The Lost Symbol

Now, ten years later, as Bellamy was being shoved blindly through the Library of Congress, he knew the crisis tonight was far from over. He also now knew whom Solomon had chosen to guard the capstone. and he prayed to God that Robert Langdon was up to the job.

CHAPTER 62

I’m underSecond Street.

Langdon’s eyes remained tightly shut as the conveyor rumbled through the darkness toward the Adams Building. He did his best not to picture the tons of earth overhead and the narrow tube through which he was now traveling. He could hear Katherine breathing several yards ahead of him, but so far, she had not uttered a word.

She’s in shock. Langdon was not looking forward to telling her about her brother’s severed hand. You have to, Robert. She needs to know.

“Katherine?” Langdon finally said, without opening his eyes. “Are you okay?”

A tremulous, disembodied voice replied somewhere up ahead. “Robert, the pyramid you’re carrying. It’s Peter’s, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” Langdon replied.

A long silence followed. “I think. that pyramid is why my mother was murdered.”

Langdon was well aware that Isabel Solomon had been murdered ten years ago, but he didn’t know the details, and Peter had never mentioned anything about a pyramid. “What are you talking about?”

Katherine’s voice filled with emotion as she recounted the harrowing events of that night, how the tattooed man had broken into their estate. “It was a long time ago, but I’ll never forget that he demanded a pyramid. He said he heard about the pyramid in prison, from my nephew, Zachary. right before he killed him.”

Langdon listened in amazement. The tragedy within the Solomon family was almost beyond belief. Katherine continued, telling Langdon that she had always believed the intruder was killed that night. that is, until this same man had resurfaced today, posing as Peter’s psychiatrist and luring Katherine to his home. “He knew private things about my brother, my mother’s death, and even my work,” she said anxiously, “things he could only have learned from my brother. And so I trusted him. and that’s how he got inside the Smithsonian Museum Support Center.” Katherine took a deep breath and told Langdon she was nearly certain the man had destroyed her lab tonight.

Langdon listened in utter shock. For several moments, the two of them lay together in silence on the moving conveyor. Langdon knew he had an obligation to share with Katherine the rest of tonight’s terrible news. He began slowly, and as gently as he possibly could he told her how her brother had entrusted him with a small package years earlier, how Langdon had been tricked into bringing this package to Washington tonight, and finally, about her brother’s hand having been found in the Rotunda of the Capitol Building.

Katherine’s reaction was deafening silence.

Langdon could tell she was reeling, and he wished he could reach out and comfort her, but lying end to end in the narrow blackness made it impossible. “Peter’s okay,” he whispered. “He’s alive, and we’ll get him back.” Langdon tried to give her hope. “Katherine, his captor promised me your brother would be returned alive. as long as I decipher the pyramid for him.”

Still Katherine said nothing.

Langdon kept talking. He told her about the stone pyramid, its Masonic cipher, the sealed capstone, and, of course, about Bellamy’s claims that this pyramid was in fact the Masonic Pyramid of legend. a map that revealed the hiding place of a long spiral staircase that led deep into the earth. down hundreds of feet to a mystical ancient treasure that had been buried in Washington long ago.

Katherine finally spoke, but her voice was flat and emotionless. “Robert, open your eyes.”

Open my eyes? Langdon had no desire to have even the slightest glimpse of how cramped this space really was.

“Robert!” Katherine demanded, urgently now. “Open your eyes! We’re here!”

Langdon’s eyes flew open as his body emerged through an opening similar to the one it had entered at the other end. Katherine was already climbing off the conveyor belt. She lifted his daybag off the belt as Langdon swung his legs over the edge and jumped down onto the tile floor just in time, before the conveyor turned the corner and headed back the way it came. The space around them was a circulation room much like the one they had come from in the other building. A small sign read ADAMS BUILDING: CIRCULATION ROOM 3.

Langdon felt like he had just emerged from some kind of subterranean birth canal. Born again. He turned immediately to Katherine. “Are you okay?”

Her eyes were red, and she had obviously been crying, but she nodded with a resolute stoicism. She picked up Langdon’s daybag and carried it across the room without a word, setting it on a cluttered desk. She lit the desk’s halogen clamp lamp, unzipped the bag, folded down the sides, and peered inside.