Chapter Two
The next day, Tanya found herself laying on the sofa, bored out of her mind, when the doorbell rang. She pulled herself to her feet and walked over to answer the door...to Riley. "What...are you doing here?" she asked, giving him a sidelong look and furrowing her brow.
"I just wanted to see you," he replied. "Hey, where's Ian?"
"Left to meet Ben at some storage unit somewhere. God knows why. Anyway, come in." Riley walked in, and Tanya shut the door behind him. "How're things?"
"Okay."
"Just okay?"
"Well, I've been thinking a lot over the past few days, and, well, maybe you're right. Maybe we are being set up. I can't figure out why, yet, but I think if anyone wanted to do this to us, it'd be the President."
"Why?"
"Well, for one, he's the only one that has access to the Book of Secrets," Riley explained as he walked into the living room. "Then there's the fact that he somehow always seems to be involved, at each phase of this...I guess we could call it a hunt. Oh, and don't forget what happened in the tunnel."
"How could I?" Tanya replied, leaning against the perpetually empty door frame between the hall and the living room.
"Well, think about it, honestly think. How could he have known about the tunnel, or, for that matter, where to find O'Malley, or who he even was?"
Tanya chewed her lip a moment, pondering over Riley's words. She walked into the living room and took a seat on one of the armrests of the recliner he was sitting in. "It makes sense," she finally said. "How else could any of what's happened be true?"
"Well, there is one other thing. Chew on this for a sec: not only does the President have access to the super-secret Book of Secrets, he knows what Page Forty-seven is supposed to lead to, and, assuming it's a vast hoard of treasure, he wants it."
"A treasure doesn't have to be a vast hoard. Think of Indiana Jones for a moment. The treasures were one item each, about: the Arc of the Covenant, the Crystal Skull. Those are small things, relative to the Templar Treasure, and easy to carry around, hide, et cetera. Suppose this treasure, if it is a treasure, is only one such item. It would be very easy to get it back to the United States and use it for one's own ends, and I mean stupidly easy."
"Like, what kind of item?"
"Ever heard of the Akashic Records?"
"That book that supposedly has everything about everything we mere humans know and will know in it?"
"Yes. You see, that sort of knowledge can very easily be used for, say, ruling the world."
"What kind of person wants to do that?"
"A politician."
"Okay, so, let's recap. We've got two possibilities. One, the President has set us up so he can have some sort of glory moment and keep public attention, and two, the President knows more than he's letting on and following us to wherever this ends so he can get at what's there, a book, a treasure, whatever."
"Sounds about right."
"Question is, which one is right?"
"And what do we do once we have that established?"
Riley shrugged. "Who knows?"
"That's the second question we'll need to ask ourselves as this goes on."
"Oh." Riley snaked an arm around Tanya's waist and gently pulled her toward him. "You know, I think, since we have all this time on our hands now, we should get closer." She repositioned herself in such a way that as she leaned backwards, she ended up on his lap.
"Very much agreed," she whispered in her ear, nuzzling his neck gently. "I've missed this."
He wrapped his arms around her and squeezed gently. She shifted her position a little so that she was a little more comfortable, and she let out a soft sigh. "Wow, I almost forgot what this felt like," he whispered.
"So did I."
After some time, Tanya turned her face away from Riley's neck for a little fresh air, and while she was at it, she adjusted her position so that her head rested against Riley's chest. "You know what we can do now that we have all this time?" she asked after a moment.
"I dunno. What?" Riley replied.
"We can figure out who or what caused the prison riot that almost got my brother killed."
"It's a prison riot."
"But if someone told him he had to be out of the way, then it could've been deliberate. If so, then two important questions need to be asked. First, who caused it, and second, for what purpose?"
"It's Ian, okay? I'm pretty sure that guy has a lot of enemies."
"In England, and they wouldn't dare touch him."
"Then he probably pissed off some guy who happened to be an inmate while he was there."
She got to her feet, took the few steps necessary to get to the sofa, turned, and plopped down in one of the seats next to an armrest. "I'll talk to my brother about it when he gets back, alright? I really want to find this out, and I can now."
"Okay," Riley said without a moment's hesitation. "I'm in."
At that moment, Tanya's phone rang, and she answered without even checking the caller ID. "Ian, what do you want?" she asked, almost snappishly.
"I was just wondering if you had a moment, because I found something I think you'll want to see," Ian replied.
"Wait, you actually found something following this train?"
"Well, not exactly anything of note, unless you consider notes of note."
"It's a note? Then it's probably just another clue."
"Yes, it is another clue, which is why I want you to come down here."
"What, you can't read it over the phone?"
"I could, but I suspect something about the way it's written that I think you might know something about."
"I thought Mr. Decoding-Expert-Gates was with you."
"He is, but given the inclusive nature of this hunt with regard to our family, I want to make sure we're involved as much as possible."
"Okay, Ian, newsflash. There might not be anything at the end of this. I thought Riley and I, especially Riley, made that clear."
"You have, Tanya, both of you, but what if I told you this clue stumps Ben?"
Tanya's mouth fell open. "S-s-st-st-st-stumps Benjamin Franklin Gates?"
"That seems to be the case."
She opened her mouth several times in some sort of effort to say something, but each time, she had to close her mouth upon discovering that words wouldn't escape her. Finally, she consented and shut up for a moment as a string of words put themselves together in her brain and prepared for shipment to her mouth. "I'll...I'll be right there," she said flatly, snapping her phone shut before Ian had a chance to respond.
"Lemme guess," Riley said, "You need a ride."
"It'd be very much appreciated."
NTNT
Riley pulled up to the curb of a street next to a warehouse complex that seemed to have taken him forever to find, and turned off the car. He and Tanya climbed out, he taking the keys with him, and walked down the sidewalk until they found a break in the chicken-wire fencing, at which point they walked into the complex. Tanya began scanning her surroundings for anything out of place when she noticed one of the doors was open. She pulled Riley along as she walked into the storage unit.
Ian was seated cross-legged at the back of the storage unit, and when Tanya reached his position, he handed her a note on parchment. Riley took a seat on a crate across from Ben, staring off into space and not really interested in saying anything.
Tanya studied the note, which was about the size of an index card and covered in tiny symbols. It was signed at the bottom, clearly by a Howe, but as that person only used their fist initial, she couldn't be sure which one. She turned the card over, wondering at first if there was a postscript on the back. Seeing that there was none, at least, none that she could see, she flipped the card back over and continued her examination of the front. After a moment, she said, "Wow, that is a headscratcher. Ian, what book did you find this in?"
Ian picked a book from the stack to his left and passed it up to his sister, who immediately scanned the outside edges. She could see a little gap about midway through toward the spine, so she opened to that page first. She found herself in the middle of a chapter, reading a passage which was absolutely nonsensical, so she kept her place with her finger, commited the page number to memory, and began searching the table of contents.
The titles of each chapter all had something to do with military strategy. This much was evident upon Tanya's scan of the first few titles listed. Eventually, though, she found the chapter containing the page the letter was found in: 'Using Secret Languages to Convey Information Across Enemy Lines'. Tanya turned back to the page and reread the passage, but it still didn't make much sense.
"Is it...worth a million dollars?" Riley asked, a mixture of hope and nervousness on his face.
"I don't know," Tanya replied, more to herself than Riley or anyone else.
"Is there anything in there that can help us?" Ian asked.
"We'll need to take this home and study it."
"And then what?" Riley asked.
"I would assume that depends on what we find out here," Ben said, giving Riley a flat look.
"Makes sense."
Ben turned his attention to Ian and asked, "So, who follows who?"
