达芬奇密码英文电子书9-10章

2024年2月10日发(作者：庄晓岩)

CHAPTER 9

To ensure his conversation with Mr. Langdon would not be interrupted, Bezu

Fache had turned off his cellular phone. Unfortunately, it was an expensive

model equipped with a two-way radio feature, which, contrary to his orders,

was now being ud by one of his agents to page him.

"Capitaine?" The phone crackled like a walkie-talkie.

Fache felt his teeth clench in rage. He could imagine nothing important enough

that Collet would interrupt this surveillance cachée—especially at this critical

juncture.

He gave Langdon a calm look of apology. "One moment plea." He pulled the

phone from his belt and presd the radio transmission button. "Oui?"

"Capitaine, un agent du Département de Cryptographie est arrivé."

Fache's anger stalled momentarily. A cryptographer? Despite the lousy timing,

this was probably good news. Fache, after finding Saunière's cryptic text on the

floor, had uploaded photographs of the entire crime scene to the Cryptography

Department in hopes someone there could tell him what the hell Saunière was

trying to say. If a code breaker had now arrived, it most likely meant someone

had decrypted Saunière's message.

"I'm busy at the moment," Fache radioed back, leaving no doubt in his tone

that a line had been crosd. "Ask the cryptographer to wait at the command

post. I'll speak to him when I'm done."

"Her," the voice corrected. "It's Agent Neveu."

Fache was becoming less amud with this call every passing moment.

Sophie Neveu was one of DCPJ's biggest mistakes. A young Parisian

déchiffreu who had studied cryptography in England at the Royal Holloway,

Sophie Neveu had been foisted on Fache two years ago as part of the

ministry's attempt to incorporate more women into the police force. The

ministry's ongoing foray into political correctness, Fache argued, was

weakening the department. Women not only lacked the physicality necessary

for police work, but their mere prence pod a dangerous distraction to the

men in the field. As Fache had feared, Sophie Neveu was proving far more

distracting than most.

At thirty-two years old, she had a dogged determination that bordered on

obstinate. Her eager espousal of Britain's new cryptologic methodology

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continually exasperated the veteran French cryptographers above her. And by

far the most troubling to Fache was the inescapable universal truth that in an

office of middle-aged men, an attractive young woman always drew eyes away

from the work at hand.

The man on the radio said, "Agent Neveu insisted on speaking to you

immediately, Captain. I tried to stop her, but she's on her way into the gallery."

Fache recoiled in disbelief. "Unacceptable! I made it very clear—"

For a moment, Robert Langdon thought Bezu Fache was suffering a stroke.

The captain was mid-ntence when his jaw stopped moving and his eyes

bulged. His blistering gaze emed fixated on something over Langdon's

shoulder. Before Langdon could turn to e what it was, he heard a woman's

voice chime out behind him.

"Excuz-moi, messieurs."

Langdon turned to e a young woman approaching. She was moving down

the corridor toward them with long, a haunting certainty to her

gait. Dresd casually in a knee-length, cream-colored Irish sweater over

black leggings, she was attractive and looked to be about thirty. Her thick

burgundy hair fell unstyled to her shoulders, framing the warmth of her face.

Unlike the waifish, cookie-cutter blondes that adorned Harvard dorm room

walls, this woman was healthy with an unembellished beauty and genuineness

that radiated a striking personal confidence.

To Langdon's surpri, the woman walked directly up to him and extended a

polite hand. "Monsieur Langdon, I am Agent Neveu from DCPJ's Cryptology

Department." Her words curved richly around her muted Anglo-Franco accent.

"It is a pleasure to meet you."

Langdon took her soft palm in his and felt himlf momentarily fixed in her

strong gaze. Her eyes were olive-green—incisive and clear.

Fache drew a ething inhalation, clearly preparing to launch into a reprimand.

"Captain," she said, turning quickly and beating him to the punch, "plea

excu the interruption, but—"

"Ce n'est pas le moment!" Fache sputtered.

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"I tried to phone you." Sophie continued in English, as if out of courtesy to

Langdon. "But your cell phone was turned off."

"I turned it off for a reason," Fache hisd. "I am speaking to Mr. Langdon."

"I've deciphered the numeric code," she said flatly.

Langdon felt a pul of excitement. She broke the code?

Fache looked uncertain how to respond.

"Before I explain," Sophie said, "I have an urgent message for Mr. Langdon."

Fache's expression turned to one of deepening concern. "For Mr. Langdon?"

She nodded, turning back to Langdon. "You need to contact the U.S. Embassy,

Mr. Langdon. They have a message for you from the States."

Langdon reacted with surpri, his excitement over the code giving way to a

sudden ripple of concern. A message from the States? He tried to imagine who

could be trying to reach him. Only a few of his colleagues knew he was in

Paris.

Fache's broad jaw had tightened with the news. "The U.S. Embassy?" he

demanded, sounding suspicious. "How would they know to find Mr. Langdon

here?"

Sophie shrugged. "Apparently they called Mr. Langdon's hotel, and the

concierge told them Mr. Langdon had been collected by a DCPJ agent."

Fache looked troubled. "And the embassy contacted DCPJ Cryptography?"

"No, sir," Sophie said, her voice firm. "When I called the DCPJ switchboard in

an attempt to contact you, they had a message waiting for Mr. Langdon and

asked me to pass it along if I got through to you."

Fache's brow furrowed in apparent confusion. He opened his mouth to speak,

but Sophie had already turned back to Langdon.

"Mr. Langdon," she declared, pulling a small slip of paper from her pocket, "this

is the number for your embassy's messaging rvice. They asked that you

phone in as soon as possible." She handed him the paper with an intent gaze.

"While I explain the code to Captain Fache, you need to make this call."

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Langdon studied the slip. It had a Paris phone number and extension on it.

"Thank you," he said, feeling worried now. "Where do I find a phone?"

Sophie began to pull a cell phone from her sweater pocket, but Fache waved

her off. He now looked like Mount Vesuvius about to erupt. Without taking his

eyes off Sophie, he produced his own cell phone and held it out. "This line is

cure, Mr. Langdon. You may u it."

Langdon felt mystified by Fache's anger with the young woman. Feeling

uneasy, he accepted the captain's phone. Fache immediately marched Sophie

veral steps away and began chastising her in hushed tones. Disliking the

captain more and more, Langdon turned away from the odd confrontation and

switched on the cell phone. Checking the slip of paper Sophie had given him,

Langdon dialed the number.

The line began to ring.

Finally the call connected.

Langdon expected to hear an embassy operator, but he found himlf instead

listening to an answering machine. Oddly, the voice on the tape was familiar. It

was that of Sophie Neveu.

"Bonjour, vous êtes bien chez Sophie Neveu," the woman's voice said. "Je suis

abnle pour le moment, "

Confud, Langdon turned back toward Sophie. "I'm sorry, Ms. Neveu? I think

you may have given me—"

"No, that's the right number," Sophie interjected quickly, as if anticipating

Langdon's confusion. "The embassy has an automated message system. You

have to dial an access code to pick up your messages."

Langdon stared. "But—"

"It's the three-digit code on the paper I gave you."

Langdon opened his mouth to explain the bizarre error, but Sophie flashed him

a silencing glare that lasted only an instant. Her green eyes nt a crystal-clear

message.

Don't ask questions. Just do it.

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Bewildered, Langdon punched in the extension on the slip of paper: 454.

Sophie's outgoing message immediately cut off, and Langdon heard an

electronic voice announce in French: "You have one new message."

Apparently, 454 was Sophie's remote access code for picking up her

messages while away from home.

I'm picking up this woman's messages?

Langdon could hear the tape rewinding now. Finally, it stopped, and the

machine engaged. Langdon listened as the message began to play. Again, the

voice on the line was Sophie's.

"Mr. Langdon," the message began in a fearful whisper. "Do not react to this

message. Just listen calmly. You are in danger right now. Follow my directions

very cloly."

CHAPTER 10

Silas sat behind the wheel of the black Audi the Teacher had arranged for him and

gazed out at the great Church of Saint-Sulpice. Lit from beneath by banks of

floodlights, the church's two bell towers ro like stalwart ntinels above the

building's long body. On either flank, a shadowy row of sleek buttress jutted out

like the ribs of a beautiful beast.

The heathens ud a hou of God to conceal their keystone. Again the brotherhood

had confirmed their legendary reputation for illusion and deceit. Silas was looking

forward to finding the keystone and giving it to the Teacher so they could recover

what the brotherhood had long ago stolen from the faithful.

How powerful that will make Opus Dei.

Parking the Audi on the derted Place Saint-Sulpice, Silas exhaled, telling himlf to

clear his mind for the task at hand. His broad back still ached from the corporal

mortification he had endured earlier today, and yet the pain was inconquential

compared with the anguish of his life before Opus Dei had saved him.

Still, the memories haunted his soul.

Relea your hatred, Silas commanded himlf. Forgive tho who trespasd against

you.

Looking up at the stone towers of Saint-Sulpice, Silas fought that

that force that often dragged his mind back in time, locking him once again in the

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prison that had been his world as a young man. The memories of purgatory came as

they always did, like a tempest to the reek of rotting cabbage, the stench

of death, human urine and feces. The cries of hopelessness against the howling wind

of the Pyrenees and the soft sobs of forgotten men.

Andorra, he thought, feeling his muscles tighten.

Incredibly, it was in that barren and forsaken suzerain between Spain and France,

shivering in his stone cell, wanting only to die, that Silas had been saved.

He had not realized it at the time.

The light came long after the thunder.

His name was not Silas then, although he didn't recall the name his parents had given

him. He had left home when he was ven. His drunken father, a burly dockworker,

enraged by the arrival of an albino son, beat his mother regularly, blaming her for the

boy's embarrassing condition. When the boy tried to defend her, he too was badly

beaten.

One night, there was a horrific fight, and his mother never got up. The boy stood over

his lifeless mother and felt an unbearable up-welling of guilt for permitting it to

happen.

This is my fault!

As if some kind of demon were controlling his body, the boy walked to the kitchen

and grasped a butcher knife. Hypnotically, he moved to the bedroom where his father

lay on the bed in a drunken stupor. Without a word, the boy stabbed him in the back.

His father cried out in pain and tried to roll over, but his son stabbed him again, over

and over until the apartment fell quiet.

The boy fled home but found the streets of Marilles equally unfriendly. His strange

appearance made him an outcast among the other young runaways, and he was forced

to live alone in the bament of a dilapidated factory, eating stolen fruit and raw fish

from the dock. His only companions were tattered magazines he found in the trash,

and he taught himlf to read them. Over time, he grew strong. When he was twelve,

another drifter—a girl twice his age—mocked him on the streets and attempted to

steal his food. The girl found herlf pummeled to within inches of her life. When the

authorities pulled the boy off her, they gave him an ultimatum—leave Marilles or

go to juvenile prison.

The boy moved down the coast to Toulon. Over time, the looks of pity on the streets

turned to looks of fear. The boy had grown to a powerful young man. When people

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pasd by, he could hear them whispering to one another. A ghost, they would say,

their eyes wide with fright as they stared at his white skin. A ghost with the eyes of a

devil!

And he felt like floating from aport to aport.

People emed to look right through him.

At eighteen, in a port town, while attempting to steal a ca of cured ham from a

cargo ship, he was caught by a pair of crewmen. The two sailors who began to beat

him smelled of beer, just as his father had. The memories of fear and hatred surfaced

like a monster from the deep. The young man broke the first sailor's neck with his

bare hands, and only the arrival of the police saved the cond sailor from a similar

fate.

Two months later, in shackles, he arrived at a prison in Andorra.

You are as white as a ghost, the inmates ridiculed as the guards marched him in,

naked and cold. Mira el espectro! Perhaps the ghost will pass right through the

walls!

Over the cour of twelve years, his flesh and soul withered until he knew he had

become transparent.

I am a ghost.

I am weightless.

Yo soy palido coma caminando este mundo a solas.

One night the ghost awoke to the screams of other inmates. He didn't know what

invisible force was shaking the floor on which he slept, nor what mighty hand was

trembling the mortar of his stone cell, but as he jumped to his feet, a large boulder

toppled onto the very spot where he had been sleeping. Looking up to e where the

stone had come from, he saw a hole in the trembling wall, and beyond it, a vision he

had not en in over ten years. The moon.

Even while the earth still shook, the ghost found himlf scrambling through a narrow

tunnel, staggering out into an expansive vista, and tumbling down a barren

mountainside into the woods. He ran all night, always downward, delirious with

hunger and exhaustion.

Skirting the edges of consciousness, he found himlf at dawn in a clearing where

train tracks cut a swath across the forest. Following the rails, he moved on as if

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dreaming. Seeing an empty freight car, he crawled in for shelter and rest. When he

awoke the train was moving. How long? How far? A pain was growing in his gut. Am

I dying? He slept again. This time he awoke to someone yelling, beating him,

throwing him out of the freight car. Bloody, he wandered the outskirts of a small

village looking in vain for food. Finally, his body too weak to take another step, he lay

down by the side of the road and slipped into unconsciousness.

The light came slowly, and the ghost wondered how long he had been dead. A day?

Three days? It didn't matter. His bed was soft like a cloud, and the air around him

smelled sweet with candles. Jesus was there, staring down at him. I am here, Jesus

said. The stone has been rolled aside, and you are born again.

He slept and awoke. Fog shrouded his thoughts. He had never believed in heaven, and

yet Jesus was watching over him. Food appeared beside his bed, and the ghost ate it,

almost able to feel the flesh materializing on his bones. He slept again. When he

awoke, Jesus was still smiling down, speaking. You are saved, my son. Blesd are

tho who follow my path.

Again, he slept.

It was a scream of anguish that startled the ghost from his slumber. His body leapt out

of bed, staggered down a hallway toward the sounds of shouting. He entered into a

kitchen and saw a large man beating a smaller man. Without knowing why, the ghost

grabbed the large man and hurled him backward against a wall. The man fled, leaving

the ghost standing over the body of a young man in priest's robes. The priest had a

badly shattered no. Lifting the bloody priest, the ghost carried him to a couch.

"Thank you, my friend," the priest said in awkward French. "The offertory money is

tempting for thieves. You speak French in your sleep. Do you also speak Spanish?"

The ghost shook his head.

"What is your name?" he continued in broken French.

The ghost could not remember the name his parents had given him. All he heard were

the taunting gibes of the prison guards.

The priest smiled. "No hay problema. My name is Manuel Aringarosa. I am a

missionary from Madrid. I was nt here to build a church for the Obra de Dios."

"Where am I?" His voice sounded hollow.

"Oviedo. In the north of Spain."

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"How did I get here?"

"Someone left you on my doorstep. You were ill. I fed you. You've been here many

days."

The ghost studied his young caretaker. Years had pasd since anyone had shown any

kindness. "Thank you, Father."

The priest touched his bloody lip. "It is I who am thankful, my friend."

When the ghost awoke in the morning, his world felt clearer. He gazed up at the

crucifix on the wall above his bed. Although it no longer spoke to him, he felt a

comforting aura in its prence. Sitting up, he was surprid to find a newspaper

clipping on his bedside table. The article was in French, a week old. When he read the

story, he filled with fear. It told of an earthquake in the mountains that had destroyed a

prison and freed many dangerous criminals.

His heart began pounding. The priest knows who I am! The emotion he felt was one

he had not felt for some time. Shame. Guilt. It was accompanied by the fear of being

caught. He jumped from his bed. Where do I run?

"The Book of Acts," a voice said from the door.

The ghost turned, frightened.

The young priest was smiling as he entered. His no was awkwardly bandaged, and

he was holding out an old Bible. "I found one in French for you. The chapter is

marked."

Uncertain, the ghost took the Bible and looked at the chapter the priest had marked.

Acts 16.

The vers told of a prisoner named Silas who lay naked and beaten in his cell,

singing hymns to God. When the ghost reached Ver 26, he gasped in shock.

"...And suddenly, there was a great earthquake, so that the foundations of the prison

were shaken, and all the doors fell open."

His eyes shot up at the priest.

The priest smiled warmly. "From now on, my friend, if you have no other name, I

shall call you Silas."

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The ghost nodded blankly. Silas. He had been given flesh. My name is Silas.

"It's time for breakfast," the priest said. "You will need your strength if you are to help

me build this church."

Twenty thousand feet above the Mediterranean, Alitalia flight 1618 bounced in

turbulence, causing pasngers to shift nervously. Bishop Aringarosa barely noticed.

His thoughts were with the future of Opus Dei. Eager to know how plans in Paris

were progressing, he wished he could phone Silas. But he could not. The Teacher had

en to that.

"It is for your own safety," the Teacher had explained, speaking in English with a

French accent. "I am familiar enough with electronic communications to know they

can be intercepted. The results could be disastrous for you."

Aringarosa knew he was right. The Teacher emed an exceptionally careful man. He

had not revealed his own identity to Aringarosa, and yet he had proven himlf a man

well worth obeying. After all, he had somehow obtained very cret information. The

names of the brotherhood's four top members! This had been one of the coups that

convinced the bishop the Teacher was truly capable of delivering the astonishing prize

he claimed he could unearth.

"Bishop," the Teacher had told him, "I have made all the arrangements. For my plan

to succeed, you must allow Silas to answer only to me for veral days. The two of

you will not speak. I will communicate with him through cure channels."

"You will treat him with respect?"

"A man of faith derves the highest."

"Excellent. Then I understand. Silas and I shall not speak until this is over."

"I do this to protect your identity, Silas's identity, and my investment."

"Your investment?"

"Bishop, if your own eagerness to keep abreast of progress puts you in jail, then you

will be unable to pay me my fee."

The bishop smiled. "A fine point. Our desires are in accord. Godspeed."

Twenty million euro, the bishop thought, now gazing out the plane's window. The sum

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was approximately the same number of U.S. dollars. A pittance for something so

powerful.

He felt a renewed confidence that the Teacher and Silas would not fail. Money and

faith were powerful motivators

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