Goliath

by Steve Alten

  Thomas Chau shakes his head in disbelief. “Very impressive.”

  David nods in agreement.

  The camera angle suddenly changes, offering a bow-to-stern view of the Goliath’s undercarriage. Suspended beneath the curvature of the steel stingray’s belly are dozens of dead crewmen, their buoyant egress suits pinning them headfirst against the sub like human stalagtites.

  Chau turns away in disgust. “How can you bear to look? They were your men.

  David continues watching the screen, mesmerized. “Actually, I’ve always found death to be quite fascinating, the more gruesome, the better. My maternal grandfather owned seven funeral homes. After school, I used to sneak into the embalming room and watch as he prepared the bodies.” David glances at Chau. “Did you know the viscera of the dead are removed and immersed in embalming fluid before being replaced in the body?”

  “You’re a sick man.”

  David grins. “Sick and brilliant. Isn’t that right, Sorceress?”

  SICK : TO BE ILL. REPORT TO THE MEDICAL SUITE IMMEDIATELY.

  “It’s just an expression. A term of sarcasm.”

  SARCASM: IRONY. INQUIRY: Is HUMAN DEATH IRONIC?

  David smiles. “It’s like talking to an inquisitive child.”

  “Enough of this nonsense,” Covah chastises. “Sorceress, how soon until the Colossus’s nuclear weapons are transported aboard the Goliath?”

  SEVENTEEN MINUTES, TWENTY-SEVEN SECONDS.

  “Upon completion, ascend to antenna depth and transmit Covah message Alpha-One on all predesignated frequencies. Then plot a course for the Mediterranean Sea.”

  ACKNOWLEDGED.

  Taur Araujo sorts through a pile of clothing, then tosses an outfit at his prisoner.

  Gunnar steps into the legs of the jumpsuit, slips his arms in the sleeves, then zips it over his naked body. The Chinese naval uniform is a good three sizes too small, the pant cuffs reaching clear up to his calves.

  “You’d make a lousy tailor.”

  Taur ignores him.

  The other man, a dark, lanky African, hands him a worn pair of sneakers. “These are mine, size thirteen. You don’t like them, then you go barefoot like your girlfriend.”

  Gunnar sees the African has no hands. Two antiquated metal prosthetics are attached midforearm. “Where’s the girl?”

  “Shut up.” Taur Araujo motions for Gunnar to walk down the corridor.

  The internal living space of the Goliath attack sub is comprised of a 610-foot central compartment that divides the ship’s two enormous wings. Served by its central computer, the vessel’s internal layout reflects the needs of a skeleton crew.

  The Goliath’s hangar bay divides the main section of the submarine in half. Located directly above the hangar, assessable via an open freight elevator attached to the starboard bulkhead, is an upper-central compartment dedicated to the ship’s twenty-four vertical missile silos. Aft of the central compartments is the engine room, the ship’s five nuclear reactors, and pump-jet propulsion plants, contained within an enormous football field-size chamber.

  The space forward of the hangar bay is divided into three main decks and a smaller fourth—the stingray’s head—which comprises the ship’s control room/attack center. Lower deck forward houses the battery compartment, ship’s storage, and forward sensory array, while upper deck forward contains the crew’s quarters, lab, and galley, as well as a small spiral stairwell leading up to the conn. The remaining level, central deck forward, is the most vital part of the ship, housing the components of the Goliath’s computer brain. The entire space is sealed off by a two-ton, three-foot-thick steel vault door, inaccessible to all but Simon Covah.

  The remaining bulk of the submarine—the ship’s enormous wings—houses a labyrinth of ballast and trim tanks, as well as a sophisticated maneuvering system that enables the Goliath to soar through the water like a ray. Within the forward sections of each wing, accessible by way of a steel catwalk, are two weapons bays. Within each of these robotically operated chambers are three torpedo tubes, racks of torpedoes, and an armory.

  Gunnar follows the African up a steel ladder mounted within a vertical access tube. Pausing at middle deck forward, he regards the imposing vault door guarding Sorceress.

  The Guerrilla leader at his back prods him from behind with his gun, directing him to the next deck.

  Gunnar follows the African up to upper deck forward. The corridor is twice the width and height of the Colossus passage, more luxury hotel than submarine. Crew’s quarters are laid out dormitory-style, with communal bathrooms set between every third stateroom.

  Heading forward, they pass a watertight door marked SURGICAL SUITE, then a small galley. The aroma of baked goods caused Gunnar’s stomach to growl.

  The African signals him to stop. “Sorceress, unlock stateroom twenty-two.”

  The click of a steel bolt snapping back, the door swinging open as if by an invisible hand. The East Timorian prods him from behind.

  Gunnar enters, the door closing behind him, the locking mechanism sealing him in.

  There are two bunk beds in the stateroom, mounted to the bulkhead. A small desk and chair sit in one quarter, a sink in another. A lone figure is lying on the bed.

  Rocky’s jumpsuit is two sizes too large, rolled up at the sleeves and pant cuffs, revealing her bare feet.

  “You okay?”

  She sits up. “Get out of here! Go join your pal, Simon!”

  He ignores her, lying down on the other bed.

  “I hate you, Gunnar. Do you know how much I hate you—”

  He closes his eyes. “I hate me, too.”

  In the far corner of the ceiling, mounted to the bulkhead by two reinforced steel brackets, is a scarlet eyeball-shaped sensor. A three-quarter-inch cable runs from the back of the eyeball, directly into the wall.

  Rocky drags a chair over and stands on it so that she is only inches away from the scarlet eyeball. “Hey, Sorceress, can you hear me? You tell that asshole Covah that I want my own room. Do you hear me?” She reaches out to seize the device.

  Gunnar opens his eyes. “Rocky, no—”

  A sizzling, invisible electrostatic sledgehammer wallops her across the skull, tossing her backward into oblivion.

  Atlantic Ocean

  General Jackson groans as two sailors in a life raft pluck him from the sea. Ten minutes later, he is helped aboard a Navy cutter. The Bear drops to his knees on deck, protecting his broken wrists. The hooded suit is removed, replaced by a wool blanket. Two sailors help him to his feet, leading him out of a driving rain and into the cutter’s bridge.

  Vice Admiral Arthur M. Krawitz, Commander of the Navy’s Submarine Force in the Atlantic (COMSUBLANT) hands him a cup of coffee. “You okay?”

  “Broke both wrists. Nearly drowned. And I’m one of the lucky ones.”

  “Let’s get you to sick bay.”

  “Not yet.” He struggles to support the styrofoam cup as he sips the bitter brew. “My daughter?”

  “No sign of her, but we heard from Covah. Goliath transmitted a message via satellite uplink about an hour ago. There’s a chopper on its way to take you to Washington. Let’s get those broken bones set while you have a spare moment. I’d say the shit’s about to hit the fan.”

  “A man suffers little from unfulfilled wishes if he has trained his imagination to think of the past as hateful.”

  —Friedrich Nietzsche, German philosopher

  “I would kill a Turk, but I wouldn’t torture them.”

  —Anonymous Serbian priest expressing his disapproval of the torture of Muslims

  “That was a good hunt. There were a lot of rabbits here.”

  —Anonymous Serbian soldier, while looking over a field piled with the bodies of Muslims

  “We are a race of savages and have no pity.”

  —Adolf Hitler

  CHAPTER 13

  Aboard Goliath

  Rocky lies facedown on the bunk, her swollen, singed right hand wrapped in a
wet towel. Gunnar is seated on the floor beside her. He brushes aside the straw-colored blond hair, matted with perspiration, and massages her neck.

  “Don’t touch me.”

  A heavy click, and the stateroom door swings open. The African and Asian enter the cabin, followed by a third man, a white-haired Albanian in his late fifties. All three carry assault rifles. “On your knees, the two of you.”

  “She’s hurt.”

  The older man, a physician, examines her burn. “I’ll get some salve for this—”

  “Tafili, later.” The Asian removes two plastic dog collars from a satchel. “Simon’s requested your presence as our dinner guests. We prefer not to carry weapons. These devices should keep you on your best behavior.”

  Thomas Chau slips the collar around Rocky’s throat, locking it in place so that its two quarter-inch metal prongs press against the back of her neck, fitting snugly against the base of her cervical vertebrae. A small black receiver rests along one side of her throat.

  “Rigged these myself,” the Albanian physician boasts. “The Russians used similar collars to train our attack dogs. Quite simple really. The remote is linked to the sub’s computer.”

  Chau fastens the remaining collar around Gunnar’s neck. “Let’s have a quick test. Sorceress, a level-two charge.”

  A brilliant explosion of pain—sudden and devastating—sizzles through every nerve ending in Gunnar’s body. He collapses to the deck, writhing on the floor like an epileptic having a violent seizure, the purple lights blinding his eyes.

  The electrical charge subsides. Gunnar rolls over, spitting up a frothy, acrid saliva. He senses Rocky next to him, the woman gagging as well.

  The Albanian physician bends over them. “That was a level-two charge. Please don’t do anything rash, a level-ten charge would fry you like bacon.”

  “Simon’s rules are simple,” Chau states. “The two of you are guests, under constant surveillance. Overstep your boundaries and the computer will dole out the appropriate response. Now come with us.”

  The three men exit.

  Gunnar slips his hand beneath his waistband, groaning in agony as he palpates a small spot below his right hip. The tender point just beneath the skin is scorching hot.

  Rocky helps him to his feet. Arm in arm, they follow the three men down the corridor to a small galley. The rest of the crew is already inside, seated around a large rectangular table secured to the deck. Plastic utensils litter the white Formica top. The scent of fresh-baked pizza drifts out from open double doors leading back into the kitchen.

  Covah stands to greet Rocky, motioning her to an empty setting on his left. “Please, Commander, come and sit down.”

  Rocky steps forward, smiles, then kicks outward, the top of her bare foot rushing toward Covah’s groin.

  The electrical charge grips her in midstrike, flipping her body out from under her and hard onto the linoleum floor.

  “Like a bull in a china shop,” says David, shaking his head.

  Rocky rolls onto her knees, her chest heaving in convulsions.

  Gunnar kneels beside her. “Not like this—”

  “Leave me alone.”

  Covah returns to his seat. “As you can see, the collar’s probes detect even the slightest neuromuscular activity, and I shouldn’t need to remind you how fast Sorceress can react.”

  Ignoring her protests, Gunnar helps Rocky to her feet, leading her to one of the empty place settings. “Sit down and save your energy.”

  She wipes saliva from her chin. “Go screw yourself.”

  Two Arabs enter from the kitchen, carrying pizzas on large aluminum trays. The crew digs in as if famished.

  Covah breaks off a small piece of dough and sauce, placing it gingerly in his deformed mouth, the mangled flesh around his jaw and right eye contorting as he chews. “Go ahead, Gunnar, help yourself. If I remember correctly, pizza was your favorite.”

  Gunnar’s stomach growls a reply. He takes a slice, earning more of Rocky’s wrath.

  Covah feeds himself another morsel, then removes a vial from his pocket, fishing out several pills. One at a time, he places the tablets in his mouth and swallows.

  Gunnar watches him, saying nothing.

  “I can’t … I can’t do this.” Rocky bites down on her quivering lower lip. “You murdered my husband, you murdered the sailors aboard the Ronald Reagan,” She looks at Covah, her hazel eyes swimming. “I swear to God, before this is over—” She stops, wary of Sorceress.

  The crew pauses from eating, waiting for Covah’s response.

  “You swear to God? What makes you think God is listening? What is he, an absentee God? A God amused by the suffering of His children?” Simon Covah’s mouth twitches in midswallow. He coughs, gags, then reaches out with his good hand, lifting the wine to his lips, dripping some down his rust-colored goatee as he drains the glass. The pale blue lashless eyes never leave the woman’s. “As for murder, isn’t it you who are calling the kettle black?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “David tells me it was you who ended the life of Mr. Strejcek.”

  “Strejcek killed my husband—”

  “And you killed him. Murder is murder, Commander, no matter how we justify the act.”

  “That was self-defense. You killed thousands—”

  “Using a weapon of mass destruction which you helped design.” Covah swallows another morsel of food. “Interesting how you sit back and judge me—you, a general’s daughter, a sanctimonious warmonger who helped design two of the most lethal killing machines ever to navigate the seven seas.”

  “You’re insane.”

  Covah nods, wiping his mouth. “There we finally agree. Personally, I’m convinced we’re all insane, not just us, I mean our entire species. At times I believe we are all just animals, hell-bent on self-annihilation. We preach love, yet we caress violence as a forbidden lover, tasting it, smelling it, overindulging our senses in it, until we are forced to push it away after the deed has been done so we can beg our Maker’s forgiveness. The hypocrisy makes me ill.”

  Covah looks at Rocky, his gaze growing harsh. “You and I worked together for two years, Commander. During that time, I found you to be an adequate manager, competent and knowledgeable, but, like most of your country’s leaders, a bit too ignorant for my taste.”

  “Meaning?”

  “Meaning, you have no concept as to how the rest of the world thinks. When it comes to conflict, you’re convinced that all men want peace, that all battles can be resolved through forced diplomacy. That fallacy, noble as it is, is based on Western values alien to most people. The world is filled with hatred, Commander, hatred rooted in religious beliefs and cultural disparities, compounded over thousands of years of bloody histories. It is not something I condone, mind you, it is simply the way things are. The United States enters the fray, carrying its big stick, and thinks it can exert its will in a foreign land, without ever having a true understanding as to how the bloodshed began, yet you’re still convinced you can end it.”

  Covah leans forward, close enough so that Rocky can see her reflection distort in his steel cheek.

  “You’ve served in the Armed Forces your whole life, but you’ve never really experienced war, have you, Commander? Like your military leaders, you’ve become enamored of the bloodless campaigns of twenty-first-century technology. How easy it is to build missiles and warplanes when you don’t have to deal with the atrocities your investment has wrought. Press a button, drop a cluster bomb, and read about it in the morning paper. War has not been waged on your soil for almost two hundred years. You’ve never inhaled the scent of burned human flesh. Or crawled through the cinders of a communal grave, through ashen bone and chunks of rotting limbs, attempting to identify the remains of a loved one. You’ve never had to watch, helpless as a baby, as a family member is dragged away and beaten to death before your very eyes.” Tears glisten in Covah’s eyes, blotting out the intensity of his glare. “You’ve never
… stared into the face of an angel, forced to watch as her innocence is gutted before you, your precious child …” He shuts his eyes and wheezes through gritted teeth, forcing his anger to staunch his grief.

  The older Albanian turns to Gunnar, taking over for Covah. “Mr. Wolfe, these things are difficult for Americans to understand. The Serbs butchered entire families as if we were livestock. These were not the actions of soldiers, but deliberate acts of vengeance—an ethnic cleansing, ordered by Milosevic himself, that went far beyond even the most brutal of military tactics. My name is Tafili. My family and I lived in Kapasnica, a neighborhood taken over by the Frenkijevci, a paramilitary unit run by the secret police. Belgrade’s military chiefs used the Frenki Boys to depopulate our cities. The Red Berets, as we called them, had orders to torch our homes and kill any resident in as brutal a manner as possible, if we refused to leave. But the Frenkijevci enjoyed their work a little too much. In the end, entire families were rounded up and slaughtered.”

  The Albanian shakes his head. “People hear about these atrocities. They question how human beings can perpetrate such evil upon others. As ceasefires are instituted, their disbelief turns to ennui. But the survivors … we’re forced to live with these horrors forever. What the rest of the world fails to see are the invisible wounds—the mental anguish, the depression. You cannot just pick up the pieces and go on after your family has been slaughtered. You cannot just turn your back when the perpetrators of these deeds run free. Your life … every thought, is scarred forever. Awakening from the nightmare, one becomes consumed with—”

  “Revenge …” Covah stands, taking over the conversation. “My beloved wife’s uncle is so right. Lying half-dead in the hospital, all I could feel was my blood boiling with rage. Tafili came for me as soon as I could walk. We joined the Kosovo Liberation Army. The rebels gave us machine guns, then assigned us to a hit squad. On our first night out, our leader led us to the home of a man, a tank commander, who had murdered many of my wife’s people. We dragged the butcher from his house, kicking and screaming, and beat him to death right there on the stoop of his home.”