“OK.” Adam reluctantly agreed to let Drecker write the reply. “I’ll show you where the message is.”
After Adam had directed Drecker to the correct Reddit forum, Drecker’s face broke out in a grin. There was no doubt in his mind they were communicating directly with Cody; the profile picture Cody had chosen told a thousand words. But he needed to be one hundred percent certain. He needed to choose a meeting place only Cody would know about.
A place that would be suitable for what he was planning.
54
Cody was lying in bed listening out for familiar sounds when he heard Shawna’s cousin open the front door. He immediately knew it was Shawna’s cousin; he recognised the rapid steps, the musty smell of sweat and the soft wheezing from his chest.
“Any news, Guzman?” he asked.
“I bring good and bad news, Master Cody. Which do you prefer first?”
“Bad first.”
“OK. There are rumours that Alejandro is conducting a big purge of the organisation. Several people have gone missing in the last few days.”
“I don’t understand,” Cody said. “Alejandro is a fanatic, but he is also a strategic mastermind. Surely he understands that he can’t do whatever he wants? If he kills people, it will be investigated.”
“It doesn’t seem like he cares, Master Cody. And there is talk about a massive event coming up. People claim that Alejandro will reveal the secrets of the universe at the meeting, that he will reveal the meaning of life itself.”
“That’s crazy,” Cody said. He had spent enough time with Alejandro to understand that he had no intention of revealing the meaning of life at the event. Whatever it was, it would be something terrible. Something horrific.
“So, what’s the good news?” Cody asked.
“The good news is that you have received a reply to your Reddit post.”
“What does it say?” Cody asked.
“I haven’t read it, Master Cody. I assumed it was for your eyes only,” said Guzman, feeling embarrassed for his mistake. He sometimes forgot Cody had no eyes.
“Please read it for me, Guzman.”
“It says:
Remember the place you first felt part of something greater than yourself? We can meet there on the day.
”
Cody’s face broke out in a big grin when he heard the message.
“What does it mean, Master Cody?” Guzman asked. It was the first time he had ever seen Cody smile.
“Everything, Guzman, it means everything.”
Cody raised his body and lifted his feet off the bed. “I need you to do one more thing for me, Guzman. This may sound strange, but I need you to trust me. I need you to convey a message to Alejandro from me.”
“Of course, Master Cody. What is the message?”
“I want you to inform Alejandro that I want a private meeting. I’m offering him Cameron in exchange for my own life.”
Guzman stared at Cody with a confused look. “Are you sure?” he asked.
“I asked you to trust me, Guzman. Trust me, and everything will be OK.”
55
The lieutenant straightened his back before surveying the terrain through his binoculars. When he was satisfied the area was clear, he gave a short wave to the Jeep behind him. The Jeep immediately took off down the hill.
The lieutenant sat down in the car seat and rested. It would take at least fifteen minutes before the Jeep returned. Moving Alejandro was a rigorous exercise. Although Codyism was accepted as a legit religion, and was practised by millions of people around the world, its upper management lived in constant fear of being captured and prosecuted.
And Alejandro was the top target.
It wasn’t just the US Government who was after him. Various Muslim imams had also put a price on his head. They had accused him of blasphemy and issued a fatwa, a holy order to kill him. There was little risk of that happening in Argentina though. Argentina was one of the strongholds of Codyism. Decades of Shamanism had prepared the ground for Alejandro when he launched his religion. Most Argentinians felt proud that they quite possibly had been one of the first populations to understand the power of psychedelics, and how the use of psychedelics enabled one to connect to the wider universe.
The lieutenant had known Codyism was the religion for him the instant he had heard the first reports of Cody’s miracles. He had been unemployed, living on scraps, when a friend had shown him a video on YouTube.
The video had opened the lieutenant’s eyes.
He had been tired of feeling like a failure. For years he had attempted to carve out a career in advertising, but nobody had given him a proper chance. They had all claimed he lacked creativity; that he copied instead of creating original content. Well fuck them. He had hated the competitiveness of the advertising world; it was a dog eat dog world where one could go from being famous and respected one day to unemployed and shunned the next. He had been at rock bottom when he had found Codyism. Codyism had given him a sense of purpose, a sense of belonging. And the other followers weren’t like the extremists of Islam; they weren’t petty criminals looking for ways to live out their violent fantasies or abuse women, and they weren’t like boring Christians attempting to uphold ancient dogmas. Instead they were young enthusiastic men and women from all walks of life. All they had in common was the undying hope of a better afterlife.
Codyism provided them exactly that.
Codyism had saved the lieutenant’s life. It had given him something to live for.
Made him whole, complete.
He would forever be indebted to Codyism for that.
“What is the holdup?” Alejandro asked from the back seat.
“We’re just making sure the road is safe. We’ll be on the move again shortly.”
Alejandro shook his head. Checking the road was safe. What was the point? Of course it was safe. Alejandro had spoken to God. He had been personally instructed by God to fulfil his wishes. Of course the road was safe. Nothing could stop Alejandro on his mission. It was destined to happen. It was unavoidable.
“If you could ask me any question, any question at all, what would your question be?” Alejandro asked the lieutenant.
The lieutenant hesitated. He wasn’t sure how to respond, what the proper response to a holy man was.
“Don’t worry. There are no wrong questions,” Alejandro comforted him.
The lieutenant straightened his back before turning to face Alejandro in the back seat. “I would ask how it was to be dead,” he said.
“Is that your question?” Alejandro asked.
The lieutenant nodded.
“It was marvellous. If humans knew what was waiting for them, they wouldn’t want to live for another single second. They would all instantly kill themselves,” Alejandro answered, peering out of the window at the valley below.
56
“It’s the one at the end of the street,” Dr Drecker said.
Adam raised his binoculars. The blue one, with a white picket fence?”
“That’s the one.”
“It doesn’t look like anyone lives there. There is a ‘for sale’ sign out in the garden.”
“Hmf. That figures. Given Cody and I are officially dead, my ex-wife would have inherited all my assets – which is basically that house. And now she’s getting rid of it. Bitch.”
“OK. This is how we’re going to do this: Most likely MKULTRA has no idea you’re up and going, but we’ll play it safe anyway. It will be dark in thirty minutes. I’ll head down the street by foot, and enter the third house after yours. Then I’ll make my way back to your house through the gardens. You’ve told me where you hid the DMT, so if it’s still there I’ll find it. Now, is there anything else I should be aware of about the property?”
Dr Drecker shook his head, before stopping. “Come to think of it: There is one more thing in the freezer. It’s a white rectangular paper pack, and it’s labelled ‘fish’.”
“Fish? What’s inside it?” Adam asked.
“Just some notes I took from Dr Kovacks’ apartment. They’re probably not important, but you might as well pick them up when you’re there.”
“I’ll have a look for them. But I seriously doubt we’ll find anything. If your ex-wife is selling the house she would have cleaned out the freezer by now.”
Dr Drecker laughed. “You obviously don’t know my ex-wife. In the twenty years I was married to her, I never once saw her do housework. Unless MKULTRA has found it, it will be there.”
“I can go,” Hugo offered.
Adam shook his head. “I’ll go. It’s about time I put myself on the line.”
“But they don’t know me. I’m the only one they don’t know.”
“They do know you, Hugo. There were plenty of cameras around when we got Martin out of the hospital. For better or worse, you’re stuck with us now.”
Forty-five minutes later Adam was approaching Dr Drecker’s old weather-worn summer house from the street. Most of the houses looked empty. Perhaps it was because the weekend was still a few days away, he mused. The street was filled with typical weekend houses, houses he could imagine being filled up by rich New York Frat kids during the warm summer weekends. Dr Drecker’s house stood out though. It wasn’t just that it looked like the cheapest house on the street; it didn’t look like it belonged at all. The garden was unkempt, and the paint had started to come off the walls. It looked more like a tear-downer than the summer house Dr Drecker had bragged about in the car on the way there.
Adam walked straight past Dr Drecker’s house and entered the garden of the house three doors farther down. Well inside the garden, he proceeded straight through to the back yard. There he climbed the fence and proceeded until he found himself in Dr Drecker’s overgrown garden. It was a good thing they had decided to go there on a Wednesday. The street was quiet and most neighbouring houses appeared empty.
Adam didn’t even have to pick the lock of Dr Drecker’s house. He found the spare key just where Drecker had told him it would be.
Safely inside the house he turned on his flashlight, making sure that he kept the light beam low against the floor so it wouldn’t be visible from the street. He proceeded straight to the laundry room, where Drecker had told him the spare freezer would be located. It was a 30-litre one; small and practical. He lifted the lid and couldn’t resist smiling when he realised that it appeared untouched from when Dr Drecker had been there last. The rectangular shaped packet, marked
fish
, was stuffed next to a bag of French fries, just as Dr Drecker had remembered. Adam picked it up and placed it in his black backpack.
He then carefully lifted the bag of French fries to the side and found the set of colourful icy pole moulds Dr Drecker had said would be located on the bottom of the freezer. He unpacked the freezer bag he had brought and placed the icy pole set, along with some freeze elements, inside his backpack. He zipped it up and prepared to leave.
Thump.
Adam froze.
Had he just heard someone at the door?
The MKULTRA agent was sitting in the attic of the house directly opposite Dr Drecker’s. He had just set all his equipment to night vision, and he had definitely seen movement inside Dr Drecker’s summer house.
“They’re here,” he reported calmly into his mouthpiece.
“Who is it? Can you confirm identities?”
“Negative. My best guess is that it is Adam Mullins. But he was dressed in an all-black outfit, and I couldn’t get a clear view of his face when he passed the house.”
“OK. Continue to observe only, and update me if the situation changes. I’ll initiate the operation from here,” James Carter said, before hanging up. He took a deep breath of relief, and was glad he had listened to his own gut-feel. Cameron had most likely acquired the same abilities as Cody, and Carter now had to assume that Dr Drecker was up and going again. There could be no other reason for Adam Mullins to seek out Dr Drecker’s old summer house. James Carter’s team of agents had of course found Dr Drecker’s hidden stash of DMT and Dr Kovacks’ notebook several years ago. Luckily they had also been very meticulous and recorded the scene before removing any items. James Carter had thus been able to recreate Dr Drecker’s packaging. Dr Drecker might think he would soon have his hands on his old stash of DMT, but in reality it was just poison. Technicians from MKULTRA had managed to insert a high-tech microchip inside the leather cover of Dr Kovacks’ notebook as well. If Dr Drecker held on to it, something James Carter had no doubt he would, then MKULTRA would know, down to almost an inch, where Drecker, Adam and Cameron were at all times.
It would be easy, and very tempting, to take them out straightaway. And Carter had to admit the thought had crossed his mind. But circumstances had changed dramatically in the last twenty-four hours.
It was as if God finally had decided to provide some assistance to James Carter and his team. The South American office had been able to intercept two messages in a short space of time.
One had been an exchange between Adam and Cody, who had reportedly broken out from his fanatical movement and was now on the run from his second in command Alejandro Vasques. In the communication, Cody had proposed to meet up somewhere in Argentina. And surprisingly enough Adam had accepted.
Then, unbeknownst to Adam, Cody had turned around and offered Cameron and Adam to Alejandro, in exchange for letting Cody and his father go.
It was all almost too good to be true. God had intervened and was now offering the greatest enemies of America and Christianity on a silver platter.
Instead of killing Cameron and Cody, Carter would be patient. He would let the lambs lead him to the slaughter - because that was what Alejandro was planning, a massive slaughter. And who was Carter to stop something as magnificent as that from happening?
He laughed.
Adam let out a breath. It had just been the back door. It must have been left ajar, he thought as he grabbed the backpack and made for the door.
The exit went as smoothly as the entry. There was not a living soul to be seen in the street, and he could probably have saved himself the trouble of backtracking the same way he entered. But Adam liked to do things properly.