Misguided sheep, Aringarosa thought, his heart going out to them.

Of course the ultimate embarrassment had been the widely publicized trial of FBI spy Robert Hanssen, who, in addition to being a prominent member of Opus Dei, had turned out to be a sexual deviant, his trial uncovering evidence that he had rigged hidden video cameras in his own bedroom so his friends could watch him having sex with his wife. «Hardly the pastime of a devout Catholic,» the judge had noted.

Sadly, all of these events had helped spawn the new watch group known as the Opus Dei Awareness Network (ODAN). The group’s popular website – www odan.org – relayed frightening stories from former Opus Dei members who warned of the dangers of joining. The media was now referring to Opus Dei as» God’s Mafia» and» the Cult of Christ.»

We fear what we do not understand, Aringarosa thought, wondering if these critics had any idea how many lives Opus Dei had enriched. The group enjoyed the full endorsement and blessing of the Vatican. Opus Dei is a personal prelature of the Pope himself.

Recently, however, Opus Dei had found itself threatened by a force infinitely more powerful than the media… an unexpected foe from which Aringarosa could not possibly hide. Five months ago, the kaleidoscope of power had been shaken, and Aringarosa was still reeling from the blow.

«They know not the war they have begun,» Aringarosa whispered to himself, staring out the plane’s window at the darkness of the ocean below. For an instant, his eyes refocused, lingering on the reflection of his awkward face – dark and oblong, dominated by a flat, crooked nose that had been shattered by a fist in Spain when he was a young missionary. The physical flaw barely registered now. Aringarosa’s was a world of the soul, not of the flesh.

As the jet passed over the coast of Portugal, the cell phone in Aringarosa’s cassock began vibrating in silent ring mode. Despite airline regulations prohibiting the use of cell phones during flights, Aringarosa knew this was a call he could not miss. Only one man possessed this number, the man who had mailed Aringarosa the phone.

Excited, the bishop answered quietly. «Yes?»

«Silas has located the keystone,» the caller said. «It is in Paris. Within the Church of Saint-Sulpice.» Bishop Aringarosa smiled. «Then we are close.» «We can obtain it immediately. But we need your influence.» «Of course. Tell me what to do.» When Aringarosa switched off the phone, his heart was pounding. He gazed once again into the void of night, feeling dwarfed by the events he had put into motion.

Five hundred miles away, the albino named Silas stood over a small basin of water and dabbed the blood from his back, watching the patterns of red spinning in the water. Purge me with hyssop andI shall be clean, he prayed, quoting Psalms. Wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.

Silas was feeling an aroused anticipation that he had not felt since his previous life. It both surprised and electrified him. For the last decade, he had been following The Way, cleansing himself of sins… rebuilding his life… erasing the violence in his past. Tonight, however, it had all come rushing back. The hatred he had fought so hard to bury had been summoned. He had been startled how quickly his past had resurfaced. And with it, of course, had come his skills. Rusty but serviceable.

Jesus’ message is one of peace…of nonviolence…of love.This was the message Silas had been taught from the beginning, and the message he held in his heart. And yet this was the message the enemies of Christ now threatened to destroy. Those who threaten God with force will be met with force.Immovable and steadfast.

For two millennia, Christian soldiers had defended their faith against those who tried to displace it. Tonight, Silas had been called to battle.

Drying his wounds, he donned his ankle-length, hooded robe. It was plain, made of dark wool, accentuating the whiteness of his skin and hair. Tightening the rope-tie around his waist, he raised the hood over his head and allowed his red eyes to admire his reflection in the mirror. The wheels are in motion.

Having squeezed beneath the security gate, Robert Langdon now stood just inside the entrance to the Grand Gallery. He was staring into the mouth of a long, deep canyon. On either side of the gallery, stark walls rose thirty feet, evaporating into the darkness above. The reddish glow of the service lighting sifted upward, casting an unnatural smolder across a staggering collection of Da Vincis, Titians, and Caravaggios that hung suspended from ceiling cables. Still lifes, religious scenes, and landscapes accompanied portraits of nobility and politicians.

Although the Grand Gallery housed the Louvre’s most famous Italian art, many visitors felt the wing’s most stunning offering was actually its famous parquet floor. Laid out in a dazzling geometric design of diagonal oak slats, the floor produced an ephemeral optical illusion – a multi- dimensional network that gave visitors the sense they were floating through the gallery on a surface that changed with every step.

As Langdon’s gaze began to trace the inlay, his eyes stopped short on an unexpected object lying on the floor just a few yards to his left, surrounded by police tape. He spun toward Fache. «Is that… a Caravaggio on the floor?»

Fache nodded without even looking.

The painting, Langdon guessed, was worth upward of two million dollars, and yet it was lying on the floor like a discarded poster. «What the devil is it doing on the floor!»

Fache glowered, clearly unmoved. «This is a crime scene, Mr. Langdon. We have touched nothing. That canvas was pulled from the wall by the curator. It was how he activated the security system.»

Langdon looked back at the gate, trying to picture what had happened.

«The curator was attacked in his office, fled into the Grand Gallery, and activated the security gate by pulling that painting from the wall. The gate fell immediately, sealing off all access. This is the only door in or out of this gallery.» Langdon felt confused. «So the curator actually captured his attacker inside the Grand Gallery?» Fache shook his head. «The security gate separated Saunière from his attacker. The killer waslocked out there in the hallway and shot Saunière through this gate.» Fache pointed toward anorange tag hanging from one of the bars on the gate under which they had just passed. «The PT Steam found flashback residue from a gun. He fired through the bars. Saunière died in here alone.»

Langdon pictured the photograph of Saunière’s body. They said he did that to himself.Langdon looked out at the enormous corridor before them. «So where is his body?»

Fache straightened his cruciform tie clip and began to walk. «As you probably know, the Grand Gallery is quite long.»

The exact length, if Langdon recalled correctly, was around fifteen hundred feet, the length of three Washington Monuments laid end to end. Equally breathtaking was the corridor’s width, which easily could have accommodated a pair of side-by-side passenger trains. The center of the hallway was dotted by the occasional statue or colossal porcelain urn, which served as a tasteful divider and kept the flow of traffic moving down one wall and up the other.

Fache was silent now, striding briskly up the right side of the corridor with his gaze dead ahead. Langdon felt almost disrespectful to be racing past so many masterpieces without pausing for so much as a glance.

Not that I could see anything in this lighting, he thought.