"Stay right here!" the man in the tweed coat told Omar. "We'll be right back!"
Omar watched the two people dash out onto the wide-open spaces of the enormous map, pointing and shouting as they scanned the geometry of intersecting streets. Omar grabbed his cell phone off the dashboard. "Sir, are you still there?"
"Yes, Omar!" a voice shouted, barely audible over a thundering noise on his end of the line. "Where are they now?"
"Out on the map. It seems like they're looking for something."
"Do not let them out of your sight," the agent shouted. "I'm almost there!"
Omar watched as the two fugitives quickly found the plaza's famous Great Seal--one of the largest bronze medallions ever cast. They stood over it a moment and quickly began pointing to the southwest. Then the man in tweed came racing back toward the cab. Omar quickly set his phone down on the dashboard as the man arrived, breathless.
"Which direction is Alexandria, Virginia?" he demanded.
"Alexandria?" Omar pointed southwest, the exact same direction the man and woman had just pointed toward.
"I knew it!" the man whispered beneath his breath. He spun and shouted back to the woman. "You're right! Alexandria!"
The woman now pointed across the plaza to an illuminated "Metro" sign nearby. "The Blue Line goes directly there. We want King Street Station!"
Omar felt a surge of panic. Oh no.
The man turned back to Omar and handed him entirely too many bills for the fare. "Thanks. We're all set." He hoisted his leather bag and ran off.
"Wait! I can drive you! I go there all the time!"
But it was too late. The man and woman were already dashing across the plaza. They disappeared down the stairs into the Metro Center subway station.
Omar grabbed his cell phone. "Sir! They ran down into the subway! I couldn't stop them! They're taking the Blue Line to Alexandria!"
"Stay right there!" the agent shouted. "I'll be there in fifteen seconds!"
Omar looked down at the wad of bills the man had given him. The bill on top was apparently the one they had been writing on. It had a Jewish star on top of the Great Seal of the United States. Sure enough, the star's points fell on letters that spelled MASON.
Without warning, Omar felt a deafening vibration all around him, as if a tractor trailer were about to collide with his cab. He looked up, but the street was deserted. The noise increased, and suddenly a sleek black helicopter dropped down out of the night and landed hard in the middle of the plaza map.
A group of black-clad men jumped out. Most ran toward the subway station, but one came dashing toward Omar's cab. He yanked open the passenger door. "Omar? Is that you?"
Omar nodded, speechless.
"Did they say where they were headed?" the agent demanded.
"Alexandria! King Street Station," Omar blurted. "I offered to drive, but--"
"Did they say where in Alexandria they were going?"
"No! They looked at the medallion of the Great Seal on the plaza, then they asked about Alexandria, and they paid me with this." He handed the agent the dollar bill with the bizarre diagram. As the agent studied the bill, Omar suddenly put it all together. The Masons! Alexandria! One of the most famous Masonic buildings in America was in Alexandria. "That's it!" he blurted. "The George Washington Masonic Memorial! It's directly across from King Street Station!"
"That it is," the agent said, apparently having just come to the same realization as the rest of the agents came sprinting back from the station.
"We missed them!" one of the men yelled. "Blue Line just left! They're not down there!"
Agent Simkins checked his watch and turned back to Omar. "How long does the subway take to Alexandria?" "Ten minutes at least. Probably more."
"Omar, you've done an excellent job. Thank you."
"Sure. What's this all about?!"
But Agent Simkins was already running back to the chopper, shouting as he went. "King Street Station! We'll get there before they do!"
Bewildered, Omar watched the great black bird lift off. It banked hard to the south across Pennsylvania Avenue, and then thundered off into the night.
Underneath the cabbie's feet, a subway train was picking up speed as it headed away from Freedom Plaza. On board, Robert Langdon and Katherine Solomon sat breathless, neither one saying a word as the train whisked them toward their destination.
CHAPTER 77
The memory always began the same way.
He was falling . . . plummeting backward toward an ice-covered river at the bottom of a deep ravine. Above him, the merciless gray eyes of Peter Solomon stared down over the barrel of Andros's handgun. As he fell, the world above him receded, everything disappearing as he was enveloped by the cloud of billowing mist from the waterfall upstream.
For an instant, everything was white, like heaven.
Then he hit the ice.
Cold. Black. Pain.
He was tumbling . . . being dragged by a powerful force that pounded him relentlessly across rocks in an impossibly cold void. His lungs ached for air, and yet his chest muscles had contracted so violently in the cold that he was unable even to inhale.
I'm under the ice.
The ice near the waterfall was apparently thin on account of the turbulent water, and Andros had broken directly through it. Now he was being washed downstream, trapped beneath a transparent ceiling. He clawed at the underside of the ice, trying to break out, but he had no leverage. The searing pain from the bullet hole in his shoulder was evaporating, as was the sting of the bird shot; both were blotted out now by the crippling throb of his body going numb.
The current was accelerating, slingshotting him around a bend in the river. His body screamed for oxygen. Suddenly he was tangled in branches, lodged against a tree that had fallen into the water. Think! He groped wildly at the branch, working his way toward the surface, finding the spot where the branch pierced up through the ice. His fingertips found the tiny space of open water surrounding the branch, and he pulled at the edges, trying to break the hole wider; once, twice, the opening was growing, now several inches across.
Propping himself against the branch, he tipped his head back and pressed his mouth against the small opening. The winter air that poured into his lungs felt warm. The sudden burst of oxygen fueled his hope. He planted his feet on the tree trunk and pressed his back and shoulders forcefully upward. The ice around the fallen tree, perforated by branches and debris, was weakened already, and as he drove his powerful legs into the trunk, his head and shoulders broke through the ice, crashing up into the winter night. Air poured into his lungs. Still mostly submerged, he wriggled desperately upward, pushing with his legs, pulling with his arms, until finally he was out of the water, lying breathless on the bare ice.
Andros tore off his soaked ski mask and pocketed it, glancing back upstream for Peter Solomon. The bend in the river obscured his view. His chest was burning again. Quietly, he dragged a small branch over the hole in the ice in order to hide it. The hole would be frozen again by morning.
As Andros staggered into the woods, it began to snow. He had no idea how far he had run when he stumbled out of the woods onto an embankment beside a small highway. He was delirious and hypothermic. The snow was falling harder now, and a single set of headlights approached in the distance. Andros waved wildly, and the lone pickup truck immediately pulled over. It had Vermont plates. An old man in a red plaid shirt jumped out.