The God Complex: A Thriller (23 page)

Cash spotted the move and tried to get a shot off but
Gray T-Shirt moved too quickly. It was as though he had eyes in the back of his head.

Rigs spotted the glint off in the distance, a scope. A suppressed flash followed. He looked in panic
at Sophie. She was fine. It had to be Cash they were aiming at. Olive T-Shirt was still over thirty feet off to his right in the open. He delved into his bag. It wasn’t ideal but he didn’t have time, the situation was getting out of control.

He pulled out three shuriken, Japanese throwing stars. It had been a long time since he’d used them in anger. Ideally
, he’d have been half the distance away. He aimed the star and threw as hard as he could. One of the four points landed behind his target’s ear, it couldn’t have been more perfect. The target slumped to the ground.

Rigs spun out
of the other side of the ruins and made a run towards Sophie.

“Zach’s down, I repeat, Zach is down!” said Liam into his mic.

“Is he moving?” asked Charlie
, trying to stay calm. She and Zach had been seeing each other secretly for the previous few months.

“No
,” replied Liam.

Charlie looked for the woman, off to her right still, about forty yards and closing slowly.

“Liam, where’s my guy?”

“I think I got him, no movement from the stairwell.”

“Keep me covered, I’m going to back up, Steve.”

Sophie was helpless, the woman abruptly changed course and sped towards her. They did know who she was, or at least that she was with Cash and Rigs. She looked around, neither were anywhere to be seen. She was feeling a little less pleased with her plan. The crowds of visitors were starting to spill into the grounds but they were still way off at the entrance. She diverted her course but the woman matched it. A man in a gray t-shirt was also matching her. There were two of them coming for her. Where the hell was Cash? She turned again, spotted a stairwell down to the next level of ruins and raced down it. The woman leapt down, not bothering to find a stairwell.

The man was right behind her. Sophie turned and ran
. She passed through a doorway and turned sharply, her ankle failing to turn as quickly, twisted, sending her crashing to the floor with a scream.

Rigs spun
round. He was close. He heard the crash and the scream. He had to stay out of sight and rely on sounds. The sniper had a bird’s eye view of the entire site. He changed course and zeroed in on Sophie’s whimpers, speeding through the ruins, keeping out of the sniper’s view. He darted back behind a wall, but was too late. The woman who had posed as a mother stood over Sophie, her pistol leveled at Sophie’s head, her back to Rigs. Fortunately, she hadn’t seen him. He pulled out his knife and lunged into the open, in full view of the sniper. Rigs had caught them by surprise and grabbed the woman, spinning her to shield him and Sophie from the sniper.

With the knife slicing into her neck,
the woman dropped her pistol without hesitation.

“Don’t move,” said Rigs needlessly.

“Don’t
you
move!” said the man in the gray t-shirt, stepping out from behind the wall with his pistol aimed directly at Rigs’ head.

Rigs ignored him and pushed the knife deeper, the blood
oozing from beneath its razor sharp edge as it cut deeper into the woman’s skin.

“Lower your gun or I take her head off right now!” Rigs
stated coldly.

Steve had his ace in the hole. His sniper had the target in sight.

“I have the shot!” said Liam into Steve’s earpiece.

Steve lowered his pistol and was rewarded by the target lessening his cut. All he needed was to give a slight nod and Liam would pull the trigger. He waited for the knife to relax a little more. The last thing he wanted was a slumping body to slice through Charlie’s neck, killing her as a result of a hasty shot.

Steve dropped his pistol to show he meant business. He hoped the guy would reciprocate. He moved the knife further from her neck
, fully exposing his face to the sniper when he leaned against the side of Charlie’s head.

“I have the shot, give me the signal!” Liam
urged.

The guy moved the knife to a safe position
. Steve dipped his head slightly.

Sophie’s hands covered her face, muffling her scream when the head of the person standing above her exploded into a bloody mush. The body, minus half its head, crashed on top of her as Gray T-Shirt reached down for his pistol.

Her screams continued even after the bloody remains were pulled off of her and she was
dragged behind a wall.

“Rigs?” she asked.

He nodded. Sophie calmed down and looked around to see that the woman had been shot while the man with the gray t-shirt had a knife buried deep in his chest, blood trickling from his mouth as he coughed and spluttered his last breaths.

“
How did you manage that?”

“I had my ear pressed against hers listening to her earpiece
. Their sniper asked for a signal, so when he dipped his head, I moved her head to where mine was and put a knife through his chest,” he said, holding up the pistol he had managed to acquire while getting them into cover.

“What about Cash?” she asked.

“He was supposed to have dealt with him,” he said, pointing to the dying gray t-shirt clad man.

The sniper fired two shots uselessly against the wall next to them
. He couldn’t possibly hit them where they were. He followed those with another three, then one then two more.

Sophie broke into a grin
. “He took care of the sniper!”

“So that’s the secret signal
?” smiled Rigs.

“You don’t miss much in that world of yours, do you
, Rigs?” asked Sophie, impressed he’d remembered the signal from the bunker.

Rigs shook his head and
stood up, offering Sophie a helping hand onto her feet. He dug into his bag and with the help of a water bottle and a t-shirt, removed most of the blood on him.

Two tentative steps proved her ankle wasn’t too bad and under his guidance
, they made their way away from the bodies before the first tourists’ screams echoed through the mountains.

Cash met them as they approached the entrance
. The crowds were already trying to leave having discovered the bodies. Cash pushed as tight against Sophie as he could. She pulled away. He pushed back. “Your clothes are covered in blood down this side,” he whispered.

“Oh
!”

“So where to?”

“A shower please.”

“If you insist,” Cash
had an email to draft to Travis but that could definitely wait.

Senator Noble had seen the news break from Peru. Four Americans had been killed in broad daylight in Machu Picchu. Four Americans who he knew were linked to DIS. His pulse quickened. This couldn’t be happening. He grabbed the phone.

“Who are you calling?”
The slight Eastern European twang to her accent added an unnecessarily sinister edge to the beauty who had not left his side. So far, the most he had learned was her name, Katya, not that he believed it was her real one.

“My nephew
. We may have a problem,” he said. His nerves were not coping well with the new arrangement. She sat in the corner of his office, having spent the night sleeping in his bed, while he slept on the sofa. Even visiting the restroom required the door to be left open, which she was more than happy to do herself. She had no issue undressing or showering in front of him. Although she was the most flawless female he had ever seen, the darkness behind her captivating eyes belied a violence he had no intention of unleashing.

She waved her hand regally as
though that were acceptable.

Conrad answered on the second ring
. “Uncle Bertie! Enjoying your new companion?” he asked gleefully.

“We have a problem
.” Bertie would bow and curtsy to Antoine, but not the monkey.

“What?” asked Conrad
.

“Have you not seen the news?” he asked
, his rage building.

“No, I’ve just stepped off a plane,” explained Conrad, re-engaging
once he heard the hint of panic in the anger of his otherwise fearless uncle.

“Your two targets appear to have wiped out a DIS team in Peru, it’s all over the news.”

“Shit, when?”

“It broke a few minutes ago
. Who knows how long since it happened but I wouldn’t think long.”

“There’s nothing on them that will connect them to DIS
. They know not to divulge any details about DIS - their families will be amply rewarded,” explained Conrad..

“You
’re forgetting one thing. We’re up against actual CIA staff here. We’ve never used DIS staff in this way before.”

“And?”

“I’m exposed!” shouted the Senator, failing to understand why Conrad wasn’t seeing it. “I hired the boss, Mike Yates, so there’s a direct link to me and Atlas Noble.”

Katya sat up in her chair, suddenly taking interest in the situation,
especially after hearing the name Mike Yates. Her role was to protect Atlas Noble and Antoine Noble from any fallout as a result of the Senator’s ‘work’. If, even for a second, it looked like the government were piecing together his involvement in the coup attempt, Senator Bertie Noble would suffer a sudden and fatal heart attack, and Katya would disappear invisibly into the night.

Conrad always considered DIS
to be an arm’s length organization with no ties whatsoever to Atlas Noble; that was what made it so valuable. The caliber of staff they were able to recruit far exceeded anything on the open market. The ex-CIA, DIA and Special Forces operatives, believing they were joining a highly secretive government agency, were willing to undertake roles that guns for hire wouldn’t otherwise touch. It was ingenious, giving Atlas Noble one of the world’s premier and most secretive intelligence agencies. None of that came without having to build some credibility and Senator Bertie Noble provided that as Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee.

“Perhaps DIS was inappropriate in this instance
then.”

“You think
?” said Bertie sarcastically.

“Our contacts are telling us
that the CIA has cut them loose,” explained Conrad.

“Cash and Rigs
? Not a chance, they’re Travis Davies’ go to guys. That’s why you’ve got four body bags waiting for a ride home from Peru. If that’s what you’re hearing, that’s what Travis Davies wants you to hear.”

“This Mike Yates, is he the only exposure?” asked Katya, interrupting the conversation.

Senator Noble nodded at her. Katya relaxed back into her chair.

“We don’t even know if it
is a problem,” said Conrad. “Dead men can’t talk.”

“We don’t know what they told the CIA guys before they were killed
,” said the Senator. “They may have already alerted Travis to DIS’ involvement. They may already have Mike Yates in custody!”

“They don’t,” said Conrad confidently.

“You don’t know that!”

“I do,” he smiled
. “You’re not the first loose end Katya was sent to deal with,” explained Conrad. “Mike Yates, I believe, has a byline on page seven of this morning’s
New York Times
,” he said flatly, then hung up.

He’d played enough with the old man. DIS had already been pulled from the operation a few hours earlier. Everything the Senator had said was valid, not to mention
that Mike Yates was the only link to Atlas Noble in DIS, hence Katya’s extra babysitting role. How she had made a man, particularly one as experienced and capable as Mike Yates, jump voluntarily from a skyscraper to his death, leaving behind a genuine handwritten suicide letter, Conrad had no idea. However, that was why Katya and her very special band of colleagues were the best in the world at what they did. And that was why they had replaced the DIS team in the hunt for Cash and Rigs.

The first reports of an unknown outbreak in Papua New Guinea trickled in
. The first came from the Vatican, alerting the center to a call they had received from a mission based along the Sepik River. A very agitated nun had called them, claiming that everyone was dead. She was unable to give much detail such was her state of distress. Within an hour, another call from a similar area had relayed a similar message.

By the fourth call, less than three hours later, the quality of the message had improved. Medecins Sans Fronti
ères, the leading French humanitarian aid organization, had relayed a message from two of their doctors in the field, using the words ‘extinction level event’. Unfortunately, the call was received just as YouTube footage of the mummified remains of an entire village hit the internet.

The CDC’s state of the art phone system instantly crashed
when the world hit the panic button.

Major General Paul Lockhart MD, recently appointed as the new
director of the CDC by President Mitchell, welcomed his crisis management team into his office.

“
What do we know?” he asked, pushing a number of packing boxes out of the way to allow his team to sit down.

“Very little so far
, and none of which we’ve been able to verify beyond the YouTube video that’s now been taken offline. Reports are of a virus of unknown origin wiping out entire communities in less than twelve hours,” said the department head for the Australasian region.

“Twelve hours
? That can’t be right,” he said, walking around the table. He liked to walk and think. “It can’t be a virus then!”

If anyone knew it couldn’t be virus, it was Lockhart
, former head of the USAMRMC unit at Fort Detrick, historically more famous for trying to create the type of virus he was now tasked with defeating.

“I can’t agree more,” said his
head of Virology. There’s no virus on earth capable of that level of contagion, fatality and timescale.”

“Or
certainly none we’re aware of. We’re probably dealing with one of the least explored corners of the world. There’re probably animals, insects and flora in there that we don’t even know exist yet.”

“Where is the affected area?”

An overlarge map was quartered to allow it to fit on the table; the portion on view stretched from Australia to South China.

“There,” said
the deputy, pointing to the Northeast sector of Papua New Guinea. The area was a mass of green.

“Do we not have a map with better detail, the towns, roads transport links…
?”

“This is detailed,” the deputy interrupted
, pointing to the coastal towns of Aitape and Vanimo. We’re dealing with a region that is almost entirely inhabited by tribal clans, living a subsistence life on the river banks.” He put his finger on the Sepik River and traced along its length. “This is their highway, their lifeline, and major food source,” he said.

“So we’re dealing with an area almost entirely cut off from the outside world.”

“I’d go so far as to say that they
are
cut off. If you’re not using the river, you’d have to trek through hundreds of miles of mountainous and dense jungle to reach the coastal towns.”

“Do we know what the situation is with containment?”

“The river is blocked to traffic and quarantine stations are in place, although I believe they’re poorly manned. Papua New Guinea is not known for its military might.”

“Potentially
, we’re facing the deadliest virus known to man and it happens here,” he pointed to the map. “Where, with one river being blocked, it’s being contained?”

“It would appear so,” replied the deputy
, as skeptical as Lockhart.

“Great place to test a bio-weapon,” he pondered out loud.

“There are approaching 700,000 people potentially affected,” added one of the group.

“
So it really
is
a great place to test a bio-weapon. We’re talking medieval style tribal villagers. Living in close proximity, all drinking the same water and most importantly, buried deep in a jungle that the world knows little about.”

“And will remember even less
about in a week from now.”

“
Are we talking genocide here?”

“It still happens
— Cambodia, Rwanda, the Balkans, Darfur and Tibet, to name a recent few. Whatever the case, we need boots on the ground and fast!”