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
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
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