‘Can we talk?’ he said.
Ashley continued to brush her long lustrous black hair. ‘About what?’
He approached and sat down next to her. ‘About us. About what’s happening.’
‘What’s to say?’
‘I need to ask you a question. And I need you to answer me truthfully. Can you do that?’
Ashley nodded, but continued to brush her hair.
‘You’ve seen what’s happening,’ he said, choosing his words with care. ‘I just need to know something, and I won’t get angry, and I won’t judge you.’
‘Just ask me, John,’ she said, sounding exasperated. ‘I won’t break.’
He took a breath. ‘Have you at any point, now or in the past worked for, or suspected you were being manipulated by, the GMRC?’
The brushing ceased; Ashley laid the hairbrush down on the table, then turned to him.
He gazed into her dark Hispanic eyes, which had the power to make him go weak at the knees whenever she wanted.
She laid a hand on his thigh and her eyes welled with tears. ‘There was someone.’
‘Who?’
‘A man.’
‘What man?’ John felt his jealousy stirring.
‘You said you wouldn’t judge.’
He calmed himself. ‘Continue.’
‘I was with him before we met.’
‘Go on.’
She hung her head. ‘I saw him a few times after ... after we were together.’
John’s face hardened. ‘What?’
‘It was before we married. I didn’t know where we were headed – John, you have to believe, it meant nothing.’
‘Who was he?’ John said, trying to keep the anger from his voice.
‘He said he worked for an organisation, an important organisation, and if I were to tell anyone it would put my life in danger. I was excited at first, but he started asking more and more questions about you, about us, so I ended it. I haven’t seen him since.’
‘So, you haven’t been feeding the GMRC information since we’ve been married?’
‘No!’ She stood up. ‘Of course not!’
John wanted to believe her, but now she’d admitted she’d cheated on him, albeit out of wedlock, his trust in her had vanished.
‘I’ve hurt you,’ she said.
He stood up and walked into the other room.
She followed. ‘John, I’m sorry. Please, tell me how I can make this right.’
‘You can’t.’
She stroked his arm. ‘I can.’
He whirled round. ‘Is that your answer to everything? Sex?’
She glared at him. ‘What do you want me to say?’
‘THE TRUTH!’
‘I just told you the truth!’
‘Did you?! I don’t even know you anymore. I don’t even know if I love you. I don’t even know if I want to.’
Her expression crumbled and she turned away and returned to the dressing room.
A few moments later he could hear her sobbing.
He sighed and looked up at the ceiling. He had to find out what she knew. Returning to her side, he sat down next to her. ‘Do you know of anyone else this man spoke to, anyone on my staff?’
She wiped her eyes and shook her head.
‘Did he mention any names, any names of the people he worked for?’
She shook her head again. ‘No, no one.’
Why did she have to cry? He squeezed her hand and they sat there in silence for some time before he went to leave.
She gripped him tighter. ‘Don’t leave me,’ she said, her voice trembling. ‘Please.’
He hesitated and she turned to look at him, her tearful eyes pleading with him to stay.
He remained where he was and she rested her head on his shoulder. He stroked her head and her hand slid onto his thigh.
He felt the stirring of arousal and Ashley felt it, too. She looked up at him, her eyes dilated with desire. She kissed his cheek. He didn’t resist. She kissed his lips. He kissed her back.
‘I love you,’ she said, as she unbuttoned his shirt.
John pulled her to him. The time for talking had passed.
Chapter One Hundred Fifty-Three
John woke up later that evening. It was almost midnight. No one had come in to tell him World War 3 had broken out, so the only problem to solve now was the one that was lying next to him.
He ran his eyes over Ashley’s sensual form. She was perfect in every way, except he knew she’d betrayed him. Can I forgive her? he wondered. Or perhaps the better question was, should he forgive her? He still loved her; he couldn’t turn those feelings on and off, not like she seemed to be able to. The ice had thawed, but he knew it would return, it always did. Would she be talking to him today, in an hour’s time, in ten minutes? Where do I stand with her? He had no idea.
Despite his wife’s previous lies, this time he knew she’d been telling him the truth. She hadn’t been passing the GMRC information. But then, if it wasn’t her, who was it? His thoughts returned to his National Security Advisor, who’d protested his innocence so vehemently. But then he would, John thought, wouldn’t he. He switched on the wallscreen and lowered the volume. Ashley stirred next to him, but didn’t wake.
The news was streaming live. There were no more reports of rioting – not that there was any rioting anymore, due to martial law. However, if there had been an outbreak anywhere John had made sure the media would keep news of it from being aired. The nation couldn’t afford any more disruption; if freedom of speech was the only casualty, so be it.
A message came through on John’s personal feed from the security agencies. He picked up the device from his bedside table. The message read:
Spate of suicide bombings
in five major cities
New York / Los Angeles
Chicago / Houston / San Antonio
Cause: Religious Fundamentalists
Faction: Knights of the Apocalypse
Threat Level: Medium
Origin: Europe / Italy
Casualties: 1,092
Death Toll: 158
Targets: Churches / University Campuses
Purpose: Unknown
Response: Increased military presence
John frowned. Why are religious terrorists targeting universities? And why attack churches, of all places? It makes no sense. He knew the arrival of the asteroid two years before had resulted in a massive increase in extremists, many of whom proclaimed it was the end of the world and that God was delivering righteous justice on a capitalist society only interested in self-gratification. It was a view John shared; the material world could only make you happy for short periods, as there was always the next thing to get, to have, to want. There was no peace in the material world, only lust, envy and the unrewarding void of self-interest. John knew the feelings well and it was one of the reasons why he’d committed himself to serve his nation. Only in service to others, or God, could one be truly happy, unless that service was undertaken with a desire for status, power or wealth, and then the void would swallow you whole. John glanced at Ashley and knew he was still fighting to get out of the trap himself, to find that elusive thing called peace. Perhaps monks and nuns have the right idea, he thought. Things would certainly be a lot easier with sex out of the equation.
Something on the news caught his eye, dragging him out of his deliberations.
He increased the volume.
‘—the rash of disappearances, which started out as a trickle has become a flood. Reports of people vanishing all over the country, and indeed, the world, has gained more and more interest on social media as conspiracy theories abound. Unlike the mainstream media in the United States, however, news agencies in the rest of the world seem oblivious to this frightening phenomenon, a media quirk which experts say is due to the president’s clampdown on GMRC activities in this country.
‘Regardless of who
knows and who doesn’t,’ the reporter continued, ‘where these people are being taken to is perhaps the biggest mystery of all. However, the “by whom” is a little less hazy, as outside the U.S., reports say GMRC troops are to blame, while in the States, black vehicles have been seen around the time some of these vanishings have taken place. Footage sent in by a man who will remain nameless, has said his wife – a well-respected civil servant – left in one such disappearance, but rather than an abduction, he said she went under her own free will. He claims he was filing for divorce and expected a bitter custody battle to ensue. And yet, when he arrived to get her to sign the necessary paperwork, he saw, well,’ – the newsreader paused – ‘he saw this.’
A new window appeared on John’s wallscreen showing night-time footage from a head-cam inside a moving vehicle. John assumed the camera was worn by the nameless man the newsreader had just been talking about. Is he filming to prove his wife received the documents? John’s thoughts returned to the first lady, sleeping next to him, and wondered if this man’s past was his future.
The camera angle changed, as the man’s car parked itself outside a large house in a dimly lit suburban street. The occupant switched off the headlights and got out.
‘She’d better be in,’ the man said, walking up to the front door. ‘I broke curfew for this.’ He rang the doorbell and waited.
No one answered and he walked to the front window and peered into the dark interior.
Nothing stirred until a dark shadow, which John had assumed was part of the decor, moved.
‘I can see you in there, Deidre!’ the man said.
He walked round the side of the house, leaned over a side gate to unlatch a bolt and let himself into the rear garden.
The sound of a door closing made him speed up.
Reaching the rear of the house, he opened the back door then paused. ‘Deidre! I’ve got the papers, stop hiding, I know you’re in!’
He moved into a dark kitchen and tried turning on the lights. He flicked the switch on and off a few times, but all remained dark. ‘Strange,’ the man muttered to himself.
John sat forward on his bed, intrigued by what he was seeing.
‘Deidre, the lights are out! I told you to pay the electricity bill!’ The camera footage changed to black and white, as it adjusted automatically to the lack of light. The man walked through the lower floor of the house and then made his way upstairs. Muffled footsteps made him pause. ‘Deidre?’ he said, suddenly sounding uncertain. ‘Is that you?’
No one answered, but a floorboard creaked on the floor above him.
The camera angle turned to look up at the flight of stairs, which continued up to the next level of the three-storey house.
‘I think the kids are awake,’ he said. ‘You better get the candles out or they’ll break their necks.’ He stumbled. ‘Or I will,’ he muttered.
He continued up the stairs and stopped on a landing outside a bedroom door. A light moved inside and then went out. ‘Deidre?’ he said. ‘Danny, you awake, son?’ He pushed open the door.
‘Danny?’ he walked inside and approached a window overlooking the rear of the house. The camera angle panned down to an empty bed. The man’s hand reached out and touched a dent, where a child had been sleeping.
A noise behind made him whirl round. A light blazed bright and the man cried out in alarm.
The camera jerked this way and that as a struggle ensued. The man grunted in pain and fell to the floor, and John couldn’t help but point at the screen, as the camera caught sight of a large figure carrying off a young child through the open door.
The father of the abducted minor scrambled to his feet and clattered down the stairs like a man possessed.
A child screamed and the man cried out. ‘Danny!’
The camera reached the bottom of the stairs and John glimpsed the kidnapper exiting the rear of the house, and the father saw him, too.
‘DANNY!’
Another child screamed. ‘Daddy!’
‘LUCY?!’
The man ran faster, as he pursued the kidnappers through the house. Bursting out of the back door, he looked around, his movements frantic.
A child screamed again and the man sprinted round the side of the house, crashing through the side gate and into the street as two men bundled the children into the back of a large black SUV. A woman inside the vehicle looked round with wild eyes and slammed shut the rear doors.
The SUV’s wheels spun and the vehicle lurched forward, smashing the father’s car out of the way, and then screeched away down the street.
The camera followed as the man ran after them, but the SUV turned a corner and by the time the father got there, the street was empty.
Sobbing in despair, the man sank to his knees. His wife had gone and his children along with her.
The newsreader reappeared on the wallscreen. ‘Disturbing scenes, I think you’ll agree. The military have been informed, but soldiers aren’t equipped to deal with such crimes in the way a civilian police force would have been able to. Calls for civilian law enforcement to be reinstated is gaining traction day by day, but for now this crime remains unsolved. The only clue as to who aided the woman in the abduction is a blurry image recorded by the father’s head-cam.’
A still from the footage appeared on-screen and John could just make a faint logo on the chest of one of the abductors:
‘The private security firm has so far failed to comment on its involvement in this and many other claimed sightings, although in a rare breach of protocol, an ex-employee of the world’s largest security contractor has said its operatives have been known to moonlight, and suggested these instances are a rogue unit acting for their own personal gain. With many well-known celebrities and members of the establishment amongst the ever-growing list of those missing, this argument – at first glance – appears to hold water. However, due to the sheer scale of the reports and the lack of any ransom demands it’s thought more sinister forces may be at work, forces some say may be linked to organised crime, or worse still, the GMRC, as it attempts to wrest back control from the president. Whatever the case, questions remain. Where are these people being taken? And perhaps more saliently, why?’
John muted the wallscreen to process what he’d just witnessed. People are being abducted en masse. Has the GMRC circumvented my clampdown by transferring tasks to Darklight? It certainly seemed that way. However, what did these so-called vanishings represent? An attempt to destabilise government? It seemed the most obvious answer. But where were these people being taken? An answer popped into his head: the same place as the water and food.
John got out of bed and moved to the window. He peered out at the white house lawn and the soldiers patrolling its perimeter. He was getting an uneasy feeling in the pit of his stomach and it wasn’t going away.
What with the show of force in the Atlantic, undoubtedly at the GMRC’s instigation, these revelations of people disappearing couldn’t have happened at a worse time. John suddenly had another disturbing thought. Is the show of force merely a diversion? Is the timing not a coincidence at all?
But a diversion for what? he asked himself. He rubbed at his temples. Nothing made sense.
A knock on the door made John wonder what had gone wrong now. He quickly redressed and opened the door to reveal his Chief of Staff.
Paul’s eyes looked beyond his president to the bed and Ashley’s half naked form.
John closed the gap to protect her privacy, as well as to hide his shame at having succumbed to carnal desire. Normally this wouldn’t have bothered him, but considering he’d all but condemned his wife for her involvement with the GMRC, he knew people would judge. He could see the look in his friend’s eyes now, a mixture of surprise, disappointment and concern.
Paul averted his gaze from the first lady. ‘We’ve established a secure line with the EU president.’
John nodded, slipped through the opening and closed the door quietly behind him. ‘Have you heard about the a
bductions?’ he asked Paul, as they made their way into the Yellow Oval Room.
Paul shook his head and pointed to the wallscreen at the far side of the room, where General Andrews and the Secretary of Defense waited for him to join them. Both men nodded to John as he moved to stand next to them.
‘Show no weakness,’ the SecDef said. ‘And for God’s sake, keep your cool.’
John didn’t need telling twice. The world was on the brink of war, a nudge the wrong way and all hell could break loose. He adjusted his shirt and waited in front of the camera.
A moment later a grim-faced woman appeared, dressed in a dark grey suit. Like John, she was accompanied by a military chief and a high-ranking minister.
‘Mr President,’ the woman said, her German accent unmistakable. ‘We weren’t expecting your call.’
‘Madame President,’ John said, ‘and why is that?’
‘Because you’ve made your position quite clear.’
‘My position?’
‘An attack on the GMRC is an attack on the whole world.’
‘And letting millions of Americans die of thirst is genocide.’
‘Do you not think our peoples experience the same hardships? Do you think it is only America that suffers?’
John shook his head. ‘That’s not what I meant. If you’re willing to watch your citizens die, that’s your prerogative. I wasn’t willing to let that happen. Not while I’m in power.’
‘You exaggerate. The GMRC has assured us the water rationing is nearly at an end.’
‘You may want to check your reservoirs, Madame President,’ John said. ‘And while you’re at it, call off your ships. Your aggression is tantamount to an act of war and I won’t hesitate in defending this nation,’ – his face darkened – ‘whatever the cost.’
Ancient Origins: Books 4 - 6 (Ancient Origins Boxset Book 2) Page 83
