Messiahs by Matt Rogers (bookstand for reading txt) 📕

knowing exactly what Pressfield would do.

We’re all human, after all.

Violetta said, ‘Well?’

‘Dextroamphetamine, MDMA, and benzos. Engineered to perfection, he says. The most intense, most lucid high of your life. The sort of thing you could give someone and make them believe anything you say.’

He left it there, letting their imagination do the rest.

‘If they’ve had access to Bodhi for some time,’ King said, ‘and the backing of Walcott’s financial empire from the get go, then there’s no chance they’re still a tiny grassroots movement.’

Violetta said, ‘Which means silence on the Web is far more sinister than it is coincidental.’

Alexis came downstairs and sauntered into the kitchen, coated in a thin sheen of sweat. She’d pulled her hair back in a tight bun, making her jade eyes shine.

She said, ‘What have I missed?’

King said, ‘There’s something brewing in Wyoming, and there’s nothing we can find on it unless we go there.’

Alexis turned to Violetta. ‘You okay with that?’

‘This is bigger than us,’ Violetta said. ‘This is an extremist movement who ordered the gutting of a gangster in public just because they suspected he was linked to Walcott’s demise. If they’re willing to do that, what else are they capable of?’

Slater looked all around. ‘Well, it was good to be home for a few hours…’

15

Violetta had red-eye flights booked within the hour.

From Vegas to Denver International Airport, then a connecting flight to North East Wyoming Regional Airport, which would put them five miles north of Gillette, the closest city to Thunder Basin National Grassland. With a population of twenty-five thousand it was small in contrast to the metropolises of Las Vegas and New York, but big for arid Wyoming.

From there, it would be like trying to win the lottery off a single ticket.

Before they left for the airport, King stood in the estate’s kitchen, mulling over their options. The Walcott fiasco had at least given them some breadcrumbs to follow — they had names, financial records, places to go, people to talk to. Here they had thousands upon thousands of square miles of arid plains, and not a single breadcrumb in sight. Jace had fed them a location, but he’d been right when he told them it wasn’t enough. Thunder Basin National Grassland was impossibly vast and impossibly empty. If there was a cult out there, hiding in the steppe, all they had to do was bury their heads in the dirt when they picked up the scent of outsiders.

No, King thought. We need a way in.

Everyone else was packing — Violetta, Slater, Alexis, all upstairs. King snatched up his phone and called Pressfield.

Pressfield said, ‘What?’

‘Tell me you didn’t destroy that stuff.’

Pressfield sighed for dramatic effect. ‘Make up your damn mind. What — you got nothing to do this weekend?’

King said, ‘Did you destroy it?’

‘It’s here,’ Pressfield said. ‘I was about to.’

‘Sure you were,’ King said. ‘We need it back. It’s crucial evidence. We’ll swing by on our way past.’

‘Your “way past”?’ Pressfield said. ‘Where you headed?’

‘Not your concern, Noah. Get back to your clinic with the vials and we’ll be past in the next hour.’

‘You ask an awful lot of me, you know.’

King hung up. Best to give the doc something to worry about, make him believe his unofficial clients were pissed. It’d add urgency to his actions.

Slater came down the staircase, lugging a duffel bag in tow, a strange look on his face. He’d caught the last snippet of conversation. ‘We’re taking the Bodhi?’

King said, ‘We need it.’

Slater raised his free hand in a Stop gesture. ‘Count me out. I’m not ready for that much of a good time.’

King stared at him. ‘You really think I’d take it?’

‘I don’t know what else you’d need it for.’

‘Have you thought even twenty-four hours ahead?’ King said. ‘What happens when we land in Gillette? Where do we go from there?’

‘One step at a time,’ Slater said. ‘Isn’t that what we always say?’

‘We’ll spend the rest of our lives driving through Thunder Basin. That’s not how we play it. What’s the bet they’ve been using Bodhi to gain influence in all the right places? There has to be people in Gillette hooked on the stuff. If Bodhi really is some rare chemical magic like Pressfield says it is, then we follow that to the source.’

‘You think it’s manufactured in Gillette?’ Slater said. ‘That’s a reach. They could cart it in from anywhere.’

‘That’s not the point.’

‘What’s the point?’

‘Bodhi’s their currency,’ King said. ‘Might be the most addictive currency in history. What could we do with two doses? What would people reveal to us?’

‘We’ll have to be real careful,’ Slater said. ‘You don’t want to offer it to the wrong people.’

‘Then we’ll find the right people. It’s a place to start. You got a better idea?’

Still hovering at the bottom of the staircase, Slater thought it over for all of three seconds. Then he said, ‘Looks like we’re swinging by the clinic.’

Violetta and Alexis were downstairs minutes later, having packed only the essentials, and they all took the same car they’d driven back from the airport. It was a second-hand Toyota they’d picked up from a used car lot months ago, one of the most common makes and models in Nevada. They didn’t draw an iota of attention the whole drive, which was the point.

King went in to get the vial.

The receptionist said, ‘Back so soon?’

King said, ‘I’ll only be a minute. He’s got something for me.’

‘He’s not with a patient,’ she said. ‘Go right in.’

‘Thanks,’ he said, and brushed past the desk.

She said, ‘Hey.’

He turned. Waited a beat, then raised an eyebrow.

She lowered her voice. ‘Want my number?’

She was early twenties and drop-dead gorgeous. Full lips, curly brown hair, and a curvaceous physique. He held her gaze for a moment too long, then said, ‘Wrong timing. You should have caught me at a different phase of my life.’

She used a hand against the side of her face to mask the slightest wink. ‘Settled down, huh?’

‘You’ll do the same someday.’

‘But when that day comes I’ll