"Man got his throat cut and so-called robbed trying to get up the steps to the temple so he could meet y'all," Cordell said, all mirth leaving his tone as he relayed the information he'd heard earlier on his police scanner. "Dougie is right. All y'all seers open up a channel so I can show you our network. If the house on M is under siege, then we gotta take you through the 'hood over in southeast and either out into Virginia or Maryland, depending on whether you wanna hide heading north or south. Worse case, we can get you out into the Chesapeake Bay and head you toward Bermuda, if it's real hot, and from there you can jump down to the Caribbean. But most everywhere has extradition back to the United States these days. You can run, but it's real hard to hide from Big Brother, once theycome gunning for you."
"Let's hope it won't come to that," Marjorie said in a quiet tone.
"We're already there, Marj," Berkfield said, growing annoyed. "Didn't you hear the news J.L. just rattled off? We've already been set up by the darkside, positioned as potential terrorists . . . now the good guys are gonna start plowing into bank statements, credit cards, library cards, car notes, anything that we might have purchased even through a third party."
"Which means they'll freeze our assets," Dan said, suddenly panicked.
"You oughta know me better than that," Carlos said coolly, looking around the group as he materialized a platinum credit card between his fingers and made it just as quickly disappear. "I got most of our shit offshore in number only accounts. My old life living under radar taught me that much."
"My brother," Yonnie said, pounding his fist.
"Bigger problem is freedom of movement now just got seriously limited," Damali said, allowing her gaze to rake the group. "We're formally done-out of the music business. If we resurface again, we're going into immediate custody. From this point on, life as we knew it has changed . . . we're completely underground, strictly guerrilla."
Rider flopped back against his seat and closed his eyes. "I knew this day would come. I have just retained the right to start smoking again."
"Shoot us the images," Carlos said, his voice weighted with sudden fatigue. "We definitely need a fallback position now."
"Roger that," Doug said. "I'll alert our base-station squads that we've got our Neteru team possibly coming in hot. We'll do everything we can to throw the feds off your trail, make 'em think you're in Europe or something, and we can try to send out confusing signatures to the darkside. Also know, the Internet is your friend . . . we've got Web radio cells at your disposal, and a grid that can block theirs with Light."
"No doubt we'll get a little angelic assistance with blocking our exact whereabouts from humans so we don't have to smoke anybody," Shabazz said, fishing his favorite Glock, Black Beauty, out of his mud cloth satchel to stash in his waistband.
"That would be helpful," Rider said sarcastically. "But my main concern is not having the Unnamed One know I'm riding in a van full of explosives, but maybe I'm just paranoid."
"Well, if you get in a jam, head for the Jefferson marker," Cordell said, peering at the group over his shoulder as he drove. "See, the Washington Monument was supposed to be the first zero milestone of the city, but the ground was too unstable . . . so it now stands where they say the ground could hold it-slightly east of the north-south axis between the White House and the Jefferson Memorial. But if you stand at the Jefferson's marker facing west, you would be standing in front of a cross formed by the Lincoln Memorial in front of you, the Capitol behind you, the White House on your right, and the Jefferson Memorial on your left. If you extend two perpendicular lines from the center of this point-which is the ten square miles Banneker and Ellicott surveyed back in the day-they would terminate at the four cornerstones that are north, south, east, and west boundaries of the city.It's a cross ."
"This riddle is about to make me pull my hair out," Damali said, clasping her locks in her fists. "A cross is squared off with a pentagram, with the White House being the exact center of the Metatron's Cube protecting it, which is also the baseline center point for a pyramid in the grid."
"Well, our stoneworkers know what to do. Ladies, you've got your position and coordinates," Carlos said. "You're gonna have to either bring us back home by frying anything supernatural that crosses the Cube or the cross-grid by supercharging that-same deal for the male tacticals on the squad."
Damali stared down at the map as the van came to a slow, rolling stop. "Two things are working my nerves. One-the Washington Monument being offset doesn't feel like a coincidence to me. I've seen this off-center arrangement somewhere before. It means something, Carlos. Two-the other thing that I keep remembering is the Washington Monument is a symbol for Ausar. It's a tekhen, a giant phallus symbol, the part of Ausar that Aset couldn't find when he was attacked and originally killed by Set or Satan, with his body scattered in fourteen segments. They only found thirteen, 'His phallus was thrown in the Nile and eaten by catfish.' "
"So they made that missing part from stone so he could be buried whole," Carlos said, wiping his palms down his face.
Every male on the team shuddered.
"Since then, that monument shape has been used in culture after culture as a symbol of fertility and power," Damali said, enthralling the van. She turned to Carlos and then to Yonnie. "Heru, Ausar's son, then came back and conquered Set-Satan-and restored his father's honor, blah, blah, blah . . . so wouldn't it make sense that, if we're following the old Kemetic beliefs as carved in the stones by the very layout of the nation's capital by its founding Masons-who also clearly believed in the ancient power of all of this-that to really get his revenge off, this particular monument would factor into the coming of Satan's son?"
"Fair exchange is no robbery," Carlos said, sitting back and looking out the window, his thoughts quickly traveling. "Baby, that's genius."
"And that is just how that motherfucker would think, too!" Yonnie said, jumping out of his seat so he could pace in the short aisle. "He'd screw the forces of Light, in their own house, with their own dick, in front of the cross, with the symbol of their potency, their power base, and shove it right up-"
"We get the point," Marlene said. "Language, Yolando, please . . ." Her eyelids fluttered as she spoke. "There's a Heru Bedhet inside the monument above the elevators that take visitors to the observation deck."
"I don't follow," Berkfield said, looking around. "What's a Heru Bedhet?"
"It's a figure that was carved above the entrance of every temple in Kemet-it symbolizes Heru's victory over Set or Satan, as the case may be," Damali said. "Heru then ascended into Heaven to meet his father, Ausar, after his time on earth was over. But the point is,he kicked Set's butt to avenge the way his father and mother had been played. That's the foundation of Kemetic philosophy and that belief system."
"It's on my shield and on my blade of Ausar," Carlos confirmed.
"My point, exactly," Yonnie argued. "Essentially, like a Neteru tattoo at your base, bro-that Bedhet is at the base of Ausar's rock-"
"Yo, man," Carlos shouted."TMI!"
A muffled giggle from Damali's pearl wafted up from the mud cloth bag where she'd stashed her necklace.
"I feel you, but we ain't got time to be all modest," Yonnie said, jumping up to begin pacing again. "Meand you know how the darkside thinks. So if youwas the Unnamed One, wouldn't you just love to screw the entire human world and the Light with a symbol that has been erected since time immemorial, since the days of Ausar, that basically threw in your face how you lost to your adversary's kid? Wouldn't you want to bring your heir back through that?"
"He's got a point, Carlos," Shabazz said, looking at Yonnie and then Carlos. "I'm sure the Unnamed One ascribes to the mine-is-bigger-than-yours theory."