It took only seconds to realize her instinct had been wrong. The back of the painting was pale and
blank. There was no purple text here, only the mottled brown backside of aging canvas and—
Wait.
Sophie's eyes locked on an incongruous glint of lustrous metal lodged
near the bottom edge of the
frame's wooden armature. The object was small, partially wedged in the slit where the canvas met
the frame. A shimmering gold chain dangled off it.
To Sophie's utter amazement, the chain was affixed to a familiar gold key. The broad, sculpted
head was in the shape of a cross and bore an engraved seal she had not seen since she was nine
years old. A fleur-de-lis with the initials P.S. In that instant, Sophie felt the
ghost of her grandfather
whispering in her ear.
When the time comes, the key will be yours. A tightness gripped her throat as
she realized that her grandfather, even in death, had kept his promise.
This key opens a box, his
voice was saying,
where I keep many secrets.
Sophie now realized that the entire purpose of tonight's word game had been this key. Her
grandfather had it with him when he was killed. Not wanting it to fall into the hands of the police,
he hid it behind this painting. Then he devised an ingenious treasure
hunt to ensure only Sophie
would find it.
"Au secours!" the guard's voice yelled.
Sophie snatched the key from behind the painting and slipped it deep in her pocket along with the
UV penlight. Peering out from behind the canvas, she could see the guard was still trying
desperately to raise someone on the walkie-talkie. He was backing toward the entrance, still aiming
the gun firmly at Langdon.
"Au secours!" he shouted again into his radio.
Static.
He can't transmit, Sophie realized, recalling that tourists with cell phones
often got frustrated in
here when they tried to call home to brag about seeing the
Mona Lisa. The extra surveillance
wiring in the walls made it virtually impossible to get a carrier unless you stepped out into the hall.
The guard was backing quickly toward the exit now, and Sophie knew she had to act immediately.
Gazing up at the large painting behind which she was partially ensconced, Sophie realized that
Leonardo da Vinci, for the second time tonight, was there to help.
Another few meters, Grouard told himself, keeping his gun leveled.
"Arrêtez! Ou je la détruis!" the woman's voice echoed across the room.
Grouard glanced over and stopped in his tracks.
"Mon dieu, non!"
Through the reddish haze, he could see that the woman had actually lifted the large painting off its
cables and propped it on the floor in front of her. At five feet tall, the canvas almost entirely hid her
body. Grouard's first thought was to wonder why the painting's trip wires hadn't set off alarms, but
of course the artwork cable sensors had yet to be reset tonight.
What is she doing!
When he saw it, his blood went cold.
The canvas
started to bulge in the middle, the fragile outlines of the Virgin Mary, Baby Jesus, and
John the Baptist beginning to distort.
"Non!" Grouard screamed, frozen in horror as he watched the priceless Da Vinci stretching. The
woman was pushing her knee into the center of the canvas from behind!
"NON!"
Grouard wheeled and aimed his gun at her but instantly realized it was an empty threat. The canvas
was only fabric, but it was utterly impenetrable—a six-million-dollar piece of body armor.
I can't put a bullet through a Da Vinci!
"Set down your gun and radio," the woman said in calm French, "or I'll
put my knee through this
painting. I think you know how my grandfather would feel about that."
Grouard felt dizzy. "Please... no. That's
Madonna of the Rocks!" He dropped his gun and radio,
raising his hands over his head.
"Thank you," the woman said. "Now do exactly as I tell you, and everything will work out fine."
Moments later, Langdon's pulse was still thundering as he ran beside Sophie down the emergency
stairwell toward the ground level. Neither of them had said a word since leaving the trembling
Louvre guard lying in the Salle des Etats. The guard's pistol was now clutched tightly in Langdon's
hands, and he couldn't wait to get rid of it. The weapon felt heavy and dangerously foreign.
Taking the stairs two at a time, Langdon wondered if Sophie had any idea how valuable a painting
she had almost ruined. Her choice in art seemed eerily pertinent to tonight's adventure. The Da
Vinci she had grabbed, much like the
Mona Lisa, was notorious among
art historians for its
plethora of hidden pagan symbolism.
"You chose a valuable hostage," he said as they ran.
"Madonna of the Rocks," she replied. "But I didn't choose it, my grandfather did. He left me a little
something behind the painting."
Langdon shot her a startled look. "What!? But how did you know which painting? Why
Madonna
of the Rocks?"
"So dark the con of man." She flashed a triumphant smile. "I missed the first two anagrams,
Robert. I wasn't about to miss the third."
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