The same was true about Jeremiah’s prophecies. The forty-ninth chapter through the fifty-first chapter of Jeremiah all described events the Hebrew prophet indicated would occur in the “last days,” from the judgment of the leaders of Damascus and Iran to the judgment of Babylon in the final days of history before the return of Jesus Christ.
Birjandi was well aware that not every prophecy scholar agreed about such things. Indeed, while his wife was still alive, Birjandi and Souri had read more commentaries about such prophecies than he could count and had found disagreements among many of the scholars. But Birjandi knew there was no mistaking the message the Lord had spoken to him; Isaiah and Jeremiah had both written about the same future event . . . and that future was now.
HIGHWAY 5, EASTERN IRAQ
David and his team had cleared through the border crossing more smoothly than expected and were racing across Iraq. Having taken Highway 5 to Muqdadiyah, referred to in classical literature as Sharaban, they had stopped briefly for fuel, topped off their tank, and were now on the road to Baghdad, the war-torn capital of Iraq. All the men were glued to the live press conference from Kabul being broadcast on local Iraqi radio, and they were sickened by what they heard. When it was over, they switched to BBC and heard the news out of Tehran of the five schoolgirls allegedly killed by an Israeli missile, though the BBC didn’t use the word allegedly. Indeed, they reported it like an intentional attack and a war crime at that.
“Should we even keep going?” Crenshaw asked from the backseat. “I mean, if the Mahdi now has 350 or whatever nuclear missiles, what does it matter if he has two more? He’s about to turn Israel into a mushroom cloud. What could we possibly do to stop him?”
The questions hung in the air for a few moments. No one wanted to touch them, not even David. They were logical questions, and the truth was, he didn’t have an answer, just a lot more questions of his own.
“How do we know the Paks have really handed control over to the Mahdi?” David finally asked his team.
“What are you talking about, sir?” Fox asked. “Farooq just told the world he gave the Twelfth Imam all his nukes.”
“But he’s been agonizing about doing so for days, hasn’t he?” David noted.
“Perhaps the Mahdi made Iskander an offer he couldn’t refuse,” Torres said.
“Maybe, but we know Farooq is a Sunni, while the Mahdi is a Shiite. Farooq is not Arab; the Mahdi is. The Pakistanis have always had a proud tradition of separation from the Arab world and of asserting themselves as leaders within the Islamic world. Why would they fold now to the Mahdi—whom they don’t even really believe in?”
“What are you trying to say, sir?” Crenshaw asked. “You think Farooq is playing chicken with the Mahdi on worldwide TV and radio? You think he’s lying to the Mahdi about giving him control of the nukes? How does that end well for him?”
“Maybe it buys him time,” David said. “I don’t know. I just know something seemed fishy about that press conference.”
“Like what?” Torres asked.
“Where was the press? Where were the questions?”
“That’s not unusual, sir,” Fox said. “Jackson gives brief statements to the press all the time without taking questions.”
“True, but why didn’t the Mahdi at least take a question about the death of the schoolchildren in Tehran? Wasn’t that an obvious opportunity for the Mahdi to score major propaganda points? Something doesn’t add up.”
No one said a word, and for the next hundred kilometers or so, they drove in silence, weighing their options and wondering if their mission really had become futile. David feverishly tried to come up with any scenarios in which his team, assuming they got into Syria, could actually penetrate the secure outer perimeter of the Al-Mazzah base and fight their way in to the warheads. But he couldn’t come up with one plan that gave them a realistic shot of even getting to the warheads before they were cut down, much less neutralizing either or both of the weapons in a way in which they couldn’t be repaired after David and his team were either captured or killed.
David was willing to die for his country. He was willing to die for this mission. But he needed a ray of optimism. He needed a strategy, a plausible one that gave them even a sliver of hope of accomplishing their objective. He didn’t believe in suicide. But that’s what this mission increasingly totaled up to. He had no confidence that President Jackson would authorize an attack on the Al-Mazzah base, which was the only certain way to destroy both the warheads and the Mahdi, once he arrived there. As for the president quietly informing the Israelis of the intelligence they had gathered and letting them get the job done, David privately put the chances of that as no better than one in ten thousand. It was unconscionable, to be sure. The Mahdi with nuclear warheads and ballistic missiles posed a clear and present danger to the national security of the United States and her allies, especially Israel. The Mahdi was the head of a genocidal, apocalyptic death cult. He had to be stopped before his actions caused the deaths of millions. Yet it was increasingly clear to David that this president was neither willing nor perhaps able to do what was necessary.
But he had pretty much known this from the start. What bothered him most was that it seemed he and his team were willing but apparently unable to do what was necessary. And when that painful thought flashed across his mind, David began to steel himself for the growing likelihood that he would never get home alive. He was driving himself and his team into a lethal dead end. He was doing so because Zalinsky had ordered him to, and he had willingly agreed. They all had. But it was time to face the cold and sober truth: this was a death trap, and there was no way out.
David wished he knew enough Scripture to calm his troubled heart at that moment. But as the road leading toward Damascus continued to speed by under the vehicle, only the words of Alfred, Lord Tennyson came to mind.
Half a league, half a league,
Half a league onward,
All in the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.
“Forward, the Light Brigade!
Charge for the guns!” he said:
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.
“Forward, the Light Brigade!”
Was there a man dismay’d?
Not tho’ the soldier knew
Someone had blunder’d.
Theirs not to make reply,
Theirs not to reason why,
Theirs but to do and die:
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.
JERUSALEM, ISRAEL
Asher Naphtali had barely slept in the past four days. His staff was worried for him and begged him to go to bed and let them manage the war. Even the defense minister and the Mossad director urged him to get some desperately needed shut-eye. But Naphtali said a twenty-minute catnap here and there would suffice. He had a war to win and a nation to save, and he was not going to be caught sleeping on the job.
It was foolish and arrogant, his wife told him. He wasn’t an eighteen-year-old. He was no longer the commander of “The Unit,” the nation’s most elite special operations force. “The people of Israel need you rested and healthy so you can make wise decisions when the time comes,” she insisted. But she was having precious little effect.
Now came the most ominous news of all—the Mahdi in full control of 345 nuclear missiles, and just at a time when Israel’s stockpile of Arrows and Patriots to shoot such missiles down was running dangerously low.
Naphtali asked an aide for another cup of café afouk, essentially an Israeli version of cappuccino, and then called Levi Shimon at the IDF war room in Tel Aviv.
“Levi, tell me we’ve heard from Mordecai,” the prime minister began, referring to the code name of their mole inside the Iranian nuclear command.
“I’m afraid not, sir.”
“What about Zvi’s operation to take down Omid Jazini? That was supposed to happen hours ago. What happened?”
“The la
st I heard, Zvi’s men hadn’t checked in,” Shimon said. “He fears something went wrong, but it’s possible everything’s fine and they just need to keep radio silence for longer than expected.”
Naphtali paced in his private office. He was still in great pain from the wounds he’d sustained during the Iranian terrorist attack at the Waldorf-Astoria just eight days earlier. Indeed, it was a miracle he was alive. But at the moment he wondered if it would have been better if he hadn’t survived the attack after all. Then all of this would be someone else’s responsibility, not his own.
“Do you have any good news for me at all, Levi?”
“I wish I did,” Shimon replied. “And actually I regret to inform you that I just learned two more of our fighter jets have been shot down over Iran.”
Naphtali clenched his fists. He couldn’t bear to hear any more heartbreak, but he asked the question anyway. “And the pilots?”
“Both KIA, Mr. Prime Minister.”
“You’re certain?” Naphtali pressed. “Those are both confirmed?”
“I’m afraid so, sir.”
“What were their names?”
“They were brothers, sir. The first was Captain Avi Yaron. He was a squadron leader and highly decorated. His twin brother, Yossi, was a captain as well. Both first-rate pilots. Avi was shot down over Tabriz. We believe he died instantly. There was no indication of an ejection. Yossi’s jet was hit by triple-A fire over Bushehr. He did eject but was captured and executed immediately.”
“Has the family been notified yet?” the PM asked.
“Not yet, sir. I’m just getting the news now.”
“Get me their parents’ phone number,” said Naphtali. “I will make the call myself.”
“Yes, sir. Right away, sir.”
“And get me some good news, Levi,” the PM added. “Quickly.”
40
DAMASCUS, SYRIA
General Jazini pulled Esfahani aside. “Have you heard from my son, Omid?”
“No, sir,” Esfahani said. “Why do you ask?”
“I’ve called him twice,” Jazini said. “He’s not answering his mobile phone. Track him down. I must speak to him at once.”
Esfahani agreed and immediately called Commander Asgari, head of the secret police in Tehran, to send agents to Omid’s apartment and make sure everything was all right.
HIGHWAY 11, WESTERN IRAQ
Not long after skirting Baghdad, they passed through Fallujah and Ramadi and then turned northwest on Highway 12, paralleling the Euphrates River, toward the Syrian border.
As the hours passed during the trek across the desert, David’s thoughts turned again and again to two people—his father and Marseille Harper. It was dawning on him now that it was increasingly certain he would never see either of them again—not in this world, at least—and he began seriously considering taking the risk of calling them before he reached Damascus. He desperately wanted to hear their voices one more time. He wanted to tell each of them that he loved them dearly, that he would give anything to be with them and embrace them. He would not hint to either of them the futility of his mission. He didn’t want his last acts to violate his oath to the CIA and the American people. Nor did he want to give them reason to fear. He would need to sound strong. Indeed, he needed to be strong—for them and for himself.
He was most concerned about his father. The man had just lost his first love, his wife of four decades, and must be struggling emotionally and physically. What’s more, David worried about his father’s spiritual future. He didn’t know Christ as his Savior. Though his father was no longer a practicing Muslim, David wasn’t aware that he had ever heard the gospel before. Certainly, even if his father had heard some Christian teaching or had read some of the Bible, the man had never seriously considered whether Jesus was Savior and Lord. Now that David had made his own decision and was certain that Christ had forgiven him and saved him and that he was going to spend eternity in heaven, he was praying again and again for his father.
There was nothing David could do about his mother now. She was gone, and he couldn’t imagine a scenario in which she had received Christ before slipping into eternity. That fact was a bitter pain he would take to his grave. But he himself hadn’t known Christ personally when he had seen his mother last. He hadn’t known the peril she was in, and in the end he had to leave her fate to a sovereign and loving God. He couldn’t take the burden of her eternal destiny upon himself.
But his father was another matter entirely. Now David knew Jesus Christ was the Truth, and the Truth had set him free. He desperately wanted his father to know Christ as well and to receive Christ as his Messiah and King. David knew he had a solemn obligation to do everything he could to share the Good News of Christ’s love with his father, though at the moment he couldn’t see a way to make that happen.
And then there was Marseille. Just the thought of her made him choke up, and he realized in those moments how deeply and utterly he was in love with her. He had loved her as a boy, as a teenager, and now as a man. He would do anything to get back to her and profess his love to her. Honestly, he had no idea whether she shared that love for him. She certainly cared for him, but there were very few clues as to just how much he meant to her. But he wanted so much to tell her what she meant to him. He wanted to tell her how much he missed her. The simple fact was, he wanted to propose to her. He wasn’t sure if he could bear her rejection if he was wildly misreading her heart. But all he wanted now was to look into her eyes, take her by the hands, bend down on one knee, and ask her to spend her life with him. Maybe she would say yes. Maybe not. But he had to ask. He had to know. He had to try.
It was a pipe dream at this point, and he knew it. But somehow the very prospect of seeing her again and asking her to marry him—however slim, however unlikely, however ridiculous—gave him some inexplicable measure of hope to keep going, keep looking for a way to accomplish his mission and get back home against all odds.
TEHRAN, IRAN
From the IRGC’s war room ten stories underneath the largest airport in Iran’s capital city, President Ahmed Darazi was coordinating all aspects of the ongoing military and media war against the Zionists. He was working the phones with presidents and prime ministers around the world, urging them to issue strong statements condemning Israel for “murdering our five beloved daughters of Islam.” He also urged them to back a United Nations Security Council resolution the Chinese had drafted and were circulating that would censure Israel and call for draconian economic sanctions to be imposed upon the Jewish State until they ended the war and agreed to pay reparations not only to the families of the five schoolgirls but to all the people of Iran who had suffered as a result of Israel’s preemptive strike.
It was all theater, Darazi and his inner circle knew. By day’s end, if everything went according to plan, the vast majority of Jews in Israel would be incinerated in a nuclear holocaust. But the U.N. resolution was the Mahdi’s idea to keep the Israelis off balance and build international sympathy for the Islamic cause.
At precisely 9:30 a.m. local time in Tehran, Darazi finished a half-hour conference call with all of Iran’s ambassadors around the world, instructing them to keep up the pressure against the Jews by holding press conferences in every capital showing video of the burned bodies of the five Iranian schoolgirls and calling for boycotts against Israeli goods and services. Then he was given a briefing by Commander Ibrahim Asgari of VEVAK on the status of the Mahdi and Ayatollah Hosseini. With General Mohsen Jazini now operating out of Damascus as the Mahdi’s chief of staff, Darazi had brought the VEVAK commander into the inner circle to help coordinate intelligence and security matters and serve as a direct liaison to Jazini and his men.
“The Ayatollah is almost there,” Asgari began. “We expect him to arrive in the next ten to fifteen minutes.”
“He’s almost at Al-Mazzah?” Darazi clarified, sifting through a binder of the latest classified cable traffic of reports from various IRGC intelligence office
rs around the world.
“That’s affirmative, sir.”
“Does anyone there know he’s coming?”
“Only General Jazini, sir.”
“Excellent,” Darazi said. “And the Mahdi? What is his status?”
“We just heard from Mr. Rashidi, sir. He says they seem to be on track for a noon arrival.”
“Very good. And the preparations at the Imam Khomeini Mosque? How are they coming along? We haven’t much time.”
“Actually, I just spoke to the watch commander on site,” Asgari said. “The new war room there is now fully operational. We’ve been shifting personnel over there for the past hour, and they are ready for you as soon as you’re ready to depart.”
“You have a helicopter waiting?”
“It just landed upstairs.”
“Then what are we waiting for, Commander? Let’s move.”
HIGHWAY 12, WESTERN IRAQ
David said a silent prayer for his father and for Marseille, then forced himself to stop thinking about them and return to the pressing matters at hand. He and his team began discussing how best to penetrate the Al-Mazzah air base, but it was soon clear they were getting nowhere.
Yet as David and his men kept considering various scenarios—all of which were built on the premise that the president of the United States was not going to authorize any additional help for them to accomplish their mission—David found himself thinking in an entirely new direction, though he said nothing as he continued to drive. Was there a way to make contact with the Israeli government? Was there a way to tell them that the two warheads were at Al-Mazzah and that the Mahdi would be there soon? At this late hour, the only way he could envision stopping the Mahdi from unleashing a second Holocaust was if the Israelis attacked the Syrian air base. If the Mahdi was dead, would any of his underlings really launch 345 nuclear missiles at Israel? Would the Pakistanis let them? It was a gamble, to be sure, but was there a better scenario? David couldn’t think of any.
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