Disclaimer-I don't own National Treasure, It's pretty hard for me to admit.
A/N-This is known in my mind as the "Big Historical Monologue Chapter", so I have a few comments about the facts in this. Throughout the entire story, most of my facts on Edward Teach are 100 true (Including the Devil's Triangle) and all of the historical characters are true, but I did a little tweaking in order to have the story make sense. Hornigold actually retired in Britain, not in N.C., and other stuff like that, so basically this is not a good source for your research paper. Also, I tried to make the monologue as interesting as possible, but it's a lot of info, so if you find yourself yawning please tell me and I will tweak it.
Thanks and please R&R!
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Chapter Four
As Claire drove up to the Gates Manor, she couldn't help but be a little intimidated.
"My God Ian, this place is enormous!"
Ian chuckled. "Claire, I'm pretty sure that every residential property in the world looks enormous compared to your apartment."
Rolling her eyes, Claire continued to gape at the magnificent estate framed by acres of lush green grass. "Their son is one lucky kid-he can practically reenact the Battle of Gettysburg on his own front yard."
"And being Ben's son," Ian replied, grinning, "that's exactly what he'll do."
Finally reaching the end of the mile-long driveway, Claire parked the car in front of the Gates' house and sat quietly.
"Claire, are we getting out?" Ian asked impatiently.
"Ian, please be nice while were here. I know you and Ben have….issues, but-"
Ian cut her off "Claire, the man just got me out of jail; I'm not going to try and kill him again!"
She grinned teasingly at him "Just checking. And no refusing to let me go to Nassau with them."
"Claire, you shouldn't be running off on dangerous adventures with Ben, you're just a-"
"Ian" she said threateningly. "I'm twenty four, I'm not a kid. I can take care of myself perfectly well. Plus, we're just going on a historical research and retrieval trip that is perfectly legal. I'm not going to be in any danger!"
"That's probably what Gates said when he was going to Alaska to find the Charlotte- and he was almost blown up, shot and left to die in a ancient pit of despair!"
"Yes, by you. Somehow I don't think I'll find myself facing the same problem"
Grumbling about how that wasn't really the point, Ian opened his door and exited the car, slamming the door. Claire grinned victoriously. Pit of Despair. Hah, never seen Princess Bride my ass!
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Riley wondered from his rather uncomfortable position behind the heavy velvet curtain why Ian and his sister were taking so long. What could they possibly be talking about in front of the house that they can't anywhere else? I wonder if I could get their radio feed through a satellite and reverse it to hear their conversation. Nah, the cars too old-probably doesn't have a satellite radio….
So deep was he in his ponderings that he was quite shocked when he felt someone poke him on the back. In fact, he believed he set a new record for the high jump. Turning around, he was faced with a solemn face framed with a shock of white blond hair that belonged to none other than three-year-old Patrick Gates.
"Uncle Riley, what're you doing behind the curtain?" the child asked loudly.
"SHHHHHH!" Riley whispered furiously. "I'm spying!"
Patrick looked thrilled "Can I spy too?"
Riley moved over to give his godson some space. Honestly, the kid followed him everywhere. If he didn't adore the tyke so much it would have been incredibly annoying. Anyway, he really couldn't blame him. If he had to undergo the mind-numbingly boring historical debates that were the basis of the Gate family life, he would grab a chance at some espionage too.
"What are we looking at?" Patrick asked, whispering now that he was spying.
"See that car in front of the house?" Riley pointed to Claire's old Jetta.
"Yeah."
"Ian's in there. He and his sister are coming to have dinner with us." Riley confided.
Patrick's eyes widened. "Ian?" The boy had been told numerous stories from his parents about Ian (with most of the violent parts edited out) and from Riley (with most of the violent parts enormously exaggerated). Most of these stories were taught to exercise caution, but Patrick had developed a liking to the "bad guy with the guns". He did have an unhealthy appreciation for villains, Riley considered. He had almost cried when Jafar had died in Aladdin, claiming that "he was cooler that Aladdin."
As Ian threw open his door and stepped out of the car, Riley bolted from behind his curtain, pulling Patrick with him.
"Ben! Abby! Ian and Claire are here!" he called loudly, just as the doorbell rang.
Ben and Abby exited the kitchen, smiling a bit too much for two people were supposedly discussing Thomas Pane.
"Would you like to do the honors, Riley?" Ben asked jokingly, pointing to the door.
"No thanks." Riley answered quickly. "I should watch Patrick over here."
Laughing, Abby strode to the door and threw it open.
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Ben's wife was really pretty, Claire realized as Dr. Gates ushered them through the 12-foot door. The natural kind of pretty that made normal-looking people feel self-conscious. Smiling friendlily but cautiously at Ian, she closed the door behind them.
"Please come in, take off your coats." She said in a slight accent that sounded European.
Claire stifled a laugh as she saw a small blonde boy run up to Ian, only to hide behind his mother, peering up at him.
Ian grinned "And who just might you be?"
The boy bravely stepped away from behind Dr.Gates. "I'm Patrick." he declared seriously. "I'm three."
Ian looked up at Ben "He looks a bit like you, Ben. Got the doctor's hair, though."
Patrick had seemed to dissipate the small amount of tension that had been lingering in the room, and Claire had mustered up enough of her minimal social skills to quietly thank Dr.Gates for inviting them over for dinner.
"Please, Claire, call me Abigail." She replied, her eyes twinkling. "And to tell you the truth, I really wanted to ask you more about that document."
Claire stopped staring at the floor, delighted. Obviously Abigail was extremely straightforward, not bothering with polite pleasantries. Exactly her kind of person.
"I've got all my notes and stuff, if you wanted to get the full debriefing." she said excitedly.
Ian groaned good-naturedly "I guess we better postpone dinner, Ben. She's going to go on for hours."
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Claire sat at the head of the giant round table in the Gates' living room, her notes and papers spread in an arc around her. Ian and Ben were sitting on either side of her, with Abigail and Riley across from her. Riley was looking quite interested in spite of his obvious disdain for history, which was considered an original sin in her book. Ben and Abigail, however, looked thoroughly attentive.
She wiggled in her seat excitedly. Who would've thought that she'd be presenting her findings to the founders of the Mason's treasure? Suppressing a girly squeal, Claire cleared her throat quite academically and began her "debriefing."
"Now, this all began when I was in North Carolina looking for pieces of furniture made in the early eighteenth century in order to study the carvings over spring break."
Riley gave a barely audible snort. She glared at him.
"While I was in an antique store, I came across a desk of that period that seemed to match perfectly with the description of desks of the wealthy. I must say, it's a billion times more beautiful than anything they make today. Anyway, I needed a desk, so I killed two birds with one stone and bought it for a ridiculously low price. I figured that I could study the carvings while I was at home. let me tell you, actually getting it home in a four-door was no easy task."
She winced at the memory of the truck driver who must have hit every pothole from North Carolina to Massachusetts just to annoy her.
"Anyway," she continued. "As I was studying it in my apartment, I found that one of the drawers had a fake bottom, and underneath it were these documents. You can imagine my excitement when I read them and found they were correspondences to Benjamin Hornigold from Edward Teach. With the help of my thesis advisor, I managed to get a carbon dating on them to verify that they were accurate, and then I started the real work of analyzing his letters."
"Why?" Riley asked abruptly. "I thought that Blackbeard didn't want anyone to find his treasure, so why would he tell his pirate buddy?"
Claire smiled enthusiastically.
"Good Question. Actually, what Blackbeard really wanted was to hide his treasure well enough that it would be a legacy that would make him famous: the treasure that no one could find. However," she confided, "He did leave clues to the actual location, because what was the point if there was absolutely no chance of anyone finding it? He just left clues subtle enough that his treasure wouldn't be found until his name was worldly known."
"But wasn't Blackbeard's death unexpected?" Abigail asked. "He was murdered by Robert Maynard, a navy captain, in 1718, when he was only around 30. How do you know that he every actually had time to leave clues?"
"Because he had been giving the first one for two years." Claire answered. She realized that her audience was utterly captivated and grinning, gave a long dramatic pause.
"What was it?" Riley burst out impatiently.
"Well, one of the most famous Blackbeard quotes is the answer that he always gave when someone asked him about who knew, besides himself, where his treasure was hidden."
"That only he and the devil knew where it was, and the longest liver shall take it." Ben quoted softly. "How does that contain a hint to the location of his treasure?
"Well, I didn't notice it until I started reading his letters to his mentor Hornigold. In his last letter, he states that he has a feeling that Spotswood, who was the governor who sent out Maynard to kill him, was after him.
Blackbeard asked that in event of his death, Hornigold make sure that he was buried in the devil's lands. That particular phrase confused me because in that time, pirates were beheaded or hanged, and there was no way Hornigold would be able to get a hold of his body. I realized that this phrase must have some other significance. I connected it to that quote and I realized that when he was talking about the devil, he wasn't talking about the devil, with the horns and all that stuff- he was talking about a codename for a location."
"The location of the treasure!" Abgail exclaimed.
"Exactly. But, of course, how would an outsider crack the codename if was something that only Hornigold knew about? So, after tons of reaserch, I finally stumbled upon the location almost by accident."
Claire looked around, extremely amused. "Tell me, what do you all know about the popular myth of the Bermuda Triangle?"
"Not much," Ben admitted.
"Well, the creation of the myth dates back to way before the eighteenth century. The entire region was shrouded in mystery and considered bad luck. It was just the sort of place that Blackbeard would want to hide his treasure. Because of the "bad luck" of the place, most of it would remain unexplored for many years. Plus people might come to believe that the region was bad luck because of his treasure, which he hinted was cursed."
"So you think that the treasure is hidden in the Bermuda Triangle because it's cursed?" Riley asked doubtfully. "That isn't really a lot to go on."
Claire waved his comment aside "I didn't find out all of this information until I stumbled upon one fact. Did you know," she began dramatically, "What they called the area of the Bermuda Triangle before Bermuda was founded?"
"Treasure Island?" Riley guessed hopefully
Claire shook her head and took out an old map, drawn of the Caribbean region. A dotted line ran from Florida to Puerto Rico to Bermuda, forming a triangle.
At the top, in spidery handwriting was written
THE DEVIL'S TRIANGLE
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Driving home, Claire was acting like a giddy schoolgirl.
"I can't wait for this weekend! I can't believe I'm actually going there! To Nassau! With the Gates Family!"
Ian laughed as his sister pulled into the parking lot of her apartment. "Claire, after the story you just told them, I'm pretty sure that they'd take you to bloody Antarctica if you asked nicely. Are you positive you won't let me come?"
"Ian, you're on parole-you just got out of jail yesterday. If you leave the country now, they could probably throw you back in for life."
"Yeah," he agreed, as they entered Claire's apartment and started the long trek up the stairs, "But I mean, you're going into the Bermuda Triangle-who knows what kind of weird things are there. You need someone to look out for you."
"I'm not going alone Ian. The Gates' and Riley are going too."
"Ben will be looking out for his wife, and Riley couldn't protect himself from a crazed Bermudan monkey. What happens when you run into trouble?"
Claire dug her keys out of her pocket. "For the third time, Ian, there will be no trouble. There will be no crazy Englishmen pointing guns at us. I will be perfectly safe, and capable of protecting myself from a crazed Bermudan monkey if I happen across one."
"What," she asked as she swung the door open, "Could possibly happen?"
As she walked into the room, her mouth dropped open. Her hand fluttered around until it rested on the doorframe.
"What the hell happened in here?" Ian demanded. Turning to Claire, he saw absolute fear on his little sister's face.
"Ian?" she asked quietly. "Ian, call the police."