Expanding its policy of nuclear deterrence, in 2009 NATO—the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, the mutual defense alliance formed by the US and Western Europe in response to the Cold War after World War II—instituted a policy called nuclear sharing, where strategically located member countries without nuclear weapons of their own were provided nuclear weapons by NATO.
The nuclear sharing program invited these member nations to be in consultation about nuclear weapons policy. It also required each nation to store the weapons on their territory, provide or maintain the bombers necessary to deliver those weapons … and that the armed forces of the host countries themselves would be involved in delivering those weapons in the event of their use.
In November 2009, Turkey received an estimated fifty thermonuclear bombs from NATO. Belgium, Germany, Italy, and the Netherlands also received nuclear weapons, but fewer than Turkey, as part of NATO’s nuclear sharing policy. NATO had only three nuclear powers: the United States, France, and the United Kingdom. But only the United States provided weapons for nuclear sharing.
Those fifty B61 bombs were stored in hardened bunkers at the Incirlik Air Base in the far eastern reaches of Turkey. While the American military retained ultimate authority and control over the weapons, the Turkish Air Force and its officers were intimately knowledgeable and involved with the maintenance of the weapons.
Both the Turk and his host cast a covetous eye on those weapons at Incirlik, a craving that was at the root of their conspiracy. But the Turk was determined to drive that plan one step further than his host ever dreamed.
“President Kashani’s cultivation of ties with the leaders of al-Qaeda is causing significant consternation in the capitals of the West,” his host said about his boss.
“There is a whispered fear that Turkey could slip into the sphere of radical jihad.”
“Excellent.” His host nodded his head and reached for the hookah. “The more the West fears Kashani and his plans, the better for us.”
The better for you. The Turk knew the ambition that fueled this man’s passion, and the steps he was contemplating to achieve that ambition. Coups to overthrow governments in Turkey were not uncommon.
“Yes, we will keep them worried,” promised his host. “And what of the American’s ill-conceived agreement with the mullahs in Tehran?”
The Turk rose from his chair to hide the satisfaction from his face. Yes … concentrate on that, my short-sighted friend. Keep your eyes fixed on the Persians. He guarded his voice. “Their president is determined, but he has opposition.”
“And the bankers are just as determined not to lose the seven hundred million dollars a day they are stealing from the Iranians,” said his host. “And the Israelis are pushing very hard against any rapprochement with the liars in Tehran. But this president appears to have very little regard for the Israelis.”
“Then who does he think his friends are?” asked the Turk.
“Who can say? The outcome remains undecided. My friend in Washington says we must consider the possibility that sanctions will be lifted in the not-too-distant future.”
“Then the centrifuges of Natanz and Fordo will spin night and day,” said the Turk. “We must block the Persians. It is up to you, Minister, to ensure that chaos continues to reign throughout that region. Soon, our day will also come. Then we will turn the once-fertile crescent into a desert as vast as the Anbar.”
His host sucked noisily on the mouthpiece fixed to the end of the hookah’s hose. Ravage your lungs. The Turk stepped farther away from the divan. He knew that hookah smoking was one hundred times more deadly than smoking one cigarette. The smoke of either sickened him. Die … so I don’t need to kill you.
“What of this coming announcement from the Saudis? And their intent to secure nuclear weapons from Pakistan?” asked his host. “This is a development that we did not anticipate. Is there to be peace between the Jew and the Arab?”
“Well informed, as always,” the Turk said with a bow. “But there will be no peace. Too many stand against it, particularly in Israel, where the desire for peace is overwhelmed by distrust of the Arabs. They can announce a peace, but it will never become a reality. In the meantime, we have something the Israelis need much more desperately than peace.”
His host pointed the mouthpiece toward the Turk. “Water.”
“Yes, water,” said the Turk. “Our stealth weapon.”
Flowing out of the mountains of eastern Turkey were the headwaters of the two most important snow-fed rivers of the Middle East. The water resources of the Tigris and Euphrates river basins were critical sources of hydroelectric power generation, irrigation, and domestic use, not only in Turkey but also in Syria, Iraq, and Iran. In addition to the two great rivers, Turkey was home to one hundred and twenty natural lakes with additional water stored behind five hundred and fifty dams. And Turkey was slowly tightening the spigot.
Water was already becoming scarce across the arid Middle East during a five-year drought that ended in 2012. Iran’s largest lake—Lake Urmia—once ninety miles long, thirty-five miles wide, and thirty feet deep was now a massive mud flat, containing only five percent of the water it once held. As the rains diminished and the Syrian civil war escalated, Turkey restricted even more of the flow of the Euphrates through its largest dams, the Ataturk and Keban, strangling the once-mighty river to streams through Syria and Iraq. With no international treaties requiring Turkey to keep the water flowing, Ankara now controlled the one resource most critical to life throughout the region.
“Will Iraq ask for action from the United Nations?” questioned the Turk.
“Iraq is blinded by the plague of ISIS,” said his host. “That puppet government’s fear is who controls the rivers, not how much water flows through them. But the farmers in Anbar are in near revolt over their barren rice fields. And the cost of importing grain is crippling the government’s fragile economy. Every time we tighten the valves on the spillways of our dams brings Syria and Iraq one step closer to even greater crisis. Soon, they will be begging for help. And there is only one place they can come for that help. The plan is working. Our opportunity is near.”
With the smoke dissipating, the Turk moved closer to the man on the divan. “Stay the course, Prime Minister. You have an endless supply of the one thing desperately needed by the desert dwellers in Syria and Iraq. Soon they will come and you will exact our price—a free Kurdish state carved out of Iraq and Syria and the partition of western Syria into Turkey.”
“And what of the Israelis?”
“One step at a time,” said the Turk. “The Israelis’ turn will come. First, we build a bulwark against the Persians by crippling Iraq and empowering the fighters of the Peshmerga with their own state. There will be a time for the Israelis—when they are friendless. Be patient.”
Arslan Eroglu, prime minister of Turkey, replaced the mouthpiece on the hookah. “When will Colonel Matoush move against the storage facilities at Incirlik?” he asked.
“Soon, but not until we are completely ready and certain of success. There will be one opportunity only. In this task, we must not fail.” It was time to end this conversation. The Turk bowed from his waist. “Salaam aleichem, my friend.”
“Wa’ aleichem salaam … and God be with you, also,” said Eroglu. “Until next time. Allahu Akbar.”
16
Highway One, Israel
July 19, 6:13 p.m.
Cleveland was looking out the window of the sumptuous Maybach 57 sedan as it sped eastward along Highway One from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. Looking, but not seeing the barren Judean landscape that occupied most of the land from the sea to the hills of Jerusalem, broken only sporadically by sterile, white communities stacked along a hillside. The scene was a blur to his right, his mind preoccupied with weighing and sifting a steady flow of information—some confirmed, some conjecture—and trying to formulate a plan for what he expected to be a difficult and challenging conversation with David Meir, the embattled Israeli prim
e minister.
“Forgive me for interrupting your thoughts, but I was hoping to ask you a few questions before we got to Jerusalem.”
Mullaney was sitting in the back seat to the left of the ambassador. With Hernandez driving, there was only the three of them in the Mercedes limo for the trip to Jerusalem. Cleveland invited Mullaney to join him in the back of the car because he needed to get to know his regional security officer as quickly as possible and also because he was looking for a nonaligned sounding board—someone without an agenda with whom he could talk freely and not have to worry about how each word was composed. According to people Cleveland regarded as reliable, Mullaney was a man of insight, a man he could trust.
Cleveland turned away from the window. “Of course, Agent Mullaney. I’m sorry I got distracted. I wanted to talk to you also. So go ahead. Shoot.”
“I have a number of questions for you, sir, but two are at the top of the list. Who do you think is after this box—after the prophecy inside the box—and is the box connected in any way to this secret announcement that’s coming tomorrow? I’ve been trying to build a threat analysis in my mind, and those two questions keep colliding with each other.”
Cleveland nodded and shifted in the leather bucket seat, swiveling on his left hip to get a better look at Mullaney. “Good questions. Do you mind if I call you Brian?”
Mullaney shook his head.
“Good,” said Cleveland. “First, I have no idea who is determined to get this box and the prophecy, but they’ve been after it for a long time. They are relentless and ruthless. They’re not going to give up. My gut tells me the second prophecy will be similar to the first—in some way connecting the geopolitical reality of today to portents of Christ’s second coming, the ‘last days’ scenario that Hollywood loves to use for its adventure blockbusters. So I expect it will have some relevance to the politics of the Middle East, but I don’t necessarily believe it will be connected to tomorrow’s announcement.
“But Brian, we need to put some perspective on all that is happening around us,” said Cleveland. “If we start looking at the trees before we examine the forest, we will get lost much too easily. You’ve been in the Middle East before, Brian. What do you see?”
“Conflict,” said Mullaney. “Both obvious and subtle conflict. And the movement of great, antagonistic powers that could escalate those conflicts even more.”
“Historic enemies,” Cleveland agreed, nodding his head. “Enmity that spans centuries. People groups who have been adversaries for more than a thousand years. It’s not a conflict of nations, but of cultures—a conflict that includes, but goes beyond, religions and moral codes. It’s the ongoing conflict of three ancient empires.
“One of the core beliefs of Islam,” Cleveland continued, “is that when an Islamic nation rules any portion of the earth, it rules that portion forever. One way, a simplistic way, to look at current history is to see a conflict between Judaism and Islam … between the existing state of Israel and the Islamic nations that surround Israel. But the core conflict of the Middle East is much more subtle, as you noted.
“The Middle East as we know it today has been ruled by one empire after another for nearly four thousand years,” said Cleveland. “More than twelve hundred years before Christ walked this earth, much of the area from Eastern Europe to northern India and most of the Mediterranean basin was—for six centuries—under the dominion of the Assyrian Empire. Over time, Assyria was supplanted by the Persian or Achaemenid Empire that rose out of the central plains of Iran. Islam didn’t become ascendant until after the death of Muhammad in 632, and there were several Islamic empires, or caliphates—the Umayyad, Abbasid, and Fatimid—from the mid-seventh century until the Turks emerged at the end of the twelfth century. The Ottoman Empire ruled over the Middle East until the empire fell apart at the end of World War I.
“From a historical perspective, it is a very recent phenomenon for the Middle East to be an assortment of sovereign nations. And it’s important for us, today, to remember that the Islamic faith did not exist when the Assyrian and Persian Empires were in power. Although Syria and Iran are Muslim nations now, ethnically and culturally they are not Arabs and were not Muslim States during the height of their empires. Ethnically and culturally, they are Assyrians, Persians, and Turks, and all have ruled over Palestine. They also ruled over large regions of the Persian Gulf, of what is now Saudi Arabia. Ignore for a moment, if you can, the huge schism between the Shia and Sunni Muslims. You can look at the Middle East and, except for Israel, believe it’s a massive Islamic region. Which it is. But it is also a massive region where distinct cultures have been at war with each other since nearly the dawn of time.
“And to give you some sense of the scope we’re talking about, the Achaemenid Persian Empire, in the fifth century before Christ, occupied over two million square miles of the earth’s surface and contained the largest percentage of the world’s population of any empire in history.”
The lead driver in a three-vehicle convoy glanced quickly at his speedometer as slower cars flashed past on his right—180 kilometers an hour. The other two black Cadillac Escalades were in tight formation, right on his bumper. At this rate, they should rapidly close the distance on the ambassador’s vehicles.
Cleveland stopped to take a breath. He wondered if he had confused or bored Mullaney with his mini-lecture. But what he hadn’t shared with Mullaney was more alarming, more disturbing to his spirit than the rise and fall of empires. As a committed Christian and student of the Bible, the main question on Cleveland’s mind was where did all these impending moves fit in biblical prophecy?
Personally and as a representative of his country’s government, Cleveland’s assessment was that a two-state solution … a safe and secure Israel alongside an independent Palestine … was apparently the best chance for peace in the Middle East. Except a two-state solution defied biblical prophecy. In the third chapter of the book of Joel, the prophet warned that all nations who tried to partition God’s land—the boundaries laid out by God for the promised land, much of which was now occupied by the nation of Israel—would be judged.
On one hand, the division of Israel appeared to violate biblical prophecy. On the other hand, a peace agreement between the Jewish people and the Arab nations would end nearly four thousand years of hatred and conflict. What would an agreement like this mean in relation to the prophetic clock that started ticking in 1948? Cleveland, who had spent so many years of his life studying and believing the Bible, didn’t know. And that scared him the most.
“So there are three people groups,” said Mullaney, snapping Cleveland out of his thoughts, “Persians, Islamic Arabs, and Turks, who all claim ownership of the same land, who hate each other as conquerors, and live in fear that one of the others will rise again in power. Which is happening as we speak. Iran and Iraq are suddenly cozy, Turkey is part of NATO, and the Arabs are feeling vulnerable. Which is why everybody wants nukes. Sounds like the kind of looming collision that could profoundly impact the course of history for the entire world and change the nation of Israel forever.”
“Precisely,” said Cleveland, “and much more simply stated, thank you.”
“Yeah, thanks, Brian,” chipped in Hernandez from the front seat. “Atti … uh … the ambassador nearly put me to sleep with his History 101. But what does that history have to do with the box?” Hernandez asked.
“I don’t know, Tommy,” said Cleveland. “Perhaps it’s only coincidence. But I doubt it. There are not only natural forces at work in the Middle East, but supernatural as well. As a Christian, I’m acutely aware of how important and pertinent biblical prophecy may soon become.
“One of the things Rabbi Kaplan told me in Istanbul before he transferred the box into my care was a belief that had also been passed from father to son for more than two hundred years. The protectors of the box do not know what the prophecy contains. But they do believe—and these were his words—that it will reveal the name of the man of viol
ence, God’s adversary in the last days. Now I don’t see that name, that label—man of violence—in my Bible. But I do see a title for the man of lawlessness. I don’t know if they are the same person, but I am filled with dread that they may be.”
“Man of lawlessness … sounds like a WWF wrestler in a steel Cage of Death match,” said Hernandez. “I’d put my money on that dude.”
Cleveland took a deep breath. If only he knew. He reached out and put his hand on the back of Hernandez’s shoulder. “I hope you never have to find out,” he said. “But if there is a second prophecy in that box … I don’t know. The first one was pretty specific. Is the Jewish Messiah’s coming imminent—which would in effect be the second coming of Christ? Could it be that we are actually in some sort of “last days” scenario here?”
“Last days?” said Hernandez. “I sure hope not. I got a date with Betty …”
Cleveland’s personal mobile phone rattled to life with a message alert. “Excuse me.”
He didn’t recognize the number on the incoming message, but very few people had access to his phone. It was a text message: “Mr. Ambassador, I am Mordechai Friedman, the assistant rabbi at the Neve Shalom Synagogue in Istanbul. It is urgently critical that I speak to you immediately. For your safety, please call me at this number without any delay.”
Holding fast to the steering wheel, the driver in the lead vehicle thumbed the button for hands-free use of his mobile phone and connected to the driver of the second Escalade. But a gray sedan in the right lane flicked on its blinker to change lanes. He punched and held down the horn, screaming past the startled driver like a freight train through a grade crossing. Faster … he needed to go faster.
17
Highway One, Israel
July 19, 6:20 p.m.
Cleveland read the text message a second time as he tried to keep conjecture from rampaging over his emotions. “This can’t be good,” Cleveland said, as he showed the message to Mullaney and then quickly punched in the number.
Ishmael Covenant Page 20