by John Lyman
In the early morning hours, one of the aged and brightly painted Mexican boats passed close to the coast, drawing little attention as it blended in with the lights of the fleet. There was, however, a noticeable difference between this crew and the others. For some reason, they seemed more interested in the comings and goings at the entrance to the Houston ship channel inside Galveston Bay than they did in catching shrimp.
Time and fuel meant less profit in this struggling industry, but instead of passing over the shallow Gulf bottom, scooping up shrimp, the boat’s long black nets remained dry and coiled up on the deck. Maybe the crew was wary of past run-ins with Texas shrimpers, or maybe they were just looking for a place where they could dock and buy supplies. Whatever the reason, it was apparent they had made a decision as they turned north and headed straight up the ship channel.
Although it was almost one o’clock in the morning, the nautical traffic in this port was still busy as the small boat continued unchallenged past the entrance. It glided by grain silos full of wheat and rice and gigantic oil refineries that hissed and growled with towers of flame and escaping misty vapors that were revealed by thousands of lights that turned night into day.
Highlighted by a single halogen lamp on the deck of the shrimp boat, the tall, bearded captain appeared Hispanic, as did the crew. They were foreigners in a strange land, and as they glided along in the dark humid air over the murky water, they gathered together and looked out upon the huge glowing city. Then they did something strange. They placed small woven mats on the rear deck before dropping to their knees and bowing down to the east, toward the holy city of Mecca.
The boat motored beneath the stern of a gigantic oil tanker docked next to a vast refinery, drawing the attention of an alert crewmember leaning over the ship’s railing. Because he was a Muslim, the crewmember aboard the large ship immediately noticed the scene on the deck of the shrimp boat below. This was not right. The Mexican flag fluttering over the small boat reminded him of a visit he had once made to the largely Roman Catholic country, but these men were obviously Muslims, like he was, and this was the wrong time of day to be saying their prayers.
His mind began to race and a sickening fear rose in his throat. Radical Islamic terrorists had caused great harm to his religion over the past few years, and he was afraid they were about to make it much worse. He watched as the colorful shrimp boat pushed through the oily water beneath the tanker. The frightened crewman thought for a moment and weighed his options. He had to tell the captain. They must notify the American Coast Guard!
He started to run franticly along the deck toward the bridge, tripping as he strained to keep the Mexican boat in sight. Racing up a flight of metal stairs, he paused and grabbed the railing to glance over the side. He watched as the tall, bearded man on the boat below looked up at him, his face highlighted by the surrounding industrial lights reflecting off the water. The man smiled and raised his hand as if he was waving goodbye before disappearing through the door of the wheelhouse.
The crewmember could now clearly hear the words of the men praying on the deck of the innocent-looking boat. They were speaking in Arabic, and the prayers were the prayers of martyrs asking for Allah’s blessing. He looked on in horror as they passed the bow of his ship and continued up the channel toward Houston. It was the last sight his eyes would ever see.
Inside the shrimp boat, the bearded man attached some wires to a square box-like device the size of a home dishwasher. He looked at a picture of his family and closed his eyes, uttering a final prayer before flicking a switch.
A blinding flash of white light that was seen from hundreds of miles away erupted from the small boat as it vaporized. The giant ship beside it, the refinery, and a large portion of the city close-by were also instantly gone, while at the same time, the signature mushroom-shaped cloud of a one megaton nuclear detonation rose in the confused sky above the bayous and houses and freeways of America’s fourth largest city. The explosion was eighty times more powerful than the bomb that exploded over Hiroshima in 1945. Everything within two miles was leveled except for some of the strongest buildings made from reinforced concrete. Ninety-eight percent of the population within this area was instantly killed.
The blast left a crater two hundred feet deep and one thousand feet in diameter that quickly filled with water from Galveston Bay after the initial shockwave. Nothing recognizable remained within a mile of ground zero. Three miles away from the center of the explosion, virtually everything was destroyed. Single-family residences within that area had been completely blown away; only their foundations remained. Within this area, fifty percent of the population lay dead, with another forty percent actively dying or injured and moaning in agony.
Farther out, about five miles from where the shrimp boat carrying the bomb had been converted into molecules, most buildings were heavily damaged. The windows of tall buildings had been blown out, and first responders would find the contents of the upper floors of these buildings scattered on the streets below, along with the people who had been inside.
Those out in the open within this five mile radius had experienced third-degree burns from the initial fireball, while those inside close to windows had been shredded by the flying glass and bullet-like pieces of debris. It was a scene of unimaginable horror, but this was only the beginning. Within thirty miles of the blast, a lethal dose of radiation had been delivered through the air. Death would occur within hours to most of those within this area.
The wind on this night was blowing north at seventeen miles per hour. The massive amount of dirt and debris that had lifted up into the grayish purple-tinged mushroom cloud now began to follow the wind for hundreds of miles before gradually falling back to earth. This material was also lethally radioactive, and death would soon visit entire families up to ninety miles away within two to fourteen days.
Farther away, about one hundred sixty miles from where the bomb had exploded, people would experience extensive internal damage to their digestive tracts and white blood cells, with the resulting loss of hair and unexplained cancers that would ravage them and their children in the years to come.
It would be ten years before the levels of radioactivity in these areas would again be considered safe, but for now, a large part of the country had been rendered an unlivable graveyard. America’s worst nightmare had just occurred.
Chapter 26
Snorkeling over the reef in the clear water of the Mediterranean coastline, John and Ariella were spearing fish for lunch. They had been in the water for almost an hour when Ariella swam up next to John and pointed to her divers watch. Reluctantly, they headed for the shore until their feet touched sand and they struggled through the surf up onto the beach. Ariella smiled as she held up a string of good-sized snapper. Camp ran up to John and sniffed at his single, small mackerel, before running off to chase an errant crab scurrying across a sugar-white sand dune.
Their morning fishing expedition over, the two headed across the weathered boardwalk toward the villa and joined the others at the poolside bar.
“Nice fish, John,” Daniel said.
“I probably should have thrown it back.” He cast a glance at Ariella. “Now she’s going to force me to eat it.”
“That’s right,” Ariella said. “That’s the rule around here. If you keep it, you eat it.”
“Maybe Camp would like it,” Nava said, winking at Alon.
On cue, Camp’s new crab friend pinched him on the nose. The little dog yelped and raced through the dunes to the safety of his human friends. “I think he’s had enough seafood for today,” John said.
Everyone was talking and teasing John about his miniature fish while an American news channel provided background noise. The newscasters were going on about the discovery of a large oil field in Israel when the red banner of a news bulletin flashed across the screen. With the events of the night before still fresh in their minds, everyone wondered if something else had occurred in the desert and turned their attention to
the flat screen TV over the bar.
One of the television journalists held his hand to his earpiece and turned to his stunned-looking female co-anchor. His face took on a pale, vacant look. He paused for a moment; he seemed to be having trouble collecting himself before he looked directly into the camera and took a deep breath before speaking. “Ladies and gentlemen, we have just received news of an unbelievable nature. If this bulletin can be confirmed, our worst national nightmare has been realized. We’re hearing just now that a nuclear explosion has occurred in an American city, totally vaporizing an area within a mile of the blast and devastating an area for five miles around that. The city is Houston, Texas.”
Everyone by the pool stopped what they were doing and stared at the TV screen in total disbelief. It was one of those moments when, years later, people would recall exactly where they were when they heard the news. The television journalists were silent for a moment, not knowing what to say next or if professional decorum had rules for their emotions at a moment like this.
The female newswoman tried to compose herself before continuing. “We’ve just learned that apparently, sometime around 1:00 AM Central Standard Time, a small fishing boat entered the Houston ship channel from the Gulf of Mexico. Shortly thereafter, those onboard detonated what is believed to be a nuclear bomb in the center of one of the largest petrochemical industrial areas in the world. The scene was captured on tape by security cameras just before the blast. Authorities say it is an obvious attempt to knock out some of the country’s largest refineries and cripple the economy, with the added benefit of taking the lives of as many Americans as possible in the process.”
Daniel slammed his orange juice down on the bar. “It’s 9/11 all over again.”
“No, it’s much worse,” Nava said. “Now the bastards have nuclear weapons.”
Ariella leaned close to John as tears began to flow, mixing with the drying saltwater of the sea on her tanned face. Her mother had been an American, and she had distant relatives who lived in Texas. Returning from their walk through the fields, Leo and Lev joined the others in front of the TV just in time to see the first pictures from Houston spring to life on the screen. Before their eyes was a scene of unbelievable horror.
News of the attack spread throughout the villa prompting Moshe to put the compound on the highest alert. The Israelis had played out this scenario in their hearts and minds many times over the years since the attacks of September 11. They had hypothesized that, if one city was attacked anywhere in the Christian or Jewish world, it could be the beginning of a coordinated series of detonations in other cities around the globe.
Some of the brightest minds in think tanks on both sides of the Atlantic had run the numbers, and the laws of probability and supply and demand won every time. Since the old USSR had collapsed, several nuclear weapons had gone missing, and people with a lot of money could buy anything. The laws of probability, plus the laws of supply and demand, equaled nuclear weapons in the hands of terrorists.
Tel Aviv was less than twenty miles from the villa and was a highly prized target of terrorists. Jerusalem was officially considered off the list for now, since the Dome of the Rock and the El-Aqsa Mosque, two of the most holy sites in Islam, were located on the Haram esh-Sharif in the old section of the city. But times were strange and getting stranger, and even though many believed the holy city was probably safe from attack, the radicals were seized by a fervor resembling mental illness, and therefore, theoretically, everything was on the table.
The staff switched the channel to CNN, where they were already interviewing government officials. Security consultants were blaming the explosion on radical Islamic terrorists, or RITs, the acronym used by many in the intelligence community to identify this newest enemy to world peace.
“No surprise there,” Alon said when he heard the latest bit of news.
The TV networks were pulling out all the stops and using every resource available. Unnamed sources within the CIA and NSA were quoted as saying that they had already gathered enough evidence to begin building a case against those who had attacked America.
Everyone at the villa watched the reaction from around the world as the global community joined in the rising tide of sorrow and fear beginning to circle the world. Leo was struck by the timing. When God brought forth his bounty, such as the oil and water now washing over the desert, Satan seemed to strike back with yet another depraved assault against humanity. Was the painting of a nuclear explosion on the seal they had found outside the ancient chapel a warning after all?
While everyone sat frozen in front of TV screens throughout the villa, Daniel was about to make a discovery that would remove any doubt from their minds.
Chapter 27
Daniel liked to work alone. Possessed with a brilliant mind, he was totally absorbed in his work on the Bible code. He was one of those people who could solve a Rubik’s Cube in less than a minute. When not busy working on codes, he loved cooking French food and collecting fine bottles of wine from vineyards around the world. Despite his service in the higher echelons of the Israeli military, those who knew him well considered him a Renaissance man. No one would have been surprised that he had retreated to his computer in the command center to work on the code in the face of the tragedy in Houston. He needed the time alone to reflect on man’s inhumanity to man, and working on the code allowed him to think.
The glow from the computer screen highlighted his intellectual features. His tussled brown hair and beard, along with his round horn-rimmed glasses, gave him the look of a perpetual student. He scrolled through endless permutations in the code for the hundredth time in an effort to find some clue to the meaning of the chapel under the Vatican. Ever since he had found the first mention of the chapel in the code months earlier, its significance had eluded him.
In 1993, American astronomers Shoemaker and Levy had discovered a comet streaking toward Jupiter, and after measuring its speed and trajectory, they estimated that it would hit the gigantic planet on July 16, 1994. Several years later, after the collision had occurred as predicted on that date, when Daniel had been a mathematics student at the Hebrew University, Professor Lev Wasserman was trying out a new skip sequence in the code when he discovered something that shocked him to his core. Encoded in the book of Isaiah was the mention of a collision of a comet with Jupiter on the exact same date ... July 16, 1994.
The precise date of the comet’s impact with the planet had been encoded in the Bible three thousand years before the actual event had occurred. The day Lev shared this discovery with Daniel was the day Daniel Meir became convinced that the code was proof of a higher power at work.
He was just about to turn off the screen when he noticed some words highlighted in red. Right in front of him was the phrase ... under the Vatican. He stopped and scanned the page up and down, looking for something, anything. There! To the left of the phrase, the words holy chapel jumped out at him.
Perspiration formed across Daniel’s brow and trickled down his temples while he continued to scan the page for other hidden words. He didn’t have to scan for long. Across the bottom of the page was the longest phrase in the code he had seen to date ... God will send his chosen guardians to take the book to the holy chapel. That was it! That was the chapel’s secret. It had been constructed to receive the book. Daniel thought back to the passage that said they will give it to God. The answer to how they would give the book to God was right in front of him.
Then, something else caught his attention ... two more phrases. Satan will bring fire to the world and his forces will come for the book. Running up horizontally from the bottom, he saw another phrase pop up on the screen ... the evil one will strike back. The encoded messages were coming at an exponentially faster rate. He sat transfixed as the computer continued to reveal more hidden phrases ... The book holds Satan’s plan and Tribulation until God takes the book.
Daniel ran his fingers through his beard and stared at the screen. For some reason, God wanted Satan�
�s book taken to the chapel ... and He was using His chosen ones to do it. But for what reason? He read two of the phrases over again; the evil one will strike back and his forces will come for the book. Was the attack on Houston Satan striking back? What next? Chills ran up Daniel’s spine as he realized the danger they were all in.
He had to tell the others. He hit the print button and ran off a copy before running upstairs and outside to the poolside bar where everyone was transfixed in front of the TV. No one moved or spoke as they watched the images of the devastation in Houston scroll across the screen. Daniel grabbed Leo by the arm and shoved the printout into his hand.
Father Leo’s face drained of color before he turned to John. “John, where’s the Devil’s Bible?”
“Alon and I decided to lock it up in the weapons room until we leave for Rome.”
“From now on, John, we can’t let it out of our sight. I don’t know why I didn’t think of it sooner. The book must always be in the possession of one of us ... one of the chosen.”
“That room is made of solid concrete, Leo. It’s got a thick steel door like those used in bank vaults. Besides, no one could possibly get into that room with all the security they have around here.”
“We can’t underestimate the power of the book or those who may want to take it. We’re dealing with supernatural forces that dwell in an entirely different realm from us, and no amount of concrete or steel will keep them out. The book needs to be kept in the possession of one of the five who took it ... one of the chosen. I just pray that we’re not too late.”
The tragic news of Houston was pushed into the background as everyone jumped from their chairs and raced through the villa and down the stairs to the command center. No one spoke. They all stood looking at the locked steel door as Alon began punching the combination. A series of clicks, and then, slowly, the heavy door began to swing open. The group stood by and held their collective breath while Alon and Leo stood at the entrance and waited.