By Dawn's Early Light

by Grant R. Jeffrey

  She surveyed the damage to her apartment, then shrugged. “Let’s get Asher to the hospital. Then I’m going back to the base.”

  Michael grinned and closed the laptop. “Give me a lift?”

  As if she had any choice.

  CHAPTER FORTY

  Tel Aviv

  0910 hours

  MICHAEL HAD VISITED GENERAL SCHWARZKOPF’S COMMAND HEADQUARTERS during the height of Desert Storm, but never had he seen anything like the scene at the IDF HQ on the morning of December 21. He and Devorah encountered the usual rush of deputies and aides beneath the ever-present cloud of cigarette smoke, but the pervasive grimness that had filled the building yesterday had completely vanished, replaced by an infusion of hope.

  He was feeling hopeful himself. He had twisted the truth a bit when he told Devorah he had been vaccinated against almost all the biological agents. He had been vaccinated against anthrax, but he was overdue for a booster and he hadn’t bothered to stop by the medical office before leaving for Israel. So this morning he had given himself a good, long look in the mirror, hoping he wouldn’t see any signs of illness. Thus far, he felt great.

  He and Devorah joined a host of other officers waiting to hear news from the situation room. General Almog’s aide stood in the doorway and lifted his chin in acknowledgment of their arrival.

  “What’s happening here, Colonel?” Devorah asked after they threaded their way through the crowd. “We woke up to something that sounded like an earthquake, but I figured it was an explosion.”

  “It was an earthquake.” The colonel smiled a grim little grin as he turned sideways to allow an ensign through the doorway. “For a while everything was a mess here, but we’re putting things back together, and our defensive batteries have not reported any serious damage. The enemy, however, can’t say the same thing.”

  Michael folded his arms. “What do you mean?”

  The officer’s face split into a wide grin. “Intel is reporting that the enemy advance is falling apart. A hailstorm pounded the eastern perimeter at 0600 hours, and the Russians are knee-deep in mud. There have even been reports of mudslides on the eastern side of the Golan Heights.”

  Shock flickered over Devorah’s face. “You’re joking.”

  The colonel lifted one shoulder in a shrug. “It is the rainy season.”

  Michael glanced past the colonel at the bank of computer monitors on the wall in the war room, where a series of revolving satellite-supplied images displayed the position of enemy troops. “Can you tell me why the enemy is pulling back from the Lebanese border?”

  The colonel turned, his gaze shifting toward the monitors. “Yes— Lebanon. The Russians had fortified that border with rocket launchers loaded with chemical weapons, but the earthquake overturned most of them. Apparently, at least one of the warheads spilled its payload and contaminated the area.” The officer’s jaw clenched. “We believe those missiles were loaded with BZ—that alone could explain the damage we’re now hearing about. Intel is reporting that the enemy troops are disorganized, entire platoons in disarray. There are firefights on every hand—it’s pure madness. They are killing each other.”

  “BZ?” Devorah turned questioning eyes toward Michael. “Does that mean something to you?”

  Michael gave her a rueful smile. “Unfortunately, yes. BZ is a glycolate developed in the United States. It’s a psychotomimetic agent, inducing psychosis in those it affects. It was designed for sabotage against high-priority limited targets, not for large-scale assaults.”

  “They’re saying those missiles were aimed at Israeli military installations.” The colonel drew his lips into a tight smile. “They wanted to incapacitate us, and now look what they’ve done.”

  The situation was so absurd Michael began to laugh, though he felt a long way from real humor. The possibility that he might have breathed in a bug was still rattling around in his brain, but—

  “God will protect us.” Thinking aloud, he looked at Devorah. “Don’t you see? The rain, the earthquake, the enemy turning on his brother— Ezekiel foretold every bit of this 2600 years ago. It’s all happening, just as the prophet predicted. God is delivering Israel just as he said he would.”

  Devorah’s expression shifted into the surprised look of an operator who has just been dinged by an unseen assailant, then she turned on her heel and retreated through the crowd.

  She was running from the truth. Michael couldn’t blame her, not really. Until yesterday, he had been reluctant to accept Daniel’s assertions, too.

  “Are you Mike?” The colonel leaned closer, his face squinched into a question mark. “Do you have a friend named Daniel?”

  Michael felt a slow smile spread over his face as something clicked in his brain. “You must be a real bulldog, Colonel.”

  A faint light twinkled in the depths of the man’s brown eyes. “Eli Mordechai, and I’m pleased to meet you.”

  Michael reached out and shook the colonel’s hand. “Thank you, sir. Any friend of Daniel’s is a friend of mine. Should I assume that you agree with Daniel and believe it will be over soon?”

  A bright blush overspread the colonel’s face. “I wasn’t convinced until Daniel explained the meaning behind his e-mail address. Then the pieces fell into place.”

  Michael frowned. “GWJ? I’m sorry, but I haven’t been able to figure that one out.”

  The beginning of a smile tipped the corners of Colonel Mordechai’s mouth. “Daniel is a Hebrew name, meaning God will judge. Daniel has believed that all along. God is the one saving Israel today. There’s no other answer for it.”

  Michael nodded slowly, smiling to himself, then saluted and went in search of Devorah.

  CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

  Jericho, The West Bank

  1024 hours

  VLADIMIR GOGOL COULD TASTE THE HATE IN HIS MOUTH—ACID, FOUL AND burning. In a silent fury that spoke louder than words, he stared at the two inept field commanders in the mobile command post. Each of them had lost a platoon this morning when their Arab troops panicked and ran in the hailstorm. For their negligence, each deserved to die.

  “You will be executed on my command within the hour.” He uttered his judgment with contempt. “Commanders who cannot control their men do not deserve to live. That is all.”

  Colonel Petrov pulled his pistol and jerked it toward the door. The two men turned and stumbled through the exit. If they begged for their lives, they would do it outside before the firing squad.

  Gogol pressed his hand to the bridge of his nose and squeezed while guards led the condemned men away. A sense of anticlimax had weighed upon him since sunrise, a heaviness centering in his chest. Today was to have been the day when their tanks rolled into Jerusalem, but their tanks could not move in the sea of mud that had formed in the heavy rains.

  The Americans had a name for this—when everything went wrong, they joked that Mr. Murphy had come to visit. Well, Vladimir thought, lowering his hand, the Americans’ Mr. Murphy had not only visited during the early morning hours, but he had brought his brothers and cousins to wreak havoc as well. The trouble began at sunrise—which did not come on schedule because a seemingly impenetrable cloud blocked the light from the rising sun—and continued with failed communications, illness, confusion, and insubordination.

  “General.” Petrov stood by the SatCom, the receiver pressed to his ear. “I have Marshall Stolypin on the line, sir. He has urgent news from Moscow.”

  Vladimir stared in surprise. The SatCom was working? Apparently Mr. Murphy had overlooked one piece of technological equipment.

  He moved to the phone. “Marshall Stolypin?”

  “General!” Stolypin’s voice crackled over the hissing line. “Sir, Moscow is burning, and the Kremlin has been demolished. We have been trying to reach you for an hour—”

  A new kind of surprise shook Vladimir’s body from toe to scalp, twisting his face. “Impossible! The defense systems would have detected an incoming missile.”

  “They did not
fire, General, and this—well, this destruction is like nothing I have ever seen. Several scientists believe we are being struck by pieces of an asteroid. The skies over Moscow are literally raining fire and brimstone. We heard a sound like thunder, then a dark cloud rolled over the city and devastation began to fall upon us. St. Petersburg is experiencing the same phenomenon, and so are Irkutsk and Kiev, even outposts in Siberia—”

  “Quiet.” Vladimir uttered the command like a curse. Rage welled in him, black and cold, as horrifying images of a charred and ruined Moscow filled his brain. His beautiful city, the throne of the czars! How could a city that had stood against Napoleon and Hitler be felled in one day? It couldn’t—and neither could other leading Russian cities. This was no act of nature—this was a diabolical new sort of weapon, aimed at the crown cities of Mother Russia.

  He felt ice spreading through his stomach and gripped the receiver, then turned so Petrov couldn’t see the play of emotions across his face. He needed to think. He needed time to plan a response. He had not anticipated that the Israelis would strike so quickly or so forcefully. And this new weapon—a missile that could launch undetected and rain fire and brimstone without warning? Such a weapon could only have come from the nefarious Americans at NASA. Somehow the Americans and Israelis had cooperated in secret and were now congratulating themselves on his defeat.

  His strength returned as his heart pumped outrage through his veins. All the treaties, all the talks about disarmament and détente—all lies! But he was not defeated yet.

  “Marshall Stolypin,” Vladimir turned to face Petrov, whose watery eyes held absolutely no expression, “engage the Dead Hand.”

  “General.” Stolypin’s voice echoed with despair. “We tested the system when the attack began. Our automatic weapons systems are off-line; the computers aren’t engaging properly. The Dead Hand is completely inoperative.”

  After a long pause, during which Vladimir fought for self-control, he issued the command. “I am personally placing you in charge of attending to my commands. Send a launch order to every base. Every nuclear missile in a silo is to be fired as soon as possible. Use the preset coordinates; hold nothing back. The Americans and Israelis will pay for what they have done today.”

  An unnatural silence rolled over the phone line, then Vladimir heard the soft sound of Stolypin’s answer. “It shall be done, General.”

  Vladimir disconnected the call, then stood in the quiet of the mobile command post and took a deep breath. The empty air vibrated, the silence filled with dread.

  Petrov was the first to speak. “This action cannot be countermanded. If you launch upon the United States, President Stedman will be forced to respond.”

  Vladimir fought back the surge of fury that murmured in his ear. “He already has, Petrov. And he has signed America’s death warrant.”

  Marshall Pavel Stolypin, the officer in charge of Moscow’s defense, placed the SatFone back in its receiver and considered the command before him. Each nuclear missile in Russia’s armory was aimed at a city in the continental United States. They had no evidence that the United States had anything to do with the terrible calamity befalling Russia, so Gogol’s command was madness, especially in this confusion.

  A rebellious thought skittered across his brain. Why not ignore the order? Moscow might be ruined, but at least they would not awaken the sleeping giant across the sea. If he launched nuclear missiles at the United States, he would bear the weight of responsibility for unleashing a holocaust . . .

  He thought of his wife and three daughters, safe, he hoped, in their dacha in the Lenin Hills. He had been wise enough to tell Anna to keep the girls away from the city until after Gogol’s return.

  If he obeyed Gogol’s order now, would he ever see his beloved girls again?

  He reached for the SatFone and lowered his hand to the receiver, feeling the coolness of the hard plastic. One call to each of the top-secret missile installations, a few words murmured into the ear of each commander. The binder containing the activation code words sat on the desk before him. There was nothing to stop him but his conscience . . . and his love for his wife and children.

  Pavel’s heart skipped a beat when the phone jangled under his hand. He hesitated a moment, his stomach churning, then picked up the receiver. “Yes?”

  “Marshall Stolypin?” The voice was Colonel Petrov’s, yet it seemed distorted, and an odd coldness settled upon Pavel at the sound of it. This was the sort of fearful voice that could not belong to an officer; it was the voice of a man facing a firing squad.

  “Pavel Stolypin, have you given the launch order yet?”

  Pavel straightened his shoulders as a spark of hope flared in his breast. Perhaps the general had changed his mind about the nuclear attack. Perhaps Petrov and his men had risen up to relieve Gogol of command. “No, Colonel. There is still time to rescind the order.”

  The uneasiness without a name returned when Petrov made a soft shushing sound. “I cannot rescind the order. But I would urge you to use caution. Call one base, authorize one set of launches. But do not, I beg you, unleash a full-scale attack.”

  Was this a test of his loyalty? Pavel lurched around in his chair, half-expecting to see one of Gogol’s spies in the shadows behind him. But he was alone, surrounded by useless computers and blank monitors.

  “If you love your country,” Petrov said, his voice dark and brooding, “trust me. Follow orders since you must, but make just one call. There is something strange about this day. We are struggling against forces beyond my comprehension.”

  A loud hiss abruptly drowned out Petrov’s voice. Trembling, Pavel dropped the phone into its cradle, then stared in hypnotized horror at the folder containing the launch codes. Never in his entire career had he been faced with such a dilemma. He had been given an order by General Gogol, yet Colonel Petrov, who knew Gogol better than any man alive, had just urged caution. And Petrov, that unflappable officer, had sounded genuinely terrified.

  As a confusing rush of anticipation and dread whirled inside him, Pavel opened the binder, then picked up the phone.

  The news hit the IDF situation room like a shock wave. Someone tuned the satellite to the CNN feed, and Devorah stood silently behind Michael’s chair and stared at the television screen. Scores of personnel flooded the room, and in the press of warm bodies she shifted and wondered what else could happen in a single day. First they had heard that the earthquake that rattled Israel had wreaked damage in cities across the world, then a freak hailstorm grounded Israeli and enemy pilots while asteroids pelted Moscow and several other Russian cities. Now the United States had been struck by—what?

  “This just in.” A CNN reporter abruptly cut into a commercial for Ford trucks. “We’ve just received word that the United States has come under attack from enemies unknown. We are hearing reports—we cannot confirm yet, but we’ve heard reports of devastating explosions in New York City and Los Angeles. Witnesses in the surrounding areas are reporting what are described as mushroom clouds over the population centers.”

  The reporter stared into the camera, his eyes momentarily vacant, his face glistening with tiny pearls of sweat. He pressed his fingertips to the transmitter in his ear, and when he spoke again, his voice was fainter than air. “Ladies and gentlemen, I regret to inform you that New York—” He paused, accepted a sheet of paper from a hand that edged into the screen, then went a shade paler. “New York, Los Angeles, and Washington, D.C., have apparently been struck by nuclear weapons. We will keep you apprised of the situation as soon as we know more. Remain tuned to CNN for continuing—”

  The screen suddenly went black. The war room swelled with silence as each man and woman present tried to make sense of what the newscaster was saying.

  “Is CNN in New York?” Devorah’s voice was raw and ragged.

  Michael shook his head. “No, it’s in Atlanta. They’ve struck Atlanta, too. And probably Tampa, Fort Meade, Denver, and San Francisco . . . who knows where else.”

>   He turned and looked up at her, his gaze as remote as the ocean depths. “Gogol may have just been insane enough to think that the fire and brimstone God is raining upon Moscow came from the United States. I may not have a home anymore. I might not have a president. And Daniel, if he was in the States—”

  He stood and moved toward the doorway, while Devorah tried to follow. “Where are you going?”

  He turned and looked at her, a pinched, uncertain expression on his face. “I’m going to find a quiet place—somewhere I can pray.”

  Devorah absorbed this answer in silence, then stepped ahead of him and motioned for him to follow.

  The closet wasn’t much, but it was one of the few unoccupied rooms. Michael leaned against the wall, then slid down it in a crouched position, bowing his head as he rested his folded hands on his bent knees. Not certain what she should do, Devorah knelt on the floor in front of him, keeping one eye on the door.

  A change came over Michael’s features, a sudden shock of sick realization. “Oh, God,” he prayed, his words soft with disbelief, “what are you doing now? How can this be part of your plan to judge Israel’s enemies?”

  Devorah lowered her head as Michael continued to pray in words that seemed to flow from his heart. Feeling awkward, she glanced at the door, half-hoping that someone would come in and break up the prayer party. But as Michael continued to pray, Devorah found herself listening. His prayers were nothing like her father’s. Though both men spoke in sincere tones and with due reverence, Michael used common, heartfelt language as he talked to his God. There was nothing musical or formal or traditional about his words. He spoke in the contrite voice of a man who is begging a favor of a dear friend . . . to whom he hasn’t spoken in a long time.

  “I confess, Lord, that I haven’t been as reliant on you as I should have been. I beg you to look down upon us and remember your people. Israel cries out to you, God, as do I. Defend your people, Lord, and protect those in America who love you as well. Be our strength and defender, God; be our mighty shield.”