The God Complex: A Thriller (35 page)

Alex Noble played with the new ring on his finger. He couldn’t stop staring at it. The talk with his father had changed his entire perception of who he was, what he was, everything. Initially, he had thought his father had gone mad, owing to a near death experience at the hands of their would-be killers. But then he had produced the ring. The ring that opened the door to history. Literally
history
, the history of the world that lay deep beneath where he stood.

They had walked through the archives
that chronicled the world as it had been, as his father explained, how the Nobles had shaped it. They had shaped the world into what they wanted it to be, controlling the population in a way that suited them. They walked back through time, his father pointing out the points in history where the Nobles had had to intervene and make changes to how the world thought or behaved, using the humans’ base instincts to control them.

They walked back to a time where Muhammad had been born, or as his father had said, was written about. They walked back farther, the birth of Jesus Christ,
also written about. They walked back further and further, into the depths of the archives, beyond the time of Noah and the ark, beyond the first civilizations, and came to the end of the archives. A vault door sat in the middle of the wall. An array of glass tubes standing floor to ceiling covered the back wall. A perfectly preserved ape sat in the first tube; the next tube had a slightly more developed ape. Alex walked down the line, tube after tube, with perfectly preserved examples of ancient man. The last two tubes contained a Neanderthal man and a Homo Sapien, modern man.

“Modern man,” said Antoine
, “nothing more than an overdeveloped ape,” he said, waving down the line of tubes.

Alex had stared, not fully comprehending
. “I don’t understand,” he said.

“Neanderthal man,” said Antoine with wonder. “He was an amazing creature, stronger and more intelligent than modern man. But too much so
, and the look wasn’t quite right,” said Antoine.

“He can’t have been, natural selection, the strongest and fittest always survive.”

“You don’t get it?” Antoine shook his head.

“Get what?”

“This, all of this, modern man, religions, wars, everything you see in here,” he spun around slowly, his arms outstretched, “we created it. Modern man, the missing link from the apes, we’re it. We genetically altered them.”

“To be like us?”

“To
look
like us, not
be
like us.”

“So who are we?” asked Alex, struggling to take in what his father was saying
. “Gods?”

Antoine laughed. “To humans perhaps, but no, we’re just as mortal as man.”

“I don’t understand. Why create man when we were already here?”

“We needed workers, we needed to build a world.”

“Why not build it ourselves?”

“Why do it ourselves, when we can have the humans do it for us?” asked Antoine, walking back towards the vault door.

“But wait a minute,” said Alex, stopping at the vault door next to the start of where history started in the archives, around 6,000 BC and the Sumerians. “The Neanderthals died out about 30,000 years ago and Homo Sapiens were around at the same time. We’re talking about a time tens of thousands of years ago, before any of this stuff?” He gestured down to the Sumerian relics. “What were we doing for all those thousands of years?”

Antoine nodded, his son was catching up. “
This is only half the story,” said Antoine with a smile, opening the vault door.

Sophie had worked tirelessly on the flight back to the States, collating her work and recalculating it, based on the new theory. They weren’t looking for a date on the calendar but a point in space. In theory, if they were thinking along the right lines, the four points that she had from each of the sites they had visited would intersect at some point in space. If they were wrong, they wouldn’t.

The professor’s research had stopped at the point where he had simply been analyzing his results against the various calendars at the sites. His notes didn’t cover the theory that they were now working on. The thought being that he had not updated his notes, which he wouldn’t have until he had proved his theory was right, which, unfortunately, was the day he was killed.

“They don’t intersect,” Sophie had said, as they neared Washington D.C. where they were due to meet briefly with Travis Davies to update him on their efforts.

Cash walked over to the table that was covered with her workings.

“I’ve tried everything I can think of, nothing works. All of the points are going off at crazy angles, I can get two to intersect but they point to a spot on the moon!”

“Maybe it’s a
gigantic bomb in disguise,” Cash joked, trying to cheer her up.

She smiled at his attempt. “
Your father was right, about everything. I’m missing something,” she said, her eyes scanning over her work.

“Maybe some rest and try again?” he suggested. “A fresh look at it might change things.”

“It can’t hurt but I really don’t think so. I can’t think of what else I could try. I’ve taken curvature, wobble, everything I can think of into account.”

“Sleep,
” said Cash. “Take some sleep into account. Why not crash here while we check in with Travis?”

Sophie didn’t need to be asked twice, she stood up, kissed him on the cheek and disappeared into the guest room.

Rigs raised an eyebrow at the kiss. After Sophie closed the door behind her, he winked. “At this rate, five years and you might just get in there!” he laughed, watching his friend’s puppy dog eyes follow her every move.

“Sometimes I wish you did your quiet man shit around me
,” said Cash. He strapped his seatbelt for landing.

Rigs stared at him quietly.

“Very good,” smiled Cash sarcastically. “And they’re right, you are intimidating!”

The meeting with Travis had been arranged off site. He didn’t want them anywhere near Langley until he knew what and who they were up against and more importantly
, who he could trust.

Travis’ rookie bodyguards had surrounded the coffee shop. His cryptic message to Cash on the Hotmail account the Senator knew about, simply said he’d be driving out for a coffee. Cash knew exactly where he would be.

No car had been arranged. They slipped into the crowds at Dulles Airport and made their way to the cab rank, both checking for any tails. Happy they were clear, they jumped into the first cab in the line, after watching three move off with other passengers.

“Great Falls, Virginia,” said Cash. They were heading for Katie’s Coffee House, famous for its Saturday morning car rallies
, and equidistant for Dulles and Langley.

They stopped the cab on Walker Street, where Rigs jumped out and walked past the sign for the Village Center, a small shopping complex that housed Katie’s. Cash told the driver to drive back to the turnpike
while Rigs disappeared between the Wells Fargo and Bank of America buildings.

Giving Rigs a few minutes, Cash then gave the driver the correct address, arriving six minutes after dropping him off. With no signals from Rigs to the contrary, Cash walked into the coffee shop and took his seat next to Travis
, who was sitting impatiently waiting.

“I thought you landed an hour ago?”

“Hi, boss,” replied Cash.

“Sorry, hi,” he said. “A very busy day!”

“I thought you were both coming?”

“Rigs is already here,” he said, pointing over Travis’ shoulder to a booth near the kitchen.

“Jesus, how the…”

Cash waved him over.

Rigs took the seat next to Cash, leaning in and whispering, “Six, five now. The one out back needs a bit of assistance in the trash store.”

“One of your rookies needs a bit of help in the trash store,” Cash
told Travis.

“I’m going back to my old detail,” said Travis. “Even if they do try to kill me, they won’t fuck it up!”

“So what have you got?”

“We were kind of hoping you had something for us,” said Cash.

“I have nothing. We’ve been trying to trace the three bodies you left in Nevada. They don’t exist.”

“The bodies from Machu Picchu?”

“What bodies? They were stolen from the police morgue.”

“What did you get from the pyramid guys?” asked Cash

“Nothing.”

“They must have said something,” argued Cash.

“We didn’t get anything because we didn’t get them!”

“They couldn’t move
. The guy Rigs dealt with couldn’t walk and he was stuck four hundred feet up a pyramid!” exclaimed Cash, his voice rising.

Travis motioned for him to calm down. “We had a team there thirty minutes after your call. They found nothing. What about the Senator? Did you get anything from him?”

“Nothing as such, but there was an attempt on Antoine Noble’s life that we stopped.”

“The same guys?”

“God no, amateurs, nothing like the guys we were up against elsewhere.”

“But you have to admit the timing is, to say the least, coincidental?”

“I have to agree, but from what we pieced together it was an internal family thing, and a fairly botched one at that. It really was nothing like we’ve been dealing with.”

“I got a call from the Senator before I came here. He told me he doesn’t need our protection anymore. He’d handle it himself,” said Travis, raising his eyebrow.

“Interesting, but if he’s using the family security that met us at the airport in Geneva, he’s safer than you.”

Rigs nodded agreement.

“They missed an attempted assassination in their own backyard.”

“An inside job. Rigs got lucky and caught sight of a gun being unpacked. Otherwise nobody would’ve stopped it. When the shit went down, they had us cold. They’re very good.”

“The Senator’s been in the mix in a lot of this though,” said Travis thoughtfully.

“I’ve
thought the same but every time, I come back to one major flaw, they’ve been trying to kill him too.”

“But not anymore?”

“Or he doesn’t trust you or us to keep him safe?”

Travis nodded. “Good point.”

“So what do we do now? You guys are being hunted and we’re no closer to knowing by whom or—”

Rigs stood up, holding
back the waitress who had approached their table with a handset.

“
There’s a call for you,” she said, looking beyond Rigs to the table.

“I didn’t tell anyone I was coming here,” said Travis looking around for his bodyguards. They were all still in position.

“No, not you, him,” she said pointing at Cash.

“I certainly didn’t tell anyone,” said Cash, reaching out for the handset, intrigued.

“Hello?” said Cash.

“Mr
. Harris, you and your friend could have killed us both but didn’t. For that I feel I owe you this call.”

“Joel?”

“Yes, I wanted to let you know, your bounty has been lifted.”

Cash looked around wildly, trying to spot anything, anyone that would hint as to how Joel knew where they were.

“All of us?”

“Yes, goodbye.”
He hung up.

“Who’s Joel?” asked Travis.

“The guy from the pyramids,” said Cash.

Travis rose abruptly from his seat, signaling his team to get him out.

“No, no it’s okay,” said Cash. “He was calling to let me know we’re not a target anymore.”

“And you trust him?” asked Travis, brushing past Rigs.

“Strangely, yes.”

“Well if that’s the case, twenty
-four hours,” he said as his team ushered him out the door. “I need you back in twenty-four hours.”

Cash nodded. He had a day to sort out his affairs. With everything else going on, it was as generous as Travis could have been.

Twenty-four hours to sort things out. He had fifteen years to make up for, twenty-four hours wasn’t going to cut it.

The results from Papua New Guinea and the extinction of the Iamult race was as baffling a week after the events as it had been at the time. The diseased river was nothing more than a cover story to stem the tidal wave of panic that would sweep the world should it be disclosed that they had no idea what had wiped out 350,000 people overnight.

Dr
. Paul Lockhart, Director of the CDC had called on every other specialist center he could think of but all had come back with the same conclusion. There was absolutely no reason why the people had died. He had barely slept since the incident. The only sleep he had gotten was due to the fact that, whatever it was, had not affected anyone else.

It was during adversity that you found out who really cared. The work Atlas Noble was undertaking through its trust was astonishing. With no other explanation for such quick transmission, other than drinking water, the Noble Trust had rolled out a project to upgrade and improve every water treatment plant and resource across the
Third World. It was a gargantuan effort that, if undertaken by governments, would have taken years to roll out. The Noble Trust had thousands of engineers working the day after the announcement. Filters were replaced and treatment plants fitted with remote devices that would allow the Trust to monitor quality and would enable them to alter the treatment to maintain quality when needed or in the worst case, switch it off entirely if the risk of disease were too great. In any event, the second there was a problem, they’d know about it.

Every day,
additional engineers were added to the task. The projections for completion were mind blowing. In two weeks over 70% of the Third World’s water supply would be fitted with the new controls. More than four billion people would be protected from future water-borne diseases. The final 30% would take significantly longer, as the more rural and less developed water plants were tackled. With almost a billion not having access to any water to begin with, it was a monumental effort but still, the Noble Trust had promised completion within the year. The costs involved were astronomical, but Atlas Noble had promised the money would be found to ensure the Trust delivered.

“Dr
. Lockhart, I have Bea Noble holding for you,” announced his secretary.

He picked up the phone instantly.

“Bea, my dear, how are you?”

“Devastated
, Paul, we have a major problem.”

It was the call he was dreading.

“Our hospital ship, as you know, was on its way back across the Pacific. They found a ship, Paul.”

“A ship?” he asked confused.

“All dead, the same…”

“Where?” he asked urgently, grabbing a map of the area.

“Halfway between Pohnpei and Saipan,” said Bea, her words breaking.

Paul looked at his map. “That’s good, they’re in the middle of the ocean, that’s what
, five hundred miles from either?”

“They had cargo on board from both. We tried to contact both ports and sent planes,” she caught her breath.

“God, no,” said Paul.

“They’ve spotted another two ships drifting aimlessly as well and we’ve got more planes up to see how far it has spread.”

“We need to close the area down!” said Paul.

“I agree, we can coordinate the effort within the zone. We’re probably the only people equipped to do it,” said Bea.

“Yes of course, I’ll get you some naval assistance.”

“Paul, our ship is built for this, it has the labs and the crew’s quarters and wards are biohazard protected. Your sailors would have to wear protection 24/7 and risk spreading whatever this may be.”

“You get the area secured so no one gets in and out and we’ll do what we can in the controlled zone. Send us whoever you can to our ship to help. But let’s keep it from killing anyone else.”

“Good call. I’ll get the team back out to you
ASAP and get the Navy and whatever countries we need to set up an exclusion zone.”

“Hold on, Paul, I’m getting an update from our Hawaii office. They’ve got a drifting ship a few hundred miles to their East but everything is fine there. So I’d say draw a line from Guam. We know they’re
okay to Japan and from there across to Hawaii and down to Samoa and back. It’s a massive area but almost entirely water.”

Paul looked at his map. There were few
inhabited islands within the zone. It was 99.9% open ocean, so closing it was not going to upset more than a few shipping lines, who for the sake of their crews would stomach a few hundred extra miles onto their trip.

“Paul, I think we’re better safe than sorry here. We’re only talking a few thousand lives, but if anyone gets out of here and this thing spreads
…”

“And you’re definitely happy for your guys to cover the area inside?”

“Absolutely. We can reach every island within the zone with our planes. We can check and quarantine the unaffected and investigate the islands that have been. We’ve got the equipment and the staff…”

“I’ll speak to the President right away and get the area closed down, nothing in and nothing out. We’ll quarantine all ships in the area until we know it’s safe to let them go.”

“I’ll let our guys know your team’s on the way to assist. We’ll beat this, Paul.”

“Thanks to your help we will,” he said, ending the call and immediately interrupting the President’s cabinet meeting.

Bea replaced the handset and turned to the council who had listened to every word.

“The area is shut down.”

“Excellent,” said Antoine, looking at the map. The rough rectangle they had drawn across the Pacific Ocean had Wake Island right at its center.

“I know it’s overkill but better safe than sorry.”

Nobody gave a second’s thought for the tens of thousands of islanders and sailors that had perished only to be better safe than sorry.