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.
CHAPTER 19
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 abbérequested 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.
CHAPTER 20
Emerging from the shadows, Langdon and Sophie moved stealthily up the deserted Grand
Gallery corridor toward the emergency exit stairwell.
As he moved, Langdon felt like he was trying to assemble a jigsaw puzzle in the dark. The
newest aspect of this mystery was a deeply troubling one: The captain of the Judicial Police is
trying to frame me for murder
"Do you think," he whispered, "that maybe Fache wrote that message on the floor?"
Sophie didn't even turn. "Impossible."
Langdon wasn't so sure. "He seems pretty intent on making me look guilty. Maybe he
thought writing my name on the floor would help his case?"
"The Fibonacci sequence? The P.S.? All the Da Vinci and goddess symbolism? That had to
be my grandfather."
Langdon knew she was right. The symbolism of the clues meshed too perfectly— the
pentacle, The Vitruvian Man, Da Vinci, the goddess, and even the Fibonacci sequence. A
coherent symbolic set, as iconographers would call it. All inextricably tied.
"And his phone call to me this afternoon," Sophie added. "He said he had to tell me
something. I'm certain his message at the Louvre was his final effort to tell me something
important, something he thought you could help me understand."
Langdon frowned. O, Draconian devil! Oh, lame saint.! He wished he could comprehend
the message, both for Sophie's well -being and for his own. Things had definitely gotten worse
since he first laid eyes on the cryptic words. His fake leap out the bathroom window was not
going to help Langdon's popularity with Fache one bit. Somehow he doubted the captain of the
French police would see the humor in chasing down and arresting a bar of soap.
"The doorway isn't much farther," Sophie said.
"Do you think there's a possibility that the numbers in your grandfather's message hold the
key to understanding the other lines?" Langdon had once worked on a series of Baconian
manuscripts that contained epigraphical ciphers in which certain lines of code were clues as to
how to decipher the other lines.
"I've been thinking about the numbers all night. Sums, quotients, products. I don't see
anything. Mathematically, they're arranged at random. Cryptographic gibberish."
"And yet they're all part of the Fibonacci sequence. That can't be coincidence."
"It's not. Using Fibonacci numbers was my grandfather's way of waving another flag at
me— like writing the message in English, or arranging himself like my favorite piece of art, or
drawing a pentacle on himself. All of it was to catch my attention."
"The pentacle has meaning to you?"
"Yes. I didn't get a chance to tell you, but the pentacle was a special symbol between my
grandfather and me when I was growing up. We used to play Tarot cards for fun, and my
indicator card always turned out to be from the suit of pentacles. I'm sure he stacked the deck,
but pentacles got to be our little joke."
Langdon felt a chill. They played Tarot? The medieval Italian card game was so replete
with hidden heretical symbolism that Langdon had dedicated an entire chapter in his new
manuscript to the Tarot. The game's twenty-two cards bore names like The Female Pope, The
Empress, and The Star. Originally, Tarot had been devised as a secret means to pass along
ideologies banned by the Church. Now, Tarot's mystical qualities were passed on by modern
fortune-tellers.
The Tarot indicator suit for feminine divinity is pentacles, Langdon thought, realizing that if
Saunière had been stacking his granddaughter's deck for fun, pentacles was an apropos inside
joke.
They arrived at the emergency stairwell, and Sophie carefully pulled open the door. No
alarm sounded. Only the doors to the outside were wired. Sophie led Langdon down a tight set of
switchback stairs toward the ground level, picking up speed as they went.
"Your grandfather," Langdon said, hurrying behind her, "when he told you about the
pentacle, did he mention goddess worship or any resentment of the Catholic Church?"
Sophie shook her head. "I was more interested in the mathematics of it— the Divine
Proportion, PHI, Fibonacci sequences, that sort of thing."
Langdon was surprised. "Your grandfather taught you about the number PHI?"
"Of course. The Divine Proportion." Her expression turned sheepish. "In fact, he used to
joke that I was half divine... you know, because of the letters in my name."
Langdon considered it a moment and then groaned.
s-o-PHI -e.
Still descending, Langdon refocused on PHI. He was starting to realize that Saunière's clues
were even more consistent than he had first imagined.
Da Vinci... Fibonacci numbers... the pentacle.
Incredibly, all of these things were connected by a single concept so fundamental to art
history that Langdon often spent several class periods on the topic.
