* Kuwait — 13,000 troops — 401 tanks — 93 combat aircraft
* Lebanon — 65,000 troops — 319 tanks — 12 combat aircraft
* Libya — 72,000 troops — 1,121 tanks — 478 combat aircraft
* Oman — 12,000 troops — 152 tanks — 53 combat aircraft
* Qatar — 8,000 troops — 39 tanks — 23 combat aircraft
* Sudan — 52,000 troops — 1,657 tanks — 21 combat aircraft
* Tunisia — 31,000 troops — 100 tanks — 66 combat aircraft
* U.A.E. — 62,000 troops — 105 tanks — 119 combat aircraft
* Yemen — 63,000 troops — 316 tanks — 103 combat aircraft
********************** EYES ONLY **************************
22 Tishri ** 06:00:16 ** Ops Center ** 0761-049TLV-0000917
“What this estimate does not cover, of course, are the naval forces steaming toward us,” the prime minister continued. “Nor does it cover the strategic and tactical nuclear forces arrayed against us. Those estimates are still being developed, but suffice it to say that while Moscow still has a good deal of its strategic nuclear forces targeted at the U.S., Western Europe, and China, IDF intelligence informs me that upward of one-quarter to one-third of Russia’s tactical nukes are currently arrayed against Israel.
“Gentlemen, we must acknowledge that the threat we now face is existential. We are in danger of losing all that our fathers and their fathers bought for us with their blood and sweat and treasure. Therefore, as much as it pains me to say it, I believe we now have no choice but to discuss The Samson Option.”
McCoy was famished.
She had managed to scrounge up a half-eaten loaf of bread and some vegetables several days before. But they were gone now. Never in her life had she ever really meant it when she’d prayed, “Father, give us this day our daily bread.” But she meant it now.
McCoy refused to succumb to fear. She was alive. She was free. She had a loaded pistol, a police-band radio she’d lifted from the Mercedes, and shelter from the storm clouds coming over the horizon.
True, the abandoned apartment was filthy, crawling with cockroaches and other assorted creatures she was not yet desperate enough to eat. But it had a seventh-floor view of the Moskva River and of the changing autumn leaves of Gorky Park.
Dayenu, Mordechai would have said, as he’d taught them when she and Jon had celebrated Passover at his home in Jerusalem. “This alone would be enough.” It was a hard message to learn in Washington, with the world at her fingertips. But the privilege of learning it here was almost more than she could bear.
Suddenly there were sounds in the hallway.
They weren’t voices. They were boots, and they were approaching quickly.
She turned off the police radio and reached for the pistol. She got up and moved toward the door, the gun aimed in front of her. Counting the footsteps, she guessed there were four men. No wait, there were five. Wait — what was…
It didn’t make sense. More and more people were massing in the hallway. None spoke, nor did they move with the speed and stealth of Russian special forces.
Beads of sweat formed on her forehead and slid down the sides of her face. She could taste the salt, and it intensified her hunger pangs.
A door opened nearby, but not hers. The small crowd was moving, and in a moment, she could hear the door shut, and it was quiet again.
McCoy checked her pulse. She had to avoid hyperventilating. How could God let her come this far only to be recaptured or killed? Who would even know that she was dead? The good news was that word of the manhunt had to have been picked up by Langley. They knew she was alive and on the run. But if she died here, alone, would that news get out? Or would Gogolov and his thugs hold it back, hoping to lure in a CIA extraction team as a pretext for war against the United States, as well as Israel?
The handle to her door began to turn.
McCoy held her breath. The door creaked open. She waited two beats, then slammed it forward, crushing the intruder’s fingers. As the man howled in pain, McCoy pulled the door open and grabbed the man by the hair. She pulled him forward and smashed his face to the ground, then pulled him back to his knees and drove the gun into his right temple. She had her hostage. It wasn’t much leverage, but it was something.
Yet when she looked up, the faces staring back at her weren’t those of Spetsnatz or a Russian SWAT team. They were the horrified faces of children, dressed for church.
“Please, please, do not kill him,” cried a young woman in Russian. “I beg of you, please… please… do not kill him…. I… he… he is… he is my husband.”
The woman, probably in her twenties, was sobbing.
The children froze like statues.
Startled, McCoy loosened the pressure of the pistol against the man’s head.
That’s when he made his move. In a single swift motion, he knocked away the gun with his right hand and, pivoting, drove his left hand into McCoy’s face, sending her flying back. The gun skittered across the floor, landing several feet from McCoy. The two lunged for it, but the man was quicker.
Before McCoy realized what was happening, the man was behind her. His arm was around her throat. The.45 was pressed against her temple as his wife and a group of parents now stood by their terrified children, staring on in disbelief.
She begged the man to wait, to listen to her.
She was running from Gogolov. That was true. But she was not an enemy of Russia. She was an American diplomat and a friend of the Russian people, trying to make peace until she’d been taken hostage by the new regime and tortured.
“So, today must be my lucky day,” the man said in passable English. “You must be the ten-million-ruble lady everyone’s talking about.”
Mordechai had avoided the subject for days.
He was a man who had spent his whole life in the shadows. He felt at home there. But as the U.N. deadline steadily approached, a gloom the likes of which he had never felt before settled over the house of Israel — and his own.
Mordechai was having trouble sleeping. He couldn’t get Bennett’s letter out of his mind. What haunted him most was the verse scribbled at the bottom of the note.
Amos 3:7.
He feared it would say something he didn’t want to hear. But he could no longer hide from the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Not with judgment so close at hand. He opened the Tanakh and looked up the passage.
Instantly, Mordechai knew in his soul that Bennett was right.
It could not be more clear. He reached for the phone.
The man ordered the room cleared of all but his wife.
After the door to the hallway closed, he released McCoy’s throat and stood up.
“Welcome to Gorky Bible Church, Miss McCoy. I am the pastor. I, too, am considered an enemy of the new Russian regime. So I will make you a deal. I won’t turn you in if you won’t turn me in. Fair?”
McCoy wanted desperately to believe him. She nodded carefully.
“Good. My name is Mikhail Zorogin. And this is my wife, Karenna.”
Karenna leaned over and whispered in his ear.
“Yes, yes, Karenna is right. It is not safe for us to stay here. We may have been heard. Come, you must stay with us. It is not far. We live in the building next door.”
55