The Lost Symbol

Bellamy immediately crossed the room to a steel door, where he inserted his key card, typed a sequence of buttons, and pushed open the door. The space beyond was dark, but as the door opened, a span of motion-sensor lights flickered to life.

When Langdon saw what lay beyond, he realized he was looking at something few people ever saw. The Library of Congress stacks. He felt encouraged by Bellamy’s plan. What better place to hide than in a giant labyrinth?

Bellamy did not guide them into the stacks, however. Instead, he propped the door open with a book and turned back to face them. “I had hoped to be able to explain a lot more to you, but we have no time.” He gave Langdon his key card. “You’ll need this.”

“You’re not coming with us?” Langdon asked.

Bellamy shook his head. “You’ll never make it unless we split up. The most important thing is to keep that pyramid and capstone in safe hands.”

Langdon saw no other way out except the stairs back up to the reading room. “And where are you going?”

“I’ll coax them into the stacks away from you,” Bellamy said. “It’s all I can do to help you escape.”

Before Langdon could ask where he and Katherine were supposed to go, Bellamy was heaving a large crate of books off one of the conveyors. “Lie on the belt,” Bellamy said. “Keep your hands in.”

Langdon stared. You cannot be serious! The conveyor belt extended a short distance then disappeared into a dark hole in the wall. The opening looked large enough to permit passage of a crate of books, but not much more. Langdon glanced back longingly at the stacks.

“Forget it,” Bellamy said. “The motion-sensor lights will make it impossible to hide.”

“Thermal signature!” a voice upstairs shouted. “Flanks converge!”

Katherine apparently had heard all she needed to hear. She climbed onto the conveyor belt with her head only a few feet from the opening in the wall. She crossed her hands over her chest like a mummy in a sarcophagus.

Langdon stood frozen.

“Robert,” Bellamy urged, “if you won’t do this for me, do it for Peter.”

The voices upstairs sounded closer now.

As if in a dream, Langdon moved to the conveyor. He slung his daybag onto the belt and then climbed on, placing his head at Katherine’s feet. The hard rubber conveyor felt cold against his back. He stared at the ceiling and felt like a hospital patient preparing for insertion headfirst into an MRI machine.

“Keep your phone on,” Bellamy said. “Someone will call soon. and offer help. Trust him.”

Someone will call? Langdon knew that Bellamy had been trying to reach someone with no luck and had left a message earlier. And only moments ago, as they hurried down the spiral staircase, Bellamy had tried one last time and gotten through, speaking very briefly in hushed tones and then hanging up.

“Follow the conveyor to the end,” Bellamy said. “And jump off quickly before you circle back. Use my key card to get out.”

“Get out of where?!” Langdon demanded.

But Bellamy was already pulling levers. All the different conveyors in the room hummed to life. Langdon felt himself jolt into motion, and the ceiling began moving overhead.

God save me.

As Langdon approached the opening in the wall, he looked back and saw Warren Bellamy race through the doorway into the stacks, closing the door behind him. An instant later, Langdon slid into the darkness, swallowed up by the library. just as a glowing red laser dot came dancing down the stairs.

CHAPTER 60

The underpaid female security guard from Preferred Security double-checked the Kalorama Heights address on her call sheet. This is it? The gated driveway before her belonged to one of the neighborhood’s largest and quietest estates, and so it seemed odd that 911 had just received an urgent call about it.

As usual with unconfirmed call-ins, 911 had contacted the local alarm company before bothering the police. The guard often thought the alarm company’s motto — “Your first line of defense” — could just as easily have been “False alarms, pranks, lost pets, and complaints from wacky neighbors.”

Tonight, as usual, the guard had arrived with no details about the specific concern. Above my pay grade. Her job was simply to show up with her yellow bubble light spinning, assess the property, and report anything unusual. Normally, something innocuous had tripped the house alarm, and she would use her override keys to reset it. This house, however, was silent. No alarm. From the road, everything looked dark and peaceful.

The guard buzzed the intercom at the gate, but got no answer. She typed her override code to open the gate and pulled into the driveway. Leaving her engine running and her bubble light spinning, she walked up to the front door and rang the bell. No answer. She saw no lights and no movement.