ANOTHER CLUE

-Dis/Claimer-

x x x

. Chapter Twelve .

At eight-thirty the next morning, Carolyn and Abigail were on the steps of the Library when an employee finally opened the doors. As the Library slowly began to fill with tourists and businessmen in the early morning, Abigail had gotten hold of their sheet music.

“Okay,” she said, setting it down gently on their table in front of them. Their eyes scanned it wildly for anything, but it was just the first copy of the national anthem. Carolyn sat down in the chair eagerly however, leaning over it. “What did Riley say to look for again?” Abigail asked.

“He said the music was more important than the words. That’s all I’ve got.”

Abigail made a face. “Well, I’ll be back. I’m going to try to reach Riley again. See if he can give us more than that to work with.”

Carolyn turned back to the pages in front of her. Things had gone better for their nerves since about seven that morning. Agent Kinley had called to tell them Ben was fine and back in the hotel with Riley and Patrick, though his ear was mangled somewhat. Abigail was still breathing a lot easier even though the twins were still not found, but Carolyn was at least glad she was calmer now and focused on the sheet music to keep her mind off of the happenings up in New York.

As she scrutinized the paper for five agonizing minutes, nothing whatsoever presented itself, and she was getting impatient. She grabbed Abigail’s bag and went in to find a pen, but instead she felt something odd. Like a pair of reading glasses with extra lenses attached. Maybe they were for looking at things up close? Like magnifying? Someone like Abigail might carry a tool like it, considering her profession.

But when she pulled the glasses out, they were oddly shaped, and the extra lenses were just different shades of color. What was this? Just a pair of glasses that you could walk around and see the world through two different colors? Curious to see the world in a shade of blue-green, Carolyn held them out in front of her, looking around. Everything looked kind of neat in blue and green. Her eyes looked at walls and the ceiling as she slipped them on, then at the bookshelves, people, the items on the desk-

She stopped and leaned in very slowly.

“Wow…”

All over the sheet music, little blue dots jumped out at her. At the beginning of the music above the time signature and treble clef was what looked like the word ‘July’ scrawled unevenly in the blue haze that she saw with the glasses on. After that, her eyes slowly followed the lines of the music. Certain notes were highlighted in blue, and one was highlighted with a hue of purple. She gently reached out to touch a spot of blue, mesmerized.

Quickly, Carolyn removed the glasses and came inches from the paper, trying to see if there were any obvious differences in the ink used for a highlighted and regular music note. Nothing.

She put the glasses back on and stared at the two pages in amazement. Riley was right. It was about the music, not the words. Only the notes, not the words, were highlighted.

Carolyn scrambled for a scrap piece of paper and finally discovered a pen in Abigail’s bag. Immediately, she wrote down ‘July’ and the letter of each note after that in order of their appearance. This was fascinating. Riley had been wrong. He got his wish. Maybe he would even get his finder’s fee.

As she wrote furiously, filled with excitement, Abigail came back.

“I didn’t get hold of him,” she sighed. “They must still be asleep or… what are you doing?”

“Writing out our next clue.”

Abigail looked at the bifocals on her face. “How did you know to use them? What do you see?”

“I was looking for a pen, but I found these, put them on out of boredom, and all of these notes are blue and purple.”

“Let me see.”

Carolyn wrote down the last two notes and gave the glasses to Abigail. She hovered momentarily at the sight as Carolyn had.

“Oh my god…”

“See, it’s the notes,” Carolyn said, pointing to one she remembered being highlighted. “It’s just what Riley said.”

“This is amazing,” Abigail said breathlessly. It was like seeing the back of the Declaration for the first time again. “I really wish I knew how they did this. It’s incredible. Did you write down all the notes yet?”

“Yeah.”

“Write down the words under the highlighted notes, and the ones not highlighted. Maybe it’s some sort of message in the song,” Abigail said, giving Carolyn the bifocals again.

“Then how does this tie in?” Carolyn pointed at the purple note that stood apart from the blue ones near the end of the song. Abigail did not answer right away, so Carolyn continued to voice her theory. “It has to be a date. ‘July’ means something.”

“Maybe it’s referring to the signing of the Declaration of Independence,” the blonde historian thought aloud. “What does the paper say?”

“It reads, in order of the highlighted notes, ‘JULY ABGFEEDCCBA,’” Carolyn said. “The note ‘D’ is the purple one.”

Abigail sighed. “It’s too short to be a date spelled out and too long to be just numbers. Unless… they are numbers.”

“What?”

“Hang on.” Abigail left the table’s side quickly and ran down a row of books, passed a man looking at an atlas, and stopped at a very large set of encyclopedias. She looked near the end immediately, finding the ‘R’s instantly. Grabbing the second book of ‘R,’ she pulled it from the shelf and searched the pages of it as she made her way back to the table briskly.

“Here,” she said to Carolyn, finding the article. She placed it on the table, and the two of them leaned over it. “Roman Numerals.” Carolyn gave her an unsure look, but Abigail continued. “They originated in Ancient Rome, hence their name, but there was a code also created and put to use courtesy the Numerals a lot of people have never heard about.”

“What is it?”

“It is simply called the Roman Numeral Value,” Abigail explained. “The Roman Numerals are I, V, X, L, C, D, and M, used for depicting numbers as you know, and the Value is a code that allows the first seven letters of our alphabet to be replaced with the seven Roman Numerals to conceal important dates in battle as it were. It misled a lot of soldiers who intersected messages to believe it was a scrambled message, but it was instead a date that remained unknown to them.”

The concept was beginning to come full circle to Carolyn. “It’s ingenious,” she said, looking at the sheet music and the paper she had written on. “The first seven letters of the alphabet only?”

“Yes,” Abigail said. “That’s why it was the perfect code to use when it came to hiding the clue in the sheet music. A, B, C, D, E, F, and G are the only letters used in music.”

Carolyn was taking it all in with uncertainty but excitement. She looked at the list of Roman Numerals and back at the paper, beginning to apply them to the original message with Abigail’s pen.

It was so brilliant! People back then were much more smarter than people today. People in this day and age were just getting more knowledgeable, not smarter. I mean, who in the world today would even think of something this masterful and apply it to something like sheet music to hide a treasure? No one, that was for sure…

Riley was definitely right about this one.

And she was never more readily able to admit and accept it than in that instant.

“Okay,” she said upon finishing. They leaned in together to see what had been uncovered and saw that ‘JULY ABGFEEDCCBA’ now read ‘JULY IVMDCCLXXVI.’ Abigail stood up slowly in awe.

“What date is it? The signing of the Declaration?” Carolyn asked.

“It is,” Abigail began slowly, “but somehow I think it’s referring to something else.”

“Like what?” Carolyn said. “There’s nothing else historically more tied to the date than the Declaration of Independence.”

“I know…”

Abigail was beginning to worry, and Carolyn started to pick up on it. What if Riley was right? It wasn’t a dead end clue, but it lead to the Declaration? If that were true, his theory about the paintings being mixed up was correct. She, just as much as Abigail, did not want to face the prospect of defeat that easily, though. Not yet.

“Maybe Riley was right about the paintings being switched…” she mused dejectedly.

Abigail shook her head. She just refused to believe it. “No, it means something else. The Roman Numerals… They have a part in this. I know it.”

“The Numerals? How?”

Abigail paced around to the other side of Carolyn in thought. She thought of all the documents she could with Roman numerals, but nothing was leaping out at her. Roman Numerals, she thought. How do they tie in?

Then, Abigail paused. A sudden revelation overcame her, and she looked back down at the Roman Numeral date, a smile forming on her face.

“What?” Carolyn asked quickly.

“It’s referring to the Statue of Liberty,” Abigail almost laughed. “I can’t believe I missed that.”

Carolyn eyed her. “The Statue of Liberty? How?”

“That exact same date, in Roman Numerals and everything - JULY IV MDCCLXXVI – is on the slate the Statue of Liberty holds in her left arm. And what letter did you say was highlighted differently from the others?”

“The D,” Carolyn said.

Abigail took the pen from her and circled the ‘L’ in the date.

“That’s where the next clue is.”

“On the ‘L’ of the slate the Statue of Liberty holds?”

“Yes.”

Carolyn sat back in the chair. “Wow. This is… so complex. How do we get it?”

“We’ll call Ben and let him know first,” Abigail said, taking the encyclopedia back to the shelf. “We’ll figure out what to do from there. We’ll have to hurry up with a plan if we want to outsmart Ian, too.”

Suddenly, Abigail looked up, and right in her path was the man that was holding the atlas from a few moments ago. He was staring at her levelly which made her uncomfortable, and when she tried to go around, the man did not let her pass. Carolyn stood up to return the sheet music after pocketing the location to their next clue, and when she saw Abigail and the man, her heart skipped a beat.

It was Noland. The sniper of Ian’s team.

He grabbed Abigail’s arm, and she began to retaliate, but them all movement stopped; Carolyn guessed he had made Abigail aware of his gun. She was ready to walk away and call the FBI as soon as she left the Library, but someone also came up behind her.

“Hello, Carrie.”

She recognized him immediately just by the insufferable nickname he always used.

“Let us go, Horace.”

“Why?” Noland asked, coming over to Carolyn and Horace with Abigail tight in his grip. “You’re too valuable and sneaky to let out of sight. Let’s go, Horace. One sound out of either of you, and you’ll have Ian to answer to.”

x x x

After spotting Ben in the restaurant the day before, Charlie and Sally seemed a little less worried while in the hands of their captor. Ian was of course upset about the situation, but after working things out in the hotel with his rival, he was in a slightly better mood. He even let the twins sleep in the backseat of his car, but Walt was unbelievably angry when he was appointed to sit in there with them all night. The children now were sitting in two chairs with Fischer hovering over then, Carl and Walt having gotten fed up after babysitting for thirty-six hours.

The New York sky was a bright shade of blue as the morning progressed. Ian stared out at the mid-morning waters of the river waiting for word from his two men in D.C. while Walt, Carl, and Fischer stayed idle with him at the wharf with the children.

“When do we get to see Daddy again!” Sally shouted.

“What did I say about shouting?” Ian said, turning to her and her brother. He walked towards them, neither of them making a sound. “You aren’t a very good listener, are you?” he said, stopping in front of her. “You get that from your father. You’re just as stubborn when it comes to things being your way.”

“I wanna talk to Dad, too,” Charlie said.

“You’ll see him in a couple of hours if you can manage to stay quiet that long,” Ian told them. “Don’t anticipate too much, though; a lot can happen in two hours.”

Suddenly, Ian’s phone rang. Quickly, he walked back to the other side of the wharf and answered it. It was Noland.

“Yes?”

“We’ve got them,” the gruff voice said. “And we’ve caught them red-handed in a lie.”

“Have you?” Ian said with a smug smile.

x x x

“I can’t believe it,” Riley said as they ran down the street away from the hotel. “We need the FBI on our side right now, and you’re running from them!”

“You heard what Ian said, Riley,” Ben said, pushing his way through crowds out the sidewalk. “If we involve the FBI, we won’t get to see Charlie and Sally. I’m not taking the risk because Ian will take the opportunity to ruin my life.”

“Not that he’s already done that…” Riley mumbled as he tried to keep up with Ben.

As they came up on the next block, they saw the man dressed in all black standing next to a car. Hesitantly, Ben crossed the street with a cautious Riley in the follow. Walt issued them inside, and they went without word. Upon reaching the wharf twenty minutes later, Walt led Riley and Ben to Ian who greeted them with a quaint smile.

“Hello, Ben.”

“I want to see my kids now,” he requested simply.

“There’s just one matter I want to clear up first,” Ian said.

“Where’s Abigail?”

“Ben, you’ve lied to me.”

Riley and Ben both became stone cold inside their bodies and felt a terrible sensation sweep over them. Riley looked from Ian to Ben nervously as Ben started him down, knowing Ian had found out about the Constitution being a lie.

Riley panicked inwardly; they were gonna die. They were going to be shot in cold blood at the smelly wharf, never find out the next clue, never discover where all of this was leading them-

“I had the chance to talk with your wife a few hours ago,” Ian said to Ben suddenly. “She was pretty upset that she had been caught after voicing the location of the next clue in the presence of my men, but we’ve agreed to spare her if she cooperated on the way up here to New York. They should be arriving here any time now.”

Now it made sense. Ian’s men must have overhead their entire process of solving the clue at the Library of Congress and took them afterwards.

If there was any good in this, Abigail had not been forced to steal the Constitution from the Archives.

“Why are they coming to New York?” Ben asked.

Ian smiled. “We’re going on a little tour of the Statue of Liberty this afternoon.”

Riley looked at the ground. The sheet music led to the Statue of Liberty. He was dying to know how that worked out, but until he could see Abigail or Carolyn again, he waited to get shot, because he knew it was coming. When Ian smiled, he was usually not happy. Riley closed his eyes, praying for it to be quick.

“Where are Charlie and Sally?” Ben demanded this time.

“You deserve to be shot after your little craft last night,” Ian said.

That’s right. Riley could already feel a gun pressing into his head and the trigger being pulled.

“But since you’ll be accompanying me this afternoon on the ferry, I suppose I can let you see them. Fischer!”

Riley opened his eyes, surprised to find no gun there at all. He looked forward as a brown-haired man came out from around a corner with the twins in the same outfits from yesterday. Ben lurched forward, but Walt held out a long arm to stop him. Ben looked at Ian.

“You asked to see them, Ben,” Ian said. “If I let you talk to them, God only knows if I’d ever see you again. And we can’t have that.”

Suddenly, something surged through Ben’s arm and he swung it at Walt, knocking him flat to the ground. The loud echo shook Riley, and he raced forward for the twins as gunshots rang out. He scooped them up in his arms as Sally screamed and Charlie panicked, and he ran inside the abandoned warehouse.

“Uncle Riley! Look out!” Sally shouted.

Riley turned, and Fischer was shooting at them at a full run. He ducked behind large crates, telling them not to make a sound, but both twins were hysterical at this point. He ran, trying to shake off the gunman in the maze of crates, but he was suddenly spotted again. He ran faster, now trying to find another way out of the warehouse. Gunfire was still ringing out on the wharf.

He rapidly climbed a set of stairs with the twins, and from below, Fischer had spotted them again and fired. All three of them were screaming now as Riley ran for the door he saw at the other end of the room. His heart raced as he heard Fischer climbing the stairs now, and he was only halfway to the door.

He couldn’t go any faster, but the other footsteps were picking up pace. Suddenly they stopped as he reached to open the door. He pushed the twins outside as the gun fired several times, and he ducked out into the sunlight. He saw nothing he could immediately bar the door with, so Riley grabbed the twins again and made a run for the street, hearing the door twenty yards behind him fly open violently followed by more gunshots.

“Go! Come on!”

He pushed the twins to the curb, practically jumping out in front of a taxi for it to stop. Once inside, Riley pushed Charlie and Sally to the floor so that they were out of view, and he lay down on the seat. The taxi driver turned around with a suspicious look.

“Where you headed, kid?” he asked.

“Marriott Hotel,” Riley said breathlessly. “Adams Street.”

“Uncle Riley-“

“Shh… It’s okay, just stay down.”

Riley got out his cell phone and dialed. It only rang once before someone answered.

“Mr. Poole?”

“Yeah.”

Agent Hendricks rolled his eyes back in the hotel. “Where are you and Mr. Gates? You are not supposed to leave this hotel without FBI supervision-“

“Yeah, I know, and I’ll never do it again because I’ve got the twins with me in a taxi on the way to the hotel now,” Riley explained. “Ben and I had to meet Ian at a wharf alone if we wanted them back, but they started shooting, so I grabbed them and ran.”

“Where is Mr. Gates?” Hendricks asked with interest.

“I don’t know,” Riley said miserably as he threw his head back into the car door. “Still at the wharf, in Ian’s car, I have no idea.”

“Were you being pursued by a gunman?”

“Yeah. But we’ll be at the hotel in fifteen minutes.”

“Children harmed in any way?”

Riley covered the mouthpiece. “You two okay? No bruises or anything?” He checked over their faces quickly as Sally said, “No.”

“They’re fine,” Riley reported back to the agent.

“Good. Stay on the line until you reach the hotel.”

“Okay.”

They reached the hotel, losing Fischer in the process, thank god. The twins readily leapt into the arms of Patrick upon seeing him, and Riley got out of the taxi wearily.

“Everything alright?” Agent Hendricks asked him.

“Yeah, I-“

Another gunshot rang out, whizzing passed Riley’s head. He became stricken as everyone around fell on their stomachs to the ground, but he flew back into the taxi, which immediately took off.

By the time they had lost them again, Riley had the man pull over and let him out. He still wanted to get back to the hotel, but the taxi driver was getting a little too crazy for his liking. He looked around for a bus stop, but it still seemed to out in the open. Then, out of nowhere, the gunfire sounded again, and Riley panicked, running down a set of stairs into the underground.

He got on the subway as the doors were closing, found a seat, sat down, and just breathed – he couldn’t think of anything else to do at the moment. Maybe after he could breathe again, he’d find out where the subway was taking him.

x x x

Carolyn and Abigail sat quietly in the back seat of the Buick with Horace and Noland in the front as they entered Brooklyn. They were near Cadman Plaza when the car pulled off in the back of a large parking lot, and Noland and Horace took them from the car.

“It’s time to-“

Abigail threw a painful punch at Noland’s face, and Carolyn did a series of self-defense moves on Horace before he let go. At their release, the two women ran for it, but the men behind them stumbled up, reaching for their weapons and began their pursuit.

“Come on,” Carolyn urged as Abigail began to fall behind.

“I can’t,” she panted. “The… baby…”

Gunfire. Carolyn pushed Abigail behind a dumpster and told her to stay down as she ran around to the corner of the building breathlessly. Before her breath returned however, Carolyn could hear Abigail’s retaliation with Noland and Horace, and she jumped out of her hiding place.

“Stop it!”

Horace immediately had the gun on her and fired, but she ducked back behind the building, now running down the alley. Horace kept a close trail, and she entered a crowd, pushing her way to the middle. She followed them down into the depths of the subway at High Street and entered the first open door she saw.

She turned around to make sure she was clear, but Horace was at the back of the crowd making his way toward her. Quickly, she left the crowd to join another moving up the length of the subway car to another entrance. Horace continued to look for her in the other group. Letting out a deep sigh, she boarded the subway.

Horace caught sight of her, however, and the chase continued; He fired a shot that ricocheted off of the wall and sent a wave of panic over everyone as the subway began to move. Carolyn looked out the window, and Horace stared right at her, raising the gun immediately. She ducked as the glass in front of her shattered and took off in a run through the subway car.

Upon hearing the gunfire himself, Riley, on this very subway, thought he was being pursued again. He took off to find a bathroom to hide in.

Suddenly, Carolyn collided with someone and fell flat on her back in the middle of the floor. She went to get up and keep running, but she saw that she had ran into Riley. She could honestly say she was never happier to see him. Riley was confused, however, as they sat there on the floor staring at each other.

“What are you doing here?” they asked each other.

“I’m being chased!” they again chorused.

Exchanging looks, they again said in perfect unison, “By who?”

“Ian’s men kidnapped us from the manor and I just escaped-“

“Ian met us at the wharf and started shooting, so I grabbed the twins and ran-“

“You lost Ben?” Carolyn shrieked.

“You lost Abigail!” Riley said in defense.

“Not on purpose!”

“And I did?”

“Never mind!” she said, trying to stand up. Riley was on his feet first and pulled her up. “Where are the kids?”

“I made it back to the hotel before they started chasing me again. They’re safe there with Ben’s dad and the FBI.”

“Where the hell’s the FBI now!”

“I don’t know! I don’t even know where I am!”

Carolyn moaned. This was a living nightmare.

“Are you okay?” Riley asked her.

“I’m fine, we just need to get off this subway before they find us.”

Riley looked over at her in fear. “You mean Ian’s men are on this subway? Right now?”

“Yes.”

“What!”

“Shh!”

Carolyn clapped a hand over his mouth, pulling him off to the side as someone walked by. Riley shook her hand off of his face.

“What do you mean they’re on the subway!” Riley whispered anxiously. “What if they see us? We’re gonna be-“

A scream rang out, and Riley and Carolyn looked up. It was Horace.

Several screams came from the other direction, and Fischer was locking eyes with them a car away.

“What’ll we do?” Riley asked.

“What else is there to do?” Carolyn countered.

“Good point.”

“Go for him over there,” she said, nodding towards Fischer. “He’s not a good marksman at all.”

“How do you know?”

Carolyn bit her lip, looking back over at Horace. “Just run!”

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