The God Complex: A Thriller (28 page)

Rigs crashed into the kitchen with two CIA bodyguards chasing after him while Mrs. Kramer was pouring coffee for Travis.

“Rigs, it
’s okay,” said Cash calmly, walking over to check on his friend. “It’s only Travis.”

Travis waved his men out of the room, his disgust at their failure
was clear to see.

Rigs could hardly catch his breath
. He was covered in undergrowth and had sweat pouring from him.

“I
… saw the… plane…” he gasped between breaths. “How did he know where we were?”

“How did you know where we
were?’ asked Cash relaying the question he should have thought of himself.

“Senator Noble,” replied Travis
. “He seems to know a lot we don’t know he knows.”

The Senator shrugged. “It’s my business to know things,” he mused.

“We should move, if he knows others will know,” whispered Rigs, bending down out of sight of the rest of the room behind a large island in the kitchen.

Cash joined him
. “Travis wants us to leave here and take the Senator somewhere.”

“What about the Kramers?” asked Rigs.

“Travis will look after them.”

Rigs shook his head
. “We can’t trust anyone.”

“
Then they can come with us.”

“Where to?” asked Rigs.

“We were just getting there when you burst in,” said Cash. “So I’m not sure yet.”

“Go,” said Rigs. He stayed where he was, hovering menacingly.

“So you were saying?” said Cash rejoining the group at the table. Sophie had given up and was moving everything into the dining room, away from prying eyes.

“Yes,” said Travis looking across
at Rigs. “Before we were expertly interrupted. The Senator was rescued by us a few days ago from a female who had taken him hostage. That female managed to kill eight of our highly skilled operatives.”

“Do we know who she was?”

“No idea.”

“No print matches, DNA, facial recognition, nothing?”

“Ah, you’re assuming we caught or killed her. She escaped.”

“Do you know why she was holding you hostage?” asked Cash, turning to the Senator.

“No idea. She hardly said a word to me. I can only assume it’s all tied into the attempt on the President and perhaps in some way with your father’s death.”

Cash looked
at Travis. He shook his head subtly. He hadn’t told the Senator of their suspicions that everything was linked.

“So why us?”

“Because I don’t know who else I can trust and I must go to Switzerland, it’s my great nephew’s 21st and I can’t not go.”

“How do you know you can trust us?”

“Because Travis does and because you guys were set up just like Travis. You’d hardly set yourselves up if you were involved.”

Cash looked across
at Rigs. He shook his head, he didn’t like it. Neither did Cash.

“I’m sorry, Senator
, but we’re almost there figuring things out. Travis has lots of really great guys.”

“Like the two that missed Rigs bursting into here?” he asked
, much to Travis’ embarrassment. The Senator wasn’t going to take no for an answer. “I heard you say when I came in about the end of the world. Is that where your investigation has gotten you to?”

“It’s still very early
—”

“I may know a bit about the subject,” he offered.

“Sophie!” Cash called. “You might want to come in here.”

“And it
’s got nothing to do with the deaths in Papua New Guinea,” the Senator said.

Cash looked blankly
at Travis.

“The
y’re off the grid here, they’ve not heard about the Iamults,” explained Travis.

Sophie joined them
. “What’s wrong?”

“The Senator knows something about the end of the world but he was about to tell us something about the Iamults?”

“It’s been all over the news. The Iamults were a race of people in Papua New Guinea, and earlier in the week, they inexplicably died, every last one of them,” explained Travis, interrupting to bring them up to speed.

Sophie’s interest spiked
. “A great death raining down race by race,” she said.

“Well not really, they believe it was the river that poisoned them all. There were a few survivors, but they too succumbed a day later. Every man
, woman and child. It’s caused a huge panic and more than a few declaring the end of the world is nigh!”

“How many?”

“All round the world, I wouldn’t even guess,” said the Senator.

‘No,
the Iamults, how many dead, a hundred, a thousand?”

“Over three hundred thousand,” said Travis.

“Oh my God!” exclaimed Sophie. “Some of the ancient texts talk about how death will rain down on us, race by race, as the end nears.”

“But you said the end was hundreds of thousands of years away
, right?” said Cash.

“I’ve rechecked, I hadn’t taken the wobble into account, it’s actually more than that
. Earth is in no danger for the next million years. With more measurements from other sites, I’ll be able to narrow that down.”

“If I help you with this, will you take me to Switzerland?”

“Switzerland?” asked Sophie.

“His nephews birthday
. He wants me and Cash to keep him safe.”

“Safe from who
m?”

“
Doesn’t matter now, I’ll tell you later.” Cash turned back to the Senator. “Help us how?”

“There
’s a little known division in the military that deals with this stuff.”

“Like Roswell?” joked Sophie.

“Yes,” replied the Senator, without a hint of humor, before smiling. “Although I can tell you Roswell never happened, not in 1947.”

Cash looked
at Sophie who shrugged. He looked at Rigs who shook his head.

The Senator could see it was still close,
so he played his trump card. “It would mean a lot to Antoine and Anya, my nephew and niece.”

“Anya, the niece that went to university with Cash’s father?” asked Sophie instantly.

“You know her?” he asked innocently.

“Pack your things, we’re going,” announced Sophie.

“You’re not invited to Switzerland,” whispered Cash.

“Well you’d better get me an invite. I’m coming!”

The
council meetings had started their daily frequency. The previous two evenings had been almost entirely devoted to the hunt for Bertie. His disappearance was causing great anguish, particularly for Antoine. They knew he was alive, their sources knew that much. Beyond that, nothing. Antoine had hardly slept, his mind trying to comprehend what Bertie’s game was. As far as Antoine and the rest of the Nobles were concerned, they would do nothing to jeopardize their goal. Bertie had already proven that that wasn’t the case for him. If you could kill your own twin, there were no bounds to what you could do.

Antoine stood before his council
. “This evening, Bertie is off the agenda. We don’t have time for it. Conrad’s security teams are doing everything they can. If you do wish to discuss Bertie, I’d ask you to leave it until after the council meeting.”

A number of approving nods greeted the news
.

“
Now, down to business. We are two weeks out from the convergence when the transports can commence. Anya?”

Antoine turned the floor over to his sister
. “Fuel production has been better than anticipated and we’re close to the point of starting the fuelling process, which, as you’re aware, has its own problems. However, I believe Caleb has solved most of those problems and we’re in a position to start moving the fuel to the launch site.”

Caleb nodded
. “Yep, not easy but we’ve found a way to stabilize it for transport. The actual fueling system itself is still only theoretical, since we’ve not been able to trial it, but we believe it will deliver. As for the launch site, the spot we’ve got in the Pacific Ocean is perfect. It’s like a black hole, no shipping lanes or flight paths go anywhere near it. The only land nearby are tiny uninhabited islands, on which we’ve built landing strips for ferrying to and from the area. The stealth capability of the ships should mean that unless actually spotted, no one will ever know we’re there. I think Conrad has the situation in hand, should anyone see anything.”

“We’ve
got a number of fighters on station to deal with any issues,” confirmed Conrad. “Along with a few high speed patrol vessels that will monitor and scare off any shipping that strays off course. Should anyone see anything, we’ll shoot first and ask questions later.”

The door to the library opened and Bea entered
. “Apologies, I’m late!” she said, to an impromptu round of applause, led by Antoine.

“I think
, given your achievements, we can forgive you!”

“Thank you,” she
said, sitting down.

“Using the survivors to test the mixed batch was genius
,” said Conrad.

“Well
, they were an excellent cross-section of the population. But there is one thing you’re not aware of,” she tapped her nose, resulting in them all leaning forward slightly.

“My son released it on the boat, without any protection.”

“A little risky, no?” asked Antoine.

“Not at all,” said Blake
. “Our genes are as pure as our ancestors who developed the toxin,” he said proudly. He was a man who marveled at the family’s history.

“And if
, down the line, they had been, unbeknownst to us, mixed?” asked Antoine, making his point.

“Irrelevant,”
said Blake dismissively. “The Noble genes would dominate the inferior genes. As long as there’s a Noble in you, you’re a Noble.”

“But we should never mix!” said Antoine
. This was new information, to all of them, he could tell by the looks on the faces of everyone else in the room.

“No we shouldn’t, but it doesn’t mean we can’t
.”

Antoine was going to have to revisit his decision with regard to his son
. He looked at Conrad, who was obviously on the same wavelength, looking right back at him. Antoine would have another late night chat with Blake.

“And the cover story seems to have calmed everyone
down. Is the CDC going along with it?”

“We made them think it was their idea but yes, they’ll continue trying to find what really killed them
. In the meantime, it’s being put down to a contamination in the river.”

“Do we have
a timescale of when we need to start the downsizing?”

The rest of the meeting moved off into the detail of food production
, food consumption, and the need for food to be transported, as well as people. Over the next eighty years, food production on the other planet was going to be minimal. Food was going to have to be sent to supplement the population. As the planet died, the food source would dwindle. Everything pointed to a devastating shortage within the first ten years, a shortage that would cause widespread famine across both planets. Famine would cause panic and unrest, which in turn would affect production. Production had to be maintained at all costs.

P
eople had to go about their daily lives as long as possible. Even during the convergence they had to be unaware of what was happening. If they realized there was not space for everyone, chaos would reign and production would be affected. Production was vital.

“We should have started birth control fifty years ago
,” said Blake. “I warned your grandfather the population was spiraling.”

“I know
, but things were difficult during the Cold War. We lost control, paranoia ruled, not us.”

“
The population’s doubled since then, you know. And the number of nuclear weapons!”

“We’re dealing with both
of them now,” Antoine said calmly, not wanting to lose his temper with Blake. His points were valid but inappropriate.

“I’m sorry, I
’m speaking out of turn. I’m just excited I’ll be here for the start when I never thought I would be!”

“So
, back to the food. Are we saying we need to start stockpiling now?” asked Antoine.

“Yes
.”

“I don’t think we should start anything until the convergence actually begins
though.”

A number of nods echoed agreement around the table.

“Do we have a number?”

“Half
,” said Blake.

“Half a million?” asked Bea.

“No,” said Blake, “half the population.”

“Three
and a half billion in one hit?”

“One big cut is less painful than a thousand small ones.”

“It would get us down to a billion in eighty years, given the death rate and reduced birth rate,” said Bea.

“It would cause utter chaos!” said Conrad.

“Only once, and we can quickly find a cure that the rest of the world would get, job done. Population under control,” concluded Blake.

“It works,” nodded Bea
. “We just need to work out who goes. Do we do it by race or by area?”

“Race,” said Blake
. “There are a few I can think of that have done little for anyone.”

“Let’s leave prejudices at the door, though the principle is sound
,” cautioned Antoine. “Bea, I’ll leave you and your team to work out the detail of who, but let’s go with a time just before the first transport is on its way. Or the first ship arrives back, whichever is first.”

“Well
, that was a far more productive meeting than before, same time tomorrow and remember, the day after that is Alex’s 21st, so no meeting that night,” he said excitedly. “Blake, would you mind hanging back a few minutes? You too, Conrad.”

“If you don’t mind
, I’ll stay too,” said Anya, much to Antoine’s surprise.