Devorah stared at him, perplexed. Now his words sounded familiar— almost as though they had sprung from the psalms. She had assumed he would pray to Jesus, but he was praying to a God she recognized, using words and phrases she could understand.
Looking away, she gave herself a stern mental shake. Michael Reed was a Christian, one of those who claimed God was a Trinity, when one of the basic tenets of Judaism proclaimed that HaShem was one, a unity unlike any other possible unity.
An image focused in her thoughts—her father, sitting at the Shabbat table, quizzing her and Asher on the thirteen foundations of Jewish belief. “The twelfth foundation of the Ramba’m,” he said, his voice ghostly in her memory, “is the time of the Moshiach, the anointed one. There is no king to the Jewish people except from the House of David and the seed of Solomon. We are not to calculate the time of his coming, but we are to believe and be certain that the Messiah will come. He will not be late. He will come at the proper time.”
Looking up at the dimpled ceiling tiles, Devorah lifted her thoughts to HaShem. “Surely this is a good time to send the Messiah. For the sake of my father and those who have suffered so much for so long . . .”
She felt the pressure of Michael’s gentle squeeze upon her fingers, then lowered her gaze to find him watching her. She blushed, suddenly aware that she had spoken aloud without meaning to.
“Come.” Michael stood and helped her to her feet.
“Where are we going?”
“We’re going back to the situation room . . . to watch God work. Remember what Ezekiel said? Today is the day when the nations will know that God is the Holy One in Israel.” He took a deep breath, then gave her a smile. “I don’t know how, but it’s all going to work out.”
Alone in his command vehicle, Vladimir Gogol studied the keyboard of his laptop computer and cursed softly. Everything that could go wrong had gone wrong in the space of a few hours, and the reports coming in now only deepened his anger. How could the world’s strongest, most trained, and most capable army be defeated by mud, rain, and earth tremors? Those three elements of nature had confounded his positions at sunrise, and the mudslides and collapsed weapons systems had begun a chain of tragic failures that seemed to grow worse by the minute. Not even the reports of several successful missile launches on the United States had improved his mood.
He did not need to look outside his window to know that the weather would not improve in the next few hours. An air of brooding desolation lay over this land, and some cynical part of his brain wondered why the Arabs had ever wanted to claim it. The sun was hiding behind an oppressive blanket of clouds; the light was as weak as yesterday’s dreams. Wind, rain, and hail were tossing his men and their weapons like tree branches, first one direction and then the other, and every so often the gloom went nova as a bolt of lightning skittered through the darkened sky. The lightning had already fried several of their communications systems; he hadn’t been able to reach the commanders of the other allied units since before dawn.
He heard a commotion outside the door of his vehicle. “Enter!”
Colonel Petrov, his second in command, opened the door and climbed up the stairs, his face pale and wet. He saluted, then began to babble. “Excuse me, General, but we have just received word from the Libyan units deployed along the Egyptian border. A plague has broken out among the troops. The men who are not ill have panicked and run, while Israeli jet fighters have begun to strafe our convoys—”
“Have you gone mad?” Gogol spat out the words contemptuously. “How could they come down with plague?”
“It’s the weapons, sir.” Fresh misery darkened Petrov’s face. “That unit was armed with missiles carrying bubonic plague.”
Gogol stared at his aide across a sudden ringing silence. “Impossible. They could not have been exposed. Plague has an incubation period of two or three days. Even if there was an accident in the earthquake this morning, there hasn’t been time for anyone to develop symptoms.”
“There were no accidents in the Libyan sectors, sir.” Petrov’s steady gaze burned through Gogol. “The men believe they were exposed en route, as they transported the missiles from our warships. An Egyptian doctor has confirmed the symptoms—it is plague, sir. There is no doubt about it.”
Numb with increasing rage, Gogol clenched his fist and pounded the table, then looked away. This felt like a bad dream, like that terrible day when the love of his life had confessed to being a traitor and a Jewess. What was happening to him? He was Vladimir Gogol! He had risen from the pits of obscurity to become the most powerful man in Russia. He had spent years preparing for this day, and his men had trained for months. They had even agreed to train those hotheaded Arabs, who put far more emphasis on zeal and religious causes than on military discipline and procedures.
Trembling, he felt a heat in his chest and belly he recognized as pure rage. Not even Alanna had roused his anger so.
He turned, transferring his gaze to Petrov. “Have the men mount another nuclear missile.”
“But, sir—the Israelis have already intercepted three nuclear warheads.”
Vladimir looked down at his map, his breath burning in his throat. “Don’t target Tel Aviv this time. Set the target coordinates for Jerusalem.”
A chilly silence settled over the cabin, and after a moment Gogol turned back to Petrov. The colonel stood stiff and somber in the silence, his mouth tight with mutiny.
“I gave you an order, Colonel.”
“Sir—you cannot target Jerusalem. The Arabs will never stand for it. Many of the Jews have already fled the city, and thousands of the remaining inhabitants are Palestinian.”
“I will target Jerusalem. The Arabs can rebuild their holy mosque— what do I care if it falls? But the Jews won’t expect this one. It will slip by their defenses, and when it does—”
“There are others who revere that city. Adrian Romulus speaks often of Jerusalem.”
Vladimir closed his eyes as alarm and anger rippled along his spine. Petrov was right. Not only would the Arabs never forgive him for targeting Jerusalem, neither would Adrian Romulus. The stones of that three-thousand-year-old city might be dusty and ancient, but most of the world considered it a holy place. Romulus had often mentioned his love for Jerusalem, and if at this moment there was a man more powerful than Gogol, it was Romulus.
Vladimir swallowed a hysterical surge of angry laughter. “You are right, of course. Do not send a nuclear weapon to Jerusalem. Send a chemical weapon to Tel Aviv instead—on the new Revenant missile.”
Surprise siphoned the blood from Petrov’s face. “The Revenant? But, sir, the fiberoptic guidance system has not been tested under these weather conditions. With so much electrical activity in the atmosphere, we cannot be certain it will correctly target—”
“It passed our tests at Pushkina, and it will work now.” Vladimir waved aside the colonel’s hesitation. “It will fly so low that Israeli radar will not pick it up until it is too late. We will give them a surprise, and we will mount the warhead with . . .”
He paused, considering his options. He wanted instant death, not prolonged illnesses, and none of the biologicals acted quickly enough. Of the nerve agents in his arsenal, VX was the most toxic and fast-acting, but VX was a liquid and dispersed effectively over a relatively small area. But Sarin—that nerve agent could be inhaled, and death occurred in one to ten minutes. The victims of this attack would fall dead before they even knew what had killed them.
“Mount the warhead with Sarin dispersal devices.”
Petrov nodded stiffly, saluted, then exited the vehicle to execute Gogol’s order.
Ten minutes later, Vladimir stepped outside the mobile command vehicle, thrust his hands behind his back, and moved toward the ridge where the Revenant missile launcher had been mounted on a wheeled vehicle. Petrov stood beside the truck and snapped to attention as Vladimir approached.
The ground was uneven here, broken by ridges and hollows, and every foot of the
surface was strewn with rocky debris. To Vladimir’s right rose the jagged precipice known as the Mount of Temptation; behind him, the Jordan valley stretched away like a broad green canvas. He was concerned with the mountains to the west, over which the missile would fly toward Tel Aviv.
Vladimir’s eyes took in the missile, the launcher, and his men ready to do their jobs. The Revenant had a range of up to seventy kilometers and used infrared imaging for high-precision targeting by day or night. The images from an infrared camera in the nose of the missile were transmitted through a fiberoptic cable to a firing post miles away, where the images were automatically analyzed, processed, and displayed to the weapon system operator. The operator could send the missile precise guidance instructions via the optical fiber cable.
The Revenant operated unlike any other weapon. Like all missiles, it flew toward predetermined target coordinates, but unlike other missiles, an in-flight Revenant relayed a picture of its target and instantly allowed a remote operator to choose the exact moment and point of detonation. It was also capable of dodging missiles from defensive Patriot and Arrow batteries.
Vladimir was going to fly the Revenant right through the wall around the Israeli Defense Headquarters and detonate it in General Yehuda Almog’s war room. After that, he’d send another Revenant to the prime minister’s office and a third to the Knesset to atone for the botched raid by Dyakonov and his spetsnaz team.
A smile tugged at his lips. The State of Israel would die today.
The rising wind came whipping past him, lifting the beribboned medals on his uniform. He turned to Petrov and let his gaze rove over the assembled men. They would never forget this moment.
“This will show them that we are undeniably superior.” He stepped back and surveyed the rocky terrain to the west, land he would soon control. “Are you ready to launch, Colonel?”
“Yes, General.” Petrov stepped forward and his eyes met Gogol’s. “Will you give the order, sir?”
“I would be honored.” Vladimir stepped forward onto a small rise and lifted his chin, allowing the assembled men to see that his face remained full of strength and confident peace despite the morning’s setbacks. This moment would fulfill his destiny. He had been born to conquer Israel; fate had chosen him to restore Russia to her former greatness. In an hour, Israel would know Vladimir Gogol was all-powerful. And in the coming weeks, the world would realize that Jews were the root of all evil and deserved the fate he would deal their nation today.
Gogol lifted his hand. “Initiate launch sequence.”
The soldier at the firing station tapped on his keyboard, aligning his control panel and high-resolution display with the global positioning system and command, control, communications, and information system interface in the missile. A digitized map of Tel Aviv appeared on the display, with the IDF headquarters outlined in red. The operator adjusted the final impact position to within ten meters of the building’s center, then stepped back. Additional target direction would be required only when the missile neared the target.
Petrov and his company released the metal straps holding the missile in its canister, then stepped away from the mobile launcher.
“Launch codes activated, sir. Sixty seconds until launch.”
Gogol thrust his hands behind his back and stared at the roiling sky. The men around him remained silent, undoubtedly understanding that this was a highly significant moment. Soon the missile would be away, accelerated by a solid propellant booster to an initial cruising speed of more than 150 meters per second. The turbojet engine would take the missile to the target under control of the guidance system, allowing the operator to determine altitude and missile speed.
History would be made in exactly eight minutes, when this missile flew sixty-five kilometers to Tel Aviv and dispersed deadly Sarin gas in the center of IDF headquarters. In their last ten minutes of life, the Israeli high command would know they could not defeat a superior force.
The quiet sound of humming machinery filled the silence as the mobile platform rose to the correct launch angle. Overhead, a gray cloud churned while the wind blew soft raindrops that spattered upon the launch canister and shone like pearls on the steel gray casing.
“Forty-five seconds,” the control operator called, his eyes fixed to the display. Vladimir stared at a landscape bled of all color and felt the earth begin to tremble. A slash of lightning stabbed through the gray cloud overhead, but Vladimir held his position. He would command this launch and ride the hot winds of the afternoon to victory.
Thunder echoed across the empty vista, and lightning stabbed at the ragged fretwork of stone on the cliffs. The vibrations beneath his boots continued, growing in intensity, and for a moment Vladimir wondered if somehow the earth itself had sensed his jubilation. Let the mountains move! Let these rocks fall upon Israel! The moment of victory had come!
A hiss of steam escaped the vents beside the missile fins while the launch platform continued to rise. A glance at the computer telemetry told Vladimir that the correct launch angle was forty-four degrees. The missile’s nose slowly continued its upward arc, then vibrated softly as the launch platform settled into its proper place.
“Thirty seconds,” the controller said, lifting his head to check the missile’s position.
The gusting winds created small whirlwinds of dust and grit that scoured Vladimir’s flesh and left him grinding sand between his teeth. He ignored the irritation and kept his gaze fixed on the western horizon. Let a storm come! The Israelis would think he was cowering beneath the bad weather, waiting to fight another day. They would not expect this mortal blow.
Vladimir glanced out at the rocky terrain. A gray tree, leafless and scoured by the wind-driven sand, stood ten meters to the west. As the wild wind hooted, its bare limbs bobbed in agitation, then the tree toppled forward, the crown of its roots rising as the skeletal branches crashed to the earth below.
Vladimir’s nerves tensed as a low rumble beneath the earth gave rise to a terrifying roar. The rocky terrain crumbled and cracked, then a massive rock pushed its way out of the earth and jostled the launch platform, lifting the front wheels of the vehicle.
Fear brushed the edge of Vladimir’s mind as his men scrambled back. “Stop the launch!” he roared, but the bawling winds snatched his words away. The controller pecked at the firing station keyboard, but the red-rimmed rock kept rising from the earth, lifting the Revenant’s nose and distorting the launch angle. The nose of the missile moved to fifty degrees above the horizon, then fifty-five. As dirt and rocks and small trees toppled in the quake, the intruding stone continued to propel the missile upward.
Vladimir felt his throat go dry. If the rocket launched at this angle, it would deviate from its projected path and might be picked up by Israeli radar and destroyed miles away from Tel Aviv. Unlike a nuclear warhead, which could be destroyed without detonation, the Sarin gas would fall somewhere, perhaps on his own troops scattered throughout the West Bank.
“Cancel the launch!”
At the command post, the controller shook his head. “General, the system is locked up. The electromagnetic circuits are not responding!”
Petrov broke from the line of observers and ran toward the rocket just as the missile leapt from its launcher. A sheet of dazzling flame poured from the solid fuel rocket motor, blackening the rocky ground and igniting brown bits of shrubbery and desert grass. Screeching in agony, Petrov fell to the ground, a human torch, as the engine accelerated the missile upward too fast for the eye to follow.
Vladimir felt a scream rise in his throat and choked it off. While the scorched ground smoked and a swarm of men surrounded Petrov, he looked toward the intrusive rock that had somehow managed to elevate the Revenant to an astounding ninety degrees.
He stalked to the firing station and shoved the hapless controller aside. After punching in the codes for a ninety-degree launch trajectory, Vladimir noted the results and nodded grimly.
“Can we adjust the angle in flight?”
he asked the controller, turning the display so the man could see it.
The soldier’s face was dead-white and sheened with a cold sweat. “No, sir.” His eyes met Vladimir’s. “We could make minor adjustments, but nothing to override the pull of gravity.”
Vladimir nodded, then stepped away from the controls.
Perhaps destiny has led me astray. The wry thought made him smile, if only briefly, and dispelled the frisson he had felt at the realization that the missile would fly upward for sixty-five kilometers, then determine it had not reached its target coordinates. A self-destruct circuit would sense the absence of acceleration and explode the missile harmlessly, but the Sarin would be released in the air currents and drift back to earth on the wings of the wind.
Alone in the mobile command vehicle, Vladimir locked his hands behind his back and paced in the narrow space between his bunk and his desk. He had slipped on his gas mask immediately after entering the vehicle, but now wondered if his action had been wise. His men might panic if they saw him wearing a mask, and he couldn’t afford a large-scale uprising. Few of his men even had gas masks, for all intelligence reports indicated that the Israelis had never stored biological or chemical weapons.
He looked out the small window. Which way was the wind blowing? One moment it appeared to move eastward, another moment it seemed to blow west. He would take a chopper and fly away from this ghastly spot, but unless the wind calmed he wouldn’t know if he was flying out of the Sarin dispersal area or directly into it.
Irritated at the frightened current moving through him, he lumbered to the front of the mobile command post and took his place behind the wheel. He had never actually driven the armored vehicle, but how difficult could it be?
He patted the dashboard, shoving maps and papers and forms out of the way, then felt an ignition switch in a shallow indentation. He flipped the lever and felt a moment’s satisfaction as the engine roared to life. A pair of sentries beyond the tinted windows backed away in surprise as Gogol gripped the wheel and shoved the vehicle into gear.
By Dawn's Early Light Page 36