No one said anything until the Chairmen of the Joint Chiefs announced, “The second group of fighters are launching.”
The president turned back to the monitor to see another group of triangles lifting off from Hatzerim. “These are F-15E strike fighters,” the general told him. “They are the second wave. There will be many more.”
The Chairman held a laser pointer, which he flashed on the screen. “It looks like the first of the sorties are almost on target, sir.” He moved the pointer in a circle over the first group of fighters, continuing, “This group is heading to the Gaza strip. They are eight or nine miles from their targets. That’s just more than a minute, sir.”
Brighton stood and started pacing as he watched the aircraft attack. The National Security Advisor moved toward him and stood at his side. But the two men didn’t speak, keeping their eyes on the screen. Brighton coughed anxiously, then glanced as the NSA turned and motioned to him.
“This is it. They’re going to do it,” the NSA whispered in his ear. “The Israelis are going to finish this. They’ll clean up in two weeks. Say good-bye to Hezbollah. They’ll take care of this problem. You know they’ll fight like madmen with their backs to the wall.”
Brighton only nodded. He felt suddenly sick.
He moved toward the screen, then stood in silence. A deep, bitter darkness seemed to wash over him. His gut sank and his skin crawled up the back of his neck. He felt sick. He felt like crying. He felt like screaming in despair. He didn’t know why—it was confusing, utterly out of character for him to feel this way, but he felt his knees would buckle, and he had to take a step back.
The blackness was so powerful it made it hard to breathe. It was as if the very jaws of hell were gaping open to him.
Then he felt the darkest evil enter into the room.
Perdition. Son of the Morning. The king of this world. He had come to watch his battle. He had come to claim victory.
Brighton felt him laughing, and he closed his eyes to pray.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Jerusalem, Israel
The lone spirit looked over the edge of a deep glen on the downhill side of the old wall that had once completely surrounded the great city of Jerusalem. He sat at the top of a rocky lip that jutted over the dell, looking on the steep bank that fell below at his feet. The bottom of the dell was bowl-shaped, with jagged rocks jutting out from the parched, barren ground. Thorn bushes and needled grasses clung to the gravel on the opposite side. A large rock, three feet high, with a flat top and smooth corners, protruded from the center of the dell.
The spirit knew that the rock had been there for almost four thousand years. He knew that under the clinging grass growing up at its sides were the markings of ancient tools, as well as some faded names and symbols that were impossible to read, barely recognizable now as even being man-made. The rock also showed signs of ancient fires—its sides were blackened and the top smothered in soot that had been baked at such a temperature as to cook it into the stone.
Balaam stared at the stone, remembering, smiling as he thought.
His Master had enjoyed many playgrounds through all the dark years, but perhaps none was more special than this one.
The Greeks had called it Gehenna. The Jews had called it the valley of Hinnom. Lucifer had called it Eesh-al-Guturr. All of them meant more or less the same thing: the “valley of fire” or the “valley of death.”
Balaam thought back on the things he had witnessed in this place, the blood, the crying, the shattered lives and broken hearts. This was the place where the idolatrous Jews had sacrificed their children to Moloch, one of the ten thousand imitation gods his master had created out of greed, lust, or fear. Sitting at the rim of the dell, Balaam relived a few of the happiest moments that he had witnessed here, letting the scenes play out in his mind: tiny babies, little children, dark-eyed boys, pretty girls. Why the ancient Jews had been so willing to offer their youngest and most beautiful to some powerless god had always escaped him, but the mystery had also added to the excitement of watching them die. He pictured the raised knives, the flowing blood, the songs and the smoke. He pictured the mothers as they watched their own children sacrificed, their eyes painless but opaque, as if they had already cast the very lives from their souls. He pictured the fathers who had participated, along with their priests, holding the arms of their children as the long knives came down.
He smiled again, a chill of happy memories slithering up his spine.
Years later, when the children of Israel had gone chasing after yet another false god, the valley of Gehenna had been abandoned, then avoided, then turned into a burning garbage pit. For hundreds of years, the citizens of Jerusalem had thrown in their trash, adding fuel to the fire that always smoldered in the dell, a stinking, smoky fire that burned their wet garbage and waste.
What a fitting monument. The city had sacrificed their children, spilling their blood on the ground, then covered their remains with garbage and set fire to the place.
Fire and smoke. Heartbreak and pain. This place was steeped in dark memories that could not be erased.
Balaam knew that both the ancient Christians and the Jews believed that hell was divided in two. The good went to paradise. The evil went to a place the Greeks called Gehenna, which was named after this dell.
Looking out on the little valley, he felt a swell in his chest. Would the good times come back? Almost certainly not. But the thing that was coming was even more grand—more compelling, more exciting, more intrusive and vast.
He raised his eyes to the great city and smiled once again.
The Arab fanatics who sought to destroy the Jews had a plan that would prove that Judaism was wrong. It was a simple plan, but brilliant, and, having contributed to its inception, Balaam couldn’t help but feel proud.
For more than four thousand years the Jews had believed that their Savior would come to them in this great city. They had staked their future, their religion, on that desperate belief.
But Jehovah couldn’t appear to his children in Jerusalem if Jerusalem didn’t exist. If the city was destroyed, what would happen to their religion then? If the Islamists could destroy Jerusalem, that would prove their Jewish prophecy wrong, their core beliefs ridiculous, their faith utterly wasted on superstitions and lies. It would prove that Allah had prevailed and that their god had died.
Destroy their city, destroy their religion. It was as simple as that.
So Balaam looked out on the city in which he had spent so much time. He looked over the ancient buildings that he had watched the humans build. He looked over the temple and the mosques and the old city wall. He looked over it all, and then bid it good-bye.
Soon, the second sun would appear.
Weasel Four-One
Over the Gaza Strip
The Israeli pilot banked his aircraft to follow his lead. Their target was a group of four cement and brick buildings on the city square in Rafah, one of the depressing and squalid shanty towns that dotted most of the Gaza Strip. The buildings had been used for many years as a headquarters facility for Hezbollah, and since Hezbollah had been one of the first to claim responsibility for killing the Israeli prime minister, the Israelis were returning the favor by making their headquarters one of the first facilities to be attacked.
The pilot went through his pre-bomb checklist for the third time, then checked his targeting radar. The AN/AAQ-13 navigation pod combined a forward-looking infrared sensor with terrain-following radar to produce television images inside his cockpit, allowing him to fly at night as if it were day. The acquisition and targeting system maintained the white crosshairs on the southeast building, then automatically slew to the left, confirming the coordinates for the southwest building as well before using the information to program the flight paths of the bombs. Cycling one last time, the computer confirmed the location of the southern buildings in the compound. His flight leader would take out the two buildings on the north. These two buildings were his.
> The pilot took a quick look to his right. Five seconds before, aircraft #3 and #4 of the formation had split off and were already out of sight, their aircrafts’ deep gray skin melting into the darkness. They would hit their targets in the southern edge of Rafah; then the four aircraft would rejoin as a formation for the short flight back to base.
The pilot nudged his sidearm controller, a barely perceptible movement of his right hand, and the fighter’s nose turned a little more than a single degree to the left.
He was alert, but not anxious, and certainly not scared. This mission was easy, and he felt in complete control. Flying above the Palestinians’ anti-aircraft guns, and out of range of their feeble surface-to-air missiles, a bunch of old and poorly maintained Russian SA-2s and SA-3s that would have trouble targeting a 747 unless it was on fire, the pilot knew he was not in any real danger of being shot down. In addition, the target was easily identifiable—the computer would command the bomb run and automatically release the weapons at the exact dropping point. No, this mission wasn’t particularly challenging, but still, he was glad to be in the air. The big party had started. Let’s do it! he thought.
Two minutes from the bomb release point, the pilot quickly glanced over his shoulder, checking the air behind him, then turned forward again. He reached up and touched the instrument panel, gently stroking the jet. He loved the F-16 Fighting Falcon. It was a pure joy to fly. The bubble canopy gave him such an unobstructed view that it felt like he was riding on the tip of a spear. His seat reclined 30 degrees, and the fly-by-wire system provided the ability to exercise precise control of the aircraft during high G-force maneuvers. The warning system and countermeasure pods were exceptional at detecting and defeating airborne or surface electronic threats, and if everything else failed, the Fiber Optic Towed Decoy (FOTD) provided the aircraft with a final means of protection against modern radar-guided missiles.
But of course, he wouldn’t see any of those buggers tonight.
Yes, an easy mission. Almost embarrassingly so.
“Weasel Two,” the captain heard over his secure radio.
“Go,” he shot back to his flight leader, speaking into the microphone in his oxygen mask.
“Confirm you got a good lock on buildings three and four.”
“Roger. Two is ready.”
“You see the vehicles outside building one?”
The pilot stared down at his air-to-ground mapping radar, which illuminated the target scene. He could see the headquarters complex, the vehicles, even the guards at the gate. His targeting crosshairs floated over building three. “Roger,” he replied after taking in the scene.
The flight leader hesitated, then called back again. “Does that look like a school bus in the corner?” he asked.
The captain swallowed hard. He touched the pointer on his targeting radar, moving it fifty feet to the right. Then he saw it. A long vehicle. Could it really be a bus? He studied the image. It just wasn’t clear enough to know for certain, but this much he knew: it would follow with the terrorists’ rules of engagement to move a busload of children and park it at their headquarters in order to protect themselves. The captain swore in frustration, then tightened the shot on his radar, going to a .07 range. The picture came in tighter but more fuzzy and a little less clear. Then he saw the dual axles and a tractor on the back of the truck. He breathed a sigh of relief, pressing in his microphone switch. “Weasel, bogey looks to me to be a flatbed trailer. We’re still good to go.”
His flight leader hesitated, then came back again. “Roger that. I confirm. Fifty seconds to release.”
“Two is ready.”
“We are clear.”
“Bombs in forty-five seconds now.”
Washington, D.C.
General Brighton stared silently at the monitor on the wall, watching the Israeli pilots fly toward their targets. There were only seconds to release point, and he swallowed painfully against the knot in his throat. Taking a step forward, he muttered under his breath. “No. Call them back. It’s not too late!” he said.
The National Security Advisor turned toward him. “What did you say?” he asked.
“Turn them back,” the general repeated, a look of dread on his face.
“Turn who back? What are you talking about! What do you want us to do?”
“Tell the Israeli pilots to turn around. This will be our last chance!”
“Turn them back! Are you crazy! Why would we ever do that? Our last chance to do what! What are you talking about!”
But it was too late. And Brighton knew it.
He heard the guttered laughing again.
Hezbollah Auxiliary Headquarters Building
Gaza Strip
The man wasn’t Palestinian, he was a Saudi; in fact, there were no Palestinians anywhere to be seen. The complex had already been abandoned, their leaders having warned them that the Israelis would attack. It hadn’t taken a genius to know this headquarters building would certainly be one of the first casualties. So the complex was empty but for a few men standing guard outside the wall and on the narrow streets to the north.
The Saudi sat alone in the corner, waiting for his death, which would come in an instant of fire and heat. He hunched in the corner, the electronic trigger sliding against his sweaty palm. He stared at the silver container that sat on a reinforced metal table in the middle of the room. He wanted to touch it, to feel it. He knew what was inside. He wanted to feel its heat, its power, its magnificent strength. The Destroying Angel. The Prophet’s Horseman. The Tip of Allah’s Sword. It was their Avenger, their angel who had been sent to them from God. He started inching toward it, reaching out with his hand, then stopped and pulled back, suddenly afraid. He stared at the container, changed his mind, and scurried back to the corner and waited for death.
While he waited, they started chanting, the hissing and bitter voices that seemed to fill every space in the room: “Kill them! Kill them all! That is what you must do! You are good. You are righteous! This is the right thing to do!”
He shook his head violently, then rubbed his hands at his eyes. But the voices wouldn’t leave him. Indeed, they started screaming louder, their voices more hissing, their chants more intense.
Balaam stood with the others, forming a circle around the shivering man. They glared and pulled their teeth to each other as they concentrated their energy on him. What he was going to do was so evil, they could not give him time to think. So they kept up the constant noise and evil chants in his ears.
He was weak, they could see that, weak and vulnerable. Even now, he could still reason, he could think, and that scared them at the core. Though they could discern his thoughts only from the look on his face, they saw the hesitation and uncertainty, the concern for his brothers and the children he knew. They saw the soft light of goodness, and they worked in a panic to crush it out. It was critical now to keep their enemy and his bright soldiers at bay. He would certainly try to stop them, and they could not lose this man.
This was the moment they had been waiting for—for more than seven thousand years. This was the tipping point, the start of the Great War. So they had to keep this man panicked; they had to keep the hate and confusion in his head. They had to keep him from thinking of what he was about to do.
They hissed and they danced and they cried in the air. They swooped and leaned toward him, swearing and lying in his head.
“Do it! It is good!” they lied in his ear. “It is the right! God will reward you! Now go! Go and kill!”
Weasel Four-One
The Israeli pilot had his head down in the cockpit, watching his targeting screen. The time-to-go display counted down: fifteen seconds to go. The crosshairs lay exactly over the targets. Altitude, twenty-four thousand feet. Airspeed, four-eighty. On time. On target. The TTG now showed ten seconds to go.
He glanced up and checked his leader, who was half a mile ahead and twenty degrees to his right. He looked down and flipped the master arm switch, giving the final release
command to his bombs. Then he felt a sudden snap as the pins fired and the two bombs dropped away. His aircraft bobbed up from the sudden reduction in weight, and he pushed the nose down. He banked the jet up and jammed the throttle up to military power, then watched over his shoulder, keeping the target in sight. He wanted to see the two explosions before he turned back to base.
The two bombs fell silently through the dark night. They separated gradually as they moved toward their targets, but always remained abeam each other as they slipped through the thin atmosphere. Two hundred feet after dropping from the undercarriage of the F-16, the bombs had reached terminal velocity. Their nosecones slowly dropped, the miniature steering fins at the back of the bombs guiding the weapons with adjustments that were too quick to see.
Fifteen thousand feet and falling. Twenty-one seconds to go.
The air turned from crisp and cold to warm and wet as they fell, the humidity and heat of the ocean warming the lower atmosphere. The bombs made no sound but a soft whoosh, like the wings of an angel that slipped through the dark night.
Eight thousand feet and falling.
Just more than ten seconds to go.
The Saudi’s cell phone chimed, and he jumped. Startled, he stared at it, then shook his head.
So many voices. So much confusion. So many spinning thoughts in his head.
The phone continued ringing, its high-pitched tone seeming to pierce the dark night like the cry of a child from some tin-covered pit. Moving slowly, he flipped the phone open and placed it at the side of his head. “NOW!” he heard his master’s voice scream in his ear.
The Saudi mumbled something, but he didn’t do anything.
“NOW!” he heard his master scream once again. Though thirty miles away, his voice was as clear as if he were standing right next to him. “Now! Hit the trigger! You know what to do!”
The Saudi took a breath and looked down at the trigger in his palm. He closed his eyes and pressed the button. And that was all that he knew.
The Great and Terrible Page 82
