But there was one secret that even the military brass protecting those other stations didn’t know about. Especially now.
Because it would be like throwing kerosene on a fire.
There would be a few… super Arks.
Mammoth, building-sized Arks. Arks designed to hold nearly three hundred people, all selected-and this was the tough part-strictly for their age, gender, and genetic makeup. A pool of people whose genotype would guarantee diversity, enough diversity so that whatever humanity survived would have the full range of genetic components the human species might need.
To survive. To thrive.
Only a couple could be built before the end arrived. But scientists knew that even a few such super Arks could make the genetic difference between the end of humanity or a new beginning.
And so it was here, hidden by a building, that one of the super Arks had been buried. It was limited, of course, by how deep they could place it. One of the scientists had told Cross that it was a “crap shoot.”
“We’re just not sure it’s deep enough,” the man had said.
Could be all three hundred people in deep cryo would be crushed when Apophis came roaring down.
A big secret.
But not nearly as big as the one Cross and Colonel Casey had. For like all secrets, there was always one more level. And now it was time for that secret-for that plan-to start.
After all, one look out the windows told everyone that time was clearly up.
Cross watched Casey on the phone, listening.
“Yes, Madame President,” Casey said. “I know. We have it on the monitors.”
Casey, an adjutant to President Campbell, had been the administration’s special advisor on dealing with the dozens of counterinsurgency “wars” that spread from the mountains of Tora Bora to nearly every continent in the world.
Antarctica had seemingly been spared.
And Casey, though an advisor to the President, had begun talking about how things were being mishandled, the country’s power squandered-and not just behind closed doors.
Eventually Cross took note, and he started meeting with Casey.
Discussing the failure of leadership. A failure of vision. Of the need for change-and not just another meaningless election.
And this was well before Apophis.
They both realized that what they talked about was treason, revolt. But that was a chance they were willing to take.
Casey became Cross’s eyes and ears in the White House. They had formed a bond, shared a vision-even if they didn’t know yet what to do about it.
Now Cross looked out the window. He saw daylight, but he also saw the sky filled with the yellow-white streaks, the chunks of the advance meteors racing ahead of Apophis 99942 as if trying to escape its relentless wrath.
Maybe that’s what it is, he thought. The asteroid was the avenger of the Almighty. Just payment for a world that wasted an opportunity to master it. It made things easier to think of Apophis that way.
Cross turned back to the monitor.
There it was.
Apophis. Not computer animation, but in wide-screen high-definition. The city-sized asteroid raced toward the planet, its trajectory taking it so close to the moon, which itself would be spared.
Cross looked at the other screens.
And there’s humanity, he thought. Humanity responding to the onrush of doom.
People had climbed the Eiffel Tower… for whatever reason. Some falling off, others tossing down Molotov cocktails to the crazed crowds below.
Madness.
Beijing police firing into thousands of rioters, mowing them down.
Around the White House stood a wall of soldiers, as the ring of an enraged mob grew tighter around them and the building; the breaking point couldn’t be far away.
And on and on.
Streets in Chicago burning like they hadn’t since the great fire. Christ, a People’s Government had even been set up in San Francisco, claiming to be in charge of the city.
Demanding answers.
Who made the goddamn Ark selections?
Who decided who lived, who died?
Who indeed?
Cross started to turn away when Colonel Casey came over, his last call with President Campbell over.
The President had shown nerves of glass even before this crisis.
Now she was shattered, buried in the White House bunker, grimly awaiting the end.
“So?” Cross said to the colonel.
“Just about done.”
“And? She have any clue?”
Casey shook his head. “No. Just a ‘good luck’ as we sink the last Ark.”
“Great. That means we’re ready. We should begin then, hm?”
They both looked at the monitor, at the mammoth asteroid.
Not religious at all, Cross said the word:
“God!”
Apophis was due to fly within a hundred miles of the lunar surface. The gravitational pull had been calculated, taking into account the speed and estimated mass of the asteroid. Even entering the asteroid’s various course shifts that had occurred in deep space-the cause still unknown-it would only soar close to the moon.
A flyby for the satellite.
But Cross and Casey could see what the satellite cameras picked up-the thing that scared the hell out of them, and had helped force their hand concerning this Ark:
The asteroid seemed to shiver as it came close to the moon.
A definite shake, then wobbling, the back-and-forth weaving as if something inside the asteroid reacted to the moon’s gravitational force, or maybe whatever lay at the moon’s core itself.
In a way no one could have predicted.
Because-they both could see it-the mammoth asteroid tilted slightly toward Earth’s moon.
“Christ. It’s going to hit it,” Casey said. “It’s going to hit the goddamn moon.”
“That can’t be,” Cross said.
But it was.
It made no sense. How could that happen? And what of their plans? Did he even want Apophis to miss?
And yet what occurred in the next few seconds told him that-if anything-their plans might be more… relevant. More important. More vital.
The two men just stood there, both saying nothing.
They watched the edge of Apophis smack into the lunar surface like a jagged-edged cue ball. A chunk of the moon shot out, flying wildly off into space, perhaps to inflict the same damage on another planet that Apophis would soon deal to Earth.
At first Apophis itself seemed intact. But as it flew past the impact gouge-the gargantuan hole it had bitten out of the moon-the asteroid split into three nearly equal pieces, each veering in slightly different directions.
All three smaller pieces still resolutely heading toward Earth.
Other screens showed the mayhem and horror around the world. One by one, as if resigned that human news mattered no longer, the media outlets had all changed to show Apophis, now transformed into three hammers about to fall.
Undoubtedly some crazed commentators-seeing the impact with the moon-started preaching deliverance.
We’re saved!
Until it dawned on everyone now that three bullets streamed toward Earth.
Cross turned to Casey. “Let’s do this fast, Colonel.”
“Yes, General,” Casey said.
Cross nodded. Casey had one master. It was not the President, not the head of the Joint Chiefs. Not even his wife, lost to her booze and left behind to die in leafy Georgetown.
“Give the orders,” Cross said.
Immediately the troops surrounding this Ark station went into full battle alert. The gates slammed closed. No one would get in or out, no matter what the hell their clearance.
Cross raced ahead of Casey, both dressed in Ark suits.
They had passed into the inner staging area, and once they did that, another phalanx of loyal-if terrified-guards would see that no one got in, and no one got out.
Casey went to the lieutenant in charge of the planned survivors, a respectable list of doctors, scientists, scholars, and even, yes, a theologian.