Alexandria, Virginia, is the destination Robert Langdon and Katherine Solomon infer from a symbolic clue at Freedom Plaza, turning the city into the next point in their attempt to evade pursuit. Their route converges on King Street Station and the George Washington Masonic Memorial opposite it: a landmark whose layered architecture and Masonic collections give the geographical clue a particularly apt destination.

Route from Freedom Plaza

At Freedom Plaza, Langdon and Katherine study the plaza’s map of Washington and its Great Seal medallion. They point southwest, and Langdon asks cabdriver Omar Amirana which direction leads to Alexandria. Katherine identifies the Blue Line as their route and King Street Station as their stop; they leave the cab and descend into Metro Center station.

The connection is more than a matter of direction. The bill Langdon gives Amirana bears a diagram in which a star placed over the Great Seal’s lettering spells MASON. Amirana connects the word and the destination: one of America’s best-known Masonic buildings stands in Alexandria, directly across from King Street Station. The plaza’s map, the marked bill, and the city’s Masonic landmark combine to turn an apparent change of direction into a deciphered clue.

King Street Station and the pursuit

King Street Station becomes the point where Langdon and Katherine’s escape route intersects with the effort to catch them. After Amirana reports that they have taken the Blue Line toward Alexandria, Turner Simkins and a team of agents fly by helicopter toward the station, aiming to reach it before the train. The station serves several lines, including the Blue Line, the Yellow Line, and Amtrak, so Simkins consults the Metro map to locate the southbound platform.

The agents’ timing remains uncertain. A ticket-booth attendant tells Simkins that Blue Line trains arrive every eleven minutes without a fixed schedule; the last train left about five or six minutes earlier. The pursuit therefore turns on the interval between trains as much as on the map’s clear route. From Freedom Plaza, Langdon and Katherine travel toward Alexandria underground while Simkins’s team races to the station above ground.

The George Washington Masonic Memorial

The memorial stands atop Shuter’s Hill in Alexandria, Virginia. Its three ascending architectural tiers—Doric, Ionic, and Corinthian—make the building a physical emblem of intellectual ascent. Inspired by the ancient Pharos lighthouse of Alexandria, Egypt, the tower ends in an Egyptian pyramid capped by a flame-like finial.

Its interior reinforces the Masonic associations behind Amirana’s deduction. A large bronze statue of George Washington in Masonic regalia occupies the marble foyer, alongside the actual trowel Washington used to lay the cornerstone of the United States Capitol. Above the foyer, nine levels include spaces named the Grotto, the Crypt Room, and the Knights Templar Chapel. The memorial houses more than twenty thousand volumes of Masonic writings, a replica of the Ark of the Covenant, and a scale model of the throne room in King Solomon’s Temple.

Narrative significance

Alexandria is both a real destination on the transit map and the answer to a chain of symbolic interpretation. The Great Seal diagram identifies the Masonic connection; the memorial across from King Street Station makes that connection geographically concrete. The novel thus makes the city’s layout part of the puzzle rather than mere scenery: a clue that can be read in the plaza also sends the fugitives toward a specific building.

The memorial’s ordered ascent—from Doric through Ionic to Corinthian, and upward to its pyramid—echoes the story’s interest in layered knowledge and Masonic symbolism. At the same time, the station gives the clue immediate practical stakes. Alexandria is not simply where the memorial stands; it is the place where Langdon and Katherine’s chosen route may bring them within reach of the pursuing agents.