National Treasure

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(thunderstorm)

(floorboard creaks)

Grandpa!

You're not supposed to be up here,

looking at that.

I just wanted to know.

Well, you're old enough, I suppose.

You should know the story.

OK, here we go.

It was 1832.

On a night much like this.

Yah!

Charles Carroll was the last surviving

signer of the Declaration of Independence.

He was also a member

of a secret society known as the Masons.

And he knew he was dying.

He woke up his stable boy

in the middle of the night

and ordered him to take him to

the White House to see Andrew Jackson.

Because it was urgent

that he speak to the president.

Did he talk to him?

No. He never got the chance.

The president wasn't there that night.

But Charles Carroll had a secret.

So he took into his confidence

the one person he could,

my grandfather's grandfather,

Thomas Gates.

What was the secret?

A treasure.

A treasure beyond all imagining.

A treasure that had been

fought over for centuries

by tyrants. Pharaohs.

Emperors. Warlords.

And every time it changed hands

it grew larger.

And then suddenly...

it vanished.

It didn't reappear

for more than a thousand years.

When knights from the First Crusade

discovered secret vaults

beneath the Temple of Solomon.

You see. The knights who found the vaults

believed that the treasure

was too great for any one man -

not even a king.

They brought the treasure back to Europe

and took the name "the Knights Templar."

Over the next century

they smuggled it out of Europe

and they formed a new brotherhood

called the Freemasons.

In honor of

the builders of the great temple.

War followed.

By the time of the American Revolution

the treasure had been hidden again.

By then the Masons included

George Washington.

Benjamin Franklin. Paul Revere.

They knew they had to make sure

the treasure would never fall

into the hands of the British.

So they devised a series of clues

and maps to its location.

Over time the clues were lost or forgotten,

until only one remained -

and that was the secret that Charles Carroll

entrusted to young Thomas Gates.

Charlotte.

"The secret lies with Charlotte."

Who's Charlotte?

Oh... not even Mr. Carroll knew that.

Now look here, Ben.

The Freemasons

among our Founding Fathers left us clues.

Like these.

The unfinished pyramid.

The all-seeing eye.

Symbols of the Knights Templar,

guardians of the treasure.

- They're speaking to us through these.

- (man) You mean laughing at us.

You know what that dollar represents?

The entire Gates family fortune.

Six generations of fools...

chasing after fool's gold.

(Grandpa) It's not about the money,

Patrick. It's never been about the money.

Come on, son. Time to go.

You can... say your goodbyes.

Grandpa?

Hm?

Are we knights?

(chuckles)

Do you want to be?

All right. Um... kneel.

Benjamin Franklin Gates,

you take upon yourself the duty

of the Templars, the Freemasons

and the family Gates.

Do you so swear?

I so swear.

(man) I was thinking about

Henson and Peary,

crossing this kind of terrain with nothing

more than dog sleds and on foot.

- Can you imagine?

- It's extraordinary.

(beeping)

We getting closer?

Assuming Ben's theory's correct

and my tracking model's accurate,

we should be getting very close.

But don't go by me -

I broke a shoelace this morning.

- It's... it's a bad omen.

- Shall we turn around and go home?

Or we could pull over

and just throw him out here.

OK.

Riley, you're not missing that little

windowless cubicle we found you in?

No, no. Absolutely not.

(continuous beep)

Why are we stopping?

I thought we were looking for a ship.

- I don't see any ship.

- She's out there.

(beeping)

Look... this is a waste of time.

How could a ship wind up way out here?

Well, I'm no expert, but...

it could be that the hydrothermic properties

of this region

produce hurricane-force ice storms

that cause the ocean to freeze

and then melt and then refreeze,

resulting in a semisolid

migrating land mass

that would land a ship right around here.

(beeping continues)

(beeping quickens)

(continuous beeping)

(clank)

Hello, beautiful.

(man) Have Viktor

check the fuel in the generators.

Two years ago, if you hadn't shown up,

hadn't believed the treasure was real,

I don't know

if I ever would have found Charlotte.

You would have found it, I have no doubt.

That's why I didn't think it was

as crazy an investment as everyone said.

(Ben) I'm just relieved that I'm not as crazy

as everyone says. Or said my dad was.

- Or my granddad. Or my great-granddad.

- (chuckling)

OK!

Let's go!

- Let's go find some treasure.

- Yeah, bring us back something.

Urgh.

(terrified gasps)

Oh, God!

You handled that well.

This is it.

It's the cargo hold.

Do you think it's in the barrels?

Gunpowder.

Ooh! Ooh! OK...

Why would the captain

be guarding this barrel?

I found something!

What is it?

Do you guys know what this is?

Is it a billion-dollar pipe?

It's a meerschaum pipe.

Ah, that is beautiful.

Look at the intricacy of the scrollwork

on the stem.

- Is it a million-dollar pipe?

- No, it's a clue.

Let me see that.

No, don't break it!

We are one step closer to the treasure,

gentlemen.

Ben, I thought you said that

the treasure would be on the Charlotte.

No, "The secret lies with Charlotte."

I said it could be here.

It's Templar symbols.

"The legend writ."

"The stain effected."

"The key in Silence undetected."

"Fifty-five in iron pen."

"Mr. Matlack can't offend."

It's a riddle.

I need to think.

"The legend writ."

"The stain effected."

What legend?

There's the legend of the Templar treasure,

and the stain effects the legend.

How?

"The key in Silence undetected."

Wait.

The legend and the key...

Now there's something.

A map.

Maps have legends, maps have keys.

It's a map, an invisible map.

So now...

Wait a minute. What do you mean,

"invisible" - "an invisible map"?

"The stain effected"

could refer to a dye or a reagent

used to bring about a certain result.

Combined with

"The key in Silence undetected,"

the implication is that the effect is to make

what was undetectable detectable.

Unless...

"The key in Silence" could be...

Prison.

Albuquerque.

See, I can do it too.

Snorkel.

That's where the map is.

Like he said, "Fifty-five in iron pen."

"Iron pen" is a prison.

Or it could be, since the primary writing

medium of the time was iron gall ink,

the "pen" is... just a pen.

But then why not say a pen?

Why... why say "iron pen"?

'Cause it's a prison.

Wait a minute. "Iron pen" - the "iron"

does not describe the ink in the pen,

it describes what was penned.

It was "iron" -

it was firm, it was mineral...

No, no, no, that's stupid.

It was... It was firm,

it was adamant, it was resolved.

It was resolved.

"Mr. Matlack can't offend."

Timothy Matlack was the official scribe

of the Continental Congress.

Calligrapher, not writer. And to make sure

he could not offend the map,

it was put on the back of a resolution

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