Silas truthfully told the man how he had been tricked." You lose your faith too quickly," the Teacher replied. "I have just received news. Most unexpected and welcome. The secret lives. Jacques Sauniere transferred information before he died. I will call you soon. Our work tonight is not yet done."
CHAPTER 47
Riding inside the dimly lit cargo hold of the armored truck was like being transported inside a cell for solitary confinement. Langdon fought the all too familiar anxiety that haunted him in confined spaces. Vernet said he would take us a safe distance out of the city.Where? How far?
Langdon's legs had gotten stiff from sitting cross-legged on the metal floor, and he shifted his position, wincing to feel the blood pouring back into his lower body. In his arms, he still clutched the bizarre treasure they had extricated from the bank.
"I think we're on the highway now," Sophie whispered.
Langdon sensed the same thing. The truck, after an unnerving pause atop the bank ramp, had moved on, snaking left and right for a minute or two, and was now accelerating to what felt like top speed. Beneath them, the bulletproof tires hummed on smooth pavement. Forcing his attention to the rosewood box in his arms, Langdon laid the precious bundle on the floor, unwrapped his jacket, and extracted the box, pulling it toward him. Sophie shifted her position so they were sitting side by side. Langdon suddenly felt like they were two kids huddled over a Christmas present.
In contrast to the warm colors of the rosewood box, the inlaid rose had been crafted of a pale wood, probably ash, which shone clearly in the dim light. The Rose.Entire armies and religions had been built on this symbol, as had secret societies. The Rosicrucians.The Knights of the Rosy Cross.
"Go ahead," Sophie said. "Open it."
Langdon took a deep breath. Reaching for the lid, he stole one more admiring glance at the intricate woodwork and then, unhooking the clasp, he opened the lid, revealing the object within.
Langdon had harbored several fantasies about what they might find inside this box, but clearly he had been wrong on every account. Nestled snugly inside the box's heavily padded interior of crimson silk lay an object Langdon could not even begin to comprehend.
Crafted of polished white marble, it was a stone cylinder approximately the dimensions of a tennis ball can. More complicated than a simple column of stone, however, the cylinder appeared to have been assembled in many pieces. Six doughnut-sized disks of marble had been stacked and affixed to one another within a delicate brass framework. It looked like some kind of tubular, multi-wheeled kaleidoscope. Each end of the cylinder was affixed with an end cap, also marble, making it impossible to see inside. Having heard liquid within, Langdon assumed the cylinder was hollow.
As mystifying as the construction of the cylinder was, however, it was the engravings around the tube's circumference that drew Langdon's primary focus. Each of the six disks had been carefully carved with the same unlikely series of letters - the entire alphabet. The lettered cylinder reminded Langdon of one of his childhood toys - a rod threaded with lettered tumblers that could be rotated to spell different words.
"Amazing, isn't it?" Sophie whispered.
Langdon glanced up. "I don't know. What the hell is it?"
Now there was a glint in Sophie's eye. "My grandfather used to craft these as a hobby. They were invented by Leonardo Da Vinci."
Even in the diffuse light, Sophie could see Langdon's surprise. "Da Vinci?" he muttered, looking again at the canister." Yes. It's called a cryptex.According to my grandfather, the blueprints come from one of Da Vinci's secret diaries." "What is it for?" Considering tonight's events, Sophie knew the answer might have some interesting implications. "It's a vault," she said. "For storing secret information."
Langdon's eyes widened further.
Sophie explained that creating models of Da Vinci's inventions was one of her grandfather's best-loved hobbies. A talented craftsman who spent hours in his wood and metal shop, Jacques Sauniere enjoyed imitating master craftsmen - Faberge, assorted cloisonne artisans, and the less artistic, but far more practical, Leonardo Da Vinci.
Even a cursory glance through Da Vinci's journals revealed why the luminary was as notorious for his lack of follow-through as he was famous for his brilliance. Da Vinci had drawn up blueprints for hundreds of inventions he had never built. One of Jacques Sauniere's favorite pastimes was bringing Da Vinci's more obscure brainstorms to life - timepieces, water pumps, cryptexes, and even a fully articulated