The Da Vinci Code Chapter 18-20

CHAPTER 18Fache sprinted down the Grand movement as Collets radio blared over the distant sound of the alarm.He terpsichoreed Collet was yelling. Im showing the signal out on Place du luggage carrousel Outside the bathroom window And its not despicable at whole Jesus, I think Langdon has well(p) committed suicideFache heard the manner of speaking, merely they made no sense. He kept running. The star signway seemed never-ending. As he sprinted past Saunieres body, he restrain his sights on the partitions at the farthermost end of the Denon Wing. The alarm was getting louder now.Wait Collets voice blared again over the radio. Hes moving My God, hes alive. Langdons movingFache kept running, cursing the length of the hallway with every step.Langdons moving faster Collet was still yelling on the radio. Hes running down Carrousel. Wait hes picking up speed. Hes moving too fastArriving at the partitions, Fache snaked his way through them, saw the succour room door, and ran for it.The walkie-talkie was forfendely perceptible now over the alarm. He moldiness be in a car I think hes in a car I cant Collets words were swallowed by the alarm as Fache last burst into the mens room with his gun drawn. Wincing against the piercing shrill, he scanned the area.The stalls were empty. The bathroom deserted. Faches eyes moved immediately to the shattered window at the far end of the room. He ran to the opening and looked over the shore. Langdon was nowhere to be seen. Fache could not imagine whatsoeverone risking a stunt like this. Certainly if he had dropped that far, he would be badly injured.The alarm cut off finally, and Collets voice became audible again over the walkie-talkie. moving south faster crossing the Seine on Pont du Carrousel Fache turned to his left. The provided vehicle on Pont du Carrousel was an enormous twin-bed Trailor delivery truck moving southward away from the Louvre. The trucks open-air bed was covered with a vinyl tarp, roughly rese mbling a giant hammock. Fache felt a shiver of apprehension. That truck, only when moments ago, had probably been stopped at a red light straightaway on a lower floor the rest room window.An insane risk, Fache told himself. Langdon had no way of knowing what the truck was carrying infra that tarp. What if the truck were carrying steel? Or cement? Or flat garbage? A forty-foot leap? It was madness.The dot is turning Collet called. Hes turning ripe(p) on Pont des Saints-PeresSure enough, the Trailor truck that had crossed the bridge was slow up down and making a right turn onto Pont des Saints-Peres. So be it, Fache opinion. Amazed, he watched the truck disappear around the corner. Collet was already radioing the agents outside, clout them off the Louvre perimeter and sending them to their patrol cars in pursuit, all the while broadcasting the trucks changing location like some kind of droll play-by-play.Its over, Fache knew. His men would have the truck surrounded within min utes. Langdon was not going anywhere.Stowing his weapon, Fache exited the rest room and radioed Collet. Bring my car around. I want to be at that place when we make the arrest.As Fache jogged back down the length of the Grand purport, 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 stand up(a) inside the mens room refusing to run from a crime he didnt commit, when Sophie began eyeing the plate-glass window and examining the alarm mesh running through it. whence 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 trucks massive cargo bay was a blue vinyl tarp, loosely covering the trucks load. Langdon hoped Sophie was not thinking what she seemed to be thinking.Sophie, theres no way Im jump Take out the introduce dot. Bewildered, Langdon fumbled in his scoop 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, heavily 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 b ottom 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 cristal feet from the side of the make. 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 mens 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.Theres 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 other word all evening. Sophie Neveu was clearly a hell of a lot smarter than he was.CHAPTER 19The Church of Saint-Sulpice, it is said, has the most eccentric history of any building in capital of France. Built over the ruins of an ancient temple to the Egyptian goddess Isis, the perform possesses an architectural footprint matching that of Notre Dame to within inches. The sanctuary has played array 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 cryptic societies.Tonight, the cavernous nave of Saint-Sulpice was as silent as a tomb, the only hin t of life the faint smell of incense from mass previous that evening. Silas sensed an uneasiness in sister Sandrines de averageor as she led him into the sanctuary. He was not affect by this. Silas was accustomed to people being uneasy with his appearance.Youre 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 relieve eyes. And you have never seen Saint- Sulpice?I realize this is almost a sin in itself. She is more scenic by day. I am certain. Nonetheless, I am grateful that you would provide me this opportunity tonight. The abbe requested 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 qu ality reminiscent of the ascetic cathedrals of Spain. The omit of decor made the interior look even more expansive, and as Silasgazed 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 brotherhoods 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. afterward all, I am awake.Silas stopped base on balls. 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 un easy. Are you real you wont 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 overly 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 thought 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 2 0Emerging 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 murderDo you think, he whispered, that maybe Fache wrote that mental object on the floor? Sophie didnt even turn. Impossible. Langdon wasnt so sure. He seems pretty intent on making me look guilty. Maybe he thought compose my name on the floor would help his case?The Fibonacci sequence? The P. S. ? All the Da Vinci and goddess symbolic representation? That had to be my grandfather.Langdon knew she was right. The symbolism of the clues meshed too perfectly the pentagram, TheVitruvian bit, Da Vinci, the goddess, and even the Fibonacci sequence. A coherent symbolic set, as iconographers would call it. All i succeeding(prenominal)ricably t ied.And his phone call to me this afternoon, Sophie added. He said he had to utter me something. Im 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, infirm saint He wished he could comprehend the message, two for Sophies 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 Langdons 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 isnt much farther, Sophie said. Do you think theres a possibility that the computes in your grandfathers 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 h ow to describe the other lines.Ive been thinking about the outcomes all night. Sums, quotients, products. I dont see anything. Mathematically, theyre arrange at random. Cryptographic gibberish.And yet theyre all part of the Fibonacci sequence. That cant be coincidence.Its not. Using Fibonacci numbers was my grandfathers 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 didnt get a chance to tell you, but the pentacle was a special symbol between my grandfather and me when I was suppuration up. We used to play Tarot cards for fun, and my indicator card always turned out to be from the suit of pentacles. Im sure he stacked the coldcock, 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 La ngdon had dedicated an entire chapter in his new manuscript to the Tarot. The games twenty-two cards bore names like The Fe antheral Pope, The Empress, and The Star.Originally, Tarot had been devised as a secret means to pass along ideologies banned by the Church. Now, Tarots surreptitious qualities were passed on by modern fortune-tellers.The Tarot indicator suit for feminine divinity is pentacles, Langdon thought, realizing that if Sauniere had been stacking his granddaughters 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 intereste d in the mathematics of it the manufacturing business Proportion, PHI, Fibonacci sequences, that sort of thing.Langdon was surprised. Your grandfather taught you about the number PHI?Of course. The ecclesiastic 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. inactive descending, Langdon refocused on PHI.He was starting to realize that Saunieres 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 integrity concept so fundamental to art history that Langdon often spent several contour periods on the topic.PHI.He felt himself suddenly reeling back to Harvard, standing in front of his Symbolism in Art class, writing his favorite number on the chalkboard.1. 618Langdon turned to face his sea of eager students. Who can tell me what this number is?A long-legged math major in back raised his hand. Thats the number PHI. He pronounced it fee.Nice job, Stettner, Langdon said. Everyone, meet PHI.Not to be confused with PI, Stettner added, grinning. As we mathematicians like to say PHI is one H of a lot cooler than PILangdon laughed, but nobody else seemed to get the joke. Stettner slumped. This number PHI, Langdon continued, one-point-six-one-eight, is a very important number in art. Who can tell me why?Stettner tried to redeem himself. Because its so pretty? Everyone laughed. Actually, Langdon said, Stettners right again. PHI is generally considered the most beautiful number in the universe.The laughter abruptly stopped, and Stettner gloated.As Langdon loaded his slide projector, he explained that the number PHI was derived from the Fibonacci sequence a progression famous not only because the sum of adjacent terms existed the next term, but because the quotients of adjacent terms have the astonishing property of approachin g the number 1. 618 PHIDespite PHIs seemingly mystical mathematical origins, Langdon explained, the truly mind-boggling aspect of PHI was its role as a fundamental building block in nature. Plants, animals, and even human beings all possessed dimensional properties that adhered with eerie exactitude to the ratio of PHI to 1.PHIs ubiquity in nature, Langdon said, killing the lights, clearly exceeds coincidence, and so the ancients assumed the number PHI must have been preordained by the causation of the universe. Early scientists heralded one-point-six-one-eight as the godlike Proportion.Hold on, said a young woman in the front row. Im a bio major and Ive never seen this prophesy Proportion in nature.No? Langdon grinned. Ever study the relationship between females and males in a honeybee community?Sure. The female bees always outnumber the male bees.Correct. And did you know that if you divide the number of female bees by the number of male bees in any beehive in the world, you a lways get the same number?You do? Yup. PHI. The girl gaped. NO WAYWay Langdon fired back, smiling as he projected a slide of a spiral seashell. get along this?Its a nautilus, the bio major said. A cephalopod mollusk that pumps gas into its chambered shell to adjust its buoyancy.Correct. And can you guess what the ratio is of each spirals diameter to the next? The girl looked uncertain as she eyed the concentric arcs of the nautilus spiral. Langdon nodded. PHI. The Divine Proportion. One-point-six-one-eight to one. The girl looked amazed.Langdon advanced to the next slide a close-up of a sunflowers seed head. helianthus seeds grow in opposing spirals. Can you guess the ratio of each rotations diameter to the next? PHI? everyone said. Bingo. Langdon began racing through slides now spiraled pinecone petals, leaf arrangement on plant stalks, insect segmentation all displaying astonishing obedience to the Divine Proportion.This is amazing someone cried out.Yeah, someone else said, b ut what does it have to do with art?Aha Langdon said. blissful you asked. He pulled up another slide a pale yellow parchment displaying Leonardo Da Vincis famous male nude The Vitruvian Man named for Marcus Vitruvius, the magnificent Roman architect who praised the Divine Proportion in his text De Architectura.Nobody understood wagerer than Da Vinci the divine structure of the human body. Da Vinci actually exhumed corpses to measure the exact proportions of human bone structure. He was the first to show that the human body is literally made of building blocks whose proportional ratios always equal PHI.Everyone in class gave him a dubious look.Dont believe me? Langdon challenged. Next time youre in the shower, take a tape measure.A couple of football players snickered.Not just you insecure jocks, Langdon prompted. All of you. Guys and girls. Try it. Measure the distance from the tip of your head to the floor. Then divide that by the distance from your bellybutton to the floor. Guess what number you get.Not PHI one of the jocks blurted out in disbelief.Yes, PHI, Langdon replied. One-point-six-one-eight. Want another example? Measure the distance from your shoulder to your fingertips, and then divide it by the distance from your human elbow to your fingertips. PHI again. Another? Hip to floor divided by knee to floor. PHI again. Finger joints. Toes. Spinal divisions. PHI. PHI. PHI. My friends, each of you is a walking tribute to the Divine Proportion.Even in the darkness, Langdon could see they were all astounded. He felt a familiar warmth inside. This is why he taught. My friends, as you can see, the chaos of the world has an underlying order. When the ancients spy PHI, they were certain they had stumbled across Gods building block for the world, and they worshipped Nature because of that. And one can understand why. Gods hand is evident in Nature, and even to this day there exist pagan, Mother Earth-revering religions. Many of us celebrate nature the wa y the pagans did, and dont even know it. May Day is a perfect example, the celebration of bounds the earth coming back to life to produce her bounty. The mysterious magic inherent in the Divine Proportion was written at the beginning of time. Man is simply playing by Natures rules, and because art is mans attempt to imitate the beauty of the Creators hand, you can imagine we exponent be seeing a lot of instances of the Divine Proportion in art this semester.Over the next half hour, Langdon showed them slides of artwork by Michelangelo, Albrecht Durer, Da Vinci, and many others, demonstrating each artists intentional and rigorous adherence to the Divine Proportion in the layout of his compositions. Langdon unveiled PHI in the architectural dimensions of the Greek Parthenon, the pyramids of Egypt, and even the United Nations Building in New York. PHI appeared in the organizational structures of Mozarts sonatas, Beethovens Fifth Symphony, as well as the works of Bartok, Debussy, and Schubert. The number PHI, Langdon told them, was even used by Stradivarius to calculate the exact placement of the f-holes in the construction of his famous violins.In closing, Langdon said, walking to the chalkboard, we return to symbols He drew five intersecting lines that formed a five-pointed star. This symbol is one of the most powerful images you will see this term. Formally cognise as a pentagram or pentacle, as the ancients called it this symbol is considered both divine and magical by many cultures. Can anyone tell me why that might be?Stettner, the math major, raised his hand. Because if you draw a pentagram, the lines automatically divide themselves into segments according to the Divine Proportion.Langdon gave the kid a proud nod. Nice job. Yes, the ratios of line segments in a pentacle allequal PHI, making this symbol the ultimate expression of the Divine Proportion. For this reason, the five-pointed star has always been the symbol for beauty and perfection associated with the goddess and the sacred feminine.The girls in class beamed.One note, folks. Weve only touched on Da Vinci today, but well be seeing a lot more of him this semester. Leonardo was a well-documented devotee of the ancient ways of the goddess. Tomorrow, Ill show you his fresco The Last Supper, which is one of the most astonishing tributes to the sacred feminine you will ever see.Youre kidding, right? somebody said. I thought The Last Supper was about Jesus Langdon winked. There are symbols hidden in places you would never imagine.Come on, Sophie whispered. Whats wrong? Were almost there. HurryLangdon glanced up, feeling himself return from faraway thoughts. He realized he was standing at a dead stop on the stairs, paralyzed by sudden revelation.O, Draconian devil Oh, lame saintSophie was looking back at him.It cant be that simple, Langdon thought. But he knew of course that it was. There in the bowels of the Louvre with images of PHI and Da Vinci swirling through his mind, Rob ert Langdon suddenly and perchance deciphered Saunieres code.O, Draconian devil he said. Oh, lame saint Its the simplest kind of codeSophie was stopped on the stairs below him, staring up in confusion. A code? She had been pondering the words all night and had not seen a code. Especially a simple one.You said it yourself. Langdons voice reverberated with excitement. Fibonacci numbers only have meaning in their proper order. Otherwise theyre mathematical gibberish.Sophie had no idea what he was talking about. The Fibonacci numbers? She was certain they had been intended as zipper more than a means to get the Cryptography Department involved tonight. They have another purpose? She plunged her hand into her pocket and pulled out the printout, studying her grandfathers message again.13-3-2-21-1-1-8-5O, Draconian devilOh, lame saintWhat about the numbers?The scrambled Fibonacci sequence is a clue, Langdon said, taking the printout. The numbers area hint as to how to decipher the rest o f the message. He wrote the sequence out of order to tell us to apply the same concept to the text. O, Draconian devil? Oh, lame saint? Those lines mean nothing.They are simply letters written out of order.Sophie needed only an instant to process Langdons implication, and it seemed laughably simple. You think this message is une anagramme? She stared at him. Like a word jumble from a newspaper?Langdon could see the skepticism on Sophies face and certainly understood. Few people realized that anagrams, despite being a trite modern amusement, had a rich history of sacred symbolism.The mystical teachings of the Kabbala drew heavily on anagrams rearranging the letters of Hebrew words to derive new meanings. French kings throughout the Renaissance were so convinced that anagrams held magic power that they appointed royal anagrammatists to help them make better decisions by analyzing words in important documents. The Romans actually referred to the study of anagrams as ars magna the gre at art.Langdon looked up at Sophie, locking eyes with her now. Your grandfathers meaning was right in front of us all along, and he left us more than enough clues to see it.Without another word, Langdon pulled a pen from his jacket pocket and rearranged the letters in each line.O, Draconian devil Oh, lame saint was a perfect anagram of Leonardo Da Vinci The Mona Lisa