Dan Brown - The Lost Symbol

Then came an utterly unexpected sound.

“Hello, Solomons,” an airy voice said behind them.

Startled, Katherine and her brother spun to see an enormous muscular figure stepping into the conservatory. He wore a black ski mask that covered all of his face except his eyes, which shone with feral ferocity.

Peter was on his feet in an instant. “Who are you?! How did you get in here?!”

“I knew your little boy, Zachary, in prison. He told me where this key was hidden.” The stranger held up an old key and grinned like a beast. “Right before I bludgeoned him to death.”

Peter’s mouth fell open.

A pistol appeared, aimed directly at Peter’s chest. “Sit.”

Peter fell back into his chair.

As the man moved into the room, Katherine was frozen in place. Behind his mask, the man’s eyes were wild like those of a rabid animal.

“Hey!” Peter yelled, as if trying to warn their mother in the kitchen. “Whoever you are, take what you want, and get out!”

The man leveled his gun at Peter’s chest. “And what is it you think I want?”

“Just tell me how much,” Solomon said. “We don’t have money in the house, but I can —”

The monster laughed. “Do not insult me. I have not come for money. I have come tonight for Zachary’s other birthright.” He grinned. “He told me about the pyramid.”

Pyramid? Katherine thought in bewildered terror. What pyramid?

Her brother was defiant. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Don’t play dumb with me! Zachary told me what you keep in your study vault. I want it. Now.”

“Whatever Zachary told you, he was confused,” Peter said. “I don’t know what you’re talking about!”

“No?” The intruder turned and aimed the gun at Katherine’s face. “How about now?”

Peter’s eyes filled with terror. “You must believe me! I don’t know what it is you want!”

“Lie to me one more time,” he said, still aiming at Katherine, “and I swear I will take her from you.” He smiled. “And from what Zachary said, your little sister is more precious to you than all your —”

“What’s going on?!” Katherine’s mother shouted, marching into the room with Peter’s Browning Citori shotgun — which she aimed directly at the man’s chest. The intruder spun toward her, and the feisty seventy-five-year-old woman wasted no time. She fired a deafening blast of pellets. The intruder staggered backward, firing his handgun wildly in all directions, shattering windows as he fell and crashed through the glass doorway, dropping the pistol as he fell.

Peter was instantly in motion, diving on the loose handgun. Katherine had fallen, and Mrs. Solomon hurried to her side, kneeling beside her. “My God, are you hurt?!”

Katherine shook her head, mute with shock. Outside the shattered glass door, the masked man had clambered to his feet and was running into the woods, clutching his side as he ran. Peter Solomon glanced back to make sure his mother and sister were safe, and seeing they were fine, he held the pistol and raced out the door after the intruder.

Katherine’s mother held her hand, trembling. “Thank heavens you’re okay.” Then suddenly her mother pulled away. “Katherine? You’re bleeding! There’s blood! You’re hurt!”

Katherine saw the blood. A lot of blood. It was all over her. But she felt no pain.

Her mother frantically searched Katherine’s body for a wound. “Where does it hurt!”

“Mom, I don’t know, I don’t feel anything!”

Then Katherine saw the source of the blood, and she went cold. “Mom, it’s not me…” She pointed to the side of her mother’s white satin blouse, where blood was running freely, and a small tattered hole was visible. Her mother glanced down, looking more confused than anything else. She winced and shrank back, as if the pain had just hit her.

“Katherine?” Her voice was calm, but suddenly it carried the weight of her seventy-five years. “I need you to call an ambulance.”

Katherine ran to the hall phone and called for help. When she got back to the conservatory, she found her mother lying motionless in a pool of blood. She ran to her, crouching down, cradling her mother’s body in her arms.

Katherine had no idea how much time had passed when she heard the distant gunshot in the woods. Finally, the conservatory door burst open, and her brother, Peter, rushed in, eyes wild, gun still in his hand. When he saw Katherine sobbing, holding their lifeless mother in her arms, his face contorted in anguish. The scream that echoed through the conservatory was a sound Katherine Solomon would never forget.

Mal’akh couldfeel the tattooed muscles on his back rippling as he sprinted back around the building toward the open bay door of Pod 5.

I must gain access to her lab.

Katherine’s escape had been unanticipated… and problematic. Not only did she know where Mal’akh lived, she now knew his true identity… and that he was the one who had invaded their home a decade earlier.

Mal’akh had not forgotten that night either. He had come within inches of possessing the pyramid, but destiny had obstructed him. I was not yet ready. But he was ready now. More powerful. More influential. Having endured unthinkable hardship in preparation for his return, Mal’akh was poised tonight to fulfill his destiny at last. He felt certain that before the night was over, he would indeed be staring into the dying eyes of Katherine Solomon.

As Mal’akh reached the bay door, he reassured himself that Katherine had not truly escaped; she had only prolonged the inevitable. He slid through the opening and strode confidently across the darkness until his feet hit the carpet. Then he took a right turn and headed for the Cube. The banging on the door of Pod 5 had stopped, and Mal’akh suspected the guard was now trying to remove the dime Mal’akh had jammed into the key panel to render it useless.

When Mal’akh reached the door that led into the Cube, he located the outer keypad and inserted Trish’s key card. The panel lit up. He entered Trish’s PIN and went inside. The lights were all ablaze, and as he moved into the sterile space, he squinted in amazement at the dazzling array of equipment. Mal’akh was no stranger to the power of technology; he performed his own breed of science in the basement of his home, and last night some of that science had borne fruit.

The Truth.

Peter Solomon’s unique confinement — trapped alone in the in-between — had laid bare all of the man’s secrets. I can see his soul. Mal’akh had learned certain secrets he anticipated, and others he had not, including the news about Katherine’s lab and her shocking discoveries. Science is getting close, Mal’akh had realized. And I will not allow it to light the way for the unworthy.

Katherine’s work here had begun using modern science to answer ancient philosophical questions. Does anyone hear our prayers? Is there life after death? Do humans have souls? Incredibly, Katherine had answered all of these questions, and more. Scientifically. Conclusively. The methods she used were irrefutable. Even the most skeptical of people would be persuaded by the results of her experiments. If this information were published and made known, a fundamental shift would begin in the consciousness of man. They will start to find their way . Mal’akh’s last task tonight, before his transformation, was to ensure that this did not happen.

As he moved through the lab, Mal’akh located the data room that Peter had told him about. He peered through the heavy glass walls at the two holographic data-storage units. Exactly as he said they would be . Mal’akh found it hard to imagine that the contents of these little boxes could change the course of human development, and yet Truth had always been the most potent of all the catalysts.