Dante’s eyes rolled toward him, but they were slightly out of focus. “It’s so simple. You don’t understand. You’ve misunderstood everything. This isn’t about running poppies from China to the States, it’s not about the movement of capital from one place to another. It’s about the manipulation of everyone and everything.”

The ball of ice in Whitman’s stomach was spinning, growing, threatening to move up into his lungs, block the inhalation of oxygen. “It’s about the creation of a newer, better world.”

Dante’s eyes snapped into focus. “Yes! That’s it exactly!”

Whitman felt the ball of ice uncurl, enter his bones, chilling him to the core. Preach. Those were Preach’s words. Dante was one of Preach’s acolytes.

Dante threw his arms out wide. “This is about the entire world. A shift of monumental proportions never seen before. The fall of one superpower, the rise of another, creating conflict, war, chaos. America falling, China rising. Why? Because then we’ll take Iraq’s oil fields with our enhanced soldiers, we’ll take them away from China, and China will have no choice. They’re energy-hungry. They can’t afford to lose a source of oil. And out of that conflagration will come the creation of a newer, better world.”

“With Preach at its head.”

Dante’s lips pulled back from his teeth and he laughed like a hyena over a dead body until Flix came up behind him and swung the butt of his rifle into his head, and he collapsed, his head canted at an unnatural angle.

“Leave him,” Whitman said, frightened and disgusted in equal measure.

The blown-out tire was changed for the spare, and then it was time to go. Almost. Charlie, standing beside the truck, took out her shoulder launcher, loaded it up.

“No!” el-Habib screamed. “That’s my home!”

“I hate this fucking place!” She pulled the trigger and, with an ear-splitting noise, the villa exploded into an immense fireball. El-Habib broke away from Flix, ran with a staggered gait toward the conflagration. None of them stopped him. No one watched as he vanished into the flames.

Part Four: The Summoning

PART FOUR

THE SUMMONING

You see, a secret is not something untold. It’s something which can’t be told.

–Terence McKenna

Chapter 42

42

Lindstrom was dead. Another pathway cut off, and that was as it should be, Preach thought as he barreled up the interstate in the dead of night. The Alchemists had had no choice but to summon him. Lindstrom had served his purpose. He had created the serum that would speed up the zombification process. Crow had informed him of the serum’s deleterious side effects. No use creating soldiers who ripped their face off. But Preach was altogether certain that using the serum in conjunction with his own process would eliminate the problem while accelerating the creation of the soldiers.