This chapter introduces an original sub-plot of mine! Enjoy it!
Chapter Four
Agent Hendricks sat down at his desk, and took a sip of coffee before logging into his email account. He tilted his head curiously as he realized that eight of his twelve messages contained a link to one certain news story. He opened one of the messages, and clicked on the link there, which led him to a website entitled Gates Family Conspiracies.
Surprised and curious, he wandered around the site, which contained photos of Patrick and Benjamin Gates, Andrea Morrison, and a R.I.P page for Abigail Gates Morrison. A Gates in the News board held numerous newspaper articles from the summer in which the Templar Treasure was discovered. Hendricks nodded as he read the descriptions of each article – he had seen and read each of these when they originally appeared in the paper three years ago.
But a recently released article was also found in this section – an article Hendricks was unfamiliar of. He clicked on it, and the page reopened to show a YouTube video of a special news report on the Today Show. Hendricks gaped as the video began to play.
"Ever since the Gates family discovered the Templar Treasure in 2004, they haven't been up to much involving treasure," an anchorwoman's voice was heard, while a slideshow of pictures featuring the treasure, Ben, Patrick, and Andrea rolled. "Andrea Morrison has gone to New York University, Benjamin Gates has moved in with his longtime girlfriend and co-founder of the treasure, Abigail Chase, and Patrick Gates has returned to a quiet retirement. Even Riley Poole, the behind-the-scenes technology resort, has been busy – his book about the Templar Treasure was published in April.
"But recently, at the Woodland Museum of History in Washington D.C, father and son have presented Thomas Jefferson Gates' story, who was known to have been forced to decode a message on a page of John Wilkes Booth's diary. Mitchell Wilkinson, descendant of the Civil War veteran, Silas Wilkinson, was in the audience at the museum, and stepped up, revealing to the crowd his possession of a missing diary page. This certain page of Booth's diary contained a list of conspirators involved in President Lincoln's assassination, Thomas Gates' name included among this list."
Hendricks's mouth dropped open even more as he paused the video. Pressing the summoning button on his desk, he said into the adjoined microphone, "Boss? You'll want to come down here – I just uncovered some news about our old friend, Ben Gates."
Peter Sadusky was down at his employee's desk in a matter of seconds. He growled, "This better be important. What'd Gates find, Atlantis?"
"Close," Hendricks said, motioning Sadusky over to the computer screen. "Take a look at this." And he played the video again, from the beginning to the end.
Sadusky froze over the course of the video. He shook his head when the video showed an image of Mitch Wilkinson, and as the segment ended, Sadusky silently pushed Hendricks off of his chair. "Excuse me, Hendricks. I think I need to do some investigating on this Wilkinson guy."
Hesitantly, Hendricks glanced back at his boss, and soon left the room for yet another coffee break. Sadusky didn't even notice that he left – he was already opening a new Internet browser to conduct a database search on the Wilkinson family and the Gates Family Conspiracies website. After about fifteen minutes searching, he had uncovered that the Wilkinsons had had possession of the diary page for more than a century. Why would a member of the family only tell the world about it now? Sadusky thought.
He somehow found himself on the MySpace page of Mitch's niece, Carla. Sadusky read the sixteen-year-old girl's latest blog entry, which said how the Gates family had lied to the public for centuries. The blog also asked the general public to support the Wilkinsons and their beliefs.
Sadusky exited the page in disgust. "Unbelievable."
He then researched the history of the Gates fan site. Apparently, the creator was a twenty-eight-year old male from the D.C area who appeared at every public event that a Gates family member spoke at. He had devoured the book written and published by Riley Poole, and tried unsuccessfully to track down the phone numbers of Ben and Andrea. Sadusky sighed helplessly. "They've got stalkers out there."
Sadusky then assigned two of his agents to find information on the website creator, and to put him under federal questioning if proven guilty of stalking the Gates family. Soon, Sadusky had time to himself, but couldn't rest just then. He withdrew his cell phone, and quickly dialed Andrea's number. It was three o'clock in the morning, and Sadusky was still at work for another case that had to be inspected. Hopefully, the daughter of his best friend would be awake, and if she were not, he'd just leave an urgent message for her.
To his surprise, though, Andrea answered. She sounded quite frustrated and groggy, and because her voice sounded distant, Sadusky assumed that she was in the car. "Well, well…" Sadusky smiled to himself. "Hello, Miss Morrison."
"Sadusky?" Andrea's voice stretched out as she gave away a huge yawn. "…How's it going?"
"You're awake – at this hour," Sadusky pointed out.
"I would say the same about you."
"I'm a federal agent, I have excuses to be awake during the wee hours," said Sadusky. "The current one is for your well-being."
"Excuse me?"
"Got a laptop on hand?"
"Um, not really," There was movement heard on the other line as Andrea shifted her position. "I'm in the car with Ben and Riley…we're heading back to Grandpa's house."
"Where are you coming from?" Sadusky had a feeling that it had something to do with the Wilkinsons.
"Well, this may sound a little weird…" Andrea hesitated. "But the lab at the National Archives?"
"Been busy trying to find the message behind a certain diary page?" Sadusky chuckled lightly.
Andrea sighed. "We can do nothing without the public finding out, huh?"
Sadusky shook his head. "You really need a laptop now, young lady." On the other line, he heard a car pull up into a driveway.
"Okay, we just pulled in," Andrea informed him. "I'll log online if you want me to that badly. What do I need to do?"
Sadusky told her the web address of the Gates Family Conspiracies site. Andrea yelped as she saw the opening page. "Who the hell does this guy think he is, creating a website about us?"
"Don't worry about it. I've got my team on duty to track down the creator," Sadusky assured her. "But that's the least of our problems. Tell me about this Wilkinson guy."
"What is there to say, Sadusky? He knew Ben from college, and apparently holds a grudge for him. If he had a white beard and top hat, he could pass for Uncle Sam."
Sadusky sighed. He made a mental note to never speak with Abigail's daughter before five a.m. Chances were that Andrea would only be half-conscious before then. "All right…tell Ben that you two should stop by my office as soon as possible, to talk about this stalker and Wilkinson. We'll try to find out as much as possible about each of them."
Andrea replied hesitantly, "Peter…I don't know what I'm doing getting involved with this. I'm not seventeen years old anymore. I have my last year of college coming up, I'm still going back and forth between different Majors…I'm trying to balance together a boyfriend and an apartment. I might as well put my uncle on suicide watch what with his break-up, and Grandpa's getting older…" Her voice trailed off, and she sighed frustratingly. "The last thing I need on my mind is a diary page of a killer."
Sadusky bit his lip. All of that sounded too familiar to him. "You're too much like your mother, Andrea. She went through the same thing at your age. Your grandparents had just gotten divorced a year before, Ben was only fourteen, and Abby was still trying to both graduate…and decide between two different paths to take."
"Paths?' Andrea questioned softly. "What do you mean?"
"It was your father or me," Sadusky shifted in his seat, hoping that she wouldn't sense his uncomfortable position over the phone. "She loved us both, but deep down, she knew that she could only love one."
There was a moment of silence. Andrea knew that Sadusky had never stopped loving her mother, even when she was wife to another man, and mother to a child that wasn't his. Sometimes, Andrea wondered if he'd ever find love again, even if it weren't even a human that he loved…
"Thank you," she finally said, summing up the conversation. Her eyes were becoming watery, as they always were when she discussed deeply about her mother with Sadusky. "For looking for the stalker and telling me about the site, I mean. I…I'll try to come down there with Uncle Ben soon…I…'bye."
And with that, there was a click at the other end of the line. Andrea had hung up, leaving Sadusky once again to try to toss away his grief on his own.
Yeah, there we go again with Sadusky regretting his past with Andrea's mother...sorry if you're getting sick of that! Please review, and you might get a quicker update! I so far have gotten about 4 reviews per chapter, but let's try to make it more! And is anyone else not getting messages from FF net when a review is submitted to one of their stories or is added to a favorites list? I'm not getting anything from FF net!!