02 Thunder of Heaven: A Joshua Jordan Novel

by Tim LaHaye

  Having exhausted his tangent, Hamilton returned to his prepared lesson, about the basics of tectonic plates.

  Soon the bell rang, and Hamilton gathered up his notes. That’s when, in the quiet of the classroom, the phone call from the oncologist came rushing back into his mind. “Some spots lit up on your last scan,” the doctor had said. “We need you to come in so we can discuss some options. I’m sorry, Dr. Hamilton.”

  As Hamilton was deep in thought, the man from the back of the room slowly sauntered down the aisle. He seemed to be timing his gait to give a few straggling students a chance to clear the room. When the lecture hall was empty, the man approached Dr. Hamilton. The middle-aged man had a tangle of uncombed hair and an intense look to him.

  “Professor Hamilton,” the man said, looking around as if he were afraid of being overheard. “I’m Curtis Belltether. Remember me?”

  Hamilton gave a vague shake of the head.

  “I’m the blog journalist. I called you about your studies …”

  “Oh, yes. Right. Were we supposed to meet?”

  “Not really. I flew here on a bit of a whim. I thought we should talk face-to-face.”

  “Tell me about yourself again, Mr. Belltether. I’m afraid I’ve forgotten.”

  “I used to be a reporter for a couple of major print dailies. They went belly up, so I transferred over to some Internet publications. I kept a job, for a while. My specialty is investigative reporting, but with the changes in the electronic media, with foreign interests buying everything up, and then with the political controls that Washington has placed on the Internet, I found myself … oh, you might say, rubbing the cat’s fur the wrong way. I’m your all-purpose offender. So, finding myself out of work, I started my own Internet news source. My first site was called NewsJunk. That got shut down. Too controversial. Then I launched one called the Barn Door. That one apparently stepped on some toes as well. My Internet provider and the telecom company said my site was shut down because it had too many viruses. What a laugh. I had a cyber expert examine my site. Guess what? No viruses … Am I boring you?”

  Hamilton’s expression brightened. “No, go on.”

  “So now my blog site is called Leak-o-paedia. I expose secret conspiracies and government corruption based on information that people … like you … give me.”

  “Like me?”

  “Yeah. Just like you. Experts who’ve had some time in the belly of the beast and have a story to tell.”

  “What beast?”

  “How about the International Conference on Climate and Global Warming at the United Nations?”

  “They rejected my credentials. I wasn’t allowed in.”

  “My point exactly.”

  “What is it you want, Mr. Belltether?”

  “Your take on the recent spike in worldwide temperatures, the U.N. conference, and what you tried to tell Washington but what they didn’t want to hear … that sort of thing.”

  Dr. Hamilton was smiling. For a brief moment that phone call from his doctor had just been tucked away in the out basket.

  TWENTY-NINE

  Amman, Jordan

  The palms of his hands were cold and sweaty. He felt that empty, roller-coaster feeling in the pit of his stomach.

  Inside his tiny nondescript apartment in Jordan’s capital city, Rafi could hear the last chanting echoes of the dwindling mob in the streets below. Thousands of Arab members of the Muslim Brotherhood had filled the streets, chanting and shouting, “Mawt Israel! Mawt America!” He’d heard it before. These displays were a regular occurrence in the streets of Amman. Calling for the death of those two nations was nothing new, but it seemed to Rafi that they came more frequently now.

  As a member of the Mossad, Israel’s spy agency, Rafi was also accustomed to blending in, looking relaxed and natural in hostile surroundings. But today he wasn’t calm. He had to make a call on the customized sat-fone in his apartment. He didn’t have any doubts about it being a secure line or that the encryption was less than perfect. The yahalomin, the Mossad communications technician who had installed it, was one of the best. No, it was the message he had to transmit that made him uneasy.

  He tapped in the code, then waited. Three beeps. He gave the voice command to the recognition software on the other end. After a few seconds, he heard a tone. Then an automated voice asked him for today’s password phrase.

  He spoke it. “He caused the storm to be still.”

  “You have been authorized. Please hold.”

  Rafi waited. He glanced at the mini-cam monitor, which showed a view of the hallway outside of his apartment. It was clear.

  He generally didn’t give much thought to the pass-phrase, but he wondered who had picked the one for today. Rafi had gone to Yeshiva, and in his studies he had come across that verse from Psalm 107:

  He caused the storm to be still.

  So that the waves of the sea were hushed.

  A voice came over the line. Rafi recognized it. It was General Shapiro, head of the IDF special operations.

  “Number 8, good day.”

  “And to you, sir.”

  “News?”

  “Yes.”

  Rafi had to give it in code. Prince meant Iran, and king meant Jordan. Nuclear weapons were referred to as arrows, and nonnuclear conventional missiles were sticks. A ground invasion was called surfing, and a terror attack a game of badminton.

  “Sir, the Olympics are approaching.”

  “Sounds competitive.”

  “It will be.”

  “Tell me, what’s the game exactly?”

  “Archery, sir.”

  There was a pause. When he spoke next, General Shapiro’s voice was punctuated, each word painfully clear and crisp. “How many arrows?”

  Rafi replied, but as he did, he caught something on the monitor next to him. “Three arrows …”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes.”

  “Who’s playing?”

  “The prince.”

  “Your source?”

  “Friends close to the king. The king has been warned, assured by the prince of no harm to his land. Also so that they can prepare. Because the king and his people live next to the Olympic stadium.”

  “You are sure of this?”

  “I am sure. One second, sir …”

  In the fish-eyed lens of the monitor, Rafi could see two men, one in a short-sleeve shirt and the other in a suit with no tie. Both had beards. They were walking toward his door.

  “One second, sir — ”

  “Timeline? We must have the timeline — ”

  “Soon — ”

  “How soon?”

  The men were at his door.

  “Have to sign off.”

  The two men in the hallway pulled out their ZOAF 9mm handguns.

  Rafi disconnected. He grouped the monitor and the sat-fone together on the table and then reached into a briefcase on the floor. He pulled out a block of plastic explosives, the size of a small brick, with a detonator already in place. He clicked on the Allfone wired to it. Then he sprinted to the window.

  The door to his apartment burst open, the men rushed in, quickly scanned the room, and then started shooting. They emptied their magazines at the open window where they had just glimpsed Rafi’s form jumping out.

  Rafi landed twenty feet below on a metal awning. He hit his right shoulder and hand in the leap. The shoulder felt dislocated, and his hand was probably broken. With his left hand, he painfully opened his other Allfone and tried to hit the speed dial. His right arm wasn’t moving well.

  He looked up. The Iranian gunmen were bending out the window. They spotted him. As they tried to draw a bead on him with their weapons, Rafi clumsily hit the speed dial button again. The upstairs apartment roared with the blast of fire and smoke that shot out the window. The two gunmen were blown out of the apartment in a hail of debris and sent sailing across the narrow street where they slammed into a building opposite and dropped onto the sidewalk in a
heap.

  Rafi rolled off the awning and dumped himself in a pained heap on the street. People streamed out of the nearby shops and apartment buildings to see what had happened. Rafi ran and ducked into a nearby alley. He’d have to make it to the next safe house in Amman before the mob — or the police or more Iranian agents — caught up with him.

  At Mossad headquarters in Tel Aviv, General Shapiro, who had just finished his call with Rafi, looked at the six men around the table.

  “When is the meeting scheduled with the American colonel?”

  “Soon, but it hasn’t been finalized.”

  “We need him here immediately. How about the NATO protocols? Any problems there?”

  One of the men said, “All set.”

  “How about the U.S. Department of Defense?”

  “We’ve got the sign-off from the U.S. Missile Defense Agency. We’re ready to go.”

  General Shapiro knew the answer to his next question but asked it anyway. “We’re looking at the question of notifying the Department of Defense before we actually hit the On button for our RTS systems. But there’s a bigger problem: do we tell the Corland administration directly what we now know about an impending attack against our nation?”

  He didn’t wait for an answer. “Probably not. There are those close to the president who will jam a wrench into this thing. We’ll end up waiting for support that will never come, and Israel will be bombed into a patch of scorched sand.” Then he added. “Get Joshua Jordan over here. Now. We need the best eyes there are on this RTS antimissile system. It’s his design. Let’s get his eyes.”

  But the director of Mossad had another question. It would have seemed absurd if it were not so ominous: “What exactly do we tell him? Do we warn him? Do we say, by the way, Colonel Jordan, we thought you ought to know … we’re having a nuclear war over here, and you’re invited.”

  THIRTY

  Abigail and Joshua were in their hotel room in D.C. after meeting with Pack McHenry. Abigail clicked off her Allfone and said, “That was Pack’s wife, Victoria. She’s made reservations for brunch tomorrow, just the two of us. Great, huh?”

  Joshua was irritated. “So what do I do? Stay here in the hotel twiddling my thumbs? Abby, excuse me, but the world’s falling apart and you’re doing lunch!”

  “Brunch actually,” she said with a look that said she would not be moved. “And about your thumb twiddling, well, I have a message on my Allfone that concerns you, Josh. I’ve got a suggestion …”

  “A message from whom?”

  “Pastor Campbell. He’s here in D.C. He had a meeting with the Senate Chaplain but said he would like to take you out for lunch. Sort of a way to congratulate you on getting the Medal of Freedom. He was very impressed.”

  Joshua had become an occasional golf partner with Campbell from time to time when the two would meet up at some of the upscale golf courses outside of New York City. The pastor wasn’t a half-bad golfer, and he was good company, although he would inevitably introduce the topic of his wife’s faith, and Joshua’s own lack of it. For Joshua, that was always the sticking point.

  He gave his wife a doubtful look and complained that he needed to get back to his work on Israel’s request for advice on their RTS system.

  She walked over and gave him a lingering kiss. “I’m not going to coerce you or badger you, but I’m looking forward to a great time with Victoria. What you do on your own time tomorrow is your business.” She slipped him a piece of paper. “Here’s Pastor Campbell’s number.” Then she added, “And on the Israel issue that you’re working on … that may be more important in the big picture than you think. Just my little thought.”

  “Big picture?”

  “Yes, and you know what picture I’m talking about.”

  He did. Abigail’s Christian faith, which had proved to be a fully operational lifestyle for her, had also made her a keen student of the Bible. She talked a lot about the theological significance of the Holy Land and Israel’s role in the wrapping up of all human history. It came up more and more recently, ever since Joshua was invited to work with the Israeli defense officials. Yes, he knew about her “big picture.”

  Joshua called Campbell. He figured he owed him that.

  The next day they met for lunch at a pricey place with a grand view of the Capitol Dome and a menu that included some great Maryland crab cakes. Joshua tried to tell himself that he had done it for Abby. But then, he knew that wasn’t exactly the truth.

  As usual, the two of them led off with some golfing stories. Campbell was relating his last defeat on the links. “I couldn’t concentrate,” Campbell admitted. “Every time I got that putter in my hand, I felt distracted.”

  Joshua knew the feeling. “People don’t appreciate the mental aspect of golf.” Then he remembered something. “I saw the blurb on your press conference in New York. Looks like a riot broke out. And here I thought I was the public instigator.”

  Campbell chuckled. “Oh, it wasn’t that bad. You know how cameras can make a small group of protestors look like a major revolution.”

  For Joshua it seemed evident. “Well, pastor, you tell people that the world’s coming to an end — that the earth is going to blow up, which I gather is what you were saying — then you’re bound to get a reaction. On the other hand, you know my approach: if I know an explosion is coming, then I’ll try to stop the timer on the bomb.”

  “Some explosions can’t be stopped,” Campbell said. He was pushing himself away from the table a little to stretch out.

  “I don’t believe that.”

  “Josh, if God’s directing the cataclysm, you’re going to be sorely disappointed if you think you can stop it.”

  “That’s a big if.”

  “Fair enough.”

  Campbell thought about it for a few moments. “Okay, so we need to resolve your ‘big if’ issue. Now here is how I do it. I search the Scriptures and I read the news. Put the two together. My group of fellow ‘searchers of the times,’ the prophecy scholars I meet with regularly, agrees with me about one thing — that the signs of the times, foretold thousands of years ago, are starting to unfold. Right now. Right here on planet Earth. God is about to make a miraculous showing. Awesome. Fearful. Mighty. The human vocabulary fails us when we try to describe the importance of what is coming.”

  Campbell tossed his napkin on the table. “The thing is to recognize that it is unstoppable. You can’t pull the pin out of the preordained providence of God. The first order of business has to be to prepare to meet Him.”

  Joshua resisted the urge to challenge Campbell, so he let it drop. But he sometimes felt that the pastor and Abby, and yes, even his own son and daughter, were visitors from a distant world. They saw things he couldn’t see and felt things he wished he could experience but didn’t: a spiritual awakening. He had seen the change in Abby over the years. That much was undeniable.

  As they were strolling out of the restaurant, Campbell stopped him, “Keep your eyes on Israel,” he said. “That’s how you can read the time on God’s clock.”

  That startled Joshua, particularly in light of the call he’d received two days before from the commander of Israel’s IDF, requesting a meeting eventually in Tel Aviv about the RTS system.

  Campbell said something else. And when he did, it struck Joshua as both odd and strangely pointed: “But Josh, you can’t be prepared for those great events, for God’s imminent revealing, His apocalypse, until you make a very personal decision. To open the door of your heart to His Son, Jesus, the Christ. The coming King. Listen, the return to this world of Christ the King of Kings is a fact. One that is absolutely certain, more certain than you can possibly comprehend.”

  THIRTY-ONE

  Abby was waiting for Joshua in their hotel room. As he came through the door, he expected her to start grilling him about his time with Pastor Campbell, but she didn’t. Nor did she expound on her chick lunch with Victoria McHenry. Instead, with an urgency in her voice, she said, “Josh, your
office has been trying to reach you. It’s about Israel. They said you need to check your encrypted DOD Allfone right away.”

  Joshua grabbed his deep blue Allfone, the one he used only for top secret Department of Defense business. He pulled up an email that had been routed through the Pentagon and cleared through the Technology Transfer Office. It had originated from the office of General Jacob Shapiro, chief of the general staff of the Israeli defense forces. It read,

  Col. (Ret.) Joshua Jordan

  We had previously extended an invitation to you to meet with our U.S. representative from our Antimissile Research & Development branch, to be followed up with a visit here in Israel at an unspecified time in the future. However, our operational timeline has shortened, and we would greatly appreciate a joint testing conference with you and our team here in Tel Aviv as soon as you can make travel arrangements. If at all possible, we would like to convene the session the day after tomorrow at our headquarters at the Kirya compound. I have spoken personally with Lt. Gen. Michael Wooling, the director of the U.S. Missile Defense Agency, and he has kindly concurred with our request for an expedited meeting and has verified Pentagon approval.

  We hope to receive your confirmation soon.

  Best regards,

  For General J. Shapiro,

  Lt. Gen. Gavi Havrel,

  Deputy Chief of Staff

  The email had an attachment. He clicked it and read the certification document. Then he looked at Abigail and explained, “The Israelis want me over there in twenty-four hours.”

  “So soon?”

  “Yes.”

  “What’s the rush?”

  “They didn’t give me the specifics.”

  Abigail waited for her husband to process the news and then said, “Josh, don’t these defense-technology transfers take a long time to iron out? Approvals from DOD and everything?”

  “Usually. I knew they were testing the Return-to-Sender system with DOD approval, but this is different. They want me to consult with them personally in order to make it operational. That usually requires a whole additional level of Pentagon sign-offs, tons of red tape. But this time it’s all been done in advance. It’s right here in this attachment. The Pentagon certifies compliance with NATO mandates, approval obtained from our four-star regional commander and from the Missile Defense Agency. This thing’s been put on a fast track, triple time.”