Page 60 of Mastermind

“If the chimps were part of a medical experiment, which ones are the control group, and which ones are the experimental ones?” I wonder aloud.

“What do you mean?”

“Are the chimps we encountered the lucky ones? Or are these?”

I step down from the berm and take a look at the burn pile. There are some file folders, IV bags, and lots of vials. I notice some unusual writing on one of them and reach down for a closer look.

“Step away from there!” shouts a man in accented English.

I turn and see a different general from Phathanothai standing on the berm with a row of armed men. That’s the problem with the Thai military: they give out general stars like midtier colleges hand out honorary degrees.

Chuntakaro confers with the general, then steps down from the hill to explain the situation to Jessica and me.

“He’s with a different division. You are being asked to leave. He says this is an internal matter.”

“Great,” sighs Jessica.

We back away and head to the front to wait for Chuntakaro to try to smooth things over.

Twenty minutes later, he comes walking around the building, shaking his head.

“They want you to leave here now,” he says. “He yelled at me for letting you into the location. I’m sorry, there’s nothing I can do.”

“It’s okay.” I notice a fire truck parked at the outer edge of the parking lot. “Can I go talk to them about how to deal with the bodies in case they have to burn them here? I don’t want anyone getting sick.”

“I can give you my notes,” Jessica says to Chuntakaro.

“That would be helpful,” he replies.

Twenty minutes later, we’re back in our car, and I have questions burning through my mind—plus one literally burning through my pocket that’s too crazy to mention even to Jessica right now.

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

PARALLEL PROCESSING

I’m a difficult guy to like. I have very few friends. If people were pets, some would have to be dogs: everyone likes them. Others, like cats, are a bit of an acquired taste and come with the understanding that it’s going to be a one-way relationship. I think I fall into tarantula territory—interesting to most people at first, but only worth the effort to a select few.

Hailey is one of my friends. She’s put up with almost as much of my insanity as Jillian.

She even tracked me down when I went into my last downward spiral. I was too far gone to explain the method to my madness. Hell, I barely understood it.

She may have forgiven me, but she hasn’t forgotten. I can tell by the way she’s watching me from the other side of the coffee table in the Marriott hotel lobby.

Hailey is in her late twenties and runs one of the most successful mobile video game companies on the planet. I met her while trying to hunt down Forrester, and she’s proved to be instrumental to my work on more than one occasion.

“So . . . I got an interesting voice message a couple of days ago,” she says after we exchange hellos. “Care to elaborate?”

Jessica’s in meetings at FBI headquarters, and I’ve been told to hang out here while I wait to be called in, arrested, or committed. I figured it would be smart to reach out to my one friend in Virginia in case I need help.

“Ah, that. I was in Thailand. We were looking for a group of missing chimpanzees. I needed to fake a phone call so I could copy a suspect’s phone directory.”

“Cool,” she says in that way people younger than me say cool without it actually being cool. “No word from you for six months. Jillian worried that you were dying in some jungle, and this is after you had your psychotic break in Portland?”

“Was it a psychotic break?” I ask. “I mean, I did catch the most prolific serial killer in America.”

“Alleged,” says Hailey. “The trial hasn’t finished yet.”

“You taking demotivational lessons from Mylo? Speaking of which, where is your sidekick?”