The immaculate cabin of Teabing's Hawker was now covered with steel shavings and
smelled of compressed air and propane. Bezu Fache had sent everyone away and sat
alone with his drink and the heavy wooden box found in Teabing's safe.
Running his finger across the inlaid Rose, he lifted the ornate lid. Inside he found a
stone cylinder with lettered dials. The five dials were arranged to spell SOFIA. Fache
stared at the word a long moment and then lifted the cylinder from its padded resting
place and examined every inch. Then, pulling slowly on the ends, Fache slid off one of
the end caps. The cylinder was empty.
Fache set it back in the box and gazed absently out the jet's window at the hangar,
pondering his brief conversation with Sophie, as well as the information he'd received
from PTS in Château Villette. The sound of his phone shook him from his daydream.
It was the DCPJ switchboard. The dispatcher was apologetic. The president of the
Depository Bank of Zurich had been calling repeatedly, and although he had been told
several times that the captain was in London on business, he just kept calling.
Begrudgingly Fache told the operator to forward the call.
“Monsieur Vernet,” Fache said, before the man could even speak, “I am sorry I did not
call you earlier. I have been busy. As promised, the name of your bank has not appeared
in the media. So what precisely is your concern?”
Vernet's voice was anxious as he told Fache how Langdon and Sophie had extracted a
small wooden box from the bank and then persuaded Vernet to help them escape. “Then
when I heard on the radio that they were criminals,” Vernet said, “I pulled over and
demanded the box back, but they attacked me and stole the truck.”
“You are concerned for a wooden box,” Fache said, eyeing the Rose inlay on the cover
and again gently opening the lid to reveal the white cylinder. “Can you tell me what was
in the box?”
“The contents are immaterial,” Vernet fired back. “I am concerned with the reputation
of my bank. We have never had a robbery. Ever. It will ruin us if I cannot recover this
property on behalf of my client.”
“You said Agent Neveu and Robert Langdon had a password and a key. What makes
you say they stole the box?”
“They murdered people tonight. Including Sophie Neveu's grandfather. The key and
password were obviously ill-gotten.”
“Mr. Vernet, my men have done some checking into your background and your
interests. You are obviously a man of great culture and refinement. I would imagine you
are a man of honor, as well. As am I. That said, I give you my word as commanding
officer of the Police Judiciaire that your box, along with your bank's reputation, are in
the safest of hands.”