Peter did not move. He simply stared down at the ancient knife gripped in his hand.
"I will you," Mal'akh taunted. "I am a willing sacrifice. Your final role has been written. You will transform me. You will liberate me from my body. You will do this, or you will lose your sister and your brotherhood. You will truly be all alone." He paused, smiling down at his captive. "Consider this your final punishment."
Peter's eyes rose slowly to meet Mal'akh's. "Killing you? A punishment? Do you think I will hesitate? You murdered my son. My mother. My entire family."
"No!" Mal'akh exploded with a force that startled even himself. "You are wrong! I did not murder your family! You did! It was you who made the choice to leave Zachary in prison! And from there, the wheels were in motion! You killed your family, Peter, not me!" Peter's knuckles turned white, his fingers clenching the knife in rage. "You know nothing of why I left Zachary in prison."
"I know everything!" Mal'akh fired back. "I was there. You claimed you were trying to help him. Were you trying to help him when you offered him the choice between wealth or wisdom? Were you trying to help him when you gave him the ultimatum to join the Masons? What kind of father gives a child the choice between `wealth or wisdom' and expects him to know how to handle it! What kind of father leaves his own son in a prison instead of flying him home to safety!" Mal'akh now moved in front of Peter and crouched down, placing his tattooed face only inches from his face. "But most important . . . what kind of father can look his own son in the eyes . . . even after all these years . . . and not even recognize him!"
Mal'akh's words echoed for several seconds in the stone chamber.
Then silence.
In the abrupt stillness, Peter Solomon seemed to have been jolted from his trance. His face clouded now with a visage of total incredulity.
Yes, Father. It's me. Mal'akh had waited years for this moment . . . to take revenge on the man who had abandoned him . . . to stare into those gray eyes and speak the truth that had been buried all these years. Now the moment was here, and he spoke slowly, longing to watch the full weight of his words gradually crush Peter Solomon's soul. "You should be happy, Father. Your prodigal son has returned."
Peter's face was now as pale as death.
Mal'akh savored every moment. "My own father made the decision to leave me in prison . . . and in that instant, I vowed that he had rejected me for the last time. I was no longer his son. Zachary Solomon ceased to exist."
Two glistening teardrops welled suddenly in his father's eyes, and Mal'akh thought they were the most beautiful thing he had ever seen.
Peter choked back tears, staring up at Mal'akh's face as if seeing him for the very first time.
"All the warden wanted was money," Mal'akh said, "but you refused. It never occurred to you, though, that my money was just as green as yours. The warden did not care who paid him, only that he was paid. When I offered to pay him handsomely, he selected a sickly inmate about my size, dressed him in my clothes, and beat him beyond all recognition. The photos you saw . . . and the sealed casket you buried . . . they were not mine. They belonged to a stranger."
Peter's tear-streaked face contorted now with anguish and disbelief. "Oh my God . . . Zachary."
"Not anymore. When Zachary walked out of prison, he was transformed." His adolescent physique and childlike face had drastically mutated when he flooded his young body with experimental growth hormones and steroids. Even his vocal cords had been ravaged, transforming his boyish voice into a permanent whisper.
Zachary became Andros.
Andros became Mal'akh.
And tonight . . . Mal'akh will become his greatest incarnation of all.
At that moment in Kalorama Heights, Katherine Solomon stood over the open desk drawer and gazed down at what could be described only as a fetishist's collection of old newspaper articles and photographs.
"I don't understand," she said, turning to Bellamy. "This lunatic was obviously obsessed with my family, but--"
"Keep going . . ." urged Bellamy, taking a seat and still looking deeply shaken.
Katherine dug deeper into the newspaper articles, every one of which related to the Solomon family--Peter's many successes, Katherine's research, their mother Isabel's terrible murder, Zachary Solomon's widely publicized drug use, incarceration, and brutal murder in a Turkish prison.
The fixation this man had on the Solomon family was beyond fanatical, and yet Katherine saw nothing yet to suggest why.
It was then that she saw the photographs. The first showed Zachary standing knee-deep in azure water on a beach dotted with whitewashed houses. Greece? The photo, she assumed, could have been taken only during Zach's freewheeling drug days in Europe. Strangely, though, Zach looked healthier than he did in the paparazzi shots of an emaciated kid partying with the drug crowd. He looked more fit, stronger somehow, more mature. Katherine never recalled him looking so healthy.
Puzzled, she checked the date stamp on the photo.
But that's . . . impossible.
The date was almost a full year after Zachary had died in prison.
Suddenly Katherine was flipping desperately through the stack. All of the photos were of Zachary Solomon . . . gradually getting older. The collection appeared to be some kind of pictorial autobiography, chronicling a slow transformation. As the pictures progressed, Katherine saw a sudden and dramatic change. She looked on in horror as Zachary's body began mutating, his muscles bulging, and his facial features morphing from the obvious heavy use of steroids. His frame seemed to double in mass, and a haunting fierceness crept into his eyes.
I don't even recognize this man!
He looked nothing like Katherine's memories of her young nephew.
When she reached a picture of him with a shaved head, she felt her knees begin to buckle. Then she saw a photo of his bare body . . . adorned with the first traces of tattoos.
Her heart almost stopped. "Oh my God . . ."
CHAPTER 120
"Right turn!" Langdon shouted from the backseat of the commandeered Lexus SUV.
Simkins swerved onto S Street and gunned the vehicle through a tree-lined residential neighborhood. As they neared the corner of Sixteenth Street, the House of the Temple rose like a mountain on the right.
Simkins stared up at the massive structure. It looked like someone had built a pyramid on top of Rome's Pantheon. He prepared to turn right on Sixteenth toward the front of the building.
"Don't turn!" Langdon ordered. "Go straight! Stay on S!"
Simkins obeyed, driving alongside the east side of the building.
"At Fifteenth," Langdon said, "turn right!"
Simkins followed his navigator, and moments later, Langdon had pointed out a nearly invisible, unpaved access road that bisected the gardens behind the House of the Temple. Simkins turned in to the drive and gunned the Lexus toward the rear of the building.
"Look!" Langdon said, pointing to the lone vehicle parked near the rear entrance. It was a large van. "They're here."
Simkins parked the SUV and killed the engine. Quietly, everyone got out and prepared to move in. Simkins stared up at the monolithic structure. "You say the Temple Room is at the top?"
Langdon nodded, pointing all the way to the pinnacle of the building. "That flat area on top of the pyramid is actually a skylight." Simkins spun back to Langdon. "The Temple Room has a skylight?"
Langdon gave him an odd look. "Of course. An oculus to heaven . . . directly above the altar."