Okay, chapter two. Thanks to everyone who stuck around to read more. This chapter might be a bit bare and I'm trying to get a lot of the normal dialog in but it will get better so bear with me on this one.
Luckily asking nicely worked. She soon found herself following the group in an extra jacket. It went all the way down to her knees, but at least she was warm.
The movie isn't nearly as interesting when its real life and you walks around for a half an hour looking for something so lets skip to the fun part after the dig out the ship shall we?
Anyway, many hours later they reached the door to get under the deck.
They opened the rickety door that had huge, sharp icicles on it, while she walked past she broke one off and poked Ian in the back. He turned around and glared at her. She shot him her most innocent smile and tossed the hunk of ice aside. He was fun to annoy.
Below the deck were the crew's quarters. Snow filled hammocks divided the room into isles. Everything was frost covered and glittering as the flashlight beams swept over them.
She was standing next to Riley when he uncovered the dead crewman and let out a cough manly cry.
"You handled that well." Rachel and Ben said at the same time, he gave her an odd look.
"Look at how perfectly preserved he is." She said. After all she had never seen a mummy in real life and this one was very well preserved, I guess you could say flash frozen.
"This is it." Ben called "It's the cargo hold."
He wrenched the door open, shards of ice fell from the frame. She didn't rush in like everyone else knowing that the treasure wasn't there. Though, while everyone was looking around she went though the dozens of frost covered barrels, looking for the barrel she knew contained something of interest. If she was going to play through this story she wasn't going to be some backseat tag-along character.
"Now why would the captain be guarding this barrel?" She mumbled, trying to come across that she didn't know it was in there in case someone was listening.
She unpeeled the captain's fingers from the edge of the barrel and broke open the top, spilling gunpowder over the snow.
"I found something." She said as she pulled the cloth wrapped box out and set it on the table where everyone could see it.
"Good work." Ben said. And this was the point when she had a perky teenage girl moment. OMG Nicolas Cage just told me good work!
Okay, now that the more than slightly embarrassing moment was over...
She pulled her gloves off and carefully unwrapped the box. Inside was the white carved pipe, resting on a bed of blue satin.
"Is it a billion dollar pipe?" Riley asked hopefully.
She rolled her eyes. "Its a meerschaum pipe."
Well that got her more than a few odd looks.
"Look at the intricacy of the scroll work on the stem. " Ben marveled.
"Is it a million-dollar pipe? "
Rachel was now holding it and considering whacking Riley on the head with it. He was much more annoying in person, at least at this point. But she knew she wouldn't feel that way once she was out of the bitter arctic cold and back in DC (well when she had gone to DC before it had been pretty bitter cold but she figured it being a different time of season hopefully she wouldn't freeze.)
"No its a clue." Ben replied, taking it from her hands and popping the stem off. "We are one step closer to the treasure, gentlemen. "
"Ben, I thought you said that the treasure would be on the Charlotte. " Ian said, rubbing his hand over his face.
"No, "The secret lies with Charlotte." I said it could be here. "
He took out a knife and cut his thumb, smearing the blood onto the stem of the pipe and rolling it onto a piece of paper.
Gah. She thought. That part always made her cringe.
"It's Templar symbols.
The legend writ.
The stain effected.
The key in Silence undetected.
Fifty-five in iron pen.
Mr Matlack can't offend."
She thought for a moment while Ben started pacing and mumbling. Now was her chance to secure herself a place in this adventure and not a one way ticket to an orphanage when they got back to the states and found out that she was only 15.
"Wait." She said, interrupting him in mid sentence. "Timothy Matlack was the official scribe of the Continental Congress. He was a Calligrapher, not writer. What if, so as not to offend this map your talking about it was put on the back of a resolution he transcribed. A resolution that 55 men signed. The Declaration of Independence." She finished. Wow, she almost completely copied what Ben was going to say. Hm.
"I think your right." He said.
"Come on, there's no invisible map on the back of the Declaration of Independence" Riley scoffed.
"How do you know?" She asked.
That's clever, really. A document of that importance would ensure the map's survival. And you said there were several Masons signed it, yeah? " Ian asked.
"Nine, for sure. " Ben mumbled.
Any minute now Ian would bring up the "lets 'borrow' it" plan.
"We'll have to arrange a way to examine it. " Ian said plainly.
Who couldn't see that coming?
"This is one of the most important documents in history. They're not just gonna let us waltz in there and run chemical tests on it. " Ben told him.
Rachel inched her way towards Ben. She would rather not be next to Riley when Shaw pulled out the gun.
"Then what do you propose we do? " Ian asked, he was starting to get rather annoyed, perhaps some of that was from her antagonising him the entire time she was with them...
They were all silent for a moment.
"We could borrow it. " Ian proposed.
"What you mean steal it? What are you completely dense?" Rachel laughed inside. Being a teenager had its perks.
"Shes right that's definitely out of the question."
"Ben...the treasure of the Knights Templar is the treasure of all treasures. "
She knew he wasn't going to let this go.
"Oh, I didn't know that. Really? "
"Look, Ben... I understand your bitterness. I really do. You've spent your entire life searching for this treasure, only to have the respected historical community treat you and your family with mockery and contempt. You should be able to rub this treasure in their arrogant faces, and I want you to have the chance to do that. "
She couldn't stand it any more. With that last line she burst out laughing. "You have got to be joking, you don't really care."
Ian glared at her and continued. "We all have our areas of expertise. You don't think mine are limited to writing checks, do you? In another life... I arranged a number of operations of... questionable legality. So don't worry. I'll make all the arrangements. "
"No." Both her and Ben said together. She was going to do this through the entire story she just knew it.
"I really need your help here. "
"Ian... I'm not gonna let you steal the Declaration of Independence. "
"Okay. From this point on all you're going to be is a hindrance. " Ian said and Shaw pulled out a gun, aiming it at Ben.
"Hey! " Riley yelled from the other side of the room.
"What are you gonna do? Are you gonna shoot me, Shaw? " Ben asked. "Well, you can't shoot me. There's more to the riddle. Information you don't have. I do. I'm the only one who can figure it out, and you know that. "
Shaw looked over at Ian ."He's bluffing. "
"We played poker together, Ian. You know I can't bluff."
"Tell me what I need to know, Ben, or we'll shoot your new friend." He said and Shaw moved to gun so it now pointed at her. This was not at all how she though this would go.
"Hey! I'm just the girl found in a snow drift!" She yelled, holding her hands up.
Ben quickly lit a flare."Look where you're standing. All that gunpowder. You shoot her, I drop this, we all go up. "
"Ben..." She warned.
"What happens when the flare burns down? Tell me what I need to know, Ben. " Ian said confidently
"You need to know... if Shaw can catch. " He said and tossed the flare, unfortunately Ian caught it as always.
The two men standing before them laughed.
"You might wanna be care...Oh you'll find out." She warned
"Nice try, though."Ian said, shaking the flare. A spark landed on his sleeve, making it catch fire. Ian dropped the flare and he and Shaw ran towards the door.
He closed the door behind him and locked it. Ben started stomping around to find the smuggler's hold.
"Riley get over here!" Ben yelled. He shoved her into the hold, Riley followed, and then he led them through a passage under the deck. Glowing embers fell all around them. They reached another chamber. Ben pulled her and Riley through the doorway and shut the door. Mere seconds after he did that the fire reached one of the barrels. The explosion was louder than she had ever imagined it would be and the ground rocked beneath them. Luckily, once the snow cleared they were covered in a small layer of snow but no worse for wear.
"Everyone okay?" Ben asked, getting up and shaking off snow.
"Oh yea, just wonderful." Riley answered. He helped her up and she shook the snow out of her hair.
Ben took out a GPS. "Theres an Inuit village about nine miles east of here. Popular with bush pilots."
"Nine miles? I thought it was five." She mumbled.
And with that they set out on an extremely long walk through the snow.
Another chapter out of the way,
Three comes one week from this day.
