“I am,” Langdon admitted reluctantly.
No wonder Peter always gets his way.
“Wonderful! Would you be willing to meet the jet there at say . . . five o’clock?”
“You haven’t left me much choice, have you?” Langdon chuckled.
“I just want to make Mr. Solomon happy, sir.”
Peter has that effect on people.
Langdon considered it a long moment, seeing no way out. “All right. Tell him I can do it.”
“Outstanding!” the assistant exclaimed, sounding deeply relieved. He gave Langdon the jet’s tail number and various other information.
When Langdon finally hung up, he wondered if Peter Solomon had ever been told no.
Returning to his coffee preparation, Langdon scooped some additional beans into the grinder.
A little extra caffeine this morning,
he thought.
It’s going to be a long day.
CHAPTER
4
The U.S.
Capitol Building stands regally at the eastern end of the National Mall, on a raised plateau that city designer Pierre L’Enfant described as “a pedestal waiting for a monument.” The Capitol’s massive footprint measures more than 750 feet in length and 350 feet deep. Housing more than sixteen acres of floor space, it contains an astonishing 541 rooms. The neoclassical architecture is meticulously designed to echo the grandeur of ancient Rome, whose ideals were the inspiration for America’s founders in establishing the laws and culture of the new republic.
The new security checkpoint for tourists entering the Capitol Building is located deep within the recently completed subterranean visitor center, beneath a magnificent glass skylight that frames the Capitol Dome. Newly hired security guard Alfonso Nuñez carefully studied the male visitor now approaching his checkpoint. The man had a shaved head and had been lingering in the lobby, completing a phone call before entering the building. His right arm was in a sling, and he moved with a slight limp. He was wearing a tattered army-navy surplus coat, which, combined with his shaved head, made Nuñez guess military. Those who had served in the U.S. armed forces were among the most common visitors to Washington.
“Good evening, sir,” Nuñez said, following the security protocol of verbally engaging any male visitor who entered alone.
“Hello,” the visitor said, glancing around at the nearly deserted entry. “Quiet night.”
“NFC play-offs,” Nuñez replied. “Everyone’s watching the Redskins tonight.” Nuñez wished he were, too, but this was his first month on the job, and he’d drawn the short straw. “Metal objects in the dish, please.”
As the visitor fumbled to empty the pockets of his long coat with his one working hand, Nuñez watched him carefully. Human instinct made special allowances for the injured and handicapped, but it was an instinct Nuñez had been trained to override.
Nuñez waited while the visitor removed from his pockets the usual assortment of loose change, keys, and a couple of cell phones. “Sprain?”
Nuñez asked, eyeing the man’s injured hand, which appeared to be wrapped in a series of thick Ace bandages.
The bald man nodded. “Slipped on the ice. A week ago. Still hurts like hell.”
“Sorry to hear that. Walk through, please.”
The visitor limped through the detector, and the machine buzzed in protest.
The visitor frowned. “I was afraid of that. I’m wearing a ring under these bandages. My finger was too swollen to get it off, so the doctors wrapped right over it.”
“No problem,” Nuñez said. “I’ll use the wand.”
Nuñez ran the metal-detection wand over the visitor’s wrapped hand. As expected, the only metal he detected was a large lump on the man’s injured ring finger. Nuñez took his time rubbing the metal detector over every inch of the man’s sling and finger. He knew his supervisor was probably monitoring him on the closed circuit in the building’s security center, and Nuñez needed this job.
Always better to be cautious.
He carefully slid the wand up inside the man’s sling.
The visitor winced in pain.
“Sorry.”
“It’s okay,” the man said. “You can’t be too careful these days.”
“Ain’t that the truth.” Nuñez liked this guy. Strangely, that counted for a lot around here. Human instinct was America’s first line of defense against terrorism. It was a proven fact that human intuition was a more accurate detector of danger than all the electronic gear in the world—the
gift of fear,
as one of their security reference books termed it.
In this case, Nuñez’s instincts sensed nothing that caused him any fear. The only oddity that he noticed, now that they were standing so close, was that this tough-looking guy appeared to have used some kind of self-tanner or concealer makeup on his face.
Whatever
.
Everyone hates to be pale in the winter.
“You’re fine,” Nuñez said, completing his sweep and stowing the wand.
“Thanks.” The man started collecting his belongings from the tray.
As he did, Nuñez noticed that the two fingers protruding from his bandage each bore a tattoo; the tip of his index finger bore the image of a crown, and the tip of his thumb bore that of a star.
Seems everyone has tattoos these days,
Nuñez thought, although the pads of his fingertips seemed like painful spots to get them. “Those tats hurt?”
The man glanced down at his fingertips and chuckled. “Less than you might think.”
“Lucky,” Nuñez said. “Mine hurt a lot. I got a mermaid on my back when I was in boot camp.”
“A mermaid?” The bald man chuckled.
“Yeah,” he said, feeling sheepish. “The mistakes we make in our youth.”
“I hear you,” the bald man said. “I made a big mistake in my youth, too. Now I wake up with her every morning.”
They both laughed as the man headed off.
Child’s play,
Mal’akh thought as he moved past Nuñez and up the escalator toward the Capitol Building. The entry had been easier than anticipated. Mal’akh’s slouching posture and padded belly had hidden his true physique, while the makeup on his face and hands had hidden the tattoos that covered his body. The true genius, however, was the sling, which disguised the potent object Mal’akh was transporting into the building.
A gift for the one man on earth who can help me obtain what I seek.
CHAPTER
5
The world’s
largest and most technologically advanced museum is also one of the world’s best-kept secrets. It houses more pieces than the Hermitage, the Vatican Museum, and the New York Metropolitan . . . combined. Yet despite its magnificent collection, few members of the public are ever invited inside its heavily guarded walls.
Located at 4210 Silver Hill Road just outside of Washington, D.C., the museum is a massive zigzag-shaped edifice constructed of five interconnected pods—each pod larger than a football field. The building’s bluish metal exterior barely hints at the strangeness within—a six-hundred-thousand-square-foot alien world that contains a “dead zone,” a “wet pod,” and more than twelve miles of storage cabinets.
Tonight, scientist Katherine Solomon was feeling unsettled as she drove her white Volvo up to the building’s main security gate.
The guard smiled. “Not a football fan, Ms. Solomon?” He lowered the volume on the Redskins play-off pregame show.
Katherine forced a tense smile. “It’s Sunday night.”
“Oh, that’s right. Your meeting.”
“Is he here yet?” she asked anxiously.
He glanced down at his paperwork. “I don’t see him on the log.”
“I’m early.” Katherine gave a friendly wave and continued up the winding access road to her usual parking spot at the bottom of the small, two-tiered lot. She began collecting her things and gave herself a quick check in the rearview mirror—more out of force of habit than actual vanity.
Katherine Solomon had been blessed with the resilient Mediterranean skin of her ancestry, and even at fifty years old she had a smooth olive complexion. She used almost no makeup and wore her thick black hair unstyled and down. Like her older brother, Peter, she had gray eyes and a slender, patrician elegance.
You two might as well be twins,
people often told them.
Their father had succumbed to cancer when Katherine was only seven,
and she had little memory of him. Her brother, eight years Katherine’s senior and only fifteen when their father died, had begun his journey toward becoming the Solomon patriarch much sooner than anyone had ever dreamed. As expected, though, Peter had grown into the role with the dignity and strength befitting their family name. To this day, he still watched over Katherine as though they were just kids.
Despite her brother’s occasional prodding, and no shortage of suitors, Katherine had never married. Science had become her life partner, and her work had proven more fulfilling and exciting than any man could ever hope to be. Katherine had no regrets.
Her field of choice—Noetic Science—had been virtually unknown when she first heard of it, but in recent years it had started opening new doors of understanding into the power of the human mind.
Our untapped potential is truly shocking.
Katherine’s two books on Noetics had established her as a leader in this obscure field, but her most recent discoveries, when published, promised to make Noetic Science a topic of mainstream conversation around the world.
Tonight, however, science was the last thing on her mind. Earlier in the day, she had received some truly upsetting information relating to her brother.
I still can’t believe it’s true.
She’d thought of nothing else all afternoon.
A pattering of light rain drummed on her windshield, and Katherine quickly gathered her things to get inside. She was about to step out of her car when her cell phone rang.
She checked the caller ID and inhaled deeply.
Then she tucked her hair behind her ears and settled in to take the call.
Six miles away, Mal’akh was moving through the corridors of the U.S. Capitol Building with a cell phone pressed to his ear. He waited patiently as the line rang.
Finally, a woman’s voice answered. “Yes?”
“We need to meet again,” Mal’akh said.
There was a long pause. “Is everything all right?”
“I have new information,” Mal’akh said.
“Tell me.”
Mal’akh took a deep breath. “That which your brother believes is hidden in D.C. . . . ?”
“Yes?”
“It can be found.”
Katherine Solomon sounded stunned. “You’re telling me—it is
real
?”
Mal’akh smiled to himself. “Sometimes a legend that endures for centuries . . . endures for a reason.”
CHAPTER
6
Is this
as close as you can get?” Robert Langdon felt a sudden wave of anxiety as his driver parked on First Street, a good quarter mile from the Capitol Building.
“Afraid so,” the driver said. “Homeland Security. No vehicles near landmark buildings anymore. I’m sorry, sir.”
Langdon checked his watch, startled to see it was already 6:50. A construction zone around the National Mall had slowed them down, and his lecture was to begin in ten minutes.
“Weather’s turning,” the driver said, hopping out and opening Langdon’s door for him. “You’ll want to hurry.” Langdon reached for his wallet to tip the driver, but the man waved him off. “Your host already added a very generous tip to the charge.”
Typical Peter,
Langdon thought, gathering his things. “Okay, thanks for the ride.”
The first few raindrops began to fall as Langdon reached the top of the gracefully arched concourse that descended to the new “underground” visitors’ entrance.
The Capitol Visitor Center had been a costly and controversial project. Described as an underground city to rival parts of Disney World, this subterranean space reportedly provided over a half-million square feet of space for exhibits, restaurants, and meeting halls.
Langdon had been looking forward to seeing it, although he hadn’t anticipated quite this long a walk. The skies were threatening to open at any moment, and he broke into a jog, his loafers offering almost no traction on the wet cement.
I dressed for a lecture, not a four-hundred-yard downhill dash through the rain!
When he arrived at the bottom, he was breathless and panting. Langdon pushed through the revolving door, taking a moment in the foyer to catch his breath and brush off the rain. As he did, he raised his eyes to the newly completed space before him.
Okay, I’m impressed.
The Capitol Visitor Center was not at all what he had expected. Because the space was underground, Langdon had been apprehensive about passing through it. A childhood accident had left him stranded at the bottom of a deep well overnight, and Langdon now lived with an almost crippling aversion to enclosed spaces. But this underground space was . . . airy somehow.
Light. Spacious.
The ceiling was a vast expanse of glass with a series of dramatic light fixtures that threw a muted glow across the pearl-colored interior finishes.
Normally, Langdon would have taken a full hour in here to admire the architecture, but with five minutes until showtime, he put his head down and dashed through the main hall toward the security checkpoint and escalators.
Relax,
he told himself.
Peter knows you’re on your way. The event won’t start without you.
At the security point, a young Hispanic guard chatted with him while Langdon emptied his pockets and removed his vintage watch.
