02 Thunder of Heaven: A Joshua Jordan Novel (21 page)
When Abigail received the call from General Shapiro in Tel Aviv, it was early afternoon, mountain standard time. She vaguely knew who General Shapiro was, but her heart dropped like a brick when she heard his voice. After all these years expecting a call or a knock on the door, while Josh had run dangerous missions or tested new aircraft, a call never came. But today it did.
“I regret to inform you, Mrs. Jordan, that your husband has gone missing in the Negev desert.”
“Missing … I don’t understand …”
“His convoy was attacked. The attackers were dressed like Israeli soldiers. We believe he has been taken hostage.”
“By who? Where is he now?”
“Our best intelligence is that he is now somewhere inside Iran. We believe the Iranian government is behind this.”
“The American embassy … have you contacted them … or the Pentagon?”
“We have contacted the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency and the Pentagon.”
“What are they doing about it?”
“We have every confidence that they will assist us in trying to locate and extract your husband.”
Her words were trembling. “Oh, dear God, please protect my husband …” Then in the next breath she asked General Shapiro, “Deborah, my daughter …”
“She’s safe. She’s with Colonel Kinney’s wife, Esther.”
“I have to get over there, General, to Israel …”
“I wouldn’t advise that, Mrs. Jordan — ”
“A rescue plan. We need one immediately.”
“We’re working on that. I promise we will keep you informed minute by minute.”
Shapiro had no more information. When Abigail hung up, she stood in the middle of the big family room and shrieked Cal’s name.
He had been working close by outside, repairing a section of broken railing on the big wraparound porch. Now that his father was overseas, he was taking care of a few repairs that his dad had planned on doing.
Cal sprinted through the front door. He found his mother with her hands over her face, shaking as she sobbed. Abigail blurted through her tears, “Your dad’s in trouble. He’s been grabbed by terrorists. They think he’s being held hostage in Iran …”
Cal reeled and his face drained. When he caught his breath he asked, “Who’s going to get him out?”
“The Israelis are working on it … waiting to hear from Washington.”
Abigail wiped her eyes and tried to take a deep breath. She and Cal locked eyes. Instinctively, they had the same thought.
Cal voiced it first. “No way, Mom … we can’t wait for the politicians or the White House. They’ve been gunning for Dad. They’ll let him twist in the wind …”
“Exactly. I’m calling Rocky Bridger. He was invaluable during your crisis at Grand Central Station.”
“How about John Gallagher?”
“Can’t afford to take him off task. What he’s doing for us right now is critical to American security.”
“So it’s true then … what Gallagher had me researching, about Russia, a nuclear threat?”
For Abigail it all fell together. Cal’s working on his computer. His desire to contribute to the Roundtable effort. She offered him a simple reply to his question. “Yes. It’s true.”
As she looked at her son, she knew that a convergence of circumstances had now brought him into the inner sanctum. She also knew that there were no accidents, not in a universe governed by a God who directed the destinies of people as well as nations.
“Welcome to the Roundtable,” she said.
John Gallagher gunned his rental car toward Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley. After getting off I-64, he streaked up Interstate 81 at eighty-five miles an hour. He hoped the state police were busy stopping everyone else.
Ken Leary called. “Okay, I got into the archives … read the reports. Several spots in the Valley were mentioned.”
“Go down the list … geez, oh geez, I hope we’re not too late.”
The key was to isolate the one that the Russians thought was truly a “blast from the past.” Gallagher and Leary agreed on one, which seemed to be the best from a strategic standpoint. It was just off of I-81, about ten minutes by car from I-66, which led directly to downtown Washington.
But Gallagher also knew that if he placed all his eggs in one basket, and lost the bet on which basket, he was about to lose hundreds of thousands of lives, the U.S. Capitol, and most of the American government in the bargain.
To make matters worse, Gallagher felt like he was doing that balancing act while running a gunnysack race.
“Thanks, Ken,” he said. “Gotta go.”
Gallagher fished through his private book of phone numbers, until he came across a retired FBI guy by the name of Frank Treumeth. Gallagher remembered that Frank had bought a place in the Shenandoah when he left the Bureau and was doing something “folksy,” like being a fishing guide or something. The last case they had worked together
was in North Carolina, busting up a terror cell that was smuggling drugs to finance their plans to then bomb bridges in major cities during rush hour.
He voice called the number into his Allfone while driving. It rang at the other end. It kept ringing. Then he heard a voicemail. “Hi, this is Doris and Frank. We wanna talk, and so do you. So leave a message.”
“Frank, hey, John Gallagher here. Retired from the Bureau just like you; you may have heard. How’s the fishing? Say, got an emergency here. Don’t want to overplay my hand, but I really,
really
need to talk to you ASAP. Please, buddy. Give me a ring, pronto. Okay?”
As Gallagher flew up the interstate, he knew that Frank Treumeth was the only play he had left. Sure, Gallagher had some other backup plans if Frank was unavailable, but in the light of day they all looked tragically stupid.
For a fleeting second he thought, I left the FBI … so why am I still trying to save the world?
But as quickly as he asked that question, he answered it.
Because it’s worth saving.
Yoseff Abbas was running for his life. He’d abandoned his apartment as soon as he heard about the Israeli attack on the Natanz facility and how the whole thing had been a setup. He realized he’d been played for a pawn by the Iranian leadership. That meant that Iran’s ruthless MOIS agents were on to him and would be looking for him at that very moment.
He stuck to the back alleys of Tehran as he walked, trying to figure out where he could go. He had received several calls from his Israeli Mossad contact, but he didn’t pick up. Of course, no messages were left. He never trusted the Israelis completely, and now he couldn’t trust anyone in the Iranian government.
That left him only one option. He needed a safe house. He only knew of one place, even though he knew all the reasons why this place might spell death for him too.
He walked to an entryway off the alley, opened the blue-painted
door, and climbed the stairs. At the top, he knocked three times, then twice more.
The door opened. A familiar face from his university days was in the doorway.
“So, Yoseff Abbas,” the other man said, smiling, “you’ve finally decided to join the CDCI?”
Yoseff shrugged as he entered the apartment. On the wall was a poster that read: “The CDCI — Agents of Change.” Underneath that it read: “Committee for Democratic Change in Iran.”
A few miles from that apartment was a nondescript, two-story building that had once been a warehouse. The government of Iran had converted it into a secret prison, a place for the forgotten, the forlorn, and the brutalized enemies of Iran.
That was where Joshua Jordan was being held. In the third cell from the end on the second floor. His innards had been punched in with a metal rod, the bottoms of his feet beaten, and finally he had been strapped in a crude electric chair and shocked repeatedly.
When they tossed him back into his cell, he was out cold for several hours.
When he regained consciousness, he thought he’d been roused by someone talking to him. He was slowly aware of several voices. Some talking. Others yelling. All in Farsi.
Except one.
“Colonel Jordan,” the voice said, cutting through the din, and in the English of an educated Iranian. The voice had a strange nasal quality to it. “There is a bowl of water in your cell. You should take it. Be sure and hydrate. You must avoid dehydration.”
Joshua dragged himself slowly and painfully over to the clay bowl that had some putrid water in it. He tried to use only his hands and wrists to pull himself along because his arms felt as if they may have been dislocated. But he couldn’t pick up the bowl. He lapped the stale water like a dog.
The voice went on. “It seems they want you to drink water like a dog. They’re trying to reduce you to a dog.”
With great effort, Joshua rolled over onto his side to check out his cell. It was concrete, with bars on one wall facing the hallway and a solid metal door with some kind of small window in it. He rolled onto his back and stared at the ceiling.
“You speak English?”
“A lot of educated Iranians do,” said the voice, which Joshua now realized was coming from a nearby cell.
“Who are you?”
“Dr. Hermoz Abdu.”
“I wish you were in my cell. I need a medical doctor.”
“No,” the man said, “I’m not that kind of doctor; sorry.”
Joshua collected his strength. “How do you know who I am?”
“I hear things.”
“Why are you here?”
“I am what you might call an enemy of the state but a friend of the Iranian people.”
Joshua knew he couldn’t afford to trust anyone. They had tried to break him in a short amount of time, using a rapid torrent of pain. No chance for something like waterboarding. When he was flying for the Air Force they had taught him how to endure that. But he had figured out the reason for the quick, dirty, maximum pain routine they were using. Iran was obviously planning a retaliatory strike against Israel. They needed to know the specifics of the RTS missile-defense system that was in place — and they needed it quick. Joshua figured he just needed to hold on through the torture for a short period of time.
On the other hand, once the attack was launched, what reason would the Iranians have to keep him alive? He thought about that. And he had already made up his mind.
I don’t want to die.
He had so much to live for. Now, it seemed, more than ever. And so much left undone. Not just his “official” business with the Roundtable or even his defensive-weapon designs that he sincerely believed could protect innocent life. More than that. His wife, his precious Abby. And
his son, Cal, ever seeking to please a father who regrettably was so hard to please. And his headstrong Deb.
Yet he knew there was something even beyond all of those things that he would have to deal with, a force that had been pursuing him, making him choose his course as if he were in the middle of a crossroads in a strange land. He felt he had become a kind of fugitive. But from what? His life seemed to be closing in on him like the walls of his filthy cell.
So he needed to survive this. But Joshua had a tactical worry. What if the Iranian Revolutionary Guard had planted this friendly prisoner, this Dr. Abdu, just to gain his confidence?
Time was short. He had to take a chance.
Joshua asked, “Why should I trust you?”
The other man laughed, but it really wasn’t from amusement. More from irony perhaps.
“If you could see me,” Dr. Abdu said, “then you would understand. Besides, Colonel Jordan, I have a secret. And it can save you.”
U.S. Secretary of Defense Roland Allenworth had traveled to the White House to discuss the Joshua Jordan hostage situation. He had been unable to meet with President Corland, so he was led to the Situation Room. When he walked in, the only people there were Vice President Tulrude and Corland’s chief of staff, Hank Strand.
Allenworth was not pleased. “Where’s the president?”
“There’s been an incident,” Tulrude said. Then she nodded to Strand.
The chief of staff said, “As you know, the president has been in poor health …”
“That’s nothing new. Where is he? When can I talk to him? This can’t wait.”
“I’m afraid that won’t be possible,” Strand said. “He’s in a coma. It happened very suddenly. He passed out again. This time he didn’t wake up.”
The look on Allenworth’s face said it all. He never liked Tulrude, but she’d been a nonissue at first, particularly because Allenworth worked directly with Corland as a member of his cabinet. He had wondered, sometimes, why Corland had picked him. In the beginning Allenworth had been a staunch advocate for the Pentagon, and many of his positions diverged from Corland’s internationalist tendencies. But things had changed over the last year. Corland and he had begun to work well together.
Allenworth had always feared Tulrude’s politics, her lust for power,
and her constant deference to the “international community of nations.” Now his worst fears were being realized.
Allenworth asked the obvious question. “Do I call you Madam President?”
Tulrude said, “We will be executing the constitutional transfer of power shortly.”
“Excuse my bluntness, but this needs to be done quickly … if what you are telling me is true.”
Tulrude’s eyes glinted with an inner explosion. “Are you questioning my honesty, Mr. Secretary of Defense?”
“No, only the medical judgment of those who say the president is unable to execute the duties of the presidency.”
“Well,” she snapped back, “that’s not your call to make, is it?”
“I suppose not — ”
“What is your question, Roland?”
“It’s about Joshua Jordan. The Israeli government has indicated that during a test run of the RTS missile-defense system, Jordan was taken hostage and is presently inside Iran. I don’t have to tell you how sensitive this situation is. Jordan possesses vital American-defense information.”
“You mean vital
if
we continue to use his RTS technology?”
“Of course.”
“But not vital if we discontinue using the RTS?”
“That would be a reversal of policy — ”
“Maybe yes, maybe no, but that is my call to make now that I will be assuming executive powers.”
“But if our enemies acquire the RTS design, they could create their own Return-to-Sender laser shields.”
“Well, if we don’t lob missiles at them, then the RTS formula won’t do them much good.”
“If you’ll excuse me for saying so, that would represent a preposterous approach to national defense — ”
“Well,” Tulrude blew back, “to answer your first point, no, I won’t excuse you, and secondly, I will not authorize any participation in any attempt to rescue Mr. Jordan. At least not at present. Things are much
too delicate in our negotiations with Iran and Iran’s partners among the Arab League to jeopardize things with some harebrained scheme to try to get Jordan out.”
“What about Israel’s interests?”
“What about America’s interests? We both know about that Israel air strike against Iran’s installations. Iran fended them off. The entire Middle East is destabilized thanks to the decisions made in Tel Aviv. And you want me to worry about Israel?” She picked up a stack of news releases. “You see what the Internet dailies are saying? ‘Israel Provokes Mid-East War’ … ‘Naked Israeli Aggression — Massive Strike against Iran.’ You want more?”
After that, Allenworth had stormed out of the White House. Now he was back at his office. He assigned his assistant secretary the distasteful task of advising the Israeli government that the United States would be unable “at present” to participate in any “direct action to accomplish the immediate rescue of Joshua Jordan. However, the United States will work through the Department of State to open up a dialogue with Iran and hopefully effect his release in the future …”
In Tel Aviv, General Shapiro received the message from the U.S. Defense Department. He could only shake his head in disgust.
Israel was in a state of high alert. The mission to proactively prevent Iran from launching a nuclear attack against Israel had been a disastrous failure. Now Israel had only one option: to brace for Iran’s brutal counterattack on the Israeli homeland. Israel was busy marshaling all of its military assets in hopes of stopping the inevitable.
Shapiro delivered the news to the chief of staff for the Israeli Defense Forces. The chief, in turn, pulled together his strategic team for an emergency briefing.
“It appears,” the chief announced, “that the Return-to-Sender system may now have an even greater significance for the defense of Israel. Which is interesting, considering the fact that its designer is now
being held hostage in a jail cell somewhere in Tehran, according to our intelligence. Should we divert our attention from the task at hand, which is the defense of our very lives, homes, and families, to rescue him? What information will he be forced to divulge if we do not? And yet, even now, the Iranians may have already extracted strategic design plans from Jordan, including the details of Israel’s own version of RTS — ”
“Don’t bank on that, General,” a voice came from the speakerphone. It was Clinton Kinney, from his hospital bed, recuperating from the two bullets that had pierced his chest, one lodging in a rib and another in his lung. “Jordan’s only been in custody for a day and a half. I don’t care what they’ve done to him up to now …”
The group around the table at IDF command considered what they just heard.
Then Kinney added, “The plain fact is that Joshua Jordan hasn’t spilled his guts to the Iranians. At least not yet. I’d bet my life on it.”
The last thing Abigail asked Victoria at Hawk’s Nest was to relay a desperate request to her husband, Pack, to get a group of trained men to New York City to stop the portable nuke attack.
Victoria had called Abigail back to relay her husband’s response: “Abby, it’s in the works. Pack has deployed a small force of operatives to New York State as we speak. We received the expense money wired to the operations account. Thanks for that. One thing you need to know. Pack will not be considered a part of this. The Patriots are not part of this. Our men on the ground know only that you, as de facto leader of the Roundtable, are the one directing and authorizing this offensive. If things go bad …”
Victoria didn’t have to finish the sentence. Abigail knew only too well the nightmare in store for her if this privately funded strike force of paramilitary agents was unsuccessful, or if innocent lives were lost in the attempt, or if they were just plain wrong about the threat to begin with. She was walking the outer line of treason in a desperate attempt to save her country.
Now Abigail was on the phone with retired Army general Rocky Bridger. She had explained Josh’s desperate situation as a captive of the Iranians. She knew this wasn’t the first hostage situation Bridger had encountered.
“Abigail, have you tried to reach your friend in the Patriot’s group about Joshua being captured?”
“Yes, and I can’t get through.”
Abigail knew, of course, that Pack McHenry was at some unnamed location in Paris, knee-deep in surveillance of the Russian offensive.
When Abigail told Rocky Bridger that the Patriots were out of the mix, Bridger had only one plan for the rescue of Joshua.
“Abby, I’m going to call together some special-ops guys I know. They’re all out of active service now, but well trained. Good men. If I ask them, they might just lend a hand. But I need some pretty powerful intel about where they’re keeping Joshua — maps of the area, scouting reports, structural details about the building itself …”
Abigail understood. “I’m going to give you General Shapiro’s international number in Israel. He’s my contact. If anyone would know that information, it would be him.”
Cal had been sitting next to his mother during the call. When she clicked off the phone, he opened up. “Okay, Mom. First things first. We need to pray.”