Goliath

A pair of mechanical arms extend from their bases. Thomas Chau screams in agony as the three-pronged graphite-and-steel pincers puncture his rib cage, gripping him on either side just below the armpits as if he were a piece of meat set upon a skewer.

The Chinese dissident cries out as he is lifted off the walkway and inverted, his head poised five feet above the steel platform.

“Sorceress, no—”

With a hiss of hydraulic pistons, the robotic appendage pile-drives Thomas Chau headfirst against the steel decking, the man’s skull splitting open with a sickening crack.

The engineer goes limp. Blood drips onto the porous walkway.

The nearest ceiling-mounted sensor orb zooms in on his body, methodically examining the unresponsive subject. The arms shake him rapidly.

ATTENTION.

Video camera lenses close in on a rapid flicker of pulse along the carotid artery.

The sack of human flesh drops to the floor in a heap. Another pincer reaches out, securing the body by its left ankle, dragging it effortlessly along a stretch of decking before passing it to the next appendage down the line, leaving a scarlet trail zigzagging along the steel grating.

“Accept the challenge, so you may feel the exhilaration of victory.”

—General George S. Patton

“We don’t want war. We hate war. We know what war does.”

—Saddam Hussein, shortly before invading Kuwait

“The reason Islam has put so many people to death is to insure the safety of Moslem peoples and their interests.”

—Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, dictator of Iran

“To kill Americans and their allies, both civil and military, is an individual duty of every Muslim who is able, in any country where this is possible …”

—Declaration of the World Islamic Front for Jihad Against the Jews and the Crusaders

“ … to put them out of their misery, and besides, they really are a nuisance to everyone.”

—Frederick Mors, a porter at a home for the elderly, after poisoning seventeen of its residents

CHAPTER 16

4 November

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

The White Sands Missile Range is a multiservice test range supporting missile development programs from all branches of the Armed Forces. Comprising almost thirty-two hundred square miles of the Tularosa Basin in south-central New Mexico, the installation is easily the biggest military facility in the United States, its territory large enough to encompass the states of Rhode Island and Delaware combined.

Located near the northern boundary of the range is Trinity Site, a national historic landmark—the location where, on July 16, 1945, the first atomic bomb was detonated.

Not all of White Sands is dedicated to the testing of explosives and rockets. Sharing the range is HELSTF, the Air Force’s High Energy Laser Systems Test Facility. Operational since September of 1985, the program was established to develop military applications for laser weaponry.

General “Bear” Jackson adjusts his sunglasses as he steps out of HELSTF’s main building and into the brutal sunshine. Waiting on the tarmac before him is the YAL 747-400F, a strange-looking cargo jet whose nose has been reconfigured into a blunt, proboscis-shaped turret.

A strapping Air Force colonel makes his way down a set of steps to greet him. “Morning, General, I’m Colonel Udelsman.”

Jackson returns the salute. “Is everything ready?”

“Yes, sir. Supplies are on board, our tankers are standing by, and we’re still receiving clear signals from Joe-Pa.”

“How long before we reach him?”

“At his present location, seventeen hours, twenty minutes.”

“Very well, Colonel. Let’s get this whale off the ground.”

5 November

Aboard Goliath Mediterranean Sea

The enormous devilfish lies on the bottom of the Levantine Basin in one thousand feet of water, seventeen miles southeast of the island of Cyprus. A strong easterly current continues to bury the submarine’s wings in sand, the creature’s head, like that of a real stingray, the only section still visible along the seafloor.