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 Sauniere’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 right eousness, 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.

“Arrкtez!” 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 idee, Monsieur Langdon,” he said, pressing the gun hard into Langdon’s back. “Mauvaise idee.”

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.

CHAPTER 29

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.

CHAPTER 30

Security warden Claude Grouard simmered with rage as he stood over his prostrate captive in front of the Mona Lisa. This bastard killed Jacques Sauniere! Sauniere 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 lа?” 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. “Repondez!”

“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 Sauniere’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 Sauniere 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‑pere, 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.

“Arrкtez! Ou je la detruis!” 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.”

CHAPTER 31

“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.

CHAPTER 32

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 Inversee—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‑Elysees.

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‑Elysees, 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 Sauniere’s brilliant hiding place; Madonna of the Rocks was yet another fitting link in the evening’s chain of interconnected symbolism. Sauniere, 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‑Elysees, 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 Hotel 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‑pere 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 Sauniere despised city driving and owned a car for one destination only—his vacation chateau 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 chateau 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‑pere, the famous recluse! Jacques Sauniere, 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 chateau’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.

CHAPTER 33

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‑Elysees.

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‑Elysees, 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 Sauniere 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‑Elysees. “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‑Elysees, 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.

CHAPTER 34

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.

BIBLIOTECA ASTRONOMICA

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 applique 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.

CHAPTER 35

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 Sacre‑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.”

CHAPTER 36

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 su

Date: 2016-03-03; view: 360