CHAPTER 17
"What do you mean she's not answering?"
Fache looked incredulous.
"You're calling her cell phone, right?
I know she's carrying it."
Collet had been trying to reach Sophie now
for several minutes.
"Maybe her batteries are dead.
Or her ringer's off."
Fache had looked distressed ever since talking
to the director of Cryptology on the phone.
After hanging up, he had marched over to Collet
and demanded he get Agent Neveu on the line.
Now Collet had failed, and Fache was pacing
like a caged lion.
"Why did Crypto call?"
Collet now ventured.
Fache turned.
"To tell us they found no references to Draconian
devils and lame saints."
"That's all?"
"No, also to tell us that they had just identified
the numerics as Fibonacci numbers, but they
suspected the series was meaningless."
Collet was confused.
"But they already sent Agent Neveu to tell
us that."
Fache shook his head.
"They didn't send Neveu."
"What?"
"According to the director, at my orders he
paged his entire team to look at the images
I'd wired him.
When Agent Neveu arrived, she took one look
at the photos of Saunière and the code and
left the office without a word.
The director said he didn't question her behavior
because she was understandably upset by the
photos."
"Upset?
She's never seen a picture of a dead body?"
Fache was silent a moment.
"I was not aware of this, and it seems neither
was the director until a coworker informed
him, but apparently Sophie Neveu is Jacques
Saunière's granddaughter."
Collet was speechless.
"The director said she never once mentioned
Saunière to him, and he assumed it was because
she probably didn't want preferential treatment
for having a famous grandfather."
No wonder she was upset by the pictures.
Collet could barely conceive of the unfortunate
coincidence that called in a young woman to
decipher a code written by a dead family member.
Still, her actions made no sense.
"But she obviously recognized the numbers
as Fibonacci numbers because she came here
and told us.
I don't understand why she would leave the
office without telling anyone she had figured
it out."
Collet could think of only one scenario to
explain the troubling developments: Saunière
had written a numeric code on the floor in
hopes Fache would involve cryptographers in
the investigation, and therefore involve his
own granddaughter.
As for the rest of the message, was Saunière
communicating in some way with his granddaughter?
If so, what did the message tell her?
And how did Langdon fit in?
Before Collet could ponder it any further,
the silence of the deserted museum was shattered
by an alarm.
The bell sounded like it was coming from inside
the Grand Gallery.
"Alarme!" one of the agents yelled, eyeing
his feed from the Louvre security center.
"Grande Galerie!
Toilettes Messieurs!"
Fache wheeled to Collet.
"Where's Langdon?"
"Still in the men's room!"
Collet pointed to the blinking red dot on
his laptop schematic.
"He must have broken the window!"
Collet knew Langdon wouldn't get far.
Although Paris fire codes
required windows above fifteen meters in public
buildings be breakable in case of fire, exiting
a Louvre second-story window without the help
of a hook and ladder would be suicide.
Furthermore, there were no trees or grass
on the western end of the Denon Wing to cushion
a fall.
Directly beneath that rest room window, the
two-lane Place du Carrousel ran within a few
feet of the outer wall.
"My God," Collet exclaimed, eyeing the screen.
"Langdon's moving to the window ledge!"
But Fache was already in motion.
Yanking his Manurhin MR-93 revolver from his
shoulder holster, the captain dashed out of
the office.
Collet watched the screen in bewilderment
as the blinking dot arrived at the window
ledge and then did something utterly unexpected.
The dot moved outside the perimeter of the
building.
What's going on? he wondered.
Is Langdon out on a ledge or—
"Jesu!"
Collet jumped to his feet as the dot shot
farther outside the wall.
The signal seemed to shudder for a moment,
and then the blinking dot came to an abrupt
stop about ten yards outside the perimeter
of the building.
Fumbling with the controls, Collet called
up a Paris street map and recalibrated the
GPS.
Zooming in, he could now see the exact location
of the signal.
It was no longer moving.
It lay at a dead stop in the middle of Place
du Carrousel.
Langdon had jumped.
CHAPTER 18
Fache sprinted down the Grand Gallery as Collet's
radio blared over the distant sound of the
alarm.
"He jumped!"
Collet was yelling.
"I'm showing the signal out on Place du Carrousel!
Outside the bathroom window!
And it's not moving at all!
Jesus, I think Langdon has just committed
suicide!"
Fache heard the words, but they made no sense.
He kept running.
The hallway seemed never-ending.
As he sprinted past Saunière's body, he set
his sights on the partitions at the far end
of the Denon Wing.
The alarm was getting louder now.
"Wait!" Collet's voice blared again over the
radio.
"He's moving!
My God, he's alive.
Langdon's moving!"
Fache kept running, cursing the length of
the hallway with every step.
"Langdon's moving faster!"
Collet was still yelling on the radio.
"He's running down Carrousel.
Wait... he's picking up speed.
He's moving too fast!"
Arriving at the partitions, Fache snaked his
way through them, saw the rest room door,
and ran for it.
The walkie-talkie was barely audible now over
the alarm.
"He must be in a car!
I think he's in a car!
I can't—"
Collet's words were swallowed by the alarm
as Fache finally burst into the men's room
with his gun drawn.
Wincing against the piercing shrill, he scanned
the area.
The stalls were empty.
The bathroom deserted.
Fache's eyes moved immediately to the shattered
window at the far end of the room.
He ran to the opening and looked over the
edge.
Langdon was nowhere to be seen.
Fache could not imagine anyone risking a stunt
like this.
Certainly if he had dropped that far, he would
be badly injured.
The alarm cut off finally, and Collet's voice
became audible again over the walkie-talkie.
"...moving south... faster... crossing the
Seine on Pont du Carrousel!"
Fache turned to his left.
The only vehicle on Pont du Carrousel was
an enormous twin-bed Trailor delivery truck
moving southward away from the Louvre.
The truck's open-air bed was covered with
a vinyl tarp, roughly resembling a giant hammock.
Fache felt a shiver of apprehension.
That truck, only moments ago, had probably
been stopped at a red light directly beneath
the rest room window.
An insane risk, Fache told himself.
Langdon had no way of knowing what the truck
was carrying beneath that tarp.
What if the truck were carrying steel?
Or cement?
Or even garbage?
A forty-foot leap?
It was madness.
"The dot is turning!"
Collet called.
"He's turning right on Pont des Saints-Peres!"
Sure enough, the Trailor truck that had crossed
the bridge was slowing down and making a right
turn onto Pont des Saints-Peres.
So be it, Fache thought.
Amazed, he watched the truck disappear around
the corner.
Collet was already radioing the agents outside,
pulling them off the Louvre perimeter and
sending them to their patrol cars in pursuit,
all the while broadcasting the truck's changing
location like some kind of bizarre play-by-play.
It's over, Fache knew.
His men would have the truck surrounded within
minutes.
Langdon was not going anywhere.
Stowing his weapon, Fache exited the rest
room and radioed Collet.
"Bring my car around.
I want to be there when we make the arrest."
As Fache jogged back down the length of the
Grand Gallery, 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 standing inside the men's
room refusing to run from a crime he didn't
commit, when Sophie began eyeing the plate-glass
window and examining the alarm mesh running
through it.
Then 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 truck's massive cargo
bay was a blue vinyl tarp, loosely covering
the truck's load.
Langdon hoped Sophie was not thinking what
she seemed to be thinking.
"Sophie, there's no way I'm jump—"
"Take out the tracking dot."
Bewildered, Langdon fumbled in his pocket
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, firmly 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 bottom 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 ten
feet from the side of the building.
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 men's 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.
"There's 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 another word all
evening.
Sophie Neveu was clearly a hell of a lot smarter
than he was.
CHAPTER 19
The Church of Saint-Sulpice, it is said, has
the most eccentric history of any building
in Paris.
Built over the ruins of an ancient temple
to the Egyptian goddess Isis, the church possesses
an architectural footprint matching that of
Notre Dame to within inches.
The sanctuary has played host 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 secret
societies.
Tonight, the cavernous nave of Saint-Sulpice
was as silent as a tomb, the only hint of
life the faint smell of incense from mass
earlier that evening.
Silas sensed an uneasiness in Sister Sandrine's
demeanor as she led him into the sanctuary.
He was not surprised by this.
Silas was accustomed to people being uncomfortable
with his appearance.
"You're 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 quiet eyes.
"And you have never seen Saint-Sulpice?"
"I realize this is almost a sin in itself."
"She is more beautiful by day."
"I am certain.
Nonetheless, I am grateful that you would
provide me this opportunity tonight."
"The abbé 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
quality reminiscent of the ascetic cathedrals
of Spain.
The lack of decor made the interior look even
more expansive, and as Silas gazed 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 brotherhood's 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.
"After all, I am awake."
Silas stopped walking.
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 uneasy.
"Are you sure you won't 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 also 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 soul 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 20
Emerging 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 murder
"Do you think," he whispered, "that maybe
Fache wrote that message on the floor?"
Sophie didn't even turn.
"Impossible."
Langdon wasn't so sure.
"He seems pretty intent on making me look
guilty.
Maybe he thought writing my name on the floor
would help his case?"
"The Fibonacci sequence?
The P.S.?
All the Da Vinci and goddess symbolism?
That had to be my grandfather."
Langdon knew she was right.
The symbolism of the clues meshed too perfectly—the
pentacle, The Vitruvian Man, Da Vinci, the
goddess, and even the Fibonacci sequence.
A coherent symbolic set, as iconographers
would call it.
All inextricably tied.
"And his phone call to me this afternoon,"
Sophie added.
"He said he had to tell me something.
I'm 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, lame saint.!
He wished he could comprehend the message,
both for Sophie's 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 Langdon's 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 isn't much farther," Sophie said.
"Do you think there's a possibility that the
numbers in your grandfather's 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 how to decipher the
other lines.
"I've been thinking about the numbers all
night.
Sums, quotients, products.
I don't see anything.
Mathematically, they're arranged at random.
Cryptographic gibberish."
"And yet they're all part of the Fibonacci
sequence.
That can't be coincidence."
"It's not.
Using Fibonacci numbers was my grandfather's
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 didn't get a chance to tell you, but the
pentacle was a special symbol between my grandfather
and me when I was growing up.
We used to play Tarot cards for fun, and my
indicator card always turned out to be from
the suit of pentacles.
I'm sure he stacked the deck, 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 Langdon
had dedicated an entire chapter in his new
manuscript to the Tarot.
The game's twenty-two cards bore names like
The Female Pope, The Empress, and The Star.
Originally, Tarot had been devised as a secret
means to pass along ideologies banned by the
Church.
Now, Tarot's mystical qualities were passed
on by modern fortune-tellers.
The Tarot indicator suit for feminine divinity
is pentacles, Langdon thought, realizing that
if Saunière had been stacking his granddaughter's
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 interested in the mathematics
of it—the Divine Proportion, PHI, Fibonacci
sequences, that sort of thing."
Langdon was surprised.
"Your grandfather taught you about the number
PHI?"
"Of course.
The Divine 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.
Still descending, Langdon refocused on PHI.
He was starting to realize that Saunière's
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 single concept so fundamental to art
history that Langdon often spent several class
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.
1.618
Langdon 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.
"That's 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 PI!"
Langdon 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 it's so pretty?"
Everyone laughed.
"Actually," Langdon said, "Stettner's 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 equaled the next term, but because the
quotients of adjacent terms possessed the
astonishing property of approaching the number
1.618—PHI!
Despite PHI's 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.
"PHI's 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 Creator
of the universe.
Early scientists heralded one-point-six-one-eight
as the Divine Proportion."
"Hold on," said a young woman in the front
row.
"I'm a bio major and I've never seen this
Divine 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 always get
the same number?"
"You do?"
"Yup.
PHI."
The girl gaped.
"NO WAY!"
"Way!"
Langdon fired back, smiling as he projected
a slide of a spiral seashell.
"Recognize this?"
"It's 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
spiral's 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 sunflower's seed head.
"Sunflower seeds grow in opposing spirals.
Can you guess the ratio of each rotation's
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, "but what does
it have to do with art?"
"Aha!"
Langdon said.
"Glad you asked."
He pulled up another slide—a pale yellow
parchment displaying Leonardo da Vinci's famous
male nude—The Vitruvian Man—named for
Marcus Vitruvius, the brilliant Roman architect
who praised the Divine Proportion in his text
De Architectura.
"Nobody understood better 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.
"Don't believe me?"
Langdon challenged.
"Next time you're 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
belly button 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 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 discovered PHI, they were
certain they had stumbled across God's building
block for the world, and they worshipped Nature
because of that.
And one can understand why.
God's hand is evident in Nature, and even
to this day there exist pagan, Mother Earth-revering
religions.
Many of us celebrate nature the way the pagans
did, and don't even know it.
May Day is a perfect example, the celebration
of spring... 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 Nature's rules, and
because art is man's attempt to imitate the
beauty of the Creator's hand, you can imagine
we might 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
Dürer, Da Vinci, and many others, demonstrating
each artist's 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 Mozart's sonatas, Beethoven's Fifth Symphony,
as well as the works of Bartók, 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 known 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
all equal 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.
We've only touched on Da Vinci today, but
we'll be seeing a lot more of him this semester.
Leonardo was a well-documented devotee of
the ancient ways of the goddess.
Tomorrow, I'll show you his fresco The Last
Supper, which is one of the most astonishing
tributes to the sacred feminine you will ever
see."
"You're 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.
"What's wrong?
We're almost there.
Hurry!"
Langdon 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 saint!
Sophie was looking back at him.
It can't 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, Robert Langdon suddenly and unexpectedly
deciphered Saunière's code.
"O, Draconian devil!" he said.
"Oh, lame saint!
It's the simplest kind of code!"
Sophie 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."
Langdon's voice reverberated with excitement.
"Fibonacci numbers only have meaning in their
proper order.
Otherwise they're mathematical gibberish."
Sophie had no idea what he was talking about.
The Fibonacci numbers?
She was certain they had been intended as
nothing 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 grandfather's
message again.
13-3-2-21-1-1-8-5 O, Draconian devil!
Oh, lame saint!
What about the numbers?
"The scrambled Fibonacci sequence is a clue,"
Langdon said, taking the printout.
"The numbers are a hint as to how to decipher
the rest of 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 Langdon's
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 Sophie's
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 great art."
Langdon looked up at Sophie, locking eyes
with her now.
"Your grandfather's 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!
