Here's chapter 10! I'm sorry it's taken so long, I hope to post with more regularity from now on.
Chapter 10:
"Mommy when are we going to see Lydia?" Brandon asked. "I wanna meet her."
"I want to see Lydia too." Molly said as she navigated her way to the baggage claim. "We'll get to see her soon Bran." She turned, losing sight of him momentarily in the busy airport. "Brandon, hold onto my hand and don't let go," She ordered once she saw him again.
"Okay Mommy." Brandon slid his hand through hers. At six, he normally he didn't like holding his mom's hand but he was excited about meeting his big sister for the first time and he knew he had to obey his mother.
"We'll get out of here as fast as we can and go to Mr. Sadusky's office and then we'll see Lydia." Molly told her son.
"Neat!" Brandon said.
It took them nearly half an hour to get both pieces of luggage from baggage claim and out of the airport. When they were both in a cab, Molly called the number Agent Sadusky had given her.
"Ms. Prewet?" Agent Sadusky's voice crackled over the phone.
"I'm here in DC," Molly said. Peter quickly gave her the address of the Head FBI Office.
After she gave the cab driver the address she leaned back and tried to relax she could hardly believe that after ten years, she would finally get to see her little girl again. Ben would no longer be able to keep Lydia from her.
"Agent Sadusky?" Molly and Brandon didn't even stop off at a hotel before showing up at the FBI office.
"Ms. Prewet. It's nice to meet you."
"It's nice to meet you too Agent, I wish the circumstances were better." Molly said.
"As do I," Peter said, he led Molly and Brandon to a private room. "Now what is this treasure you were talking about on the phone?"
Molly quickly told Sadusky what she could remember. As she finished up, there was a knock on the door and an agent stuck his head into the room. "We found Gates car in Philadelphia, we have an agent waiting there already."
Agent Sadusky nodded "All right,"
"Mommy, where's Philadelphia?" Brandon asked. He'd been silent while the adults had talked, drawing on some paper he'd had in his backpack, but now he was curious.
"It's in Pennsylvania." Molly said. "It's about 2 hours away."
"Do we have to go there Mom?" Brandon complained, his face screwing up in disgust. "I don't want to be in the car for so long."
"If it's all right with you Molly," Sadusky said, "Brandon can stay here with Agent Dawes, she has experience with children."
"If you're sure it's all right." Molly said her voice lowered. "Since the FBI is a part of this I really hesitated to bring him, but I couldn't get a hold of anyone to baby sit."
"As long as he stays with Agent Dawes he should be all right." Sadusky said quietly. "I know you left at the last minute."
Molly nodded and turned to Brandon. "Bran," she said, "you're going to stay with Agent Dawes, all right?" she said. "That way you don't have to stay in the car for a long time."
"Cool!" Brandon said, he grinned and for a moment, Sadusky could see resemblance between Brandon and the pictures he'd seen of Lydia.
A female agent came into the room. "Agent Dawes," Sadusky said, "I'm leaving you with Brandon here."
"Hi Brandon," Agent Dawes said, sitting down a few chairs away from the boy. "How old are you?" she asked.
"I'm six." Brandon said. "I'm in the first grade."
"Cool, I remember the first grade; it was a lot of fun." Agent Dawes said.
Sadusky and Molly quietly began to leave. "What's your name?" Brandon asked the female agent.
"My name is Anne." Agent Dawes said, the two adults left the room and then began to go downstairs to an FBI vehicle.
"Thank you for making sure that Brandon is cared for, I worried about bringing him." Molly said quietly.
"Its fine," Sadusky said, he held a door open for Molly and they left the Hoover building. "Now let's go see if we can't get your daughter back."
*~*~*~*Meanwhile in Philadelphia*~*~*~*
Lydia, Ben, Riley and Abigail were at the centennial bell, trying to find the next clue for the treasure. "What bell is this?" Riley asked as they climbed up into the belfry.
"Centennial Bell; it replaced the Liberty Bell in 1876," Lydia said.
"There it is," Ben said, he was looking through the windows in the belfry. "All right, I'm gonna go down there, and you three meet me in the signing room."
Lydia and Abigail both nodded and they moved with Riley to the stairway. The group separated and Lydia, Riley and Abigail all went to find the signing room where they stood around nervously waiting for Ben to come down and show them what he'd gotten.
"You're supposed to be with a group." A voice suddenly said. The group of three turned to find a tour guide; she looked them up and down with a raised eyebrow.
Lydia was about to speak up when Abigail began speaking in German. Lydia couldn't understand what the woman was saying, but she figured Abigail was trying to confuse the tour guide.
The tour guide raised her other eyebrow "Great," she said, "Bill lost his foreign tourists."
Lydia and Riley both tried to look confused, as if they really didn't speak English. The tour guide turned to Lydia. "Do you speak English?" she asked.
"Sorry, I don't speak English," Lydia spoke in French. "I only speak fluent French. Of course I'm lying when I say this but I just want to make sure I don't get into trouble for being in the signing room without a tour guide."
Abigail suddenly turned and it sounded like she was trying to keep from laughing, and Lydia remembered that Abigail spoke French.
The tour guide apparently didn't see this and she turned to Riley. "Yo no hablo Inglés" He said in Spanish, not giving her a chance to say anything to him.
The tour guide moved to the middle of the room and began her speech about the signing room, soon she finished and the group moved on. "Stay here." The tour guide told them loudly as if they were deaf, and not pretending to be foreign tourists. "I'll bring your tour guide back!"
"Crap." Lydia said to Abigail once the tour guide was out of the room. "We're in trouble."
"Hey. What'd you score?" Riley suddenly said; Lydia turned to see her father coming into the room.
"I found this." He said, from his jacket he pulled out a pair of old fashioned glasses.
"Some kind of ocular device." Abigail said, looking at it.
"The vision to see the treasured past," Ben quoted part of the poem from the pipe. "Let me take this." He grabbed the declaration gently and began unrolling it slowly. Riley took the glasses and looked thought them.
"Aw, they're like early American X-ray specs," Riley was clearly in awe at the odd looking glasses.
"You know, Benjamin Franklin invented something like these," Abigail said.
"So, what do we do with them?" Lydia asked, taking them from Riley he handed them to her.
"We look through them." Ben said, stating the obvious.
"Here, help me." Ben kept unrolling the declaration and Abigail began helping him keep it steady.
They pulled open the declaration and held it flat; Ben suddenly looked at the declaration in amazement, as he let out a breath of wonder.
"What?" Lydia asked.
"I just realized that the last time this was in here, it was being signed," Ben said.
The whole group smiled and took a moment of silence to soak in the thought. Then, almost wistfully, Lydia began to sing, "Sit down, John…"
Ben and Abigail laughed as Riley's face broke out into confusion. Ben, too, began to sing, "For God's sake, John, sit down…"
Ben and Lydia sang togther, in perfect harmony "Too many flies, too many flies…"
To their surprise, Abigail belted out one of the last lines, "Somebody open up a window!"
Ben grinned at the confusion on Riley's face. "It's from the musical 1776," he told the younger man.
"Best Musical EVER." Lydia grinned.
"Oh I love it." Abigail agreed, "I haven't seen it in forever though."
"Hey, if we get out of this without getting arrested we should totally watch it; we have an old VHS copy of it," Lydia said.
"That sounds great." Abigail said.
"Yeah, there's another group coming." Riley interrupted loudly "Why don't you both plan your girl bonding time at a later date?"
"Turn it over. Careful," Ben said, the group turned the declaration over and he reached for the glasses, Lydia handed them to him, Ben put them on and looked at the back of the declaration.
"What do you see?" Riley asked.
"What is it? Is it a treasure map?"
"It says, "Heere at the wall"," Ben said, "spelled with two E's."
"Take a look." He handed the glasses to Abigail and the woman looked through them.
"Wow," she said, she handed the glasses to Lydia who carefully put them on and looked at the declaration.
"Oh wow." Lydia was in awe at what she saw; it was much different then what she had expected to see.
"Why can't they just say, 'Go to this place, and here's the treasure, spend it wisely?' " Riley asked, before Ben could answer though, he saw movement outside. Frowning, he hurried to the window to check.
"Oh, no."
"What?" Lydia asked, looking up. "Oh, no," she echoed her dad as she saw Shaw and Victor outside.
"How'd they find us?" Riley asked.
"Ian has nearly unlimited resources." Ben said, "And he's smart. I don't think we can get out of here without being spotted." He continued. "Well, we don't want them to have the Declaration, or the glasses." Ben packed up the glasses into his jacket. "But we especially don't want them to have them both together."
"We're splitting up?" Lydia asked.
Ben nodded. "Yes," he said.
Lydia glanced around, "Who's going with whom?" she asked.
"I'll take this." Ben took the red tube that they usually used to protect the declaration and swung
it on one shoulder. "And these," Ben patted his jacket where the glasses were. "You three keep that." He pointed to the white tube Lydia and Abigail were putting the Declaration into. "Meet me at the car and call me if you have any problems."
"Like if we get caught and killed?" Riley asked, clearly he thought they would get caught.
"Yeah. That would be a big problem." Ben stated flatly, he turned, getting ready to leave. "Take care of her," he said as he left.
"I will." Riley, Abigail and Lydia spoke as one. They glanced at each other nervously, which her had Ben been talking about? Lydia, the Declaration or Abigail?
The rest of the team waited for a moment before leaving as well, they went to the front door and waited until Ben was about halfway across the street before leaving the building. "This way." Abigail abruptly turned, leading the way. The three of them walked quickly trying to keep from getting people's attention but wanting to get away from Independence Hall as quickly as possible.
"Look out! Look out!" Lydia, Abigail and Riley all turned when they heard Victor and Shaw's shouts. "There they are! Move!"
"Move!" Lydia said to Abigail and Riley, the three of them broke into a run, dashing inside an enclosed marketplace, hoping that the crowd would help conceal them.
"Come on." Lydia heard Abigail say, she and Lydia veered to one side, not realizing that Riley was going to the other side.
"This way," Abigail said, out of breath, she and Lydia turned down an isle some meat and vegetable stands. Abigail pushed Lydia towards them, "Go." She ordered.
They ran down the long aisle, occasionally looking behind them, "Go!" Abigail ordered and pushed Lydia towards a meat stand. Lydia vaulted over it and landed on the other side, ducking behind the low cover. Abigail did the same thing, getting close to Lydia who was shaking.
"If you're not a steak, you don't belong here." The butcher said, she looked down at the two of them, an eyebrow raised.
"I'm just trying to hide from my ex-husband." Abigail said instantly.
"Please," Lydia pleaded, "My step-father is really scary." She played along with what Abigail had said.
"Who, baldy?" The butcher looked around; apparently Victor was still looking for them.
"Yes." Abigail said Lydia nodded quickly, a couple of tears leaked out, Shaw and Victor had always scared her, and she knew that neither one of them liked her; it wouldn't take much for them to decide to hurt her.
"Ladies, stay as long as you like." Lydia would have laughed at the way the woman had said that but she was too scared.
"Oh, thank you. Thank you."
"You want something?" the Butcher asked, Abigail turned around a little, but she gasped and quickly turned back around eyes wide.
"What is it?" Lydia mouthed to Abigail in confusion; Abigail shook her head and motioned for Lydia to stay down.
"Do you want something?" the butcher asked again, sounding a little annoyed.
"Shut up." They could hear Victor's voice and Lydia hunched down a little more even though she was well hidden, she could feel Abigail grabbing her hand and squeezing it reassuringly.
"I see why you left him," the butcher told the women before turning back to her meat.
Lydia and Abigail waited for a few more minutes to be sure that Victor had gone before they stood up and left.
"Good luck getting rid of him," the butcher said, both Lydia and Abigail nodded as they left.
"Thank you." Lydia said as they left in search of Riley. They went to the flower aisle, "Riley wouldn't have gone far." Lydia was saying, "He promised Dad he'd take care of me."
Just then, Lydia felt someone touching her shoulder, screaming, she turned around, ready to kick whoever was touching her.
She relaxed instantly though when she saw who it was. Riley.
Abigail glared at Riley, "Where were you?" she asked.
"Hiding." Riley said, "Come on. Let's go, let's go." He pulled an arm around Lydia's shoulders and guided her out of the market place.
"Watch out! Get out of my way!" The group of three turned as the heard someone shouting.
"Oh come on!" Lydia said, as they turned back around and started running again. They ran out of the marketplace and ran down the street, Lydia didn't even know where they were headed, all she knew is that she was having trouble breathing and Riley and Abigail were getting ahead of her.
"Get her!" Lydia could hear Victors voice yelling. She looked behind her and saw that he was nearly to her; she put on a burst of speed and actually managed to run past Riley, and up to Abigail. She slowed once she saw a street however, but she wasn't planning on nearly getting run over by a bike.
Lydia screamed as she and Abigail were both knocked onto the pavement by a biker. The white tube with the Declaration in it flew from Abigail's grasp and bounced into the street.
"No!" Lydia screamed again, she got up and started to run into the street, horns honked and brakes squealed in an attempt not to hit the teenager. Just as she got to the tube, she felt a couple of pairs of hands reach out and grab her. They pulled her out of reach of a bus that raced past her and over the tube that housed the Declaration.
"The Declaration!" Lydia gasped for air as she, Riley and Abigail hit the pavement again on the sidewalk.
None of the group could stop Ian from appearing across the street and taking the tube. He opened it up and made sure the Declaration was in there; he smiled and capped it again.
Lydia, Riley and Abigail got up and they started running down the street again. They needed to get to the car and away from Shaw, Victor and Ian.
They went about half a mile before Riley called Ben. "I'll take the blame for it Lydia," Riley promised.
"Riley you don't have to, I'm the one who dropped it."
Riley waved a hand in Lydia's direction, indicating that he needed to hear, "Hey Ben," he said into the phone, there was a pause. "We lost it." Another pause, "We lost the Declaration. Ian took it." Lydia turned away from the phone; it was all her fault Ian had gotten the declaration.
"We're all fine." Riley paused, "Ben, I'm sorry." The regret was clear in his voice.
"Riley," Lydia started; he shook his head and turned away from Lydia.
"Okay, we'll meet you there." Riley finished up on the phone and hung up. "Let's go to the car." He said.
"Riley, you didn't need to cover for me, I'm a big girl."
"Lydia, I told you its fine." Riley argued.
"Ri-ley," Lydia started drawing his name out.
"Ly-di-a." Riley shot back, he stopped, and turned around to face Lydia, "I'm going to cover for you. We would have lost it anyway, no matter who was holding the tube, Shaw and Victor were right behind me. They would have grabbed it if it hadn't fallen from your grasp."
Lydia quietly shook her head in frustration; it was her fault the Declaration had gotten into Ian's hands.
Why don't we go to the car and after we talk to Ben we can figure out who's to blame for this?" Abigail suggested.
Lydia, Riley and Abigail quickly started walking in the direction of the car, they needed to get their entire group together and figure out what to do next.
Ben hung up with Riley and began to make his way into the car, trying to figure out what they needed to do next, alert the FBI and hope they weren't arrested on site?
Before Ben knew it he was at the car, as he made to unlock it though, a man stepped out from the small bookstore the car was parked in front of.
"Mr. Gates; turn around and face your father's car please." As the FBI began to arrest him, Ben looked around worriedly; hopefully Lydia wouldn't see him being arrested.
Just as he finished hoping that, Lydia, Riley and Abigail turned the corner, once they saw the FBI though the group of three quickly (and quietly) turned around and left.
Ben shook his head as he tried to rid his mind of the image of his daughter's face as she realized her father was being arrested. He shouldn't have brought her along; he should have left her at her Grandpa's house.
He was thinking so deeply about this he didn't realize that they were driving, he followed the agents from the car into the FBI office, only snapping out of the stupor when he was hit alongside the head with what felt like a purse.
Gasping in surprise he gaped at the woman standing before him, his eyes narrowing in confusion for a moment before he realized who it was.
"Molly?"
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