Chapter Nine
At first, Ben couldn't really process exactly what he was seeing. He registered three armed men swarming into Ian's mansion, followed by a man in a suit who walked calmly, and Abigail was there, flanked by two other armed men. Seeing the duct tape cuvering Abigail's mouth and registering that her hands were bound behind her back snapped everything into place, and the first word out of his mouth was, "Abigail."
"Now, now," the man in the suit said, and one of the armed men stuck his gun to Abigail's temple. "We wouldn't want your girlfriend to get hurt, now would we?"
"I don't know, would you?"
Tanya got to her feet and walked over, completely facing Ben. She gestured to the man in the suit and asked dryly, "Ben, are you trying to reason with this man?"
"He has my girlfriend."
She glanced back at Riley, who looked up from his computer, shrugged, and said, "Hey, I'd do the same thing for you."
"Flattered as I am," she said, turning back toward Ben, "reasoning with Nathaniel is a fool's mission."
"So this is the Nathaniel we've heard so much about," Ben said, his eyes solely on the man in the suit.
"Oh, how flattering. You talk about me." Nathaniel took a few steps forward, the men holding Abigail following close behind.
"Ben, maybe we should get the FBI on the phone," Riley said, and the man holding the gun to Abigail's temple swung it at him. "Or maybe we could just talk about this."
"Shut up," the man hissed, cocking the gun. Riley closed his mouth tightly and returned his attention to the computer.
"Now," Nathaniel said slowly, "about Page Forty-seven."
Instead of Ben speaking, it was Tanya. She let the riddle flow from her lips like wine, and Nathaniel was completely entranced by what she told him, even when she listed the many potential solutions they had. When she finally shut up, the whole mansion was silent. Not even Abigail, who seemed completely desperate to fight her now stunned captors, dared even fidget.
"Thank you," Nathaniel whispered, gesturing to his men. The two holding Abigail pushed her into a nearby chair in such a way that her wrists were bound behind it. The fivesome then regrouped in one corner of the living room, behind Nathaniel, watching him eagerly for their next set of orders. Nathaniel, however, was watching Tanya and Ben.
Ian nodded, and he and his three men, and Riley, all got to their feet and walked over to join Ben and Tanya. Ian was engaged in some form of stare-your-opponent-down-fest with Nathaniel, and the silence around them deepened.
Tanya glanced around, examining the situation in which she'd suddenly found herself. Finally, she asked, "You knew where to find us the whole time, didn't you?"
"What, you make an idiot of me?" Nathaniel replied, narrowing his eyes. "Not a wise move if you want to see your friends alive, Tanya."
"Who says I make an idiot of you? Obviously you have a gift similar to ours, as, if memory serves, our mother married into the family."
"And how is it you know this?"
"Family secrets have a way of leaking out," Ian said. "It's unwise to try to bury them."
"Oh, do they? Enlighten me."
Tanya and Ian exchanged glances, the latter nodding, before turning their eyes back to Nathaniel. She took a deep breath and said, "You have a way of not keeping track of your money, as I recall."
"Oh?"
"And as I recall," Ian said, "you also have a way of putting money first."
Nathaniel gestured to the man with the gun, who swung it at Ian, leveling it almost instantly. Ian didn't so much as flinch. "Now, what does your charming sister have to say?" Nathaniel hissed.
"Hey, hey, hey," Ben said, stepping forward and putting his hands up. "Can't we be reasonable? Nobody needs to die."
"Ben," Ian said, casting a sidelong glance in the direction of the person to whom he was speaking, "for Nathaniel, this is reasonable."
Ben stared blankly at Ian for a moment before furrowing his brow slightly. "Wow," he whispered.
The man holding the gun cocked it, and Ian found himself barking, "Riley, Tanya, Phil, go with Ben." The group split almost evenly in an instant, and the man fired a few shots. A second man drew a similar gun, with just a few changes, with very little notice.
Just as Tanya crossed the living room, she could feel something cold press into the side of her neck, two cold somethings. A horrible shock tore her body in two, and she blacked out before she hit the floor.
NTNT
There was an instant of pure calm as Ben, Ian, Riley, Phil, Powell, and Viktor watched in astonishment and terror as Tanya collapsed. Nathaniel smiled softly and gestured to the three others, who picked her up, bound her, and set her down on the floor in what was obviously supposed to be a sitting position at Abigail's side. Abigail struggled against the bandages and tried to cry out, but her captors ignored her.
"Do you honestly think I'm going to let you split up and escape?" Nathaniel hissed again. "Quite frankly, I have other plans for you lot."
"What do you want?" Ben asked, meeting Nathaniel's almost crazed eyes with an even, rational gaze.
"What I want, Gates, is for you to solve Page Forty-seven."
"Weren't you listening?" Riley snapped. "You heard Tanya. There's almost a dozen possible solutions."
"So write them all on slips of paper, put them in a hat, draw one, and hope for their sakes," he cocked his head toward Abigail and Tanya, "that you're right." Nathaniel turned toward his men and said, "Take them." Two pulled Abigail out of the chair and the other three carried Tanya out the back door. As one, they followed Nathaniel out of the mansion.
As soon as Ian was sure they were gone, he walked over to his notebook, ripped out the page his schematic was on, folded it up, and pocketed it, nodding to Ben, who seemed to understand instantly. Riley looked back and forth between Ben and Ian for several seconds before asking, "Okay, what do we do now?"
"We do what Nathaniel says," Ian replied.
"You're saying we should cooperate with him?"
"Riley, it's the only way we get Tanya and Abi back," Ben said. "We give him what he wants, and if he's a man of his word, he'll keep his end of the deal."
"Is he, Ben?"
"Well, actually, that bit depends on who you ask," Ian said.
"So do we move out or what?" Phil asked.
"Until I have a concrete plan, I'll have to go with 'or what'."
"Hey, what about me meeting with the President?" Riley asked. In response to the odd looks the five others gave him, he added, "Tanya said something about how you knew how to make it work so you knew what we talked about without him knowing you knew."
"Oh, that's right. Riley, call him up and ask for a date and time." As Riley fished out his phone and opened it, Ian added, "By the way, did anyone ever tell you you're a genius?"
"Uh...n-no. Thanks, Ian," Riley said with a slight, disbelieving smile. After a moment, he returned his attention to his phone and found the President's number. He hit the send button, put the phone to his ear, and paced about slowly.