Smoke began pouring out of the massive rocket engines.
The countdown was under way.
T-minus two minutes.
The B-2 pilots rapidly completed their final preparations.
They both double-checked their instruments, and each said a prayer. A split second later, each pulled the trigger.
Each twenty-foot, 3,500 pound, AGM-129A cruise missile and its W-80-1 nuclear warhead released cleanly and began hurtling towards their targets at supersonic speed.
There was no turning back now.
Azziz picked up the secure phone and hit speed-dial one.
“T-minus one minute, your Excellency.”
“Praise be to Allah.”
McCoy’s head snapped to attention.
Someone was whispering her name.
“Erin…”
It was Bennett. She ran into the medical suite, moved to his side and held his hand. She took a cloth and gently stroked the perspiration off his forehead and smiled at him as he lay trembling.
“It’s OK,” she told him. “You’re going to be OK.”
Fortunately, it was true, and Bennett knew it was by the conviction in her voice. He was tired. He needed sleep. But he would live.
“I need to tell you something…”
His voice was raspy and faint.
“Hey, hey, quiet.”
“No, no, I need to…”
“You need to rest right now, Jon. The president will kill me if you don’t.”
Bennett tried to smile, then again tried to speak.
“I need to tell you something…it’s important…”
She leaned down close to him, and felt his weak breath on her cheek.
“What is it, Jon?” she whispered back.
“…I think I found some buried treasure…and I don’t want to let it go…”
Then he squeezed her hand and locked his eyes on hers.
All systems were go.
Azziz relayed the countdown over the phone.
“T-minus fifteen…fourteen…thirteen…twelve…eleven…”
The president lowered his head.
His team waited nervously.
The White House photographer snapped a few more pictures, then stopped. All was silent and surreal. All eyes shifted to a seismograph—connected to a highly sensitive monitor, prepositioned by U.S. special forces, on the desert outside Baghdad—set up in the middle of the table. It couldn’t have been more than sixty degrees in the underground bunker, but the president could feel the perspiration beading up on his forehead.
And then it happened.
The needlelike pen inside the seismograph machine started vibrating violently.
The president turned to the video screens on the wall. His eyes locked onto the live images being fed in from spy satellites in the stratosphere and from unmanned drones hovering over the Iraqi-Kuwaiti border. And what he saw was completely beyond his comprehension.
The flashes of brilliant white light. The two massive fireballs. The howling radioactive winds, surging to one hundred and sixty miles per hour. The instant obliteration of large sections of two ancient cities. The twin signature mushroom clouds, rising mile after mile into the heavens.
In the blink of an eye—in the push of a button—it was all over.
And yet, in his heart, MacPherson knew it had really just begun.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
JOEL C. ROSENBERG is a writer and communications strategist who has worked for some of the world’s most influential and provocative leaders, including Steve Forbes, Rush Limbaugh, and former Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu. A front-page Sunday New York Times profile called him a “force in the capital.” A political columnist for World Magazine, he has had his work published by The Wall Street Journal, National Review, and Policy Review. He and his wife, Lynn, have three sons and live near Washington, D.C.
www.lastjihad.com
This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this novel are either fictitious or are used fictitiously.
THE LAST JIHAD: A NOVEL
Copyright © 2002 by Joel C. Rosenberg
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book, or portions thereof, in any form.
A Forge Book
Published by Tom Doherty Associates, LLC
175 Fifth Avenue
New York, NY 10010
www.tor.com
Forge® is a registered trademark of Tom Doherty Associates, LLC.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Rosenberg, Joel, 1967
The last jihad: a novel / by Joel C. Rosenberg.—1st hardcover ed.
p. cm.
“A Tom Doherty Associates book.”
ISBN: 978-0-7653-0715-6
1. Petroleum industry and trade—Fiction. 2. Terrorism—Prevention—Fiction. 3. International relations—Fiction. 4. Middle East—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3568.O786 L37 2002
813'.54—dc21
2002014312
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