Chapter Ten
At the most readily available opportunity, Tanya checked the messages on her phone, which happened to be while she was walking out of the airport. "What the hell could Ian want that's so important he has to call me multiple times when he knows I can't use my phone?" she whispered, calling him back. The second he picked up, she asked, "What the hell?"
"Tanya, we have a problem. We've lost Ben," Ian replied, his tone more urgent than Tanya expected.
"Wait, you've lost Ben?"
"Kidnapped, from the sounds of things. Be on your toes. I suspect that the President's flying over the pond with his hostage in tow." Tanya was sure she heard the cocking of a gun in the background, and she was also sure that was the sound that prompted Ian to add in a low, careful voice, "Tanya, listen very carefully. Get to the end of the hunt as fast as you can. Deprive this man of the opportunity he so craves."
"Ian, we're not going on without you and Ben." When Ian started to protest, she said, "Not a word. If we can't complete two tasks by dividing the groups, then we must at least complete one with the whole group together."
"Well, the status quo better change in our favor very quickly, or else-" Ian grunted, and a chilling voice said, "Sorry, but I couldn't let you finish this talk." The line went dead, and numbly, Tanya closed her phone and pocketed it.
"Lemme guess, bad juju," Riley said.
"Very, very bad juju," Tanya replied. "We have eighteen hours, plus or minus, before the President and his two hostages arrive in London. Ian wants us to deprive him of his opportunity and push on with the hunt right away, but if we do that, we might not get the hostages back."
"If I were you, I'd just do what Ian says," Phil said.
She turned to face them. "I can't, Phil. That man, that lunatic, has my brother."
"So, we're just gonna wait for him?" Riley asked.
"He's right. That sounds like suicide," Phil added.
"You know what else sounds like suicide? Cutting a deal with the President. His hostages, all of them, for that treasure, and if he pulls anything, I know what he's planning to do to Riley and myself, and it can be used against him."
"Are you kidding?" Riley snapped. "Cutting a deal with Ian is one thing, but this guy is a...a...a killer!"
Phil held up a hand and shushed Riley immediately, and Tanya said, "Don't worry. I know where we can talk this over."
NTNT
The sun set on London to find Tanya, Riley, and Phil in a decent two-bed hotel room on the strip near the airport. Tanya and Riley were sitting on one bed, facing Phil, who was sitting on the other. "Alright, the question becomes, how do we get in touch with the President?" Tanya asked, resting her elbows on her knees.
"What if he calls Riley again?" Phil asked.
"Then he'll have walked right into it."
"Into what?" Riley asked.
"She has something up her sleeve," Phil said. "Ian does the same thing."
"Phil's right," Tanya added. "I do. I just need an opportunity, and if the President contacts Riley, then I have an opportunity. What I need you to do, Phil, is do what you need to do to make sure he cooperates when he gets here."
Phil nodded, and Tanya looked at Riley, who nodded, chewing his lip slightly. "So what do I do?" he asked.
"I need you to stay with me, because if what I saw comes to pass, we know about it and can find a way to not only survive, but come out on top." She looked back at Phil. "Yes, I'm being optimistic, but someone has to, at least, for now."
Phil nodded, pursing his lips a little and closing his eyes for a moment. Riley also nodded, tilting his head to one side for a moment. Tanya smiled and looked from Phil to Riley and back again. "Let's do this," she said.
NTNT
Ben glanced over at the President before leaning toward Ian. "Now what?" he asked in a low voice.
"We trust my sister," Ian replied. "She must have a plan."
"And if she doesn't?"
"Do you doubt her?"
"No, but we're hostages."
"Haven't been here before, have you?"
Ben shook his head, and Ian shut his mouth, anticipating the President's glance several moments before it happened. After some time, the President returned his attention to what was outside the plane's window.
Ian closed his eyes and took a deep breath. He was certain Shaw was near, and he knew Powell and Viktor were on the plane. Something in him wasn't willing to believe he'd let them get taken along with himself and Ben, but another part of him accepted the strange sense of security he had that two of his men were with him in the struggle and the other was in London with his sister and her boyfriend. So far, while this wasn't what he expected, it was going pretty well.
NTNT
Tanya awoke in the middle of the night to find that there was a cold spot next to her. Her eyes adjusted as Riley walked out of the hotel room's bathroom. "Did I wake you?" he asked.
"I can't tell," Tanya replied.
Riley climbed back under the covers, wrapping his arms around her. "It's almost over," he said.
"Yes, it is. I could do with some quiet time with you." He smiled and kissed her on the forehead. "You seem to be paying a lot of attention to me lately."
"I told you, I miss spending time with you just being a couple, and besides," he whispered, stroking her face, "I want you to know I love you, and I just got a little worried you didn't think I do."
Tanya rested a hand on his cheek. "Riley, I don't doubt you," she whispered. "You have nothing to worry about."
He gave a soft sigh of relief. "Oh, good. Had me worried." She smiled, and he added, "Sweet, she thinks I'm funny."
"And sweet, very sweet."
"Thanks."
"Let's go to sleep. We'll need our rest for tomorrow." She settled in close to him, her head on his chest.
NTNT
Tanya and Riley awoke to Riley's phone ringing, and Riley checked the caller ID before handing the phone to Tanya. "Hello?" she asked after flipping Riley's phone open.
"Let me guess, you're Ian's sister," the man on the other end of the line said.
"I am. Am I to assume you're the President?"
"Yes, you are. Are you more willing than your friend to tell me what you know?"
"Actually, I want to show you, but on one condition."
"Where do we meet?"
"In front of the airport, and make sure your hostages are there."
"Why?"
"That's part of my condition. You release your hostages, and I'll tell you what I know."
"We'll see. See you in front of the airport." The line went dead, so Tanya closed the phone and handed it back to Riley. She got out of bed and shook Phil awake.
"What?" he mumbled.
"C'mon, we have a hunt to finish," Tanya replied.
While Tanya dressed in the bathroom, Riley and Phil dressed in the bedroom, and they walked out of the room, down the hall, down the stairwell, and out the hotel without a word between them. The President, Ben, Ian, Powell, and Viktor were waiting outside the airport when Tanya, Riley, and Phil walked over to meet them.
"Now, what do you know?" the President asked.
"Let's rent a couple cars, shall we? It's pretty far out," Tanya replied. When he furrowed his brow, she added, "I did tell you I wanted to show you rather than tell you."
"Okay, let's go."
NTNT
As Tanya's eyes searched East Brunswick Ave., memories flooded her mind, or rather, she had the sense that memories were flooding her mind, and she couldn't place the exact date or even what the memories were of. "I still can't get used to this," Riley said from her left, the passenger's side in the rental car.
"You weren't born and raised in England," Tanya replied. "I had a hard time getting used to American cars. It comes with time, time which, at the present, we don't have."
"So, what's our plan, exactly?"
"So far, we just get to the lodge, look around, see what we can find, and if the President gets impatient, we fight back. If he tries to kill us, we kill him first."
"Isn't that high treason?"
"Who cares?"
Riley sighed and set his head back against the headrest. Tanya finally spotted the building she was looking for, along with several others which served as the outskirts of an out-of-the-way village, and she tapped the brakes. She glanced in the side mirror to make sure the car behind her had also started slowing down. Once she was closer to the building, she signalled and turned into the small lot to park a short distance from the street. The car behind her did exactly the same thing, except that it chose a different parking space, a little farther from the street.
Riley looked over at the building. "Looks a little...old," he said.
"I'm not sure if that was the intention or not, but it certainly works to serve the building's purpose," Tanya replied as she climbed out of the car. She walked around the other rental car and up the few steps there were to the front door, paying little attention to the others that followed her lead.
"What the hell happened to this place?" the President asked when he climbed out of the car.
"I think that sometime between the last time I've been here and the present, it fell into disuse and disrepair, and judging by the damage, this had to have started fairly close to the last time I was here."
"And there's supposed to be a treasure in this place?"
"Well, I'm no expert," Ian said, "but I'd say the disrepair of this building might have been a move to better protect what's here, but that begs the question, why wasn't it done sooner?"
"Maybe it was vandalism," Ben replied.
"Vandalism or not, we must go," Tanya said, pushing the door open. It creaked like no one was listening and was a little stubborn, but she eventually got it open wide enough for all eight to enter, if only in a single-file line.
The room itself was considerably deeper than it was wide, but it seemed to take up the whole width of the building and most, if not all, of its length. At the back was a doorway which led to seeming blackness, and all around were holes in the walls, floor, and ceiling, glass from the windows, and wires attatched to what appeared to be light fixtures that had fallen or were torn from the ceiling.
"Who'd wannae look here?" Powell asked.
"Hence Ian's theory," Tanya replied. "You never know. He might be right."
She walked to the doorway in the back of the room and had just reached it when Ben asked, "Wait, this place used to be a Masonic lodge?"
"Oh, I see you've noticed some of the symbols. Yes, it was, but it could easily have been forty years since anyone's used this building for anything." She glanced down at the threshold and instantly spotted a set of steep wooden stairs heading both up and down. "Watch your step." Gingerly, she stepped onto the landing.