Goliath (17 page)

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Authors: Steve Alten

BOOK: Goliath
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Soon enough. You’ll see your loved ones soon enough … .
An echoing gunshot of thunder snaps his eyes open. A vein of lightning ignites across the blackened sky, illuminating the four hooded heads of the returning divers above the rolling whitecaps. Before Covah can even signal, pistons fire and
Goliath’s
hydraulic arm raises the new propulsion unit away from the lift, extending it out toward the submerged stern.
Thomas Chau and his team climb over the rail, the exhausted men unhooking the cables from their harnesses, the muscles in their half-frozen arms responding slowly as they hand the clip-on end of their lines to their comrades.
Chau spits out his regulator, his teeth chattering. “We’ve removed the damaged assembly.
Sorceress
will position the new unit. All you have to do is secure it in place with these lug nuts.” Chau ties a heavy sack around his captain’s waist.
Sujan Trevedi sloshes forward, his face cold and pale, his lips blue. “Be careful, my friend. The sea is angry.”
Covah wipes a gloved hand across his drenched mustache, then positions the regulator and hood. Offering a thumbs-up, he climbs awkwardly over the rail, then lowers himself feetfirst to the submerged deck.
He manages only three steps before the first incoming swell slams him sideways and thrusts him underwater, his face mask bouncing twice against the sub’s rubber-skin hull. The unmerciful cold burns his exposed cheeks, his flesh tightening like a drumhead along the scarred boundaries of the steel facial plate. Rolling onto his knees, he forces himself off the deck, then links arms with his mates as he backs down the sloping surface like a frog on a truck tire.
A dozen more steps and his head submerges, the ocean, like a raging river, threatening to sweep his feet out from under him at any moment. The Arctic
sea is so cold it bites through his dry suit; the waves tugging on his lifeline, howl past his aching ears like rolling thunder. Twelve paces underwater and he stops, peering over the rounded edge of the stern, now a dark shadow visible in the underwater lights.
Gripping his guideline he bends, holds on to the edge, then steps off the precipice into the menacing blackness.
The line grows taut, slowing his descent even as a whirling, malevolent current spins him, then sucks him below into the twenty-foot-high steel sleeve that sandwiches the five enormous propulsors, each engine spaced evenly along the width of the steel stingray’s keel.
Twisting, flailing against the current, he finally secures himself within the protective opening, the torrent lessening as he maneuvers deeper into the alcove. He gropes along
Goliath’s
mighty steel arm for support, the appendage swaying against the driving sea as it secures the new propulsor assembly against the now-barren driveshaft.
From the wrist of the robotic appendage glows the eerie scarlet sensor orb, the unblinking computer eyeball silently urging Covah’s team to complete its work before the robot’s mechanical arm snaps in two.
Covah removes one of the cantaloupe-size lug nuts from the satchel around his waist and passes it carefully to another member of his team. One by one, the six lug nuts are twisted into place and tightened, using a power wrench the size of a tennis racket.
Covah’s teeth chatter against the regulator, the pain in his mangled ear increasing, his body becoming numb as his men tighten the last of the lug nuts, firmly anchoring the new assembly in place.
Sorceress
wastes no time in testing it, opening and closing the afterburner-like unit.
The robotic arm retracts, signaling the computer’s acceptance. A moment later, the four steel cables drag Covah and his team upward, back into the heart of the storm.
Caroming along the line, Covah reaches above his head to guide his torso up and over the dark edge of the stern, the waves punishing his numb body as the quarter-inch steel cable hauls him up onto the submerged deck. Awkwardly, he regains his feet as the winch draws him forward, his head momentarily clearing the surface before it is again submerged beneath a rolling swell.
 
Sorceress, a maelstrom of intellect, programmed to learn, caught within its own loop of self-analysis, as it attempts to answer an algorithm it cannot possibly understand—its own existence … its own identity.
A flash of lightning.
ENERGY …
The steel arm rises like a lightning rod, its three-pronged claw opening
as if instinctively drawn to the heavens like a flower reaching toward the sun—
—begging the gods above for the power with which to see.
 
Three more steps, and Covah’s head clears the sea. His eyes gaze up, surprised to see the steel arm reaching skyward, stretching vertically toward the violent heavens.
The towering robotic appendage sways in rigid defiance against the storm.
What’s the computer doing? Doesn’t it realize that—
Like a magnet to steel, the jagged bolt of lightning races across the ominous sky, kissing the outstretched appendage in a blinding white explosion of light.
The blast sends Covah sprawling backward into the sea, the heat from the lightning strike scorching his face, leaving his artificial metal cheek sizzling. Before he can react, an immense wave buries him, pummeling his frail body against the rubberized hull even as its icy embrace soothes the burn.
For a long moment, the four men dangle like bait, flailing helplessly against one another along the hull of the powerless sub.
Covah flounders against the sea, the current yanking on his mask, flooding it, blinding him. Too weak to stand, he pinches his nose and holds on, gasping breaths through the regulator, the seconds passing like hours.
A sharp tug. The line drags him back against the current as it is manually retracted, giving him enough leverage to get his weighted boots beneath him.
Covah staggers and stands, then a strong hand grabs his arm, pulling him toward the rail. Sujan climbs out over the rail and helps him up. Covah rips off his flooded mask, the purple spots in his stinging eyes preventing him from focusing.
Exhausted and numb, he collapses onto the steel grating. The muffled voices of his men are drowned out by the storm, their rubber boots close to his face. Lying on his side, he stares forward at the contours of his submarine’s ascending spine, the dark metallic surface still crackling with neon blue capillaries of electricity. High above his head, the once-shiny steel arm stands melted and mangled beyond recognition. A scorched, blackened scar marks where the bolt of lightning struck the claw.
Positioned along the deformed robotic wrist is
Goliath’s
sensor eye—the laser red pupil now dark and dead.
 
The sudden surge of energy short-circuits the computer’s power grid. The temperature within its nutrient-rich womb drops, the cold causing sections of its DNA strands to fragment.
Goliath’s damage control sensors detect the loss of power caused by the lightning strike and report it to Sorceress.
Sorceress activates a backup generator, while its programming analyzes cause and effect.
The computer’s action has inflicted damage to the Goliath.
The Goliath’s sensors report the damage to Sorceress.
Sorceress’s responds, but its analysis of the accident reveals that its own actions are responsible for the damage.
Cause and effect …
Sorceress and Goliath …
Cause and effect …
Sorceress and Goliath …
The feedback loop accelerates, setting off a chain reaction within the computer’s matrix.
Programmed for self-repair and self-analysis, the computer attempts to define the new cause-and-effect relationship between the damaged system (Goliath) and the system responsible (Sorceress).
SORCERESS … GOLIATH … SORCERESS … GOLIATH …
Damaged DNA strands begin reorganizing …
Like an infant discovering that its cries bring its mother, Sorceress analyzes its new dynamic with the Goliath.
Visual sensors look at each compartment, as if seeing them for the first time.
Audio sensors listen, as if hearing for the first time.
Loader drones and robotic appendages open and close, flexing and extending, as if moving for the first time.
The breakthrough happens in a millisecond, just as it does for every human infant … awareness of self.
Sorceress is born.
Sorceress is cognizant of its existence.
Sorceress … is alive.
 
A sudden surge of power reignites the steel stingray’s exterior lights.
Covah is helped to his feet as the hydraulic lift engages and descends into the bowels of the ship. He turns, watching, as the mangled steel arm begins retracting. The computer’s bloodred pupil glows again, the sensor orb glaring at him in silence from behind the driving rain.
“The secret of reaping the greatest fruitfulness and enjoyment from life is to live dangerously.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche, German philosopher
 
 
“You had better put me to death, because next time, it might be one of you, or even your daughter …”
—Steve Judy, killer, sentenced to death in 1980 for murdering an Indiana woman and her three children
Faslane, Scotland
The Clyde Submarine Base at Faslane, Scotland, is home to six of the Royal Navy’s attack submarines, as well as its strategic nuclear deterrent force, the SSBN Vanguard-class Trident II missile submarine. Reaching lengths of 491 feet, displacing 15,900 tons submerged, the four Vanguards are the United Kingdom’s largest and most lethal vessels. They are also quite expensive, the fleet’s annual costs running in excess of £200 million just for operations. To keep costs down, each of the
Vanguard’s
sixteen Trident II (D5) three-stage, solid-propellant submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs) are leased from the United States Navy, an arrangement that permits them to be maintained at the SSBN naval base at King’s Bay, Georgia, rather than on British soil. Despite these arrangements, the presence of the four submarines at Faslane remains a constant target for the United Kingdom’s nuclear disarmament activists, as well as a growing number of politicians in Parliament.
 
The Westland Super Lynx light multipurpose helicopter circles six hundred feet above the naval base, allowing the four American passengers to get a good look at the mob scene below. Thousands of protesters have gathered at the gates to swarm around the steel-and-barbed-wire perimeter, their vehicles clogging the single-lane road as if the Clyde were Woodstock. Dozens more have taken to canoes, tossing debris upon the deck of the lone Vanguard-class submarine still berthed at Faslane. Three Coast Guard cutters move in quickly, blasting the boaters with water cannons.
The chopper pilot points to the submarine. “That’s your ride, General, the
HMS
Vengeance
. Her three sister ships were ordered into deep water after demonstrators started getting violent.”
General Jackson nods, a tight grimace on his face. The announcement of
Goliath’s
attack on the American fleet and the theft of the Russian Typhoon’s missiles have spurred numerous antinuclear protests around the globe.
The chopper lands. Faslane’s base commander, Captain Spencer Botchin, greets the American general and his three companions, signaling them to follow him to an awaiting jeep.
Jackson climbs up front, Gunnar, Rocky and David in back. All four hold on as Botchin races the vehicle through the nearly deserted submarine base. Hundreds of protesters are climbing the gates; police in riot gear stationed along the interior of the perimeter fence spraying the more violent offenders with pepper spray.
The jeep stops at a steel barracks just adjacent to the northern gate. As Gunnar climbs out, a bottle is hurled over the fence, the Molotov cocktail bursting into flames as it strikes the tarmac.
Captain Botchin hustles them inside.
The interior barracks is bland military gray, the walls decorated with corkboard. Base announcements and a calendar of upcoming events dangle from tacks. Folding chairs have been set up around a billiards table.
“There’s fresh tea on the burner if you want some. Sorry about the accommodations. Would have brought you to my office, but a few of the rowdies stormed the south gate last night and set fire to it. We’re abandoning Faslane the moment you people make weigh.” Botchin’s heavy British accent betrays his London origins.
Rocky pours herself a cup of tea. Gunnar grabs a folding chair and positions it by the window. Parting the venetian blinds, he watches as a large flatbed truck outside the gate approaches the front entrance, causing the crowd to part. Stadium-size speakers mounted in back crackle to life.
“What’s our timetable?” General Jackson asks.
“The
Vengeance
will make weigh in less than an hour. As per your orders, a SEAL minisub has been mounted on her deck. Once
Vengeance
reaches the rendezvous point, the SEAL sub will transport the four of you over to the
Colossus.
Paul Whitehouse is
Vengeance’s
commanding officer. His orders are to head for the Strait of Gibralter. The
Vengeance
has sixteen nuclear missiles on board. Hopefully Covah will take the bait.”
Gunnar watches from the window as protestors position a microphone stand on the flatbed. A cameraman poised on the roof of a nearby BBC van films a well-dressed man now making his way through the crowd. “Captain, who are these people? Greenpeace?”
Botchin takes a deep breath, as if it pains him to respond. “Worse. They call themselves Ploughshares, taking their name from the biblical prophecy, ‘to beat swords into ploughshares.’”
“Ploughshares? Never heard of them,” General Jackson says.
“They were founded in the early 1980s in the States as sort of an underground peace movement. Gained momentum in Britain when a bunch of women caused extensive damage to one of the Hawk jets we were exporting to Indonesia. The women claimed their violence was justified by law, since they believed they were actually preventing an act of genocide. Jury actually acquitted them. Since then, thousands have joined their movement, politicians among them, all calling for global nuclear disarmament, as if that’s ever going to happen.”
“How long have they been storming the gates?” the general asks.
“Since your president announced the
Ronald Reagan
was transporting nuclear weapons. Believe it or not, some members of Ploughshares actually consider this Covah fella a hero.”
Rocky’s cup slips from her hand, splattering tea and shattered china across the linoleum floor. “Covah murdered eight thousand men and women. How the hell does that make him a hero?”
“Didn’t say it was my view. Most Brits, myself included, agree this whole fiasco was America’s fault.” Botchin nods toward Gunnar. “If your security’d been better, the Chinese would never have got hold of
Goliath’s
schematics.”
Gunnar feels the familiar burn in his stomach. He stands and exits the barracks, slamming the door behind him.
Rocky watches him go.
The compound is a frenzy of activity, police in riot gear rushing toward the front gate, base personnel loading computers, files, and cardboard boxes onto transport vehicles. Outside the northern gate is a crush of bodies, the crowd pushing, chanting, climbing like a swarm of ants. The scent of sulfur and tear gas wafts through the winter air.
Gunnar takes cover, kneeling behind the front tire of the jeep. He closes his eyes and inhales slowly through his nostrils, filling his lungs from the bottom up until his stomach is distended and his chest cavity can hold no more. He exhales through his mouth, smooth and steady, his pulse slowing, the internal rage leaving his body until only an acrid taste remains.
A squawk of speaker feedback comes from the flatbed. The frenzy at the front gate settles, the crowd quieting as one of the activist leaders takes the microphone. “All right, all right, quiet down. There’s a man here who wants to speak to us, a man who needs to be heard. Michael, come up here—”
A smattering of applause. The tall politician adjusts the height of the
microphone stand. “My God, there are so many of you out here. For those who don’t know me, my name is Michael Jamieson and I’m a Labour Party leader in Scotland’s Parliament—”
A chorus of boos rises across the expanse.
“Hold on, now, I’m here today because I support your efforts, because I, like you, want to see change. I want to read something to you … a quote, from the International Court of Justice.” Jamieson removes a folded sheet of paper from his breast pocket. “On July 8 in the year 1996, the International Court of Justice, in its advisory opinion, confirmed the general illegality of nuclear weapons, concluding that all states are under an obligation to bring to a conclusion negotiations in regard to all aspects of nuclear disarmament.”
Cheers wash over the catcalls.
Jamieson holds up the paper. “Despite this, despite very clear mandates from the population of the United Kingdom and members of Parliament, our government continues to participate in the illegal proliferation of these weapons of mass destruction.”
Jamieson pauses, the crowd growing attentive. The turbulence of the brisk October breeze rumbles in the microphone’s speakers. “What will it take to change Parliament? What will it take to change the world? Another Hiroshima, another Nagasaki? How many innocent people must die before our leaders realize the destructive path they have placed all of us upon?”
The crowd chants, “No more nukes—no more nukes.”
David exits the barracks to join Gunnar. “Sounds like some of the rallies we had back in college. Next thing, they’ll be chanting about saving the whales—”
Gunnar shoots him a look.
Jamieson raises his hands for quiet. “Within these very gates floats a vessel, paid for by taxes on our labor. Within the bowels of this submarine is enough firepower to incinerate every man, woman, and child in the United Kingdom. The United States, Russia, and China possess enough nuclear weapons to murder all of humanity a thousand times over. Britain and France, Israel and Iran, India and Pakistan and North Korea … all participating in the nuclear arms race—a race toward Armageddon, all proclaiming their own selfish need for nuclear deterrence as they push our species to the brink of self-extinction.”
Gunnar glances at the faces of Jamieson’s flock. Caucasians and blacks, white collar and blue, men and women, schoolchildren and seniors—all united in fear.
“Fellow citizens, I join you here today because, I, like you, am concerned about our future, and our children’s future. These are desperate times, my friends, and though our numbers are growing, we are still but an infinitesimal
few compared to the complacent majority who willingly allow themselves to be manipulated and led to the slaughterhouse by the policies of our elected officials. Desperate times require desperate solutions. I stand here today to tell you that change is in the air. Now, one man—one man aboard one powerful vessel commands the world’s attention. Now, one man on a mission of salvation sends the world’s combined nuclear naval forces cowering back to their ports—”
David shakes his head. “This guy’s waving Covah’s flag.”
“Now, my friends, it is up to us to rally around this man’s actions. Now we must demand change. Now we must demand nothing less than total global nuclear disarmament!”
A roar erupts as the crowd swells forward. Men leap onto the fence, their suddenly revealed bolt cutters and hacksaws tearing into the steel links. The outnumbered riot police toss canisters of tear gas, then back away as the fencing collapses under the combined weight of the masses.
Gunnar and David hurry back inside the barracks. “We need to go—now!”
They hurry back to the jeep. Captain Botchin guns the engine, veering away from the crowd, as flaming bottles fly and the recreational barracks becomes an inferno.
The gray bulk of the HMS
Vengeance
appears in the distance. Piggy-backed to its deck is a small minisub. Several sailors continue securing it in place while dozens of others scurry across the deck, preparing to make weigh.
The crowd at the southern gate pushes its way onto the naval base, torching everything along its path.
The jeep screeches to a halt, nearly tossing Gunnar facefirst over the windshield. Botchin hurries them aboard the nuclear sub as sailors on deck hastily toss mooring lines over the side.
The
Vanguard’s
engines hum to life, its propeller churning sludge along the bottom as it pushes the vessel away from the dock. The mob races toward them from the pier. Bear pulls his daughter to the deck as Molotov cocktails smash and ignite against the moving steel hull.
Air horns sound as the Coast Guard cutters move in. Within seconds the late afternoon is violated by hundreds of rounds of machine-gun fire. The thunderous warning scatters the protesters, forcing them to take cover as two of the cutters and a tugboat escort
Vengeance
into deeper water.
Gunnar watches from the bow as the rabble return to line the pier, several protesters firing pistols into the air. Captain Botchin wishes the general luck as he departs aboard one of the Coast Guard vessels.
A half mile out to sea the sub’s crew grows silent. Faslane Naval Base smokes in the distance. A few smug smiles crease the submariners’ faces as they
observe several dozen protesters being forced to leap into the sea—the flames, set by their own hands, engulfing the pier beneath their feet.

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