Domain (50 page)

Helpless, I watched my son bolt from our home and run into the night to vent his rage.

Had I a weapon, I would have blown my head off right then and there. Instead, I fell to my knees and sobbed, cursing God, screaming his name in vain.

In less than a year’s time, my family’s existence had been transformed into a Greek tragedy. Had God manipulated these turns of events, or was He also just a spectator, watching and waiting while his fallen Angel manipulated our lives like some diabolical puppet master.

Perhaps it was Lucifer himself, I rationalized in my grief, for who but he could have struck down my wife, then so deftly manipulated the sequence of events that followed? Did I really believe in the Devil? At that moment—yes, or, at the very least, the presence of evil personified as an entity unto itself.

Can something as intangible as evil be an entity? My tortured mind pondered the question, granting me a moment’s reprieve from grief. If God was an entity, then why not the Devil? Could goodness really exist without evil? Could God really exist without the Devil? And who really begot whom, for it has always been the fear of evil that has primed the pumps of religion, not God.

The theologian in me took over. Fear and religion. Religion and fear. The two are historically entwined, the catalysts for most of the atrocities committed by man. Fear of evil fuels religion, religion fuels hatred, hatred fuels evil, and evil fuels fear among the masses. It is a diabolical cycle, and we have played into the Devil’s hand.

Staring at the heavens, my thoughts turned to the Mayan prophecy, wondering in my delirium and grief whether it was the presence of evil that was orchestrating mankind’s ultimate fall from grace, leading us toward the obliteration of our own species.

And then another thought crossed my mind. Perhaps God did exist, but He had chosen to take a passive role in man’s existence, providing us the means to determine our own destinies, yet, all the while, permitting evil to exert a more active influence in our lives so as to test our resolve—verifying our aptitudes as we applied for entrance into His hereafter.

Maria had been taken from me, struck down in the prime of her life. Perhaps there was a reason behind the insanity of the moment—perhaps I was getting close to the truth—that I was indeed on the trail of humanity’s salvation.

Cursing the Devil, I gazed at the stars, tears in my eyes, and swore, on the soul of my beloved, that neither heaven nor hell would stop me from resolving the Mayan prophecy.

More than ten years have passed since I swore that oath. Now, as I sit backstage, inscribing this final passage, waiting to be called to the dais, I grimace at the thought of facing my cynical colleagues.

Yet what choice have I? Despite my best efforts, pieces of the doomsday puzzle remain missing, and our salvation as a species lies in the balance. Failing health has forced me to pass the baton to my son sooner than I had hoped, placing the burden squarely on him to complete the marathon.

I am told that Pierre Borgia will be introducing me to the crowd. The butterflies flutter in my stomach at the anticipation of seeing him again. Perhaps the years have softened his anger toward me. Perhaps he realizes what is at stake.

I hope so, because I’ll need his support if I am to convince the scientists in the auditorium to act. If they listen with open minds, the facts alone may be enough to persuade them. If not, then I fear our species is doomed to perish, as surely as the dinosaurs perished before us.

A final entry has been placed within a Cambridge safe with specific dates as to when its seal may be broken. Should we survive the coming holocaust, then one last challenge awaits—for two little ones not yet born.

As the ushers beckon me to take center stage, I look at Michael. He nods his approval, his ebony eyes blazing back at me, exuding his mother’s intelligence. Robbed of his innocence so many years ago, he has become introverted and distant, and I fear he harbors a hidden rage that my own heinous act surely fostered. And yet, I also detect a deep sense of purpose within my son, one that I pray will sustain him as he journeys down destiny’s path, toward his ultimate salvation—and our own.

—Final Excerpt from the Journal of Professor Julius Gabriel August 24, 2001.

Chapter 23

DECEMBER 14, 2012
NORTH AMERICAN AEROSPACE DEFENSE COMMAND (NORAD)
COLORADO

M
ajor Joseph Unsinn’s heart leaps from his chest as NORAD’s missile alarms sound. Dozens of technicians watch in horror as their large-screen computer terminals erupt with an influx of data.

QUICK ALERT! QUICK ALERT! MULTIPLE BALLISTIC MISSILE LAUNCHES DETECTED.

LAUNCH SITE: BAKHTARAN—IRAN.

TARGET: ISRAEL.

Data is instantaneous transmitted from NORAD’s high-speed processing center directly to the U.S. field commanders in Israel and the Persian Gulf. Moments later, Major Unsinn is on the video-comm, speaking to the Secretary of Defense.

Raven Rock Situation Room
Maryland

The top-secret complex, known only as Raven Rock, functions as a subterranean Pentagon. Within this nerve center is the “situation room,” a circular chamber containing a maze of state-of-the-art integrated voice-communication and data-management systems. From there, the president and his advisors can transmit directives to the United States Strategic Command Center (STRATCOM), another subterranean nerve center in direct contact with all strategic spacecraft, aircraft, submarines, and missile forces around the world. Like NORAD, both Raven Rock and STRATCOM’s bunkers have been insulated to shield their sensitive high-tech equipment from the electromagnetic pulses generated during a nuclear assault.

President Mailer is seated on a leather sofa in his private office, his limbs shaking, his mind struggling to seal away his personal grief, if only for a few minutes. Outside his office, Secretary of Defense Dick Pryzstas and General Fecondo huddle with Pierre Borgia.

“The president’s in shock,” Przystas whispers. “Pierre, as senior Cabinet member, protocol demands you take over.”

“NORAD’s detected an air wing of Russian stealth fighters heading toward Alaska. Our Raptors are en route to intercept. Are you prepared to issue launch codes—”

“No!” Mailer emerges from the office. “I’m still in charge, Mr. Pryzstas. Initiate Global Shield. Secretary Borgia, I want to speak with Viktor Grozny and General Xiliang now. I don’t care if you have to personally fly over to Moscow to get Grozny to pick up the goddam phone, just do it.”

“Yes, sir.”

Sinai Desert,
Israel

The 747-400F freighter traces a figure-eight pattern 42,000 feet above the Sinai desert. Despite appearances, this is no mere jumbo jet. Within its rounded proboscis nose cone is the Air Force YAL-1 Airborne Laser (ABL), a weapon designed to intercept SAMs, cruise, and tactical ballistic missiles.

Major David Adashek stares at his station module as the Lockheed Martin beam director and Infrared Search and Track (IRST) system scans the northeastern skies.

Ten targets appear on his screen.

“Here we go, people. Ten ballistic missiles with nuclear warheads, now coming into range. Three hundred kilometers and closing fast.”

“Illuminator beacon has acquired targets, sir. We’re locked on.”

“Light the coil.”

With a brilliant flash, the Boeing multimegawatt TRW COIL laser engages, igniting a brilliant orange beam from its nose cone. The beacon cuts across the night sky at the speed of light, turning the first Iranian missile into a plummeting fireball.

In the next thirty seconds, all nine remaining missiles will be destroyed.

Space

The sleek, black-and-white spaceplane rolls gently into its new orbit, soaring high above the Earth in silence and solitude. Unlike its distant NASA cousin, the Lockheed Martin
Venture Star
, a reusable space vehicle built and launched with much public fanfare, this craft, known simply as the SMV (Space Maneuver Vehicle) to its Boeing North American designers, has never seen the light of day. Conceived in the final days of President Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative, the SMV was funded in secrecy by the Air Force Research Laboratory’s Military Spaceplane Office and, ironically enough, launched atop a purchased Russian Proton rocket. Able to remain on station for up to a year, the fully automated and pilotless vehicle carries no commercial payload, nor has it ever serviced the International Space Station or private-sector interests. The SMV was designed for one purpose—to hunt down and destroy enemy satellites.

Concealed within the SMVs twenty-five-foot structure is a truss-mounted platform supporting the TRW Alpha high-energy hydrogen-fluoride laser and Hughes four-meter beam-projection telescope.

The spaceplane homes in on its first victim, a Russian satellite, one of eighteen positioned in a geosynchronous orbit, 22,300 miles above North America. The SMV fires its thruster jets, stabilizing its orbit. Keeping pace with the Russian machine, the SMV retracts the clamshell-like doors within its nose cone, revealing its top-secret payload.

The Lockheed Martin guidance system locks on to its target.

Building to a full charge, the laser ignites, projecting its invisible beam onto the surface of the eighteen-foot-long Russian satellite. The thin protective outer casing begins to heat, causing the metallic hull to glow a brilliant orange-red. Sensitive electronic systems within the satellite short. Sensory components sizzle and melt, leaving charred and carbonized circuit boards.

The laser energy reaches the onboard power cells—With a powerful blast, the reconnaissance satellite explodes, transforming its scorched remains into glittering hunks of space debris.

Caught within the Earth’s gravitational pull, a large chunk of Russian metal ignites into a fireball as it reenters the planet’s atmosphere.

A young boy living in Greenland gazes up at the northern night sky, excited to see the unexpected light show. Closing his eyes, he makes a wish on the shooting star.

The nose of the SMV closes, the spaceplane firing its thrusters, propelling the satellite killer into a higher orbit as it races to hunt down its next target.

High-Energy Laser Systems Test Facility (HELSTF)
White Sands, New Mexico

To the uninformed passerby, the domed concrete-and-steel observatory situated within the high-security compound along New Mexico’s southern desert appears as nothing more than another stellar observation post. But beneath the retractable dome lies not a telescope but a 5.1-inch naval gun turret mounted on a fast-revolving, 360-degree swiveling platform.

This is the Mid-Infrared Advanced Chemical Laser (MIRACL), the most powerful laser in the world. Developed by TRW and Israel’s RAFAEL, the deuterium-fluoride chemical laser is capable of sending high-powered, repeated bursts into space at the speed of light.

Working on the same principles that operate a rocket engine, the laser uses nitrogen trifluoride as an oxidizer to burn ethylene fuel, which, in turn, yields excited fluoride atoms. As deuterium and helium are injected into the exhaust, optical energy is extracted, creating a three-centimeter-wide-by-twenty-one-centimeter-high laser beam. The key component of the satellite killer, the Hughes-made satellite beam director, then locks on to its fast-moving target, transmitting the powerful laser through the atmosphere and into space.

Colonel Barbara Esmedina, Director of the White Sands project, watches impatiently as her technicians finish entering the coordinates of the seven Russian and four North Korean Global Positioning Satellites hovering somewhere over North America. Esmedina, a former administrator who worked on the X-33 prototype of NASA’s
Venture Star
, has earned a reputation for being an excitable, opinionated, and often bizarrely outspoken proponent of tactical, high-energy lasers (THELs). Twice married and twice divorced, she has long since retired from dating to pursue funding for her pet project—the construction of a dozen coastal MIRACL sites as a tactical means of defense against incoming ICBMs.