The Adam Enigma (18 page)

“Are your men prepared for this?” he whispered.

Haas nodded. “They're the best mercenaries in the business. Saw action in Mali with the rebels fighting the French. Goren did three tours in Basra, Iraq as part of the British Expeditionary Force.”

Two more shots came from the trail where Goren and his men had followed Pete to the kimberlite location. Beecher squinted against the westering sun, looking for some sign of intruders. The bolt action
of hunting rifle sliding a cartridge home ripped through the small clearing. Beecher didn't move. The noise was deliberate. He glanced at Haas who'd heard it also. Instinctively both men slowly raised their hands in the air, pistols dangling from their index fingers. They turned and looked into the barrels of two rifles pointed directly at their hearts. The larger of the two Hispanic men gestured for them to put their guns on the ground. Beecher and Haas complied.

They were zip tied with their hands behind their backs and put in the center of the clearing. When Beecher opened his mouth to ask what was going on, one of the men said, “No talking Americano.”

Ten minutes later Pete and the four South African mercenaries marched into camp covered by six more Hispanic men, all carrying rifles. One of Goren's men had his arm in a makeshift sling.

Haas's eyes narrowed and he asked Pete, “Did you find the pipe?”

The Hispanic leader shouted, “Shut up!” He unfolded a large sack and his men put cell phones, sat phones, food, and water inside. Watches and jewelry followed. The team's weapons were slung on their persons.

Pete stole a glance at Haas and shook his head negatively. He looked at the Hispanic men and froze. He vaguely remembered the smallest one.
He worked in the kitchen at Rosa Cisneros' café
.
What if he remembers me?

The leader of the Hispanics looked to the small man and said in Spanish, “Julio what should we do now?”

“Go crazy like I said.”

Pete tensed, his high school Spanish still good enough to translate.
Crazy could mean anything
.

Immediately the leader began strutting around the makeshift camp waving his rifle in the air and cursing at Haas's party. “Bastardos. . . . You think you can come up into our mountains and take what doesn't belong to you? You're gonna pay a price for trespassing.”

The other Hispanic men were busy gathering the backpacks and the rest of the gear, while handcuffing each of the commandos with plastic zip ties. They were well-organized and prepared. In all the commotion they seemed to forget about Pete. He gradually slid towards the edge of the group. For a moment when all eyes were on
the ranting leader, he dove down the side of the hill. Tumbling and spinning around the piñon pines and scrub brush, he finally landed in a heap at the bottom.

From all of the yelling at the top of the hill, Pete was able to make out that Julio had told the others he recognized him. He heard the man shout, “I'm going after him. Do what we planned.”

Pete scrambled to his feet and took off running, dodging between trees and sliding around boulders, guided only by the fear that he had to put as much distance between his pursuer and himself as he could or he was going to end up dead. Branches whipped across his eyes, momentarily blinding him. Roots and rocks grabbed at his ankles. Miraculously he stayed upright. He rounded a large outcropping of rock and shot along a narrow ridge toward a pass maybe a mile in the distance. Once he reached the other side of the mountain he convinced himself he would be safe. The area was more heavily forested and easier to get lost in.

He doubled his speed, though he knew he couldn't hold on for much longer. He just needed as much distance as he could get. Maybe the man would become disheartened and give up.

Pete had gone nearly a mile at top speed. Sharp pains laced his lungs with every breath. He slowed momentarily and a rifle shot echoed through the late afternoon. A branch above is head splintered.

He redoubled his pace heedless of where he was going. Rounding a large boulder on the narrow trail, he came to a skidding halt. A sheer cliff face plunged hundreds of feet to a shallow stream. The other side was nearly thirty feet across. There was no way to jump and the only way out was back the way he came.

Cursing his luck, Pete knew he had to chance it. He eased around the boulder, hoping to catch sight of his pursuer, something that could tell him if he had a chance. A gun blast and the rock splintered by his head. A chip slammed into his temple and he fell backward, cracking his head on the ground. Stunned, he tried to move but his legs wouldn't respond. He had to get out of there. He tried to get up but all he could make were little scrabbling motions with his hands. His vision cleared and a shadow fell across him.

Julio pointed his rifle at his chest. “I'm sorry, man. But I can't let you live. You know too much.”

Pete said the first thing that came to his mind. “You think Rosa would want you to do this?”

The man smiled, his teeth crooked and yellow stained. “She will not care, I can assure you.” Pete winced as a stubby thick finger closed on the trigger. Then his dread turned to fascination as a feathered shaft blossomed in the man's chest. The Hispanic swiped at it and another arrow caught the hand, pinning it like a butterfly beside the first arrow. Julio stumbled forward, fell to his knees and keeled over. He lay still.

Pete tried to get his feet under him but his legs still didn't work. He put a hand to his head and felt a deep gash there.
I'm seriously hurt,
he thought with a dispassion he didn't know he possessed. It was like observing a dying rabbit—only he was the rabbit. He was amazed he could be so nonchalant.

Another shadow fell across him. The figure was backlit and it was hard to make out. The man wore a feathered headdress and a breechclout and carried a bow with a quiver of arrows on his back. His skin was red-bronzed by the sun. He knelt beside Pete and smiled. “Today is not your day to die.”

The Indian went to Julio who lay on his back, breathing in shallow gasps.

Julio's vision was blurring. He knew he was dying and it filled him with such fear he cried out for his mother. Blood foamed at his mouth. Then a shadow swarmed in front of him, solidified, and appeared to him as a black-garbed priest. He recognized the face of Father Michael from the Rio Chama de Milagro Shrine. He reached out with a hand and grasped the crucifix Father Michael dangled before him. His courage welled up. Though his life was over, he knew his soul could be saved. “Father, forgive me, I have sinned,” he rasped.

“Do you admit freely of your wrong doings, my son?”

The dying man nodded.

The priest intoned the Penance. “God the Father of mercies, through the death and resurrection of his Son, has reconciled the world to himself and sent the Holy Spirit among us for the forgiveness
of sins; through the ministry of the Church may God give you pardon and peace, and I absolve you from your sins in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.”

Julio's hands squeezed the cross once then collapsed on the rocks.

Pete watched the Indian close the man's eyes and whisper, “All will be forgiven, my son.” Then the newcomer slung his bow across his back and walked to him. “Who are you?” he managed to say, though the pain in his head was excruciating.

“I'm your ticket out of here.”

He started to go and Pete grabbed his leg. The Indian gently unclenched the fingers. “I'll be back. I have an ATV at the top of the mountain. I have to make a stretcher. I don't fancy carrying you, it could end up killing us both.”

Pete said, “What's your name?”

The Indian smiled. “That one called me father, I guided him across the threshold.”

March 31, 2016
Rio Chama, New Mexico

T
he concern over the truckload of Hispanic toughs following Pete and the diamond hunters drifted away as Ramsey became mesmerized by the sun glinting in and out of the pines on his way to Rio Chama. It took him into a state of contemplation. He held the belief that sacred places arose out of some singular magical event, real or imagined, occurring at a particular place within a given culture. From that moment on people in that culture made the place sacred. They built shrines, pilgrimaged there, and connected with the presence of a higher power there. It became a gateway to fulfilling the hardwired drive in all humans for self-transcendence.

His thoughts drifted back to the University of Oregon and his talk with Myriam St. Eves when he first arrived.

He and half dozen other postdocs, including Pete Miami, had met at Eugene's Twisted Branch Tavern, a local brewery. Myriam held informal seminars here, where postdocs and graduate students talked about their theses and research plans. After a few rounds, the ideas flew thick and fast and no one could separate the chaff from the wheat.

Holding a St. Pauli Girl in one hand as a microphone, Ramsey harangued Myriam and the other postdocs with a certain religious fervor, aided by the alcohol, about an idea of his that he had formulated when he first started taking classes with Professor Orensen at Grinnell College. “The Protestant Reformation and its rejection of the trappings
of the Catholic Church freed people to take their religion and God wherever they went. No longer attached to the old sacred shrines and pilgrimages, they could build churches anywhere and everywhere, creating sacred places out of whole cloth. I, Jonathan Ramsey, propose to revolutionize the understanding of America's dramatic success by what I am calling the ‘Sacred Place Hypothesis.'”

Of course, all of that had happened before the Peru incident.

In the past week, with his investigation of the Milagro Shrine, those ideas took center stage once again in his thoughts. Now, while driving to the Rio Chama de Milagro Shrine, he had to rethink what they represented. How could the presence of a single living person, in this case Adam Gwillt, be responsible for so many miraculous healings and change the underlying physical structure of a place? It was mind-boggling.
What am I missing?
It was a refrain that had been with Ramsey since he first set foot on the shrine. Then it came to him.
I need to find Adam Gwillt. Christ, perhaps my whole life has been about finding Adam.

A deep pothole in the road shook him out of his reverie. He glanced at the road sign. He was entering Rio Chama.
Has my life been headed down the wrong path since Peru?
He shook his head.
Maybe. Maybe it's always been about answering the question as to whether there is a supernatural power behind sacred places? Maybe after fifteen years Adam represents the opportunity to resolve it once and for all
.

Filled with a new sense of purpose, he began to formulate some questions for Myriam.
That'll be the place to start
.

Myriam could not meet until mid-afternoon. Sitting at an out-of-the-way table in the Café Rio, Ramsey caught up on business. He sent several texts to his business partner Ron Grange about an upcoming meeting at Blue Island, Illinois. The project was standard fare for their company—revitalizing a decaying urban neighborhood. They'd handled a dozen such ventures and pretty much had it down to a science.

It was late in the afternoon when Myriam arrived. He watched her get out of her car and walk into the café. She limped slightly, favoring
her right leg. She joined him and waited for Ramsey to speak. Instead, he reached into his suit-coat pocket and pulled out a battered Ronson lighter and a half crumpled pack of cigarettes. He started to light up when Rosa came over. The restaurant owner was very apologetic but firm. “You can't smoke in here. You'll have to go outside.”

Ramsey nodded and reluctantly put the cigarettes back in his coat pocket. He drummed the tabletop with the lighter.

Myriam smiled. “What's going on?”

“What do you mean?”

She pointed at the lighter. “As a post doc you always smoked when you became totally absorbed in what you were doing . . . especially when something didn't sit well.”

“Old habits,” Ramsey muttered. He hadn't smoked in six years. “I need the truth from you. You remember Pete Miami? It turns out he's been doing some cutting edge research over the past five years looking for kimberlite pipes in this area. He operates out of Taos.”

“I had no idea.”

“I asked him to look at the shrine with his sophisticated GIS equipment. It revealed some pretty amazing energy coherences associated the shrine that I now believe are connected to Adam Gwillt.”

Myriam looked around to see if anybody was listening. “I believe the same thing.”

Ramsey was just about to ask Myriam about Hiram Beecher when his phone buzzed. “I should take this.” He picked up and after a few words felt the color drained from his face. Hanging up, he said to Myriam, “That was an emergency doctor in Española. Somebody dropped Pete off at the hospital and told them to call my number. He's been shot.”

“Is it serious?”

“The caller didn't say.” He hesitated wondering if he should tell Myriam that the last time he saw Pete was with Hiram. He decided not to complicate matters. “I have to go.”

Myriam pushed away from the table. “I'll drive.”

Rosa came over. “Someone's been shot?”

Ramsey nodded. “I think you know him. Pete Miami from Taos.”

Her eyes went wide. “Oh no!”

Ramsey looked at her. The worry on her face was more than simply for an injured acquaintance, but he didn't have time to ask her about that. Myriam was already rushing out of the restaurant and Pete needed him.