Greg Iles - The Footprints of God

"Just a moment, sir. The readings seem to indicate a surface or shallow subsurface blast."

"There's your Russian engineering!" shouted the gen¬eral. "That's the malfunction you were hoping for, Senator!"

"What does that mean, General?" asked Senator Jackson.

"Nuclear weapons must be detonated above their tar¬gets for maximum effect. With a CEP of twelve miles and an underwater detonation, Russian incompetence just saved about two million American lives."

The relief that swept through the room was short¬lived.

"What about the other two missiles?" asked Senator Jackson.

Rachel looked at the screen. Two red tracks were sliding down the map of Canada, one moving southeast over Hudson Bay, the other racing down the spine of the Rocky Mountains.

"Corporal?" said General Bauer. "When will missile two and three enter the terminal phase of their flights?"

"Fourteen minutes, sir."

"Patch me through to Arcangel. I want to talk to a… radar navigator."

"Yes, sir."

The Situation Room was suddenly filled with static and cockpit chatter. General Bauer leaned over the tech¬nician's desk and spoke into a microphone.

"Arcangel, this is Gabriel. You will execute six one seven four on my order. Is that clear?"

The reply was emotionless. "Affirmative, Gabriel. On your order."

General Bauer studied the screen showing the flight paths of the missiles. "Approximately fifteen minutes."

"Roger," said the voice through the static. "Fifteen minutes."

General Bauer turned from the console and looked around the table in the Situation Room, his gray eyes confident. "Everybody just settle in, folks. In fifteen min¬utes, the lights will go out and our computers will go down, but so will the ones that Trinity uses to control the Russian missiles."

"How can you be sure those computers are in the U.S.?" asked McCaskell.

"I can't be. But even if they're in Asia, Trinity has to communicate with them over phone and data lines, and those are about to be fried by an EMP."

Rachel had forgotten Ravi Nara, but now the neurol¬ogist stood and spoke in a quavering voice. "General, with all respect for your plan, we have over twenty min¬utes before that missile reaches here. You have aircraft here, helicopters. Nonessential personnel could be evacu¬ated now."

"Like yourself?" said General Bauer.

"And the women."

"O ye of little faith," murmured General Bauer. "Take your seat, Dr. Nara. You're going to be fine."

"Look!" cried John Skow, pointing to a screen to the right of the one showing Senator Jackson's committee. "Oh, God…"

Rachel's gaze followed Skow's pointing finger. Blue letters crawled across the Trinity screen like the newsline at the bottom of a CNN broadcast.

We've entered the margin of error. Missile should be two minutes from ground zero at Norfolk, but we could have detonations at any moment.

Tennant's not getting anywhere, General. Your bomber's in position. I think it's time to launch the EMP strike.

"What are we looking at?" asked McCaskell.

Skow whispered, "Trinity's broken our codes."

"Gabriel to Arcangel!" shouted General Bauer, grab¬bing the microphone. "Execute! Execute!"

As the radar navigator in the B-52 asked for clarifica¬tion, another voice drowned him out. Rachel heard con¬fusion in the second voice, then panic. Someone screamed something about haywire instruments. Then the transmission went dead.

"What happened?" asked McCaskell. "Did they launch the weapon?"

"Gabriel to Arcangel!" shouted General Bauer. "Acknowledge!"

The technician at another console turned toward him. "Sir, they can't hear you."

Bauer whipped his head toward the tech. "What?"

"Arcangel is going down. They've got no comm at all. No UHF, no VHF. Nothing."

"How do you know that?"

"I'm patched into Kansas City Center. Arcangel's IFF beacon went off twenty seconds ago, and a Delta Airlines 727 just reported the lights of a very large air¬craft that appeared to be in an uncontrolled spin."

Disbelief slackened General Bauer's face. "What the hell happened?"

"No idea, sir."

The technician sitting beneath Bauer cocked his head as he listened to his headset. "General… NRO satel¬lites detected a high-energy beam directed toward the last-known position of Arcangel."

"What kind of beam?"

"A high-energy particle beam."

"From where?"

"Space."

"Space?"

"Yes, sir. It must have come from a space-based weapons platform."

"General Bauer!" said Senator Jackson. "What the hell is going on there?"

"Arcangel appears to be down, Senator."

"What do you mean 'down'?"

"It was probably destroyed by a weapons system I thought was still in development."

"Whose system? The Russians?"

"No, sir. The Russians don't have anything like that. Our air force must have some component of its Osiris system deployed. It's a prototype antimissile system, but it was clearly powerful enough to fry the avionics of our B-52. It must be under Trinity's control now."

"Did the bomber launch the EMP weapon?"

"I doubt it, sir. The timing was too perfect. Trinity must have broken our codes some time ago. It knew exactly what we were doing."

"But, General-"

"Listen to me, Senator." General Bauer's nerves were finally showing the strain. "In a very short time, every¬one here will be dead. You're going to be on your own. Only those in Containment will survive here, and Washington will be hit shortly after."

Jackson looked at his fellow senators, then back at General Bauer. "Can you get inside the Containment building?"

"Not without the computer's permission."

"Look at the screen!" Rachel cried, surprised to hear her own voice.

Trinity was sending a message to the Situation Room.

YOU WERE WARNED. YOU DISREGARDED MY WARNING. YOU MUST SUFFER THE CONSEQUENCES. YOU MUST LEARN.

Rachel looked at the NORAD screen. The missile tracks moving toward White Sands and Washington were slowly blinking red.

"Type what I tell you!" shouted McCaskell.

"Do it," said General Bauer.

"We made a mistake," said McCaskell, trying to keep his voice under control. "You can't hold millions of people responsible for the error of a few misguided individuals."

Trinity's response flashed up the moment McCaskell's words were keyed in.

I HAVE DONE NOTHING. THOSE LIVES WERE IN YOUR HANDS, AS WERE YOURS. YOU HAVE THROWN THEM AWAY. IT WAS TO BE EXPECTED. A HUMAN CHILD PLAYS WITH FIRE UNTIL IT IS BURNED.

General Bauer turned away from the screen and walked to his chair. Rachel saw defeat etched into his face.

"General?" said Senator Jackson. "What options do we have?"

Bauer looked down the table at his daughter. Geli stared at him like an enraptured spectator watching the end of some great tragedy.

"None," said the general, collapsing into his chair.

Ravi Nara came to his feet again, his eyes wild. "General, you must ask the computer to let us into Containment! Peter Godin was my friend. He'll let us inside!"

"You tried to kill Godin," General Bauer said calmly. "You think he wants to spare you now?"

"He will!"

The general motioned for a soldier to restrain Nara.

"We don't all have to die!" Nara screamed as the sol¬dier grabbed him. "Please!"

The neurologist was too distraught to be restrained by one man. The general called for another guard, but suddenly Geli Bauer materialized beside the wrestling men. She grabbed Nara 's neck with almost lazy speed, took him to the floor, then rolled him onto his stomach and jammed a knee into his back. A guard bound Nara 's wrists with plastic flex-cuffs, then led him out of the hangar. General Bauer nodded to Geli but said nothing.

"General," said Senator Jackson. "There must be something you can do about those last two missiles. You name it, we'll authorize it."