Brink of Chaos (20 page)

Joshua had been talking about risk at the beginning of their ride out of Jerusalem. Now Ethan, sitting in the back seat, listened as Josh mentioned it again.

“You’re taking a big risk,” Josh said, turning to Joel Harmon who was driving the Volvo. “Or did you forget that in Israel I’m now an enemy of the state?” Ethan saw Josh’s face grow momentarily solemn. He knew how weary his friend had grown over his troubles in the U.S. Now Israel, his so-called safe harbor, had turned against him too.

Joel didn’t look worried. “I may be a freshman legislator in the Knesset, but I know my way around these Shin Bet security issues. We’ll get you to a safe house, Josh. If I’m asked by anyone where I’m going, I’ve got an answer handy.”

Ethan said, “I’d like to hear that one.”

“Simple,” Joel shot back, “I’ll tell Shin Bet, thanks to me, they don’t have to worry about Joshua Jordan being inside Israel anymore.” Joshua and Ethan waited for an explanation. “I’m taking you to the Palestinian Authority side,” Joel added. “Because of the deal cut with the U.N. by our prime minister, that area is becoming part of the new Palestinian State — off limits to Israel.”

Josh had a curious look on his face.

Joel laughed. “You think I’m taking you out of the pot and throwing you into the fire?”

“Now you’re sounding like an American. I would have thought you’d have a clever Hebrew phrase for that,” Josh tossed back.

“We do. But now that Sol Bensky is forcing Israel to be absorbed into the international community,” Joel said with a sneer, “I’m working on trying to sound non-Jewish.”

Joshua nodded. “You did a brave thing, Joel, opposing the prime minister on his U.N. plan, but I still don’t know how smart it was bringing a flame-thrower like me into that meeting.”

“I wasn’t trying to be smart,” Joel remarked, “just right. And true. When I think of those two qualities — who else besides you could I possibly bring to that meeting?”

In the back Ethan was smiling. In his private moments he had thought about the unique chance he had been given to follow Joshua through his travels, watch him in action, to hear firsthand the respect he had engendered from other men — men who were themselves accomplished and courageous. It made Ethan feel a flush of shame — for just an instant — about his potential plan to leave Joshua and head back to the U.S. He thought he had settled the issue, but lingering doubts kept popping up. He had just helped rescue his mentor back in Jerusalem, and he felt good about that. On other occasions, he felt like a piece of excess baggage on Joshua’s bullet train, but not then.

Then Ethan was struck by something else.
Here I am, an ex-Air Force pilot, out of work, and what happens? I get onto a flight and run into Deborah, the daughter of Joshua Jordan, the man who is the envy of the entire defense industry and my own personal hero. The next thing I know I meet him and he offers me a job. So, am I supposed to think this is all coincidence?

That triggered another thought, something that Joshua was always saying: “In a universe governed by God, there are
no
coincidences.”

Why did it always come back to God? For most of Ethan’s life, he hadn’t given Him much thought. But then the Jordan family swept into Ethan’s life, and ever since then, it was as if he was on one of those bumper cars at the carnival — constantly bumping into the Bible, sermons about Jesus, and Joshua’s talk of his own encounter with Christ. Now Ethan was living in Israel, tripping almost daily over ancient places where Jesus walked, that Christians point to and say, “
Here
is where God did this … or that.” Ethan felt surrounded by it all, and he didn’t know whether it was that bad a thing or not. Was this some kind of “Custer’s Last Stand” for him on the religion issue, with the
hostiles all around him with their arrows? Or was it simply a surprising turn of events, where he had a chance to smarten up and maybe learn something about himself or discover something much bigger than even that?

As they drove northeast through the remote desert suburbs of Israel, Ethan had one more question — one that had been pestering him nonstop.
Why do I get the feeling that Joshua brought me with him for reasons he hasn’t bothered to explain yet?

Joel Harmon pulled through a subdivision of Jewish homes in a desolate area. The signs on the outskirts read, “Nablus.” The sun had just set.

Joel put the car in Park and turned to face Joshua and Ethan. “We’re about fifty feet from the wall separating Israel from the Palestinian Authority. Obviously, you can’t exit from the Israeli side through one of the regular checkpoints. There’s an alert out on you, Joshua, and it’s being passed through all the channels. They’d grab you immediately.”

“Let me guess,” Joshua said, eyeing the twenty-six-foot-high concrete wall. “We’re going to leave Israel
creatively
…”

“That’s the plan,” Joel replied.

“These old joints of mine aren’t what they used to be,” Joshua said. “Haven’t scaled a wall like that in a while.”

“Oh, don’t worry. No repelling. No ropes. Nothing like that. That’s not the dangerous part.”

Ethan jumped in. “Then what is?”

“See that part of the wall — that concrete slab — that juts out a little?” Joel pointed to a point in the wall about seventy feet away. “See how it’s not flush with the rest?”

They nodded.

“That’s where two big concrete slabs were dropped into place by the IDF contractors. But the two ends don’t exactly meet. There’s a space about two-and-a-half feet wide.”

“I can’t believe they’d leave that open,” Ethan said.

“They didn’t. Razor wire’s been bolted into the gap — but it can be unbolted too … if you know the right people.”

Ethan thought he had it figured out. “So, that’s the hard part?”

“Afraid not. Time was when Israel would have roads on the other
side of the wall where IDF patrols would cruise. But Sol Bensky ordered those stopped. So now, once you get through our wall, there is DMZ strip about one hundred feet wide until you get to the Palestinian side. You’ll have to run like wild men across that strip. It’s open ground. When you get to the other side, all they have is a chain-link fence with barbwire on the top. I’ll give you some big wire cutters.”

Joel glanced in his rearview mirror then checked his side mirror. “Okay, all clear. Everybody out.”

There was only one part of the plan that Ethan didn’t feel good about. As he climbed out, he asked, “Joel, we’re about to enter an area riddled with Arab terror groups, and Josh’s RTS system has been used to wipe out a number of those kinds of groups who have launched Stinger missiles and who ended up swallowing their own missiles — like Iran, when they got nuked by their own warheads. So, you’re sending us to the Palestinian side … Why?”

“You’ll be staying with Ibrahim Kalid,” Joel said as he popped open the trunk, seeming to ignore Ethan’s comment.

That didn’t sit well with Ethan. Not hiding his sarcasm, he kept it up. “Oh, great. You’ve got us under the control of some Arab guy?”

Joel reached in and pulled out two red-and-white-checked Arab headdresses and handed them to Joshua along with the wire cutters. “I know we’ve already gone over this, but here’s the plan one more time. You will wait about ten minutes. As it starts to get dark, crawl through the open space. I’ve arranged for the spotlights to stay off for a few minutes to help you get across.” Then he bent into the trunk and pulled out something that looked like a modern version of a long Roman shield, with a handle grip on the backside.

He gave it to Ethan. “High-impact Kevlar riot shield. You’re going to want to hang on to this,” he added.

Joel told Joshua and Ethan to wait until he gave them the signal by flashing his headlights. As promised, the gap between the slabs of concrete had been left open. The razor wire had been unbolted from the concrete and pushed aside. They squeezed into the space, while Ethan clumsily clutched the bulletproof shield and Joshua held the wire cutters. It was almost dark.

Then the headlights flashed.

“Go time,” Joshua whispered hoarsely.

They bolted out of the space and began to run. Ethan knew he was faster than Josh, so he slowed down a bit to let him keep pace, while holding up the Kevlar shield to protect them from any shots being fired from the right, where Palestinian border guards might be watching.

As they dashed across the first twenty feet, the big floodlights were still out. Better still, no shots were fired. Then, about thirty feet in, the lights blazed on. The whole DMZ strip lit up like a department store.

At forty feet, shots rang out from the guard tower on the Palestinian side. They pinged off the rocks and stones, then started raining down on the shield.

Fifty feet from the goal line, there was a loud boom and a large chunk of dry ground exploded three feet beside them.

“Fifty caliber,” Joshua grunted as they kept up the sprint. Ethan hoped the sharpshooter wasn’t too sharp.
Will this shield hold off a fifty caliber?

Ethan kept the shield high enough to guard Joshua’s upper body and head. One shot could blast his skull wide open.

Then, twenty feet from the goal line, they heard it.

Boom!

The fifty-caliber bullet struck home, punching into the center of the shield. The force knocked Ethan sideways into Joshua, and they both tumbled to the ground with the shield clattering on the hard sandy soil next to them.

Now someone on the Palestinian side began firing an automatic weapon at them. The bullets raced up the sand in a line toward them.

Ethan picked up the shield and planted it on the ground lengthwise and pulled Joshua up close. A hale of ping-pings sounded as the bullets struck the Kevlar.

“Now,” Ethan yelled when the shots stopped momentarily. But as they leaped to their feet, the floodlights shut down. The DMZ strip was plunged into shadows.

The two men ran pell-mell toward the chain-link fence. More shots were fired randomly all along the strip. Ethan worried that a stray bullet would find its mark. He wondered if they were simply going to spray the fence line with bullets, knowing that it was their destination, shooting at that spot until the two reached their goal.

So Ethan decided to take Joshua farther down the strip of sandy ground. “Don’t go to the fence yet. Keep running away from their sentry tower.” Ethan now held the rear position, keeping the shield high and slightly upward to protect Joshua who ran a few feet ahead of him. They sprinted parallel to the fence for another twenty feet. Three more bullets pinged off the shield. Ethan’s arm was getting tired.
Keep holding it up. Don’t let it down
.

Then the shots stopped. The two men veered toward the fence. With his wire cutters, Joshua snipped through the metal link until he had opened a space big enough for them to squeeze through.

They dropped the cutters and the shield and donned their Arab headdresses. They ran between two concrete-block houses, trying to tread as softly as they could. Somewhere a dog started barking. Ethan swore quietly under his breath.

“Don’t worry,” Joshua said. “The Lord has brought us this far.”

But Ethan was thinking something else. Like — what’s so great about where we are now? In enemy territory — crawling with assassins.
Chased by the Israelis and shot at by the Palestinians. Supposedly, they were here to find refuge in a safe house, but for the life of him, Ethan could not see a safe place anywhere.

As they hit the street leading through the Palestinian suburb, trying to look calm as they strolled, a car approached with its headlights on. It slowed, training the beam on the two of them.

Ethan wished they had taken the time, before meeting up with Joel Harmon, to arm themselves. Now they were sitting ducks.

The late-model Citroen pulled up next to them. With the engine still running, the driver turned off the headlights and said, “Good evening, Colonel Jordan and friend.”

Joshua strode up to the driver’s side and reached his hand into the car to shake.

The driver was an older man with a close-cropped beard. He enthusiastically took Joshua’s hand and said, “I am Pastor Ibrahim Kalid. In Jesus’ name, I welcome you to the safety of my car and to the sanctuary of my home and to the friendship of my family.”

The men looked at each other with a shared look of surprised amusement, as they jumped in the back of the car.

Pastor Kalid turned around and grinned at Ethan but said nothing. He just kept smiling as if he was waiting for Ethan to give him a greeting, but none came. Finally, Ibrahim Kalid said to Ethan, “And I welcome you also, my friend.” As he turned his headlights back on, he added, “My wife has prepared a good meal. We must not be late.”

Anwar al-Madrassa’s route from his headquarters in Islamabad to this particular patch of former Israeli geography — now in the hands of the Palestinian Authority — had been a long and tortuous one. His reputation as a major figure of Islamic terrorism made it necessary to take a circuitous route, first in the back of a freight truck to Turkey, then into Syria, and over to Lebanon. That is where a Hezbollah cell rolled him up in a Persian rug and loaded him into a van owned by a carpet store. The van then crossed into an area of Israel now controlled by the PA.

The city of Jenin was a good choice for his new center of operations. It had been the site of bomb-making for suicide terrorists. But now they were working on something that would have been unimaginable in scope so many years before and would make the former efforts of men with their bulky explosive belts under their shirts quite obsolete.

The day after Joshua and Ethan had reached the safe house in Nablus and not far from that city, in an underground laboratory beneath the basement of a children’s clothing store, Dr. Ahlam was getting ready to demonstrate his weapon to Anwar al-Madrassa. In his younger years Ahlam had been one of Saddam Hussein’s many chemical-warfare researchers. Now he was waiting for al-Madrassa to arrive. When he finally did, Ahlam could hardly control himself.

“Such an honor, may Allah be praised!” he gushed.

But al-Madrassa was in no mood for pleasantries. He wanted to see the experiment.

Dr. Ahlam shuttled him into an adjoining room with a glass-enclosed sub-room that contained a wire cage with a dog in it, a German shepherd. Dr. Ahlam offered al-Madrassa a chair, but the chief of the al-Aqsa Jihad terror group waved it off. He stood right up to the glass. He could see everything that way.

Dr. Ahlam donned a triple-layered haz-mat suit and screwed down his protective helmet connected to an oxygen tank. He typed the password into the airlock, and the thick glass door clicked open. He entered the glass room and pushed a button to close the door behind him. Once inside, he stepped over to an iron pipe, which was closed at one end and open at the other, which extended into the wire cage.

On a table was a heavy metal tube, and Ahlam unscrewed it and removed an interior steel lining. Then he took an unusual, industrial-looking syringe and he drew out a single drop of a yellow chemical fluid from the inner container. Ahlam then connected the tip of the needle into a pin-sized hole in the closed end of the pipe, and squeezed the end of the syringe to express the single drop into the pipe.

Two seconds later, the dog gave a worrisome look, then immediately began convulsing in pain, yelping, and vomiting blood. Within ten seconds its fur and skin began to emit smoke as it burned off of the dog’s frame, falling away from its skeleton.

Dr. Ahlam looked at his watch. He held up ten fingers and flashed them twice to signify the twenty minutes he would now wait.

Al-Madrassa wasn’t overly impressed. VX gas was known to have similar ghastly effects. But this little demonstration had two acts. It was the second act that he was waiting for. He strolled back and forth in front of the glass, hands behind his back.

When the twenty minutes was up, Dr. Ahlam strode up on the other side of the glass, directly in front of al-Madrassa. Then he spread out his arms dramatically, to signal his next move. With a flourish, like the impresario at the center of a miniature circus of horrors, Ahlam pointed the index finger of each hand toward his helmet.

Taking a step closer to the glass, al-Madrassa was transfixed and dropped his hands from behind his back. He stared at the chemist in the glass room.

Ahlam placed his hands on his helmet and began to screw it off the collar of his protective suit. Until the very last turn. When he was at that point, the chemist half bent a knee down as he turned the helmet one last half turn, then popped it off his suit, fully exposing his face and head to the air of the enclosed toxic room. Dr. Ahlam flashed a ghoulish grin. He then scurried up right next to the wire cage that contained the smoldering remains of the dog and placed his face against the wire, holding his hands up into the air for effect.

This was what al-Madrassa had come to see — and he was not disappointed. The implications were staggering. Whole populations of Jews, infidels, and other undesirables could now be gassed in Tel Aviv, even in Jerusalem, and almost immediately the city could be occupied without toxic effects to the Islamic conquerors who could then march in and take over. Buildings, cars, businesses, even food and water supply, would be untouched by the gas — and after twenty minutes of exposure to the air the toxin was designed to completely dissipate.

Al-Madrassa was not one to lavish praise on his deputies. After all, only Allah deserved that. But this — the triumph he had just witnessed — nearly overcame him. On the verge of tears of joy, he slowly clapped his hands together in celebration.

On the other side of the glass, Ahlam took a slow bow and threw a kiss to the terror chief who was applauding.

“Genius,” al-Madrassa whispered. “Genius.”

Now they could move to the next stage. He would talk to his missile men, after which the planning would begin. He had not forgotten the faces of the people he had planned to be his first two victims. The infidel Jordans from America. Indeed the Jordans, America’s most zealous patriots with their detestable Roundtable group and enemies of the great Islamic Jihad … they would be the perfect targets to start with.