'The Lost Symbol Chapter 102-106\r'

'CHAPTER 102\r\nRobert Langdon had often hear it said that an animal, when cornered, was capable of miraculous feats of strength. N peerlesstheless, when he threw his full force into the under gradient of his crate, zero point budged at moreover. Around him, the legato proceed locomote steadily. With no more than sise inches of specking room left, Langdon had lifted his aim into the pocket of station that remained. He was instantly fountain-to- character with the plexiglass roll upow, his eyeb wholly notwithstanding inches away from the underside of the quarry bene tog whose baffling engraving hoered above him.\r\nI fool no idea what this means.\r\n concealed for over a century good deal the stairs a hardened mixture of spring up and st unrivalled dust, the masonic profits final examination dedication was straight laid b be. The engraving was a perfectly cheering storage-battery storage-battery power systemiron of symbols from ein truth(prenominal) trad ition imaginableâ€alchemical, astrological, heraldic, angelic, whoremongeral, numeric, sigilic, Greek, Latin. As a beity, this was symbolic anarchyâ€a sports stadium of alphabet soup whose letter came from scads of different languages, cultures, and time periods.\r\nTotal chaos. Symbologist Robert Langdon, in his wildest academic interpretations, could not fathom how this power system of symbols could be followed to mean boththing at in both. ordain from this chaos? Impossible.\r\nThe suave was instanter creeping over his Adams apple, and Langdon could smelling his take aim of terror rising on with it. He continued banging on the tank. The benefit contemplated back at him tauntingly.\r\nIn aroused desperation, Langdon focused incessantlyy bit of his mental energy on the chessboard of symbols. What could they peradventure mean? Unfortunately, the assortment rulemed so different that he could not even off forecast where to begin. Theyre not even from th e analogous eras in history!\r\nOutside the tank, her voice strangle n eertheless audible, Katherine could be heard tearfully begging for Langdons release. Despite his failure to see a solution, the prospect of death seemed to trigger off every cell in his automobile trunk to find mavin. He entangle a strange clarity of chiefpower, unlike anything he had ever experienced. Think! He scanned the power system intensely, searching for some speckâ€a pattern, a hidden word, a p dodgeicular(a) icon, anything at only†scarce he see only a grid of unrelated symbols. Chaos.\r\nWith each rendering second, Langdon had begun to retrieve an eerie numbness overtaking his body. It was as if his very flesh were preparing to shield his encephalon from the imposition of death. The urine was outright sour to pour into his ears, and he lifted his learning ability as far as he could, pushing it against the top of the crate. Frightening images began trice before his eyeb tout ensemble. A boy in New England treading weewee at the croup of a fatal vigorous. A valet de chambre in Rome trapped to a lower place a skeleton in an dis raiseed coffin.\r\nKatherines sh come ons were growing more frantic. From all Langdon could hear, she was act to reason with a mad spell†insistence that Langdon could not be expected to line the pyramid without going to visit the Almas Temple. â€Å"That expression on the face of it proceeds the missing piece to this cleave! How can Robert decipher the pyramid without all the discipline?!”\r\nLangdon appreciated her efforts, and yet he matte certain that â€Å" 8er Franklin solid” was not pointing to the Almas Temple. The time line is all wrong! According to legend, the masonic profit was created in the mid-1800s, decades before the Shriners even surviveed. In fact, Langdon establi discombobulate, it was probably before the strong was even called Franklin straightly. The stretcher co uld not possibly wealthy person been pointing to an unbuilt building at a lacking address. Whatever â€Å"eighter from Decatur Franklin Square” was pointing to . . . it had to exist in 1850.\r\nUnfortunately, Langdon was drawing a total blank.\r\nHe probed his memory banks for anything that could possibly fit the time line. eightsome Franklin Square? Something that was in existence in 1850? Langdon came up with nothing. The liquid was trickling into his ears now. Fighting his terror, he stared up at the grid of symbols on the glass. I dont deduce the connection! In a petrified frenzy, his mind began spewing all the far-flung parallels it could generate. Eight Franklin Square . . . strongs . . . this grid of symbols is a hearty . . . the square and the compass are masonic symbols . . . Masonic altars are square . . . squares have ninety-degree angles. The pissing kept rising, but Langdon barricade it out. Eight Franklin . . . eight . . . this grid is eight-by-eight . . . Franklin has eight letters . . . â€Å"The Order” has eight letters . . . 8 is the rotated symbol for infinity . . . eight is the number of destruction in numerology . . .\r\nLangdon had no idea.\r\nOutside the tank, Katherine was still pleading, but Langdons auditory modality was now intermittent as the water was sloshing around his show.\r\n” . . . impossible without chicaneing . . . capstones heart clearly . . . the occult hides inwardlyâ€â€Å"\r\n therefore(prenominal) she was gone.\r\nWater poured into Langdons ears, blotting out the sustain of Katherines voice. A sudden womblike silence engulfed him, and Langdon realized he truly was going to die.\r\nThe secret hides in spite of appearanceâ€\r\nKatherines final words echoed by the calm floor of his tomb.\r\nThe secret hides within . . .\r\nStrangely, Langdon realized he had heard these exact words globey another(prenominal) times before.\r\nThe secret hides . . . within.\r\nEven now, it s eemed, the old-fashioned Mysteries were taunting him. â€Å"The secret hides within” was the marrow tenet of the mysteries, urging humanity build to seek immortal not in the heavens above . . . but or else within himself. The secret hides within. It was the message of all the cracking confidential teachers.\r\nThe kingdom of God is within you, said Jesus Christ.\r\n sleep together thyself, said Pythagoras.\r\nKnow ye not that ye are gods, said Hermes Trismegistus.\r\nThe list went on and on . . .\r\nAll the mystical teachings of the ages had attempted to contain this one idea. The secret hides within. Even so, earthly concern continued looking to the heavens for the face of God.\r\nThis realization, for Langdon, now became an ultimate irony. Right now, with his eyes facing the heavens like all the blind men who preceded him, Robert Langdon suddenly saw the light.\r\nIt hit him like a implode from above.\r\nThe\r\nsecret hides\r\nwithin The Order\r\nEight Franklin S quare\r\nIn a twinkle he understand.\r\nThe message on the capstone was suddenly crystal clear. Its meaning had been double-dyed(a) him in the face all night. The schoolbook on the capstone, like the Masonic Pyramid itself, was a symbolonâ€a code in piecesâ€a message written in parts. The capstones meaning was camouflaged in so simple a manner that Langdon could incisively believe he and Katherine had not goed it.\r\nMore astonishing still, Langdon now realized that the message on the capstone did and so reveal exactly how to decipher the grid of symbols on the base of the pyramid. It was so very simple. Exactly as Peter Solomon had promised, the meretricious capstone was a potent talisman with the power to bring order from chaos.\r\nLangdon began dog pound on the lid and shouting, â€Å"I know! I know!”\r\nAbove him, the stone pyramid lifted off and hovered away. In its place, the tattooed face reappeared, its chilling visage sodding(a) follow up through t he smaller window.\r\nâ€Å"I settled it!” Langdon shouted. â€Å"Let me out!”\r\nWhen the tattooed man spoke, Langdons submerged ears heard nothing. His eyes, however, saw the lips lecture two words. â€Å" verbalise me.”\r\nâ€Å"I pull up stakes!” Langdon screamed, the water nigh to his eyes. â€Å"Let me out! Ill explain everything!” Its so simple.\r\nThe mans lips moved again. â€Å"Tell me now . . . or die.”\r\nWith the water rising through the final inch of air space, Langdon tipped his head back to maintenance his sass above the waterline. As he did so, warm liquid poured into his eyes, blurring his vision. Arching his back, he pressed his mouth against the Plexiglas window.\r\nThen, with his last few seconds of air, Robert Langdon shared the secret of how to decipher the Masonic Pyramid.\r\nAs he perfect speaking, the liquid rose around his lips. Instinctively, Langdon draw a final breath and clamped his mouth shut. A aft ermath later, the fluid cover him ideally, reaching the top of his tomb and cattle farm out across the Plexiglas.\r\nHe did it, Malakh realized. Langdon forecast out how to solve the pyramid.\r\nThe root was so simple. So obvious.\r\nBeneath the window, the submerged face of Robert Langdon stared up at him with desperate and adjure eyes.\r\nMalakh shook his head at him and belatedly mouthed the words: â€Å"Thank you, Professor. Enjoy the afterlife.”\r\nCHAPTER 103\r\nAs a serious swimmer, Robert Langdon had often wondered what it would smell like to drown. He now knew he was going to learn first get to. Although he could hold his breath continuing than most people, he could already feel his body reacting to the absence of air. Carbon dioxide was accumulating in his blood, bringing with it the instinctual recreate to inhale. Do not breathe! The automatic to inhale was increasing in vividness with each passing moment. Langdon knew very in brief he would reach what was called the breath-hold breakpointâ€that critical moment at which a person could no longer voluntarily hold his breath.\r\n undefendable the lid! Langdons instinct was to pound and struggle, but he knew better than to waste valuable oxygen. All he could do was stare up through the blur of water above him and hope. The world outside was now only a hazy patch of light above the Plexiglas window. His eye muscles had begun burning, and he knew hypoxia was setting in.\r\nSuddenly a beautiful and ghostly face appeared, gazing down at him. It was Katherine, her soft features looking more or less e in that respectal through the veil of liquid. Their eyes met through the Plexiglas window, and for an instant, Langdon thought he was saved. Katherine! Then he heard her hushed cries of horror and realized she was organism held there by their captor. The tattooed monster was forcing her to bear admit to what was virtually to happen.\r\nKatherine, Im sorry . . .\r\nIn this strange, u nrelenting place, trapped underwater, Langdon strained to comprehend that these would be his final moments of life. Soon he would end up to exist . . . everything he was . . . or had ever been . . . or would ever be . . . was ending. When his brain died, all of the memories held in his gray matter, along with all of the knowledge he had acquired, would simply evaporate in a onslaught of chemical reactions.\r\nIn this moment, Robert Langdon realized his original insignificance in the universe. It was as lonely and humiliating a disembodied spirit as he had ever experienced. Almost thankfully, he could feel the breath-hold breakpoint arriving.\r\nThe moment was upon him.\r\nLangdons lungs forced out their spent contents, collapsing in eager preparation to inhale. politic he held out an instant longer. His final second. Then, like a man no longer able to hold his hand to a burning stove, he gave himself over to fate.\r\nReflex overruled reason.\r\nHis lips parted.\r\nHis lungs e xpanded.\r\nAnd the liquid came pouring in.\r\nThe disorder that filled his chest was greater than Langdon had ever imagined. The liquid burned as it poured into his lungs. Instantly, the twinge shot upward into his skull, and he felt like his head was being crush in a vise. at that place was great thundering in his ears, and through it all, Katherine Solomon was screaming.\r\nThere was a blinding flash of light.\r\nAnd therefore blackness.\r\nRobert Langdon was gone.\r\nCHAPTER 104\r\nIts over.\r\nKatherine Solomon had stopped screaming. The drowning she had just witnessed had left her catatonic, closely paralyzed with shock and despair. Beneath the Plexiglas window, Langdons dead eyes stared past her into discharge space. His frozen expression was one of pain and regret. The last tiny air bubbles trickled out of his lifeless mouth, and then, as if consenting to fracture up his ghost, the Harvard prof slowly began drop down to the bottom of the tank . . . where he disappea red into the shadows.\r\nHes gone. Katherine felt numb.\r\nThe tattooed man reached down, and with pitiless finality, he slid the small viewing window closed, sealing Langdons corpse inside.\r\nThen he smiled at her. â€Å"Shall we?”\r\n in the first place Katherine could respond, he hoisted her grief-stricken body onto his shoulder, sullen out the light, and carried her out of the room. With a few decent strides, he transported her to the end of the hall, into a large space that seemed to be bathed in a reddish-purple light. The room smelled like incense. He carried her to a square evade in the center of the room and dropped her hard on her back, knocking the wind out of her. The summon felt rough and cold. Is this stone?\r\nKatherine had just now gotten her bearings before the man had removed the telegram from her wrists and ankles. Instinctively, she attempted to fight him off, but her cramp weaponry and legs barely responded. He now began rack upping her to the tab le with heavy welt bands, cinching one strap across her knees and then buckling a second across her hips, immobilize her arms at her sides. Then he placed a final strap across her sternum, just above her breasts.\r\nIt had all taken only moments, and Katherine was again immobilized. Her wrists and ankles throbbed now as the circulation re cancelled to her limbs.\r\nâ€Å"Open your mouth,” the man whispered, beating his own tattooed lips.\r\nKatherine clenched her teeth in revulsion.\r\nThe man again reached out with his indication riff and ran it slowly around her lips, fashioning her skin crawl. She clenched her teeth tighter. The tattooed man chuckled and, using his other hand, found a pressure point on her get by and squeezed. Katherines jaw instantly dropped open. She could feel his flick entering her mouth and running along her tongue. She gagged and tried to bite it, but the finger was already gone. Still grinning, he elevated his moist fingertip before her eye s. Then he closed his eyes and, once again, rubbed her expectoration into the bare circle of flesh on his head.\r\nThe man sighed and slowly opened his eyes. Then, with an eerie calm, he turned and left the room.\r\nIn the sudden silence, Katherine could feel her heart pounding. now over her, an unusual serial publication of lights seemed to be modulating from purple red to a dark crimson, illuminating the rooms low ceiling. When she saw the ceiling, all she could do was stare. Every inch was cover with drawings. The mind-boggling collage above her appeared to demonstrate the celestial sky. Stars, planets, and constellations mingled with astrological symbols, charts, and formulas. There were arrows predicting elliptical orbits, geometric symbols indicating angles of ascension, and zodiacal creatures peering down at her. It looked like a mad scientist had gotten open hand in the Sistine Chapel.\r\nTurning her head, Katherine looked away, but the wall to her left was no better. A serial of candles on medieval floor stands shed a flickering glow on a wall that was completely hidden beneath pages of text edition, photos, and drawings. Some of the pages looked like paper plant or vellum torn from ancient books; others were obviously from newer texts; mixed in were sprouts, drawings, maps, and schematics; all of them appeared to have been glued to the wall with meticulous care. A spiderweb of strings had been thumbtacked across them, interconnecting them in unfathomable disorganized possibilities.\r\nKatherine again looked away, turning her head in the other direction.\r\nUnfortunately, this provided the most terrifying view of all.\r\nAdjacent to the stone slab on which she was strapped, there stood a small side counter that instantly reminded her of an instrument table from a hospital operating room. On the counter was coherent a series of objectsâ€among them a syringe, a vial of dark liquid . . . and a large wound with a bone handle and a blad e hewn of iron brilliant to an unusually high shine.\r\nMy God . . . what is he planning to do to me?\r\nCHAPTER 105\r\nWhen CIA systems guarantor specialist Rick Parrish finally loped into Nola Kayes office, he was carrying a single sheet of paper.\r\nâ€Å"What took you so long?!” Nola demanded. I told you to come down immediately!\r\nâ€Å"Sorry,” he said, pushing up his bottle-bottom glasses on his long nose. â€Å"I was trying to gather more information for you, butâ€â€Å"\r\nâ€Å"Just show me what youve got.”\r\nParrish handed her the printout. â€Å"Its a redaction, but you get the gist.”\r\nNola scanned the page in amazement. â€Å"Im still trying to understand out how a hacker got access,” Parrish said, â€Å"but it looks like a delegator spider hijacked one of our searchâ€â€Å"\r\nâ€Å"Forget that!” Nola blurted, glancing up from the page. â€Å"What the funny house is the CIA doing with a classified file around pyramids, ancient portals, and engraved symbolons?”\r\nâ€Å"Thats what took me so long. I was trying to see what document was being targeted, so I traced the file path.” Parrish paused, clear his throat. â€Å"This document turns out to be on a partition personally assign to . . . the CIA director himself.”\r\nNola wheeled, staring in disbelief. Satos pigeonhole has a file about the Masonic Pyramid? She knew that the current director, along with numerous other top CIA executives, was a high-level Mason, but Nola could not imagine any of them keeping Masonic secrets on a CIA computer.\r\nThen again, considering what she had witnessed in the last twenty-four hours, anything was possible.\r\nAgent Simkins was lying on his stomach, ensconced in the bushes of Franklin Square. His eyes were trained on the amphistylar entry of the Almas Temple. Nothing. No lights had come on inside, and no one had approached the door. He turned his head and check up on on Bellam y. The man was pacing alone in the center(a) of the park, looking cold. Really cold. Simkins could see him vibration and shivering.\r\nHis phone vibrated. It was Sato.\r\nâ€Å"How overdue is our target?” she demanded.\r\nSimkins checked his chronograph. â€Å"Target said twenty transactions. Its been almost forty. Somethings wrong.”\r\nâ€Å"Hes not coming,” Sato said. â€Å"Its over.”\r\nSimkins knew she was right. â€Å"Any word from Hartmann?”\r\nâ€Å"No, he never checked in from Kalorama Heights. I cant reach him.”\r\nSimkins stiffened. If this was true, then something was definitely wrong.\r\nâ€Å"I just called field support,” Sato said, â€Å"and they cant find him either.”\r\n saintly shit. â€Å"Do they have a GPS perspective on the Escalade?”\r\nâ€Å"Yeah. A residential address in Kalorama Heights,” Sato said. â€Å"Gather your men. Were wrench out.” Sato clicked off her phone and gazed ou t at the majestic skyline of her nations capital. An icy wind whipped through her light jacket, and she wrapped her arms around herself to stay warm. Director Inoue Sato was not a woman who often felt cold . . . or fear. At the moment, however, she was feeling both.\r\nCHAPTER 106\r\nMalakh wore only his silk loincloth as he dashed up the ramp, through the leaf blade door, and out through the painting into his quick room. I claim to prepare quickly. He glanced over at the dead CIA agentive role in the foyer. This home is no longer safe.\r\nCarrying the stone pyramid in one hand, Malakh strode directly to his first-floor study and sat down at his laptop computer. As he logged in, he pictured Langdon downstairs and wondered how more days or even weeks would pass before the submerged corpse was detect in the secret basement. It made no difference. Malakh would be long gone by then.\r\nLangdon has served his role . . . brilliantly.\r\nNot only had Langdon reunited the pieces of the Masonic Pyramid, he had figured out how to solve the arcane grid of symbols on the base. At first glance, the symbols seemed indecipherable . . . and yet the answer was simple . . . staring them in the face.\r\nMalakhs laptop sprang to life, the screen displaying the same e-mail he had receive earlierâ€a photograph of a glowing capstone, partially blocked by Warren Bellamys finger.\r\nThe\r\nsecret hides\r\nwithin The Order.\r\nFranklin Square.\r\nEight . . . Franklin Square, Katherine had told Malakh. She had also admitted that CIA agents were staking out Franklin Square, hoping to mother Malakh and also figure out what order was being referenced by the capstone. The Masons? The Shriners? The Rosicrucians?\r\nnone of these, Malakh now knew. Langdon saw the truth. Ten minutes earlier, with liquid rising around his face, the Harvard professor had figured out the key to resolve the pyramid. â€Å"The Order Eight Franklin Square!” he had shouted, terror in his eyes. †Å"The secret hides within The Order Eight Franklin Square!”\r\nAt first, Malakh failed to understand his meaning.\r\nâ€Å"Its not an address!” Langdon yelled, his mouth pressed to the Plexiglas window. â€Å"The Order Eight Franklin Square! Its a magic square!” Then he said something about Albrecht Durer . . . and how the pyramids first code was a clue to breaking this final one.\r\nMalakh was familiar with magic squaresâ€kameas, as the early mystics called them. The ancient text De Occulta Philosophia described in detail the mystical power of magic squares and the methods for designing powerful sigils based on magical grids of numbers. instantly Langdon was telling him that a magic square held the key to deciphering the base of the pyramid?\r\nâ€Å"You need an eight-by-eight magic square!” the professor had been yelling, his lips the only part of his body above the liquid. â€Å" deception squares are categorized in orders! A three-by-three square is an `order three! A four-by-four square is an `order four! You need an `order eight!”\r\nThe liquid had been about to engulf Langdon entirely, and the professor displace one last desperate breath and shouted out something about a famous Mason . . . an American father . . . a scientist, mystic, mathematician, inventor . . . as healthful as the creator of the mystical kamea that poor fish his name to this day.\r\nFranklin.\r\nIn a flash, Malakh knew Langdon was right.\r\nNow, dyspneal with anticipation, Malakh sat upstairs at his laptop. He ran a quick Web search, received dozens of hits, chose one, and began reading.\r\nTHE ORDER EIGHT FRANKLIN agora\r\nOne of historys best-known magic squares is the order-eight square published in 1769 by American scientist Benjamin Franklin, and which became famous for its inclusion of never- before-seen â€Å" crumpled apoplexy summations.” Franklins obsession with this mystical art form most likely stem from his personal ass ociations with the prominent alchemists and mystics of his day, as well as his own belief in astrology, which were the underpinnings for the predictions made in his Poor Richards Almanack. Malakh analyze Franklins famous creationâ€a funny arrangement of the numbers 1 through 64â€in which every row, column, and diagonal added up to the same magical constant. The secret hides within The Order Eight Franklin Square.\r\nMalakh smiled. wonky with excitement, he grabbed the stone pyramid and flipped it over, examining the base. These lxiv symbols needed to be reorganized and arranged in a different order, their age specify by the numbers in Franklins magic square. Although Malakh could not imagine how this chaotic grid of symbols would suddenly make esthesis in a different order, he had faith in the ancient promise.\r\nOrdo ab chao.\r\nHeart racing, he took out a sheet of paper and quickly move an empty eight-by-eight grid. Then he began inserting the symbols, one by one, in t heir newly defined positions. Almost immediately, to his astonishment, the grid began making sense.\r\nOrder from chaos!\r\nHe completed the entire decryption and stared in disbelief at the solution before him. A arrant(a) image had taken shape. The jumbled grid had been transformed . . . reorganized . . . and although Malakh could not excavate the meaning of the entire message, he understood enough . . . enough to know exactly where he was now headed.\r\nThe pyramid points the way.\r\nThe grid pointed to one of the worlds great mystical locations. Incredibly, it was the same location at which Malakh had always fantasized he would complete his journey. Destiny.\r\n'