End of Days (17 page)

Nobody in the group recognized Sheppard or paid him the slightest attention. He was a little man in a wrinkled suit whose image was lost among the stars that walked with him. He was actually grateful for and reassured by that. Grateful because it meant he didn’t have to talk about the mission. Reassured because if the president of the United States didn’t know what he looked like, then it was unlikely any potential assassin would either. He wouldn’t be the first target of any maniac with a gun. And there were people with guns all around them.

The entire ship was lined with guards, as were the launch site and the perimeter of the facility. Sheppard had been told there were over twenty thousand agents, police, and soldiers providing the security. He wondered if that would be enough.

It was official policy that Sheppard never appeared publicly, and all of the pictures that could be found of him prior to entering the program had been destroyed. There were many posts and blogs that
claimed
to have images of him. Sheppard
had seen some of them, and they were laughable. One of the pictures showed him weighing about 150 kilograms; in another he was black, and he looked very athletic … which was more fanciful still.

There was one site, though, that had come frighteningly close to the truth. Sheppard had seen the picture, faded and fuzzy but unmistakable. It was him, part of a group shot taken at a conference two decades earlier. He could only hope that that image, one among the thousands that seemed to populate the Internet, wouldn’t be the one that was focused on.

Sheppard had originally been hesitant to join the tour. Of course he wanted to be on site for the launch, but being on the tour was as close to being “out in public” as he’d been in years. He just needed to be there. After years of theoretical discussions, debate, mathematical calculations, and planning, the abstract had at last become reality. He needed to see it all with his own eyes, not hear about it in reports or see it play out on a screen. He wanted it to be real. He needed it to be real—although he still had trouble believing it.

This rocket
—these
rockets armed with nuclear devices were the physical result of the last twenty-four years of his intellectual life … the lives of tens of thousands of scientists and technicians and theorists and engineers from around the world. This was the culmination of the thinking of the greatest minds on the planet, the result of combining the resources of the entire world, with the most skilled labour. And it was all dedicated to one goal—to destroy or deflect the asteroid, to save the planet and the lives of billions of people.

He chuckled quietly to himself. No wonder it didn’t seem real. It was more like something that he might have imagined in a daydream when he was a boy. That little boy was still there inside him.

Of course, back then he wouldn’t have been dreaming of designing the program. He’d have wanted to be an astronaut riding in that rocket. That dream had ultimately been defeated by bad eyesight and a heart murmur, but it had led him to his eventual career. Maybe he could never get to space, but he could learn everything there was to
know
about space.

Now everything depended upon these ships having a successful launch.

Outside the perimeter of the facility, beyond the outermost fence, there were millions and millions of people waiting, wanting, needing to be part of it, if only by witnessing it from a distance. Sheppard also knew that this launch, and the launch of all the other ships from space ports around the world, would be seen through live feed, by almost every single person on the planet.

Their best estimate was that there were over three million people outside the fence. Most were hoping and even praying for the success of the mission. A secondary group, supporters of Judgment Day, were, of course, holding silent vigils and praying for its failure. The police maintained a presence between the two groups. A large faction of the Judgment Day group advocated violent opposition to the launch, and they might attempt to sabotage the project, destroy the rockets, or kill those responsible for their creation. This was their last and best chance to bring about the Rapture, the End
of Days. Once the ships left Earth, it truly would be in the hands of God, because nobody on the planet would be able to stop what had by then been put into motion.

Sheppard, along with most of the scientists, observers, and dignitaries, had been flown in by helicopter, its flight path coming in off the ocean. There was less chance of a helicopter being shot down over the open waters, and security reports indicated that Judgment Day did possess ground-to-air weapons that could take down a helicopter or plane. The real fear, though, was that they had weapons that could take down a rocket, and that was why the security zones had been made so large around the launch sites.

“Excuse me,” somebody asked the guide. “Just how powerful are the bombs on this ship?”

“The fifteen hundred devices on this ship,” the guide explained, “have over seventy-five thousand times the explosive power of the bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima.”

“And do each of the fourteen ships to be launched have equal capacity?” someone asked.

“Yes, in total there are twenty-one thousand devices that will be sent into space today from all the launch facilities.”

Sheppard smiled to himself when he heard the word “devices.” That was one of the words they’d all been told to use, along with “tool.” There were other words that were to be avoided. They included “bomb,” “warheads,” and “thermonuclear.”

“The devices on the two ships at this facility constitute one-third of the entire explosive capacity of the United States.”

“And the remaining two-thirds?” a man with a thick accent asked.

“They will be launched from the British site, along with the entire English arsenal. As you are all aware, fourteen ships, each carrying fifteen hundred devices, will be launched today. Two rockets at each of seven locations—the U.S., Russia, Britain, France, India, and Pakistan.”

“And all at once,” somebody noted.

“There will be two synchronized launches at all sites. The initial launch will have seven ships. The second launch from each site will take place exactly thirty minutes after the first. This level of synchronization is necessary to allow all the ships to travel in a coordinated manner toward their destination.”

That was a lie—although the guide didn’t know it. They could have launched the ships weeks apart and adjusted speeds to allow them all to arrive at the asteroid at the same time. The launches were being done simultaneously because the large powers wanted to see their traditional enemies send warheads up at the same time. No nuclear countries—least of all the United States and Russia—wanted other countries to possess warheads when their own capacity had been launched into space. They didn’t want to have the asteroid destroyed and the planet saved if they couldn’t dominate it once again. Any country with even a few nuclear bombs left, if others had none, could simply erase an old enemy from the face of the planet.

As the bombs had travelled to their launch sites, they had been accompanied by a verification team. This was a group made up of representatives of all the nuclear countries,
the United Nations, and selected neutral countries. Their task was to ensure that the weapons were protected at all times and then positioned as agreed on the ships. Trust only went so far, even in the face of an apocalypse.

“I was wondering,” a man said, “if something happens during liftoff, are we safe being this close to so many nuclear devices?”

“This has been the most technically precise operation in the history of the world. Every effort has been made to assure that nothing will go wrong,” the guide said confidently.

He was either a complete believer or an incredible liar, because his words didn’t even hint at the possibility of failure.

Failure … Sheppard couldn’t even entertain that thought. Failure wasn’t an option. Besides, he had strong evidence to support his belief that this would succeed. First, there was all the theory, all the mathematics, all the calculations studied, checked, and rechecked. Beyond that, they had run innumerable simulations. Sheppard’s faith in science was as complete and absolute as the belief of the Judgment Day adherents in the tenets of their own faith.

“You will all be viewing the launch in blast-proof bunkers that have been placed at a sufficient distance to ensure your safety,” the guide continued.

“Nuclear-proof bunkers?” the man asked skeptically.

“Even if there were a malfunction at liftoff—and that will
not
happen—there is absolutely no danger of a nuclear device being triggered. Each device has a fail-safe that precludes detonation prior to a direct order initiating a sequence of events to enable and arm the nuclear mechanism. These
orders will be sent via radio when the ships have achieved the correct position with respect to the asteroid. Now, I must defer any more questions as it is almost time for us to leave the ship. Please follow me as we proceed to the bunkers.”

Quietly the group started to shuffle forward, following the guide to the elevator that would take them to the ground and the vehicles waiting to ferry them to the bunkers. Sheppard held back to allow the group to move away. He wanted to be alone for a few seconds. This was a historic moment—one of the most important moments in the entire story of mankind—and he wanted to drink it in.

He waited for the noise of the crowd to fade away. He stood there in silence, surrounded by enough explosive power to bring about a fiery apocalypse on Earth. How ironic, how strange, how unforeseen all of this was. For decades, mankind had lived in fear that these nuclear weapons would end life on this planet. Now they were its only hope for survival.

He reached out and put his hand against the casing of one of the warheads—not a “device” or a “tool” but a thermonuclear bomb.

“Good luck,” he said. “Be a good little bomb.”

“How cute.”

He turned around. It was, of course, Parker, his bodyguard. In the rush of the events he’d somehow forgotten he was there in the background. Parker had been with him for seventeen years, his ever-present shadow, so perhaps it was unsurprising that Sheppard didn’t register him as being there any longer. Of course, their involvement went even farther back. Parker’s was the first face Sheppard had seen when his
eyes popped open on the fateful night he was kidnapped from his house.

“Do you want to tuck it in? Or can we leave now so
we’re
not launched into space?” Parker asked.

“I think we should leave. I’m just not looking forward to the elevator ride down to the ground.”

Parker laughed, and his deep baritone echoed off the walls. “You’re surrounded by enough firepower to blow up the planet, and you’re afraid of the elevator?”

“I didn’t have a say in the design of the elevator,” Sheppard replied.

They walked down the corridor toward the elevator. Parker was, of course, much more than simply Sheppard’s security chief. Over the years he’d become a confidant, a person who could synthesize information more quickly than almost anybody Sheppard knew, a trusted aide.

“They asked a lot of questions,” Parker said, “but nobody asked the one question that’s on everybody’s mind.” He paused. “Do you think this is going to work?”

“The launch?” Sheppard asked.

“You know what I mean.”

Sheppard nodded his head. “I know what I’m supposed to say to anybody who asks that question,” he answered. “Nothing but confidence. Total faith in the success of the project.”

“And the truth?”

For a few seconds Sheppard thought about providing the technical answers, but he knew that wasn’t what Parker wanted.

“Really, nobody knows for certain. That answer will have to wait for three months or longer.”

“Why longer? Aren’t the intercept and detonation scheduled for three months?” Parker asked.

“Yes, but we won’t know for possibly weeks after the explosion if what we did was successful.”

“And do you think it will be successful?” he asked again.

“As I said, nobody knows—”

“I’m not asking what you
know
. I’m asking what you
think
. Of the nine billion people on this planet, nobody’s more knowledgeable about this than you. What do you think is going to happen?”

Sheppard hesitated for a few seconds, gathering his thoughts. If there was anybody in the world he could be completely honest with it was Parker. Seventeen years at his side had proven that.

“There are a number of very critical moments, all of which must be successful in their sequence for the entire operation to be successful.”

“So if one of those steps falls through, the whole operation fails?”

“Not necessarily ‘fails’ but becomes more problematic. And we are here to witness the riskiest of those steps, the launch of these ships into space. In a mission this massively complex there is always risk of error or failure, and today we are multiplying that risk by a factor of fourteen. In this case, there is also the additional risk of somebody trying to sabotage or destroy the rockets.”

“Okay,” said Parker, “so just for the sake of discussion, what will happen if something goes wrong with
one
of those liftoffs?”

“One will not constitute failure, if everything else works along the way,” Sheppard explained. “But there’s enormous potential for complications over the course of three months travelling through space—a ship going off course, a collision with a small object, stellar dust fouling the equipment, a failure to respond to the radio signal, some of the devices responding prematurely and destroying other ships, to name just a few possibilities.”

The elevator door opened and they stepped in. Parker looked at Sheppard. “Not to mention the possibility of the elevator crashing and killing one of the most important people in the project.”

Sheppard smiled nervously at the joke. He didn’t like to admit it, but over the past decade he had been
the
most important person. Their first leader, Dr. Hay, who had been in charge when he was “enlisted,” had simply died. She hadn’t looked well for years. She was replaced by Donahue, who was killed—most people thought in a car accident, but Sheppard was one of the few people to know it had been an assassination. Some of the guards assigned to provide for his safety had been moles for Judgment Day and they killed him before taking their own lives—and, if what they believed was true, finding their souls soaring to Heaven while Donahue’s dropped to the depths of Hell. Donahue was replaced by Dr. Markell, who combined genius with a quirky sense of creativity. Ultimately that quirkiness was his undoing. He
found himself in a strange position. He was the ultimate rebel, fighting against authority, and suddenly he had become the ultimate authority, telling everybody else what to do. He was forced to step down—too valuable to lose completely, but unable to lead, or even be fully trusted to make the right decisions independently.