Brink of Chaos (31 page)

In the cockpit of the F-35 LV fighter jet, Joshua peered through his helmet visor. He focused first on the forward screen on the flight deck, then the one on the left, and the lit-up LCDs on each. “I’m checking the threat warning prime and the auxiliary right now,” he reported. “They’re both operational. I’m still getting used to the layout. A different configuration than I’m used to.”

The voice of the test pilot on the ground at the control tower responded, “That’s because it’s been adapted for your RTS system. Just maintain your current airspeed. Our guys down here are going to tee-up the unarmed bird to send your way for the first test.”

There was another voice. This time it was Colonel Clint McKinney. “Hey, Josh, Clint here.”

“Good to hear your voice, man. You down there in the tower?”

“Yeah, stopped by to make sure these guys don’t go too easy on you, you know, on account of your advanced age.”

Joshua laughed. “You don’t know the half of it.”

“By the way,” Clint added, “got a message from command that I was supposed to pass on to you.”

“Oh, from who?”

“A friend of yours — Judge Fort Rice — says that Phil Rankowitz is ready to bust the big story wide open. Said you’d know what that means.”

“Yes, sir,” he said, “I sure do. Thanks.”

To Joshua, it was a long time coming. Now it sounded as if Phil had gathered enough information to break the story about President Virgil Corland’s illness, and Tulrude’s complicity in a plot to take him out. Finally, he thought, the truth about her rotten administration might get out to the American people.

Clint added, “He also mentioned something about your last message to him …”

“Right,” Joshua replied, “I thanked him for passing on the invitation for Abigail to speak to that international lawyer’s group in Jerusalem today.”

“Well, that was why he was trying to get hold of you.”

“What’s up?”

“Judge Rice says that he doesn’t have the faintest idea what you’re talking about. He never passed on any such invitation.”

Joshua spent only two seconds processing that. Then his heart sank. “Clint, do me a favor. You’ve got Abby’s number. Give her a call immediately and make sure everything’s okay. Something doesn’t sound right.”

“I follow you,” Clint said. “Will do.”

When Joshua had first lifted off in the F-35 that day, he had felt the weight of two burdens. The first was the reason he was in the sky at that moment, trying to engineer a fix for his RTS system. But the other was down on the ground — knowing that Ethan was out there somewhere acting as a decoy on a dangerous mission. Joshua’s prayer that morning as he climbed into his flight suit had been for the safety of his protégé. But Clint McKinney’s message had just shoved all of that to the back of the line. Front and center, now, was the wellbeing of his wife.

Abby — are you safe?

Winnie Corland sat in the den in her Symphony Park brownstone, the one she had purchased because it was close to her late husband’s convalescent center. She was alone, sifting through some of his personal effects. She had waded through the political paraphernalia. Now
Winnie was looking through the intimate things, like Virgil’s college yearbook and a love letter he had written to her during their undergraduate days. And his brown leather Bible.

His absence was overpowering. Not hearing his voice. Not seeing his face. It was as if their life together had been as fragile as a dry leaf, and a powerful wind had just rushed in and carried it all away in an instant.

That made her remember something that Virgil had read to her aloud many times. She tried to cling to it. She flipped open his Bible, which she had almost never opened herself. There was a thin silk ribbon placed at the first chapter of the gospel of John. She scanned through the first chapter but didn’t find what she was looking for. It wasn’t in the second chapter either. But in the third chapter she found it, the part where Jesus speaks to Nicodemus, the great Jewish teacher, imparting the secrets of the Spirit. She read it aloud. “‘Do not be amazed that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’ The wind blows where it wishes and you hear the sound of it, but do not know where it comes from and where it is going; so is everyone who is born of the Spirit.’”

She closed the Bible but noticed the edge of a note card sticking out, just under the back cover. She pulled it out. She recognized Virgil’s handwriting immediately.

It was entitled simply, “A Prayer.”

Winnie closed the Bible and put it on the table. But she still grasped the note card firmly in her hand. Her eyes were open but filled with tears. She remembered Virgil’s funeral, his closed casket, and the sight of it being lowered into the ground. In a strange way, she felt she was in a casket herself, suffocating. Entombed by her failure of will. How long would she ignore the whispering in her heart — the call of the Spirit for her to be reconciled with the God she had deliberately kept at arm’s length?

It wasn’t for Virgil that she now reread the note card through hot, streaming tears. Instead, it was for herself, for her own destiny. This would have to be her own act of faith. She knew it was time to move out of the shadowy tomb in which she had lived. She wondered about the sunlight she longed for, which she knew awaited her. She read out loud each word in Virgil’s prayer now — no longer just his, but hers as well.

And when she was done, she closed her eyes and wept for the wasted years she had spent neglecting the call of God to her heart. But she also wept for something else. Funny, she thought, but her tears were also for the joy that she felt washing over her like a flood. Winnie suddenly realized that what had just filled her mind like a flash must be true — beyond any debate.

I think that something glorious is coming …

Ethan was behind the wheel of the armored IDF Jeep, heading slowly down one of the main arteries of the city. His hands gripped the steering wheel with white knuckles. For months he had griped to Joshua about not having a direct hand in any missions. Now he had his chance. He was silently giving himself a pep-talk.
Just don’t blow it, Ethan. Keep everything under control. Don’t let things go haywire
.

That location in Nablus had been chosen because Israeli intel
showed that messages about an impending bio-threat had been shuttled back and forth by members of a known terror cell in that Palestinian-controlled area. It was decided that some of the terrorists behind the bio-attack must be there. The plan was to lure at least one of them out in the open, take him alive, and use extreme measures to extract the details of the attack from him.

Ethan glanced at the man sitting next to him, an IDF soldier posing as Joshua. After eye-balling him again, Ethan said, “Not a bad resemblance. But the nose is all wrong.”

This prompted a response from Rivka, who was lying in the back of the Jeep holding a Jericho .9mm handgun against her chest. “If they get close enough to see that this guy’s nose is different from Joshua’s, it’ll be too late for them anyway.”

Gavi, also armed with a special weapon, was lying next to Rivka in the back, once again acting as her mission partner. He cut them off. “Stop the chatter folks. Ethan, pay attention to your earbud.”

Ethan nodded and adjusted the earpiece in his left ear. “Just checking in,” he said. A voice came back in his ear. “Head’s up, Ethan. You’re in the zone now.”

Traffic was moderate. A grocery truck ahead of them. A single, older model Renault behind them. A few cars way up ahead. Shops on each side. A woman with a stroller on the sidewalk to the left. A café up on the right, where several men were having coffee at outdoor tables.

A false message had been deliberately disseminated saying that Joshua was being driven by his partner, Ethan, to a testing site for his RTS system, but that gunfire had been heard along the route, forcing them to quickly divert through Nablus. The sound of gunfire was real — it had been supplied by the IDF. They also made sure that the message was leaked to a source they suspected to be a sympathizer of the Al Aqsa Jihad group headed by Anwar al-Madrassa.

The trap had been set. Now they had to hope that the members of the terror cell would take the bait.

The truck ahead slowed. Now the café was almost directly to their right. Ethan glanced to his left. The woman with the stroller was gone.

In the window of an appliance shop two men stood, looking out. Ethan looked up at the second floor. Someone was holding something to his eyes, maybe binoculars. Then the figure quickly stepped back.

“I think I see spotters, folks,” Ethan said. “Stay alert.”

The truck ahead jerked forward a few yards and stopped.

It happened with lightning speed. Several men with weapons poured out of the shop on the left. The men at the café jumped to their feet, and one of them fired at Ethan, fracturing the bulletproof windshield.

While the men rushed the Jeep from both sides of the street, two Mossad agents in a van parked along the curb jumped out and fired at the assailants from a crouching position.

Rivka was up and shooting to her right. Gavi shouted, “Man in the green T-shirt.” He had already picked his target — from a photo array in prep for the mission. He fired the dart and it struck the young man in the chest. The man, who seemed to be about eighteen years old, started shaking, dropped his weapon, and collapsed to the ground while other shooters around him were dropping. The Mossad guys at the van gave covering fire while Rivka and Gavi leaped out of the Jeep and dragged the young man into it.

“Go, go, go!” Gavi screamed. Ethan did a three-sixty, bumping up onto the sidewalk as bullets banged against the armored vehicle, and then he headed back down the street, straight at the Renault. The driver jumped out and started to run away, so Ethan slammed the Jeep into the left front headlight of the little car, knocking it out of the way and then speeding down the street.

In the back seat, the young man was limp from the neuromuscular agent that had been injected into his body, designed to temporarily paralyze his large muscles but not the vocal chords. Then Gavi took out a small black case, slipped out a hypodermic needle and stuck it into the man’s jugular vein. Then Rivka turned him on his side so he could vomit. Ethan glanced in his rearview mirror to see what was going on. Gavi told Rivka to keep watch over him as he leaned over the front seat and began shouting out directions to Ethan.

“We need to get out of the Arab areas quick,” he yelled. “Turn here!”

Ethan took a sharp right onto a road that he could see led out of Nablus.

“What was in the needle?” Ethan shouted back.

“Our own upgraded brand of SP-117,” Gavi said. “We can thank the Russians for coming up with it. But we improved it considerably, speeding up the brain-blood absorption process. Only takes a few minutes now to get the subject ready to chat freely.”

When Ethan flashed a blank look, Gavi said, “Hypnotic drug. Disarms psychological restraints. Especially,” he added, “under conditions where the subject is experiencing a deep fear for personal safety.” Then a second later, Gavi snapped, “Okay, take the highway to the left, and keep going straight. You’re on the right track.” Then he turned back into the rear of the Jeep.

A few minutes later, Ethan noticed Gavi again in his rearview mirror. Rivka was propping the man up, and Gavi was holding the unloaded dart gun against his forehead and yelling into his captive’s face. Rivka was adding to the effect with a mock effort to dissuade Gavi from shooting. “No, no, don’t!” she was saying, waving her arms at Gavi. But her partner kept the dart gun pressed against the man’s head, shouting in Arabic. “Where is the biological weapon? Where’s the poison? Where’s the Elixir of Allah?”

The young man’s eyes darted around wildly. He muttered something.

“Speak!” Gavi screamed again.

He muttered again. And Gavi brought his face down closer into the young man’s face and demanded that he answer the question.

“Madrasah,” the young man murmured.

“Yeah, we know you work for Anwar al-Madrassa,” Gavi screamed back. “But we want to know where the Elixir of Allah is, and we want it right now.”

“Madrasah,”
the young man said again.

Now Rivka was pushing Gavi away, playing her part in the good-cop, bad-cop routine. “Say again?”

“Madrasah hassah,”
the man muttered, a numb expression on his face.

Rivka sat up and looked at Gavi. “That’s not a name,” she said. “
Madrasah hassah
means ‘private school’ in Arabic.”

The Jeep roared out of Nablus, while Rivka yelled into her earpiece, loud enough so that her commanders back at the headquarters would not miss it.

“The bio-weapon’s in a school building somewhere.”

Gavi grabbed the man by his shirt and screamed in his face, “What school? Where?”

But the man shook his head violently and in a pleading voice cried out in Arabic, “Don’t know. Don’t know.”

A voice came over the headset in Joshua’s helmet. “Colonel Jordan, we have an update on Ethan March.”

Joshua had put the F-35 LV fighter in a slow circle over the northern sector of the Negev desert, waiting for the “go” sign for another missile test. But his mind had been on multiple crises. Ethan was one of them.

“What?”

“He’s safe. The mission hit the mark.”

Joshua breathed out,
Thank You, Lord
.

“In fact,” the tower continued, “it was more successful than we planned.”

“How?”

“We’ve narrowed the site. The bio-threat is emanating from a school building somewhere. We received that from a captured cell member. Our intelligence people are putting together a scenario of the probable locations.”

“What about the delivery mode?”

“We’ve got that too. After further interrogation, he admitted it was airborne. Colonel Jordan, we are dealing with a missile carrying a biological toxin. And it’s unlike anything we’ve seen.”

Flying a mile over the desert, Joshua didn’t want to hear that. He still hadn’t been able to use the in-flight RTS laser on the modified F-35 to capture the entire guidance system of incoming dummy missiles during the testing phase. Which meant that his RTS system was drastically limited — it could still only perform the original design
task — a mirror-reversal of the trajectory of enemy missiles, returning them to their launch site. His new laser-guided data-capturing program to redirect enemy warheads in any direction, at will, wasn’t working.

“Tell me,” Joshua asked, “what does that do to our test today?”

There was a pause from the command tower. Then the answer. “It means we wish it was last week, rather than today. Our intel indicates this threat is imminent.”

“Do we scratch our test up here?” Joshua asked.

“We’re checking on that. But I have some other information — about your family.”

A strange feeling washed over Joshua, as if he had half-expected what was next, as if this day had already been scripted.

“A witness in Jerusalem, a shop owner in Nablus, called the police, says he saw a woman matching your wife’s description, accompanied by a young man and young woman, being dragged into three vans and driven away at gunpoint.”

Joshua had the air momentarily sucked out of him. All he could mutter was,
“Oh, dear God.”

The voice in his helmet continued, “We have a partial description of one of the vans. It’s been matched to one belonging to the jihad group headed by Anwar al-Madrassa.”

Joshua was stunned. The tower asked, “Still with us, Colonel?”

“Roger that,” he could barely say. He was crushed.

“Stay with us for further instructions, sir.”

“Roger.”

Joshua could now hear only the sound of his own breathing in his helmet. In and out. Inhale. Exhale. In the upper corners of the inside of the helmet were the green illuminated vector screens that he would use to site incoming enemy missiles. He wanted to pray, but somehow it was too much, and he couldn’t. He knew the groaning inside of him would be heard. God was listening. It was just that now, circling high above the brownish desert, feeling that his guts had just been ripped open, he couldn’t put it into words.

After a few minutes, the voice came into his helmet again. But
this time it wasn’t the same. It wasn’t the usual measured, in-control monotone he had been used to hearing as a pilot from the tower. Now it was hurried. Almost frantic. “Colonel Jordan. Stay in your pattern. I repeat, stay in your pattern. Do you read?”

“Copy. What news?”

“Radar shows an incoming heading to Tel Aviv. One of our F-16s was dispatched, but it blew past him before he could shoot it down. Our ground-to-air defenses have been launched, but this thing has a very advanced avoidance program.”

“Where was it launched from?”

“We’re trying to determine that. Also —” The voice stopped. Some shouting in the background. Joshua thought he could hear Clint McKinney’s voice. Yes, it was him.

Now Clint spoke into the headset. “Josh, this is Clint. You have a right to know. We just launched the standard RTS-equipped missile to turn this in-coming warhead around.”

“I copy that.”

“But, Josh, there’s video footage on the Internet. Live-streaming. Abby and Cal and Deborah. All of them tied up in some location. And …”

“And what? Tell me, Clint. Tied up and what?”

“The message says that all three are at ground zero of the launch site of the bio-weapon. If your RTS is successful, it will turn that monster on your family. Josh, I’m so sorry …”

“Have you reverse-engineered the flight pattern of the incoming, to find the site and get them out of there …”

“Somewhere around the edge of the Negev. There are several Bedouin schools in that area. We’re trying to isolate the location and helicopter the IDF guys out there …”

Joshua was yelling. “At four hundred miles an hour that missile’s going to get there first!”

In the background Joshua heard a voice say, “RTS just made contact with the enemy bird; it’s turning around.”

Inside his helmet Joshua tried to slow his breathing.
Think. Be precise. But be quick. You only have one crack at this. Oh, Lord, help me
.

Then he said, “Tower, Jordan here.”

“We read you.”

“Give me the flight pattern of that enemy bird and the coordinates.”

“Doing it now.”

Joshua checked his radar-warning receiver. It lit up in the corner of the screen, and he now saw the flight pattern of the warhead containing the Elixir of Allah heading his way, high above the Negev desert. He punched the autopilot matching control so he could intersect the trajectory and the altitude of the incoming missile.

“I’m climbing,” Joshua said, jamming his side-stick controller on the right and putting the jet into a steep climb. Then he pushed the throttle grip on the left to send him streaking nose-up into the sky as fast as he could squeeze power out of the turbines.

His screen showed the blinking cursor for the incoming missile.

“Waiting for it to come into range,” Joshua called out. “Waiting …”

The blip on the screen was closing in. The missile was getting closer.

Joshua hit the button for the RTS-360 guidance capture system, and a laser beam blew out from under the fuselage. He read the RTS integrated control panel. It illuminated.

Contact.

The data-controlling laser hit the nosecone of the enemy missile.

He waited for the reading — the terse LCD that would read either “Full Capture” or “Failed.”

“Come on. Come on. Come on …”

Then the message flashed on the screen. But his world rocked.

“Failed.”

A half second passed — but enough time for Joshua to calculate it. There was only one option now. He had to insure that his family was protected. His F-35 LV had no weapons other than the RTS, so now his only weapon was the jet itself. It was the only way to stop the bio-warhead streaking back toward his wife and son and daughter.

“I’m going to hit it on the run. I’m intercepting,” he said.

The tower squawked back, “Colonel, wait. We have no secondary verification that your family is at ground zero.”

“I can’t take that chance. I’m going in.”

Joshua lined the nose of the F-35 with a point along the intersecting trajectory of the missile on his screen. He would have to hit the warhead on the pass. With his left hand he jammed the throttle and headed to the intersection point, and with his right hand he used the side-stick controller to arc the jet toward the endgame. There was only one chance to knock that missile out of the sky. He knew what that meant. No way to bail out before the collision. He had to ride it into the point of contact. Then a fiery crash with a missile loaded with a nightmare toxin. That was the terrible best-case scenario. But at least his family would be spared.

The blip of the missile was closing in on the intersecting vector on his screen. And so was he. Each blip approached the other. Joshua gave his final message to the control tower. “Tell Abby and the kids I love them … and …” His voice caught.

“Tell ‘em we’ll all be together in heaven.”

There it was. He saw it glint into view, the nosecone of the missile approaching like a flash of light. He aimed at it by leading it perfectly, gauging its superior speed to hit it on the pass-by. He banked the F-35 directly toward the oncoming warhead.

He yelled two words.

“Now, Lord …”

With supersonic speed, the missile’s nosecone tore through his left wing. The missile exploded and the percussion ripped open the fuselage of the jet, spraying the toxic gas over the ravaged skin of the F-35. The jet began to spiral down, twisting at two hundred and fifty miles an hour, covered in deadly toxins.

He reached for the release for the ejection seat. Where was it?

In the sickening, dizzying spin toward earth, Joshua saw something, heard something, and he could only say one word at first.

“What …”

The tower was calling to him in his helmet. But that didn’t matter now.

Somewhere there was a sound. Piercing. Heart-thumping. A trumpet
sounding? Incredible. Unfathomable. It had the power of the sound of a cosmos being birthed.

“Oh!” Joshua exclaimed, as a boy might say if he witnessed something awesome, as the sky seemed to fill with a golden note, like the unison of all the world’s trumpets. All around him. Thrilling, thrilling. And there was a voice above even that, and the voice had the thundering power of ten thousand oceans.

“My dream,” he heard himself say. But it was not a dream. Not this time.

Somehow he was outside of the F-35, watching it as if he were a spectator. The jet had no pilot, yet its canopy was still intact — the ejector seat had never activated — and it was spinning and smoking and careening farther and farther away from Joshua on its gravity-bound descent toward earth. And it kept falling. Until it hit the earth. A tiny red flash of an explosion could be seen far below.

Joshua had never ejected. Yet he had not gone down with the jet. He was not in the debris of the crash. Or anywhere on earth.