006 tapped the pipe's stem. "The riddle I mentioned—it's engraved right there. Gates didn't seem very interested in the pipe itself. I suppose it's served its purpose."
"Trust me—it still has uses. Keep it safe, Mr. Trevelyan. We're heading back to the States."
Bella gave the orders. That was simply how it worked. For this operation—recovering the Templar Order's lost treasure—she had quietly assembled over eighty Brotherhood operatives.
006 looked at the pilot. He didn't recognize him. One of Bella's people, he concluded, and left it at that.
"What's the next step?" he asked. "We go steal the Declaration ourselves?"
"It's sitting in the center of the National Archives under layers of security. Stealing it isn't simple." She gave a faint smile. "Let's leave that part to Dr. Gates."
006 was certain he'd misheard. "Ben Gates? You think he's going to steal the Declaration of Independence? Ha—" He stopped. "…Actually, that might be exactly what he does. You made me withdraw early so he'd think I was planning something, and now his only move is to get there first."
Away from anything supernatural, 006's instincts came back sharp and clean.
"Exactly. And your new friend will absolutely try to stop you." Bella had prepared two contingencies—Gates stealing the Declaration, or the Brotherhood doing it themselves. But the cleanest play was to let Gates steal it first, then steal it back from him.
006 had one more question. "Why don't you just use your powers to find the treasure directly? You found the shipwreck. The treasure shouldn't be any harder."
Bella gave him the look of someone explaining something to a very confident non-expert. "You don't think I'm the only practitioner who's ever lived, do you? You give me too much credit. In that era, anyone with money could hire talent. Having a powerful occultist place anti-divination wards on a treasure hoard wasn't difficult. I can read a general area—New York, most likely—but the wards cut off anything more specific than that."
"And the Declaration?"
"It's the key object. The divination pointed to it directly—we need it in hand. But better to let Dr. Gates do the legwork." She folded her hands. "The groundwork is essentially complete. You still have one more scene to play, Mr. Trevelyan."
Ben Gates and his assistant had no helicopter waiting. It took them a full week to make it back to Washington D.C., exhausted down to their bones—only to spot two of 006's men outside the National Archives.
Gates decided he understood the entire plan.
After a day of internal debate, he visited the Archives exhibit, examined the original Declaration of Independence on display, and made his decision. To prevent it from being stolen, he would steal it himself.
This was a particular brand of self-reliant heroism—not entirely unlike Ethan Hunt's approach to things. It apparently hadn't occurred to Gates to call any relevant government agency. Even if they dismissed the tip as the ravings of a conspiracy theorist, a citizen still had some kind of civic obligation to try. He wasn't Spider-Man operating in secret. He was a respected academic. Picking up a phone would cost him nothing.
He didn't call.
He and his assistant began planning the theft of the original Declaration of Independence from the National Archives of the United States.
Under quiet Brotherhood surveillance, these two historians moved like a spec-ops unit.
They pulled architectural blueprints of the exhibition hall. Ran reconnaissance. Hacked the building's security feed. Fabricated credentials. Synthesized developing solution. Lifted fingerprints. Piece by piece, they built their operation from scratch. By the time they were done, you could've mistaken them for a second IMF team.
With the element of preparation on his side, Ben Gates moved on schedule—fifteen minutes after the National Archives gala began—and walked out with the original Declaration of Independence.
He rolled it into a scroll, tucked it inside his jacket, and made for the exit with his heart somewhere in his throat.
"Move." Bella was in the room. As a well-known bestselling author, she'd received a gala invitation without issue. She kept a conversation going with the guests nearest to her and quietly activated her eagle-eye vision, scanning the hall. There was a figure moving a little too quickly, his eyes a little too wide. "Now."
"Going to steal something, are we?"
Gates froze. He spun around, face drained of color—and found himself being watched by a Black saleswoman with thick lips and shoulder-length hair, her expression radiating absolute contempt.
He looked down at his jacket. Then followed her gaze to the display rack not far away, stocked with a dozen scrolled prints of the Declaration. Same shape, same packaging—identical to the one beneath his coat.
"That'll be thirty-five dollars, sir."
Gates obviously wasn't going to do anything violent—the side hall was full of people, and he wasn't an assassin. He was a historian. And if this woman genuinely believed he was holding a print, the cleanest move was to pay for it.
He placed the scroll on the counter and reached for his wallet.
"Oh—Professor Gates?" The Russian woman appeared on cue, exactly two minutes after taking her position outside.
She arrived with a wave of intoxicating perfume and the unhurried confidence of someone who owned every room she entered. She wore a deep-red gown slit to the thigh, with jewelry blazing at her throat; her pale skin and the gems caught the light together. Even the perfume carried a subtle, disorienting pull.
Gates turned instinctively. A stranger who somehow knew his name made him feel inexplicably guilty for two seconds.
In that moment, the saleswoman's left hand moved. She reached across the counter, caught the scroll Gates had set down, and in one swift motion propped it upright beside her foot. Her right hand simultaneously placed a prepared high-quality replica in its place.
The counter was cluttered with a cash register, a two-drawer lockbox, and scattered commemorative coins and notebooks. The original vanished and the copy appeared in under a second. Gates, pulled entirely toward the perfume and the smile, noticed nothing.
"Your lectures are absolutely fascinating, Professor."
"Thank you."
They exchanged a couple of polite lines. The Russian woman smiled and turned away, as though the encounter had been nothing more than a minor coincidence at the evening's gala.