02 Thunder of Heaven: A Joshua Jordan Novel (23 page)

In Union Beach, New Jersey, the nuclear team had completed the assembly of their weapon. At the appointed time, they blasted their massive EMP signal over a ten-mile area, blocking all other telecommunications in that radius — further insurance of security for their sat-fone conference call. Their call linked them with both the terror cell in the Shenandoah Valley and the Russian special-operations headquarters along the northern Kyrgyzstan border. Radinovad, the brilliant Russian chief of clandestine activities, led the brief discussion from his office in the former museum building in the city of Taraz.

“Metropolis,
are you ready?” he asked the New Jersey group.

“We are” was the reply.

“And
Marble Lady
are you ready?”

“Yes sir. Affirmative,” answered the terror cell in the Shenandoah Valley.

“Any evidence of being compromised?”

Both groups said no.

“Let’s all check our atomic clocks.”

They were all coordinated, down to the second.

“Gentlemen, I must remind you that precision is key. Observe your schedules scrupulously. Thank you.”

When Radinovad clicked off, he turned to several big satellite video screens in his office. He saw a host of blips on his electronic map. Each
represented a naval warship from Russian-bloc nations heading to the Mediterranean.

He glanced over at the landmass comprising Mother Russia and the nations surrounding it: Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan. Many dots within Russia, and several dots in the other countries, each representing the mobilization of troops. Then over in Turkey, more dots. Libya, Sudan, more dots.

He sipped his espresso and was satisfied. The Russian commander wished for the day when he could take a few days off with his mistress, go to the secret resort along the Black Sea reserved for only high-ranking officials of the Russian republic and members of the FSB like him, go sailing and sunbathing.
Pretty soon,
he told himself.

Until then, he had a front-row seat to a historic re-creation, like the Phoenix rising from the ashes. He put in an e-alert message to the rest of his team, telling them to come into his office for a briefing.

Then he entertained an aggrandizing thought once again while he took another sip of the black, grainy espresso: The stage is dressed. The iron curtain is ready to rise again. Our global drama will be greater than anything Tolstoy could have imagined. It will rewrite everything.

Deputy Colwin was in the lead. His squad car roared down a dirt lane a half mile from the site of the terror cell. Gallagher and Treumeth were behind him in Gallagher’s rental, trying to keep up. They wondered what kind of wild-goose chase they were on because the sheriff’s deputy had not bothered to tell them where they were going.

The two cars pulled up in front of a farmhouse. A few chickens wandered aimlessly on the lawn and clucked.

Colwin sprinted up the steps and banged frantically on the door. “Ruby,” he called through the door. “Hurry it up!” It was a full minute before a big woman came to the door, wiping her hands.

She said, “Corby, sorry. I was out back, cleanin’ chickens.”

“Where’s Blackie?”

“Inside. Trying to make a call. Says his cell phone went out when he was out on the tractor.”

“How about Dumpster?”

“He’s inside with him.”

Colwin dodged inside with Ruby. There was a flurry of activity, and Colwin came flying out with Ruby, a man in his fifties, and a very large guy about six-four and three hundred pounds. They were carrying rifles and shotguns and a large plastic container that looked like a fishing tackle box. It had Remington and Winchester stickers on it.

Colwin pointed to the older man. “This is Blackie Horvath, parttime volunteer emergency-services coordinator. He’s a gun permit instructor. This is Ruby, his wife. She won the ladies’ shotgun competition last year.”

Ruby turned to Blackie and pointed to one of his shotguns. “Hon, give me that Remington over-and-under will you? She’s my favorite …”

Gallagher turned to the huge man holding two hunting rifles with scopes attached.

“Let me guess, you’re Dumpster?”

The huge guy smiled wide and nodded.

Ruby said, “My boy Dumpster here won the state wrestling championship in high school for his weight division.”

Gallagher shot back, “You don’t have Sumo wrestling here, do you, Mrs. Horvath?”

She bulleted back, squinting her eyes at Gallagher, “Dumpster did two tours in Iraq. Sharpshooter. Can shoot the head off a chicken at a thousand yards.”

Gallagher stepped up and shook the man’s hand. “Dumpster, you’re my new best friend.”

Colwin, already standing by his squad car, shouted that the Horvath family would ride with him, and he’d finish briefing them on the ride back to the site.

The two cars spit gravel and raced back up the driveway.

The whole thing seemed ridiculously surreal to Gallagher. Then again, that would describe most of his experience at the FBI. Gallagher looked at the squad car ahead. Dumpster’s huge head bobbed with each bump in the dirt road. Gallagher tried to put a label on the whole
thing, and he succeeded:
Special-ops unit of the Beverly Hillbillies versus some very scary terrorists.

Or maybe it was more like a picture Gallagher remembered from his childhood, a picture of ordinary farmers running with muskets — on their way to Lexington and Concord.

Gallagher nodded at the squad car ahead of them and said, “Frank, we could do a whole lot worse …”

Four miles outside of Union Beach, New Jersey, three men from Pack McHenry’s team sat in a black SUV in a McDonald’s parking lot. They were waiting for the “go” authorization from their contact. All three were former special-operations agents from the U.S. Coast Guard. A fourth, Jim Yaniky, another reserve member of the Coast Guard special ops, was coming separately but had been delayed. He was still several miles away. They told him to pull over and wait. If the truck with the nuke got past them for some reason, then Yaniky could intercept it, like a “goalie” at the end line, though they all knew that was a pretty lousy Plan B. The main objective was to stop the truck before it left its assembly location, because once it was on the road, the dice became dangerously loaded against them. The team knew that the delivery vehicle would probably be rigged with a detonator that could be activated from the cab of the truck, so that if the terrorists felt themselves threatened, they could simply do a rolling detonation.

All of these civilians had been tasked by a simple call and a code number, which they knew was from McHenry’s Patriot group. They also knew they were to consider themselves working only at the behest of one person. If stopped and detained, they would deny any connection to Pack McHenry or his Patriots.

The call was placed by Jim Yaniky, who had been designated team coordinator.

At Hawk’s Nest, the phone rang. Abigail Jordan had been on a round-the-clock vigil, trying to work with Rocky Bridger to rescue her husband. Abigail picked up.

“Mrs. Jordan,” said the voice, “my name is Jim Yaniky. I’m one of four former members of the U.S. Coast Guard strike force, retired but on reserve. We understand you’d like us to perform a citizens’ action to halt suspected criminal behavior in or around Union Beach, New Jersey, namely, the transport of a truck thought to be carrying a nuclear weapon?”

“Yes, Mr. Yaniky, that’s correct.” She thought for a moment. “As former members of the U.S. Coast Guard, then you’re all exempt from the restrictions of the federal Posse Comitatus Act, which prohibits members of the other branches of the military from performing law-enforcement duties?”

“That’s pretty much it, yes.”

Abigail now understood why Pack McHenry had selected these men. If things went bad, federal prosecutors would not be able to argue that this law had been violated at least. Now she only had a dozen other federal laws to worry about.

“You understand, Mrs. Jordan, we consider you to be our principal in this action. May we proceed under your direction and advice?”

She didn’t hesitate. “I understand my responsibility, Mr. Yaniky, for this mission.” Abigail was now fully committed. She knew she was way past second-guessing, but there was still a critical part of the plan she needed to know. She couldn’t launch an armed campaign unless her soldiers knew where the enemy was.

“Have you located the cell group?”

“They’re in Union Beach, ma’am, south of New York City.”

“How’d you find them?”

“They used an electromagnetic pulse to blow out the local electronics. We figured they were doing covert communications and didn’t want to risk being picked up. We’ve got special Allfones to resist that. They were designed, by the way, by your husband’s company, Jordan Technologies, ma’am.”

Abigail felt a lump in her throat. Joshua’s work had come full circle.

Yaniky finished, “We have an EMP tracker. We pinpointed the source. We’re pretty sure they’re at that spot. Uh … one moment.” He put her on hold. Ten seconds later he came back. “Sorry ma’am, it’s go time!”

“God go with you.”

“Thanks.”

Only when Abigail clicked off her Allfone did the immensity of the challenge hit her. During his military career, her husband had been the one responsible for the lives of those ordered into harm’s way. Now she was the one shouldering that responsibility. She uttered a quivering prayer. Then she went back to her other task, waiting for Rocky Bridger’s call, which she was expecting shortly.

Before leaving the machine shop in Union Beach, Dr. Kush Mahi confirmed that the bomb was ready to load. He was now on his way to Newark Airport to catch an international flight out of the country before the nukes were detonated. The gunmen had gingerly packed the nuke into a shipping crate and had carefully lifted it onto the truck. Painted on the sides of the truck was an advertisement for Mexican food. With a large Hispanic festival going on in downtown Manhattan, the truck would blend in perfectly.

The torture team had come back for Joshua. They dragged him to the windowless cement room and strapped him down. Again they shocked him with electricity. Again and again and again. Each time the voltage got higher. Joshua groaned and whimpered with pain. He wondered how long he could withstand the excruciating jolts before he began spilling his guts about the RTS units he’d provided to Israel.

But one thought helped him keep it together: one of the last conversations he had with Abigail. He tried to conjure up her beautiful face, but he couldn’t. Was he losing his mind? Was his memory
deteriorating? But he could remember what she’d said. She had told him that Israel would play a critically important part in the global scheme of things, in God’s vast plan, more than perhaps Joshua ever imagined.

That was what he was hanging on to, though he wasn’t sure why. Maybe it was just a rope to grab, to keep from giving up, to keep his focus off the pain, to help him tough it out just one more time …

When it was over, Joshua’s tormentors dumped his nearly lifeless body back into his cell.

After the Iranian guards left, Dr. Abdu waited over an hour for sounds from Joshua’s cell. Then he called out, “Joshua, my friend, are you awake? Can you hear me?”

There was no response.

“Joshua?”

The rest of the prisoners were quiet too, listening. But there was no reply.

Rocky Bridger had to do everything remotely. He didn’t like that. As a four-star general in the U.S. Army, he had always preferred to be in the presence of as many of the men whom he would send into harm’s way as possible. But the present desperate timeline didn’t allow that.

Four heavily armed men, two former Army Rangers and two retired Navy SEALs, were on a private jet heading for Baghdad, Iraq. That was the closest staging point to Iran. Rocky pulled some strings with his former Army colleagues in the Pentagon for their landing. They were cleared for entrance into Iraq as “private VIP security contractors.”

Though the mission was expensive, all the costs were covered by the Roundtable through Abigail’s quick work.

Rocky was on a video Allfone call with the team, mapping out the strategy. He had just finished a conversation with Israeli general Shapiro.

Shapiro had sounded unusually calm. “General Bridger, good to
talk to you again. It’s been a long time.” No hint in Shapiro’s voice of the coming attack from Iran that they were preparing for.

Rocky reciprocated the greeting and then told Shapiro that he already knew about the White House shooting down an organized attempt to rescue Joshua. “General,” Rocky said, “I’m putting together a private team to get Joshua Jordan out of there. What can you give us in the way of support?”

“I can share our intelligence,” Shapiro said. “I’d like to promise more. Too early to say right now.”

“Anything, General Shapiro …”

“I will send you an encrypted e-file with some photos of the building in Tehran where he is being held captive. A map of the area. It’s a special prison for dissidents, that sort of thing. They have probably tortured Colonel Jordan, I’m afraid …”

“I’d assumed that,” Rocky said.

“But it’s also heavily guarded.”

“I also figured that.”

“But one additional possibility …”

“I’m listening.”

“We have an Iranian inside Tehran. He’s been cooperating with us. We are trying to regain contact with him. I’ll send you the e-file on him. Name is Yoseff Abbas. Maybe he can help, don’t know for sure. We’re also looking into air support for your team.”

Rocky thanked the general, but after he hung up, his sense of history took over. So when Rocky Bridger connected by video Allfone with his strike force of four men who were winging their way across the Atlantic, he brought it up. “You fellas are all former special ops, I know, but you’re probably too young to remember another rescue plan. Like ours, it was privately organized, and like ours, it was to save some Americans held hostage in a prison inside Tehran. They happened to be employees of Ross Perot’s company over there. So Perot hired ‘Bull’ Simmons, retired Army colonel. Simmons put together a plan.”

“What are you thinking, sir?” one of the men asked.

“I am thinking about repeating history …”