The Footprints of God

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 detona¬tion 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 recogni¬tion 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 com¬puter to leave behind what no man had ever fully aban¬doned 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 Mohne 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 ADMINIS¬TRATION, and it was guarded by armed soldiers.

Inside the cavernous space we found a prefab com¬mand 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 gen¬eral 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 his¬tory. 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 Super¬man, 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 night¬mare 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 mat¬ters, 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 communi¬cations 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 pos¬sesses 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 explo¬sion followed, and then cartoonlike waves began radiat¬ing 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 cre¬ates an electromagnetic pulse-a massive burst of elec¬tromagnetic 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 down¬side to this plan."

General Bauer took a deep breath, then began speak¬ing in a manner reminiscent of George Patton. The sub¬text 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 mini¬mized. The consequences of industrial accidents could be grave, particularly where power stations, chemical plants, and air and rail traffic are concerned. But-"

"Think Bhopal, 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, negligi¬ble. And this crisis would be over."

"How long would it take to implement such an attack?" asked McCaskell.

General Bauer looked into every face, then the video conferencing screen. "Approximately thirty minutes."

Thirty minutes! I'd known something like this was possible, but I hadn't thought the military could put it together so fast.

"Two hours ago," General Bauer said, "when Trinity was still orienting itself, I spoke to the commander of Barksdale Air Force Base in Shreveport, Louisiana. He's a very old friend of mine. He's got six squadrons of B-52s under his command, and every one of those bombers can carry silver bullets."

"Silver bullets?" echoed Senator Jackson.

"Nuclear bombs. There are over five hundred stock¬piled at Barksdale. Some are gravity bombs, others can be delivered by air-launched cruise missiles. The crews don't fly training missions with live bombs anymore, but the commander can have them loaded aboard without much trouble. I convinced him that today was a good day for a live training run. A B-52 out of Barksdale is airborne now, and it's carrying one very special silver bullet."

"What kind of weapon are you talking about?" asked McCaskell.

"A short-range heavy missile called a Vulcan. It was designed to deliver a massive EMP strike without having to launch an ICBM, which is easily detectable by Russian surveillance satellites. Vulcan hurls its payload two hundred miles straight up, detonates, and the lights go off across the country. All Trinity will see on the NORAD radar screens is a bomber on a training run over the central U.S. But what Vulcan will deliver…" General Bauer held up a fist, then flipped it open, extending his fingers like rays from the sun.

"Exactly what does this Vulcan carry?" asked Senator Jackson.

"A fifteen-megaton thermonuclear warhead."

Several senators gasped.

"Sweet Lord," murmured a silver-haired man at the back of the table. "That's a thousand times the size of the Hiroshima blast."

"Eighteen hundred times," said General Bauer. "That's what it takes to do this job in one go. Our B-52 will reach the launch point in thirty minutes. Its code is Arcangel. You can order the Vulcan launched, or have the bomber circle indefinitely. I realize I acted without authorization, but we're in an extraordinary situation. I wanted you to have the option."

The silence that followed this revelation was absolute.

"Would we attempt to minimize the damage of this weapon beforehand?" asked Senator Jackson. "Warn the populace?"

"No. By doing so, we'd alert Trinity to our plans."

"Where exactly would this warhead be detonated? Over what state?"

"It must detonated very near the geographic center of the country."

"I asked you what state," Jackson repeated.

The general hesitated, then barked his answer. " Kansas, sir."

" Kansas?" cried one of the senators. "That son of a bitch wants to vaporize my home state!"

"What kind of damage would we be looking at on the ground?" asked Senator Jackson. "From fallout and things like that? Long-term damage."

"Surprisingly little, sir. There'll be windblown fallout, but the prevailing winds are westerly, and at that alti¬tude, much of it would be carried out to the Atlantic before it did much damage. We could get contaminated rainfall. There could be long-term consequences for the grain harvest."

"Define long term," said the senator from Kansas.

"A thousand years," I said.

"That's a gross exaggeration," said General Bauer. "Senators, you have to balance these effects against what could happen if Trinity chooses to act on the threats it's made. And we have to assume that it eventually will. Unless…"

"What?" asked Jackson.

"We surrender." Bauer's tone made it clear what he thought of that option.

The senators began talking among themselves. Ewan McCaskell seemed to be taking his own counsel. Again, memories of Fielding rose in my mind. If he were here, he would not be silent.

"If you attempt this mission," I said loudly, "you'll cause the very destruction you're trying to avert. This country will be destroyed."

The senators looked down at me from the screen.

"Why do you say that, Doctor?" asked Senator Jackson.

"General Bauer can't hide his mission from Trinity. The computers at the NSA, NORAD, and possibly even Barksdale Air Force Base were built by Peter Godin or Seymour Gray. Trinity has access to them all. Even if Trinity doesn't detect the mission in progress, do you think it hasn't predicted our most likely methods of attack? That it doesn't know its own Achilles' heel?"

"This is one heel it can't protect," said General Bauer.

"Of course it can. It can strike preemptively."

Ewan McCaskell moved his head from side to side, like a man weighing odds. "The computer's measured response against the German hackers gives me hope that its retaliation would be survivable. And if General Bauer's plan can be accomplished, limited retaliation is worth the risk."

"How do you feel about full-scale thermonuclear war?" I asked. "Is attacking the computer worth that level of retaliation?"

"What are you talking about?” asked Senator Jackson. "General Bauer assured us that nuclear war isn't a possibility."

"Do you know about something called the 'dead-hand' system, Senator?"

Jackson 's deep-set eyes narrowed. "We were just dis¬cussing that. The consensus is that it's a myth."

"What do you know about it, Doctor?" asked General Bauer.

"I know what Andrew Fielding told me. He believed that system existed during the Cold War and might still today. So does Peter Godin. Fielding and Godin discussed the potential for Trinity to disarm such a system prior to a nuclear exchange. And Godin has been involved in Amer¬ican nuclear planning since the 1980s."

Everyone looked at the hospital bed. Godin still lay unconscious on his pillow.

"Is he sleeping?" asked McCaskell.

"We had to give him morphine," explained Dr. Case. "Nerve pain."

"Can you wake him up?"

"I'll try."

General Bauer addressed the senators. "Peter Godin built supercomputers that carried out nuclear-test simu¬lations. That's the extent of his contribution to American strategy. The Soviet dead-hand system never existed. That's the informed consensus of the American defense establishment."

Horst Bauer was a good salesman. The temptation to agree to his plan was tangible in the room. I could read it on the faces of the senators on the screen. That the plan involved a nuclear weapon only made it more attractive. Every American carries a memory of Hiroshima as the terrible but final solution to the dead¬liest war in history. And the unknown nature of Trinity's power seemed to cry out for some force of equal mystery and power to vanquish it. What the senators did not understand was that nuclear weapons held no mystery for Trinity. In the world of digital warfare, atomic bombs were as primitive as stone clubs. There was only one weapon on earth remotely equal in power to Trinity. The human brain.

I got to my feet, faced the screen, and spoke with as much restraint as I could muster. "Senators, before you attempt something that could trigger a nuclear holo¬caust, I beg you to allow me to speak to the computer. What do you have to lose?"

General Bauer started to speak, then thought better of it. The senators conferred quietly. Then Barrett Jackson spoke.

"General, why don't we see how the computer feels about speaking to Dr. Tennant? It hasn't talked to any¬one else."

Skow began to protest, but Senator Jackson cut him off with an upraised hand.

"Tell the computer who Dr. Tennant is," said Jackson. "Also where he is. Then ask the machine if it will talk to him."

"I need to go into the Containment Building to do this," I said.

Jackson shook his head. "We can't allow that, Doctor. What if you start hallucinating? You might hit a switch or something. No, if you speak to Trinity, you do it from here."

On General Bauer's order, a technician typed in what Jackson had said and sent it to Trinity.

Blue letters flashed instantly onto the screen.

I will speak to Tennant.

"I'll be damned," said Senator Jackson.

"Look," said Ravi Nara.

More letters had flashed up on the screen.

Send Tennant into Containment.

"What the hell?" said General Bauer. "Why would it ask that?"

McCaskell looked at me. "Can you explain this, Doctor? Why would the computer make the same request you did?"

"I have no idea."

"Type this," said McCaskell. "'Why do you want Dr. Tennant in Containment?'"

The response was instantaneous.

Hath the rain a father? Knowest thou the ordinances of heaven? Wilt thou hunt the prey for the lion? Or fill the appetite of the young lions? Canst thou draw out Leviathan with a hook? None is so fierce that dare stir him up. Who then is able to stand before me?

"That's Scripture, isn't it?" said McCaskell, obviously taken aback.

"The Book of Job," said Skow, making me picture him as a little boy dressed for Sunday school.

"Why is the computer answering like that?" asked Senator Jackson. "Was Godin a religious nut?"

"The man is still alive," I reminded Jackson.

"Godin doesn't believe in God," said Skow. "He once told me that religion was the result of an adaptive process evolved to help Homo sapiens overcome its anx¬iety about death."

Soft cackling echoed through the room. Everyone turned toward the hospital bed. Godin's eyes were open, and the delight in them was plain.

"It's a joke," he rasped. "Trinity's telling you to know your damn place."

McCaskell got up and walked over to the bed. "Why would the computer want Dr. Tennant in the Contain¬ment building?"

"Computer, computer," muttered Godin. "Trinity isn't a computer. A computer is a glorified adding machine. A logic box. Trinity is alive. It's mankind freed from the curse of his body. Trinity is the end of death."

The old man's voice had the conviction of a prophet.

"Mr. Godin," said McCaskell, "what do you know about the existence of the so-called 'dead-hand' Russian missile system?"

The old man's head jerked forward as he struggled against a spasm in his throat. "The 'dead hand' is yours," he wheezed. "Yours and those of all the impo¬tent apparatchiks of our outmoded system."

McCaskell’s face showed some emotion at last. "Why have you done this? Are you such an egoist that you can't bear to think of the world without you in it?"

Godin was struggling to breathe. Dr. Case moved to help him, but Godin waved the physician away.

"Look around you," Godin said. "Why does all this high-tech machinery exist? I built the most elegant supercomputers in the world, machines capable of enor¬mous contributions to mankind. And what did the gov¬ernment do with them? Cracked codes and built nuclear bombs. For twenty years they used my beautiful machines to perfect their engines of death. But why should I have expected any different? Human history is a charnel house of carnage and absurdity."

Godin began to cough as though his lungs were coming up. "We had our chance, gentlemen. Ten thousand years of human civilization has brought us in a circle. The twentieth century was the bloodiest in history. Left to us, the twenty-first would only be worse. Darwin tolled the bell on our stewardship of this planet in 1859. But today you finally heard it."

"Look at the screen!" cried Ravi Nara.

The blue letters glowed ominously, more menacing by their silence.

Send Dr. Tennant to me or suffer the consequences.

"I guess our decision's been made for us," said Senator Jackson. "Send the doctor into the Containment building."

General Bauer signaled two soldiers, who came and stood at my shoulders. I looked at Bauer and let him see my mistrust.

"Do you intend to go ahead with your EMP strike, General?"

He wore the mask of a veteran poker player, but it didn't fool me for a moment. I knew I had less than thirty minutes to accomplish my goal.

McCaskell walked over to me. "Dr. Tennant, we're relying on you not to reveal the potential strike to the computer."

"Of course."

He offered his hand. "Good luck."

The moment I started for the door, alarms began sounding in the hangar.

"Code blue!" shouted a nurse. "Mr. Godin's coding!"

I hadn't handled a code in years, but my response was automatic. Even Rachel jumped from her chair and raced to Godin's bedside.

Dr. Case and the nurses were already working on the old man. The cardiac monitor showed another coronary event, but Ravi Nara seemed to think obstructive hydrocephalus had finally occurred. When Godin's heart mon¬itor flatlined, Dr. Case climbed onto the bed and began administering CPR. It did no good. The old man's face had the gray pallor of death.

"Look at that!" someone shouted from the table.

I whirled and looked where he was pointing.

On the screen used to display Trinity's messages, chaotic streams of characters flashed by almost too rapidly to be recognized. Numbers, letters, and mathe¬matical symbols merged in a blinding river of confusion. The computer's circuits were clearly in disarray.

"What's happening?" asked McCaskell. "What does that mean?"

The symbols on the screen went multicolored as Japanese and Cyrillic characters began to appear.

"General!" cried a soldier at one of the consoles. "The signals from the pipeline running from Containment just dropped to zero. I think the com¬puter's crashing!"

A whoop of triumph came from somewhere in the hangar. Then a new alarm sounded in the room, much louder than the others.

"What's that?" asked Senator Jackson. "What's going on? Is Godin dead?"

General Bauer walked to one of his computers, then turned to the senators with a nearly bloodless face.

"Sir, one of our surveillance satellites has detected four¬teen heat blooms on Russian territory. The blooms are consistent with the launch of ballistic missiles." He looked back at the computer screen. "From the speed and heat sig¬nature of the rockets, NORAD computers have designated them as a combination of SS-18 and SS-20 intercontinental ballistic missiles. Those missiles carry heavy thermonu¬clear warheads."

Senator Jackson opened his mouth, but no words emerged. The brown eyes blinked in the bulldog face. "But you said that was impossible."

General Bauer didn't flinch. "It appears that I was wrong."