Edge of Apocalypse (36 page)

An American Hero Persecuted: Senator Lies about Joshua Jordan's RTS Missile Defense System

The subheadline read:

Treason in Congress?

By five minutes before 5:00 that afternoon, the Capitol Hill telephone switchboard in Congress became so overloaded from the outraged calls of citizens that it was rendered inoperable. At 5:25, Senator Straworth was called into an emergency caucus with his party members.

Senate Majority Leader Russell Beyers spoke for them all: "Straworth, you've got a cyclone by the tail here," he said. "This subpoena issue involving Joshua Jordan is now threatening every one of us in the party. You need to withdraw that subpoena--and now. Make this all go away."

Senator Straworth puffed his chest and refused, yelling so hard that spittle flew out of his mouth. "I'm not afraid of a political tornado."

"I come from Oklahoma," the majority leader intoned calmly. "You don't. We know a little about the power of a tornado. It can suck a man clean off the surface of the earth." Then he added, "And if that doesn't remove you, your fellow senators will."

By 5:30, Senator Straworth had ordered the official withdrawal of the subpoena that had been issued against Joshua Jordan, retroactively. And advised the clerk in Judge Jenkins' court accordingly.

Harry Smythe was dispatched to the federal courthouse to try to catch Judge Jenkins and get her to vacate her order against Joshua Jordan on the grounds that the entire dispute with Congress had now been rendered legally moot.

Joshua, Abigail, and all the members of the Roundtable had been patched into a conference call to receive the news.

Jubilation rang out. Phil Rankowitz was so overjoyed he could hardly speak. Even Alvin Leander was laughing, saying he was still in disbelief that they pulled it off.

After the celebration died down and the call ended, Abigail called Joshua back so they could talk, just the two of them. She explained that she'd received a private telephone call from Harry Smythe, who said there was just one remaining problem--and Joshua and Abigail needed to know.

"The only bad news," Abigail said, "is that Judge Jenkins left the courthouse today without rescinding her order for your arrest. The clerk wouldn't bother her at home. So Harry will be down there first thing in the morning to speak to her. I would have thought she'd have withdrawn the warrant against you as soon as she knew the congressional subpoena--the legal basis for this whole dispute--had been withdrawn."

"Harry'll do the right thing," Joshua said with an air of confidence. "I'm not worried. I think the victory's been won, darling. And I owe it all to you. Your strategy was absolutely brilliant."

"I give God the credit, Josh, honey. He does the miracles. Even when we've quit looking for them."

FIFTY-FOUR

At his country villa north of Rome, just off of the Via Salaria, Caesar Demas was about to get down to business with his guest from the Middle East. He'd already given him a short tour of his four-thousand-square-meter gardens, the mahogany-lined fifty-stall horse stables, and the restored ancient Roman road that made up part of his three-kilometer-long gated driveway. Now he and his visitor were seated in the gold room, so named for the dark wheat-colored walls, with the stunning view of the rolling hills of his estate. Demas was seated in one brown leather chair, his guest in the matching chair next to him.

Now that refreshments had been served, Demas motioned for the servants to leave the room. But before exiting, the head butler bent down next to Demas' ear and whispered, "Excuse me, sir, but Mrs. Demas is wondering whether you will be able to address the matter of the vineyards today. Your chief of operations in your Tuscany property resigned a week ago. Your wife is worried that there is no one to oversee all of the vineyard work."

Demas turned to the butler and gave him a withering look.

"Do not--I repeat--do not bother me with those trifles. Do you understand?"

"Yes, sir," the butler whispered. "But what do you want me to tell Mrs. Demas?"

"Tell her anything you want. Now please leave."

The butler nodded courteously and was about to exit, but then Demas thought of something and motioned for him to come back.

When the butler bent down next to Demas again, his master whispered in the butler's ear, "Remember that I want her to be accompanied at all times. I don't want her left on her own. Understood? And please have her escort, who will be helping her with her wheelchair, send me instant messages regularly. I want to know all of her whereabouts and everything about her activities."

The butler nodded once again and swept out of the room.

Then Caesar Demas turned his attention to his visitor who was sipping tea.

The delegate from the Republic of Iran smiled appreciatively now that they were finally going to address the reason for his visit. With his hand he gave a quick stroke to his closely cropped beard and straightened his white silk waistcoat.

"I had expected Hamad Katchi to be part of this discussion. We had dealt with him previously on this."

Demas said, "Unfortunately, we have many enemies." Then he folded his hands, took on a sad, reflective expression, and added, "I fear Mr. Katchi may have fallen prey to some of them. He's disappeared. We haven't been able to locate him. I am so concerned that they may have liquidated him."

"That would be a terrible loss."

"Yes, to all of us."

"Well, then we shall talk, you and I, about these important matters. The RTS specifications...," the Iranian said, "will be delivered...when?"

"We will have possession in the next forty-eight hours. Delivery after that will follow with all possible haste."

"Will technical assistance be guaranteed?" the Iranian asked.

"That's part of the package. We have some physicists and weapons designers who are prepared to help you integrate the RTS into your existing weapons systems."

"The matter of exclusivity has been of great concern to our president," the Iranian said. "We do not want the RTS to turn into a kind of global discount item available to any banana-republic or no-name island."

"Of course not," Demas said, offering to refill his guest's teacup.

The Iranian smiled but held a hand up to say no thank you.

Demas continued explaining. "To reiterate. The RTS technology will only be available to cooperating nations or international unions that are members of our soon-to-be-established League of Ten."

Then he remembered something else and added, "And remember that another benefit is that your nation, and others in our League, will have the benefit of the anti-RTS avoidance technology we expect to develop as soon as our scientists analyze the RTS operating principals. So, you will not only have the benefit of returning incoming missiles to their point of origin, but your nation--and those inside our ten--will also be able to send your missiles into nonmember states, like the United States or their allies...and the wonderful thing is that you'll be able to bypass their RTS system."

The Iranian beamed and said, "Very good. That is all very good."

Caesar Demas smiled back. Then he had a private thought.
So glad I chose Atta Zimler for this. Truly reliable men are hard to find.

In a different time zone, in a very different part of the world, Cal Jordan was in his dorm room at Liberty University, changing into his gym trunks and a T-shirt. He was glad, now that he'd thought about it, that he was going to play some basketball with his buddies to get his mind off things.

And he was also glad he had heard from his dad.
Who knows, maybe he and I will start connecting. Maybe things are going to be better between us.

Cal was going to turn off the lights in his dorm room before leaving, but suddenly they started to dim--and then they went out completely.

He flicked the switch a couple times. Still no lights.
Nice. I wonder how long it'll take maintenance to get this fixed. I've got a lot of studying tonight.

Then he heard a knock on the door.

He swung open the door.

A man in a grey maintenance jumpsuit stood in his doorway.

"Sorry to bother," the maintenance man said. "We're cutting the power to some of the rooms. These old fluorescent lights in the ceiling have to be replaced one by one. It's your turn."

"Lucky me," Cal said, then added, "hope this doesn't take long. I'm supposed to shoot buckets in a few minutes with some friends."

The maintenance man gave a look that lacked full understanding at something in Cal's answer, but he flashed a quick smile anyway. Then he rolled a large covered utility cart into the dorm room. A few students wandered past the open door, looking in with some curiosity, before the man closed the door behind him.

"I've got my portable ladder and tools in here," the repairman said, pointing to the cart.

"Okay, well, do your thing," Cal said and took a step toward the door.

"Could you just help me for just a second?"

"Sure."

"I just need you to catch that big lighting fixture when I hand it down. Won't take too long. If you look up there at the fixture in the ceiling, you'll see where the bulb fits in at both ends. Just be careful not to dislodge the long light bulb when I hand it down to you. The bulb could break. It has some toxic contents inside."

"Doesn't sound too hard," Cal said.

Then Cal took a step into the center of the room and craned his neck to look up at the light fixture.

"I think I see what you are talking about," Cal said as he was studying it.

Right behind him, dressed in the grey maintenance jumpsuit, Atta Zimler was smiling.

He stepped up closer to Cal Jordan, and as he did, he had a satisfying thought.

This is almost too easy.

FIFTY-FIVE

Vice President Jessica Tulrude didn't notice the mild look of panic on the face of her chief of staff. In her working office in the West Wing of the White House, Tulrude had been going over her daily agenda with Lana Orvilla. But Orvilla was squirming and finally had to speak up and announce that she had an item of her own to bring up.

"Madam Vice President," she started out, "you mentioned a minute ago that the senators backed down and withdrew the subpoena against Joshua Jordan on the RTS weapon issue--"

"Senator Straworth had a deal with me. He broke it. All bets are off with that slob."

"Well," Lana tried to suggest, "doesn't this back-tracking by the senators hurt them much more than you...I mean--"

"Are you crazy?" Tulrude shrieked. "I've been the one telling the president to say that we don't need exotic defense weapons systems. My language exactly. That's the official White House position that's been given to the media. We're promoting defense budget cuts, remember? We are also concerned about international criticism over our nuking those North Korean ships with their own missiles. About the potential for civilian casualties if we use this RTS again in the future. We've taken sides in this political catfight. We took sides against RTS. Against Joshua Jordan's defiance of Congress. Remember, Lana, I'm running for president soon. You keep forgetting that."

"Which relates to what I wanted to discuss--"

"Time's a-wasting. Spit it out."

"On the day of the attack on New York City," Lana began, "when we first found out that the missiles were coming. You had enough confidence in me to include me in your briefing with the Pentagon. Things were scary that day. I have to admit I was pretty frightened--"

"This isn't a rerun of the
Oprah
show, Lana. Where's this going?"

"I have a brother...don't know if I ever told you this. He works in New York. Manhattan. He's a tech engineer for a radio program."

"Bottom line, Lana! Is there a point to this story?"

"I was worried about him, that's all. In the private meeting with White House staff after the two-minute Pentagon briefing, you said basically...'The Pentagon's going to green-light this RTS weapon and use it against the North Koreans. I don't think it'll work, but what choice do we have?'..."

"I never said that."

"Madam Vice President, you did say that, almost word for word--"

"Well, even if I really did say that, I
didn't
say it--if you know what I mean. Lana, in our letter to Senator Straworth's committee, we said that the White House did
not
authorize the use of RTS, nor did we know it was going to be used. We can't now say, oh, gee, sorry we lied, just kidding--"

"So I was worried about my brother, Ted, who works for the Ivan Teretsky radio show in New York. The radio host's nickname is Ivan the Terrible..."

Now Jessica Tulrude was starting to put the pieces together. She stared at her chief of staff with a horrified look, now allowing her to finish her awful confession.

"I was in shock. You said RTS wouldn't work. So I panicked and snuck off and called my brother at the only number I had, the direct studio line, and yelled something like 'go down in the basement, protect yourself, missiles are heading to New York,' or something like that."

"Okay, your brother's family. We can keep him quiet...," Tulrude snapped.

"No, you don't understand. It wasn't my brother who answered. It was some other man. I think it was that Ivan guy, the radio talk-show host who picked up the phone when I blurted all that out."

Tulrude was shaking her head, and her face was wincing as if to say, "No, you poor excuse for a human being, you couldn't have been so stupid."

Then she exploded.

"You gave classified information to a talk-show host! Do you realize that? And what's worse, the reason you tried to call your brother was because you heard me say that RTS is our only hope but I didn't think it was going to work. That means that I knew that RTS was going to be used. That means that they can prove that the White House authorized RTS, you idiot! If someone traces that call from you to this radio guy, it's going to reach back to me. It's going to destroy me politically!"