The Da Vinci Code PROLOGUE

Louver Museum, Paris 10:46 P. M. Prestigious keeper Jacques Sauniere lurched through the vaulted passage of the exhibition hall's Grand Gallery. He thrusted for the closest work of art he could see, a Caravaggio. Snatching 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 stack underneath the canvas. As he had envisioned, a roaring iron entryway fell close by, blockading the passageway to the suite. The parquet floor shook. Far away, an alert 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 examined the enormous space for somewhere to cover up. 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 door, the uneven outline of his assailant gazed through the iron bars. He was wide and tall, with phantom fair skin and diminishing white hair. His irises were pink with dim red students. The pale skinned person drew a gun from his jacket and pointed the barrel through the bars, legitimately 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 guardian stammered, stooping vulnerable 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, entirely stable aside from the glimmer in his spooky eyes. â€Å"You and your brethren have something that isn't yours.† The keeper felt a flood of adrenaline. How might he be able to perhaps know this? â€Å"Tonight the legitimate gatekeepers will be reestablished. Disclose to me where it is covered up, and you will live.† The man leveled his weapon 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 safeguard. â€Å"Wait,† he said gradually. â€Å"I will mention to you what you have to know.† The caretaker expressed his next words cautiously. The falsehood he told was one he had practiced numerous times†¦ each time imploring he could never need to utilize it. At the point when the custodian had wrapped up, his attacker grinned egotistically. â€Å"Yes. This is actually what the others told me.† Sauniere pulled back. The others? â€Å"I discovered them, too,† the immense man provoked. â€Å"All three of them. They affirmed what you have simply said.† It can't be! The caretaker's actual character, alongside the personalities of his three senechaux, was nearly as holy as the old mystery they secured. Sauniere now understood his senechaux, following exacting method, had told a similar lie before their own demises. It was a piece of the convention. The aggressor 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 caretaker got a handle on the genuine frightfulness 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 burning warmth as the projectile held up in his stomach. He fell forward†¦ battling against the torment. Gradually, Sauniere turned over and gazed back through the bars at his aggressor. The man was currently training in on Sauniere's head. Sauniere shut his eyes, his considerations a twirling storm of dread and lament. The snap of a vacant chamber resounded through the hall. The custodian's eyes flew open. The man looked down at his weapon, looking nearly diverted. He went after a subsequent clasp, yet then appeared to reevaluate, smiling smoothly at Sauniere's gut. â€Å"My work here is done.† The custodian looked down and saw the slug opening in his white cloth shirt. It was surrounded by a little hover of blood a couple of crawls underneath his breastbone. My stomach.Almost cold-bloodedly, the slug had missed his heart. As a veteran of la Guerre d'Algerie, the keeper had seen this terribly drawn-out death previously. For fifteen minutes, he would make due as his stomach acids saturated his chest depression, 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 door. 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 noteworthy than that of his own demise. I should pass on the mystery. Faltering to his feet, he envisioned his three killed brethren. He thought of the ages who had preceded them†¦ of the crucial which they had all been endowed. A whole chain of information. Abruptly, presently, regardless of all the precautions†¦ in spite of all the fizzle safes†¦ Jacques Sauniere was the main residual connection, the sole watchman of one of the most impressive insider facts 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 extravagant jail. An assortment of the world's most acclaimed works of art appeared to grin down on him like old companions. Jumping in torment, he called the entirety of his resources and quality. The frantic assignment before him, he knew, would require each staying second of his life.