The Adam Enigma

by Meyer, Ronald C. ; Reeder, Mark;

  Pete chuckled. “That’s an understatement.”

  The female reporter said, “I know this must be a hard time for you. Thanks for taking the time to tell us your story. We are all praying for their well-being.” Turning to the camera, she continued her reporting. “The Taos County Sheriff’s Department has informed me they are sending out search parties at the break of dawn. Live from Taos, I’m Julie Lone Wolf.”

  Ramsey was stunned. “They’re talking about the guys you left with? Right?”

  “The last time I saw them they were being bound up by a bunch of nasty Mexicans from across the border. I was running as fast as I could.”

  “Christ, what happened?”

  Pete shook his head. “Somewhere away from prying eyes and ears.”

  He was so amped up, he shot out of the ER entrance, passed Myriam’s car and was across the parking lot into a secluded grove of pine trees. Someone had placed a picnic table in the middle. He leaned against the edge and waited for them to catch up.

  “Sit down,” he ordered. When they did, he paced the tiny clearing, checking the trees. A fretful cold wind stirred the pine needles. Wreaths of white vapor plumed his narrow face as he squinted through the green boughs. “It’s going to snow tonight,” he said as if checking the weather was the only reason they had dashed outside. At last he stopped pacing, apparently satisfied they were alone. Settling onto one of the benches, Pete told the story of what happened during the supposed search for the diamonds.

  Ramsey had never seen his usually laid back friend so pent up before. There was an urgency behind his words, as if he were working through the details until he came to the important stuff. So he stayed mum. Myriam, taking her cue from her one-time postdoc, said nothing.

  “Me and the four South African mercenaries left the clearing a little after noon and headed toward the site of the kimberlite. That’s when the shit hit the fan. Someone shot Buttercup out of the sky.” He paused dramatically.

  “Buttercup?” Myriam ventured.

  “One of his drones,” Ramsey explained.

  Pete nodded. “In the next instant a half dozen Mexican desperados materialize out of the pines and take us totally by surprise. They disarmed the South Africans and zip tied them. They must have figured I wasn’t a threat because they left me loose. They marched us back to the camp.”

  Pete jumped up again and spun around. In contrast to his earlier cheerfulness, he was now more somber. With the drug effects wearing off, it was now clear how much he was shaken. “I could sure use a drink,” he said, but instantly shook his head. “Can’t touch the stuff anymore.” He resumed his story.

  “The ring leader recognized me.”

  Startled, Ramsey asked, “How?”

  “His name is Julio and I’m pretty sure he works for the woman who owns the Rio Chama Café . . . Rosa Cisneros. He was trying to kill me and he would’ve. Then out of the blue this Indian guy puts two arrows in him and saves my life. It was so weird. I mean, I thought it was one of those psychedelic trips I used to experience. This guy Julio is about to put a bullet in my brain one second and the next, this Indian guy is leaning over him and, I swear, it’s like he’s giving him last rites. I mean, how fucked up is that?

  “Then I died. No seriously, the white light, sounds of angels singing. I was walking down this long tunnel. And here’s the crazy part.”

  “You mean you’re just getting to what’s crazy?” asked Ramsey.

  It was a testament to just how strange his experience was that Pete merely nodded and went on. “Instead of going back over my life or seeing my dead friends and relatives, I was moving into the future. The future was getting better and more beautiful and there was this voice telling me what the world could be. Telling me what I was destined to become. All the while I was trying to figure out whose voice it was. It was driving me crazy. I knew it from somewhere. I just couldn’t figure it out. And then all of a sudden I knew. It was your voice Jonathan.”

  Ramsey felt himself stiffen at the revelation. “My voice?”

  “Yeah, your voice. Crazy, huh man?”

  Ramsey didn’t know what to think. He didn’t want dismiss his friend’s experience, but being spoken of as a kind of oracle made him uneasy. Besides, he wondered why Pete didn’t want to go to the police.

  Pete shook his head as if reading Ramsey’s mind. “No police, old man. Something big’s going down here and I want to find out what it is.”

  “You were almost killed, Pete,” said Myriam.

  “I’ve a guardian angel,” Pete said, grinning. He slapped the picnic table and danced a jig. “I get it now. My DeVere fellows weren’t only looking for diamonds. They were also after your guys’ Adam Gwillt. I think I know how too.” He clenched his fists. “How fast can you drive?” he asked Ramsey.

  “Why?” Ramsey said warily.

  “I have to get back to the lab right away. It’s beginning to make sense in an odd way.”

  “You’ve lost me.”

  “You know the guy Beecher, the one who looked out of place with Haas and the South African mercenaries?”

  The color drained from Myriam’s face. “Hiram was with you?”

  “You know him?” Pete asked.

  She nodded. “What happened to him? Is he dead?”

  Pete shrugged. “I don’t know, Myriam. Do you know the South Africans too?”

  “Of course not.” Her hands started to shake, her car keys rattling in the still night air.

  “I’ll drive,” Ramsey said gently.

  Gratefully, Myriam handed him her keys.

  The two men rode in silence toward Taos, waiting for Myriam to offer up some answers about Beecher. She stared out the car window lost in the shadows pelting past them in the forest. Twenty miles outside of Espanola, the snow Pete predicted began. The Mercedes’ temperature gauge showed the outside air temp had plummeted forty degrees to 28. With the icy wind it would be a lot colder.

  “You called it,” said Ramsey, setting the car’s thermostat to 70.

  Pete shrugged. “Gotta a pal who works for the National Center for Atmospheric Research. I share data from the drones with him.”

  Myriam fidgeted with her seatbelt, unbuckling and rebuckling the clasp every half minute.

  Ramsey had never seen her so distraught. At the University of Oregon—even when her world began to fall apart around her after the Peru debacle—she’d been icy calm. Now she stared into the fat snowflakes, her body trembling. Several times she started to speak but withdrew into herself, sighing. Tears shined against her makeup in the green glow of the dash lights.

  She said to Pete, “You’re sure the man’s name was Hiram Beecher?”

  “Yes . . . Why?”

  Pulling a tissue from her purse, she dried her tears and sat up straight. She then slid the seatbelt clasp into buckle with a decisive click.

  Ramsey read all the telltales pointing to her standing on the edge. With the right questions he could nudge her to tell everything, the same way he did in interviews as a human geographer. He hesitated for a moment, arguing with himself whether this moment was the time to push her about her relationship to Beecher.

  He cleared his throat and said to Pete, “He’s the same guy who signed the contract hiring me to investigate the Milagro Shrine.” Then gently to Myriam, “Hiram will make it.”

  Pete added, “Those South Africans are the kind of men who are trained to handle these kinds of situations. They’ll get your friend through it.”

  “Thank you, both of you. That’s very reassuring.” Myriam settled back into her seat. She knew what lay beneath the warmth in Ramsey’s voice. He was a skilled interviewer, using compassion to draw her out. It didn’t matter. She had to tell someone all she knew. It’s why we hired Jonathan in the first place.

  “Hiram is more than a friend. He and I have been together for over four years now. It was love at first sight. He even joined The Friends of the Shrine and supported it financially when I asked him to, without any quest
ions.”

  She swiveled in her seat. “Did he tell you why he was with the South Africans?”

  Pete nodded. “Something about protecting his investment. Remember, we were looking for diamonds.”

  “As far as I know he never had any business interest in diamonds.” Myriam pursed her lips. She flicked a glance at Ramsey and continued. “Hiram asked me to hire you to find out what happened to Adam. At this point we believed that Adam was the real power behind the healings.”

  Ramsey kept his voice calm though his fingers gripped the wheel at the news. “You didn’t think it was important to tell me that?”

  “Hiram said he wanted you to discover it on your own, and once you did it would lead you to Adam. That’s what we were all hoping, that you would find him alive and well.”

  “Do any other members of the Friends of the Shrine believe Adam is the power behind the healings?”

  “I can’t say for sure. Whenever Father Michael, talked about the healings, he’d always refer to the shrine and not to Adam as possessing the power. At first I believed him completely. Though I suppose after a while most of us began to suspect Adam was the source.” She frowned. “It was easier to accept that the shrine itself—rather than a human being—possessed an inexplicable convergence of healing forces. How could one person make so many different kinds of healings happen? Last night Rosa and I had a conversation with Carlotta and she all but confirmed that Father Michael knew a lot more about Adam as the source than he ever let on publicly or with me.”

  Ramsey nodded, trying to put together the pieces. There were still quite a few parts missing, but the picture was beginning to come together. Father Michael . . . Carlotta said that I should talk to him. He must hold the key.

  “Is Father Michael at the shrine now?”

  “Not likely. In the past year he’s spent more time away than there. And since Adam disappeared, he’s been mostly gone, skyping with the leadership of the Friends of the Shrine telling us to keep up hope and that all will be well.”

  “You have his contact information?” Ramsey asked.

  “Yes. You should get ahold of him as soon as possible. Father Michael once said to me, ‘There is nothing more powerful than a miraculous healing. It has always been the guiding force on the planet.’ Then he went on to say, ‘Jesus knew this. In one of the Gnostic Gospels he told his followers to organize their communities around this principle. Jesus was well ahead of his time. Now the Milagro Shrine is making it happen.’”

  Ramsey glanced at Myriam. She slumped in the front seat, her dark eyes quiet. It was like a great burden had been lifted from her—and, exhausted from carrying it—she needed peace. He realized for the first time since Peru that he could see her simply as a human being, an ordinary person in pain. “Thanks, Myriam,” he said quietly.

  Snow started coming down hard. Large fat flakes stuck to windshield. The wipers could barely keep up, making it difficult for Ramsey to see the highway. The road was narrow and winding in spots. He had to slow way down. The darkness in the car was punctuated by the blue glow of Ramsey’s phone as Pete searched the web. Occasionally he grunted an approval. Ramsey hoped he was finding what he was looking for.

  The Mercedes fishtailed through a turn, the backend sliding toward the guardrail. The front tires caught dry pavement and everything shot forward. Then the snow stopped as if someone had drawn a curtain. They drove on in silence for several minutes. Overhead stars started to peek through the overcast.

  “That was tough. Some of those curves were a bitch,” Ramsey said, relieved they had gotten through it.

  Pete said, “I’ve been here for five years and I’m still not used to New Mexico’s springs. One day it’s sunny and clear . . . five hours later it’s raining . . . three hours after that it’s snowing and then it’s clear again. It should just rain like everywhere else. Hopefully those South African bastards will freeze to death.” Realizing what he had just said, Pete touched Myriam’s shoulder. “That was stupid of me. Look, they’ll find them in the morning, this sort of thing happens all the time around here.”

  Myriam nodded.

  Ramsey asked, “Do you have any idea how those Mexicans knew what your discovery party was up to? Did you tell anyone?”

  Pete groaned and slumped back in the seat. “Julio.”

  “What?”

  “Julio the ring leader. Remember, I said he works for Rosa Cisneros.” Pete slammed his hands against the seat. “I called Rosa the night before. She’s been so excited about the possibility of a diamond mine in the area I couldn’t help telling her.”

  Myriam mumbled, “That explains it.”

  “What?” Ramsey asked.

  “The other day she said there was something she didn’t want to jinx.”

  “Damn, you know what’s really crazy? The Mexicans that jumped us. They swooped down on us when I jokingly said to the merc leader Goren, ‘Damn this’ll make for a 10 carat diamond.’ They must’ve thought they were robbing a jewelry store. There were diamonds in the kimberlite but most were teeny-weeny. Not worth the effort to dig them out. Those Mexican dudes were filling bags full of the stuff.” He snorted derisively. “What fools.”

  Ramsey tapped the steering wheel. “You think Rosa set you up?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Did you find the pipe?”

  “No. I have an idea about that.”

  Ramsey replied. “Not now. When we get to your place. Driving through that snowstorm was exhausting.”

  A few minutes later they reached the turnoff to Pete’s home. Myriam’s phone buzzed. She fished it from her purse. She recognized the Texas area code but not the number. Her hands started to shake. She handed it to Pete. “I can’t . . . what if it’s someone calling to tell me Hiram’s dead?” Tears welled up in the corner of her eyes and she clenched her hands so tightly her knuckles popped.

  Pete swiped the screen. “Myriam St. Eves’ phone.” He listened for a pair of breaths. “She’s right here,” he said. He handed her the phone but Myriam shied away, shaking her head. He smiled broadly. “Good news.” He pressed the loudspeaker icon.

  “Myriam. It’s Hiram.”

  April 1, 2016

  Indianapolis, Indiana

  Sitting in his office at his mega-church, the Reverend Billy Paul looked at the video Greta Van Horn had placed in his Dropbox. He watched the local Taos, New Mexico TV reporter sign off with the hopeful words that everyone was praying for the lost hunting party’s well-being. He felt the knot in his stomach. He was facing total disaster.

  The Reverend Billy Paul had brought a new, simple message to his parishioners. It was the message of the one truth, the truth of the Bible—Jesus is Lord and only through taking Him into your heart as your personal savior could one enter the Kingdom of Heaven.

  Billy Paul’s charismatic style of preaching and his simple practice of faith had found a large audience among those searching for a conservative religious message. His ministry extended beyond national boundaries. Billy Paul became a larger-than-life global preacher, loved and admired by millions worldwide.

  But in addition to his general church, he had set up a secret society—the Brothers of the Lord. Rich people funded this clandestine group, mostly believers from the South but also from everywhere there was discontent with the lax morals and beliefs of ecumenical Christianity. The Brothers of the Lord had been modeled after the Shuilkerken, the clandestine churches of the sixteenth-century Reformation that exercised what was known as exercitium religionis privatum, private religious services. Working in small groups, the Brothers of the Lord had created a secret ministry to battle against those who taught false doctrine and watered down of the Scriptures. But now their super-secret mission to find and stop Adam from becoming the central figure of a new kind of false religion had gone grievously awry.

  Billy Paul watched the video again. His heart began to pound at the thought of his evangelical empire collapsing when news of the attempt to kill Adam Gwillt got out. It will all
come back to me. My fingerprints are all over this effort to kill someone. A sharp pain lanced through his chest. Billy Paul buried his head in his open hands and began to weep.

  April 1, 2016

  Taos, New Mexico

  Beecher bit back a curse. Pain shot from his knee shoot through his entire body. The fall down the granite slab must have actually wrenched something. He tried to ease to a more comfortable position without giving away that he was injured but Conklin was watching him with concern all over his face. “We can rest.”

  Beecher shook his head, eager to get back to civilization. “I’ll be all right. How much farther to the van?”

  “Half mile maybe.”

  Once again Beecher thanked his foresight in bringing the younger man into the situation. Otherwise you’d be freezing your ass off with the South Africans. Earlier the sudden temperature drop had drained much of the desperate energy that propelled his escape from the South Africans. Conklin had met him on the trail with energy bars and water. It occurred to Beecher he knew little about the youngest member of the Brothers of the Lord, yet the man was helping him, and had, in fact, saved his life. “Thanks, Sam,” Beecher said.

  “No problem, Hiram. So what happened back there?”

  He told Conklin about the attack by the Mexicans.

  Conklin whistled tunelessly. “You’re lucky to be alive.”

  “Don’t I know it? But you know what was really weird; that the scientist I hired to investigate the Milagro Shrine, Jonathan Ramsey, showed up with the guy working for DeVere—Pete Miami. It was part of a bigger plan all along. How strange is that?”

  Conklin nodded. “Very”

  They hadn’t gone more than a dozen steps when Beecher staggered against a tree. Conklin grabbed him by the arm. “You okay?”

  Beecher nodded, but his heart was racing. “It just came to me. I knew I had seen the leader of the Mexicans before, the one who went after Dr. Miami. He works at the Rio Chama Café where Myriam and I always eat.”

  “And that means what?”

  Beecher shivered and not from the cold mountain air. “What if the Mexicans are supposed to get rid of everyone connected to the shrine?”