Templar's Code

CHAPTER 73

“. . . and as we just recently learned, the Washington Monument was supposed to have been erected at the Jefferson Pier.” Caedmon gave the grove of holly and elm a cursory glance. “Lovely site for a brainstorming session.”

“According to Ranger Walker, the Army Corps of Engineers didn’t think the soil around the Jefferson Pier would support so massive a weight. That’s why the Washington Monument ended up not on the seventy-seventh meridian as originally planned but four hundred feet away.” Edie sighed. “And you’re right. I can’t think of a better place to contemplate God’s line of longitude than on Uncle Albert’s lap.”

Caedmon stared at the twelve-foot-tall bronze figure that dominated the grove. At Edie’s suggestion, they’d decided to break for lunch and dine al fresco at the Albert Einstein Memorial, the outdoor monument located on Constitution Avenue at the National Academy of Science. To his surprise, the memorial consisted of a charming, almost child-like statue of Einstein seated on a marble step. A secluded and peaceful oasis.

“Did you know that Albert Einstein was a member of the American Philosophical Society? Which is not the reason why I suggested the spot for our picnic.” Edie distractedly waved in the direction of the Jefferson Pier, some eight blocks away. “I just wanted to get off the beaten path. The Mall is an esoteric free-for-all.”

“Which Jefferson and Adams used to advantage, taking great care in hiding their emerald tree in Washington’s esoteric forest. Even going so far as to survey the seventy-seventh meridian.” Placing a hand on Edie’s elbow, he guided her toward the marble steps.

“Check out a D.C. map and you’ll see that the city was designed as a perfect ten-mile square.” Edie sat down next to “Uncle Albert.” “Sixteenth Street, aka the seventy-seventh meridian, runs right through the middle of the north-south axis of that square, completely dividing the city in half. The next signpost could be anywhere along the seventy-seventh meridian.” Opening a plain brown bag, she removed a hot dog wrapped in foil and a can of cola, handing both to him. “Lunch is served.”

Caedmon sat next to her. Not particularly enthusiastic, he gingerly peeled back the foil on the hot dog. Catching a whiff of onions and relish, he wrinkled his nose. “Bit of an acquired taste, eh?”

In the process of ripping open a small packet of mustard with her teeth, Edie raised a quizzical brow. “And blood sausage isn’t?”

“Point taken.” Following suit, he opened a packet of mustard. When in Rome. “I’m certain that the Jefferson Pier is a signpost. As you’ll recall, an entire line of inscription had been chiseled from the granite block.”

“And you think the missing inscription may have been important?”

“The pier was erected by one of the original Triad members. No coincidence in that, I’ll warrant.”

“If that’s the case, we’ve come to the end of our journey. There’s no way we can recover something that’s been chiseled out of existence, erased for all eternity.”

At hearing Edie’s blunt appraisal, his stomach painfully tightened. What initially started as a crusade for academic vindication—to find the missing link between the Knights Templar and ancient Egypt—had become a deadly quest to find an ancient relic of unimaginable power. The secret of Creation. Or the secret of obliteration in the case of the ill-fated Atlantis.

After centuries of being surreptitiously bandied about, the Emerald Tablet had been brought to the new capital city and promptly hidden by a trio of men to prevent it from falling into the hands of a despot. Now, more than two hundred years later, that dire scenario was very much front burner. He had to find it. Only then could he be certain that a rogue nation or terrorist organization didn’t use the relic to engineer a catastrophic event.

The sense of urgency real, Caedmon reached into his jacket pocket and removed the D.C. map that he’d earlier purchased along with an ink pen. Unfolding the map, he drew solid dots on two locations: the Adams Annex and the Jefferson Pier, connecting the points with a straight line. But where does the line go from there?

“It’s here, somewhere in this blasted ten-mile square,” he muttered, angered that they’d lost the scent.

“While the inscription on the Jefferson Pier has been obliterated, maybe there’s a record of it elsewhere.” Idea proffered, Edie sank her teeth into the hot dog, making him wait until she’d chewed, swallowed, and washed it down with several sips of cola. “I’m guessing that Jefferson and Adams would have sent one another progress reports. When Jefferson surveyed the meridian, he would have written to Adams to inform him of what he’d done. Conversely, when Adams transported the Emerald Tablet from Philly to Washington, he would have sent a letter to Jefferson letting him know that the transport went off without a hitch.”

“And, in the days before cell phones and e-mail, this information would have been relayed via letters sent in the post.”

“It’s possible that one or the other may have mentioned the seventy-seventh meridian in a letter. And I’m fairly certain that the written correspondence between Jefferson and Adams is archived online.” Putting aside her half-eaten lunch, Edie opened her leather satchel and removed the netbook computer.

“A valid theory worth investigating.” Particularly since they’d reached a roadblock.

“Okay, I’ve got the complete set of Jefferson-Adams letters,” Edie informed him once the computer had booted up. “Lordy. Between the two of ’em, there’s more than three hundred letters. Any suggestions as to the keyword search?”

“The obvious first choice is ‘meridian.’ ” He dabbed at the corner of his mouth with a paper napkin before setting aside his half-eaten lunch, grateful for a reason to do so.

“I don’t believe it. . . . We got a hit.” Edie silently read the text, her lips moving as she did so. “Not that it makes a whole lot of sense,” she muttered a few moments later, handing him the netbook.

Caedmon skimmed over the first page of the missive, which seemed to be little more than inconsequential musings on the weather and an eloquent passage about the harvesting of English peas. When he reached the last paragraph on the second page, his breath caught in his throat.

By paragraph’s end, he’d reached a startling conclusion.

“The Great Seal anagram is embedded within this last paragraph.”

“Really! Are you sure?”

“Beyond a shadow.” To prove the point, he copied the paragraph and pasted it onto a blank page. He then selected ten words out of the text, which he highlighted. Finished, he handed the netbook back to Edie.

Mister Adams, be assured that God’s eye will each day be blinded when the noonday sun falls upon our meridian. That is true illumination. Not the superstition and rituals carved on the biblical ten stone. I do not care that those who dabble in the dark arts will be displeased to learn of my deed. I will take my heavenly rest knowing I did not err. For “I will stand on the top of the hill with the rod of God in mine hand.”

“Biblicil aten stone to gods eye do not err.” Edie stared at the computer screen, lower lip tucked behind her upper row of teeth. Then, frowning, she added, “We still don’t have a clue what it means.”

“True, but we know that the original Triad members, Franklin, Jefferson, and Adams, devised the anagram in July 1776. That, undoubtedly, was when they formulated their long-term plan to safeguard the Emerald Tablet,” he said, thinking that the most likely premise. “And, clever trio that they were, they knew that if there was a new capital city constructed from the ground up, no one would take notice of a man putting spade to dirt and placing something in a hole.”

“Because in 1800 when John Adams transported the Emerald Tablet to Washington, the whole city was one big construction zone,” Edie pointed out.

“From the informative chat with Ranger Walker, we learned that in 1793 Thomas Jefferson surveyed the seventy-seventh meridian. Which, in all likelihood, is when he selected the site where the Triad would hide the Emerald Tablet once it was conveyed to the new capital city.” He paused, taking a moment to flesh out the scheme. “My best guess is that ‘biblicil aten stone to gods eye do not err’ refers to the exact spot, here in Washington, where the Emerald Tablet was hidden. The three original Triad members knew all along that they would eventually hide the bloody thing on the seventy-seventh meridian.”

“But—and I hate to rain on our picnic—we need a signpost to point us in the right direction. The message originally inscribed on the Jefferson Pier no longer exists.”

He pointed to the last sentence in the paragraph. “Unless I’m greatly mistaken this is the phrase that was inscribed on Mister Jefferson’s pier.”

“ ‘I will stand on the top of the hill with the rod of God in mine hand,’ ” she read aloud. “That’s from the Old Testament, isn’t it?”

“The book of Exodus, to be precise. And it’s a line of scripture rife with layered meaning. The ‘rod of God’ was the wand that Moses used to work his miracles. According to the Bible, it was kept in the Ark of the Covenant.”

“Along with the Ten Commandments and the Emerald Stone.” Edie snapped her fingers, making the next connection. “And you mentioned earlier that one of Thoth’s attributes was an Egyptian was. Which was a type of rod, right?”

He nodded. “Additionally, in the eighteenth century, a ‘rod’ was a unit of measure used by surveyors. An instrument that Thomas Jefferson undoubtedly used in his survey of the seventy-seventh meridian. Rather tongue-in-cheek, don’t you think?”

“Yeah, but we were just at the pier and, well, there isn’t a hill in sight. If the scripture is supposed to be read literally, it means Jefferson was standing on a hill located somewhere on the seventy-seventh—I got it! Hand me that map!” Holding out her hand, Edie wiggled her fingers, the classic “gimme” gesture.

Caedmon quickly passed the map and pen to her. Anxious, hoping this truly proved a eureka! moment, he watched as Edie confidently drew two lines on the map, making a right-angle triangle.

“From the Jefferson Pier, head due north on Sixteenth Street, aka God’s line of longitude. Go approximately two miles and you come to”—she handed the map back to him—“Meridian Hill Park. As you can see, the Adams Annex, the Jefferson Pier, and Meridian Hill Park are the three vertices of a perfect right triangle.”

Bowled over, he stared at the drawing.

“ ‘I must find the catheti to my hypotenuse,’ ” he murmured, the disparate pieces falling into place. “That’s what the wily bastard Franklin wrote in The Book of Moses.”

“He did?”

“Indeed. And, in geometry, the catheti are the two shorter sides of a right triangle.”

“The hypotenuse being the longest of the three sides.”

“At the time, I thought it a figurative turn of phrase, Franklin wanting to find two younger men to do his legwork.” He waved away the flawed deduction.

Overhead, a dark flock flew across the sky in perfect avian formation. Of one mind, they suddenly swung to the left, not an errant bird among them.

He summoned a smile. “Triad. Triangle. Thoth the Thrice Great. Perfect symmetry.”

“Okay. Try this on. . . . Suppose we actually find the Emerald Tablet. What happens then?”

Mmmm . . . an excellent question. For which there were two distinctly different answers: He could keep the sacred artifact for himself, hidden from the scholars, schemers, and occult fanatics who would descend like vultures. Or he could share his discovery with the world and let fate sort the clean laundry from the soiled sheets. Each of the scenarios had merit, Caedmon undecided.

“I seek neither fame nor fortune. That said, the quest for the Emerald Tablet is a search for wisdom, the ancient relic reputed to contain the knowledge of the Ages. The secret of creation itself.”

“The secret of creation?” Clearly put off by his reply, Edie pointed to an inscribed equation on the bronze statue. “E equals MC squared. As you no doubt know, that is often referred to as the mathematical equation for Genesis. It boggles the mind—well, my mind—anyway, to think that a teensy amount of mass can produce a huge amount of destructive energy. Poor Uncle Albert.”

“Indeed, Einstein discovered firsthand the horrific destruction that can ensue when man takes on the mantle of God.”

“I’ve often wondered how he slept at night knowing that the blast at Hiroshima killed one hundred thousand people,” Edie said, echoing his thoughts. “Create or annihilate . . . Why do I have this dreadful feeling that the Genesis code contained within the Emerald Tablet can do either?”

“Benjamin Franklin went to great lengths to keep his powerful discovery out of the hands of men who would misuse it.”

Her movements slow and deliberate, Edie returned her gaze to the bronze statute. “And Albert Einstein went to his grave regretting the fact that he didn’t.”