The God Complex: A Thriller (5 page)

The slap knocked him sideways. Fifteen years of pent up frustration were released in one swing.

“How fucking dare you!” Sophie
screeched.

Cash pulled himself upright
, his face still stinging. He’d been punched many times but never slapped. He preferred a punch.

“Shit, that hurts!” he said
, rubbing his reddening cheek.

“Try the love of your life pulling a
disappearing act for fifteen years and refusing any contact.
That’s
hurt!”

“Try the love of your life cheating on you with their father
.”

“I never slept with your father,” she said
, lowering her voice almost to a whisper.

“I caught you with him!
And let’s face it, my father had a bit of a reputation for bedding his research assistants!”

“You caught me very drunk, kissing him
; it was a mistake and was over in seconds.”

“I can’t verify that
.”

“I thought he was you
,” she said, halfheartedly punching him in the chest.

“What?” asked
Cash.

“I was very drunk, I heard someone come in and thought it was you. I stumbled across and threw my arms around your father and started to kiss him thinking it was you.”

“And...and I w-walked in?” stammered Cash.

“
And ran out of our lives, yes!” she said and started to cry again.

“Kyle?”

“One hundred percent yours. The reason I was so drunk was because I was pregnant, which I didn’t know until after you’d gone. We tried to contact you but you refused every attempt. I sent hundreds of letters, but they all came back unopened. We tried to visit your base but they wouldn’t let us in without your consent.”

Cash nodded.

“Your dad didn’t tell you?”

“He was so pleased to see me
. I didn’t spend much time with him. He did want to tell me something before the ceremony though.”

Cash slumped onto the bed, the bed where he had most likely made a son, a son whose life he had been no part of.

“Does Kyle know?”

Sophie nodded
. “But also knows you don’t know.”

“Your mom?”

Sophie nodded again. “She pretty much despises you and can barely say your name.”

“Your dad?”

“You were the son he never had. He always defended you, but was finding it harder and harder as Kyle grew older.”

The sound of gunfire pulled Cash out of his despair. He pushed Sophie to the floor
, propelling her out onto the landing, ushering Kyle and Mrs. Kramer to join them on the floor.

“Stay
down and do exactly as I say!” he commanded as bullets began to tear through the fabric of the house.

“Rigs!” he shouted as he
neared the top of the stairs.

“
At least ten out front and some out back!” Rigs shouted, rushing into the house, followed by the three police officers. Rigs had moved into action mode, all awkwardness left behind. Cash likened it to stutterers who could sing perfectly without stuttering. Rigs’ mind was focused on one thing and one thing alone: neutralizing the enemy.

“Weapons?”

“The P90s, a few pistols, and a couple of shotguns from the police cars.”

“Lay down some cover while I get these guys down the stairs
,” Cash said.

“You heard the man
!” shouted Rigs, throwing a P90 to Banks and instructing him and another officer to take the back of the house. “On my count, empty your magazines into the attackers,” said Rigs, looking at the third officer who would cover the front with him.

“When he gets to three, I want you to all run as fast as you can down the stairs, keeping your heads low and go straight to the basement door
,” Cash told Kyle, Sophie and her mother.

“They’re getting close!” shouted Banks, panic filling his voice.

“Okay, one, two…” Rigs wanted to see the white of their eyes, “…three!”

Cash watched proudly as Kyle grabbed his mom to help her down the stairs as quickly as possible
. He followed with Mrs. Kramer. They barely avoided a collision at the bottom of the stairs when they spun around and into the basement door, which was beneath the staircase.

“In!” prompted Cash
.

Kyle stood back to let the ladies in first
.
It really isn’t the time for English gallantry
thought Cash.

“Rigs!’ shouted Cash
. “We’re down!”

“There are many more than we thought
. I’ve taken six out and they’re still coming!”

“Banksie?” called Cash, only to be met with silence.

Rigs and the officer covering the front rushed back to the hallway. The front door buckled when the attackers unleashed a hail of bullets against the solid oak panels.

“Basement,” Cash
said, pushing the officer and Rigs into the doorway. A Surenos gang member rushed into the hallway from the back of the house, catching Cash cold and unarmed.

The front door gave way
under the unrelenting hail of bullets.

Cash dived through the doorway, taking advantage of the startled gang member
’s lack of experience, and the gang member took the full brunt of the torrent of bullets that passed through the front door.

Cash crashed into the officer and Rigs, sending the three of them tumbling into a heap at the bottom of the stairs.

“Run!” screamed Sophie as the footsteps could be clearly heard racing across the corridor above them.

A
ll three rushed towards her voice and through the small doorway on the far wall.

When the Surenos members filtered back out of the house, Green instructed his two colleagues, Red and Brown, to move forward with him. Green had orders to stay back until the scene was clear. Gray had already lost one operative and didn’t want to lose any more. As far as Green was aware, it wasn’t that Gray cared for them particularly. Despite their colorful and anonymous names, they were not faceless and untraceable mercenaries. Each of them was a well seasoned ex-Special Forces man with a history that could tie them back to Gray. It was only thanks to Green’s quick actions that the police hadn’t found Blue’s body at the professor’s house.

The operatives
Green had with him were perfectly capable, particularly against a couple of academics. It was a different matter against trained CIA killers. Gray’s men would stay back until all dangers were eliminated.

“We’re going in now,” advised
Green on the radio to Gray.

“We need the flash drive and no witnesses,”
Gray reminded him.

“Understood.”

“Two dead in the kitchen and the rest are in the basement
,” one gang member said, strutting towards Green.

“All dead?” asked
Green.

His
shrug was not the solid affirmative he had hoped for.

“Are they dead?”
he repeated.

“I don’t know,” replied the
Surenos boss, his face exploding to mush before Green’s eyes.

The door thudded behind them, quickly followed by a hiss.

“A bomb shelter?” asked
the officer, looking around the small room that was stacked floor to ceiling with dry goods and water bottles.

Cash nodded
. “The Chief was a bit of a prepper. He liked to know he could protect his family. It’s also a great earthquake shelter, which is handy given the San Andreas Fault runs right beneath here.”

Cash
pushed a bag of rice to the side, revealing a gun cabinet below.

“How did you know that was there?” asked Rigs
quietly, keeping his voice almost inaudible to everyone but Cash.

“I helped build this thing
. I just hope he didn’t change the padlock code.” Cash entered the code ‘0716’.

Sophie watched him, a look of anger flashing across her face
. “So you do remember my birthday.”

Cash shrugged
. No apologies were ever going to make up for what he had done.

A number of rifles lay wrapped in oily rags
. “He was sure one day we’d all need to hunt to eat,” explained Cash, removing them one by one.

Bullets pinged against the metal door. The
officer watched the door intently, as though it were going to burst open any moment.

“It’s
fine,” Cash assured him. “Only a direct missile strike is taking this baby down.” He patted the cold walls that encased them.

“
Fancy a hunt?” asked Cash with a grin.

Rigs nodded
, as did Kyle.

“Not you
,” said Cash firmly, throwing a scoped M16 to Rigs.

He rubbed down a scoped M4 for himself and directed Rigs towards the far wall of the small shelter, where he pulled aside a pile of provisions to reveal a small hatch at the bottom of the wall.

“Once we’re out, close this behind us and only open it if you get the signal,” Cash said to Sophie.

Sophie
blushed, memories of the “signal” flooding back to her.

“What’s the signal
?” asked Kyle, having missed his mother’s blushes, resulting in even greater embarrassment.

“
Let’s go,” said Cash.  He spun the wheel lock and pulled the hatch open.

“Where does it bring us out?” asked Rigs as they crawled along the tunnel.
He and Cash were alone now, so his voice found a more normal level.

“Twenty yards behind the treeline, at the front of the house
. It took us a whole summer to build it. I always thought he was crazy but here we are, and it just saved our lives.”

“We’re not saved yet,” cautioned Rigs.

Cash reached the end of the tunnel and ascended the small ladder, then spun another wheel to open the hatch to the outside. He peered out carefully, checking that the opening still lay within the woods before motioning to Rigs to follow him out.

All shooting had stopped by the time they exited
. Only the loud and mingled voices of men congratulating themselves on a job well done drifted into the darkness of thick woods.

“Too many,” Rigs
commented. A significant force had attacked them.

Cash reluctantly
agreed. He had dearly wanted to avenge the Chief and his father.

“I’m sure we could manage a few pot shots though?” suggested Rigs.

Cash smiled in agreement and signaled for Rigs to head twenty yards one way and he would go twenty yards the other. It would offer them a much wider field and hopefully trick the attackers into thinking there were far more than two shooters. Cash and Rigs would move back towards each other between shots, and then make it back to the tunnel and hopefully disappear safely back to the shelter.

Cash took
up his position and surveyed the scene as the first wisps of daylight lit up the Chief’s front lawn. The attackers were almost all in gang dress apart from three men in suits, one of whom was addressing the gang members with an authority that few suit wearing men would conceive of. The gang members were the heavies, the suits were the money men and no doubt the men who had paid the gang to attack the Chief’s car. Cash lined up a shot. A gang member had his back to Cash and covered most of the suit apart from his head, Cash was more than happy to take him out with a headshot. The suit was going down.

He pulled the trigger
right as the gang member’s head moved across the sight. The back of the gang member’s head split like a watermelon.

The suit was already off and running for cover by the time the
body dropped out of the way.

Green was not about to find out what had happened. He didn’t care. The scene was dangerous and he had orders. Whatever happened, they could not be linked with the operation. Green ran for cover, signaled to his two men to join him and under the cover of the confusion he caused when he started shooting gang members himself, they jumped in a car and made off at speed.

“
Gray, last resort!” he said, hitting the transmit button as they sped out of the driveway and onto the highway.

Gray
said nothing. Their last resort plan left doubt where he would rather none existed. However, he was out of options. He clicked the link in Mike’s message and his tablet screen showed a black and white view from over 25,000 feet above him, a few miles to the north. A crosshair sat perfectly above the main chimney stack of the Kramers’ house. Gray didn’t hesitate for a second when he tapped the ‘fire’ icon on his screen. A counter began to reduce rapidly from 25,000 in the top left hand corner of his tablet screen and as the house became larger and larger, it exploded into a white flash.