The Lost Symbol

Langdon turned to see the OS director marching in, BlackBerry in hand and fire in her eyes. Taken aback, Langdon looked to Anderson for help, but the chief was now standing guard at the door, his expression unsympathetic. Sato arrived in front of Langdon and thrust her BlackBerry in his face.

Bewildered, Langdon looked at the screen, which displayed an inverted black-and-white photograph, like a ghostly film negative. The photo looked like a jumble of objects, and one of them shone very brightly. Though askew and off center, the brightest object was clearly a little, pointed pyramid.

A tiny pyramid? Langdon looked at Sato. “What is this?”

The question seemed only to incense Sato further. “You’re pretending you don’t know?”

Langdon’s temper flared. “I’m not pretending anything! I’ve never seen this before in my life!”

“Bullshit!” Sato snapped, her voice cutting through the musty air. “You’ve been carrying it in your bag all night!”

“I —” Langdon stalled midsentence. His eyes moved slowly down to the daybag on his shoulder. Then he raised them again to the BlackBerry. My God. the package. He looked more closely at the image. Now he saw it. A ghostly cube, enclosing the pyramid. Stunned, Langdon realized he was looking at an X-ray of his bag. and also of Peter’s mysterious cube-shaped package. The cube was, in fact, a hollow box. a small pyramid.

Langdon opened his mouth to speak, but his words failed him. He felt the breath go out of his lungs as a new revelation struck him.

Simple. Pure. Devastating.

My God. He looked back at the truncated stone pyramid on the desk. Its apex was flat — a small square area — a blank space symbolically awaiting its final piece. that piece which would transform it from an Unfinished Pyramid into a True Pyramid.

Langdon now realized the tiny pyramid he was carrying was not a pyramid at all. It’s a capstone. At that instant, he knew why he alone could unlock the mysteries of this pyramid.

I hold the final piece.

And it is indeed. a talisman.

When Peter had told Langdon the package contained a talisman, Langdon had laughed. Now he realized his friend was right. This tiny capstone was a talisman, but not the magic kind. the far older kind. Long before talisman had magical connotations, it had another meaning — “completion.” From the Greek telesma, meaning “complete,” a talisman was any object or idea that completed another and made it whole. The finishing element. A capstone, symbolically speaking, was the ultimate talisman, transforming the Unfinished Pyramid into a symbol of completed perfection.

Langdon now felt an eerie convergence that forced him to accept one very strange truth: with the exception of its size, the stone pyramid in Peter’s Chamber of Reflection seemed to be transforming itself, bit by bit, into something vaguely resembling the Masonic Pyramid of legend.

From the brightness with which the capstone shone on the X-ray, Langdon suspected it was made of metal. a very dense metal. Whether or not it was solid gold, he had no way of knowing, and he was not about to let his mind start playing tricks on him. This pyramid is too small. The code’s too easy to read. And. it’s a myth, for heaven’s sake!

Sato was watching him. “For a bright man, Professor, you’ve made some dumb choices tonight. Lying to an intelligence director? Intentionally obstructing a CIA investigation?”

“I can explain, if you’ll let me.”

“You will be explaining at CIA headquarters. As of this moment, I am detaining you.”

Langdon’s body went rigid. “You can’t possibly be serious.”

“Deadly serious. I made it very clear to you that the stakes tonight were high, and you chose not to cooperate. I strongly suggest you start thinking about explaining the inscription on this pyramid, because when we arrive at the CIA. ” She raised her BlackBerry and took a close-up snapshot of the engraving on the stone pyramid. “My analysts will have had a head start.”

Langdon opened his mouth to protest, but Sato was already turning to Anderson at the door. “Chief,” she said, “put the stone pyramid in Langdon’s bag and carry it. I’ll handle taking Mr. Langdon into custody. Your weapon, if I may?”

Anderson was stone-faced as he advanced into the chamber, unsnapping his shoulder holster as he came. He gave his gun to Sato, who immediately aimed it at Langdon.

Langdon watched as if in a dream. This cannot be happening.

Anderson now came to Langdon and removed the daybag from his shoulder, carrying it over to the desk and setting it on the chair. He unzipped the bag, propped it open, and then hoisted the heavy stone pyramid off the desk and into the bag, along with Langdon’s notes and the tiny package.