24
November 19, 7:52 A.M. EST
Washington, D.C.
On the other side of the globe, Painter stood in his office, staring into space. Literally. The large wall-mounted LCD screen on his back wall displayed a large dark rock against a backdrop of stars. Its surface was pitted and blasted, an old battle-scarred warrior.
“NASA’s Infrared Telescope Facility in Hawaii sent us this picture a few minutes ago,” Kat said behind him. “The asteroid’s official designation is 99942, but it goes by the name Apophis. It’s already been pegged as a troublemaker in the past, being the first asteroid to ever have been raised from a one on the Torino impact hazard scale to a two.”
“The Torino scale?”
“It’s a way of categorizing the risk of a near-Earth object striking the planet. A zero meaning no chance. A ten meaning a certain hit.”
“And Apophis was the first asteroid to get upgraded to a two?”
“For a brief time, it climbed all the way to number four, when it was believed it had a one in sixty-two chance of hitting the earth. Its risk factor got lowered after that—that is, until today.”
“What are you hearing out of the SMC in Los Angeles?”
“They’ve been tracking the gravitational anomalies around the comet, extrapolating how it will affect local space, monitoring the largest of the NEOs in the path of the comet. Like Apophis. Right now, if the gravitational effects of the energy field around the comet remain static and don’t change from here, Apophis is still a solid five, pushing it into the threatening level. But if the size of the anomaly continues to grow in proportion to the comet’s approach, the asteroid’s ranking will steadily climb up the Torino scale.”
Painter stared over at her. “How high will it reach?”
“The SMC believes it will reach into the red zone. An eight, nine, or ten.”
“And what’s the difference between those upper levels?”
“The difference from a survivable impact—a number eight—and a planet destroyer.”
“A number ten.”
Kat nodded and pointed to the screen. “Apophis is over three hundred meters wide and lists a mass of forty megatons. That is what is headed toward the East Coast if our extrapolations hold true.”
“But I thought it was determined that a cluster of meteors was destined to strike the Eastern Seaboard, not one big one.”
“The SMC believes Apophis exploded in the upper atmosphere and the pieces peppered across the seaboard. What the satellite showed us was the aftermath of that barrage.”
Painter read the lines in Kat’s face like a map. Something else still had her worried. “What haven’t you told me?”
“The timeline.” Kat turned fully back to him. “The image from the satellite was dated about forty-six hours from now. But like I said, that’s the aftermath. From burn rates, smoke density, and the level of destruction, an engineer at the SMC calculated that the actual time of impact was likely six to eight hours earlier.”
“So we have even less time to stop what’s coming.”
“And not just six to eight hours less.”
“What do you mean?”
“I told you that even if we could somehow switch off that comet, Apophis would still be a category five. The field has already shifted its trajectory that much.”
“And turning it off won’t reverse that new path.”
“No.”
Kat looked scared, as she struck for the heart of the matter. “I spoke to the physicist monitoring the gravitational anomalies. He has calculated how long it will take for Apophis to reach a Torino level of eight, passing into that set of rankings that guarantee a planetary collision. Once that point is reached, the asteroid will hit Earth. Whether we turn off that field or not after that, it won’t matter.”
“When will it reach that point of no return?”
Kat eyed him. “In sixteen hours from now.”
Painter leaned back on his desk, finding it harder to breathe.
Sixteen hours . . .
He allowed himself a moment of horror—then forced it back. He had a job to do. He faced Kat, determined and resolute.
“We need Dr. Shaw.”
8:14 P.M. ULAT
Khentii Mountains, Mongolia
After forty-five minutes of hard riding, Jada gladly slipped out of her saddle to the ground. Monk had called for a short rest stop in a small copse of trees in the dark meadow below the mountain. He helped get Khaidu down from Duncan’s lap, where he had cradled her during the ride down the mountain’s flank.
“Ten minutes,” Monk said, moving off with Khaidu to a fallen log to check on her bandages.
Duncan headed back to Jada.
She knelt down and lowered her pack from her shoulders. Flipping back a flap and unzipping it, she reached inside and pulled out the gyroscopic housing unit. Undoing the latch, she opened it. She wanted to make sure her prize was intact after the rough handling of late.
The perfect sphere lay cradled in its housing, catching every bit of starlight, reflecting the sky along its curved surface.
It appeared to be fine, but looks could be deceiving.
She glanced over to Duncan. He must have read her concerned expression and moved his hand over the open casing.
“Don’t worry,” he said. “The energy signature is still strong.”
She sighed in relief.
Monk called over to her, straightening up, apparently satisfied with Khaidu’s wrap. He held up his satellite phone. “I’ve finally got a signal. I’m going to try to reach Sigma command.”
Jada stood up. “I want to speak to Director Crowe, too!”
She needed to set things in motion over at her labs, so everything would be ready as soon as they touched down in California. Even a couple of hours could be the difference between success and failure.
Monk waved her over, but after she took a few steps in his direction, he held up his palm. “Stop! Signal just dropped off.”
Jada glanced down at her hands. She was still holding the gyroscopic case. “Must be the energy field given off by the Eye,” she yelled back to him.
“Leave it there then,” Monk ordered.
Jada turned, searching around. She didn’t want to abandon it on the ground.
Duncan came over, wearing a hangdog look, and held out his hands. “I’ll take it and move off. I suspect the farther away I am, the stronger your reception will be.”
“You’re probably right.”
Duncan took the prize with his sensitive fingers as if accepting the gift of a cobra. “Find out what’s going on,” he urged her and strode off toward the open meadow.