The God Complex: A Thriller (37 page)

Antoine entered the library to find his council on their feet, applauding him. He was particularly proud to see his son on the right of his seat. Alex had been helping with final preparations at the spaceport, having embraced his newfound place in the family. It was always a danger keeping the true family history a secret until the twenty
-first birthday. But given the necessity to integrate with the world, it had been agreed that while in education, it was best for the child that they did not feel different. More importantly, neither were they, as children were prone, in a position to tell the world their fantastical tale.

Antoine walked to the end of the table, accepting
the applause with a wave of gratitude. In just two days, it would all commence. Millennia in the preparation, the time had finally arrived. It would be their final council meeting before the first transport would leave while the council members carried out their final preparations before traveling to the spaceport at the remote Pacific island. For the next eighty years, the distance between the two planets would be at a minimum, allowing travel between the two. Their galaxies and orbits in synch for what in celestial times was merely a blink of an eye. The window was finite. After the convergence was over, the distance would increase dramatically as the galaxies shifted in time and space and the route would increase dramatically, along with the risk. They had eighty years to save an entire population. It sounded like a long time but the closer they got to their goal, the more they realized how difficult it would be and the sacrifices that would have to be made.

“On behalf of us all, I thank you,” said Antoine, taking his seat.
“Any last minute concerns?” he asked, looking around the table and at the two screens on the wall where Bea and Caleb had teleconferenced in.

Nobody raised any.

“Caleb,” Antoine looked at the screen. “Everything okay at your end? All tests successful?”

“Everything good at this end. We’ll begin the fuelling
when darkness falls and aim to have the first transport ready for the 5:57 a.m. launch, in time for the convergence. I assume I’ll see you all at the launch site?” A round of ‘yeses’, circled the table, with only one ‘no’.

“Not me
, I’m afraid,” said Bertie. “I have to be in the Senate, my absence would raise major questions.”

“Are you sure?” asked Antoine.

“As important as the first launch is, we have eighty years to cover and although we can’t possibly keep this quiet for even a fraction of that, we’re not in a position to let it be known yet. That will change very quickly and with time, our strength and power will grow. Very shortly, we will be in a position where we can let the covers down and let everyone know, but not yet. They are already watching me closely. I have a number of bills that I have sponsored hitting the floor at that time. If I’m not there, they’ll be looking for me.”

“Understood,” said Antoine.

“As I will be one of the only Nobles missing the event, may I ask a favor?”

“Of course, what is it?”

“May I trigger the population control?”

Antoine looked at Bea. She had designed the system and the toxin. A simple computer program controlled the water treatment facilities around the
Third World, all thanks to the Noble Trust’s recent investment.

“I don’t see why not
. You’ll just be clicking a ‘yes’ icon on the bottom of a computer screen,” Bea conceded. “The toxin will be released into the water system and doesn’t matter whether it is ingested or just touched, the water will deliver the gene altering toxin, just as we did in Papua New Guinea from the air. Even boiling won’t alter the effects. If you want to kill almost four billion people?”

“We have to kill to save,”
Bertie said. “And to save, I will happily kill!”

“You’d have killed more?” asked Antoine, intrigued.

“I think it’s a good start,” Bertie offered, ever the politician. His answer really being yes.

“I’ll give you the laptop and show you how it works before we leave.
We agreed to wait until thirty minutes before the first launch, so that would be 1:30 p.m. D.C. time?”

“That’s fine
. My bills are up first, so I’ll be finished well before lunch.”

“Well, if that’s all, I think we’ll all see each other at the spaceport, if not on the same plane.”
The council members began filing out of the room. “Alex, Anya, are you flying with me?” he asked.

“Yes,” said Alex.

“No, I’ve got to fly via Cairo,” Anya said. “I’ll see you out there.”

“You’re joining us for dinner though?”

“No, sorry, I have quite a few things to see to before I can leave.”

Antoine stood up and kissed his sister on the forehead. “I don’t know what we’d have done without you,” he said proudly.

Anya felt instantly guilty. She was making one other detour she hadn’t told him about, an early morning trip to a rugby match in Cambridge, England.

Cash and Rigs landed in London before ten p.m. Cash checked in with Travis, who didn’t need them until the following day. By the time they arrived in Cambridge, only fifty miles north of London, Kyle and Mrs. Kramer were already in bed. Sophie was nowhere near ready to go to bed. She was scribbling furiously and barely raised her head to say hello.

“What’s going on?’ asked Cash, a little put out by the lack of welcome, particularly as he’d not seen Sophie for nearly two weeks.

She stood up, gave him a hug and kissed him on the lips, repeating the same for Rigs, catching him off guard, but kissing his cheek rather than lips.

“I’m sorry
, but it was something you said that got me thinking. What if this wasn’t about our planet, what if they were following another one?” She sighed heavily. “It’s complicated but trust me, everything’s moving up there. I hadn’t figured that in either, every second, minute, hour, day, the position’s changing. So where you look now, in an hour, it’ll be different. I have to do the calculation almost in advance and then look where I calculate at the time I calculated, taking into account where I’m looking from. I’ve been at it since we got off the phone. I’ve got two intersecting points and just about to get a third and I’ve got a time-slot to use the Keck Observatory on Maui booked in,” she checked her watch, “an hour from now.”

“Maui, Hawaii?”

“Remote access. I can control it from here and instruct it to take images of what it sees. I just need to—”

“Don’t mind us, we’ll keep out your way
,” said Cash, taking a seat next to the ever quiet Rigs.

Two hours later, Sophie was looking at a picture that, as far as Cash and Rigs could tell, was meaningless.

“I need a bit of time to analyze it properly but a couple of things stand out. It definitely looks like another planetary system. I’ll know more tomorrow when we can analyze the data properly at the university. The interesting thing and the bit that’s most surprising is the eighty year countdown, remember that?”

“To the new star signs, every 2,160 years, yeah,” said Cash.

“If you go back a month and input the same data, the point in space we’d be looking for would have been much, much further away. I ran the numbers using various dates in and out of the eighty year countdown. In the eighty year window, it’s near, but outside of that, it’s deep off in space. The precision of the calendars is phenomenal, far beyond anything we could have imagined. To think they made them thousands of years ago, and that it points us to a planet way off in space.”

“But that planet’s not going to destroy us?”

“God no! It’s still a long, long, long, way away.”

“So we can sleep well tonight?”

“Rigs might,” she smiled coyly.

“Please,” said Rigs, leaving the room quickly.

***

When
Cash woke up, Sophie was already gone. A note at the side of the bed instructed him what to do with Kyle, namely get him to school by 8:30 a.m. Fortunately, Mrs. Kramer had him up and ready when Cash raced down the stairs, grabbed the rental car keys and rushed him out of the door. Rigs was standing by the car waiting for him.

“You could have woken me up
,” Cash said grumpily.

Rigs
opened the back door and climbed in, letting Kyle sit up front with his dad.

“Are you going to stay and watch?” asked Kyle.

“We’re supposed to be in London,” said Cash, looking at the time. “But yeah, of course,” he said, raising a smile.

Cash and Rigs stood and watched the game unfold, neither entirely understanding why play was stopped, or how players managed not to beat the living crap out of each other.

“Why didn’t you punch that son of a—”

“You don’t understand, Dad,” said Kyle, bringing a tear to Cash’s eye, which
he quickly swiped away. “Rugby is a game of thugs played by gentlemen.”

Kyle ran off for the next play.

Rigs nudged Cash. “He just called you…”

“I know,” said Cash. “Don’t.” He looked away
, not wanting to break down in front of Rigs. He noticed a woman standing further down the pitch, one he recognized from Switzerland. He walked towards her. She saw him coming and with a handkerchief wiping her eyes jumped into the back of a waiting limousine.

“Was that Anya Noble?” asked Rigs, catching up with Cash.

“Yeah, there must be a Noble at this school,” said Cash.

Cash was tapped on the shoulder, catching
both him and Rigs by surprise.

He spun around. A man in a cast stood behind him.

“Joel!” said Cash, his head snapping around to check that Kyle was okay.

Cash called Travis to bring him up to speed as they raced back to London.

“Remember the guy from the pyramids?” he asked.

“The one who called and said you were no longer a target?”

“Yeah, well he tracked me down.”

“I thought you crippled him?”

“Snapped his arm just above, no, just below the elbow,” he said to Joel’s motions. “Anyway, the Iranians have got another base in Chalus. He wanted to check which one they took us to, before he sent in a team.”

“So they’re Mossad?”

“No, but they work for them, amongst many others, that’s all he’ll tell me.”

“Go with them,” instructed Travis.

“His team are ready to go, they’re already in the area.”

“I don’t give a shit, they’re not doing this without you there! Israel can’t keep that bomb! Tell him you’re going in with their team, whether they like it or not. If not, I’ll phone the Iranians myself and tell them they’re coming.”

Cash relayed the message and with no option but to accept, Joel agreed.

“You’re not far from Lakenheath,” Travis went on. “It’s one of our biggest bases in the area. We’ll get you a fast ride to wherever Joel’s team is. You’ll be able to grab whatever kit you need from there as well.”

Forty minutes later, three
supersonic F22s were streaking across Europe, topping up their tanks and ignoring every sound restriction in the book. The three pilots had passengers rather than navigators in their back seats.

“We can’t land in Damascus. Are you mad?!” said Cash’s pilot
when Joel learned the location of the team.

“This thing is stealthy, no?”

“Yes, but we just got them and you want me to land it at Damascus Airport?”

“Hold on,” Cash spoke to Rigs and then Joel
. It was risky but they agreed it was worth a try.

“
Okay, here’s what we’re going to do…” said Cash. He explained the details of the plan to the pilot.

“I can’t do what you’re asking me to do without approval.”

“Whose approval?”

“My commander
’s.”

“How about your commander-in-chief?”

“If President Mitchell asked me to do it, I’d land this baby in the Kremlin if he wanted.”

Three minutes later, the President asked the pilot to do as Cash had asked.

As they neared the Lebanese coast, the F22s topped up for the last time and when they neared the Syrian border, they powered right back.

“Joel,” said Cash
, “give your guys a call.”

Three minutes later, Joel gave the thumbs up.

“Sweet mother…!” shouted the pilot, throwing his throttles forward. At full speed the F22 could cover twenty-five miles in a minute. Damascus sat only ten miles from the Lebanese border. It was all about speed and stealth. By the time the F22s were fast approaching Damascus International Airport, Joel’s team was in the plane waiting to take off at the end of the runway. When the three jets touched down in formation the visual sighting was the first the Syrians even knew they were there. When they turned next to the waiting jet, their canopies lifted, just enough for Cash, Rigs and Joel to drop unceremoniously to the ground. It was a crushing fall but one they were all trained to suck up. Out of sight of the control tower, they were pulled aboard Joel’s team’s jet and the three F22s were already shooting back into the sky. The air traffic controller was still holding on the line for the Syrian military to answer.

“Hi,” said Cash, greeting the rest of Joel’s Sicarii team as the Russian Ilyushin IL-76 cargo plane started its
trip down the runway in the wake of the F-22s.

Rigs looked around before he took a seat on the bench that ran down either length of the cargo hold.
Fortunately and not unsurprisingly, the man with the slashed Achilles tendons wasn’t there.

“So what’s the plan?” asked Cash
.

“I wasn’t supposed to be here
,” Joel said. “I believe the plan is to pose as Syrian businessmen on a trip to the Caspian Sea Resort of Chalus. The Syrians and Iranians have very good relations, as you know.”

“We don’t think we’ll have a problem at the airport on the way in. Where we’ll hit trouble is near the mountains when we take the weapons and the prison to rescue…”
Daniel, who Cash guessed was leading the assault, stopped short of finishing his sentence.

“Rescue who?
” asked Cash. “This is about the bombs, nobody mentioned anything about a rescue.”

“Nobody invited you!” said
Daniel.

Rigs leaned into Cash “That’s a good point,” he whispered.

“What did he say?” asked Daniel, not comfortable with the whispering.

“He was agreeing with you,” said Cash.

“He does that,” Joel pointed out, having witnessed it throughout the morning.

“And he doesn’t mean agree with you, he means whisper,” said Cash.

As expected, their arrival was unremarkable. A Syrian group arriving for a trip to Chalus was not out of the ordinary. Joel opted to stay in the aircraft. His arm was a major restriction on his movement and ability.

There were twelve Sicarii, two six-men teams, one was to secure the weapons and the other to rescue a four-man Sayaret Matkal team who had been arrested during the first attack by the Israelis on Chalus. The six-man team to secure the nuclear weapons became eight. Those were Cash and Rigs’ only orders.

“So where are they?” asked Cash.

“There’s an entrance to a storage area inside a tunnel that runs along the mountainside. We believe they moved the weapons there, prior to our attack, for safekeeping. It’s deep inside the mountain and impervious to air attack.”

“And you know this how?”

“The team in
the prison got a message out through another prisoner when they realized what they had seen in the tunnel.”

The truck they hired was not the most
comfortable but was the biggest they could get. They just hoped it was going to be big enough.

Daniel
listened in to the other team’s progress and ordered the driver to slow down. “We want them to hit the prison just before we hit here. They’re going to go in as noisily as possible to draw as much attention as they can across Chalus and create our diversion. We go in here quietly, leaving no one to talk or raise the alarm. While the other team and the Sayaret Matkal make a break across the Caspian Sea, we’ll fly out unnoticed.”

“Sounds easy, wake me up when you’re done,” joked Cash.

Nobody laughed.

They approached the tunnel and drove through it. Although approaching from the other end, they took the sharp bend as described by the previous team but strained to see in the dark. They couldn’t see the entrance they believed was there. Nothing was visible.

Daniel listened to his headset. The other team had just reached the prison and were getting into position.

“
Okay, they’ve gone. We can turn back and go through,” said Daniel to his driver.

Cash cocked his H&K MP5SD silenced sub machine gun, checked his holster for his pistol
, and got ready to go.

The truck drove back down the tunnel and its lights shone the right way this time. Against the wall on the sharp bend emerged a faint outline of a large door.

“How we getting in?” asked Cash.

T
he driver accelerated towards the outline.

“I thought you
said as silent as possible!” said Cash, bracing himself for impact. “What if it’s reinfor—”

T
hey hit the door head on. The truck shuddered on impact and fought against the steel door which soon gave way. The truck continued on, sweeping around to the left, a klaxon blaring.

“This is an old works tunnel, it would have run all the way
to the complex you toured but was closed off after it was finished,” the driver explained. “They guessed our attack was coming and moved the warheads here as a stop-gap. Well, that was our guess.” The first bullets began to tear into the truck. The driver slammed on the brakes and the Sicarii jumped out and went to work. Working as two-man teams, one fired while the other constantly moved forward, pressuring the enemy into making basic errors. Their precision and fearlessness was an impressive sight, and they made short work of the Iranian forces, despite them being their elite Takavar troops. Cash and Rigs stayed back out of their way. They knew what they were doing.

“Clinical,” said Rigs, impressed, something he rarely was.

The tunnels spread out into a large cavern where a hastily built structure had been erected. The Sicarii didn’t catch their breath, moving in and sweeping through the structure.

“
Clear!” was shouted out repeatedly as they cleared room after room.

The
y heard the occasional soft spit of an MP5, usually followed by a thud as another Iranian fell.

After three minutes,
Daniel declared the site clear. “The other team has secured the prisoners,” he announced. “The nukes are in the back. Four warheads, one more than it was thought they could have had.”

“Will they fit in the truck?”

“Just,” said Daniel.

“What are we waiting for?” asked Cash.

Within ten minutes of bursting through the entrance, they were driving back out.

“Impressive work, guys,” said Cash.

“From you guys, I’ll take that as a compliment,” said Daniel.

Rigs leaned over
and said quietly so only Cash could head, “They’re never going to let us take these off of them.”

Cash nodded
. Not a chance in Hell.