The pitching vehicle threatened to toss him overboard, into the swelling sea. He felt every bit like a cowboy riding an unbroken mustang.
Cautiously, he extended his arm and began unharnessing Allie’s seat belt. “Allie!” he said as he tripped the buckles. “Allie!”
But she didn’t stir.
Gently, reluctantly, he slapped her face.
Still nothing.
He cocked his right hand and swung it hard against her cheek.
Her head lolled and her eyes flew open.
Those emerald eyes.
Even without their usual luster, they were stunning.
“Oh, thank god.” he said.
“God?” she mumbled. “You believe in God now?”
He snickered. “Are you all right?”
Her eyes closed again; her head fell back against the seat.
“Allie!” he said. “Allie!”
He cocked his arm again.
Her eyes flew open. “Don’t you dare! I’m fine. Just give me a minute.” She shut her eyes again.
A short while later—still reclining with her eyes closed—she smiled, inhaling deeply through her nose. “Ahh, the fresh air feels gr . . .” Bolting upright, she looked around confusedly. “Wait, where am I? Where’s my family? What’s happened?”
He reached out to calm her, to warn her against making any sudden moves. “Let’s not sink her, okay? We’ve got enough trouble on our hands.”
After he was done explaining things, the devastated look on her face summed up their dodgy situation well.
“So what do we do now?” she said.
TUESDAY, MAY 2 (TIME ZONE UNCERTAIN)
Kneeling on her seat, facing sternward, she fought to keep the GoPro in her hands steady against Hero’s constant pitching movements. She was recording Calder, who was astride Hero’s backside troubleshooting the supersonic booster. He believed its gradual breakdown—starting back at Cape Horn—was the cause of all the problems.
She looked askance at the rising sun and felt fear. Its scrim-like orange halo now spanned half the sky—an indication the CME cloud was nearly upon them.
Overlaying the pale orange color was the bright ruddiness of the aurorae, much livelier than the pale tinting she’d seen in San Diego when they departed. Its reflection in the water made the sea look bloody.
“Calder!” she said, her stomach tightening like a closing fist. “How much longer?”
TUESDAY, MAY 2 (6:43 A.M. EASTERN AFRICA TIME)
ARABIAN SEA; OPPOSITE MOGADISHU, SOMALIA
ESTIMATED TIME TO IMPACT: 6 HOURS 5 MINUTES
With electrical power restored and both of them back inside, Calder eagerly surveyed the restored nav screen. But his heart dropped. According to the screen’s telemetry, they were stranded in the Arabian Sea, off the coast of Somalia!
Without any idea of what to do next, he decided at least to make sure Hero’s engine would start.
“Okay, prayer warrior,” he said, “now’s the time to dial up the Big Guy.”
“You got it. Praying . . .”
He pressed the green button and Hero’s engine sprang to life.
He’d heard Allie describe the sound as a whine, but to his ears it sounded more like an ode to joy.
“Strapped in?” he said.
“Roger.”
He gave Hero her head, but from the absence of any jack-rabbit-like leap forward, he knew instantly his jury-rigging efforts had not entirely succeeded. For some reason, the repaired booster unit was not kicking in.
So much for prayer.
Glumly, he watched the increasing numbers on the speed log: 97 . . . 201 . . . 310 . . . 425 . . . 475 . . . 499 . . . 502 knots. That was it—all he’d be able to squeeze from Hero’s unenhanced Q-thruster.
“How fast are we going?” Allie said.
He swallowed hard. “Not fast enough.”
“Oh.” Then a moment later, in a clearly dejected voice, she said, “Sorry, Calder. You tried. That’s all anyone can do.”
Calder wondered where to point Hero.
Does it matter anymore?
TUESDAY, MAY 2 (6:47 A.M. EASTERN AFRICA TIME)
ESTIMATED TIME TO IMPACT: 6 HOURS 1 MINUTE
Allie alternated between praying for inspiration—for help of any kind—and recollecting the people she loved most.
She tried picturing her family tucked away safely in the basement of Carlos’s church. But the dream she’d had (or whatever it was) kept intruding. Was it a premonition? Would the same horrific end come to her and Calder out here in the Arabian Sea—unprotected from the killer CME steadily, stubbornly, irresistibly streaking toward them?
She thought of Lolo, presumably still in Jerusalem somewhere.
Oh, Sis, Sis . . .
Will I ever see you again?
Then she thought of her lost love.
Phil, please forgive me . . . I was so incredibly stupid.
She caught herself. These morbid thoughts were getting her nowhere.
“Calder?”
“Yeah?”
“Penny for your thoughts?”
“Psh! Right now? They wouldn’t be worth a wooden nickel.”
She had no immediate comeback but knew they both needed to snap out of their funks, and quick. The clock was ticking.
“You can’t give up, Calder. Not now. You’re too close, too clever for that.”
“Clever!” He made the word sound like a curse. “Ha!”
“Calder, have you ever heard the story of how Kurt Gödel died?”
“What?”
“Kurt Gödel.”
Allie, like most others who knew about him, considered Gödel the most profound logician of the twentieth century. According to his famous Incompleteness Theorem, there were absolute truisms that could never be proved true using logic alone.
“What about him?”
“He was paranoid, you know. Constantly worried people were out to hurt him. The only ones he trusted were his wife Adele and Albert Einstein. Gödel worked with Einstein at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Princeton. Every day the two walked to their offices together, talking, laughing—they even stopped for ice cream now and then.
“After Adele and Einstein died, Gödel went off the deep end. He refused to eat and eventually starved to death. That’s how afraid he was of being poisoned by someone.”
“That makes no sense,” Calder said. “He let himself die because he thought people were out to kill him?”
“Yeah, I know. But to him it was perfectly logical. Right to the end.”
Silence.
“Why are you telling me this?” Calder said finally. There was an unmistakable edge to his voice.
“Calder, it shows the power of faith. If you believe we’re through here, then we are through. And the world, too. Get it?”
CHAPTER 47
SEEING RED
TUESDAY, MAY 2 (7:23 A.M. EASTERN AFRICA TIME)
ARABIAN SEA; BEARING NORTHWARD
ESTIMATED TIME TO IMPACT: 5 HOURS 25 MINUTES
‘‘That’s it!” Calder exclaimed. “I’ve got it!”
His booming voice reached her ears without the aid of the intercom.
“What?! What is it, Calder?”
“Allie, hold on.”
A moment later she heard him on the radio.
“Point Loma, this is Joshua One. Can you hear me? Over.”
There was no response. Even after Hero’s rebooting, the radio still did not work.
For the next ten minutes Calder tried and failed to connect with San Diego. Nevertheless, he did not give up.
“Point Loma, this is Joshua One. Can you hear me? Over.”
Still, there was nothing.
“Point Loma, this is Joshua One. Can you hear me? Over.”
Nothing.
A moment later there was crackling on the line.
“Joshua One, this is Point Loma. Roger, we copy, and thank goodness. We’ve been worried sick about you two. We noticed you’re way
off—”
Calder cut in. “Scotty, please listen, we’re changing our itinerary. I’ll explain later. We need to go through the Suez Canal. I repeat, the Suez Canal.”
Allie understood immediately.
Yes! Atta boy!
“Please secure permission and clearance ASAP. Our ETA there is four hours from now. I repeat, four hours, understood? Over.”
There was no immediate reply, just crackling. She held her breath.
At last Scotty said, “Joshua One, we copy. Also, be informed there’s been a change in the CME’s ETA. The SWPC is now saying T minus four hours, forty-seven minutes to impact.”
What??
“One other thing,” Scotty continued. “Ms. Freiberg wishes to speak with Ms. Armendariz right away on their com link. Do you copy? Over.”
“Copy that, I’ll tell her. Over and out.”
She congratulated Calder on the plan.
“Thanks, but did you hear about the CME—its new ETA? We’ve just lost thirty-eight minutes. I’m not sure we’re going to make it now. It all depends on how fast we can get through the canal. Let’s hope—”
“Calder, we’re gonna make it.”
Please, Lord Jesus.
He remained silent.
She switched on her radio link. “Hello? Hello? This is Allie Armendariz from Joshua One for Eva Freiberg. Can you hear me? Over.”
A wave of static gave way like a dissipating fog to Eva’s unmistakable voice. “Oh, my god! We all thought you guys were dead. Over.”
“We’re fine, Eva, we’re fine. Just a little glitch. Over.”
“You call being out of radio contact for six hours a ‘little glitch’? The transponder thing showed you guys leaving Chile, then stopping. And something else. The weirdest thing happened right after that. People all over the world started to—”
“Eva! Eva! Hold on. First you need to know there’s been a change of plans.”
TUESDAY, MAY 2 (7:43 A.M. CENTRAL EUROPEAN SUMMER TIME)
POOR CLARES’ SACRED HEART CONVENT; SEVILLE, SPAIN
ESTIMATED TIME TO IMPACT: 3 HOURS 45 MINUTES
She and the sisters were in the orphanage playground rounding up the kids. It was bedlam. Most of the boys and girls were insisting on staying outside to watch the flamboyant spectacle unfolding high overhead.
“Quickly, children! Quickly!” Sister Theresa cried out.
It wasn’t really like herding cats, Mother Yolanda thought. It was harder.
Marte, a dark-haired boy, refused to get off the swing. “Please, Reverend Mother, it’s so beautiful!”
The entire sky was now a pale orange, brightly streaked with red. It was, she had to admit, quite a show.
“Yes, Reverend Mother,” echoed another boy. “Why can’t we stay here and watch? It’s like fireworks on a feast day.”
“Better!” an older girl chirped.
A symphony of voices arose in agreement.
Mother Yolanda was in a fix. She did not want to scare the children by telling them the truth—the enemy was on the prowl, causing the sun to do a bad thing. But she also could not allow them to stay outdoors.
Early this morning the parish priest himself ordered everyone to take shelter inside the church. It was made of stone and had withstood, he said, every manner of disaster for more than a century.
And there was no plumbing. That was important, he explained, because reporters on TV were saying people needed to stay clear of metal, of anything that could conduct electricity.
He stopped short of ordering that the church’s stoup be emptied. Even though, he claimed, he knew enough science to understand water was an excellent conductor of electricity.
“Yes, yes, I know,” Mother Yolanda now said to the mutinous children. “But you see, I wasn’t supposed to tell you we are planning a very special party inside the church. So if you don’t come with me”—she made a sad face—“it won’t be much of a party, now will it?”
It worked. The children cheered and sprinted toward the massive stone building. Except for one teenage girl, who look scared.
“Are we going to die, Reverend Mother?”
Mother Yolanda was taken aback by the simplicity of the question.
What shall I tell her?
The truth?
“We all will die one day, my child. But only God knows when and how.” She took the girl gently by the hand, saying, “Now come. I need your help with the decorations. You are such an artist, you know, when it comes to those things.”
TUESDAY, MAY 2 (9:18 A.M. EASTERN AFRICA TIME)
GULF OF ADEN; OPPOSITE DJIBOUTI CITY, DJIBOUTI
ESTIMATED TIME TO IMPACT: 3 HOURS 10 MINUTES
Hero whizzed past Djibouti, speeding northward toward the Suez Canal. Calder watched the sky nervously. Its glowering complexion reminded him of raw meat.
“Is that the Red Sea coming up?” Allie said.
He glanced at the nav screen. “Yeah.”
It felt as though Hero were crawling. He wanted to get out and push her, kick her in the behind.
“Should be at the canal in about two-and-a-half hours,” he said. A few moments later he added, “You don’t really believe Moses parted this thing, do you?”
He winced.
Am I trying to pick a fight? Now?
“Of course not.”
“Really?”
“I believe God did.” She laughed. “Gotcha!”
“Allie, c’mon, really. Just look at it, how big and deep it is. Parting it would defy the laws of physics.”
Why am I pursuing this?
What am I after?
He knew the answer: he was beginning to wonder if God really did exist. It wasn’t a question he’d taken seriously since being a boy.
Ridiculous, leave it alone.
He doesn’t exist.
“Yeah,” Allie said, “well lots of people are saying that about you too, you know, despite the evidence—that you’re a fraud for claiming an invention that defies the laws of physics.”
Despite his annoyance, he grinned.
Touché.
“All right, smarty pants,” he said, “you’ve got—”
“Joshua One, this is Point Loma. Do you copy?”
“Point Loma, this is Joshua One. We copy, Scotty. Over.”
“Be informed the Egyptian government is granting you permission to transit the Ditch. A few ships are still in the pipeline but they’re clearing them out. Stand by. We’ll update you ASAP. Over.”
TUESDAY, MAY 2 (3:43 P.M. CHINA STANDARD TIME)
SHANGHAI, CHINA
ESTIMATED TIME TO IMPACT: 1 HOUR 45 MINUTES
Zhaohui Tang, riding a bicycle—one of the few viable means of transportation remaining—was nearing her parents’ house. For the past half hour she’d successfully navigated the back streets, avoiding Shanghai’s main boulevards, which were jammed with traffic.
She had no idea if her mother and father were even home—bad communications made it impossible to find out. But where else could she go? The only reasonable alternative—her own place, where she surely would be alone—was not an option.
She kept an eye on the sky. Its color was changing by the minute. Its orange-roseate hue brightened everything, creating the colorful impression of the sun rising. Or setting.
In truth the sun was still high enough to be seen above the neighborhood trees. But its shimmering yellow-white face was now obscured by a pall of orange light and a swirling sea of red waves that seemed to be descending rapidly.
The CME??
“But it’s not due yet,” she muttered to herself, peddling harder.
CHAPTER 48
THE DITCH
TUESDAY, MAY 2 (10:48 A.M. EASTERN EUROPEAN TIME)
RED SEA; NEAR SUEZ, EGYPT
ESTIMATED TIME TO IMPACT: 0 HOURS 40 MINUTES
Calder was a million miles away, worrying about Sara’s safety, when the arrival bell sounded and Hero began slowing down. He came to and glanced at the control panel.
Allie cheered. “Thank you, Lord!”
He looked up at the orange sky and fluttering red curtains; they’d grown more intense during the past hour.
“Calder, look at the sky.”
“I know, I know. I only hope to god we’re not already too late.”
“You’re doing everything possible, hombre, stay positive.”
Something caught his eye.
“Allie, look halfway up from the horizon on the right. You see the green?”
Silence.
“Yeah, I do,” she said finally.
He wondered if Allie knew what the appearance of a green sky signaled. It meant overly eager particles outracing the CME’s main cloud were already sliding down the magnetic field lines, like cars riding the rails of a roller coaster, striking oxygen molecules in the atmosphere’s mid-section. Those atomic collisions invariably gave off green light.
He said, “You know what it means, don’t you?”
“Yes, Calder, yes.”
“Then you know that—”
“Yes, Calder, I know. Let’s just keep going.”
As Hero approached the entrance of the Suez Canal, Calder tried repeatedly without any luck to make radio contact.
“Suez Authority, this is Joshua One. Can you read me? Over.”
Allie fretted about Calder’s frame of mind. He was an incredibly strong person; but she intuited that the stress, the sleeplessness, the lack of faith in himself and in life—in God—were all conspiring to break him.
Lord, please buttress him.
Her thoughts switched to what was immediately expected of her—a report documenting their passage through the canal. Eva told her a local TV crew would be doing the filming.
“Allie, ca—you—ear me?”
Speak of the devil.
“Not great, but go ahead.”
“The—ew is waiti—for—ou at the—trance. Look for them.”
The Null Prophecy Page 31
