by E. J. Simon
Goodrich addressed Benoit. “John, how much time will you need to do this thing?”
“Five minutes, maybe less,” Benoit said. “We have everything set up and all the right people waiting. We just need to access Mr. Nicholas’s software. If he simply goes to his,” Benoit looked up at Alex, “ah…settings and makes a few simple clicks, we’ll be in and can access what we need to overrule the missile-guidance systems and destroy the missiles in flight.”
“Are we sure this will work?” O’Brien said.
Michael watched the scene going on around the table. Benoit appeared frozen by the question. Sculley, Goodrich, O’Brien, MacPherson, and every head not only at the conference table but all those seated around the room and standing on the periphery turned to the young Benoit.
“We won’t know for sure until we get access from Mr. Nicholas, but I believe it will work, sir. Once we enter his system, it should be a relatively simple operation. So, right now, Mr. Nicholas holds the key.”
“How old are you, Benoit?” Sculley said, with a cross between a scowl and a sarcastic smile.
Benoit looked over at O’Brien and Goodrich as though pleading for help. “Thirty-four, sir.”
“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph,” Sculley said.
“Mr. President, this is our only shot,” Goodrich said. “We also have every available technician and scientist over at the Pentagon working on this, but they haven’t had any success in breaking into missiles’ guidance systems.”
“So, the fate of our world is dependent on a dead guy,” Sculley said, nodding at Alex and then Benoit, “and the kid.”
“Sir,” MacPherson said, “anticipating the worst, and then a retaliatory attack from the Russians, should we notify DEFCON to go ahead with the national emergency system? It would give us time for some to evacuate the major targets…or at least seek shelter.”
“Respectfully, sir,” Sculley cut in, “I’m not sure this is practical, considering the scale of this threat. If the Russians launch a retaliatory attack, we’d only have, what?, fifteen or twenty minutes. Much less if they launch from their submarines. It would only cause mass panic in our cities. There’ll be more casualties from the panic than we’ll prevent with the notice.”
“Sir,” another aide said, “assuming the worst does not happen here, it might be wise not to have this episode or situation made public. Once we send out the emergency warnings, we’ll have to tell the world what took place here.”
“We simply have to stop these missiles,” O’Brien said. “How the hell is anyone going to get out of New York City in ten minutes when the whole city is trying to leave? Nevertheless, I think we have an obligation to do it.”
Aides and military officers scrambled onto their phones and computers to send out the word.
An aide ran up to the conference table and approached O’Brien, “Sir, you have a call on the red phone; Mr. Putin’s on the line.”
“Shit,” O’Brien whispered loud enough for everyone to hear in the otherwise suddenly silent room.
Chapter 68
6:05 a.m., Paris
8:05 a.m., Moscow
12:05 a.m., Washington, DC
O’Brien took the call on the speaker phone. Putin’s voice echoed through the conference room.
“Mr. President, we are prepared to launch our attack. My generals are waiting for my signal, which I am prepared to give them in a matter of minutes. This is a sad day for our civilizations.”
“We are close to taking control of the missiles, Vlad.” As he said it, O’Brien realized how pathetic it sounded.
“Close? How close? This is not reassuring.” The former KGB officer clearly would not be pacified. “This is not a matter one can decide based upon speculation, or trust. I must be able to verify that the missiles have been destroyed or directed elsewhere. Our radar and satellite data indicate that, as of this moment, they are still headed here.”
O’Brien looked around the room, searching for some sign of a breakthrough. It was clear from the stern faces and the diverted glances that there was no good news. He was on his own. He looked up at the big digital clock: 12:06.
Putin continued, “In the meantime we have prepared our missile defense systems to intercept and destroy your missiles but, as you know, the likelihood is that some of them will reach their targets here, especially in view of the multiple warheads that we believe are involved.”
“Vlad, I need to attend to a matter here related to stopping this attack. I will be back to you in just a few minutes.”
“There’s still time but not much, as you can see. Perhaps eight minutes, perhaps not even so long.”
General Sculley was on his feet, pointing to the floor-to-ceiling screens, each one showing a Russian anti-missile site. “These are live video feeds from their anti-missile launch sites. Russia has at least sixty-eight active launchers of short-range interceptor nuclear-tipped missiles. They’re deployed from these five launch sites: Sofrino, Lytkarino, Korolev, Skhodnya, and Vnukovo. As you can see, there is a lot of activity going on there, which is typical for the moments just before deployment.”
“John,” O’Brien said, “I don’t need a tour of their sites.”
Maybe it was his new circumstances or simply the seemingly frozen-in-time nature of his new life but Alex Nicholas had plenty of time to think. Eight minutes meant nothing to him anymore; a split second felt like a lifetime. Time had no meaning, no perspective to compare it to or measure against.
The pros and cons were like a detailed analysis flowing through his brain. Each factor in his decision was laid out for him; he could see and feel the logic behind all of them. Everything was listed, like the bulleted PowerPoint presentations they did on Wall Street…except for the emotions, the gut feelings that had always ruled his decisions…at least those that didn’t involve sports odds.
One emotion remained a major factor, however.
Until now, Alex had outlived and survived his only real fear, death. But now that fear felt tangible again, much as it had when he’d walked the earth.
What if by helping President O’Brien and that room full of suits and uniforms, he simply no longer existed…at all? What if he just…wasn’t anymore?
On the other hand, there was Michael. If he didn’t help the government now, Michael would likely die, along probably with almost everyone else he knew and cared about: his old friends, the Lesters, Joe Sal, John, Raven, Jerry, his son, George, and the rest. Even Donna. Who would he even talk to then? He would be…alone.
Why would anyone voluntarily allow someone to kill them? There’d be nothing left…unless…No, there’d be nothing. It had always been his nightmare, that terror of no longer being, and here it was again.
He thought of 2001: A Space Odyssey…HAL’s red camera eye staring back at him.
But Alex Nicholas was looking in the mirror.
To Michael, it appeared that Alex was in a daze, one that he had to get him out of, quickly.
“Alex,” Michael said, “you’ve got to help these people. Otherwise, everything you know, everyone you know or knew, will be gone. You’ll be…alone.”
Michael could tell from the look on Alex’s face, that he had to drive the point home, again, even if it meant helping to kill his brother. “What good is immortality if all your friends and everyone you know are gone?”
“Mr. Nicholas,” Benoit’s voice broke in, “I should let you know that, should you decide not to let us access your codes, and we do have a nuclear exchange, you, too, may not survive. Your program, your existence, is run through servers. Those servers are housed somewhere, and, if our power grid is destroyed or goes down, you will also, eventually if not immediately. I suspect that your AI will do everything it can to help you survive, just as we will. Your systems will seek alternative servers and power sources and will try and reroute your life systems, but a nuclear war is unc
harted territory for the Internet, for Wi-Fi, for, really, everything we and you, too, depend on to continue to…live.”
It seemed to Michael, watching Alex’s face, that Benoit, unlike Sculley and Michael himself earlier, was making headway. Given that new information, the odds had shifted in Alex’s mind. And if anyone knew how to play the odds, it was Alex Nicholas.
Michael saw his brother’s disposition change yet again. He’d made a decision—or the situation, as laid out by Benoit, had made the decision for him. It seemed to Michael that Alex’s face now showed a certain resignation and perhaps relief.
Michael felt that his brother was going to do it, which also meant that he was about to lose Alex.
Forever, this time.
O’Brien stood up from his chair, “Mr. Nicholas—Alex—we need you and we need your cooperation, your help, now, before it’s too late. No decision now is a decision. The Russians will launch those missiles any minute. If you say yes, I can get back on the line with Putin and let him know that we can stop our attack.”
“And,” Benoit added quickly, “I want you to know that I’ll do everything I can to save you, too. As soon as I stop those missiles, I will return to your source code and do my best to ensure you survive or are revived.”
Alex looked at Michael. Michael stared back and noticed that Alex’s lips were beginning to tremble. In all their years together, he had never seen Alex even close to breaking down.
He was going to do it. Michael knew it.
The room went still, waiting for Alex to speak.
But as he began, his image suddenly dissolved on the screen.
“What happened? Where’d he go?” O’Brien asked.
Everyone in the room began to scramble. Benoit and his young aides began frenetically working their laptops.
“Alex?” Michael said, panic in his voice. “Are you okay? Are you there?”
“What’s going on, John?” O’Brien asked Benoit.
“Somebody seems to be hacking into our feed—or into Mr. Nicholas.” The young tech expert looked up at the President. “He’s gone.”
Chapter 69
6:05 a.m., Berlin, Germany
“This is the moment, my dear friend,” Dietrich said, looking at Schlegelberger on his computer screen. “Even with a war going on, up to the moment the bomb bay doors of the B-29 Enola Gay opened, and in the forty-three seconds the bomb took to fall to its detonation height, nineteen hundred feet above them, the people of Hiroshima were going about their business—going to work, to school, having breakfast—contentedly unaware that in seconds a nuclear explosion would melt them and all they knew into the earth.
He thought about the book he’d reread recently, Hiroshima, by John Hersey, a true account of the moments before and after the atomic bomb destroyed the Japanese city, killing sixty thousand people upon impact and another eighty thousand shortly after. That was a single bomb, seventy-five years ago. He tried to imagine the destruction and death toll from a hundred or so of today’s most advanced nuclear bombs, hitting multiple locations throughout Russia, simultaneously. And then the retaliatory strike by the Russians…New York, Chicago, Washington…It warmed his soul.
“Yes,” Dietrich continued, “and right now the people of Moscow are just making their way to work, or still drunk on vodka, making morning love, or having their breakfast. Soon, it will all be irrelevant, their last moments of normalcy. Then, the Russians will retaliate, doing the same to New York or Washington, who knows how many cities they’ll hit—and so will end the world order. And you, my dear friend, and I will create a new one, and, a new religion. I will be the political leader of this new world and you, shall we say, the spiritual leader, a new…God.”
Schlegelberger looked back at Dietrich. “And so it shall begin anew.”
“Shall we look in on our friends in their so-called Star Wars room? Take me there so I, too, can enjoy the show.”
With that, Schlegelberger obliged Dietrich’s voyeuristic desire as the computer screen on Dietrich’s desk displayed, live and in color, the Washington war room, just in time for him to see and hear John Benoit calling out, “Somebody seems to be hacking into our feed—or into Mr. Nicholas. He’s gone.”
Chapter 70
12:08 a.m.
The White House
Washington, DC
Panic enveloped the room as Benoit and his IT experts did their best while other aides made desperate calls on their phones.
“Where are our missiles?” O’Brien asked. “Are we trying everything possible? I hope we’re not putting all our eggs in this one basket, Alex Nicholas.”
“Our people are doing everything they can to break into our missile protocols but we’ve been unsuccessful so far,” MacPherson said, shaking his head.
“We’ve got less than eight minutes to call them back before the Russians have to fire theirs. Maybe less if they want to play it safe and fire early,” said O’Brien, his mind and his nerves on overdrive.
Michael watched and listened as the generals and their aides zoomed in on the many Russian missile sites on the Star Wars room’s oversized monitors, at first from a distance and then intimately close yet with perfect resolution and detail. One after another, the Russian installations appeared to be in a state of alarm and activity.
“This is what they call the Main Center for Missile Attack Warning, near Solnechnogorsk, just outside Moscow,” a man in a crisp uniform with lots of ribbons and medals said, using a laser pointer. “Russia still has silo-based weapons, of course, as we do, but has downsized their arsenal to a handful of mobile and silo-based weapons, with more Delta IV submarine-launched ballistic missiles where, we must assume, they are preparing for a retaliatory strike against us.”
“As you can see here, sir,” another one of the aides demonstrated, pointing with a laser, “these vehicles indicate unusual activity; we suspect that the Russians are moving additional staff into the launch sites and preparing for an extended period of time underground. It is consistent with an attack preparation.”
The camera shifted to a familiar scene, a fortified complex at the heart of Moscow, overlooking the Moskva River to the south, Saint Basil’s Cathedral and Red Square to the east, and the Alexander Garden to the west. It was the Kremlin, home to Russia’s leaders from the tsars, to Lenin, Stalin, and now Vladimir Putin.
The camera zoomed in on a building within the fortified complex.
“This is Putin’s private residence.”
The lights were on.
“Just as we have had an incoming stream of official vehicles this evening, our friends at the Kremlin are obviously doing the same.”
But everyone’s attention shifted back to Benoit, who sprang out of his chair, dislodging the headset he had been communicating through.
“Hold on,” Benoit shouted, “we’re accessing his codes, we’re getting something! He—Alex—is transmitting the codes to us.”
The room went dead silent as Alex’s screen, which had gone blank, showed activity once again, a figure gradually appearing. Moments later, it was apparent that it was Alex, his fully formed image resolving.
“Thank God,” O’Brien said, as the room suddenly came alive again, a cheer resounding through the chamber. People were scrambling, speaking on headsets, typing away on their computers and laptops. “Come on, ladies and gentlemen, we have to make this work.” O’Brien looked up at the clock as its numbers counted down, then at Alex, “Thank you, Mr. Nicholas. I don’t know what else to say. Thank you.”
“Alex, wow,” Michael said, watching the adjoining screen, where his brother appeared to be overlooking the action.
“I gotta go now, Michael. I feel…weak, like I’m losing power. My system’s beginning to turn off again…This time I’m not sure I’m coming back. I hope this works.”
“They’ll bring you back,” Michael said, pointi
ng at Benoit. “Remember, just before you had that heart operation, as they wheeled you into the operating room, I told you you’d be back. You’ll be back—again. I know it.”
Alex, whose image appeared to be fading from view, looked sharply to his left, at Michael. “I know bullshit when I hear it. There’s no way you could know anything about this—and last time you just lucked out. Anyway, I’ll see you around…I love you.”
It sounded so strange, so final. It was the first time either of them had verbalized it. Although love was always a given in their family, it was never spoken of.
“I love you, Alex,” Michael said.
“May God be with you, Alex,” O’Brien said.
“Yeah, God,” Alex said with his typical sarcasm. “Thanks, but I’ve been down this road before. I’ve seen the other side.”
At that, Benoit suddenly sat upright in his seat. “What did you see?” he asked. “What’s it like?”
Alex began to laugh, his image dissolving faster now. Everyone was looking up, glued to the screen, watching as Alex faded away. A sense of sadness filled the room, as though a friend were leaving, maybe forever. But just before Alex disappeared completely, his voice, clear and calm now, was heard throughout the room, “What did I see?”
Every eye was on him, mouths open in curiosity, waiting for Alex’s final insight, his view from the other side.
“I saw the Wizard of Oz.”
Benoit blinked, then returned to his laptop, distressed. “Wait, hold on, Mr. Nicholas, we’re still receiving your data. Please, try and stay…engaged with us. We don’t have all your codes. We’re not there yet…”
The screen went blank.
Chapter 71
12:10 a.m.
The White House
Washington, DC
“We’re not in! He’s gone!” Benoit cried out.