Unable to see while her eyes adjusted to the near-complete darkness, Lexi fought to gain control of her emotions. Though safe for the moment, she couldn’t let herself think about what still could be ahead. She was terrified of losing Chris. They’d been married for only a week. She worried for her parents. She hadn’t been able to e-mail or call them. What were they thinking? She couldn’t imagine.
In the darkness, Chris asked her to pray with him, but she couldn’t. She was too scared. She knew he was right. She knew she needed to turn to the Lord for comfort at this moment, but something in her rebelled. She wasn’t just scared. She was also angry with God. How could he have let this happen? Why didn’t he want her to be happy? She’d waited so long to finally be married, to finally have a husband and a honeymoon — here in the Holy Land, no less. Why in the world would God ruin it now?
To fear and anger, Lexi now added guilt and embarrassment. This was not the way a Christian should think, she knew. And she was mortified by the prospect of Chris knowing she was going through such a crisis of faith. But she didn’t know what to do or what to say. She had to think about something else, anything else but this war and where it might lead. And inexplicably she found her thoughts shifting to Marseille Harper.
Her best friend since college, Marseille was the woman who had led her to Christ and had been the maid of honor at her wedding. Lexi closed her eyes and could see Marseille helping her with her makeup and hair before the ceremony. She could see Marseille dancing with Chris’s brother, Peter — the best man — at the reception, and she remembered wishing Marseille showed even a flicker of interest in her brother-in-law, who Lexi was certain was a perfect match, but to no avail. She could feel Marseille giving her a hug as they said good-bye at the reception hall just before Chris and Lexi were driven off in that gleaming silver Bentley to a bed-and-breakfast for their wedding night before leaving for Israel the next day.
And then a thought Lexi would have preferred to stay forgotten popped into her mind. It was Marseille who had asked whether it was really such a good idea to go on a tour of Israel right now. Lexi could still hear herself scoffing at her best friend and telling her not to be such a worrywart. What Lexi wouldn’t give now to have really listened, to have gone to the south of France or to Santorini or another one of the Greek isles, as Marseille had gently suggested.
But suddenly Lexi was pulled back to her current, grisly reality by the shrill voice of an older woman shoving a gas mask into her hands and telling her to put it on right away. Lexi did the best she could in the beam of the woman’s flashlight. Chris, she noticed, had his mask on, but as he helped her put hers on, she began to panic. She couldn’t think. She couldn’t breathe. This thing was suffocating her, and her heart began to race out of control.
No impact? How was that possible? Had the Arrow actually missed its mark?
Shimon could see the red line of the computer track, designating the flight of the Shahab, crossing the blue line, which designated the trajectory of the Arrow interceptor. How could that be? What had gone wrong? He tried to contemplate the horror facing the 600,000 souls living in and around Haifa.
But before he or anyone else in the war room could say anything, he saw two green lines — each designating a Patriot missile — converging on the red line.
Naphtali’s stomach tightened as he pounded his fist on the console beside him. Nineteen miles above Damascus, the first Patriot had sliced past the Shahab, missing the Iranian death machine by less than twenty yards. But just moments later, the second Patriot clipped one of the Shahab’s tail fins and exploded upon impact. The fireball could be seen throughout all of northern Israel and was being broadcast live on Israel’s Channel 2 by a camera crew on “missile watch” on the Golan Heights.
Cheers erupted in the IDF war room, and Shimon imagined the same thing must be happening in the prime minister’s communications center in Jerusalem. But what neither Naphtali nor Shimon nor any of their aides realized was that while the body of the incoming Shahab had vaporized upon impact, the warhead itself had not been destroyed but was simply knocked off course. Too small to be picked up by radar, the warhead hurtled downward without a guidance system and without warning. There were no more Israeli missiles in the air to stop it, and even if there had been, there was no more time.
Descending faster than the speed of sound, the warhead spiraled wildly over the Golan Heights and crossed over the Jordan River and the Sea of Galilee, heading for Tiberias, on a crash course for the city’s tallest hotel — the Leonardo Plaza.
The sound of the explosion above them was deafening beyond belief.
Lexi instinctively covered her ears with her hands and curled up in a fetal position, pressing hard into her husband’s side. But that was only the beginning, as a series of additional explosions, each as horrifying as the first, was set into motion. Everyone in the bomb shelter was screaming. The ground beneath them shook violently. So did the walls and the ceiling. But after a few moments, everything grew quiet, including the guests and the hotel staff crammed so closely together.
For Lexi, it was too quiet. Something was wrong. She could sense it. Something evil was coming. She was soaked with sweat. She couldn’t breathe in the gas mask. Her claustrophobia was kicking in. Everything in her wanted to jump up and bolt for the door. With or without Chris, she had to get out of this hellhole, out of this tomb. It was too hot. Too humid. Too cramped. She needed fresh air. She needed to run. She tried to pray but couldn’t. She tried to remind herself of Bible verses she had memorized, but in her rising panic her mind went blank. She was gasping for air and hyperventilating in the process. Unable to take it anymore, she sat up, pulled away from Chris, ripped off her gas mask, and sucked in as much air as she possibly could.
She wasn’t thinking about whether the air was contaminated with lethally toxic chemical or biological fumes from the Iranian missile strike, and she wouldn’t have cared if she were. She couldn’t wear that thing for a single second more. She couldn’t imagine how Chris or the other tourists or any of the Israelis could keep those blasted things on. But no sooner had she ripped off the gas mask and felt free than she saw Chris jumping up to help her — maybe even force her — to put her mask back on. Then she heard the groaning of the concrete and steel and rebar above her. Her eyes went wide. So did Chris’s. She tried to say something, but her mouth was dry. No words would form. She knew what was coming, but she couldn’t warn anyone. And even if she had, what good would it have done? They had nowhere to go and no time to run.
Chris continued to try desperately to convince her to put her mask back on, but she adamantly refused. Then came the roar she had feared most — the entire twelve-story hotel above them was beginning to implode.
Naphtali watched as one by one the Israeli Arrows found their marks.
In rapid succession, four Iranian ballistic missiles were successfully intercepted. They exploded in stunning fireballs that lit up the skies over the Hashemite Kingdom’s historic capital. In the prime minister’s communications center, all eyes were glued to the monitors, and Naphtali knew that in homes all throughout Israel that still had power, families were huddled around television sets in their bomb shelters. They watched the live images and the video replays. They began to cheer and cry and laugh and breathe again. None of them yet knew about the tragedy in Tiberias. They were simply desperate for some good news, and now they had some.