ONE MORE CLUE

Hey guys. I would like to apologize for no update last week. I intended on it even with the Fourth of July, but then someone hacked my Facebook account and told everyone I had died, and I had to clear that up over four days. Plus, all that stress gave me crazy writer's block for this, so I waited to finish it ad decided to post this week instead. Also, I'm not sure if there will be a post next Friday - I am leaving tonight for Topsail Island in North Carolina until next Saturday, so I don't know how much writing I'll get to. I want to update next week, but I can't promise anything since it's vacation. Thanks for your patience and understanding, too; that means a lot. Here's the next installment, and I hope you like it! And I know you're all on me about Ben shooting Riley, but just keep reading! It's a spoonful of angst and it's good for you! XD

. Anonymous Reviewers .

x) Jenn - I'm happy to hear you're enjoying it so far, and I'm glad it reads like the movies! That's what I'm going for! Thanks for the review and keep reading! :)

x) Allie - Ben shot Riley to save him from Priscilla's shot to the head, even though I know it came off a little awkward in writing. It's addressed in the chapter below, so hopefully it will be cleared up for you there. Glad you liked it and Riley's parents! Thanks for reviewing! :)

- Dis/Claimer –

x x x

. Chapter Six .

“Myers! Hello!” Maddox said over the phone, his cheeriness clip.

“What is it, Whittacre?”

“Well the traffic is terribly slow at the moment, but I have bigger concerns,” he said as the cars around him inched forward slowly. “Howe and Gates got away from the wedding. I think they’re going to the manor to get the compass. Get there and detain them until I arrive.”

“So the compass is in the manor now,” Myers said slowly. “Just like I told you. She got it to him.”

“Least of our concerns. Dominic and Harper found their secret hiding place,” Maddox explained as Priscilla leaned in between the seats from the back and fought with Dominic to change the radio station. “Just don’t let them in that house before me. Arrest them or something while we search the house.”

Myers sighed. “All right. You better be right, Maddox. The FBI has a love-hate relationship with Gates, so they might decide to let him off.”

“You’re the FBI, and right now you hate him,” Maddox said firmly. “Do not let them in that house. I’ll be there in twenty minutes.”

x x x

“Abigail, stop! Stop the car!” Ben said quickly over Charlie’s constant questions, Sally’s blubbering, and Alex’s crying. Abigail pulled around the corner and stopped immediately as Carolyn knelt over Riley on the seat worriedly, stuffing her coat under his bleeding shoulder further.

“Daddy? What’s wrong with Uncle Riley?” Sally asked through her choppy sobs. “Why won’t he wake up?”

“Uncle Riley’s fine, sweetie, he’s just a little hurt,” Ben said, lifting Riley’s eyelids as Carolyn patted him down for broken bones. He grimaced. Riley’s pupils were of two different sizes. “He’s suffered head trauma.”

Carolyn leapt forward. “What?”

“Look,” Ben said, turning on the overhead light in the limousine. “His pupils aren’t the same.”

“Ben, what if he’s seriously hurt?” Abigail asked, crawling into the back seat and giving Alex his pacifier. The baby spit it right back out and continued crying, but on her second try, Abigail had success in keeping him quiet. “What if he has a concussion? Or worse?”

“I sh- He was shot, Abigail.” He corrected himself for his kids’ sake; how could they live with their father knowing he was responsible for putting Riley in this condition? He brushed it aside and kept talking before his mind could be overrun with thought. “He might have a concussion at best.”

“How would he have a concussion?” Carolyn asked, adjusting the coat under his shoulder again.

“Well… I wasn’t paying too much attention to him on the way out,” Ben said with a sigh as Sally came over and hugged him. He absentmindedly squeezed her with one arm, looking from Riley to the window. “Either way, he needs medical care now… And that looks good.”

Carolyn and Abigail followed Ben’s line of sight to an ambulance flying around the corner towards the hospital a block away. They looked over at Ben’s face that had already made its final decision in the matter, and Carolyn was quick to jump into the front seat.

“Plan?”

Ben shrugged. “Not really. Working on it.” Abigail gripped the door handle as Carolyn pulled out into the street.

“Is there ever a plan?”

x x x

Upon his arrival at the Gates Manor, Maddox saw six police cars, an overabundance of agents, and Joseph Myers standing at the open front door with his hands in his pockets. A few more people ran into the house with their guns at the ready. Maddox stopped the car in confusion and got out, Myers approaching with his hands now behind his back.

“Where’s Gates?” Maddox asked immediately as Priscilla, Harper, and Dominic came up beside him. Myers sighed, looking back at the house.

“Not here yet. But we took the liberty of performing a search.”

“Find anything?”

“Seventeen men are sweeping the place now,” Myers said, walking them towards the great brick house. He turned to Dominic. “You said the security activity was hot on the second floor, correct?”

“Yeah,” Dominic said, hurrying to Myers’s side. “Gates has a study in the northwest corner. That’s where we picked up most of the action. It was a very confined space, too. Probably just big enough to fit the stuff in it.”

“A small safe, then?” Maddox asked.

“I’d say so. The way it’s arranged in the layout of the house, you’re either going to find it in some sort of desk or cabinet. Right out in the open.”

“Don’t make it sound so easy,” Priscilla said as they entered the house and looked around. “Benjamin Gates has many ways of protecting his things without high security.”

“Yeah,” Harper said boredly. “He probably has a sand pit or a giant boulder just waiting to roll down that staircase.” Priscilla threw him a look, and he got defensive. “What? I’m being entirely serious.”

“That’s what’s bothering me,” she said, following the others upstairs.

x x x

Riley screamed himself out of unconsciousness as a piece of duct tape was ripped from his mouth. The harsh sting made tears spring from behind his tightly shut eyelids. They squinted open fearfully however when a large gloved hand fell over his mouth to silence him.

“Shh!” the voice that belonged to the hand urged.

Between the pain that made his head dizzy with a heavy sinking sensation and the bright lighting, Riley could hardly make out his captor’s blurry silhouette. That didn’t mean he didn’t know him.

As his memory pushed itself back into his cluttered mind and a horrendous pain tortured his body, Riley screamed against the hand and hit it away successfully, filling his lungs with fresh air as painful as it was for his back.

“Ooo, don’t you tell me what to do,” Riley snapped through gritted teeth, blinking repeatedly while maintaining a viable scorn. “You are in no position!”

To the left of Riley and the gurney he lay on, Ben removed a wrap of duct tape from around Riley’s wrists before getting something from a small cabinet on the side of the wall.

“No, you are in no position,” Ben said. He turned around, taking another swatch of tape from around his ankles.

Riley stared at him. “What’s with the duct tape, Ben?” he snided. “Did you kidnap me from my own wedding?”

“That’s precisely what I’ve done,” Ben said as if there were no strings attached. He met his eye seriously, but his tone was that of sing-song. “You are my hostage and you are staying with me, so don’t think you’re going anywhere other than by my side.”

Then, amidst their eye contact, Ben handcuffed Riley’s left wrist to the metal bar of the gurney and turned back to the cabinet. Riley stared at the handcuffs the best he could while lying down.

“Are you serious?!”

Ben turned around again. “Don’t make me put duct tape over your mouth again.”

Riley felt the ground beneath them speeding and realized he was in an ambulance, no paramedics or EMTs in sight. Just his absurd entourage and their fearless, committed leader. Somehow, he wasn’t surprised after what he had just been through.

From the right, Carolyn came into view, gently tucking her hand under his back as they hit a hard bump. Riley screamed again, pain jarring through his left shoulder and reducing his cry to a whimper. Carolyn touched his face sympathetically as he fought off the rest of burning agony and lay back in exhaustion. Carolyn felt her breath catch and cradled his tired head a moment. She had done this to him. She didn’t blame him for any animosity he would surely hold against her because she knew she could only deserve it.

“Riley, you have to sit up,” she coaxed, recollecting herself in a steady tone. He winced in protest, Ben helping her to get him up on his elbows. Riley gave him a dangerous glare as he let go.

“I don’t need your help,” he murmured darkly. Ben glanced at Carolyn calmly before stepping back and going through the cabinet again, and she moved her hand to his lower back for support. “Riley, come on.” The thick, low line of his brow shadowed his eyes as they shifted to her slowly, penetrating her defenses. She sighed shakily, putting pressure on his back again. “Come on. You have to.”

Riley would have retorted smartly if it weren’t for the unbearable pain ripping through his body. Unwillingly ready to accept their help, Riley swallowed his pride and sat up with the hindrance of a few more deep screams from his lungs. He hunched over with beads of sweat rolling down the side of his face, so near to fatigued tears that his throat hurt. When he looked up, Sally, still in her lacy lavender dress, handed him a wad of brown paper towels.

“Are you hurt bad, Uncle Riley?” she asked as he pushed his face into the towels. “Is it bad?”

For the love of god, he had no reason to be mad at Sally, even if she was Ben’s offspring. He tried to pan out the grimace on his face. “Yeah. It’s pretty bad, but I’ll be fine,” he told her. He wished someone (with a doctoral degree in medicine) would tell him the same.

Sally still looked worried. “Does it hurt?” she asked timidly. “Huh?”

“Yes, it hurts a lot,” Riley said quickly, feeling a stream of water rinse out the bullet hole. He quirked oddly by some nerve, gripping the edge of the gurney tighter and tighter. “Ow, ow, ow, ow, OW! Cold!” he bellowed as Ben put a compress on the wound. Sally backed up as Riley frantically swatted it away. “Ow, get it off! I don’t want any more of your help!”

“Dad, why is Uncle Riley mad at you?” Charlie asked as he came around to be with his sister.

“Uncle Riley’s not mad at me,” Ben said. He knew without looking Riley was shooting daggers at him. He could feel it, but continued to say, “He’s just mad at the mean people that came to the wedding. You two come back here while we fix him up. I might need your help.”

The twins obeyed, Sally patting Riley on the knee as she passed. “You’ll feel much better soon.”

Riley glared over at Ben. “I hope so.” He leaned away as Ben approached again with the compress. “I told you that I don’t need your help!”

“Stop it. You do to,” Ben said, applying the compress with a more care. Riley hissed in objection, eyes squeezed shut so tight he thought his head might explode.

“Oh, Ben,” he panted, his face twisting constantly between torment and hostility. “I am going to kill you,” he said as Carolyn removed his bowtie and undid a few buttons on his shirt.

“No you’re not,” Ben replied dismissively. It only made Riley more irate. Ben reconsidered the comment briefly. “Alright. So you might come close,” he agreed, picking up a pair of clean tweezers and handing them to Carolyn.

“No, I am,” Riley stated absolutely. “I am going t- Oooow! Stop, stop, stop!”

“I have to get it out, Riley,” Carolyn said impatiently from behind him. “Hold still.”

He made a face. “You have to fish for a bullet with a pair of tweezers while I’m conscious? Unanestheticized?”

“Is that even a word?”

“Who cares- THAT’S A MUSCLE!!”

“I’m sorry!” Carolyn shouted as he tensed his back. She touched his uninjured shoulder to relax him once more into a slump, trying to be as gentle as their current environment allowed. “Just stop moving.”

Riley fought off the urge to say something along the lines of if he had been shot and killed, he wouldn’t be moving. But he wasn’t going to say something like that right now. Carolyn was a victim as much as he was in Ben’s developing dictatorship, and the kids were right behind him somewhere. He rethought it quietly until Ben dabbing the oozing hole made him bite into his lip hard to stifle a yell.

“I can’t get it,” he heard Carolyn say, withdrawing the tweezers from his shoulder.

“Here, let me try.”

“No!” Riley said immediately. “I don’t want you to!”

“Unless you’re able to get it out yourself, I’m doing it,” Ben said challengingly. Riley turned his head away, angry that he had to settle with his inarguable logic once again.

“Oh ho… oh god!” Riley caught his breath and forced himself not to scream aloud as they continued to operate amaturely on his shoulder. Then, the tweezers poked at him hard, and he groaned deeply. “Ooooo! Ben!”

“Sorry.”

Riley huffed sardonically. “Sorry?”

“Yeah, it was an apology,” Ben said agitatedly. “I didn’t mean to hurt your shoulder.”

“Psh. How about apologizing for ruining my wedding, Ben? Huh?” Since you seem to have a good understanding of the definition!” Riley’s voice rose expectantly. “Why don’t you apologize for lying to me about sending Maddox Whittacre his compass because all you care about is treasure?!”

“Because those things-“

“Ah HAAAAAH!! OW!”

“- I meant to do.”

He reached around Riley and showed him the retrieved bullet between the blades of the tweezers. Riley looked away coldly.

“Backstabber.”

“Technically, I shot you,” Ben corrected, no longer feeling the need to care. Thankfully, Charlie and Sally weren’t paying attention as they plastered band-aids on one another, but Riley stared at him, not sure how much more anger he could feel towards the man in front of him.

“You shot me?” Riley asked disbelievingly.

Ben now felt underestimated and annoyed. “Yeah. I shot you,” he repeated for effect. “And it saved your life-“

“I was in a coma five minutes ago because of you!”

“It wasn’t a coma. You were unconscious,” Carolyn said, dispelling his exaggeration as she held a towel to his shoulder. “And if Ben hadn’t interceded, you would be dead.”

“And better off…”

Carolyn stared at him incredulously, but he was working hard not to meet her eyes. He was secretly ashamed at how honest it had come off.

“Is that right?” Carolyn asked heatedly. Riley looked right at her.

“Right now, I would prefer it to this.”

“I helped in all this, you know! I helped plan it, execute it, lay it out-“

“Because Ben asked you to,” Riley interrupted, throwing the man with his blood on his hands a spiteful glare. “He asked you to. Said ‘pretty please.’ Made you believe there was something in it for you. Something great.” Riley wiped his nose on his sleeve, adhering to another wince before looking back over at Ben.

“Well, there isn’t,” Riley said quietly. His tone then acquired disappointment he never thought he would feel towards Ben. “I made the same mistake before.”

Ben was careful to laugh. “You wanted to come. You practically sprang out of your chair at the chance!”

“Yeah, and now look at me!” Riley yelled back. “Rich, kidnapped, shot, and – still! – not married. And yes! As it would turn out, I can blame each and every one of these things on you.”

“Do you want to keep this?” Ben asked boredly, still holding up the bloody bullet in the tweezers. To both his and Carolyn’s surprise, Riley slapped it right out of his hand and to the floor, punctuating his action with a hard stare.

“No,” he said lowly. “I don’t want to keep it. I want to see a legitimate doctor and get as far away from you as possible before you get me killed.”

“Sorry,” Ben said, taking off his gloves, “but that’s not on our itinerary.”

“Nothing ever is when it concerns something less in value than Smaug’s hoard of gold in the Lonely Mountain…”

“On the contrary,” Ben said as he helped Carolyn unravel a bandage for Riley’s shoulder. “Carolyn only knows so much when it comes to getting in the place.” He continued despite Riley hanging his head. “So she’s going to run the show while you help us bypass and access the security wall-“

“No… Ben…”

“-and then get us through to the mainframe of the vault systems-“

“Ben-“

“-so I can get in and out of my mom’s account as soon as possible.”

Riley couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Kill the wedding to go rob a bank for an inherited compass that probably isn’t even a compass because Ben Gates, treasure hunter extraordinaire, has a hunch that it’s connected to a different compass that isn’t even his. Oh, how Riley wanted to backhand him. Even if he didn’t necessarily have the courage to do it. A sensation within him told him that he could do it eventually if he really wanted to.

“Riley, I wouldn’t have done what I did if I didn’t have to,” Ben tried gently. “I really need-“

“That’s the thing, Ben!” Riley laughed. “You didn’t have to do this! At all! I’m not helping you. I told you I wasn’t going to. Especially now that you’ve lied to me about a compass and thought it was okay to sacrifice my wedding for this stupid pursuit of what? Pennies. Pennies compared to what you’ve already found. And I’m supposed to forgive you? Well newsflash, Ben: I’m not. And I never will. I’m not lifting one finger to type a single keystroke for you, and that’s it.”

Ben stared at him a moment as the anger he had been controlling thus far flared within him. Carolyn looked between them cautiously, but Ben took a step closer to Riley, the frustration evident on his face.

“Well newsflash, Riley: I kidnapped you, and you’re going to do as I say.”

Riley snorted. “You carried me off when I was unconscious.”

“I’d prefer not to shoot you in the other shoulder.”

“Ha… Like you would…”

“Hey!”

“Whoa!”

Ben picked up the gun from the little metal counter and pressed it into Riley’s right shoulder blade tightly. Carolyn’s demands for him to put it down and the children’s growing cries were ignored entirely; both men battled a strong, silent argument with their eyes.

“You won’t shoot me.”

“I did it once.”

“You won’t do it again,” Riley practically taunted. Ben snarled, something clicking in his mind – and against Riley’s shoulder.

“Try me,” he uttered, shocking himself.

“You already said you needed my help, Ben,” Riley said nonchalantly. “Why would you do something so unforgiveable?”

Ben gripped Riley’s shirt angrily, part of him certain he might actually do it, but Carolyn then intervened; she hit Ben’s arm with her fist, the gun falling into her hand as he recoiled. She unloaded it and threw the gun on the ground, glancing between the two of them with the most contorted face of the three of them. Charlie and Sally started crawling up front to be with their mother and brother, leaving only thick tension to hang in the air.

“Listen,” she hissed as Ben let go of Riley, “in case you forgot, I’m in charge of this. You can’t pull a gun on your friend and expect him to still call you his friend in return.”

Ben took another step back, keeping his eye on Riley as he soaked a cotton ball with peroxide. Riley felt Carolyn smooth the back of his shirt as she walked around to the front of him. She smiled slightly but did not get one in return.

“Riley, you know why he’s doing this,” she said as Riley cringed from Ben cleaning and bandaging his shoulder. “You were there when we looked at all this for the first time. This isn’t just to figure out what Ben’s mother wanted him to do. We’re involved. Maddox came to Ian, and now this is my responsibility to resolve.”

“How hard was it just to mail the thing?” Riley wanted to know. “Just sending it packing and wave! ‘Goodbye, Compass of Unnecessary Involvement!’” he said with a false, cheery smile. “See? That easy. But no! We have to hack into a Swiss Bank account-“

In the time he was rambling, Carolyn sighed and picked up the gun, reloaded it, and held it to his shoulder as Ben had. Riley stopped, looking over his shoulder at her the best he could.

“Yeah, that’s real mature,” he said.

“Let’s go, Riley. We brought your computer.”

Riley hopped off the table after Ben released the handcuff from the gurney. Carolyn began to walk him out into the snow. “You know, I would’ve expected this from you when I first met you.”

“Watch the ice.”

“Are you just going to pull out a gun every time I disagree with something?”

“Maybe. It gets results.”

“Oh, I feel so much more confident about marriage commitment now.”

“That’s the least of your problems right now,” Ben said, walking around from the front of the ambulance with Charlie and cuffing a leather bag to Riley’s wrist. He looked past Riley’s outraged expression to Carolyn.

“Meet me in the lobby in ten minutes,” she said. “I’ll take him to security and be right there.”

Ben nodded, and she led Riley away to a different entrance of the building.

“So you’re running this whole break-in?” he asked. “You can do that?”

Carolyn straightened her posture with authority behind him, putting herself back in a mindset she hadn’t been in since getting Ian out of prison. A smile curved her lips.

“You’re forgetting whose sister I am.”

x x x

“It’s not here,” Maddox said lowly, bracing himself against the desk in the study. Priscilla and Harper walked up to him, the young meteorologist double-checking some papers on the corner of the desk.

“Maybe you missed it-“

“It’s not here!” he now shouted. Harper stared at him, carefully setting the papers back down. Maddox hung his head. “They have it now, wherever they ran off to.” He looked up at Priscilla. “And we need it back.”

“Do you want Myers to put them on a national high alert Most Wanted list?” she offered. He shook his head.

“No, not yet anyway. I want to speak with Gates first, see if we can’t settle this like gentlemen.”

Priscilla’s shoulders fell. “I doubt he’ll pick up.”

“I’ll find him,” Maddox assured, pushing off the desk. He brightened his tone suddenly. “Well! Clear out the house! We’re done here!” He turned back to Priscilla and Harper with a smile. “Time for the fun part.”

x x x

Abigail walked into the lobby of the bank on tiptoes with her family, Carolyn’s one-size-too-big heels in her hands to prevent nerve-racking clicks. She looked around at the attempt to cover the historical architecture with modern banking paraphernalia as Ben opened another security alarm and froze the sensors with a can of chewing gum remover. He shook the can afterwards, found it empty, and pocketed it. In him arms, Alex made a sound of surprise.

“This isn’t Riggs Bank,” he heard Abigail say as he walked up to her and the twins. She pointed to the signs hanging around the lobby. “PNC owns this bank. Is there another Riggs?”

“PNC bought Riggs National in 2004,” Ben explained, pulling out his mother’s banking information. “Can you hold this?” He handed his young son the folder, smiling when he took it with great interest. He leaned over to Abigail and showed her the main summary of the account. “See the date in the corner when the account was opened and last accessed? October 1971. It was still Riggs Bank when she brought the compass here.”

Abigail nodded, looking up at the shadowed walls and ceiling. “This bank’s gold helped us purchase Alaska. And funded the Morse telegraph.”

“Not to mention over half the presidents have had accounts here,” Ben said, walking up to another alarm and freezing it with another can of gum remover. “It also gave Perry money for his first trip to the North Pole.”

“All right, guys, I’m here.”

Carolyn walked up to them from out of the darkness, handing Abigail a small Bluetooth earpiece. “Riley’s setting them up now,” she said, fixating one in Ben’s ear for him. “There are small cameras on the ends of them so he can see exactly where we are, too, and not have to toggle with the main cameras so much to see.”

“Sounds high-tech enough for him,” Ben said, tapping the earpiece.

“Hey, hey!” Sally said, running up to Carolyn. “Do we get one?”

“Yeah,” Charlie whined. “I want one, too! I want to talk to Uncle Riley!”

“I have a much more important job for you,” Carolyn said, crouching down to their now eager faces. “I want you to locate the lollipop stash and put as many as you can in your backpacks for being so good tonight. Think of it as your reward.”

“Cool!”

“But you only get to keep them if you stay quiet and unseen,” Carolyn said. “Once you find the lollipops, stay there until we find you. Understand?”

“Yeah!” Charlie said excitedly, running off with his sister.

Carolyn stood up smiling, and Abigail glanced at her. “Where are the lollipops?”

“In a storage room I unlocked on my way,” Carolyn said, opening the first ‘employees only’ door she saw. “Riley has an eye on them. They’re fine,” she told them. “Come on. This way.”

x x x

Riley hit his right arrow key at a continual snail’s pace, his fist pushed into the side of his face as he scanned the different camera views and waited for further instructions as they made their way to the most secure place in the bank. He was (once again) handcuffed to an immobile object; Carolyn had drilled a hole through the very edge of the desk and put him there before apologizing.

‘I still love you,’ she had said, and he gave her a pleading look.

‘Can we just go home? And by home, I mean not Ian’s house.’

‘Our house.’ She had given him a quick kiss. ‘This won’t take long.’

Psh, yeah, he thought sarcastically. Not long at all. Just get the compass and leave and find the treasure. Just a few days, week tops. Heck, maybe he’d be dead before then.

He stopped on the camera showing Sally and Charlie rip open an overabundant supply of lollipops in one of the storage closets near the entrance of the bank, the two of them stuffing and dumping as many as they could into the bag and Charlie’s pockets. He couldn’t keep from smiling the tiniest of smiles, knowing he would be the one to help them eat them all before Abigail went insane. He tried not to think of the cavities he’d get.

The lobby camera was empty.

The eight cameras by the tellers were empty.

Ben’s Bluetooth camera came up next. They were coming up on the main vault entrance. Riley boredly switched windows on the computer, punching in a long list of codes to disarm the security and lengthen the amount of time he could keep it disabled.

“Riley-“

“Yeah, you’re a go,” he cut off begrudgingly, pressing the ‘Enter’ key to grant them access.

A deep 

click came from the solid metal door before them. Abigail reached passed Carolyn and helped pull it open. Alex made another sound of surprise as Ben stepped forward with a small but powerful LED light.

“Hey, Riley, can-“

The lights came on without a response. Ben sighed.

“Thank you.”

Riley remained silent on the other end, so Ben just motioned for the others to follow. The room was horizontally long with a four advanced computers and conveyer belts separated in glass chambers with shades for privacy. Ben immediately headed for one, but the door was locked.

“Riley-“

“It’s an advanced triple lock,” Riley’s annoyed voice suddenly came. “First you have to enter a pin number on the lock to verify you have an account you can access in the glass box. Then you have to use the electronic keycard given to you upon arrival of your visit to the bank by the teller, and lastly, you must obtain the actual key.”

Abigail looked at the lock more closely. “They still use an actual key?”

“Security measure against hackers,” he said curtly, smiling on the other end of the conversation. Abigail’s shoulders fell, and she looked back up at Ben.

“Did they give you a key?”

“Just the electronic card,” Ben said, nodding to Carolyn as she held it up from the file. He looked at the keyhole and congratulated the heads of security on their cleverness. “I didn’t get access code, and there was no actual metal key.” He looked at the glass in thought. “How thick-?”

“Three and three-fourths inches,” Riley said, leaning back in his chair. He winced at the pain shooting over his entire nervous system from his shoulder, and tried to ignore it. “If you’d kick it, you would break your leg.”

The comment came off as a sugary polite suggestion, and Ben, Abigail, and Carolyn exchanged looks. Carolyn sighed. “Knock it off, Riley.”

Suddenly, the room fell into a thick, almost palpable darkness around them. Alex began to pout as Ben held tighter to him and screamed into the nothingness.

“RILEY!!”

At the left end of the room, a single light came on above an unmarked door. Calming down, Carolyn walked towards it with Ben and Abigail, stopping before it in a small pool of filtered light. A small keypad consisting of only the numbers zero and one were above the silver knob.

“It’s a binary code,” she said, reaching out to it.

“Yeah, and one wrong press locks this whole thing down,” Riley warned, but it did not ward off her hand.

“Yes, I know,” she said, examining the lock for another way in. “Riley, we need the code.”

“What’s the code?” Abigail asked, Carolyn’s thumb at the ready. “Read it off.”

“Or I could do this.”

A small beep came from the keypad, and they watched their faces in the in doorknob as it turned itself to the right and opened the door. Ben looked slightly impressed in the doorknob’s reflection.

“Not bad.”

Carolyn led them inside, the lights once again coming on before they asked. She figured Riley was just being a show-off to let Ben know how none of this could be done without him, or he was just saving himself from having to talk to them. As they snaked through the long hallway, she knew it was the latter.

The next entrance they came to was a set of solid steel double doors, and they were already eased open by the invisible work of Riley. A sheet of blue lasers vanished, followed by the green lights of the motion sensors. An elevator glided open smoothly, its back wall made entirely of glass with a gold hand rail. Carolyn, Abigail, Ben, and Alex boarded it, and Carolyn looked at the buttons.

“We need to get to the central vault,” she said to Riley over the earpiece. “What do I hit?”

From in the room, Riley switched over to Carolyn’s camera and looked at the elevator pad layout. He flipped through an engineer’s manual encased in a binder and found the page, running his finger down the list of destinations to which each button delivered the car next to the diagram.

“Second one in the second column,” he said after reading the tiny print.

Inside the elevator, Carolyn hit the button, and the elevator doors shut, moving smoothly downward. The three of them watched the glass panel of the elevator curiously as they slid down into the depths of the bank. Then, a kind of dull factory lighting seeped into the bottom of the glass pane and moved higher up. Carolyn, Ben, and Abigail leaned into the glass in awe at the intimidating size of the machines and vaults spread out in a seemingly endless room.

“Wow,” Ben said, eyes taking everything possible in.

“It doesn’t look this big from the outside,” Abigail said with a laugh.

“That’s because you’re underground,” Riley’s voice pointed out as the elevator stopped at a platform halfway down. The glass pane lowered itself for them to step out, and they went down a set of stairs to the main floor of the loud, humming room. Carolyn was already making her way over to a huge wall of symmetrical vaults. Tiny ones were stacked on others that could fit a large group. She sighed.

“Which one?” she asked. Ben looked at the main summary again for the account number. He read it aloud.

“’Riggs National Bank Private Swiss Account Security Class B,’” he read. “’Number 0154012796.’” A smile touched his lips after rereading the umber several times. “It’s Francis Drake’s lifetime,” he said in disbelief. “Look. Born 1540. Died January 27, 1596.”

Riley stopped typing momentarily on the other end. “I thought the bank issued your account number?”

“Regardless,” Abigail said, equally astonished. “We’re close.”

“Yeah, whoop-dee-doo,” Riley said unenthusiastically. After several minutes, the system was finally under his control. Proud of what he was capable of but upset as to what his capabilities were being used for, Riley executed the retrieval of the vault’s contents. “Coming at’chya.”

Ben, Abigail, Carolyn, and even Alex looked up, watching a vault near the ceiling open. A smaller case within was set on one of the giant conveyer belts and zipped around the room. Before it was sent to one of the glass chambers they could not access before, Riley shut down the conveyer belt.

“Here, you got him?” Ben asked, passing Alex to Carolyn.

“Yeah, come on.”

Ben ran up to what they had sought after all this time, unlatching the protective case immediately. A flood of anticipation took him as he picked up the flat, round object wrapped in various foams, cushions, and finally, a very thin cloth. He unwrapped it all with care despite his urge to rip it open like a Christmas gift, and air became unimportant when he looked at his own reflection in the face of the four-hundred-year-old compass he knew would be here.

“Oh my god,” Abigail breathed excitedly. She glanced over at Carolyn, but the woman could not take her eyes from it. It was real. It was all real. She felt goose bumps prickle the entire surface of her skin and delighted in the sensation.

“Incredible,” she finally said. “How do we tell if it’s connected to the one Maddox had?”

“We’ll sort it out somewhere else,” Ben said, putting the compass into a box of his own that Abigail held open for him. “Let’s get back home first. Then maybe we can call Whittacre for a bargain.” When he was certain it was safe enough, he closed the lid, and Abigail hurried put it back in her bag.

“Call Whittacre?” Riley repeated. He did not think it a good idea. “Why would you do that?”

“This is a Roanoke treasure, not a Revolutionary War treasure,” Ben explained as Carolyn took them back up the stairs to the elevator. “He’s got more knowledge on the subject matter. Like me and the Templars, he has studied everything possible about the Lost Treasure.”

“He has information we don’t?” Carolyn asked.

“A lot more,” Ben said, not wanting to admit it. “I know a lot about the mystery, but I don’t compare to someone who’s earned degrees in it. Just like he’ll never match me at American history.”

“May I point out,” Riley said, “that you could’ve DONE THIS a WEEK ago?” He went unanswered.

“Get Charlie and Sally,” Abigail said quickly to him. “Tell them to be in the lobby now.”

Riley sighed from the chair, rubbing his face in frustration. Without a word back to them, he switched cameras and turned on the storage area intercom.

“Bonnie, Clyde,” – the two children looked up from a scattered mess of lollipops – “Grab all the gold you can and move it to the getaway car. Let’s go.”

“Okay!” Charlie replied.

Riley watched them scramble to stuff every lollipop conceivable into the Disney Princess and Marvel book bags already bursting at the seams from over-packing. He switched the camera off when he 

saw them run out of the room, unable to zipper the bags closed. He then went to close his laptop and stand, but the forgotten restraint on his wrist yanked him back into the chair. He stared at it lividly before pressing the main intercom button.

“Hi everyone, this is you underappreciated hacker, fiancé, ex-friend, and disinclined accomplice Riley speaking,” he said pleasantly. “Someone wanna come, you know, if you’re not too busy to remember me… let me go?!”

Carolyn sighed as they entered the lobby, taking a side route. “I got him.”

“Thank you, dearest,” Riley said sweetly again.

He snapped his laptop closed moodily and fell back into the chair, ripping the Bluetooth from his ear. He looked at the table, thinking only of how he could be on his way to Barbados at that very moment.

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