Paul Christopher - The Templar throne

Through the Merovingian kings, Edwards traced his past history to the Desposyni and the adelphoi, the younger brothers and sisters of Christ himself and the carriers of his bloodline into the future. Edwards firmly believed that it was his life's work to discover other descendants of the Desposyni in America and bring them together to forge a nation.

By the time of his death in 1758 he had discovered seven other Desposyni families in the New World, and with their coalition Rex Deus was born again. The eventual objective of the secret group of interconnected families was to infiltrate every aspect of society, politics and industry as quietly and efficiently as possible, eventually to hold benevolent and truly Christian hegemony over America and perhaps, at last, in the name and family of God, they would rule the entire world.

They were believers in a literal and strict interpretation of the Bible and almost all were slave owners-Joshua's "Hewers of wood and drawers of water." They also believed in a strict aristocratic system of government as far as the right to vote was concerned, and were classifiably revolutionaries since they swore allegiance only to Christ and no other king, including the king of England. Most of all, they valued secrecy and absolute obedience. The Sicilian Mafia's laws of omerta were no more than a casual oath to the members of Rex Deus.

By 1776, Rex Deus had grown considerably in wealth and power. There were eight Rex Deus signers of the Declaration of Independence and a dozen more within the Continental Congress. By the outbreak of the Civil War, there were scores of Rex Deus members, associates and acolytes on both sides and in every state and territory in the nation.

When it was clear that America's trading partners in the outside world were going to back the already industrialized North, the Southern members of Rex Deus did their best to ensure the failure of the Confederacy. Just after the war, strongly opposed to Lincoln's freeing of the slaves, Rex Deus saw to it that there would be no more such radical policies enacted during his term. It was the first political assassination Rex Deus had been involved in, but it wouldn't be the last.

By the beginning of the twentieth century, Rex Deus had elected mayors, governors, senators and congressmen and were a behind-the-scenes force backing everything from isolationism in the face of World War One to supporting ongoing trade with Germany until 1917, even though the United States was supposedly neutral until that time.

Between the wars they were strong proponents of Prohibition, but saw nothing wrong with investing enormously in Canadian distilleries, the major source of illicit booze in the United States for the better part of fifteen years. In 1929, warned well before the stock market's imminent collapse, Rex Deus removed almost all its interests in the New York and Chicago markets, saving billions of dollars for the members of the secretive group.

With the rise of Hitler in 1933, elements of Rex Deus in Europe either began allying themselves with the Nazi Party or began quietly liquidating their assets and reinvesting in the war industries of the United Kingdom and the United States.

Although philosophically against Hitler on a number of levels, his methods and administration were sound, taking a small group of men and turning them into a ruthless political, economic and military force almost overnight. An impressive man with much about his organization to be admired, but clearly insane, not to be trusted, and without a shred of tactical or strategic sense or knowledge when it came to waging war.

Through their political members within the Roosevelt administration and with the full cooperation of their friends and colleagues in Big Oil, Rex Deus was also largely responsible for the foreign policy decisions that led to the choking off of all oil supplies to the "Heathen Jap." Not too surprising when you knew that Rose Francis Whitney Hull, the wife of Secretary of State Cordell Hull, came from a long line of Rex Deus members.

With their preferred policy in place, Rex Deus started investing heavily in war industries like small arms, rubber, steel and aluminum, well aware that the United States was being drawn inexorably to war. When Pearl Harbor came they were ready, all in the name of God, and particularly in the big-dollar, American God of Rex Deus.

After the war some members of Rex Deus, the Sinclairs in particular, began buying up utilities, both in the United States and abroad. Others continued investing in oil and others in real estate and banking. As America grew richer and stronger so too did Rex Deus.

The members of Rex Deus were not cracker evangelists who preached that prayer could bring you wealth and fame and took every credit card under the sun, even the Discover Card, just so long as you called their toll-free number right now with your faith offerings. The members of Rex Deus were True Believers, as devout and fanatical as the most ardent jihadist.

By the beginning of the new millennium, the senior members of the Rex Deus order were collectively the greatest single economic force in the United States as well as being the largest religious organization, and still, after more than two hundred years of remaining completely secret and off the radar, the existence of Rex Deus was barely rumored, and when those rumors did circulate they were invariably dismissed out of hand as nothing more than the paranoid delusions of the left liberal media and addle-brained, pot-smoking conspiracy theorists.

By 2008 the only thing Rex Deus hadn't done was to elect a president, and by the end of that year, with the abomination of a black man installed in the White House, it was clear to the Rex Deus elite that something had to be done before the country was irrevocably wounded, the very core of the nation's soul riddled with the cancerous tentacles of godlessness and unholy corruption. To fight this terrible scourge, Rex Deus would need a new leader and a new plan for the country if it was to survive. Drastic measures had to be taken and taken soon. A secret conclave of the Desposyni was called.

The Skybus Air Express turboprop resumed the normal flight path corresponding to the flight plan they'd filed earlier in the day and arrived in Bangor, Maine, an hour and a half after leaving Sable Island and well ahead of the newly christened Hurricane Otto that was now sweeping over the little outpost island in the Atlantic.

By the time they arrived at Bangor International Airport the ark had been transferred to a wooden crate already Customs-sealed and listed on the cargo manifest as medical isotopes. Holliday was provided with what appeared to be a genuine United States passport with his name on it and his occupation listed as copilot.

They were waved through the Customs and Immigration checkpoint as crew, and Holliday was immediately led to a private lounge. The two watchdogs who had been on the Skybus flight accompanied them, then turned them over to a new set of caretakers in the lounge. From their attitude and their demeanor Holliday assumed they were ex-military, and he also assumed they were armed.

Half an hour later they transferred to a Gulfstream G550 business jet in the black and red livery of American Fluid Dynamics Corporation. Slightly less than two hours later they arrived in Lexington, Kentucky. They were met on the tarmac by three hard- faced black men in white shirts and dark suits and three black Cadillac Escalade vans with darkly tinted windows.

Even in the brief moment that he saw their faces Holliday knew they'd seen war in one place or another, either Iraq or Afghanistan. They had the look in their eyes of soldiers who still saw things that haunted them in their dreams. Everyone climbed into the three vehicles and then, like a downsized version of a presidential motorcade, they swept out of the airport and onto Interstate 64.