The Lost Symbol Chapter 113-116

CHAPTER 113Wrapped in wool blankets, Langdon stood on wobbly legs and stared down at the open tank of liquid. His body had re dour to him, although he wished it had non. His throat and lungs burned. This world snarl hard and cruel.Sato had honourable explained the sensory-deprivation tank . . . adding that if she had non pulled him push through, he would adopt died of starvation, or worse. Langdon had little uncertainness that rotating shaft had endured a similar experience. asshole is in the in-between, the tattooed homo had t white-haired him earlier tonight. He is in purgatory . . . Hamistagan. If gibe had endured more than unitary of those birthing processes, Langdon would not have been affect if rotating shaft had told his captor anything he had penuryed to k in a flash.Sato moti unmatchedd for Langdon to follow her, and he did, trudging soft down a narrow h completely, deeper into this bizarre lair that he was this instant sympathizeing for the setoff time. T hey entered a square room with a endocarp table and eerie-colored lighting. Katherine was here, and Langdon heaved a sigh of relief. Even so, the scene was worrisome.Katherine was lying on her stand on a st one(a) table. Blood-soaked towels lay on the floor. A CIA element was holding an IV bag above her, the tube attached to her arm.She was sobbing quietly.Katherine? Langdon croaked, barely able to speak.She rancid her base on balls, sorting disorientated and confused. Robert? Her look widened with suspense and thence joy. scarce I . . . saw you drownHe go toward the stone table.Katherine pulled herself to a seated position, ignoring her IV tube and the medical objections of the actor. Langdon reached the table, and Katherine reached out, neglige her arms around his blanket-clad body, holding him close. Thank perfection, she whispered, kissing his cheek. Then she kissed him again, squeezing him as though she didnt deliberate he was real. I dont understand . . . how . . .Sato began maxim something nearly sensory-deprivation tanks and oxygenated perfluorocarbons, plainly Katherine understandably wasnt listening. She just held Langdon close.Robert, she said, Peters alive. Her congressman wavered as she recounted her scare reunion with Peter. She described his physical conditionthe wheelchair, the obscure knife, the completelyusions to some benignant of sacrifice, and how she had been go a federal agency bleeding as a forgiving hourglass to persuade Peter to service quickly.Langdon could barely speak. Do you . . . have any idea where . . . they went?He said he was taking Peter to the sacred mountain.Langdon pulled away and stared at her.Katherine had tears in her eyes. He said he had lineed the grid on the provide of the pyramid, and that the pyramid told him to go to the sacred mountain.Professor, Sato press, does that mean anything to you?Langdon impact his head. Not at all. Still, he felt a surge of hope. notwithstanding if he got the information off the stern of the pyramid, we adjudge notice get it, too. I told him how to solve it.Sato shook her head. The pyramids gone. Weve looked. He took it with him.Langdon remained silent a moment, closing his eyes and trying to regress what he had seen on the family of the pyramid. The grid of images had been one of the last images he had seen beforehand drowning, and trauma had a way of earnest memories deeper into the mind. He could recall some of the grid, definitely not all of it, entirely whitethornbe enough?He turned to Sato and said hurriedly, I may be able to remember enough, tho I need you to look up something on the Internet.She pulled out her BlackBerry.Run a search for The array Eight Franklin Square. Sato gave him a startled look but began typing without questions.Langdons mess was dummy up blurry, and he was only like a shot starting to process his strange surroundings. He realized that the stone table on which they were leaning was cov er with old bloodstains, and the wall to his right was entirely plastered with pages of text, photos, drawings, maps, and a teras web of strings interconnecting them.My God.Langdon travel toward the strange collage, still clutching the blankets around his body. Tacked on the wall was an utterly bizarre collection of informationpages from superannuated texts ranging from melanize wizardly to Christian Scripture, drawings of symbols and sigils, pages of conspiracy- theory Web sites, and sa recogniseite photos of Washington, D.C., scrawled with notes and question marks. oneness of the sheets was a long list of excogitates in domainy languages. He recognized some of them as sacred Masonic scripts, others as ancient magic words, and others from ceremonial in providetations.Is that what hes looking for?A word?Is it that simple?Langdons long-standing distrust intimately the Masonic Pyramid was bottomd largely on what it allegedly revealedthe location of the past Mysteries. This disco genuinely would have to involve an enormous spring filled with thousands upon thousands of volumes that had somehow survived the long-lost ancient libraries in which they had once been stored. It all seemed impossible. A vault that big? Beneath D.C.? Now, however, his recollection of Peters lecture at Phillips Exeter, unite with these lists of magic words, had opened another(prenominal) startling possibility.Langdon approximately definitely did not believe in the power of magic words . . . and to that degree it seemed moderately clear that the tattooed man did. His pulse quickened as he again scanned the scrawled notes, the maps, the texts, the printouts, and all the interconnected strings and sticky notes.Sure enough, on that point was one recurring theme. My God, hes looking for the verbum significatium . . . the muddled intelligence operation. Langdon let the thought take shape, recalling fragments of Peters lecture. The baffled reciprocation is what hes looking f or Thats what he believes is buried here in Washington.Sato arrived beside him. Is this what you asked for? She handed him her BlackBerry.Langdon looked at the eight-by-eight grid of numbers on the screen. Exactly. He grabbed a lay out of quarrel paper. Ill need a pen.Sato handed him one from her pocket. Please hurry.Inside the cellar office of the Directorate of Science and Technology, Nola Kaye was once again studying the redacted account brought to her by sys-sec Rick Parrish. What the hell is the CIA director doing with a file to the highest degree ancient pyramids and privy(p) underground locations?She grabbed the phone and dialed.Sato answered instantly, sounding tense. Nola, I was just slightly to call you.I have new information, Nola said. Im not current how this fits, but Ive discovered theres a redactedForget it, whatever it is, Sato interrupted. Were out of time. We failed to sail by dint of the target, and I have every reason to believe hes or so to submit ou t his threat.Nola felt a chill.The good news is we discern scarcely where hes passing. Sato took a deep breath. The bad news is that hes carrying a laptop with him.CHAPTER 114less(prenominal) than ten miles away, Malakh tucked the blanket around Peter Solomon and revolve him crosswise a moonlit parking lot into the shadow of an enormous building. The organise had exactly thirty-three outer columns . . . each precisely thirty-three feet tall. The hilly structure was relinquished at this hour, and nobody would ever see them ass here. Not that it mattered. From a distance, no one would think twice close to a tall, kindly-looking man in a long melanise application taking a bald invalid for an evening stroll.When they reached the rear entrance, Malakh wheeled Peter up close to the security keypad. Peter stared at it defiantly, all the way having no intention of entering the code.Malakh laughed. You think youre here to let me in? Have you forgotten so soon that I am one of you r brethren? He reached out and typed the access code that he had been go forn later on his initiation to the thirty-third degree.The heavy door clicked open.Peter groaned and began struggling in the wheelchair.Peter, Peter, Malakh cooed. Picture Katherine. Be cooperative, and she leave alone live. You can save her. I give you my word.Malakh wheeled his captive inside and relocked the door behind them, his heart race now with anticipation. He pushed Peter through some hallways to an elevator and pressed the call button. The doors opened, and Malakh rearwardsed in, pulling the wheelchair along with him. Then, making sure Peter could see what he was doing, he reached out and pressed the upper close button.A look of deepening dread crossed Peters tortured looking.Shh . . . Malakh whispered, gently throw Peters shaved head as the elevator doors closed. As you well have it off . . . the surreptitious is how to die.I cant remember all the symbolsLangdon closed his eyes, doing his best to recall the precise locations of the symbols on the bottom of the stone pyramid, but even his eidetic memory did not have that degree of recall. He wrote down the few symbols he could remember, placing each one in the location indicated by Franklins magic square.So far, however, he saw nothing that made any sense. tonus Katherine urged. You must be on the right track. The starting time row is all Hellenic garnersthe same kinds of symbols are macrocosm arranged unneuroticLangdon had noticed this, too, but he could not think of any Greek word that fit that configuration of letters and spaces. I need the first letter. He glanced again at the magic square, trying to recall the letter that had been in the number one spot near the lower left corner. Think He closed his eyes, trying to picture the base of the pyramid. The bottom row . . . next to the left- hand corner . . . what letter was there?For an instant, Langdon was back in the tank, racked with terror, staring up throu gh the Plexiglas at the bottom of the pyramid.Now, suddenly, he saw it. He opened his eyes, breathing heavily. The first letter is HLangdon turned back to the grid and wrote in the first letter. The word was still incomplete, but he had seen enough. Suddenly he realized what the word might be.Pulse pounding, Langdon typed a new search into the BlackBerry. He entered the side equivalent of this well- realisen Greek word. The first hit that appeared was an encyclopedia entry. He read it and knew it had to be right. HEREDOM n. a significant word in noble degree Freemasonry, from French Rose Croix rituals, where it refers to a mythical mountain in Scotland, the legendary site of the first such Chapter. From the Greek originating from Hieros-domos, Greek for holy mansion house.Thats it Langdon exclaimed, incredulous. Thats where they wentSato had been reading over his shoulder and looked lost. To a mythical mountain in Scotland?Langdon shook his head. No, to a building in Washington w hose code gens is Heredom.CHAPTER 115The House of the temple managen among its brethren as Heredomhad always been the hint jewel of the Masonic Scottish Rite in America. With its steeply sloped, pyramidal roof, the building was named for an imaginary Scottish mountain. Malakh knew, however, there was nothing imaginary about the treasure hidden here.This is the place, he knew. The Masonic Pyramid has shown the way.As the old elevator slowly made its way to the third floor, Malakh took out the piece of paper on which he had reorganized the grid of symbols using the Franklin Square. all told the Greek letters had now shifted to the first row . . . along with one simple symbol.The message could not have been more clear.Beneath the House of the Temple.HeredomThe Lost sound out is here . . . somewhere.Although Malakh did not sack out precisely how to identify it, he was confident that the answer lay in the remaining symbols on the grid. Conveniently, when it came to unlocking the s ecrets of the Masonic Pyramid and of this building, no one was more qualified to abet than Peter Solomon. The Worshipful Master himself.Peter continued to struggle in the wheelchair, making muffled sounds through his gag.I know youre worried about Katherine, Malakh said. But its almost over.For Malakh, the end felt like it had arrived very suddenly. by and by all the years of pain and planning, waiting and searching . . . the moment had now arrived.The elevator began to slow, and he felt a rush of excitement.The carriage jar to a stop.The bronze doors slid open, and Malakh gazed out at the glorious chamber before them. The massive square room was adorned with symbols and bathed in moonlight, which shone down through the oculus at the pinnacle of the ceiling high above.I have come full circle, Malakh thought.The Temple Room was the same place in which Peter Solomon and his brethren had so foolishly initiated Malakh as one of their own. Now the Masons most sublime secretsomething t hat most of the brethren did not even believe dwelledwas about to be unearthed.He wont find anything, Langdon said, still feeling groggy and disorientated as he followed Sato and the others up the wooden ramp out of the basement. there is no actual Word. Its all a illustrationa symbol of the Ancient Mysteries.Katherine followed, with two agents assisting her weakened body up the ramp.As the crowd moved gingerly through the wreckage of the steel door, through the rotating painting, and into the living room, Langdon explained to Sato that the Lost Word was one of Freemasonrys most enduring symbolsa single word, written in an arcane language that man could no longer decipher. The Word, like the Mysteries themselves, promised to get out its hidden power only to those enlightened enough to decrypt it. It is said, Langdon concluded, that if you can possess and understand the Lost Word . . . then the Ancient Mysteries im subdivision become clear to you.Sato glanced over. So you belie ve this man is looking for a word?Langdon had to admit it sounded absurd at face value, and yet it answered a lot of questions. Look, Im no specialist in ceremonial magic, he said, but from the documents on his basement walls . . . and from Katherines description of the untattooed flesh on his head . . . Id prescribe hes hoping to find the Lost Word and inscribe it on his body.Sato moved the group toward the dining room. Outside, the helicopter was warming up, its blades thundering louder and louder.Langdon kept talking, thinking aloud. If this cuckoo truly believes he is about to unlock the power of the Ancient Mysteries, no symbol would be more potent in his mind than the Lost Word. If he could find it and inscribe it on the top of his heada sacred location in itselfthen he would no doubt consider himself perfectly adorned and ritualistically prepared to . . . He paused, seeing Katherine discolour at the thought of Peters impending fate.But, Robert, she said weakly, her voice b arely hearable over the helicopter blades. This is good news, right? If he wants to inscribe the Lost Word on the top of his head before he sacrifices Peter, then we have time. He wont kill Peter until he finds the Word. And, if there is no Word . . .Langdon tried to look hopeful as the agents serve welled Katherine into a chair. Unfortunately, Peter still thinks youre bleeding to death. He thinks the only way to save you is to cooperate with this lunatic . . .probably to help him find the Lost Word.So what? she insisted. If the Word doesnt existKatherine, Langdon said, staring deeply into her eyes. If I believed you were dying, and if someone promised me I could save you by finding the Lost Word, then I would find this man a wordany wordand then Id pray to God he kept his promise.Director Sato an agent shouted from the next room. Youd better see thisSato hurried out of the dining room and saw one of her agents culmination down the stairs from the bedroom. He was carrying a nordi c wig. What the hell?Mans hairpiece, he said, handing it to her. Found it in the dressing room. Have a close look.The blond wig was much heavier than Sato expected. The skullcap seemed to be molded of a thickly gel. Strangely, the underside of the wig had a wire protruding from it.Gel-pack battery that molds to your scalp, the agent said. Powers a fiber-optic pinpoint camera hidden in the hair.What? Sato felt around with her fingers until she found the tiny camera lens nestled invisibly within the blond bangs. This things a hidden camera?Video camera, the agent said. Stores footage on this tiny solid-state card. He pointed to a stamp-size square of te embedded in the skullcap. Probably motion activated.Jesus, she thought. So thats how he did it.This sleek down version of the flower in the lapel secret camera had played a key role in the crisis the OS director was facing tonight. She glared at it a moment longer and then handed it back to the agent. occur searching the house, she said. I want every bit of information you can find on this guy. We know his laptop is missing, and I want to know exactly how he plans to connect it to the outside world while hes on the move. Search his study for manuals, cables, anything at all that might give us a clue about his hardware.Yes, maam. The agent hurried off.Time to move out. Sato could hear the whine of the helicopter blades at full pitch. She hurried back to the dining room, where Simkins had now ushered Warren Bellamy in from the helicopter and was gathering intel from him about the building to which they believed their target had gone.House of the Temple.The front doors are sealed from within, Bellamy was imagineing, still wrapped in a foil blanket and shivering visibly from his time outside in Franklin Square. The buildings rear entrance is your only way in. Its got a keypad with an access downslope known only to the brothers.Whats the PIN? Simkins demanded, taking notes.Bellamy sat down, looking too feeble to stand. Through yakety-yak teeth, he recited his access code and then added, The address is 1733 Sixteenth, but youll want the access drive and parking area, behind the building. Kind of tricky to find, butI know exactly where it is, Langdon said. Ill show you when we get there.Simkins shook his head. Youre not coming, Professor. This is a militaryThe hell Im not Langdon fired back. Peters in there And that buildings a labyrinth Without someone to lead you in, youll take ten proceeding to find your way up to the Temple RoomHes right, Bellamy said. Its a maze. There is an elevator, but its old and loud and opens in full view of the Temple Room. If you hope to move in quietly, youll need to ascend on foot.Youll never find your way, Langdon warned. From that rear entrance, youre navigating through the Hall of Regalia, the Hall of Honor, the ticker landing, the Atrium, the meretricious Stair Enough, Sato said. Langdons coming.CHAPTER 116The heftiness was growing.Malakh could feel it pulsing within him, moving up and down his body as he wheeled Peter Solomon toward the altar. I will exit this building infinitely more powerful than when I entered. All that remained now was to locate the final ingredient.Verbum significatium, he whispered to himself. Verbum omnificum.Malakh park Peters wheelchair beside the altar and then circled around and unzipped the heavy daybag that sat on Peters lap. orbit inside, he lifted out the stone pyramid and held it up in the moonlight, directly in front of Peters eyes, showing him the grid of symbols engraved on the bottom. All these years, he taunted, and you never knew how the pyramid kept her secrets. Malakh set the pyramid carefully on the corner of the altar and returned to the bag. And this talisman, he continued, extracting the golden capstone, did indeed bring order from chaos, exactly as promised. He placed the alloy capstone carefully atop the stone pyramid, and then stepped back to give Peter a clear view. Behold, your symbolon is complete.Peters face contorted, and he tried in vain to speak.Good. I can see you have something youd like to tell me. Malakh roughly yanked out the gag.Peter Solomon coughed and gasped for several seconds before he in the long run managed to speak. Katherine . . .Katherines time is short. If you want to save her, I suggest you do exactly as I say. Malakh suspected she was probably already unused, or if not, very close. It made no difference. She was lucky to have lived long enough to say good-bye to her brother.Please, Peter begged, his voice ragged. Send an ambulance for her . . .I will do exactly that. But first you must tell me how to access the secret staircase.Peters expression turned to one of disbelief. What?The staircase. Masonic legend speaks of stairs that return hundreds of feet to the secret location where the Lost Word is buried.Peter now looked panicked.You know the legend, Malakh baited. A secret staircase hidden on a lower floor a stone. He pointed t o the central altara huge block of granite with a rarified inscription in Hebrew GOD SAID, LET THERE BE LIGHT AND THERE WAS LIGHT. Obviously, this is the right place. The entrance to the staircase must be hidden on one of the floors below us.There is no secret staircase in this building Peter shouted.Malakh smiled patiently and motioned upward. This building is do like a pyramid. He pointed to the four-sided vaulted ceiling that angle up to the square oculus in the center.Yes, the House of the Temple is a pyramid, but what doesPeter, I have all night. Malakh smoothed his white silk fit out over his perfect body. Katherine, however, does not. If you want her to live, you will tell me how to access the staircase.I already told you, he declared, there is no secret staircase in this buildingNo? Malakh calmly produced the sheet of paper on which he had reorganized the grid of symbols from the base of the pyramid. This is the Masonic Pyramids final message. Your friend Robert Langdon helped me decipher it.Malakh raised the paper and held it in front of Peters eyes. The Worshipful Master inhaled sharp when he saw it. Not only had the sixty-four symbols been organized into clearly meaningful groups . . . but an actual image had materialized out of the chaos.An image of a staircase . . . beneath a pyramid.Peter Solomon stared in disbelief at the grid of symbols before him. The Masonic Pyramid had kept its secret for generations. Now, suddenly, it was being unveiled, and he felt a cold sense of foreboding in the pit of his stomach.The pyramids final code.At a glance, the true meaning of these symbols remained a mystery to Peter, and yet he could immediately understand why the tattooed man believed what he believed.He thinks there is a hidden staircase beneath the pyramid called Heredom. He misunderstands these symbols. Where is it? the tattooed man demanded. Tell me how to find the staircase, and I will save Katherine.I wish I could do that, Peter thought. But the s taircase is not real. The myth of the staircase was purely symbolic . . . part of the great allegories of Masonry. The Winding Staircase, as it was known, appeared on the second-degree tracing boards. It represented mans dexterous climb toward the Divine Truth. Like Jacobs ladder, the Winding Staircase was a symbol of the pathway to heaven . . . the journey of man toward God . . . the connection between the earthly and spiritual realms. Its steps represented the many virtues of the mind.He should know that, Peter thought. He endured all the initiations.Every Masonic initiate intimate of the symbolic staircase that he could ascend, enabling him to participate in the mysteries of military man science. Freemasonry, like Noetic Science and the Ancient Mysteries, revered the untapped authority of the human mind, and many of Masonrys symbols related to human physiology.The mind sits like a golden capstone atop the physical body. The Philosophers Stone. Through the staircase of the sp ur, energy ascends and descends, circulating, connecting the heavenly mind to the physical body.Peter knew it was no coincidence that the spine was made up of exactly thirty-three vertebrae. Thirty-three are the degrees of Masonry. The base of the spine, or sacrum, literally meant sacred bone. The body is indeed a temple. The human science that Masons revered was the ancient understanding of how to use that temple for its most potent and noble purpose.Unfortunately, explaining the truth to this man was not going to help Katherine at all. Peter gazed down at the grid of symbols and gave a thwarted sigh. Youre right, he lied. There is indeed a secret staircase beneath this building. And as soon as you send help to Katherine, Ill take you to it.The man with the tattoos simply stared at him.Solomon glared back, eyes defiant. Either save my sister and date the truth . . . or kill us both and remain swinish foreverThe man quietly lowered the paper and shook his head. Im not happy with you, Peter. You failed your test. You still take me for a fool. Do you truly believe I dont understand what it is I seek? Do you think I have not yet grasped my true potential?With that, the man turned his back and slipped off his robe. As the white silk fluttered to the floor, Peter saw for the first time the long tattoo running up the mans spine.Dear God . . .Winding up from the mans white loincloth, an elegant spiral staircase ascended the middle of his muscular back. Each stair was positioned on a different vertebra. Speechless, Peter let his eyes ascend the staircase, all the way up to the base of the mans skull.Peter could only stare.The tattooed man now tipped his shaved head backward, revealing the circle of bare flesh on the pinnacle of his skull. The thoroughgoing(a) skin was bordered by a single snake, looped in a circle, consuming itself.At-one-ment.Slowly now, the man lowered his head and turned to face Peter. The massive double-headed phoenix on his chest stared out t hrough dead eyes.I am looking for the Lost Word, the man said. Are you going to help me . . . or are you and your sister going to die?You know how to find it, Malakh thought. You know something youre not telling me.Peter Solomon had revealed things under scrutiny that he probably didnt even recall now. The repeated sessions in and out of the deprivation tank had left him delirious and compliant. Incredibly, when he spilled his guts, everything he told Malakh had been ordered with the legend of the Lost Word. The Lost Word is not a metaphor . . . it is real. The Word is written in an ancient language . . . and has been hidden for ages. The Word is capable of bringing unfathomable power to anyone who grasps its true meaning. The Word clay hidden to this day . . . and the Masonic Pyramid has the power to unveil it.Peter, Malakh now said, staring into his captives eyes, when you looked at that grid of symbols . . . you saw something. You had a revelation. This grid performer somethin g to you. Tell me.I will tell you nothing until you send help to KatherineMalakh smiled at him. Believe me, the prospect of losing your sister is the least of your worries right now. Without another word, he turned to Langdons daybag and started removing the items he had packed in his basement. Then he began meticulously arranging them on the sacrificial altar.A folded silk cloth. Pure white.A silver censer. Egyptian myrrh.A vial of Peters blood. Mixed with ash.A black crows feather. His sacred stylus.The sacrificial knife. Forged of iron from a meteorite in the desert of Canaan.You think I am afraid to die? Peter shouted, his voice racked with anguish. If Katherine is gone, I have nothing left Youve murdered my entire family Youve taken everything from meNot everything, Malakh replied. Not yet. He reached into the day-bag and pulled out the laptop from his study. He turned it on and looked over at his captive. Im afraid you have not yet grasped the true nature of your predicament.