As Dr. William narrated what had truly happened in the Indian Ocean, the demon hunters suddenly realized they already knew fragments of the story.

“Yes,” Mark said, “I remember the statements made by the CEO of that Millennium company, and how the whole thing made worldwide headlines. But I don’t recall the scandal ever being exposed. I never heard anything about him confessing or being punished.”

“The reason you didn’t,” William replied, “is because the majority of the global media is controlled by those who ideologically favor evolution. They manipulate the stories they want amplified, and censor the stories they want silenced. It’s all about narrative control.

But this doesn’t necessarily mean they supported the fabrication of fossils, or that they personally engaged in criminal activity. Linking them directly to that shadowy organization would be unfair.”

Süleyman cut in, impatient.

“You said the CEO met his ‘patron’ on a ship. Where was this ship? What did the man look like? You could’ve at least given us those details.”

William shook his head.

“He was blindfolded when he landed on the ship. He was taken into a dark, underground chamber. He never saw the patron’s face—only heard his voice. The only person he could actually see was masked.”

Süleyman scoffed, glancing at Mark.

“These guys… what kind of wisdom is this, what kind of encrypted lunacy?”

Then, with a slow grin, he added,

“Actually, there’s a reason I asked.”

“You don’t need to whisper. It’s obvious Dr. William isn’t guilty.”
“But he just said he never met Aros or Leheb. The clinic footage says otherwise—both of them were examined by him.”

“I told you I never performed surgery on their amygdalas. And if I had, I would certainly remember. I examine dozens, maybe hundreds of patients every day. How am I supposed to remember someone who just walks in with a basic headache? A case has to be unusual for it to stay in my mind.”

When Süleyman saw in the records that Aros and Leheb had indeed shown up complaining of headaches, he muttered, “Fine,” before saying what he really wanted to say.

“I talked to Maxi the other day. I noticed something odd. He told me that during the time Aros disappeared, he might have been on a ship in the Mediterranean for months. He even said he sent letters to intelligence agencies in neighboring countries requesting an investigation into ships in the area.”

“And? Did anything come back?” Mark asked.

“No. Worse than that—there is not a single reply in Aros’ file acknowledging such a request. Someone didn’t want ships in the Mediterranean investigated—and removed every trace of it from the file.”

“That means whoever did it is powerful, high-ranking,” Mark cut in, then asked what was on his mind.
“But if that’s true, why did they allow us to have the case file at all? Why not block it from us entirely?”

With nothing else to say, Süleyman patted Mark on the back.
“Maybe they figured we’d mess this up so badly that there’s no one more incompetent they could hand it to.”

Mark ignored the pointless jab. His thoughts were running: missing amygdalas, a surgeon who appeared to have operated on them, the ship, the conspiracy William described… Different pieces of the puzzle pointed to the same possibility—whoever manipulated Aros and Leheb might be the same people behind the bigger scheme.

Moments later, Süleyman threw another connection at him.
“Do you remember that last con artist we caught? Madman?”

“Yes. What about him?”

“When that con artist landed in prison, something must have snapped in his head. To escape his sentence, he agreed to cooperate and became an informant. According to what he told the prosecutor, he worked for a covert organization. He met the leader several times in the cargo hold of a ship. He didn’t know who the man was or where the meetings took place. Just like Stephan Mankind described—he was flown in by helicopter, blindfolded, and dropped onto the vessel. He never even saw what the ship looked like.

He also heard from one of the leader’s subordinates that, for communication and delivering orders, they’d abandoned digital devices entirely and developed a new method—something no one would ever think of.”

“And what exactly was this new method?”

“He didn’t know that either. But he claimed one thing for sure: instead of a closed-cell structure, they were using a partner system. In this system, partners don’t know each other. The second operative, the one who actually executes the mission, knows the first operative—but the first operative doesn’t know the second.”

“But with that logic, how does the first operative pass the orders to the second?”

“I combed through the statement line by line. I asked myself the exact same question you just asked. But there was no answer—at least not in the file,” Süleyman said, raising his hands in a helpless gesture.

“After Aros and Leheb, now the force behind Madman also leads back to this ship story,” Mark murmured, narrowing his eyes as if trying to lock the pieces together. “Clearly, the guy wasn’t just some petty con artist. His tricks were anything but ordinary.”

“And remember,” Süleyman cut in with a smirk, “Madman’s scams always revolved around neurological complications.”

“How did I not see it?” Mark muttered. “In the old days, they manipulated people with lies, rhetoric, emotional hypnosis. You could call it enchantment. Now they’re trying to accomplish the same thing through direct surgical intervention on the brain.”

Mark gave him a dry, meaningful look.
“At least they can’t turn humans into obedient machines with electromagnetic frequencies—like they do with some animal species,” he said, making a dismissive sweep of his hand.

“Anyway, forget all that. Let’s track down Madman and squeeze him a bit.”

“That won’t be possible,” Süleyman said flatly, his tone darkening.

“He committed suicide in prison.”
Mark clenched his fist and slammed it against the table.
“Same story every time. Why the hell would this guy kill himself? Didn’t he become an informant because he wanted to live and enjoy freedom?”
“He was found in his cell, hanging with a rope.”

The Demon Hunters understood once again: they were facing a cryptic organization—powerful, wealthy, positioned at every critical junction.

Süleyman added, as if trying not to forget,
“The organization is after a major chaos operation—something that will turn masses against each other.”

The Demon Hunters, with Dr. William’s help, had hooked Leheb up to a lie detector. By monitoring changes in heart rate and pulse, they would determine whether he lied. Or rather, that was the plan; because with no amygdala, Leheb was incapable of fear or anxiety, so no fluctuations in vital parameters were expected.

But the result was startling.
For certain questions, Leheb’s vitals spiked.

“This is impossible. According to the MRI images and the report in the file, the man has no amygdala or frontal lobe. He should be emotionless. His parameters should not change at all. Forget lying—without emotional circuitry, he shouldn’t even know what excitement or anxiety are. His vitals should remain perfectly stable,” protested Dr. William.

Mark, however, barely reacted; his mind was elsewhere.

He took into account the neurosurgeon’s comment:
“When someone confabulates, they’re not actually lying; they only mix up the correct answers—and they’re not aware of it.”

Mark wrote down every answer Leheb had given, pinned them to the wall, and attempted to decipher their meaning:

“Gümüşschol – Easter – at the rally – 3236718813 – 13211816825 – by burning – from the message – my partner – I am Messiah, maybe I am angel – plus, I’m on the second – preacher – Leheb.”

The Demon Hunters and Dr. William did not truly know what they were looking for.
It could have been an address, a mission, or an order. They thought that extracting meaning from scattered words alone would be extremely difficult.

The word Messiah drew their attention. They questioned whether there might be a connection to the fraudster who had staged his suicide and proclaimed himself as the Messiah. They made several hypotheses, but could reach no conclusion.

They also considered that something could happen on Easter. But since this day was celebrated with various public events across the country, perhaps certain precautions could be taken. Yet with no solid evidence, they could not demand that events be canceled out of fear of a terror threat. If they attempted such a move based solely on the ramblings of a deranged man, authorities would likely label them insane and throw them in a cell.

The meaning of the word preacher was clear enough.

But even if they wanted to monitor every Muslim and Christian preacher in the country, did they even have enough intelligence officers for that? And on what legal grounds could they request the monitoring of phone calls, financial transactions, or bank accounts?

Moreover, the number of unofficial preachers was not insignificant. Anyone who memorized a few lines of scripture or prophetic sayings and offered advice to two people could easily call himself a preacher. There was no standard definition to help them narrow the search.

Mark said,
“Numbers are never subject to interpretation. They point to something concrete. They might represent an address, coordinates, a phone number, a bank account number, an identity number, or an old school number. If we could investigate them all, we might reach a conclusion.”

Süleyman replied,
“Let’s start with the simplest one: the phone numbers.”