Greg Iles - The Footprints of God

Senator Barrett Jackson, the intelligence committee chairman, looked down from the video screen and said, "I can see them. Can they see us?"

"We see you, Senator. I'm John Skow of the NSA."

Senator Jackson was a bulldog of a man, with heavy jowls and deep-set eyes. A native Tennessean, he spoke with a drawl that belied his incisive intellect.

"I recognize General Bauer," he said. "Well… all right. I've got a question for you experts. Why has this computer stopped communicating with us? Why isn't it saying more or demanding something?"

"It's consolidating its strength," said General Bauer. "That's the logical move. Godin's technicians are probably still loading data into its memory."

Skow nodded. "I concur. Both the NSA and CERN say Trinity hasn't let up on its tour through the world's computer systems. It could be absorbing literally every bit of that information as it goes."

"I see," said Senator Jackson. "General, paint me a picture of the worst-case scenario. What can this machine do to us?"

"Excuse me, General Bauer," Skow interrupted. "Before you do that, I feel duty-bound to at least men¬tion the possibility of a Russian 'dead-hand' system."

"What the hell is that?" Jackson asked. "Dead hand? I seem to remember that phrase."

"You have a good memory, Senator," said Skow. "During the Cold War, Soviet planners knew that American strategy involved taking out their command and control systems with our first missiles. It was rumored that because of this, the Soviets developed what they called a 'dead-hand' system: a computer system that would automatically launch ICBMs upon receiving a missile warning by their coastal radar systems. Even if the Soviet leadership were killed, their 'dead hands' could still press the nuclear button. Rumors about this system originated in the U.S.S.R., but whether it was real or not has never been established. Later generations of Russian leadership denied its existence, and recent events have borne out this denial."

"Are you talking about the Norwegian incident?" asked a woman sitting at the back of the committee table.

Skow nodded. "Exactly, Senator. For those who don't know, in 1995, a Norwegian test rocket using the first stage from an American Honest John missile triggered a full nuclear alert in Russia, from the Strategic Rocket Forces up to Yeltsin himself. However, no retaliatory launch was made."

"So, does this 'dead-hand' system exist or not?" asked Senator Jackson.

"No, sir," asserted General Bauer. "During the Norwegian incident, the Russian command-and-control system functioned as it was designed to."

"Then what's Trinity talking about when it threatens to destroy the country?"

General Bauer could not hide his exasperation: "Senator, Trinity could throw our economy into chaos in a matter of minutes. If it attacked the currency markets, by Monday morning on Wall Street we could have panic selling unlike anything seen since 1929. Suppose Trinity attacks the trucking system? In three days, there would be no food on the supermarket shelves. We could have civil unrest within seventy-two hours, and widespread revolt within a week."

Senator Jackson sat back heavily in his chair. "Jesus Christ."

A soldier walked up to the general and whispered in his ear. Bauer looked up at the screen. "I've just received word that David Tennant and Rachel Weiss are about to arrive at the entrance of this base. They're in a heli¬copter, and they're going to land in the middle of that media circus."

Skow cursed under his breath.

"Tennant?" said a senator from the screen. "Isn't that the nut who was trying to kill the president?"

"He's the doctor who went public with the Trinity story," said Senator Jackson. "He used to be one of my constituents. I want him brought to your Situation Room."

"I agree," said Ewan McCaskell. "Dr. Tennant may have critical information for us."

Skow stood and faced the screen. "Senators, I've worked closely with Dr. Tennant for two years. He has severe psychological problems, including paranoid hallucinations. He's killed two men that we know of, and he's threatened the president's life."

"I've yet to see clear evidence of that last assertion," said McCaskell. "And Dr. Tennant's e-mail told a quite a dif¬ferent story."

"He's still dangerous," said Skow.

"Not surrounded by a squad of Special Forces troops," said General Bauer. "I'll send an escort for him."

"One of my Secret Service agents will go along," said McCaskell. "Just to be sure he arrives safely."

WHITE SANDS

I clung to my seat as the chopper hurtled down toward a throng of people and vehicles outside the gate of White Sands. Inside the gate sat two humvees with.50-caliber machine guns mounted in back, their gunners standing at the ready. Rachel pointed at the swirling mass. It seemed to be made up primarily of journalists, but a group of demonstrators carried picket signs and crucifixes by the gate. They reminded me of the crowds in the Via Dolorosa.

I gazed north through the Huey's open door. Fifty miles across this desert, my father witnessed the detona¬tion of the first atomic bomb. It was called, ironically enough, the Trinity Shot. He watched it from a bunker where high-speed cameras recorded every millisecond of the birth of the new sun. Many who witnessed that event tried to explain it, but none captured the moment the way Robert Oppenheimer did. I'd tacked his words on the wall of my medical ethics classroom at UVA:

When it went off in the New Mexico dawn, that first atomic bomb, we thought of Alfred Nobel and his vain hope that dynamite would put an end to wars. We thought of the legend of Prometheus, of that deep sense of guilt in man's new powers, that reflects his recogni¬tion of evil, and his long knowledge of it. We knew that it was a new world, but even more we knew that novelty itself was a very old thing in human life, that all our ways are rooted in it.

As the Huey augered down toward the mob below, I realized that Oppenheimer had understood something Peter Godin did not. Godin had entered the Trinity com¬puter to leave behind what no man had ever fully aban¬doned before: his humanity. In that quest, he could only fail.

The crowd surged toward the chopper as we landed on the far side of some TV trucks. We jumped out and tried to make for the gate, but someone recognized me and shouted my name, and that started a stampede. In seconds a storm of cameras, floodlights, and reporters was whirling around us. I stood still and silent until they quieted down.

"I'm David Tennant. I sent the note that revealed the existence of Trinity."

"What are you doing here?" shouted a reporter. "Aren't the people inside this fence the ones who were trying to kill you?"

"I think we're past that point now. But in case I'm wrong, you'll see me walk inside this base. If I don't come out again, don't stop asking questions until you get the truth."

"What is the truth?" asked a woman. "Is a computer holding the world hostage?"

"That's what I'm here to try to deal with."

"How?" shouted several voices at once.

A man with a French accent yelled, "Did this Trinity computer sabotage the Mohne River dam in Germany?"

"All I have to say is this. You're doing the world a service by remaining here. Whatever happens, don't leave. Thank you."

I tried to walk out of the circle, but the journalists refused to give way. Their shouted questions grew to a din, and they pressed in on us until the drumbeat of rotor blades drowned their voices. An olive drab Huey with miniguns mounted in its doors was settling almost directly overhead. When it dropped low enough, the reporters scattered like birds.

A young man wearing a business suit leapt from the Huey and ran toward me, shielding his face against the rotor blast. I saw a submachine gun beneath his flapping jacket.