The Adam Enigma (13 page)

“It's in my luggage.” He picked up the handheld device. It weighed less than a pound. He chuckled. “And I thought James Bond had all the great toys. He sobered. “You expecting trouble?”

Beecher shrugged. “I don't know what to expect, so I thought I should be prepared.”

Beecher started the SUV and drove away. He turned onto the road leading to Taos. Here, Highway 64 ran straight as an arrow and in the late afternoon was clear of any cars. He put the cruise control at 85 and drove easily with one hand on the steering wheel. He liked the feeling of a fast car, the way it knifed through the air. It helped him relax, and relaxing was something he needed to do right now.

The Taos city limits soon loomed ahead. Beecher tapped his brakes and slowed way down. The car rental agent had warned him the sheriff had a speed trap here. By the time he passed the deputy's car, he was five miles an hour under the speed limit. He waved cheerfully. The young man waved back. He passed the famous Indian Pueblo where Native Americans lived as they had for the past thousand years. Unlike the shrine, it was closed off, hard to get into unless you knew someone who lived there. He pulled into the Wired Cyber Café on Felicidad Lane, just off Paseo Del Pueblo Norte, the main road running through town. The Reverend Billy Paul had told him to wait in Taos for a tall man with pale blue eyes who would give him instructions.

Beecher went inside and took a table near the back where he had a clear view of the parking lot and the front door. He ordered a Grande Americano. Pulling his phone from his shirt pocket, he laid it on the table and waited. In his coat pocket he felt the outline of a Glock Seventeen 9mm.

A few months ago he had been a devout follower of the Bothers of the Lord. “A true believer,” Reverend Billy Paul had called him. At that time he would have gladly followed the order to end Adam Gwillt. But now, he didn't know any more. What was it Caine said to him after their encounter at Oilcan Harry's?
You're free
.

You're free all right, old buddy
, Beecher told himself.
But you no longer know which way the wind is blowing
. He squeezed into the corner a little more so no one from the road could see him. It was like being
back in Vietnam and setting up an ambush on the trail. His senses were honed, listening for even the slightest sound or movement to tell him which way to jump.
But which way will I jump? That's the question
.

March 30, 2016
Taos, New Mexico

P
ete Miami was the only redheaded friend Ramsey had ever had. He was a tall, lanky bundle of brains. Einstein on steroids, Paige had called him. He played the bongo drums and the bass, wrote music, and could do cube roots in his head. They'd met as postdocs studying under Myriam at the University of Oregon and it was deep fellowship at first sight. They became inseparable except when either of them was on what they euphemistically called a “mission.” It was a kind of code they used when either of them was busy with something special. For Ramsey it was whenever Paige came for a visit. For Pete it was usually an all-nighter at the lab with a gallon of ninety-proof coffee and an idea that just wouldn't go away until he'd hammered it to death or the coffee ran out. More often than not the idea gave up its secrets long before the coffee was finished.

As Ramsey walked out of the terminal, Pete rushed up, still puppy-like though older, beard now tinged with gray, long hair still in a pony tail—but now much longer than during his Oregon days. His green eyes twinkled with merriment. He didn't offer to take the bag or ask about the flight. He started right in. “Don't know the fuck whether to thank you or shoot you, Jon.”

“Good to see you too, Pete,” Ramsey said and held out his hand.

Pete grasped it belatedly as though it were something he was supposed to shake and not quite knowing what to do with it when the pleasantries were over.

“It was three gallons of coffee before your shrine gave up the ghost, so to speak.” He laughed. “More on that later. You've got to see this first.”

He led Ramsey out of the building to the parking lot and stopped, his arms raised like a magician. “Ta da!”

Parked across three spaces was 1958 Nash Rambler, robin's-egg-blue with purple seats. “Ain't she beautiful? I call her Nellie Bell. I lost my cherry in one when I was eleven. It was with Pandora Krakauer.” He winked and unlocked the passenger door. It opened silently and closed with a soft click. He turned the key and the engine purred like a Bentley.

“Got her for a steal from an old lady who worked for Georgia O'Keefe, true story. Only used it to buy groceries on Sunday.”

“No church?” Ramsey asked.

Pete looked at him sideways. “In this part of New Mexico, church is wherever you look.”

“So, what did you find?”

“That can wait. What I've got to show you is more important.” Pete swung onto Highway 64 and from there onto a dirt road that wound through the hills above Taos. The afternoon was waning and as they climbed, the sun seemed to perch perpetually on the western mountains. At the top of one of the hills, Pete pulled into a ramshackle cabin that was as dilapidated as the car was immaculate. He hustled Ramsey out of the car, through the house, and onto the back deck. The San de Cristo Mountains had to begun to eat into the reddening disk of the sun, a snow-glistened peak limned with dark shadows showing its notches and ridges exquisitely like a Japanese painting. This time Pete didn't say anything. He just soaked in the view.

Ramsey stood beside him. The muscles of his jaw worked but nothing came out.

Pete glanced at him. A big smile creased his face. “I used to think this was as close to God a person could get.” He winked.

Ramsey waited, knowing that Pete would tell him what he meant in his own sweet time. “What's for dinner?”

“Margaritas, some kickass chili this
mamacita
in Rio Chama makes, and fresh-baked tortillas.”

The food was everything Pete said it was. By the time they finished, the sun had set and twilight was a dim purple line across the mountains. They'd caught up, each suitably oohing and aahing in all the right places as they told stories since the last get-together in China. Ramsey was impatient to get on with Pete's “discovery of God,” but knew better than to rush him. Once during a conversation with Ramsey in Oregon, Pete had talked through two traffic light cycles while cars honked and steered around him. Then he waited yet again and went through on the yellow. “Everyone's in such a damn hurry,” he'd muttered.

At last dinner was complete. Pete pulled out a pair of Cubans, passing one over. Ramsey held his breath. Pete had always celebrated a breakthrough with a good meal and a terrific breakthrough with a cigar. A meal and a cigar together meant something spectacular. He smiled and blew a smoke ring.

“Now,” Pete said simply. He got up and led Ramsey to the other side of the house. It looked out over a canyon. The lights of Taos were far in the distance. Pete opened the door to the garage and flicked on the light switch.

Ramsey couldn't stop the gasp. The room was wall-to-wall ultra-high definition plasma screens. He learned from Pete that each one was linked by satellite to the most powerful high-speed computer in the world, a Chinese Milky Way-2. It was housed in South Africa.

“Why South Africa?”

Pete grinned. “The DeVere Mining Group hired yours truly. They store the data on on their banks of servers and I get to use the speed of their supercomputer to test my hypotheses I'm working with this Danish guy, Lindstrom. Smart fellow. Nowadays I often have him confirm some of my calculations. Of course, I never show him everything.”

The screens showed northern New Mexico in various geographical modes. One laid out the primary topography. Others displayed multidimensional Geographic Information Systems modeling representations. What it all meant was way beyond Ramsey's ability to understand. Pete sat in a chair that looked more like a pilot's seat on
an F-15 fighter. There was another one next to it. Pointing to it, Pete said, “Buckle up.”

When Ramsey was situated, Pete pressed a couple of panels. The screens in front of them went dark, then flickered to life. “You remember how to play Aviator?” As a post-doc Pete had worked on the graphics for a flight simulator for the U.S Navy and had pirated the finished product. He didn't wait for an answer.

All of a sudden Ramsey heard a low whoosh and then the screen in front of him took on a greenish tinge. Coming quickly in to view was a large expanse of New Mexico landscape, now flowing toward and then beneath him.

“You're active, old man.”

Ramsey grabbed the joystick in front of him. The remote-controlled drone screamed into a steep dive. “Is this real?” he exclaimed.

“You bet. Steady there,” Pete cautioned, though he made no move for the controls. “You're flying the latest, industrial-grade drone available with high-definition night cameras. I have two at my disposal. Remember how we used to use helicopters and planes to do our GIS data gathering. Now we use these babies. They can go everywhere, hover over one place for hours, and carry loads of instruments. They are the best tools we geographers have ever had.”

Ramsey eased back and the drone leveled off. He hadn't played video games since Oregon, but the reflexes came back quickly. Soon he was piloting his bird across the night sky.

“Not bad, old man. We'll make a flyboy out of you yet.” Pete clapped him on the back. “I'm plugging in some coordinates. Enjoy the ride.”

“What's the range on these babies?” asked Ramsey.

“At night, a hundred miles out and back . . . about four hours. During the day, photovoltaics in the wings can keep them aloft for twelve hours.”

“So this is the big surprise?” Ramsey asked, feeling let down.

“Not even close.” Ramsey flew in silence for a few more minutes.

“There!” Pete exclaimed. He stabbed a slim index finger at the right-hand bottom of the screen. His other hand pushed a red button on the left hand side of Ramsey's console. The camera image steadied
and zoomed in on the ground. The outline of the small Christ Chapel at the Rio Chama Milagro Shrine came into view. Pete fine-tuned the image so the entire shrine was visible. “Hover mode,” he explained.

Ramsey was blown away. Pete reached over and pushed two buttons. “They'll come home on their own now.”

Pete pulled out a blue tooth keyboard and typed “execute.” A new image appeared. Ramsey knew it was interlocking wave patterns that resolved into patterns looking similar to field distortions he had seen during explanations of Einstein's relativity, but he couldn't say what they really were. He squinted at the screen. “What am I seeing? None of this looks familiar.”

“Old man, since you first looked for physical explanations of the planet's sacred sites, GIS has changed completely how we look at our beautiful home. I can find any number of geophysical fields around a gnat's ass from 2,000 feet away if I thought it might prove useful. More importantly, I have figured out how to detect fingerprint-like electromagnetic radiation from the micro-fractures of the earth's materials.”

“The Earth's crust is under constant pressure, as I recall. Shifting, moving . . . continuous micro-earthquakes.”

“Bingo. Therefore, the rock types in various regions generate their own magnetic and electromagnetic fields.” He pointed at the screen. “Among other things, our Chinese computer in South Africa has been keeping a record of all my collected data. This means that I can put together a portrait over time of any area I've been gathering data on and see it in a way we could never see before. It tells me a story of what has happened there, geologically and environmentally. I can use that to find mineral deposits, coal, changing water flow patterns, vegetation shifts, human produced developments . . . whatever you want.”

“Diamond pipes containing kimberlites?” Ramsey asked. He remembered that diamond pipes were an extremely rare geological phenomenon—volcanic extrusions from the deepest part of the Earth's core. Small in size, these tiny volcanoes brought to the surface of the earth already formed diamonds. The only known diamond pipes in the United States were a commercial venture in Arkansas and the
now defunct Kelsey Lake Diamond Mine near Fort Collins, Colorado. Their rarity and small size made them almost impossible to find.

Pete grinned. “Particularly kimberlites.”

Ramsey shot him a questioning look.

“And yes, I have, at least I believe I have. The next step is to field-verify. The big shots from South Africa's DeVere diamond cartel are here and we're going to take a look tomorrow.”

“All this begs the question: What about my ‘God'?”

“Here's what I'd found when I put together a time-based representation of your coordinates over the last five years I've been collecting data.” Pete's fingers few over the keyboard and graphic representations began to unfold on both screens.

Ramsey's jaw dropped when the image appeared. The screen depicted an amazing warping of overlapping field-lines. It reminded Ramsey of artist renderings of objects warping space around a planet. As he watched, it configured itself into an amoeba-like structure that pulsed and changed color and shape, growing in intensity over time, then disappearing to a small afterglow of its original form.

“What we have here is the interaction of normally unconnected random electromagnetic and magnetic fields that over time produce a single remarkable coherence pattern. At first I could see there was something strange going on around the shrine, but it wasn't until yesterday that I was able to—through some brilliant mathematical manipulations that I put together, I might add—explain what you just saw.”

Ramsey remembered the classic example his physics professor had used during his grad studies at UCLA to explain field coherence. The professor had started a digital recorder, then instructed the audience to plug their ears and sing
Amazing Grace
whenever the mood struck them. After a few minutes he had the students unplug their ears and continue singing before being told to stop. The instructor then played back what happened. The group result of everybody singing on their own was totally discordant, in fact, painful to listen to. Yet when the audience unplugged their ears, almost instantly people began to pick up on each other's singing. Very quickly they naturally self-organized themselves into a beautifully harmonic choir. The audience had
cohered into a temporary ‘field' of a higher order, existing only as long as the singing occurred.

Ramsey could see what Pete was driving at but he was almost afraid to ask. Swallowing he said, “What does that mean for the shrine?”

“Welcome to God's abode, old man . . . or at least the most advanced GIS depiction of your shrine possible.”

Ramsey was at a loss for words. Everything he had searched for twelve years was now right in front of him, lighting up the screen like a neon sign advertising “God” or some sort of transcendent force. “H–how?” he managed to ask, his excitement soaring.

“Somehow all the electromagnetic radiation, magnetic fields, and even the bio-energetic fields at the shrine have coalesced into a coherent structure. What did it, I can't say, but this is its manifestation. I suspect that if you had been there before it collapsed you might have felt something like the pleasure of listening to the Mormon Tabernacle Choir . . . or the New York Philharmonic . . . or songs of humpback whales, only magnified a thousand times. This massive coherence of nature certainly would affect each and every person's bioenergetic fields in its presence. It would be like being in the presence of God. Just joking of course, since I don't know really knows what that would be like. If the people inside the cohered field were aware of it, I can't say.” He rubbed his chin. “Damn, I wish I had been there.”