The Da Vinci Code (29 page)

“It is,” Langdon said. “It was stored in a rosewood box inlaid with a five-petal Rose.”

Teabing looked thunderstruck. “You've
seen
the keystone?”

Sophie nodded. “We visited the bank.”

Teabing came over to them, his eyes wild with fear. “My friends, we must do something. The keystone is in danger! We have a duty to protect it. What if there are other keys? Perhaps stolen from the murdered
sénéchaux
? If the Church can gain access to the bank as you have—”

“Then they will be too late,” Sophie said. “We removed the keystone.”

“What! You removed the keystone from its hiding place?”

“Don't worry,” Langdon said. “The keystone is well hidden.”

“
Extremely
well hidden, I hope!”

“Actually,” Langdon said, unable to hide his grin, “that depends on how often you dust under your couch.”

The wind outside Château Villette had picked up, and Silas's robe danced in the breeze as he crouched near the window. Although he had been unable to hear much of the conversation, the word
keystone
had sifted through the glass on numerous occasions.

It is inside.

The Teacher's words were fresh in his mind.
Enter Château Villette. Take the keystone. Hurt no one.

Now, Langdon and the others had adjourned suddenly to another room, extinguishing the study lights as they went. Feeling like a panther stalking prey, Silas crept to the glass doors. Finding them unlocked, he slipped inside and closed the doors silently behind him. He could hear muffled voices from another room. Silas pulled the pistol from his pocket, turned off the safety, and inched down the hallway.

CHAPTER
63

Lieutenant Collet
stood alone at the foot of Leigh Teabing's driveway and gazed up at the massive house.
Isolated. Dark. Good ground cover
. Collet watched his half-dozen agents spreading silently out along the length of the fence. They could be over it and have the house surrounded in a matter of minutes. Langdon could not have chosen a more ideal spot for Collet's men to make a surprise assault.

Collet was about to call Fache himself when at last his phone rang.

Fache sounded not nearly as pleased with the developments as Collet would have imagined. “Why didn't someone tell me we had a lead on Langdon?”

“You were on a phone call and—”

“Where exactly are you, Lieutenant Collet?”

Collet gave him the address. “The estate belongs to a British national named Teabing. Langdon drove a fair distance to get here, and the vehicle is inside the security gate, with no signs of forced entry, so chances are good that Langdon knows the occupant.”

“I'm coming out,” Fache said. “Don't make a move. I'll handle this personally.”

Collet's jaw dropped. “But Captain, you're twenty minutes away! We should act immediately. I have him staked out. I'm with eight men total. Four of us have field rifles and the others have sidearms.”

“Wait for me.”

“Captain, what if Langdon has a hostage in there? What if he sees us and decides to leave on foot? We need to move
now!
My men are in position and ready to go.”

“Lieutenant Collet, you will wait for me to arrive before taking action. That is an order.” Fache hung up.

Stunned, Lieutenant Collet switched off his phone.
Why the hell is Fache asking me to wait?
Collet knew the answer. Fache, though famous for his instinct, was notorious for his pride.
Fache wants credit for the arrest
. After putting the American's face all over the television, Fache wanted to be sure his own face got equal time. Collet's job was simply to hold down the fort until the boss showed up to save the day.

As he stood there, Collet flashed on a second possible explanation for this delay.
Damage control
. In law enforcement, hesitating to arrest a fugitive only occurred when uncertainty had arisen regarding the suspect's guilt.
Is Fache having second thoughts that Langdon is the right man?
The thought was frightening. Captain Fache had gone out on a limb tonight to arrest Robert Langdon—
surveillance cachée,
Interpol, and now television. Not even the great Bezu Fache would survive the political fallout if he had mistakenly splashed a prominent American's face all over French television, claiming he was a murderer. If Fache now realized he'd made a mistake, then it made perfect sense that he would tell Collet not to make a move. The last thing Fache needed was for Collet to storm an innocent Brit's private estate and take Langdon at gunpoint.

Moreover, Collet realized, if Langdon were innocent, it explained one of this case's strangest paradoxes: Why had Sophie Neveu, the
granddaughter
of the victim, helped the alleged killer escape? Unless Sophie knew Langdon was falsely charged. Fache had posited all kinds of explanations tonight to explain Sophie's odd behavior, including that Sophie, as Saunière's sole heir, had persuaded her secret lover Robert Langdon to kill off Saunière for the inheritance money. Saunière, if he had suspected this, might have left the police the message
P.S. Find Robert Langdon
. Collet was fairly certain something else was going on here. Sophie Neveu seemed far too solid of character to be mixed up in something that sordid.

“Lieutenant?” One of the field agents came running over. “We found a car.”

Collet followed the agent about fifty yards past the driveway. The agent pointed to a wide shoulder on the opposite side of the road. There, parked in the brush, almost out of sight, was a black Audi. It had rental plates. Collet felt the hood. Still warm. Hot even.

“That must be how Langdon got here,” Collet said. “Call the rental company. Find out if it's stolen.”

“Yes, sir.”

Another agent waved Collet back over in the direction of the fence. “Lieutenant, have a look at this.” He handed Collet a pair of night vision binoculars. “The grove of trees near the top of the driveway.”

Collet aimed the binoculars up the hill and adjusted the image intensifier dials. Slowly, the greenish shapes came into focus. He located the curve of the driveway and slowly followed it up, reaching the grove of trees. All he could do was stare. There, shrouded in the greenery, was an armored truck. A truck identical to the one Collet had permitted to leave the Depository Bank of Zurich earlier tonight. He prayed this was some kind of bizarre coincidence, but he knew it could not be.

“It seems obvious,” the agent said, “that this truck is how Langdon and Neveu got away from the bank.”

Collet was speechless. He thought of the armored truck driver he had stopped at the roadblock. The Rolex. His impatience to leave.
I never checked the cargo hold
.

Incredulous, Collet realized that someone in the bank had actually lied to DCPJ about Langdon and Sophie's whereabouts and then helped them escape.
But who? And why?
Collet wondered if maybe
this
were the reason Fache had told him not to take action yet. Maybe Fache realized there were more people involved tonight than just Langdon and Sophie.
And if Langdon and Neveu arrived in the armored truck,
then who drove the Audi?

Hundreds of miles to the south, a chartered Beechcraft Baron 58 raced northward over the Tyrrhenian Sea. Despite calm skies, Bishop Aringarosa clutched an airsickness bag, certain he could be ill at any moment. His conversation with Paris had not at all been what he had imagined.

Alone in the small cabin, Aringarosa twisted the gold ring on his finger and tried to ease his overwhelming sense of fear and desperation.
Everything in Paris has gone terribly wrong
. Closing his eyes, Aringarosa said a prayer that Bezu Fache would have the means to fix it.

CHAPTER
64

Teabing sat
on the divan, cradling the wooden box on his lap and admiring the lid's intricate inlaid Rose.
Tonight has become the strangest and most magical night of my life.

“Lift the lid,” Sophie whispered, standing over him, beside Langdon.

Teabing smiled.
Do not rush me
. Having spent over a decade searching for this keystone, he wanted to savor every millisecond of this moment. He ran a palm across the wooden lid, feeling the texture of the inlaid flower.

“The Rose,” he whispered.
The Rose is Magdalene is the Holy Grail. The Rose is the compass that guides the way
. Teabing felt foolish. For years he had traveled to cathedrals and churches all over France, paying for special access, examining hundreds of archways beneath rose windows, searching for an encrypted keystone.
La clef de voûte—a stone key beneath the sign of the Rose
.

Teabing slowly unlatched the lid and raised it.

As his eyes finally gazed upon the contents, he knew in an instant it could only be the keystone. He was staring at a stone cylinder, crafted of interconnecting lettered dials. The device seemed surprisingly familiar to him.

“Designed from Da Vinci's diaries,” Sophie said. “My grandfather made them as a hobby.”

Of course,
Teabing realized. He had seen the sketches and blueprints.
The key to finding the Holy Grail lies inside this stone
. Teabing lifted the heavy cryptex from the box, holding it gently. Although he had no idea how to open the cylinder, he sensed his own destiny lay inside. In moments of failure, Teabing had questioned whether his life's quest would ever be rewarded. Now those doubts were gone forever. He could hear the ancient words . . . the foundation of the Grail legend:

Vous ne trouvez pas le Saint-Graal, c'est le Saint-Graal qui vous trouve.

You do not find the Grail, the Grail finds you.

And tonight, incredibly, the key to finding the Holy Grail had walked right through his front door.

While Sophie and Teabing sat with the cryptex and talked about the vinegar, the dials, and what the password might be, Langdon carried the rosewood box across the room to a well-lit table to get a better look at it. Something Teabing had just said was now running through Langdon's mind.

The key to the Grail is hidden beneath the sign of the Rose.

Langdon held the wooden box up to the light and examined the inlaid symbol of the Rose. Although his familiarity with art did not include woodworking or inlaid furniture, he had just recalled the famous tiled ceiling of the Spanish monastery outside of Madrid, where, three centuries after its construction, the ceiling tiles began to fall out, revealing sacred texts scrawled by monks on the plaster beneath.

Langdon looked again at the Rose.

Beneath the Rose.

Sub Rosa.

Secret.

A bump in the hallway behind him made Langdon turn. He saw nothing but shadows. Teabing's manservant most likely had passed through. Langdon turned back to the box. He ran his finger over the smooth edge of the inlay, wondering if he could pry the Rose out, but the craftsmanship was perfect. He doubted even a razor blade could fit in between the inlaid Rose and the carefully carved depression into which it was seated.

Opening the box, he examined the inside of the lid. It was smooth. As he shifted its position, though, the light caught what appeared to be a small hole on the underside of the lid, positioned in the exact center. Langdon closed the lid and examined the inlaid symbol from the top. No hole.

It doesn't pass through.

Setting the box on the table, he looked around the room and spied a stack of papers with a paper clip on it. Borrowing the clip, he returned to the box, opened it, and studied the hole again. Carefully, he unbent the paper clip and inserted one end into the hole. He gave a gentle push. It took almost no effort. He heard something clatter quietly onto the table. Langdon closed the lid to look. It was a small piece of wood, like a puzzle piece. The wooden Rose had popped out of the lid and fallen onto the desk.

Speechless, Langdon stared at the bare spot on the lid where the Rose had been. There, engraved in the wood, written in an immaculate hand, were four lines of text in a language he had never seen.

The characters look vaguely Semitic,
Langdon thought to himself,
and yet I don't recognize the language!

A sudden movement behind him caught his attention. Out of nowhere, a crushing blow to the head knocked Langdon to his knees.

As he fell, he thought for a moment he saw a pale ghost hovering over him, clutching a gun. Then everything went black.

CHAPTER
65

Sophie Neveu,
despite working in law enforcement, had never found herself at gunpoint until tonight. Almost inconceivably, the gun into which she was now staring was clutched in the pale hand of an enormous albino with long white hair. He looked at her with red eyes that radiated a frightening, disembodied quality. Dressed in a wool robe with a rope tie, he resembled a medieval cleric. Sophie could not imagine who he was, and yet she was feeling a sudden newfound respect for Teabing's suspicions that the Church was behind this.

“You know what I have come for,” the monk said, his voice hollow.

Sophie and Teabing were seated on the divan, arms raised as their attacker had commanded. Langdon lay groaning on the floor. The monk's eyes fell immediately to the keystone on Teabing's lap.

Teabing's tone was defiant. “You will not be able to open it.”

“My Teacher is very wise,” the monk replied, inching closer, the gun shifting between Teabing and Sophie.

Sophie wondered where Teabing's manservant was.
Didn't he hear Robert fall?

“Who is your teacher?” Teabing asked. “Perhaps we can make a financial arrangement.”

“The Grail is priceless.” He moved closer.

“You're bleeding,” Teabing noted calmly, nodding to the monk's right ankle where a trickle of blood had run down his leg. “And you're limping.”

“As do you,” the monk replied, motioning to the metal crutches propped beside Teabing. “Now, hand me the keystone.”

“You know of the keystone?” Teabing said, sounding surprised.

“Never mind what I know. Stand up slowly, and give it to me.”

“Standing is difficult for me.”

“Precisely. I would prefer nobody attempt any quick moves.”

Teabing slipped his right hand through one of his crutches and grasped the keystone in his left. Lurching to his feet, he stood erect, palming the heavy cylinder in his left hand, and leaning unsteadily on his crutch with his right.

The monk closed to within a few feet, keeping the gun aimed directly at Teabing's head. Sophie watched, feeling helpless as the monk reached out to take the cylinder.

“You will not succeed,” Teabing said. “Only the worthy can unlock this stone.”

God alone judges the worthy,
Silas thought.

“It's quite heavy,” the man on crutches said, his arm wavering now. “If you don't take it soon, I'm afraid I shall drop it!” He swayed perilously.

Silas stepped quickly forward to take the stone, and as he did, the man on crutches lost his balance. The crutch slid out from under him, and he began to topple sideways to his right.
No!
Silas lunged to save the stone, lowering his weapon in the process. But the keystone was moving away from him now. As the man fell to his right, his left hand swung backward, and the cylinder tumbled from his palm onto the couch. At the same instant, the metal crutch that had been sliding out from under the man seemed to accelerate, cutting a wide arc through the air toward Silas's leg.

Splinters of pain tore up Silas's body as the crutch made perfect contact with his
cilice,
crushing the barbs into his already raw flesh. Buckling, Silas crumpled to his knees, causing the belt to cut deeper still. The pistol discharged with a deafening roar, the bullet burying itself harmlessly in the floorboards as Silas fell. Before he could raise the gun and fire again, the woman's foot caught him square beneath the jaw.

At the bottom of the driveway, Collet heard the gunshot. The muffled pop sent panic through his veins. With Fache on the way, Collet had already relinquished any hopes of claiming personal credit for finding Langdon tonight. But Collet would be damned if Fache's ego landed him in front of a Ministerial Review Board for negligent police procedure.

A weapon was discharged inside a private home! And you waited at the bottom of the driveway?

Collet knew the opportunity for a stealth approach had long since passed. He also knew if he stood idly by for another second, his entire career would be history by morning. Eyeing the estate's iron gate, he made his decision.

“Tie on, and pull it down.”

In the distant recesses of his groggy mind, Robert Langdon had heard the gunshot. He'd also heard a scream of pain. His own? A jackhammer was boring a hole into the back of his cranium. Somewhere nearby, people were talking.

“Where the devil were you?” Teabing was yelling.

The manservant hurried in. “What happened? Oh my God! Who is that? I'll call the police!”

“Bloody hell! Don't call the police. Make yourself useful and get us something with which to restrain this monster.”

“And some ice!” Sophie called after him.

Langdon drifted out again. More voices. Movement. Now he was seated on the divan. Sophie was holding an ice pack to his head. His skull ached. As Langdon's vision finally began to clear, he found himself staring at a body on the floor.
Am I hallucinating?
The massive body of an albino monk lay bound and gagged with duct tape. His chin was split open, and the robe over his right thigh was soaked with blood. He too appeared to be just now coming to.

Langdon turned to Sophie. “Who is that? What . . . happened?”

Teabing hobbled over. “You were rescued by a knight brandishing an Excalibur made by Acme Orthopedic.”

Huh?
Langdon tried to sit up.

Sophie's touch was shaken but tender. “Just give yourself a minute, Robert.”

“I fear,” Teabing said, “that I've just demonstrated for your lady friend the unfortunate benefit of my condition. It seems everyone underestimates you.”

From his seat on the divan, Langdon gazed down at the monk and tried to imagine what had happened.

“He was wearing a
cilice,
” Teabing explained.

“A what?”

Teabing pointed to a bloody strip of barbed leather that lay on the floor. “A Discipline belt. He wore it on his thigh. I took careful aim.”

Langdon rubbed his head. He knew of Discipline belts. “But how . . . did you know?”

Teabing grinned. “Christianity is my field of study, Robert, and there are certain sects who wear their hearts on their sleeves.” He pointed his crutch at the blood soaking through the monk's cloak. “As it were.”

“Opus Dei,” Langdon whispered, recalling recent media coverage of several prominent Boston businessmen who were members of Opus Dei. Apprehensive coworkers had falsely and publicly accused the men of wearing Discipline belts beneath their three-piece suits. In fact, the three men did no such thing. Like many members of Opus Dei, these businessmen were at the “supernumerary” stage and practiced no corporal mortification at all. They were devout Catholics, caring fathers to their children, and deeply dedicated members of the community. Not surprisingly, the media spotlighted their spiritual commitment only briefly before moving on to the shock value of the sect's more stringent “numerary” members . . . members like the monk now lying on the floor before Langdon.

Teabing was looking closely at the bloody belt. “But why would Opus Dei be trying to find the Holy Grail?”

Langdon was too groggy to consider it.

“Robert,” Sophie said, walking to the wooden box. “What's this?” She was holding the small Rose inlay he had removed from the lid.

“It covered an engraving on the box. I think the text might tell us how to open the keystone.”

Before Sophie and Teabing could respond, a sea of blue police lights and sirens erupted at the bottom of the hill and began snaking up the half-mile driveway.

Teabing frowned. “My friends, it seems we have a decision to make. And we'd better make it fast.”