The Da Vinci Code Chapter 24-29

CHAPTER 24Silas gazed upward at the Saint-Sulpice obelisk, taking in the length of the roomy marble shaft. His sinews entangle taut with exhilaration. He glanced nigh the church matchless more time to make sure he was al unity. Then he knelt at the base of the structure, not break of esteem, but out of necessity.The grit is hugger-mugger beneath the Rose Line. At the base of the Sulpice obelisk. All the brothers had concurred.On his knees now, Silas ran his work force across the gem sway traumatise. He dictuming machine no cracks or markings to indicate a movable tile, so he began rapping softly with his knuckle on the theme. Following the brass line closer to the obelisk, he knocked on each tile adjacent to the brass line. Finally, one of them echoed strangely.Thithers a holler area beneath the floorSilas smiled. His victims had spoken the truth.Standing, he oceanrched the sanctuary for something with which to banish the floor tile.High above Silas, in the balcon y, Sister Sandrine stifled a gasp. Her opaqueest fears had just been confirmed. This visitor was not who he seemed. The secret Opus Dei monk had come to Saint- Sulpice for another purpose.A secret purpose.You are not the precisely one with secrets, she thought.Sister Sandrine Bieil was more than the keeper of this church. She was a sentry. And to iniquity, the ancient wheels had been facility in motion. The arrival of this stranger at the base of the obelisk was a signal from the brotherhood.It was a silent promise of distress.CHAPTER 25The U. S. Embassy in capital of France is a comp motion coordination compound on Avenue Gabriel, just brotherhood of the Champs-Elysees. The tercet-acre compound is considered U. S. soil, meaning all those who stand on it are causa to the same laws and protections as they would encounter standing in the United States.The embassys night street girl was reading Time magazines International Edition when the sound of her bring forward interru pted.U. S. Embassy, she answered.Good evening. The rememberer spoke English accented with French. I call for some assistance. Despite the politeness of the mans words, his tone sounded gruff and official. I was told you had a reverberate nitty-gritty for me on your automated system. The name is Langdon. Unfortunately, I deal forgotten my one-third-digit access code. If you could help me, I would be or so grateful.The operator paused, confused. Im sorry, sir. Your content must be quite old. That system was retravel ii years ago for security precautions. Moreoer, all the access codes were five-digit. Who told you we had a sum for you? You look at no automated call up system? zero(prenominal) sir. Any message for you would be handwritten in our services dep finesse civilize forcet. What was your name again? scarcely the man had hung up.Bezu Fache felt dumbs transport as he paced the banks of the Seine. He was certain he had seen Langdon dial a local number, enter a three-d igit code, and then consciousness to a recording. tho if Langdon didnt phone the embassy, then who the hell did he call?It was at that moment, eyeing his cellular phone, that Fache realized the answers were in the palm of his hand. Langdon used my phone to place that call.Keying into the cell phones menu, Fache pulled up the list of recently dialed numbers and imbed the call Langdon had placed.A capital of France exchange, followed by the three-digit code 454.Redialing the phone number, Fache waited as the line began ringing.Finally a womans voice answered. Bonjour, vous etes bien chez Sophie Neveu, the recording announced. Je suis absente pour le moment, maisFaches blood was boiling as he typed the numbers 4 5 4.CHAPTER 26Despite her monumental reputation, the Mona Lisa was a mere thirty-one inches by twenty-one inches smaller even than the posters of her sold in the pentad represent shop. She hung on the northwest wall of the Salle des Etats bolt down a two-inch-thick w indow glass of protective Plexiglas. Painted on a poplar wood panel, her ethitheral, mist-filled atmosphere was attributed to Da Vincis mastery of the sfumato style, in which forms appear to evaporate into one another.Since taking up residence in the Louvre, the Mona Lisa or La Jaconde as they call her in France had been stolen twice, most recently in 1911, when she disappeared from the Louvres satte impenetrable Le salon Carre. Parisians wept in the streets and wrote newspaper articles begging the thieves for the motion-picture shows return. Two years later, the Mona Lisa was disc everywhereed isolated in the false bottom of a trunk in a Florence hotel room.Langdon, now having make it clear to Sophie that he had no intention of leaving, moved with her across the Salle des Etats. The Mona Lisa was still twenty yards ahead when Sophie turned on the disastrous light, and the bluish crescent of penlight fanned out on the floor in summit of them. She swung the beam sand and fo rth across the floor homogeneous a minesweeper, searching for any hint of luminescent ink. go beside her, Langdon was already feeling the tingle of anticipation that attach to his face-to-face reunions with ample works of art. He strained to see beyond the cocoon of purplish light emanating from the unrelenting light in Sophies hand. To the left(p), the rooms octagonal viewing divan emerged, looking like a dark island on the empty sea of parquet.Langdon could now begin to see the panel of dark glass on the wall. Behind it, he knew, in the confines of her own private cell, hung the most celebrated painting in the ball.The Mona Lisas status as the most historied piece of art in the world, Langdon knew, had nothing to do with her enigmatic smile. nary(prenominal) was it repayable to the mysterious interpretations attributed her by many art historians and conspiracy buffs. Quite plain, the Mona Lisa was noted because Leonardo Da Vinci claimed she was his finest accomplishmen t. He carried the painting with him whenever he traveled and, if asked why, would answer that he found it hard to disrupt with his most sublime aspect of egg-producing(prenominal) beauty.Even so, many art historians suspected Da Vincis reverence for the Mona Lisa had nothing to do with its artistic mastery. In actuality, the painting was a surprisingly ordinary sfumato portrait. Da Vincis veneration for this work, many claimed, stemmed from something utmost deeper a hidden message in the layers of paint. The Mona Lisa was, in fact, one of the worlds most enter inside jokes. The paintings well-documented collage of double entendres and playful allusions had been revealed in most art history tomes, and yet, incredibly, the public at large still considered her smile a great riddle.No mystery at all, Langdon thought, moving forward and reflection as the faint outline of the painting began to take shape. No mystery at all.Most recently Langdon had shared the Mona Lisas secret wi th a preferably unlikely group a dozen inmates at the Essex County Penitentiary. Langdons jail seminar was part of a Harvard outreach program attempting to bring education into the prison system acculturation for Convicts, as Langdons colleagues liked to call it.Standing at an oerhead projector in a darkened penitentiary library, Langdon had shared the MonaLisas secret with the prisoners attending class, men whom he found surprisingly engaged rough, but sharp. You may notice, Langdon told them, paseo up to the projected image of the MonaLisa on the library wall, that the background behind her face is uneven. Langdon motioned to the glaring discrepancy. Da Vinci painted the horizon line on the left significantly lower than the function.He screwed it up? one of the inmates asked.Langdon chuckled. No. Da Vinci didnt do that too often. Actually, this is a curt trick Da Vinci played. By lowering the countryside on the left, Da Vinci made Mona Lisa look oftentimes larger from the left side than from the right side. A little Da Vinci inside joke. Historically, the c formerlypts of male and female have assigned sides left is female, and right is male. Because Da Vinci was a big fan of feminine principles, he made Mona Lisa look more majestic from the left than the right.I heard he was a fag, said a small man with a goatee.Langdon winced. Historians dont broadly speaking put it quite that counsel, but yes, Da Vinci was a homosexual.Is that why he was into that whole feminine thing?Actually, Da Vinci was in tune with the relaxation between male and female. He believed that a human soul could not be enlightened unless it had both male and female elements.You mean like chicks with dicks? someone called.This elicited a hearty round of laughs. Langdon considered offering an etymological sidebar about the word hermaphrodite and its ties to Hermes and Aphrodite, but something told him it would be lost on this crowd.Hey, Mr. Langford, a muscle-bound man said. Is i t true that the Mona Lisa is a picture of Da Vinci in drag? I heard that was true.Its quite possible, Langdon said. Da Vinci was a prankster, and computerized analysis of the Mona Lisa and Da Vincis self-portraits confirm some startling points of congruency in their faces. some(prenominal) Da Vinci was up to, Langdon said, his Mona Lisa is neither male nor female. It carries a subtle message of androgyny. It is a fusing of both.You sure thats not just some Harvard bullshit way of saying Mona Lisa is one ugly chick.Now Langdon laughed. You may be right. only if genuinely Da Vinci left a big clue that the painting was supposed to be androgynous. Has anyone here ever heard of an Egyptian immortal named Amon? Hell yes the big guy said. matinee idol of masculine fertility Langdon was stunned.It says so on every box of Amon condoms. The muscular man gave a wide grin. Its got a guy with a rams head on the front and says hes the Egyptian god of fertility.Langdon was not familiar with t he brand name, but he was sunny to hear the prophylactic manufacturers had gotten their hieroglyphs right. Well done. Amon is indeed represented as a man with a rams head, and his promiscuity and curved horns are related to our sophisticated sexual slang horny. No shit No shit, Langdon said. And do you know who Amons facsimile was? The Egyptian goddessof fertility?The question met with several seconds of silence.It was Isis, Langdon told them, grabbing a grease pen. So we have the male god, Amon. He wrote it down. And the female goddess, Isis, whose ancient pictogram was once called LISA.Langdon faultless writing and stepped back from the projector.AMON LISARing any bells? he asked.Mona Lisa holy crap, mortal gasped.Langdon nodded. Gentlemen, not only does the face of Mona Lisa look androgynous, but her name is an read of the divine union of male and female. And that, my friends, is Da Vincis little secret, and the reason for Mona Lisas crafty smile.My grandfather was here, S ophie said, dropping suddenly to her knees, now only ten feet from the Mona Lisa.She pointed the black light tentatively to a spot on the parquet floor.At first Langdon saw nothing. Then, as he knelt beside her, he saw a tiny droplet of dried liquid that was luminescing. Ink? Suddenly he ringed what black lights were actually used for. Blood. His senses tingled. Sophie was right. Jacques Sauniere had indeed paid a visit to the Mona Lisa onward he died.He wouldnt have come here without a reason, Sophie whispered, standing up. I know he left a message for me here. rapidly striding the lowest few steps to the Mona Lisa, she illuminated the floor directly in front of the painting. She waved the light back and forth across the bare parquet. at that places nothing here At that moment, Langdon saw a faint purple glimmer on the protective glass before the Mona Lisa. Reaching down, he took Sophies wrist and easily moved the light up to the painting itself. They both froze. On the glass, sise words glowed in purple, scrawled directly across the Mona Lisas face.CHAPTER 27Seated at Saunieres desk, Lieutenant Collet pressed the phone to his ear in dis article of belief. Did I hearFache correctly? A bar of soap? yet how could Langdon have know about the GPS dot? Sophie Neveu, Fache replied. She told him. What Why?Damned good question, but I just heard a recording that confirms she tipped him off.Collet was speechless. What was Neveu persuasion? Fache had proof that Sophie had interfered with a DCPJ sting operation? Sophie Neveu was not only liberation to be fired, she was also going to jail. But, Captain then where is Langdon now? collect any fire alarms gone off there? No, sir. And no one has come out under the Grand Gallery gate?No. Weve got a Louvre security officer on the gate. Just as you requested. Okay, Langdon must still be inside the Grand Gallery. intimate? But what is he doing?Is the Louvre security rubber armed? Yes, sir. Hes a ranking(prenominal) war den. Send him in, Fache commanded. I cant get my men back to the perimeter for a few minutes, and I dont want Langdon breaking for an exit. Fache paused. And youd better tell the guard Agent Neveu is probably in there with him. Agent Neveu left, I thought. Did you actually see her leave? No, sir, but Well, no carcass on the perimeter saw her leave either. They only saw her go in.Collet was flabbergasted by Sophie Neveus bravado. Shes still inside the building?Handle it, Fache ordered. I want Langdon and Neveu at gunpoint by the time I get back.As the Trailor truck set off, Captain Fache rounded up his men. Robert Langdon had proven an elusive butt tonight, and with Agent Neveu now helping him, he might be far harder to corner than expected.Fache decided not to take any determines.Hedging his bets, he ordered half(a) of his men back to the Louvre perimeter. The other half he sent to guard the only localisation principle in Paris where Robert Langdon could find safe harbor.CHAPT ER 28Inside the Salle des Etats, Langdon stared in wonder at the six words glowing on the Plexiglas. The text seemed to incubate in space, casting a jagged shadow across Mona Lisas mysterious smile.The Priory, Langdon whispered. This proves your grandfather was a member Sophie looked at him in confusion. You understand this? Its flawless, Langdon said, flagging as his thoughts churned. Its a proclamation of one of the Priorys most fundamental philosophiesSophie looked unconnected in the glow of the message scrawled across the Mona Lisas face.SO DARK THE goldbrick OF MANSophie, Langdon said, the Priorys 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, utter(a) at the words. The Priory believes that Constantine and his male successors successfully converted the world from matriarchal h eathenism to patriarchal Christianity by waging a campaign of propaganda that demonized the ineffable feminine, obliterating the goddess from modern worship forever.Sophies 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 Saunieres outward message.So dark the con of man, he thought. So dark indeed.Nobody could deny the coarse good the modern church did in todays troubled world, and yet the church building 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 have that arguably could be called the most blood-soaked publication in huma n history. pound 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 noesis to ease the pain of childbirth a suffering, the Church claimed, that was Gods rightful punishment for Eves 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 imperil an astounding five million women.The propaganda and bloodshed had worked. Todays 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 by means of which each became spiritually whole had been recast as a abusive 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 field side could escape the Churchs defamation. In France and Italy, the words for left gauche and sinistra came to have deeply negative overtones, while their right-hand counterparts rang of righteousness, dexterity, and correctness. To this day, radical thought was considered left wing, irrational thought was left brain, and anything evil, sinister.The days of the goddess were over. The pendulum had swung. Mother Earth had buzz off a mans world, and the gods of destruction and war were taking their toll. The male ego had played out two m illennia 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. Someones coming He heard the approaching footsteps out in the hallway. Over here Sophie eliminate the black light and seemed to evaporate before Langdons eyes.For an instant he felt totally blind. Over where As his vision cleared he saw Sophies silhouette racing toward the center of the room and ducking out of bulk behind the octagonal viewing bench. He was about to dash after her when a booming voice stop him cold.Arretez a man commanded from the doorway.The Louvre security agent advanced through the entrance to the Salle des Etats, his side arm outstretched, taking deadly aim at Langdons chest.Langdon felt his arms endure instinctively for the ceiling.Couchez-vous the guard commanded. Lie downLangdon 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 Langdons 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 29Inside 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 devising considerable noise.Iron on marble. It would echo off the vaulted ceilings.Would the conical buoy 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 close in around the tip of the iron pole, he saw nothing omit the altars 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 sporty 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 legion 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 compartmentQuickly 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.A t 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 contemporary 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 3811A 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 righteousJob. Chapter thirty-eight. Verse eleven.Although Silas did not recall the exact contents of verse eleven by heart, he knew the take hold of Job told the s tory 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 couldnt help but smile. There atop the main altar, propped open on a gilded watchword stand, sat an enormous leather-bound Bible.Up in the balcony, Sister Sandrine was shaking. Moments ago, she had been about to fly the coop and carryout 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 whippedShe 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 restfully donning his cloak again, clutching his prize as he moved toward the altar, toward the Bible.In smothering 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 anxious 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 news of Job. He located chapter thirty-eight. As he ran his finger down the tower of text, he anticipated the words he was about to read.They will antecede the wayFinding verse number el even, Silas read the text. It was only seven words. Confused, he read it again, sensing something had gone terribly wrong. The verse simply readHITHERTO SHALT THOU COME, BUT NO FURTHER.