Ishmael Covenant

by Terry Brennan

  The leader dropped the cell phone to the stone street and ground it under his boot. They turned north toward the Muslim Quarter and the Damascus Gate, dropping broken pieces of cell phone into random trash bins along the way.

  Hurva Synagogue, Jerusalem

  July 20, 1:11 p.m.

  For a flash of consciousness, time seemed to disengage from place … physics fled from reality. The earth moved. In that split second, Herzog’s heart and mind jumped to the same implausible destination … Messiah? In the other half of the split second, a thunderous, rending explosion snapped him back to reality. As the walls of the Hurva split before his eyes, as another shattering explosion heaved the beautiful synagogue like a leaf in a hurricane, Herzog received his answer. He would not live to see the arriv—

  Tons of stone and massive slabs of concrete hurtled into the basement, crashing through the council’s office. Rabbi Herzog was cleaved in two by one massive shard of concrete, his colleagues buried beneath piles of stone. But two slabs formed an arch above a wooden table. Only concrete dust lightly coated the bloody lambskin draped over it.

  Hurva Synagogue, Jerusalem

  July 20, 1:11 p.m.

  The first blast wrenched the car door out of his hands. Chaim stumbled backward and landed on his back, splayed like an offering on the shifting surface of the parking lot. He did not register the pain in his back nor the embarrassment of his position. All that registered was the echoing of one explosion after another and the mushrooming cloud of destruction from where the twice-rebuilt Hurva once stood.

  Instinctively, his right hand went to his left breast. He felt the sharp edges of the envelope tucked into the inside pocket of his black suit jacket. But then Chaim was on his feet, running to the carnage, praying as he ran. Delivery of the envelope, and what it contained, would have to wait.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Jesus Christ is the greatest storyteller of all time. His words have lasted longer, sold more books, and been more influential than William Shakespeare, Charles Dickens, or any writer over the last two thousand years. It may sound trite, but first I need to acknowledge the great storyteller for sharing this story with me, and the Holy Spirit for revealing characters and plotlines over the course of writing this series. As my editors can attest, I’m a gardener. I get an idea, plant it, water it, let the sun shine on it, and then see what grows, see where it goes. All my novels have been birthed, sustained, and completed only because God’s hand was on the writing and the writer. Psalm 116:12: “How can I repay ADONAI for all his generous dealings with me?” (CJB).

  The idea I had for the Empires of Armageddon series wasn’t much bigger than a seedling when Pastor Nick Uva of Harvest Time Church in Greenwich, Connecticut, introduced me to the Vilna Gaon and challenged me to understand the ramifications of several end-times prophecies and how they might be pertinent to our present day. This book, and series, would be much shallower if it weren’t for Pastor Nick’s knowledge, wisdom, and support.

  Some of the ideas about angels and their assignments came from listening to online sermons of Pastor Bill Johnson of Bethel Church in Redding, California.

  It takes me a long time to write a book. So, I’m grateful to my agent, Steve Laube, who left me alone while I labored for nearly three years to write this series.

  I had never intentionally written a three-book series before, so I’m grateful to all the team at Kregel Publications in Grand Rapids who extended to me an extra measure of patience and grace as they wondered, “When will the books be done?” In particular, managing editor Steve Barclift and my primary editor—Janyre Tromp—persevered through months of editing as we labored to make each of the individual books a complete story on its own merits. And much gratitude to Noelle Pedersen and Katherine Chappell of the marketing department for all your support. Thank you.

  But no living human being was more vital to the coherence and conclusion of this task than my wife of forty years, Andrea. Andrea was there at the beginning, when all was excitement, and for every day thereafter during the years it took to complete this project—both the days when it flowed, and the days when I was lost and despondent. Thank you, my sweetheart, for blessing me with the time to exercise this gift.

  I must extend special thanks to our daughter, Meghan, who willingly offered her time and her inventive mind for brainstorming every time I yelled “Help!” And thanks to my sister, Pat, who has been a faithful first reader.

  And a special acknowledgment to Tina Heugh. Tina won a drawing—to use your name as a character in my next book—when I spoke at the Friends of the Bonita Springs Library luncheon in Florida. Tina asked me to use her mother’s name, Ruth Hughes. The character of Ruth Hughes in the series is a strong woman of integrity, with a stellar business résumé. I was blessed when Tina later sent me this information about her mother that I did not know while I was writing: “My mom was a librarian for fifty-seven years, the last twenty as the first paid librarian at the Bonita Springs Public Library, where she ordered over eighty thousand books. Before that, she was head librarian for the University of Michigan Detroit branch. During World War II, she worked for Chrysler Engineering and is on the World War II commemorative wall in Washington, DC. She was civically active in Detroit as well. She became the president of the League of Women Voters after serving as membership chairperson. She also served on the boards of numerous committees. She was honored as one of Detroit’s top ten working women. She is in Who’s Who of Women of the Midwest and Who’s Who of American Women. She was nominated to be president of the American Civil Liberties Union of the five counties of the Detroit area but had to decline because my parents were retiring to Florida.” Thank you, Tina!

  AUTHOR’S NOTES

  I hope you enjoyed reading Ishmael Covenant as much as I did writing it. One of the joys I’ve found in writing my books, as you will see in the following notes, is injecting a lot of reality into the fiction plot—real people, real places, real events.

  As a reward for getting this far, I want to offer you two free opportunities available only to readers of the Empires of Armageddon series:

  An exclusive, in-depth look at the funky Gramofon Café, a real treasure that sits in the old city of Ankara, Turkey, in the shadow of Ankara Castle … including traditional recipes for the Turkish delights, manti and gozleme, mentioned in the book. Plus, some photos of the café itself.

  A monthly email post that will expand upon, with greater detail, one of the topics in these author’s notes.

  If you’re hungry to know more—or just hungry—send me an email at terrbrennan@gmail.com and I’ll respond right away with these two special offers, including the recipes.

  Thanks,

  Terry

  While Ishmael Covenant is a work of fiction, some plot elements are based on fact.

  The story of the Vilna Gaon—Rabbi Elijah ben Shlomo Zalman (1720–1797)—is accurate in all its historical elements. He was the foremost Talmudic scholar of his age and a renowned genius on both sacred and secular learning. The story of the Gaon’s prophecy about Russia and Crimea, revealed by his great-great-grandson in 2014, is true and led many to believe that the coming of the Jewish Messiah was near at hand. The Gaon did attempt three trips to Jerusalem from his native Lithuania, and the last one, only a few years before his death, ended prematurely in Konigsberg, Prussia. The story of the Gaon’s second prophecy is a result of the author’s imagination.

  The Diplomatic Security Service is the federal law enforcement and security division of the US State Department. DSS agents are unique in that they are members of the US foreign service, charged with protecting diplomats and embassy personnel who are overseas, but they are also armed law enforcement officers who have the authority to investigate crime and arrest individuals both on domestic soil and in collaboration with international law enforcement overseas. With nearly twenty-five hundred agents here and abroad, DSS is the most widely represented law enforcement agency in the world. DSS also provides security for foreign
dignitaries in the United States, for the annual United Nations General Assembly in New York City, and during the Olympics. Descriptions of the State Department’s operations center in the Truman Building are accurate to the best of the author’s resources.

  Descriptions of the US embassy and the US ambassador’s residence in Tel Aviv are accurate to 2014, before the US embassy was officially moved to Jerusalem in 2018. The US ambassador to Israel did host an enormous annual Fourth of July party, where over two thousand guests sprawled over the grounds of the residence and feasted on iconic American delights from McDonald’s, Ben & Jerry’s, and Domino’s.

  Over the course of nearly 2,500 years, the fertile crescent of the Middle East—from modern Turkey into the Tigris and Euphrates valleys in Iraq, down the Jordan valley of Palestine, and across the top of Egypt and the Nile delta—was but a portion of three vast, evolving, and at times competing empires: the Persian, the Muslim Arab, and the Ottoman empires. One of the fundamental beliefs of Islam is, in fact, that once an Islamic group or nation rules any portion of the earth, it rules that portion forever. Even though the Persians gradually converted to the Islamic faith only in the mid-seventh century, following the Muslim Arab invasion of Persia, if those empires were resurrected today, each would claim the same slice of the earth.

  The descriptions of the last-days theology of the world’s three great monotheistic religions—Judaism, Christianity, and Islam—are accurate. All three religions trace their roots back to Abraham and claim to be part (though different parts) of the Abrahamic covenant that God established with humanity. And each religion waits for a climactic time in history, birthed in peace, when the long-awaited One (either the Messiah, Jesus’s second coming, or the Mahdi) will be revealed. While the Jewish Messiah will usher in an eternal time of peace for a world united into one confederation, both Christian and Islamic end times anticipate an ultimate and definitive armed conflict, followed by a final judgment of the good and the evil.

  In 1979, when the shah of Iran was deposed by a theocratic revolution and fifty-two Americans were taken hostage and held in Tehran for 444 days, Iranian financial assets were frozen in banks around the world. Estimates vary, but in the neighborhood of twenty to thirty billion dollars was locked up in banks worldwide … including approximately two billion dollars in US banks. The two countries are still fighting over the money. In late 2018, the United States asked judges at the International Court of Justice to throw out an Iranian claim for nearly two billion in Iranian national bank assets that were frozen by US courts.

  The question of accrued interest on those frozen funds, and how much interest is owed to Iran, continues to be a bone of contention. When four hundred million dollars was returned to Iran by the Obama Administration in January 2016—money the Iranians paid prior to 1979 for US military aircraft that were never delivered—the United States also sent Iran a payment of 1.3 billion dollars in accrued interest. The money to pay that accrued interest came from the US Department of the Treasury’s Judgment Fund, which pays judgments, or compromise settlements of lawsuits, against the government. In 2016, two US senators wrote in Time magazine:

  The Judgment Fund is a little-known account used to pay certain court judgments and settlements against the federal government. Each year, billions of dollars are disbursed from it, yet the fund does not fall under the annual appropriations process. Because of this, the Treasury Department has no binding reporting requirements, and these funds are paid out with scant scrutiny. The executive branch decides what, if any, information is made available to the public.

  Essentially, the Judgment Fund is an unlimited supply of money provided to the federal government to cover its own liability.

  The history of the Hurva Synagogue in Jerusalem is accurate as related in this series. Construction of the main Ashkenazi synagogue, now known as the Hurva, commenced in 1701. The Jewish builders fell into debt to Muslim moneylenders and, in the midst of a dispute over repayment, Muslims burned down the building in 1721. After two smaller synagogues were erected on the edges of the original ruins, disciples of the Vilna Gaon were granted permission for construction of the second Hurva, which began in 1855. That building was destroyed in retaliation in 1948, blown up by the defeated Jordanian Arab Legion after withdrawal of Israeli forces from Jerusalem following the 1948 war for independence. Israel regained control of Jerusalem from Jordan following the 1967 war, but decades of internal disputes and indecision delayed reconstruction of the Hurva. The third construction of the building was begun in 2000, and the nineteenth-century-style building was dedicated on March 15, 2010. The Vilna Gaon prophesied that when the Hurva synagogue was completed for the third time, construction of the third temple would begin. Construction of the third temple of God has not yet begun, but many believe completion of the third temple will be an imminent harbinger of the last days.

  The threat of “water wars” in the Middle East is accurate and continues to this day.

  In 2014, according to the Turkish Department of Environmental Engineering, Turkey was using only thirty-six percent of its immense freshwater resources that flow from countless lakes and rivers in its central mountains. The two most important snow-fed rivers of the Middle East, the Tigris and Euphrates, originate in the mountains of central Turkey and are critical sources of hydroelectric power generation, irrigation, and domestic use, not only in Turkey but also in Syria and Iraq. Yet in 2014 Turkey severely restricted the flow of the Euphrates through its largest dams, the Ataturk and Keban, strangling the once-mighty river. Turkey is also home to 120 natural lakes with additional water stored behind 550 dams. In 2014, it began its largest dam project ever, the Ilisu Dam on the Tigris.

  International hydrologists claim that since 1975 Turkey’s dam and hydropower constructions on the two rivers have cut water flow to Iraq by eighty percent and to Syria by forty percent. Both Syria and Iraq have accused Turkey of hoarding water and threatening their water supply.

  At the same time, in 2014, the invaders of ISIS overran five major dams, one in Syria (Tishrin) and four in Iraq (Mosul, Haditha, Nuaimiyah, and Samarra), further threatening water stability in Syria and Iraq.

  Meanwhile, Turkey had already begun water pipeline projects to export some of its surplus fresh water to Cyprus and the Middle East. Israel was originally included in the pipeline project for the Middle East but was removed after objections from the Arab states.

  In the summer of 2014, the Islamic terrorist army called ISIS controlled more than 34,000 square miles in Syria and Iraq, from the Mediterranean coast to south of Baghdad. The major Iraqi cities of Mosul, Fallujah, and Tikrit were overrun, including key oil refineries and military bases. The Iraqi army was in retreat and disarray. The world expected another offensive thrust from ISIS that could imperil the capital of Baghdad itself. And in late July of 2014, ISIS executioners began beheading captives and broadcasting the ghastly videos. It appeared the entire Middle East was at risk of being ravaged by ISIS.

  Opened in 1955, the Incirlik Airbase, located seven miles east of Adana, Turkey, includes NATO’s largest nuclear weapons storage facility.

  With a ten-thousand-foot runway and fifty-seven hardened aircraft shelters, Incirlik is the most strategically important base in NATO’s Southern Region. At one time, the base had over five thousand NATO personnel stationed on its three thousand acres, in addition to two thousand family members. Adana, with a population of over one million, is the fourth largest city in Turkey.

  NATO has operated a nuclear sharing program since the mid-1950s. Since 2009, NATO has stationed US nuclear weapons in Germany, the Netherlands, Italy, Belgium, and Turkey. While the United States and NATO maintain a “neither confirm nor deny” posture toward the numbers of its nuclear distribution, the Hoover Institute reported that the United States currently deploys somewhere between 150 and 240 air-delivered nuclear weapons (B61 gravity bombs). It is estimated that twenty-five percent of those weapons are stationed at the Incirlik Airbase in eastern Turkey, with most
sources placing fifty B61 nuclear bombs at Incirlik.

  Other Notes: The mission and makeup of the US military’s Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) is factually portrayed. It is a quick-strike, highly trained force composed of the best of Delta Force, SEAL Team Six, Army Rangers, and the Air Force’s Special Tactics Squadron.

  High-ranking US intelligence officials believe Saudi Arabia did in fact finance much of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons program, pouring millions of dollars into its development. The intelligence community also believes there exists an agreement for Pakistan to provide nuclear weapons to Saudi Arabia when called for.

  The Kurdish people, native to the mountainous regions of eastern Turkey, northern Syria, and northwest Iraq, are the largest people group in the world without their own nation.

  The Neve Shalom Synagogue in Istanbul is one of the oldest synagogues in Turkey and caters to a significant Jewish population that was first invited to the city by the Ottoman Sultan Bayezid II following the Jews’ expulsion from Spain by the Spanish Inquisition.

  PROLOGUE

  Alush Gorge, Arabia

  1446 BC

  The sharp aroma of charcoal—a thousand fires extinguished in the dawn’s first light—mingled with the desert dew and hung in the early morning air. Standing at the forefront of the vast army of Israel, Joshua looked over his right shoulder, across the valley of Rephidim. In the east, he could see the outlined bodies of Moses, Aaron, and Hur—the captain of Moses’s personal guard—standing on top of a hill, the highest in the region. The sun was rising behind them, and the staff of God, raised high in Moses’s hand, appeared to be shimmering, sparks leaping from it, crackling like bolts of lightning.