He drew a fingernail along what appeared to be a deep crease in the center of the cover.
“Under proper magnification, you can still make out the follicles of eyelashes.”
Rachel paled. “Lashes?”
“On the cover is a human eye, sewn shut with finer threads of sinew.”
Visibly swallowing, his niece asked, “So what is this? Some text of the occult?”
“I thought as much, especially considering Josip’s interest in the witches of Hungary. But no, it’s not some demonic manuscript. Though in some circles, the text is considered blasphemous.”
He carefully parted the cover, cautious not to overly stress the binding. He revealed pages written in Latin. “It’s actually a Gnostic book of the Bible.”
Rachel tilted her head, well versed in Latin, and translated the opening words “ ‘These are the secret sayings which the living Jesus spoke . . .’ ” She glanced over at him, recognizing those words. “It’s the Gospel of Thomas.”
He nodded. “The saint who doubted Christ’s resurrection.”
“But why is it wrapped in human skin?” she said with disgust. “Why would your missing colleague send you such ghoulish items?”
“As a warning.”
“A warning against what?”
Vigor returned his attention to the skull. “The incantation written here is a plea to God to keep the world from ending.”
“While I certainly appreciate that plea, what does—?”
He cut his niece off. “The prophetic date for that coming apocalypse is also written atop the skull, in the center of the spiraling inscription. I converted that figure from the ancient Jewish calendar to today’s modern accounting.” He touched the center of the spiral. “This is why Father Josip came out of hiding and sent these items to me.”
Rachel waited for him to explain.
Vigor glanced out the window to the comet glowing in the night sky, bright enough to shame the moon. With that portent of doom hanging there, a shiver of certainty rang through him. “The date for the end of the world . . . it’s in four days.”
FIRST
CRASH & BURN
Σ
1
November 17, 7:45 A.M. PST
Los Angeles AFB
El Segundo, California
Panic had already begun to set in.
From the observation deck above the control room, Painter Crowe read the distress in the sudden cessation of idle chatter among the technicians in the room. Nervous glances spread up the chain of command and across the floor of the Space and Missile Systems Center. Only the base’s top brass were in attendance at this early hour, along with a few heads of the Defense Department’s research divisions.
The floor below them looked like a scaled-down version of NASA’s flight control room. Rows of computer consoles and satellite control desks spread outward from a trio of giant LCD screens affixed to the back wall. The centermost screen showed a map of the world, traced with glowing lines that tracked the trajectories of a pair of military satellites and the path of the neighboring comet.
The two flanking screens showed live feed from the satellites’ cameras. To the left, a curve of the earth slowly churned against the backdrop of space. To the right, the glowing blaze of the comet’s tail filled the screen, casting a veil over the stars beyond it.
“Something’s gone wrong,” Painter whispered.
“What do you mean?” His boss stood beside him atop the observation deck.
General Gregory Metcalf was the head of DARPA, the Defense Department’s research-and-development agency. Dressed in full uniform, Metcalf was in his fifties, African-American, and a West Point grad.
In contrast, Painter simply sported a black suit, made more casual with a pair of cowboy boots. They were a gift from Lisa, who was on a research trip in New Mexico. Half Native American, he probably should have balked at wearing the boots, but he liked them, especially as they reminded him of his fiancée, gone now a full month.
“Something’s got the OSO spooked,” Painter explained, pointing to the operations support officer in the second row of consoles down below.
The lead mission specialist moved over to join his colleague at that station.
Metcalf waved dismissively. “They’ll handle it. It’s their job. They know what they’re doing.”
The general promptly returned to his conversation with the commander of the 50th Space Wing out of Colorado Springs.
Still concerned, Painter kept a keen eye on the growing anxiety below. He had been invited here to observe this code-black military mission not only because he was the director of Sigma, which operated under the aegis of DARPA, but also because he had personally engineered a piece of hardware aboard one of the two military satellites.
The pair of satellites—IoG-1 and IoG-2—had been sent into space four months ago. The acronym for the satellites—IoG—stood for Interpolation of the Geodetic Effect, a name originally coined by the military physicist who had engineered this project for a gravitational study. He had intended to do a complete analysis of the space-time curvature around the earth to aid in satellite and missile trajectory.
While already an ambitious undertaking, the discovery of the comet by a pair of amateur astronomers two years ago quickly shifted the project’s focus—especially after an anomalous energy signature had been detected out there.
Painter glanced sidelong to his neighbor on his left, noting the lithe form of the researcher from the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory.
Only twenty-three, Dr. Jada Shaw was tall, with a runner’s lean physique. Her skin was a flawless dark mocha, her black hair trimmed short, highlighting the long curve of her neck. She stood in a white lab coat and jeans, with her arms crossed, nervously chewing the edge of her thumbnail.
The young astrophysicist had been whisked from Harvard seventeen months ago and ensconced in this code-black military venture. Clearly she still felt out of her league, though she was doing her best to hide it.
It was unfortunate. She had no reason to be so nervous. She had already won international recognition for her work. Using quantum equations—calculations well above Painter’s intellectual pay grade—she had crafted an unusual theory concerning dark energy, the mysterious force that made up three-quarters of the universe and was responsible for its accelerating cosmic expansion.
Further proving her prowess, she had been the only physicist to note the small anomalies in the approach of this celestial visitor blazing in the night sky—a comet designated as IKON.