The Da Vinci Code

CHAPTER 47

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Riding inside the dimly lit cargo hold of the armored truck was like being transported inside a cell 
for solitary confinement. Langdon fought the all too familiar anxiety that haunted him in confined 
spaces. Vernet said he would take us a safe distance out of the city. Where? How far?
Langdon's legs had gotten stiff from sitting cross-legged on the metal floor, and he shifted his 
position, wincing to feel the blood pouring back into his lower body. In his arms, he still clutched 
the bizarre treasure they had extricated from the bank.
"I think we're on the highway now," Sophie whispered.
Langdon sensed the same thing. The truck, after an unnerving pause atop the bank ramp, had 
moved on, snaking left and right for a minute or two, and was now accelerating to what felt like top 
speed. Beneath them, the bulletproof tires hummed on smooth pavement. Forcing his attention to 
the rosewood box in his arms, Langdon laid the precious bundle on the floor, unwrapped his jacket, 
and extracted the box, pulling it toward him. Sophie shifted her position so they were sitting side 
by side. Langdon suddenly felt like they were two kids huddled over a Christmas present.
In contrast to the warm colors of the rosewood box, the inlaid rose had been crafted of a pale wood, 
probably ash, which shone clearly in the dim light. The Rose. Entire armies and religions had been 
built on this symbol, as had secret societies. The Rosicrucians. The Knights of the Rosy Cross.
"Go ahead," Sophie said. "Open it."
Langdon took a deep breath. Reaching for the lid, he stole one more admiring glance at the 
intricate woodwork and then, unhooking the clasp, he opened the lid, revealing the object within.
Langdon had harbored several fantasies about what they might find inside this box, but clearly he 
had been wrong on every account. Nestled snugly inside the box's heavily padded interior of 
crimson silk lay an object Langdon could not even begin to comprehend.
Crafted of polished white marble, it was a stone cylinder approximately the dimensions of a tennis 
ball can. More complicated than a simple column of stone, however, the cylinder appeared to have 
been assembled in many pieces. Six doughnut-sized disks of marble had been stacked and affixed 
to one another within a delicate brass framework. It looked like some kind of tubular, multiwheeled 
kaleidoscope. Each end of the cylinder was affixed with an end cap, also marble, making it 
impossible to see inside. Having heard liquid within, Langdon assumed the cylinder was hollow.
As mystifying as the construction of the cylinder was, however, it was the engravings around the 
tube's circumference that drew Langdon's primary focus. Each of the six disks had been carefully 
carved with the same unlikely series of letters—the entire alphabet. The lettered cylinder reminded 
Langdon of one of his childhood toys—a rod threaded with lettered tumblers that could be rotated 
to spell different words.

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"Amazing, isn't it?" Sophie whispered.
Langdon glanced up. "I don't know. What the hell is it?"
Now there was a glint in Sophie's eye. "My grandfather used to craft these as a hobby. They were 
invented by Leonardo da Vinci."
Even in the diffuse light, Sophie could see Langdon's surprise.
"Da Vinci?" he muttered, looking again at the canister.
"Yes. It's called a cryptex. According to my grandfather, the blueprints come from one of Da 
Vinci's secret diaries."
"What is it for?"
Considering tonight's events, Sophie knew the answer might have some interesting implications. 
"It's a vault," she said. "For storing secret information."
Langdon's eyes widened further.
Sophie explained that creating models of Da Vinci's inventions was one of her grandfather's best-
loved hobbies. A talented craftsman who spent hours in his wood and metal shop, Jacques Saunière 
enjoyed imitating master craftsmen—Fabergé, assorted cloisonne artisans, and the less artistic, but 
far more practical, Leonardo da Vinci.
Even a cursory glance through Da Vinci's journals revealed why the luminary was as notorious for 
his lack of follow-through as he was famous for his brilliance. Da Vinci had drawn up blueprints 
for hundreds of inventions he had never built. One of Jacques Saunière's favorite pastimes was 
bringing Da Vinci's more obscure brainstorms to life—timepieces, water pumps, cryptexes, and 
even a fully articulated model of a medieval French knight, which now stood proudly on the desk 
in his office. Designed by Da Vinci in 1495 as an outgrowth of his earliest anatomy and 
kinesiology studies, the internal mechanism of the robot knight possessed accurate joints and 
tendons, and was designed to sit up, wave its arms, and move its head via a flexible neck while 
opening and closing an anatomically correct jaw. This armor-clad knight, Sophie had always 
believed, was the most beautiful object her grandfather had ever built... that was, until she had seen 
the cryptex in this rosewood box.
"He made me one of these when I was little," Sophie said. "But I've never seen one so ornate and 
large."
Langdon's eyes had never left the box. "I've never heard of a cryptex."

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Sophie was not surprised. Most of Leonardo's unbuilt inventions had never been studied or even 
named. The term cryptex possibly had been her grandfather's creation, an apt title for this device 
that used the science of cryptology to protect information written on the contained scroll or codex.
Da Vinci had been a cryptology pioneer, Sophie knew, although he was seldom given credit. 
Sophie's university instructors, while presenting computer encryption methods for securing data, 
praised modern cryptologists like Zimmerman and Schneier but failed to mention that it was 
Leonardo who had invented one of the first rudimentary forms of public key encryption centuries 
ago. Sophie's grandfather, of course, had been the one to tell her all about that.
As their armored truck roared down the highway, Sophie explained to Langdon that the cryptex 
had been Da Vinci's solution to the dilemma of sending secure messages over long distances. In an 
era without telephones or e-mail, anyone wanting to convey private information to someone far 
away had no option but to write it down and then trust a messenger to carry the letter. 
Unfortunately, if a messenger suspected the letter might contain valuable information, he could 
make far more money selling the information to adversaries than he could delivering the letter 
properly.
Many great minds in history had invented cryptologic solutions to the challenge of data protection: 
Julius Caesar devised a code-writing scheme called the Caesar Box; Mary, Queen of Scots created 
a transposition cipher and sent secret communiqués from prison; and the brilliant Arab scientist 
Abu Yusuf Ismail al-Kindi protected his secrets with an ingeniously conceived polyalphabetic 
substitution cipher.
Da Vinci, however, eschewed mathematics and cryptology for a mechanical solution. The cryptex. 
A portable container that could safeguard letters, maps, diagrams, anything at all. Once information 
was sealed inside the cryptex, only the individual with the proper password could access it.
"We require a password," Sophie said, pointing out the lettered dials. "A cryptex works much like a 
bicycle's combination lock. If you align the dials in the proper position, the lock slides open. This 
cryptex has five lettered dials. When you rotate them to their proper sequence, the tumblers inside 
align, and the entire cylinder slides apart."
"And inside?"
"Once the cylinder slides apart, you have access to a hollow central compartment, which can hold a 
scroll of paper on which is the information you want to keep private."
Langdon looked incredulous. "And you say your grandfather built these for you when you were 
younger?"
"Some smaller ones, yes. A couple times for my birthday, he gave me a cryptex and told me a 
riddle. The answer to the riddle was the password to the cryptex, and once I figured it out, I could 

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open it up and find my birthday card."
"A lot of work for a card."
"No, the cards always contained another riddle or clue. My grandfather loved creating elaborate 
treasure hunts around our house, a string of clues that eventually led to my real gift. Each treasure 
hunt was a test of character and merit, to ensure I earned my rewards. And the tests were never 
simple."
Langdon eyed the device again, still looking skeptical. "But why not just pry it apart? Or smash it? 
The metal looks delicate, and marble is a soft rock."
Sophie smiled. "Because Da Vinci is too smart for that. He designed the cryptex so that if you try 
to force it open in any way, the information self-destructs. Watch." Sophie reached into the box and 
carefully lifted out the cylinder. "Any information to be inserted is first written on a papyrus 
scroll."
"Not vellum?"
Sophie shook her head. "Papyrus. I know sheep's vellum was more durable and more common in 
those days, but it had to be papyrus. The thinner the better."
"Okay."
"Before the papyrus was inserted into the cryptex's compartment, it was rolled around a delicate 
glass vial." She tipped the cryptex, and the liquid inside gurgled. "A vial of liquid."
"Liquid what?"
Sophie smiled. "Vinegar."
Langdon hesitated a moment and then began nodding. "Brilliant."