And was it his imagination, or had Roger seemed to not want him to talk to Erdogmus?
Ben looked at Roger. He was surprised when Roger had scurried out of the ESOC building in the dead of night to join him. Roger still had his booking on a flight back to New York that morning. It was probably the last opportunity for him to get back to the States, but Roger had insisted he come with Ben, mumbling something about it being safer with him. Ben hadn’t argued and was happy to have him along. Stealing a car in the middle of the night scared him enough that his hands shook as he had tried to get the key in the door.
Their escape was uneventful. The half-asleep guard at the entrance hadn’t cared who exited the compound. He only had strict instructions on who could enter, Ben had guessed. Minutes later Roger and Ben were on the Autobahn, speeding south with dawn coloring the horizon. They didn’t need maps or GPS. They just had to follow the Rhine south till the border with Switzerland—not more than three hours—then cross past Zurich, climb through the Alps and drive down into Italy on the other side.
A piece of cake.
The first few hours were peaceful, the rolling pastures of the lower Rhine Valley steadily giving way to electrical towers and tram lines near the Swiss border. They sped along a clear road, under a rising sun and blue sky.
Ben held his face to the sun when he could, marveled at it, amazed at how much he took sunrise for granted. How much he might miss it. He might be witnessing one of the world’s last sunrises. As the sun climbed higher, Ben felt like he could sense Nomad rising up behind it—like a deep vibration in the flawless sky, the growl of the monster that would swallow the world.
“Ben!” Roger said. “I just got an email from Jess. They’re okay!”
Ben gripped the steering wheel, his knuckles white, his eyes tearing up. His face contorted into something halfway between a smile and grimace. “I knew it.”
“They’ve gone back to that castle, the one in Chianti,” Roger continued.
“They’re not hurt?” Ben gritted his teeth.
Roger scanned the email. “No, they’re fine. Nobody’s injured.”
Not that Jess would say anything, even if she were hurt. “Good. And that’s two hours closer to us.”
“…this just in…” said the news anchor on the car’s radio. “New fighting reported this morning in Kashmir, with India and Pakistan threatening nuclear strikes if the other doesn’t back down…”
The truck ahead of them jolted forward. Ben shifted the car into gear. They moved a hundred feet, out from under the shadow of a fly-over bridge, before grinding to a halt again. “Damn it!” Ben grunted, slamming the steering wheel.
Glancing left, past the bridge, he could see that the highway wound all the way into the hills in the distance. The snow-capped peaks of the Alps shimmered beyond that. Reflections from windows of cars and trucks glittered all the way along the road. This wasn’t just a traffic jam, Ben realized. It was something more than that.
People might not realize how close Nomad really was, but they knew something was happening. People were heading for the hills, for the seclusion and safety of the mountains and countryside. Ben didn’t want to get into the Alps, however, he wanted to get through them, to the other side.
“That castle in Chianti might be the best place to ride this out,” Roger said, echoing Ben’s own thoughts.
“Being in the Alps might not be a good idea when Nomad passes,” Ben agreed. “Those jagged peaks could tumble like dominos.”
“And my best guess still is a closest approach to Earth of about eighty million kilometers.” Roger sucked air in through his teeth. “Plus or minus eighty.”
Ben grimaced. “If it passes under ten million kilometers, it’ll pop the Earth like a water balloon hitting a wall. Under thirty million, tidal effects will be enough to repave the entire surface of the Earth in magma. Nothing would survive.”
“But sixty, seventy million?” Roger glanced at Ben. “That might be survivable, at least for a few days until the Earth’s atmosphere freezes after we’re flung away from the sun.”
Ben stared straight ahead. A few extra days. That was the calculus of life now. Would the extra days be worth living? Of course they would. Nobody wanted to die.
“Eighty million kilometers will trigger massive earthquakes and eruptions, but a bigger problem is going to be water.” Ben pressed his face into his hands. “The Earth’s oceans are going to slosh around like a toddler having a fit in a bathtub. But it won’t start until Nomad is almost on us, not until the last few hours.”