“Half,” said Anya, looking away.
“Half what?” asked Cash.
“Half the population.” Anya swallowed hard.
“How many are you bringing here?” he choked.
“One billion. Our population has been strictly controlled, which should have been the case here.”
“Can you not hear what you’re saying?” pleaded Cash. “You’re talking about billions of Sophies, her father, my father— the world is full of good people, intelligent people who make a difference, do things, help one another. And you’re just going to kill them because you have a billion of your own, whose own planet is dying? We’d have welcomed them with open arms, we’d make space for them, help them.” He paused. “Don’t you see what you’ve created? Helped create with our hard work?” he said, pointing down to the world below them. “Do you think you’re better than us?”
“We created you,” she said, her answer wavering.
“You didn’t. Antoine didn’t. That was tens of thousands of years ago.”
“It’s not my decision,” she said.
Finally, he was getting somewhere.
“Your history goes back five million years, who’s to say somebody didn’t play around with a few genes and create you guys?”
Anya considered the point. “Who knows?”
“Adolf Hitler,” said Cash.
“What about him?”
“He thought because of who he was, he was better than others. He believed that his Aryan race was superior to others. He killed six million Jews. Once you guys get a taste for it, maybe you’ll hit six billion,” said Cash, standing and leaving Anya alone. He wanted to spend his time with his family.
Chapter 77
The Senator rushed into his library. He only had thirty minutes to get to the airport and make it to the spaceport in time.
The laptop Bea had given him to release the toxin into the world’s water supply was sitting where he had left it, along with the post-it note of instructions she had stuck to its lid. He grabbed it and turned back towards the door which was swinging closed. He hadn’t closed it behind him. He looked to his left, a man was sitting on his seat by his book-lined wall, in his favorite reading chair. His foot was outstretched having just shut the door.
“Sit down,” the man ordered.
“Do you know who I am?” boomed the Senator.
The man pointed a silenced pistol at the Senator. “I won’t ask you again.”
“This is an outrage,” he said defiantly, taking the only seat available, the one behind his desk.
“And please don’t think I was stupid enough to leave your gun in the drawer, I’ll save you that disappointment.”
“What do you want?”
“I want to understand what you’re doing.”
“Doing?”
“More specifically, I want to know why a subsidiary of a trust that you are a director of has control of most data and statistical analysis bodies and why you are killing innocent aid workers who in particular help young pregnant girls.”
“I do no such thing!” boomed the Senator in his most disgusted tone.
Giles Tremellan fired the pistol and caught the Senator on his upper right arm.
The Senator grabbed at his wound.
“That’s just to show I’m not playing here.”
“Who are you?”
“Giles Tremellan, formerly DIS. Nearly very formerly.”
The Senator did his best to hide any recognition of the name.
“I was a very good friend of Mike Yates. I noticed you have a very interesting video on your computer there. If you hit the space bar it will play, move the screen around so we can both see.”
The screen came alive. Mike Yates was standing up and smiling to greet a very attractive woman. She laid down a phone to allow Mike to see. The resolution of the spy camera that the Senator had fitted was good enough to see what had turned Mike Yates’ face white. His daughter was on the woman’s screen, filmed through the crosshairs of a sniper’s rifle that tracked her every movement in the schoolyard. The woman’s voice was clearly audible. “In less than five minutes, the bell will sound and the sniper will fire. You’ll see it here in front of you, unless you copy this note and then jump off this building. Four minutes thirty seconds,” she said. Mike looked at his daughter on the phone for less than a second before he had scribbled the note and ran from the office. His body was seen, a minute later, falling in front of his office window. “And thirty seconds to spare,” she said, before picking up the phone and smiling at the spy camera.
Giles had watched it five times already. His anger still swelled when he watched it again. “Why are you killing the aid workers? I won’t ask again!” he threatened.
“You wouldn’t understand,” replied the Senator.
The condescension of the answer infuriated Giles. He squeezed the trigger, sending a bullet thumping into the Senator’s chest.
The Senator felt for the wound, his eyes opening wide as the blood pumped onto his desk. He scrabbled for the laptop that Bea had given him. He opened the lid and hit the ‘On’ switch. Giles stood up and walked around, intrigued at the desperate last motions of the Senator. The screen lit up, a map of the world was displayed, a large area shaded red, predominantly Africa, Asia and South America. The senator was trying to move the cursor to a box that said ‘Yes’. Giles watched him struggle for a second before helping him by moving the cursor for him on to the ‘Yes’.
“Do you want me to press it for you?’ asked Giles.
The Senator nodded, his hand still trying to do it for himself.
Giles pulled the trigger again, moving the cursor off the ‘Yes’. “Yeah right,” he said. He powered the laptop off and put a bullet through it for good measure. He had uncovered enough over the previous few days about the Senator to realize that whatever he was into was only ever good for the Senator. ‘Yes’ to him probably meant ‘No’ to everyone else. Giles would never know it wasn’t everyone, only half of everyone. All three point five billion of them.
Chapter 78
Anya had come to find them as they neared what she had hoped would be an exciting part of the flight. Sadly, the conversation with Cash had left her little hope that her son would ever come to terms with who he was. She still wanted to share the moment; it might make them realize they were part of something bigger.
She found them in the front lounge, laughing and joking as a family. She thought back to her days with Cash’s father. They had shared scenes not dissimilar. She had even dreamt of moments during the pregnancy when she, Charles and Cash were in the same position.
“Sorry to interrupt,” she said. “You may want to look out of the window, we’re about to witness something you’ll never see again.
***
Caleb directed the submersible expertly well. He had been practicing for a long time and had designed the system himself. The practice runs had been perfect but this was the real thing. He checked the depth meter, almost seven miles below the ocean’s surface. It was the deepest part of the ocean floor and one of the most unexplored places in the visible universe, the perfect place to store and hide spaceships, particularly ones that had no fuel or source of power to make them do anything.
That was all about to change. He illuminated the darkness below with spotlights and maneuvered the tube, developed to withstand the thousand times normal pressure, and began to transfer the fuel only recently developed by Anya.
Lights beyond the spotlights illuminated, and the image on Caleb’s screen being beamed from seven miles below filled with sediment. The ship was moving. It was pre-programmed to rise to the surface once fuelled. He moved the submersible back and away to its right by a few hundred meters. He had to repeat the same process another four times. He walked out onto the deck of the deep sea vessel that had been stationed over the same spot for weeks and waited. Although darkness had already fallen, the water was lightening. The spaceship was rising. The tip rose first and cut into
the surface, opening the way for more of what was a far bigger vessel than he had envisaged. He knew it was big, but didn’t realize it was that huge.
***
“Holy f—”
“Kyle!’ Sophie screeched when the tip burst through the surface. Their plane was circling overhead.
“I think if there were ever an occasion a boy’s allowed to swear in front of his mother that might be it,” said Cash, holding in more than a few expletives himself as the full majesty of the spaceship revealed itself.
“It’s absolutely enormous!” said Kyle.
Bands of lights reached its full length, each one progressively larger as it worked its way down to the base of the craft. It hovered inches above the water’s surface, stretching up almost five hundred feet into the sky.
“They’ll put more fuel in it, a pilot will climb aboard and I’m sure they’ll switch off the lights before they move off to the spaceport,” said Anya. “I’m afraid we need to get a move on. They travel far faster than we do.”
Sophie took another long look. “Well, we solved one other mystery,” she said.
“What?”
“Why everyone started building pyramids all around the world!”
“Of course, they must have spotted one of these and tried to copy it.”
“The only ones we built were the Giza ones, the good ones,” Anya said. “They’re the only ones that come close to replicating the ships, in size and perfection of design. Just a shame all we had was stone to work with back then.”
“Why did you build the Great Pyramid?” asked Cash, thinking back to Rigs, still praying he was on his way to stopping the Nobles.
“To try to contact our home. We’ve not been able to talk to them since we arrived. The distance outside of the convergence is too great and there are too many systems in the way.”
“Convergence is that what you call the eighty-year window,”
“Yes, it’s—”
“Please, enough astronomy for the evening,” said Cash. “So the pyramid is going to send a signal?”
“Yes it will send a signal when the first transport leaves. It’s a hugely powerful bolt of light that will travel faster than the speed of light and deliver the news that we are ready to welcome them to their new home,” she said proudly.
“How can light travel faster than the speed of light?” asked Cash.
“You said no more astronomy talk,” said Sophie,
“I did,” he said. “It needs a lot of power to do that?”
“In any other building, the power left by the bolt would destroy it. The pyramid was built for just this purpose. They didn’t have the power source before. They tried tapping into the planet’s own but it just needed more oomph.”
Anya had work to do and disappeared again.
“I need to make a move. I can’t just let them take our planet from us!” said Cash.
Sophie agreed wholeheartedly.
“It means putting you and Kyle in danger.”
“I understand,” she said hugging him. “If we die, at least we’ll die together.”
“For the record, I have no intention of you or Kyle dying.”
“So what’s the plan?” she asked eagerly.
He told her, and she begged him not to.
Chapter 79
Cash walked casually up the stairs towards the upper deck. Kyle was only a few paces behind him. The four-man security team, as they had done every time Cash had ventured upstairs, took note. When Kyle appeared behind him they relaxed. Cash looked round and waved at them, tripping on the last step and falling straight onto the floor.
“Dad!” said Kyle, rushing forward.
“Are you okay?” asked one of the security team walking to check he was unhurt. Cash tried to pick himself up but slumped back down when Anya came to see why Kyle had shouted.
“Help him,” she ordered, rushing over herself and trying to lift him despite his being almost twice her weight.
Under orders from Anya, the security men rushed to his aid. Kyle stood back, out of the way, as they rushed to the top of the stairs to help Cash to his feet.
Once in place, Kyle sprang forward, hitting two of the security men with his best rugby tackle. His Noble genes had given the young man a physique and strength beyond his years. Caught completely by surprise, the two guards cascaded down to the bottom of the stairs.
“Kyle!” screamed Anya in horror at her grandson’s actions. Cash leapt to his feet, and with only two guards to deal with, he sent a crushing punch into one’s neck while crashing the point of his elbow into the other. Both went down. Kyle, despite Cash shouting “no”, jumped on top of the one who had been punched in the neck and sent a fantastic right hook across his chin, knocking him out cold.
The one who had been hit with Cash’s elbow was going nowhere. Cash bounded down the stairs as the two guards below were still trying to recover. He kicked one out cold and the fourth raised his hands in surrender. Between their ties and other items from around the plane, Cash and Kyle tied and bound them to their seats.
“Okay,” said Cash. “Stage one complete!”
Anya stood looking at him with utter contempt.
“If you truly understood being a parent, you’d understand,” said Cash, brushing past her.
“You’ll never get through the cockpit door,” she said.
“I don’t need to,” Cash said. He reached back, grabbed Anya, and put a knife to her throat. He marched her towards the cockpit door. “I just need them to open it.”
“They won’t. They’re trained not to,” she said. “Anyway, I know your plan, you know what we’ve got on board this plane.”
Cash tried not to let her see she had seen through his plan.
Anya heard one of the door locks open. “No!” she shouted. “Jettison the cargo before you open that door!”
Cash threw her out of the way and tried to open the door. He felt the plane shudder and knew the four nukes had been dropped into the ocean below. “Shit!”
The door opened and the captain and co-pilot appeared. He wanted to punch them but managed to hold back.
“I want this plane down at the nearest airstrip you can find!’ he said. “Or I swear I will kill somebody.”
Anya nodded. She had stopped Cash delivering a nuclear bomb to the island, the last four nuclear bombs in existence. They were out over the ocean in the middle of the Pacific exclusion zone. There wasn’t even anyone they could raise on the radio, other than from Wake Island, the spaceport.
The captain landed at an old, disused airbase on the southern area of Enewetak Atoll, pointing out that Cash shouldn’t venture to the north of the atoll, as it still hadn’t been cleared as safe after numerous nuclear test explosions back in the forties and fifties.
“Everyone out!” Cash had shouted, opening the door and waiting for the internal emergency stairs to unfold.
He helped Sophie and Kyle down and assisted the security men who, with their hands tied, did not find the descent easy. The captain and co-pilot had looked on with disinterest until Cash had ushered them off also. Anya sat resolute in the front lounge watching Cash throw everyone off of her plane.
“Come on, you next.”
“I’m not getting off,” she said.
“You may not live to regret that!”
He turned back to the door and began retracting the staircase. Sophie spotted it too late, it was already out of her reach by the time she got to it.
He blew her a kiss and mouthed “I love you!” and closed the door. He walked back to the cockpit, followed by Anya, fascinated at what he was doing.
Cash sat in the captain’s seat and began to familiarize himself with the controls.
“You can fly?” she asked.
“I’ve had a few lessons,” said Cash. “The principles are the same. In fact, this is far more automated than the little Piper I’ve flown.”
“Getting up’s easy, but you have to land it at the other end.”
�
��No I don’t,” he said looking down longingly at Sophie and Kyle. Sophie was hugging her son tightly, her body convulsing as he looked up at him.
“You’d sacrifice yourself for them?” she asked incredulously.
“In a heartbeat,” replied Cash.
Cash pushed the throttle forward and positioned the aircraft for takeoff. He waved and threw the throttles forward. A buzzer sounded as they hit takeoff speed and he pulled backwards on the joystick that controlled the plane.
“So, Mother, let’s you and I have the chat of our lives,” said Cash, noting they were due to arrive just ten minutes before the first transport was due to leave.
***
Sophie was inconsolable. When the nuclear bombs were jettisoned, she thought his crazy idea was over. But at least he’d had a chance of coming back. She knew the second he retracted the stairs, he was going to use the plane as his bomb. Cash was never coming back.
Chapter 80
Rigs heard a scrabbling noise. He hadn’t heard a thing for hours and rushed back to the King’s Chamber. It was coming from the entrance the Sicarii had sealed earlier. He rushed down as the entrance opened. Joel stood in the entranceway, sweat pouring from his brow, his arm once again secured in plaster.
“I just discovered they locked you in here. They really weren’t supposed to harm you,” he said.
Rigs nodded. “Explosives?” he asked.
“Yes, I brought some in case I couldn’t get the door open, why?”
Rigs didn’t think there was time to chat. He rushed across to the Jeep that Joel had used and grabbed his bag. He ran back to the pyramid and straight past Joel without slowing down. A faint rumble started. He ran faster. He didn’t know what the pyramid was going to do but whatever it was, he thought it best it didn’t. He ran back down to the Queen’s Chamber door and placed the bag. He ran back up the stairs and into the gallery. The rumble had increased. The floor beneath him was shaking.
The God Complex: A Thriller Page 35
