CHAPTER 90
High in the hayloft at Château Villette,
Collet stared at the computer monitor in amazement.
"This system is eavesdropping on all these
locations?"
"Yes," the agent said.
"It looks like data has been collected for
over a year now."
Collet read the list again, speechless.
COLBERT SOSTAQUE—Chairman of the Conseil
Constitutionnel
JEAN CHAFFÉE—Curator, Musée du Jeu de
Paume
EDOUARD DESROCHERS—Senior Archivist, Mitterrand
Library
JACQUES SAUNIÈRE—Curator, Musée du Louvre
MICHEL BRETON—Head of DAS (French Intelligence)
The agent pointed to the screen.
"Number four is of obvious concern."
Collet nodded blankly.
He had noticed it immediately.
Jacques Saunière was being bugged.
He looked at the rest of the list again.
How could anyone possibly manage to bug these
prominent people?
"Have you heard any of the audio files?"
"A few.
Here's one of the most recent."
The agent clicked a few computer keys.
The speakers crackled to life.
"Capitaine, un agent du Département de Cryptographie
est arrivé."
Collet could not believe his ears.
"That's me!
That's my voice!"
He recalled sitting at Saunière's desk and
radioing Fache in the Grand Gallery to alert
him of Sophie Neveu's arrival.
The agent nodded.
"A lot of our Louvre investigation tonight
would have been audible if someone had been
interested."
"Have you sent anyone in to sweep for the
bug?"
"No need.
I know exactly where it is."
The agent went to a pile of old notes and
blueprints on the worktable.
He selected a page and handed it to Collet.
"Look familiar?"
Collet was amazed.
He was holding a photocopy of an ancient schematic
diagram, which depicted a rudimentary machine.
He was unable to read the handwritten Italian
labels, and yet he knew what he was looking
at.
A model for a fully articulated medieval French
knight.
The knight sitting on Saunière's desk!
Collet's eyes moved to the margins, where
someone had scribbled notes on the photocopy
in red felt-tipped marker.
The notes were in French and appeared to be
ideas outlining how best to insert a listening
device into the knight.
CHAPTER 91
Silas sat in the passenger seat of the parked
Jaguar limousine near the Temple Church.
His hands felt damp on the keystone as he
waited for Rémy to finish tying and gagging
Teabing in back with the rope they had found
in the trunk.
Finally, Rémy climbed out of the rear of
the limo, walked around, and slid into the
driver's seat beside Silas.
"Secure?"
Silas asked.
Rémy chuckled, shaking off the rain and glancing
over his shoulder through the open partition
at the crumpled form of Leigh Teabing, who
was barely visible in the shadows in the rear.
"He's not going anywhere."
Silas could hear Teabing's muffled cries and
realized Rémy had used some of the old duct
tape to gag him.
"Ferme ta gueule!"
Rémy shouted over his shoulder at Teabing.
Reaching to a control panel on the elaborate
dash, Rémy pressed a button.
An opaque partition raised behind them, sealing
off the back.
Teabing disappeared, and his voice was silenced.
Rémy glanced at Silas.
"I've been listening to his miserable whimpering
long enough."
Minutes later, as the Jaguar stretch limo
powered through the streets, Silas's cell
phone rang.
The Teacher.
He answered excitedly.
"Hello?"
"Silas," the Teacher's familiar French accent
said, "I am relieved to hear your voice.
This means you are safe."
Silas was equally comforted to hear the Teacher.
It had been hours, and the operation had veered
wildly off course.
Now, at last, it seemed to be back on track.
"I have the keystone."
"This is superb news," the Teacher told him.
"Is Rémy with you?"
Silas was surprised to hear the Teacher use
Rémy's name.
"Yes.
Rémy freed me."
"As I ordered him to do.
I am only sorry you had to endure captivity
for so long."
"Physical discomfort has no meaning.
The important thing is that the keystone is
ours."
"Yes.
I need it delivered to me at once.
Time is of the essence."
Silas was eager to meet the Teacher face-to-face
at last.
"Yes, sir, I would be honored."
"Silas, I would like Rémy to bring it to
me."
Rémy?
Silas was crestfallen.
After everything Silas had done for the Teacher,
he had believed he would be the one to hand
over the prize.
The Teacher favors Rémy?
"I sense your disappointment," the Teacher
said, "which tells me you do not understand
my meaning."
He lowered his voice to a whisper.
"You must believe that I would much prefer
to receive the keystone from you—a man of
God rather than a criminal—but Rémy must
be dealt with.
He disobeyed my orders and made a grave mistake
that has put our entire mission at risk."
Silas felt a chill and glanced over at Rémy.
Kidnapping Teabing had not been part of the
plan, and deciding what to do with him posed
a new problem.
"You and I are men of God," the Teacher whispered.
"We cannot be deterred from our goal."
There was an ominous pause on the line.
"For this reason alone, I will ask Rémy to
bring me the keystone.
Do you understand?"
Silas sensed anger in the Teacher's voice
and was surprised the man was not more understanding.
Showing his face could not be avoided, Silas
thought.
Rémy did what he had to do.
He saved the keystone.
"I understand," Silas managed.
"Good.
For your own safety, you need to get off the
street immediately.
The police will be looking for the limousine
soon, and I do not want you caught.
Opus Dei has a residence in London, no?"
"Of course."
"And you are welcome there?"
"As a brother."
"Then go there and stay out of sight.
I will call you the moment I am in possession
of the keystone and have attended to my current
problem."
"You are in London?"
"Do as I say, and everything will be fine."
"Yes, sir."
The Teacher heaved a sigh, as if what he now
had to do was profoundly regrettable.
"It's time I speak to Rémy."
Silas handed Rémy the phone, sensing it might
be the last call Rémy Legaludec ever took.
As Rémy took the phone, he knew this poor,
twisted monk had no idea what fate awaited
him now that he had served his purpose.
The Teacher used you, Silas.
And your bishop is a pawn.
Rémy still marveled at the Teacher's powers
of persuasion.
Bishop Aringarosa had trusted everything.
He had been blinded by his own desperation.
Aringarosa was far too eager to believe.
Although Rémy did not particularly like the
Teacher, he felt pride at having gained the
man's trust and helped him so substantially.
I have earned my payday.
"Listen carefully," the Teacher said.
"Take Silas to the Opus Dei residence hall
and drop him off a few streets away.
Then drive to St. James's Park.
It is adjacent to Parliament and Big Ben.
You can park the limousine on Horse Guards
Parade.
We'll talk there."
With that, the connection went dead.
CHAPTER 92
King's College, established by King George
IV in 1829, houses its Department of Theology
and Religious Studies adjacent to Parliament
on property granted by the Crown.
King's College Religion Department boasts
not only 150 years' experience in teaching
and research, but the 1982 establishment of
the Research Institute in Systematic Theology,
which possesses one of the most complete and
electronically advanced religious research
libraries in the world.
Langdon still felt shaky as he and Sophie
came in from the rain and entered the library.
The primary research room was as Teabing had
described it—a dramatic octagonal chamber
dominated by an enormous round table around
which King Arthur and his knights might have
been comfortable were it not for the presence
of twelve flat-screen computer workstations.
On the far side of the room, a reference librarian
was just pouring a pot of tea and settling
in for her day of work.
"Lovely morning," she said in a cheerful British
accent, leaving the tea and walking over.
"May I help you?"
"Thank you, yes," Langdon replied.
"My name is—"
"Robert Langdon."
She gave a pleasant smile.
"I know who you are."
For an instant, he feared Fache had put him
on English television as well, but the librarian's
smile suggested otherwise.
Langdon still had not gotten used to these
moments of unexpected celebrity.
Then again, if anyone on earth were going
to recognize his face, it would be a librarian
in a Religious Studies reference facility.
"Pamela Gettum," the librarian said, offering
her hand.
She had a genial, erudite face and a pleasingly
fluid voice.
The horn-rimmed glasses hanging around her
neck were thick.
"A pleasure," Langdon said.
"This is my friend Sophie Neveu."
The two women greeted one another, and Gettum
turned immediately back to Langdon.
"I didn't know you were coming."
"Neither did we.
If it's not too much trouble, we could really
use your help finding some information."
Gettum shifted, looking uncertain.
"Normally our services are by petition and
appointment only, unless of course you're
the guest of someone at the college?"
Langdon shook his head.
"I'm afraid we've come unannounced.
A friend of mine speaks very highly of you.
Sir Leigh Teabing?"
Langdon felt a pang of gloom as he said the
name.
"The British Royal Historian."
Gettum brightened now, laughing.
"Heavens, yes.
What a character.
Fanatical!
Every time he comes in, it's always the same
search strings.
Grail.
Grail.
Grail.
I swear that man will die before he gives
up on that quest."
She winked.
"Time and money afford one such lovely luxuries,
wouldn't you say?
A regular Don Quixote, that one."
"Is there any chance you can help us?"
Sophie asked.
"It's quite important."
Gettum glanced around the deserted library
and then winked at them both.
"Well, I can't very well claim I'm too busy,
now can I?
As long as you sign in, I can't imagine anyone
being too upset.
What did you have in mind?"
"We're trying to find a tomb in London."
Gettum looked dubious.
"We've got about twenty thousand of them.
Can you be a little more specific?"
"It's the tomb of a knight.
We don't have a name."
"A knight.
That tightens the net substantially.
Much less common."
"We don't have much information about the
knight we're looking for," Sophie said, "but
this is what we know."
She produced a slip of paper on which she
had written only the first two lines of the
poem.
Hesitant to show the entire poem to an outsider,
Langdon and Sophie had decided to share just
the first two lines, those that identified
the knight.
Compartmentalized cryptography, Sophie had
called it.
When an intelligence agency intercepted a
code containing sensitive data, cryptographers
each worked on a discrete section of the code.
This way, when they broke it, no single cryptographer
possessed the entire deciphered message.
In this case, the precaution was probably
excessive; even if this librarian saw the
entire poem, identified the knight's tomb,
and knew what orb was missing, the information
was useless without the cryptex.
Gettum sensed an urgency in the eyes of this
famed American scholar, almost as if his finding
this tomb quickly were a matter of critical
importance.
The green-eyed woman accompanying him also
seemed anxious.
Puzzled, Gettum put on her glasses and examined
the paper they had just handed her.
In London lies a knight a Pope interred.
His labor's fruit a Holy wrath incurred.
She glanced at her guests.
"What is this?
Some kind of Harvard scavenger hunt?"
Langdon's laugh sounded forced.
"Yeah, something like that."
Gettum paused, feeling she was not getting
the whole story.
Nonetheless, she felt intrigued and found
herself pondering the verse carefully.
"According to this rhyme, a knight did something
that incurred displeasure with God, and yet
a Pope was kind enough to bury him in London."
Langdon nodded.
"Does it ring any bells?"
Gettum moved toward one of the workstations.
"Not offhand, but let's see what we can pull
up in the database."
Over the past two decades, King's College
Research Institute in Systematic Theology
had used optical character recognition software
in unison with linguistic translation devices
to digitize and catalog an enormous collection
of texts—encyclopedias of religion, religious
biographies, sacred scriptures in dozens of
languages, histories, Vatican letters, diaries
of clerics, anything at all that qualified
as writings on human spirituality.
Because the massive collection was now in
the form of bits and bytes rather than physical
pages, the data was infinitely more accessible.
Settling into one of the workstations, Gettum
eyed the slip of paper and began typing.
"To begin, we'll run a straight Boolean with
a few obvious keywords and see what happens."
"Thank you."
Gettum typed in a few words:
LONDON, KNIGHT, POPE
As she clicked the SEARCH button, she could
feel the hum of the massive mainframe downstairs
scanning data at a rate of 500 MB/sec.
"I'm asking the system to show us any documents
whose complete text contains all three of
these keywords.
We'll get more hits than we want, but it's
a good place to start."
The screen was already showing the first of
the hits now.
Painting the Pope.
The Collected Portraits of Sir Joshua Reynolds.
London University Press.
Gettum shook her head.
"Obviously not what you're looking for."
She scrolled to the next hit.
The London Writings of Alexander Pope by G.
Wilson Knight.
Again she shook her head.
As the system churned on, the hits came up
more quickly than usual.
Dozens of texts appeared, many of them referencing
the eighteenth-century British writer Alexander
Pope, whose counterreligious, mock-epic poetry
apparently contained plenty of references
to knights and London.
Gettum shot a quick glance to the numeric
field at the bottom of the screen.
This computer, by calculating the current
number of hits and multiplying by the percentage
of the database left to search, provided a
rough guess of how much information would
be found.
This particular search looked like it was
going to return an obscenely large amount
of data.
Estimated number of total hits: 2,692
"We need to refine the parameters further,"
Gettum said, stopping the search.
"Is this all the information you have regarding
the tomb?
There's nothing else to go on?"
Langdon glanced at Sophie Neveu, looking uncertain.
This is no scavenger hunt, Gettum sensed.
She had heard the whisperings of Robert Langdon's
experience in Rome last year.
This American had been granted access to the
most secure library on earth—the Vatican
Secret Archives.
She wondered what kinds of secrets Langdon
might have learned inside and if his current
desperate hunt for a mysterious London tomb
might relate to information he had gained
within the Vatican.
Gettum had been a librarian long enough to
know the most common reason people came to
London to look for knights.
The Grail.
Gettum smiled and adjusted her glasses.
"You are friends with Leigh Teabing, you are
in England, and you are looking for a knight."
She folded her hands.
"I can only assume you are on a Grail quest."
Langdon and Sophie exchanged startled looks.
Gettum laughed.
"My friends, this library is a base camp for
Grail seekers.
Leigh Teabing among them.
I wish I had a shilling for every time I'd
run searches for the Rose, Mary Magdalene,
Sangreal, Merovingian, Priory of Sion, et
cetera, et cetera.
Everyone loves a conspiracy."
She took off her glasses and eyed them.
"I need more information."
In the silence, Gettum sensed her guests'
desire for discretion was quickly being outweighed
by their eagerness for a fast result.
"Here," Sophie Neveu blurted.
"This is everything we know."
Borrowing a pen from Langdon, she wrote two
more lines on the slip of paper and handed
it to Gettum.
You seek the orb that ought be on his tomb.
It speaks of Rosy flesh and seeded womb.
Gettum gave an inward smile.
The Grail indeed, she thought, noting the
references to the Rose and her seeded womb.
"I can help you," she said, looking up from
the slip of paper.
"Might I ask where this verse came from?
And why you are seeking an orb?"
"You might ask," Langdon said, with a friendly
smile, "but it's a long story and we have
very little time."
"Sounds like a polite way of saying 'mind
your own business.'
"
"We would be forever in your debt, Pamela,"
Langdon said, "if you could find out who this
knight is and where he is buried."
"Very well," Gettum said, typing again.
"I'll play along.
If this is a Grail-related issue, we should
cross-reference against Grail keywords.
I'll add a proximity parameter and remove
the title weighting.
That will limit our hits only to those instances
of textual keywords that occur near a Grail-related
word."
Search for: KNIGHT, LONDON, POPE, TOMB
Within 100 word proximity of: GRAIL, ROSE,
SANGREAL, CHALICE
"How long will this take?"
Sophie asked.
"A few hundred terabytes with multiple cross-referencing
fields?"
Gettum's eyes glimmered as she clicked the
SEARCH key.
"A mere fifteen minutes."
Langdon and Sophie said nothing, but Gettum
sensed this sounded like an eternity to them.
"Tea?"
Gettum asked, standing and walking toward
the pot she had made earlier.
"Leigh always loves my tea."
CHAPTER 93
London's Opus Dei Centre is a modest brick
building at 5 Orme Court, overlooking the
North Walk at Kensington Gardens.
Silas had never been here, but he felt a rising
sense of refuge and asylum as he approached
the building on foot.
Despite the rain, Rémy had dropped him off
a short distance away in order to keep the
limousine off the main streets.
Silas didn't mind the walk.
The rain was cleansing.
At Rémy's suggestion, Silas had wiped down
his gun and disposed of it through a sewer
grate.
He was glad to get rid of it.
He felt lighter.
His legs still ached from being bound all
that time, but Silas had endured far greater
pain.
He wondered, though, about Teabing, whom Rémy
had left bound in the back of the limousine.
The Briton certainly had to be feeling the
pain by now.
"What will you do with him?"
Silas had asked Rémy as they drove over here.
Rémy had shrugged.
"That is a decision for the Teacher."
There was an odd finality in his tone.
Now, as Silas approached the Opus Dei building,
the rain began to fall harder, soaking his
heavy robe, stinging the wounds of the day
before.
He was ready to leave behind the sins of the
last twenty-four hours and purge his soul.
His work was done.
Moving across a small courtyard to the front
door, Silas was not surprised to find the
door unlocked.
He opened it and stepped into the minimalist
foyer.
A muted electronic chime sounded upstairs
as Silas stepped onto the carpet.
The bell was a common feature in these halls
where the residents spent most of the day
in their rooms in prayer.
Silas could hear movement above on the creaky
wood floors.
A man in a cloak came downstairs.
"May I help you?"
He had kind eyes that seemed not even to register
Silas's startling physical appearance.
"Thank you.
My name is Silas.
I am an Opus Dei numerary."
"American?"
Silas nodded.
"I am in town only for the day.
Might I rest here?"
"You need not even ask.
There are two empty rooms on the third floor.
Shall I bring you some tea and bread?"
"Thank you."
Silas was famished.
Silas went upstairs to a modest room with
a window, where he took off his wet robe and
knelt down to pray in his undergarments.
He heard his host come up and lay a tray outside
his door.
Silas
finished his prayers, ate his food, and lay
down to sleep.
Three stories below, a phone was ringing.
The Opus Dei numerary who had welcomed Silas
answered the line.
"This is the London police," the caller said.
"We are trying to find an albino monk.
We've had a tip-off that he might be there.
Have you seen him?"
The numerary was startled.
"Yes, he is here.
Is something wrong?"
"He is there now?"
"Yes, upstairs praying.
What is going on?"
"Leave him precisely where he is," the officer
commanded.
"Don't say a word to anyone.
I'm sending officers over right away."
CHAPTER 94
St. James's Park is a sea of green in the
middle of London, a public park bordering
the palaces of Westminster, Buckingham, and
St. James's.
Once enclosed by King Henry VIII and stocked
with deer for the hunt, St. James's Park is
now open to the public.
On sunny afternoons, Londoners picnic beneath
the willows and feed the pond's resident pelicans,
whose ancestors were a gift to Charles II
from the Russian ambassador.
The Teacher saw no pelicans today.
The stormy weather had brought instead seagulls
from the ocean.
The lawns were covered with them—hundreds
of white bodies all facing the same direction,
patiently riding out the damp wind.
Despite the morning fog, the park afforded
splendid views of the Houses of Parliament
and Big Ben.
Gazing across the sloping lawns, past the
duck pond and the delicate silhouettes of
the weeping willows, the Teacher could see
the spires of the building that housed the
knight's tomb—the real reason he had told
Rémy to come to this spot.
As the Teacher approached the front passenger
door of the parked limousine, Rémy leaned
across and opened the door.
The Teacher paused outside, taking a pull
from the flask of cognac he was carrying.
Then, dabbing his mouth, he slid in beside
Rémy and closed the door.
Rémy held up the keystone like a trophy.
"It was almost lost."
"You have done well," the Teacher said.
"We have done well," Rémy replied, laying
the keystone in the Teacher's eager hands.
The Teacher admired it a long moment, smiling.
"And the gun?
You wiped it down?"
"Back in the glove box where I found it."
"Excellent."
The Teacher took another drink of cognac and
handed the flask to Rémy.
"Let's toast our success.
The end is near."
Rémy accepted the bottle gratefully.
The cognac tasted salty, but Rémy didn't
care.
He and the Teacher were truly partners now.
He could feel himself ascending to a higher
station in life.
I will never be a servant again.
As Rémy gazed down the embankment at the
duck pond below, Château Villette seemed
miles away.
Taking another swig from the flask, Rémy
could feel the cognac warming his blood.
The warmth in Rémy's throat, however, mutated
quickly to an uncomfortable heat.
Loosening his bow tie, Rémy tasted an unpleasant
grittiness and handed the flask back to the
Teacher.
"I've probably had enough," he managed, weakly.
Taking the flask, the Teacher said, "Rémy,
as you are aware, you are the only one who
knows my face.
I placed enormous trust in you."
"Yes," he said, feeling feverish as he loosened
his tie further.
"And your identity shall go with me to the
grave."
The Teacher was silent a long moment.
"I believe you."
Pocketing the flask and the keystone, the
Teacher reached for the glove box and pulled
out the tiny Medusa revolver.
For an instant, Rémy felt a surge of fear,
but the Teacher simply slipped it in his trousers
pocket.
What is he doing?
Rémy felt himself sweating suddenly.
"I know I promised you freedom," the Teacher
said, his voice now sounding regretful.
"But considering your circumstances, this
is the best I can do."
The swelling in Rémy's throat came on like
an earthquake, and he lurched against the
steering column, grabbing his throat and tasting
vomit in his narrowing esophagus.
He let out a muted croak of a scream, not
even loud enough to be heard outside the car.
The saltiness in the cognac now registered.
I'm being murdered!
Incredulous, Rémy turned to see the Teacher
sitting calmly beside him, staring straight
ahead out the windshield.
Rémy's eyesight blurred, and he gasped for
breath.
I made everything possible for him!
How could he do this!
Whether the Teacher had intended to kill Rémy
all along or whether it had been Rémy's actions
in the Temple Church that had made the Teacher
lose faith, Rémy would never know.
Terror and rage coursed through him now.
Rémy tried to lunge for the Teacher, but
his stiffening body could barely move.
I trusted you with everything!
Rémy tried to lift his clenched fists to
blow the horn, but instead he slipped sideways,
rolling onto the seat, lying on his side beside
the Teacher, clutching at his throat.
The rain fell harder now.
Rémy could no longer see, but he could sense
his oxygen-deprived brain straining to cling
to his last faint shreds of lucidity.
As his world slowly went black, Rémy Legaludec
could have sworn he heard the sounds of the
soft Riviera surf.
The Teacher stepped from the limousine, pleased
to see that nobody was looking in his direction.
I had no choice, he told himself, surprised
how little remorse he felt for what he had
just done.
Rémy sealed his own fate.
The Teacher had feared all along that Rémy
might need to be eliminated when the mission
was complete, but by brazenly showing himself
in the Temple Church, Rémy had accelerated
the necessity dramatically.
Robert Langdon's unexpected visit to Château
Villette had brought the Teacher both a fortuitous
windfall and an intricate dilemma.
Langdon had delivered the keystone directly
to the heart of the operation, which was a
pleasant surprise, and yet he had brought
the police on his tail.
Rémy's prints were all over Château Villette,
as well as in the barn's listening post, where
Rémy had carried out the surveillance.
The Teacher was grateful he had taken so much
care in preventing any ties between Rémy's
activities and his own.
Nobody could implicate the Teacher unless
Rémy talked, and that was no longer a concern.
One more loose end to tie up here, the Teacher
thought, moving now toward the rear door of
the limousine.
The police will have no idea what happened...
and no living witness left to tell them.
Glancing around to ensure nobody was watching,
he pulled open the door and climbed into the
spacious rear compartment.
Minutes later, the Teacher was crossing St.
James's Park.
Only two people now remain.
Langdon and Neveu.
They were more complicated.
But manageable.
At the moment, however, the Teacher had the
cryptex to attend to.
Gazing triumphantly across the park, he could
see his destination.
In London lies a knight a Pope interred.
As soon as the Teacher had heard the poem,
he had known the answer.
Even so, that the others had not figured it
out was not surprising.
I have an unfair advantage.
Having listened to Saunière's conversations
for months now, the Teacher had heard the
Grand Master mention this
famous knight on occasion, expressing esteem
almost matching that he held for Da Vinci.
The poem's reference to the knight was brutally
simple once one saw it—a credit to Saunière's
wit—and yet how this tomb would reveal the
final password was still a mystery.
You seek the orb that ought be on his tomb.
The Teacher vaguely recalled photos of the
famous tomb and, in particular, its most distinguishing
feature.
A magnificent orb.
The huge sphere mounted atop the tomb was
almost as large as the tomb itself.
The presence of the orb seemed both encouraging
and troubling to the Teacher.
On one hand, it felt like a signpost, and
yet, according to the poem, the missing piece
of the puzzle was an orb that ought to be
on his tomb... not one that was already there.
He was counting on his closer inspection of
the tomb to unveil the answer.
The rain was getting heavier now, and he tucked
the cryptex deep in his right-hand pocket
to protect it from the dampness.
He kept the tiny Medusa revolver in his left,
out of sight.
Within minutes, he was stepping into the quiet
sanctuary of London's grandest nine-hundred-year-old
building.
Just as the Teacher was stepping out of the
rain, Bishop Aringarosa was stepping into
it.
On the rainy tarmac at Biggin Hill Executive
Airport, Aringarosa emerged from his cramped
plane, bundling his cassock against the cold
damp.
He had hoped to be greeted by Captain Fache.
Instead a young British police officer approached
with an umbrella.
"Bishop Aringarosa?
Captain Fache had to leave.
He asked me to look after you.
He suggested I take you to Scotland Yard.
He thought it would be safest."
Safest?
Aringarosa looked down at the heavy briefcase
of Vatican bonds clutched in his hand.
He had almost forgotten.
"Yes, thank you."
Aringarosa climbed into the police car, wondering
where Silas could be.
Minutes later, the police scanner crackled
with the answer.
5 Orme Court.
Aringarosa recognized the address instantly.
The Opus Dei Centre in London.
He spun to the driver.
"Take me there at once!"
