The God Complex: A Thriller (38 page)

Sophie had been at the university since before sunrise. Her mind was racing, although Cash had certainly managed to keep it occupied for most of the night. When sleep came, her mind wandered. At five a.m., she gave in and headed to the university where she could begin to analyze the images properly. She soon realized the images weren’t good enough. She recalibrated her calculations for a time slot she had secured at the Keck Observatory for later in the morning.

Although the numbers didn’t look significantly different, the result, when it came through, was astonishing. The planetary system was far closer than it had been just twelve hours earlier. It was like the two galaxies were pulling one another ever closer.
While she waited for the high resolution images to download, she quickly reworked the calculations. Perhaps the two were going to collide. Perhaps this
was
the end of the world.

The results proved otherwise. Knowing the difference between the two calculations from the previous twelve hours and the decrease in distance that it had made to the planetary system, she could roughly calculate the minimum distance that would be experienced. Of course
, that was if the calculations remained correct as per the ancient workings. The distance would narrow slightly until being at its narrowest in forty years. After that, it would very slowly increase again until a great increase in eighty years. The change was dramatic but the universe was a complex and amazing place. Gravitational forces were pushing and pulling it constantly in all directions. It could be that the two galaxies were caught by each other’s pull, or a combination of pulls before their orbits pulled them off in another direction. Sophie stopped herself. That was a problem for another day. She checked the system, the enormous files had downloaded.

She opened the first, comparing it to the one the previous day. She checked the next but she didn’t need to. She knew exactly what was happening; it was as clear as day. You just had to know exactly where to look. And that was the problem, no one knew where to look. Otherwise, they would have known.

She grabbed her phone and hit the speed dial for Cash, button 2. Her mom had been bumped to 3.

“Cash,” she
said breathlessly, “I’ve got it, call me the instant you get this message.”

She had to tell someone
, but who? She had no idea who to contact, who to tell, what to tell them, or what it even meant.
Travis!
Travis Davies would know what to do. She knew he was staying at the Savoy. Cash had mentioned he was to pick him up from there. She grabbed her laptop and searched for the number. She tried to call but her phone was dead, no signal. Curious. She always got a great signal in the building.

Conrad received the images that Sophie had taken that morning. The ones from the previous night hadn’t worried him. There was nothing she could see that could tell her anything. The new ones were a different matter entirely. He called her watchers, two Sicarii that had been retained for just such an eventuality.

Antoine had insisted they kept an eye on her and a very close one. Sophie Kramer was
a problem. She was the one who had the ability to understand before anyone else what was happening. Cash and Rigs were easy. He knew exactly where they were. Atlas Noble had been instrumental in uncovering the whereabouts of Iran’s secret and hidden nukes.

He had two more calls to make, one to Antoine and one to Anya. She had insisted he made her aware of anything pertaining to the issue, anything.

With
six Sicarii and four Sayaret Matkal soldiers causing mayhem in Chalus, all Iranian forces in the area were ordered to proceed there as a matter of urgency. The fact that they were using the same type of truck as the military helped enormously as the sketchy reports of a raid on their secret bunker began to filter in. This allowed the six Sicarii, Cash and Rigs to drive quietly and peaceably to the airport while a small war raged a few miles away on the other side of the city.

They loaded up the Ilyushin and
since the Iranians were safe in the knowledge they had their targets surrounded, they took off barely twenty minutes before an Iranian commander had the sense to close it down.

Cash and Rigs looked back on the city below. “We’re not waiting for the others?” asked Cash, stunned that they had taken off. They lived by a creed. They never left a man behind, never.

“They have an escape plan, if they can, they will—”

“
You’re leaving them to die?”

“They knew the mission and accepted it proudly, today we saved our nation.”

“I thought you weren’t Mossad?”

“We’re not
, but we will die to protect the Jewish state.”

Cash thought back to the cabinets in Baalbeck, the suicide bombers’ mementoes. Religion had a huge amount to answer for. Good men, killing themselves in the name of God. If there were one god, why would he let two different groups kill themselves in his name? It didn’t make any sense,
at least not to him. He closed his eyes as Joel’s cell phone rang, thankfully ending the possibility of a debate.

“Cash,” whispered Rigs, nudging him.
“Cash,” he said, his voice louder than normal.

Cash opened his eyes
to find Joel standing over him with his gun covering him while the other Sicarii relieved him and Rigs of their weapons.

“I take it that call didn’t go well for us?” he asked Rigs and received a nod.

“I’m afraid we’ve been reengaged to deal with you,” said Joel.

Conrad called Anya first. She had asked him to. Antoine, on the other hand, had just been asked to be updated should anything happen, knowing Conrad was more than capable of handling the situation.

“Anya, she did it
. Sophie Kramer found it. I’ve sent the Sicarii in to get her. Cash and Rigs are with the Sicarii already,” he said.

Anya listened, her heart rate racing, She killed the call, dialing another number as quickly as she could.

“Antoine,” said Anya, relieved that he answered on the first ring. She thanked the stars above.

“Anya, what’s wrong?”

“You can’t kill him, you can’t!”

“I’ve no idea what you’re talking about, hold on,” he said moving the phone away from his ear. “Alex has Conrad on his phone, he says it’s urgent and could impact the operation!”

“No!!!” she screamed too late. He had already muted it.

Antoine came back on the line quickly.

“They found it!” he said. “They’ve put everything at risk!”

“
You can’t kill them!”

“They threaten everything we’ve spent our lives on, our ancestors’ lives
—”

“No you can’t kill them, you can’t
!” she pleaded and commanded as one.

“Of course I can.”

“They’re Nobles, you can’t order them killed.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Anya.”

“Cash Harris is my son, Antoine! Kyle Kramer is my grandson!”

“I’ll call you back!” he said
.

Antoine
called back two minutes later. “I can’t get a hold of Conrad, I’ll keep trying.”

“Thank you,” she said. “
Please! Keep trying!”

“Alex is trying as we speak,” said Antoine. “When he gets through he…
would you care to explain?”

“What’s to explain
? I met a man and fell in love. Before I knew what had happened I was already three months pregnant.”

“You didn’t know?” he asked incredulous.

“Sometimes you don’t, and I was taking precautions. This is not really a conversation I want to have with my brother.”

“Of course not, but you had the child and what happened?”

“I said goodbye. I had no choice. We don’t mix. We never mix our genes. That was what we lived by until…”

“Lee
. Alex’s fiancée will give birth it would seem not to the first, but the second mixed baby. And if that hadn’t happened, if Blake hadn’t told us it was okay…”

“We’d still be having this conversation. He may only be half Noble but there’s still a hundred percent of me in there! I have regretted leaving him every day of my life.”

“Hold on…Alex is through.” The call cut off.

Anya waited, her heart pounding in her chest. She checked her watch. She needed to board her plane. She didn’t want to lose
the signal, but she daren’t move until Antoine called back.

Her cell rang, her heart sank, it was Conrad. Antoine wasn’t able to break the news himself. He had nearly lost Alex and knew how it felt.

“Obviously, guns aren’t ideal on a plane,” said Joel, brandishing a knife. “If you promise to sit still, we will make it painless and some have even in their last breaths described it a
s pleasant, surprisingly.”

“There are two chances that’ll happen,” said Cash. “And trust me, neither is good.”

Daniel stepped forward with a .22 caliber pistol. “That’s fine, we have other options we can use on a plane.”

Cash was tapping Rigs
’ knee with his, a tiny movement imperceptible to the eye, just enough pressure for Rigs to know it was a signal. One, two, a cell phone rang. Cash paused.

“Leave it,” said Joel.

Cash moved to tap a third time and they would both pounce.

“It says
‘CN’,” said the other Sicarii.

“Quick, give it here!”

“Leave it, quick give it here,” mocked a Sicarii member, tossing the cell to Joel.

Cash waited, he needed to sneeze, he had to control himself. If he sneezed and touched Rigs’ knee even slightly, he’d pounce. Cash could feel the tension in Rigs as he waited for Cash’s final signal. Cash was using every ounce of his inner strength not to sneeze.

“Everyone relax,” said Joel, as Cash released his sneeze and, as expected, his body shook and his knee made contact with Rigs’.

Rigs’ body was too tightly wound, he lunged at Joel, taking him off his feet and slamming him into one of the Iranian nukes that sat in the center of the plane. Joel’s already damaged arm slammed into the immovable metal bomb and he let out the second loudest ear-piercing
shriek Cash had ever heard.

“Stop!” shouted Cash. Fortunately, none of the Sicarii moved
. The hit was off and they understood Rigs’ reaction. They were men who would have done the same. Rigs whispered an apology to Joel as he climbed off of him. Joel’s arm hung loosely, the plaster cast that had held it in place dangling in pieces.

Rigs moved back and took the seat next to Cash. “Why did you do that?” he asked quietly as he sat down.

“I sneezed!” protested Cash.

Sophie had given up with her cell and walked back to her office to use the landline. A man stood in her way.

“You need to come with us,” he said.

“I will do no such thing,” said Sophie, walking between them.

“Your son…”

“My son what?!!!” she screeched in alarm, suddenly thinking the worst. The man could have been a detective. He had that look about him.

“Your son will be coming with us too,”
said the man.

“Where?” she asked defensively.

“Please don’t make a scene, no harm will come to either of you. We have been asked to take you and your son to London.”

“By whom?”

“A friend. We have just been asked to get you to London. My colleague is picking up your son as we speak.”

“I don’t believe you
. Let me call him.” She moved towards her office, but the man stepped into her path. He was large and powerful. She didn’t stand a chance. She did something Cash had taught her many years earlier. She stepped closer to him and then shot her knee into his groin. He stepped back, easily avoiding her clumsy attempt.

“Please, we can do this nicely or…”

“Or what?”

“I tie you up and stick you in the trunk.”

“There are too many people around,” she said.

He pulled a pistol from his behind his back. “This is a Glock 17, it has
seventeen rounds in the magazine and I have another two magazines. One shot, one kill. Fifty-one people between here and my car can die or you can simply come with me and I’ll take you and your son to London, where I promise you will come to no harm.”

“Well, if you put it like that
…” she said with every ounce of strength. She was not going to let him intimidate her. She had to stay strong. “I’ll need my bag though,” she said defiantly.

“Of course,” he said, placing his gun back behind his belt. “I need your cell phone
.” He stretched out his hand.

“Doesn’t work anyway,” she said, handing it over before following him to his car with her handbag.

Ten minutes later, she was sitting next to Kyle, who had happily followed the man who had come to collect him to take him to London. She’d be having a very serious chat with her powerfully built son when she had the chance. Did he not remember ‘stranger danger’ she had taught him as a little boy?

They arrived in London as promised unharmed and were driven onto the
apron at Heathrow Airport next to the royal suite, where a special area was reserved for travelling royalty and dignitaries. The car drove to the steps of a waiting Airbus A380, the largest commercial airliner in the world. Its tail bore a monogrammed logo that Sophie had seen many times before, a very classic and elegant intertwined A & N, sparkling gold in the midday sun.

A lady she had met at the Nobles’ home, Anya Noble, stood smiling down regally at them from the top of the aircraft steps.

“What’s this all about, Mum?’ asked Kyle.

“I’ve no idea,
son, but I’m sure your father’s somehow involved.”

Sophie led the way and they boarded the flying mansion that was Anya Noble’s personal jet.

“And I thought the Senator’s plane was cool!” whistled Kyle.

“What’s this all about, Anya?” asked Sophie. “Those men were
—”

“Unfortunately not of my choosing,”
Anya interrupted, disassociating herself instantly from whatever Sophie had encountered.

“
Okay, but what’s this all about?” Sophie asked again. “I really need to speak with Cash.”

“And that’s exactly where we’re going, to meet with him now
. Please relax and enjoy the flight.” She turned to Kyle. “Would you like me to show you around?”

“Please,” said Kyle eagerly.

Sophie’s mind was racing. Was it just a coincidence that the second she made her discovery, her phone mysteriously stopped working and she was summoned to Anya Noble’s flying palace? And it was after Cash saved Alex Noble’s life that he got the call saying they were safe. Bertie Noble always seemed to know a lot more than he let on, she thought again. Her mind triggered the thought…the Nobles were the guardians!