sole purpose of
protecting a secret. A secret of incredible power. Could this key have
something to do with it? The thought was overwhelming. "Do you know what it
opens?"
Sophie looked disappointed. "I was hoping you knew."
Langdon remained silent as he turned the cruciform in his hand,
examining it.
"It looks Christian," Sophie pressed.
Langdon was not so sure about that. The head of this key was not the
traditional long-stemmed Christian cross but rather was a square cross--with
four arms of equal length--which predated Christianity by fifteen hundred
years. This kind of cross carried none of the Christian connotations of
crucifixion associated with the longer-stemmed Latin Cross, originated by
Romans as a torture device. Langdon was always surprised how few Christians
who gazed upon "the crucifix" realized their symbol's violent history was
reflected in its very name: "cross" and "crucifix" came from the Latin verb
cruciare--to torture.
"Sophie," he said, "all I can tell you is that equal-armed crosses like
this one are considered peaceful crosses. Their square configurations make
them impractical for use in crucifixion, and their balanced vertical and
horizontal elements convey a natural union of male and female, making them
symbolically consistent with Priory philosophy."
She gave him a weary look. "You have no idea, do you?"
Langdon frowned. "Not a clue."
"Okay, we have to get off the road." Sophie checked her rearview
mirror. "We need a safe place to figure out what that key opens."
Langdon thought longingly of his comfortable room at the Ritz.
Obviously, that was not an option. "How about my hosts at the American
University of Paris?"
"Too obvious. Fache will check with them."
"You must know people. You live here."
"Fache will run my phone and e-mail records, talk to my coworkers. My
contacts are compromised, and finding a hotel is no good because they all
require identification."
Langdon wondered again if he might have been better off taking his
chances letting Fache arrest him at the Louvre. "Let's call the embassy. I
can explain the situation and have the embassy send someone to meet us
somewhere."
"Meet us?" Sophie turned and stared at him as if he were crazy.
"Robert, you're dreaming. Your embassy has no jurisdiction except on their
own property. Sending someone to retrieve us would be considered aiding a
fugitive of the French government. It won't happen. If you walk into your
embassy and request temporary asylum, that's one thing, but asking them to
take action against French law enforcement in the field?" She shook her
head. "Call your embassy right now, and they are going to tell you to avoid
further damage and turn yourself over to Fache. Then they'll promise to
pursue diplomatic channels to get you a fair trial." She gazed up the line
of elegant storefronts on Champs-Elysues. "How much cash do you have?"
Langdon checked his wallet. "A hundred dollars. A few euro. Why?"
"Credit cards?"
"Of course."
As Sophie accelerated, Langdon sensed she was formulating a plan. Dead
ahead, at the end of Champs-Elysues, stood the Arc de Triomphe--Napoleon's
164-foot-tall tribute to his own military potency--encircled by France's
largest rotary, a nine-lane behemoth.
Sophie's eyes were on the rearview mirror again as they approached the
rotary. "We lost them for the time being," she said, "but we won't last
another five minutes if we stay in this car."
So steal a different one, Langdon mused, now that we're criminals.
"What are you going to do?"
Sophie gunned the SmartCar into the rotary. "Trust me."
Langdon made no response. Trust had not gotten him very far this
evening. Pulling back the sleeve of his jacket, he checked his watch--a
vintage, collector's-edition Mickey Mouse wristwatch that had been a gift
from his parents on his tenth birthday. Although its juvenile dial often
drew odd looks, Langdon had never owned any other watch; Disney animations
had been his first introduction to the magic of form and color, and Mickey
now served as Langdon's daily reminder to stay young at heart. At the
moment, however, Mickey's arms were skewed at an awkward angle, indicating
an equally awkward hour.
2:51 A.M.
"Interesting watch," Sophie said, glancing at his wrist and maneuvering
the SmartCar around the wide, counterclockwise rotary.
"Long story," he said, pulling his sleeve back down.
"I imagine it would have to be." She gave him a quick smile and exited
the rotary, heading due north, away from the city center. Barely making two
green lights, she reached the third intersection and took a hard right onto
Boulevard Malesherbes. They'd left the rich, tree-lined streets of the
diplomatic neighborhood and plunged into a darker industrial neighborhood.
Sophie took a quick left, and a moment later, Langdon realized where they
were.
Gare Saint-Lazare.
Ahead of them, the glass-roofed train terminal resembled the awkward
offspring of an airplane hangar and a greenhouse. European train stations
never slept. Even at this hour, a half-dozen taxis idled near the main
entrance. Vendors manned carts of sandwiches and mineral water while grungy
kids in backpacks emerged from the station rubbing their eyes, looking
around as if trying to remember what city they were in now. Up ahead on the
street, a couple of city policemen stood on the curb giving directions to
some confused tourists.
Sophie pulled her SmartCar in behind the line of taxis and parked in a
red zone despite plenty of legal parking across the street. Before Langdon
could ask what was going on, she was out of the car. She hurried to the
window of the taxi in front of them and began speaking to the driver.
As Langdon got out of the SmartCar, he saw Sophie hand the taxi driver
a big wad of cash. The taxi driver nodded and then, to Langdon's
bewilderment, sped off without them.
"What happened?" Langdon demanded, joining Sophie on the curb as the
taxi disappeared.
Sophie was already heading for the train station entrance. "Come on.
We're buying two tickets on the next train out of Paris."
Langdon hurried along beside her. What had begun as a one-mile dash to
the U.S. Embassy had now become a full-fledged evacuation from Paris.
Langdon was liking this idea less and less.
CHAPTER 34
The driver who collected Bishop Aringarosa from Leonardo da Vinci
International Airport pulled up in a small, unimpressive black Fiat sedan.
Aringarosa recalled a day when all Vatican transports were big luxury cars
that sported grille-plate medallions and flags emblazoned with the seal of
the Holy See. Those days are gone. Vatican cars were now less ostentatious
and almost always unmarked. The Vatican claimed this was to cut costs to
better serve their dioceses, but Aringarosa suspected it was more of a
security measure. The world had gone mad, and in many parts of Europe,
advertising your love of Jesus Christ was like painting a bull's-eye on the
roof of your car.
Bundling his black cassock around himself, Aringarosa climbed into the
back seat and settled in for the long drive to Castel Gandolfo. It would be
the same ride he had taken five months ago.
Last year's trip to Rome, he sighed. The longest night of my life.
Five months ago, the Vatican had phoned to request Aringarosa's
immediate presence in Rome. They offered no explanation. Your tickets are at
the airport. The Holy See worked hard to retain a veil of mystery, even for
its highest clergy.
The mysterious summons, Aringarosa suspected, was probably a photo
opportunity for the Pope and other Vatican officials to piggyback on Opus
Dei's recent public success--the completion of their World Headquarters in
New York City. Architectural Digest had called Opus Dei's building "a
shining beacon of Catholicism sublimely integrated with the modern
landscape," and lately the Vatican seemed to be drawn to anything and
everything that included the word "modern."
Aringarosa had no choice but to accept the invitation, albeit
reluctantly. Not a fan of the current papal administration, Aringarosa, like
most conservative clergy, had watched with grave concern as the new Pope
settled into his first year in office. An unprecedented liberal, His
Holiness had secured the papacy through one of the most controversial and
unusual conclaves in Vatican history. Now, rather than being humbled by his
unexpected rise to power, the Holy Father had wasted no time flexing all the
muscle associated with the highest office in Christendom. Drawing on an
unsettling tide of liberal support within the College of Cardinals, the Pope
was now declaring his papal mission to be "rejuvenation of Vatican doctrine
and updating Catholicism into the third millennium."
The translation, Aringarosa feared, was that the man was actually
arrogant enough to think he could rewrite God's laws and win back the hearts
of those who felt the demands of true Catholicism had become too
inconvenient in a modern world.
Aringarosa had been using all of his political sway--substantial
considering the size of the Opus Dei constituency and their bankroll--to
persuade the Pope and his advisers that softening the Church's laws was not
only faithless and cowardly, but political suicide. He reminded them that
previous tempering of Church law--the Vatican II fiasco--had left a
devastating legacy: Church attendance was now lower than ever, donations
were drying up, and there were not even enough Catholic priests to preside
over their churches.
People need structure and direction from the Church, Aringarosa
insisted, not coddling and indulgence!
On that night, months ago, as the Fiat had left the airport, Aringarosa
was surprised to find himself heading not toward Vatican City but rather
eastward up a sinuous mountain road. "Where are we going?" he had demanded
of his driver.
"Alban Hills," the man replied. "Your meeting is at Castel Gandolfo."
The Pope's summer residence? Aringarosa had never been, nor had he ever
desired to see it. In addition to being the Pope's summer vacation home, the
sixteenth-century citadel housed the Specula Vaticana--the Vatican
Observatory--one of the most advanced astronomical observatories in Europe.
Aringarosa had never been comfortable with the Vatican's historical need to
dabble in science. What was the rationale for fusing science and faith?
Unbiased science could not possibly be performed by a man who possessed
faith in God. Nor did faith have any need for physical confirmation of its
beliefs.
Nonetheless, there it is, he thought as Castel Gandolfo came into view,
rising against a star-filled November sky. From the access road, Gandolfo
resembled a great stone monster pondering a suicidal leap. Perched at the
very edge of a cliff, the castle leaned out over the cradle of Italian
civilization--the valley where the Curiazi and Orazi clans fought long
before the founding of Rome.
Even in silhouette, Gandolfo was a sight to behold--an impressive
example of tiered, defensive architecture, echoing the potency of this
dramatic cliffside setting. Sadly, Aringarosa now saw, the Vatican had
ruined the building by constructing two huge aluminum telescope domes atop
the roof, leaving this once dignified edifice looking like a proud warrior
wearing a couple of party hats.
When Aringarosa got out of the car, a young Jesuit priest hurried out
and greeted him. "Bishop, welcome. I am Father Mangano. An astronomer here."
Good for you. Aringarosa grumbled his hello and followed his host into
the castle's foyer--a wide-open space whose decor was a graceless blend of
Renaissance art and astronomy images. Following his escort up the wide
travertine marble staircase, Aringarosa saw signs for conference centers,
science lecture halls, and tourist information services. It amazed him to
think the Vatican was failing at every turn to provide coherent, stringent
guidelines for spiritual growth and yet somehow still found time to give
astrophysics lectures to tourists.
"Tell me," Aringarosa said to the young priest, "when did the tail
start wagging the dog?"
The priest gave him an odd look. "Sir?"
Aringarosa waved it off, deciding not to launch into that particular
offensive again this evening. The Vatican has gone mad. Like a lazy parent
who found it easier to acquiesce to the whims of a spoiled child than to
stand firm and teach values, the Church just kept softening at every turn,
trying to reinvent itself to accommodate a culture gone astray.
The top floor's corridor was wide, lushly appointed, and led in only
one direction--toward a huge set of oak doors with a brass sign.
BIBLIOTECA ASTRONOMICA
Aringarosa had heard of this place--the Vatican's Astronomy
Library--rumored to contain more than twenty-five thousand volumes,
including rare works of Copernicus, Galileo, Kepler, Newton, and Secchi.
Allegedly, it was also the place in which the Pope's highest officers held
private meetings... those meetings they preferred not to hold within the
walls of Vatican City.
Approaching the door, Bishop Aringarosa would never have imagined the
shocking news he was about to receive inside, or the deadly chain of events
it would put into motion. It was not until an hour later, as he staggered
from the meeting, that the devastating implications settled in. Six months
from now! he had thought. God help us!
Now, seated in the Fiat, Bishop Aringarosa realized his fists were
clenched just thinking about that first meeting. He released his grip and
forced a slow inhalation, relaxing his muscles.
Everything will be fine, he told himself as the Fiat wound higher into
the mountains. Still, he wished his cell phone would ring. Why hasn't the
Teacher called me? Silas should have the keystone by now.
Trying to ease his nerves, the bishop meditated on the purple amethyst
in his ring. Feeling the textures of the mitre-crozier appliquu and the
facets of the diamonds, he reminded himself that this ring was a symbol of
power far less than that which he would soon attain.
CHAPTER 35
The inside of Gare Saint-Lazare looked like every other train station
in Europe, a gaping indoor-outdoor cavern dotted with the usual
suspects--homeless men holding cardboard signs, collections of bleary-eyed
college kids sleeping on backpacks and zoning out to their portable MP3
players, and clusters of blue-clad baggage porters smoking cigarettes.
Sophie raised her eyes to the enormous departure board overhead. The
black and white tabs reshuffled, ruffling downward as the information
refreshed. When the update was finished, Langdon eyed the offerings. The
topmost listing read: LYON--RAPIDE--3:06
"I wish it left sooner," Sophie said, "but Lyon will have to do."
Sooner? Langdon checked his watch 2:59 A.M. The train left in seven minutes
and they didn't even have tickets yet.
Sophie guided Langdon toward the ticket window and said, "Buy us two
tickets with your credit card."
"I thought credit card usage could be traced by--"
"Exactly."
Langdon decided to stop trying to keep ahead of Sophie Neveu. Using his
Visa card, he purchased two coach tickets to Lyon and handed them to Sophie.
Sophie guided him out toward the tracks, where a familiar tone chimed
overhead and a P.A. announcer gave the final boarding call for Lyon. Sixteen
separate tracks spread out before them. In the distance to the right, at
quay three, the train to Lyon was belching and wheezing in preparation for
departure, but Sophie already had her arm through Langdon's and was guiding
him in the exact opposite direction. They hurried through a side lobby, past
an all-night cafe, and finally out a side door onto a quiet street on the
west side of the station.
A lone taxi sat idling by the doorway.
The driver saw Sophie and flicked his lights.
Sophie jumped in the back seat. Langdon got in after her.
As the taxi pulled away from station, Sophie took out their newly
purchased train tickets and tore them up.
Langdon sighed. Seventy dollars well spent.
It was not until their taxi had settled into a monotonous northbound
hum on Rue de Clichy that Langdon felt they'd actually escaped. Out the
window to his right, he could see Montmartre and the beautiful dome of
Sacru-Coeur. The image was interrupted by the flash of police lights sailing
past them in the opposite direction.
Langdon and Sophie ducked down as the sirens faded.
Sophie had told the cab driver simply to head out of the city, and from
her firmly set jaw, Langdon sensed she was trying to figure out their next
move.
Langdon examined the cruciform key again, holding it to the window,
bringing it close to his eyes in an effort to find any markings on it that
might indicate where the key had been made. In the intermittent glow of
passing streetlights, he saw no markings except the Priory seal.
"It doesn't make sense," he finally said.
"Which part?"
"That your grandfather would go to so much trouble to give you a key
that you wouldn't know what to do with."
"I agree."
"Are you sure he didn't write anything else on the back of the
painting?"
"I searched the whole area. This is all there was. This key, wedged
behind the painting. I saw the Priory seal, stuck the key in my pocket, then
we left."
Langdon frowned, peering now at the blunt end of the triangular shaft.
Nothing. Squinting, he brought the key close to his eyes and examined the
rim of the head. Nothing there either. "I think this key was cleaned
recently."
"Why?"
"It smells like rubbing alcohol."
She turned. "I'm sorry?"
"It smells like somebody polished it with a cleaner." Langdon held the
key to his nose and sniffed. "It's stronger on the other side." He flipped
it over. "Yes, it's alcohol-based, like it's been buffed with a cleaner
or--" Langdon stopped.
"What?"
He angled the key to the light and looked at the smooth surface on the
broad arm of the cross. It seemed to shimmer in places... like it was wet.
"How well did you look at the back of this key before you put it in your
pocket?"
"What? Not well. I was in a hurry."
Langdon turned to her. "Do you still have the black light?"
Sophie reached in her pocket and produced the UV penlight. Langdon took
it and switched it on, shining the beam on the back of the key.
The back luminesced instantly. There was writing there. In penmanship
that was hurried but legible.
"Well," Langdon said, smiling. "I guess we know what the alcohol smell
was."
Sophie stared in amazement at the purple writing on the back of the
key.
24 Rue Haxo
An address! My grandfather wrote down an address!
"Where is this?" Langdon asked.
Sophie had no idea. Facing front again, she leaned forward and
excitedly asked the driver, "Connaissez-vous la Rue Haxo?"
The driver thought a moment and then nodded. He told Sophie it was out
near the tennis stadium on the western outskirts of Paris. She asked him to
take them there immediately.
"Fastest route is through Bois de Boulogne," the driver told her in
French. "Is that okay?"
Sophie frowned. She could think of far less scandalous routes, but
tonight she was not going to be picky. "Oui." We can shock the visiting
American.
Sophie looked back at the key and wondered what they would possibly
find at 24 Rue Haxo. A church? Some kind of Priory headquarters?
Her mind filled again with images of the secret ritual she had
witnessed in the basement grotto ten years ago, and she heaved a long sigh.
"Robert, I have a lot of things to tell you." She paused, locking eyes with
him as the taxi raced westward. "But first I want you to tell me everything
you know about this Priory of Sion."
CHAPTER 36
Outside the Salle des Etats, Bezu Fache was fuming as Louvre warden
Grouard explained how Sophie and Langdon had disarmed him. Why didn't you
just shoot the blessed painting!
"Captain?" Lieutenant Collet loped toward them from the direction of
the command post. "Captain, I just heard. They located Agent Neveu's car."
"Did she make the embassy?"
"No. Train station. Bought two tickets. Train just left."
Fache waved off warden Grouard and led Collet to a nearby alcove,
addressing him in hushed tones. "What was the destination?"
"Lyon."
"Probably a decoy." Fache exhaled, formulating a plan. "Okay, alert the
next station, have the train stopped and searched, just in case. Leave her
car where it is and put plainclothes on watch in case they try to come back
to it. Send men to search the streets around the station in case they fled
on foot. Are buses running from the station?"
"Not at this hour, sir. Only the taxi queue."
"Good. Question the drivers. See if they saw anything. Then contact the
taxi company dispatcher with descriptions. I'm calling Interpol."
Collet looked surprised. "You're putting this on the wire?"
Fache regretted the potential embarrassment, but he saw no other
choice.
Close the net fast, and close it tight.
The first hour was critical. Fugitives were predictable the first hour
after escape. They always needed the same thing. Travel. Lodging. Cash. The
Holy Trinity. Interpol had the power to make all three disappear in the
blink of an eye. By broadcast-faxing photos of Langdon and Sophie to Paris
travel authorities, hotels, and banks, Interpol would leave no options--no
way to leave the city, no place to hide, and no way to withdraw cash without
being recognized. Usually, fugitives panicked on the street and did
something stupid. Stole a car. Robbed a store. Used a bank card in
desperation. Whatever mistake they committed, they quickly made their
whereabouts known to local authorities.
"Only Langdon, right?" Collet said. "You're not flagging Sophie Neveu.
She's our own agent."
"Of course I'm flagging her!" Fache snapped. "What good is flagging
Langdon if she can do all his dirty work? I plan to run Neveu's employment
file--friends, family, personal contacts--anyone she might turn to for help.
I don't know what she thinks she's doing out there, but it's going to cost
her one hell of a lot more than her job!"
"Do you want me on the phones or in the field?"
"Field. Get over to the train station and coordinate the team. You've
got the reins, but don't make a move without talking to me."
"Yes, sir." Collet ran out.
Fache felt rigid as he stood in the alcove. Outside the window, the
glass pyramid shone, its reflection rippling in the windswept pools. They
slipped through my fingers. He told himself to relax.
Even a trained field agent would be lucky to withstand the pressure
that Interpol was about to apply.
A female cryptologist and a schoolteacher?
They wouldn't last till dawn.
CHAPTER 37
The heavily forested park known as the Bois de Boulogne was called many
things, but the Parisian cognoscenti knew it as "the Garden of Earthly
Delights." The epithet, despite sounding flattering, was quite to the
contrary. Anyone who had seen the lurid Bosch painting of the same name
understood the jab; the painting, like the forest, was dark and twisted, a
purgatory for freaks and fetishists. At night, the forest's winding lanes
were lined with hundreds of glistening bodies for hire, earthly delights to
satisfy one's deepest unspoken desires--male, female, and everything in
between.
As Langdon gathered his thoughts to tell Sophie about the Priory of
Sion, their taxi passed through the wooded entrance to the park and began
heading west on the cobblestone crossfare. Langdon was having trouble
concentrating as a scattering of the park's nocturnal residents were already
emerging from the shadows and flaunting their wares in the glare of the
headlights. Ahead, two topless teenage girls shot smoldering gazes into the
taxi. Beyond them, a well-oiled black man in a G-string turned and flexed
his buttocks. Beside him, a gorgeous blond woman lifted her miniskirt to
reveal that she was not, in fact, a woman.
Heaven help me! Langdon turned his gaze back inside the cab and took a
deep breath.
"Tell me about the Priory of Sion," Sophie said.
Langdon nodded, unable to imagine a less congruous a backdrop for the
legend he was about to tell. He wondered where to begin. The brotherhood's
history spanned more than a millennium... an astonishing chronicle of
secrets, blackmail, betrayal, and even brutal torture at the hands of an
angry Pope.
"The Priory of Sion," he began, "was founded in Jerusalem in 1099 by a
French king named Godefroi de Bouillon, immediately after he had conquered
the city."
Sophie nodded, her eyes riveted on him.
"King Godefroi was allegedly the possessor of a powerful secret--a
secret that had been in his family since the time of Christ. Fearing his
secret might be lost when he died, he founded a secret brotherhood--the
Priory of Sion--and charged them with protecting his secret by quietly
passing it on from generation to generation. During their years in
Jerusalem, the Priory learned of a stash of hidden documents buried beneath
the ruins of Herod's temple, which had been built atop the earlier ruins of
Solomon's Temple. These documents, they believed, corroborated Godefroi's
powerful secret and were so explosive in nature that the Church would stop
at nothing to get them." Sophie looked uncertain.
"The Priory vowed that no matter how long it took, these documents must
be recovered from the rubble beneath the temple and protected forever, so
the truth would never die. In order to retrieve the documents from within
the ruins, the Priory created a military arm--a group of nine knights called
the Order of the Poor Knights of Christ and the Temple of Solomon." Langdon
paused. "More commonly known as the Knights Templar."
Sophie glanced up with a surprised look of recognition. Langdon had
lectured often enough on the Knights Templar to know that almost everyone on
earth had heard of them, at least abstractedly. For academics, the Templars'
history was a precarious world where fact, lore, and misinformation had
become so intertwined that extracting a pristine truth was almost
impossible. Nowadays, Langdon hesitated even to mention the Knights Templar
while lecturing because it invariably led to a barrage of convoluted
inquiries into assorted conspiracy theories.
Sophie already looked troubled. "You're saying the Knights Templar were
founded by the Priory of Sion to retrieve a collection of secret documents?
I thought the Templars were created to protect the Holy Land."
"A common misconception. The idea of protection of pilgrims was the
guise under which the Templars ran their mission. Their true goal in the
Holy Land was to retrieve the documents from beneath the ruins of the
temple."
"And did they find them?"
Langdon grinned. "Nobody knows for sure, but the one thing on which all
academics agree is this: The Knights discovered something down there in the
ruins... something that made them wealthy and powerful beyond anyone's
wildest imagination."
Langdon quickly gave Sophie the standard academic sketch of the
accepted Knights Templar history, explaining how the Knights were in the
Holy Land during the Second Crusade and told King Baldwin II that they were
there to protect Christian pilgrims on the roadways. Although unpaid and
sworn to poverty, the Knights told the king they required basic shelter and
requested his permission to take up residence in the stables under the ruins
of the temple. King Baldwin granted the soldiers' request, and the Knights
took up their meager residence inside the devastated shrine.
The odd choice of lodging, Langdon explained, had been anything but
random. The Knights believed the documents the Priory sought were buried
deep under the ruins--beneath the Holy of Holies, a sacred chamber where God
Himself was believed to reside. Literally, the very center of the Jewish
faith. For almost a decade, the nine Knights lived in the ruins, excavating
in total secrecy through solid rock.
Sophie looked over. "And you said they discovered something?"
"They certainly did," Langdon said, explaining how it had taken nine
years, but the Knights had finally found what they had been searching for.
They took the treasure from the temple and traveled to Europe, where their
influence seemed to solidify overnight.
Nobody was certain whether the Knights had blackmailed the Vatican or
whether the Church simply tried to buy the Knights' silence, but Pope
Innocent II immediately issued an unprecedented papal bull that afforded the
Knights Templar limitless power and declared them "a law unto
themselves"--an autonomous army independent of all interference from kings
and prelates, both religious and political.
With their new carte blanche from the Vatican, the Knights Templar
expanded at a staggering rate, both in numbers and political force, amassing
vast estates in over a dozen countries. They began extending credit to
bankrupt royals and charging interest in return, thereby establishing modern
banking and broadening their wealth and influence still further.
By the 1300s, the Vatican sanction had helped the Knights amass so much
power that Pope Clement V decided that something had to be done. Working in
concert with France's King Philippe IV, the Pope devised an ingeniously
planned sting operation to quash the Templars and seize their treasure, thus
taking control of the secrets held over the Vatican. In a military maneuver
worthy of the CIA, Pope Clement issued secret sealed orders to be opened
simultaneously by his soldiers all across Europe on Friday, October 13 of
1307.
At dawn on the thirteenth, the documents were unsealed and their
appalling contents revealed. Clement's letter claimed that God had visited
him in a vision and warned him that the Knights Templar were heretics guilty
of devil worship, homosexuality, defiling the cross, sodomy, and other
blasphemous behavior. Pope Clement had been asked by God to cleanse the
earth by rounding up all the Knights and torturing them until they confessed
their crimes against God. Clement's Machiavellian operation came off with
clockwork precision. On that day, countless Knights were captured, tortured
mercilessly, and finally burned at the stake as heretics. Echoes of the
tragedy still resonated in modern culture; to this day, Friday the
thirteenth was considered unlucky.
Sophie looked confused. "The Knights Templar were obliterated? I
thought fraternities of Templars still exist today?"
"They do, under a variety of names. Despite Clement's false charges and
best efforts to eradicate them, the Knights had powerful allies, and some
managed to escape the Vatican purges. The Templars' potent treasure trove of
documents, which had apparently been their source of power, was Clement's
true objective, but it slipped through his fingers. The documents had long
since been entrusted to the Templars' shadowy architects, the Priory of
Sion, whose veil of secrecy had kept them safely out of range of the
Vatican's onslaught. As the Vatican closed in, the Priory smuggled their
documents from a Paris preceptory by night onto Templar ships in La
Rochelle."
"Where did the documents go?"
Langdon shrugged. "That mystery's answer is known only to the Priory of
Sion. Because the documents remain the source of constant investigation and
speculation even today, they are believed to have been moved and rehidden
several times. Current speculation places the documents somewhere in the
United Kingdom."
Sophie looked uneasy.
"For a thousand years," Langdon continued, "legends of this secret have
been passed on. The entire collection of documents, its power, and the
secret it reveals have become known by a single name--Sangreal. Hundreds of
books have been written about it, and few mysteries have caused as much
interest among historians as the Sangreal."
"The Sangreal? Does the word have anything to do with the French word
sang or Spanish sangre--meaning 'blood'?"
Langdon nodded. Blood was the backbone of the Sangreal, and yet not in
the way Sophie probably imagined. "The legend is complicated, but the
important thing to remember is that the Priory guards the proof, and is
purportedly awaiting the right moment in history to reveal the truth."
"What truth? What secret could possibly be that powerful?"
Langdon took a deep breath and gazed out at the underbelly of Paris
leering in the shadows. "Sophie, the word Sangreal is an ancient word. It
has evolved over the years into another term... a more modern name." He
paused. "When I tell you its modern name, you'll realize you already know a
lot about it. In fact, almost everyone on earth has heard the story of the
Sangreal."
Sophie looked skeptical. "I've never heard of it."
"Sure you have." Langdon smiled. "You're just used to hearing it called
by the name 'Holy Grail.' "
CHAPTER 38
Sophie scrutinized Langdon in the back of the taxi. He's joking. "The
Holy Grail?"
Langdon nodded, his expression serious. "Holy Grail is the literal
meaning of Sangreal. The phrase derives from the French Sangraal, which
evolved to Sangreal, and was eventually split into two words, San Greal."
Holy Grail. Sophie was surprised she had not spotted the linguistic
ties immediately. Even so, Langdon's claim still made no sense to her. "I
thought the Holy Grail was a cup. You just told me the Sangreal is a
collection of documents that reveals some dark secret."
"Yes, but the Sangreal documents are only half of the Holy Grail
treasure. They are buried with the Grail itself... and reveal its true
meaning. The documents gave the Knights Templar so much power because the
pages revealed the true nature of the Grail."
The true nature of the Grail? Sophie felt even more lost now. The Holy
Grail, she had thought, was the cup that Jesus drank from at the Last Supper
and with which Joseph of Arimathea later caught His blood at the
crucifixion. "The Holy Grail is the Cup of Christ," she said. "How much
simpler could it be?"
"Sophie," Langdon whispered, leaning toward her now, "according to the
Priory of Sion, the Holy Grail is not a cup at all. They claim the Grail
legend--that of a chalice--is actually an ingeniously conceived allegory.
That is, that the Grail story uses the chalice as a metaphor for something
else, something far more powerful." He paused. "Something that fits
perfectly with everything your grandfather has been trying to tell us
tonight, including all his symbologic references to the sacred feminine."
Still unsure, Sophie sensed in Langdon's patient smile that he
empathized with her confusion, and yet his eyes remained earnest. "But if
the Holy Grail is not a cup," she asked, "what is it?"
Langdon had known this question was coming, and yet he still felt
uncertain exactly how to tell her. If he did not present the answer in the
proper historical background, Sophie would be left with a vacant air of
bewilderment--the exact expression Langdon had seen on his own editor's face
a few months ago after Langdon handed him a draft of the manuscript he was
working on.
"This manuscript claims what?" his editor had choked, setting down his
wineglass and staring across his half-eaten power lunch. "You can't be
serious."
"Serious enough to have spent a year researching it."
Prominent New York editor Jonas Faukman tugged nervously at his goatee.
Faukman no doubt had heard some wild book ideas in his illustrious career,
but this one seemed to have left the man flabbergasted.
"Robert," Faukman finally said, "don't get me wrong. I love your work,
and we've had a great run together. But if I agree to publish an idea like
this, I'll have people picketing outside my office for months. Besides, it
will kill your reputation. You're a Harvard historian, for God's sake, not a
pop schlockmeister looking for a quick buck. Where could you possibly find
enough credible evidence to support a theory like this?"
With a quiet smile Langdon pulled a piece of paper from the pocket of
his tweed coat and handed it to Faukman. The page listed a bibliography of
over fifty titles--books by well-known historians, some contemporary, some
centuries old--many of them academic bestsellers. All the book titles
suggested the same premise Langdon had just proposed. As Faukman read down
the list, he looked like a man who had just discovered the earth was
actually flat. "I know some of these authors. They're... real historians!"
Langdon grinned. "As you can see, Jonas, this is not only my theory.
It's been around for a long time. I'm simply building on it. No book has yet
explored the legend of the Holy Grail from a symbologic angle. The
iconographic evidence I'm finding to support the theory is, well,
staggeringly persuasive."
Faukman was still staring at the list. "My God, one of these books was
written by Sir Leigh Teabing--a British Royal Historian."
"Teabing has spent much of his life studying the Holy Grail. I've met
with him. He was actually a big part of my inspiration. He's a believer,
Jonas, along with all of the others on that list."
"You're telling me all of these historians actually believe..." Faukman
swallowed, apparently unable to say the words.
Langdon grinned again. "The Holy Grail is arguably the most
sought-after treasure in human history. The Grail has spawned legends, wars,
and lifelong quests. Does it make sense that it is merely a cup? If so, then
certainly other relics should generate similar or greater interest--the
Crown of Thorns, the True Cross of the Crucifixion, the Titulus--and yet,
they do not. Throughout history, the Holy Grail has been the most special."
Langdon grinned. "Now you know why."
Faukman was still shaking his head. "But with all these books written
about it, why isn't this theory more widely known?"
"These books can't possibly compete with centuries of established
history, especially when that history is endorsed by the ultimate bestseller
of all time."
Faukman's eyes went wide. "Don't tell me Harry Potter is actually about
the Holy Grail."
"I was referring to the Bible."
Faukman cringed. "I knew that."
"Laissez-le!" Sophie's shouts cut the air inside the taxi. "Put it
down!"
Langdon jumped as Sophie leaned forward over the seat and yelled at the
taxi driver. Langdon could see the driver was clutching his radio mouthpiece
and speaking into it.
Sophie turned now and plunged her hand into the pocket of Langdon's
tweed jacket. Before Langdon knew what had happened, she had yanked out the
pistol, swung it around, and was pressing it to the back of t