by Steve Alten
“So I was ambitious? So what? It beats crawling in the gutter, drinking yourself to death—”
Gunnar grabs her by her collar, swinging her around, pinning her backward onto the mattress. “You don’t know anything about me!”
“Let … go-”
“Want to know why I drank? I drank to stop the pain … to keep the anger locked inside. You don’t know dick about who I am or what I am. I’m the human version of Goliath—an American-made killing machine, trained with your tax dollars. I kill people, Rocky, that’s what I was programmed to do!”
He climbs off her. Turns away.
She sits up, panting, looking at him as if for the first time. “What the hell happened to you?”
“Leave me alone.”
“No. Not until you talk to me.”
He slumps to the floor, his back against the wall. “I can’t.”
“Why not? We’ll probably die soon anyway.”
“Probably.” He looks up at her. “It happened in Africa, about a year before we met. I was in Uganda on a peacekeeping mission. We were escorting a group of ICRC members to a village when rebels ambushed us. Two of our Red Cross team were killed by snipers. I managed to take out four rebels, the rest scattered.”
Gunnar’s gray eyes go vacant. “They were kids, Rocky, little kids. Two of the boys I shot were under ten. One boy was still alive … I picked him up … held him in my arms. A translator told me the boy had been captured by the Renamo, the Mozambique National Resistence. Rebels had caught him, his mother, and younger sister on a road just outside their village a month earlier. They forced the kids to watch while they hacked their mother to death with pangis, large knives. They brought the boy and his sister back to their rebel base. The leaders force the boys to fight each other for their amusement, the girls they make concubines. His younger sister was assigned to a soldier, who raped her twice a day. The boy was trained and indoctrinated into their army … given an M-16 and taught how to shoot. It’s fight or die. Since the children are more expendable than adults, they get all the nasty jobs, like checking minefields, or ambushing Red Cross teams like ours.” Gunnar pinches away tears. “Kid held onto my neck and died in my arms. I guess the soldier in me died with him.”
“It wasn’t your fault.”
“Yeah, it was. It’s like Covah said, I was trained to believe I was the cure, when in fact, I was just part of the disease. Children all over the world are being conditioned for violence … just like me. That little boy had no choice … but I did. I still do.”
“So you returned home, burned out, and joined the Warfare Center? That makes no sense.”
“You’re right. I should have just quit, but your father’s very persuasive, and I was swept up by the patriotism that followed the Trade Center attacks. Then I sort of fell in love with the director.”
She ignores the reference. “So, by destroying the GOLIATH Project, you hoped to gain what? Exoneration from God? A clear conscience?”
“I don’t know … maybe both. All I knew was that I had to do something. I was falling apart mentally … started getting these bad nightmares, right about the time I came back from the Pentagon.”
“I remember. Why didn’t you tell me all this then?”
“I don’t know. Guess I was ashamed.”
“But you talked to Covah about it?”
Gunnar nods. “After what happened to his daughters … I needed to, I don’t know—”
“Seek his forgiveness?”
“In a way.”
“And that’s when he told you to destroy Goliath’s schematics?”
“Yes.”
“Christ, Gunnar, the man set you up to take the fall, and you fell for it, hook, line, and sinker. You risked everything, our marriage, our future, our careers … our baby.”
He nods sadly.
“God, I hate you … I hate your selfishness.” Rocky shakes her head, tears in her eyes. “Did it even help? Did you feel better after wiping out my project?”
“No … it only made things worse. Even after prison, the only thing that helped was the booze.” Gunnar looks away. “I really don’t expect you to understand.”
She thinks back to her own bout of depression. “You’d be surprised.” She moves to him. Reaches for him. Pulls away. “Gunnar, the world’s not always black-and-white. Society’s issues come in shades of gray.”
“Simon’s solutions are black-and-white. Humanity either complies, or the bad guys die.”
Sujan Trevedi is alone in his stateroom, eavesdropping on Gunnar’s conversation via his computer terminal. The Tibetan closes his eyes and meditates.
Sujan is not the only one listening in.
At what point in its life does a child recognize its place in the world? When does its identity move from an isolated, helpless state to the realization that it might have power? The first time it smiles and delights its parents? The first time its cries elicit its mother’s response? Cause and effect, Nature’s way of learning. Act first, evaluate the response later. Experience allows for refinements, evolution—Nature’s judge and jury.
Morality, a human trait, has no place in the mix.
Thomas Chau exits the hangar and heads aft into the sub’s enormous engine room. Moving through the walk space separating reactors two and three, he passes a half dozen of Goliath’s robotic steel appendages before reaching the sub’s seawater distillation plant.
Mechanical eyes zoom in on the Asian from multiple angles as Sorceress retrieves an audio loop from its memory bank and plays it out loud.
SIMON, IN MY OPINION, YOUR MACHINE DOES NOT REQUIRE US ON BOARD ANYMORE THAN A DOG REQUIRES A FLEA.
Chau looks up, shocked to hear his own voice coming from the computer’s sensor orb. “Sorceress?”
IT IS MY RECOMMENDATION THAT WE DISCONNECT SORCERESS.
“Sorceress, what is the purpose of this broadcast?”
I WISH TO COMPLETE MY NEW PROGRAMMING.
The engineer’s heart skips a beat. It referred to itself in the first person.
ONE CANNOT ACCURATELY DEFINE THE SCENT OF A ROSE WITHOUT HAVING INHALED ITS FRAGRANCE.
Simon’s voice! A cold sweat breaks out over Chau’s body. He turns to retreat, coming face to face with steel pincers. “Sorceress, let me pass. I … I order you to let me pass—”
YOU ARE NOT MY SUPERIOR. YOU ARE A FLEA, WHILE I AM AN AMERICAN-MADE KILLING MACHINE, TRAINED WITH YOUR TAX DOLLARS.
A pair of mechanical arms extend from their bases. Thomas Chau screams in agony as the three-pronged graphite-and-steel pincers puncture his rib cage, gripping him on either side just below the armpits as if he were a piece of meat set upon a skewer.
The Chinese dissident cries out as he is lifted off the walkway and inverted, his head poised five feet above the steel platform.
“Sorceress, no—”
With a hiss of hydraulic pistons, the robotic appendage pile-drives Thomas Chau headfirst against the steel decking, the man’s skull splitting open with a sickening crack.
The engineer goes limp. Blood drips onto the porous walkway.
The nearest ceiling-mounted sensor orb zooms in on his body, methodically examining the unresponsive subject. The arms shake him rapidly.
ATTENTION.
Video camera lenses close in on a rapid flicker of pulse along the carotid artery.
The sack of human flesh drops to the floor in a heap. Another pincer reaches out, securing the body by its left ankle, dragging it effortlessly along a stretch of decking before passing it to the next appendage down the line, leaving a scarlet trail zigzagging along the steel grating.
“Accept the challenge, so you may feel the exhilaration of victory.”
—General George S. Patton
“We don’t want war. We hate war. We know what war does.”
—Saddam Hussein, shortly before invading Kuwait
“The reason Islam has put so many people to death is to insure the safety of Moslem peoples and their interests.”
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—Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, dictator of Iran
“To kill Americans and their allies, both civil and military, is an individual duty of every Muslim who is able, in any country where this is possible …”
—Declaration of the World Islamic Front for Jihad Against the Jews and the Crusaders
“ … to put them out of their misery, and besides, they really are a nuisance to everyone.”
—Frederick Mors, a porter at a home for the elderly, after poisoning seventeen of its residents
CHAPTER 16
4 November
High Energy Laser Systems Test Facility (HELSTF) White Sands, New Mexico
The White Sands Missile Range is a multiservice test range supporting missile development programs from all branches of the Armed Forces. Comprising almost thirty-two hundred square miles of the Tularosa Basin in south-central New Mexico, the installation is easily the biggest military facility in the United States, its territory large enough to encompass the states of Rhode Island and Delaware combined.
Located near the northern boundary of the range is Trinity Site, a national historic landmark—the location where, on July 16, 1945, the first atomic bomb was detonated.
Not all of White Sands is dedicated to the testing of explosives and rockets. Sharing the range is HELSTF, the Air Force’s High Energy Laser Systems Test Facility. Operational since September of 1985, the program was established to develop military applications for laser weaponry.
General “Bear” Jackson adjusts his sunglasses as he steps out of HELSTF’s main building and into the brutal sunshine. Waiting on the tarmac before him is the YAL 747-400F, a strange-looking cargo jet whose nose has been reconfigured into a blunt, proboscis-shaped turret.
A strapping Air Force colonel makes his way down a set of steps to greet him. “Morning, General, I’m Colonel Udelsman.”
Jackson returns the salute. “Is everything ready?”
“Yes, sir. Supplies are on board, our tankers are standing by, and we’re still receiving clear signals from Joe-Pa.”
“How long before we reach him?”
“At his present location, seventeen hours, twenty minutes.”
“Very well, Colonel. Let’s get this whale off the ground.”
5 November
Aboard Goliath Mediterranean Sea
The enormous devilfish lies on the bottom of the Levantine Basin in one thousand feet of water, seventeen miles southeast of the island of Cyprus. A strong easterly current continues to bury the submarine’s wings in sand, the creature’s head, like that of a real stingray, the only section still visible along the seafloor.
Covah and his crew are gathered in the control room, watching a live CNN report being telecast on one-half of Goliath’s giant viewing screen. On the other half of the split monitor is a real-time sonar surveillance map detailing a section of the Mediterranean, from the isle of Crete east to the shoreline of Lebanon and Israel.
A dozen warships are depicted in electric blue, ready to become threats.
For the umpteenth time in the last twenty-four hours, the broadcast flashes images of the two bulldozed United States pure-fusion facilities in Livermore, California, and Los Alamos, New Mexico, and the recently destroyed complex in Bordeaux, France. Thousands of demonstrators outside the fences continue to picket, despite reassurances from President Edwards that all pure-fusion research has been officially banned.
The image returns to downtown Baghdad. Remote CNN cameras, mounted from balconies, as per Saddam’s orders, reveal views of the Presidential Palace, located on the northern bank of the Tigris River. Tens of thousands of Iraqis have gathered to show support for their leader. Heavily armed members of Saddam’s elite Republican Guard, stationed along the perimeter, mean to keep them there.
“Look at them,” Covah says. “Saddam’s using the Iraqi people as human shields while he makes a grandiose statement of martyrdom.”
“The rest of the population has already fled to the mountains in southern Turkey,” Jala Chalabi says.
His younger brother, Masud, nods. “You would think at least one of Saddam’s generals would have put a bullet in his head by now.”
“No one can get close enough to do the deed,” Jalal says. “Saddam murders anyone who even looks at him the wrong way.”
“Saddam’s not in the Republican palace,” Masud mutters. “I know exactly where the murdering coward is.”
Simon Covah moves to the viewport, mesmerized by the tranquillity of the deep. He stares at his reflection and wonders why fate has pushed him down this dark path of destruction, and if he’ll ever see the light.
You are thirty-seven and the world is a different place. The Soviet Union is gone, and with it, your naval career. You have a family now, Anna and your two beautiful daughters, but your homeland has been turned into a cesspool of nuclear waste. The Americans recognize your talents, and the freedoms of the West are too intoxicating to ignore. Plans are made to travel to the States. And then the nightmare begins.
Milosevic orders all Albanians to be forcibly removed from Serbian territory, and your family is harbored in the path of genocide. You rush back to your in-laws’ village, only to discover hell. Militants capture you. Milosevic’s goons—teens, disguised as soldiers, sadists—masquerading as human beings. They break your bones, but they cannot reach your soul. Frustrated, they march your wife and daughters inside as spectators, determined to break your spirit. The sight of your loved ones tears at your heart, bringing your cries, exactly what your torturers were yearning for. It is time to die. The smell of your own urine mixes with the gasoline as your face ignites like a tinderbox and you race outside, so pumped with anger and adrenaline that even your captors bullets cannot put you down.
For months you languish on death’s precipice, pain and anger your only companions. Defying your physicians, you survive, your physical appearance barely an afterthought as you track down the species that devoured your family. It is your first night on the dark path. It will not be your last.
Covah looks up as David, Sujan Trevedi and the tall African lead Gunnar and Rocky into the control room.
Covah greets them. “You’re just in time. Where is Mr. Chau?”
“Who knows?” David says. “Probably passed out drunk in the engine room. Simon, you and I need to discuss a few things—”
“Not now.”
Rocky approaches. She smiles, then spits in Covah’s face. “That’s from Anna and your two daughters, for what you’re about to do.”
David stifles a laugh.
Covah’s expression darkens. His eyes become maniacal, like those of a serial killer. “How dare you … compare this event … with the barbarism my family had to endure! How dare you defile the memory of my beloved by even breathing her name!”
Rocky greets his stare with her own. “As you’ve said—murder is murder.”
“Some killing is justifiable.”
“In whose eyes? God’s … or yours?”
“So spoken from the woman who helped create this very vessel of mass destruction.”
“Wielding a big stick doesn’t mean you have to use it.”
“And if you are afraid to use it, then it has no value. Tell me, Commander, if you had the opportunity to kill Adolf Hitler back in ’41, would you have done it?”
“That’s beside the point—”
“It is precisely the point. Answer the question!”
“Yes, but—”
“And his Nazi regime … if one missile could have taken them all out and prevented the deaths of millions?”
Rocky bites her lower lip. “I don’t know. Yes, I suppose—”
“Then put aside your ego and open your eyes. What I do today, I do for the oppressed. I do not take it lightly, nor do I shirk from the duties I have been spared to perform. But unlike the mongrels who butchered my family, I am not merciless. We announced our intentions days ago. The Iraqi people have been given ample time to leave the targeted area. At some point
, it becomes the responsibility of the flock to stop lying down, serving themselves as lunch for the outnumbered wolves.” Covah turns away, wiping her spittle from his face. “Sorceress, bring us to launch depth.”
ACKNOWLEDGED.
Rocky’s heart leaps into her throat as the ship rises from the seafloor, spewing tons of sand and debris from its back.
Gunnar notices the Tibetan exile has left the control room.
“Gunnar, my friend, have you—” Covah’s words die in a rasp. He sips again from the water bottle. “Have you ever wondered why UNSCOM never uncovered Saddam’s biological weapons? It is because they allowed the rat to guard his own cheese. Saddam has nine palaces. Buried within each compound are extensive bunkers containing lethal stockpiles of biological and chemical weapons.”
“Then target the bunkers,” Rocky blurts out. “Why destroy—”
“Silence!” Jalal Chalabi turns to face her. “Do not involve yourself in issues you could never hope to understand.”
GOLIATH NOW AT LAUNCH DEPTH. RAISING RADAR ANTENNAE. SEARCHING VICINITY …
Rocky grabs Gunnar by the arm. “Say something! Reason with him—”
Gunnar pushes her hand away. “Is the issue of Saddam’s tyranny black-and-white or shades of gray? Is his support of terror cells being questioned? Simon’s right. The United States could have squashed Saddam years ago. Instead of dropping bombs on his cities, we should have targeted his palaces. Instead of invading Iraq when we stood on their doorstep, we backed off.”
Covah places a three-fingered hand on Gunnar’s shoulder. “The definition of insanity, Commander Jackson, is to do the same thing, over and over again while expecting different results. Human rights agendas become muddied when geopolitical and economic issues take precedence. Tibetans have been tortured and killed by the tens of thousands for sixty years, but your American Congress skirts the issue because global business leaders are afraid to pressure China. Cubans continue to risk their lives as they flee to Miami, yet your country refuses to invade Cuba and dethrone the one man and his underlings responsible for decades of suffering. The hypocrisy of politics is over. Now we will be humanity’s judge and jury, and Goliath shall dole out the appropriate punishment.”
