Chapter Eight
Ben paced back and forth in his study, his mind feverishly attempting to put the pieces together. So far what he had were several theories relating to the riddle but in and of themselves seemingly unrelated. He muttered to himself a whole list of possible connections in an effort to help him see whatever he was missing more clearly, but as hard as he tried, it didn't seem to be working. His phone rang, so he fished it out of his pocket and answered, not even bothering to check the caller ID.
"Gates, heard you were having some trouble with that page," Agent Sadusky said from the other end of the line.
"How did you know?"
"In a lot of ways, the FBI is like Ian: nearly unlimited resources, and we're smart."
"So what are you trying to get out of me now?"
"Nothing, just thought I might try to help."
"Freemason thing?"
"Actually, Ben, you'd be surprised how many things are 'Freemason things'. Can I list a few?"
"I've heard it all, Sadusky: the dollar bill, the layout of Washington, D.C., just about every conspiracy theory you can imagine."
"I'm not talking about conspiracy theories, Ben. I'm talking about reality."
"So, what is the reality, since you seem to know so much about it?"
"Ben, if you're already at the beginning, good. If you're not, go back and start there."
"The beginning?"
"You'll figure it out. I know you will."
Ben was about to protest, but the line went dead. He sighed and swore under his breath before pocketing his phone and returning to his pacing. "Start at the beginning," he muttered, over and over again. He rubbed his hands down his face, turning his eyes toward a point where the wall he was facing met the ceiling. "Where is the beginning? The Charlotte? Trinity Church? Independence Hall?" None of this sounded right, though. "Wait, it's not the beginning for me, it's the beginning for Freemasonry, since this is a 'Freemason thing'. But where did Freemasonry begin?"
"Ben, is everything okay in there?" Abigail asked as she pounded on the door.
"Abi, do you know anything about Freemasonry?" Ben asked in reply.
"What?"
Ben walked over and slipped out the door to his study to meet Abigail in the second floor hallway. "Do you know anything about Freemasonry?" he asked again.
"Anything like what? Conspiracy theories?"
"No, like, where did it begin?"
"Well, let's see," Abigail said wistfully, looking off into space for a second. "I think there's a lodge in Edinburgh that's been around since the sixteen hundreds, at least. I can't be sure. I think I'd have to find it again. I know the first Grand Lodge was established in 1717 in England. Something about Page Forty-seven?"
"And Sadusky's phone call." Abigail furrowed her brow, prompting Ben to explain what happened in his study.
"And what about what Ian told you?"
"Yeah, there's that."
"So, do we work with Ian now?"
"I don't know." Ben had to force his tone to remain even in an effort to conceal what he was feeling. "Abigail," he added, even more evenly, "Riley should meet with the President as soon as possible to see if he knows anything which can help us."
"Ben, we have a small army of solutions. Whatever the President tells Riley, which he may or may not be able to tell us, is just going to be another one."
"And therein lies our problem."
NTNT
The book Ian thought he needed for some reason fell to the floor in a heap, and he barely heard it. His mind raced, wondering exactly who he should reveal his epiphany to first. There was his sister, his sister's boyfriend, Ben, so many other options, which sounded better and better each time he cycled through them. Ultimately, though, he decided on an alternative, more because he couldn't decide rather than any other actual necessity.
He fished out his phone and sent Ben and Riley a quick text message: 'meet me at the mansion, urgent', along with a time to meet. If Tanya hadn't gotten dressed up to play Andy for her late shift at the diner, he might've just run downstairs and told her the news, but he sent her the same message just after he heard a car pull out of the walkway. She's gonna have to quit that job, he thought after he snapped his phone shut and pocketed it.
He walked out of the guest bedroom and headed downstairs, where he snatched a pen and one of his notebooks off the dining room table, opened the notebook to a clean page, and began jotting down his thoughts and notes.
NTNT
Viktor and Phil exchanged odd looks when they saw a newly determined Ian Howe rush into the living room, scratching notes onto a sheet in his notebook and at the same time miraculously not running into anything. He took a seat in one of the chairs, his note-scratching only broken by the turning of a page.
Powell walked into the living room and sat in a chair across from Ian, studying him with the same curiosity as his coworkers. Ian didn't look up until he'd finished his note-taking with a flourish of his pen and sighed. "What are you staring at?" he asked, meeting his men's gazes, all three of them, with a slightly questioning look.
NTNT
Andy walked into the kitchen for what had to be the dozenth time that night. This time of night, coined the "after-battle rush" by regulars and staff, was unusually busy for dinner time, and her brother's message didn't help.
"Andy, order up from table seven," Kelly said, handing Andy a tray, and with that, the latter was out of the kitchen for what had to be the dozenth time that night.
Table seven was occupied by none other than Ben, Riley, and Abigail. Ben and Abigail exchanged confused glances, but Riley's eyes were knowing. "Are you going to tell them?" she whispered as she set his soup on the table, but Riley shook his head, mouthing, 'I already did,' to her. She nodded and distributed the rest of the meals and all three drinks within sixty seconds before walking back to the kitchen.
The rush ended fifteen minutes later and her shift about two hours after that, but only when she was halfway up the walkway to Ian's place did she drop the American accent, park, and check her phone, particularly the message Ian had sent her. She sighed in relief, seeing that she had time to remove the makeup covering her scar and the contacts hiding the fact that she had only one working eye.
As she rushed into the kitchen, she noticed Ian and his men were in as much of a circle as the chairs allowed in the living room, in something of an odd silence. Only after she cleaned herself up did she join them. "What's going on in here?" she asked.
Ian held up a sheet of notebook paper with his notes all over it. "Behold, the connection," he replied. She furrowed her brow at the crude sketch of a winding staircase with a lantern at the bottom with Ian's seemingly random notes all over it. "What, does this mean nothing to you?" he added, setting the notebook on the coffee table and furrowing his brow.
"I wish I knew the reasoning behind it and perhaps it might make sense then." She took a seat on the armrest of the chair Powell was sitting in as Ian explained something he'd gotten from Ben, something the latter had called the 'lantern theory', which made sense at first glance but got more ridiculous each time Tanya tried to be logical about what she was hearing.
When Ian finally shut up, she was torn between laughing at him and yelling at him, both for being insane, but instead she remained silent, contemplating exactly what he told her in the context in which he said it.
"That makes sense," Powell said. "Wasnae there somethin' Patrick said about the staircase bein' part of Freemason teachin's?"
"I thought that was a bunch of B.S.," Viktor replied.
"Well, whatever it is, it seems to be relevent now," Ian said.
"Knock, knock," Riley called cheerfully, tapping his knuckles on the door frame. He and Ben stepped into the living room only to find five pairs of eyes on them. "What?"
"The general consensus is Ian's lost his mind," Phil said.
"Yeah, kinda figured," Riley said, fishing his laptop out of his bag. He walked over to the coffee table and sat cross-legged on the floor across from the couch. Tanya slipped off her perch on the armrest to sit next to Riley. "So, what've we got so far?"
"The schematic of a winding staircase drawn by a crazed man," Tanya replied. To emphasize the point of her last two words, she gave Ian a harsh look. He just sighed and shook his head, allowing Tanya to return her attention to Riley, who was in the process of logging onto his computer.
"Schematic by a crazed man?" Riley asked. "Doesn't sound very Ian-like."
"Who said it had to be Ian-like. Ian himself isn't even Ian-like half the time."
"Okay, so what've we got."
Powell shrugged. "How 'bout yae run a search for Freemasons and winding staircases, see what yea come up with."
"Uh...okay." Riley set to typing, and Tanya glanced at Ian, who was watching Ben patiently. She turned her eyes toward Phil and Viktor, who were both staring at the polish on the coffee table blankly.
Then she felt something she hadn't realized she could feel, but she recognized it instantly.
A second after Tanya was seized by this strange, familiar feeling, the back door crashed open.