The Da Vinci Code

Inside Teabing’s jet, Langdon studies the writing beneath the box’s rose inlay. To his consternation, neither he nor Teabing can identify the writing. However, Sophie understands at once. The script is written backwards, a favorite trick of her grandfather’s. Holding the lid up to the light, the words become easily legible.

Sophie copies down the inscription: “An ancient word of wisdom frees this scroll…and helps us keep her scatter’d family whole…a headstone praised by templars is the key…and atbash will reveal the truth to thee” (328). Langdon recognizes the meter as iambic pentameter, a meter with distinctly pagan connections. The poem is written in English, the preferred language for secret societies. As they try to decipher the meaning and figure out the password, Langdon references the “Atbash cipher,” one of the “oldest codes known to man” (330). However, they cannot apply the code without the headstone. Frustrated, they take a break. Sophie fears that opening the cryptex will not be the end of their quest.

Under threat of arrest, Bourget Airfield’s traffic control manager confesses that Teabing’s likely destination is a private airfield in Kent. He doesn’t know if Teabing has other passengers with him since Le Bourget allows its clientele to board directly from their private hangars. Fache orders a plane to fly him to Kent. He contacts the local Kent police, telling them to surround Teabing’s plane upon arrival.

Langdon suspects that Sophie witnessed a secret sex ritual 10 years ago in her grandfather’s country house, the reason for their falling out. Sophie’s description convinces Langdon that what she saw was the ancient “Hieros Gamos,” a ritual practiced by Egyptian priests and priestesses to celebrate the power of female fertility. These priests believed that sexual union was the only way for man to bridge the gap between mortality and divinity, the only way to know God. The Hieros Gamos, he explains, is not erotic but deeply spiritual. The modern religious stigma against sex is a direct result of the Church’s propaganda campaign—if man could commune directly with God via intercourse, the Church becomes irrelevant. Sophie recalls that night, 10 years ago, when she witnessed her grandfather, naked on an altar, having intercourse with a masked woman amid a circle of chanting strangers.

Flying over Monaco, Aringarosa receives an update from Fache—Silas, Langdon, and the others have fled France for England. He bribes the pilot to fly on to London, feeling despondent as his “brilliantly crafted scheme” lies in tatters (340). 

As Teabing’s plane crosses the English Channel, Langdon suddenly understands the reference to the “headstone praised by templars” (328). The headstone is not a grave marker but a literal stone head, a carven image of a pagan god—Baphomet—supposedly worshiped by the Knights Templar. Baphomet was a fertility god with the head of a ram, and the Church proclaimed him a symbol of the devil. If Baphomet is the answer, Sophie notes, the word has eight letters, but the cryptex code needs only five. This, Teabing exclaims, “is where the Atbash Cipher comes into play” (343).

In ancient Hebrew, Teabing says, vowel sounds are not written out, which leaves Baphomet with only five letters. Using the Atbash “substitution matrix,” Baphomet (B-P-V-M-Th in Hebrew) becomes Sh-V-P-Y-A (or S-o-f-y-a). Sofya, or Sofia, the Greek word for wisdom.

Dialing the password, Sophie unlocks the cryptex and pulls the ends apart. Inside, she finds yet another cryptex, smaller, made of black onyx. It is wrapped in vellum on which a second verse is inscribed: “IN LONDON LIES A KNIGHT A POPE INTERRED” (350). Meanwhile, the Kent police dispatches officers to its local airfield. 

Back inside Château Villette, Collet examines evidence collected at the scene, including a few items deemed “peculiar”: a photograph of a gothic church with a notation equating its arched entrance to a woman’s womb plus a list of all Priory Grand Masters dating back to 1188. Collet receives a call from Vernet demanding a progress report. After Collet identifies himself, Vernet hangs up; Collet then remembers Vernet’s voice as the driver of the armored truck. He calls Interpol to request all available information on the bank manager.

As the plane makes its final descent into Kent, Teabing revels in his victory, the successful culmination of his life’s work. He then removes two passports from a safe—for himself and Rémy—and a stack of cash with which to bribe airport officials to not inspect the plane. Then the pilot tells them they are being diverted to the airfield terminal due to a “gas leak” near Teabing’s private hangar. Suspecting the police are waiting for them, Teabing instructs his pilot to execute “one highly irregular maneuver” (357).

On the tarmac, the Kent police wait out of sight while the airfield crew prepare to detain the aircraft after landing. The plane touches down but rather than taxiing to the terminal, it continues to Teabing’s hangar. The police speed toward the hangar, guns drawn. They surround the plane, but Teabing exits casually, claiming he’s late for a medical appointment. When the police insist that he remain on the plane, Teabing prevails upon the airport’s Executive Services Officer to search the plane and advocate on his behalf. The police inspector refuses, insisting on searching the plane himself, but Teabing demands a search warrant. At an impasse, Teabing walks to his waiting limo ignoring the police orders. Convinced Teabing has smuggled someone illegally across international borders, the police inspector boards the plane, but the cabin is empty. He releases Teabing and Rémy from custody. As the limo leaves the airfield, Langdon and Sophie emerge from hiding in the car’s spacious back seat, Silas still bound and gagged on the floor. 

Inside the limo, Langdon studies the full verse inscribed on the vellum:

In London lies a knight a Pope interred.

His labor’s fruit a Holy wrath incurred.

You seek the orb that ought be on his tomb.

It speaks of Rosy flesh and seeded womb (364).

The tomb they seek is in the crypt of the Temple Church, built by the Knights Templar and located off Fleet Street in London. Sophie and Langdon realize that when the Kent police report the plane empty, Fache will have to assume they are still in France.

Sophie asks Langdon’s opinion on whether to reveal the Sangreal documents, but he is noncommittal. “Those who truly understand their faiths understand the stories are metaphorical” (370), he argues, seeming to lean toward keeping the documents secret. If believing in a literal interpretation of the Bible provides comfort and guidance, are they justified in disrupting those beliefs?