CHAPTER 78
Sophie felt a wild excitement as she cradled the cryptex and began dialing in the letters. An ancient word of wisdom frees this scroll. Langdon and Teabing seemed to have stopped breathing as they looked on.
S . . . O . . . F . . .
“Carefully,” Teabing urged. “Ever so carefully.”
. . . I . . . A.
Sophie aligned the final dial. “Okay,” she whispered, glancing up at the others. “I’m going to pull it apart.”
“Remember the vinegar,” Langdon whispered with fearful exhilaration. “Be careful.”
Sophie knew that if this cryptex were like those she had opened in her youth, all she would need to do is grip the cylinder at both ends, just beyond the dials, and pull, applying slow, steady pressure in opposite directions. If the dials were properly aligned with the password, then one of the ends would slide off, much like a lens cap, and she could reach inside and remove the rolled papyrus document, which would be wrapped around the vial of vinegar. However, if the password they had entered were incorrect, Sophie’s outward force on the ends would be transferred to a hinged lever inside, which would pivot downward into the cavity and apply pressure to the glass vial, eventually shattering it if she pulled too hard.
Pull gently, she told herself.
Teabing and Langdon both leaned in as Sophie wrapped her palms around the ends of the cylinder. In the excitement of deciphering the code word, Sophie had almost forgotten what they expected to find inside. This is the Priory keystone. According to Teabing, it contained a map to the Holy Grail, unveiling the tomb of Mary Magdalene and the Sangreal treasure . . . the ultimate treasure trove of secret truth.
Now gripping the stone tube, Sophie double-checked that all of the letters were properly aligned with the indicator. Then, slowly, she pulled. Nothing happened. She applied a little more force. Suddenly, the stone slid apart like a well-crafted telescope. The heavy end piece detached in her hand. Langdon and Teabing almost jumped to their feet. Sophie’s heart rate climbed as she set the end cap on the table and tipped the cylinder to peer inside.
A scroll!
Peering down the hollow of the rolled paper, Sophie could see it had been wrapped around a cylindrical object—the vial of vinegar, she assumed. Strangely, though, the paper around the vinegar was not the customary delicate papyrus but rather, vellum. That’s odd, she thought, vinegar can’t dissolve a lambskin vellum. She looked again down the hollow of the scroll and realized the object in the center was not a vial of vinegar after all. It was something else entirely.
“What’s wrong?” Teabing asked. “Pull out the scroll.”
Frowning, Sophie grabbed the rolled vellum and the object around which it was wrapped, pulling them both out of the container.
“That’s not papyrus,” Teabing said. “It’s too heavy.”
“I know. It’s padding.”
“For what? The vial of vinegar?”
“No.” Sophie unrolled the scroll and revealed what was wrapped inside. “For this.”
When Langdon saw the object inside the sheet of vellum, his heart sank.
“God help us,” Teabing said, slumping. “Your grandfather was a pitiless architect.”
Langdon stared in amazement. I see Saunière has no intention of making this easy.
On the table sat a second cryptex. Smaller. Made of black onyx. It had been nested within the first. Saunière’s passion for dualism. Two cryptexes. Everything in pairs. Double entendres. Male female. Black nested within white. Langdon felt the web of symbolism stretching onward. White gives birth to black.
Every man sprang from woman.
White—female.
Black—male.
Reaching over, Langdon lifted the smaller cryptex. It looked identical to the first, except half the size and black. He heard the familiar gurgle. Apparently, the vial of vinegar they had heard earlier was inside this smaller cryptex.
“Well, Robert,” Teabing said, sliding the page of vellum over to him. “You’ll be pleased to hear that at least we’re flying in the right direction.”
Langdon examined the thick vellum sheet. Written in ornate penmanship was another four-line verse. Again, in iambic pentameter. The verse was cryptic, but Langdon needed to read only as far as the first line to realize that Teabing’s plan to come to Britain was going to pay off.
IN LONDON LIES A KNIGHT A POPE INTERRED.
The remainder of the poem clearly implied that the password for opening the second cryptex could be found by visiting this knight’s tomb, somewhere in the city.
Langdon turned excitedly to Teabing. “Do you have any idea what knight this poem is referring to?”
Teabing grinned. “Not the foggiest. But I know in precisely which crypt we should look.”
At that moment, fifteen miles ahead of them, six Kent police cars streaked down rain-soaked streets toward Biggin Hill Executive Airport.
CHAPTER 79
Lieutenant Collet helped himself to a Perrier from Teabing’s refrigerator and strode back out through the drawing room. Rather than accompanying Fache to London where the action was, he was now baby-sitting the PTS team that had spread out through Château Villette.
So far, the evidence they had uncovered was unhelpful: a single bullet buried in the floor; a paper with several symbols scrawled on it along with the words blade and chalice; and a bloody spiked belt that PTS had told Collet was associated with the conservative Catholic group Opus Dei, which had caused a stir recently when a news program exposed their aggressive recruiting practices in Paris.
Collet sighed. Good luck making sense of this unlikely mélange.
Moving down a lavish hallway, Collet entered the vast ballroom study, where the chief PTS examiner was busy dusting for fingerprints. He was a corpulent man in suspenders.
“Anything?” Collet asked, entering.
The examiner shook his head. “Nothing new. Multiple sets matching those in the rest of the house.”
“How about the prints on the cilice belt?”
“Interpol is still working. I uploaded everything we found.”
Collet motioned to two sealed evidence bags on the desk. “And this?”
The man shrugged. “Force of habit. I bag anything peculiar.”
Collet walked over. Peculiar?
“This Brit’s a strange one,” the examiner said. “Have a look at this.” He sifted through the evidence bags and selected one, handing it to Collet.
The photo showed the main entrance of a Gothic cathedral—the traditional, recessed archway, narrowing through multiple, ribbed layers to a small doorway.
Collet studied the photo and turned. “This is peculiar?”
“Turn it over.”
On the back, Collet found notations scrawled in English, describing a cathedral’s long hollow nave as a secret pagan tribute to a woman’s womb. This was strange. The notation describing the cathedral’s doorway, however, was what startled him. “Hold on! He thinks a cathedral’s entrance represents a woman’s . . .”
The examiner nodded. “Complete with receding labial ridges and a nice little cinquefoil clitoris above the doorway.” He sighed. “Kind of makes you want to go back to church.”
Collet picked up the second evidence bag. Through the plastic, he could see a large glossy photograph of what appeared to be an old document. The heading at the top read:
Les Dossiers Secrets—Number 4° lm1 249
“What’s this?” Collet asked.
“No idea. He’s got copies of it all over the place, so I bagged it.”
Collet studied the document.
Prieuré de Sion? Collet wondered.
“Lieutenant?” Another agent stuck his head in. “The switchboard has an urgent call for Captain Fache, but they can’t reach him. Will you take it?”
Collet returned to the kitchen and took the call.
It was André Vernet.
The banker’s refined accent did little to mask the tension in his voice. “I thought Captain Fache said he would call me, but I have not yet heard from him.”
“The captain is quite busy,” Collet replied. “May I help you?”
“I was assured I would be kept abreast of your progress tonight.”
For a moment, Collet thought he recognized the timbre of the man’s voice, but he couldn’t quite place it. “Monsieur Vernet, I am currently in charge of the Paris investigation. My name is Lieutenant Collet.”
There was a long pause on the line. “Lieutenant, I have another call coming in. Please excuse me. I will call you later.” He hung up.
For several seconds, Collet held the receiver. Then it dawned on him. I knew I recognized that voice! The revelation made him gasp.
The armored car driver.
With the fake Rolex.
Collet now understood why the banker had hung up so quickly. Vernet had remembered the name Lieutenant Collet—the officer he blatantly lied to earlier tonight.
Collet pondered the implications of this bizarre development. Vernet is involved. Instinctively, he knew he should call Fache. Emotionally, he knew this lucky break was going to be his moment to shine.
He immediately called Interpol and requested every shred of information they could find on the Depository Bank of Zurich and its president, André Vernet.
CHAPTER 80
“Seat belts, please,” Teabing’s pilot announced as the Hawker 731 descended into a gloomy morning drizzle. “We’ll be landing in five minutes.”
Teabing felt a joyous sense of homecoming when he saw the misty hills of Kent spreading wide beneath the descending plane. England was less than an hour from Paris, and yet a world away. This morning, the damp, spring green of his homeland looked particularly welcoming. My time in France is over. I am returning to England victorious. The keystone has been found. The question remained, of course, as to where the keystone would ultimately lead. Somewhere in the United Kingdom. Where exactly, Teabing had no idea, but he was already tasting the glory.
As Langdon and Sophie looked on, Teabing got up and went to the far side of the cabin, then slid aside a wall panel to reveal a discreetly hidden wall safe. He dialed in the combination, opened the safe, and extracted two passports. “Documentation for Rémy and myself.” He then removed a thick stack of fifty-pound notes. “And documentation for you two.”
Sophie looked leery. “A bribe?”
“Creative diplomacy. Executive airfields make certain allowances. A British customs official will greet us at my hangar and ask to board the plane. Rather than permitting him to come on, I’ll tell him I’m traveling with a French celebrity who prefers that nobody knows she is in England—press considerations, you know—and I’ll offer the official this generous tip as gratitude for his discretion.”
Langdon looked amazed. “And the official will accept?”
“Not from anyone, they won’t, but these people all know me. I’m not an arms dealer, for heaven’s sake. I was knighted.” Teabing smiled. “Membership has its privileges.”
Rémy approached up the aisle now, the Heckler Koch pistol cradled in his hand. “Sir, my agenda?”
Teabing glanced at his servant. “I’m going to have you stay onboard with our guest until we return. We can’t very well drag him all over London with us.”
Sophie looked wary. “Leigh, I was serious about the French police finding your plane before we return.”
Teabing laughed. “Yes, imagine their surprise if they board and find Rémy.”
Sophie looked surprised by his cavalier attitude. “Leigh, you transported a bound hostage across international borders. This is serious.”
“So are my lawyers.” He scowled toward the monk in the rear of the plane. “That animal broke into my home and almost killed me. That is a fact, and Rémy will corroborate.”
“But you tied him up and flew him to London!” Langdon said.
Teabing held up his right hand and feigned a courtroom oath. “Your honor, forgive an eccentric old knight his foolish prejudice for the British court system. I realize I should have called the French authorities, but I’m a snob and do not trust those laissez-faire French to prosecute properly. This man almost murdered me. Yes, I made a rash decision forcing my manservant to help me bring him to England, but I was under great stress. Mea culpa. Mea culpa.”
Langdon looked incredulous. “Coming from you, Leigh, that just might fly.”
“Sir?” the pilot called back. “The tower just radioed. They’ve got some kind of maintenance problem out near your hangar, and they’re asking me to bring the plane directly to the terminal instead.”
Teabing had been flying to Biggin Hill for over a decade, and this was a first. “Did they mention what the problem is?”
“The controller was vague. Something about a gas leak at the pumping station? They asked me to park in front of the terminal and keep everyone onboard until further notice. Safety precaution. We’re not supposed to deplane until we get the all clear from airport authorities.”
Teabing was skeptical. Must be one hell of a gas leak. The pumping station was a good half mile from his hangar.
Rémy also looked concerned. “Sir, this sounds highly irregular.”
Teabing turned to Sophie and Langdon. “My friends, I have an unpleasant suspicion that we are about to be met by a welcoming committee.”
Langdon gave a bleak sigh. “I guess Fache still thinks I’m his man.”
“Either that,” Sophie said, “or he is too deep into this to admit his error.”
Teabing was not listening. Regardless of Fache’s mind-set, action needed to be taken fast. Don’t lose sight of the ultimate goal. The Grail. We’re so close. Below them, the landing gear descended with a clunk.
“Leigh,” Langdon said, sounding deeply remorseful, “I should turn myself in and sort this out legally. Leave you all out of it.”
“Oh, heavens, Robert!” Teabing waved it off. “Do you really think they’re going to let the rest of us go? I just transported you illegally. Miss Neveu assisted in your escape from the Louvre, and we have a man tied up in the back of the plane. Really now! We’re all in this together.”
“Maybe a different airport?” Sophie said.
Teabing shook his head. “If we pull up now, by the time we get clearance anywhere else, our welcoming party will include army tanks.”
Sophie slumped.
Teabing sensed that if they were to have any chance of postponing confrontation with the British authorities long enough to find the Grail, bold action had to be taken. “Give me a minute,” he said, hobbling toward the cockpit.
“What are you doing?” Langdon asked.
“Sales meeting,” Teabing said, wondering how much it would cost him to persuade his pilot to perform one highly irregular maneuver.