Goliath

by Steve Alten

  Covah pauses, massaging his forehead, fighting to maintain composure.

  “As I participated in the act, I looked through one of the windows of his house and noticed a child, a little girl, perhaps a few years older than my youngest daughter. She looked up at me—a lost, frightened lamb—an angel … like my own dead children.”

  Covah closes his eyes, shaking his head. “The look in that child’s eyes burned into my soul. My senseless act of vengeance had robbed her of her own father, of her own innocence. I realized at that moment that I was not the cure, but part of the disease, a disease that feeds on hatred. At that moment, something in me changed. I became sickened with our species, and I knew I had to do something drastic—something that would force the human race to change.”

  “How?” Gunnar asks. “How can you change the human race using nuclear weapons?”

  Covah rubs perspiration from his hairless brow. “Gunnar, you know me to be a man of law, a man who cherishes social order. I have learned the hard way that men who have no investment in society have no stake in peace. They thrive in chaos, and trade in violence. They murder and deceive to acquire life’s bounties, and refuse to abide by treaties, unless it suits them.”

  Covah circles the table, placing his three-fingered right hand upon the shoulder of each crewman he passes. “The men in this room represent entire populations, populations whose lives have been rendered meaningless by oppressive governments and murderous factions disguised as freedom fighters. These men and their families were victims, by-products of violence, good people whose only crime was that they happened to be born into tyranny, or caught within the crossfire of rebel guerrillas in a land ruled by criminals.”

  Covah stops at the lanky African. “This is Abdul Kaigbo, a history teacher born in Sierra Leone. As he escorted his family home from school, rebels ambushed him. They took an axe to both his arms and left him for dead, then kidnapped his two children.”

  Kaigbo looks at Gunnar. “You were in Uganda.”

  “Yes.”

  “You witnessed children fighting?”

  Gunnar nods.

  Rocky notices his hands are shaking.

  Kaigbo sighs. “Sierra Leone is even worse. Eight of ten rebels are between the ages of seven and fourteen. An entire generation of Africans is ruined, and the proliferation of small arms among the population ensures the fighting will never end—”

  “—unless something drastic is done,” Covah interjects, squeezing the African’s shoulder. “Abdul is right. While the West preoccupies itself with warships and major weapon systems, it is the easy access to small arms like machine guns, mortars, and rifles that have led to hundreds of ethnic, religious, and sectarian conflicts over the last twenty years. More than 5 million people have been massacred, yet the fighting goes on like an incurable disease. You pride yourself on being a compassionate people, Commander, yet the death of a half million Rwandan Tutsis carries no more impact in your daily lives that a shattered piece of china.”

  Covah continues circling his crew. “Each man in this room has experienced his own similar tale of woe. From Thomas Chau, one of the Chinese students shot in Tiananmen Square, to Taur Araujo, a former guerrilla leader in East Timor.”

  Covah motions to the two Arabs. “The Chalabi brothers, Jalal and Masud—Kurds whose only desire was to raise their children in peace—to live and let live. Saddam used their families and others like them as human guinea pigs to test his biological weapons.”

  He places his hand on the Tibetan’s shoulder. “This is Sujan Trevedi, a Tibetan geshe—a teacher of Buddhist philosophy. For refusing to give up his beliefs, he spent seven years in a Chinese prison, where he was tortured almost daily.”

  Sujan looks up at Rocky and Gunnar. “I know you are judging our actions harshly. What you will soon realize is that our cause unites all of humanity, regardless of race, religion, or nationality. The evil that infects our species must be stopped before it spreads any farther.”

  “You’ve all suffered,” Rocky says, “and I’m sorry for that. But what does any of this have to do with stealing the Goliath? How will arming yourself with nuclear weapons stop any of these conflicts?”

  Covah returns to his chair. “As the United States has proven, he who commands the biggest stick on the block rules the block. For this reason, more and more nations choose to carry big sticks. The first crisis we must address, therefore, is the proliferation and stockpiling of nuclear weapons. If something drastic is not done soon, there will be no humanity left to save.”

  “Excuse me if I don’t buy into your paranoia,” Rocky retorts. “Exactly what threat of nuclear annihilation are you so concerned about?”

  David shakes his head. “Pull your head out of the sand, Rocky. You and I spent our entire lives isolated in the safe bosom of the United States. Nuclear paranoia is running rampant across Asia and Europe. Our own insistence on pushing ahead with a Missile Defense Shield has poisoned relations across the globe, triggering another arms race.”

  Covah nods in agreement. “Most wars begin because of one powerful man’s ego. While America dictates its policies to the rest of the world, changing global economies have altered the role of nuclear weapons in the twenty-first century. Third World governments actively seek these weapons, not as defensive deterrents, but as a viable means of manipulating geopolitical currents. It is far cheaper to buy a bomb than build an army, and it only takes the threat of one nuclear weapon to destabilize an entire region. Hiroshima’s bomb was a mere nineteen kilotons. Today’s weapons carry five-hundred kiloton payloads. North Korea’s ICBM, the Taepo Dong-3, could reach Los Angeles in thirty-four minutes, wiping out the entire city, and no Missile Defense Shield could stop it.”

  “The threat’s not just from third world countries,” David says. “I’ve been to Russia. Corruption rules the day. Hard-line Communists are regaining power. While they could never hope to win a conventional war, there are generals in Russia who are pushing for a calculated first nuclear strike, before the United States completes its next round of tests on the Missile Defense Shield.”

  “Shield or no shield, it’s still a nuclear stalemate, David,” Rocky argues. “They launch at us, we launch at them, and everyone dies. They’d never risk it.”

  “And no terrorist organization could ever hope to destroy your World Trade Center,” Covah says, the sarcasm dripping. “Why must it always take a heinous act to awaken Americans? Most Russians have nothing; therefore, any change, even the old ways of Communism, are welcome. They watch, helpless, as you discard ABM treaties, forcing them to plot with the Chinese. Don’t underestimate the danger of the Russian bear as it lies bleeding. The party leaders who maintain access to nuclear weapons already have expensive escape routes in place, funded, ironically, by your own government. There is a Russian town, Beloretsk, located in the South Ural Mountains where the Belaya River crosses the Magnitogorsk-Beloretsk-Karloman railroad. Nearby is Yamantou Mountain, a name which translates to ‘Evil Mountain’ in the local Bashkir language—”

  “Yes, yes,” Rocky says impatiently, “I know all about Yamantou Mountain. It’s a subterranean complex the Russians built in case of a nuclear attack. The United States has a similar underground facility at Mount Weather.”

  “As always, your ignorance will ultimately be your demise. I’ve been inside Yamantou Mountain, Commander. It is not just a bunker, it is an extensive, well-maintained complex covering more than 120 square kilometers, not including the facility’s two dozen subterranean railroads and roadways. Besides housing a small city for high-ranking officials, the complex contains well-maintained stockpiles of nuclear weapons—thousands of SS-25 and SS-27 Topol-M missiles. The majority of these warheads carry nuclear payloads, while the rest contain the latest in binary chemical munitions. The red-tipped missiles hold a new Russian VX nerve gas said to be a hundred times more lethal than sarin. Blue warheads contain a superplague engineered to resist even the latest antibiotics. None of these weapons has ever been
verified under the SALT treaties. As far as the Russian government is concerned, they simply don’t exist.”

  Rocky shakes her head. “No one, including the Russians, would ever risk a first assault. And there are too many checks and balances in place for an accidental launch.”

  “You’re wrong!” David blurts out, losing his temper. “Christ, you piss me off, always thinking you know everything. For your information, global thermonuclear war almost broke out at least half a dozen times in the last two decades. My dad and I were in Murmansk back in ’95 when the United States launched a space probe from Norway. Russian command detected the launch. The Russkies were absolutely convinced it was the start of a nuclear attack. Remember how you felt watching those passenger jets hitting the World Trade Center? Multiply that about a million. My dad and I stood there, bawling our eyes out as the Russians initiated a sixteen-minute countdown to a full-scale nuclear response. Sixteen minutes—one thousand ICBMs with multiple nuclear warheads, all aimed at American targets. And Yeltsin—he was drunk as a skunk. The nuclear countdown reached the four-minute mark before his advisors finally convinced him to call off the attack.” David looks at Gunnar. “That was my turning point, G-man, the day that convinced me to join Simon’s movement.”

  “And here I thought you joined just to feed your enormous ego.”

  David turns red. “Let me tell you something, Ranger-boy, unless we intervene, there will never, ever be a complete and total elimination of nuclear weapons. Our own government refuses even to consider reducing our nuclear arsenals below two thousand warheads.”

  The older of the two Kurd brothers turns to face Gunnar. “There are more immediate problems. The Russians have been smuggling plutonium to Iraq and Iran for years. Last November, two thousand kilos of weapons-grade plutonium was shipped to Baghdad under the guise of medical supplies. Saddam stores some of the materials in a basement facility beneath one of his palaces. He is attempting to build suitcase bombs for terrorist cells. It is only a matter of time before a nuclear explosive detonates in Israel or the United States.”

  “How do you know all this?” Gunnar asks.

  “We have our sources,” Covah replies. “What you see here is merely the tip of the iceberg. Our movement is vast. The fear of annihilation, the frustration of war is shared by many people, many organizations—”

  “Like Ploughshares?”

  “Ploughshares is one, but there are others, as well as powerful individuals, including several high-ranking officials in the State Department. You’d be shocked to learn how many of your own admirals and generals support our mission.”

  Rocky shakes her head. “That I refuse to believe. You’re talking about career military men. Men who’ve fought in battle, men who’ve dedicated their lives to—”

  “They are still human beings,” Covah interjects. “They have families. And like Gunnar and me, they’ve had access to top-secret information that frightens them.”

  “Like pure fusion,” David says, turning to face Gunnar. “You knew the DoD planned to use Goliath’s minisubs as a delivery system for these weapons, and it freaked you out. But did you know your fiancee knew?”

  Gunnar looks at Rocky, in shock. “You knew?”

  “Of course I knew. I was head of the project.”

  “And you weren’t concerned? You didn’t protest?”

  “Why should I? Goliath was designed to replace our aging Tridents. Why wouldn’t we arm her with our most sophisticated weapons available?”

  Gunnar shakes his head in disbelief. “Pure fusion is just one of a dozen ways this whole nuclear stalemate could be broken. We’re talking about relatively small devices capable of annihilating entire cities—”

  “With none of that messy radioactive fallout,” David adds, the sarcasm dripping. “After all, the United States wouldn’t want to slow oil production.”

  “I’m well aware of what pure fusion can do,” Rocky retorts. “For your information, France and Russia are only three years behind us in developing the first prototype. Would any of you so-called pacifists sleep better if they beat us to it?”

  Covah shakes his head. “And this was the woman you were about to marry? You should thank me, Gunnar. You were better off in Leavenworth.”

  Gunnar looks at Rocky as if seeing her for the first time. “I think you’ve been playing with your G.I. Joe dolls too long.”

  “Screw you. You think the answer to the threat of violence is destroying our weapon systems? Are you that naive? Is the world a safer place since you helped this lunatic steal Goliath’s schematics?”

  Covah sits. “Which brings us back to why we have stolen the Goliath.” He turns to face Gunnar. “Neither of us wanted to go to prison. That’s one of the reasons we went to such extraordinary lengths to bring you on board. We felt you had sacrificed so much for our cause, albeit unknowingly.”

  David nods. “Simon and I wanted you to see firsthand how we’re going to end the violence and oppression that haunt humanity.”

  Gunnar stares at his former friend, wondering if he could endure Sorceress’s punishment long enough to snap David’s neck.

  “How?” Rocky asks. “How are you going to end the violence?”

  Covah drains his wineglass. “We’ve compiled a list of demands, which we just finished broadcasting across the globe. Unlike the United States, we have no political affiliations to protect and no surviving family members to fear for. There is no room for negotiation, and, of course, no way to track down Goliath to retaliate. Either our demands are met or consequences will ensue.”

  The Tibetan looks uneasy. “You will still release warnings as we discussed?”

  “Of course, Sujan. Just as we discussed.”

  “You’d actually consider launching a nuke?” Rocky asks.

  “We must do what the circumstances dictate.”

  She shakes her head in disbelief. “Then you’re not only murderers, you’re goddamn hypocrites. You’ll end up slaughtering millions of innocent people.”

  “There are seven billion people in this world, Commander. Most are ignorant lambs, fighting among themselves as they allow the shepherd to herd them to the slaughterhouse. Our species is already on the path of self-annihilation. One of our goals is to give the world a small taste of modern thermonuclear destruction in the hopes of preventing World War III. At the same time, we will allow democracy to flower as we crush the self-appointed oppressors and zealots of this world. We, who are insane, will put an end to the insanity.”

  Gunnar feels his heart jump-start. Jesus, he really means to do it …

  Covah seems to read his expression. “It will only take one demonstration to gain the attention of the masses. Goliath will enable us to do what the United Nations was never empowered to do, what the United States tried but failed to achieve. We will stuff the nuclear genie back into its bottle and, at the same time, force the humanity back into our souls. We will end terrorism and all who protect it. The human experiment will take a long overdue step up the evolutionary ladder. Goliath, the ultimate weapon of war, will become the ultimate tool of peace.”

  Simon Covah tears off the tip of his slice of pizza and slips it into his deformed mouth, signaling the others to resume their meal.

  In the corner of the galley’s ceiling, the computer’s sensor eyeball continues observing, its biochemical brain recording everything, its childlike consciousness scanning its circuitry, dissecting each word as it searches for meaning.

  “The worst sin towards our fellow creatures is not to hate them, but to be indifferent to them.”

  —George Bernard Shaw

  “I hate the Jew. There is only one way they will leave Auschwitz—through the smokestacks!”

  —Karl Adolf Eichmann, Nazi SS leader who oversaw the extermination of six million Jews

  CHAPTER 14

  2 November

  White House Washington, D.C.

  General Michael “Bear” Jackson enters the White House Situation Room, both of his wris
ts immobilized in fiberglass casts up to his midforearm. The chamber is crowded, packed four to five deep around the center conference table. Conversations are a mix of shock, outrage, and calls for revenge.

  Jackson listens briefly, then takes his place at the table beside the Secretary of the Navy. President Jeff Edwards calls for quiet.

  “Gentlemen … and ladies, please. By now, everyone should have a copy of Covah’s list of demands. The emergency session of the United Nations convenes in less than two hours, so we don’t have much time. Secretary Nunziata.”

  “Thank you, Mr. President.” Nick Nunziata adjusts his wire-framed glasses on the bridge of his nose and opens his folder. “A few ground rules before we begin. The purpose of this meeting is not to debate whether this lunatic will launch his nuclear weapons. As we’ve already seen from the attack on the CVBG, Covah has both the will and military might to follow through on his threats. Instead, our objective this morning is to determine the proper posture and course of action our country will take in regard to each one of these demands.”

  A rustle of paper as the National Security Advisors take out their copies of Simon Covah’s Declaration of Humanity.

  DECLARATION OF HUMANITY

  We, THE PEOPLE OF THE WORLD, in conjunction with the International Court of Justice, do hereby accuse the Heads of State of failing to implement and enact a comprehensive Global Non-Proliferation Treaty that guarantees complete and total nuclear disarmament by all nuclear powers. In unison, we declare that the collective welfare and rights of society must prevail over the narrow-minded views of the few. In an attempt to prevent the eradication of our species, and to, furthermore: Stop the escalating violence among ruling factions, End the tyranny of military dictatorships, Wipe out the zealots who seek to destroy society, and Guarantee the God-given rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness among all citizens of this planet, we hereby make the following demands: