The Lost Symbol

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.

I need food.

A few hours later, the pickup that pulled out from behind the old motel looked nothing like the truck that had pulled in two days earlier. The cab cap was missing, as were the hubcaps, bumper stickers, and all of the trim. The Vermont plates were gone, replaced by those from an old maintenance truck Andros had found parked by the motel Dumpster, into which he had thrown all the bloody sheets, bird shot, and other evidence that he had ever been at the motel.

Andros had not given up on the pyramid, but for the moment it would have to wait. He needed to hide, heal, and above all, eat. He found a roadside diner where he gorged himself on eggs, bacon, hash browns, and three glasses of orange juice. When he was done, he ordered more food to go. Back on the road, Andros listened to the truck’s old radio. He had not seen a television or newspaper since his ordeal, and when he finally heard a local news station, the report stunned him.

“FBI investigators,” a news announcer said, “continue their search for the armed intruder who murdered Isabel Solomon in her Potomac home two days ago. The murderer is believed to have fallen through the ice and been washed out to sea.”

Andros froze. Murdered Isabel Solomon? He drove on in bewildered silence, listening to the full report.

It was time to get far, far away from this place.

The Upper West Side apartment offered breathtaking views of Central Park. Andros had chosen it because the sea of green outside his window reminded him of his lost view of the Adriatic. Although he knew he should be happy to be alive, he was not. The emptiness had never left him, and he found himself fixated on his failed attempt to steal Peter Solomon’s pyramid.

Andros had spent long hours researching the Legend of the Masonic Pyramid, and although nobody seemed to agree on whether or not the pyramid was real, they all concurred on its famous promise of vast wisdom and power. The Masonic Pyramid is real, Andros told himself. My inside information is irrefutable.

Fate had placed the pyramid within Andros’s reach, and he knew that ignoring it was like holding a winning lottery ticket and never cashing it in. I am the only non-Mason alive who knows the pyramid is real. as well as the identity of the man who guards it.

Months had passed, and although his body had healed, Andros was no longer the cocky specimen he had been in Greece. He had stopped working out, and he had stopped admiring himself naked in the mirror. He felt as if his body were beginning to show signs of age. His once-perfect skin was a patchwork of scars, and this only depressed him further. He still relied on the painkillers that had nursed him through his recovery, and he felt himself slipping back to the lifestyle that had put him in Soganlik Prison. He didn’t care. The body craves what the body craves.