and "crucifix" came from the Latin verb
cruciare--to torture.
"Sophie," he said, "all I can tell you is that equal-armed crosses like
this one are considered peaceful crosses. Their square configurations make
them impractical for use in crucifixion, and their balanced vertical and
horizontal elements convey a natural union of male and female, making them
symbolically consistent with Priory philosophy."
She gave him a weary look. "You have no idea, do you?"
Langdon frowned. "Not a clue."
"Okay, we have to get off the road." Sophie checked her rearview
mirror. "We need a safe place to figure out what that key opens."
Langdon thought longingly of his comfortable room at the Ritz.
Obviously, that was not an option. "How about my hosts at the American
University of Paris?"
"Too obvious. Fache will check with them."
"You must know people. You live here."
"Fache will run my phone and e-mail records, talk to my coworkers. My
contacts are compromised, and finding a hotel is no good because they all
require identification."
Langdon wondered again if he might have been better off taking his
chances letting Fache arrest him at the Louvre. "Let's call the embassy. I
can explain the situation and have the embassy send someone to meet us
somewhere."
"Meet us?" Sophie turned and stared at him as if he were crazy.
"Robert, you're dreaming. Your embassy has no jurisdiction except on their
own property. Sending someone to retrieve us would be considered aiding a
fugitive of the French government. It won't happen. If you walk into your
embassy and request temporary asylum, that's one thing, but asking them to
take action against French law enforcement in the field?" She shook her
head. "Call your embassy right now, and they are going to tell you to avoid
further damage and turn yourself over to Fache. Then they'll promise to
pursue diplomatic channels to get you a fair trial." She gazed up the line
of elegant storefronts on Champs-Elysues. "How much cash do you have?"
Langdon checked his wallet. "A hundred dollars. A few euro. Why?"
"Credit cards?"
"Of course."
As Sophie accelerated, Langdon sensed she was formulating a plan. Dead
ahead, at the end of Champs-Elysues, stood the Arc de Triomphe--Napoleon's
164-foot-tall tribute to his own military potency--encircled by France's
largest rotary, a nine-lane behemoth.
Sophie's eyes were on the rearview mirror again as they approached the
rotary. "We lost them for the time being," she said, "but we won't last
another five minutes if we stay in this car."
So steal a different one, Langdon mused, now that we're criminals.
"What are you going to do?"
Sophie gunned the SmartCar into the rotary. "Trust me."
Langdon made no response. Trust had not gotten him very far this
evening. Pulling back the sleeve of his jacket, he checked his watch--a
vintage, collector's-edition Mickey Mouse wristwatch that had been a gift
from his parents on his tenth birthday. Although its juvenile dial often
drew odd looks, Langdon had never owned any other watch; Disney animations
had been his first introduction to the magic of form and color, and Mickey
now served as Langdon's daily reminder to stay young at heart. At the
moment, however, Mickey's arms were skewed at an awkward angle, indicating
an equally awkward hour.
2:51 A.M.
"Interesting watch," Sophie said, glancing at his wrist and maneuvering
the SmartCar around the wide, counterclockwise rotary.
"Long story," he said, pulling his sleeve back down.
"I imagine it would have to be." She gave him a quick smile and exited
the rotary, heading due north, away from the city center. Barely making two
green lights, she reached the third intersection and took a hard right onto
Boulevard Malesherbes. They'd left the rich, tree-lined streets of the
diplomatic neighborhood and plunged into a darker industrial neighborhood.
Sophie took a quick left, and a moment later, Langdon realized where they
were.
Gare Saint-Lazare.
Ahead of them, the glass-roofed train terminal resembled the awkward
offspring of an airplane hangar and a greenhouse. European train stations
never slept. Even at this hour, a half-dozen taxis idled near the main
entrance. Vendors manned carts of sandwiches and mineral water while grungy
kids in backpacks emerged from the station rubbing their eyes, looking
around as if trying to remember what city they were in now. Up ahead on the
street, a couple of city policemen stood on the curb giving directions to
some confused tourists.
Sophie pulled her SmartCar in behind the line of taxis and parked in a
red zone despite plenty of legal parking across the street. Before Langdon
could ask what was going on, she was out of the car. She hurried to the
window of the taxi in front of them and began speaking to the driver.
As Langdon got out of the SmartCar, he saw Sophie hand the taxi driver
a big wad of cash. The taxi driver nodded and then, to Langdon's
bewilderment, sped off without them.
"What happened?" Langdon demanded, joining Sophie on the curb as the
taxi disappeared.
Sophie was already heading for the train station entrance. "Come on.
We're buying two tickets on the next train out of Paris."
Langdon hurried along beside her. What had begun as a one-mile dash to
the U.S. Embassy had now become a full-fledged evacuation from Paris.
Langdon was liking this idea less and less.
The driver who collected Bishop Aringarosa from Leonardo da Vinci
International Airport pulled up in a small, unimpressive black Fiat sedan.
Aringarosa recalled a day when all Vatican transports were big luxury cars
that sported grille-plate medallions and flags emblazoned with the seal of
the Holy See. Those days are gone. Vatican cars were now less ostentatious
and almost always unmarked. The Vatican claimed this was to cut costs to
better serve their dioceses, but Aringarosa suspected it was more of a
security measure. The world had gone mad, and in many parts of Europe,
advertising your love of Jesus Christ was like painting a bull's-eye on the
roof of your car.
Bundling his black cassock around himself, Aringarosa climbed into the
back seat and settled in for the long drive to Castel Gandolfo. It would be
the same ride he had taken five months ago.
Last year's trip to Rome, he sighed. The longest night of my life.
Five months ago, the Vatican had phoned to request Aringarosa's
immediate presence in Rome. They offered no explanation. Your tickets are at
the airport. The Holy See worked hard to retain a veil of mystery, even for
its highest clergy.
The mysterious summons, Aringarosa suspected, was probably a photo
opportunity for the Pope and other Vatican officials to piggyback on Opus
Dei's recent public success--the completion of their World Headquarters in
New York City. Architectural Digest had called Opus Dei's building "a
shining beacon of Catholicism sublimely integrated with the modern
landscape," and lately the Vatican seemed to be drawn to anything and
everything that included the word "modern."
Aringarosa had no choice but to accept the invitation, albeit
reluctantly. Not a fan of the current papal administration, Aringarosa, like
most conservative clergy, had watched with grave concern as the new Pope
settled into his first year in office. An unprecedented liberal, His
Holiness had secured the papacy through one of the most controversial and
unusual conclaves in Vatican history. Now, rather than being humbled by his
unexpected rise to power, the Holy Father had wasted no time flexing all the
muscle associated with the highest office in Christendom. Drawing on an
unsettling tide of liberal support within the College of Cardinals, the Pope
was now declaring his papal mission to be "rejuvenation of Vatican doctrine
and updating Catholicism into the third millennium."
The translation, Aringarosa feared, was that the man was actually
arrogant enough to think he could rewrite God's laws and win back the hearts
of those who felt the demands of true Catholicism had become too
inconvenient in a modern world.
Aringarosa had been using all of his political sway--substantial
considering the size of the Opus Dei constituency and their bankroll--to
persuade the Pope and his advisers that softening the Church's laws was not
only faithless and cowardly, but political suicide. He reminded them that
previous tempering of Church law--the Vatican II fiasco--had left a
devastating legacy: Church attendance was now lower than ever, donations
were drying up, and there were not even enough Catholic priests to preside
over their churches.
People need structure and direction from the Church, Aringarosa
insisted, not coddling and indulgence!
On that night, months ago, as the Fiat had left the airport, Aringarosa
was surprised to find himself heading not toward Vatican City but rather
eastward up a sinuous mountain road. "Where are we going?" he had demanded
of his driver.
"Alban Hills," the man replied. "Your meeting is at Castel Gandolfo."
The Pope's summer residence? Aringarosa had never been, nor had he ever
desired to see it. In addition to being the Pope's summer vacation home, the
sixteenth-century citadel housed the Specula Vaticana--the Vatican
Observatory--one of the most advanced astronomical observatories in Europe.
Aringarosa had never been comfortable with the Vatican's historical need to
dabble in science. What was the rationale for fusing science and faith?
Unbiased science could not possibly be performed by a man who possessed
faith in God. Nor did faith have any need for physical confirmation of its
beliefs.
Nonetheless, there it is, he thought as Castel Gandolfo came into view,
rising against a star-filled November sky. From the access road, Gandolfo
resembled a great stone monster pondering a suicidal leap. Perched at the
very edge of a cliff, the castle leaned out over the cradle of Italian
civilization--the valley where the Curiazi and Orazi clans fought long
before the founding of Rome.
Even in silhouette, Gandolfo was a sight to behold--an impressive
example of tiered, defensive architecture, echoing the potency of this
dramatic cliffside setting. Sadly, Aringarosa now saw, the Vatican had
ruined the building by constructing two huge aluminum telescope domes atop
the roof, leaving this once dignified edifice looking like a proud warrior
wearing a couple of party hats.
When Aringarosa got out of the car, a young Jesuit priest hurried out
and greeted him. "Bishop, welcome. I am Father Mangano. An astronomer here."
Good for you. Aringarosa grumbled his hello and followed his host into
the castle's foyer--a wide-open space whose decor was a graceless blend of
Renaissance art and astronomy images. Following his escort up the wide
travertine marble staircase, Aringarosa saw signs for conference centers,
science lecture halls, and tourist information services. It amazed him to
think the Vatican was failing at every turn to provide coherent, stringent
guidelines for spiritual growth and yet somehow still found time to give
astrophysics lectures to tourists.
"Tell me," Aringarosa said to the young priest, "when did the tail
start wagging the dog?"
The priest gave him an odd look. "Sir?"
Aringarosa waved it off, deciding not to launch into that particular
offensive again this evening. The Vatican has gone mad. Like a lazy parent
who found it easier to acquiesce to the whims of a spoiled child than to
stand firm and teach values, the Church just kept softening at every turn,
trying to reinvent itself to accommodate a culture gone astray.
The top floor's corridor was wide, lushly appointed, and led in only
one direction--toward a huge set of oak doors with a brass sign.
Aringarosa had heard of this place--the Vatican's Astronomy
Library--rumored to contain more than twenty-five thousand volumes,
including rare works of Copernicus, Galileo, Kepler, Newton, and Secchi.
Allegedly, it was also the place in which the Pope's highest officers held
private meetings... those meetings they preferred not to hold within the
walls of Vatican City.
Approaching the door, Bishop Aringarosa would never have imagined the
shocking news he was about to receive inside, or the deadly chain of events
it would put into motion. It was not until an hour later, as he staggered
from the meeting, that the devastating implications settled in. Six months
from now! he had thought. God help us!
Now, seated in the Fiat, Bishop Aringarosa realized his fists were
clenched just thinking about that first meeting. He released his grip and
forced a slow inhalation, relaxing his muscles.
Everything will be fine, he told himself as the Fiat wound higher into
the mountains. Still, he wished his cell phone would ring. Why hasn't the
Teacher called me? Silas should have the keystone by now.
Trying to ease his nerves, the bishop meditated on the purple amethyst
in his ring. Feeling the textures of the mitre-crozier appliquu and the
facets of the diamonds, he reminded himself that this ring was a symbol of
power far less than that which he would soon attain.
The inside of Gare Saint-Lazare looked like every other train station
in Europe, a gaping indoor-outdoor cavern dotted with the usual
suspects--homeless men holding cardboard signs, collections of bleary-eyed
college kids sleeping on backpacks and zoning out to their portable MP3
players, and clusters of blue-clad baggage porters smoking cigarettes.
Sophie raised her eyes to the enormous departure board overhead. The
black and white tabs reshuffled, ruffling downward as the information
refreshed. When the update was finished, Langdon eyed the offerings. The
topmost listing read: LYON--RAPIDE--3:06
"I wish it left sooner," Sophie said, "but Lyon will have to do."
Sooner? Langdon checked his watch 2:59 A.M. The train left in seven minutes
and they didn't even have tickets yet.
Sophie guided Langdon toward the ticket window and said, "Buy us two
tickets with your credit card."
"I thought credit card usage could be traced by--"
"Exactly."
Langdon decided to stop trying to keep ahead of Sophie Neveu. Using his
Visa card, he purchased two coach tickets to Lyon and handed them to Sophie.
Sophie guided him out toward the tracks, where a familiar tone chimed
overhead and a P.A. announcer gave the final boarding call for Lyon. Sixteen
separate tracks spread out before them. In the distance to the right, at
quay three, the train to Lyon was belching and wheezing in preparation for
departure, but Sophie already had her arm through Langdon's and was guiding
him in the exact opposite direction. They hurried through a side lobby, past
an all-night cafe, and finally out a side door onto a quiet street on the
west side of the station.
A lone taxi sat idling by the doorway.
The driver saw Sophie and flicked his lights.
Sophie jumped in the back seat. Langdon got in after her.
As the taxi pulled away from station, Sophie took out their newly
purchased train tickets and tore them up.
Langdon sighed. Seventy dollars well spent.
It was not until their taxi had settled into a monotonous northbound
hum on Rue de Clichy that Langdon felt they'd actually escaped. Out the
window to his right, he could see Montmartre and the beautiful dome of
Sacru-Coeur. The image was interrupted by the flash of police lights sailing
past them in the opposite direction.
Langdon and Sophie ducked down as the sirens faded.
Sophie had told the cab driver simply to head out of the city, and from
her firmly set jaw, Langdon sensed she was trying to figure out their next
move.
Langdon examined the cruciform key again, holding it to the window,
bringing it close to his eyes in an effort to find any markings on it that
might indicate where the key had been made. In the intermittent glow of
passing streetlights, he saw no markings except the Priory seal.
"It doesn't make sense," he finally said.
"Which part?"
"That your grandfather would go to so much trouble to give you a key
that you wouldn't know what to do with."
"I agree."
"Are you sure he didn't write anything else on the back of the
painting?"
"I searched the whole area. This is all there was. This key, wedged
behind the painting. I saw the Priory seal, stuck the key in my pocket, then
we left."
Langdon frowned, peering now at the blunt end of the triangular shaft.
Nothing. Squinting, he brought the key close to his eyes and examined the
rim of the head. Nothing there either. "I think this key was cleaned
recently."
"Why?"
"It smells like rubbing alcohol."
She turned. "I'm sorry?"
"It smells like somebody polished it with a cleaner." Langdon held the
key to his nose and sniffed. "It's stronger on the other side." He flipped
it over. "Yes, it's alcohol-based, like it's been buffed with a cleaner
or--" Langdon stopped.
"What?"
He angled the key to the light and looked at the smooth surface on the
broad arm of the cross. It seemed to shimmer in places... like it was wet.
"How well did you look at the back of this key before you put it in your
pocket?"
"What? Not well. I was in a hurry."
Langdon turned to her. "Do you still have the black light?"
Sophie reached in her pocket and produced the UV penlight. Langdon took
it and switched it on, shining the beam on the back of the key.
The back luminesced instantly. There was writing there. In penmanship
that was hurried but legible.
"Well," Langdon said, smiling. "I guess we know what the alcohol smell
was."
Sophie stared in amazement at the purple writing on the back of the
key.
24 Rue Haxo
An address! My grandfather wrote down an address!
"Where is this?" Langdon asked.
Sophie had no idea. Facing front again, she leaned forward and
excitedly asked the driver, "Connaissez-vous la Rue Haxo?"
The driver thought a moment and then nodded. He told Sophie it was out
near the tennis stadium on the western outskirts of Paris. She asked him to
take them there immediately.
"Fastest route is through Bois de Boulogne," the driver told her in
French. "Is that okay?"
Sophie frowned. She could think of far less scandalous routes, but
tonight she was not going to be picky. "Oui." We can shock the visiting
American.
Sophie looked back at the key and wondered what they would possibly
find at 24 Rue Haxo. A church? Some kind of Priory headquarters?
Her mind filled again with images of the secret ritual she had
witnessed in the basement grotto ten years ago, and she heaved a long sigh.
"Robert, I have a lot of things to tell you." She paused, locking eyes with
him as the taxi raced westward. "But first I want you to tell me everything
you know about this Priory of Sion."
Outside the Salle des Etats, Bezu Fache was fuming as Louvre warden
Grouard explained how Sophie and Langdon had disarmed him. Why didn't you
just shoot the blessed painting!
"Captain?" Lieutenant Collet loped toward them from the direction of
the command post. "Captain, I just heard. They located Agent Neveu's car."
"Did she make the embassy?"
"No. Train station. Bought two tickets. Train just left."
Fache waved off warden Grouard and led Collet to a nearby alcove,
addressing him in hushed tones. "What was the destination?"
"Lyon."
"Probably a decoy." Fache exhaled, formulating a plan. "Okay, alert the
next station, have the train stopped and searched, just in case. Leave her
car where it is and put plainclothes on watch in case they try to come back
to it. Send men to search the streets around the station in case they fled
on foot. Are buses running from the station?"
"Not at this hour, sir. Only the taxi queue."
"Good. Question the drivers. See if they saw anything. Then contact the
taxi company dispatcher with descriptions. I'm calling Interpol."
Collet looked surprised. "You're putting this on the wire?"
Fache regretted the potential embarrassment, but he saw no other
choice.
Close the net fast, and close it tight.
The first hour was critical. Fugitives were predictable the first hour
after escape. They always needed the same thing. Travel. Lodging. Cash. The
Holy Trinity. Interpol had the power to make all three disappear in the
blink of an eye. By broadcast-faxing photos of Langdon and Sophie to Paris
travel authorities, hotels, and banks, Interpol would leave no options--no
way to leave the city, no place to hide, and no way to withdraw cash without
being recognized. Usually, fugitives panicked on the street and did
something stupid. Stole a car. Robbed a store. Used a bank card in
desperation. Whatever mistake they committed, they quickly made their
whereabouts known to local authorities.
"Only Langdon, right?" Collet said. "You're not flagging Sophie Neveu.
She's our own agent."
"Of course I'm flagging her!" Fache snapped. "What good is flagging
Langdon if she can do all his dirty work? I plan to run Neveu's employment
file--friends, family, personal contacts--anyone she might turn to for help.
I don't know what she thinks she's doing out there, but it's going to cost
her one hell of a lot more than her job!"
"Do you want me on the phones or in the field?"
"Field. Get over to the train station and coordinate the team. You've
got the reins, but don't make a move without talking to me."
"Yes, sir." Collet ran out.
Fache felt rigid as he stood in the alcove. Outside the window, the
glass pyramid shone, its reflection rippling in the windswept pools. They
slipped through my fingers. He told himself to relax.
Even a trained field agent would be lucky to withstand the pressure
that Interpol was about to apply.
A female cryptologist and a schoolteacher?
They wouldn't last till dawn.
The heavily forested park known as the Bois de Boulogne was called many
things, but the Parisian cognoscenti knew it as "the Garden of Earthly
Delights." The epithet, despite sounding flattering, was quite to the
contrary. Anyone who had seen the lurid Bosch painting of the same name
understood the jab; the painting, like the forest, was dark and twisted, a
purgatory for freaks and fetishists. At night, the forest's winding lanes
were lined with hundreds of glistening bodies for hire, earthly delights to
satisfy one's deepest unspoken desires--male, female, and everything in
between.
As Langdon gathered his thoughts to tell Sophie about the Priory of
Sion, their taxi passed through the wooded entrance to the park and began
heading west on the cobblestone crossfare. Langdon was having trouble
concentrating as a scattering of the park's nocturnal residents were already
emerging from the shadows and flaunting their wares in the glare of the
headlights. Ahead, two topless teenage girls shot smoldering gazes into the
taxi. Beyond them, a well-oiled black man in a G-string turned and flexed
his buttocks. Beside him, a gorgeous blond woman lifted her miniskirt to
reveal that she was not, in fact, a woman.
Heaven help me! Langdon turned his gaze back inside the cab and took a
deep breath.
"Tell me about the Priory of Sion," Sophie said.
Langdon nodded, unable to imagine a less congruous a backdrop for the
legend he was about to tell. He wondered where to begin. The brotherhood's
history spanned more than a millennium... an astonishing chronicle of
secrets, blackmail, betrayal, and even brutal torture at the hands of an
angry Pope.
"The Priory of Sion," he began, "was founded in Jerusalem in 1099 by a
French king named Godefroi de Bouillon, immediately after he had conquered
the city."
Sophie nodded, her eyes riveted on him.
"King Godefroi was allegedly the possessor of a powerful secret--a
secret that had been in his family since the time of Christ. Fearing his
secret might be lost when he died, he founded a secret brotherhood--the
Priory of Sion--and charged them with protecting his secret by quietly
passing it on from generation to generation. During their years in
Jerusalem, the Priory learned of a stash of hidden documents buried beneath
the ruins of Herod's temple, which had been built atop the earlier ruins of
Solomon's Temple. These documents, they believed, corroborated Godefroi's
powerful secret and were so explosive in nature that the Church would stop
at nothing to get them." Sophie looked uncertain.
"The Priory vowed that no matter how long it took, these documents must
be recovered from the rubble beneath the temple and protected forever, so
the truth would never die. In order to retrieve the documents from within
the ruins, the Priory created a military arm--a group of nine knights called
the Order of the Poor Knights of Christ and the Temple of Solomon." Langdon
paused. "More commonly known as the Knights Templar."
Sophie glanced up with a surprised look of recognition. Langdon had
lectured often enough on the Knights Templar to know that almost everyone on
earth had heard of them, at least abstractedly. For academics, the Templars'
history was a precarious world where fact, lore, and misinformation had
become so intertwined that extracting a pristine truth was almost
impossible. Nowadays, Langdon hesitated even to mention the Knights Templar
while lecturing because it invariably led to a barrage of convoluted
inquiries into assorted conspiracy theories.
Sophie already looked troubled. "You're saying the Knights Templar were
founded by the Priory of Sion to retrieve a collection of secret documents?
I thought the Templars were created to protect the Holy Land."
"A common misconception. The idea of protection of pilgrims was the
guise under which the Templars ran their mission. Their true goal in the
Holy Land was to retrieve the documents from beneath the ruins of the
temple."
"And did they find them?"
Langdon grinned. "Nobody knows for sure, but the one thing on which all
academics agree is this: The Knights discovered something down there in the
ruins... something that made them wealthy and powerful beyond anyone's
wildest imagination."
Langdon quickly gave Sophie the standard academic sketch of the
accepted Knights Templar history, explaining how the Knights were in the
Holy Land during the Second Crusade and told King Baldwin II that they were
there to protect Christian pilgrims on the roadways. Although unpaid and
sworn to poverty, the Knights told the king they required basic shelter and
requested his permission to take up residence in the stables under the ruins
of the temple. King Baldwin granted the soldiers' request, and the Knights
took up their meager residence inside the devastated shrine.
The odd choice of lodging, Langdon explained, had been anything but
random. The Knights believed the documents the Priory sought were buried
deep under the ruins--beneath the Holy of Holies, a sacred chamber where God
Himself was believed to reside. Literally, the very center of the Jewish
faith. For almost a decade, the nine Knights lived in the ruins, excavating
in total secrecy through solid rock.
Sophie looked over. "And you said they discovered something?"
"They certainly did," Langdon said, explaining how it had taken nine
years, but the Knights had finally found what they had been searching for.
They took the treasure from the temple and traveled to Europe, where their
influence seemed to solidify overnight.
Nobody was certain whether the Knights had blackmailed the Vatican or
whether the Church simply tried to buy the Knights' silence, but Pope
Innocent II immediately issued an unprecedented papal bull that afforded the
Knights Templar limitless power and declared them "a law unto
themselves"--an autonomous army independent of all interference from kings
and prelates, both religious and political.
With their new carte blanche from the Vatican, the Knights Templar
expanded at a staggering rate, both in numbers and political force, amassing
vast estates in over a dozen countries. They began extending credit to
bankrupt royals and charging interest in return, thereby establishing modern
banking and broadening their wealth and influence still further.
By the 1300s, the Vatican sanction had helped the Knights amass so much
power that Pope Clement V decided that something had to be done. Working in
concert with France's King Philippe IV, the Pope devised an ingeniously
planned sting operation to quash the Templars and seize their treasure, thus
taking control of the secrets held over the Vatican. In a military maneuver
worthy of the CIA, Pope Clement issued secret sealed orders to be opened
simultaneously by his soldiers all across Europe on Friday, October 13 of
1307.
At dawn on the thirteenth, the documents were unsealed and their
appalling contents revealed. Clement's letter claimed that God had visited
him in a vision and warned him that the Knights Templar were heretics guilty
of devil worship, homosexuality, defiling the cross, sodomy, and other
blasphemous behavior. Pope Clement had been asked by God to cleanse the
earth by rounding up all the Knights and torturing them until they confessed
their crimes against God. Clement's Machiavellian operation came off with
clockwork precision. On that day, countless Knights were captured, tortured
mercilessly, and finally burned at the stake as heretics. Echoes of the
tragedy still resonated in modern culture; to this day, Friday the
thirteenth was considered unlucky.
Sophie looked confused. "The Knights Templar were obliterated? I
thought fraternities of Templars still exist today?"
"They do, under a variety of names. Despite Clement's false charges and
best efforts to eradicate them, the Knights had powerful allies, and some
managed to escape the Vatican purges. The Templars' potent treasure trove of
documents, which had apparently been their source of power, was Clement's
true objective, but it slipped through his fingers. The documents had long
since been entrusted to the Templars' shadowy architects, the Priory of
Sion, whose veil of secrecy had kept them safely out of range of the
Vatican's onslaught. As the Vatican closed in, the Priory smuggled their
documents from a Paris preceptory by night onto Templar ships in La
Rochelle."
"Where did the documents go?"
Langdon shrugged. "That mystery's answer is known only to the Priory of
Sion. Because the documents remain the source of constant investigation and
speculation even today, they are believed to have been moved and rehidden
several times. Current speculation places the documents somewhere in the
United Kingdom."
Sophie looked uneasy.
"For a thousand years," Langdon continued, "legends of this secret have
been passed on. The entire collection of documents, its power, and the
secret it reveals have become known by a single name--Sangreal. Hundreds of
books have been written about it, and few mysteries have caused as much
interest among historians as the Sangreal."
"The Sangreal? Does the word have anything to do with the French word
sang or Spanish sangre--meaning 'blood'?"
Langdon nodded. Blood was the backbone of the Sangreal, and yet not in
the way Sophie probably imagined. "The legend is complicated, but the
important thing to remember is that the Priory guards the proof, and is
purportedly awaiting the right moment in history to reveal the truth."
"What truth? What secret could possibly be that powerful?"
Langdon took a deep breath and gazed out at the underbelly of Paris
leering in the shadows. "Sophie, the word Sangreal is an ancient word. It
has evolved over the years into another term... a more modern name." He
paused. "When I tell you its modern name, you'll realize you already know a
lot about it. In fact, almost everyone on earth has heard the story of the
Sangreal."
Sophie looked skeptical. "I've never heard of it."
"Sure you have." Langdon smiled. "You're just used to hearing it called
by the name 'Holy Grail.' "
Sophie scrutinized Langdon in the back of the taxi. He's joking. "The
Holy Grail?"
Langdon nodded, his expression serious. "Holy Grail is the literal
meaning of Sangreal. The phrase derives from the French Sangraal, which
evolved to Sangreal, and was eventually split into two words, San Greal."
Holy Grail. Sophie was surprised she had not spotted the linguistic
ties immediately. Even so, Langdon's claim still made no sense to her. "I
thought the Holy Grail was a cup. You just told me the Sangreal is a
collection of documents that reveals some dark secret."
"Yes, but the Sangreal documents are only half of the Holy Grail
treasure. They are buried with the Grail itself... and reveal its true
meaning. The documents gave the Knights Templar so much power because the
pages revealed the true nature of the Grail."
The true nature of the Grail? Sophie felt even more lost now. The Holy
Grail, she had thought, was the cup that Jesus drank from at the Last Supper
and with which Joseph of Arimathea later caught His blood at the
crucifixion. "The Holy Grail is the Cup of Christ," she said. "How much
simpler could it be?"
"Sophie," Langdon whispered, leaning toward her now, "according to the
Priory of Sion, the Holy Grail is not a cup at all. They claim the Grail
legend--that of a chalice--is actually an ingeniously conceived allegory.
That is, that the Grail story uses the chalice as a metaphor for something
else, something far more powerful." He paused. "Something that fits
perfectly with everything your grandfather has been trying to tell us
tonight, including all his symbologic references to the sacred feminine."
Still unsure, Sophie sensed in Langdon's patient smile that he
empathized with her confusion, and yet his eyes remained earnest. "But if
the Holy Grail is not a cup," she asked, "what is it?"
Langdon had known this question was coming, and yet he still felt
uncertain exactly how to tell her. If he did not present the answer in the
proper historical background, Sophie would be left with a vacant air of
bewilderment--the exact expression Langdon had seen on his own editor's face
a few months ago after Langdon handed him a draft of the manuscript he was
working on.
"This manuscript claims what?" his editor had choked, setting down his
wineglass and staring across his half-eaten power lunch. "You can't be
serious."
"Serious enough to have spent a year researching it."
Prominent New York editor Jonas Faukman tugged nervously at his goatee.
Faukman no doubt had heard some wild book ideas in his illustrious career,
but this one seemed to have left the man flabbergasted.
"Robert," Faukman finally said, "don't get me wrong. I love your work,
and we've had a great run together. But if I agree to publish an idea like
this, I'll have people picketing outside my office for months. Besides, it
will kill your reputation. You're a Harvard historian, for God's sake, not a
pop schlockmeister looking for a quick buck. Where could you possibly find
enough credible evidence to support a theory like this?"
With a quiet smile Langdon pulled a piece of paper from the pocket of
his tweed coat and handed it to Faukman. The page listed a bibliography of
over fifty titles--books by well-known historians, some contemporary, some
centuries old--many of them academic bestsellers. All the book titles
suggested the same premise Langdon had just proposed. As Faukman read down
the list, he looked like a man who had just discovered the earth was
actually flat. "I know some of these authors. They're... real historians!"
Langdon grinned. "As you can see, Jonas, this is not only my theory.
It's been around for a long time. I'm simply building on it. No book has yet
explored the legend of the Holy Grail from a symbologic angle. The
iconographic evidence I'm finding to support the theory is, well,
staggeringly persuasive."
Faukman was still staring at the list. "My God, one of these books was
written by Sir Leigh Teabing--a British Royal Historian."
"Teabing has spent much of his life studying the Holy Grail. I've met
with him. He was actually a big part of my inspiration. He's a believer,
Jonas, along with all of the others on that list."
"You're telling me all of these historians actually believe..." Faukman
swallowed, apparently unable to say the words.
Langdon grinned again. "The Holy Grail is arguably the most
sought-after treasure in human history. The Grail has spawned legends, wars,
and lifelong quests. Does it make sense that it is merely a cup? If so, then
certainly other relics should generate similar or greater interest--the
Crown of Thorns, the True Cross of the Crucifixion, the Titulus--and yet,
they do not. Throughout history, the Holy Grail has been the most special."
Langdon grinned. "Now you know why."
Faukman was still shaking his head. "But with all these books written
about it, why isn't this theory more widely known?"
"These books can't possibly compete with centuries of established
history, especially when that history is endorsed by the ultimate bestseller
of all time."
Faukman's eyes went wide. "Don't tell me Harry Potter is actually about
the Holy Grail."
"I was referring to the Bible."
Faukman cringed. "I knew that."
"Laissez-le!" Sophie's shouts cut the air inside the taxi. "Put it
down!"
Langdon jumped as Sophie leaned forward over the seat and yelled at the
taxi driver. Langdon could see the driver was clutching his radio mouthpiece
and speaking into it.
Sophie turned now and plunged her hand into the pocket of Langdon's
tweed jacket. Before Langdon knew what had happened, she had yanked out the
pistol, swung it around, and was pressing it to the back of the driver's
head. The driver instantly dropped his radio, raising his one free hand
overhead.
"Sophie!" Langdon choked. "What the hell--"
"Arrutez!" Sophie commanded the driver.
Trembling, the driver obeyed, stopping the car and putting it in park.
It was then that Langdon heard the metallic voice of the taxi company's
dispatcher coming from the dashboard. "...qui s'appette Agent Sophie
Neveu..." the radio crackled. "Et un Amuricain, Robert Langdon..."
Langdon's muscles turned rigid. They found us already?
"Descendez," Sophie demanded.
The trembling driver kept his arms over his head as he got out of his
taxi and took several steps backward.
Sophie had rolled down her window and now aimed the gun outside at the
bewildered cabbie. "Robert," she said quietly, "take the wheel. You're
driving."
Langdon was not about to argue with a woman wielding a gun. He climbed
out of the car and jumped back in behind the wheel. The driver was yelling
curses, his arms still raised over his head.
"Robert," Sophie said from the back seat, "I trust you've seen enough
of our magic forest?"
He nodded. Plenty.
"Good. Drive us out of here."
Langdon looked down at the car's controls and hesitated. Shit. He
groped for the stick shift and clutch. "Sophie? Maybe you--"
"Go!" she yelled.
Outside, several hookers were walking over to see what was going on.
One woman was placing a call on her cell phone. Langdon depressed the clutch
and jostled the stick into what he hoped was first gear. He touched the
accelerator, testing the gas.
Langdon popped the clutch. The tires howled as the taxi leapt forward,
fishtailing wildly and sending the gathering crowd diving for cover. The
woman with the cell phone leapt into the woods, only narrowly avoiding being
run down.
"Doucement!" Sophie said, as the car lurched down the road. "What are
you doing?"
"I tried to warn you," he shouted over the sound of gnashing gears. "I
drive an automatic!"
Although the spartan room in the brownstone on Rue La Bruyure had
witnessed a lot of suffering, Silas doubted anything could match the anguish
now gripping his pale body. I was deceived. Everything is lost.
Silas had been tricked. The brothers had lied, choosing death instead
of revealing their true secret. Silas did not have the strength to call the
Teacher. Not only had Silas killed the only four people who knew where the
keystone was hidden, he had killed a nun inside Saint-Sulpice. She was
working against God! She scorned the work of Opus Dei!
A crime of impulse, the woman's death complicated matters greatly.
Bishop Aringarosa had placed the phone call that got Silas into
Saint-Sulpice; what would the abbu think when he discovered the nun was
dead? Although Silas had placed her back in her bed, the wound on her head
was obvious. Silas had attempted to replace the broken tiles in the floor,
but that damage too was obvious. They would know someone had been there.
Silas had planned to hide within Opus Dei when his task here was
complete. Bishop Aringarosa will protect me. Silas could imagine no more
blissful existence than a life of meditation and prayer deep within the
walls of Opus Dei's headquarters in New York City. He would never again set
foot outside. Everything he needed was within that sanctuary. Nobody will
miss me. Unfortunately, Silas knew, a prominent man like Bishop Aringarosa
could not disappear so easily.
I have endangered the bishop. Silas gazed blankly at the floor and
pondered taking his own life. After all, it had been Aringarosa who gave
Silas life in the first place... in that small rectory in Spain, educating
him, giving him purpose.
"My friend," Aringarosa had told him, "you were born an albino. Do not
let others shame you for this. Do you not understand how special this makes
you? Were you not aware that Noah himself was an albino?"
"Noah of the Ark?" Silas had never heard this.
Aringarosa was smiling. "Indeed, Noah of the Ark. An albino. Like you,
he had skin white like an angel. Consider this. Noah saved all of life on
the planet. You are destined for great things, Silas. The Lord has freed you
for a reason. You have your calling. The Lord needs your help to do His
work."
Over time, Silas learned to see himself in a new light. I am pure.
White. Beautiful. Like an angel.
At the moment, though, in his room at the residence hall, it was his
father's disappointed voice that whispered to him from the past.
Tu es un dusastre. Un spectre.
Kneeling on the wooden floor, Silas prayed for forgiveness. Then,
stripping off his robe, he reached again for the Discipline.
Struggling with the gear shift, Langdon managed to maneuver the
hijacked taxi to the far side of the Bois de Boulogne while stalling only
twice. Unfortunately, the inherent humor in the situation was overshadowed
by the taxi dispatcher repeatedly hailing their cab over the radio.
"Voiture cinq-six-trois. Ou utes-vous? Rupondez!"
When Langdon reached the exit of the park, he swallowed his machismo
and jammed on the brakes. "You'd better drive."
Sophie looked relieved as she jumped behind the wheel. Within seconds
she had the car humming smoothly westward along Allue de Longchamp, leaving
the Garden of Earthly Delights behind.
"Which way is Rue Haxo?" Langdon asked, watching Sophie edge the
speedometer over a hundred kilometers an hour.
Sophie's eyes remained focused on the road. "The cab driver said it's
adjacent to the Roland Garros tennis stadium. I know that area."
Langdon pulled the heavy key from his pocket again, feeling the weight
in his palm. He sensed it was an object of enormous consequence. Quite
possibly the key to his own freedom.
Earlier, while telling Sophie about the Knights Templar, Langdon had
realized that this key, in addition to having the Priory seal embossed on
it, possessed a more subtle tie to the Priory of Sion. The equal-armed
cruciform was symbolic of balance and harmony but also of the Knights
Templar. Everyone had seen the paintings of Knights Templar wearing white
tunics emblazoned with red equal-armed crosses. Granted, the arms of the
Templar cross were slightly flared at the ends, but they were still of equal
length.
A square cross. Just like the one on this key.
Langdon felt his imagination starting to run wild as he fantasized
about what they might find. The Holy Grail. He almost laughed out loud at
the absurdity of it. The Grail was believed to be somewhere in England,
buried in a hidden chamber beneath one of the many Templar churches, where
it had been hidden since at least 1500.
The era of Grand Master Da Vinci.
The Priory, in order to keep their powerful documents safe, had been
forced to move them many times in the early centuries. Historians now
suspected as many as six different Grail relocations since its arrival in
Europe from Jerusalem. The last Grail "sighting" had been in 1447 when
numerous eyewitnesses described a fire that had broken out and almost
engulfed the documents before they were carried to safety in four huge
chests that each required six men to carry. After that, nobody claimed to
see the Grail ever again. All that remained were occasional whisperings that
it was hidden in Great Britain, the land of King Arthur and the Knights of
the Round Table.
Wherever it was, two important facts remained:
Leonardo knew where the Grail resided during his lifetime.
That hiding place had probably not changed to this day.
For this reason, Grail enthusiasts still pored over Da Vinci's art and
diaries in hopes of unearthing a hidden clue as to the Grail's current
location. Some claimed the mountainous backdrop in Madonna of the Rocks
matched the topography of a series of cave-ridden hills in Scotland. Others
insisted that the suspicious placement of disciples in The Last Supper was
some kind of code. Still others claimed that X rays of the Mona Lisa
revealed she originally had been painted wearing a lapis lazuli pendant of
Isis--a detail Da Vinci purportedly later decided to paint over. Langdon had
never seen any evidence of the pendant, nor could he imagine how it could
possibly reveal the Holy Grail, and yet Grail aficionados still discussed it
ad nauseum on Internet bulletin boards and worldwide-web chat rooms.
Everyone loves a conspiracy.
And the conspiracies kept coming. Most recently, of course, had been
the earthshaking discovery that Da Vinci's famed Adoration of the Magi was
hiding a dark secret beneath its layers of paint. Italian art diagnostician
Maurizio Seracini had unveiled the unsettling truth, which the New York
Times Magazine carried prominently in a story titled "The Leonardo
Cover-Up."
Seracini had revealed beyond any doubt that while the Adoration's
gray-green sketched underdrawing was indeed Da Vinci's work, the painting
itself was not. The truth was that some anonymous painter had filled in Da
Vinci's sketch like a paint-by-numbers years after Da Vinci's death. Far
more troubling, however, was what lay beneath the impostor's paint.
Photographs taken with infrared reflectography and X ray suggested that this
rogue painter, while filling in Da Vinci's sketched study, had made
suspicious departures from the underdrawing... as if to subvert Da Vinci's
true intention. Whatever the true nature of the underdrawing, it had yet to
be made public. Even so, embarrassed officials at Florence's Uffizi Gallery
immediately banished the painting to a warehouse across the street. Visitors
at the gallery's Leonardo Room now found a misleading and unapologetic
plaque where the Adoration once hung.
THIS WORK IS UNDERGOING
DIAGNOSTIC TESTS IN PREPARATION
FOR RESTORATION.
In the bizarre underworld of modern Grail seekers, Leonardo da Vinci
remained the quest's great enigma. His artwork seemed bursting to tell a
secret, and yet whatever it was remained hidden, perhaps beneath a layer of
paint, perhaps enciphered in plain view, or perhaps nowhere at all. Maybe Da
Vinci's plethora of tantalizing clues was nothing but an empty promise left
behind to frustrate the curious and bring a smirk to the face of his knowing
Mona Lisa.
"Is it possible," Sophie asked, drawing Langdon back, "that the key
you're holding unlocks the hiding place of the Holy Grail?"
Langdon's laugh sounded forced, even to him. "I really can't imagine.
Besides, the Grail is believed to be hidden in the United Kingdom somewhere,
not France." He gave her the quick history.
"But the Grail seems the only rational conclusion," she insisted. "We
have an extremely secure key, stamped with the Priory of Sion seal,
delivered to us by a member of the Priory of Sion--a brotherhood which, you
just told me, are guardians of the Holy Grail."
Langdon knew her contention was logical, and yet intuitively he could
not possibly accept it. Rumors existed that the Priory had vowed someday to
bring the Grail back to France to a final resting place, but certainly no
historical evidence existed to suggest that this indeed had happened. Even
if the Priory had managed to bring the Grail back to France, the address 24
Rue Haxo near a tennis stadium hardly sounded like a noble final resting
place. "Sophie, I really don't see how this key could have anything to do
with the Grail."
"Because the Grail is supposed to be in England?"
"Not only that. The location of the Holy Grail is one of the best kept
secrets in history. Priory members wait decades proving themselves
trustworthy before being elevated to the highest echelons of the fraternity
and learning where the Grail is. That secret is protected by an intricate
system of compartmentalized knowledge, and although the Priory brotherhood
is very large, only four members at any given time know where the Grail is
hidden--the Grand Master and his three sunuchaux. The probability of your
grandfather being one of those four top people is very slim."
My grandfather was one of them, Sophie thought, pressing down on the
accelerator. She had an image stamped in her memory that confirmed her
grandfather's status within the brotherhood beyond any doubt.
"And even if your grandfather were in the upper echelon, he would never
be allowed to reveal anything to anyone outside the brotherhood. It is
inconceivable that he would bring you into the inner circle."
I've already been there, Sophie thought, picturing the ritual in the
basement. She wondered if this were the moment to tell Langdon what she had
witnessed that night in the Normandy chuteau. For ten years now, simple
shame had kept her from telling a soul. Just thinking about it, she
shuddered. Sirens howled somewhere in the distance, and she felt a
thickening shroud of fatigue settling over her.
"There!" Langdon said, feeling excited to see the huge complex of the
Roland Garros tennis stadium looming ahead.
Sophie snaked her way toward the stadium. After several passes, they
located the intersection of Rue Haxo and turned onto it, driving in the
direction of the lower numbers. The road became more industrial, lined with
businesses.
We need number twenty-four, Langdon told himself, realizing he was
secretly scanning the horizon for the spires of a church. Don't be
ridiculous. A forgotten Templar church in this neighborhood?
"There it is," Sophie exclaimed, pointing.
Langdon's eyes followed to the structure ahead.
What in the world?
The building was modern. A squat citadel with a giant, neon equal-armed
cross emblazoned atop its facade. Beneath the cross were the words:
DEPOSITORY BANK OF ZURICH
Langdon was thankful not to have shared his Templar church hopes with
Sophie. A career hazard of symbologists was a tendency to extract hidden
meaning from situations that had none. In this case, Langdon had entirely
forgotten that the peaceful, equal-armed cross had been adopted as the
perfect symbol for the flag of neutral Switzerland.
At least the mystery was solved.
Sophie and Langdon were holding the key to a Swiss bank deposit box.
Outside Castel Gandolfo, an updraft of mountain air gushed over the top
of the cliff and across the high bluff, sending a chill through Bishop
Aringarosa as he stepped from the Fiat. I should have worn more than this
cassock, he thought, fighting the reflex to shiver. The last thing he needed
to appear tonight was weak or fearful.
The castle was dark save the windows at the very top of the building,
which glowed ominously. The library, Aringarosa thought. They are awake and
waiting. He ducked his head against the wind and continued on without so
much as a glance toward the observatory domes.
The priest who greeted him at the door looked sleepy. He was the same
priest who had greeted Aringarosa five months ago, albeit tonight he did so
with much less hospitality. "We were worried about you, Bishop," the priest
said, checking his watch and looking more perturbed than worried.
"My apologies. Airlines are so unreliable these days."
The priest mumbled something inaudible and then said, "They are waiting
upstairs. I will escort you up."
The library was a vast square room with dark wood from floor to
ceiling. On all sides, towering bookcases burgeoned with volumes. The floor
was amber marble with black basalt trim, a handsome reminder that this
building had once been a palace.
"Welcome, Bishop," a man's voice said from across the room.
Aringarosa tried to see who had spoken, but the lights were
ridiculously low--much lower than they had been on his first visit, when
everything was ablaze. The night of stark awakening. Tonight, these men sat
in the shadows, as if they were somehow ashamed of what was about to
transpire.
Aringarosa entered slowly, regally even. He could see the shapes of
three men at a long table on the far side of the room. The silhouette of the
man in the middle was immediately recognizable--the obese Secretariat
Vaticana, overlord of all legal matters within Vatican City. The other two
were high-ranking Italian cardinals.
Aringarosa crossed the library toward them. "My humble apologies for
the hour. We're on different time zones. You must be tired."
"Not at all," the secretariat said, his hands folded on his enormous
belly. "We are grateful you have come so far. The least we can do is be
awake to meet you. Can we offer you some coffee or refreshments?"
"I'd prefer we don't pretend this is a social visit. I have another
plane to catch. Shall we get to business?"
"Of course," the secretariat said. "You have acted more quickly than we
imagined."
"Have I?"
"You still have a month."
"You made your concerns known five months ago," Aringarosa said. "Why
should I wait?"
"Indeed. We are very pleased with your expediency."
Aringarosa's eyes traveled the length of the long table to a large
black briefcase. "Is that what I requested?"
"It is." The secretariat sounded uneasy. "Although, I must admit, we
are concerned with the request. It seems quite..."
"Dangerous," one of the cardinals finished. "Are you certain we cannot
wire it to you somewhere? The sum is exorbitant."
Freedom is expensive. "I have no concerns for my own safety. God is
with me."
The men actually looked doubtful.
"The funds are exactly as I requested?"
The secretariat nodded. "Large-denomination bearer bonds drawn on the
Vatican Bank. Negotiable as cash anywhere in the world."
Aringarosa walked to the end of the table and opened the briefcase.
Inside were two thick stacks of bonds, each embossed with the Vatican seal
and the title PORTATORE, making the bonds redeemable to whoever was holding
them.
The secretariat looked tense. "I must say, Bishop, all of us would feel
less apprehensive if these funds were in cash."
I could not lift that much cash, Aringarosa thought, closing the case.
"Bonds are negotiable as cash. You said so yourself."
The cardinals exchanged uneasy looks, and finally one said, "Yes, but
these bonds are traceable directly to the Vatican Bank."
Aringarosa smiled inwardly. That was precisely the reason the Teacher
suggested Aringarosa get the money in Vatican Bank bonds. It served as
insurance. We are all in this together now. "This is a perfectly legal
transaction," Aringarosa defended. "Opus Dei is a personal prelature of
Vatican City, and His Holiness can disperse monies however he sees fit. No
law has been broken here."
"True, and yet..." The secretariat leaned forward and his chair creaked
under the burden. "We have no knowledge of what you intend to do with these
funds, and if it is in any way illegal..."
"Considering what you are asking of me," Aringarosa countered, "what I
do with this money is not your concern."
There was a long silence.
They know I'm right, Aringarosa thought. "Now, I imagine you have
something for me to sign?"
They all jumped, eagerly pushing the paper toward him, as if they
wished he would simply leave.
Aringarosa eyed the sheet before him. It bore the papal seal. "This is
identical to the copy you sent me?"
"Exactly."
Aringarosa was surprised how little emotion he felt as he signed the
document. The three men present, however, seemed to sigh in relief.
"Thank you, Bishop," the secretariat said. "Your service to the Church
will never be forgotten."
Aringarosa picked up the briefcase, sensing promise and authority in
its weight. The four men looked at one another for a moment as if there were
something more to say, but apparently there was not. Aringarosa turned and
headed for the door.
"Bishop?" one of the cardinals called out as Aringarosa reached the
threshold.
Aringarosa paused, turning. "Yes?"
"Where will you go from here?"
Aringarosa sensed the query was more spiritual than geographical, and
yet he had no intention of discussing morality at this hour. "Paris," he
said, and walked out the door.
The Depository Bank of Zurich was a twenty-four-hour Geldschrank bank
offering the full modern array of anonymous services in the tradition of the
Swiss numbered account. Maintaining offices in Zurich, Kuala Lumpur, New
York, and Paris, the bank had expanded its services in recent years to offer
anonymous computer source code escrow services and faceless digitized
backup.
The bread and butter of its operation was by far its oldest and
simplest offering--the anonyme Lager--blind drop services, otherwise known
as anonymous safe-deposit boxes. Clients wishing to store anything from
stock certificates to valuable paintings could deposit their belongings
anonymously, through a series of high-tech veils of privacy, withdrawing
items at any time, also in total anonymity.
As Sophie pulled the taxi to a stop in front of their destination,
Langdon gazed out at the building's uncompromising architecture and sensed
the Depository Bank of Zurich was a firm with little sense of humor. The
building was a windowless rectangle that seemed to be forged entirely of
dull steel. Resembling an enormous metal brick, the edifice sat back from
the road with a fifteen-foot-tall, neon, equilateral cross glowing over its
facade.
Switzerland's reputation for secrecy in banking had become one of the
country's most lucrative exports. Facilities like this had become
controversial in the art community because they provided a perfect place for
art thieves to hide stolen goods, for years if necessary, until the heat was
off. Because deposits were protected from police inspection by privacy laws
and were attached to numbered accounts rather than people's names, thieves
could rest easily knowing their stolen goods were safe and could never be
traced to them.
Sophie stopped the taxi at an imposing gate that blocked the bank's
driveway--a cement-lined ramp that descended beneath the building. A video
camera overhead was aimed directly at them, and Langdon had the feeling that
this camera, unlike those at the Louvre, was authentic.
Sophie rolled down the window and surveyed the electronic podium on the
driver's side. An LCD screen provided directions in seven languages. Topping
the list was English.
INSERT KEY.
Sophie took the gold laser-pocked key from her pocket and turned her
attention back to the podium. Below the screen was a triangular hole.
"Something tells me it will fit," Langdon said.
Sophie aligned the key's triangular shaft with the hole and inserted
it, sliding it in until the entire shaft had disappeared. This key
apparently required no turning. Instantly, the gate began to swing open.
Sophie took her foot off the brake and coasted down to a second gate and
podium. Behind her, the first gate closed, trapping them like a ship in a
lock.
Langdon disliked the constricted sensation. Let's hope this second gate
works too.
This second podium bore familiar directions.
INSERT KEY.
When Sophie inserted the key, the second gate immediately opened.
Moments later they were winding down the ramp into the belly of the
structure.
The private garage was small and dim, with spaces for about a dozen
cars. At the far end, Langdon spied the building's main entrance. A red
carpet stretched across the cement floor, welcoming visitors to a huge door
that appeared to be forged of solid metal.
Talk about mixed messages, Langdon thought. Welcome and keep out.
Sophie pulled the taxi into a parking space near the entrance and
killed the engine. "You'd better leave the gun here."
With pleasure, Langdon thought, sliding the pistol under the seat.
Sophie and Langdon got out and walked up the red carpet toward the slab
of steel. The door had no handle, but on the wall beside it was another
triangular keyhole. No directions were posted this time.
"Keeps out the slow learners," Langdon said.
Sophie laughed, looking nervous. "Here we go." She stuck the key in the
hole, and the door swung inward with a low hum. Exchanging glances, Sophie
and Langdon entered. The door shut with a thud behind them.
The foyer of the Depository Bank of Zurich employed as imposing a decor
as any Langdon had ever seen. Where most banks were content with the usual
polished marble and granite, this one had opted for wall-to-wall metal and
rivets.
Who's their decorator? Langdon wondered. Allied Steel?
Sophie looked equally intimidated as her eyes scanned the lobby.
The gray metal was everywhere--the floor, walls, counters, doors, even
the lobby chairs appeared to be fashioned of molded iron. Nonetheless, the
effect was impressive. The message was clear: You are walking into a vault.
A large man behind the counter glanced up as they entered. He turned
off the small television he was watching and greeted them with a pleasant
smile. Despite his enormous muscles and visible sidearm, his diction chimed
with the polished courtesy of a Swiss bellhop.
"Bonsoir," he said. "How may I help you?"
The dual-language greeting was the newest hospitality trick of the
European host. It presumed nothing and opened the door for the guest to
reply in whichever language was more comfortable.
Sophie replied with neither. She simply laid the gold key on the
counter in front of the man.
The man glanced down and immediately stood straighter. "Of course. Your
elevator is at the end of the hall. I will alert someone that you are on
your way."
Sophie nodded and took her key back. "Which floor?"
The man gave her an odd look. "Your key instructs the elevator which
floor."
She smiled. "Ah, yes."
The guard watched as the two newcomers made their way to the elevators,
inserted their key, boarded the lift, and disappeared. As soon as the door
had closed, he grabbed the phone. He was not calling to alert anyone of
their arrival; there was no need for that. A vault greeter already had been
alerted automatically when the client's key was inserted outside in the
entry gate.
Instead, the guard was calling the bank's night manager. As the line
rang, the guard switched the television back on and stared at it. The news
story he had been watching was just ending. It didn't matter. He got another
look at the two faces on the television.
The manager answered. "Oui?"
"We have a situation down here."
"What's happening?" the manager demanded.
"The French police are tracking two fugitives tonight."
"So?"
"Both of them just walked into our bank."
The manager cursed quietly. "Okay. I'll contact Monsieur Vernet
immediately."
The guard then hung up and placed a second call. This one to Interpol.
Langdon was surprised to feel the elevator dropping rather than
climbing. He had no idea how many floors they had descended beneath the
Depository Bank of Zurich before the door finally opened. He didn't care. He
was happy to be out of the elevator.
Displaying impressive alacrity, a host was already standing there to
greet them. He was elderly and pleasant, wearing a neatly pressed flannel
suit that made him look oddly out of place--an old-world banker in a
high-tech world.
"Bonsoir," the man said. "Good evening. Would you be so kind as to
follow me, s'il vous plait?" Without waiting for a response, he spun on his
heel and strode briskly down a narrow metal corridor.
Langdon walked with Sophie down a series of corridors, past several
large rooms filled with blinking mainframe computers.
"Voici," their host said, arriving at a steel door and opening it for
them. "Here you are."
Langdon and Sophie stepped into another world. The small room before
them looked like a lavish sitting room at a fine hotel. Gone were the metal
and rivets, replaced with oriental carpets, dark oak furniture, and
cushioned chairs. On the broad desk in the middle of the room, two crystal
glasses sat beside an opened bottle of Perrier, its bubbles still fizzing. A
pewter pot of coffee steamed beside it.
Clockwork, Langdon thought. Leave it to the Swiss.
The man gave a perceptive smile. "I sense this is your first visit to
us?"
Sophie hesitated and then nodded.
"Understood. Keys are often passed on as inheritance, and our
first-time users are invariably uncertain of the protocol." He motioned to
the table of drinks. "This room is yours as long as you care to use it."
"You say keys are sometimes inherited?" Sophie asked.
"Indeed. Your key is like a Swiss numbered account, which are often
willed through generations. On our gold accounts, the shortest
safety-deposit box lease is fifty years. Paid in advance. So we see plenty
of family turnover."
Langdon stared. "Did you say fifty years?"
"At a minimum," their host replied. "Of course, you can purchase much
longer leases, but barring further arrangements, if there is no activity on
an account for fifty years, the contents of that safe-deposit box are
automatically destroyed. Shall I run through the process of accessing your
box?"
Sophie nodded. "Please."
Their host swept an arm across the luxurious salon. "This is your
private viewing room. Once I leave the room, you may spend all the time you
need in here to review and modify the contents of your safe-deposit box,
which arrives... over here." He walked them to the far wall where a wide
conveyor belt entered the room in a graceful curve, vaguely resembling a
baggage claim carousel. "You insert your key in that slot there...." The man
pointed to a large electronic podium facing the conveyor belt. The podium
had a familiar triangular hole. "Once the computer confirms the markings on
your key, you enter your account number, and your safe-deposit box will be
retrieved robotically from the vault below for your inspection. When you are
finished with your box, you place it back on the conveyor belt, insert your
key again, and the process is reversed. Because everything is automated,
your privacy is guaranteed, even from the staff of this bank. If you need
anything at all, simply press the call button on the table in the center of
the room."
Sophie was about to ask a question when a telephone rang. The man
looked puzzled and embarrassed. "Excuse me, please." He walked over to the
phone, which was sitting on the table beside the coffee and Perrier.
"Oui?" he answered.
His brow furrowed as he listened to the caller. "Oui... oui...
d'accord." He hung up, and gave them an uneasy smile. "I'm sorry, I must
leave you now. Make yourselves at home." He moved quickly toward the door.
"Excuse me," Sophie called. "Could you clarify something before you go?
You mentioned that we enter an account number?"
The man paused at the door, looking pale. "But of course. Like most
Swiss banks, our safe-deposit boxes are attached to a number, not a name.
You have a key and a personal account number known only to you. Your key is
only half of your identification. Your personal account number is the other
half. Otherwise, if you lost your key, anyone could use it."
Sophie hesitated. "And if my benefactor gave me no account number?"
The banker's heart pounded. Then you obviously have no business here!
He gave them a calm smile. "I will ask someone to help you. He will be in
shortly."
Leaving, the banker closed the door behind him and twisted a heavy
lock, sealing them inside.
Across town, Collet was standing in the Gare du Nord train terminal
when his phone rang.
It was Fache. "Interpol got a tip," he said. "Forget the train. Langdon
and Neveu just walked into the Paris branch of the Depository Bank of
Zurich. I want your men over there right away."
"Any leads yet on what Sauniure was trying to tell Agent Neveu and
Robert Langdon?"
Fache's tone was cold. "If you arrest them, Lieutenant Collet, then I
can ask them personally."
Collet took the hint. "Twenty-four Rue Haxo. Right away, Captain." He
hung up and radioed his men.
Andru Vernet--president of the Paris branch of the Depository Bank of
Zurich--lived in a lavish flat above the bank. Despite his plush
accommodations, he had always dreamed of owning a riverside apartment on
L'lle Saint-Louis, where he could rub shoulders with the true cognoscenti,
rather than here, where he simply met the filthy rich.
When I retire, Vernet told himself, I will fill my cellar with rare
Bordeaux, adorn my salon with a Fragonard and perhaps a Boucher, and spend
my days hunting for antique furniture and rare books in the Quartier Latin.
Tonight, Vernet had been awake only six and a half minutes. Even so, as
he hurried through the bank's underground corridor, he looked as if his
personal tailor and hairdresser had polished him to a fine sheen. Impeccably
dressed in a silk suit, Vernet sprayed some breath spray in his mouth and
tightened his tie as he walked. No stranger to being awoken to attend to his
international clients arriving from different time zones, Vernet modeled his
sleep habits after the Maasai warriors--the African tribe famous for their
ability to rise from the deepest sleep to a state of total battle readiness
in a matter of seconds.
Battle ready, Vernet thought, fearing the comparison might be
uncharacteristically apt tonight. The arrival of a gold key client always
required an extra flurry of attention, but the arrival of a gold key client
who was wanted by the Judicial Police would be an extremely delicate matter.
The bank had enough battles with law enforcement over the privacy rights of
their clients without proof that some of them were criminals.
Five minutes, Vernet told himself. I need these people out of my bank
before the police arrive.
If he moved quickly, this impending disaster could be deftly
sidestepped. Vernet could tell the police that the fugitives in question had
indeed walked into his bank as reported, but because they were not clients
and had no account number, they were turned away. He wished the damned
watchman had not called Interpol. Discretion was apparently not part of the
vocabulary of a 15-euro-per-hour watchman.
Stopping at the doorway, he took a deep breath and loosened his
muscles. Then, forcing a balmy smile, he unlocked the door and swirled into
the room like a warm breeze.
"Good evening," he said, his eyes finding his clients. "I am Andru
Vernet. How can I be of serv--" The rest of the sentence lodged somewhere
beneath his Adam's apple. The woman before him was as unexpected a visitor
as Vernet had ever had.
"I'm sorry, do we know each other?" Sophie asked. She did not recognize
the banker, but he for a moment looked as if he'd seen a ghost.
"No...," the bank president fumbled. "I don't... believe so. Our
services are anonymous." He exhaled and forced a calm smile. "My assistant
tells me you have a gold key but no account number? Might I ask how you came
by this key?"
"My grandfather gave it to me," Sophie replied, watching the man
closely. His uneasiness seemed more evident now.
"Really? Your grandfather gave you the key but failed to give you the
account number?"
"I don't think he had time," Sophie said. "He was murdered tonight."
Her words sent the man staggering backward. "Jacques Sauniure is dead?"
he demanded, his eyes filling with horror. "But... how?!"
Now it was Sophie who reeled, numb with shock. "You knew my
grandfather?"
Banker Andru Vernet looked equally astounded, steadying himself by
leaning on an end table. "Jacques and I were dear friends. When did this
happen?"
"Earlier this evening. Inside the Louvre."
Vernet walked to a deep leather chair and sank into it. "I need to ask
you both a very important question." He glanced up at Langdon and then back
to Sophie. "Did either of you have anything to do with his death?"
"No!" Sophie declared. "Absolutely not."
Vernet's face was grim, and he paused, pondering. "Your pictures are
being circulated by Interpol. This is how I recognized you. You're wanted
for a murder."
Sophie slumped. Fache ran an Interpol broadcast already? It seemed the
captain was more motivated than Sophie had anticipated. She quickly told
Vernet who Langdon was and what had happened inside the Louvre tonight.
Vernet looked amazed. "And as your grandfather was dying, he left you a
message telling you to find Mr. Langdon?"
"Yes. And this key." Sophie laid the gold key on the coffee table in
front of Vernet, placing the Priory seal face down.
Vernet glanced at the key but made no move to touch it. "He left you
only this key? Nothing else? No slip of paper?"
Sophie knew she had been in a hurry inside the Louvre, but she was
certain she had seen nothing else behind Madonna of the Rocks. "No. Just the
key."
Vernet gave a helpless sigh. "I'm afraid every key is electronically
paired with a ten-digit account number that functions as a password. Without
that number, your key is worthless."
Ten digits. Sophie reluctantly calculated the cryptographic odds. Over
ten billion possible choices. Even if she could bring in DCPJ's most
powerful parallel processing computers, she still would need weeks to break
the code. "Certainly, monsieur, considering the circumstances, you can help
us."
"I'm sorry. I truly can do nothing. Clients select their own account
numbers via a secure terminal, meaning account numbers are known only to the
client and computer. This is one way we ensure anonymity. And the safety of
our employees."
Sophie understood. Convenience stores did the same thing. EMPLOYEES DO
NOT HAVE KEYS TO THE SAFE. This bank obviously did not want to risk someone
stealing a key and then holding an employee hostage for the account number.
Sophie sat down beside Langdon, glanced down at the key and then up at
Vernet. "Do you have any idea what my grandfather is storing in your bank?"
"None whatsoever. That is the definition of a Geldschrank bank."
"Monsieur Vernet," she pressed, "our time tonight is short. I am going
to be very direct if I may." She reached out to the gold key and flipped it
over, watching the man's eyes as she revealed the Priory of Sion seal. "Does
the symbol on this key mean anything to you?"
Vernet glanced down at the fleur-de-lis seal and made no reaction. "No,
but many of our clients emboss corporate logos or initials onto their keys."
Sophie sighed, still watching him carefully. "This seal is the symbol
of a secret society known as the Priory of Sion."
Vernet again showed no reaction. "I know nothing of this. Your
grandfather was a friend, but we spoke mostly of business." The man adjusted
his tie, looking nervous now.
"Monsieur Vernet," Sophie pressed, her tone firm. "My grandfather
called me tonight and told me he and I were in grave danger. He said he had
to give me something. He gave me a key to your bank. Now he is dead.
Anything you can tell us would be helpful."
Vernet broke a sweat. "We need to get out of the building. I'm afraid
the police will arrive shortly. My watchman felt obliged to call Interpol."
Sophie had feared as much. She took one last shot. "My grandfather said
he needed to tell me the truth about my family. Does that mean anything to
you?"
"Mademoiselle, your family died in a car accident when you were young.
I'm sorry. I know your grandfather loved you very much. He mentioned to me
several times how much it pained him that you two had fallen out of touch."
Sophie was uncertain how to respond.
Langdon asked, "Do the contents of this account have anything to do
with the Sangreal?"
Vernet gave him an odd look. "I have no idea what that is." Just then,
Vernet's cell phone rang, and he snatched it off his belt. "Oui?" He
listened a moment, his expression one of surprise and growing concern. "La
police? Si rapidement?" He cursed, gave some quick directions in French, and
said he would be up to the lobby in a minute.
Hanging up the phone, he turned back to Sophie. "The police have
responded far more quickly than usual. They are arriving as we speak."
Sophie had no intention of leaving empty-handed. "Tell them we came and
went already. If they want to search the bank, demand a search warrant. That
will take them time."
"Listen," Vernet said, "Jacques was a friend, and my bank does not need
this kind of press, so for those two reasons, I have no intention of
allowing this arrest to be made on my premises. Give me a minute and I will
see what I can do to help you leave the bank undetected. Beyond that, I
cannot get involved." He stood up and hurried for the door. "Stay here. I'll
make arrangements and be right back."
"But the safe-deposit box," Sophie declared. "We can't just leave."
"There's nothing I can do," Vernet said, hurrying out the door. "I'm
sorry."
Sophie stared after him a moment, wondering if maybe the account number
was buried in one of the countless letters and packages her grandfather had
sent her over the years and which she had left unopened.
Langdon stood suddenly, and Sophie sensed an unexpected glimmer of
contentment in his eyes.
"Robert? You're smiling."
"Your grandfather was a genius."
"I'm sorry?"
"Ten digits?"
Sophie had no idea what he was talking about.
"The account number," he said, a familiar lopsided grin now craning his
face. "I'm pretty sure he left it for us after all."
"Where?"
Langdon produced the printout of the crime scene photo and spread it
out on the coffee table. Sophie needed only to read the first line to know
Langdon was correct.
13-3-2-21-1-1-8-5
O, Draconian devil!
Oh, lame saint!
P.S. Find Robert Langdon
"Ten digits," Sophie said, her cryptologic senses tingling as she
studied the printout.
13-3-2-21-1-1-8-5
Grand-pure wrote his account number on the Louvre floor!
When Sophie had first seen the scrambled Fibonacci sequence on the
parquet, she had assumed its sole purpose was to encourage DCPJ to call in
their cryptographers and get Sophie involved. Later, she realized the
numbers were also a clue as to how to decipher the other lines--a sequence
out of order... a numeric anagram. Now, utterly amazed, she saw the numbers
had a more important meaning still. They were almost certainly the final key
to opening her grandfather's mysterious safe-deposit box.
"He was the master of double-entendres," Sophie said, turning to
Langdon. "He loved anything with multiple layers of meaning. Codes within
codes."
Langdon was already moving toward the electronic podium near the
conveyor belt. Sophie grabbed the computer printout and followed.
The podium had a keypad similar to that of a bank ATM terminal. The
screen displayed the bank's cruciform logo. Beside the keypad was a
triangular hole. Sophie wasted no time inserting the shaft of her key into
the hole.
The screen refreshed instantly.
ACCOUNT NUMBER: _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
The cursor blinked. Waiting.
Ten digits. Sophie read the numbers off the printout, and Langdon typed
them in.
ACCOUNT NUMBER: 1332211185
When he had typed the last digit, the screen refreshed again. A message
in several languages appeared. English was on top.
CAUTION:
Before you strike the enter key, please check the accuracy of your
account number.
For your own security, if the computer does not recognize your account
number, this system will automatically shut down.
"Fonction terminer," Sophie said, frowning. "Looks like we only get one
try." Standard ATM machines allowed users three attempts to type a PIN
before confiscating their bank card. This was obviously no ordinary cash
machine.
"The number looks right," Langdon confirmed, carefully checking what
they had typed and comparing it to the printout. He motioned to the ENTER
key. "Fire away."
Sophie extended her index finger toward the keypad, but hesitated, an
odd thought now hitting her.
"Go ahead," Langdon urged. "Vernet will be back soon."
"No." She pulled her hand away. "This isn't the right account number."
"Of course it is! Ten digits. What else would it be?"
"It's too random."
Too random? Langdon could not have disagreed more. Every bank advised
its customers to choose PINs at random so nobody could guess them. Certainly
clients here would be advised to choose their account numbers at random.
Sophie deleted everything she had just typed in and looked up at
Langdon, her gaze self-assured. "It's far too coincidental that this
supposedly random account number could be rearranged to form the Fibonacci
sequence."
Langdon realized she had a point. Earlier, Sophie had rearranged this
account number into the Fibonacci sequence. What were the odds of being able
to do that?
Sophie was at the keypad again, entering a different number, as if from
memory. "Moreover, with my grandfather's love of symbolism and codes, it
seems to follow that he would have chosen an account number that had meaning
to him, something he could easily remember." She finished typing the entry
and gave a sly smile. "Something that appeared random... but was not."
Langdon looked at the screen.
ACCOUNT NUMBER: 1123581321
It took him an instant, but when Langdon spotted it, he knew she was
right.
The Fibonacci sequence.
1-1-2-3-5-8-13-21
When the Fibonacci sequence was melded into a single ten-digit number,
it became virtually unrecognizable. Easy to remember, and yet seemingly
random. A brilliant ten-digit code that Sauniure would never forget.
Furthermore, it perfectly explained why the scrambled numbers on the Louvre
floor could be rearranged to form the famous progression.
Sophie reached down and pressed the ENTER key.
Nothing happened.
At least nothing they could detect.
At that moment, beneath them, in the bank's cavernous subterranean
vault, a robotic claw sprang to life. Sliding on a double-axis transport
system attached to the ceiling, the claw headed off in search of the proper
coordinates. On the cement floor below, hundreds of identical plastic crates
lay aligned on an enormous grid... like rows of small coffins in an
underground crypt.
Whirring to a stop over the correct spot on the floor, the claw dropped
down, an electric eye confirming the bar code on the box. Then, with
computer precision, the claw grasped the heavy handle and hoisted the crate
vertically. New gears engaged, and the claw transported the box to the far
side of the vault, coming to a stop over a stationary conveyor belt.
Gently now, the retrieval arm set down the crate and retracted.
Once the arm was clear, the conveyor belt whirred to life....
Upstairs, Sophie and Langdon exhaled in relief to see the conveyor belt
move. Standing beside the belt, they felt like weary travelers at baggage
claim awaiting a mysterious piece of luggage whose contents were unknown.
The conveyor belt entered the room on their right through a narrow slit
beneath a retractable door. The metal door slid up, and a huge plastic box
appeared, emerging from the depths on the inclined conveyor belt. The box
was black, heavy molded plastic, and far larger than she imagined. It looked
like an air-freight pet transport crate without any airholes.
The box coasted to a stop directly in front of them.
Langdon and Sophie stood there, silent, staring at the mysterious
container.
Like everything else about this bank, this crate was industrial--metal
clasps, a bar code sticker on top, and molded heavy-duty handle. Sophie
thought it looked like a giant toolbox.
Wasting no time, Sophie unhooked the two buckles facing her. Then she
glanced over at Langdon. Together, they raised the heavy lid and let it fall
back.
Stepping forward, they peered down into the crate.
At first glance, Sophie thought the crate was empty. Then she saw
something. Sitting at the bottom of the crate. A lone item.
The polished wooden box was about the size of a shoebox and had ornate
hinges. The wood was a lustrous deep purple with a strong grain. Rosewood,
Sophie realized. Her grandfather's favorite. The lid bore a beautiful inlaid
design of a rose. She and Langdon exchanged puzzled looks. Sophie leaned in
and grabbed the box, lifting it out.
My God, it's heavy!
She carried it gingerly to a large receiving table and set it down.
Langdon stood beside her, both of them staring at the small treasure chest
her grandfather apparently had sent them to retrieve.
Langdon stared in wonderment at the lid's hand-carved inlay--a
five-petal rose. He had seen this type of rose many times. "The five-petal
rose," he whispered, "is a Priory symbol for the Holy Grail."
Sophie turned and looked at him. Langdon could see what she was
thinking, and he was thinking it too. The dimensions of the box, the
apparent weight of its contents, and a Priory symbol for the Grail all
seemed to imply one unfathomable conclusion. The Cup of Christ is in this
wooden box. Langdon again told himself it was impossible.
"It's a perfect size," Sophie whispered, "to hold... a chalice."
It can't be a chalice.
Sophie pulled the box toward her across the table, preparing to open
it. As she moved it, though, something unexpected happened. The box let out
an odd gurgling sound.
Langdon did a double take. There's liquid inside?
Sophie looked equally confused. "Did you just hear...?"
Langdon nodded, lost. "Liquid."
Reaching forward, Sophie slowly unhooked the clasp and raised the lid.
The object inside was unlike anything Langdon had ever seen. One thing
was immediately clear to both of them, however. This was definitely not the
Cup of Christ.
"The police are blocking the street," Andru Vernet said, walking into
the waiting room. "Getting you out will be difficult." As he closed the door
behind him, Vernet saw the heavy-duty plastic case on the conveyor belt and
halted in his tracks. My God! They accessed Sauniure's account?
Sophie and Langdon were at the table, huddling over what looked to be a
large wooden jewelry box. Sophie immediately closed the lid and looked up.
"We had the account number after all," she said.
Vernet was speechless. This changed everything. He respectfully
diverted his eyes from the box and tried to figure out his next move. I have
to get them out of the bank! But with the police already having set up a
roadblock, Vernet could imagine only one way to do that. "Mademoiselle
Neveu, if I can get you safely out of the bank, will you be taking the item
with you or returning it to the vault before you leave?"
Sophie glanced at Langdon and then back to Vernet. "We need to take
it."
Vernet nodded. "Very well. Then whatever the item is, I suggest you
wrap it in your jacket as we move through the hallways. I would prefer
nobody else see it."
As Langdon shed his jacket, Vernet hurried over to the conveyor belt,
closed the now empty crate, and typed a series of simple commands. The
conveyor belt began moving again, carrying the plastic container back down
to the vault. Pulling the gold key from the podium, he handed it to Sophie.
"This way please. Hurry."
When they reached the rear loading dock, Vernet could see the flash of
police lights filtering through the underground garage. He frowned. They
were probably blocking the ramp. Am I really going to try to pull this off?
He was sweating now.
Vernet motioned to one of the bank's small armored trucks. Transport
sur was another service offered by the Depository Bank of Zurich.
"Get in the cargo hold," he said, heaving open the massive rear door
and motioning to the glistening steel compartment. "I'll be right back."
As Sophie and Langdon climbed in, Vernet hurried across the loading
dock to the dock overseer's office, let himself in, collected the keys for
the truck, and found a driver's uniform jacket and cap. Shedding his own
suit coat and tie, he began to put on the driver's jacket. Reconsidering, he
donned a shoulder holster beneath the uniform. On his way out, he grabbed a
driver's pistol from the rack, put in a clip, and stuffed it in the holster,
buttoning his uniform over it. Returning to the truck, Vernet pulled the
driver's cap down low and peered in at Sophie and Langdon, who were standing
inside the empty steel box.
"You'll want this on," Vernet said, reaching inside and flicking a wall
switch to illuminate the lone courtesy bulb on the hold's ceiling. "And
you'd better sit down. Not a sound on our way out the gate."
Sophie and Langdon sat down on the metal floor. Langdon cradled the
treasure wadded in his tweed jacket. Swinging the heavy doors closed, Vernet
locked them inside. Then he got in behind the wheel and revved the engine.
As the armored truck lumbered toward the top of the ramp, Vernet could
feel the sweat already collecting beneath his driver's cap. He could see
there were far more police lights in front than he had imagined. As the
truck powered up the ramp, the interior gate swung inward to let him pass.
Vernet advanced and waited while the gate behind him closed before pulling
forward and tripping the next sensor. The second gate opened, and the exit
beckoned.
Except for the police car blocking the top of the ramp.
Vernet dabbed his brow and pulled forward.
A lanky officer stepped out and waved him to a stop a few meters from
the roadblock. Four patrol cars were parked out front.
Vernet stopped. Pulling his driver's cap down farther, he effected as
rough a facade as his cultured upbringing would allow. Not budging from
behind the wheel, he opened the door and gazed down at the agent, whose face
was stern and sallow.
"Qu'est-ce qui se passe?" Vernet asked, his tone rough.
"Je suis Jurome Collet," the agent said. "Lieutenant Police
Judiciaire." He motioned to the truck's cargo hold. "Qu'est-ce qu'ily a lu
dedans?"
"Hell if I know," Vernet replied in crude French. "I'm only a driver."
Collet looked unimpressed. "We're looking for two criminals."
Vernet laughed. "Then you came to the right spot. Some of these
bastards I drive for have so much money they must be criminals."
The agent held up a passport picture of Robert Langdon. "Was this man
in your bank tonight?"
Vernet shrugged. "No clue. I'm a dock rat. They don't let us anywhere
near the clients. You need to go in and ask the front desk."
"Your bank is demanding a search warrant before we can enter."
Vernet put on a disgusted look. "Administrators. Don't get me started."
"Open your truck, please." Collet motioned toward the cargo hold.
Vernet stared at the agent and forced an obnoxious laugh. "Open the
truck? You think I have keys? You think they trust us? You should see the
crap wages I get paid."
The agent's head tilted to one side, his skepticism evident. "You're
telling me you don't have keys to your own truck?"
Vernet shook his head. "Not the cargo area. Ignition only. These trucks
get sealed by overseers on the loading dock. Then the truck sits in dock
while someone drives the cargo keys to the drop-off. Once we get the call
that the cargo keys are with the recipient, then I get the okay to drive.
Not a second before. I never know what the hell I'm lugging."
"When was this truck sealed?"
"Must have been hours ago. I'm driving all the way up to St. Thurial
tonight. Cargo keys are already up there."
The agent made no response, his eyes probing as if trying to read
Vernet's mind.
A drop of sweat was preparing to slide down Vernet's nose. "You mind?"
he said, wiping his nose with his sleeve and motioning to the police car
blocking his way. "I'm on a tight schedule."
"Do all the drivers wear Rolexes?" the agent asked, pointing to
Vernet's wrist.
Vernet glanced down and saw the glistening band of his absurdly
expensive watch peeking out from beneath the sleeve of his jacket. Merde.
"This piece of shit? Bought it for twenty euro from a Taiwanese street
vendor in St. Germain des Prus. I'll sell it to you for forty."
The agent paused and finally stepped aside. "No thanks. Have a safe
trip."
Vernet did not breathe again until the truck was a good fifty meters
down the street. And now he had another problem. His cargo. Where do I take
them?
Silas lay prone on the canvas mat in his room, allowing the lash wounds
on his back to clot in the air. Tonight's second session with the Discipline
had left him dizzy and weak. He had yet to remove the cilice belt, and he
could feel the blood trickling down his inner thigh. Still, he could not
justify removing the strap.
I have failed the Church.
Far worse, I have failed the bishop.
Tonight was supposed to be Bishop Aringarosa's salvation. Five months
ago, the bishop had returned from a meeting at the Vatican Observatory,
where he had learned something that left him deeply changed. Depressed for
weeks, Aringarosa had finally shared the news with Silas.
"But this is impossible!" Silas had cried out. "I cannot accept it!"
"It is true," Aringarosa said. "Unthinkable, but true. In only six
months."
The bishop's words terrified Silas. He prayed for deliverance, and even
in those dark days, his trust in God and The Way never wavered. It was only
a month later that the clouds parted miraculously and the light of
possibility shone through.
Divine intervention, Aringarosa had called it.
The bishop had seemed hopeful for the first time. "Silas," he
whispered, "God has bestowed upon us an opportunity to protect The Way. Our
battle, like all battles, will take sacrifice. Will you be a soldier of
God?"
Silas fell to his knees before Bishop Aringarosa--the man who had given
him a new life--and he said, "I am a lamb of God. Shepherd me as your heart
commands."
When Aringarosa described the opportunity that had presented itself,
Silas knew it could only be the hand of God at work. Miraculous fate!
Aringarosa put Silas in contact with the man who had proposed the plan--a
man who called himself the Teacher. Although the Teacher and Silas never met
face-to-face, each time they spoke by phone, Silas was awed, both by the
profundity of the Teacher's faith and by the scope of his power. The Teacher
seemed to be a man who knew all, a man with eyes and ears in all places. How
the Teacher gathered his information, Silas did not know, but Aringarosa had
placed enormous trust in the Teacher, and he had told Silas to do the same.
"Do as the Teacher commands you," the bishop told Silas. "And we will be
victorious."
Victorious. Silas now gazed at the bare floor and feared victory had
eluded them. The Teacher had been tricked. The keystone was a devious dead
end. And with the deception, all hope had vanished.
Silas wished he could call Bishop Aringarosa and warn him, but the
Teacher had removed all their lines of direct communication tonight. For our
safety.
Finally, overcoming enormous trepidation, Silas crawled to his feet and
found his robe, which lay on the floor. He dug his cell phone from the
pocket. Hanging his head in shame, he dialed.
"Teacher," he whispered, "all is lost." Silas truthfully told the man
how he had been tricked.
"You lose your faith too quickly," the Teacher replied. "I have just
received news. Most unexpected and welcome. The secret lives. Jacques
Sauniure transferred information before he died. I will call you soon. Our
work tonight is not yet done."
Riding inside the dimly lit cargo hold of the armored truck was like
being transported inside a cell for solitary confinement. Langdon fought the
all too familiar anxiety that haunted him in confined spaces. Vernet said he
would take us a safe distance out of the city. Where? How far?
Langdon's legs had gotten stiff from sitting cross-legged on the metal
floor, and he shifted his position, wincing to feel the blood pouring back
into his lower body. In his arms, he still clutched the bizarre treasure
they had extricated from the bank.
"I think we're on the highway now," Sophie whispered.
Langdon sensed the same thing. The truck, after an unnerving pause atop
the bank ramp, had moved on, snaking left and right for a minute or two, and
was now accelerating to what felt like top speed. Beneath them, the
bulletproof tires hummed on smooth pavement. Forcing his attention to the
rosewood box in his arms, Langdon laid the precious bundle on the floor,
unwrapped his jacket, and extracted the box, pulling it toward him. Sophie
shifted her position so they were sitting side by side. Langdon suddenly
felt like they were two kids huddled over a Christmas present.
In contrast to the warm colors of the rosewood box, the inlaid rose had
been crafted of a pale wood, probably ash, which shone clearly in the dim
light. The Rose. Entire armies and religions had been built on this symbol,
as had secret societies. The Rosicrucians. The Knights of the Rosy Cross.
"Go ahead," Sophie said. "Open it."
Langdon took a deep breath. Reaching for the lid, he stole one more
admiring glance at the intricate woodwork and then, unhooking the clasp, he
opened the lid, revealing the object within.
Langdon had harbored several fantasies about what they might find
inside this box, but clearly he had been wrong on every account. Nestled
snugly inside the box's heavily padded interior of crimson silk lay an
object Langdon could not even begin to comprehend.
Crafted of polished white marble, it was a stone cylinder approximately
the dimensions of a tennis ball can. More complicated than a simple column
of stone, however, the cylinder appeared to have been assembled in many
pieces. Six doughnut-sized disks of marble had been stacked and affixed to
one another within a delicate brass framework. It looked like some kind of
tubular, multiwheeled kaleidoscope. Each end of the cylinder was affixed
with an end cap, also marble, making it impossible to see inside. Having
heard liquid within, Langdon assumed the cylinder was hollow.
As mystifying as the construction of the cylinder was, however, it was
the engravings around the tube's circumference that drew Langdon's primary
focus. Each of the six disks had been carefully carved with the same
unlikely series of letters--the entire alphabet. The lettered cylinder
reminded Langdon of one of his childhood toys--a rod threaded with lettered
tumblers that could be rotated to spell different words.
"Amazing, isn't it?" Sophie whispered.
Langdon glanced up. "I don't know. What the hell is it?"
Now there was a glint in Sophie's eye. "My grandfather used to craft
these as a hobby. They were invented by Leonardo da Vinci."
Even in the diffuse light, Sophie could see Langdon's surprise.
"Da Vinci?" he muttered, looking again at the canister.
"Yes. It's called a cryptex. According to my grandfather, the
blueprints come from one of Da Vinci's secret diaries."
"What is it for?"
Considering tonight's events, Sophie knew the answer might have some
interesting implications. "It's a vault," she said. "For storing secret
information."
Langdon's eyes widened further.
Sophie explained that creating models of Da Vinci's inventions was one
of her grandfather's best-loved hobbies. A talented craftsman who spent
hours in his wood and metal shop, Jacques Sauniure enjoyed imitating master
craftsmen--Fabergu, assorted cloisonne artisans, and the less artistic, but
far more practical, Leonardo da Vinci.
Even a cursory glance through Da Vinci's journals revealed why the
luminary was as notorious for his lack of follow-through as he was famous
for his brilliance. Da Vinci had drawn up blueprints for hundreds of
inventions he had never built. One of Jacques Sauniure's favorite pastimes
was bringing Da Vinci's more obscure brainstorms to life--timepieces, water
pumps, cryptexes, and even a fully articulated model of a medieval French
knight, which now stood proudly on the desk in his office. Designed by Da
Vinci in 1495 as an outgrowth of his earliest anatomy and kinesiology
studies, the internal mechanism of the robot knight possessed accurate
joints and tendons, and was designed to sit up, wave its arms, and move its
head via a flexible neck while opening and closing an anatomically correct
jaw. This armor-clad knight, Sophie had always believed, was the most
beautiful object her grandfather had ever built... that was, until she had
seen the cryptex in this rosewood box.
"He made me one of these when I was little," Sophie said. "But I've
never seen one so ornate and large."
Langdon's eyes had never left the box. "I've never heard of a cryptex."
Sophie was not surprised. Most of Leonardo's unbuilt inventions had
never been studied or even named. The term cryptex possibly had been her
grandfather's creation, an apt title for this device that used the science
of cryptology to protect information written on the contained scroll or
codex.
Da Vinci had been a cryptology pioneer, Sophie knew, although he was
seldom given credit. Sophie's university instructors, while presenting
computer encryption methods for securing data, praised modern cryptologists
like Zimmerman and Schneier but failed to mention that it was Leonardo who
had invented one of the first rudimentary forms of public key encryption
centuries ago. Sophie's grandfather, of course, had been the one to tell her
all about that.
As their armored truck roared down the highway, Sophie explained to
Langdon that the cryptex had been Da Vinci's solution to the dilemma of
sending secure messages over long distances. In an era without telephones or
e-mail, anyone wanting to convey private information to someone far away had
no option but to write it down and then trust a messenger to carry the
letter. Unfortunately, if a messenger suspected the letter might contain
valuable information, he could make far more money selling the information
to adversaries than he could delivering the letter properly.
Many great minds in history had invented cryptologic solutions to the
challenge of data protection: Julius Caesar devised a code-writing scheme
called the Caesar Box; Mary, Queen of Scots created a transposition cipher
and sent secret communiquus from prison; and the brilliant Arab scientist
Abu Yusuf Ismail al-Kindi protected his secrets with an ingeniously
conceived polyalphabetic substitution cipher.
Da Vinci, however, eschewed mathematics and cryptology for a mechanical
solution. The cryptex. A portable container that could safeguard letters,
maps, diagrams, anything at all. Once information was sealed inside the
cryptex, only the individual with the proper password could access it.
"We require a password," Sophie said, pointing out the lettered dials.
"A cryptex works much like a bicycle's combination lock. If you align the
dials in the proper position, the lock slides open. This cryptex has five
lettered dials. When you rotate them to their proper sequence, the tumblers
inside align, and the entire cylinder slides apart."
"And inside?"
"Once the cylinder slides apart, you have access to a hollow central
compartment, which can hold a scroll of paper on which is the information
you want to keep private."
Langdon looked incredulous. "And you say your grandfather built these
for you when you were younger?"
"Some smaller ones, yes. A couple times for my birthday, he gave me a
cryptex and told me a riddle. The answer to the riddle was the password to
the cryptex, and once I figured it out, I could open it up and find my
birthday card."
"A lot of work for a card."
"No, the cards always contained another riddle or clue. My grandfather
loved creating elaborate treasure hunts around our house, a string of clues
that eventually led to my real gift. Each treasure hunt was a test of
character and merit, to ensure I earned my rewards. And the tests were never
simple."
Langdon eyed the device again, still looking skeptical. "But why not
just pry it apart? Or smash it? The metal looks delicate, and marble is a
soft rock."
Sophie smiled. "Because Da Vinci is too smart for that. He designed the
cryptex so that if you try to force it open in any way, the information
self-destructs. Watch." Sophie reached into the box and carefully lifted out
the cylinder. "Any information to be inserted is first written on a papyrus
scroll."
"Not vellum?"
Sophie shook her head. "Papyrus. I know sheep's vellum was more durable
and more common in those days, but it had to be papyrus. The thinner the
better."
"Okay."
"Before the papyrus was inserted into the cryptex's compartment, it was
rolled around a delicate glass vial." She tipped the cryptex, and the liquid
inside gurgled. "A vial of liquid."
"Liquid what?"
Sophie smiled. "Vinegar."
Langdon hesitated a moment and then began nodding. "Brilliant."
Vinegar and papyrus, Sophie thought. If someone attempted to force open
the cryptex, the glass vial would break, and the vinegar would quickly
dissolve the papyrus. By the time anyone extracted the secret message, it
would be a glob of meaningless pulp.
"As you can see," Sophie told him, "the only way to access the
information inside is to know the proper five-letter password. And with five
dials, each with twenty-six letters, that's twenty-six to the fifth power."
She quickly estimated the permutations. "Approximately twelve million
possibilities."
"If you say so," Langdon said, looking like he had approximately twelve
million questions running through his head. "What information do you think
is inside?"
"Whatever it is, my grandfather obviously wanted very badly to keep it
secret." She paused, closing the box lid and eyeing the five-petal Rose
inlaid on it. Something was bothering her. "Did you say earlier that the
Rose is a symbol for the Grail?"
"Exactly. In Priory symbolism, the Rose and the Grail are synonymous."
Sophie furrowed her brow. "That's strange, because my grandfather
always told me the Rose meant secrecy. He used to hang a rose on his office
door at home when he was having a confidential phone call and didn't want me
to disturb him. He encouraged me to do the same." Sweetie, her grandfather
said, rather than lock each other out, we can each hang a rose--la fleur des
secrets--on our door when we need privacy. This way we learn to respect and
trust each other. Hanging a rose is an ancient Roman custom.
"Sub rosa," Langdon said. "The Romans hung a rose over meetings to
indicate the meeting was confidential. Attendees understood that whatever
was said under the rose--or sub rosa--had to remain a secret."
Langdon quickly explained that the Rose's overtone of secrecy was not
the only reason the Priory used it as a symbol for the Grail. Rosa rugosa,
one of the oldest species of rose, had five petals and pentagonal symmetry,
just like the guiding star of Venus, giving the Rose strong iconographic
ties to womanhood. In addition, the Rose had close ties to the concept of
"true direction" and navigating one's way. The Compass Rose helped travelers
navigate, as did Rose Lines, the longitudinal lines on maps. For this
reason, the Rose was a symbol that spoke of the Grail on many
levels--secrecy, womanhood, and guidance--the feminine chalice and guiding
star that led to secret truth.
As Langdon finished his explanation, his expression seemed to tighten
suddenly.
"Robert? Are you okay?"
His eyes were riveted to the rosewood box. "Sub... rosa," he choked, a
fearful bewilderment sweeping across his face. "It can't be."
"What?"
Langdon slowly raised his eyes. "Under the sign of the Rose," he
whispered. "This cryptex... I think I know what it is."
Langdon could scarcely believe his own supposition, and yet,
considering who had given this stone cylinder to them, how he had given it
to them, and now, the inlaid Rose on the container, Langdon could formulate
only one conclusion.
I am holding the Priory keystone.
The legend was specific.
The keystone is an encoded stone that lies beneath the sign of the
Rose.
"Robert?" Sophie was watching him. "What's going on?"
Langdon needed a moment to gather his thoughts. "Did your grandfather
ever speak to you of something called la clef de voute?"
"The key to the vault?" Sophie translated.
"No, that's the literal translation. Clef de voute is a common
architectural term. Voute refers not to a bank vault, but to a vault in an
archway. Like a vaulted ceiling."
"But vaulted ceilings don't have keys."
"Actually they do. Every stone archway requires a central, wedge-shaped
stone at the top which locks the pieces together and carries all the weight.
This stone is, in an architectural sense, the key to the vault. In English
we call it a keystone." Langdon watched her eyes for any spark of
recognition.
Sophie shrugged, glancing down at the cryptex. "But this obviously is
not a keystone."
Langdon didn't know where to begin. Keystones as a masonry technique
for building stone archways had been one of the best-kept secrets of the
early Masonic brotherhood. The Royal Arch Degree. Architecture. Keystones.
It was all interconnected. The secret knowledge of how to use a wedged
keystone to build a vaulted archway was part of the wisdom that had made the
Masons such wealthy craftsmen, and it was a secret they guarded carefully.
Keystones had always had a tradition of secrecy. And yet, the stone cylinder
in the rosewood box was obviously something quite different. The Priory
keystone--if this was indeed what they were holding--was not at all what
Langdon had imagined.
"The Priory keystone is not my specialty," Langdon admitted. "My
interest in the Holy Grail is primarily symbologic, so I tend to ignore the
plethora of lore regarding how to actually find it."
Sophie's eyebrows arched. "Find the Holy Grail?"
Langdon gave an uneasy nod, speaking his next words carefully. "Sophie,
according to Priory lore, the keystone is an encoded map... a map that
reveals the hiding place of the Holy Grail."
Sophie's face went blank. "And you think this is it?"
Langdon didn't know what to say. Even to him it sounded unbelievable,
and yet the keystone was the only logical conclusion he could muster. An
encrypted stone, hidden beneath the sign of the Rose.
The idea that the cryptex had been designed by Leonardo da
Vinci--former Grand Master of the Priory of Sion--shone as another
tantalizing indicator that this was indeed the Priory keystone. A former
Grand Master's blueprint... brought to life centuries later by another
Priory member. The bond was too palpable to dismiss.
For the last decade, historians had been searching for the keystone in
French churches. Grail seekers, familiar with the Priory's history of
cryptic double-talk, had concluded la clef de voute was a literal
keystone--an architectural wedge--an engraved, encrypted stone, inserted
into a vaulted archway in a church. Beneath the sign of the Rose. In
architecture, there was no shortage of roses. Rose windows. Rosette reliefs.
And, of course, an abundance of cinquefoils--the five-petaled decorative
flowers often found at the top of archways, directly over the keystone. The
hiding place seemed diabolically simple. The map to the Holy Grail was
incorporated high in an archway of some forgotten church, mocking the blind
churchgoers who wandered beneath it.
"This cryptex can't be the keystone," Sophie argued. "It's not old
enough. I'm certain my grandfather made this. It can't be part of any
ancient Grail legend."
"Actually," Langdon replied, feeling a tingle of excitement ripple
through him, "the keystone is believed to have been created by the Priory
sometime in the past couple of decades."
Sophie's eyes flashed disbelief. "But if this cryptex reveals the
hiding place of the Holy Grail, why would my grandfather give it to me? I
have no idea how to open it or what to do with it. I don't even know what
the Holy Grail is!"
Langdon realized to his surprise that she was right. He had not yet had
a chance to explain to Sophie the true nature of the Holy Grail. That story
would have to wait. At the moment, they were focused on the keystone.
If that is indeed what this is....
Against the hum of the bulletproof wheels beneath them, Langdon quickly
explained to Sophie everything he had heard about the keystone. Allegedly,
for centuries, the Priory's biggest secret--the location of the Holy
Grail--was never written down. For security's sake, it was verbally
transferred to each new rising sunuchal at a clandestine ceremony. However,
at some point during the last century, whisperings began to surface that the
Priory policy had changed. Perhaps it was on account of new electronic
eavesdropping capabilities, but the Priory vowed never again even to speak
the location of the sacred hiding place.
"But then how could they pass on the secret?" Sophie asked.
"That's where the keystone comes in," Langdon explained. "When one of
the top four members died, the remaining three would choose from the lower
echelons the next candidate to ascend as sunuchal. Rather than telling the
new sunuchal where the Grail was hidden, they gave him a test through which
he could prove he was worthy."
Sophie looked unsettled by this, and Langdon suddenly recalled her
mentioning how her grandfather used to make treasure hunts for her--preuves
de murite. Admittedly, the keystone was a similar concept. Then again, tests
like this were extremely common in secret societies. The best known was the
Masons', wherein members ascended to higher degrees by proving they could
keep a secret and by performing rituals and various tests of merit over many
years. The tasks became progressively harder until they culminated in a
successful candidate's induction as thirty-second-degree Mason.
"So the keystone is a preuve de murite," Sophie said. "If a rising
Priory sunuchal can open it, he proves himself worthy of the information it
holds."
Langdon nodded. "I forgot you'd had experience with this sort of
thing."
"Not only with my grandfather. In cryptology, that's called a
'self-authorizing language.' That is, if you're smart enough to read it,
you're permitted to know what is being said."
Langdon hesitated a moment. "Sophie, you realize that if this is indeed
the keystone, your grandfather's access to it implies he was exceptionally
powerful within the Priory of Sion. He would have to have been one of the
highest four members."
Sophie sighed. "He was powerful in a secret society. I'm certain of it.
I can only assume it was the Priory."
Langdon did a double take. "You knew he was in a secret society?"
"I saw some things I wasn't supposed to see ten years ago. We haven't
spoken since." She paused. "My grandfather was not only a ranking top member
of the group... I believe he was the top member."
Langdon could not believe what she had just said. "Grand Master? But...
there's no way you could know that!"
"I'd rather not talk about it." Sophie looked away, her expression as
determined as it was pained.
Langdon sat in stunned silence. Jacques Sauniure? Grand Master? Despite
the astonishing repercussions if it were true, Langdon had the eerie
sensation it almost made perfect sense. After all, previous Priory Grand
Masters had also been distinguished public figures with artistic souls.
Proof of that fact had been uncovered years ago in Paris's Bibliothuque
Nationale in papers that became known as Les Dossiers Secrets.
Every Priory historian and Grail buff had read the Dossiers. Cataloged
under Number 4° lm1 249, the Dossiers Secrets had been
authenticated by many specialists and incontrovertibly confirmed what
historians had suspected for a long time: Priory Grand Masters included
Leonardo da Vinci, Botticelli, Sir Isaac Newton, Victor Hugo, and, more
recently, Jean Cocteau, the famous Parisian artist.
Why not Jacques Sauniure?
Langdon's incredulity intensified with the realization that he had been
slated to meet Sauniure tonight. The Priory Grand Master called a meeting
with me. Why? To make artistic small talk? It suddenly seemed unlikely.
After all, if Langdon's instincts were correct, the Grand Master of the
Priory of Sion had just transferred the brotherhood's legendary keystone to
his granddaughter and simultaneously commanded her to find Robert Langdon.
Inconceivable!
Langdon's imagination could conjure no set of circumstances that would
explain Sauniure's behavior. Even if Sauniure feared his own death, there
were three sunuchaux who also possessed the secret and therefore guaranteed
the Priory's security. Why would Sauniure take such an enormous risk giving
his granddaughter the keystone, especially when the two of them didn't get
along? And why involve Langdon... a total stranger?
A piece of this puzzle is missing, Langdon thought.
The answers were apparently going to have to wait. The sound of the
slowing engine caused them both to look up. Gravel crunched beneath the
tires. Why is he pulling over already? Langdon wondered. Vernet had told
them he would take them well outside the city to safety. The truck
decelerated to a crawl and made its way over unexpectedly rough terrain.
Sophie shot Langdon an uneasy look, hastily closing the cryptex box and
latching it. Langdon slipped his jacket back on.
When the truck came to a stop, the engine remained idling as the locks
on the rear doors began to turn. When the doors swung open, Langdon was
surprised to see they were parked in a wooded area, well off the road.
Vernet stepped into view, a strained look in his eye. In his hand, he held a
pistol.
"I'm sorry about this," he said. "I really have no choice."
Andru Vernet looked awkward with a pistol, but his eyes shone with a
determination that Langdon sensed would be unwise to test.
"I'm afraid I must insist," Vernet said, training the weapon on the two
of them in the back of the idling truck. "Set the box down."
Sophie clutched the box to her chest. "You said you and my grandfather
were friends."
"I have a duty to protect your grandfather's assets," Vernet replied.
"And that is exactly what I am doing. Now set the box on the floor."
"My grandfather entrusted this to me!" Sophie declared.
"Do it," Vernet commanded, raising the gun.
Sophie set the box at her feet.
Langdon watched the gun barrel swing now in his direction.
"Mr. Langdon," Vernet said, "you will bring the box over to me. And be
aware that I'm asking you because you I would not hesitate to shoot."
Langdon stared at the banker in disbelief. "Why are you doing this?"
"Why do you imagine?" Vernet snapped, his accented English terse now.
"To protect my client's assets."
"We are your clients now," Sophie said.
Vernet's visage turned ice-cold, an eerie transformation. "Mademoiselle
Neveu, I don't know how you got that key and account number tonight, but it
seems obvious that foul play was involved. Had I known the extent of your
crimes, I would never have helped you leave the bank."
"I told you," Sophie said, "we had nothing to do with my grandfather's
death!"
Vernet looked at Langdon. "And yet the radio claims you are wanted not
only for the murder of Jacques Sauniure but for those of three other men as
well?"
"What!" Langdon was thunderstruck. Three more murders? The coincidental
number hit him harder than the fact that he was the prime suspect. It seemed
too unlikely to be a coincidence. The three sunuchaux? Langdon's eyes
dropped to the rosewood box. If the sunuchaux were murdered, Sauniure had no
options. He had to transfer the keystone to someone.
"The police can sort that out when I turn you in," Vernet said. "I have
gotten my bank involved too far already."
Sophie glared at Vernet. "You obviously have no intention of turning us
in. You would have driven us back to the bank. And instead you bring us out
here and hold us at gunpoint?"
"Your grandfather hired me for one reason--to keep his possessions both
safe and private. Whatever this box contains, I have no intention of letting
it become a piece of cataloged evidence in a police investigation. Mr.
Langdon, bring me the box."
Sophie shook her head. "Don't do it."
A gunshot roared, and a bullet tore into the wall above him. The
reverberation shook the back of the truck as a spent shell clinked onto the
cargo floor.
Shit! Langdon froze.
Vernet spoke more confidently now. "Mr. Langdon, pick up the box."
Langdon lifted the box.
"Now bring it over to me." Vernet was taking dead aim, standing on the
ground behind the rear bumper, his gun outstretched into the cargo hold now.
Box in hand, Langdon moved across the hold toward the open door.
I've got to do something! Langdon thought. I'm about to hand over the
Priory keystone! As Langdon moved toward the doorway, his position of higher
ground became more pronounced, and he began wondering if he could somehow
use it to his advantage. Vernet's gun, though raised, was at Langdon's knee
level. A well-placed kick perhaps? Unfortunately, as Langdon neared, Vernet
seemed to sense the dangerous dynamic developing, and he took several steps
back, repositioning himself six feet away. Well out of reach.
Vernet commanded, "Place the box beside the door."
Seeing no options, Langdon knelt down and set the rosewood box at the
edge of the cargo hold, directly in front of the open doors.
"Now stand up."
Langdon began to stand up but paused, spying the small, spent pistol
shell on the floor beside the truck's precision-crafted doorsill.
"Stand up, and step away from the box."
Langdon paused a moment longer, eyeing the metal threshold. Then he
stood. As he did, he discreetly brushed the shell over the edge onto the
narrow ledge that was the door's lower sill. Fully upright now, Langdon
stepped backward.
"Return to the back wall and turn around."
Langdon obeyed.
Vernet could feel his own heart pounding. Aiming the gun with his right
hand, he reached now with his left for the wooden box. He discovered that it
was far too heavy. I need two hands. Turning his eyes back to his captives,
he calculated the risk. Both were a good fifteen feet away, at the far end
of the cargo hold, facing away from him. Vernet made up his mind. Quickly,
he laid down the gun on the bumper, lifted the box with two hands, and set
it on the ground, immediately grabbing the gun again and aiming it back into
the hold. Neither of his prisoners had moved.
Perfect. Now all that remained was to close and lock the door. Leaving
the box on the ground for the moment, he grabbed the metal door and began to
heave it closed. As the door swung past him, Vernet reached up to grab the
single bolt that needed to be slid into place. The door closed with a thud,
and Vernet quickly grabbed the bolt, pulling it to the left. The bolt slid a
few inches and crunched to an unexpected halt, not lining up with its
sleeve. What's going on? Vernet pulled again, but the bolt wouldn't lock.
The mechanism was not properly aligned. The door isn't fully closed! Feeling
a surge of panic, Vernet shoved hard against the outside of the door, but it
refused to budge. Something is blocking it! Vernet turned to throw full
shoulder into the door, but this time the door exploded outward, striking
Vernet in the face and sending him reeling backward onto the ground, his
nose shattering in pain. The gun flew as Vernet reached for his face and
felt the warm blood running from his nose.
Robert Langdon hit the ground somewhere nearby, and Vernet tried to get
up, but he couldn't see. His vision blurred and he fell backward again.
Sophie Neveu was shouting. Moments later, Vernet felt a cloud of dirt and
exhaust billowing over him. He heard the crunching of tires on gravel and
sat up just in time to see the truck's wide wheelbase fail to navigate a
turn. There was a crash as the front bumper clipped a tree. The engine
roared, and the tree bent. Finally, it was the bumper that gave, tearing
half off. The armored car lurched away, its front bumper dragging. When the
truck reached the paved access road, a shower of sparks lit up the night,
trailing the truck as it sped away.
Vernet turned his eyes back to the ground where the truck had been
parked. Even in the faint moonlight he could see there was nothing there.
The wooden box was gone.
The unmarked Fiat sedan departing Castel Gandolfo snaked downward
through the Alban Hills into the valley below. In the back seat, Bishop
Aringarosa smiled, feeling the weight of the bearer bonds in the briefcase
on his lap and wondering how long it would be before he and the Teacher
could make the exchange.
Twenty million euro.
The sum would buy Aringarosa power far more valuable than that.
As his car sped back toward Rome, Aringarosa again found himself
wondering why the Teacher had not yet contacted him. Pulling his cell phone
from his cassock pocket, he checked the carrier signal. Extremely faint.
"Cell service is intermittent up here," the driver said, glancing at
him in the rearview mirror. "In about five minutes, we'll be out of the
mountains, and service improves."
"Thank you." Aringarosa felt a sudden surge of concern. No service in
the mountains? Maybe the Teacher had been trying to reach him all this time.
Maybe something had gone terribly wrong.
Quickly, Aringarosa checked the phone's voice mail. Nothing. Then
again, he realized, the Teacher never would have left a recorded message; he
was a man who took enormous care with his communications. Nobody understood
better than the Teacher the perils of speaking openly in this modern world.
Electronic eavesdropping had played a major role in how he had gathered his
astonishing array of secret knowledge.
For this reason, he takes extra precautions.
Unfortunately, the Teacher's protocols for caution included a refusal
to give Aringarosa any kind of contact number. I alone will initiate
contact, the Teacher had informed him. So keep your phone close. Now that
Aringarosa realized his phone might not have been working properly, he
feared what the Teacher might think if he had been repeatedly phoning with
no answer.
He'll think something is wrong.
Or that I failed to get the bonds.
The bishop broke a light sweat.
Or worse... that I took the money and ran!
Even at a modest sixty kilometers an hour, the dangling front bumper of
the armored truck grated against the deserted suburban road with a grinding
roar, spraying sparks up onto the hood.
We've got to get off the road, Langdon thought.
He could barely even see where they were headed. The truck's lone
working headlight had been knocked off-center and was casting a skewed
sidelong beam into the woods beside the country highway. Apparently the
armor in this "armored truck" referred only to the cargo hold and not the
front end.
Sophie sat in the passenger seat, staring blankly at the rosewood box
on her lap.
"Are you okay?" Langdon asked.
Sophie looked shaken. "Do you believe him?"
"About the three additional murders? Absolutely. It answers a lot of
questions--the issue of your grandfather's desperation to pass on the
keystone, as well as the intensity with which Fache is hunting me."
"No, I meant about Vernet trying to protect his bank."
Langdon glanced over. "As opposed to?"
"Taking the keystone for himself."
Langdon had not even considered it. "How would he even know what this
box contains?"
"His bank stored it. He knew my grandfather. Maybe he knew things. He
might have decided he wanted the Grail for himself."
Langdon shook his head. Vernet hardly seemed the type. "In my
experience, there are only two reasons people seek the Grail. Either they
are naive and believe they are searching for the long-lost Cup of Christ..."
"Or?"
"Or they know the truth and are threatened by it. Many groups
throughout history have sought to destroy the Grail."
The silence between them accentuated the sound of the scraping bumper.
They had driven a few kilometers now, and as Langdon watched the cascade of
sparks coming off the front of the truck, he wondered if it was dangerous.
Either way, if they passed another car, it would certainly draw attention.
Langdon made up his mind.
"I'm going to see if I can bend this bumper back."
Pulling onto the shoulder, he brought the truck to a stop.
Silence at last.
As Langdon walked toward the front of the truck, he felt surprisingly
alert. Staring into the barrel of yet another gun tonight had given him a
second wind. He took a deep breath of nighttime air and tried to get his
wits about him. Accompanying the gravity of being a hunted man, Langdon was
starting to feel the ponderous weight of responsibility, the prospect that
he and Sophie might actually be holding an encrypted set of directions to
one of the most enduring mysteries of all time.
As if this burden were not great enough, Langdon now realized that any
possibility of finding a way to return the keystone to the Priory had just
evaporated. News of the three additional murders had dire implications. The
Priory has been infiltrated. They are compromised. The brotherhood was
obviously being watched, or there was a mole within the ranks. It seemed to
explain why Sauniure might have transferred the keystone to Sophie and
Langdon--people outside the brotherhood, people he knew were not
compromised. We can't very well give the keystone back to the brotherhood.
Even if Langdon had any idea how to find a Priory member, chances were good
that whoever stepped forward to take the keystone could be the enemy
himself. For the moment, at least, it seemed the keystone was in Sophie and
Langdon's hands, whether they wanted it or not.
The truck's front end looked worse than Langdon had imagined. The left
headlight was gone, and the right one looked like an eyeball dangling from
its socket. Langdon straightened it, and it dislodged again. The only good
news was that the front bumper had been torn almost clean off. Langdon gave
it a hard kick and sensed he might be able to break it off entirely.
As he repeatedly kicked the twisted metal, Langdon recalled his earlier
conversation with Sophie. My grandfather left me a phone message, Sophie had
told him. He said he needed to tell me the truth about my family. At the
time it had meant nothing, but now, knowing the Priory of Sion was involved,
Langdon felt a startling new possibility emerge.
The bumper broke off suddenly with a crash. Langdon paused to catch his
breath. At least the truck would no longer look like a Fourth of July
sparkler. He grabbed the bumper and began dragging it out of sight into the
woods, wondering where they should go next. They had no idea how to open the
cryptex, or why Sauniure had given it to them. Unfortunately, their survival
tonight seemed to depend on getting answers to those very questions.
We need help, Langdon decided. Professional help.
In the world of the Holy Grail and the Priory of Sion, that meant only
one man. The challenge, of course, would be selling the idea to Sophie.
Inside the armored car, while Sophie waited for Langdon to return, she
could feel the weight of the rosewood box on her lap and resented it. Why
did my grandfather give this to me? She had not the slightest idea what to
do with it.
Think, Sophie! Use your head. Grand-pure is trying to tell you
something!
Opening the box, she eyed the cryptex's dials. A proof of merit. She
could feel her grandfather's hand at work. The keystone is a map that can be
followed only by the worthy. It sounded like her grandfather to the core.
Lifting the cryptex out of the box, Sophie ran her fingers over the
dials. Five letters. She rotated the dials one by one. The mechanism moved
smoothly. She aligned the disks such that her chosen letters lined up
between the cryptex's two brass alignment arrows on either end of the
cylinder. The dials now spelled a five-letter word that Sophie knew was
absurdly obvious.
G-R-A-I-L.
Gently, she held the two ends of the cylinder and pulled, applying
pressure slowly. The cryptex didn't budge. She heard the vinegar inside
gurgle and stopped pulling. Then she tried again.
V-I-N-C-I
Again, no movement.
V-O-U-T-E
Nothing. The cryptex remained locked solid.
Frowning, she replaced it in the rosewood box and closed the lid.
Looking outside at Langdon, Sophie felt grateful he was with her tonight.
P.S. Find Robert Langdon. Her grandfather's rationale for including him was
now clear. Sophie was not equipped to understand her grandfather's
intentions, and so he had assigned Robert Langdon as her guide. A tutor to
oversee her education. Unfortunately for Langdon, he had turned out to be
far more than a tutor tonight. He had become the target of Bezu Fache... and
some unseen force intent on possessing the Holy Grail.
Whatever the Grail turns out to be.
Sophie wondered if finding out was worth her life.
As the armored truck accelerated again, Langdon was pleased how much
more smoothly it drove. "Do you know how to get to Versailles?"
Sophie eyed him. "Sightseeing?"
"No, I have a plan. There's a religious historian I know who lives near
Versailles. I can't remember exactly where, but we can look it up. I've been
to his estate a few times. His name is Leigh Teabing. He's a former British
Royal Historian."
"And he lives in Paris?"
"Teabing's life passion is the Grail. When whisperings of the Priory
keystone surfaced about fifteen years ago, he moved to France to search
churches in hopes of finding it. He's written some books on the keystone and
the Grail. He may be able to help us figure out how to open it and what to
do with it."
Sophie's eyes were wary. "Can you trust him?"
"Trust him to what? Not steal the information?"
"And not to turn us in."
"I don't intend to tell him we're wanted by the police. I'm hoping
he'll take us in until we can sort all this out."
"Robert, has it occurred to you that every television in France is
probably getting ready to broadcast our pictures? Bezu Fache always uses the
media to his advantage. He'll make it impossible for us to move around
without being recognized."
Terrific, Langdon thought. My French TV debut will be on "Paris's Most
Wanted." At least Jonas Faukman would be pleased; every time Langdon made
the news, his book sales jumped.
"Is this man a good enough friend?" Sophie asked.
Langdon doubted Teabing was someone who watched television, especially
at this hour, but still the question deserved consideration. Instinct told
Langdon that Teabing would be totally trustworthy. An ideal safe harbor.
Considering the circumstances, Teabing would probably trip over himself to
help them as much as possible. Not only did he owe Langdon a favor, but
Teabing was a Grail researcher, and Sophie claimed her grandfather was the
actual Grand Master of the Priory of Sion. If Teabing heard that, he would
salivate at the thought of helping them figure this out.
"Teabing could be a powerful ally," Langdon said. Depending on how much
you want to tell him.
"Fache probably will be offering a monetary reward."
Langdon laughed. "Believe me, money is the last thing this guy needs."
Leigh Teabing was wealthy in the way small countries were wealthy. A
descendant of Britain's First Duke of Lancaster, Teabing had gotten his
money the old-fashioned way--he'd inherited it. His estate outside of Paris
was a seventeenth-century palace with two private lakes.
Langdon had first met Teabing several years ago through the British
Broadcasting Corporation. Teabing had approached the BBC with a proposal for
a historical documentary in which he would expose the explosive history of
the Holy Grail to a mainstream television audience. The BBC producers loved
Teabing's hot premise, his research, and his credentials, but they had
concerns that the concept was so shocking and hard to swallow that the
network might end up tarnishing its reputation for quality journalism. At
Teabing's suggestion, the BBC solved its credibility fears by soliciting
three cameos from respected historians from around the world, all of whom
corroborated the stunning nature of the Holy Grail secret with their own
research.
Langdon had been among those chosen.
The BBC had flown Langdon to Teabing's Paris estate for the filming. He
sat before cameras in Teabing's opulent drawing room and shared his story,
admitting his initial skepticism on hearing of the alternate Holy Grail
story, then describing how years of research had persuaded him that the
story was true. Finally, Langdon offered some of his own research--a series
of symbologic connections that strongly supported the seemingly
controversial claims.
When the program aired in Britain, despite its ensemble cast and
well-documented evidence, the premise rubbed so hard against the grain of
popular Christian thought that it instantly confronted a firestorm of
hostility. It never aired in the States, but the repercussions echoed across
the Atlantic. Shortly afterward, Langdon received a postcard from an old
friend--the Catholic Bishop of Philadelphia. The card simply read: Et tu,
Robert?
"Robert," Sophie asked, "you're certain we can trust this man?"
"Absolutely. We're colleagues, he doesn't need money, and I happen to
know he despises the French authorities. The French government taxes him at
absurd rates because he bought a historic landmark. He'll be in no hurry to
cooperate with Fache."
Sophie stared out at the dark roadway. "If we go to him, how much do
you want to tell him?"
Langdon looked unconcerned. "Believe me, Leigh Teabing knows more about
the Priory of Sion and the Holy Grail than anyone on earth."
Sophie eyed him. "More than my grandfather?"
"I meant more than anyone outside the brotherhood."
"How do you know Teabing isn't a member of the brotherhood?"
"Teabing has spent his life trying to broadcast the truth about the
Holy Grail. The Priory's oath is to keep its true nature hidden."
"Sounds to me like a conflict of interest."
Langdon understood her concerns. Sauniure had given the cryptex
directly to Sophie, and although she didn't know what it contained or what
she was supposed to do with it, she was hesitant to involve a total
stranger. Considering the information potentially enclosed, the instinct was
probably a good one. "We don't need to tell Teabing about the keystone
immediately. Or at all, even. His house will give us a place to hide and
think, and maybe when we talk to him about the Grail, you'll start to have
an idea why your grandfather gave this to you."
"Us," Sophie reminded.
Langdon felt a humble pride and wondered yet again why Sauniure had
included him.
"Do you know more or less where Mr. Teabing lives?" Sophie asked.
"His estate is called Chuteau Villette."
Sophie turned with an incredulous look. "The Chuteau Villette?"
"That's the one."
"Nice friends."
"You know the estate?"
"I've passed it. It's in the castle district. Twenty minutes from
here."
Langdon frowned. "That far?"
"Yes, which will give you enough time to tell me what the Holy Grail
really is."
Langdon paused. "I'll tell you at Teabing's. He and I specialize in
different areas of the legend, so between the two of us, you'll get the full
story." Langdon smiled. "Besides, the Grail has been Teabing's life, and
hearing the story of the Holy Grail from Leigh Teabing will be like hearing
the theory of relativity from Einstein himself."
"Let's hope Leigh doesn't mind late-night visitors."
"For the record, it's Sir Leigh." Langdon had made that mistake only
once. "Teabing is quite a character. He was knighted by the Queen several
years back after composing an extensive history on the House of York."
Sophie looked over. "You're kidding, right? We're going to visit a
knight?"
Langdon gave an awkward smile. "We're on a Grail quest, Sophie. Who
better to help us than a knight?"
The Sprawling 185-acre estate of Chuteau Villette was located
twenty-five minutes northwest of Paris in the environs of Versailles.
Designed by Franuois Mansart in 1668 for the Count of Aufflay, it was one of
Paris's most significant historical chuteaux. Complete with two rectangular
lakes and gardens designed by Le Nutre, Chuteau Villette was more of a
modest castle than a mansion. The estate fondly had become known as la
Petite Versailles.
Langdon brought the armored truck to a shuddering stop at the foot of
the mile-long driveway. Beyond the imposing security gate, Sir Leigh
Teabing's residence rose on a meadow in the distance. The sign on the gate
was in English: PRIVATE PROPERTY. NO TRESPASSING.
As if to proclaim his home a British Isle unto itself, Teabing had not
only posted his signs in English, but he had installed his gate's intercom
entry system on the right-hand side of the truck--the passenger's side
everywhere in Europe except England.
Sophie gave the misplaced intercom an odd look. "And if someone arrives
without a passenger?"
"Don't ask." Langdon had already been through that with Teabing. "He
prefers things the way they are at home."
Sophie rolled down her window. "Robert, you'd better do the talking."
Langdon shifted his position, leaning out across Sophie to press the
intercom button. As he did, an alluring whiff of Sophie's perfume filled his
nostrils, and he realized how close they were. He waited there, awkwardly
prone, while a telephone began ringing over the small speaker.
Finally, the intercom crackled and an irritated French accent spoke.
"Chuteau Villette. Who is calling?"
"This is Robert Langdon," Langdon called out, sprawled across Sophie's
lap. "I'm a friend of Sir Leigh Teabing. I need his help."
"My master is sleeping. As was I. What is your business with him?"
"It is a private matter. One of great interest to him."
"Then I'm sure he will be pleased to receive you in the morning."
Langdon shifted his weight. "It's quite important."
"As is Sir Leigh's sleep. If you are a friend, then you are aware he is
in poor health."
Sir Leigh Teabing had suffered from polio as a child and now wore leg
braces and walked with crutches, but Langdon had found him such a lively and
colorful man on his last visit that it hardly seemed an infirmity. "If you
would, please tell him I have uncovered new information about the Grail.
Information that cannot wait until morning."
There was a long pause.
Langdon and Sophie waited, the truck idling loudly.
A full minute passed.
Finally, someone spoke. "My good man, I daresay you are still on
Harvard Standard Time." The voice was crisp and light.
Langdon grinned, recognizing the thick British accent. "Leigh, my
apologies for waking you at this obscene hour."
"My manservant tells me that not only are you in Paris, but you speak
of the Grail."
"I thought that might get you out of bed."
"And so it has."
"Any chance you'd open the gate for an old friend?"
"Those who seek the truth are more than friends. They are brothers."
Langdon rolled his eyes at Sophie, well accustomed to Teabing's
predilection for dramatic antics.
"Indeed I will open the gate," Teabing proclaimed, "but first I must
confirm your heart is true. A test of your honor. You will answer three
questions."
Langdon groaned, whispering at Sophie. "Bear with me here. As I
mentioned, he's something of a character."
"Your first question," Teabing declared, his tone Herculean. "Shall I
serve you coffee, or tea?"
Langdon knew Teabing's feelings about the American phenomenon of
coffee. "Tea," he replied. "Earl Grey."
"Excellent. Your second question. Milk or sugar?"
Langdon hesitated.
"Milk," Sophie whispered in his ear. "I think the British take milk."
"Milk," Langdon said.
Silence.
"Sugar?"
Teabing made no reply.
Wait! Langdon now recalled the bitter beverage he had been served on
his last visit and realized this question was a trick. "Lemon!" he declared.
"Earl Grey with lemon"
"Indeed." Teabing sounded deeply amused now. "And finally, I must make
the most grave of inquiries." Teabing paused and then spoke in a solemn
tone. "In which year did a Harvard sculler last outrow an Oxford man at
Henley?"
Langdon had no idea, but he could imagine only one reason the question
had been asked. "Surely such a travesty has never occurred."
The gate clicked open. "Your heart is true, my friend. You may pass."
"Monsieur Vernet!" The night manager of the Depository Bank of Zurich
felt relieved to hear the bank president's voice on the phone. "Where did
you go, sir? The police are here, everyone is waiting for you!"
"I have a little problem," the bank president said, sounding
distressed. "I need your help right away."
You have more than a little problem, the manager thought. The police
had entirely surrounded the bank and were threatening to have the DCPJ
captain himself show up with the warrant the bank had demanded. "How can I
help you, sir?"
"Armored truck number three. I need to find it."
Puzzled, the manager checked his delivery schedule. "It's here.
Downstairs at the loading dock."
"Actually, no. The truck was stolen by the two individuals the police
are tracking."
"What? How did they drive out?"
"I can't go into the specifics on the phone, but we have a situation
here that could potentially be extremely unfortunate for the bank."
"What do you need me to do, sir?"
"I'd like you to activate the truck's emergency transponder."
The night manager's eyes moved to the LoJack control box across the
room. Like many armored cars, each of the bank's trucks had been equipped
with a radio-controlled homing device, which could be activated remotely
from the bank. The manager had only used the emergency system once, after a
hijacking, and it had worked flawlessly--locating the truck and transmitting
the coordinates to the authorities automatically. Tonight, however, the
manager had the impression the president was hoping for a bit more prudence.
"Sir, you are aware that if I activate the LoJack system, the transponder
will simultaneously inform the authorities that we have a problem."
Vernet was silent for several seconds. "Yes, I know. Do it anyway.
Truck number three. I'll hold. I need the exact location of that truck the
instant you have it."
"Right away, sir."
Thirty seconds later, forty kilometers away, hidden in the
undercarriage of the armored truck, a tiny transponder blinked to life.
As Langdon and Sophie drove the armored truck up the winding,
poplar-lined driveway toward the house, Sophie could already feel her
muscles relaxing. It was a relief to be off the road, and she could think of
few safer places to get their feet under them than this private, gated
estate owned by a good-natured foreigner.
They turned into the sweeping circular driveway, and Chuteau Villette
came into view on their right. Three stories tall and at least sixty meters
long, the edifice had gray stone facing illuminated by outside spotlights.
The coarse facade stood in stark juxtaposition to the immaculately
landscaped gardens and glassy pond.
The inside lights were just now coming on.
Rather than driving to the front door, Langdon pulled into a parking
area nestled in the evergreens. "No reason to risk being spotted from the
road," he said. "Or having Leigh wonder why we arrived in a wrecked armored
truck."
Sophie nodded. "What do we do with the cryptex? We probably shouldn't
leave it out here, but if Leigh sees it, he'll certainly want to know what
it is."
"Not to worry," Langdon said, removing his jacket as he stepped out of
the car. He wrapped the tweed coat around the box and held the bundle in his
arms like a baby.
Sophie looked dubious. "Subtle."
"Teabing never answers his own door; he prefers to make an entrance.
I'll find somewhere inside to stash this before he joins us." Langdon
paused. "Actually, I should probably warn you before you meet him. Sir Leigh
has a sense of humor that people often find a bit... strange."
Sophie doubted anything tonight would strike her as strange anymore.
The pathway to the main entrance was hand-laid cobblestone. It curved
to a door of carved oak and cherry with a brass knocker the size of a
grapefruit. Before Sophie could grasp the knocker, the door swung open from
within.
A prim and elegant butler stood before them, making final adjustments
on the white tie and tuxedo he had apparently just donned. He looked to be
about fifty, with refined features and an austere expression that left
little doubt he was unamused by their presence here.
"Sir Leigh will be down presently," he declared, his accent thick
French. "He is dressing. He prefers not to greet visitors while wearing only
a nightshirt. May I take your coat?" He scowled at the bunched-up tweed in
Langdon's arms.
"Thank you, I'm fine."
"Of course you are. Right this way, please."
The butler guided them through a lush marble foyer into an exquisitely
adorned drawing room, softly lit by tassel-draped Victorian lamps. The air
inside smelled antediluvian, regal somehow, with traces of pipe tobacco, tea
leaves, cooking sherry, and the earthen aroma of stone architecture. Against
the far wall, flanked between two glistening suits of chain mail armor, was
a rough-hewn fireplace large enough to roast an ox. Walking to the hearth,
the butler knelt and touched a match to a pre-laid arrangement of oak logs
and kindling. A fire quickly crackled to life.
The man stood, straightening his jacket. "His master requests that you
make yourselves at home." With that, he departed, leaving Langdon and Sophie
alone.
Sophie wondered which of the fireside antiques she was supposed to sit
on--the Renaissance velvet divan, the rustic eagle-claw rocker, or the pair
of stone pews that looked like they'd been lifted from some Byzantine
temple.
Langdon unwrapped the cryptex from his coat, walked to the velvet
divan, and slid the wooden box deep underneath it, well out of sight. Then,
shaking out his jacket, he put it back on, smoothed the lapels, and smiled
at Sophie as he sat down directly over the stashed treasure.
The divan it is, Sophie thought, taking a seat beside him.
As she stared into the growing fire, enjoying the warmth, Sophie had
the sensation that her grandfather would have loved this room. The dark wood
paneling was bedecked with Old Master paintings, one of which Sophie
recognized as a Poussin, her grandfather's second-favorite painter. On the
mantel above the fireplace, an alabaster bust of Isis watched over the room.
Beneath the Egyptian goddess, inside the fireplace, two stone gargoyles
served as andirons, their mouths gaping to reveal their menacing hollow
throats. Gargoyles had always terrified Sophie as a child; that was, until
her grandfather cured her of the fear by taking her atop Notre Dame
Cathedral in a rainstorm. "Princess, look at these silly creatures," he had
told her, pointing to the gargoyle rainspouts with their mouths gushing
water. "Do you hear that funny sound in their throats?" Sophie nodded,
having to smile at the burping sound of the water gurgling through their
throats. "They're gargling," her grandfather told her. "Gargariser! And
that's where they get the silly name 'gargoyles.' " Sophie had never again
been afraid.
The fond memory caused Sophie a pang of sadness as the harsh reality of
the murder gripped her again. Grand-pure is gone. She pictured the cryptex
under the divan and wondered if Leigh Teabing would have any idea how to
open it. Or if we even should ask him. Sophie's grandfather's final words
had instructed her to find Robert Langdon. He had said nothing about
involving anyone else. We needed somewhere to hide, Sophie said, deciding to
trust Robert's judgment.
"Sir Robert!" a voice bellowed somewhere behind them. "I see you travel
with a maiden."
Langdon stood up. Sophie jumped to her feet as well. The voice had come
from the top of a curled staircase that snaked up to the shadows of the
second floor. At the top of the stairs, a form moved in the shadows, only
his silhouette visible.
"Good evening," Langdon called up. "Sir Leigh, may I present Sophie
Neveu."
"An honor." Teabing moved into the light.
"Thank you for having us," Sophie said, now seeing the man wore metal
leg braces and used crutches. He was coming down one stair at a time. "I
realize it's quite late."
"It is so late, my dear, it's early." He laughed. "Vous n'utes pas
Amuricaine?"
Sophie shook her head. "Parisienne."
"Your English is superb."
"Thank you. I studied at the Royal Holloway."
"So then, that explains it." Teabing hobbled lower through the shadows.
"Perhaps Robert told you I schooled just down the road at Oxford." Teabing
fixed Langdon with a devilish smile. "Of course, I also applied to Harvard
as my safety school."
Their host arrived at the bottom of the stairs, appearing to Sophie no
more like a knight than Sir Elton John. Portly and ruby-faced, Sir Leigh
Teabing had bushy red hair and jovial hazel eyes that seemed to twinkle as
he spoke. He wore pleated pants and a roomy silk shirt under a paisley vest.
Despite the aluminum braces on his legs, he carried himself with a
resilient, vertical dignity that seemed more a by-product of noble ancestry
than any kind of conscious effort.
Teabing arrived and extended a hand to Langdon. "Robert, you've lost
weight."
Langdon grinned. "And you've found some."
Teabing laughed heartily, patting his rotund belly. "Touchu. My only
carnal pleasures these days seem to be culinary." Turning now to Sophie, he
gently took her hand, bowing his head slightly, breathing lightly on her
fingers, and diverting his eyes. "M'lady."
Sophie glanced at Langdon, uncertain whether she'd stepped back in time
or into a nuthouse.
The butler who had answered the door now entered carrying a tea
service, which he arranged on a table in front of the fireplace.
"This is Rumy Legaludec," Teabing said, "my manservant."
The slender butler gave a stiff nod and disappeared yet again.
"Rumy is Lyonais," Teabing whispered, as if it were an unfortunate
disease. "But he does sauces quite nicely."
Langdon looked amused. "I would have thought you'd import an English
staff?"
"Good heavens, no! I would not wish a British chef on anyone except the
French tax collectors." He glanced over at Sophie. "Pardonnez-moi,
Mademoiselle Neveu. Please be assured that my distaste for the French
extends only to politics and the soccer pitch. Your government steals my
money, and your football squad recently humiliated us."
Sophie offered an easy smile.
Teabing eyed her a moment and then looked at Langdon. "Something has
happened. You both look shaken."
Langdon nodded. "We've had an interesting night, Leigh."
"No doubt. You arrive on my doorstep unannounced in the middle of the
night speaking of the Grail. Tell me, is this indeed about the Grail, or did
you simply say that because you know it is the lone topic for which I would
rouse myself in the middle of the night?"
A little of both, Sophie thought, picturing the cryptex hidden beneath
the couch.
"Leigh," Langdon said, "we'd like to talk to you about the Priory of
Sion."
Teabing's bushy eyebrows arched with intrigue. "The keepers. So this is
indeed about the Grail. You say you come with information? Something new,
Robert?"
"Perhaps. We're not quite sure. We might have a better idea if we could
get some information from you first."
Teabing wagged his finger. "Ever the wily American. A game of quid pro
quo. Very well. I am at your service. What is it I can tell you?"
Langdon sighed. "I was hoping you would be kind enough to explain to
Ms. Neveu the true nature of the Holy Grail."
Teabing looked stunned. "She doesn't know?"
Langdon shook his head.
The smile that grew on Teabing's face was almost obscene. "Robert,
you've brought me a virgin?"
Langdon winced, glancing at Sophie. "Virgin is the term Grail
enthusiasts use to describe anyone who has never heard the true Grail
story."
Teabing turned eagerly to Sophie. "How much do you know, my dear?"
Sophie quickly outlined what Langdon had explained earlier--the Priory
of Sion, the Knights Templar, the Sangreal documents, and the Holy Grail,
which many claimed was not a cup... but rather something far more powerful.
"That's all?" Teabing fired Langdon a scandalous look. "Robert, I
thought you were a gentleman. You've robbed her of the climax!"
"I know, I thought perhaps you and I could..." Langdon apparently
decided the unseemly metaphor had gone far enough.
Teabing already had Sophie locked in his twinkling gaze. "You are a
Grail virgin, my dear. And trust me, you will never forget your first time."
Seated on the divan beside Langdon, Sophie drank her tea and ate a
scone, feeling the welcome effects of caffeine and food. Sir Leigh Teabing
was beaming as he awkwardly paced before the open fire, his leg braces
clicking on the stone hearth.
"The Holy Grail," Teabing said, his voice sermonic. "Most people ask me
only where it is. I fear that is a question I may never answer." He turned
and looked directly at Sophie. "However... the far more relevant question is
this: What is the Holy Grail?"
Sophie sensed a rising air of academic anticipation now in both of her
male companions.
"To fully understand the Grail," Teabing continued, "we must first
understand the Bible. How well do you know the New Testament?"
Sophie shrugged. "Not at all, really. I was raised by a man who
worshipped Leonardo da Vinci."
Teabing looked both startled and pleased. "An enlightened soul. Superb!
Then you must be aware that Leonardo was one of the keepers of the secret of
the Holy Grail. And he hid clues in his art."
"Robert told me as much, yes."
"And Da Vinci's views on the New Testament?"
"I have no idea."
Teabing's eyes turned mirthful as he motioned to the bookshelf across
the room. "Robert, would you mind? On the bottom shelf. La Storia di
Leonardo."
Langdon went across the room, found a large art book, and brought it
back, setting it down on the table between them. Twisting the book to face
Sophie, Teabing flipped open the heavy cover and pointed inside the rear
cover to a series of quotations. "From Da Vinci's notebook on polemics and
speculation," Teabing said, indicating one quote in particular. "I think
you'll find this relevant to our discussion."
Sophie read the words.
Many have made a trade of delusions
and false miracles, deceiving the stupid multitude.
--LEONARDO DA VINCI
"Here's another," Teabing said, pointing to a different quote.
Blinding ignorance does mislead us.
O! Wretched mortals, open your eyes!
--LEONARDO DA VINCI
Sophie felt a little chill. "Da Vinci is talking about the Bible?"
Teabing nodded. "Leonardo's feelings about the Bible relate directly to
the Holy Grail. In fact, Da Vinci painted the true Grail, which I will show
you momentarily, but first we must speak of the Bible." Teabing smiled. "And
everything you need to know about the Bible can be summed up by the great
canon doctor Martyn Percy." Teabing cleared his throat and declared, "The
Bible did not arrive by fax from heaven."
"I beg your pardon?"
"The Bible is a product of man, my dear. Not of God. The Bible did not
fall magically from the clouds. Man created it as a historical record of
tumultuous times, and it has evolved through countless translations,
additions, and revisions. History has never had a definitive version of the
book."
"Okay."
"Jesus Christ was a historical figure of staggering influence, perhaps
the most enigmatic and inspirational leader the world has ever seen. As the
prophesied Messiah, Jesus toppled kings, inspired millions, and founded new
philosophies. As a descendant of the lines of King Solomon and King David,
Jesus possessed a rightful claim to the throne of the King of the Jews.
Understandably, His life was recorded by thousands of followers across the
land." Teabing paused to sip his tea and then placed the cup back on the
mantel. "More than eighty gospels were considered for the New Testament, and
yet only a relative few were chosen for inclusion--Matthew, Mark, Luke, and
John among them.
"Who chose which gospels to include?" Sophie asked.
"Aha!" Teabing burst in with enthusiasm. "The fundamental irony of
Christianity! The Bible, as we know it today, was collated by the pagan
Roman emperor Constantine the Great."
"I thought Constantine was a Christian," Sophie said.
"Hardly," Teabing scoffed. "He was a lifelong pagan who was baptized on
his deathbed, too weak to protest. In Constantine's day, Rome's official
religion was sun worship--the cult of Sol Invictus, or the Invincible
Sun--and Constantine was its head priest. Unfortunately for him, a growing
religious turmoil was gripping Rome. Three centuries after the crucifixion
of Jesus Christ, Christ's followers had multiplied exponentially. Christians
and pagans began warring, and the conflict grew to such proportions that it
threatened to rend Rome in two. Constantine decided something had to be
done. In 325 A.D., he decided to unify Rome under a single religion.
Christianity."
Sophie was surprised. "Why would a pagan emperor choose Christianity as
the official religion?"
Teabing chuckled. "Constantine was a very good businessman. He could
see that Christianity was on the rise, and he simply backed the winning
horse. Historians still marvel at the brilliance with which Constantine
converted the sun-worshipping pagans to Christianity. By fusing pagan
symbols, dates, and rituals into the growing Christian tradition, he created
a kind of hybrid religion that was acceptable to both parties."
"Transmogrification," Langdon said. "The vestiges of pagan religion in
Christian symbology are undeniable. Egyptian sun disks became the halos of
Catholic saints. Pictograms of Isis nursing her miraculously conceived son
Horus became the blueprint for our modern images of the Virgin Mary nursing
Baby Jesus. And virtually all the elements of the Catholic ritual--the
miter, the altar, the doxology, and communion, the act of "God-eating"--were
taken directly from earlier pagan mystery religions."
Teabing groaned. "Don't get a symbologist started on Christian icons.
Nothing in Christianity is original. The pre-Christian God Mithras--called
the Son of God and the Light of the World--was born on December 25, died,
was buried in a rock tomb, and then resurrected in three days. By the way,
December 25 is also the birthday of Osiris, Adonis, and Dionysus. The
newborn Krishna was presented with gold, frankincense, and myrrh. Even
Christianity's weekly holy day was stolen from the pagans."
"What do you mean?"
"Originally," Langdon said, "Christianity honored the Jewish Sabbath of
Saturday, but Constantine shifted it to coincide with the pagan's veneration
day of the sun." He paused, grinning. "To this day, most churchgoers attend
services on Sunday morning with no idea that they are there on account of
the pagan sun god's weekly tribute--Sunday."
Sophie's head was spinning. "And all of this relates to the Grail?"
"Indeed," Teabing said. "Stay with me. During this fusion of religions,
Constantine needed to strengthen the new Christian tradition, and held a
famous ecumenical gathering known as the Council of Nicaea."
Sophie had heard of it only insofar as its being the birthplace of the
Nicene Creed.
"At this gathering," Teabing said, "many aspects of Christianity were
debated and voted upon--the date of Easter, the role of the bishops, the
administration of sacraments, and, of course, the divinity of Jesus."
"I don't follow. His divinity?"
"My dear," Teabing declared, "until that moment in history, Jesus was
viewed by His followers as a mortal prophet... a great and powerful man, but
a man nonetheless. A mortal."
"Not the Son of God?"
"Right," Teabing said. "Jesus' establishment as 'the Son of God' was
officially proposed and voted on by the Council of Nicaea."
"Hold on. You're saying Jesus' divinity was the result of a vote?"
"A relatively close vote at that," Teabing added. "Nonetheless,
establishing Christ's divinity was critical to the further unification of
the Roman empire and to the new Vatican power base. By officially endorsing
Jesus as the Son of God, Constantine turned Jesus into a deity who existed
beyond the scope of the human world, an entity whose power was
unchallengeable. This not only precluded further pagan challenges to
Christianity, but now the followers of Christ were able to redeem themselves
only via the established sacred channel--the Roman Catholic Church."
Sophie glanced at Langdon, and he gave her a soft nod of concurrence.
"It was all about power," Teabing continued. "Christ as Messiah was
critical to the functioning of Church and state. Many scholars claim that
the early Church literally stole Jesus from His original followers,
hijacking His human message, shrouding it in an impenetrable cloak of
divinity, and using it to expand their own power. I've written several books
on the topic."
"And I assume devout Christians send you hate mail on a daily basis?"
"Why would they?" Teabing countered. "The vast majority of educated
Christians know the history of their faith. Jesus was indeed a great and
powerful man. Constantine's underhanded political maneuvers don't diminish
the majesty of Christ's life. Nobody is saying Christ was a fraud, or
denying that He walked the earth and inspired millions to better lives. All
we are saying is that Constantine took advantage of Christ's substantial
influence and importance. And in doing so, he shaped the face of
Christianity as we know it today."
Sophie glanced at the art book before her, eager to move on and see the
Da Vinci painting of the Holy Grail.
"The twist is this," Teabing said, talking faster now. "Because
Constantine upgraded Jesus' status almost four centuries after Jesus' death,
thousands of documents already existed chronicling His life as a mortal man.
To rewrite the history books, Constantine knew he would need a bold stroke.
From this sprang the most profound moment in Christian history." Teabing
paused, eyeing Sophie. "Constantine commissioned and financed a new Bible,
which omitted those gospels that spoke of Christ's human traits and
embellished those gospels that made Him godlike. The earlier gospels were
outlawed, gathered up, and burned."
"An interesting note," Langdon added. "Anyone who chose the forbidden
gospels over Constantine's version was deemed a heretic. The word heretic
derives from that moment in history. The Latin word haereticus means
'choice.' Those who 'chose' the original history of Christ were the world's
first heretics."
"Fortunately for historians," Teabing said, "some of the gospels that
Constantine attempted to eradicate managed to survive. The Dead Sea Scrolls
were found in the 1950s hidden in a cave near Qumran in the Judean desert.
And, of course, the Coptic Scrolls in 1945 at Nag Hammadi. In addition to
telling the true Grail story, these documents speak of Christ's ministry in
very human terms. Of course, the Vatican, in keeping with their tradition of
misinformation, tried very hard to suppress the release of these scrolls.
And why wouldn't they? The scrolls highlight glaring historical
discrepancies and fabrications, clearly confirming that the modern Bible was
compiled and edited by men who possessed a political agenda--to promote the
divinity of the man Jesus Christ and use His influence to solidify their own
power base."
"And yet," Langdon countered, "it's important to remember that the
modern Church's desire to suppress these documents comes from a sincere
belief in their established view of Christ. The Vatican is made up of deeply
pious men who truly believe these contrary documents could only be false
testimony."
Teabing chuckled as he eased himself into a chair opposite Sophie. "As
you can see, our professor has a far softer heart for Rome than I do.
Nonetheless, he is correct about the modern clergy believing these opposing
documents are false testimony. That's understandable. Constantine's Bible
has been their truth for ages. Nobody is more indoctrinated than the
indoctrinator."
"What he means," Langdon said, "is that we worship the gods of our
fathers."
"What I mean," Teabing countered, "is that almost everything our
fathers taught us about Christ is false. As are the stories about the Holy
Grail."
Sophie looked again at the Da Vinci quote before her. Blinding
ignorance does mislead us. O! Wretched mortals, open your eyes!
Teabing reached for the book and flipped toward the center. "And
finally, before I show you Da Vinci's paintings of the Holy Grail, I'd like
you to take a quick look at this." He opened the book to a colorful graphic
that spanned both full pages. "I assume you recognize this fresco?"
He's kidding, right? Sophie was staring at the most famous fresco of
all time--The Last Supper--Da Vinci's legendary painting from the wall of
Santa Maria delle Grazie near Milan. The decaying fresco portrayed Jesus and
His disciples at the moment that Jesus announced one of them would betray
Him. "I know the fresco, yes."
"Then perhaps you would indulge me this little game? Close your eyes if
you would."
Uncertain, Sophie closed her eyes.
"Where is Jesus sitting?" Teabing asked.
"In the center."
"Good. And what food are He and His disciples breaking and eating?"
"Bread." Obviously.
"Superb. And what drink?"
"Wine. They drank wine."
"Great. And one final question. How many wineglasses are on the table?"
Sophie paused, realizing it was the trick question. And after dinner,
Jesus took the cup of wine, sharing it with His disciples. "One cup," she
said. "The chalice." The Cup of Christ. The Holy Grail. "Jesus passed a
single chalice of wine, just as modern Christians do at communion."
Teabing sighed. "Open your eyes."
She did. Teabing was grinning smugly. Sophie looked down at the
painting, seeing to her astonishment that everyone at the table had a glass
of wine, including Christ. Thirteen cups. Moreover, the cups were tiny,
stemless, and made of glass. There was no chalice in the painting. No Holy
Grail.
Teabing's eyes twinkled. "A bit strange, don't you think, considering
that both the Bible and our standard Grail legend celebrate this moment as
the definitive arrival of the Holy Grail. Oddly, Da Vinci appears to have
forgotten to paint the Cup of Christ."
"Surely art scholars must have noted that."
"You will be shocked to learn what anomalies Da Vinci included here
that most scholars either do not see or simply choose to ignore. This
fresco, in fact, is the entire key to the Holy Grail mystery. Da Vinci lays
it all out in the open in The Last Supper"
Sophie scanned the work eagerly. "Does this fresco tell us what the
Grail really is?"
"Not what it is," Teabing whispered. "But rather who it is. The Holy
Grail is not a thing. It is, in fact... a person"
Sophie stared at Teabing a long moment and then turned to Langdon. "The
Holy Grail is a person?"
Langdon nodded. "A woman, in fact." From the blank look on Sophie's
face, Langdon could tell they had already lost her. He recalled having a
similar reaction the first time he heard the statement. It was not until he
understood the symbology behind the Grail that the feminine connection
became clear.
Teabing apparently had a similar thought. "Robert, perhaps this is the
moment for the symbologist to clarify?" He went to a nearby end table, found
a piece of paper, and laid it in front of Langdon.
Langdon pulled a pen from his pocket. "Sophie, are you familiar with
the modern icons for male and female?" He drew the common male symbol 
and female symbol
.
"Of course," she said.
"These," he said quietly, "are not the original symbols for male and
female. Many people incorrectly assume the male symbol is derived from a
shield and spear, while the female symbol represents a mirror reflecting
beauty. In fact, the symbols originated as ancient astronomical symbols for
the planet-god Mars and planet-goddess Venus. The original symbols are far
simpler." Langdon drew another icon on the paper.
"This symbol is the original icon for male," he told her. "A
rudimentary phallus."
"Quite to the point," Sophie said.
"As it were," Teabing added.
Langdon went on. "This icon is formally known as the blade, and it
represents aggression and manhood. In fact, this exact phallus symbol is
still used today on modern military uniforms to denote rank."
"Indeed." Teabing grinned. "The more penises you have, the higher your
rank. Boys will be boys."
Langdon winced. "Moving on, the female symbol, as you might imagine, is
the exact opposite." He drew another symbol on the page. "This is called the
chalice."
Sophie glanced up, looking surprised.
Langdon could see she had made the connection. "The chalice," he said,
"resembles a cup or vessel, and more important, it resembles the shape of a
woman's womb. This symbol communicates femininity, womanhood, and
fertility." Langdon looked directly at her now. "Sophie, legend tells us the
Holy Grail is a chalice--a cup. But the Grail's description as a chalice is
actually an allegory to protect the true nature of the Holy Grail. That is
to say, the legend uses the chalice as a metaphor for something far more
important."
"A woman," Sophie said.
"Exactly." Langdon smiled. "The Grail is literally the ancient symbol
for womanhood, and the Holy Grail represents the sacred feminine and the
goddess, which of course has now been lost, virtually eliminated by the
Church. The power of the female and her ability to produce life was once
very sacred, but it posed a threat to the rise of the predominantly male
Church, and so the sacred feminine was demonized and called unclean. It was
man, not God, who created the concept of 'original sin,' whereby Eve tasted
of the apple and caused the downfall of the human race. Woman, once the
sacred giver of life, was now the enemy."
"I should add," Teabing chimed, "that this concept of woman as
life-bringer was the foundation of ancient religion. Childbirth was mystical
and powerful. Sadly, Christian philosophy decided to embezzle the female's
creative power by ignoring biological truth and making man the Creator.
Genesis tells us that Eve was created from Adam's rib. Woman became an
offshoot of man. And a sinful one at that. Genesis was the beginning of the
end for the goddess."
"The Grail," Langdon said, "is symbolic of the lost goddess. When
Christianity came along, the old pagan religions did not die easily. Legends
of chivalric quests for the lost Grail were in fact stories of forbidden
quests to find the lost sacred feminine. Knights who claimed to be
"searching for the chalice" were speaking in code as a way to protect
themselves from a Church that had subjugated women, banished the Goddess,
burned nonbelievers, and forbidden the pagan reverence for the sacred
feminine."
Sophie shook her head. "I'm sorry, when you said the Holy Grail was a
person, I thought you meant it was an actual person."
"It is," Langdon said.
"And not just any person," Teabing blurted, clambering excitedly to his
feet. "A woman who carried with her a secret so powerful that, if revealed,
it threatened to devastate the very foundation of Christianity!"
Sophie looked overwhelmed. "Is this woman well known in history?"
"Quite." Teabing collected his crutches and motioned down the hall.
"And if we adjourn to the study, my friends, it would be my honor to show
you Da Vinci's painting of her."
Two rooms away, in the kitchen, manservant Rumy Legaludec stood in
silence before a television. The news station was broadcasting photos of a
man and woman... the same two individuals to whom Rumy had just served tea.
Standing at the roadblock outside the Depository Bank of Zurich,
Lieutenant Collet wondered what was taking Fache so long to come up with the
search warrant. The bankers were obviously hiding something. They claimed
Langdon and Neveu had arrived earlier and were turned away from the bank
because they did not have proper account identification.
So why won't they let us inside for a look?
Finally, Collet's cellular phone rang. It was the command post at the
Louvre. "Do we have a search warrant yet?" Collet demanded.
"Forget about the bank, Lieutenant," the agent told him. "We just got a
tip. We have the exact location where Langdon and Neveu are hiding."
Collet sat down hard on the hood of his car. "You're kidding."
"I have an address in the suburbs. Somewhere near Versailles."
"Does Captain Fache know?"
"Not yet. He's busy on an important call."
"I'm on my way. Have him call as soon as he's free." Collet took down
the address and jumped in his car. As he peeled away from the bank, Collet
realized he had forgotten to ask who had tipped DCPJ off to Langdon's
location. Not that it mattered. Collet had been blessed with a chance to
redeem his skepticism and earlier blunders. He was about to make the most
high-profile arrest of his career.
Collet radioed the five cars accompanying him. "No sirens, men. Langdon
can't know we're coming."
Forty kilometers away, a black Audi pulled off a rural road and parked
in the shadows on the edge of a field. Silas got out and peered through the
rungs of the wrought-iron fence that encircled the vast compound before him.
He gazed up the long moonlit slope to the chuteau in the distance.
The downstairs lights were all ablaze. Odd for this hour, Silas
thought, smiling. The information the Teacher had given him was obviously
accurate. I will not leave this house without the keystone, he vowed. I will
not fail the bishop and the Teacher.
Checking the thirteen-round clip in his Heckler Koch, Silas pushed it
through the bars and let it fall onto the mossy ground inside the compound.
Then, gripping the top of the fence, he heaved himself up and over, dropping
to the ground on the other side. Ignoring the slash of pain from his cilice,
Silas retrieved his gun and began the long trek up the grassy slope.
Teabing's "study" was like no study Sophie had ever seen. Six or seven
times larger than even the most luxurious of office spaces, the knight's
cabinet de travail resembled an ungainly hybrid of science laboratory,
archival library, and indoor flea market. Lit by three overhead chandeliers,
the boundless tile floor was dotted with clustered islands of worktables
buried beneath books, artwork, artifacts, and a surprising amount of
electronic gear--computers, projectors, microscopes, copy machines, and
flatbed scanners.
"I converted the ballroom," Teabing said, looking sheepish as he
shuffled into the room. "I have little occasion to dance."
Sophie felt as if the entire night had become some kind of twilight
zone where nothing was as she expected. "This is all for your work?"
"Learning the truth has become my life's love," Teabing said. "And the
Sangreal is my favorite mistress."
The Holy Grail is a woman, Sophie thought, her mind a collage of
interrelated ideas that seemed to make no sense. "You said you have a
picture of this woman who you claim is the Holy Grail."
"Yes, but it is not I who claim she is the Grail. Christ Himself made
that claim."
"Which one is the painting?" Sophie asked, scanning the walls.
"Hmmm..." Teabing made a show of seeming to have forgotten. "The Holy
Grail. The Sangreal. The Chalice." He wheeled suddenly and pointed to the
far wall. On it hung an eight-foot-long print of The Last Supper, the same
exact image Sophie had just been looking at. "There she is!"
Sophie was certain she had missed something. "That's the same painting
you just showed me."
He winked. "I know, but the enlargement is so much more exciting. Don't
you think?"
Sophie turned to Langdon for help. "I'm lost."
Langdon smiled. "As it turns out, the Holy Grail does indeed make an
appearance in The Last Supper. Leonardo included her prominently."
"Hold on," Sophie said. "You told me the Holy Grail is a woman. The
Last Supper is a painting of thirteen men."
"Is it?" Teabing arched his eyebrows. "Take a closer look."
Uncertain, Sophie made her way closer to the painting, scanning the
thirteen figures--Jesus Christ in the middle, six disciples on His left, and
six on His right. "They're all men," she confirmed.
"Oh?" Teabing said. "How about the one seated in the place of honor, at
the right hand of the Lord?"
Sophie examined the figure to Jesus' immediate right, focusing in. As
she studied the person's face and body, a wave of astonishment rose within
her. The individual had flowing red hair, delicate folded hands, and the
hint of a bosom. It was, without a doubt... female.
"That's a woman!" Sophie exclaimed.
Teabing was laughing. "Surprise, surprise. Believe me, it's no mistake.
Leonardo was skilled at painting the difference between the sexes."
Sophie could not take her eyes from the woman beside Christ. The Last
Supper is supposed to be thirteen men. Who is this woman? Although Sophie
had seen this classic image many times, she had not once noticed this
glaring discrepancy.
"Everyone misses it," Teabing said. "Our preconceived notions of this
scene are so powerful that our mind blocks out the incongruity and overrides
our eyes."
"It's known as skitoma," Langdon added. "The brain does it sometimes
with powerful symbols."
"Another reason you might have missed the woman," Teabing said, "is
that many of the photographs in art books were taken before 1954, when the
details were still hidden beneath layers of grime and several restorative
repaintings done by clumsy hands in the eighteenth century. Now, at last,
the fresco has been cleaned down to Da Vinci's original layer of paint." He
motioned to the photograph. "Et voilu!"
Sophie moved closer to the image. The woman to Jesus' right was young
and pious-looking, with a demure face, beautiful red hair, and hands folded
quietly. This is the woman who singlehandedly could crumble the Church?
"Who is she?" Sophie asked.
"That, my dear," Teabing replied, "is Mary Magdalene."
Sophie turned. "The prostitute?"
Teabing drew a short breath, as if the word had injured him personally.
"Magdalene was no such thing. That unfortunate misconception is the legacy
of a smear campaign launched by the early Church. The Church needed to
defame Mary Magdalene in order to cover up her dangerous secret--her role as
the Holy Grail."
"Her role?"
"As I mentioned," Teabing clarified, "the early Church needed to
convince the world that the mortal prophet Jesus was a divine being.
Therefore, any gospels that described earthly aspects of Jesus' life had to
be omitted from the Bible. Unfortunately for the early editors, one
particularly troubling earthly theme kept recurring in the gospels. Mary
Magdalene." He paused. "More specifically, her marriage to Jesus Christ."
"I beg your pardon?" Sophie's eyes moved to Langdon and then back to
Teabing.
"It's a matter of historical record," Teabing said, "and Da Vinci was
certainly aware of that fact. The Last Supper practically shouts at the
viewer that Jesus and Magdalene were a pair."
Sophie glanced back to the fresco.
"Notice that Jesus and Magdalene are clothed as mirror images of one
another." Teabing pointed to the two individuals in the center of the
fresco.
Sophie was mesmerized. Sure enough, their clothes were inverse colors.
Jesus wore a red robe and blue cloak; Mary Magdalene wore a blue robe and
red cloak. Yin and yang.
"Venturing into the more bizarre," Teabing said, "note that Jesus and
His bride appear to be joined at the hip and are leaning away from one
another as if to create this clearly delineated negative space between
them."
Even before Teabing traced the contour for her, Sophie saw it--the
indisputable V shape at the focal point of the painting. It was the same
symbol Langdon had drawn earlier for the Grail, the chalice, and the female
womb.
"Finally," Teabing said, "if you view Jesus and Magdalene as
compositional elements rather than as people, you will see another obvious
shape leap out at you." He paused. "A letter of the alphabet."
Sophie saw it at once. To say the letter leapt out at her was an
understatement. The letter was suddenly all Sophie could see. Glaring in the
center of the painting was the unquestionable outline of an enormous,
flawlessly formed letter M.
"A bit too perfect for coincidence, wouldn't you say?" Teabing asked.
Sophie was amazed. "Why is it there?"
Teabing shrugged. "Conspiracy theorists will tell you it stands for
Matrimonio or Mary Magdalene. To be honest, nobody is certain. The only
certainty is that the hidden M is no mistake. Countless Grail-related works
contain the hidden letter M--whether as watermarks, underpaintings, or
compositional allusions. The most blatant M, of course, is emblazoned on the
altar at Our Lady of Paris in London, which was designed by a former Grand
Master of the Priory of Sion, Jean Cocteau."
Sophie weighed the information. "I'll admit, the hidden M's are
intriguing, although I assume nobody is claiming they are proof of Jesus'
marriage to Magdalene."
"No, no," Teabing said, going to a nearby table of books. "As I said
earlier, the marriage of Jesus and Mary Magdalene is part of the historical
record." He began pawing through his book collection. "Moreover, Jesus as a
married man makes infinitely more sense than our standard biblical view of
Jesus as a bachelor."
"Why?" Sophie asked.
"Because Jesus was a Jew," Langdon said, taking over while Teabing
searched for his book, "and the social decorum during that time virtually
forbid a Jewish man to be unmarried. According to Jewish custom, celibacy
was condemned, and the obligation for a Jewish father was to find a suitable
wife for his son. If Jesus were not married, at least one of the Bible's
gospels would have mentioned it and offered some explanation for His
unnatural state of bachelorhood."
Teabing located a huge book and pulled it toward him across the table.
The leather-bound edition was poster-sized, like a huge atlas. The cover
read: The Gnostic Gospels. Teabing heaved it open, and Langdon and Sophie
joined him. Sophie could see it contained photographs of what appeared to be
magnified passages of ancient documents--tattered papyrus with handwritten
text. She did not recognize the ancient language, but the facing pages bore
typed translations.
"These are photocopies of the Nag Hammadi and Dead Sea scrolls, which I
mentioned earlier," Teabing said. "The earliest Christian records.
Troublingly, they do not match up with the gospels in the Bible." Flipping
toward the middle of the book, Teabing pointed to a passage. "The Gospel of
Philip is always a good place to start." Sophie read the passage:
And the companion of the Saviour is Mary Magdalene. Christ loved her
more than all the disciples and used to kiss her often on her mouth. The
rest of the disciples were offended by it and expressed disapproval. They
said to him, "Why do you love her more than all of us?"
The words surprised Sophie, and yet they hardly seemed conclusive. "It
says nothing of marriage."
"Au contraire." Teabing smiled, pointing to the first line. "As any
Aramaic scholar will tell you, the word companion, in those days, literally
meant spouse."
Langdon concurred with a nod.
Sophie read the first line again. And the companion of the Saviour is
Mary Magdalene.
Teabing flipped through the book and pointed out several other passages
that, to Sophie's surprise, clearly suggested Magdalene and Jesus had a
romantic relationship. As she read the passages, Sophie recalled an angry
priest who had banged on her grandfather's door when she was a schoolgirl.
"Is this the home of Jacques Sauniure?" the priest had demanded,
glaring down at young Sophie when she pulled open the door. "I want to talk
to him about this editorial he wrote." The priest held up a newspaper.
Sophie summoned her grandfather, and the two men disappeared into his
study and closed the door. My grandfather wrote something in the paper?
Sophie immediately ran to the kitchen and flipped through that morning's
paper. She found her grandfather's name on an article on the second page.
She read it. Sophie didn't understand all of what was said, but it sounded
like the French government, under pressure from priests, had agreed to ban
an American movie called The Last Temptation of Christ, which was about
Jesus having sex with a lady called Mary Magdalene. Her grandfather's
article said the Church was arrogant and wrong to ban it.
No wonder the priest is mad, Sophie thought.
"It's pornography! Sacrilege!" the priest yelled, emerging from the
study and storming to the front door. "How can you possibly endorse that!
This American Martin Scorsese is a blasphemer, and the Church will permit
him no pulpit in France!" The priest slammed the door on his way out.
When her grandfather came into the kitchen, he saw Sophie with the
paper and frowned. "You're quick."
Sophie said, "You think Jesus Christ had a girlfriend?"
"No, dear, I said the Church should not be allowed to tell us what
notions we can and can't entertain."
"Did Jesus have a girlfriend?"
Her grandfather was silent for several moments. "Would it be so bad if
He did?"
Sophie considered it and then shrugged. "I wouldn't mind."
Sir Leigh Teabing was still talking. "I shan't bore you with the
countless references to Jesus and Magdalene's union. That has been explored
ad nauseum by modern historians. I would, however, like to point out the
following." He motioned to another passage. "This is from the Gospel of Mary
Magdalene."
Sophie had not known a gospel existed in Magdalene's words. She read
the text:
And Peter said, "Did the Saviour really speak with a woman without our
knowledge? Are we to turn about and all listen to her? Did he prefer her to
us?"
And Levi answered, "Peter, you have always been hot-tempered. Now I see
you contending against the woman like an adversary. If the Saviour made her
worthy, who are you indeed to reject her? Surely the Saviour knows her very
well. That is why he loved her more than us."
"The woman they are speaking of," Teabing explained, "is Mary
Magdalene. Peter is jealous of her."
"Because Jesus preferred Mary?"
"Not only that. The stakes were far greater than mere affection. At
this point in the gospels, Jesus suspects He will soon be captured and
crucified. So He gives Mary Magdalene instructions on how to carry on His
Church after He is gone. As a result, Peter expresses his discontent over
playing second fiddle to a woman. I daresay Peter was something of a
sexist."
Sophie was trying to keep up. "This is Saint Peter. The rock on which
Jesus built His Church."
"The same, except for one catch. According to these unaltered gospels,
it was not Peter to whom Christ gave directions with which to establish the
Christian Church. It was Mary Magdalene."
Sophie looked at him. "You're saying the Christian Church was to be
carried on by a woman?"
"That was the plan. Jesus was the original feminist. He intended for
the future of His Church to be in the hands of Mary Magdalene."
"And Peter had a problem with that," Langdon said, pointing to The Last
Supper. "That's Peter there. You can see that Da Vinci was well aware of how
Peter felt about Mary Magdalene."
Again, Sophie was speechless. In the painting, Peter was leaning
menacingly toward Mary Magdalene and slicing his blade-like hand across her
neck. The same threatening gesture as in Madonna of the Rocks!
"And here too," Langdon said, pointing now to the crowd of disciples
near Peter. "A bit ominous, no?"
Sophie squinted and saw a hand emerging from the crowd of disciples.
"Is that hand wielding a dagger?"
"Yes. Stranger still, if you count the arms, you'll see that this hand
belongs to... no one at all. It's disembodied. Anonymous."
Sophie was starting to feel overwhelmed. "I'm sorry, I still don't
understand how all of this makes Mary Magdalene the Holy Grail."
"Aha!" Teabing exclaimed again. "Therein lies the rub!" He turned once
more to the table and pulled out a large chart, spreading it out for her. It
was an elaborate genealogy. "Few people realize that Mary Magdalene, in
addition to being Christ's right hand, was a powerful woman already."
Sophie could now see the title of the family tree.
THE TRIBE OF BENJAMIN
"Mary Magdalene is here," Teabing said, pointing near the top of the
genealogy.
Sophie was surprised. "She was of the House of Benjamin?"
"Indeed," Teabing said. "Mary Magdalene was of royal descent."
"But I was under the impression Magdalene was poor."
Teabing shook his head. "Magdalene was recast as a whore in order to
erase evidence of her powerful family ties."
Sophie found herself again glancing at Langdon, who again nodded. She
turned back to Teabing. "But why would the early Church care if Magdalene
had royal blood?"
The Briton smiled. "My dear child, it was not Mary Magdalene's royal
blood that concerned the Church so much as it was her consorting with
Christ, who also had royal blood. As you know, the Book of Matthew tells us
that Jesus was of the House of David. A descendant of King Solomon--King of
the Jews. By marrying into the powerful House of Benjamin, Jesus fused two
royal bloodlines, creating a potent political union with the potential of
making a legitimate claim to the throne and restoring the line of kings as
it was under Solomon."
Sophie sensed he was at last coming to his point.
Teabing looked excited now. "The legend of the Holy Grail is a legend
about royal blood. When Grail legend speaks of 'the chalice that held the
blood of Christ'... it speaks, in fact, of Mary Magdalene--the female womb
that carried Jesus' royal bloodline."
The words seemed to echo across the ballroom and back before they fully
registered in Sophie's mind. Mary Magdalene carried the royal bloodline of
Jesus Christ? "But how could Christ have a bloodline unless...?" She paused
and looked at Langdon.
Langdon smiled softly. "Unless they had a child."
Sophie stood transfixed.
"Behold," Teabing proclaimed, "the greatest cover-up in human history.
Not only was Jesus Christ married, but He was a father. My dear, Mary
Magdalene was the Holy Vessel. She was the chalice that bore the royal
bloodline of Jesus Christ. She was the womb that bore the lineage, and the
vine from which the sacred fruit sprang forth!"
Sophie felt the hairs stand up on her arms. "But how could a secret
that big be kept quiet all of these years?"
"Heavens!" Teabing said. "It has been anything but quiet! The royal
bloodline of Jesus Christ is the source of the most enduring legend of all
time--the Holy Grail. Magdalene's story has been shouted from the rooftops
for centuries in all kinds of metaphors and languages. Her story is
everywhere once you open your eyes."
"And the Sangreal documents?" Sophie said. "They allegedly contain
proof that Jesus had a royal bloodline?"
"They do."
"So the entire Holy Grail legend is all about royal blood?"
"Quite literally," Teabing said. "The word Sangreal derives from San
Greal--or Holy Grail. But in its most ancient form, the word Sangreal was
divided in a different spot." Teabing wrote on a piece of scrap paper and
handed it to her.
She read what he had written.
Sang Real
Instantly, Sophie recognized the translation. Sang Real literally meant
Royal Blood.
The male receptionist in the lobby of the Opus Dei headquarters on
Lexington Avenue in New York City was surprised to hear Bishop Aringarosa's
voice on the line. "Good evening, sir."
"Have I had any messages?" the bishop demanded, sounding unusually
anxious.
"Yes, sir. I'm very glad you called in. I couldn't reach you in your
apartment. You had an urgent phone message about half an hour ago."
"Yes?" He sounded relieved by the news. "Did the caller leave a name?"
"No, sir, just a number." The operator relayed the number.
"Prefix thirty-three? That's France, am I right?"
"Yes, sir. Paris. The caller said it was critical you contact him
immediately."
"Thank you. I have been waiting for that call." Aringarosa quickly
severed the connection.
As the receptionist hung up the receiver, he wondered why Aringarosa's
phone connection sounded so crackly. The bishop's daily schedule showed him
in New York this weekend, and yet he sounded a world away. The receptionist
shrugged it off. Bishop Aringarosa had been acting very strangely the last
few months.
My cellular phone must not have been receiving, Aringarosa thought as
the Fiat approached the exit for Rome's Ciampino Charter Airport. The
Teacher was trying to reach me. Despite Aringarosa's concern at having
missed the call, he felt encouraged that the Teacher felt confident enough
to call Opus Dei headquarters directly.
Things must have gone well in Paris tonight.
As Aringarosa began dialing the number, he felt excited to know he
would soon be in Paris. I'll be on the ground before dawn. Aringarosa had a
chartered turbo prop awaiting him here for the short flight to France.
Commercial carriers were not an option at this hour, especially considering
the contents of his briefcase.
The line began to ring.
A female voice answered. "Direction Centrale Police Judidaire."
Aringarosa felt himself hesitate. This was unexpected. "Ah, yes... I
was asked to call this number?"
"Qui utes-vous?" the woman said. "Your name?"
Aringarosa was uncertain if he should reveal it. The French Judicial
Police?
"Your name, monsieur?" the woman pressed.
"Bishop Manuel Aringarosa."
"Un moment." There was a click on the line.
After a long wait, another man came on, his tone gruff and concerned.
"Bishop, I am glad I finally reached you. You and I have much to discuss."
Sangreal... Sang Real... San Greal... Royal Blood... Holy Grail.
It was all intertwined.
The Holy Grail is Mary Magdalene... the mother of the royal bloodline
of Jesus Christ. Sophie felt a new wave of disorientation as she stood in
the silence of the ballroom and stared at Robert Langdon. The more pieces
Langdon and Teabing laid on the table tonight, the more unpredictable this
puzzle became.
"As you can see, my dear," Teabing said, hobbling toward a bookshelf,
"Leonardo is not the only one who has been trying to tell the world the
truth about the Holy Grail. The royal bloodline of Jesus Christ has been
chronicled in exhaustive detail by scores of historians." He ran a finger
down a row of several dozen books.
Sophie tilted her head and scanned the list of titles:
THE TEMPLAR REVELATION:
Secret Guardians of the True Identity of Christ
THE WOMAN WITH THE ALABASTER JAR:
Mary Magdalene and the Holy Grail
THE GODDESS IN THE GOSPELS
Reclaiming the Sacred Feminine
"Here is perhaps the best-known tome," Teabing said, pulling a tattered
hardcover from the stack and handing it to her. The cover read:
HOLY BLOOD, HOLY GRAIL
The Acclaimed International Bestseller
Sophie glanced up. "An international bestseller? I've never heard of
it."
"You were young. This caused quite a stir back in the nineteen
eighties. To my taste, the authors made some dubious leaps of faith in their
analysis, but their fundamental premise is sound, and to their credit, they
finally brought the idea of Christ's bloodline into the mainstream."
"What was the Church's reaction to the book?"
"Outrage, of course. But that was to be expected. After all, this was a
secret the Vatican had tried to bury in the fourth century. That's part of
what the Crusades were about. Gathering and destroying information. The
threat Mary Magdalene posed to the men of the early Church was potentially
ruinous. Not only was she the woman to whom Jesus had assigned the task of
founding the Church, but she also had physical proof that the Church's newly
proclaimed deity had spawned a mortal bloodline. The Church, in order to
defend itself against the Magdalene's power, perpetuated her image as a
whore and buried evidence of Christ's marriage to her, thereby defusing any
potential claims that Christ had a surviving bloodline and was a mortal
prophet."
Sophie glanced at Langdon, who nodded. "Sophie, the historical evidence
supporting this is substantial."
"I admit," Teabing said, "the assertions are dire, but you must
understand the Church's powerful motivations to conduct such a cover-up.
They could never have survived public knowledge of a bloodline. A child of
Jesus would undermine the critical notion of Christ's divinity and therefore
the Christian Church, which declared itself the sole vessel through which
humanity could access the divine and gain entrance to the kingdom of
heaven."
"The five-petal rose," Sophie said, pointing suddenly to the spine of
one of Teabing's books. The same exact design inlaid on the rosewood box.
Teabing glanced at Langdon and grinned. "She has a good eye." He turned
back to Sophie. "That is the Priory symbol for the Grail. Mary Magdalene.
Because her name was forbidden by the Church, Mary Magdalene became secretly
known by many pseudonyms--the Chalice, the Holy Grail, and the Rose." He
paused. "The Rose has ties to the five-pointed pentacle of Venus and the
guiding Compass Rose. By the way, the word rose is identical in English,
French, German, and many other languages."
"Rose," Langdon added, "is also an anagram of Eros, the Greek god of
sexual love."
Sophie gave him a surprised look as Teabing plowed on.
"The Rose has always been the premiere symbol of female sexuality. In
primitive goddess cults, the five petals represented the five stations of
female life--birth, menstruation, motherhood, menopause, and death. And in
modern times, the flowering rose's ties to womanhood are considered more
visual." He glanced at Robert. "Perhaps the symbologist could explain?"
Robert hesitated. A moment too long.
"Oh, heavens!" Teabing huffed. "You Americans are such prudes." He
looked back at Sophie. "What Robert is fumbling with is the fact that the
blossoming flower resembles the female genitalia, the sublime blossom from
which all mankind enters the world. And if you've ever seen any paintings by
Georgia O'Keeffe, you'll know exactly what I mean."
"The point here," Langdon said, motioning back to the bookshelf, "is
that all of these books substantiate the same historical claim."
"That Jesus was a father." Sophie was still uncertain.
"Yes," Teabing said. "And that Mary Magdalene was the womb that carried
His royal lineage. The Priory of Sion, to this day, still worships Mary
Magdalene as the Goddess, the Holy Grail, the Rose, and the Divine Mother."
Sophie again flashed on the ritual in the basement.
"According to the Priory," Teabing continued, "Mary Magdalene was
pregnant at the time of the crucifixion. For the safety of Christ's unborn
child, she had no choice but to flee the Holy Land. With the help of Jesus'
trusted uncle, Joseph of Arimathea, Mary Magdalene secretly traveled to
France, then known as Gaul. There she found safe refuge in the Jewish
community. It was here in France that she gave birth to a daughter. Her name
was Sarah."
Sophie glanced up. "They actually know the child's name?"
"Far more than that. Magdalene's and Sarah's lives were scrutinously
chronicled by their Jewish protectors. Remember that Magdalene's child
belonged to the lineage of Jewish kings--David and Solomon. For this reason,
the Jews in France considered Magdalene sacred royalty and revered her as
the progenitor of the royal line of kings. Countless scholars of that era
chronicled Mary Magdalene's days in France, including the birth of Sarah and
the subsequent family tree."
Sophie was startled. "There exists a family tree of Jesus Christ?"
"Indeed. And it is purportedly one of the cornerstones of the Sangreal
documents. A complete genealogy of the early descendants of Christ."
"But what good is a documented genealogy of Christ's bloodline?" Sophie
asked. "It's not proof. Historians could not possibly confirm its
authenticity."
Teabing chuckled. "No more so than they can confirm the authenticity of
the Bible."
"Meaning?"
"Meaning that history is always written by the winners. When two
cultures clash, the loser is obliterated, and the winner writes the history
books--books which glorify their own cause and disparage the conquered foe.
As Napoleon once said, 'What is history, but a fable agreed upon?' " He
smiled. "By its very nature, history is always a one-sided account."
Sophie had never thought of it that way.
"The Sangreal documents simply tell the other side of the Christ story.
In the end, which side of the story you believe becomes a matter of faith
and personal exploration, but at least the information has survived. The
Sangreal documents include tens of thousands of pages of information.
Eyewitness accounts of the Sangreal treasure describe it as being carried in
four enormous trunks. In those trunks are reputed to be the Purist
Documents--thousands of pages of unaltered, pre-Constantine documents,
written by the early followers of Jesus, revering Him as a wholly human
teacher and prophet. Also rumored to be part of the treasure is the
legendary "Q" Document--a manuscript that even the Vatican admits they
believe exists. Allegedly, it is a book of Jesus' teachings, possibly
written in His own hand."
"Writings by Christ Himself?"
"Of course," Teabing said. "Why wouldn't Jesus have kept a chronicle of
His ministry? Most people did in those days. Another explosive document
believed to be in the treasure is a manuscript called The Magdalene
Diaries--Mary Magdalene's personal account of her relationship with Christ,
His crucifixion, and her time in France."
Sophie was silent for a long moment. "And these four chests of
documents were the treasure that the Knights Templar found under Solomon's
Temple?"
"Exactly. The documents that made the Knights so powerful. The
documents that have been the object of countless Grail quests throughout
history."
"But you said the Holy Grail was Mary Magdalene. If people are
searching for documents, why would you call it a search for the Holy Grail?"
Teabing eyed her, his expression softening. "Because the hiding place
of the Holy Grail includes a sarcophagus."
Outside, the wind howled in the trees.
Teabing spoke more quietly now. "The quest for the Holy Grail is
literally the quest to kneel before the bones of Mary Magdalene. A journey
to pray at the feet of the outcast one, the lost sacred feminine."
Sophie felt an unexpected wonder. "The hiding place of the Holy Grail
is actually... a tomb?"
Teabing's hazel eyes got misty. "It is. A tomb containing the body of
Mary Magdalene and the documents that tell the true story of her life. At
its heart, the quest for the Holy Grail has always been a quest for the
Magdalene--the wronged Queen, entombed with proof of her family's rightful
claim to power."
Sophie waited a moment as Teabing gathered himself. So much about her
grandfather was still not making sense. "Members of the Priory," she finally
said, "all these years have answered the charge of protecting the Sangreal
documents and the tomb of Mary Magdalene?"
"Yes, but the brotherhood had another, more important duty as well--to
protect the bloodline itself. Christ's lineage was in perpetual danger. The
early Church feared that if the lineage were permitted to grow, the secret
of Jesus and Magdalene would eventually surface and challenge the
fundamental Catholic doctrine--that of a divine Messiah who did not consort
with women or engage in sexual union." He paused. "Nonetheless, Christ's
line grew quietly under cover in France until making a bold move in the
fifth century, when it intermarried with French royal blood and created a
lineage known as the Merovingian bloodline."
This news surprised Sophie. Merovingian was a term learned by every
student in France. "The Merovingians founded Paris."
"Yes. That's one of the reasons the Grail legend is so rich in France.
Many of the Vatican's Grail quests here were in fact stealth missions to
erase members of the royal bloodline. Have you heard of King Dagobert?"
Sophie vaguely recalled the name from a grisly tale in history class.
"Dagobert was a Merovingian king, wasn't he? Stabbed in the eye while
sleeping?"
"Exactly. Assassinated by the Vatican in collusion with Pepin
d'Heristal. Late seventh century. With Dagobert's murder, the Merovingian
bloodline was almost exterminated. Fortunately, Dagobert's son, Sigisbert,
secretly escaped the attack and carried on the lineage, which later included
Godefroi de Bouillon--founder of the Priory of Sion."
"The same man," Langdon said, "who ordered the Knights Templar to
recover the Sangreal documents from beneath Solomon's Temple and thus
provide the Merovingians proof of their hereditary ties to Jesus Christ."
Teabing nodded, heaving a ponderous sigh. "The modern Priory of Sion
has a momentous duty. Theirs is a threefold charge. The brotherhood must
protect the Sangreal documents. They must protect the tomb of Mary
Magdalene. And, of course, they must nurture and protect the bloodline of
Christ--those few members of the royal Merovingian bloodline who have
survived into modern times."
The words hung in the huge space, and Sophie felt an odd vibration, as
if her bones were reverberating with some new kind of truth. Descendants of
Jesus who survived into modern times. Her grandfather's voice again was
whispering in her ear. Princess, I must tell you the truth about your
family.
A chill raked her flesh.
Royal blood.
She could not imagine.
Princess Sophie.
"Sir Leigh?" The manservant's words crackled through the intercom on
the wall, and Sophie jumped. "If you could join me in the kitchen a moment?"
Teabing scowled at the ill-timed intrusion. He went over to the
intercom and pressed the button. "Rumy, as you know, I am busy with my
guests. If we need anything else from the kitchen tonight, we will help
ourselves. Thank you and good night."
"A word with you before I retire, sir. If you would."
Teabing grunted and pressed the button. "Make it quick, Rumy."
"It is a household matter, sir, hardly fare for guests to endure."
Teabing looked incredulous. "And it cannot wait until morning?"
"No, sir. My question won't take a minute."
Teabing rolled his eyes and looked at Langdon and Sophie. "Sometimes I
wonder who is serving whom?" He pressed the button again. "I'll be right
there, Rumy. Can I bring you anything when I come?"
"Only freedom from oppression, sir."
"Rumy, you realize your steak au poivre is the only reason you still
work for me."
"So you tell me, sir. So you tell me."
Princess Sophie.
Sophie felt hollow as she listened to the clicking of Teabing's
crutches fade down the hallway. Numb, she turned and faced Langdon in the
deserted ballroom. He was already shaking his head as if reading her mind.
"No, Sophie," he whispered, his eyes reassuring. "The same thought
crossed my mind when I realized your grandfather was in the Priory, and you
said he wanted to tell you a secret about your family. But it's impossible."
Langdon paused. "Sauniure is not a Merovingian name."
Sophie wasn't sure whether to feel relieved or disappointed. Earlier,
Langdon had asked an unusual passing question about Sophie's mother's maiden
name. Chauvel. The question now made sense. "And Chauvel?" she asked,
anxious.
Again he shook his head. "I'm sorry. I know that would have answered
some questions for you. Only two direct lines of Merovingians remain. Their
family names are Plantard and Saint-Clair. Both families live in hiding,
probably protected by the Priory."
Sophie repeated the names silently in her mind and then shook her head.
There was no one in her family named Plantard or Saint-Clair. A weary
undertow was pulling at her now. She realized she was no closer than she had
been at the Louvre to understanding what truth her grandfather had wanted to
reveal to her. Sophie wished her grandfather had never mentioned her family
this afternoon. He had torn open old wounds that felt as painful now as
ever. They are dead, Sophie. They are not coming back. She thought of her
mother singing her to sleep at night, of her father giving her rides on his
shoulders, and of her grandmother and younger brother smiling at her with
their fervent green eyes. All that was stolen. And all she had left was her
grandfather.
And now he is gone too. I am alone.
Sophie turned quietly back to The Last Supper and gazed at Mary
Magdalene's long red hair and quiet eyes. There was something in the woman's
expression that echoed the loss of a loved one. Sophie could feel it too.
"Robert?" she said softly.
He stepped closer.
"I know Leigh said the Grail story is all around us, but tonight is the
first time I've ever heard any of this."
Langdon looked as if he wanted to put a comforting hand on her
shoulder, but he refrained. "You've heard her story before, Sophie. Everyone
has. We just don't realize it when we hear it."
"I don't understand."
"The Grail story is everywhere, but it is hidden. When the Church
outlawed speaking of the shunned Mary Magdalene, her story and importance
had to be passed on through more discreet channels... channels that
supported metaphor and symbolism."
"Of course. The arts."
Langdon motioned to The Last Supper. "A perfect example. Some of
today's most enduring art, literature, and music secretly tell the history
of Mary Magdalene and Jesus."
Langdon quickly told her about works by Da Vinci, Botticelli, Poussin,
Bernini, Mozart, and Victor Hugo that all whispered of the quest to restore
the banished sacred feminine. Enduring legends like Sir Gawain and the Green
Knight, King Arthur, and Sleeping Beauty were Grail allegories. Victor
Hugo's Hunchback of Notre Dame and Mozart's Magic Flute were filled with
Masonic symbolism and Grail secrets.
"Once you open your eyes to the Holy Grail," Langdon said, "you see her
everywhere. Paintings. Music. Books. Even in cartoons, theme parks, and
popular movies."
Langdon held up his Mickey Mouse watch and told her that Walt Disney
had made it his quiet life's work to pass on the Grail story to future
generations. Throughout his entire life, Disney had been hailed as "the
Modern-Day Leonardo da Vinci." Both men were generations ahead of their
times, uniquely gifted artists, members of secret societies, and, most
notably, avid pranksters. Like Leonardo, Walt Disney loved infusing hidden
messages and symbolism in his art. For the trained symbologist, watching an
early Disney movie was like being barraged by an avalanche of allusion and
metaphor.
Most of Disney's hidden messages dealt with religion, pagan myth, and
stories of the subjugated goddess. It was no mistake that Disney retold
tales like Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, and Snow White--all of which dealt
with the incarceration of the sacred feminine. Nor did one need a background
in symbolism to understand that Snow White--a princess who fell from grace
after partaking of a poisoned apple--was a clear allusion to the downfall of
Eve in the Garden of Eden. Or that Sleeping Beauty's Princess
Aurora--code-named "Rose" and hidden deep in the forest to protect her from
the clutches of the evil witch--was the Grail story for children.
Despite its corporate image, Disney still had a savvy, playful element
among its employees, and their artists still amused themselves by inserting
hidden symbolism in Disney products. Langdon would never forget one of his
students bringing in a DVD of The Lion King and pausing the film to reveal a
freeze-frame in which the word SEX was clearly visible, spelled out by
floating dust particles over Simba's head. Although Langdon suspected this
was more of a cartoonist's sophomoric prank than any kind of enlightened
allusion to pagan human sexuality, he had learned not to underestimate
Disney's grasp of symbolism. The Little Mermaid was a spellbinding tapestry
of spiritual symbols so specifically goddess-related that they could not be
coincidence.
When Langdon had first seen The Little Mer