The God Complex: A Thriller (16 page)

Senator Noble’s military convoy swept out of the FBI headquarters under a hail of klaxons and horns.

“They’ll get out of the way!” shouted the Senator at his driver, urging him to move through the protestors.

The Senator was right and within a few seconds a swath had been cut through the crowds and the convoy was facing a clear road ahead.

“It’s amazing what a few tons of armor can achieve,” smiled Senator Noble, picking up his cell phone and calling Conrad. “I’ve taken care of that problem,” he said quickly. He spotted something on the other side of the road. “Is that the President’s convoy?” he asked the Colonel.

T
hey passed a long line of black Suburbans and a very familiar Cadillac One, the President’s armored limousine.

“Look
s like it,” said the Colonel, following the convoy as it swept past on the other side of the carriageway.

“Drop me here,” instructed the Senator
urgently.

“
We’re still a mile from the Capitol building, sir,” said the Colonel.

“That’s fine, I can walk,” said the Senator, clawing at the handle to exit the car
.

He
stood in the middle of Pennsylvania Avenue, flanked at either end by the symbols of US power, the Capitol and the White House. One he owned, the other he coveted. The same family that had given him the ability to rise to power within the Senate was the same family that had blocked his goal for the presidency. Like his father before him, Antoine had forbidden Bertie from running for the presidency. The Noble family could not afford to be subjected to the level of attention that the presidency would have brought. Senator Bertie Noble had to sit back and watch others take his presidency, just as he had watched his twin’s young son become head of the Noble family. But for twelve minutes, he would have been head of Atlas Noble and the Noble empire. Those twelve minutes had robbed him of his throne.

He hit the dial button.

“Yes?” the person answered.

“Go!” said Senator
Bertie Noble, Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee and the most senior Senator within the majority party.

***

The
tentative knock on the door startled him awake.

“I said not to disturb me unless the world was ending!” he
shouted angrily at the closed door.

“I’m very sorry
, Mr. Speaker, but these gentlemen insisted I interrupt you,” replied his secretary. She opened the door cautiously as if something may fly out at her, which, with the Speaker’s current mood, was highly likely.

“What gentlemen?” he asked gruffly
. He really wasn’t in the mood for any lobbyists, particularly from the defense industry. His phone had been going crazy since the UN speech, reminding him of many promises he had made during his campaign. Promises that could only have been kept had he managed to block the ratification of the disarmament treaty and in the process be labeled as a conspirator.

“They’ve been sent over by the President
, sir,” she said.

“Well what are you waiting
for? Show them in if they’re so darned important that I need to be disturbed!” he snapped sarcastically. The secretary ducked back into the outer office, closing the door behind her.

The Speaker shook his head
. She was useless, a temp replacing his old warhorse of a protector. Nancy wouldn’t have let even the President past her if she’d been at her desk, let alone people sent by him. A short knock was followed by both his office doors being swung open. Whoever it was liked to make an entrance.

“Mr
. Speaker, I’m Special Agent Jed Walters of the United States Secret Service,” the man announced, confidently striding into the room. “These are my colleagues.”

The Speaker sat up
. This was unexpected. “How can I help you, gentlemen?”

“Sir,
I’m sure you’re aware of the situation with a number of individuals—”

“If
you’re alluding to the conspirators, yes I am.”

“Thank you, then you
’re aware that one of those individuals is the Vice President.”

A knock on the door preceded an altercation at the doorway as one of Jed Walters
’ colleagues stopped somebody from entering the Speaker’s office.

“Mr
. Speaker!” the new person shouted from behind his door.

“Larry?” the Speaker
called.

“Yes
, Mr. Speaker, they’re not letting me in!”

“Larry’s in charge of my security detail within the Capitol Police,” explained the Speaker.

“Let him in,” said Jed, adding, “unarmed!”

A flustered Larry burst in, brushing down his suit jacket.
“Mr. Speaker, is everything alright?” he asked, rushing to the side of the man he had protected for the previous seven years.

“Everything’s fine,” answered Jed
. “The Speaker’s been given a security promotion.”

“And you are?”

“Jed Walters, United States Secret Service,” he replied nonchalantly. He circled his hand above his head to his men. “Mr. Speaker we don’t have time for this, we’ve to take you to meet with President Mitchell ASAP, sir.”

“Why?” asked Larry.

Jed ignored him and motioned for two of his men to help the aging Speaker from his desk chair. Another grabbed his suit jacket and before Larry could protest any further, his former protectee was being rushed out of the room.

“You probably shouldn’t be in here,”
said the temp when she saw Larry standing alone in the Speaker’s office.

“It’s fine
,” said Larry.

“He
, um, he told me to never leave anyone unattended in his office,” she said.

“Anyone doesn’t include me,” he said
. “I’m responsible for his security.”

She cleared her throat
. “Not anymore.”

He walked
towards her and led her out into the outer office, closing the office doors behind him.

“Are you Larry
Puller?” asked a man rushing into the Speaker’s outer office.

Larry nodded
.

“Good to meet you,
” he said extending his hand. “I’m Jed Walters, United States Secret Service. The President has asked us to assist you with the Speaker’s security.”

“Was
it inside or outside?” shouted Jim, grabbing his pistol from his top drawer.

“Inside, I think
!” shouted Paula. Her phone began to ring.

A
second explosion was followed by another two and then the gunfire started.

“It’s definitely inside!” said Howie.

Paula looked at the caller id and rushed towards the door, her own pistol drawn. It was one of her Special Agents from the White House. The President was downstairs and there were shots being fired. She ignored it.

“On me,” she instructed Jim Walker and Howie Kliner, the two most senior members of the FBI.
This was her specialty.

Her phone rang again and again.

“I’m a bit busy now!” she said, answering the call, about to hang up.

“Madam
Director, it’s the Speaker…”

She stopped
. “What about the Speaker?”

The question stopped both FBI men in their tracks.

“He’s been kidnapped!” said Special Agent Jed Walters.

“Jesus! Find him!” she ordered
, hanging up.

“The Speaker’s been kidnapped,” she relayed to her audience.

“And the President and Vice President are currently under attack?” said Jim unnecessarily.

“Which
means we are in danger of losing our President and his first two replacements.”

“Who’s next in line?” asked Howie.

“The President pro tempore, the senior senator within the majority party,” said Paula. She knew every one of the members in the line of succession, since it was her job to protect them given just this situation.

“Senator Noble!” exclaimed Jim Walker.

“Yes.”

Paula rushed to the end of the corridor
with the two FBI men trailing in her wake, her pistol in one hand ready to fire while her cell phone was in the other. “Jed?”

“Yes Madame Director?”

“Get your team to Senator Noble, take him to the PEOC. I repeat, get Senator Noble to the PEOC.”

“Understood.”

“Lynne,” said Paula, “you need to stay here! If we fail to secure the Senator, you’ll be next in line, if we discount everyone in the cells below us.”

“We need to protect her!” said Howie.

“You stay with her!” said Paula. “I need to try and get to the President.”

Cell Block A within the bowels of the FBI headquarters had been selected to house the highest profile detainees in FBI history. It was the highest level security wing, essentially a self-contained prison unit built to hold America’s most dangerous criminals, specifically high profile terrorists. As such, the unit was the most secure in the building. Unfortunately for the presidential security detail, it also meant the unit had been built with only one way in and one way out.

A long
, sloping corridor led down into the unit, creating a kill zone almost thirty yards long. The idea being that any terrorist who had overpowered his guards and escaped would have to venture down the kill zone, guarded 24/7 by FBI SWAT trained team members.

“Someone give us a fucking gun!” screamed Travis Davies, the CIA Director from his cell.

The remaining Secret Service agents within the unit ignored his calls. Their eyes were focused on the door that separated them from the kill zone. Their three colleagues, the last of the Presidential security detail, were on the other side, trying desperately to hold the attackers at bay.

“Mr
. President, will you please let us help you!” screamed Travis.

President Mitchell
stood by his wife’s side with a gun at the ready. He wasn’t going to go down without a fight.

“I promise you,” she said for the tenth time
. “I have done nothing wrong. The evidence is fake and if they faked it for me…?” She left the question hanging.

The Vice Pres
ident joined Travis from his cell further down the unit. “For the love of God, Dave, let us help!”

President
Mitchell turned to the two agents who refused to leave his side and it seemed were going to take as many bullets as they possibly could while they still lived for him. “Give them whatever weapons you can!” he ordered.

Conrad barged into the boardroom, breathless.

“I thought you’d left,” said Antoine. “What’s wrong?” he asked, noting the whiteness of Conrad’s face.

“Uncle
Bertie!” he said through gasps.

“Has something happened to
Bertie?”

“Yes, after what you said
, I thought I’d keep an eye on him.”

“And?”

“He’s been picked up off the street in Washington by a Secret Service team.”

“Why?’ asked Antoine, his concern growing by the second.

“That was exactly my thought, so I made a few inquiries and it seems the old bastard has engineered taking the presidency.”

Antoine exploded.
“He’s
what
?”

Conrad explained what he had found out so far,
namely the kidnapping of the Speaker and the attack on the FBI headquarters where the President and Vice President were present.

Antoine grabbed his phone and hit
Bertie’s number, but it went straight to voicemail.

“Who’s he using for the attack?”
he asked desperately.

“They must be
mercenaries, definitely not DIS. I can’t call off the attack.”

“The old bastard
’s had this planned for some time,” said Antoine, banging the table in frustration.

Conrad nodded
. “It seems so. The evidence he fabricated moved the key players to where he could get to them.”

“Which means he’d have his men in place even before the arrests were made!”

Conrad nodded again.

“He’s risking everything for a little bit of power!” fumed Antoine, pacing along the length of the boardroom.

“Try him again!”

“Straight to voicemail,” said Conrad.

“Can we send a team in?”

“No, the area is in lockdown, not a chance.”

“We have to stop him, this will derail everything!”

“Is there no upside?” asked Conrad
. “I mean, having a Noble as President will have its benefits, no?”

“No
!!!” shouted Antoine in frustration. “Everyone will think
we
planned this, not Bertie. We’ll be ruined! The arms treaty will be ripped up by every other nation. We’ll be thrown out of every country in the world. The day Antoine Noble gets the world to disarm, a Noble becomes the President of the nation with the most powerful conventional armed forces in the world?!”

“
Ahh,” said Conrad seeing the bigger picture.

“Where would they take him?”
pondered Antoine.

“Camp David or the bunker?” said Conrad.

“The bunker,” said Antoine, grabbing his phone again and hitting the dial button. “They’ll assume initially that he’s a target as well, they’d get him to the bunker.”

“You have the number for the PEOC?” asked Conrad stunned.

“No, of course not, but I need to get it and quick!”