by Dan Brown
Sato laughed coldly and stepped closer to him. “Mr. Bellamy, is that why you attacked me? Do you think I’m the enemy? Do you think I’m trying to steal your little pyramid?” Sato took a drag on her cigarette and blew the smoke out of her nostrils. “Listen carefully. No one understands better than I do the importance of keeping secrets. I believe, as you do, that there is certain information to which the masses should not be privy. Tonight, however, there are forces at work that I fear you have not yet grasped. The man who kidnapped Peter Solomon holds enormous power… a power that you apparently have yet to realize. Believe me, he is a walking time bomb… capable of initiating a series of events that will profoundly change the world as you know it.”
“I don’t understand.” Bellamy shifted on the bench, his arms aching in his handcuffs.
“You don’t need to understand. You need to obey. Right now, my only hope of averting a major disaster is to cooperate with this man… and to give him exactly what he wants. Which means, you are going to call Mr. Langdon and tell him to turn himself in, along with the pyramid and capstone. Once Langdon is in my custody, he will decrypt the pyramid’s inscription, obtain whatever information this man is demanding, and provide him with exactly what he wants.”
The location of the spiral staircase that leads to the Ancient Mysteries? “I can’t do that. I’ve taken vows of secrecy.”
Sato erupted. “I don’t give a damn what you’ve vowed, I will throw you in prison so fast —”
“Threaten me all you like,” Bellamy said defiantly. “I will not help you.”
Sato took a deep breath and spoke now in a fearsome whisper. “Mr. Bellamy, you have no idea what’s really going on tonight, do you?”
The tense silence hung for several seconds, finally broken by the sound of Sato’s phone. She plunged her hand into her pocket and eagerly snatched it out. “Talk to me,” she answered, listening carefully to the reply. “Where is their taxi now? How long? Okay, good. Bring them to the U.S. Botanic Garden. Service entrance. And make sure you get me that god-damn pyramid and capstone.”
Sato hung up and turned back to Bellamy with a smug smile. “Well then… it seems you’re fast outliving your usefulness.”
CHAPTER 75
Robert Langdon stared blankly into space, feeling too tired to urge the slow-moving taxi driver to pick up the pace. Beside him, Katherine had fallen silent, too, looking frustrated by their lack of understanding of what made the pyramid so special. They had again been through everything they knew about the pyramid, the capstone, and the evening’s strange events; they still had no ideas as to how this pyramid could possibly be considered a map to anything at all.
Jeova Sanctus Unus? The secret hides within The Order?
Their mysterious contact had promised them answers if they could meet him at a specific place. A refuge in Rome, north of the Tiber. Langdon knew the forefathers’ “new Rome” had been renamed Washington early in her history, and yet vestiges of their original dream remained: the Tiber’s waters still flowed into the Potomac; senators still convened beneath a replica of St. Peter’s dome; and Vulcan and Minerva still watched over the Rotunda’s long-extinguished flame.
The answers sought by Langdon and Katherine were apparently waiting for them just a few miles ahead. Northwest on Massachusetts Avenue. Their destination was indeed a refuge… north of Washington’s Tiber Creek. Langdon wished the driver would speed up.
Abruptly, Katherine jolted upright in her seat, as if she had made a sudden realization. “Oh my God, Robert!” She turned to him, her face going white. She hesitated a moment and then spoke emphatically. “We’re going the wrong way!”
“No, this is right,” Langdon countered. “It’s northwest on Massachu —”
“No! I mean we’re going to the wrong place!”
Langdon was mystified. He had already told Katherine how he knew what location was being described by the mysterious caller. It contains ten stones from Mount Sinai, one from heaven itself, and one with the visage of Luke’s dark father. Only one building on earth could make those claims. And that was exactly where this taxi was headed.
“Katherine, I’m certain the location is correct.”
“No!” she shouted. “We don’t need to go there anymore. I figured out the pyramid and capstone! I know what this is all about!”
Langdon was amazed. “You understand it?”
“Yes! We have to go to Freedom Plaza instead!”
Now Langdon was lost. Freedom Plaza, although nearby, seemed totally irrelevant.
“Jeova Sanctus Unus!” Katherine said. “The One True God of the Hebrews. The sacred symbol of the Hebrews is the Jewish star — the Seal of Solomon — an important symbol to the Masons!” She fished a dollar bill out of her pocket. “Give me your pen.”
Bewildered, Langdon pulled a pen from his jacket.
“Look.” She spread the bill out on her thigh and took his pen, pointing to the Great Seal on the back. “If you superimpose Solomon’s seal on the Great Seal of the United States…” She drew the symbol of a Jewish star precisely over the pyramid. “Look what you get!”
Langdon looked down at the bill and then back at Katherine as if she were mad.
“Robert, look more closely! Don’t you see what I’m pointing at?”
He glanced back at the drawing.
What in the world is she getting at? Langdon had seen this image before. It was popular among conspiracy theorists as “proof” that the Masons held secret influence over our early nation. When the six-pointed star was laid perfectly over the Great Seal of the United States, the star’s top vertex fit perfectly over the Masonic all-seeing eye… and, quite eerily, the other five vertices clearly pointed to the letters M-A-S-O-N.
“Katherine, that’s just a coincidence, and I still don’t see how it has anything to do with Freedom Plaza.”
“Look again!” she said, sounding almost angry now. “You’re not looking where I am pointing! Right there. Don’t you see it?”
An instant later, Langdon saw it.
CIA field-operations leader Turner Simkins stood outside the Adams Building and pressed his cell phone tightly to his ear, straining to hear the conversation now taking place in the back of the taxi. Something just happened. His team was about to board the modified Sikorsky UH-60 helicopter to head northwest and set up a roadblock, but now it seemed the situation had suddenly changed.
Seconds ago, Katherine Solomon had begun insisting they were going to the wrong destination. Her explanation — something about the dollar bill and Jewish stars — made no sense to the team leader, nor, apparently, to Robert Langdon. At least at first. Now, however, Langdon seemed to have grasped her meaning.
“My God, you’re right!” Langdon blurted. “I didn’t see it earlier!”
Suddenly Simkins could hear someone banging on the driver’s divider, and then it slid open. “Change of plans,” Katherine shouted to the driver. “Take us to Freedom Plaza!”
“Freedom Plaza?” the cabbie said, sounding nervous. “Not northwest on Massachusetts?”
“Forget that!” Katherine shouted. “Freedom Plaza! Go left here! Here! HERE!”
Agent Simkins heard the cab screeching around a corner. Katherine was talking excitedly again to Langdon, saying something about the famous bronze cast of the Great Seal embedded in the plaza.
“Ma’am, just to confirm,” the cabbie’s voice interjected, sounding tense. “We’re going to Freedom Plaza — on the corner of Pennsylvania and Thirteenth?”
“Yes!” Katherine said. “Hurry!”
“It’s very close. Two minutes.”
Simkins smiled. Nicely done, Omar. As he dashed toward the idling helicopter, he shouted to his team. “We’ve got them! Freedom Plaza! Move!”
CHAPTER 76
Freedom Plaza is a map.
Located at the corner of Pennsylvania Avenue and Thirteenth Street, the plaza’s vast surface of inlaid stone depicts the streets of Washington as they were originally envi
sioned by Pierre L’Enfant. The plaza is a popular tourist destination not only because the giant map is fun to walk on, but also because Martin Luther King Jr., for whom Freedom Plaza is named, wrote much of his “I Have a Dream” speech in the nearby Willard Hotel.
D.C. cabdriver Omar Amirana brought tourists to Freedom Plaza all the time, but tonight, his two passengers were obviously no ordinary sightseers. The CIA is chasing them? Omar had barely come to a stop at the curb before the man and woman had jumped out.
“Stay right here!” the man in the tweed coat told Omar. “We’ll be right back!”
Omar watched the two people dash out onto the wide-open spaces of the enormous map, pointing and shouting as they scanned the geometry of intersecting streets. Omar grabbed his cell phone off the dashboard. “Sir, are you still there?”
“Yes, Omar!” a voice shouted, barely audible over a thundering noise on his end of the line. “Where are they now?”
“Out on the map. It seems like they’re looking for something.”
“Do not let them out of your sight,” the agent shouted. “I’m almost there!”
Omar watched as the two fugitives quickly found the plaza’s famous Great Seal — one of the largest bronze medallions ever cast. They stood over it a moment and quickly began pointing to the southwest. Then the man in tweed came racing back toward the cab. Omar quickly set his phone down on the dashboard as the man arrived, breathless.
“Which direction is Alexandria, Virginia?” he demanded.
“Alexandria?” Omar pointed southwest, the exact same direction the man and woman had just pointed toward.
“I knew it!” the man whispered beneath his breath. He spun and shouted back to the woman. “You’re right! Alexandria!”
The woman now pointed across the plaza to an illuminated “Metro” sign nearby. “The Blue Line goes directly there. We want King Street Station!”
Omar felt a surge of panic. Oh no.
The man turned back to Omar and handed him entirely too many bills for the fare. “Thanks. We’re all set.” He hoisted his leather bag and ran off.
“Wait! I can drive you! I go there all the time!”
But it was too late. The man and woman were already dashing across the plaza. They disappeared down the stairs into the Metro Center subway station.
Omar grabbed his cell phone. “Sir! They ran down into the subway! I couldn’t stop them! They’re taking the Blue Line to Alexandria!”
“Stay right there!” the agent shouted. “I’ll be there in fifteen seconds!”
Omar looked down at the wad of bills the man had given him. The bill on top was apparently the one they had been writing on. It had a Jewish star on top of the Great Seal of the United States. Sure enough, the star’s points fell on letters that spelled MASON.
Without warning, Omar felt a deafening vibration all around him, as if a tractor trailer were about to collide with his cab. He looked up, but the street was deserted. The noise increased, and suddenly a sleek black helicopter dropped down out of the night and landed hard in the middle of the plaza map.
A group of black-clad men jumped out. Most ran toward the subway station, but one came dashing toward Omar’s cab. He yanked open the passenger door. “Omar? Is that you?”
Omar nodded, speechless.
“Did they say where they were headed?” the agent demanded.
“Alexandria! King Street Station,” Omar blurted. “I offered to drive, but —”
“Did they say where in Alexandria they were going?”
“No! They looked at the medallion of the Great Seal on the plaza, then they asked about Alexandria, and they paid me with this.” He handed the agent the dollar bill with the bizarre diagram. As the agent studied the bill, Omar suddenly put it all together. The Masons! Alexandria! One of the most famous Masonic buildings in America was in Alexandria. “That’s it!” he blurted. “The George Washington Masonic Memorial! It’s directly across from King Street Station!”
“That it is,” the agent said, apparently having just come to the same realization as the rest of the agents came sprinting back from the station.
“We missed them!” one of the men yelled. “Blue Line just left! They’re not down there!”
Agent Simkins checked his watch and turned back to Omar. “How long does the subway take to Alexandria?”
“Ten minutes at least. Probably more.”
“Omar, you’ve done an excellent job. Thank you.”
“Sure. What’s this all about?!”
But Agent Simkins was already running back to the chopper, shouting as he went. “King Street Station! We’ll get there before they do!”
Bewildered, Omar watched the great black bird lift off. It banked hard to the south across Pennsylvania Avenue, and then thundered off into the night.
Underneath the cabbie’s feet, a subway train was picking up speed as it headed away from Freedom Plaza. On board, Robert Langdon and Katherine Solomon sat breathless, neither one saying a word as the train whisked them toward their destination.
CHAPTER 77
The memory always began the same way.
He was falling… plummeting backward toward an ice-covered river at the bottom of a deep ravine. Above him, the merciless gray eyes of Peter Solomon stared down over the barrel of Andros’s handgun. As he fell, the world above him receded, everything disappearing as he was enveloped by the cloud of billowing mist from the waterfall upstream.
For an instant, everything was white, like heaven.
Then he hit the ice.
Cold. Black. Pain.
He was tumbling… being dragged by a powerful force that pounded him relentlessly across rocks in an impossibly cold void. His lungs ached for air, and yet his chest muscles had contracted so violently in the cold that he was unable even to inhale.
I’m under the ice.
The ice near the waterfall was apparently thin on account of the turbulent water, and Andros had broken directly through it. Now he was being washed downstream, trapped beneath a transparent ceiling. He clawed at the underside of the ice, trying to break out, but he had no leverage. The searing pain from the bullet hole in his shoulder was evaporating, as was the sting of the bird shot; both were blotted out now by the crippling throb of his body going numb.
The current was accelerating, slingshotting him around a bend in the river. His body screamed for oxygen. Suddenly he was tangled in branches, lodged against a tree that had fallen into the water. Think! He groped wildly at the branch, working his way toward the surface, finding the spot where the branch pierced up through the ice. His fingertips found the tiny space of open water surrounding the branch, and he pulled at the edges, trying to break the hole wider; once, twice, the opening was growing, now several inches across.
Propping himself against the branch, he tipped his head back and pressed his mouth against the small opening. The winter air that poured into his lungs felt warm. The sudden burst of oxygen fueled his hope. He planted his feet on the tree trunk and pressed his back and shoulders forcefully upward. The ice around the fallen tree, perforated by branches and debris, was weakened already, and as he drove his powerful legs into the trunk, his head and shoulders broke through the ice, crashing up into the winter night. Air poured into his lungs. Still mostly submerged, he wriggled desperately upward, pushing with his legs, pulling with his arms, until finally he was out of the water, lying breathless on the bare ice.
Andros tore off his soaked ski mask and pocketed it, glancing back upstream for Peter Solomon. The bend in the river obscured his view. His chest was burning again. Quietly, he dragged a small branch over the hole in the ice in order to hide it. The hole would be frozen again by morning.
As Andros staggered into the woods, it began to snow. He had no idea how far he had run when he stumbled out of the woods onto an embankment beside a small highway. He was delirious and hypothermic. The snow was falling harder now, and a single set of headlights approached in the distance. Andros waved wildly, and t
he lone pickup truck immediately pulled over. It had Vermont plates. An old man in a red plaid shirt jumped out.
Andros staggered toward him, holding his bleeding chest. “A hunter… shot me! I need a… hospital!”
Without hesitation, the old man helped Andros up into the passenger seat of the truck and turned up the heater. “Where’s the nearest hospital?!”
Andros had no idea, but he pointed south. “Next exit.” We’re not going to a hospital.
The old man from Vermont was reported missing the next day, but nobody had any idea where on his journey from Vermont he might have disappeared in the blinding snowstorm. Nor did anyone link his disappearance to the other news story that dominated the headlines the next day — the shocking murder of Isabel Solomon.
When Andros awoke, he was lying in a desolate bedroom of a cheap motel that had been boarded up for the season. He recalled breaking in and binding his wounds with torn bedsheets, and then burrowing into a flimsy bed beneath a pile of musty blankets. He was famished.
He limped to the bathroom and saw the pile of bloody bird-shot pellets in the sink. He vaguely recalled prying them out of his chest. Raising his eyes to the dirty mirror, he reluctantly unwrapped his bloody bandages to survey the damage. The hard muscles of his chest and abdomen had stopped the bird shot from penetrating too deep, and yet his body, once perfect, was now ruined with wounds. The single bullet fired by Peter Solomon had apparently gone cleanly through his shoulder, leaving a bloody crater.
Making matters worse, Andros had failed to obtain that for which he had traveled all this distance. The pyramid. His stomach growled, and he limped outside to the man’s truck, hoping maybe to find food. The pickup was now covered with heavy snow, and Andros wondered how long he had been sleeping in this old motel. Thank God I woke up. Andros found no food anywhere in the front seat, but he did find some arthritis painkillers in the glove compartment. He took a handful, washing them down with several mouthfuls of snow.