The Da Vinci Code Read Online Free PDF Page A

looking forward to picking his brain.”
    Fache glanced up. “Pardon?”
    The idiom apparently didn't translate. “I was looking forward to learning his thoughts on the topic.”
    “I see. And what is the topic?”
    Langdon hesitated, uncertain exactly how to put it. “Essentially, the manuscript is about the iconography of goddess worship—the concept of female sanctity and the art and symbols associated with it.”
    Fache ran a meaty hand across his hair. “And Saunière was knowledgeable about this?”
    “Nobody more so.”
    “I see.”
    Langdon sensed Fache did not see at all. Jacques Saunière was considered the premiere goddess iconographer on earth. Not only did Saunière have a personal passion for relics relating to fertility, goddess cults, Wicca, and the sacred feminine, but during his twenty-year tenure as curator, Saunière had helped the Louvre amass the largest collection of goddess art on earth—labrys axes from the priestesses' oldest Greek shrine in Delphi, gold caducei wands, hundreds of Tjet ankhs resembling small standing angels, sistrum rattles used in ancient Egypt to dispel evil spirits, and an astonishing array of statues depicting Horus being nursed by the goddess Isis.
    “Perhaps Jacques Saunière knew of your manuscript?” Fache offered. “And he called the meeting to offer his help on your book.”
    Langdon shook his head. “Actually, nobody yet knows about my manuscript. It's still in draft form, and I haven't shown it to anyone except my editor.”
    Fache fell silent.
    Langdon did not add the
reason
he hadn't yet shown the manuscript to anyone else. The three-hundred-page draft—tentatively titled
Symbols of the Lost Sacred Feminine
—proposed some very unconventional interpretations of established religious iconography which would certainly be controversial.
    Now, as Langdon approached the stationary escalators, he paused, realizing Fache was no longer beside him. Turning, Langdon saw Fache standing several yards back at a service elevator.
    “We'll take the elevator,” Fache said as the lift doors opened. “As I'm sure you're aware, the gallery is quite a distance on foot.”
    Although Langdon knew the elevator would expedite the long, two-story climb to the Denon Wing, he remained motionless.
    “Is something wrong?” Fache was holding the door, looking impatient.
    Langdon exhaled, turning a longing glance back up the open-air escalator.
Nothing's wrong at all,
he lied to himself, trudging back toward the elevator. As a boy, Langdon had fallen down an abandoned well shaft and almost died treading water in the narrow space for hours before being rescued. Since then, he'd suffered a haunting phobia of enclosed spaces—elevators, subways, squash courts.
The elevator is a perfectly safe machine,
Langdon continually told himself, never believing it.
It's a tiny metal box hanging in an enclosed shaft!
Holding his breath, he stepped into the lift, feeling the familiar tingle of adrenaline as the doors slid shut.
    Two floors. Ten seconds.
    “You and Mr. Saunière,” Fache said as the lift began to move, “you never spoke at all? Never corresponded? Never sent each other anything in the mail?”
    Another odd question. Langdon shook his head. “No. Never.”
    Fache cocked his head, as if making a mental note of that fact. Saying nothing, he stared dead ahead at the chrome doors.
    As they ascended, Langdon tried to focus on anything other than the four walls around him. In the reflection of the shiny elevator door, he saw the captain's tie clip—a silver crucifix with thirteen embedded pieces of black onyx. Langdon found it vaguely surprising. The symbol was known as a
crux gemmata
—a cross bearing thirteen gems—a Christian ideogram for Christ and His twelve apostles. Somehow Langdon had not expected the captain of the French police to broadcast his religion so openly. Then again, this was France; Christianity was not a religion here so much as a birthright.
    “It's a
crux