"Saunière 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. Saunière 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 Saunière and I..."
Sophie's voice caught, and Langdon heard a sudden melancholy there, a painful past,
simmering just below the surface. Sophie and Jacques Saunière 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 Saunière was my
grandfather."
CHAPTER 14
"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."
CHAPTER 15
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.
CHAPTER 16
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 Saunière 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, Saunière 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 Saunière— 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
