by Bobby Akart
Hapwell, as a seasoned scientist with an impressive educational background, often said that Earth was constantly playing a high-stakes game of Russian roulette. One day, she’d said, our planet will be on the receiving end of a bullet.
As she pulled out of the parking garage of her flat on Beacon Street, she wondered if this was the bullet that found its mark. By the time Hapwell crossed the Charles River and made her way to the Cambridge facility, her team was fully immersed in their research and analysis of the data received from NASA.
The sun was rising, shining through the east-side windows facing the John Wolbach Library. Her arrival was only noticed by a few of the astronomers and mathematicians, who were working frantically on their computers. When Padma Argawal, her associate director, noticed her arrival, she called the team to attention.
“Good morning, everyone,” Hapwell greeted them. “I thank all of you for scrambling together to address this newfound object. I realize this is highly unusual, but based upon the information provided from NASA, so far, unconfirmed, I found it necessary to meet this booger head-on.”
She paused to accept a cup of coffee from one of the student-assistants. She continued. “I’m sure that Padma has covered some of this already, but I need to reiterate something to all of you. This matter is being investigated under the purview and supervision of the Department of Defense. It’s in the process of being deemed classified and available to people at the highest levels of our government. That means, I’ve been told, that no one will be allowed to leave this room today without an escort. There can be no external communications with family or anyone else via email, text, or phone. Does everyone understand?”
Everyone either nodded or answered in the affirmative.
“Okay, we’ve war-gamed this scenario before as part of the drills we conducted with NASA, the DOD, and the White House. The first step is to get eyes on this NEO. Second, analyze its incoming trajectory. Finally, and based upon my mental calculations, this is important, as always, we need to determine the impact date.
“Now, with this additional sense of urgency I’ve placed on all of you, let me be clear. No mistakes. No shortcuts. No assumptions. I want definitive conclusions. A group consensus, if you will. One that you’d personally stand by if you had to stand in the Oval Office and tell the President of the United States the results as if your life depended upon it. Why? Because it probably does.”
Her associate director was waving frantically to get her attention, so Hapwell thanked her team and excused herself.
Slightly annoyed, Hapwell asked, “What is it, Padma?”
“Ma’am, the switchboard has received a call from a woman in Georgia who has claimed to have spotted a close-approach asteroid. She won’t provide any further details to our screening team and insists upon speaking to, as she put it, a higher-up.”
“Do you think she’s a crackpot?” asked Hapwell, who suddenly envisioned a deluge of skywatchers inundating the MPC with sightings.
“Based on the cursory information relayed to me, she may have spotted our NEO.”
Hapwell sighed and instructed Argawal to direct the call to her office. Once she was seated, she took the call and placed it on her speakerphone.
“This is Director Hapwell. How may I help you?”
“Um, yes, ma’am. My name is Jackie Holcomb and I live at the Deerlick Astronomy Village, um, south of Washington, Georgia. Ma’am, I believe I’ve, um, I mean, jeez, I’m sorry, ma’am. I’m very nervous and, well, excited, too.”
“That’s quite all right, Ms. Holcomb. Perhaps you’d like to gather your thoughts and call back. My team is perfectly capable of taking the information you have for—”
“No!” Jackie shouted into the phone. “This is too big, I mean, too important. This needs to be given to someone of importance, um, authority, like yourself.”
“Okay. Okay, go ahead, then, I’m listening.”
Argawal had entered the room and was greeted by a shrug and an eye roll from Hapwell. She slowly took a seat and crossed her legs, listening as Jackie continued.
“Here’s the thing, I won’t get into how I discovered this, but let’s just say that I’m fairly certain that there’s an asteroid coming directly for us and at a speed that gives it a potential impact within three weeks.”
Hapwell sat up in her chair and immediately grabbed a notepad, which she shoved in front of Argawal. She whispered, “Take notes.”
“All right, Ms. Holcomb, let’s start from the top. I need to get some basic information from you so that we can open a file.” Hapwell smiled and winked at her associate director.
Jackie gained her composure and the words flowed out of her. She began to tell the story, leaving out the part about how she’d discovered the asteroid on Nate’s video feed, and the fact that she’d kept Sparky in the loop regarding her findings.
Several minutes later, Hapwell shooed Argawal out the door and into the war room to feed this data to their team. She also secured Jackie’s commitment to email everything she had to Hapwell’s personal email address at the Minor Planet Center. Finally, she told Jackie that it was very important that she stay at home, with her data, and near the telephone. It was important for her to be available, as the MPC would need to discuss her findings and gather insight into the processes she’d used to identify this near-Earth object.
Having calmed Jackie down, and securing her commitment to stay put, Hapwell put in a call to Colonel Maxwell at the DOD to notify him of the additional sighting. After their brief conversation, Hapwell took a moment to gather her thoughts.
By day’s end, she’d be able to make a fairly precise determination of this NEO’s trajectory and impact date. She swelled with pride as she thought of presenting this information to the president herself. After another minute of self-aggrandizement, Hapwell suddenly came to a realization—this might be a planet killer.
Chapter 17
Thursday, April 5
The News-Reporter
Washington, Georgia
Sparky Newsome had never genuinely feared for his life until today. Certainly, each day brought news stories to explore, but he mostly followed a set routine day after day, week after week. Washington was a quiet town, full of history dating back to the American Revolution. It was relatively crime-free and only on rare occasions was there something to report deemed newsworthy, at least by the standards of larger cities.
Jackie Holcomb’s visit to his home changed all of that. His life would never be the same, and now he wondered how much longer it would last.
Thursday had begun pretty much the way Wednesday had left off—hand-wringing over what to do with Jackie’s discovery. When they parted ways the afternoon before, and after several heated conversations by phone last night, their concerted opinion was to report this information to both the Minor Planet Center and the national news media as soon as possible.
Jackie had conducted additional calculations based upon Nate’s recorded footage. She’d gone back to Deerlick in the early morning hours to access various telescopes that were on the property. She hoped to track the asteroid further, perhaps to ease her concerns, or to confirm what her gut was telling her. Unfortunately, the extreme brightness of Comet Oort, coupled with its extensive tail, obscured the trailing asteroid from view. She could only rely upon her initial calculations, which she’d checked and rechecked all night long.
When Sparky and Jackie last spoke earlier that morning, she was going to place the call to the MPC and he was going to reach out to his media contacts at CBS.
Many years ago, Sparky had established a relationship with Jeff Glor, the former CBS Evening News anchor and now a member of the 60 Minutes team. When Glor had been with an independent news station in Boston, he’d traveled to Washington, Georgia, to cover a mayoral election that had garnered national attention because of its racial undertones. Sparky had become Glor’s point of contact during the production of the story, and the two kept in contact via email for years.
Sparky believed this story was too big for the regional press, namely from Augusta, Georgia, the designated media market of which the Washington-Wilkes community was a part. He tried to contact Glor by phone; however, Sparky was told he was on assignment in Africa and couldn’t be reached. He attempted to email Glor, several times in fact, with each email growing increasingly urgent.
There was no response.
Sparky became concerned about the time it was taking to get this information out to the public. Next, he considered reaching out to CNN by phone. He only had one contact there, a national correspondent named Jack Young, who had been a part of Atlanta’s Channel 2 Action News team for years. He’d been to Washington on occasion during his early career and looked to Sparky to provide stories of local interest.
By midafternoon, Sparky was growing increasingly frustrated. He had the story of the century and nobody seemed to care. Glor was unavailable. Young had not returned his calls. Sparky considered going to his sources in the Augusta media market, but he wasn’t sure that he could maintain control over the story. Above all, if Jackie’s theory was correct, this asteroid had the potential to cause serious damage and loss of life. He was growing increasingly frustrated with the whole matter and found himself feeling trapped.
Plus, he was driving his wife crazy. He intentionally withheld much of Jackie’s hypothesis until he didn’t want to unduly worry Mary. Needing some fresh air and a change of scenery, his wife encouraged him to go down to the Square Cafe a block from their home to grab a couple of coffee drinks. Reluctantly, Sparky acquiesced and entered the square after a fresh spring rain gave the first seat of government in Georgia’s history a wash.
He placed his order and wandered around the small café owned by a group of local entrepreneurs. He mindlessly perused the offerings in the café’s lending library, studying the choices, noticing that half the shelves were filled with the novels of a local author and Mary’s own illustrated children’s books.
Sparky was jolted back into the moment, not by the barista announcing that his drinks were ready, but rather by the sound of vehicles roaring into the town’s square. He separated the blinds and peered through them. Several black Chevy SUVs roared in front of the Georgia Realty Sales Office, past The Epigraph, and rounded the corner toward his home.
His eyes grew wide when their tires screeched to a halt, barely coming to a stop before men in dark suits jumped out and hurdled his white picket fence.
“Sparky, Sparky! Your drinks are ready.” The barista tried to get his attention, oblivious to what was going on outside.
He ignored her and rushed out onto the sidewalk, his head on a swivel, trying to get a handle on what was happening. He quickly crossed through the parked cars, almost getting hit by a tourist searching for a space, He’d almost reached the statue of a confederate soldier that stood proudly over the square when he received a text message. It was from his wife.
run
Sparky took several steps toward the house, concerned for Mary’s well-being, when several of the men-in-black emerged back onto the front porch, pressing their fingers to earpieces and scanning the small downtown area through dark sunglasses.
He trusted his wife, and Mary was a strong woman. So he followed her advice, but he didn’t run. He tried to be nonchalant, casually strolling through the square until he was out of sight, and then he picked up the pace.
Run, but to where?
And why?
He made his way across historic Robert Toombs Avenue and walked briskly down Spring Street past the IGA grocery store. Sparky’s mind raced as he left his beloved wife alone to deal with … with … whatever it was that had descended upon him.
Then his phone rang, startling him so bad that he almost spontaneously released his full bladder. He looked at the display, expecting to see his wife’s name and number. Instead, it was Jackie’s husband.
Sparky ducked between two cars parked at the small grocery store, and crouched down to hide. He connected the call but said nothing.
“Sparky, are you there? It’s James. Hello?”
The voice was familiar, although he and James Holcomb rarely spoke on the phone.
Sparky mustered the courage to respond, “Yeah, um, hello.”
“Hey, Sparky. I wonder if you could help me. Listen, I’ve just gotten back in from the road and found the house wide open. I don’t know, I mean. Look, it’s like a cyclone hit the place. The door was practically busted off the hinges. Our place has been ransacked. Jackie’s astronomy equipment is missing, and her computers. And, um, Sparky, so is she.”
Damn.
Sparky gulped. “James, have you talked to Jackie at all? You know, about what she and I have been working on?”
“No. I’ve been hauling a load from LA to Atlanta. I called to say goodnight and we only spoke for a minute. She seemed preoccupied or something. Say, what’s going on? Why did somebody toss our house? Do I need to call—?”
Sparky didn’t have answers for any of his questions, and he suspected his home would be suffering the same fate. He racked his brain, seeking to provide an answer to his friend’s distraught husband, when he realized that James had been cut off.
“James? James? Are you there?”
He looked down at his iPhone’s screen. It was blank. Not dark, as if the phone had lost its charge. No, this was different. It was a grayish color, as if …
Sparky dropped his phone as if it were a deadly parasite attempting to eat his flesh in a bad sci-fi movie. He attempted to kick it away from his feet, missing badly at first before finding the mark, sending the device through the IGA parking lot.
He looked in all directions, searching for what might’ve caused the device to fail. Panicked, Sparky broke out in a run, bolting in front of an oncoming car on East Liberty Street. Seconds later, he was inside Washington’s city hall, looking for a familiar face.
The mayor’s secretary, Veronica, occupied the first office on the right, and she was gently tapping away at her keyboard, most likely preparing for that afternoon’s council meeting.
Out of breath, Sparky tried to regain his composure in an effort to avoid drawing attention to his predicament.
“Ah, hi, Veronica,” he began, trying to contain his emotions.
“Hey, Parks,” she replied. Veronica was one of the few people left in Washington who’d known Sparky since childhood and therefore used his given name.
“Hey. Listen, um, I lost my phone and I need to call home. Would you mind dialing Mary and let her know—”
Know what? What can Veronica say that won’t give my location away?
Veronica grew impatient with his sudden pause. “Parks? Let her know what?”
“Um, we had a little fight, that’s all. Please just give her a call and see how she’s doin’, okay?”
“You know, I have a council meeting in less than an hour. Can’t this wait?”
“No, Veronica. It can’t.” Sparky was stern in his response, perhaps overly so, which drew an angry glare from Veronica.
Without saying another word, she lifted the receiver of her desk phone and began to dial. Flustered, Sparky slammed his hand down on the top of the phone to stop her.
“No, use your cell phone,” he shouted, frightening Veronica. He looked outside into the hallway to see if his outburst drew any attention. He caught himself. “Jeez, I’m so sorry. Please, just call using your cell phone.”
Veronica rolled her eyes and reached into her bag to retrieve her phone. As she did, Sparky saw one of the black Suburbans drive slowly in front of city hall, pausing only briefly at the intersection before continuing westbound on Liberty.
Sparky snapped to attention when he realized that Veronica had been connected to his home. “Um, wait, is this the Newsome residence? Where is Mary? What? Who is this?”
She glanced up at Sparky with a confused look on her face. She suddenly thrust the phone toward him. “Sparky, some man answered—”
Sparky jumped backwards, recoili
ng from the phone, and began waving his hands frantically. He mouthed the words no, no, no!
Veronica scowled and shrugged. She tried to force the phone toward him and it came close enough for him to hear the man’s voice.
“Mr. Newsome, I know you’re there. Come on back home. We just need to talk.”
Yeah, sure. Like the way you’re talking to Jackie?
Sparky ran down the hallway and raced out the rear fire exit of city hall, leaving Veronica with her mouth open and the cell phone quivering in her hand.
Chapter 18
Thursday, April 5
Gunner’s Residence
Dog Island
Florida Panhandle
Gunner had spent the day at nearby Tyndall Air Force Base, training with Air Force Special Ops under the supervision of the 53rd Weapons Evaluation Group. The flight simulators at the 53rd were second to none, providing fighter pilots the closest thing to live combat available.
Today, a new weapons system was being introduced via the Air Force’s air-to-ground weapons evaluation program known as Combat Hammer. What stuck with Gunner throughout the entire session was the fact that this new system could be made nuclear-capable should the situation dictate it.
After he pulled his four-wheeler through the pilings that supported the beach house, he shut off the engine and paused to reflect on his day. Fighter jets delivering nuclear payloads. Will it ever come to that? And what will they think of next?
Gunner shrugged off the thoughts of advanced nuclear weaponry, grabbed his rucksack out of the rear cargo hold, and headed through the ground level of his home toward the elevator. He glanced at the miniature Jeep Willys ATV that was parked on the other side of the elevator entryway. It had been gathering dust and sand for years. Since the anniversary. The one that was never celebrated.
With a sigh, he rode up to the main level of his home, anxious to grab a beer, flop on the sofa, and maybe catch a baseball game. It was opening day for most teams, and he looked forward to something brainless to take his mind off things.