The Da Vinci Code

* * *

“Ring any bells?” he asked.

“Mona Lisa… holy crap,” somebody gasped.

Langdon nodded. “Gentlemen, not only does the face of Mona Lisa look androgynous, but her name is an anagram of the divine union of male and female. And that, my friends, is Da Vinci's little secret, and the reason for Mona Lisa's knowing smile.”

* * *

“My grandfather was here,” Sophie 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 recalled 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 before he died.

“He wouldn't have come here without a reason,” Sophie whispered, standing up. “I know he left a message for me here.” Quickly striding the final 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.

“There's nothing here!”

At that moment, Langdon saw a faint purple glimmer on the protective glass before the Mona Lisa. Reaching down, he took Sophie's wrist and slowly moved the light up to the painting itself.

They both froze.

On the glass, six words glowed in purple, scrawled directly across the Mona Lisa's face.

Chapter 27

Seated at Sauniere's desk, Lieutenant Collet pressed the phone to his ear in disbelief. Did I hear Fache correctly? “A bar of soap? But how could Langdon have known 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 thinking? Fache had proof that Sophie had interfered with a DCPJ sting operation? Sophie Neveu was not only going to be fired, she was also going to jail. “But, Captain… then where is Langdon now?”

“Have any fire alarms gone off there?”

“No, sir.”

“And no one has come out under the Grand Gallery gate?”

“No. We've got a Louvre security officer on the gate. Just as you requested.”

“Okay, Langdon must still be inside the Grand Gallery.”

“Inside? But what is he doing?”

“Is the Louvre security guard armed?”

“Yes, sir. He's a senior warden.”

“Send him in,” Fache commanded. “I can't get my men back to the perimeter for a few minutes, and I don't want Langdon breaking for an exit.” Fache paused. “And you'd 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, nobody on the perimeter saw her leave either. They only saw her go in.”

Collet was flabbergasted by Sophie Neveu's bravado. She's 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 drove off, Captain Fache rounded up his men. Robert Langdon had proven an elusive quarry tonight, and with Agent Neveu now helping him, he might be far harder to corner than expected.

Fache decided not to take any chances.

Hedging his bets, he ordered half of his men back to the Louvre perimeter. The other half he sent to guard the only location in Paris where Robert Langdon could find safe harbor.

Chapter 28

Inside the Salle des Etats, Langdon stared in astonishment at the six words glowing on the Plexiglas. The text seemed to hover in space, casting a jagged shadow across Mona Lisa's mysterious smile.

“The Priory,” Langdon whispered. “This proves your grandfather was a member!”

Sophie looked at him in confusion. “You understand this?”

“It's flawless,” Langdon said, nodding as his thoughts churned. “It's a proclamation of one of the Priory's most fundamental philosophies!”

Sophie looked baffled in the glow of the message scrawled across the Mona Lisa's face.

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.