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CHAPTER 73

Bourget Airfield’s night shift air traffic controller had been dozing before a blank radar screen when the captain of the Judicial Police practically broke down his door

"Teabing’s jet," Bezu Fache blared, o?"

The controller’s initial response was a babbling, lame attempt to protect the privacy of their British client - one of the airfield’s most respected customers It failedyou under arrest for perht plan" Fache motioned to another officer, who approached with handcuffs, and the traffic controller felt a surge of terror He thought of the newspaper articles debating whether the nation’s police captain was a hero or a menace That question had just been answered

"Wait!" the controller heard hiht of the handcuffs "I can tell you thismakes frequent trips to London for in Hill Executive Airport in Kent On the outskirts of London"

Fache waved off the ht?"

"I don’t know," the controller said honestly "The plane left on its usual tack, and his last radar contact suggested the United Kingdouess"

"Did he have others onboard?"

"I swear, sir, there is no way for ars, and load as they please Who is onboard is the responsibility of the custo airport"

Fache checked his watch and gazed out at the scattering of jets parked in front of the ter until they land?"

The controller fuht His plane could be on the ground by around six-thirty Fifteen minutes from now"

Fache frowned and turned to one of his et me the Kent local police Not British MI5 I want this quiet Kent localTell the’s plane to be permitted to land Then I want it surrounded on the taret there"

CHAPTER 74

"You’re quiet," Langdon said, gazing across the Hawker’s cabin at Sophie "Just tired," she replied "And the poe the sa of the plane were hypnotic, and his head still throbbed where he’d been hit by the don decided to take advantage of thethat had been on his randfather conspired to put us together I think there’s so he wanted me to explain to you"

"The history of the Holy Grail and Mary Magdalene isn’t enough?"

Langdon felt uncertain how to proceed "The rift between you The reason you haven’t spoken to hi I could so what drove you apart"

Sophie squirmed in her seat "I haven’t told you what drove us apart" Langdon eyed her carefully "You witnessed a sex rite Didn’t you?" Sophie recoiled "How do you know that?" "Sophie, you told randfather was in a secret society And whatever you saw upset you enough that you haven’t spoken to him since I know a fair amount about secret societies It doesn’t take the brains of Da Vinci to guess what you saw" Sophie stared "Was it in the spring?" Langdon asked "Sometime around the equinox? Mid-March?"

Sophie looked out the"I was on spring break from university I came home a few days early"

"You want to tell me about it?"

"I’d rather not" She turned suddenly back to Langdon, her eyes welling with emotion "I don’t knohat I saw"

"Were both men and women present?" After a beat, she nodded" Dressed in white and black?"

She wiped her eyes and then nodded, seeowns with golden shoes They held golden orbs The don strained to hide his e Sophie Neveu had unwittingly witnessed a two-thousand-year-old sacred cereynous masks?"

"Yes Everyone Identical masks White on the wodon had read descriptions of this ceremony and understood its mystic roots "It’s called Hieros Gamos," he said softly "It dates back yptian priests and priestesses perforularly to celebrate the reproductive power of the fe toward her "And if you witnessed Hieros Ga, I i"

Sophie said nothing

"Hieros Gae"

"The ritual I saas no e as in union, Sophie" "You mean as in sex" "No"

"No?" she said, her olive eyes testing hidon backpedaled "Well yes, in a , but not as we understand it today" He explained that although what she saw probably looked like a sex ritual, Hieros Ga to do with eroticism It was a spiritual act Historically, intercourse was the act through which male and female experienced God The ancients believed that the e of the sacred feminine Physical union with the feh which nosis - knowledge of the divine Since the days of Isis, sex rites had been consideredodon said," man could achieve a climactic instant when his mind went totally blank and he could see God"

Sophie looked skeptical "Orgas, although Sophie was essentially correct Physiologically speaking, the male cliht A brief lihtlessness without sex and often described Nirvana as a never- ending spiritual orgasdon said quietly," it’s important to remember that the ancients’ view of sex was entirely opposite froot new life - the ultiod The ability of the wood Intercourse was the revered union of the two halves of the huh which the male could find spiritual wholeness and communion with God What you saas not about sex, it was about spirituality The Hieros Gamos ritual is not a perversion It’s a deeply sacrosanct ceremony"

His words seemed to strike a nerve Sophie had been redon saw the aura of coain, and she dabbed theave her a moment Adling at first Langdon’s Jewish students always looked flabbergasted when he first told them that the early Jewish tradition involved ritualistic sex In the Temple, no lessEarly Jews believed that the Holy of Holies in Solomon’s Temple housed not only God but also His powerful fe spiritual wholeness came to the Temple to visit priestesses - or hierodules - hoh physical union The Jewish tetragrammaton YHWH - the sacred naynous physical union between the masculine Jah and the pre-Hebraic nadon explained in a soft voice," mankind’s use of sex to commune directly with God posed a serious threat to the Catholic power base It left the Church out of the loop, under their self-proclaimed status as the sole conduit to God For obvious reasons, they worked hard to de and sinful act Other ions did the sadon sensed she was starting to understand her grandfather better Ironically, Langdon had made this same point in a class lecture earlier this se we feel conflicted about sex?" he asked his students "Our ancient heritage and our very physiologies tell us sex is natural - a cherished route to spiritual fulfillion decries it as sha us to fear our sexual desire as the hand of the devil"

Langdon decided not to shock his students with the fact that more than a dozen secret societies around the world - many of them quite influential - still practiced sex rites and kept the ancient traditions alive Tom Cruise’s character in the film Eyes Wide Shut discovered this the hard hen he sneaked into a private gathering of ultraelite Manhattanites only to find hiotten ist was there - a secret society coic of sexual union

"Professor Langdon?" Ahopeful "Are you saying that instead of going to chapel, we should have don chuckled, not about to take the bait From what he’d heard about Harvard parties, these kids were havinghe was on tender ground,"so bold as to condone pre so naive as to think you’re all chaste angels, I will give you this bit of advice about your sex lives"

All theintently

"The next time you find yourself with a woman, look in your heart and see if you cannot approach sex as a e yourself to find that spark of divinity that h union with the sacred fe

The hed College men were still boys

Sophie’s forehead felt cold as she pressed it against the plane’sand stared blankly into the void, trying to process what Langdon had just told her She felt a new regret ithin her Ten yearsShe pictured the stacks of unopened letters her grandfather had sent her I will tell Robert everythingWithout turning froan to speak Quietly Fearfully

As she began to recount what had happened that night, she felt herself drifting back alighting in the woods outside her grandfather’s Nor the deserted house in confusion hearing the voices below her and then finding the hidden door She inched down the stone staircase, one step at a tirotto She could taste the earthy air Cool and light It was March In the shadows of her hiding place on the staircase, she watched as the strangers swayed and chanted by flickering orange candles

I’, Sophie told herself This is a dream What else could this be?

The woered, black, white, black, white The woowns billowed as they raised in their right hands golden orbs and called out in unison," I ithyou in the beginning, in the dawn of all that is holy, I bore you from the womb before the start of day"

The women lowered their orbs, and everyone rocked back and forth as if in a trance They were revering so in the center of the circle

What are they looking at?

The voices accelerated now Louder Faster

"The wo their orbs again Thein eternity!"

The chanting grew steady again Accelerating Thundering now Faster The participants stepped inward and knelt

In that instant, Sophie could finally see what they were all watching

On a low, ornate altar in the center of the circle lay aa black nized his body and the birthmark on his shoulder She ale alone would have shocked Sophie beyond belief, and yet there was randfather was a naked wo out behind it Her body was plu in rhythrandfather

Sophie wanted to turn and run, but she couldn’t The stone walls of the grotto i rose to a fever pitch The circle of participants see in crescendo to a frenzy With a sudden roar, the entire room seemed to erupt in climax Sophie could not breathe She suddenly realized she was quietly sobbing She turned and staggered silently up the stairs, out of the house, and drove tre back to Paris

CHAPTER 75

The chartered turboprop was just passing over the twinkling lights of Monaco when Aringarosa hung up on Fache for the second tiain but felt too drained even to be sick

Just let it be over!

Fache’s newest update seehthad spiraled wildly out of control What have I gotten Silas into? What have I gotten arosa walked to the cockpit "I need to change destinations" The pilot glanced over his shoulder and laughed "You’re joking, right?" "No I have to get to London iht, not a taxi"

"I will pay you extra, of course How much? London is only one hour farther north and requires ale of direction, so - "

"It’s not a question of money, Father, there are other issues" "Ten thousand euro Right now" The pilot turned, his eyes ith shock "How much? What kind of priest carries that kind of cash?"

Aringarosa walked back to his black briefcase, opened it, and removed one of the bearer bonds He handed it to the pilot

"What is this?" the pilot demanded

"A ten-thousand-euro bearer bond drawn on the Vatican Bank" The pilot looked dubious" It’s the same as cash"

"Only cash is cash," the pilot said, handing the bond back

Aringarosa felt weak as he steadied hiainst the cockpit door "This is a et to London"

The pilot eyed the bishop’s gold ring "Real dia "I could not possibly part with this" The pilot shrugged, turning and focusing back out the windshield Aringarosa felt a deepening sadness He looked at the ring Everything it represented was about to be lost to the bishop anyway After a long ently on the instruarosa slunk out of the cockpit and sat back down Fifteen seconds later, he could feel the pilot banking a few arosa’s un as a holy cause A brilliantly crafted sche in on itself and the end was nowhere in sight

CHAPTER 76

Langdon could see Sophie was still shaken fro her experience of Hieros Gadon was amazed to have heard it Not only had Sophie witnessed the full-blown ritual, but her own grandfather had been the celebrant the Grand Master of the Priory of Sion It was heady coo, Jean CocteauJacquesSauniere