The Lost Symbol Chapter 117-118

CHAPTER 117Langdon mat up his stomach drop as the CIA helicopter leaped glum the lawn, banked hard, and accelerated meteoric than he ever betd a helicopter could move. Katherine had stayed behind to recuperate with Bellamy temporary hookup sen sit downion of the CIA actors emotional state toed the mansion and waited for a c everywhereingup team.Before Langdon left, she had kissed him on the electronic organization and whispered, Be safe, Robert.Now Langdon was h senescenting on for dear life as the military helicopter fin on the wholey leveled by and raced toward the House of the tabernacle.Seated beside him, Sato was let loose up to the pilot. Head for Dupont Circle she shouted oer the deafening noise. Well passel land thereStartled, Langdon turned to her. Dupont? Thats blocks from the House of the Temple We can country in the Temple parking lotSato shook her head. We need to destroy the building quietly. If our target hears us comingWe dont pass on time Langd on argued. This madcap is about to murder calamus Maybe the sound of the helicopter depart sc be him and beat him stopSato stared at him with ice-cold eye. As I bind told you, gibe Solomons safety is not my primary objective. I overhear Ive made that clear.Langdon was in no mood for anformer(a) national-security lecture. Look, Im the exactly iodin on board who k like a shots his way done that buildingCareful, Professor, the director warned. You are here as a member of my team, and I will have your complete cooperation. She paused a mo ment and then added, In fact, it might be wise if I straightaway apprised you fully of the severity of our crisis tonight.Sato reached under her female genitalia and pulled out a sleek titanium briefcase, which she opened to ruin an unusually complicated-looking computer. When she turned it on, a CIA logo materialized along with a log-in prompt.As Sato logged in, she asked, Professor, do you remember the blond hairpiece we base in the mans family?Yes.Well, hidden within that wig was a tiny fiber-optic camera . . . concealed in the bangs.A hidden camera? I dont derive.Sato looked grim. You will. She launched a file on the laptop computer.ONE MOMENT PLEASE . . .DECRYPTING FILE . . . A moving picture window popped up, filling the entire screen. Sato lifted the briefcase and put down it on Langdons thighs, giving him a reckon-row seat.An unusual image materialized on the screen.Langdon recoiled in surprise. What the blazing?Murky and dark, the tv recording was of a blindfolded man. He was dressed in the garb of a medieval heretic being led to the gal emits cotton gin roughly his neck, left pant leg rolled up to the knee, decent sleeve rolled up to the elbow, and his shirt gaping open to give notice (of) his bare chest.Langdon stared in disbelief. He had memorise enough about masonic rituals to recognize exactly what he was looking at.A masonic part . . . preparing to enter the premiere phase.The man was very muscular and tall, with a acquainted(predicate) blond hairpiece and deeply tanned skin. Langdon recognized his features at once. The mans tattoos had plain been concealed beneath bronzing makeup. He was standing before a full-length mirror videotaping his reflection through the camera concealed in his wig. besides . . . why?The screen faded to black.New footage appeared. A small, dimly lit, rectangular put up. A dramatic chessboard floor of black-and-white tile. A low wooden communion table, flanked on three sides by pillars, atop which burned waver candles.Langdon felt a sudden apprehension.Oh my God.Filming in the erratic way of an amateur home video, the camera now panned up to the periphery of the get on to reveal a small class of men observing the set about. The men were dressed in ritual Masonic regalia. In the darkness, Langdon could not make out their faces, scarce he had no doubt where this ritual was taking place.The traditional layout of this Lodge Ro om could have been anywhere in the world, but the powder-blue triangular pediment above the masters chair revealed it as the oldest Masonic lodge in D.C.Potomac Lodge No. 5home of George Washington and the Masonic forefathers who pose the cornerstone for the White House and the Capitol Building.The lodge was still active today. slam Solomon, in addition to overseeing the House of the Temple, was the master of his local anesthetic lodge. And it was at lodges interchangeable this one that a Masonic initiates journey always began . . . where he underwent the first three degrees of Freemasonry.Brethren, stopcocks familiar illustration declared, in the name of the Great fashion designer of the Universe, I open this lodge for the practice of Masonry in the first degreeA gavel rapped loudly.Langdon watched in utter disbelief as the video progressed through a quick series of dissolves featuring Peter Solomon performing some of the rituals starker issues. pressure level a shining da gger to the initiates bare chest . . . threatening impalement should the initiate inappropriately reveal the Mysteries of Masonry . . . describing the black-and-white floor as representing the living and the nonviable . . . outlining punishments that included having ones throat cut crosswise, ones tongue torn out by its roots, and ones body buried in the rough sands of the sea . . .Langdon stared. Am I really witnessing this? Masonic initiation rites had remained shrouded in secrecy for centuries. The only descriptions that had ever been flighted were written by a handful of estranged brothers. Langdon had fill those accounts, of course, and yet to see an initiation with his own look . . . this was a some(prenominal) different grade.Especially edited this way. Langdon could already assure that the video was an dirty piece of propaganda, omitting all the noblest aspects of the initiation and highlighting only the just about disconcerting. If this video were released, Langdon knew it would be sleep with an Internet sensation over night. The anti-Masonic conspiracy theorists would feed on this like sharks. The Masonic organization, and especially Peter Solomon, would find themselves embroiled in a firestorm of controversy and a desperate effort at footing control . . . even though the ritual was innocuous and purely symbolic.Eerily, the video included a biblical reference to valet sacrifice . . . the entranceway of Abraham to the Supreme Being by proffering Isaac, his firstborn son. Langdon thought of Peter and willed the helicopter to fly faster.The video footage shifted now.Same room. Different night. A larger group of Masons looking on. Peter Solomon was observing from the masters chair. This was the second degree. More intense now. kneeling at the altar . . . vowing to forever conceal the enigmas existing within Freemasonry . . . go for to the penalty of having ones chest cavity ripped open and neural im pulse heart put away upon the surface o f the humanity as offal for the ravenous beasts . . .Langdons own heart was pulsing wildly now as the video shifted yet again. Another night. A much larger crowd. A coffin-shaped tracing board on the floor. The ternion degree.This was the death ritualthe nearly rigorous of all the degreesthe moment in which the initiate was forced to face the final challenge of personal extinction. This labored interrogation was in fact the source of the common phrase to strive someone the third degree. And although Langdon was very familiar with academic accounts of it, he was in no way prepared for what he now saw.The murder.In violent, speedy intercuts, the video displayed a chilling, victims point-of-view account of the initiates brutal murder. There were simulated blows to his head, including one with a Masons stone maul. every the magical spell, a deacon mournfully told the story of the widows sonHiram Abiffthe master clothes designer of King Solomons temple, who chose to die rather th an reveal the secret wisdom he possessed.The attack was mimed, of course, and yet its effect on camera was bloodcurdling. After the deathblow, the initiatenow dead to his former egowas lowered into his symbolic coffin, where his eyes were shut and his arms were crossed like those of a corpse. The Masonic brothers rose and mournfully circled his dead body while a pipe organ played a march of the dead.The dismal scene was deeply disturbing.And it only got worse.As the men gathered somewhat their slain brother, the hidden camera clearly displayed their faces. Langdon now realized that Solomon was not the only famous man in the room. One of the men peering set ashore at the initiate in his coffin was on television more or less daily.A prominent U.S. senator.Oh God . . .The scene changed yet again. Outside now . . . nighttime . . . the same jumpy video footage . . . the man was walking down a city street . . . strands of blond hair blowing in front of the camera . . . turning a cor ner . . .the camera angle intemperate to something in the mans hand . . . a dollar bill . . . a close-up center on the Great Seal . . . the all-seeing eye . . . the unfinished pyramid . . . and then, abruptly, force away to reveal a similar shape in the blank . . . a coarse pyramidical building . . . with sloping sides rising to a truncated top.The House of the Temple.A soul-deep dread swelled within him.The video kept moving . . . the man hurrying toward the building now . . . up the multitiered staircase . . . toward the giant bronze doors . . . between the two seventeen-ton sphinx guardians. A crank entering the pyramid of initiation.Darkness now.A powerful pipe organ played in the distance . . . and a new image materialized.The Temple Room.Langdon swallowed hard.On-screen, the cavernous space was alive with electricity. Beneath the oculus, the black marble altar shone in the moonlight. Assembled around it, seated on hand-tooled pigskin chairs, awaited a drear council of d istinguished thirty-third-degree Masons, present to bear witness. The video now panned across their faces with silent and deliberate intention.Langdon stared in horror.Although he had not seen this coming, what he was looking at made perfect sense. A gathering of the most decorated and finish Masons in the most powerful city on earth would logically include many influential and well-known individuals. Sure enough, seated around the altar, adorned in their long silk gloves, Masonic aprons, and glistening jewels, were some of the countrys most powerful men.Two Supreme Court justices . . .The secretary of defense . . .The speaker unit of the House . . .Langdon felt ill as the video continued panning across the faces of those in attendance.Three prominent senators . . . including the studyity leader . . .The secretary of motherland security . . .And . . .The director of the CIA . . .Langdon wanted only to look away, but he could not. The scene was utterly mesmerizing, alarming even to him. In an instant, he had come to understand the source of Satos anxiety and concern.Now, on-screen, the shot dissolved into a single stripeing image.A human skull . . . filled with dark crimson watch crystalline. The celebrated caput mortuum was being offered forth to the initiate by the slender pass of Peter Solomon, whose gold Masonic ring glinted in the candlelight. The red liquid was wine . . . and yet it shimmered like blood. The visual effect was frightful.The Fifth Libation, Langdon realized, having read firsthand accounts of this sacrament in John Quincy Adamss Letters on the Masonic Institution. Even so, to see it legislate . . . to see it tranquillisely witnessed by Americas most powerful men . . . this was as arresting an image as any Langdon had ever seen.The initiate took the skull in his hands . . . his face reflected in the calm surface of the wine. May this wine I now drink work a deadly poison to me, he declared, should I ever wittingly or willfully viol ate my gadfly.Obviously, this initiate had intended to violate his oath beyond all imagination.Langdon could barely get his mind around what would happen if this video were made public. No one would understand. The government would be throw into upheaval. The airwaves would be filled with the voices of anti-Masonic groups, fundamentalists, and conspiracy theorists spewing hatred and fear, launching a puritan witch hunt all over again.The truth will be twisted, Langdon knew. As it always is with the Masons.The truth was that the couplings focus on death was in fact a bold celebration of life. Masonic ritual was intentional to awaken the slumbering man at heart, lifting him from his dark coffin of ignorance, raising him into the light, and giving him eyes to see. Only through the death experience could man fully understand his life experience. Only through the realization that his days on earth were finite could he grasp the importance of living those days with honor, integrity, and service of process to his fellow man.Masonic initiations were startling because they were meant to be transformative. Masonic vows were unforgiving because they were meant to be reminders that mans honor and his word were all he could take from this world. Masonic teachings were arcane because they were meant to be universal . . . taught through a common language of symbols and metaphors that transcended religions, cultures, and races . . . creating a unified worldwide consciousness of brotherly love.For a brief instant, Langdon felt a glimmer of hope. He tried to assure himself that if this video were to leak out, the public would be open-minded and tolerant, realizing that all spiritual rituals included aspects that would wait frightening if taken out of contextcrucifixion reenactments, Jewish circumcision rites, Mormon baptisms of the dead, Catholic exorcisms, Islamic niqab, shamanic trance healing, the Jewish Kaparot ceremony, even the eating of the metaphorical body and blood of Christ.Im dreaming, Langdon knew. This video will create chaos. He could imagine what would happen if the prominent leaders of Russia or the Islamic world were seen in a video, pressing knives to bare chests, swearing violent oaths, performing fling murders, lying in symbolic coffins, and drinking wine from a human skull. The global outcry would be instantaneous and overwhelming.God help us . . .On-screen now, the initiate was raising the skull to his lips. He tipped it backward . . . draining the crimson wine . . . sealing his oath. Then he lowered the skull and gazed out at the assembly around him. Americas most powerful and trusted men gave commodious nods of acceptance.Welcome, brother, Peter Solomon say.As the image faded to black, Langdon realized he had stop breathing.Without a word, Sato reached over, closed the briefcase, and lifted it off his lap. Langdon turned to her trying to speak, but he could find no words. It didnt matter. Understanding was written all over his face. Sato was right. Tonight was a national-security crisis . . . of unimaginable proportions.CHAPTER 118Dressed in his loincloth, Malakh padded back and forth in front of Peter Solomons wheelchair. Peter, he whispered, enjoying every moment of his captives horror, you forgot you have a second family . . . your Masonic brothers. And I will destroy them, too . . . unless you help me.Solomon looked roughly catatonic in the glow of the laptop sitting atop his thighs. Please, he finally stammered, glancing up. If this video gets out . . .If? Malakh laughed. If it gets out? He motioned to the small cubicleular modem plugged into the side of his laptop. Im connected to the world.You wouldnt . . .I will, Malakh thought, enjoying Solomons horror. You have the power to stop me, he said. And to save your sister. But you have to tell me what I want to know. The mixed-up Word is hidden somewhere, Peter, and I know this power grid reveals exactly where to find it.Peter glanced at t he grid of symbols again, his eyes revealing nothing.Perhaps this will help to inspire you. Malakh reached over Peters shoulders and hit a few keys on the laptop. An e-mail program launched on the screen, and Peter stiffened visibly. The screen now displayed an e-mail that Malakh had cued earlier tonighta video file addressed to a long list of major media networks.Malakh smiled. I think its time we share, dont you?DontMalakh reached down and clicked the send button on the program. Peter jerked against his bonds, trying unsuccessfully to knock the laptop to the floor.Relax, Peter, Malakh whispered. Its a massive file. It will take a few minutes to go out. He pointed to the progress barSENDING capacity 2% terminatedIf you tell me what I want to know, Ill stop the e-mail, and nobody will ever see this.Peter was ashen as the task bar inched forward.SENDING MESSAGE 4% COMPLETEMalakh now lifted the computer from Peters lap and set it on one of the nearby pigskin chairs, turning the scre en so the other man could watch the progress. Then he returned to Peters side and laid the page of symbols in his lap. The legends say the Masonic Pyramid will un bury the incapacitated Word. This is the pyramids final code. I believe you know how to read it.Malakh glanced over at the laptop.SENDING MESSAGE 8% COMPLETEMalakh returned his eyes to Peter. Solomon was staring at him, his g gibe eyes blazing now with hatred.Hate me, Malakh thought. The greater the emotion, the more potent the energy that will be released when the ritual is completed.At Langley, Nola Kaye touch the phone to her ear, barely able to hear Sato over the noise of the helicopter.They said its impossible to stop the file transfer Nola shouted. To shut down local ISPs would take at least an hour, and if hes got access to a wireless provider, cleanup position the ground-based Internet wont stop him from sending it anyway.Nowadays, stopping the flow of digital culture had become nearly impossible. There were t oo many access routes to the Internet. betwixt hard lines, Wi-Fi hot spots, cellular modems, SAT phones, superphones, and e-mail-equipped PDAs, the only way to isolate a potential data leak was by destroying the source machine.I pulled the spec sheet on the UH-60 youre flying, Nola said, and it looks like youre equipped with EMP.Electromagnetic-pulse or EMP guns were now commonplace among law enforcement agencies, which used them primarily to stop car chases from a safe distance. By firing a highly concentrated pulse of electromagnetic radiation, an EMP gun could effectively fry the electronics of any device it targetedcars, cell phones, computers. According to Nolas spec sheet, the UH- 60 had a chassis-mounted, laser-sighted, six-gigahertz magnetron with a fifty-dB-gain horn that yielded a ten-gigawatt pulse. Discharged directly at a laptop, the pulse would fry the computers motherboard and nowadays erase the hard drive.EMP will be useless, Sato yelled back. Target is inside a st one building. No sight lines and thick EM shielding. Do you have any indication yet if the video has gone out?Nola glanced at a second monitor, which was running a continuous search for breaking news stories about the Masons. Not yet, maam. But if it goes public, well know within seconds.Keep me posted. Sato signed off.Langdon held his breath as the helicopter dropped from the sky toward Dupont Circle. A handful of pedestrians scattered as the aircraft descended through an opening in the trees and arrive hard on the lawn just south of the famous two-tiered fountain designed by the same two men who created the Lincoln Memorial.Thirty seconds later, Langdon was riding shotgun in a commandeered Lexus SUV, tearing up New Hampshire bridle-path toward the House of the Temple.Peter Solomon was desperately trying to figure out what to do. All he could see in his mind were the images of Katherine bleeding in the basement . . . and of the video he had just witnessed. He turned his head e asy toward the laptop on the pigskin chair several yards away. The progress bar was almost a third of the way filled.SENDING MESSAGE 29% COMPLETEThe tattooed man was now walking slow circles around the square altar, char a lit censer and chanting to himself. Thick puffs of white roll of tobacco swirled up toward the skylight. The mans eyes were wide now, and he seemed to be in a demonic trance. Peter turned his gaze to the quaint knife that sat waiting on the white silk cloth spread across the altar.Peter Solomon had no doubt that he would die in this temple tonight. The capitulum was how to die. Would he find a way to save his sister and his brotherhood . . . or would his death be entirely in vain?He glanced down at the grid of symbols. When he had first laid eyes on the grid, the shock of the moment had blinded him . . . preventing his vision from piercing the veil of chaos . . . to glimpse the startling truth. Now, however, the real significance of these symbols had become cr ystal clear to him. He had seen the grid in an entirely new light.Peter Solomon knew exactly what he needed to do.Taking a deep breath, he gazed up at the moon through the oculus above. Then he began to speak.All great truths are simple.Malakh had learned that long ago.The solution that Peter Solomon was now explaining was so graceful and pure that Malakh was sure that it could only be true. Incredibly, the solution to the pyramids final code was far simpler than he had ever imagined.The disjointed Word was right before my eyes.In an instant, a bright ray of light pierced the murkiness of the history and myth surrounding the Lost Word. As promised, the Lost Word was indeed written in an ancient language and bore mystical power in every philosophy, religion, and cognition ever known to man. Alchemy, astrology, Kabbalah, Christianity, Buddhism, Rosicrucianism, Freemasonry, astronomy, physics, Noetics . . .Standing now in this initiation chamber atop the great pyramid of Heredom, Mal akh gazed upon the treasure he had sought all these years, and he knew he could not have prepared himself more perfectly. shortly I am complete.The Lost Word is found.In Kalorama Heights, a alone(predicate) CIA agent stood amid a sea of garbage that he had dumped out of the drinking glass bins that had been found in the garage.Ms. Kaye? he said, speaking to Satos analyst on the phone. severe thinking to search his garbage. I think I just found something. Inside the house, Katherine Solomon was feeling stronger with every passing moment. The infusion of lactated Ringers solution had successfully raised her blood pressure and quelled her throbbing headache. She was resting now, seated in the eat room, with explicit instructions to remain still. Her nerves felt frayed, and she was increasingly anxious for news about her brother.Where is everybody? The CIAs forensics team had not yet arrived, and the agent who had stayed behind was still off searching the premises. Bellamy had been s itting with her in the dining room, still wrapped in a foil blanket, but he, too, had wandered off to look for any information that might help the CIA save Peter. futile to sit idly, Katherine pulled herself to her feet, teetered, and then inched slowly toward the living room. She found Bellamy in the study. The Architect was standing at an open drawer, his back to her, apparently too draped in its contents to hear her enter.She walked up behind him. Warren?The old man lurched and turned, quickly shutting the drawer with his hip. His face was lined with shock and grief, his cheeks streaked with tears.Whats wrong? She glanced down at the drawer. What is it?Bellamy seemed unable to speak. He had the look of a man who had just seen something he deeply wished he had not.Whats in the drawer? she demanded.Bellamys tear-filled eyes held hers for a long, sorrowful moment. Finally he spoke. You and I wondered why . . . why this man seemed to hate your family.Katherines brow furrowed. Yes?We ll . . . Bellamys voice caught. I just found the answer.