Chapter 2 wedge

Louvre Museum of Fine Arts, Paris, 10:46 p.m. Inside the Vaulted Art Gallery of the Louvre, the venerable museum director Jacques Saunière stumbles towards the closest painting he sees—a Caravaggio.The seventy-five-year-old man snapped at the gilt frame and pulled it toward him.The frame was finally torn from the wall, and Saunière fell backwards, covered under the canvas. As expected by the curator, a nearby iron door crashed down, sealing the entrance to the gallery.The parquet floor vibrated.Alarms sounded in the distance. The curator lay on the ground for a moment, panting heavily, and looked around.I'm alive.He crawled out from under the painting, and looked around the cavernous gloom for a place to hide.

A gloomy voice came from not far away: "Don't move!" The curator propped his hands on the ground, knelt there, dumbfounded, and turned his head away after a long time. Outside the closed door, only fifteen feet away, the silhouette of the tall assailant was staring in through the iron bars of the door.He was broad and tall, with a pale face and a head of thinning white hair.His irises were pink and his pupils were dark red, making him appear to be an albino.He pulled the pistol out of his coat and aimed the barrel through the iron railing at the curator. "You shouldn't have run." He couldn't make out his accent. "Shouldn't you tell me where that thing is this time?"

"I told you—I, I don't understand what you're talking about." The curator knelt helplessly and stammered. "You're lying." The man stared at him intently, his body motionless, only his ghostly eyes kept rolling. "You and your brethren have taken what is not yours." The curator was taken aback.How could he know this. "It will be returned to its owner tonight. If you want to live, just tell me where it is hidden." The man pointed the gun at the curator's head. "Do you want to die for this secret?" Saunière was too frightened to breathe.

The man tilted his head and looked down the barrel of the gun. Saunière finally raised his hand in apology. "Wait a minute," he said slowly, "I'll tell you all about it." The curator spoke very cautiously.It was a lie he had practiced many times beforehand, each time praying that he would never use it. After the curator finished speaking, the man who attacked him smiled smugly. "That's right. Exactly what the others said." other people?The curator's heart shrank suddenly. "I found them too, all three. They confirmed what you just said." The big man laughed.

This is impossible!The true identity of the curator and his three principals is as sacred as the ancient secret they guard.Saunière now knew that his companions had followed procedure exactly and had all told the same lie before they died.This is a contract. The attacker took aim again. "After you're done, I'm the only one who knows the secret." The curator immediately realized the truly dire situation: If I die, the truth will never be known.He instinctively wanted to grab something to cover himself.The gun went off, and the curator felt a burning sensation as the bullet stopped in his stomach.He fell to the ground, struggling in pain, then slowly rolled over, staring at his attacker through the fence.

The man aimed for Saunière's head, a shot that would have killed him instantly. Saunière closed his eyes, his mind was in a turmoil of terror and remorse. The click of empty chambers echoed in the corridor. The curator opened his eyes abruptly. The man glanced at his weapon, almost amused.He reached out to get another magazine, but after thinking about it, he sneered triumphantly at Saunière's stomach: "Anyway, this guy won't survive." The curator looked down, and he saw the bullet hole in his white linen shirt.The hole was a few inches below the breastbone, and there was blood all around.my belly!Cruel enough, the bullet missed his heart.As a veteran of the Algerian War, the curator had witnessed this horrific postponement of death before.He had fifteen minutes to live, because the stomach acid was seeping into his chest cavity, and he was going to be poisoned from the inside. "Pain is good for you, sir," said the man.

Then he left. Jacques Saunière was alone now.He turned his head and stared at the iron gate again.He was trapped inside, and the door couldn't be opened for at least twenty minutes.By the time someone came to him, he was already dead.However, it was not death that frightened him more now. I must pass on this secret.He staggered to his feet, and the image of the murdered three brothers came to his mind.He thought of their forefathers, and of the responsibilities to which they had been entrusted. An interlocking chain of Secret Keepers. In spite of all the precautions . Trembling, he stood up.

I have to figure out a way to... He is trapped in a grand art gallery, and there is only one person in this world who can carry the torch from him.Saunière stared at the wall of the prison, and a group of world famous portraits smiled at him like good friends. He was twitching in pain, but he managed to steady himself.He knew that the desperate task before him would require him to seize every second of his life.