«It’s quite possible,» Langdon said. «Da Vinci was a prankster, and computerized analysis of the Mona Lisa and Da Vinci’s self-portraits confirm some startling points of congruency in their faces. Whatever Da Vinci was up to,» Langdon said,» his Mona Lisa is neither male nor female. It carries a subtle message of androgyny. It is a fusing of both.»

«You sure that’s not just some Harvard bullshit way of saying Mona Lisa is one ugly chick.»

Now Langdon laughed. «You may be right. But actually Da Vinci left a big clue that the painting was supposed to be androgynous. Has anyone here ever heard of an Egyptian god named Amon?» «Hell yes!» the big guy said. «God of masculine fertility!» Langdon was stunned.

«It says so on every box of Amon condoms.» The muscular man gave a wide grin. «It’s got a guy with a ram’s head on the front and says he’s the Egyptian god of fertility.»

Langdon was not familiar with the brand name, but he was glad to hear the prophylactic manufacturers had gotten their hieroglyphs right. «Well done. Amon is indeed represented as a man with a ram’s head, and his promiscuity and curved horns are related to our modern sexual slang’ horny. «No shit!» «No shit,» Langdon said. «And do you know who Amon’s counterpart was? The Egyptian goddessof fertility?»

The question met with several seconds of silence.

«It was Isis,» Langdon told them, grabbing a grease pen. «So we have the male god, Amon.» He wrote it down. «And the female goddess, Isis, whose ancient pictogram was once called L’ISA.»

Langdon finished writing and stepped back from the projector.

AMON L’ISA

«Ring any bells?» he asked.

«Mona Lisa… holy crap,» somebody gasped.

Langdon nodded. «Gentlemen, not only does the face of Mona Lisa look androgynous, but her name is an anagram of the divine union of male and female. And that, my friends, is Da Vinci’s little secret, and the reason for Mona Lisa’s knowing smile.»

«My grandfather was here,» Sophie said, dropping suddenly to her knees, now only ten feet from the Mona Lisa.She pointed the black light tentatively to a spot on the parquet floor.

At first Langdon saw nothing. Then, as he knelt beside her, he saw a tiny droplet of dried liquid that was luminescing. Ink? Suddenly he recalled what black lights were actually used for. Blood. His senses tingled. Sophie was right. Jacques Saunière had indeed paid a visit to the Mona Lisabefore he died.

«He wouldn’t have come here without a reason,» Sophie whispered, standing up. «I know he left a message for me here.» Quickly striding the final few steps to the Mona Lisa, she illuminated the floor directly in front of the painting. She waved the light back and forth across the bare parquet. «There’s nothing here!» At that moment, Langdon saw a faint purple glimmer on the protective glass before the Mona Lisa. Reaching down, he took Sophie’s wrist and slowly moved the light up to the painting itself. They both froze. On the glass, six words glowed in purple, scrawled directly across the Mona Lisa’s face.

Seated at Saunière’s desk, Lieutenant Collet pressed the phone to his ear in disbelief. Did I hearFache correctly?» A bar of soap? But how could Langdon have known about the GPS dot?» «Sophie Neveu,» Fache replied. «She told him.» «What! Why?»

«Damned good question, but I just heard a recording that confirms she tipped him off.»

Collet was speechless. What was Neveu thinking? Fache had proof that Sophie had interfered with a DCPJ sting operation? Sophie Neveu was not only going to be fired, she was also going to jail. «But, Captain… then where is Langdon now?»

«Have any fire alarms gone off there?» «No, sir.» «And no one has come out under the Grand Gallery gate?»

«No. We’ve got a Louvre security officer on the gate. Just as you requested.» «Okay, Langdon must still be inside the Grand Gallery.» «Inside? But what is he doing?»

«Is the Louvre security guard armed?» «Yes, sir. He’s a senior warden.» «Send him in,» Fache commanded. «I can’t get my men back to the perimeter for a few minutes, and I don’t want Langdon breaking for an exit.» Fache paused. «And you’d better tell the guard Agent Neveu is probably in there with him.» «Agent Neveu left, I thought.» «Did you actually see her leave?» «No, sir, but – «Well, nobody on the perimeter saw her leave either. They only saw her go in.»

Collet was flabbergasted by Sophie Neveu’s bravado. She’s still inside the building?

«Handle it,» Fache ordered. «I want Langdon and Neveu at gunpoint by the time I get back.»

As the Trailor truck drove off, Captain Fache rounded up his men. Robert Langdon had proven an elusive quarry tonight, and with Agent Neveu now helping him, he might be far harder to corner than expected.

Fache decided not to take any chances.

Hedging his bets, he ordered half of his men back to the Louvre perimeter. The other half he sent to guard the only location in Paris where Robert Langdon could find safe harbor.

Inside the Salle des Etats, Langdon stared in astonishment at the six words glowing on the Plexiglas. The text seemed to hover in space, casting a jagged shadow across Mona Lisa’s mysterious smile.

«The Priory,» Langdon whispered. «This proves your grandfather was a member!» Sophie looked at him in confusion. «You understand this?» «It’s flawless,» Langdon said, nodding as his thoughts churned. «It’s a proclamation of one of the Priory’s most fundamental philosophies!»

Sophie looked baffled in the glow of the message scrawled across the Mona Lisa’s face.

SO DARK THE CON OF MAN

«Sophie,» Langdon said,» the Priory’s tradition of perpetuating goddess worship is based on a belief that powerful men in the early Christian church ‘conned’ the world by propagating lies that devalued the female and tipped the scales in favor of the masculine.» Sophie remained silent, staring at the words.» The Priory believes that Constantine and his male successors successfully converted the world from matriarchal paganism to patriarchal Christianity by waging a campaign of propaganda that demonized the sacred feminine, obliterating the goddess from modern religion forever.»

Sophie’s expression remained uncertain. «My grandfather sent me to this spot to find this. He must be trying to tell me more than that.»

Langdon understood her meaning. She thinks this is another code.Whether a hidden meaning existed here or not, Langdon could not immediately say. His mind was still grappling with the bold clarity of Saunière’s outward message.

So dark the con of man, he thought. So dark indeed.

Nobody could deny the enormous good the modern Church did in today’s troubled world, and yet the Church had a deceitful and violent history. Their brutal crusade to» reeducate» the pagan and feminine-worshipping religions spanned three centuries, employing methods as inspired as they were horrific.

The Catholic Inquisition published the book that arguably could be called the most blood-soaked publication in human history. Malleus Maleficarum – or The Witches’ Hammer – indoctrinated the world to» the dangers of freethinking women» and instructed the clergy how to locate, torture, and destroy them. Those deemed» witches» by the Church included all female scholars, priestesses, gypsies, mystics, nature lovers, herb gatherers, and any women» suspiciously attuned to the natural world.» Midwives also were killed for their heretical practice of using medical knowledge to ease the pain of childbirth – a suffering, the Church claimed, that was God’s rightful punishment for Eve’s partaking of the Apple of Knowledge, thus giving birth to the idea of Original Sin. During three hundred years of witch hunts, the Church burned at the stake an astounding five million women.