I do those things I don't want to do, and don't do those things I want to do, she thought, paraphrasing St. Paul. What a wretched woman I am.
Slowly she put the chain with the Dominus Dei medallion around her neck, feeling the silver Roman coin press heavily on her heart.
EPILOGUE
THE RAIN CAME DOWN even harder as Conrad approached his father's tombstone in the dark of night, consumed by an obsession for the truth that the burning of the Newburgh Treaty had only inflamed.
He shined a light on the three-foot-tall obelisk and again read the inscription beneath the engraved cross:
GRIFFIN W. YEATS
BRIG GEN US AIR FORCE
BORN MAY 4 1945
KILLED IN ACTION
EAST ANTARCTICA SEPT 21 2004
He could feel it all coming up now inside him: the anger, the betrayal, the loss-first his father, and now Serena, all over again.
He stared at the numerical strings on one side of the obelisk that had led him to the Stargazer text and the three constellations engraved on the other side that had revealed the secret alignment of America's key monuments.
For some reason he couldn't shake the same uneasy feeling creeping up his spine that he experienced the first time.
There must be more.
Conrad felt a surge of anger and frustration as he leaned back and gave the obelisk a hard kick.
The heavy tombstone barely budged.
Conrad gave it another kick, with feeling.
This time the obelisk, its base loosened from the rain, moved about an inch before it settled back into the muck.
"You goddamn bastard!" he shouted as he kicked it again.
At last the gravestone toppled over on its side in the wet grass.
Conrad stared.
There it was, inscribed in the bottom of the obelisk, now facing him like a picture in stone as the rain washed away the dirt:
A Crusader's cross.
It was an emblem of the Templar Crusaders, a single cross made up of four smaller crosses.
It was also a symbol of Jerusalem.
The cross's four arms were of equal length, symbolizing the four directions and the belief that Jerusalem was the spiritual center of the earth.
He remembered the two columns in the Savage portrait of Mount Vernon, along with the two pillars to the entrance of King Solomon's Temple in that Masonic mural under the Library of Congress. Then he recalled what sat on top of those two pillars-globes with terrestrial and celestial maps.
The globes belonged in Solomon's Temple. Not just the original Temple. But the next Temple. And if each globe was reputed to have originally contained the secrets of Genesis or "First Time," then it stood to reason that together the globes worked to reveal the secret of…the end of time.
He stared at the cross, the last secret symbol that his father had left him.
Did Serena know about it? Conrad wondered. She must.
Now he knew, too.
"See you there, Serena," he said to the pounding rain, and walked away into the night.
ANNEX
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Thanks to Emily Bestler, my editor, and to Sarah Branham and the rest of the family at Atria and Pocket. Many thanks to certain daughters of Freemasons and Air Force officers, certain syndicated Washington columnists, and certain congressional and White House officials. Special thanks to the staff and docents at Mount Vernon, Library of Congress, U.S. Capitol, and National Archives for their generous assistance and outstanding public service; you are a national treasure. And an extra-special thanks to my son, Alex, president of the student body at his elementary school, for his research on Benjamin Banneker, and for his example in looking out for the interests not just of his friends and little brother, Jake, but of everyone on the school yard. America needs more leaders like you.