by Mark Alpert
“Aryeh? You need to come here at once. I assume you remember where the division headquarters is?”
Aryeh was more surprised by Yaron’s tone than by what he’d just said. The normally emotionless general sounded worried. “What is it? Why do you need me?”
“We’ve heard some very strange things. And we think they might be related to the communications you deciphered.”
“What things?”
Yaron paused, but only for a second. “There are news reports of an earthquake in southern Turkmenistan. Not a very big earthquake. But the epicenter is close to the radio tower that carried one of the messages about Excalibur.”
“What’s strange about that? The area is tectonically active, yes?”
“The strange thing is that the IDF doesn’t think it’s an earthquake. Our seismic monitors indicate that it was an underground nuclear explosion. When our intelligence division contacted the Americans to see if they came to the same conclusion, none of the Pentagon officials would talk about it. But they’ve gone to DEFCON 1, the highest level of alert.”
Aryeh bit his lip. He remembered what Olam had said before he’d gone to Turkmenistan. Excalibur channeled the energy from nuclear explosions. And the more powerful the explosion, the more damage the X-ray laser could do. “You think the Iranians detonated another nuke? And now the Americans are going to retaliate?”
“Listen carefully, Aryeh. When the Iranian crisis started, Unit 8200 deployed several boats in the Arabian Sea to monitor radio communications in the region. About an hour ago one of our boats picked up an encrypted signal that was sent from an American Milstar satellite in a narrow spotlight beam. But there were no American ships within the beam’s range, and our boat’s radar didn’t find any aircraft nearby.”
“I’m sorry, I don’t—”
“Half an hour later, another of our boats detected a second spotlight beam from the same satellite. This boat was five hundred kilometers north of the first one. So now our analysts had a track to follow, and they came to a reasonable conclusion. The Milstar satellite is communicating with an American B-2 bomber. You see, the plane has stealth technology, which explains why it didn’t show up on our radar. And a B-2 squadron is based about two thousand kilometers south of our boats, on the island of Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean.”
Aryeh was familiar with stealth bombers, of course. He’d even seen one a few years ago at an air show in America, a sleek, black plane shaped like a bat’s wing. “Those aircraft can carry nuclear weapons, yes?”
“Correct. And the track indicates that the B-2 is heading for Iran.”
Aryeh shook his head. His neck was cold with sweat and his gut was cramping. He scooped up his papers, all the transcripts of the intercepted messages, and stuffed them into his shoulder bag. “I’m coming to Herzliya,” he said. “I’ll be there in half an hour.”
42
MICHAEL WAS IN THE SHACK AT THE BASE OF THE RADIO TOWER, SITTING cross-legged on the wooden floor. David Swift had left him a bottle of water and a chocolate bar with a picture of a cow on the wrapper. It was an Israeli candy, David had told him, a gift from one of the soldiers dressed in black. David had said it would taste just like a Milky Way bar, but Michael was reluctant to try it.
Shomron, the Israeli radioman, sat on the floor, too, with his back against the opposite wall and his bandaged leg stretched out in front of him. There were also bandages on the soldier’s face, covering everything except his mouth and one of his eyes. At first the bandages reminded Michael of Cyrus’s head scarf, and he didn’t like this memory. But after several minutes he grew more comfortable with Shomron. The fact that most of the soldier’s face was covered was actually a relief. When Michael looked at the man he didn’t have to follow all the intricate movements of the facial muscles and agonize over what they meant. The soldier’s face was fixed in a single expression, so Michael never had to worry that he was missing something.
Shomron pointed at him. “Olam told me that you’re a clever boy. Very good at mathematics and physics, he said. Is that true?”
Michael nodded. He was happy that Olam had complimented him. He liked the big bald soldier with the eye patch. “Yes, it’s true. My great-great-grandfather was Albert Einstein.”
“Really? Then I’m very fortunate to have you here. I might be able to use some of your skills right now.” He shifted on the floor and pointed at a gray console in the corner of the shack. “Those are the controls for the radio tower. And I have to use those controls to solve a puzzle. Do you like to solve puzzles?”
Michael nodded again.
“Good,” Shomron said. “This puzzle involves radio jamming. Do you know what that is?”
Michael scrolled through his memory of The Concise Scientific Encyclopedia. “Jamming is the intentional disruption of a radio signal. To stop someone from receiving the signal, a jamming device transmits noise on the same frequency.”
“Yes, correct. That’s what our enemies are doing to us right now. They have an EA-18 Growler aircraft that’s transmitting large amounts of noise on the military frequencies. So even though we have this very nice radio tower, all our signals are being drowned out.”
Michael thought about it for a moment. “Do you know where this aircraft is located?”
“Ah, very good! I can see you’re already working on the puzzle. I’m going to explain something else to you now. It’s called a countermeasure.”
THE PAIR OF MI-8S DOVE ACROSS THE BORDER, FLYING JUST THIRTY FEET OFF the ground to avoid being spotted on the Iranian radar. David’s stomach did somersaults as the helicopter pitched up and down. Gripping the edge of his seat in the cabin, he twisted around so he could look out one of the porthole windows. The MI-8s were following the contours of the Kopet Dag, hiding behind each ridge for as long as possible before popping over the crest and descending into the next valley. They cruised over cliffs and canyons and rock slides, all brilliantly lit by the setting sun. A herd of wild goats scattered below them as the helicopters hurtled south, but David saw no villages or roads or people. The landscape was arid and strangely empty, as if the apocalypse had already happened.
Monique sat to his right. She was inspecting the Desert Eagle semiautomatic that Olam had given her, hefting the pistol to feel its weight in her hand. She practiced loading the weapon, slamming the magazine into the gun’s handle and popping it out, doing it over and over until it was second nature, and as David watched her he thought of Lucille. He quickly shook his head to dispel the memory—he couldn’t bear to think of Lucille now—but the feeling stayed with him, an odd disorientation. The two women were different in so many ways, but both of them knew how to handle a gun.
Olam was piloting their MI-8 but the rest of the Israelis were in the helicopter flown by Lieutenant Halutz. David and Monique shared their cabin with the seven Rangers, the survivors of Camp Cobra. Six of them sat on the opposite side of the cabin, the four snipers who’d been posted outside the cave and the two soldiers who’d come out the backdoor tunnel with Sergeant Morrison. Morrison himself sat a couple of feet to David’s left. Because the sergeant had come out of Camp Cobra without a weapon, Olam had given him one of the AK-47s he’d acquired from the Turkmen helicopter crew.
At first Morrison studiously avoided eye contact with David. But about twenty minutes into the flight, while Olam was putting the MI-8 through a particularly violent series of maneuvers, the back of David’s head banged against the cabin wall and Morrison turned to him. “Are you all right, sir?” he shouted above the rotor noise.
David rubbed his scalp. It was a little strange to hear that “sir.” This was the same guy who’d kicked him in the ribs and helped General McNair drag him to the Sour Tub. But that was before Little Boy exploded. “I’m fine,” he replied. “Thanks.”
Morrison kept staring at him. The sergeant clearly wanted to say something else, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it. After a while David got tired of waiting, so he held out his right hand. “You don�
��t have to call me ‘sir.’ My name’s David.”
He grabbed David’s hand and squeezed it tightly. His eyes were bloodshot and full of remorse. “I’m so fucking sorry, man. I wish I’d listened to you. I wish to Christ I’d listened.”
Morrison seemed absolutely sincere. He held on to David’s hand as if it were a lifeline, refusing to let go. But David wasn’t ready to forgive him yet. “Yeah, I wish you’d listened, too.”
The sergeant shook his head. “I still can’t believe it. How the hell could McNair do it? It’s fucking unbelievable.”
“He thought he was carrying out God’s plan. But his instructions were coming from Cyrus, not God.”
“And that guy works in the Pentagon, too, right? Another fucking monster.”
“No, he’s not a monster.” David remembered Cyrus’s face, so ordinary and calm. “He’s just deluded. He thinks he’s doing us all a favor.”
Morrison tightened his grip. He was hurting David again, but not intentionally this time. “Whatever he is, he’s gonna die. I can promise you that.” He let go of David’s hand and pointed at the bandages on his forearms. “How are the burns? Did that Israeli medic give you anything for the pain?”
David nodded. “Yeah, they dosed me up.”
Then Morrison pointed at the Desert Eagle in David’s hand. “And what about that? You think you can handle it?”
He nodded again. “I’ve had some practice with the Glock. This gun’s heavier, but I think I’ll be all right.”
“I tried the Eagle once. It’s a hell of a good piece.” He leaned a bit closer and patted the barrel of his AK-47. “And I’m gonna stay right with you, okay? Me and my buddies are gonna watch your back. I can’t change what I did before, all the shit that went down in the cave. But I can help you now.”
David nodded a third time. He still wasn’t ready to forgive Morrison, but he’d rather fight alongside the sergeant than against him.
Then he felt a tap on his right shoulder and turned back to Monique, who was gazing out the porthole window. She pointed at another ridge, about two miles farther south. Nestled within the folds of the mountainside was a concrete pillbox, barely visible in the twilight. That was the entrance to the Iranian bunker. The mountain curved inward to the right of the structure, and in the semicircle of flat ground at the foot of the slope were banks of fresh earth, newly dug fortifications.
“One minute to landing!” Olam’s voice boomed from the cockpit. “Prepare to move out!”
THE SPIRIT OF AMERICA, A B-2 STEALTH BOMBER STATIONED AT DIEGO GARCIA, was already flying over southeastern Iran when it received the Emergency Action Message from the Milstar satellite. The message had been coded by the air force’s Global Strike Command, which changed its encryption keys every hour. The keys themselves had been transmitted to the B-2 in another encrypted message sent previously, when the bomber was still cruising over the Arabian Sea. Over the bomber’s radio came the tense voice of an air-force communications specialist, repeating the message’s six-character preamble three times.
“Lima Three Foxtrot Hotel Seven Romeo.”
“Lima Three Foxtrot Hotel Seven Romeo.”
“Lima Three Foxtrot Hotel Seven Romeo.”
Colonel George Ashley, the mission commander, turned around in his seat and unlocked the safe in the bomber’s two-man cockpit. He pulled out the June 13 codebook and turned to the EAM authentication tables. The first two characters of the preamble specified which table Ashley should use, and the next four characters were the authentication code. Colonel Ashley consulted the Lima Three table and looked up the proper code for the current hour. It was Foxtrot Hotel Seven Romeo.
“The Emergency Action Message is authenticated,” the colonel said, reciting the words he’d memorized long ago and hoped never to utter. “This message is a valid nuclear-control order.”
He passed the codebook to Major Wilcox, the bomber’s pilot. Wilcox looked at the page and nodded. “I concur.”
Colonel Ashley then turned to the screen on his cockpit display, which showed the rest of the message that followed the authentication code. The order directed them to proceed to the preplanned target and deliver the B83 earth-penetrating warhead. It also contained the permissive action links that would unlock the warhead’s detonator.
The colonel swallowed hard. “How long till we reach Ashkhaneh, Major?”
“About thirty-five minutes, sir.”
43
BROTHER CYRUS SPOTTED THE PAIR OF HELICOPTERS THROUGH HIS BINOCUlars while they were still several miles away. At first he felt a stab of despair. It was the first wave of an American assault group, he thought. Somehow his plans had been discovered and the president had ordered an airborne attack against him. After half a minute, though, Cyrus got a better look at the helicopters and realized they weren’t American. They were Russian-made MI-8s, old-fashioned transport helicopters that were designed more than forty years ago. What’s more, there seemed to be only two of them—no other aircraft or vehicles were approaching the Ashkhaneh facility. Best of all, Cyrus saw no rockets or missiles hanging from the helicopters’ weapons racks. The markings on the craft identified them as belonging to the Turkmen Army’s aviation division, the unit that had been dispatched to hunt down Olam ben Z’man and his remaining commandos. Olam had obviously taken control of the MI-8s and decided to challenge Cyrus again.
Cyrus smiled, ecstatic with relief. Olam and his helicopters didn’t worry him. The Israeli’s armaments were laughably feeble: a couple of medium-caliber machine guns mounted on each MI-8 and, at most, an assortment of small arms carried by his commandos. Cyrus’s men, in contrast, had the most advanced machine gun in the U.S. Army’s arsenal, the XM-806. Four of these guns were positioned in foxholes around the entrance to the tunnel, ready to shred any aircraft or vehicle that came near. In addition, the True Believers carried Stinger surface-to-air missiles and rocket-propelled grenade launchers. The helicopters were flying too low to be hit by the Stingers, but they would make perfect targets for the RPGs, which were loaded with a new type of explosive called the thermobaric grenade. This projectile was designed to blow up concrete buildings, so it could certainly demolish an MI-8.
Cyrus whispered a prayer to the Almighty, apologizing for his momentary lapse of faith. As he finished, the radio hanging from his belt let out a squawk. He reached for the thing and saw that the transmission was from the Revolutionary Guards inside the caverns of the Ashkhaneh facility. One of General Jannati’s lieutenants was yelling in broken English.
“Attention . . . Mr. Black . . . observing two helicopters . . . from north approaching . . . must speaking with . . . Commander Jannati . . . further orders . . . requiring.”
Cyrus pressed the talk button on the radio. “General Jannati is well aware of the situation. Those helicopters are piloted by Israeli commandos, and we intend to destroy them as soon as they come within range. Your commander is helping us coordinate the operation.”
The word “Israeli” caused great consternation on the other end of the line. Cyrus could hear terrified shouts in Farsi. “Khoda! Khoda! Chi kar konim?”
“Please stay calm,” Cyrus said. “General Jannati wants you to remain in your bunker. We have enough antiaircraft weapons to handle the threat. Repeat, remain in your bunker.”
“Yes . . . yes, acknowledging.”
Cyrus smiled again as the radio went silent. The last hour of the corrupted universe had indeed turned joyful, just as he’d hoped. He checked one more time with Nicodemus to make sure that his soldiers were properly dug in. He couldn’t see the MI-8s now—the helicopters had ducked behind one of the spurs along the ridge—but very soon Olam would launch his attack, and the True Believers would be ready to destroy him.
After taking one last look at the darkening sky, Cyrus entered the tunnel that led to the impact chamber. He’d decided to stand in front of the chamber’s viewing window during the final minutes, staring at the wondrous laser that would open the gates to God’s king
dom. He knew he wouldn’t be able to see the warhead entering the chamber, or the laser beams generated by the blast of radiation—his sinful body would be vaporized before that information could enter his brain. Nevertheless, he wanted to stand as close as possible to the Omega Point, where Time would end and the Redemption would begin. Perhaps it was selfish of him, but he wanted to be the first person to enter the Kingdom of Heaven.
THE MI-8 TOUCHED DOWN NEAR THE BASE OF THE MOUNTAIN AND DAVID jumped out of the helicopter. He followed the lead of the six Rangers in front of him, running away from the flat, sandy ground of the landing zone and heading for the shelter of the mountainside. Monique was right behind him and Sergeant Morrison brought up the rear. The helicopter took off as soon as they’d exited, but the sand still whirled around them. The soldiers became dark blurs in the purple light of dusk, all running toward a great black wall that blocked half the sky.
Once they reached the slope, they regrouped under a granite overhang. David leaned against the rock wall, his heart hammering. Monique panted beside him, leaning forward slightly as she caught her breath. It reminded David of the times when they went jogging together, except now they wore black fatigues instead of tracksuits and carried four-pound Desert Eagles in their hands. In the distance David could hear the thumping rotors of the MI-8s. Olam’s helicopter was somewhere above them, flying close to the mountain and reconnoitering the area. Lieutenant Halutz’s MI-8 had gone farther west to drop off the Israeli commandos on the other side of Cyrus’s position.
The Rangers headed in that direction, jogging single file and staying close to the mountainside. A few hundred yards ahead was a rocky spur that jutted north from the ridge. David remembered seeing it from the air—the spur marked the eastern edge of the semicircle where Cyrus’s men were dug in. The Rangers crept forward to take a peek around the rock pile at the end of the spur. Then the ground erupted under their feet.
