The God Complex: A Thriller (3 page)

It wasn’t possible, unless, pondered the client…unless they had known exactly where to look.

He turned to his laptop, and pulled up recent stories for the Professor
. There was something he had seen, something that may make sense. He scanned through the results of the search. The first few pages all referred to Hubble 2. Page five was what he was looking for - a front page story,
‘Astronomer Turns Archaeologist’,
with a picture of the Professor at a dig at Tiwanaku, Bolivia. The article detailed a number of digs the Professor had been involved in over the previous few years. They were all sites of significance from thousands of years earlier.
He couldn’t have
, he thought. But the evidence said otherwise, they had known exactly where to look.

He
typed a reply to Mike Yates. They had planned for this eventuality and it was going to be messy but necessary.

No tracks lead to me but all of
the professor’s research must be found and destroyed as a matter of urgency. Additional resources will be made available to you as a last resort. Click
here
for link to control screen. Plan B should also be implemented. I will arrange for package to be delivered to your operatives for delivery on completion of Plan B.

Mike received the reply and forwarded on the relevant portion to Gray. Plan B was most definitely not for Gray’s eyes, although he would be fully aware of it in the not too distant future.

“Cancel my breakfast meeting,” Mike
instructed his P.A. “And get me Steve in Santa Cruz on the phone.”

The flash in the night sky blinded them all momentarily.

“…was that?” finished Cash as the brightness above
them died and the blackness returned.

“Do you think it’s all linked?” asked Cash
, reflecting on his father, the observatory and the flash in the night sky directly above them.

“Certainly all very coincidental,” pondered the
Chief.

The officer escorting
Rigs to the police car paused. “You still want him back at the station, Chief?”

“Yes
, of course I do!”

“C’mon
, Chief. There are things going on here that don’t make any sense and they certainly don’t involve Rigs,” argued Cash.

“And that’s exactly why he’s going to the station
. I have absolutely no idea what’s going on and until I do, I’m not taking any chances.”

“You
’re welcome to come with him,” offered the Chief, walking back to this car.

Cash looked back
at his childhood home and his father’s body that lay in the hallway. Fifteen hours was all they had had. After fifteen years of silence, those last fifteen hours would comfort him for the rest of his life. The thought that this could have happened without reconciling at least in some way would have been devastating. However, there was little more he could do there. His friend needed him.

“Chief
, hold up!” shouted Cash. “I’m coming!”

Rigs shook his head wildly, as he was being directed into the back seat of the other police car. He didn’t
want Cash to come. Cash knew he wanted him to stay with his father. After fifteen years, Rigs seldom needed to speak for Cash to understand what he was thinking.

“He’s gone and you
’re all the family I have left,” replied Cash abruptly, taking a seat in the Chief’s car.

“Keep the scene secure for the
Crime Scene Team,” the Chief said to the third officer.

“Yes
, Chief,” replied the officer, turning back to the house with a roll of police tape to secure the scene.

“Are you sure you’d not rather stay here?” asked
the Chief as he turned the ignition key.

Cash nodded halfheartedly
. He wasn’t sure of anything.

“Fair enough,” he said, waving for his officer to follow behind in the second car where
Rigs was secured as their suspect.

“So when did you get back?” asked the Chief.

“Yesterday about lunch time,” replied Cash.

“Staying long?”

“Supposed to be leaving later tonight, right after the opening ceremony. It was meant to be a flying visit.”

“
Figures,” replied the Chief, barely restraining the anger in his voice.

“What figures?” asked Cash, taken aback at the
Chief’s tone.

“Nothing, I’m not
getting involved.”

“Involved in what?”

“Your irresponsibility!”

“My what?”

“I suppose I shouldn’t expect anything more. Look at you with your own father, what is it, fifteen years since you’ve been here?!”

Cash was stunned
. “A father I’ve just watched being murdered in front of me!”

“I’m sorry,” said the
Chief. “It’s hard, being a father myself.”

“Is there something I’m missing? Has something happened to Sophie?” asked Cash.

The Chief shook his head.

Had things worked out differently
, Cash would have been sharing the ride with his father-in-law. Sophie was the Chief’s only child and Cash’s former fiancée. They had been childhood friends, sweethearts and had been inseparable.

“Sophie’s great,”
said the Chief with a fatherly smile. “She was looking forward to the opening ceremony.”

“She’s here?” asked Cash
. “I thought she lived in England?”

“
She does but she’s been heavily involved in the new telescope project and was invited to the opening.”

“Cool,” said Cash, not sure what else to say
. The thought of her being a few miles away didn’t sit well with him. The thought that he might actually bump into her was not something he had had to consider for the previous fifteen years. What would he even say to her?

“She’s got Kyle with her,” the
Chief said.

Cash nodded
. He didn’t want to think about her with anyone else. She had been ‘it’ for him, she had been ‘the one’. He’d never find another Sophie and he wasn’t sure his heart could take it even if he did.

Silence fell between the two men who had known each other, loved and trusted each other many years
earlier.

The
Chief fidgeted in his seat, the silence not sitting well with him.

“Jesus Christ
, Cash!!!” he exploded. “Fifteen fucking years! Not even so much as a birthday card!”

“I didn’t know you cared that much
, Chief,” smiled Cash, trying to lighten the outburst.

“Not me, you idiot!”

“What happened with Sophie and I is none of your business, Chief. It’s best left in the past.”

“You are one cold son of a bitch
, son,” blurted the Chief, shaking his head.

Cash remembered why he had left fifteen years ago, severing all ties with his past. He turned and looked out into the blackness
of the woods that surrounding them, his eye catching a sudden movement in the side mirror.

“Chief, floor it!” he said grabbing the radio mic
. “What’s the name of the officer behind us?” he demanded urgently.

“Fletcher
,” said the Chief, his eye catching what Cash had already seen.

“Officer Fletcher, take evasive action, bogie
s on your tail coming in fast!”

“We’re on it!”

“Duck!” screamed Cash when the tirade of bullets ate into the two vehicles. The six motorcycles easily outpaced the two police cars and tore past them as their riders unleashed their weapons.

“What the…
?” The Chief, threw the wheel into the path of the three motorcycles that had attempted to overtake them, clipping the third bike and taking out its rider in spectacular fashion.

Officer Fletcher had attempted a similar maneuver with the bikes on the outside but with more road to play with
, the motorcyclists had easily avoided his swerve. His actions had, however, opened him up to a full onslaught and left Rigs desperately trying to control the vehicle from the back seat with handcuffs and a dead Officer Fletcher blocking the controls. His only option was to try and stop.

“Fletcher’s stopping
!” shouted the Chief as the motorcyclists turned around and prepared for another pass.

Cash removed the pump action shotgun from
its mount and instructed the Chief to stop as well.

“Fletcher?”
he said into the mic as they ground to a halt.

No response.

The motorcycles were already heading back. Cash didn’t wait any longer. He opened the door and threw himself out and onto the ground, spinning to the far verge. Bullets from the onrushing motorcyclists pinged wildly across the tarmac. Cash stopped rolling and let loose with the shotgun. He caught the front motorcyclist’s wheel, sending it careening into a tree; its rider didn’t stand a chance. His second shot caught a rider full in the chest and seemed to stop him dead, while his bike continued on riderless.

After two shots
, he had no option but to throw himself down the small embankment that straddled the roadside. The other three riders unloaded everything they had at their only threat up until that point. The boom of the Chief’s Magnum .44 proved them wrong and another of the riders fell to the ground.
Four down, two to go
, thought Cash, as the last two flew past at speed.

Cash ran for the second car and found
Rigs with his head in the driver’s foot well covered in blood.

“Get me out of here,”
mumbled Rigs.

Cash pulled him free
. “I thought you were dead!”

“The blood
’s Fletcher’s and all I had to stop the car was my head,” he motioned with his hands cuffed behind his back.

“Chief?” shouted Cash, pointing to Rigs
’ handcuffs.

The Chief tossed keys to him
. “They’re circling back!” he warned, coughing painfully.

“Are
you okay?” asked Cash.

“Fine,” nodded the Chief
, steadying himself against the car. “I’m not as young as I used to be!”

Cash wasn’t convinced
. As he uncuffed Rigs, his eyes were drawn to the two bikers who were circling back. “Are they crazy?!” asked Cash. “We’ve taken out four of them!”

Rigs
wrung his wrists before grabbing a handgun from the dead officer’s belt.

“The
y’re mine!” he instructed, taking off at a sprint towards the onrushing motorbikes.

“Is he
out of his mind?!” shouted the Chief, raising his pistol unsteadily and getting ready to shoot.

“Certifiably,” replied
Cash. “And he’ll be even more so if you shoot one of them, or, by the look of your aim, him!”

“I’m helping him
!”

Cash shrugged
. Rigs stopped running, kneeled down and let off two shots. The two bikes kept coming, Rigs stood up as they rushed towards him.

“Shoot!” shouted the
Chief, his voice rasping.

Rigs
turned around, putting his back to the two bikes and their riders. The two bikes screamed past, keeping their course, their riders lifeless, both shot cleanly through the forehead. A hundred yards further down the road, the two bikes crashed off into the undergrowth.

D
anger over, Rigs rejoined Cash and the Chief.

The Chief was already trying to radio back to the professor
’s house. Nobody was answering.

While the
Chief radioed back to the house, Cash walked back along the roadside. The first rider, taken out by the Chief’s swerve, lay in a twisted heap. Semi-conscious, the rider had at least two obvious breaks, one of which was not only obvious, but clearly visible as the shard of bone protruded from the lower left leg of his pants.

Cash stepped on the shard. A scream split the night sky but there was nobody to come running to the rider
’s defense. They had chosen their spot well for the attack. The Empire Grade road cut through deep stretches of forest as it plunged down into the heart of Santa Cruz, cutting alongside the University of California’s campus, home to the Astronomy Department, headed by Cash’s father. Or, Cash thought,
formerly
headed by his father. As a child, Cash had hated the home deep in the hills above Santa Cruz. However, its isolation was perfect for his father’s work. Light pollution was at a minimum but for a young boy, its seclusion was a prison. For a young boy whose mother had died during childbirth, it was hell.

Cash pushed down harder and squinted in the darkness
to see the face of their attacker. The young man’s neck and face were covered in gang tattoos. ‘Sur’ and ‘X3’ were the most visible. Everybody from Santa Cruz knew the Surenos gang.

“
Rigs, check some of the other bodies for tattoos, see if any of them have Sur or anything like 13 on them!” shouted Cash over the gang member’s screams. Cash had lost friends to the gang in the past and pushed harder with his foot.

“All of them
!” he shouted back after a few minutes.

The
Chief stumbled towards Cash, wheezing. “Cash, what are you doing?” he struggled.

“Chief
, are you okay?” asked Cash turning his attention to the Chief, who was fading quickly.

“I’m fine, got winged during the mayhem,” he smiled
. A trickle of blood ran down the corner of his mouth and he slumped against a tree.

Cash ran to him, placing him gently against the tree
, feeling for the wetness covering the Chief’s back. He pulled him forward and searched for the wound. A bullet had entered through his back and, from the Chief’s breathing, had definitely punctured a lung.

“
Rigs! Radio for an ambulance!” he screamed. He had already lost one father and the Chief had always been like a father to him in the past.

“Cash?”

“Yes, Chief?”

“
Promise me…”

“Anything
, Chief,” he struggled to hold back tears for only the second time in his adult life and within an hour of the last.

“Kyle, please… for me…”
his last breath died.

Cash laid the
Chief gently against the tree and instantly turned his attention to the whimpering gang member.

“Talk!” instructed Cash.

“Fuck you, bitch!” cried the gang member.

Cash was in no mood for discussion
. He placed the end of the shotgun on the gang member’s injured leg and fired, removing the damaged lower half cleanly.

“
Talk!”

“I only know we were paid to hit the house and anyone who was there,”
gasped the gang member, scrambling between the waves of pain that were flooding through him.

“Who paid?”

“Someone paid the boss! I don’t know who!”

Rigs
joined him. “I think he’s telling the truth,” he said, noting the desperation in the gang member’s face.

“So do I,” said Cash
, allowing Rigs to take the shotgun from him.

Rigs stepped over to the gang member
and raised the shotgun, placing the barrel on his forehead.

“Plea…”
begged the gang member, cut off by the boom of the shotgun.

“I’ll cancel the ambulance then,” suggested
Cash to a nod of agreement from Rigs.

“So you knew the
Chief quite well?” asked Rigs, rubbing the end of the shotgun on the gang member’s clothes to clean it.

“He was like a father to me and his wife
was like the mom I never had.”

“And his daughter?” asked
Rigs having pieced most of Cash’s secret past together.

“Sophie, the girl I was going to marry.”

“But?”

“Exactly
. But,” replied Cash.

“Not quite what I was hoping for,” said
Rigs.

“Me neither,” said Cash, looking at the
Chief. “First, my father’s dying word was ‘Sophie’ and now the Chief’s dying word was ‘Kyle’ – Sophie’s new guy. I mean, Jesus, rub salt into the wound, guys,” he said more to himself than to Rigs.

“Where to?” asked
Rigs, scooping up whatever weapons he could lay his hands on.

“Sophie’s
place. She needs to know her dad is gone and I’d like to know what’s on this,” said Cash, holding up the flash drive.

“And then?” asked
Rigs, looking at his arsenal.

Cash nodded, reading his friend
’s mind. “Yes, then we go issue a little payback and see if we can find out what the fuck just happened.”