National Treasure

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.

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?

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.

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.

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.

Why are we stopping? I thought we were looking for a ship.

- I don't see any ship. - She's out there.

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.

Hello, beautiful.

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.

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.

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 that he transcribed,

a resolution that 55 men signed.

The Declaration of Independence.

Oh!

Come on, there's no invisible map on the back of the Declaration of Independence.

That's clever, really. A document of that importance

would ensure the map's survival.

And you said there were several Masons signed it, yeah?

Yeah. Nine, for sure.

We'll have to arrange a way to examine it.

This is one of the most important documents in history.

They're not just gonna let us waltz in there and run chemical tests on it.

- Then what do you propose we do? - I don't know!

We could borrow it.

Steal it?

- I don't think so. - Ben...

the treasure of the Knights Templar is the treasure of all treasures.

Oh, I didn't know that. Really?

Look, Ben... I understand your bitterness. I really do.

You've spent your entire life searching for this treasure,

only to have the respected historical community

treat you and your family with mockery and contempt.

You should be able to rub this treasure in their arrogant faces,

and I want you to have the chance to do that.

How?

We all have our areas of expertise.