The Footprints of God

by Greg Iles

  “What the hell is that?” Jackson asked. “Dead hand? I seem to remember that phrase.”

  “You have a good memory, Senator,” said Skow. “During the Cold War, Soviet planners knew that American strategy involved taking out their command and control systems with our first missiles. It was rumored that because of this, the Soviets developed what they called a ‘dead-hand’ system: a computer system that would automatically launch ICBMs upon receiving a missile warning by their coastal radar systems. Even if the Soviet leadership were killed, their ‘dead hands’ could still press the nuclear button. Rumors about this system originated in the U.S.S.R., but whether it was real or not has never been established. Later generations of Russian leadership denied its existence, and recent events have borne out this denial.”

  “Are you talking about the Norwegian incident?” asked a woman sitting at the back of the committee table.

  Skow nodded. “Exactly, Senator. For those who don’t know, in 1995, a Norwegian test rocket using the first stage from an American Honest John missile triggered a full nuclear alert in Russia, from the Strategic Rocket Forces up to Yeltsin himself. However, no retaliatory launch was made.”

  “So, does this ‘dead-hand’ system exist or not?” asked Senator Jackson.

  “No, sir,” asserted General Bauer. “During the Norwegian incident, the Russian command-and-control system functioned as it was designed to.”

  “Then what’s Trinity talking about when it threatens to destroy the country?”

  General Bauer could not hide his exasperation: “Senator, Trinity could throw our economy into chaos in a matter of minutes. If it attacked the currency markets, by Monday morning on Wall Street we could have panic selling unlike anything seen since 1929. Suppose Trinity attacks the trucking system? In three days, there would be no food on the supermarket shelves. We could have civil unrest within seventy-two hours, and widespread revolt within a week.”

  Senator Jackson sat back heavily in his chair. “Jesus Christ.”

  A soldier walked up to the general and whispered in his ear. Bauer looked up at the screen. “I’ve just received word that David Tennant and Rachel Weiss are about to arrive at the entrance of this base. They’re in a helicopter, and they’re going to land in the middle of that media circus.”

  Skow cursed under his breath.

  “Tennant?” said a senator from the screen. “Isn’t that the nut who was trying to kill the president?”

  “He’s the doctor who went public with the Trinity story,” said Senator Jackson. “He used to be one of my constituents. I want him brought to your Situation Room.”

  “I agree,” said Ewan McCaskell. “Dr. Tennant may have critical information for us.”

  Skow stood and faced the screen. “Senators, I’ve worked closely with Dr. Tennant for two years. He has severe psychological problems, including paranoid hallucinations. He’s killed two men that we know of, and he’s threatened the president’s life.”

  “I’ve yet to see clear evidence of that last assertion,” said McCaskell. “And Dr. Tennant’s e-mail told a quite a different story.”

  “He’s still dangerous,” said Skow.

  “Not surrounded by a squad of Special Forces troops,” said General Bauer. “I’ll send an escort for him.”

  “One of my Secret Service agents will go along,” said McCaskell. “Just to be sure he arrives safely.”

  Chapter

  40

  WHITE SANDS

  I clung to my seat as the chopper hurtled down toward a throng of people and vehicles outside the gate of White Sands. Inside the gate sat two humvees with .50-caliber machine guns mounted in back, their gunners standing at the ready. Rachel pointed at the swirling mass. It seemed to be made up primarily of journalists, but a group of demonstrators carried picket signs and crucifixes by the gate. They reminded me of the crowds in the Via Dolorosa.

  I gazed north through the Huey’s open door. Fifty miles across this desert, my father witnessed the detonation of the first atomic bomb. It was called, ironically enough, the Trinity Shot. He watched it from a bunker where high-speed cameras recorded every millisecond of the birth of the new sun. Many who witnessed that event tried to explain it, but none captured the moment the way Robert Oppenheimer did. I’d tacked his words on the wall of my medical ethics classroom at UVA:

  When it went off in the New Mexico dawn, that first atomic bomb, we thought of Alfred Nobel and his vain hope that dynamite would put an end to wars. We thought of the legend of Prometheus, of that deep sense of guilt in man’s new powers, that reflects his recognition of evil, and his long knowledge of it. We knew that it was a new world, but even more we knew that novelty itself was a very old thing in human life, that all our ways are rooted in it.

  As the Huey augered down toward the mob below, I realized that Oppenheimer had understood something Peter Godin did not. Godin had entered the Trinity computer to leave behind what no man had ever fully abandoned before: his humanity. In that quest, he could only fail.

  The crowd surged toward the chopper as we landed on the far side of some TV trucks. We jumped out and tried to make for the gate, but someone recognized me and shouted my name, and that started a stampede. In seconds a storm of cameras, floodlights, and reporters was whirling around us. I stood still and silent until they quieted down.

  “I’m David Tennant. I sent the note that revealed the existence of Trinity.”

  “What are you doing here?” shouted a reporter. “Aren’t the people inside this fence the ones who were trying to kill you?”

  “I think we’re past that point now. But in case I’m wrong, you’ll see me walk inside this base. If I don’t come out again, don’t stop asking questions until you get the truth.”

  “What is the truth?” asked a woman. “Is a computer holding the world hostage?”

  “That’s what I’m here to try to deal with.”

  “How?” shouted several voices at once.

  A man with a French accent yelled, “Did this Trinity computer sabotage the Möhne River dam in Germany?”

  “All I have to say is this. You’re doing the world a service by remaining here. Whatever happens, don’t leave. Thank you.”

  I tried to walk out of the circle, but the journalists refused to give way. Their shouted questions grew to a din, and they pressed in on us until the drumbeat of rotor blades drowned their voices. An olive drab Huey with miniguns mounted in its doors was settling almost directly overhead. When it dropped low enough, the reporters scattered like birds.

  A young man wearing a business suit leapt from the Huey and ran toward me, shielding his face against the rotor blast. I saw a submachine gun beneath his flapping jacket.

  “Are you Dr. Tennant?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m Special Agent Lewis of the Secret Service. Ewan McCaskell wants you to join him in the Situation Room on the base.”

  We ran to the Huey with the journalists flocking after us. As Rachel and I strapped ourselves into our seats, Agent Lewis scrambled inside and gave the pilot a thumbs-up.

  Nose tilted forward, the Huey lifted over the high fence and beat its way westward. As the endless white dunes passed beneath us, I wondered that the newest form of life on the planet had been born in a waterless desert, as remote from Eden as one could imagine.

  The pilot set down in the midst of several large airplane hangars. Our destination was a hangar marked ADMINISTRATION, and it was guarded by armed soldiers.

  Inside the cavernous space we found a prefab command post that looked as if it had been designed by NASA. Seated around a table at its center were John Skow, Ravi Nara, Ewan McCaskell, and a two-star general I didn’t recognize. A large display screen showed a group of men and women sitting at another table. Four I recognized as senators, among them Barrett Jackson, the senior senator from Tennessee.

  On the far side of the table before me stood a hospital bed. Lying unconscious on it was Peter Godin. Beside the bed stood two nurses, a
white-coated man who looked like an attending physician, and a blonde bodyguard wearing black. I was about to turn away when I saw a white bandage wrapped around the guard’s neck. A gasp from behind me told me that Rachel had recognized Geli Bauer in the same moment I had. Geli looked at me, then past me, her eyes burning into Rachel. Her lips curved in a predatory smile. She had not forgotten Union Station.

  Ewan McCaskell motioned us to chairs on the right side of the table and made quick introductions as we sat. I was surprised to hear that the blond general was named Bauer, but then I remembered Geli’s family history. The people on the display screen were introduced as the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, and it was clear to me that any decisions regarding the fate of Trinity—and thus the world—were going to be made by them.

  “Dr. Tennant,” said Senator Jackson from the screen. “We’re glad you’re here. In your e-mail from Israel you made serious allegations about Mr. Skow and the National Security Agency. I assure you that we’ll look into those allegations at a later date. But for now, we have to focus on the Trinity threat.”

  “I’m here to do just that, Senator.”

  “We heard what you said to the reporters at the gate,” said McCaskell. “Do you know of some way to shut down this computer without bringing down terrible retaliation on the country?”

  “No.”

  McCaskell didn’t bother to hide his disappointment. “Well, what exactly do you have in mind, Doctor?”

  “I’m here to talk to the computer.”

  The chief of staff glanced at General Bauer, then at Skow. Skow’s expression said, I told you so.

  “What would you like to say to Trinity, Doctor?” asked Senator Jackson.

  “I’d like to ask it some questions.”

  “Such as?”

  “I’d prefer to keep them to myself for now.”

  Nobody liked this answer. Skow looked at me with feigned concern. “David, I hope you’re not operating under the assumption that the Trinity computer is still the mind of Peter Godin. Because—”

  “Actually, I am. Godin’s neuromodel has probably evolved quite a bit by now, but for the next few hours, I think it will remain essentially the man we knew.”

  “And after that?” asked McCaskell.

  “No one knows. Godin believes his model will evolve into some sort of philosopher king, a metahuman entity with the emotionally detached wisdom of a god. I think he’s wrong. Andrew Fielding agreed with me. If I can’t convince Godin’s model to shut itself down in the next few hours—to commit suicide, in effect—then we will never be free from the dominance of this machine.”

  The room was silent.

  “Could you explain your reasoning to us, Doctor?” asked McCaskell.

  “Since the Industrial Age, men have feared that the world might someday be taken over by machines. The irony is that it’s not machines as a class that have done it. It’s one machine. A machine designed and built in our own image. We’ve created Friedrich Nietzsche’s Superman, Mr. McCaskell.”

  Ewan McCaskell looked around the room, then cleared his throat. “Dr. Tennant, have you thought of some argument for the computer shutting itself down that hasn’t occurred to anyone else here?”

  “I don’t know. What have you come up with?”

  “Somebody suggested using a hostage negotiator,” said Senator Jackson. “But we don’t know if anyone’s qualified to talk to this…thing.”

  “I am.”

  “Why do you think so, Doctor? What do you plan to say?”

  I sensed Rachel cringing beside me. She was probably terrified that I would announce that God had sent me to stop Peter Godin.

  Before I could speak, General Bauer said, “Dr. Tennant’s right about one thing. Every hour that we wait, this machine will grow stronger. If we’re going to act, we must do so immediately.”

  “Do you have something in mind, General?” asked Senator Jackson. “So far, all you’ve given us is a nightmare scenario of what Trinity could do to us. What can we do to it?”

  General Bauer stood and walked toward the screen.

  “Gentlemen, Trinity’s power rests solely on its ability to control the world’s computer systems. If we could neutralize those computer systems—or to simplify matters, America’s computer systems—we would neutralize the threat.”

  “Are you saying we should just switch off all the computers in the country?” asked Jackson.

  “That’s an appealing idea, Senator, but impossible. Our plan would be obvious to Trinity long before it was accomplished. And the computer is capable of retaliation literally at the speed of light.”

  “Then what are you suggesting?”

  As I stared at the screen displaying the senators, something Fielding had said about Trinity’s possible quantum capabilities came to me.

  “Excuse me, General,” I interrupted. “Our communications are being transmitted over long lines or satellite links, right? Trinity will be listening to everything we say here.”

  John Skow stood and gave me a patronizing look. “We’re using 128-bit encryption for all communications, and we’re using secure fiber-optic lines. It takes the fastest supercomputer in the world ninety-six hours to crack 128-bit encryption. That’s for each message. Even assuming that Trinity’s projected capabilities prove out, we have a considerable window of communications safety.”

  “You can’t assume anything about Trinity,” I said. “Andrew Fielding believed that the human brain possesses quantum capabilities. If that’s true, and Trinity has harnessed them, it could crack your 128-bit codes instantaneously.”

  Ravi Nara raised his hand. “There is zero chance of that, General Bauer. Fielding was a genius, but his views on quantum computing in the brain were crackpot stuff. Science fiction.”

  “I’m glad to hear it,” said General Bauer.

  “You ignore Andrew Fielding at great risk,” I warned.

  “I’m content to leave those matters to the experts, Dr. Tennant,” said Senator Jackson. “What’s your plan, General?”

  “Senator, I propose that we attack our own country with a nuclear EMP strike as soon as possible.”

  A dozen voices spoke at once. General Bauer nodded to a technician, who routed an animated image of a B-52 bomber to the screens around the room. A bulky missile dropped from the belly of the huge plane, fell behind it for a few seconds, then ignited and arced toward the heavens. High above the earth a colossal nuclear explosion followed, and then cartoonlike waves began radiating from the bomb, covering the entire United States.

  “For those who don’t know what I’m talking about,” said General Bauer, “an EMP strike is very simple. A large nuclear device detonated at sufficient altitude creates an electromagnetic pulse—a massive burst of electromagnetic radiation—that can destroy or shut down every modern electrical circuit in the United States. Computers are especially vulnerable to this energy pulse. Because of the high altitude of the explosion, the bomb itself would cause minimal loss of life, yet the ability of the Trinity computer to retaliate against us would be neutralized almost instantly.”

  There was total silence in the Situation Room.

  “Why do I think you’re oversimplifying this scenario, General?” asked McCaskell. “There’s got to be a downside to this plan.”

  General Bauer took a deep breath, then began speaking in a manner reminiscent of George Patton. The subtext of his argument was You can’t make an omelette without breaking a few eggs.

  “By knocking out our own computer networks,” Bauer summarized, “we would be causing some of the very consequences Trinity has threatened us with. Widespread confusion, injuries, some loss of life. Vehicular traffic would come to a standstill, and all broadcasting would be instantly terminated. But because it’s Friday night, financial repercussions would be minimized. The consequences of industrial accidents could be grave, particularly where power stations, chemical plants, and air and rail traffic are concerned. But—”

  “Think Bho
pal, India,” I said. “A minor taste of what would happen.”

  General Bauer glared at me. “Compared to what Trinity can do if it decides to throw its weight at us, the consequences of an EMP strike are insignificant.” He looked up at the senators. “In short, I’m talking about acceptable levels of disorder. Acceptable losses.”

  “I’m an old soldier,” said Senator Jackson. “Whenever I hear that phrase, I get very nervous. What about hospitals, people on life support, things like that?”

  “There will be loss of life,” General Bauer repeated. “But again, compared to what we’re facing now, negligible. And this crisis would be over.”