The God Complex: A Thriller (4 page)

Cash made Rigs circle the area twice before they pulled over. The first time to check the area was clear; the second was nerves. Fifteen years was a long time. For a thirty-five-year-old, it was almost half his life. Sophie had been out of his life for as long as she had been part of it. They had met at the age of five and from the moment he had laid eyes on her, he had planned to spend his life with her. There hadn’t been a day in those first fifteen years that they hadn’t spoken or been a significant part of each other’s life. In the second fifteen years, they hadn’t spoken once.

“
Can you keep watch?” asked Cash.

Rigs nodded once.

Cash walked slowly down the path. The house was, as expected, in darkness, as it was barely 4:00 a.m. He hesitated as he raised his finger to the doorbell
.
What would he say? What
could
he say? The Chief was dead, that was what was important about the visit, everything else was irrelevant.

Cash pressed the bell and felt the fifteen years disappear as the all too familiar ding
-dong echoed down the corridor.

A few seconds later calls of “who’s there
?” accompanied a lot of shuffling around.

The door
cracked open. Cash’s breath caught the back of his throat, his heart pounded and his stomach lurched.

A tall and powerful young man stood before him
. “Can I help you?” he asked in a perfect English accent. The man was exactly the same height as Cash, six foot two, with a very similar build. If Sophie had wanted a Cash replacement, she couldn’t have picked a more perfect example, only he was younger, much younger.

Cash stepped back and checked the door number
. It was the right house, he didn’t need to check, it had been his second home, but the young man had thrown him.

“I was looking for the Kramers?” said Cash
, stepping forward again.

“Everything
okay?” asked Rigs, joining Cash. He had noticed Cash back away from the house. “Holy shit!” he said when he caught a glimpse of the young man at the door.

“What?” asked Cash and the young man at once.

“Kyle, who is it?” came a voice from deep in the house, a voice that Cash recognized all too well.

“You’re Kyle?” asked Cash, his mouth dropping.

“How old is he?” asked Rigs, the question aimed at Cash but meant for Kyle.

“
I’ll be fifteen next month,” replied Kyle, not sure who to answer.

“Cash!” came a breathless voice as Sophie reached the door.

“Sophie,” replied Cash,
gasping for air himself. She was as beautiful as he had remembered, perhaps even more so.

“What are you doing here?”

“Is your mom here?”

She nodded
, suddenly wary.

“Best get her
. Rigs, meet Sophie and Kyle, you’re on coffee duty.” Rigs dipped his head, nodded awkwardly and walked quietly into the house and headed for the kitchen.

Sophie and Kyle had to step back as the strange man who wouldn’t look them in the eye almost barged them out of the way. He had coffee to make in their kitchen
.

“
Why is he making coff…” she stopped, the sudden realization of why Cash was there making coffee in the middle of the night. “Dad?” she asked, tears already welling.

Cash nodded and with Kyle’s help
, they led her into the living room.

“What’s going on?” asked the
Chief’s wife entering the living room, tying the cords on her dressing gown as she did so.

“Mrs
. Kramer,” said Cash, turning to greet her.

“Cash!” she exclaimed, her voice less than welcoming.

“Mom, it’s about Dad!” cried Sophie, cutting off a tirade from her mother that was fifteen years in the making.

Mrs
. Kramer’s face whitened as she dropped onto the sofa that Cash was sure she was unaware was even there.

“I’m afraid, he’s gone,” said Cash, nodding
at Rigs who was hovering in the doorway to enter with the coffees. He placed them down on a coffee table while the news sank in and left the room to maintain his watch.

Kyle comforted his grandmother, leaving Cash to comfort Sophie, her head sunk into his shoulder, finding the spot she had so readily occupied many years earlier.

“What happened?” asked Mrs. Kramer, breaking the silence.

Cash started at the beginning and informed them of
the loss of his own father and the resultant attack by the Surenos gang, where a bullet had caught the Chief and despite it, he had fought on.

“Could he have been saved?” asked Sophie.

Cash shook his head.

“Why would the Surenos kill your father?” asked Mrs
. Kramer, trying to make sense of the murders. “I can understand them wanting Harry dead, but your father?”

Cash shrugged
his shoulders. “I have no idea, none of it makes any sense.”

“Did you say the observatory was destroyed as well?” asked Sophie through her tears.

“Yes, and we were heading there after my dad’s deputy had called him and was very excited about something.”

“James, excited?”

“Yeah, Dad said that wasn’t normal for James. You knew him?”

“Yes, I’ve been involved in the project
. Cambridge University partly funded the program, along with other universities and the US and UK governments,” confirmed Sophie. “And as for James, that’s an understatement, the man was a miserable son of a bitch on his better days.”

Cash looked at Kyle
. His eyes were drawn to him; it was hard to believe the young man was only fourteen, soon to be fifteen. He was a powerful looking young man, much like Cash himself had been at that age.

“Just like his father,” said Sophie quietly watching Cash’s gaze.

“What?” asked Cash, breaking his look.

“Kyle’s the star of his team, just like his father was,” offered Sophie, resulting in a raised eyebrow from her mother.

“Cash!” shouted Rigs from the front door. “We’ve got company!”

Cash was up and running in an instant, catching the FN-P90 machine pistol from Rigs as he joined him at the front door.

“So what we got?” asked Cash, cocking the P90.

“I’ve got some movement in the woods off to the
north. I count at least three.”

Cash peeked around the doorframe and focused on the wooded area to the
north of the house. Like Cash’s father, the Chief enjoyed his privacy. The house was a mile from its nearest neighbor and set back a quarter mile from the main road. A lawned area stretched for fifty yards before disappearing into the woods.

“I’ll check out the back and try
to circle around,” said Rigs, leaving Cash to cover the front of the house.

“You three, upstairs and take cover,” instructed Cash to Sophie, Kyle and Mrs
. Kramer.

Cash watched the targets
while his protectees made their way up the stairs. Rigs appeared off to his left. A thumbs-up signaled that the back of the house was clear and he was moving in on the targets. He moved silently and almost effortlessly through the undergrowth. The man was a machine in his element.

Rigs signaled
that he was in position. Cash moved out of the house and towards the targets. The three moved, raising their weapons but Cash moved too quickly, already finding cover behind the Chief’s car.

The targets
’ movements had opened them up as planned to Rigs. He raised his P90 and was about to start shooting, when he paused, noticing their clothing for the first time.

“Jesus, don’t shoot
!” screamed one of the targets. They all dropped their weapons, suddenly realizing they had been outplayed.

Cash stepped out as Rigs whistled the all clear to him.

Three police officers stepped out of the woods, their hands held high above their heads.

“What the hell were you guys doing?” asked Cash.

“We were on our way back from the Observatory when we spotted you in the Chief’s car. We tried to sneak up on you but obviously you spotted us.”

“I’m afraid the
Chief’s dead.”

F
ear turned to anger on all three of the officers’ faces and their hands instinctively dropped towards their holsters.

“It wasn’t us, they killed my father
, Professor Harris, as well,” Cash quickly explained, realizing their misunderstanding.

“Cash?” asked one of the officers.

Cash nodded.

“Jesus
, I didn’t recognize you! It’s been so long. Paul Banks,” he stepped forward offering his hand.

Cash couldn’t place him.

“Banksie!”

“Banksie,
as in pot-head Banksie?” asked Cash.

Banksie’s face dropped slightly
. “All in the past,” he said awkwardly.

“Of course
. Have you got back up on the way?” asked Cash, scanning the area.

Ban
ksie shook his head. “We’ve been trying to radio for back up, but nothing. We’ve tried our cells, none of them are working!”

Cash looked
at Rigs, knowingly; it wasn’t over.

“Are Sophie and Mrs
. K alright?” asked Banksie.

“Obviously upset but yeah
, they’re fine.”

“And that handsome young lad of yours?”

Cash looked at him.

“Seriously,” chipped in Rigs
quietly to Cash. “You didn’t see it?”

Cash shook his head
. “No, I didn’t.” He walked back into the house and straight upstairs.

“Sophie? It’s fine
, they’re police officers,” he called out.

Sophie, Kyle and Mrs
. Kramer appeared from one of the bedrooms.

“Can I speak to you in private
, please?” he said, looking at Sophie, who nodded.

“Kyle?” he began
, as they walked into Sophie’s old bedroom.

Sophie nodded and began to cry. Cash looked on with contempt.

“Me or my father?” he asked angrily.

Gray
grabbed his radio. “Yes?”

“We failed to stop everyone leaving, they even got past the
Surenos team that you sent as back up.”

“Shit,” he said, uncharacteristically
. His missions never went anything other than according to plan. “It is imperative you stop them, I’ve got the mountainside locked down. No cell towers or phone lines are working. Police radios are also blacked out. You have time to clean up the mess. I need to know that every piece of the professor’s research is gone.”

“His house and all who were inside
will be gone, there’ll be nothing left.”

“Good, I’ll deal with his office, did you get the flash drive?”

“What flash drive?” asked Green.

Gray
scrolled through his records on his tablet, where every detail of everyone they had watched over the previous two years was noted. Professor Charles Harris wore a necklace with a small flash drive around his neck.

“The one he wore around his neck
.”

“It wasn’t there,”
said Green.

“Perhaps you missed it?” asked Gray angrily.

“I searched him myself, there was no jewelry on him whatsoever. Hold on,” he paused listening to an update from his colleague. “We’ve found them, they’re at Chief Kramer’s house.”

“Be careful
, we can’t afford to miss this opportunity or get caught.”

“Don’t worry, w
e’re on it!”

“Hold on,” said Gray thinking through the plan
. “I’m going to send up more gang members, use them as cannon fodder. The more you leave behind, the more it’ll look like a gang thing and confuse the authorities. Whatever happens, keep us out of it. I have a back-up plan should you fail, so don’t get caught there!”

“We won’t
.”

Gray entered the Surenos headquarters, his senses once again assaulted by the stench when he walked into the filth-infested dive. He brushed his tailored suit clean as he walked into the gang boss’ domain.

“That bitch got my brother killed
!” shouted one of the henchmen, charging at Gray. The man was huge, a hulk of a man, twice Gray’s weight. Gray didn’t flinch.

As the Hulk was about to strike
, Gray moved with a speed that few in the room could even see. His hand lashed out for an instant and he sidestepped the falling hulk, who was dead by the time he hit the floor.

“Anyone else upset?”
Gray asked calmly, straightening his tailored jacket.

The boss looked
over at the ice-cold killer.

“What do you want? You’ve already cost me seven men.”

“More than that, I’m afraid.”

The gang
boss was a smart man, that was why he was where he was. Men like Gray were men you appeased, not fought.

“I want more money.”

“Fine, name your price,” said Gray.

The boss looked again at his henchman
. His body hadn’t even twitched. He was stone cold dead by the time he’d hit the floor, and the boss had no idea how. He had already gotten $250k for his seven men.

“$1 million.”

“I’ll wire the funds,” replied Gray, handing the boss a note for where to send his men. “But I want forty for that.”

The boss nodded
at one of his men. Forty loyal gang members would be on their way as requested.

Gray tipped his head as a thank
-you and left. A number of gang members eyeballed him as he left the room; word of his killing had spread quickly throughout the rundown house. Gray held the gaze of each of those who dared to stare at him. Wisely, none moved.

On his way
out of the house, he didn’t look back. He listened intently for the slightest move, but again, none came. Back in his car, he lifted his tablet. He wanted to know why everything had gone to shit, because
his
plans didn’t go to shit.

Gray
clicked on the name below the Professor’s, Copernicus Armstrong Sagan Harris, the professor’s only son. Pages of information scrolled before him, all thanks to the work of Gray’s formidable intelligence sources.

‘
Copernicus Armstrong Sagan Harris, commonly known as Cash Harris
,’ read Gray. A headline below his name reminded Gray of the fact that the investigation was only a cursory one due to Cash being estranged from his father for the previous fifteen years. The reason for the estrangement was listed as unknown.

A bright and very capable student, Cash had had a scholarship lined up at Harvard before inexplicably walking out on his life and enlisting in the US Marines.
He was soon redirected to Officer Candidate School, where he sailed through the program with ease. As a fresh faced second lieutenant, he moved onto Quantico and completed Basic Training before being sent on tours to Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria. A recent update noted that he had left the Marines after reaching the rank of Captain and returned to the US to start a new security firm with another Marine, Captain Jake Miller (aka Rigs).

Gray
scrolled through Cash’s military records. He was an exemplary Marine with fifteen years’ service and numerous awards and recommendations. The more he read, the more he smelled a rat. It was too perfect. With a record like that, Cash would have been at least a Colonel. Instead, he had never risen beyond Captain, never gained his own command. Gray made a note; a more thorough check was required. With Cash having been out of the picture, it hadn’t made sense to dig deeper. After all, the concern for Gray was Professor Harris, not his estranged son. Gray had a funny feeling that Captain Jake Miller, aka Rigs, was going to have a very similar record to Cash’s, if not identical. He made a note; a full background check on Rigs was also needed.

Under Cash’s name was listed Sophie Kramer,
a significant ex-partner. He pressed her name.

Sophie Kramer, ex-fiancée of Cash and mother to
a son, Kyle, had a doctorate in Astronomy and was a lecturer at the University of Cambridge, England, where she had lived for the previous ten years. With an interest in common with the professor, the detail on her was far greater. Gray, however, skipped the early years and moved to the point at which Cash had inexplicably deserted his fiancée and life. Sophie had been working as a research assistant at the observatory at the time. She hadn’t started any new relationships. In fact, she had not had another relationship since. Eight months after Cash had left, she had given birth to Kyle. Shortly thereafter, she moved to Yale to complete her studies before moving to Cambridge to take up a teaching post. As far as the report was concerned, there had been little contact between Professor Harris and Sophie. Other than project work for Hubble 2, none had been noted as anything other than professional. There had, however, been absolutely no contact between Sophie and Cash. There had been none between Cash and Kyle, whom Gray could only assume from the timing was Cash’s son.

Gray
looked back through Cash’s records. He was a Marine officer. Honor, courage and commitment were all core to the Marines’ code of conduct, within which, responsibility and fulfilling one’s responsibilities were essential. What was more important than to ensure you looked after your own children? Something was off. He added another note for it to be investigated further.

He
tapped on the link to Kyle Kramer. Very little had been noted, other than his birthday and the few dates on which he had any contact with the professor. It listed his areas of interest, obviously discovered from his internet history, including astronomy sites, as well as his favorite porn sites. He liked brunettes it seemed. He was captain of his school rugby team and, due to his size and ability, he was being closely watched by the US rugby team, who were desperately trying to bolster their pool of players.

He looked down at the notes he had scrawled on his notebook
and dialed a number on his cell phone.

“Yes?”

“I need to check a couple of names,” asked Gray of his mole inside government.

“
It’ll cost you twenty.”

“Fine
,” replied Gray easily.

“Shit, you’d have paid more?”

“A lot more,” Gray said, smiling. The deal had been struck. “Wired to the usual account?”

“Yes, what
are the names?” asked the mole.

“Copernicus Armstrong Sagan Harris…”

“Jesus, that’s a mouthful.”

“Or
Cash Harris for short, and Jake Miller. Both were supposedly US Marine captains.”

Gray waited
while keys clicked in the background.

“Interesting couple,” whistled the mole.

“Why, what does it say?”

“They were Marines, both
captains, that bit is right. Hard core too. Force Recon, Det One and MARSOC as Critical Skills Operators. Seriously good operators according to the reports, although there seems to be a lot of psychological reports on Miller. Looks like he’s mildly autistic, according to the reports. However, their record ends abruptly about four years ago. Seems Miller couldn’t go any further in the Marines given his issues, so they moved elsewhere.”

“E
lsewhere?”

“Yep, which usually means CIA, DIA
, or one of the many US intelligence Agencies.”

“
You don’t think they just left?”

“Definitely not
. They’re listed as active, but with no unit or detail for the last four years. If you give me an hour, I can probably find out where they are,” offered the mole.

“I think I know where they are,” replied Gray
.

Cash and Rigs were on site and
were no doubt the reason the attempt on the two cars failed. Gray radioed Green with an update. Typically, Green, a former SEAL, informed him how he ate Marines for breakfast and he wasn’t to worry.

The last resort option was in place.