Chapter Four
Sadusky leaned back in his chair and propped his feet up on the desk, sipping from his coffee cup and sighing heavily. He hadn't slept for almost twenty hours, and counting, largely because the buzz of the office was keeping him there. Vandalism abounded, burglars, robbers, and drive-by shooters were on every corner of Washington, D.C., and as soon as he saw Agent Peterson walk into the door of his office, he knew something had gone horribly wrong. "Whaddaya got, Peterson?" he asked, setting his coffee cup on the desktop and preparing himself for the worst.
"Uh..." Agent Peterson began.
"I have no time for 'uh'."
"Sir, Nathaniel Howe escaped from prison."
"Agent Peterson, did you just say 'Nathaniel Howe escaped from prison'?"
"Yes, sir."
"How did the guards allow this to happen?"
"We're working on that, sir."
"Keep working on it. I want answers ASAP."
"Yes, sir. Anything else you'd like to know?"
"I want the investigation as to how he did it finished before we go to the press."
"Yes, sir."
"Guess I should let you get back to work, Peterson."
Agent Peterson nodded and rushed out of Sadusky's office, allowing him to return to his coffee and his thoughts. It took him only five minutes to decide on his next course of action.
NTNT
Ian slipped into the dining room as soon as the phone started ringing, and he answered in a low voice. "Howe residence."
"Mr. Howe, Agent Sadusky," the voice on the other end replied. "I've got some news I think you'll wanna hear."
NTNT
Abigail, seeing no way to convince Ben to stop pacing across the living room, resigned herself instead to watching absently and tuning out his incessent muttering. Her eyes drifted to the window, where she could see cars driving by on the road in the distance, people on their daily commutes, most likely envying the lives of the rich and famous, people who they thought didn't have to work and could do whatever they wanted.
The rich and famous, most could never suspect, spent their free time trying to stay ahead of the game and keep their status, which, in some respects, proved challenging. Abigail found herself wondering how on Earth she and Ben ever pulled it off, or how Ian did it, but whatever either party was doing, it seemed to be working for both.
One of the cars was coming closer, and she furrowed her brow, instantly attracting Ben's attention. "What do you see?"
"Someone's coming."
"We're not expecting visitors right now, are we?"
"I dunno."
The car drove up the walkway, and it proved to be a somewhat familiar burnt orange sportscar. Three completely recongnizable figures climbed out of the sportscar: Riley, Tanya, and Ian.
"What're they doing here?" Abigail asked, more to herself.
Riley had tossed a set of keys to Ian as they walked, and Ian caught them with ease and pocketed them before ringing the doorbell.
"I'll get it," Ben said, already halfway to the front door.
When Ben answered the door, Ian said, "No time for formalities."
"What're you talking about?"
"We haven't the time. Nathaniel's broken out of prison."
Ben and Abigail exchanged glances, but neither spoke.
NTNT
Tanya and Riley had drifted onto the back patio as Ian explained to Ben and Abigail exactly what was going on. Once they were in private, Tanya couldn't help but ask, "Why these two?"
"I didn't know you hated Ben and Abi that much," Riley replied.
"I'd rather this were a private matter, since this is Howe family business, but involving perhaps the most famous treasure hunter in the world won't do us any favors outside of actually finding whatever it is we're looking for."
"Speaking of, find anything yet?"
"Not in the least. There's only rumors floating around about mystical powers and other such bits and pieces of nonsense."
"Oh."
"Look, maybe what we've found is just an ordinary compass and what we're getting our heads into is an elaborate set-up designed by the President for some outcome desirable to him and unfavorable to us. Maybe Page Forty-seven, and all the clues that follow it, were planted as part of some sick, twisted game to send us on a wild goose chase leading into an abyss of confusion and utter nonsense."
"You sound like Ben's dad."
"Ben's father was a smart man, but that's beside the point. The point is, do you see my dilemma?"
Riley chewd his lip in thought for a moment, staring off at the far corner of the property. "T," he finally said, "why do you think the President would set us up?"
"Because Ian and I...we're...we know things. It's not like if I asked you how to break through some advanced, coded secuirty web or something. This is...it's like if you know who's calling before you answer the phone but without checking the caller ID sort of thing."
"So, like, you're psuedo-psychics?"
"More or less, except that vision I had, which, I'm hoping, is a one-time thing, because I felt like a slab of ground beef for a little while after that."
"What's it like, having a vision?"
"Just...BAM, and I was there. It felt so real, like I was living it."
"Tanya," Ben said from the door to the patio, "can I have a word with you and your brother?"
She furrowed her brow, glanced back at Riley, and ultimately decided to follow Ben, no matter how reluctant she was.
Ben led her up to his study, where Ian was sitting in a chair, his legs crossed and his fingers laced together. The study itself had soft lighting and a lot of earthy colors, reminding Tanya of some underground chamber with impeccable lighting. Despite Ben's urgings for her to sit down, she remained standing. "Okay then," he finally said, conceding his defeat. He fished out his phone and hooked it up to his laptop, selecting a program which would show a higher resolution of the image. "Sorry the one I left you was so poor, Tanya. I think this might help with that."
Within seconds, text became clear, in ink several shades darker than the page itself but not entirely black, explaining how the poor resolution could make the page appear blank.
Ian got to his feet and walked over to his sister's side. "Vinegar?" he asked.
"Something similar. An ink where, once heat was applied, it never faded. Must've been done some time in the past," Ben replied, not taking his eyes off the computer screen.
Tanya squinted at the text, wondering if her day could possibly get any stranger. "I think we've descended the rabbit hole," she whispered.
This time Ben did look up from his computer screen, giving Tanya a strange look. "Will you relax?" Ian snapped, and immediately Ben turned back toward the screen.
"'The voice of the true Protector, silenced after three blows, stands witness now to that which he's struggled for so long to hide. Now stand and watch as it comes to life, in myth and legend across place and time, follow the compass point to the Truth's Light,'" Tanya whispered.
"Legend," Ian said suddenly. "Another map?"
"Maps have legends, and compasses," she added.
"Or," Ben said, "perhaps the legend refers to a particular story, one about this 'Protector'."
"What if it's both?" Ian asked.
"So we're stuck, basically, except we know more about square one, and maybe we can get to square two based on that."
"Ben, did you just say square?" Tanya asked.
"Yeah, why?"
"May I use your computer for a moment?"
"Uh, sure, I guess."
"Thank you." Tanya took a seat in front of the computer and pulled up the web browser. She typed 'Compass and square' into the search box and hit enter. The top results were images of a square and compass, sometimes with a capital 'G' in the middle.
"What do Freemasons have to do with this?" Ian asked, studying the images.
"'The compass points the way,'" Tanya breathed. "I'm a bloody idiot."
"How?"
"I think we've been thinking about the wrong sort of compass."
"This is getting really confusing really quickly."
Ben had set himself to pacing back and forth across the study, muttering mostly incoherent nonsense to himself. Tanya and Ian exchanged glances, with the former rolling her eyes and the latter sighing. After a moment, she reached for a piece of paper and a pen, writing down the riddle exactly. "I think," she finally said, "our problem lies in the enigmatic qualities of this riddle. It can mean too many things to be truly conclusive."
"Well, that's the point," Ben said. "It's supposed to mean a lot of things, to keep people guessing anything but the truth. It's like 'The secret lies with Charlotte'."
"So we're where we started initially, more or less," Ian said.
"Well, isn't that lovely," Tanya added, more wryly than anything else. She recieved odd looks from Ben and Ian, but neither spoke, and she decided not to elaborate.