The Da Vinci Code

"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 Sauniere’s granddaughter."

Collet was speechless.

"The director said she never once mentioned Sauniere 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: Sauniere 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 Saunie recommunicating 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. "GrandeGalerie! 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 Sauniere’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.