The Footprints of God: A Novel

by Greg Iles

  “How long would it take to implement such an attack?” asked McCaskell.

  General Bauer looked into every face, then the video conferencing screen. “Approximately thirty minutes.”

  Thirty minutes! I’d known something like this was possible, but I hadn’t thought the military could put it together so fast.

  “Two hours ago,” General Bauer said, “when Trinity was still orienting itself, I spoke to the commander of Barksdale Air Force Base in Shreveport, Louisiana. He’s a very old friend of mine. He’s got six squadrons of B-52s under his command, and every one of those bombers can carry silver bullets.”

  “Silver bullets?” echoed Senator Jackson.

  “Nuclear bombs. There are over five hundred stockpiled at Barksdale. Some are gravity bombs, others can be delivered by air-launched cruise missiles. The crews don’t fly training missions with live bombs anymore, but the commander can have them loaded aboard without much trouble. I convinced him that today was a good day for a live training run. A B-52 out of Barksdale is airborne now, and it’s carrying one very special silver bullet.”

  “What kind of weapon are you talking about?” asked McCaskell.

  “A short-range heavy missile called a Vulcan. It was designed to deliver a massive EMP strike without having to launch an ICBM, which is easily detectable by Russian surveillance satellites. Vulcan hurls its payload two hundred miles straight up, detonates, and the lights go off across the country. All Trinity will see on the NORAD radar screens is a bomber on a training run over the central U.S. But what Vulcan will deliver…” General Bauer held up a fist, then flipped it open, extending his fingers like rays from the sun.

  “Exactly what does this Vulcan carry?” asked Senator Jackson.

  “A fifteen-megaton thermonuclear warhead.”

  Several senators gasped.

  “Sweet Lord,” murmured a silver-haired man at the back of the table. “That’s a thousand times the size of the Hiroshima blast.”

  “Fifteen hundred times,” said General Bauer. “That’s what it takes to do this job in one go. Our B-52 will reach the launch point in thirty minutes. Its code is Arcangel. You can order the Vulcan launched, or have the bomber circle indefinitely. I realize I acted without authorization, but we’re in an extraordinary situation. I wanted you to have the option.”

  The silence that followed this revelation was absolute.

  “Would we attempt to minimize the damage of this weapon beforehand?” asked Senator Jackson. “Warn the populace?”

  “No. By doing so, we’d alert Trinity to our plans.”

  “Where exactly would this warhead be detonated? Over what state?”

  “It must detonated very near the geographic center of the country.”

  “I asked you what state,” Jackson repeated.

  The general hesitated, then barked his answer. “Kansas, sir.”

  “Kansas?” cried one of the senators. “That son of a bitch wants to vaporize my home state!”

  “What kind of damage would we be looking at on the ground?” asked Senator Jackson. “From fallout and things like that? Long-term damage.”

  “Surprisingly little, sir. There’ll be windblown fallout, but the prevailing winds are westerly, and at that altitude, much of it would be carried out to the Atlantic before it did much damage. We could get contaminated rainfall. There could be long-term consequences for the grain harvest.”

  “Define long term,” said the senator from Kansas.

  “A thousand years,” I said.

  “That’s a gross exaggeration,” said General Bauer. “Senators, you have to balance these effects against what could happen if Trinity chooses to act on the threats it’s made. And we have to assume that it eventually will. Unless…”

  “What?” asked Jackson.

  “We surrender.” Bauer’s tone made it clear what he thought of that option.

  The senators began talking among themselves. Ewan McCaskell seemed to be taking his own counsel. Again, memories of Fielding rose in my mind. If he were here, he would not be silent.

  “If you attempt this mission,” I said loudly, “you’ll cause the very destruction you’re trying to avert. This country will be destroyed.”

  The senators looked down at me from the screen.

  “Why do you say that, Doctor?” asked Senator Jackson.

  “General Bauer can’t hide his mission from Trinity. The computers at the NSA, NORAD, and possibly even Barksdale Air Force Base were built by Peter Godin or Seymour Cray. Trinity has access to them all. Even if Trinity doesn’t detect the mission in progress, do you think it hasn’t predicted our most likely methods of attack? That it doesn’t know its own Achilles’ heel?”

  “This is one heel it can’t protect,” said General Bauer.

  “Of course it can. It can strike preemptively.”

  Ewan McCaskell moved his head from side to side, like a man weighing odds. “The computer’s measured response against the German hackers gives me hope that its retaliation would be survivable. And if General Bauer’s plan can be accomplished, limited retaliation is worth the risk.”

  “How do you feel about full-scale thermonuclear war?” I asked. “Is attacking the computer worth that level of retaliation?”

  “What are you talking about?” asked Senator Jackson. “General Bauer assured us that nuclear war isn’t a possibility.”

  “Do you know about something called the ‘dead-hand’ system, Senator?”

  Jackson’s deep-set eyes narrowed. “We were just discussing that. The consensus is that it’s a myth.”

  “What do you know about it, Doctor?” asked General Bauer.

  “I know what Andrew Fielding told me. He believed that system existed during the Cold War and might still today. So does Peter Godin. Fielding and Godin discussed the potential for Trinity to disarm such a system prior to a nuclear exchange. And Godin has been involved in American nuclear planning since the 1980s.”

  Everyone looked at the hospital bed. Godin still lay unconscious on his pillow.

  “Is he sleeping?” asked McCaskell.

  “We had to give him morphine,” explained Dr. Case. “Nerve pain.”

  “Can you wake him up?”

  “I’ll try.”

  General Bauer addressed the senators. “Peter Godin built supercomputers that carried out nuclear-test simulations. That’s the extent of his contribution to American strategy. The Soviet dead-hand system never existed. That’s the informed consensus of the American defense establishment.”

  Horst Bauer was a good salesman. The temptation to agree to his plan was tangible in the room. I could read it on the faces of the senators on the screen. That the plan involved a nuclear weapon only made it more attractive. Every American carries a memory of Hiroshima as the terrible but final solution to the deadliest war in history. And the unknown nature of Trinity’s power seemed to cry out for some force of equal mystery and power to vanquish it. What the senators did not understand was that nuclear weapons held no mystery for Trinity. In the world of digital warfare, atomic bombs were as primitive as stone clubs. There was only one weapon on earth remotely equal in power to Trinity.

  The human brain.

  I got to my feet, faced the screen, and spoke with as much restraint as I could muster. “Senators, before you attempt something that could trigger a nuclear holocaust, I beg you to allow me to speak to the computer. What do you have to lose?”

  General Bauer started to speak, then thought better of it. The senators conferred quietly. Then Barrett Jackson spoke.

  “General, why don’t we see how the computer feels about speaking to Dr. Tennant? It hasn’t talked to anyone else.”

  Skow began to protest, but Senator Jackson cut him off with an upraised hand.

  “Tell the computer who Dr. Tennant is,” said Jackson. “Also where he is. Then ask the machine if it will talk to him.”

  “I need to go into the Containment Building to do this,” I said.

 
Jackson shook his head. “We can’t allow that, Doctor. What if you start hallucinating? You might hit a switch or something. No, if you speak to Trinity, you do it from here.”

  On General Bauer’s order, a technician typed in what Jackson had said and sent it to Trinity.

  Blue letters flashed instantly onto the screen.

  I will speak to Tennant.

  “I’ll be damned,” said Senator Jackson.

  “Look,” said Ravi Nara.

  More letters had flashed up on the screen.

  Send Tennant into Containment.

  “What the hell?” said General Bauer. “Why would it ask that?”

  McCaskell looked at me. “Can you explain this, Doctor? Why would the computer make the same request you did?”

  “I have no idea.”

  “Type this,” said McCaskell. “‘Why do you want Dr. Tennant in Containment?’”

  The response was instantaneous.

  Hath the rain a father? Knowest thou the ordinances of heaven? Wilt thou hunt the prey for the lion? Or fill the appetite of the young lions? Canst thou draw out Leviathan with a hook? None is so fierce that dare stir him up. Who then is able to stand before me?

  “That’s Scripture, isn’t it?” said McCaskell, obviously taken aback.

  “The Book of Job,” said Skow, making me picture him as a little boy dressed for Sunday school.

  “Why is the computer answering like that?” asked Senator Jackson. “Was Godin a religious nut?”

  “The man is still alive,” I reminded Jackson.

  “Godin doesn’t believe in God,” said Skow. “He once told me that religion was the result of an adaptive process evolved to help Homo sapiens overcome its anxiety about death.”

  Soft cackling echoed through the room. Everyone turned toward the hospital bed. Godin’s eyes were open, and the delight in them was plain.

  “It’s a joke,” he rasped. “Trinity’s telling you to know your damn place.”

  McCaskell got up and walked over to the bed. “Why would the computer want Dr. Tennant in the Containment building?”

  “Computer, computer,” muttered Godin. “Trinity isn’t a computer. A computer is a glorified adding machine. A logic box. Trinity is alive. It’s mankind freed from the curse of his body. Trinity is the end of death.”

  The old man’s voice had the conviction of a prophet.

  “Mr. Godin,” said McCaskell, “what do you know about the existence of the so-called ‘dead-hand’ Russian missile system?”

  The old man’s head jerked forward as he struggled against a spasm in his throat. “The ‘dead hand’ is yours,” he wheezed. “Yours and those of all the impotent apparatchiks of our outmoded system.”

  McCaskell’s face showed some emotion at last. “Why have you done this? Are you such an egoist that you can’t bear to think of the world without you in it?”

  Godin was struggling to breathe. Dr. Case moved to help him, but Godin waved the physician away.

  “Look around you,” Godin said. “Why does all this high-tech machinery exist? I built the most elegant supercomputers in the world, machines capable of enormous contributions to mankind. And what did the government do with them? Cracked codes and built nuclear bombs. For twenty years they used my beautiful machines to perfect their engines of death. But why should I have expected any different? Human history is a charnel house of carnage and absurdity.”

  Godin began to cough as though his lungs were coming up. “We had our chance, gentlemen. Ten thousand years of human civilization has brought us in a circle. The twentieth century was the bloodiest in history. Left to us, the twenty-first would only be worse. Darwin tolled the bell on our stewardship of this planet in 1859. But today you finally heard it.”

  “Look at the screen!” cried Ravi Nara.

  The blue letters glowed ominously, more menacing by their silence.

  Send Dr. Tennant to me or suffer the consequences.

  “I guess our decision’s been made for us,” said Senator Jackson. “Send the doctor into the Containment building.”

  General Bauer signaled two soldiers, who came and stood at my shoulders. I looked at Bauer and let him see my mistrust.

  “Do you intend to go ahead with your EMP strike, General?”

  He wore the mask of a veteran poker player, but it didn’t fool me for a moment. I knew I had less than thirty minutes to accomplish my goal.

  McCaskell walked over to me. “Dr. Tennant, we’re relying on you not to reveal the potential strike to the computer.”

  “Of course.”

  He offered his hand. “Good luck.”

  The moment I started for the door, alarms began sounding in the hangar.

  “Code blue!” shouted a nurse. “Mr. Godin’s coding!”

  I hadn’t handled a code in years, but my response was automatic. Even Rachel jumped from her chair and raced to Godin’s bedside.

  Dr. Case and the nurses were already working on the old man. The cardiac monitor showed another coronary event, but Ravi Nara seemed to think obstructive hydrocephalus had finally occurred. When Godin’s heart monitor flatlined, Dr. Case climbed onto the bed and began administering CPR. It did no good. The old man’s face had the gray pallor of death.

  “Look at that!” someone shouted from the table.

  I whirled and looked where he was pointing.

  On the screen used to display Trinity’s messages, chaotic streams of characters flashed by almost too rapidly to be recognized. Numbers, letters, and mathematical symbols merged in a blinding river of confusion. The computer’s circuits were clearly in disarray.

  “What’s happening?” asked McCaskell. “What does that mean?”

  The symbols on the screen went multicolored as Japanese and Cyrillic characters began to appear.

  “General!” cried a soldier at one of the consoles. “The signals from the pipeline running from Containment just dropped to zero. I think the computer’s crashing!”

  A whoop of triumph came from somewhere in the hangar. Then a new alarm sounded in the room, much louder than the others.

  “What’s that?” asked Senator Jackson. “What’s going on? Is Godin dead?”

  General Bauer walked to one of his computers, then turned to the senators with a nearly bloodless face.

  “Sir, one of our surveillance satellites has detected fourteen heat blooms on Russian territory. The blooms are consistent with the launch of ballistic missiles.” He looked back at the computer screen. “From the speed and heat signature of the rockets, NORAD computers have designated them as a combination of SS-18 and SS-20 intercontinental ballistic missiles. Those missiles carry heavy thermonuclear warheads.”

  Senator Jackson opened his mouth, but no words emerged. The brown eyes blinked in the bulldog face. “But you said that was impossible.”

  General Bauer didn’t flinch. “It appears that I was wrong.”

  Chapter

  41

  “Senators, we’re approximately twenty-nine minutes from the first impacts,” said General Bauer. “I ask for your approval to initiate the EMP strike as soon as the bomber is in position.”

  Senator Jackson looked uncertain. “What if that causes more launches?”

  I glanced at the screen showing Trinity’s output. The chaotic flow of numbers and characters showed no sign of abating.

  “Highly unlikely, sir,” said Bauer. “The computer appears to be crashing. Fourteen missile impacts are survivable. And with the poor state of Russian maintenance, we might only suffer half that number of detonations. Even fewer on target. If we take out Trinity now, we’ll survive this in relatively good shape.”

  “If the computer is crashing,” said Jackson, “perhaps we should try to contact the president. He should make the final decision on this strike.”

  “NORAD shows seven more heat blooms!” cried a technician. “Bases are Aleysk, Pervomaysk, Kostroma, Derazhnya.”

  “Does that mean more missiles?” Jackson asked.

 
; General Bauer waited for the panicked chatter of the other senators to subside. “We’re now under threat of twenty-one missiles, Senators. Russia has over three thousand viable ICBMs. If we don’t act now, we could be looking at numbers like that. The president empowered us to make these decisions. It’s time to act.”

  Senator Jackson turned away from the camera and took a hurried vote by acclamation. “The EMP strike is authorized, General.”