Brink of Chaos

by Tim LaHaye

  Thanks for friending me on Facebook, Cal. I’m trying to connect with your dad but can’t get any intel on his current whereabouts — for obvious reasons now that I know all about his situation. Any suggestions? Capt. J. Louder.

  Cal handed the Allfone over to Abigail who glanced at the message and smiled. “Okay, give him Ethan’s email. He’s screening incoming communications for Josh.”

  After tapping in Ethan’s email address, Cal hit Reply. “I wonder what that’s about,” he asked aloud. Abigail shrugged.

  Cal redirected his attention to the steep path through the woods ahead, and he hoped, after all this effort and risk, they would be able to meet with the secretive Chiro Hashimoto and his Underground. He put the Land Rover into low gear and continued the rough, jostling drive up the fire trail that cut deep into the wilderness.

  THIRTY-FIVE

  Headquarters of the Central Intelligence Agency, Langley, Virginia

  That same morning, as usual, William Tatter, director of the Central Intelligence Agency, had been picked up at his brownstone mansion in Old Town Alexandria by his sedan driver. Now the black sedan was pulling off of Dolly Madison Boulevard and into the familiar entrance leading to the two-hundred-and-twenty-six-acre intelligence compound.

  But one thing was utterly unusual — the encrypted iGram message he had received in the early morning hours on his digital Com-Pad from one of his inside sources. He had to read it twice while shaving just to make sure he wasn’t dreaming; then he swore so loudly that his wife thought that he accidentally sliced his neck with his razor. From home, Tatter immediately called his special liaison to the National Security Council and, after that, his deputy in charge of communications with the congressional intelligence oversight committees. Tatter was not a man to be blindsided. Apparently, on that day, he had been. An embarrassing realization for a spy chief. The classified iGram message proved what William Tatter had been famous for saying among his colleagues privately — that domestic spying was now the primary province of SIA, Homeland Security, and whoever happened to be Jessica Tulrude’s pal.

  When Tatter blustered into his office suite on the top floor, directly above the entrance doors of the agency building, he was informed by his executive assistant that the secretary of state would be visiting him that morning. Fifteen minutes later, the secretary arrived.

  “Vance,” Tatter said to him with visible distress, “I already know about this outlandish development. It’s absurd. Maybe even treasonous.”

  “Oh, come on, William,” the secretary said, “you had to know this was coming.”

  “Tulrude is — excuse my bluntness — stark raving crazy if she thinks that the CIA is going to be subject to international control of the Security Council of the U.N. This is insane.”

  “It’s nothing new —”

  “I really thought this was just some nutty idea of a bunch of radical political scientists who must be doing dope on the side —”

  “You’re overstating it,” the secretary said calmly. “All the treaty requires is that the U.S. government must disclose to the U.N. security council, in advance, any American clandestine operations of the CIA prior to actually taking hostile action against any other nation that is a member in good standing of the United Nations.”

  “I got the memo. It doesn’t change my mind. Well … okay, maybe. I’ll retract my comment about the proponents of this absurdity doing dope on the side. Instead, how about this — they must be on hard drugs. How about that?”

  The secretary rolled his eyes. “We may not be able to do everything over at State,” he said, “but we can do one thing well. We can count. And we know we’ve got the votes in the senate to ratify this treaty. We both know it.”

  Tatter’s face expressed no displeasure, but his voice told a different story. His tone carried a message of total disdain. “Where is Roland Allenworth in this discussion? The secretary of defense should be here right now. He’ll be equally disgusted at this act of total betrayal of America’s interests.”

  “As for Roland,” the secretary of state said as he rose to leave, “he is announcing his resignation later today.”

  Tatter was a Washington veteran. He knew the rules. He shot back, “But that’s not what’s really going on. What’s really happening is that Tulrude is cleaning house before the election, kicking the honest ones out of her administration so they can’t spill the gory details of what has really gone on during her tenure in the Oval Office. Honestly, Vance, is there anything our president would not do for political gain? Does she have any honor left at all?”

  As the secretary of state strolled toward the door he stopped long enough to ponder William Tatter’s indictment of the president. “Honor? Yes, that noble, if not antiquated, value mentioned in the Declaration of Independence. Our sacred honor … Well, Bill, I’ll tell you what’s sacred. Global peace and harmony. We are witnessing a new world unfolding before us.”

  Tatter had a look of resignation now, as if he had just glimpsed the future. Behind the happy placards and politically correct billboards, he could see the black smoke rising up from a dawning empire of destruction. “A new world order?” he called out to the secretary of state. “Maybe. But still guided by human corruption. That’s what is going to be pulling the levers behind the curtain.”

  Georgetown, Washington, D.C.

  Deborah Jordan was hustling breathlessly down the sidewalk along the shopping and restaurant district. She had been given the message about a secret rendezvous point, but she wondered, I don’t remember a magazine stand in front of Charley Beck’s Restaurant.

  She strode down the sidewalk from the parking garage until she approached the restaurant. “Can’t believe it,” she said under her breath as she brushed past pedestrians. There, off to the side of the entrance to Charley Beck’s, was an old-fashioned magazine and newspaper stand. Ever since the migration of all news publications to the Internet, those relics of the old print world had slowly become extinct.

  The guy manning the booth was middle-aged with sunglasses and a Washington Redskins cap.

  Deborah remembered the routine given to her by Pack McHenry, the shadowy black-ops manager of private intelligence services. His group — known only as the Patriots — was the stuff of legend among the members of her parents’ Roundtable. She got the drift from her father that Pack McHenry, a former CIA foreign operations director, had really never left the Agency, that he and his team of special operations veterans were still assisting the United States government — but very discreetly. Not just under the radar — but practically invisible on the map.

  After talking to her mother in her suite at the Mayflower the day before, she did as she was asked. She had called McHenry’s number. He had answered with one word: “Patriots.”

  Deborah had introduced herself and said she was carrying a request from Abigail Jordan.

  “Anything for the Jordans,” he had replied.

  She put in the request for a passport check on Zeta Milla and gave all of the background information she had about the Cuban beauty.

  “Done,” he said on the other end.

  Then Deborah broached the other request. “I need a reliable, authentic-looking driver’s license ID for myself. My picture and address. But identifying me as Deborah Shelly.”

  “Who’s going to be checking it?”

  “Some very official people … who carry guns.”

  “Gotcha.” Then, Pack McHenry sobered. “I have such respect for your dad and mother. Worked on some pretty important projects together behind the scenes. Saved lives. Protected the country. Tell them that I wish them God’s speed, won’t you?”

  There had been a final good-bye kind of tone to his comment that sent a chill up Deborah’s spine.

  “I certainly will, Mr. McHenry,” she simply said in return.

  “My friends call me Pack,” he had said. “Young lady — I know your position over at the Pentagon. How hard you worked at West Point to get where you are. And I also
know how you must be risking all of that with what you’ve got planned. Your parents will be very proud.”

  That struck home. She stammered for just an instant, then recovered. “Yes … sir. I appreciate your thoughts.”

  Before clicking off, Pack had issued a final word. “The daylight is waning, Deborah. Night’s coming. A long, terrible night, I fear. What your parents believe — the coming end of days. Wrapping up of human history. The coming hand of God Almighty. Victoria — my wife — and I … haven’t been the religious type, but the more we look around, we find it pretty hard to deny it now. It’s all coming to pass. Josh and Abby have been right all along, you know. The Bible. The prophecies. Everything.”

  “Yes, sir. I believe it too.”

  “Well,” he said finishing the thought, “you can tell your folks that I said that. I’m doing a lot of thinking lately.”

  That was yesterday, and now Deborah reflected again on his words as she approached the vendor on the sidewalk, the guy with the Redskins cap.

  She recited the script. “I’m looking for a Superman Comic book from 1985. The one with Supergirl.”

  “I’m all out,” the man grunted, “but I thought you’d like to see this.”

  He handed her an old tattered tour guide for visiting Cuba, which must have been printed before Castro came to power. Deborah smiled. Pack McHenry had a sense of humor, that was clear.

  She reached in her purse, but the man frowned and shook his head. “It’s on the house.”

  When Deborah reached her car, she opened up the book, and inside was a pristine-looking driver’s license for “Deborah Shelly” with her photo on it. She drove out of the parking garage and back onto M Street North West. But when she drove by Charley Beck’s, the guy with the Redskins hat was gone. And so was the magazine stand.

  THIRTY-SIX

  Israel

  Joshua had been talking about risk at the beginning of their ride out of Jerusalem. Now Ethan, sitting in the back seat, listened as Josh mentioned it again.

  “You’re taking a big risk,” Josh said, turning to Joel Harmon who was driving the Volvo. “Or did you forget that in Israel I’m now an enemy of the state?” Ethan saw Josh’s face grow momentarily solemn. He knew how weary his friend had grown over his troubles in the U.S. Now Israel, his so-called safe harbor, had turned against him too.

  Joel didn’t look worried. “I may be a freshman legislator in the Knesset, but I know my way around these Shin Bet security issues. We’ll get you to a safe house, Josh. If I’m asked by anyone where I’m going, I’ve got an answer handy.”

  Ethan said, “I’d like to hear that one.”

  “Simple,” Joel shot back, “I’ll tell Shin Bet, thanks to me, they don’t have to worry about Joshua Jordan being inside Israel anymore.” Joshua and Ethan waited for an explanation. “I’m taking you to the Palestinian Authority side,” Joel added. “Because of the deal cut with the U.N. by our prime minister, that area is becoming part of the new Palestinian State — off limits to Israel.”

  Josh had a curious look on his face.

  Joel laughed. “You think I’m taking you out of the pot and throwing you into the fire?”

  “Now you’re sounding like an American. I would have thought you’d have a clever Hebrew phrase for that,” Josh tossed back.

  “We do. But now that Sol Bensky is forcing Israel to be absorbed into the international community,” Joel said with a sneer, “I’m working on trying to sound non-Jewish.”

  Joshua nodded. “You did a brave thing, Joel, opposing the prime minister on his U.N. plan, but I still don’t know how smart it was bringing a flame-thrower like me into that meeting.”

  “I wasn’t trying to be smart,” Joel remarked, “just right. And true. When I think of those two qualities — who else besides you could I possibly bring to that meeting?”

  In the back Ethan was smiling. In his private moments he had thought about the unique chance he had been given to follow Joshua through his travels, watch him in action, to hear firsthand the respect he had engendered from other men — men who were themselves accomplished and courageous. It made Ethan feel a flush of shame — for just an instant — about his potential plan to leave Joshua and head back to the U.S. He thought he had settled the issue, but lingering doubts kept popping up. He had just helped rescue his mentor back in Jerusalem, and he felt good about that. On other occasions, he felt like a piece of excess baggage on Joshua’s bullet train, but not then.

  Then Ethan was struck by something else. Here I am, an ex-Air Force pilot, out of work, and what happens? I get onto a flight and run into Deborah, the daughter of Joshua Jordan, the man who is the envy of the entire defense industry and my own personal hero. The next thing I know I meet him and he offers me a job. So, am I supposed to think this is all coincidence?

  That triggered another thought, something that Joshua was always saying: “In a universe governed by God, there are no coincidences.”

  Why did it always come back to God? For most of Ethan’s life, he hadn’t given Him much thought. But then the Jordan family swept into Ethan’s life, and ever since then, it was as if he was on one of those bumper cars at the carnival — constantly bumping into the Bible, sermons about Jesus, and Joshua’s talk of his own encounter with Christ. Now Ethan was living in Israel, tripping almost daily over ancient places where Jesus walked, that Christians point to and say, “Here is where God did this … or that.” Ethan felt surrounded by it all, and he didn’t know whether it was that bad a thing or not. Was this some kind of “Custer’s Last Stand” for him on the religion issue, with the hostiles all around him with their arrows? Or was it simply a surprising turn of events, where he had a chance to smarten up and maybe learn something about himself or discover something much bigger than even that?

  As they drove northeast through the remote desert suburbs of Israel, Ethan had one more question — one that had been pestering him nonstop. Why do I get the feeling that Joshua brought me with him for reasons he hasn’t bothered to explain yet?

  Joel Harmon pulled through a subdivision of Jewish homes in a desolate area. The signs on the outskirts read, “Nablus.” The sun had just set.

  Joel put the car in Park and turned to face Joshua and Ethan. “We’re about fifty feet from the wall separating Israel from the Palestinian Authority. Obviously, you can’t exit from the Israeli side through one of the regular checkpoints. There’s an alert out on you, Joshua, and it’s being passed through all the channels. They’d grab you immediately.”

  “Let me guess,” Joshua said, eyeing the twenty-six-foot-high concrete wall. “We’re going to leave Israel creatively …”

  “That’s the plan,” Joel replied.

  “These old joints of mine aren’t what they used to be,” Joshua said. “Haven’t scaled a wall like that in a while.”

  “Oh, don’t worry. No repelling. No ropes. Nothing like that. That’s not the dangerous part.”

  Ethan jumped in. “Then what is?”

  “See that part of the wall — that concrete slab — that juts out a little?” Joel pointed to a point in the wall about seventy feet away. “See how it’s not flush with the rest?”

  They nodded.

  “That’s where two big concrete slabs were dropped into place by the IDF contractors. But the two ends don’t exactly meet. There’s a space about two-and-a-half feet wide.”

  “I can’t believe they’d leave that open,” Ethan said.

  “They didn’t. Razor wire’s been bolted into the gap — but it can be unbolted too … if you know the right people.”

  Ethan thought he had it figured out. “So, that’s the hard part?”

  “Afraid not. Time was when Israel would have roads on the other side of the wall where IDF patrols would cruise. But Sol Bensky ordered those stopped. So now, once you get through our wall, there is DMZ strip about one hundred feet wide until you get to the Palestinian side. You’ll have to run like wild men across that strip. It’s open ground. When
you get to the other side, all they have is a chain-link fence with barbwire on the top. I’ll give you some big wire cutters.”

  Joel glanced in his rearview mirror then checked his side mirror. “Okay, all clear. Everybody out.”

  There was only one part of the plan that Ethan didn’t feel good about. As he climbed out, he asked, “Joel, we’re about to enter an area riddled with Arab terror groups, and Josh’s RTS system has been used to wipe out a number of those kinds of groups who have launched Stinger missiles and who ended up swallowing their own missiles — like Iran, when they got nuked by their own warheads. So, you’re sending us to the Palestinian side … Why?”

  “You’ll be staying with Ibrahim Kalid,” Joel said as he popped open the trunk, seeming to ignore Ethan’s comment.

  That didn’t sit well with Ethan. Not hiding his sarcasm, he kept it up. “Oh, great. You’ve got us under the control of some Arab guy?”

  Joel reached in and pulled out two red-and-white-checked Arab headdresses and handed them to Joshua along with the wire cutters. “I know we’ve already gone over this, but here’s the plan one more time. You will wait about ten minutes. As it starts to get dark, crawl through the open space. I’ve arranged for the spotlights to stay off for a few minutes to help you get across.” Then he bent into the trunk and pulled out something that looked like a modern version of a long Roman shield, with a handle grip on the backside.

  He gave it to Ethan. “High-impact Kevlar riot shield. You’re going to want to hang on to this,” he added.

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  Joel told Joshua and Ethan to wait until he gave them the signal by flashing his headlights. As promised, the gap between the slabs of concrete had been left open. The razor wire had been unbolted from the concrete and pushed aside. They squeezed into the space, while Ethan clumsily clutched the bulletproof shield and Joshua held the wire cutters. It was almost dark.