Nobody leaves this building.
As the chopper rose back into the night sky, Simkins and his team ran up the stairs to the cathedral's main entrance. Before he could decide which of the six doors to pound on, one of them swung open.
"Yes?" a calm voice said from the shadows.
Simkins could barely make out the hunched figure in priest's robes. "Are you Dean Colin Galloway?"
"I am," the old man replied.
"I'm looking for Robert Langdon. Have you seen him?"
The old man stepped forward now, staring past Simkins with eerie blank eyes. "Now, wouldn't that be a miracle."
CHAPTER 88
Time is running out.
Security analyst Nola Kaye was already on edge, and the third mug of coffee she was now drinking had begun coursing through her like an electric current.
No word yet from Sato.
Finally, her phone rang, and Nola leaped on it. "OS," she answered. "Nola here."
"Nola, it's Rick Parrish in systems security."
Nola slumped. No Sato. "Hi, Rick. What can I do for you?" "I wanted to give you a heads-up--our department may have information relevant to what you're working on tonight."
Nola set down her coffee. How the hell do you know what I'm working on tonight? "I beg your pardon?"
"Sorry, it's the new CI program we're beta-testing," Parrish said. "It keeps flagging your workstation number."
Nola now realized what he was talking about. The Agency was currently running a new piece of "collaborative integration" software designed to provide real-time alerts to disparate CIA departments when they happened to be processing related data fields. In an era of time-sensitive terrorist threats, the key to thwarting disaster was often as simple as a heads-up telling you that the guy down the hall was analyzing the very data you needed. As far as Nola was concerned, this CI software had proven more of a distraction than any real help--constant interruption software, she called it.
"Right, I forgot," Nola said. "What have you got?" She was positive that nobody else in the building knew about this crisis, much less could be working on it. The only computer work Nola had done tonight was historical research for Sato on esoteric Masonic topics. Nonetheless, she was obliged to play the game.
"Well, it's probably nothing," Parrish said, "but we stopped a hacker tonight, and the CI program keeps suggesting I share the information with you."
A hacker? Nola sipped her coffee. "I'm listening."
"About an hour ago," Parrish said, "we snagged a guy named Zoubianis trying to access a file on one of our internal databases. This guy claims it was a job for hire and that he has no idea why he was being paid to access this particular file or even that it was on a CIA server."
"Okay."
"We finished questioning him, and he's clean. But here's the weird thing--the same file he was targeting had been flagged earlier tonight by an internal search engine. It looks like someone piggybacked into our system, ran a specific keyword search, and generated a redaction. The thing is, the keywords they used are really strange. And there's one in particular that the CI flagged as a high-priority match--one that's unique to both of our data sets." He paused. "Do you know the word . . . symbolon?"
Nola jolted upright, spilling coffee on her desk.
"The other keywords are just as unusual," Parrish continued. "Pyramid, portal--"
"Get down here," Nola commanded, mopping up her desk. "And bring everything you've got!" "These words actually mean something to you?"
"NOW!"
CHAPTER 89
Cathedral College is an elegant, castlelike edifice located adjacent to the National Cathedral. The College of Preachers, as it was originally envisioned by the first Episcopal bishop of Washington, was founded to provide ongoing education for clergy after their ordination. Today, the college offers a wide variety of programs on theology, global justice, healing, and spirituality.
Langdon and Katherine had made the dash across the lawn and used Galloway's key to slip inside just as the helicopter rose back over the cathedral, its floodlights turning night back into day. Now, standing breathless inside the foyer, they surveyed their surroundings. The windows provided sufficient illumination, and Langdon saw no reason to turn the lights on and take a chance of broadcasting their whereabouts to the helicopter overhead. As they moved down the central hallway, they passed a series of conference halls, classrooms, and sitting areas. The interior reminded Langdon of the neo-Gothic buildings of Yale University--breathtaking on the outside, and yet surprisingly utilitarian on the inside, their period elegance having been retrofitted to endure heavy foot traffic.
"Down here," Katherine said, motioning toward the far end of the hall.
Katherine had yet to share with Langdon her new revelation regarding the pyramid, but apparently the reference to Isaacus Neutonuus had sparked it. All she had said as they crossed the lawn was that the pyramid could be transformed using simple science. Everything she needed, she believed, could probably be found in this building. Langdon had no idea what she needed or how Katherine intended to transform a solid piece of granite or gold, but considering he had just witnessed a cube metamorphose into a Rosicrucian cross, he was willing to have faith.
They reached the end of the hall and Katherine frowned, apparently not seeing what she wanted. "You said this building has dormitory facilities?"
"Yes, for residential conferences."
"So they must have a kitchen in here somewhere, right?" "You're hungry?"
She frowned back at him. "No, I need a lab."
Of course you do. Langdon spotted a descending staircase that bore a promising symbol. America's favorite pictogram.
The basement kitchen was industrial looking--lots of stainless steel and big bowls--clearly designed to cook for large groups. The kitchen had no windows. Katherine closed the door and flipped on the lights. The exhaust fans came on automatically.
She began rooting around in the cupboards for whatever it was she needed. "Robert," she directed, "put the pyramid out on the island, if you would."
Feeling like the novice sous chef taking orders from Daniel Boulud, Langdon did as he was told, removing the pyramid from his bag and placing the gold capstone on top of it. When he finished, Katherine was busy filling an enormous pot with hot tap water.
"Would you please lift this to the stove for me?"
Langdon heaved the sloshing pot onto the stove as Katherine turned on the gas burner and cranked up the flame.
"Are we doing lobsters?" he asked hopefully.
"Very funny. No, we're doing alchemy. And for the record, this is a pasta pot, not a lobster pot." She pointed to the perforated strainer insert that she had removed from the pot and placed on the island beside the pyramid.
Silly me. "And boiling pasta is going to help us decipher the pyramid?"
Katherine ignored the comment, her tone turning serious. "As I'm sure you know, there is a historical and symbolic reason the Masons chose thirty-three as their highest degree."
"Of course," Langdon said. In the days of Pythagoras, six centuries before Christ, the tradition of numerology hailed the number 33 as the highest of all the Master Numbers. It was the most sacred figure, symbolizing Divine Truth. The tradition lived on within the Masons . . . and elsewhere. It was no coincidence that Christians were taught that Jesus was crucified at age thirty-three, despite no real historical evidence to that effect. Nor was it coincidence that Joseph was said to have been thirty-three when he married the Virgin Mary, or that Jesus accomplished thirty-three miracles, or that God's name was mentioned thirty-three times in Genesis, or that, in Islam, all the dwellers of heaven were permanently thirty-three years old.