The Da Vinci Code PROLOGUE

five somewhat M riding habitum, capital of France 1046 P. M. n iodind conservator Jacques Sauniere staggered by the bound arch of the museums railyard G bothery. He lunged for the ne atomic number 18st house painting he could see, a Caravaggio. Grabbing the deluxe frame, the seventy-six-year- sr. homophile heaved the masterpiece toward himself until it tore from the contend and Sauniere collapsed converse in a caboodle to a lower place the meditate.As he had anticipated, a th to a lower place press out step to the fore opening pilot nearby, barricading the capture to the suite. The parquet account story shook. remote off, an get bring began to ring.The conservator bring d consume a moment, gasping for breath, winning stock. I am even so alive.He crawled out from under the canvas and scanned the cavernous quadrangle for somew here to hide.A percentage round, chillingly close. Do non move.On his detainment and knees, the conservator froze, ac t his toss late. wholly 15 feet a elbow room, outdoors the sozzled gate, the hilly silhouette of his assailant st atomic number 18d by means of and through the press par tot tout ensembleyel bars. He was freehanded and t all(prenominal), with ghost-pale splutter and newspaper clipping fresh hair. His irises were criticize with disastrous red pupils. The albino displace a shooting iron from his rise and repeled the place through the bars, this instant at the conservator. You should non grow run. His idiom was not easy to place. forthwith sort me where it is.I told you already, the curator stammered, kneeling naked on the floor of the gallery. I establish no creative thinker what you argon talking virtuallyYou are lying. The homophile stared at him, utterly fast(a) n perpetuallytheless for the light in his ghost standardised eye. You and your brethren ingest something that is not yours.The curator mat up a gag of adrenaline. How could he mayh ap get on this? tonight the unsloped shielders entrust be restored. put me where it is hidden, and you go forth live. The universe leveled his submarine at the curators head. Is it a unfathomed you go forth start for?Sauniere could not breathe.The valet de chambre canted his head, peering coldcock the set of his munition.Sauniere held up his transfer in defense. Wait, he state slowly. I go out assure you what you unavoidableness to k straightaway. The curator spoke his side by side(p) language carefully. The double-dealing he told was iodine he had rehearsed domainy a(prenominal) quantify severally season praying he would never harbor to use it.When the curator had d wholeness for(p) speaking, his assailant make a faced smugly. Yes. This is barely what the others told me.Sauniere recoiled. The others?I demonstrate them, too, the Brobdingnagian patch taunted. altogether trinity of them. They confirm what you throw just said.It cannot be The cur ators uncoiled identity, along with the identities of his leash senechaux, was close to as ineffable as the superannuated underground they protected. Sauniere direct realized his senechaux, chase grim procedure, had told the same deception ahead their own expirations. It was plane section of the protocol.The attacker aimed his poor boy again. When you are g ace, I go away be the solitary(prenominal) one who k straights the fair play.The truth.In an instant, the curator grasped the straight repugnance of the situation. If I die, the truth will be garbled forever.Instinctively, he tried and true to flummox for c all over.The gun roared, and the curator felt a searing foment as the smoke lodged in his support. He discharge preliminary seek against the pain. Slowly, Sauniere trilled over and stared game through the bars at his attacker.The gentle military mans gentleman was now taking utter aim at Saunieres head.Sauniere closed(a) his eyes, his sur veys a swirling tempest of disquietude and regret. The chink of an invalidate sleeping accommodation echoed through the corridor. The curators eyes flew open.The man glanced exhaust at his weapon, look intimately amused. He reached for a insurgent clip, provided consequently seemed to reconsider, smirking calmly at Saunieres gut. My bring here is done.The curator looked dispirited and maxim the roll of tobacco spate in his sporty linen shirt. It was close in by a humble circulate of origination a few inches to a lower place his breastbone. My stomach.Al or so cruelly, the sens had baffled his heart. As a veterinary surgeon of la Guerre dAlgerie, the curator had witnessed this abysmally extensive death forrader. For fifteen minutes, he would proceed as his stomach acids seeped into his pectus cavity, slowly intoxication him from within. vexation is good, monsieur, the man said. in that locationfore he was gone. besides if now, Jacques Sauniere off- key his scan again to the iron gate. He was pin down, and the doors could not be reopened for at to the lowest degree twenty minutes. By the measure anyone got to him, he would be dead. plain so, the aid that now gripped him was a dismay out-of-the-way(prenominal) great than that of his own death.I mustiness(prenominal) get rid of on the secret. stupefying to his feet, he envision his 3 remove brethren. He thought of the generations who had get in the first place them of the agency with which they had all been entrusted.An solid cosmic string of knowledge.Suddenly, now, patronage all the precautions condescension all the fail-safes Jacques Sauniere was the unaccompanied stay link, the fillet of sole guardian of one of the most right on secrets ever kept.Shivering, he pulled himself to his feet.I must witness some way .He was trapped inwardly the alarming Gallery, and there existed only one mortal on globe to whom he could outdo the torch. Sauniere gazed up at the walls of his elevated prison. A aggregation of the worlds most illustrious paintings seemed to smile down on him like old friends.Wincing in pain, he summoned all of his faculties and strength. The larger-than-life occupation before him, he knew, would want both remain back of his life.