Chapter 15

Queen Cristina's Treasure

When Jacqui arrived at the Revillagigedo palace with Patrick and Emily in tow, she realized that the front of the building was far too well protected to attempt entrance there. There were several entrances on the back of the palace, and Jacqui chose the one that seemed the least well guarded. When they returned to the hotel, Riley was already uploading the reconnaissance that Jacqui had gathered with her camera and used the camera's web sharing function to immediately send them to him.

"Nice work," Ben said, when they entered the room.

"Thank you," Jacqui said, grinning with pride as she sat down beside Riley. They shared a brief kiss and Riley returned his attention to the computer screen.

"I should be able to cut out the cameras, but we're going to need some help distracting the guard so that we can slip inside," Riley said.

"You worry about the cameras, let us worry about distraction," Patrick said.

"Whatever are you talking about?" Emily asked, utterly confused.

"I think, my darling, it is high time we had another argument," he said with a mischievous glint in his eyes.

***

"It's right here," Patrick said loudly as he and Emily approached the palace closer to sundown.

"That can't be right," Emily snipped. "Give me that map!"

"You can't trust me for a single second, can you?" Patrick said.

"This isn't about trust, it's about your ability to read a bloody map!" Emily retorted. "You couldn't find your way with a map if it led to your own…oh…bother!"

"*I* wanted to go to Philadelphia!" Patrick cried. "But no! We had to go to Europe!"

"We've seen everything there is to see in Philadelphia and Boston and Baltimore and everywhere else you've dragged me!" Emily growled. By now, the bickering had gained the attention of the night guards, who chuckled and gestured at the elder couple. Emily couldn't be sure, but she thought she heard one of them refer to them as 'those cute American grandparents'. It bristled Emily's feminine pride to be referred to as a grandmother before she actually was one, but she focused again on what Patrick was yelling at her. As the fight escalated, Ben, Abigail, Riley and Jacqui waited in the deepening shadows, shaking their heads and fighting a case of the giggles.

"It's amazing they have a voice left when they're through," Abigail muttered with a smile directed at Ben.

"It's amazing that Ben's still sane having to deal with that all his life," Riley added.

"Not all my life," Ben corrected. "Remember, I had 32 years of virtual peace and quiet in there." Abigail and Jacqui were giggling again as the guards finally approached Patrick and Emily and asked if they could help them. The youngster moved quickly from their hiding place and ducked into the palace before the guards could turn around again. Patrick and Emily met them at the maintenance entrance after Riley knocked out the camera and the entire party took a couple of seconds to catch their breath before going on. Patrick and Emily chuckled for a moment as they took deep breaths of the air-conditioned environment. Patrick turned to his love and lifted her chin to meet her eyes, a smile lighting his face.

"I had no idea you were such a good actress," he whispered.

"You should have seen me in A Midsummer Night's Dream," she replied.

"I'm sure you were as beautiful then as you are now," he bantered. Riley rolled his eyes and Ben gave him a friendly push down the corridor, looking back for just a moment and catching his parents sharing a soft kiss before following them along the way into the main part of the palace.

"Where do we start?" Jacqui said. "This place must have hundreds of rooms." Abigail produced a piece of paper with drawings of the coins and notes on the translation.

"We figured out that there are four coins visible in the painting. We had to translate each coin and then unscramble them. It's a riddle!" Abigail said. Ben enjoyed the excitement in her eyes. Since they'd met, Abigail had really begun to enjoy the treasure seeking just as much as he did.

"The first two talk about the queen and the mission gold being used to build the school. The third says something to the effect that the treasure is hidden 'at our lady's feet', and the fourth says that it will only be revealed when the seeker indulges the queen's rapture," Abigail read from her notes. The others seemed to absorb and ponder all of this for a few moments as Ben did what every Gates man before him has done—he paced the room, muttering softly the translated riddle from the coins. When he stopped, he turned and looked at the wall, examining the designs painted and scrolled onto the surfaces in circles, swirls and other more elaborate shapes. Seconds later, he stopped, his focus coming to one particular design on the wall.

"What is it, Ben?" Emily asked. Ben lightly fingered the design and then called for Abigail to bring him the picture of the coins in the painting.

"The coins," he said. "The coins are painted on the walls." Immediately, each person dashed for the far walls, searching for the next coin.

"I've got one!" Jacqui said, waving them over to an archway that led down another corridor.

"Here's another!" Patrick said from farther down the way. They continued this way until they reached the palace ballroom, where a much larger version of the coin was inlaid into each door.

Upon entering the room, Ben clicked a flashlight on and shined it at the walls inside. Just inside the door was another coin, but this one was raised, like a button. Gingerly, Ben pushed on it and the lights in the room immediately flared to life, making the adventurers stop in awe. The grandly decorated ballroom had a small dais at one end with thrones for the king and queen and there was an area appointed to the orchestra on the other. The team wandered about looking for the next clue, most going separate directions. Emily generally kept close to Patrick, knowing from past exploits that the men in her life tended to press buttons without knowing what they do. They approached the thrones and she watched for a moment as Patrick searched the general area. Feeling a bit tired from the exertion, Emily contemplated sitting for just a few moments on Queen Maria Cristina's throne. It couldn't hurt, right? Gingerly, she approached and then turned; looking as if to make sure the others weren't watching and then eased herself into the chair, blowing out a breath as she relaxed. Patrick laughed softly at this and Emily scowled good-naturedly back at him. Emily rested her arms on the throne's armrests and there was a soft click. She quickly lifted her arms again and she and Patrick discovered a small button on the end of the armrest, where Emily's dainty fingers had rested. When the button was pressed, music filled the air. Patrick and Emily looked at one another and Patrick said, "Chopin?" He grinned and then offered his hand to Emily.

"Would you care to dance?" he said.

"This is no time to be fooling around!" she admonished him.

"Em, do you love me?" he asked. Emily was a bit shocked but replied, "Of course I do!"

"Do you trust me?"

She smirked a bit at this and then replied, "Most of the time."

"Then dance with me," Patrick said with that firm but gentle tone that, unbeknownst to him, usually got him what he wanted when paired with that Gates charm that he seemed to have over her. She put her hand in his and let him lead her from the dais, taking the correct position and then taking the first step back, pulling Emily with him. Soon they were sweeping and whirling in a wide circle around the room as the others stood near the thrones. As Patrick and Emily danced and Chopin's Waltz no. 3 in a minor played, Ben's jaw dropped. Several small, round inlaid panels in the floor clicked as his parents stepped on them.

"That's genius," he whispered. "The inlaid panels act like little triggers."

"What are they triggering though?" Riley asked.

When the song was slowing to a close, Patrick gave his partner two more turns and then held her securely as he bent forward, dipping her low and slowly rising again. Abigail smirked and swatted Ben's shoulder, getting his attention.

"Why can't you be romantic like that?" she teased.

There was a whir and another click and a hidden trap door in the center of the room popped loose before them. The others approached this new development carefully. This was plainly what the riddle had referred to, but what lay beyond the trap door was utterly a mystery.

"How did you figure that out?" Riley asked.

"The riddle said the treasure was hidden at the queen's feet, and that it would be revealed in the presence of music—Queen Maria Cristina's rapture. What else does one do when there's music and you're happy? You dance!" Patrick explained.

Carefully, the group descended into the darkness of the tunnel, not really certain what they'd find. The smoothly hewn passageway seemed to go on forever, twisting and turning until they reached a dead end with three doors, one on each wall. Each of the three wooden doors had been constructed with 18 small diamond-shaped raised panels and had been painted black with the exception of the panels, each of which were painted a different solid color. It only took seconds for the explorers to start debating between each other which door was the way through to the treasure. Jacqui, however, tipped her head to the left and squinted as she took a step forward. She bit her lip and quietly considered each door. She examined the shapes of the panels, the doors themselves, the colors used on each door, and the arrangement of the colors. There had to be a rhyme or reason to them, a way for someone encountering the passageway after Queen Maria Cristina's reign to be able to access the treasure.

Until now, Riley had been dizzily watching as the four other explorers argued amongst themselves. When he noticed that Jacqui had slipped away over to the doors, he joined her.

"What do you think?" Riley asked gently.

"I could think more clearly if they could be quieter," Jacqui muttered. Riley chuckled at this. Abigail wasn't the only one who was incapable of shutting her mouth. "There doesn't seem to be any kind of pattern that I can identify in the arrangement or colors of the panels, but check this out." Jacqui took Riley's hand and pressed it to the door on the left and then told him to do the same to the other two.

"What am I looking for?" Riley said.

"Can't you feel it?" Jacqui said. "The first two doors are made of a harder wood than the third. Spanish Fir would have been hard enough, and common to the area, but the third is made of pine—I can still smell it! Pine wouldn't have been a typical door material at the time, but it was a native tree in California. It's a clue! I'm sure of it!" Riley looked again at the colors.

"I think you're right. Look at the difference in the colors here," he said, pointing at the first two doors and then the third. "The first two only use bold colors, but this third one incorporates more bright turquoise than the others."

"Turquoise would have been a color that the Shasta used in their art, and so was the diamond and triangle shapes," Jacqui said. She and Riley put their hands on the door latch at the same time, smiled in breathless excitement, and then pushed it open, startling the others.

"What are you doing?" Ben cried.

"Wait!" cried Emily.

"Ben!" Riley yelled back.

"Come quick!" Jacqui screeched. The others joined them in the room behind the third door, which led into another passage way and then to another door decorated with Shasta symbols and colors, and in the center was a life-sized painting of a Shasta man. Emily's eyes widened as she reached back for Patrick's hand, which he grasped as he smiled at her and then looked back at the door.

"It's a man…" Riley said. "With a robe and a bowl of some sort…and these triangles…they have to mean something. Guys, look…" Jacqui looked at them for a moment and then turned to Riley.

"Do you have a print out of the portrait of Queen Maria Cristina?" she demanded.

"I've got it," Abigail said, pulling it out of her pack. She gave it to Jacqui and she shined her flashlight on it.

"Look at the queen's necklace: it has the same colors as the triangles on the door! It could be a combination!" Jacqui said.

"Then I suggest you input it quickly," said a strange voice behind them, accompanied by a horribly suspicious clicking sound. All of the adventurers took a step or two back as they turned, coming face to face with Dr. Major, accompanied by Roscoe and Arnold. Roscoe's nose was still bruised and puffy from where Abigail had broken it, and Major was pointing his gun at Ben while Roscoe pointed his at Jacqui.

Though her knees trembled in fear, Emily, who now stood at the front of the group, suddenly broke away from Patrick's protective hands in a fit of bravery only a mother could understand. No one pointed a gun at her son. No one. She swung her small backpack at Major's outstretched arm as everyone in the narrow passage shouted in surprise. Roscoe acted quickly, reaching for Emily and pulling her against him, facing her family, with his arm tightly pressed across her collar bones and shoulders. He now held the gun against Emily's chest while Major picked up his gun slowly and dabbed at the scratch Emily's backpack had left on his face.

"Mom…" Ben murmured.

"Brave to a fault, aren't you, Dr. Appleton," Major said. "The combination, Miss Bonner, or Roscoe gets one last fling with his new friend." Emily struggled but Roscoe held her tight and Jacqui turned to the door with trembling hands.

"How'd you find us?" Ben said. "The FBI…"

"Can only hold a person so long until they must charge you or release you," Major said. "Without any evidence of wrongdoing, he could not keep us."

"I don't understand…" Patrick said in utter confusion. What had happened to the reports they had filed with Agent Sadusky? What about the records of Emily's kidnapping and assault?

"Your little geek isn't the only one who knows how to run a computer," Arnold said, gesturing rudely at Riley.

"You son of a bitch…" Riley said, pushing past Abigail only to have Ben and Patrick hold him. There was tense quiet again as Jacqui slowly pressed the panels. Emily looked into Patrick's eyes, his heart plainly breaking as he watched Roscoe restrain Emily. She winked at him and then used her eyes to gesture toward Roscoe. A second later, he understood. Emily stomped hard on Roscoe's foot and then ducked as she drove her elbow into his gut. He was dazed long enough to not see Patrick's right hand before it struck him, rendering him too dizzy to stand. Ben used the distraction to disarm Major, taking the man to the floor and getting more than his fair share of punches into the man's face before Abigail pulled him off. Ben didn't notice until then that tears had fallen from his eyes. All of his anger at Major for what he did to Emily had driven his hands. If not for Abigail, he might have killed him. Patrick shook his hand out for only a fraction of a second before Emily threw herself into his arms again.

"What on earth possessed you to do that?" Patrick demanded. Emily looked up at him and firmly said, "No one points a gun at our child if I can do something about it."

"Mom," Ben said, coming to them and embracing them both. "Dad…are you guys okay?"

"We're fine, sweetheart," Emily said. Ben helped Riley bind Major and Roscoe, but Arnold had vanished.

"Where did he go?" Riley demanded.

"Riley!" Jacqui squealed. Arnold had nudged his way through the tangle of people to get to Jacqui, pressing her to finish the combination and then pushing her into the adjoining room.

"Jacqui!" Riley shouted, reaching the heavy wooden door just as it slammed shut.

END