Edge of Apocalypse (41 page)

"You're the weapons expert, I'm not. But doesn't America have the technology edge on all of this anyway?"

"Look, everybody thinks that," Joshua said with a sharp edge to his voice. "The dirty little secret is that research and development have been pretty much halted with President Corland's edict against any 'exotic new missile-defense systems.' The Department of Defense has had its hands tied. That's why my RTS laser has become so controversial in the political circles. It makes Corland's Administration look bad. It falls in his forbidden 'exotic' category, yet it saved New York City. So it became a kind of embarrassment. Can you believe that? This whole thing is so stinking, rotten political..."

"So, what's your plan? With Cal, I mean, and the RTS documents?"

Joshua looked over at the pastor. He wished he had his Roundtable assembled at that moment. The whole gamut of experts and patriots sitting around the table with him. Advisors. Friends. Instead, he was stuck in the car with this Christian minister who was way out of his league. But it would eat up precious time to try to loop in the others. And then there could still be a chance of that somehow being leaked to the kidnapper. Since they'd already had a breach of security on the Roundtable, with the lawyer Allen Fulsin, could there be others?

Joshua knew he had to overcome his pride and his "my way or the highway" approach. At least the pastor was a good guy, intelligent, and cared enough to stick his neck out and get involved.

Then a thought crossed his mind. Funny it hadn't hit him immediately.
This guy knows I'm technically a fugitive from justice right now. Yet here he is driving me around in his car. Helping me out. Geez, that could be potentially damaging to his position as a high-profile clergyman. Gotta give the guy credit for that...

"Pastor, I'm on the horns of a terrible dilemma."

Campbell nodded and waited for more as they pulled up to a stoplight.

Joshua continued. "I give this guy the RTS documents, then my nation is put at peril. I swore on my life I would never let something like that happen. Never. Everything in me fights against that thought. But if I don't...well you know what I am facing. I'd never do anything to hurt Cal. I can't...but I just...I don't, uh..."

Then Joshua's voice trailed off as his throat choked up and his eyes filled up with tears. He turned away and looked absently out the car window as he tried to pull himself together.

"I try to imagine what you're going through," Campbell said. "But let's face it. I can't even pretend. Can't even come close."

He pulled the car forward after the light changed and kept driving. Campbell was looking ahead, studying the street signs while addressing Joshua at the same time. "How well do you know your Bible?" he asked.

Joshua shrugged. "Some, not as much as I should. Not nearly as much as Abby--"

"The story of Abraham and Isaac. Remember it?"

"Uh, I don't know," Joshua said unenthusiastically.

"God tells Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac. As an offering. As a show of faith..."

"Yeah. Right." Then an instant later Joshua shot back with, "So what's the point? That I should help sacrifice my own son? Is that it? You're kidding, right?"

"No," Campbell said calmly. "I mean the other part of the story."

"What other part?"

"How it ended."

Joshua was silent. His eyes were glancing vacantly out the window, but he was riveted on the pastor's words. Then he asked, "Meaning what?"

"God stops Abraham's hand. Instead, God says that Abraham has passed the test. Then God shows Abraham something that has been tangled up in the bushes..."

"What?"

"It was a ram. God provides the ram. Caught in the thicket of the bushes a couple of feet away from Abraham. God saves the boy and provides His own ram for the sacrifice."

Joshua finally turned away from the window and looked over at Campbell. "What are you getting at?"

"God is an expert in rescue."

Then a moment went by while Joshua thought about that.

Campbell added, "Maybe we need to pray for God to provide a ram for us."

Now their car was only a few blocks away from Joshua's office.

Joshua asked, "So, why didn't God make Abraham go through with it? Killing his own son as a test of faith? Could have forced him to do it..."

Campbell clicked on his turn signal and pulled into the turn lane for the avenue that led directly to Joshua's office.

"Good question," Campbell finally said. "But God would only allow
one
Son to die as a sacrifice for the sins of others. And that would happen a couple of thousand years later. When God's own Son would come to earth as an itinerant preacher and die on a Roman cross in Jerusalem. Dying for me. And for you." Then as Joshua's office building came into view two blocks away, Campbell added, "And dying for your son, Cal, too."

Joshua fell quiet.

The car pulled into the private parking area reserved for "president." The two men scrambled out of the car and started sprinting across the parking lot. But then Joshua started slowing down, almost to a stop. His eyes were fixed on something somewhere, but it wasn't clear to Campbell what that was or what was going on.

Campbell slowed down to match Joshua's pace.

Now Joshua was standing still.

Campbell had to ask the obvious. "What is it?"

Joshua looked up and then saw Campbell's face as if he had just noticed him.

"Well," Joshua started to say. There was almost a flicker of a bitter smile in the corners of his mouth. But there was something else in Joshua's look. A dreadful, serious recognition of something down deep. The kind of thing only birthed when a person is in the very hottest place inside the furnace of affliction. "I've just figured something out."

"What?"

"Where we can find the ram."

SIXTY-THREE

Joshua and Pastor Campbell sprinted into Joshua's office, past the receptionist who blinked at them wide eyed.

In his office, Joshua accessed his private computer. He typed in the code:

ReturnToSenderHighSecurityUltimateProtocolsJoshuaMissileRDX143TSC .DoD.DefenseAdvancedResearchProjectsAgency.U.S.A.

In a few seconds the computer screen filled up with a long index listing the RTS weapons design documents.

Joshua keyed in two introductory RTS documents that included only executive summaries and then sent them to a segregated file for email delivery.

He pulled out a piece of paper with the encrypted email address that Atta Zimler had given him in the last phone call. Then he typed in the email address. Finally Joshua attached the documents to the email.

Then, with his fingers poised over the keyboard, taking a short breath, he looked over at Campbell. The pastor was staring at the ground. His lips were barely moving.

Keep praying pastor,
Joshua said to himself.

Joshua clicked on the Send key.

A second later the screen read Sent.

"Done," Joshua said. Then with a wry look on his face he muttered, "I've just committed my first act of treason."

"No harm, no foul," Campbell shot back. "You said that those documents won't reveal anything essential."

"Right," Joshua said. "I don't think they will." Then he added with a desperate honesty, "I hope."

Then Joshua said to Campbell, "Step outside my office, please."

The pastor gave him a curious look but quickly nodded.

With a somber expression, Joshua said, "I don't want any witnesses to this."

Campbell left the room and closed the door behind him.

Joshua snapped open a metal security briefcase so he could start filling it. He knew exactly what the kidnapper wanted. He had all those documents. He had them in the document index on his screen at that very moment. It would take about ten minutes for him to print every one of them all out on the ultra-high-speed printer next to his desk. And then to put them in the briefcase and snap it shut. On the other hand, just a minute or two to download it to a zip drive.

"God, please help me," he said quietly. Then he added, "I hope I know what I'm doing."

Nine minutes later he came out of his office. Pastor Campbell was waiting for him.

"Let's go," Joshua said.

As they hurried down to the car, Joshua heard a beep on the Allfone. A text message from Abby. She was sending it from the business center in the hotel.

Handled the fed. marshals. Not happy. Did sweet talking & quick thinking.

"Good woman," Joshua said out loud.

The end of the text said, Can't stay away. Need to be there. Rocky & I will be outside the G C Station to be onsite. Will make sure not followed. Am praying. Love you. Oh God help us.

Joshua told the pastor that they needed to hustle back to the Grand Central Station. They needed to be there early. He couldn't risk being a minute late. Then they would wait for the next contact from the kidnapper.

Traffic was bad going back. Joshua glanced at his watch every thirty seconds or so.

"We are only going to have a fifteen-minute window or so," Joshua said.

"I'll drop you off at the main entrance, where the cabs drop off passengers," Campbell said. "Then I'll try to park close by. Here's my cell phone number if you need me. I'll stay put in my car until I get further instructions from you."

Campbell gave Joshua his card with his cell number written on it.

Everything was bumper-to-bumper. They seemed to be hitting all of the lights just wrong. One red light after another.

As they crawled along in the traffic, Joshua gripped the metal briefcase to his chest.

Is this going to work?
Joshua kept wondering. Then he would push it out of his mind. It had to work. There were now no other options.

Finally Campbell pulled his car up to the main 42
^nd
Street entrance of the terminal building, with its three huge arched windows and tall pillared colonnade.

Joshua was going to exit the car, but Campbell reached over and stopped him by grabbing his arm.

Campbell's eyes were closed. A car behind them beeped its horn. But Pastor Paul Campbell ignored it. He would deliver his benediction, his prayer, and nothing would stop him.

"Dear Lord, in Your Word, the Bible, this is what it says: 'The Lord spake to Joshua...saying...Have I not commanded thee? Be strong and of good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee whithersoever thou goest.' Amen."

Joshua opened his eyes and nodded over to Campbell and then reached out and shook his hand.

"Thanks pastor. Keep praying. That I can save Cal. Somehow. Please. That's all I want. Just to save my son."

Outside the Grand Central Terminal, a white unmarked New York Police van with tinted glass was parked on Park Avenue, facing away from the columns of the imposing front colonnade of the train station. To help it blend into the street scene, a parking ticket had been stuck on the windshield underneath the wiper. Inside, two men were waiting, tense and focused, watching the front of the train station in the side-view mirrors. One of them was FBI Agent John Gallagher. The other was NYPD Detective Lou Cramer, veteran of the city's counterterrorism unit. The two men had known each other for years.

Cramer adjusted his earpiece, waiting for some word from his police spotter who had located himself on one of the upper floors of the Lincoln Building with a good view of the train terminal. But no word yet.

"Good to be hunkering down together again," Cramer said.

Gallagher simply answered with "yeah" and a visible nod. But they both knew what the other was thinking. The tensions between the FBI and the NYPD had been legend. But blown out of proportion. Then it came to a head all over again years before, way back in 2009, with the terrorism arrest of Najibullah Zazi. The charges said he planned on blowing up the New York subways. The press had another field day with that one, about the supposed feud between the departments. The truth was that Gallagher from the feds and Cramer for the NYPD had quietly worked that case together, in the background, out of the lime-light. They had to laugh at the headlines. That was the last time they were partners on a joint terror case.

Until now.

Then Detective Cramer got a message in his earpiece. He nodded and listened. Then he signed off and turned to Gallagher. "Joshua Jordan just stepped out of a car in front of the terminal. He's carrying a briefcase."

Joshua was on the walkway outside the train station. He glanced at his watch.

He cast a long look around the surrounding area and noticed Abigail and Rocky standing next to a newspaper vendor's booth on the sidewalk about a hundred feet away.

Joshua gave a quick, restrained wave with two fingers from his waist.

Abigail clasped her hands over her heart and made a movement toward him.

He could read her face, her body posture even from that distance. Fear, longing, hope. All of it wrapped up in that single moment. That one furtive glance between husband and wife. Standing apart, but bound together by the same unthinkable crisis.

But Joshua immediately shook his head no as Abigail instinctively took a half step toward him. At the same time Rocky simultaneously reached out and gently took hold of her arm.

Joshua gave a short nod to them both and started toward the main entrance doors.

Inside the police van, Detective Cramer turned to a male and a female cop who were in the back of the van. Both were dressed as tourists. "Okay, you're on," he said.

The two cops in street clothes scampered out and started strolling casually but quickly toward Joshua's position near the entrance doors. The man was pretending to read a New York City tour guide map as he and his female partner approached a passerby, but they were shrugged off. Then they walked up to Joshua.

"Say," the man called out to Joshua, pointing to the map, "can you tell me where the Empire State Building is from here?"

Joshua was about to shoo them off, but then the man slipped a small plastic electronic earpiece into Joshua's hand. He could tell it was a sophisticated omni-directional earpiece that could send two-way communications.