"I'm in a 100 percent agreement with you, brother," Big Mike said.
"Here's the thing, too," Berkfield said, glancing around the team as he leaned over the seat. "I'm listening to what Doug is saying about the human factor . . . like the authorities. The darkside could sic human police on us and we can't walk down the street with a bucket of copper pipes, what amounts to shrapnel and resin. That just screams shoot me and call the bomb squad, anybody feeling what I'm saying here?"
"Loud and clear," Yonnie said, shaking his head. "You pop a decent human cop that's just doing his job, or we send a shell to hit a Black Hawk chopper that's on our asses, accidentally taking out some military good guy who mistook us for bad guys, and we might be dealing with a court date with the darkside, after all."
"I'm feeling you onthat ," Jose said, leaning forward to pound Yonnie's fist over a seat.
"Now you see what our parameters have been down here," Doug said, nodding.
"Yeah, but we could have our stoneworkers stand on the perimeter of the Metatron's Cube and draw power from that," Heather offered, glancing around the group nervously. "If they can bend power negatively, we can pull out their lines by standing on the outer rim in our own formation."
"Qi Gong . . . women are magnetic, men are electric," Damali said, slapping Heather five. "Okay, so we keep the team on the outer perimeter-meand Carlos go into the hot-zone. If we get screwed, tacticals send an electrical pulse to hit us at the same time our evenly balanced female squad does a magnetic extraction."
"I don't like the plan," Carlos said, "but it's the only rational plan we've got."
"If something jumps off, we blur the license plates-immediately," Doug said, standing in the center aisle. "Otherwise they'll immediately decode it as a phony and rush the truck. Although we've taken great measures to have underground safe houses and vehicles, passports and IDs, there's always human error and the supernatural that can sometimes break our barriers. However, our biggest problem at the moment is, you guys are highly recognizable as a known celeb band."
"That part we can fix," Carlos said. "A lil' mind-stun never hurt anybody."
"Yeah, but in the hot-zone, that won't work," Damali said, touching his arm. "We're gonna have to go with human disguises when we go in there."
"All right, we can hook that up," Doug said, leaning down to look out the window.
"We got a problem at our first tour stop," Cordell said, slowing the van as police crime scene tape and a horizontal, black-and-white police cruiser blocked the boulevard that led to the Scottish Rite Temple. He stared at the helmeted officer that waved for him to turn and keep going,then followed directions. "Sixteenth Street is blocked and it looks like the two arteries, Columbia Road and Harvard Street are, too. We can't get to All Souls Church, National Baptist Memorial, the Unitarian Church across from that, or the Scottish Rite Temple, where we was headed."
"That is so not a good sign to be blocked out of four sanctuaries this early in the day," Juanita said, flopping back into her seat with a groan.
"You sound like me, sister," Rider said, his gaze narrowed as he peered out of the window.
"We could possibly get to the temple on foot," Bobby offered.
"No need," Carlos said quickly, looking in the direction of the inaccessible building. "The Templar I was supposed to meet inside the Scottish Rite Temple is dead."
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
"Okay," Damali said, dragging her fingers through her hair as the van aimlessly maneuvered through Washington's gridlocked streets. "If the information Enoch had was in the architecture, and Masons built D.C. . . . it's in the stones, and the map shows that it's in the actual concrete street patterns . . . there's gotta be another lodge or something we can do research on to find out what was in the Scottish Rite Temple."
"Try the mother temple," Cordell said blithely with a shrug.
"Where?"Carlos said.
Cordell looked in the rearview mirror and beamed. "The past is prologue, my friend. This old black Israelite knows a little bit. Right, Doug?"
Doug nodded. "Cordell is brilliant, but doesn't like to let people know. I learned the streets from him." Doug winked at Cordell.
"Hey, I'm just an old black man driving a bus . . . but I do know that thirteen blocks north of the White House and thirteen blocks south of the temple wewas trying to get to, right on the corner of Sixteenth and S Streets, is one of the most important Masonic temples in the world. House of the Temple-headquarters of the Mother Supreme Council of the World . . . and the Supreme Council of the Third Degree of Scottish Rite Masons of the Southern Jurisdiction. Steps are set up in three, five, seven, nine groupings that lead to a doorway with a two-to-one proportion, just like the smaller Scottish Rite Temple on Sixteenth and Harvard. It's based on Kemetic architecture, and has one of the most impressive Masonic libraries in the world. Got 'Knowledge Is Power' etched in brass on two sphinxes of wisdom-knowledge and power-action."
Damali and Carlos shared a look, and Yonnie leaned forward.
"Cordell saidknowledge is power is on that building?" Yonnie's gaze held Carlos's. "That's right off the old thrones, man-basic."
"I feel you, man," Carlos said in a low murmur, giving Yonnie the vibe to be cool and let Cordell talk.
"The Temple Room got thirty-three columns that's thirty-three-feet high . . . with thirty-three seats for the highest level of Masons-thirty-three degree Masons inducted into the Mystic Shrine," Cordell continued proudly. "So, if there's something in the stones that was in the Scottish Rites Temple, the mother temple would have it, too-they're mirror images."
"You said your contact was dead," Doug interjected, looking at Carlos and cutting off Cordell's spiel. "If bodies are dropping already, then you need an exit strategy."
"How'd it happen?" Berkfield said, glancing around the team.