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CHAPTER 86
In the cerulean glow of his basement lights, Mal'akh stood at the stone table and continued his preparations. As he worked, his empty stomach growled. He paid no heed. His days of servitude to the whims of his flesh were behind him.
Transformation requires sacrifice.
Like many of history's most spiritually evolved men, Mal'akh had committed to his path by making the noblest of flesh sacrifices. Castration had been less painful than he had imagined. And, he had learned, far more common. Every year, thousands of men underwent surgical gelding--orchiectomy, as the process was known--their motivations ranging from transgender issues, to curbing sexual addictions, to deep-seated spiritual beliefs. For Mal'akh, the reasons were of the highest nature. Like the mythological self-castrated Attis, Mal'akh knew that achieving immortality required a clean break with the material world of male and female.
The androgyne is one.
Nowadays, eunuchs were shunned, although the ancients understood the inherent power of this transmutational sacrifice. Even the early Christians had heard Jesus Himself extol its virtues in Matthew 19:12: "There are those who have made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. He who is able to accept this, let him accept it."
Peter Solomon had made a flesh sacrifice, although a single hand was a small price in the grand scheme. By night's end, however, Solomon would be sacrificing much, much more.
In order to create, I must destroy.
Such was the nature of polarity.
Peter Solomon, of course, deserved the fate that awaited him tonight. It would be a fitting end. Long ago, he had played the pivotal role in Mal'akh's mortal life path. For this reason, Peter had been chosen to play the pivotal role in Mal'akh's great transformation. This man had earned all the horror and pain he was about to endure. Peter Solomon was not the man the world believed he was.
He sacrificed his own son.
Peter Solomon had once presented his son, Zachary, with an impossible choice--wealth or wisdom. Zachary chose poorly. The boy's decision had begun a chain of events that eventually dragged the young man into the depths of hell. Soganlik Prison. Zachary Solomon had died in that Turkish prison. The whole world knew the story . . . but what they didn't know was that Peter Solomon could have saved his son.
I was there, Mal'akh thought. I heard it all.
Mal'akh had never forgotten that night. Solomon's brutal decision had meant the end of his son, Zach, but it had been the birth of Mal'akh.
Some must die that others may live. As the light over Mal'akh's head began changing color again, he realized the hour was late. He completed his preparations and headed back up the ramp. It was time to attend to matters of the mortal world.
CHAPTER 87
All is revealed at the thirty-third degree, Katherine thought as she ran. I know how to transform the pyramid! The answer had been right in front of them all night.
Katherine and Langdon were alone now, dashing through the cathedral's annex, following signs for "The Garth." Now, exactly as the dean had promised, they burst out of the cathedral into a massive, walled-in courtyard.
The cathedral garth was a cloistered, pentagonal garden with a bronze postmodern fountain. Katherine was amazed how loudly the fountain's flowing water seemed to be reverberating in the courtyard. Then she realized it was not the fountain she was hearing.
"Helicopter!" she shouted as a beam of light pierced the night sky above them. "Get under that portico!"
The dazzling glare of a searchlight flooded the garth just as Langdon and Katherine reached the other side, slipping beneath a Gothic arch into a tunnel that led to the outside lawn. They waited, huddled in the tunnel, as the helicopter passed overhead and began circling the cathedral in wide arcs.
"I guess Galloway was right about hearing visitors," Katherine said, impressed. Bad eyes make for great ears. Her own ears now pounded rhythmically with her racing pulse.
"This way," Langdon said, clutching his daybag and moving through the passage.
Dean Galloway had given them a single key and a clear set of directions. Unfortunately, when they reached the end of the short tunnel, they found themselves separated from their destination by a wide-open expanse of lawn, currently flooded with light from the helicopter overhead.
"We can't get across," Katherine said.
"Hold on . . . look." Langdon pointed to a black shadow that was materializing on the lawn to their left. The shadow began as an amorphous blob, but it was growing quickly, moving in their direction, becoming more defined, rushing at them faster and faster, stretching, and finally transforming itself into a massive black rectangle crowned by two impossibly tall spires.
"The cathedral facade is blocking the searchlight," Langdon said.
"They're landing out in front!"
Langdon grabbed Katherine's hand. "Run! Now!"
Inside the cathedral, Dean Galloway felt a lightness in his step that he had not felt in years. He moved through the Great Crossing, down the nave toward the narthex and the front doors.
He could hear the helicopter hovering in front of the cathedral now, and he imagined its lights coming through the rose window in front of him, throwing spectacular colors all over the sanctuary. He recalled the days when he could see color. Ironically, the lightless void that had become his world had illuminated many things for him. I see more clearly now than ever.
Galloway had been called to God as a young man and over his lifetime had loved the church as much as any man could. Like many of his colleagues who had given their lives in earnest to God, Galloway was weary. He had spent his life straining to be heard above the din of ignorance.
What did I expect?
From the Crusades, to the Inquisition, to American politics--the name Jesus had been hijacked as an ally in all kinds of power struggles. Since the beginning of time, the ignorant had always screamed the loudest, herding the unsuspecting masses and forcing them to do their bidding. They defended their worldly desires by citing Scripture they did not understand. They celebrated their intolerance as proof of their convictions. Now, after all these years, mankind had finally managed to utterly erode everything that had once been so beautiful about Jesus.
Tonight, encountering the symbol of the Rose Cross had fueled him with great hope, reminding him of the prophecies written in the Rosicrucian manifestos, which Galloway had read countless times in the past and could still recall.
Chapter One: Jehova will redeem humanity by revealing those secrets which he previously reserved only for the elect.
Chapter Four: The whole world shall become as one book and all the contradictions of science and theology shall be reconciled.
Chapter Seven: Before the end of the world, God shall create a great flood of spiritual light to alleviate the suffering of humankind.
Chapter Eight: Before this revelation is possible, the world must sleep away the intoxication of her poisoned chalice, which was filled with the false life of the theological vine.
Galloway knew the church had long ago lost her way, and he had dedicated his life to righting her course. Now, he realized, the moment was fast approaching.
It is always darkest before the dawn.
CIA field agent Turner Simkins was perched on the strut of the Sikorsky helicopter as it touched down on the frosty grass. He leaped off, joined by his men, and immediately waved the chopper back up into the air to keep an eye on all the exits.
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."
