The Da Vinci Code

The power of the Sangreal documents, Langdon explains, lies in their revelation of “the true nature of the Grail” (175). According to the Priory, the Grail is not a literal chalice, but a metaphor for something more powerful. He is about to reveal the secret when the taxi driver utters Langdon’s name into his two-way radio. Sophie grabs the pistol from Langdon’s pocket (the weapon confiscated from the security guard at the museum), points it at the driver, and orders him to pull over and get out of the car. Langdon gets behind the wheel, and they drive off.

Inside his sparsely furnished room, Silas ponders his actions: four members of the Priory and one nun dead, and he is no closer to the keystone. He considers suicide—not only has he implicated himself but Aringarosa as well. For the time being, he settles for another round of corporal mortification.

Sophie, now behind the wheel of the taxi, drives toward the designated address while Langdon contemplates the magnitude of their potential discovery: the Holy Grail, hidden by the Priory for centuries, now rumored to be somewhere in Great Britain. Da Vinci is a central figure of the Grail’s mystery, the mischievous Priory Grand Master who may or may not have left clues behind in his artwork.

Sophie speculates that her grandfather’s key could reveal the location of the Grail, but Langdon is skeptical. The chances that Sauniére could be one of only four Priory sénéchaux to have access to this most closely guarded secret are slim indeed.

They finally reach the address on Sauniére’s message: a Swiss bank, its logo an enormous, equal-armed cross. The key is for a safety deposit box.

Aringarosa is escorted to the library at Castel Gandolfo where a group of high-ranking Vatican officials wait. A briefcase full of “[L]arge denomination bearer bonds drawn on the Vatican Bank” sits on a conference table (189). The bonds are directly traceable to the Vatican, a fact which makes the officials anxious. The Teacher has insisted on bonds—as opposed to cash—specifically for that reason: insurance that he cannot be implicated. Aringarosa takes the bonds and leaves, headed for Paris.

At the Swiss bank, Sophie uses Sauniére’s key to open a series of security gates and the front door. Once inside, a guard directs them to an elevator. They board the elevator, but the guard, having recognized Langdon and Sophie’s faces from the news, reports them as fugitives to the bank manager.

Several levels below ground, a bank employee escorts them to a private room and informs them of access procedures: both the key and an account number are required. A phone rings in the room, and the manager informs the employee that Langdon and Sophie are fugitives. The employee excuses himself, locking them in the room. Across town, Interpol alerts Fache that Langdon and Sophie have entered the bank. 

André Vernet, the bank manager, descends to the underground room to deal with Langdon and Sophie. He intends to get them out before the police arrive to avoid legal entanglements. Upon entering the room, he is shocked to find Sauniére’s granddaughter, and even more horrified to discover Sauniére, an old friend, has been murdered. Sophie relates the story of her grandfather’s murder and of the clues he left, pleading with the bank manager for help. He is powerless; he claims to know nothing of the Priory, and account numbers are known only to the account holder.

The police arrive sooner than expected, but Vernet agrees to stall them while helping Langdon and Sophie escape. Suddenly, Langdon realizes they’ve had the account number all along: the number Sauniére wrote on the gallery floor before he died.

Langdon enters the 10-digit number into the bank computer, but Sophie hesitates. It’s too coincidental that the number could be reorganized into the Fibonacci sequence. Sauniére would have been cleverer than that. She deletes the previous numbers and enters the unscrambled Fibonacci sequence. The automated system retrieves a large plastic crate. They open it and find a single item: a small, wooden box with a rose inlay embedded into the lid—the Priory’s symbol for the Holy Grail. As they remove the box from the crate, they hear liquid gurgling inside. They open it, but what’s inside is definitely not a chalice.

Vernet returns to inform Sophie and Langdon that the police have blocked off the street. Langdon wraps the box in his jacket, and Vernet leads them through a series of corridors to the loading dock. He hides them in the back of an armored truck, dons a driver’s uniform and pistol, and drives through the security gate. At the top of the garage ramp, Collet stops him., Vernet feigns ignorance and claims he doesn’t have the keys to the truck’s cargo hold. After further questioning, Collet lets the truck pass.

Silas lies on a mat in his small room, his back torn and bleeding from the punishing ritual of corporal mortification. Feeling duped and hopeless, the keystone quest at a dead end, he calls the Teacher to report the bad news. The Teacher, in whom Aringarosa has instructed Silas to place full faith, tells the monk that all is not lost: “Our work tonight is not yet done” (213).

Inside the armored truck’s cargo hold, Langdon opens the wooden box. Inside is a white marble cylinder the size of a can of tennis balls. It is constructed of five separate pieces, each of which is inscribed with the letters of the alphabet around its circumference. The cylinder, Sophie tells Langdon, is a cryptex, a portable vault for storing information and an invention of Da Vinci’s. Opening it requires all five pieces to be aligned in the correct order. Forcing open the cryptex is useless; if broken, vinegar will dissolve the message inside, written on papyrus. As Langdon explains the symbolism of the rose—femininity, secrecy, and direction—he has a flash of insight. He believes he knows what the cryptex is.

Given the source of the cryptex and the inlaid rose on the wooden box, Langdon can only suppose the cryptex is the Priory keystone. Masons guarded the secret of architectural keystones, Langdon notes, but the Priory keystone is of a different sort entirely. It is, he claims, a coded roadmap that reveals the location of the Holy Grail. Until recently, the secret location was only passed on verbally to top members of the Priory. Fears of electronic eavesdropping necessitated stronger security measures; hence, the keystone. Having witnessed a clandestine ritual in her grandfather’s basement 10 years prior, Sophie is convinced Sauniére was the Priory’s Grand Master. Langdon is befuddled. Why, he wonders, would a Priory Grand Master want to meet with him, and why would he pass on such a deep, dark secret to his granddaughter when three other sénéchaux are waiting in the wings for that purpose? His thoughts are interrupted by the truck slowing to a stop. Vernet opens the doors, a pistol in his hand. “‘I’m sorry about this,’ he said. ‘I really have no choice’” (225).