CHAPTER 97
“Eight Franklin Square must exist,” Sato insisted. “Look it up again!”
Nola Kaye sat at her desk and adjusted her headset. “Ma’am, I’ve checked everywhere . . . that address doesn’t exist in D.C.”
“But I’m on the roof of One Franklin Square,” Sato said. “There has to be an Eight!”
Director Sato’s on a roof? “Hold on.” Nola began running a new search. She was considering telling the OS director about the hacker, but Sato seemed fixated on Eight Franklin Square at the moment. Besides, Nola still didn’t have all the information. Where’s that damned sys-sec, anyway?
“Okay,” Nola said, eyeing her screen, “I see the problem. One Franklin Square is the name of the building . . . not the address. The address is actually 1301 K Street.”
The news seemed to confound the director. “Nola, I don’t have time to explain—the pyramid clearly points to the address Eight Franklin Square.”
Nola sat bolt upright. The pyramid points to a specific location?
“The inscription,” Sato continued, “reads: ‘The secret hides within The Order—Eight Franklin Square.’”
Nola could scarcely imagine. “An order like . . . a Masonic or fraternal order?”
“I assume so,” Sato replied.
Nola thought a moment, and then began typing again. “Ma’am, maybe the street numbers on the square changed over the years? I mean, if this pyramid is as old as legend claims, maybe the numbers on Franklin Square were different when the pyramid was built? I’m now running a search without the number eight . . . for . . . ‘the order’ . . . ‘Franklin Square’ . . . and ‘Washington, D.C.’ . . . and this way, we might get some idea if there’s—” She stalled midsentence as the search results appeared.
“What have you got?” Sato demanded.
Nola stared at the first result on the list—a spectacular image of the Great Pyramid of Egypt— which served as the thematic backdrop for the home page dedicated to a building on Franklin Square. The building was unlike any other building on the square.
Or in the entire city, for that matter.
What stopped Nola cold was not the building’s bizarre architecture, but rather the description of its purpose. According to the Web site, this unusual edifice was built as a sacred mystical shrine, designed by . . . and designed for . . . an ancient secret order.