The Templar's Code (45 page)

The trap had been set.

Anxiously peering around the corner of the granite plinth, she searched for Caedmon, still unable to locate him amid the stone jumble. Just then, a large hand snaked in front of her, covering her mouth. In the next instant, she was yanked against a male torso. Completely immobilized.

“Shhh! It’s me.”

Relieved, Edie slumped against his chest.

“No time to chat!” he whispered, removing his hand from her mouth. “He took the bait.”

“I don’t think so! Look over there!” She pointed to a fast-moving blur. “He’s headed this way!”

That being their cue, they sprinted toward the front gate. Their pounding footfalls made a loud crunching sound on the stone walkway. Up ahead, Edie could see that the double gate was closed.

Caedmon charged ahead of her to the gate. With a mighty tug, he swung it wide open, metal hinges loudly squeaking. Seconds later, they charged through the opened gateway, emerging onto a city pavement teeming with tourists and office workers.

Always thinking two moves ahead, Caedmon maneuvered them into the middle of a large crowd headed in the direction of the U.S. Mint.

“I don’t know about you, but I stupidly thought Rico’s ‘sell by’ date had expired,” she wheezed, her breath noticeably uneven.

“Still very much on the shelf.” Breaking away from the crowd, Caedmon stepped off the curb and raised his right hand. “Taxi!”

Softly chuckling, Saviour Panos watched the fleeing pair get into a taxi.

He didn’t know what that was from, but Mercurius often quoted it. Apropos given the circumstances.

Back in London, he’d followed the pair to Heath-row, where an obliging ticket clerk had informed him that they’d purchased nonstop tickets to Philadelphia. When their flight landed nine hours later, Mercurius followed them from Philadelphia International Airport to Library Hall. When Saviour arrived shortly thereafter, having caught a different flight, Mercurius had had the wise foresight to purchase a tracking device from a downtown spy shop, the sort of establishment that caters to men anxious to catch their cheating wives in the act of copulation. Giving him the tracking device, Mercurius had hugged him tight before taking his leave.

Maybe so, but Saviour was determined to make amends.

And the Creator was doing all in his power to assist him—knapsacks, purses, and briefcases were expressly forbidden inside the Reading Room. Because of the regulation, the Brit and his woman had been forced to check their satchel at the Library Hall front desk. Saviour simply had to wait for the attendant to leave her post. It’d taken but a moment to insert the small tracking device—embedded on an adhesive strip—inside the Miller woman’s bag.

He’d enjoyed the romp in the cemetery. Had enjoyed the fear that he’d seen on the bitch’s face. With the tracking device in place, the pair had become his unwitting pawns. Saviour glanced at the display screen on his PDA smartphone, able to track their every move on the interactive map.

And that meant he
would
be able to make amends, wanting only to please Mercurius. Particularly since he could not pleasure his beloved sexually. At least not to climax. That was never permitted, his mentor a celibate.

Another of his mentor’s favorite sayings. Although Saviour could not comprehend the logic. According to Mercurius, a man can communicate with the Creator by manipulating the flow of sexual energy as it traverses his spine. A mystical fire that burned its way to the third eye. The one that was all seeing. When that point was flooded with sacred energy, the life force of creation, a gateway was opened between heaven and earth.

Saviour was too coarse by far. He lacked the spiritual awareness to harness his own sexual energy. For him, the point of arousal was to come. Not to go. Once the blood pumped into his cock, there was but one outcome. And it did not involve the Creator.

But Mercurius was a man of deep and abiding spiritual beliefs who daily attempted to open the sacred gate. To master the lower self so he could communicate with the Creator. Saviour considered it a great honor to assist him in this endeavor.

And how happy Mercurius will be when he presented him with the Emerald Tablet. Because his mentor would then be able to apply his sacred knowledge to that most ecstatic of all labors: the act of creation. Making something out of nothing.

His mentor was fond of reading aloud from the Old Testament. Saviour particularly enjoyed the tales of valiant men engaged in violent conflict. According to Mercurius, the Emerald Tablet enabled Moses to perform all of his miraculous feats—parting the Red Sea, producing manna in the desert, making the sun and the moon to stand still, and causing the walls of Jericho to come tumbling down.
Creating something out of nothing
.

Saviour again glanced at the PDA. The pair was headed to the train station. He smiled.

Side by side, they stood in front of three sets of double bronze doors that marked the entrance to the Adams Annex.

Shielding her eyes from the early morning light, Edie could see that each door contained six bas-relief figures. A veritable rogue’s gallery—Odin, Nabu, Brahma, Quetzalcoatl—to name a few. However, Caedmon’s attention was focused on the figure depicted on the upper tier of the center door.
Thoth
. Egyptian god of wisdom. The ibis-headed god garbed in an Egyptian kilt. In his right hand, Thoth did indeed hold the fabled Emerald Tablet.

“All in all, a rather brazen depiction,” Caedmon remarked after a lengthy silence. “Not only is it a public declaration that Thoth authored the Emerald Tablet, but the sculpture intimates that he gave the relic to mankind, conferring upon them the gift of divine knowledge.”

“And that divine knowledge, aka the hidden stream of knowledge, is at the heart of creation.” Edie wasn’t so much surprised by the image as the fact that it’d been placed in the open for everyone to see. “Brazen is right. Nothing sub rosa about this.”

“Indeed.” Caedmon reverently moved his hand over the raised bronze surface. Aladdin polishing the oil lamp. “While the inclusion of the Emerald Tablet on the bas-relief is notable, the sculpture is even more remarkable for what
isn’t
depicted.”

Her head jerked. “You mean something’s missing?”

“Thoth is almost always depicted with an ankh grasped in one hand and a
was
held in the other,” he informed her. “In ancient Egypt, the ankh, sometimes referred to as the key of the Nile, symbolized life. While the
was,
a type of wand or rod, symbolized power. I’m troubled by the fact that those two attributes are missing. They
should
be here.”

“So, what are you saying, that we need to find the AWOL attributes?”

“Possibly.” Frowning, he cocked his head to one side as though trying to come at the problem from a different angle.

Now it was Edie’s turn to be baffled. “But I thought we were searching for the All-Seeing Eye, not an ankh or
was.
The deciphered anagram read ‘Biblicil aten stone to Gods eye do not err,’ ” she reminded him, wondering if the Thoth sculpture was a fluke rather than a bona fide signpost.

“These doors face due west.” Caedmon executed a slow one eighty, turning away from the austerity of the annex to face the Library of Congress across the street. A massive and ornate edifice that resembled an elaborate wedding cake. “Blast. I can’t see a thing. The colossus completely obscures the western horizon.”

“Not to worry. I can tell you
exactly
what’s on the other side of the building. First, there’s the Capitol grounds, where you have trolling police and politicos. And beyond that, you have the Mall. Or Museum Alley, as we used to call it in the tourist industry. And having once been an industry insider, I know there isn’t an ankh or
was
to be had.”

Caedmon made no reply. Instead, he grabbed her hand and set off in the direction of East Capitol Street. Making her think that he hadn’t heard a word she just said. When they reached the corner, he came to a halt. Morning rush-hour traffic was hectic, the streets congested, the sidewalks packed with worker bees late for the hive.

Releasing her hand, he raised his arm and pointed due west; to a familiar object at the far end of the Mall, more than a mile and a half away. “I just located one of Thoth’s missing attributes. Behold the
was!
”

Edie stared at the western horizon. “You’re kidding, right? That’s the Washington Monument.” At 555 feet, the white marble spire was the tallest structure in Washington. And, as she knew from her tour guide stint, it had the distinction of being the tallest stone structure in the world. Most locals took the odd edifice for granted. Herself included.

“
That
is an Egyptian obelisk,” Caedmon informed her, blue eyes excitedly gleaming. “A petrified ray of the god Aten made manifest in stone. Moreover the obelisk is where the Radiant Aten dwells as he illuminates his creation.”

She glanced back at the doors on the Adams Annex, trying to make the connection between the bronze bas-relief and the white marble monument. “And Thoth’s true power, symbolized by the
was
, is the illumination gained through the knowledge inscribed on the Emerald Tablet that describes the secret of Aten’s creation.” She shook her head, worried that Caedmon had veered off course. “I don’t mean to harp, but what does the Washington Monument have to do with the All-Seeing Eye?”

“Fix your gaze upon the top of the monument. What do you see?”

Edie obediently slid her gaze up the tall, gently tapered structure. “I see. . . . Ohmygosh! I see a triangle! Just like the triangle that encloses the All-Seeing Eye,” she exclaimed, the pyramidal top of the monument triangular in shape. “The Washington Monument
does
symbolize the All-Seeing Eye of Aten who dwells within the obelisk!”

“Thus the obelisk harkens to the power of the Radiant Aten who, in turn, bestows his power upon Thoth the Thrice Great.”

“Behold the
was
.” Realizing the implication of that, her enthusiasm instantly waned, Edie wishing she
hadn’t
made the connection. “So, what are you saying, that the Emerald Tablet is hidden
inside
the Washington Monument?”

Unnerved, Edie glanced over her shoulder.

“We’re perfectly safe,” Caedmon said reassuringly, taking hold of her elbow as he steered her around a boisterous tour group.