ANOTHER CLUE
-Dis/Claimer- x x x . Chapter Ten . Riley got out of the driver’s seat to allow Ben his second turn. They were less than two hours away from the Brooklyn Bridge, and Riley was still groggy. An hour of sleep in the back of a car and almost two hours driving were not energizing, so Ben decided to drive the rest of the way since he had no success sleeping whatsoever. Both men were envious of Ben’s father however; he had been asleep since fifteen minutes into the trip, and it was nearly one o’clock now. As they got back on the road after a quick food stop, Riley looked over at the canvas and document box beside him in the back seat. He didn’t feel up to trying to get to sleep again, so he reached in the back of the passenger seat, taking out his laptop and the piece of paper with the Ottendorf numbers on it. He pondered over it again, double cheeseburger in hand. “It’s still makes absolutely no sense,” Riley said with a mouthful to Ben. “Have you finished it yet?” Ben asked him from up front. “No, but I was thinking about it.” “Do it then. And stop talking with your mouth full.” Riley gave him a look. “Yes, Mommy.” Ben returned the look without a word, and Riley looked back over at the pile next to him having lost another argument to Ben. “I can’t lay out the Constitution, though. It’s all…” Riley waved his arms and cheeseburger around in frustration at the painting and document case next to him as Ben looked back at him through the review mirror. “You can look it up on your laptop, can’t you?” he asked. “Yeah, I’ll try that.” Riley looked down at the paper, taking a large bite from his sandwich and chewed with a contemplative look. 3 – 13 - 2: T 2 – 4 - 4: V 1 – 7 - 1: S 2 – 3 – 5: Q 2 – 20 – 9: S 1 – 17 – 1: J 3 – 7 – 3: T 2 – 12 – 4: F The other side had only one solved. 2 – 20 – 7: V 1 – 1 – 1 3 – 4 – 1 1 – 16 – 4 - 2 – 18 – 1 2 – 3 – 5 - 3 – 9 – 12 1 – 16 – 9 2 – 17 – 1 He sighed after swallowing. “Okay,” he droned. Riley opened his laptop. In a few minutes, he had accessed a picture of the first page of the Constitution from a search engine (and finished his sandwich). He enlarged the Preamble to help with the tedious counting process. “One, one, one,” he murmured. He looked at the Preamble on his computer screen and rolled his eyes, seeing the giant ‘W’ standing out like a sore thumb. He wrote it down next to 1 – 1 – 1. This continued until he had finished the rest of them, but Riley was about to tear his hair out in frustration. 2 – 20 – 7: V 1 – 1 – 1: W 3 – 4 – 1: D 1 – 16 – 4: B - 2 – 18 – 1: L 2 – 3 – 5: Q - 3 – 9 – 12: N 1 – 16 – 9: H 2 – 17 – 1: B None of it made sense! He couldn’t even try to unscramble it to make a new word like Carolyn said because there weren’t any vowels whatsoever! Not one! He groaned angrily, snapping shut his laptop. “Now what?” Ben asked. “We’re missing pages!” Riley shouted. “Why won’t you listen to me!” “What does it say now?” “The first one says T, V, S, Q, S, J, T, F,” Riley said. “And the second one says V, W, D, B, space, L, Q, space, N, H, B. Again, no freaking sense!” “Hey, Mr. Cryptology Degree Holder,” – Ben threw a book back at Riley who caught it sloppily in his lap – “I believe that is yours, correct?” Riley turned the floppy paperback book upside right, looking at the cover. A big bright yellow jagged balloon was on the front that said ‘CRYPTOGRAMS’ with pictures below it. This was his cryptogram puzzle book. He did it when he was bored in the car. Almost every puzzle was done, and he now remembered that he needed to get a new one. He smiled. “Hey, I’ve been looking for this,” he said, flipping through it. “I think that is exactly what you need to solve that,” Ben said, nodding back at the pile in Riley’s lap. Riley was wondering what he meant when he suddenly stopped going through the book and froze. He bent his brow and quickly picked up the piece of paper with the numbers and letters on it. He stared at it with fascination before looking back at his puzzle book. “It’s a cryptogram!” he said in amazement. Ben nodded. “Congratulations.” “Why didn’t I see it before?” Riley asked. He was now eagerly looking at the ciphers in the puzzle book as he took out a piece of scrap paper, rewrote the letters, and got ready to try his hand at solving it. “Think you can figure it out?” Ben asked. “It’s just a matter of substituting the letters with others,” Riley said. “I bet it’s a Caesar cipher, too. Depending on the shift of the letters, it shouldn’t take too long unless it’s a complicated one. Like a shift of twelve or something.” “So simple trial and error, right?” “Basically.” “Well, be careful,” Ben, said. “That one column is separate from the other.” “It might just have a different shift, but I’ll figure it out.” Riley was already scribbling things down while Ben smirked. “What about the missing pages?” Riley looked up. Now Ben had to be all ‘told-you-so…’ “Do you want me to solve this or not?” he asked with a level look into the rearview mirror. Ben laughed as Riley put his head back down. “Hurry up,” he said. “I wanna get it figured out before we reach Brooklyn.” “Is the hotel far from the Bridge?” Riley asked. “No, it’s on Adams Street, so we should have no trouble finding it,” Ben said. “Really big, too.” “Thank God,” Riley moaned. “I get to sleep in a bed tonight.” “Hopefully.” Riley looked up. “What do you mean, ‘hopefully?’” “Riley, Ian is involved, so pretty much anything we plan on is not going to happen,” Ben said. “Something’s bound to be up his sleeve.” “As in… you don’t think it’s going to be as easy as trading the clue for the kids?” Riley asked, hoping he was wrong. Ben took a deep breath and exhaled it slowly which confirmed Riley’s suspicions. It wasn’t going to be that easy. He sighed, falling back into his seat miserably. “Perfect,” he said, looking at the cipher on the top of his laptop. “So what do you think Ian’s up to?” “I don’t know,” Ben said. “But be on your guard. We aren’t supposed to meet Ian until five, so something could happen between now and then if we’re not careful.” “Like what?” Riley asked uncomfortably. Ben didn’t answer the question, not wanting to imagine what could happen. “You just worry about that cipher,” he said, nodding back to Riley. x x x Uneasily, Riley took Ben’s advice and began figuring out the cipher, deciding it a much better activity than thinking about Ian’s intimidating stats of control over them since they had become enemies. He started messing around with the first set of letters, debating what kind of cryptogram the Masons might have used to encode and protect their ‘other part’ of the Templar treasure. He wanted to start off easy instead of just aimlessly putting random letters in random places, so he stuck with his first thought and began with the first shift of the Caesar cipher. His mind worked faster than he could comprehend as the pencil in his hand scribbled everything down. Caesar cipher, shift of one. T. Move one letter back and it becomes S. V becomes U. S is R. Q would be P. S again. Another R. J was I. Another T. That means there’s another S. And F. F became E. “F is E,” he murmured, eyes going over the column of letters next to the ones that made no sense. But these new letters made sense. A lot of sense. Well, maybe not sense, but they made a word. Riley looked at it in amazement. His first try and something had already surfaced. “Ben, I have a word,” he said loudly. Ben perked up and looked in the rearview mirror at his friend. “Already?” “Yeah,” Riley said. “’Surprise.’” “The word is ‘surprise?’” “Who’s the cryptogram master of the car?” Ben’s brow furrowed. “’Surprise…’” “Maybe it is a dead end,” Riley said. “Like, ‘Surprise! No treasure!’” He lowered his hands, listening to Ben mumble stuff to himself. He sighed. “English, please,” he said. “Did you figure out the rest of the letters?” “No, not yet.” “If you did this set in a different shift, would you get another word?” Ben asked curiously. Riley thought about it. “Maybe, but nothing as solid as this. What do you think ‘surprise’ means?” “I can’t think of anything yet. I know it’s relating to something, though, and not a dead end.” “Your history senses tingling again, Captain America?” Riley asked, trying to rub the headache out of his temples unsuccessfully. “Yes,” Ben said, humoring him. “Tell me when you’ve figured out the other part of the cipher. Maybe then it’ll make more sense and we’ll have more of something to go by.” “You got it, chief.” Again, pencil met paper, and Riley went to work, eager to reach his objective now. x x x It was a painful task to accept – even more painful than hand-washing the dishes that didn’t make it into the dishwasher. However, laundry basket in hand, Carolyn wandered around the upstairs of the manor collecting the evening clothes from that night so they could be delivered to the cleaners sometime after the twins had returned home. Abigail was outside tearing down banners and throwing away the fancy name cards, and Carolyn wished a hundred times over that she could that instead of the next part of her assignment – retrieve clothes of Riley Poole from his bedroom. She opened the door, and it was pretty dark. All of the curtains were shut, and a still frame of a video game was displayed on the television near his bed. His desk on the other side of the room was covered in mugs, papers, junk, and clothes. One article of clothing being the pants to his suit. With disgust, she crossed the room to get them. She lifted them from the desk lamp and discarded them into the basket as if they were toxic and possessed cooties of some sort. A sock was in the middle of the floor; the other was caught on a candelabra on the wall next to her head, and she jumped. Carolyn quickly picked up a pencil from the messy desk and flicked the sock on the wall into the basket, and she did the same with the one on the floor. After that, she threw the pencil down on the floor and spotted his shirt on his oversized bed. She walked over impatiently, grabbing it viciously and rolling it up in a ball for the basket, but under the shirt on the bed, Carolyn saw a small PDA amongst the blankets. Curiosity struck her, though she did know why. What was so exciting to know about Super Geek? It was his PDA… All geeks had PDAs… Regardless, Carolyn sat on his bed, put the basket on the floor, and turned it on. A screen with multiple icons came up, including Internet, GPS, documents, mp3 player, and software for a microphone and headset. She had never seen a PDA with this much on it, and as much as she didn’t like giving kudos to Riley, she liked his PDA. Carolyn went to the GPS boredly with the little pen attachment. Suddenly, the screen changed, and a list came up. 1 - Laptop 2 - Cell phone 3 - PDA 4 - Ben’s cell phone 5 - Abigail’s cell phone Carolyn wanted to laugh. He kept track of all this with GPS? He must lose things easily… Remembering that he had taken his laptop from the table outside for their ride up to Brooklyn, Carolyn clicked on ‘Laptop’ to see if she could find out where they were. A map came up bordering from Washington D.C. to Canada, and a large targeted dot was over the middle of New Jersey. She zoomed in until she could see the laptop moving along the New Jersey Turnpike somewhere near Trenton. She guessed GPS was sort of handy. Then, a thought dawned on her. Quickly, she went back to the main GPS screen and hit a space that read ‘New Entry.’ Quickly, she put in a set of numbers and saved it. ‘Save As?’ the PDA asked. Carolyn entered ‘Ian’ and finalized the save. Immediately, she clicked on the new entry and another map came up, this time in the middle of Brooklyn. She zoomed into the very street – Livingston Street – and the dot was resting comfortably about halfway up. She zoomed in more until a title came up next to the dot the read ‘Starbucks.’ Carolyn laughed. He was buying coffee. Or meeting with someone… Did the twins have cell phones? Probably not… Oh well. At least now she knew where Ian was in opposition to Ben, Riley, and Patrick. She would have a chance to warn them if something was wrong. But something told her Riley would not like knowing that she was using his PDA to do it. She took up the laundry basket quickly, now going back downstairs. She slipped the PDA into her pocket out of sight. x x x An hour had gone by since Ian had given the twins to Carl and Walt for the afternoon. Against the wishes and rumbling stomachs of the kids, they went to get their outfits changes and Sally’s hair cut. It wasn’t much of a cut since the cronies were being cheap, however; Sally only had a few inches removes, some bangs added, and the rest was split into two pigtails behind her ears with bright pink ball barrettes. As much as she had been dreading the haircut, Sally walked out of the salon quite satisfied with Carl and four heart-shaped lollipops. “I like it,” she said to the man beside her who did not reply yet again as they continued up the sidewalk. Suddenly, Sally held up her yellow heart lollipop, and Carl stopped. “Do you want this one?” she asked. “It’s banana.” Carl started walking again and turned a corner with Sally walking beside him. She was now licking on the yellow lollipop and holding the red, blue, and orange ones in her other hand. Carl spotted Walt waiting with the boy halfway down the block in front of the store they were going into, and he hurried the girl along. “Come on,” he said. “Are we getting grilled cheese next?” Sally asked. “No.” “When are we?” she whined. “Later.” “But I’m hungry now!” “Then eat your candy.” She took Sally’s wrist and pulled her behind him through the crowd so he couldn’t loose her, and they finally reached Walt and Charlie. The men entered the store with the children, and the clerk at the desk eyed them suspiciously. Two men, one in all black and sunglasses, and two kids fighting over lollipops. “Can I help you?” she asked skeptically. “The kids need some new clothes,” Carl said as Charlie pulled the red lollipop from Sally’s hand and bit into it before she could do anything. Sally began to moan, but Walt guided her and Charlie from the clerk. Carl came over. “You take the girl,” Walt said to Carl. “You take her,” Carl said. “I went and got her hair cut.” “I kidnapped her.” “You kidnapped him, too.” Carl pointed at Charlie, but Charlie wasn’t there. Neither was the girl. Walt and Carl looked up, and both of them had already run off to get clothes. They split up quickly, Carl following Sally’s laughter as she ran up and down the aisles. x x x Riley, at this exact moment in time, was having no luck with the first two shifts of the cipher on the second set of letters. He even plugged in random letters at some points to get away from the shifting cipher, but none of it was working. His mind was starting to get frazzled as they came up on fifteen minutes away from Brooklyn, but he gave one last try at the second set of letters before falling asleep. All right. So he had already done shifts of one and two on this set. Next up was the shift of three. Joy. Okay, so the first letter, again, was V. Go back three. S. Boy, this is where knowing your alphabet in reverse really came in handy. He wrote ‘S’ next to ‘V.’ W was next, and it became T. D was A in a shift of three. And B… B would be Y. Space. Riley looked at what he had written so far, that the word ‘stay’ was there. He bent his eyebrows in disbelief, leaning forward to make sure he had done this right. Yeah. V was S, W was T, D was A, and B was Y. He sat up slowly and started on the other letters quickly now, his excitement coming back. L is I. Q would be N. Space. ‘In!’ ‘Stay in!’ Stay in what? Where? N was K. H becomes E. And there was another B. Another B was another Y. ‘Key.’ ‘Stay in key.’ “’Stay in key?’” Riley asked himself quizzically. “What does that mean?” “What does what mean?” Ben asked from up front. Riley jumped, forgetting for a moment where he was. “I figured out the other part,” he told Ben. The historian looked up genuinely excited. “What does it say?” he urged. “’Stay in key.’ Like a song called ‘Surprise’ or something.” Riley stopped. “Is there a song called ‘Surprise?’” Ben thought. What would ‘Surprise’ and ‘Stay in key’ have in relation to each other? There were no songs called ‘Surprise’ that he could think of. Maybe they had no relation at all. Or, maybe they did. “Could ‘key’ be capitalized?” Riley looked at the paper. “I guess, but what does that do?” “I think ‘Stay in key’ has a double meaning,” Ben said. “Double meaning?” Riley asked. “There is no song called ‘Surprise’ from the Revolutionary era, but there was a song, or a song-to-be rather, written on a frigate called ‘Surprise.’” “Song-to-be…” Riley said thoughtfully. “And if you capitalize ‘key’ you will get the name of the song-to-be’s author.” ‘Capitalize ‘key’ and get the song-to-be’s author…” Key. “Anything come to mind?” Ben asked curiously. “The only thing I can think of is Francis Scott Key,” Riley said. He kept talking to see if anything would come out of it. “He wrote the Star-Spangled Banner at Fort McHenry on a battle ship in 1814-“ “Called the ‘Surprise,” Ben interjected. Riley stopped and looked up from the paper. “It was called the ‘Surprise!’” he said. “And the Star-Spangled Banner was only a poem at the time!” “Right,” Ben said. “It wasn’t put to music until 1840.” “But the clue said ‘stay in key.’ It has to refer to the song,” Riley said. A thought came to him. “Maybe they don’t want us to pay as much attention to the words of the song as they do the music,” he said aloud as they drove across the Bridge now. “I think you’re on to something,” Ben said with a smile. “Well, if we have to look at the sheet music next, it should be as simple as picking up a copy at the local music shop, shouldn’t it?” “No,” Ben said. “No?” Riley asked sadly. “When it says ‘stay in key,’ it must be a specific key signature in the music,” Ben told Riley. “The song’s been transposed in many different keys.” Riley was getting sick of this riddle stuff. Normally, he would love it, but it was hard to keep his excitement alive when he was dead tired. “Which key do you think it is?” “C.” “Well that was positive response.” Riley shifted in his seat at the finality in Ben’s voice. “What makes you think it’s C?” “C is the key the original sheet music was written in,” Ben provided. “I see,” Riley droned, knowing where this was going. “And the original is where?” “At the Library of Congress.” “Great. More security to overpass.” “Not so much,” Ben said, comparing it to the Declaration’s security measures. They left the Bridge and entered Brooklyn. Ben was keeping an eye out of the hotel they were supposed to meet the FBI agent at. “So what? We bypass cameras, find out when the next party is-“ “It’s a library, Riley. If we ask to examine a document, they won’t deny us unless they have reason to believe we pose a threat to it.” “Ben, we don’t exactly have the cleanest record when it comes to encounters with antique documents,” Riley reminded him. “We don’t have to steal it to get what we need,” Ben said, shutting Riley out. “We just have to look over the sheet music, find the next clue, and go.” “What if there isn’t another clue?” Riley asked. Ben looked out to the road with annoyance. “You can never help being a pessimist, can you?” “Habit.” “Yeah, well, the next thing we need to do is get hold of the original sheet music back home then,” Ben said as shops, restaurants, and hotels began to tower around them on Adams Street. “After I get the twins back and give Ian the canvas and Constitution duplicate, we can go.” “I thought getting away from Ian wasn’t going to be that easy?” Riley asked. “Ben, you know he’s going to figure out that you know about the next clue. The guy can read to like a book.” “So we get out before he can,” Ben said. “What are you going to tell him about the painting?” Riley asked. “I don’t know yet,” Ben said, scanning the hotels for the description to match the one he was to find. “Do you see the hotel yet? It really big, blue…” Ben continued looking around without caring what Riley had to say. He took in the cars around him, the streets filled with people returning from lunch breaks to their offices, the shops. His eyes fell on a little girl in pigtails wearing a blue skirt and a white shirt with a large strawberry on it with her back to him. Next to her, at the same height, was a boy in a gray t-shirt and jeans tagging behind two tall men, one in all black. Both of their heads were down, and a sensation in his stomach made him lurch the car forward to see the faces of the children. “Whoa!” Riley cried from the back seat as the sudden burst of acceleration. “Ben, what are you doing!” Ben slowed again after passing them and looked back. He smiled at the site of them. His children were safe. Riley looked back, too, and his mouth fell open. “It’s them!” he said. “And the guy in the black. He was after the painting.” “They’re definitely with Ian,” Ben concluded. His smile faded away as he watched them go into a busy restaurant with their captors prodding them in impatiently. Riley turned around quickly and ducked to avoid being seen by them, eyes wide and on Ben. “What’ll we do?” he asked. Ben put the car in reverse and turned on his turn signal, parking between two cars along the street. He left the engine running, and he shook Patrick awake. His father sat up somewhat disoriented, looking around confused. “What’s going on?” he asked. “Dad, you and Riley are going to take the car to the hotel and find the FBI agent,” he told them both. “What? Why?” Patrick asked. “The twins just went into that restaurant with some of Ian’s men,” Ben said, pointing at the building. “I’m going to go in there, and I need you two to go find the FBI agent and let them know. I’m gonna follow them, and I’ll update you every ten minutes or so on where they are. Just find the hotel and the agent. Fast.” Riley nodded and opened his car door to get out and drive in place of Ben. Ben walked up on the sidewalk, looking around to make sure no one was watching him, and he looked back at Riley. “My phone’s on,” he told him. “Mine, too.” Ben nodded, and Riley fell into the driver’s seat of the car and started pulling out. As he began to fill in Ben’s father of their car ride discovery, Ben headed into the restaurant with his head low. . Please Review .
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