The Lost Symbol rl-3

by Dan Brown

  The Escalade slowed suddenly and turned sharply right, onto a different surface, as if into a driveway or access road. Langdon perked up, listening intently for clues as to their whereabouts. They’d been driving for less than ten minutes, and although Langdon had tried to follow in his mind, he had lost his bearings quickly. For all he knew, they were now pulling back into the House of the Temple.

  The Escalade came to a stop, and Langdon heard the window roll down.

  “Agent Simkins, CIA,” their driver announced. “I believe you’re expecting us.”

  “Yes, sir,” a sharp military voice replied. “Director Sato phoned ahead. One moment while I move the security barricade.”

  Langdon listened with rising confusion, now sensing they were entering a military base. As the car began moving again, along an unusually smooth stretch of pavement, he turned his head blindly toward Solomon. “Where are we, Peter?” he demanded.

  “Do not remove your blindfold.” Peter’s voice was stern.

  The vehicle continued a short distance and again slowed to a stop. Simkins killed the engine. More voices. Military. Someone asked for Simkins’s identification. The agent got out and spoke to the men in hushed tones.

  Langdon’s door was suddenly being opened, and powerful hands assisted him out of the car. The air felt cold. It was windy.

  Solomon was beside him. “Robert, just let Agent Simkins lead you inside.”

  Langdon heard metal keys in a lock… and then the creak of a heavy iron door swinging open. It sounded like an ancient bulkhead. Where the hell are they taking me?!

  Simkins’s hands guided Langdon in the direction of the metal door. They stepped over a threshold. “Straight ahead, Professor.”

  It was suddenly quiet. Dead. Deserted. The air inside smelled sterile and processed.

  Simkins and Solomon flanked Langdon now, guiding him blindly down a reverberating corridor. The floor felt like stone beneath his loafers.

  Behind them, the metal door slammed loudly, and Langdon jumped. The locks turned. He was sweating now beneath his blindfold. He wanted only to tear it off.

  They stopped walking now.

  Simkins let go of Langdon’s arm, and there was a series of electronic beeps followed by an unexpected rumble in front of them, which Langdon imagined had to be a security door sliding open automatically.

  “Mr. Solomon, you and Mr. Langdon continue on alone. I’ll wait for you here,” Simkins said. “Take my flashlight.”

  “Thank you,” Solomon said. “We won’t be long.”

  Flashlight?! Langdon’s heart was pounding wildly now.

  Peter took Langdon’s arm in his own and inched forward. “Walk with me, Robert.”

  They moved slowly together across another threshold, and the security door rumbled shut behind them.

  Peter stopped short. “Is something wrong?”

  Langdon was suddenly feeling queasy and off balance. “I think I just need to take off this blindfold.”

  “Not yet, we’re almost there.”

  “Almost where?” Langdon felt a growing heaviness in the pit of his stomach.

  “I told you — I’m taking you to see the staircase that descends to the Lost Word.”

  “Peter, this isn’t funny!”

  “It’s not meant to be. It’s meant to open your mind, Robert. It’s meant to remind you that there are mysteries in this world that even you have yet to lay eyes upon. And before I take one more step with you, I want you to do something for me. I want you to believe… just for an instant… believe in the legend. Believe that you are about to peer down a winding staircase that plunges hundreds of feet to one of humankind’s greatest lost treasures.”

  Langdon felt dizzy. As much as he wanted to believe his dear friend, he could not. “Is it much farther?” His velvet hoodwink was drenched in sweat.

  “No. Only a few more steps, actually. Through one last door. I’ll open it now.”

  Solomon let go of him for a moment, and as he did so, Langdon swayed, feeling light-headed. Unsteady, he reached out for stability, and Peter was quickly back at his side. The sound of a heavy automatic door rumbled in front of them. Peter took Langdon’s arm and they moved forward again.

  “This way.”

  They inched across another threshold, and the door slid closed behind them.

  Silence. Cold.

  Langdon immediately sensed that this place, whatever it was, had nothing to do with the world on the other side of the security doors. The air was dank and chilly, like a tomb. The acoustics felt dull and cramped. He felt an irrational bout of claustrophobia settling in.

  “A few more steps.” Solomon guided him blindly around a corner and positioned him precisely. Finally, he said, “Take off your blindfold.”

  Langdon seized the velvet hoodwink and tore it from his face. He looked all around to find out where he was, but he was still blind. He rubbed his eyes. Nothing. “Peter, it’s pitch-black!”

  “Yes, I know. Reach in front of you. There’s a railing. Grasp it.”

  Langdon groped in the darkness and found an iron railing.

  “Now watch.” He could hear Peter fumbling with something, and suddenly a blazing flashlight beam pierced the darkness. It was pointed at the floor, and before Langdon could take in his surroundings, Solomon directed the flashlight out over the railing and pointed the beam straight down.

  Langdon was suddenly staring into a bottomless shaft… an endless winding staircase that plunged deep into the earth. My God! His knees nearly buckled, and he gripped the railing for support. The staircase was a traditional square spiral, and he could see at least thirty landings descending into the earth before the flashlight faded to nothing. I can’t even see the bottom!

  “Peter…” he stammered. “What is this place!”

  “I’ll take you to the bottom of the staircase in a moment, but before I do, you need to see something else.”

  Too overwhelmed to protest, Langdon let Peter guide him away from the stairwell and across the strange little chamber. Peter kept the flashlight trained on the worn stone floor beneath their feet, and Langdon could get no real sense of the space around them… except that it was small.

  A tiny stone chamber.

  They arrived quickly at the room’s opposite wall, in which was embedded a rectangle of glass. Langdon thought it might be a window into a room beyond, and yet from where he stood, he saw only darkness on the other side.

  “Go ahead,” Peter said. “Have a look.”

  “What’s in there?” Langdon flashed for an instant on the Chamber of Reflection beneath the Capitol Building, and how he had believed, for a moment, that it might contain a portal to some giant underground cavern.

  “Just look, Robert.” Solomon inched him forward. “And brace yourself, because the sight will shock you.”

  Having no idea what to expect, Langdon moved toward the glass. As he neared the portal, Peter turned out the flashlight, plunging the tiny chamber into total darkness.

  As his eyes adjusted, Langdon groped in front of him, his hands finding the wall, finding the glass, his face moving closer to the transparent portal.

  Still only darkness beyond.

  He leaned closer… pressing his face to the glass.

  Then he saw it.

  The wave of shock and disorientation that tore through Langdon’s body reached down inside and spun his internal compass upside down. He nearly fell backward as his mind strained to accept the utterly unanticipated sight that was before him. In his wildest dreams, Robert Langdon would never have guessed what lay on the other side of this glass.

  The vision was a glorious sight.

  There in the darkness, a brilliant white light shone like a gleaming jewel.

  Langdon now understood it all — the barricade on the access road… the guards at the main entrance… the heavy metal door outside… the automatic doors that rumbled open and closed… the heaviness in his stomach… the lightness in his head… and now this tiny stone c
hamber.

  “Robert,” Peter whispered behind him, “sometimes a change of perspective is all it takes to see the light.”

  Speechless, Langdon stared out through the window. His gaze traveled into the darkness of the night, traversing more than a mile of empty space, dropping lower… lower… through the darkness… until it came to rest atop the brilliantly illuminated, stark white dome of the U.S. Capitol Building.

  Langdon had never seen the Capitol from this perspective — hovering 555 feet in the air atop America’s great Egyptian obelisk. Tonight, for the first time in his life, he had ridden the elevator up to the tiny viewing chamber… at the pinnacle of the Washington Monument.

  CHAPTER 129

  Robert Langdon stood mesmerized at the glass portal, absorbing the power of the landscape below him. Having ascended unknowingly hundreds of feet into the air, he was now admiring one of the most spectacular vistas he had ever seen.

  The shining dome of the U.S. Capitol rose like a mountain at the east end of the National Mall. On either side of the building, two parallel lines of light stretched toward him… the illuminated facades of the Smithsonian museums… beacons of art, history, science, culture.

  Langdon now realized to his astonishment that much of what Peter had declared to be true… was in fact true. There is indeed a winding staircase… descending hundreds of feet beneath a massive stone. The huge capstone of this obelisk sat directly over his head, and Langdon now recalled a forgotten bit of trivia that seemed to have eerie relevance: the capstone of the Washington Monument weighed precisely thirty-three hundred pounds.

  Again, the number 33.

  More startling, however, was the knowledge that this capstone’s ultimate peak, the zenith of this obelisk, was crowned by a tiny, polished tip of aluminum — a metal as precious as gold in its day. The shining apex of the Washington Monument was only about a foot tall, the same size as the Masonic Pyramid. Incredibly, this small metal pyramid bore a famous engraving — Laus Deo — and Langdon suddenly understood. This is the true message of the base of the stone pyramid.

  The seven symbols are a transliteration!

  The simplest of ciphers.

  The symbols are letters.

  The stonemason’s square — L

  The element gold — AU

  The Greek Sigma — S

  The Greek Delta — D

  Alchemical mercury — E

  The Ouroboros — O

  “Laus Deo,” Langdon whispered. The well-known Latin phrase — meaning “praise God” — was inscribed on the tip of the Washington Monument in script letters only one inch tall. On full display… and yet invisible to all.

  Laus Deo.

  “Praise God,” Peter said behind him, flipping on the soft lighting in the chamber. “The Masonic Pyramid’s final code.”

  Langdon turned. His friend was grinning broadly, and Langdon recalled that Peter had actually spoken the words “praise God” earlier inside the Masonic library. And I still missed it.

  Langdon felt a chill to realize how apt it was that the legendary Masonic Pyramid had guided him here… to America’s great obelisk — the symbol of ancient mystical wisdom — rising toward the heavens at the heart of a nation.

  In a state of wonder, Langdon began moving counterclockwise around the perimeter of the tiny square room, arriving now at another viewing window.

  North.

  Through this northward-facing window, Langdon gazed down at the familiar silhouette of the White House directly in front of him. He raised his eyes to the horizon, where the straight line of Sixteenth Street ran due north toward the House of the Temple.

  I am due south of Heredom.

  He continued around the perimeter to the next window. Looking west, Langdon’s eyes traced the long rectangle of the reflecting pool to the Lincoln Memorial, its classical Greek architecture inspired by the Parthenon in Athens, Temple to Athena — goddess of heroic undertakings.

  Annuit coeptis, Langdon thought. God favors our undertaking.

  Continuing to the final window, Langdon gazed southward across the dark waters of the Tidal Basin, where the Jefferson Memorial shone brightly in the night. The gently sloping cupola, Langdon knew, was modeled after the Pantheon, the original home to the great Roman gods of mythology.

  Having looked in all four directions, Langdon now thought about the aerial photos he had seen of the National Mall — her four arms outstretched from the Washington Monument toward the cardinal points of the compass. I am standing at the crossroads of America.

  Langdon continued back around to where Peter was standing. His mentor was beaming. “Well, Robert, this is it. The Lost Word. This is where it’s buried. The Masonic Pyramid led us here.”

  Langdon did a double take. He had all but forgotten about the Lost Word.

  “Robert, I know of nobody more trustworthy than you. And after a night like tonight, I believe you deserve to know what this is all about. As promised in legend, the Lost Word is indeed buried at the bottom of a winding staircase.” He motioned to the mouth of the monument’s long stairwell.

  Langdon had finally started to get his feet back under him, but now he was puzzled.

  Peter quickly reached into his pocket and pulled out a small object. “Do you remember this?”

  Langdon took the cube-shaped box that Peter had entrusted to him long ago. “Yes… but I’m afraid I didn’t do a very good job of protecting it.”

  Solomon chuckled. “Perhaps the time had come for it to see the light of day.”

  Langdon eyed the stone cube, wondering why Peter had just handed it to him.

  “What does this look like to you?” Peter asked.

  Langdon eyed the 1514 and recalled his first impression when Katherine had unwrapped the package. “A cornerstone.”

  “Exactly,” Peter replied. “Now, there are a few things you might not know about cornerstones. First, the concept of laying a cornerstone comes from the Old Testament.”

  Langdon nodded. “The Book of Psalms.”

  “Correct. And a true cornerstone is always buried beneath the ground — symbolizing the building’s initial step upward out of the earth toward the heavenly light.”

  Langdon glanced out at the Capitol, recalling that its cornerstone was buried so deep in the foundation that, to this day, excavations had been unable to find it.

  “And finally,” Solomon said, “like the stone box in your hand, many cornerstones are little vaults… and have hollow cavities so that they can hold buried treasures… talismans, if you will — symbols of hope for the future of the building about to be erected.”

  Langdon was well aware of this tradition, too. Even today, Masons laid cornerstones in which they sealed meaningful objects — time capsules, photos, proclamations, even the ashes of important people.

  “My purpose in telling you this,” Solomon said, glancing over at the stairwell, “should be clear.”

  “You think the Lost Word is buried in the cornerstone of the Washington Monument?”

  “I don’t think, Robert. I know. The Lost Word was buried in the cornerstone of this monument on July 4, 1848, in a full Masonic ritual.”

  Langdon stared at him. “Our Masonic forefathers buried a word?!”

  Peter nodded. “They did indeed. They understood the true power of what they were burying.”

  All night, Langdon had been trying to wrap his mind around sprawling, ethereal concepts… the Ancient Mysteries, the Lost Word, the Secrets of the Ages. He wanted something solid, and despite Peter’s claims that the key to it all was buried in a cornerstone 555 feet beneath him, Langdon was having a hard time accepting it. People study the mysteries for entire lifetimes and are still unable to access the power allegedly hidden there. Langdon flashed on Dürer’s Melencolia I — the image of the dejected Adept, surrounded by the tools of his failed efforts to unveil the mystical secrets of alchemy. If the secrets can actually be unlocked, they will not be found in one place!

  Any answer, Langdon
had always believed, was spread across the world in thousands of volumes… encoded into writings of Pythagoras, Hermes, Heraclitus, Paracelsus, and hundreds of others. The answer was found in dusty, forgotten tomes on alchemy, mysticism, magic, and philosophy. The answer was hidden in the ancient library of Alexandria, the clay tablets of Sumer, and the hieroglyphs of Egypt.

  “Peter, I’m sorry,” Langdon said quietly, shaking his head. “To understand the Ancient Mysteries is a lifelong process. I can’t imagine how the key could possibly rest within a single word.”

  Peter placed a hand on Langdon’s shoulder. “Robert, the Lost Word is not a ‘word.’” He gave a sage smile. “We only call it the ‘Word’ because that’s what the ancients called it… in the beginning.”

  CHAPTER 130

  In the beginning was the Word.

  Dean Galloway knelt at the Great Crossing of the National Cathedral and prayed for America. He prayed that his beloved country would soon come to grasp the true power of the Word — the recorded collection of the written wisdom of all the ancient masters — the spiritual truths taught by the great sages.

  History had blessed mankind with the wisest of teachers, profoundly enlightened souls whose understanding of the spiritual and mental mysteries exceeded all understanding. The precious words of these Adepts — Buddha, Jesus, Muhammad, Zoroaster, and countless others — had been transmitted through history in the oldest and most precious of vessels.

  Books.

  Every culture on earth had its own sacred book — its own Word — each one different and yet each one the same. For Christians, the Word was the Bible, for Muslims the Koran, for Jews the Torah, for Hindus the Vedas, and on and on it went.

  The Word shall light the way.

  For America’s Masonic forefathers, the Word had been the Bible. And yet few people in history have understood its true message.

  Tonight, as Galloway knelt alone within the great cathedral, he placed his hands upon the Word — a well-worn copy of his own Masonic Bible. This treasured book, like all Masonic Bibles, contained the Old Testament, the New Testament, and a treasure trove of Masonic philosophical writings.