Seven Unholy Days (35 page)

8:44 PM EASTERN EUROPE SUMMER TIME (LOCAL)

1:44 PM EASTERN DAYLIGHT TIME

ARMAGEDDON (TEL MEGIDDO), ISRAEL

TIME REMAINING: 32 MINUTES

“Thank you for your continuing loyalty. You will be handsomely rewarded.” Hart pushed a button to end the call and turned to the man on the other side of the small underground room. “It would seem we underestimated our adversaries yet again.”

“What’s the problem?”

“Decker and his squadron of military goons are on the way here.”

“Just remember, I wanted to put surveillance and security measures in place here. We’re sitting blind in a hole in the ground with no way to see what’s going on outside and no d
efense against a serious threat. We should launch immediately.”

“We will do no such thing. This operation will go forward at precisely the appointed time, you blasphemous buffoon!”

“Right,” the man muttered to himself as he started keying the launch codes into a notebook computer. “I have waited my entire life for a chance to eliminate the Zionists and I will not wait.”

Hart closed his eyes, breathing slowly, deeply. When he opened his eyes, he drew the Walther from the folds of his robe. The shot was well placed. The man’s head flopped backward, his eyes still open with a bullet hole between them. Hart smiled as he thought about how easy it was to recruit bigoted zealots. The man had been a trusted Hardier employee, a hater of Israel, and a genius regarding military hardware. He hadn’t even asked to be paid.

It disgusted Hart to touch the corpse but he had no choice. He removed the hands from the keyboard of the notebook computer and pushed him out of the chair. He sat down, checked the sequencing program, and entered the commands to close the launch tube the moron had opened. He switched off the lights in the room. All was in order. The countdown passed through eighteen minutes and continued its digital march to Glory.

              “Say again, Mr. President?” The roar of the helicopter was deafening, even with the noise-canceling headset, and I was sure I misunderstood him.

“Our previous intelligence was faulty. He’s not hitting those three cities. He’s aiming for the Jordan Fault, trying to cause an earthquake that will dump Israel into the sea.”

Apparently I heard him right the first time. “We’re coming up on Armageddon now, sir.”

“Mr. Decker, you have to stop him. Millions of lives depend on it.”

“I’ll do my best, but I do hope there’s a backup. What about Patriots? Or can Israel extend their Iron Domes?”

“Not enough range and we can’t move batteries in time. I hate to sound corny, Mr. Decker, but our country needs you, the world needs you. Make us proud.”

And with that he was gone. As promised, the U.S. Navy was patrolling the skies over the Jezreel Valley when we arrived. Masters was patched into the head of the Mossad, the Jewish state’s famed elite intelligence agency, also known informally as “The Institution,” the English translation for “Mossad.”

The Mossad contact said the Prime Minister of course agreed to whatever measures deemed necessary in order to prevent a nuclear attack on his tiny country, but he also pleaded for d
estruction of the Tel Megiddo site to be an absolute last resort. Although the site hadn’t been dug for several years, prior to that archeologists had declared it one of the most important excavations on the planet.

The Mossad had a finger in everything. Within minutes they managed to produce a detailed set of archeological diagrams for the Megiddo site. As advanced as military aviation had become, Blackhawks still didn’t have fax machines or email, and my phone had no signal. This meant the charts had to be read by Mossad, then their interpretation passed on to us over the ai
rwaves. With under a half-hour remaining, it was not an efficient way to work but it was all we had.

Masters took a call from a surveillance officer on the Reagan and learned one of the drones had been observing Petra, while the other kept a higher-altitude watch over Israel itself. The s
econd one had been moved into position over the site as soon as the Armageddon/Megiddo theory was put forth, placing it there around fifteen minutes before us. The first ten minutes had shown nothing. The last five had gotten interesting. The officer reported that a hole in the ground had opened up, revealing what looked to be the business end of a missile inside. Chalk another one up for the old pipe-puffer.

In addition to the video equipment, the UAV was also equipped with a nosecone full of sensitive electronic monitoring equipment. That gear had detected the presence of faint, brief radio signals at the site. From analysis of those signals, the su
rveillance wizards believed they were coming from “handheld digital personal communication devices,” Geek-speak for modern walkie-talkies or maybe even a cell phone.

The pilot pointed down and ahead. We were coming up on the site, tucked right in the mouth of the valley below. As we got closer the ruins came into view. So did the hole the Predator had picked up on video. The detection equipment in the Blac
khawk showed no anti-aircraft threats, radar or otherwise. The pilot was vigilant nonetheless, with weapons hot and a ready hand in position on the fire controls. He eased the bird down near the hole and throttled the powerful engines down to an idle.

Masters led the way out, followed by Cunningham. Jana and I started to step out but Masters balked. “You folks need to stay here until some reinforcements arrive to clear the area.”

“Like hell. I’ve fought this guy for seven solid days. He’s here and I’m going after him,” I said. I turned to Jana. “I do wish you’d wait here until we’re sure it’s safe.”

She shook her head. “Nope. If anyone’s worried about me, give me a gun, but I’m going in.”

The pilot pulled a Beretta 9mm from his holster and handed it to her. “One in the chamber, safety’s on.”

“Got it,” she said.

“Here,” the co-pilot said, handing me his Beretta. “Full magazine but nothing up top.”

I pulled the slide back and released it, smoothly chambering a round, then flipped the safety off and eased the hammer down. The thick grip told me that the sidearm was a fifteen-round model, a fact I found reassuring. Masters shook his head and said, “Let’s go.”

A low rumble sounded in the distance. Our companion Blackhawks were drawing near.

69

1:57 PM EASTERN DAYLIGHT TIME

12:57 PM CENTRAL DAYLIGHT TIME (LOCAL)

YELLOW CREEK

TIME REMAINING: 19 MINUTES

             
“I got it,” Abdul said as Decker’s notebook whirred and clacked its way to life. As soon as the boot procedure finished he launched the email client. Tark watched over his shoulder.

“You have new mail,” the notebook said.

“Oh no.” Abdul looked at Tark.

“Let’s see it,” Tark said.

Abdul slid the patched-up machine to the side so Tark had a clear view:

Return-Path:

Delivered-To: x7ijljAweRRv -deckerdigital:[email protected]

X-Envelope-To: [email protected]

X-Originating-IP: [IP UNAVAILABLE]

From: [email protected]

To: [email protected]

Transmission Time: 11:09 PM CDT

Subject: Spoils

Mr. Decker:

You proved to be an amusing and surprisingly resourceful adversary. With that in mind (although I find a reference to fair play laughable coming from a corrupt little weasel like yourself) I have elected to reward your meaningless victory by leaving be both your father and the Persian’s family.

GAME OVER.

“He sent this last night,” Tark said.

“Yes, I am seeing that. Should we call Matt Decker?”

“To tell him there’s another email here? No, there’s no point.”

“But it claims Hart is not bothering his father, yet his father is gone.”

“I saw that, but there’s nothing Matthew can do about his f
ather right now and he has enough on his mind. Right now I’m going to say a prayer for him. He needs it.” Tarkleton bowed his head.

8:58 PM EASTERN EUROPE SUMMER TIME (LOCAL)

1:58 PM EASTERN DAYLIGHT TIME

TIME REMAINING: 18 MINUTES

ARMAGEDDON (TEL MEGIDDO), ISRAEL

We climbed up onto the mound on which the core of M
egiddo was situated, then went down into an excavated pit to the “hole in the ground” described by the surveillance officer, and described it via radio to the Mossad agent who was studying the diagrams of the site.

“You don’t have to describe it,” he said. “We’ve managed to get a downlink from your UAV working and I’m looking at it right now. The controllers of the plane have brought it down to three thousand feet, and I can see the four of you at the edge of the shaft.” There we stood in the middle of nowhere, at night, using flashlights to make our way around, and someone sitting in an office was watching the whole thing like a television show.

“Problem is, there’s no missile in this thing that we can see. There’s nothing here except stairs built into the walls. Some debris is piled up on the first landing of the stairway, about ten feet down, including a big tree limb with an offshoot pointed up. My guess is that’s what was mistaken for the nose of a missile,” I said.

“I understand,” he said.

We looked around and saw nothing but more excavation pits and ruins of ancient buildings, none large enough or complete enough to conceal a nuclear missile that the experts had concluded was likely twenty-five feet in length. I had a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach that we were the only people at Megiddo.

“Mr. Decker, I have your surveillance expert connected now. He would like to speak with you.”

“Go ahead.”

“Decker, I don’t know what the shaft is that you’re looking at right now, but that is not the cavity we picked up with the UAV.”

“It’s the only shaft we’ve found.”

“The other one closed back up around ten minutes ago.”

“Can you guide us to it?”

“Do you see the shell of a building about a hundred feet east of where you are right now?

I was about to tell him we didn’t have a compass when I noticed Masters climbing out of the pit with one in his hand. “Yes, headed that way now.”

“The hole we saw is about ten yards beyond that shell.”

I glanced at my watch. Twelve minutes. Out of the pit, I was running and looking but seeing nothing, when the ground suddenly felt springy under my feet. I stomped and got a faint hollow sound. “Over here!” I said.

Cunningham found a small camouflaged chopper tucked away in the shell we had just come by. We dropped to our knees and started digging, and quickly hit a metal surface that looked like aluminum in the glare of our flashlights. Ten minutes.

Within another couple of minutes we found the edges of the cover, which looked to be about thirty feet square. It was channeled in a metal frame flush-mounted in the ground. The whole assembly was covered with a clever mesh lid that held the topsoil and rocks in place for camouflage. All four of us tried to slide the cover open but it wouldn’t budge.

“We’re out of luck without tools,” I said.

“A couple of my men on the inbound Blackhawks have emergency engineering packs with crowbars and small sledgehammers in them, and one man has a C4 kit,” Masters said.

I could see the lights of the Blackhawks in the distance, headed to the site like a swarm of angry lightning bugs. “No good, Masters. This thing will have opened for the wrong re
ason by the time they get on the ground and the men get to us.” I took his mike and keyed it up. “Gentlemen, if you don’t have any more suggestions for us, we need to vacate the premises so those F18s up there can take care of this problem for us.”

The Mossad agent’s voice rose a notch. “We must find a s
olution! Tel Megiddo is perhaps the most important biblical archeological site in the world!”

“Do I need remind you it’s your country that’ll be nuked if this isn’t stopped in the next six minutes?”

“Of course not. I am only looking for a way to stop it without destroying the site.”

The surveillance officer cut in. “Decker, we’ve dropped the UAV to fifteen hundred feet and we’re picking up something interesting.”

I looked up into the starry sky looking for the drone but saw nothing and heard nothing as it circled quietly with its fuel-cell-powered electric engine. “Make it fast.”

“The lower altitude has enabled us to localize those radio signals we were picking up earlier. There is a definite wireless link between the shaft you’re standing on and another position at the site.”

“You thinking it’s a control link?”

“That’s our best guess.”

“Can it be jammed?”

“Maybe, but only by a Weasel and the Air Force doesn’t have one in range.”

A Weasel is an F-15 loaded with specialized gear for intercepting, interpreting, and disrupting electronic signals. “Too bad. Tell me where the other end of the link is.”

“Go back to the first shaft you were at. The link terminates about two hundred feet due east of that shaft.”

Masters, eying his compass, sprinted back down into the pit to the shaft, made a slight turn, ran again, then stopped. “Very good. He’s standing dead on top of it,” the officer said.

“He’s standing in the middle of nowhere,” I said, “Which means the link must be—”

“Underground! Of course!” Mossad Man said.

“Four and a half minutes, my friend,” I said.

“The shaft was built in the eighth century B.C. by Ahab. At the bottom of the shaft is a tunnel. Two hundred ten feet long. It went to an underground spring outside the city, and allowed the inhabitants of the city to have a constant supply of fresh water while the city was under siege.”

Mossad Man and Tark were obviously related, evidenced by their penchant for history lectures at the worst possible time. I ran to the shaft. “I’m taking the stairway.”

“I go first and it’s not negotiable,” Masters said. “Then you, then the lady, with Cunningham bringing up rear guard.”

“Whatever, go!” I said, and Masters readied his AR and hit the ancient stairway. The stairs had been carved right out of the rock walls of the shaft and were still solid. The shaft smelled old and musty, the odor growing stronger as we descended. We angled down into the earth for what seemed like a little over a hundred feet, and the last landing on the stairway opened d
irectly into a tunnel. Mossad Man knew his stuff.

Masters signaled for quiet and flipped his night vision go
ggles down. We killed our flashlights and I moved in directly behind him. Jana held onto the back of my fatigue jacket. The tunnel was around eight feet wide and a little taller. Walking it was easy; someone had installed a raised wooden floor and handrails. The wood creaked and Masters slowed down, causing me to bump into him in the pitch blackness. I punched up the light on my watch dial. Two and a half minutes. I whispered the time remaining to Masters and he picked up the pace.

              Hart heard the moan of the wooden bridge that ran through the tunnel. His enemies were approaching. Thank himself he was immortal, for people like these–especially the pesky and evil incarnate Decker–were probably low-minded types who would resort to physical violence at the drop of a hat. He watched the countdown on the notebook pass through two minutes. He stood and stretched. His robe was an elegant affair fit for a king, as he of course was. King of kings. Lord of lords. Yes indeed. He wrapped his hand around the Walther, faced the entrance where the tunnel opened into the room, and waited.

              We could see a dim bluish glow just ahead at the end of the tunnel. Masters stopped just shy of the opening that led into what looked like a small cavern, and flattened himself against the wall of the tunnel. The faint light coming from the cave illuminated the end of the tunnel enough for me to see what Masters was doing. He maneuvered just his rifle around the corner while staying safely concealed. Only then did I notice the cable that ran from the gun to his headgear. He was using the Land Warrior system, the first high-tech weapons system to get down to the really personal level. The rifle had a tiny video camera underneath the barrel that relayed a picture back to a heads-up display in his helmet. In a battlefield scenario, text messages could be transmitted from command into those same displays. In the present situation, it meant Masters could look and fire around a corner without exposing himself.

I punched the light back up on my watch and showed him that we had ninety seconds. He nodded, slowly angled the rifle, and without warning unleashed a three-round burst that was deafening in the enclosed space. He ducked around the corner and I heard more shots that didn’t sound like Masters’s rifle. My ears rang and the smell of gunpowder was heavy in the air. I dropped to my belly and peeked around the corner.

Masters was down on his back, a dark pool widening under his left shoulder. A man was seated at a small table, tapping rapidly on a notebook computer. He was wearing–of all things to be wearing in a cave–a white robe. The light from the screen of the notebook gave the robe an otherworldly glow and I saw Masters wasn’t the only one who had taken a hit. The left side of his body was facing the opening and the robe was so drenched in blood I couldn’t tell what its source was. One thing I knew for sure: I was looking at Abraham Hart. I’d like to report that I was a picture of stoic heroism, calm and cool, but in reality I was terrified.

I rose to a crouch and turned the corner with the Beretta e
xtended in firing position. “Get away from the computer!”

“Hello, Mr. Decker.” The corners of his lips were turned up in something like a smile, his eyes bugged out and wild looking. The man looked demonic. “Hart, step away from the computer, now.” At that moment, I was staring into the face of evil and I wanted to believe there was an opposing force to what I saw.
You’ve always believed, you’re just angry.

Masters moaned. Hart didn’t move. He just sat there with a frozen look on his face I can only describe as psychotic. I aimed the Beretta and felt the cold metal of the trigger against my fi
nger as I squeezed. The 9mm bucked slightly in my hand and Hart fell away from the table. I rushed to the computer and saw the countdown at 1:02. Hart was lying on top of another man who looked to be dead.

I heard Hart stirring behind me but ignored him. I’d rather die trying to stop the launch than live with letting it happen while I looked out for myself. Jana and Cunningham moved through my peripheral vision toward Hart as I studied the screen.
1:00

The countdown was centered in a program window that contained only the countdown and two buttons, ABORT and RESUME. I clicked ABORT and got an ENTER PASSWORD prompt. Not again!
             
:58

Cunningham had grabbed Hart and dragged him to his feet. He soon had him in front of me. “I need a password!” I said.
              :53