by Bob Mayer
Martinez went back to the first warhead. He reached in and removed the plutonium core. He tossed it to the ground. He knew it was too soon, but he already felt hot.
Core after core, he removed the guts of the warheads. Not like a surgeon, but like a butcher. Killing them.
His team was safe. He knew that. Kali would have turned back on his message. He knew the Colonel.
They’d get Daw out.
As he continued down the line, the engineer in him, trained at West Point, wondered how much cement the Pakistanis would have to pour on this place if the Intruder turned out to not quite destroy everything. How deep would they have to bury this place to keep the radiation sealed?
Contained, when what they had wanted was to spread it out.
Why? Martinez wondered as he pulled out another core. Why would people do that to each other?
He was feeling weak. His stomach was queasy. He staggered for a second, but then saw the bombs on the work bench. He had to do it right. He went over. As he dismantled the bombs, which were already partially dismantled, he thought of his father, who’d put him atop a pony at a carnival when he was very young. Martinez had been scared, and even though he’d worn a little cowboy hat and six shooters on each hip, he’d cried. His father had pulled him off the saddle in disgust. You’re no son of mine.
Martinez finished the last warhead.
He picked up one of the core. He walked over in front of the unblinking eye of one of the video cameras. He waved it.
He collapsed back in a chair. He’d made a pile of weapons of mass destruction into weapons of singular destruction.
He thought of the pony and knew that he shouldn’t have been scared of it.
Space, Earth Orbit
Forster spun about the MMU after converting the seventh satellite into a Seed of the Word. Earth was below him. Massive, yet so small. He could reach out with his arms and encircle it.
He turned to his left. The hand of God was so close to the planet.
There hadn’t been any nuclear explosions in a while. He knew the physics the scientists and non-believers had been trying to throw at Wormwood. And their failure was very clear. It was coming down to smite the disbelievers and deliver the believers.
Seeing the object and the planet coming together so clearly, a sudden, startling thought occurred to Forster: why would God destroy that which he had so perfectly designed and created?
It felt as if his stomach was being stabbed by knives.
Forster gritted his teeth and jetted back to the X-37.
Only one more satellite to go.
The Very Large Array
Abaku opened the metal briefcase. He removed the tablets, placing one on a desk in the corner of the control room, and the other fifteen feet away on another desk. He checked the wireless connection.
Then he took out the thumb drive containing the Great Commission.
“Let us wait,” Sergut said. The Russian was sitting on a desk, staring out at the Array and the mountains beyond. “It is beautiful, is it not? Very much unlike Siberia, but still somehow similar.”
“Why wait?” Abaku asked.
“Until the last satellite is modified,” Sergut said.
Abaku ignored him and slid the thumb drive into his tablet. “There is no point in waiting.”
Sergut sighed. “Does there always have to be a point?”
Abaku went to a computer terminal and began scrolling through the data again, checking the alignment.
“The world is ending and you worry about numbers?” Sergut asked.
“The world is ending, but a better one is beginning,” Abaku said, his focus on the screen. “We are the instrument of God’s will.”
“So are the antennas, then,” Sergut said. “You do know one of the test subjects died, yes?”
“Salvation is not for everyone.”
“I wonder what the dividing line is,” Sergut murmured. “After all, isn’t forgiveness an absolute? We must forgive every trespass, must we not?”
Abaku looked up from the computer. “It is not for us to forgive. That is God’s provenance.”
“But again,” Sergut said, “would he not forgive all?”
“Only those who desire it,” Abaku said. “Which is why we are doing this. To give them a chance.”
“But that one test subject had a chance.”
“She must have rejected it.”
Sergut looked out the large windows to the north. Looming over that arm of seven large dishes was Wormwood. “I wonder if I am like the lizard on the road, and perhaps there will be no braking by God.”
Earth
France rejected the Final Option. Which was just like France. Always taking a different path.
Pakistan was out of it due to the fact its nuclear arsenal was, as they diplomatically explained, inaccessible at the moment. Their idea of a ‘moment,’ in this case meaning thousands of years. Privately, US officials were being bombarded with dire threats, curses, and diatribes by Pakistani officials. The fact the launch codes had been transmitted for a first strike against India prior to Captain Martinez making their warheads ‘inaccessible’ did little to mute the argument.
At the moment, most people had a much larger issue to deal with.
Russia, England, India, and China were in. The other states left with nukes: Israel and most likely North Korea didn’t have the lift capability, so they weren’t invited to the party.
ICBM silos were opened and the missiles were prepped. Submarines came to launch depth.
The human race was preparing to cast the last of its physical power into space directly at the Intruder.
Mato Grasso, The Amazon
“We’re here.”
Angelique pointed at a thin trail to the right. It followed a clear stream into thicker jungle.
“How do you know?” DiSalvo asked.
Gates let go of DiSalvo’s arm and nodded to Angelique to lead the way. She pushed onto the path, Gates right behind her. After a moment’s hesitation, DiSalvo followed.
Gates felt as though the whirlwind that had been his life was closing in. He’d thought after Afghanistan that his capacity to be appalled at what humans could do to each other had been sapped like a good tap in a vigorous maple, drained of all that was once sweet. The last few days hadn't hollowed him out, but like the empty maple, some part of him had begun to fill with something else, something that he didn't understand, but the maple would have let him know this is the way that we make the syrup. We have our roots and dirt and water and the emptiness within that begs for filling, and thus we make more of the sap. And we do it knowing that it'll be taken again. And that's how he feels: that something that he barely understands is going to be taken and then filled in with something else and he has no way to stop it.
He was not sure if it was going to be a good thing or a bad thing.
He had walked into a kill zone with his hands raised, when he could have busted the ambush from the flank, rolled up the shooters, and killed every last one of them. Instead he’d let them walk away.
He was blindly following Angelique, someone he barely knew. Just a week ago he would have demanded proof indicating this was the way to go, but now he was different.
Angelique pulled her machete from its leather sheath and began hacking at the thick jungle partially blocking the old path. Just a few days before he would have pushed to the front and cut through the heavy undergrowth himself, but now he followed, watching the sinew of the muscles in her arm flex. He imagined her face and how it would be lined with concentration and pure focus, and perhaps a heavy sheen of sweat as her body expended the last of its energy.
Gates stumbled to his knees just as Angelique broke through. She disappeared from sight and he heard her voice. “Hello.”
The voice that answered was a man’s, deep and measured. “Welcome. You must be thirsty.”
“I am,” Angelique said.
By instinct, Gates drew his pistol, fumbling with the snap.
DiSalvo shoved passed Gates, his weapon at the ready. They burst into a small clearing where Angelique stood in front of a tall man. He was well tanned, with a short beard tinged with gray. There was a scar above his right eye.
He raised both hands, showing he was unarmed, but indicating something more, a gesture of comfort and peace. And the he spoke to the three:
“I, Judas, bear true witness to many of the events that have been recorded in the New Testament, for I saw and heard much of it with my own eyes and ears.” The man who uttered these words looked up from the barrels of the guns pointed at him. Judas smiled at the two men who held the weapons. A woman stood between them, not pointing a weapon. “Would you like to know more? For I have walked this planet for over two thousand years. Surely that is a story worth putting off killing me for a bit? At least until after we share a meal? Please be seated.”
The Present: The Final Day
From the 5th Gospel: Judas:5:1 And the Second Coming will complete this Gospel.
Judas got up and walked around the table. The three also rose as he came toward them. He halted in front of Angelique. He took her face between his hands and peered deep into her eyes. “Your hair, you received from your mother. Always curly and dark and kept short. But your eyes, you have your father’s eyes.”
“Who was my father?” Angelique asked. “My mother?”
“Once more, my dear, you ask the wrong questions, although they are important.”
“What is the right question?” Angelique asked.
“Who you are,” Judas replied.
“And who am I?”
“The Fifth Gospel, of course.”
And then DiSalvo raised his left arm and fired one of the spring loaded darts from under his sleeve at Angelique. Judas was a fraction of a second faster and got between the priest and guide. The dart ripped into Judas’s left side, burying deep into his body, slicing through numerous blood vessels before lodging against his spine.
DiSalvo’s right hand was also busy, pulling a throwing knife out from his belt. As if he were double-tapping with a gun, he threw the knife at Angelique as Judas collapsed to his knees.
The knife hit true, striking her in the chest, slicing between ribs and embedding in her heart. Gates grabbed Angelique as she staggered back. He held her upright as she gasped in utter pain, dying as her beating heart was shredded.
The four were like a frozen tableau. DiSalvo was watching Angelique’s eyes, seeing the life fade from them. Judas was on his knees, slumped back against the edge of the bench, holding his side, blood seeping through his fingers. The dart was part of him, ripping apart his flesh with each breath.
“No,” Gates whispered. “No.” He repeated the same word over and over as a mantra.
“Forgive yourself,” Angelique said to him in a voice only he could hear.
And Gates understood. He felt it in his arms, through her. As if the tree were drawing up sustenance from the Earth, he felt himself fill with something so substantial, that he knew he could do whatever came next no matter how large the holes inside were as a result of his past.
And then he felt her move forward, gathering her feet underneath and standing upright. She reached up, wrapped her hands around the handle of the throwing knife. She pulled it out with one smooth movement and let it fall to the ground.
Angelique turned to Judas. “I can help.”
Judas shook his head. “No.” He struggled for a breath. “This is the release. I was cursed until the Second Coming. My curse is over. Let me rest.”
“What do I do now?” Angelique asked.
“You don’t do anything,” Judas said. He took a shallow breath. “They do.” He nodded toward Gates and DiSalvo. “With their free will.”
She held out her bloody hands toward DiSalvo. “I forgive you.”
DiSalvo stared at her, disbelief morphing into a belief beyond anything he had ever thought possible. He dropped to his knees, his hands clenched in prayer. “Please, Lord!”
Angelique pointed toward the Intruder touching the horizon to the north. “How do we stop it?” she asked Judas.
“You don’t. They change it.” Judas grimaced. “Or they don’t. I lied earlier about one thing.” He struggled to catch his breath. “It wasn’t Mount Toba that reduced mankind to the ten thousand. It was—” he nodded his head up—“and our Father gave man one more chance in the Garden of Eden to start over. And then he sent his son to teach man how to do it. And they corrupted his teachings into words more than actions.” Judas swallowed. “I can’t feel my legs. My chest, now that’s killing me.” He smiled at his own gallows humor. “I suppose that’s a small blessing. To go quickly, unlike my Brother, your Father.” He reached up and gripped Angelique’s hand. “There won’t be another chance.”
Angelique knelt next to him. She placed a hand on his forehead. “I can at least take away the pain.”
Judas shook his head. “I need to feel the pain, just as your Father did on the cross.”
“And my mother?” Angelique asked.
“Mary,” Judas said. “You will see her again. As you will see your Father again. And Our Father.”
And then Judas died.
Terminal Impact in Ten Minutes
The Mato Grasso, The Amazon
Angelique reached out and gently closed Judas’s eyelids. She lowered her head for a moment, whispering something.
Then she stood.
DiSalvo was still kneeling, praying. Gates, the man of action, was motionless, as still as the trees around them, waiting and watching her.
“My brothers,” Angelique said. “Will you help me?” She reached down and touched DiSalvo’s shoulder “Stand.”
The priest slowly got to his feet, eyes downcast.
“Father,” Angelique said, “will you lay aside your fear and your misguided faith and trust me?”
DiSalvo swallowed hard. “You should be dead. You live through death. Judas, the Great Betrayer cursed to live until the Second Coming is dead. You are the Second Coming as was foretold, but not told correctly. Tell me what to do.”
“You must use your science,” Angelique said. “Set up your transmitter.” She turned to Gates. “And will you trust me?”
Gates nodded.
“Good. You must use your faith to convince your secret master—yes, I know you, too, were a spy for the Illuminati—to do something that goes against what they are planning.”
Gates looked up at the Intruder. Then he pulled the satellite phone from his combat vest.
Space
Forster knew the trip to the eighth Seed was one-way. He would not make it back to the ship with the fuel the MMU had left. He tethered himself to the satellite, removed the panel, letting it float off into space. He modified the GPS satellite into Seed 8.
He reached down and texted confirmation that all the Seeds of the Word were on line to Atlanta on his wrist control.
Then he turned to watch Wormwood and the Earth close in on each other with a sense of unutterable sadness.
New York
Pierce was also watching Wormwood, or ‘the Intruder,’ as his ilk preferred to call it. Brunswick was on the phone, on a conference call with the leaders of the United States, Russia, England and China. The Final Option had to be coordinated, and the Illuminati were the only organization with the multinational capability.
Brunswick was waiting on each country to confirm that its nuclear forces were ready to launch. So far the US, England and China had checked in positively. As always, Russia was a little late.
Pierce turned from the Intruder to a private link on his computer. Thornton was sending a feed from the Airbus 380. The massive plane was gaining altitude, its Rolls Royce engines straining at maximum thrust. The pilots and crew had set the autopilot, and now everyone was gathered inside the TH-Four orbiter in the massive interior.
At the correct moment, the large doors built into the frame of the aircraft began to o
pen. It had worked theoretically on the computer every time.
Pierce felt some sympathy as the doors ripped off, the massive aircraft’s aerodynamics disappearing with them. Before the TH-Four separation rockets could blast it clear, the plane rolled, pinning the smaller spacecraft inside and plummeting earthward.
Gravity always won.
Pierce looked over at Brunswick, still on the phone, waiting for Russia.
“Thornton tried to have it all,” Pierce said. “Beat Wormwood and beat the Intruder, whichever it is.”
Brunswick slid his hand over the phone. “We’ll stop it.”
To Pierce it sounded like his old colleague was trying to convince himself.
Atlanta
The Head sat alone in the conference room. The others had scattered to their flocks to lead them through the coming trials and into salvation. The screens around the room showed the panic, the fear, the turmoil gripping the planet. On one screen, the Very Large Array loomed poised, ready to send the Word of God to the Seeds and then back down to every living soul. Soon they would all be free of the fear.
It would be replaced by belief.
The Mato Grasso, The Amazon
DiSalvo used the key around his neck to open the metal case. As he hustled to set up the two tablets at the correct distance—the tablets that were to have been used to blast Judas’s brain with the Great Commission and win the anti-Christ over to God’s side—Gates was checking his satellite connection.