The Da Vinci Code PROLOGUE

Louver Museum, Paris 10:46 P. M. Eminent keeper Jacques Sauniere lurched through the vaulted opening of the historical center's Grand Gallery. He lurched for the closest artistic creation he could see, a Caravaggio. Getting the overlaid outline, the seventy-six-year-elderly person hurled the perfect work of art toward himself until it tore from the divider and Sauniere crumbled in reverse in a load underneath the canvas. As he had envisioned, a roaring iron entryway fell close by, blockading the passageway to the suite. The parquet floor shook. Distant, a caution started to ring. The keeper lay a second, wheezing for breath, assessing the situation. I am still alive.He crept free from the canvas and checked the enormous space for somewhere to stow away. A voice talked, chillingly close. â€Å"Do not move.† On all fours, the keeper solidified, turning his head gradually. Just fifteen feet away, outside the fixed entryway, the bumpy outline of his assailant gazed through the iron bars. He was expansive and tall, with phantom fair skin and diminishing white hair. His irises were pink with dim red understudies. The pale skinned person drew a gun from his jacket and pointed the barrel through the bars, straightforwardly at the guardian. â€Å"You ought not have run.† His pronunciation was difficult to put. â€Å"Now disclose to me where it is.† â€Å"I let you know already,† the caretaker stammered, stooping unprotected on the floor of the display. â€Å"I have no clue about what you are talking about!† â€Å"You are lying.† The man gazed at him, totally stable aside from the flicker in his spooky eyes. â€Å"You and your brethren have something that isn't yours.† The caretaker felt a flood of adrenaline. How might he be able to perhaps know this? â€Å"Tonight the legitimate watchmen will be reestablished. Reveal to me where it is covered up, and you will live.† The man leveled his firearm at the keeper's head. â€Å"Is it a mystery you will kick the bucket for?† Sauniere couldn't relax. The man inclined his head, peering down the barrel of his weapon. Sauniere held up his hands in resistance. â€Å"Wait,† he said gradually. â€Å"I will mention to you what you have to know.† The guardian expressed his next words cautiously. The untruth he told was one he had practiced numerous times†¦ each time supplicating he could never need to utilize it. At the point when the custodian had wrapped up, his attacker grinned pompously. â€Å"Yes. This is actually what the others told me.† Sauniere drew back. The others? â€Å"I discovered them, too,† the enormous man insulted. â€Å"All three of them. They affirmed what you have simply said.† It can't be! The caretaker's actual personality, alongside the characters of his three senechaux, was nearly as consecrated as the antiquated mystery they ensured. Sauniere now understood his senechaux, following severe technique, had told a similar lie before their own demises. It was a piece of the convention. The assailant pointed his firearm once more. â€Å"When you are gone, I will be the one in particular who knows the truth.† The truth.In a moment, the custodian got a handle on the genuine loathsomeness of the circumstance. On the off chance that I bite the dust, reality will be lost forever.Instinctively, he attempted to scramble for spread. The weapon thundered, and the custodian felt a singing warmth as the shot held up in his stomach. He fell forward†¦ battling against the agony. Gradually, Sauniere turned over and gazed back through the bars at his assailant. The man was currently training in on Sauniere's head. Sauniere shut his eyes, his contemplations a whirling storm of dread and lament. The snap of an unfilled chamber resounded through the passage. The caretaker's eyes flew open. The man looked down at his weapon, looking nearly entertained. He went after a subsequent clasp, yet then appeared to reexamine, smiling serenely at Sauniere's gut. â€Å"My work here is done.† The caretaker looked down and saw the projectile opening in his white cloth shirt. It was encircled by a little hover of blood a couple of crawls beneath his breastbone. My stomach.Almost barbarously, the shot had missed his heart. As a veteran of la Guerre d'Algerie, the custodian had seen this terribly drawn-out death previously. For fifteen minutes, he would get by as his stomach acids saturated his chest pit, gradually harming him from inside. â€Å"Pain is acceptable, monsieur,† the man said. At that point he was no more. Alone now, Jacques Sauniere turned his look again to the iron entryway. He was caught, and the entryways couldn't be revived for at any rate twenty minutes. When anybody got to him, he would be dead. All things being equal, the dread that presently held him was a dread far more prominent than that of his own demise. I should pass on the mystery. Faltering to his feet, he imagined his three killed brethren. He thought of the ages who had preceded them†¦ of the strategic which they had all been depended. A whole chain of information. Out of nowhere, presently, notwithstanding all the precautions†¦ in spite of all the come up short safes†¦ Jacques Sauniere was the main outstanding connection, the sole watchman of one of the most impressive mysteries at any point kept. Shuddering, he pulled himself to his feet. I should discover some way†¦ . He was caught inside the Grand Gallery, and there existed just a single individual on earth to whom he could pass the light. Sauniere looked up at the dividers of his rich jail. An assortment of the world's most well known artworks appeared to grin down on him like old companions. Flinching in torment, he brought the entirety of his resources and quality. The urgent undertaking before him, he knew, would require each staying second of his life.