The Da Vinci Code Book

[amoni]

slowly poisoning him from within.
"pain is good, monsieur,"the man said.
Then he was gone.
Alone now, Jacques Sauniere turned his gaze again to the iron ate, He was trapped, and the doors could not be reopened for at least twenty minutes. By the time anyone got to hime, he would be dead. Even so, the fear that now gripped him was a fear far greater than that of his own death.
I must pass on the secret.
Staggering to his feet, he pictured his three murdered breatren. He thought of the generations who had come bfore them... of the mission with which they had all been entrusted.
An unbroken chain of knowledge.
Suddenly, now, despite all the precautions... despite all the fail-safes... Jacques Sauniere was the only remaining link, the sole guardian of one of the most powerful secrets ever kept.
Shivering, he pulled himself to his feet.
I must find some way...
he was trapped inside the grand Gallery, and there existed only one person on earth to whom he cold pass the torch. Sauniere gazed up at the walls of his opulent prison. A collection of the world's most famous paintings seemed to smile down on him like old friends.
Wincing in pain, he summoned all of his faculties and strenght. The desperate task before him, he knew, Would require every remaining second of his life


Chapter 1
Robert Langdon awoke slowly.
A telephone was ringing in the darkness-- atinny, unfamiliar ring. He fumbled for the bedside lamp and turned it on. Squinting at the surroundings he saw a plush renaissance bedroom with Louis furniture, hand-frescoed walls, and a colossal mahogany four-poster bed.
Where the hell am i?
The jacquared bathrobe haning on his bedpost bore the monogram: Hotel Ritz Paris
Slowly, the fog began to lift.
Langdon picked up the receiver."Hello?"Monsieur Langdon?" a man's voice said."i hope i have not awoken you?"
Dazed, Langdon looked at the bedside clock. It was 12:32 am he had been asleep only an hour, but he felt like the dead.
"this is the concierge, monsieur. i apologize for this intrusion, but you have a visitor. He insists it is urgent."
Langdon still felt fuzzy. A visitor? His eyes focused now on a crumpled flyer on his bedside table.
The American University Of Paris
Proudly presents
An Evening With Robert Langodn
Professor Of religious Symbology,
Harvard University
Langdon groaned. tonight's lecture-aslide show about pagan symbolism hidden in the stones of Chartres Cathedral