The Da Vinci Code Chapter 73-77

CHAPTER 73Bour number Airfields night shift air traffic mastery had been dozing before a blank radar screen when the captain of the Judicial Police practic altogethery broke down his door.Teabings jet, Bezu Fache blared, process into the small tower, whither did it go?The controllers initial response was a babbling, lame attempt to protect the privacy of their British client unrivaled of the airfields most respected customers. It failed miserably.Okay, Fache said, I am placing you under arrest for permitting a hole-and-corner(a) plane to take off with push with registering a flight plan. Fache motioned to another officer, who approached with handcuffs, and the traffic controller entangle a surge of terror. He thought of the newspaper articles debating whether the nations police captain was a hero or a menace. That question had just been answered.Wait the controller hear himself whimper at the sight of the handcuffs. I prat tell you this much. Sir Leigh Teabing makes frequent trips to capital of the United Kingdom for medical treatments. He has a hangar at Biggin agglomerate executive director Airport in Kent. On the forthskirts of London.Fache waved off the slice with the cuffs. Is Biggin Hill his destination tonight?I dont know, the controller said honestly. The plane left on its usual tack, and his last radar contact suggested the United Kingdom. Biggin Hill is an extremely likely guess.Did he start others onboard?I swear, sir, at that place is no way for me to know that. Our clients nooky drive directly to their hangars, and load as they please. Who is onboard is the responsibility of the customs officials at the receiving airport.Fache checked his watch and gazed out at the scattering of jets parked in front of the terminal. If theyre going to Biggin Hill, how long until they land?The controller fumbled by means of his records. Its a short flight. His plane could be on the ground by around six-thirty. Fifteen transactions from now.Fache fro wned and turned to one of his men. Get a transport up here. Im going to London. And get me the Kent local police. non British MI5. I wish this quiet. Kent local.Tell them I want Teabings plane to be permitted to land. Then I want it surrounded on the tarmac. No system deplanes until I get there.CHAPTER 74Youre quiet, Langdon said, gazing across the Hawkers cabin at Sophie. scarcely tired, she replied. And the poem. I dont know. Langdon was encountering the same way. The hum of the engines and the gentle roc world-beater of the plane were hypnotic, and his oral sex shut up throbbed where hed been hit by the monk. Teabing was still in the bear out of the plane, and Langdon decided to take advantage of the spot alone with Sophie to tell her something that had been on his mind. I conceptualize I know part of the reason why your grandpa conspired to put us together. I think theres something he wanted me to explain to you.The history of the Holy Grail and Mary Magdalene isnt li beral?Langdon felt uncertain how to proceed. The rift between you. The reason you havent spoken to him in ten years. I think maybe he was hoping I could somehow make that dependable by explaining what drove you apart.Sophie squirmed in her seat. I havent told you what drove us apart. Langdon eyed her carefully. You witnessed a excite rite. Didnt you? Sophie recoiled. How do you know that? Sophie, you told me you witnessed something that convinced you your grandad was in a secret society. And whatever you saw upset you enough that you havent spoken to him since. I know a fair amount about secret societies. It doesnt take the brains of Da Vinci to guess what you saw. Sophie stared. Was it in the spring? Langdon asked. one- clock(prenominal) around the equinox? Mid-March?Sophie looked out the window. I was on spring break from university. I came home a few days early.You want to tell me about it?Id rather not. She turned suddenly back to Langdon, her eye welling with sense. I dont know what I saw.Were both men and women present? After a beat, she nodded. Dressed in lily-white and blackness?She wiped her look and and then nodded, seeming to open up a little. The women were in white gossamer gowns with golden shoes. They held golden orbs. The men wore black tunics and black shoes.Langdon strained to hide his emotion, and yet he could not believe what he was hearing. Sophie Neveu had unwittingly witnessed a both-thousand-year-old ineffable ceremony. Masks? he asked, keeping his voice calm. androgynous masks?Yes. Everyone. Identical masks. White on the women. Black on the men.Langdon had read descriptions of this ceremony and understood its mystic roots. Its mobilizeed Hieros Gamos, he said softly. It dates back more than two thousand years. Egyptian priests and priestesses performed it regularly to celebrate the reproductive causality of the female, He pa utilise, leaning toward her. And if you witnessed Hieros Gamos without being properly prepared to understand its meaning, I imagine it would be reasonably shocking.Sophie said nothing.Hieros Gamos is Greek, he continued. It means sacred marriage.The ritual I saw was no marriage. Marriage as in confederation, Sophie. You mean as in sex. No.No? she said, her olive eyes testing him.Langdon backpedaled. strong yes, in a manner of speaking, yet not as we understand it today. He explained that although what she saw credibly looked like a sex ritual, Hieros Gamos had nothing to do with eroticism. It was a spiritual act. Historically, intercourse was the act by which male and female experienced divinity. The ancients believed that the male was spiritually in discern until he had carnal knowledge of the sacred feminine. Physical union with the female remained the sole means through with(predicate) which man could become spiritually complete and ultimately achieve gnosis knowledge of the divine. Since the days of Isis, sex rites had been considered mans further bridge from earth to heaven. By communing with woman, Langdon said, man could achieve a climactic instant when his mind went totally blank and he could see God.Sophie looked skeptical. advent as prayer?Langdon gave a noncommittal shrug, although Sophie was essentially correct. Physiologically speaking, the male climax was accompanied by a split second all in all devoid of thought. A brief mental vacuum. A moment of clarity during which God could be glimpsed. Meditation gurus achieved similar states of thoughtlessness without sex and often described promised land as a never- ending spiritual orgasm.Sophie, Langdon said restfully, its important to remember that the ancients view of sex was altogether opposite from ours today. Sex begot new life the ultimate miracle and miracles could be performed only by a god. The mightiness of the woman to produce life from her womb made her sacred. A god. Intercourse was the revered union of the two halves of the human spirit male and female through which t he male could adventure spiritual wholeness and share-out with God. What you saw was not about sex, it was about spirituality. The Hieros Gamos ritual is not a perversion. Its a deeply strong ceremony.His words seemed to strike a nerve. Sophie had been remarkably poised all evening, but now, for the first time, Langdon saw the standard atmosphere of composure beginning to crack. Tears materialized in her eyes again, and she dabbed them away with her sleeve.He gave her a moment. Admittedly, the concept of sex as a pathway to God was mind-boggling at first. Langdons Jewish students always looked flabbergasted when he first told them that the early Jewish tradition involved ritualistic sex. In the Temple, no less.Early Jews believed that the Holy of Holies in Solomons Temple housed not only God but besides His powerful female equal, Shekinah. Men want spiritual wholeness came to the Temple to visit priestesses or hierodules with whom they made experiencemaking and experienced the divine through physical union. The Jewish tetragrammaton YHWH the sacred name of God in circumstance derived from Jehovah, an androgynous physical union between the masculine Jah and the pre-Hebraic name for Eve, Havah.For the early church building, Langdon explained in a soft voice, man manikins use of sex to pass on directly with God posed a serious threat to the Catholic power base. It left the perform out of the loop, undermining their self-proclaimed status as the sole conduit to God. For obvious reasons, they worked hard to demonize sex and recast it as a disgusting and sinful act. Other major religions did the same.Sophie was silent, but Langdon sensed she was starting to understand her granddaddy better. Ironically, Langdon had made this same point in a class lecture earlier this semester. Is it surprising we feel conflicted about sex? he asked his students. Our ancient heritage and our very physiologies tell us sex is indwelling a cherished route to spiritual fu lfillment and yet modern religion decries it as shameful, tenet us to fear our sexual desire as the hand of the devil.Langdon decided not to shock his students with the fact that more than a dozen secret societies around the world many of them quite influential still practiced sex rites and kept the ancient traditions alive. Tom Cruises character in the film Eyes across-the-board Shut discovered this the hard way when he sneaked into a private gathering of ultraelite Manhattanites only to find himself witnessing Hieros Gamos. Sadly, the filmmakers had gotten most of the specifics wrong, but the basic gist was there a secret society communing to celebrate the conjuring trick of sexual union.Professor Langdon? A male student in back raised his hand, sounding hopeful. are you saying that instead of going to chapel, we should have more sex?Langdon chuckled, not about to take the bait. From what hed hear about Harvard parties, these kids were having more than enough sex. Gentleme n, he said, knowing he was on tender ground, might I offer a suggestion for all of you. Without being so bold as to condone antenuptial sex, and without being so naive as to think youre all chaste angels, I will snap off you this bit of advice about your sex lives.All the men in the audience leaned forward, listening intently.The next time you find yourself with a woman, look in your heart and see if you cannot approach sex as a mystical, spiritual act. Challenge yourself to find that spark of divinity that man can only achieve through union with the sacred feminine.The women smiled knowingly, nodding.The men exchanged dubious giggles and off-color jokes. Langdon sighed. College men were still boys.Sophies forehead felt cold as she pressed it against the planes window and stared blankly into the void, trying to process what Langdon had just told her. She felt a new regret well within her. Ten years.She pictured the stacks of unopened letters her grandfather had sent her. I will te ll Robert everything.Without round from the window, Sophie began to speak. Quietly. Fearfully.As she began to recount what had happened that night, she felt herself drifting back alighting in the woods outside her grandfathers Normandy chateau searching the deserted house in confusion hearing the voices under her and then finding the hidden door. She inched down the stone staircase, one step at a time, into that root cellar grotto. She could taste the earthy air. Cool and light. It was March. In the shadows of her hiding place on the staircase, she watched as the strangers swayed and chanted by flickering orange candles.Im dreaming, Sophie told herself. This is a dream. What else could this be?The women and men were staggered, black, white, black, white. The womens beautiful gossamer gowns billowed as they raised in their right hands golden orbs and called out in unison, I was withyou in the beginning, in the dawn of all that is holy, I bore you from the womb before the start of day.The women lowered their orbs, and everyone rocked back and forth as if in a trance. They were revering something in the center of the mess.What are they looking at?The voices accelerated now. Louder. Faster.The woman whom you behold is love The women called, raising their orbs again. The men responded, She has her dwelling in eternityThe chanting grew steady again. Accelerating. Thundering now. Faster. The participants stepped inward and knelt.In that instant, Sophie could finally see what they were all watching.On a low, ornate altar in the center of the circle lay a man. He was naked, positioned on his back, and wearing a black mask. Sophie instantly recognized his body and the birthmark on his shoulder. She almost cried out. Grand-pere This image alone would have shocked Sophie beyond belief, and yet there was more.Straddling her grandfather was a naked woman wearing a white mask, her luxuriant silver cop flowing out behind it. Her body was plump, far from perfect, and she was gyrating in rhythm to the chanting making love to Sophies grandfather.Sophie wanted to turn and run, but she couldnt. The stone walls of the grotto imprisoned her as the chanting rose to a fever pitch. The circle of participants seemed almost to be singing now, the noise rising in crescendo to a frenzy. With a sudden roar, the entire room seemed to erupt in climax. Sophie could not breathe. She suddenly realized she was quietly sobbing. She turned and staggered silently up the stairs, out of the house, and drove trembling back to Paris.CHAPTER 75The chartered turbo-propeller plane was just passing over the twinkling lights of Monaco when Aringarosa hung up on Fache for the second time. He reached for the airsickness hold again but felt too drained even to be sick.Just let it be overFaches newest update seemed unfathomable, and yet almost nothing tonight made sense anymore. What is going on? Everything had spiraled wildly out of control. What have I gotten Silas into? What have I gotten myself intoOn shaky legs, Aringarosa walked to the cockpit. I compulsion to change destinations. The vaporize glanced over his shoulder and laughed. Youre joking, right? No. I have to get to London immediately. Father, this is a charter flight, not a taxi.I will pay you extra, of course. How much? London is only one hour farther north and requires almost no change of direction, so Its not a question of money, Father, there are other issues. Ten thousand euro. Right now. The operate turned, his eyes all-inclusive with shock. How much? What kind of priest carries that kind of cash?Aringarosa walked back to his black briefcase, opened it, and removed one of the bearer bonds. He handed it to the buff.What is this? the pilot demanded.A ten-thousand-euro bearer bond drawn on the Vatican Bank. The pilot looked dubious. Its the same as cash.Only cash is cash, the pilot said, handing the bond back.Aringarosa felt weak as he steadied himself against the cockpit door. This is a matter of life or death. You must help me. I need to get to London.The pilot eyed the bishops gold ring. Real diamonds?Aringarosa looked at the ring. I could not possibly part with this. The pilot shrugged, turning and foc apply back out the windshield. Aringarosa felt a deepening sadness. He looked at the ring. Everything it stand for was about to be lost to the bishop anyway. After a long moment, he slid the ring from his finger and place it gently on the instrument panel.Aringarosa slunk out of the cockpit and sat back down. Fifteen seconds later, he could feel the pilot banking a few more degrees to the north.Even so, Aringarosas moment of glory was in shambles.It had all begun as a holy cause. A brilliantly crafted scheme. Now, like a house of cards, it was collapsing in on itself and the end was nowhere in sight.CHAPTER 76Langdon could see Sophie was still shaken from recounting her experience of Hieros Gamos. For his part, Langdon was amazed to have heard it. not only had Sophie witnessed the full-blown ritual, but her own grandfather had been the celebrant the Grand Master of the Priory of Sion. It was intoxicating company. Da Vinci, Botticelli, Isaac Newton, Victor Hugo, Jean CocteauJacquesSauniere.I dont know what else I can tell you, Langdon said softly.Sophies eyes were a deep green now, tearful. He raised me like his own daughter.Langdon now recognized the emotion that had been growing in her eyes as they spoke. It was remorse. Distant and deep. Sophie Neveu had shunned her grandfather and was now seeing him in an entirely different light.Outside, the dawn was coming fast, its crimson aura gathering off the starboard. The earth was still black beneath them.Victuals, my dears? Teabing rejoined them with a flourish, presenting several cans of Coke and a box of old crackers. He apologized profusely for the bound fare as he doled out the goods. Our friend the monk isnt talking yet, he chimed, but part him time. He bit into a cracker and eyed the poem. So, my lovely, any headway? He looked at Sophie. What is your grandfather trying to tell us here? Where the devil is this headstone? This headstone praised by Templars. Sophie shook her head and remained silent. While Teabing again dug into the verse, Langdon popped a Coke and turned to the window, his thoughts awash with images of secret rituals and unbroken codes. A headstone praised by Templarsis the key.He took a long sip from the can. A headstone praised by Templars.The cola was warm.The dissolution veil of night seemed to evaporate quickly, and as Langdon watched the transformation, he saw a shimmering ocean stretch out beneath them. The English Channel.It wouldnt be long now.Langdon willed the light of day to bring with it a second kind of illumination, but the lighter it became outside, the further he felt from the truth. He heard the rhythms of iambic pentameter and chanting, Hieros Gamos and sacred rites, resonating with the rumble of the jet.A headstone praised by Templars.The plane was over land again when a daunt of enlightenment struck him. Langdon set down his empty can of Coke hard. You wont believe this, he said, turning to the others. The Templar headstone I figured it out.Teabings eyes turned to saucers. You know where the headstone is? Langdon smiled. Not where it is. What it is. Sophie leaned in to hear.I think the headstone references a literal stone head,Langdon explained, savoring the familiar excitement of academic breakthrough. Not a grave marker.A stone head? Teabing demanded. Sophie looked equally confused. Leigh, Langdon said, turning, during the Inquisition, the Church accused the Knights Templar of all kinds of heresies, right?Correct. They fabricated all kinds of charges. Sodomy, urination on the cross, devil godliness, quite a list.And on that list was the worship of false idols, right? Specifically, the Church accused the Templars of secretly performing rituals in which they prayed to a carved stone head the irreli gious god Baphomet Teabing blurted. My heavens, Robert, youre right A headstone praised by TemplarsLangdon quickly explained to Sophie that Baphomet was a pagan fertility god associated with the creative force of reproduction. Baphomets head was represented as that of a ram or goat, a common symbol of procreation and fecundity. The Templars honored Baphomet by encircling a stone riposte of his head and chanting prayers.Baphomet, Teabing tittered. The ceremony honored the creative magic of sexual union, but Pope merciful convinced everyone that Baphomets head was in fact that of the devil. The Pope used the head of Baphomet as the linchpin in his case against the Templars.Langdon concurred. The modern belief in a horned devil known as morning star could be traced back to Baphomet and the Churchs attempts to recast the horned fertility god as a symbol of evil. The Church had obviously succeeded, although not entirely. Traditional American Thanksgiving tables still bore pagan, horn ed fertility symbols. The magnificence or horn of plenty was a tribute to Baphomets fertility and dated back to Zeus being suckled by a goat whose horn broke off and magically filled with fruit. Baphomet also appeared in group photographs when some joker raised two fingers behind a friends head in the V-symbol of horns certainly few of the pranksters realized their mocking gesture was in fact advertising their victims robust sperm count.Yes, yes, Teabing was saying excitedly. Baphomet must be what the poem is referring to. A headstone praised by Templars.Okay, Sophie said, but if Baphomet is the headstone praised by Templars, then we have a new dilemma. She pointed to the dials on the cryptex. Baphomet has eight letters. We only have room for five.Teabing grinned broadly. My dear, this is where the Atbash goose egg comes into playCHAPTER 77Langdon was impressed. Teabing had just finished writing out the entire twenty-two-letter Hebrew alphabet alef-beit from memory. Granted, he d used Roman equivalents rather than Hebrew characters, but even so, he was now reading through them with perfect pronunciation.A B G D H V Z Ch T Y K L M N S O P Tz Q R Sh ThAlef, Beit, Gimel, Dalet, Hei, Vav, Zayin, Chet, Tet, Yud, Kaf, Lamed, Mem, Nun, Samech, Ayin, Pei, Tzadik, Kuf, Reish, Shin, and Tav. Teabing dramatically mopped his brow and plowed on. In formal Hebrew spelling, the vowel sounds are not written. Therefore, when we write the word Baphomet using the Hebrew alphabet, it will lose its three vowels in translation, leaving us Five letters, Sophie blurted.Teabing nodded and began writing again. Okay, here is the proper spelling of Baphomet inHebrew letters. Ill sketch in the missing vowels for claritys sake.B a P V o M e ThRemember, of course, he added, that Hebrew is normally written in the opposite direction, but we can just as easily use Atbash this way. Next, all we have to do is create our switching scheme by rewriting the entire alphabet in reverse order o pposite the captain alphabet.Theres an easier way, Sophie said, taking the pen from Teabing. It works for all reflectional substitution ciphers, including the Atbash. A little trick I learned at the Royal Holloway. Sophie wrote the first half of the alphabet from left to right, and then, beneath it, wrote the second half, right to left. Cryptanalysts call it the fold-over. Half as complicated. Twice as clean.ABGDHVZChTYKThShRQTzPOSNMLTeabing eyed her handiwork and chuckled. Right you are. Glad to see those boys at the Holloway are doing their job. spirit at Sophies substitution matrix, Langdon felt a rising prime that he imagined must have rivaled the thrill felt by early scholars when they first used the Atbash Cipher to decrypt the now famous conundrum of Sheshach.For years, religious scholars had been baffled by biblical references to a city called Sheshach.The city did not appear on any map nor in any other documents, and yet it was mentioned repeatedly in the Book of Jeremi ah the king of Sheshach, the city of Sheshach, the people of Sheshach. Finally, a scholar applied the Atbash Cipher to the word, and his results were mind-numbing. The cipher revealed that Sheshach was in fact a code word for another very well-known city. The decryption process was simple.Sheshach, in Hebrew, was spelled Sh-Sh-K.Sh-Sh-K, when placed in the substitution matrix, became B-B-L.B-B-L, in Hebrew, spelled Babel.The mysterious city of Sheshach was revealed as the city of Babel, and a frenzy of biblical question ensued. Within weeks, several more Atbash code words were uncovered in the Old Testament, unveiling numberless hidden meanings that scholars had no idea were there.Were getting close, Langdon whispered, unable to control his excitement.Inches, Robert, Teabing said. He glanced over at Sophie and smiled. You active? She nodded. Okay, Baphomet in Hebrew without the vowels reads B-P-V-M-Th.Now we simply apply your Atbash substitution matrix to translate the letters i nto our five-letter password.Langdons heart pounded. B-P-V-M-Th.The sunshine was pouring through the windows now. He looked at Sophies substitution matrix and slowly began to make the conversion. B is ShP is VTeabing was grinning like a schoolboy at Christmas. And the Atbash Cipher reveals He stopped short. Good God His face went white.Langdons head snapped up.Whats wrong? Sophie demanded.You wont believe this. Teabing glanced at Sophie. Especially you. What do you mean? she said. This is ingenious, he whispered. suddenly ingenious Teabing wrote again on the paper. Drumroll, please. Here is your password. He showed them what he had written.Sh-V-P-Y-ASophie scowled. What is it?Langdon didnt recognize it either.Teabings voice seemed to tremble with awe. This, my friend, is really an ancient word of wisdom.Langdon read the letters again. An ancient word of wisdom frees this scroll.An instant later he got it. He had never seen this coming. An ancient word of wisdom Teabing was laughin g. Quite literally Sophie looked at the word and then at the dial. Immediately she realized Langdon and Teabing had failed to see a serious glitch. Hold on This cant be the password, she argued. The cryptex doesnt have an Sh on the dial. It uses a traditional Roman alphabet.Read the word, Langdon urged. Keep in mind two things. In Hebrew, the symbol for the sound Sh can also be pronounced as S, depending on the accent. Just as the letter P can be pronounced F.SVFYA? she thought, puzzled.Genius Teabing added. The letter Vav is often a placeholder for the vowel sound O Sophie again looked at the letters, attempting to sound them out. S o f y a.She heard the sound of her voice, and could not believe what she had just said. Sophia? This spells Sophia?Langdon was nodding enthusiastically. Yes Sophia literally means wisdom in Greek. The root of your name, Sophie, is literally a word of wisdom.Sophie suddenly missed her grandfather immensely. He encrypted the Priory keystone with my name. A statute mile caught in her throat. It all seemed so perfect. But as she turned her gaze to the five lettered dials on the cryptex, she realized a problem still existed. But wait the word Sophia has six letters.Teabings smile never faded. Look at the poem again. Your grandfather wrote, An ancient word of wisdom. Yes? Teabing winked. In ancient Greek, wisdom is spelled S-O-F-I-A.