Jericho 3 (22 page)

Camp laughed out loud. He knew she was right.

“I’ll be in touch, Les…but get your suitcase out...just in case.”

“Hey, Camp? Call your parents, okay?”

There was a brief pause.

“Why? Is everything okay?”

“Yeah, sure…I mean I think so. You know, they just want to hear from you. Let ‘em know that you’re okay, that’s all.”

Tehran Imam Khomeini International Airport (IKA)

Tehran, Iran

E
mirates flight 977 from Dubai pulled into the gate as the ground crew marshaled in the Boeing 777-300ER. Omid was exhausted from the two legs of the journey back home. After the 9:00am flight from Islamabad’s ISB airport into Dubai, Omid had a nearly seven-hour layover before the Tehran flight.

The seatbelt sign went off, but his traveling companion was still asleep.

“Hey, wake up…we’re at the gate,” Omid said as he gently tapped the man’s shoulder.

Omid grabbed his backpack out of the overhead bin, and the two of them shuffled down the aisle with the rest of the passengers, out the plane, over the jet bridge and into the terminal toward customs.

The customs agent looked at Omid’s passport and the military ID he presented with it.

“Colonel Farid Amir, welcome home. You weren’t gone as long this time,” the customs agent said to Omid as he quickly assumed his true identity. “How is your father doing?”

“All praise to Allah, he continues to live, but his days are numbered. I am thankful that he’s getting good care.”

The agent stamped his passport, and Omid proceeded to baggage claim.

Omid and his traveling companion waited as the carousel began to spin. Omid’s large bag came first.

“It was nice to see you again. Will you be in Tehran long this time?” Omid asked the man.

The man was lost in his thoughts as he waited for his luggage.

“No. Actually I’m heading to my lab in Damghan. Not sure when I’ll return to Islamabad.”

“Damghan? I haven’t been there in a long time. I was stationed there early in my career for a few years. I hope you enjoy your time.”

Omid and the man exchanged good-bye kisses on each cheek.

“May God be with you, Farid,” the man said. “I will pray for your father.”

“And with you as well, Kazi,” Omid said as he touched his heart, picked up his suitcase and hoisted his backpack over his shoulder before exiting the terminal.

ISAF Headquarters

Kabul, Afghanistan

C
amp had an hour to spend before the 30-minute Suburban ride with Billy Finn over to Kabul International Airport. The nameplate on the door said Major John O’Brien, so he knew he had found the right place. He was only slightly embarrassed that he didn’t know how to find the chaplain’s office given that he had no clue where the chapel was even located.

Camp was not a publicly religious man. But faith was an important part of his life as a child, growing up on a farm in rural Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. He hadn’t forgotten his roots.

According to the bio on the DOD website, O’Brien was born and raised in Texas, did his undergraduate studies in religion at Texas Christian University and earned his Masters of Divinity at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky.

Camp tapped lightly on the door, perhaps secretly hoping that the chaplain might have stepped out or was running late from a previous appointment.

“Come in,” came the warm but soft voice from the other side of the door.

Camp opened and walked in.

“Camp? I’m so glad you stopped by. I’m John. Have a seat.”

O’Brien was in his early 30s and seemed quite affable and approachable. He had a welcoming smile with none of the formalities or honorifics that other military officers were accustomed to using.

Camp sat down on the edge of his chair. He didn’t want to appear too comfortable.

“Chaplain, I have to head to the airport for a flight at 1800 hours, so I can’t take much of your time.”

“Please call me John. I prefer to keep my counseling sessions informal.”

Counseling session?
 Camp wasn’t really looking for a counseling session or even pastoral advice as much as he wanted some theological insight.

“John, I really just have a question or two that I thought maybe someone like you could answer.”

“Try me.”

“Well, my mother used to haul my ass, um, me out to church every Sunday – usually against my will I might add – and I remember my Sunday school teacher talking about the end times and Armageddon, and all that stuff. Do you believe in that, John?”

Chaplain O’Brien sat back in his chair across from the coffee table that separated him from Camp. With interlocked fingers in a praying position, he looked quite pastoral.

“It’s a perfectly natural fear. We face war and death every day. Certainly within the Southern Baptist tradition we believe in the end times, a final battle of Armageddon and ultimately the second coming of Christ. But we could spend hours debating all of the timing, whether or not we believe in the rapture, or if the second coming would be pre- or post-tribulation.”

Camp was sure his mouth fell open with all of the unfamiliar words the chaplain spoke with matter-of-fact ease.

“I don’t have a clue what you just said, John.”

Chaplain O’Brien laughed and leaned forward.

“What part are you specifically interested in Camp?”

“Armageddon. Do you believe there will be a final battle?”

The interlocked fingers danced with renewed fervor. Chaplain O’Brien lowered his brow and spoke with implied theological authority.

“Personally? Yes, I do. The scriptures say that there will be a final battle between the nations of the world. Some Christians take that battle figuratively, others take it literally.”

“And you?”

“Well, I’m sure the folks living during World War II thought it was Armageddon back then. Based on what I read in the newspapers today, I’d say mutual annihilation and destruction is possible, perhaps even literal.”

“The entire world would be destroyed?”

“Not as far as Baptist theology is concerned. The battle of Armageddon would include armies of the world trying to conquer Jerusalem.”

“What armies?”

“Well now, we’re getting down into detailed speculation. No one but the Lord really knows that.”

“What do the Baptists say?”

“Depends which Baptist you talk to, I guess, but the leading candidates have always been Russia, Syria, parts of Lebanon and, of course, Iran.”

“Iran?”

“What other government in the world today is calling for the absolute annihilation of Israel?”

“So Armageddon is the name given to this final battle?”

“More than that really. In the Book of Revelation, chapter sixteen, verse sixteen, the Apostle John writes that the battle will take place in an area called
har megiddo,
or mountain of Megiddo. It’s in the Valley of Jezreel where many historic battles have already taken place, even one with British Field Marshal Edmund Allenby in World War I when he took control of the Holy Land from the Turks in 1918. Jezreel is where Gideon fought his famous battle with armies from the east.”

Camp was deep in reflection, thinking about Omid’s words to him as they hiked through the Hindu Kush.

“Tell me, John…would Christians do things intentionally to try to tempt the apocalypse?”

“Overtly? I hope not. There are plenty of preachers who have sold books on the subject, but I don’t think anyone’s planning to literally blow up Jerusalem or the Dome of the Rock Mosque in an attempt to start Armageddon.”

“No one?”

Chaplain O’Brien withdrew and a serious scowl covered his otherwise jovial demeanor.

“No one other than, perhaps…Iran.”

The Pentagon

G
eneral Ferguson landed at Andrews Air Force Base and was immediately shuttled to the Pentagon where he was awaiting a meeting with the SECDEF and the Undersecretary of State’s Near East Bureau. Special Agent Daniels from CIA was already in the SECDEF’s waiting room when Ferguson arrived. Daniels and Ferguson exchanged brief pleasantries before the executive secretary ushered them both into the conference room where Secretary of Defense Pennington was finishing a private discussion with Undersecretary Miller from the State Department.

“Ah, Jim Ferguson, great to see you my friend. Do you know Katherine Miller from State?”

“Pleased to meet you, ma’am. May I introduce Special Agent Daniels from Central Intelligence.”

“Ma’am…sir,” Daniels said as all took their seats.

“Alright Jim, what’s going on and what do you need from us?” the SECDEF asked in his trademarked bottom-line style.

“Sir, three Afghans diagnosed with tularemia – rabbit fever – at a remote FOB in eastern Afghanistan, less than 50 clicks from Pakistan. The US battalion surgeon sends samples to Bagram, and they declare it garden variety tularemia, probably under-cooked meat or contaminated drinking water. A few days later that same battalion surgeon is kidnapped in a fairly complicated abduction plot. I sent a US Navy Captain and former SEAL to the FOB to investigate. While he’s there, one of our Afghan terps – a female – rigs up a homemade suicide vest and detonates. The Navy Captain saves her life and, in turn, gets some valuable intelligence. Turns out her husband put her up to it, and he’s part of the Haqqani Network working hand-in-hand with the Taliban in North Waziristan. The Terp gives us enough details to send Operation Detachment Alpha Team up through the Hindu Kush to rescue the abducted doctor. Meanwhile, Special Agent Daniels reports that commercial aerosol misting devices have found their way from Illinois to the black market in Indonesia and ended up in Islamabad. Simultaneously, CIA reports that the Russians are sending stockpiles of tularemia, a biological weapon that they were quite fond of, by rail down to Ashgabat, Turkmenistan. The Alpha Team finds the location in North Waziristan. The battalion surgeon has a bullet in his head. But in a back room, Alpha Team finds one of the missing commercial aerosol mosquito misting machines. The center of the house has a laboratory in it, almost a surgical suite. Three bottles of Russian-labeled tularemia are discovered. Alpha Team can’t blow the machine without risking egress, so they put a GPS tracking beacon on the unit. By the time our drones and satellites knew that they were tracking a machine and not a man, the device goes silent for a few hours and suddenly re-emerges in Damghan, Iran, home of the Iranians’ biological and chemical weapons facilities. Fort Detrick is working on the tularemia bacteria and a vaccine in their BSL-4 even as we speak.”

“Geez Jim, our hands are full enough with the Iranians over the nukes. Now tula-whatever?”

“Sorry, sir.”

“What do you need?”

“I’ve got the Navy captain and a former FBI agent in the air right now, Kabul to Dubai, Dubai to Istanbul, Turkey, then Istanbul to Ashgabat, the capital of Turkmenistan. They need a meeting with the US Ambassador there, then support to investigate the rail yard and verify the shipment.”

“I’ll arrange the meeting with the Ambassador,” Undersecretary Miller said. “What are their names, and when do they arrive?”

“Captain Seabury Campbell, Junior and William Finn. They land at 1348 hours tomorrow afternoon.”

“I think it would be prudent to put a drone over Iranian airspace. We have a new stealth drone that’s deployable and ready for this type of mission. I want to make sure we keep an eye in the sky on this latest development,” SECDEF Pennington offered. “Any other resources, Jim?”

“Yes, as soon as we have a verifiable vaccine, we need to move to manufacturing. We’ll need your help, sir.”

“How soon will you know?”

“I’m heading to Fort Detrick right after this meeting. I’ll know more within a few hours.”

“Keep me posted. No surprises going forward.”

Ashgabat, Turkmenistan

T
urkish Airlines flight number 324 landed precisely at 1:48pm on runway 12L and taxied immediately to the gate as a green-tailed Turkmenistan Airlines jet took off for Minsk. The orange and tan airport was much more modern than either US Navy Captain “Camp” Campbell or Billy Finn had imagined.

The US Embassy sedan was waiting curbside to take them to the Turkmenistan Hotel to rest and refresh before their morning appointment with American Ambassador Annette Pfister and her counterparts from the government of Turkmenistan.

Literally translated as the “city of love” in Persian, Ashgabat’s nearly one million people and relatively modern city served as a refreshing detour for Camp and Finn on the back-end of a brutal march up, over and back from the Hindu Kush in freezing weather. Situated between the Karam Kum desert and the Kopet Dag mountain range, Ashgabat was the capital of Turkmenistan, the last of the Soviet bloc’s to declare independence before the former Soviet Union collapsed.

Ashgabat was a major stop on the Trans-Caspian railway, a point that was of utmost importance to Camp and Finn as they rode in the back of the black sedan on the 23-minute ride to the hotel.

“Finn, can I ask you a question? What compels a group, or a country, to consider launching a bio-weapon that kills thousands, maybe millions, so indiscriminately?”

“That’s a bit heavier than the ‘wanna get a beer at the bar’ I was expecting.”

“Seriously, you FBI guys profile this sort of thing. How does anyone even think this way?” Camp asked.

“You can’t get your arms around it because you’re a rational warfare guy, Camp. Rationalist theory says the actors are rational and able to project their likelihood of success or failure. The Cold War was a stand-off between two rational players, armed to the teeth with nuclear weapons, but each actor embraced the inevitable notion of mutual destruction. Hence, no war...both actors were rational.”

“I spent a lot of time talking to the Iranian…Omid.”

“I know…so let me jump to the chase; Iran is not a rational actor,” Finn said.

“But they are, Finn! They are completely rational within the constructs of their own brand of Islam. They rationally believe that they have a moral and spiritual obligation to usher in the Age of the Coming. It is their rational desire to trigger the annihilation of Israel in order to rationally pave the way for the Twelfth Imam. It’s all quite rational…for
them
.”