Summary: Fache begins to grow concerned at the inordinately long amount of time Langdon seems to be taking in the restroom. Collet assures him that the status of the GPS indicator means Langdon could not have fled. While Collet is reflecting on how critical this arrest is to Fache’s career (Fache needs a successful arrest in order to ensure his job stability until he can retire with a large pension), word arrives from the police’s Cryptology Department regarding Agent Neveu.
Analysis: Brown continues to develop Fache’s character in this brief chapter, this time by having another character (Collet) relay information to the reader. We learn that Fache’s “aggressive tactics” and repeated “clashes with powerful foreign embassies” (p. 78) have led him to a somewhat tenuous hold on his position. We learn that Fache is an avid fan of technology who lost much of his wealth in “the technology craze a few years back” (p. 78) and that his desire to arrest Langdon is motivated as much by his desire for a substantial retirement pension as by a quest for justice. Brown has therefore invested a large amount of time in fleshing out a character who initially appears to be only a minor player, suggesting that readers may not want to dismiss him as such.
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