In His Image

by James Beauseigneur

“Perhaps you would prefer a response that was a bit … stronger? One that took greater advantage of the opportunity?”

  “I had hopes, yes.”

  “I did prepare an alternate recommendation. Perhaps you would like to have a look?” Khromchenkov handed a large unmarked envelope to his fellow minister and left the room.

  New York, New York

  By 8:00 A.M. New York time, the world had begun to learn what had actually happened in Israel. Early reports had suggested that the bombing was an accident on the part of the Russians. Many of the Russians had even thought this was the case. Now that it was clear the attack had been somehow engineered by the Israelis, concern at the UN quickly turned to calls for restraint by the Russians.

  Jon Hansen had learned early in his political career that the most effective diplomacy is usually carried out in private; the speaker’s dais in the hall of the General Assembly was for show business. Still, there were times, such as when he had called for the reorganization of the Security Council—a move that was entirely for spectacle—when the dais was indispensable. The present occasion would require both.

  It was ingenious that the Israelis could engineer such a maneuver, Hansen thought; it was insane that they’d actually do it. And it was impossible for anyone to tell how the Russians were planning to respond to the attack. Hansen knew enough about Russian politics to recognize there would probably be serious discussion of launching some sort of limited nuclear attack in response, but he hoped the moderates would win out. Unfortunately, he could learn nothing more from Russian Ambassador Yuri Kruszkegin, who was playing it very close to the vest.

  Unknown to Hansen were the cards in the hand of the small group of men and women deep beneath the streets of Tel Aviv. They were the ones who held history in their hands, along with the control of Israel’s nuclear forces and strategic defense.

  Moscow, Russia

  Defense Minister Vladimir Khromchenkov had just walked into the rest room and gone over to one of the urinals when he realized that someone had followed him in. Out of the corner of his eye he recognized Foreign Minister Cherov. Khromchenkov knew at once this was no chance meeting; he could count on the fingers of his free hand the number of times he had seen Cherov in this wing of the building. Still, it was not wise to make assumptions. “Good afternoon,” Khromchenkov said.

  Cherov only nodded.

  “Have you had a chance to examine my alternate proposal?”

  “I have,” answered Cherov. “It offers some intriguing possibilities for both the short- and long-term goals of our country.” Cherov’s voice said he was interested and Khromchenkov knew it.

  “Of course,” Khromchenkov said, “such a plan would depend greatly on the response from the Americans. I have made some assumptions, and of course it is all conjecture; I am not an expert in these things.” There was no doubt in Cherov’s mind that this was said both to fulfill Khromchenkov’s obligation to defer to Cherov’s position as Foreign Minister and to position himself to avoid the blame later if his assumptions on the matter proved incorrect. “Perhaps you would have a different assessment,” Khromchenkov suggested as he left the urinal to wash his hands.

  “No. Your assessment seems correct,” Cherov said as he joined him at the sink. “Of course, we shall never know for sure. It would be impossible to overrule the wishes of President Perelyakin on this matter.” Cherov’s voice made it clear he was eager to hear more, if indeed there was more to hear.

  “I suppose you are correct,” Khromchenkov said with an insincere sigh, and then added, “On the other hand, were it to be proposed by the right member of the Security Council, there are doubtless others who would follow.”

  “The right member?” Cherov asked, wanting Khromchenkov to confirm what he seemed to be suggesting.

  “Yes, someone who could offer the strong leadership required to lead the Russian Federation, should the president find it, er … impossible to support the view of the majority.”

  There was now no doubt about what he was suggesting. Khromchenkov’s plan was obvious: Cherov was “the right member.” President Perelyakin would obviously oppose the plan. That was the easy part. The difficult part—impossible, unless it could be prearranged—was to have the majority side with Cherov. Perelyakin was not a forgiving man. If the plan failed it would cost Cherov dearly.

  “Can one be sure of the numbers?” Cherov asked cautiously.

  “As sure as one may be of anything,” Khromchenkov answered, drying his hands. “There are three members who supported Perelyakin in the past who have confided to me that they do not wish to see an opportunity such as this pass unanswered.”

  Cherov did a quick tally of the numbers. It suddenly occurred to him that, despite the accuracy of Khromchenkov’s math, everything did not add up. Why had not these three members simply gone to Perelyakin to press for a stronger response to the problem?

  “And have these members gone to President Perelyakin with their plea?” Cherov asked.

  “Yes, of course.”

  “And he refuses to listen?”

  “He listens. He just does not hear. His world is built on caution.”

  “A sound foundation,” Cherov answered.

  “Yes, but one that may let destiny slip past unanswered and ignore an opportunity that would restore Russia to its rightful place as a world power.”

  “You speak of opportunity. But there is no such opportunity unless your General Serov is successful in regaining control of the Israeli strategic defense.”

  “True enough,” Khromchenkov admitted. “If he does not, then the alternate recommendation will not be made and there is nothing lost. And yet, if he does succeed … we must be ready to act.”

  Cherov considered Khromchenkov’s comment. “I will think on it,” he said finally.

  Tel Aviv, Israel

  In the Off-Site Test Facility the members of Colonel White’s team took turns sleeping. It had been thirty hours since the successful launch of the Gideon missiles; it might be days or even weeks before they saw the outside again. Joel was munching on a bag of Tapu potato chips in front of a computer console and Scott had just stretched out on a cot to rest when something unexpected happened.

  “What’s this?” Joel said under his breath. “Colonel White,” he called, requesting the team leader’s presence.

  Colonel White downed the rest of a cup of coffee and walked over to where Joel was sitting. “What’s up?” he asked.

  Joel moved closer to the console, studying the computer monitor. “A bad reading, I hope. The master icon for the defense grid just went red.”

  Colonel White took one look and didn’t like what he saw. “Danny, get over here quick,” he yelled to one of the two female members of the team.

  Danielle Metzger was the one person, other than White, with the most experience in the OSTF, but unlike the Colonel her work had all been hands on. She knew the facility inside and out.

  “Oh, no!” she yelled. The noise woke the three team members who were sleeping.

  “Quick,” Metzger shouted, taking command of the situation. “Everybody, we’ve got a problem!!”

  “Tell me what’s going on,” White ordered.

  “We’ve lost control,” Danielle responded as she ran a series of diagnostics to be sure the readings were correct.

  “What happened?” several voices said at once.

  Danielle continued working, madly trying to reestablish control. Finally she confirmed that this was not simply a faulty reading. “Colonel, it appears that somehow the Russians have taken control of all defensive capabilities.”

  “Can we get them back?” he asked, terrified of what her answer might be.

  “I don’t know, sir. I—”

  “Wait a second,” Joel interrupted. “We still have control of our offensive forces. How could we lose one but not the other? Could this just be an aberration in the system?”

  Like the others, Scott Rosen was studying the situation, trying to get some idea of wh
at went wrong and what could be done to correct it. It was he who answered Joel’s question. “It’s not an aberration,” he replied. “I can’t explain how they did it but I can explain what they’ve done. The fiber optics used for communication between the various sites in the offensive and defensive systems go through both the SDCF and the OSTF. For reasons of logistics, control communications of missile silos go first through this facility and then to the SDCF; defensive control communications go first through the SDCF and then to this facility.”

  “What idiot decided to do that?!” Joel exclaimed.

  “Dr. Brown,” answered Danielle Metzger. “But he couldn’t have predicted we’d ever be in a situation like this,” she continued, becoming a little defensive on behalf of the late doctor who had been her mentor.

  Scott continued his explanation. “Somehow they must have discovered that Sensor Facility 14 was a counterfeit facility and traced its input/output cables.”

  “So can we get control back or not?” Colonel White asked, reasserting his authority. There was a long pause.

  “I don’t think so,” Scott answered finally. “I think they may have cut the cables.”

  In all the confusion and disarray, no one noticed the faint sound of the radio in the background as it monitored the continuous loop of the words of the prophet Joel. Nor did they notice at first when the loop abruptly stopped and was replaced by another voice. It was the low, rich, and measured voice of Rabbi Saul Cohen. As the room fell silent for a moment, the familiar voice registered in Joel Felsberg’s ears. At first he ignored it, but then suddenly he recognized it. “That’s my sister’s rabbi,” he announced, surprising the others, who were trying to figure a way out of the present predicament. “What’s going on up there? Why have they shut off the loop?” he asked as he turned the sound up enough to be heard more clearly.

  “Cohen? That traitor!” Scott Rosen said, temporarily distracted from the more pressing subject at hand by his intense hatred for the rabbi. Scott was only too familiar with Cohen’s powerful voice. Once, when he’d stayed overnight at his parents’ house, Scott had been awakened in the morning by that same voice as it joined with his parents and a few others in singing songs proclaiming Yeshua as the Jewish Messiah. It took all the forbearance he could muster to refrain from going into the kitchen and slugging the rabbi, and still he would have, had it not been for his mother. It was one thing for individual citizens of Israel like his parents to believe in Yeshua, but it was something else altogether for a rabbi—an Hasidic rabbi at that—to believe it. More recently, before their deaths in the Disaster, Scott’s parents had spent every spare moment with Cohen on some mysterious project. Several times the three had disappeared for weeks, leaving only a note to indicate their expected date of return.

  “All the earth has seen what has been done here today,” Cohen said over the radio. “But you, oh Israel, have not glorified God. Instead you have congratulated yourselves for destroying your enemy. You have glorified yourself and now you have falsely used the words of the prophet Joel to suit your own needs. ‘These words must not be used as a rallying cry for my people,’ says the Lord. These are the words of the son of Satan, who will rally his evil forces to destroy you in the day of the Lord that is coming. Nevertheless, the Lord your God is a patient and merciful God. Hear now the words of the prophet Ezekiel for the enemy of my people Israel:

  I will execute judgment upon him with plague and bloodshed; I will pour down torrents of rain, hailstones and burning sulfur on him and his troops and on the many nations with him … On the mountains of Israel you will fall, you and all your troops and the nations with you. I will give you as food to all kinds of carrion birds and wild animals. You will fall in the open field, for I have spoken, declares the Sovereign Lord … and they will know that I am the Lord!32

  “Today, oh Israel, today you shall behold the power and wrath of God! Here, oh Israel, is your true battle cry. ‘Behold the hand of God! Behold the hand of God!’”

  New York, New York

  Decker was suddenly awakened as a scream of pure terror erupted from Christopher’s room. Decker found the boy covered in sweat and trembling in fear. “What’s wrong?” Decker shouted, his own heart racing to match Christopher’s.

  Christopher sat up straight in bed, seemingly unsure of his surroundings. As he looked around, the disorientation was slow to leave him. Finally, Decker saw a look of recognition in his eyes.

  “I’m sorry,” Christopher said. “I’m okay now. It was … just a dream.”

  Decker had been a father long enough to recognize when a child was attempting to be brave. Christopher was visibly shaken and Decker wasn’t about to leave him alone.

  “Was it the crucifixion dream again?” Decker asked.

  “No, no,” Christopher answered. “Nothing like that.”

  “Well, why don’t you tell me about it.”

  Christopher seemed a little reluctant but Decker insisted. “It was really just a dumb dream,” Christopher said apologetically. “I’ve had the same dream before.” Decker didn’t budge. “Okay,” Christopher said, giving in to Decker’s insistence. “The dream has a weird feeling about it. It seems almost ancient, but at the same time it’s clear and fresh. When the dream starts, I’m in a room with huge curtains hanging all around me. The curtains are beautiful, decorated with gold and silver threads. The floor of the room is made of stone and in the middle of the room is an old wooden box, like a crate, sitting on a table. I can’t explain why, but in the dream I feel like I need to look in the box.”

  “What’s in the box?” Decker asked.

  “I don’t know. In the dream it seems like there’s something inside that I need to see, but at the same time, somehow I know that whatever it is, it’s terrifying.”

  Decker read the terror in the boy’s eyes and was glad he had insisted Christopher tell him about the dream. This was not the sort of thing a fifteen-year-old should have to face on his own.

  “In the dream, when I approach the box and I’m just a few feet away, I look down and somehow the floor has disappeared. I start to fall, but I grab onto the table that the box is sitting on.” Christopher stopped.

  “Go on,” Decker urged.

  “That’s as far as the dream ever went until tonight.”

  “So, what happened tonight?” Decker prodded.

  “Well, usually I wake up at that point, but this time there was something else: a voice. It was a very deep, rich voice and it was saying, ‘Behold the hand of God! Behold the hand of God!’”

  Decker had no idea what the dream might mean, but it certainly had his attention.

  “And then there was another voice,” Christopher continued. “Well, it wasn’t exactly a voice. It was a laugh.”

  “A laugh?”

  “Yes, sir. But it wasn’t a friendly laugh. I can’t really explain it except to say it was cold and cruel and terribly inhuman.”

  Moscow, Russia

  Lieutenant Yuri Dolginov hurried down the long hall of the Kremlin toward the office of the Defense Minister. Despite the importance of his message he knew well that he had better take the time to knock before entering. “Sir,” he said, when he was permitted to enter, “we have regained control of the Israeli strategic defense.”

  This was good news, indeed. “Excellent,” Khromchenkov said to himself. “Then the time has come to strike.” He made a quick call to Foreign Minister Cherov before notifying President Perelyakin of the change in status in Israel. The president called for an immediate meeting of the Russian Security Council.

  When the meeting convened a few minutes later, President Perelyakin immediately turned the floor over to Khromchenkov. He had no idea of the intrigue that was brewing and simply felt it was good politics to allow the defense minister to have the pleasure of informing the Security Council of the good news from Israel.

  Khromchenkov read the words of the communiqué from General Serov in the Israeli Strategic Defense Control Facility:

&nbs
p; Have regained control of Israeli strategic defense. Unable to achieve same for offensive missile forces. Recommend immediate action as condition could change without warning.

  The members of the Security Council applauded General Serov’s accomplishment. Several of the men in the meeting had already been notified of the situation and were obliged to act as though this was the first time they had heard it.

  “Thank you,” President Perelyakin told Khromchenkov. “Now, I suggest we comply with the general’s recommendation and respond immediately.”

  “One moment,” Foreign Minister Cherov interrupted.

  “Yes,” responded Perelyakin, who had already risen from his seat. Perelyakin’s face showed only the slightest hint of concern as Cherov began. Inside, however, his stomach muscles tightened as if in preparation for a physical blow.

  “It has occurred to me that we face a remarkable opportunity to restore Russia to its rightful position as a great world power. At this moment the American forces are struggling to rebuild. Now, certainly I will acknowledge that similar conditions exist for the Russian Federation. The Disaster, as the Americans call it, has struck both sides with severe losses. But the measure of superiority is not what is, but how one uses what is, to his final advantage.”

  Perelyakin listened to Cherov’s words with his ears but his eyes studied the faces of those around him. He didn’t like what he saw anymore than he liked what he heard.

  New York, New York

  “I appreciate you meeting me for breakfast, Yuri,” Jon Hansen said as he greeted the Soviet ambassador.

  “Good morning, Jon,” Kruszkegin responded. “That’s all right. I’m on a diet,” he added in jest, anticipating the distasteful nature of the conversation that was about to follow.

  Kruszkegin’s eyes were red from having to operate in two different time zones. He had been awakened early that morning to be apprised of the situation in Israel. His nephew, Yuri Dolginov, who worked for the defense minister, had sent him an encrypted e-mail from Moscow that Russia had regained control of the Israeli strategic defense, and Kruszkegin had stayed up expecting official notification from the foreign minister of what action was intended. None came. This was not the first time he’d had to depend on his nephew for word of what was going on. The foreign minister, under whose direction all Russian ambassadors functioned, was not comfortable with men like Kruszkegin, whom he considered far too internationally-minded to be very useful to the Russian Federation.