The Adam Enigma (21 page)

April 2, 2016
Taos, New Mexico

R
amsey woke up just where he had fallen asleep, on Pete's couch. He opened his eyes and Pete's wry smile beamed down at him. He held out a cup of steaming coffee. “Get up, old man. I have something to show you. It'll blow your mind.”

Ramsey sat up. Taking the cup of Pete's special home-brewed coffee, he gulped down a large swallow. “I'm getting too old for this shit. Did you sleep at all?”

“Finish your coffee and we'll be off on our morning run.”

Every muscle in Ramsey's body protested at the thought.

“Just kidding. Have any interesting dreams?”

Ramsey searched his memory for a few minutes. “There was something but it's gone.” The coffee was working its magic as the cobwebs lifted. “I see you cleaned yourself up.”

“Of course. You want to hear what I discovered about Adam.”

“I'm off the case, remember? Myriam's old man fired me.”

Pete grinned. “No you're not.”

“Why is that?” Ramsey retorted sarcastically.

“I can see you're not going to let it go. Clean yourself up and I'll show you what this is all about. Remember the shower's down the hall.”

As the hot water raced down Ramsey's body, steam swirled around him, bathing him in a warm fog. It tore away suddenly, like a veil had been lifted. He was transported back to Peru. He was walking in a
rainforest yet at the same time he was looking down at it as though from another and higher world. What he saw dazzled his senses. His heart was beating rapidly and his limbs trembled. The ordinary jungle had turned luminescent; individual trees shone ethereally as if someone had injected phosphorescent particles in the sap; butterflies glowed and shot like meteors through the dense canopy; bird song filled the air with a glorious benediction. Somehow it was more real than anything he had ever experienced. An urge welled up in him to bring this indescribable numinosity into the world. It contained unlimited power. But in the next heartbeat the jungle vanished and a dreamlike vision of Adam and the strange old man from England named Loki appeared, nodding their approval. And just as quickly they melded into a heavy rain that washed away the luminescence until there was only warm water pouring over Ramsey's face. Then the rain ended and his consciousness focused on his hand as he turned off the faucet. The strange experience had been brief but powerful.

Refreshed, Ramsey dressed quickly and went into lab.

“I tell you you're not done at all,” Pete said. “Come over here. Up until now the South Africans have been able to see everything I'm doing with my GIS work. By the way I have a third drone collecting data 24/7 from my research area. Its flight path takes it in a spiral spreading outward, covering northern New Mexico down to Albuquerque every twelve hours. The info has been collected and sent off to South Africa.”

Ramsey looked puzzled. “Why let the South Africans see what you are doing?”

“Why not? They're paying for it all. What they don't know is I've been sharing all the data with a buddy of mine at NCAR in Boulder Colorado.”

The reason hit Ramsey and he smiled. “Of course, for climate research.”

“Naturally.”

“What did you get out of the deal?”

“I get to date his sister whenever I'm in town.”

“What's the real reason?”

“Time on their supercomputer.”

“And the point of all this?”

“They didn't see what I did last night. I used the NCAR computer to do some investigating. Remember, two days ago I showed you how a large number of geophysical fields and forces cohered into one large harmonious field around and over the Milagro Shrine.”

“You said you'd found God.”

“Perhaps a bit overzealous. After what Myriam told us, I thought it was your Adam guy producing it. But it's more like he's a conduit for some sort of power that's organizing those fields. If I were writing science fiction, I would say Adam is a human wormhole to another universe.”

“There is a peripheral theory in human geography that hypothesizes there certain places are transparent to a different kinds of forces.” Ramsey responded.

“Not as trendy as wormholes, but I'll bite.”

“In early Christianity, it was proposed that sacred sites were ‘thin places' wherein the realm of normal appearances becomes transparent to the spiritual reality that lies outside of normal reality. This idea was recently expressed by Christian contemplative Thomas Merton who wrote, ‘We are living in a world that is absolutely transparent, and God is shining through it all the time.'”

“That's some heavy shit.”

“Not as heavy as wormholes.”

Pete nodded. “I suppose. Look, when I refined my analysis of the data I was able to track the movement of what I call the ‘Adam Effect.' Over the five years I have of data, the coherent field strength at the Milagro Shrine fluctuated a bit but stayed within some defined parameters. Except there were two days when the field greatly diminished. The coherence began to break down. Then on the third day everything was back to normal. I think Adam left the site for those two days.”

Ramsey immediately remembered what Grossinger had told him about the time he took Adam to Albuquerque. “Can you tell me when?”

“I could but later. Today, the coherence at the shrine is pretty much gone. It started rapidly destabilizing after the first of the year.” He pointed to a graphic representation of the Adam Effect on one of
the screens. “Look there. Two weeks later in Taos, a coherence field is forming and it stays there gaining greater coherence for nearly a month and then it moves again to where new field coherence emerges right near the famous Catholic El Santuario de Chimayo. Then gone again until ten days ago when a new field starts cohering. Guess where?”

“Right next to the kimberlite site,” said Ramsey excitedly.

“Not too shabby for an old man.” Pete looked at his glass. He sighed. “Times like these, I wish I hadn't given up drinking.”

“I haven't,” Ramsey said grinning. “Got anything that goes with orange juice?”

Pete came back with tequila, gave Ramsey a shot, looked at his own glass and set the bottle aside.

“So Adam was there yesterday,” Ramsey asked.

“I'd put money on that.”

“And now?”

“It was a weak field to begin with and now it's nearly gone.”

“He left?”

“Gone like the wind,” retorted Pete.

“Where did he go? Can you follow him?”

“Unless he stops in an area long enough for a field to start to cohere, I can't say.”

Ramsey added another finger of Tequilla to his glass. “So you think the South Africans know all this?”

“I'm sure they do. I'm remotely using their computer most of the time.

“So they were after Adam and not the diamonds?”

Pete pursed his lips. “My best guess is that they're after both. After all, diamonds are DeVere's biggest source of income.”

Ramsey nodded his head. “Even so, this morning they'll be as much in the dark about Adam's location as we are.”

Pete drummed his fingers on the desktop. He looked at Ramsey out of the corner of his eye and shook his head.

“What?” asked Ramsey?

“Don't know if I should say anything. It could be an error in the data.”

“So tell me and let me decide.”

Pete brought up a different screen showing a map of New Mexico. His house and the shrine were highlighted. Then Miami switched images. Ramsey could see embryonic coherent fields briefly building at both places. Ramsey studied the timecode on the display. His eyes widened as he recognized what it meant. “Is this for real?”

Pete shrugged. “It isn't the Easter bunny.”

“So Adam was near your house a couple of days back and at the shrine a week ago?”

“Appears so, unless there's another explanation.”

Ramsey shook his head. He'd had the experience of the Adam apparition at the shrine the day he first arrived there. Maybe it wasn't an apparition at all.

The search for another explanation would have to wait. Pete's phone buzzed and a text message tweeted: “Missing South Africans found alive. Unrelated Hispanic man found dead.” He showed it to Ramsey. “New game, old man.”

April 2, 2016
Taos, New Mexico

M
yriam walked out onto the chalet's porch that looked out on the ski slopes. Low-lying fog hovered near the piñon pines that lined the five runs. The dark gray envelope of mist suited her mood. She had stormed off the evening before into one of the chalet's guestrooms after Hiram revealed his involvement in the various plots to kill or capture Adam. The revelation had shocked her. At the same time she still longed to find herself in his powerful embrace. As he had told his story, she could see his pain and his hope that she would somehow forgive him. Myriam could also see that he was frightened. That was an emotion she had never seen in Hiram before.

As Myriam stretched, she realized she had hardly slept. Through the night she had played over and over in her mind the many “what-ifs,” trying to make sense of the story she heard from the man that had become more than just a lover. A man who was her best friend.
Can grown men in today's modern world really act this way?
How could Hiram be a part of such ignorance and evil?

Unexpectedly, her attention was drawn inside the chalet where the German caretaker and Conklin gathered around the television. As she approached, Myriam could see a reporter interviewing two men. They were talking about their previous night's ordeal and the dramatic rescue efforts by the local Forest Service rangers. The man spoke with a smooth South African accent. She recognized him immediately. He had come to the Milagro Shrine a couple of months ago. Raphael
Núnez introduced him on a shrine tour. She was amazed at how well he looked even after a sleepless night of fighting the rain and cold.

From behind her a voice boomed through the chalet, “That's Haas.” Everybody turned and looked at Beecher.

P
IETER
H
AAS WALKED
away from the newswoman relieved the interview was over. Skirting the news crew's truck, Greta Van Horn ran up to him and threw her arms around his broad shoulders in a mad embrace. She whispered in his ear, “I know this is embarrassing but play along. They think I'm your wife.”

With the cameras now clearly focused on the couple, Haas smiled and gave a thumbs up. And then the two of them hurried off to the waiting SUV. Once inside the privacy of the vehicle, Greta resumed her normally distant attitude toward the CEO. “Two of the men are in the hospital undergoing tests and observation, and the others are back at the hotel,” she informed him.

“Fill me in,” Haas demanded.

“Everything's under control. We need to get you checked out.”

He waved away her concern.

“How did the forest rangers find us so quickly?”

“I sent them the coordinates of where you were heading.”

“Good thinking. Thank you. Did they find Beecher or Miami?”

“No word on either of them yet.”

“What about Adam?”

“He's gone.”

Haas's eyes narrowed. “Gone where?”

Greta shook her head. “He vanished into thin air.”

Haas slumped in his seat. The news hit him almost as badly as the experience of spending the night outside in northern New Mexico's mountains. “Take me to the hotel,” he said wearily.
I need a long hot shower and some rest
, he told himself.
Then I'll deal with all of this.

Four hours later, looking as if nothing had happened, Haas entered Greta's hotel room. She had improvised a control center to stay in contact with South Africa. She had a cordless headset and was
speaking softly to Dr. Lindstrom on the screen. She clicked off when he came over.

“Well?” he said, sitting in a chair opposite the dark-haired woman.

Neatly prepared as usual, Greta began, “First let me say Goren told me what happened out there. I'm glad you were able to make it out alive. Here's what's new. As you requested, we kept eyes on Miami's house and the chalet where Beecher is staying. He arrived early in the evening at the chalet with somebody we don't know. The report was he looked shaken, walked with a limp, but otherwise was okay. Five hours later Miami, who had a head wound, plus Jonathan Ramsey and Beecher's woman, Myriam St. Eves, showed up at Miami's house. Later the fellow who seems to be helping Beecher picked up Myriam and drove her to the chalet. All rather cozy don't you think?”

Haas shook his head in amazement. “So, Beecher made it out. I can't believe it considering the difficulty we had. It's almost as if there were divine intervention.”

Greta watched her boss who sat looking up at the ceiling as if in prayer. After several seconds she cleared her throat.

Haas smiled. “What happened with Adam?”

“According to Lindstrom it appears Adam started moving about the time you were ambushed by the Mexicans.”

Looking up from her notes, she snapped, “What in the hell was that about?”

Surprised by her uncharacteristic show of emotion, Haas shrugged. “We were sloppy. They must have followed us from the moment we left Taos.”

“Do you think they were there to stop you from finding Adam?”

“The slimy little bastards seemed to be thinking they were going to find a wealth of diamonds.”

“So it was unrelated to the primary mission?”

Haas nodded. “So Adam just disappeared?”

“You remember it's impossible to track Adam when he's moving. So, either he's been on the go for twenty hours or he's left our coverage area.”

“Where does that leave us?”

“Nowhere. But our analysts discovered something interesting. When they were reevaluating the data since Adam's disappearance, there was an interesting spike in the coherence at the shrine eight days ago.”

“How is that possible?”

“The lingering or residual coherence field at the shrine had a spike upward in strength. It turns out that was the day Jonathan Ramsey visited the Milagro Shrine for the first time. Here's what's really interesting. We found what might be a similar weak coherence field two nights ago in the area of Miami's house. Our people think Jonathan Ramsey might have somehow produced it.”

“Christ, where is Ramsey now?”

Greta touched her headset. “Tell me where Ramsey is right now.” She listened, then, “It looks like he, Pete Miami, and Myriam St. Eves are heading back to the shrine. Remember, Miami's car is there.”

“Call Goren. Get us one of those SUVs. I need to get down there.”