“The good news is that God also says He will restore our fortunes and bless our nation. None of us take that to mean that He will make us rich. What would be the point? That is not the way God thinks. We think it means He will pour out His Holy Spirit on the people of Iran and bring millions more Iranians to Christ. I believe Iran will become a country of peace, a missionary-sending country, and thus a blessing to the whole world. And best of all, Jeremiah is clear about when this will all happen.”
“When?”
“Verse 39 says it will happen ‘in the last days.’ Which brings us back to Ezekiel, who also wrote about what will happen in the last days. Based on what you’ve told me, I wonder if Iran’s alliance with Russia against Israel could actually be the trigger for Jeremiah 49 to be fulfilled in its entirety. Would that not be exciting? I have great sorrow in my heart about the suffering my people are about to go through. But when I think of the great spiritual awakening that will follow, would that not be worth it all?”
It would, thought Bennett. But would they live to see it happen?
MacPherson could not believe it had come to this.
He hung up the phone and looked out the window of the Oval Office. He stared at the brilliant oranges and reds and yellows of the autumn leaves tumbling through the Rose Garden in the afternoon breeze.
For a moment, he wished he were back in the Colorado Rockies of his childhood, with his wife and their two beautiful daughters, retired from public office and completely unaware of the nightmare unfolding.
Israel’s nuclear forces were now on full alert. So were Russia’s.
He had just gotten off an emergency conference call with his secretaries of defense, state, and homeland security, as well as the director of the CIA and the national security advisor. They were unanimous. MacPherson had no choice but to ready the country’s strategic nuclear forces for the worst-case scenario.
He had just given the order. The United States was at DefCon 2.
The anxiety consuming him was almost unbearable.
And for the first time, he began hoping Bennett and Mordechai were right.
56
The rains were growing more intense.
Bennett could barely see the next turn coming, but Hamid rarely slowed the car down. Both of Hamid’s hands were on the wheel now, but he was becoming so engrossed in explaining how horrible he’d been before becoming a follower of Christ, Bennett was afraid they were going to see Christ face-to-face before the story was finished.
“I was not a good kid, Jonathan. I hated everyone, including myself. I hated my father, his job, his religion. There were many reasons, but I have no excuses. It was my fault. I was cruel, and I was spiteful. I got into drugs and alcohol. I slept with women and got into fights. I brought great shame to my Muslim family.”
Though he still expected the car to go into free fall at any moment, Bennett was fascinated with Hamid’s story. Until a few weeks ago, he’d never met a Muslim convert to Christ. Now he was hurtling through Persian mountains with a man who had already planted a dozen house churches before the age of thirty.
“By the time I was fifteen, I had run away from home.”
“Where’d you grow up?”
“In a small town near the Afghan border, a few hours from Kabul…”
Hamid stopped talking. He was staring at something ahead.
“What is it?” Bennett asked. He looked out the windshield.
They were less than fifty feet away from another hairpin turn and approaching fast.
“Hamid, turn!” Bennett shouted.
“I can’t, I can’t; it’s locked.”
The car began to fishtail out of control.
Hamid pulled his foot off the gas and pumped the brakes, but despite the pressure he was applying, the steering wheel wouldn’t turn.
The car slowed, but still it skidded toward the precipice.
Bennett unbuckled his seat belt and tried to open his door to jump, but the car smashed against the side of the mountain, pinning him in. He screamed for Hamid to stop or turn or do something, but there was nothing either of them could do. Both men shut their eyes, preparing to plunge into the abyss.
“Mr. Prime Minister, we have a new development.”
Doron turned to the Mossad director. “What is it?”
“If you will turn your attention to screens four and five, you’ll see a series of images gathered from the Ofek-3 satellite, from our unmanned Predator drones, and from assets on the ground inside Russia, Iran, and the other coalition countries.”
What in the world? thought Doron. What were those?
“Mr. Prime Minister, now that most of the coalition troops, tanks, and other hardware are in place, every available ship, train, and truck now appears to be tasked to move horses to the front lines in southern Lebanon, southwestern Syria, and the western Saudi deserts.”
“Horses?” Doron asked, not sure he’d heard correctly.
“Yes, sir.”
“Why? What for?”
“We are not quite sure, Mr. Prime Minister,” the director explained. “But it’s not entirely without precedent. More than a million horses were used in battle in World War I. Nearly three-quarters of a million were used in World War II. And for good reason. Horses are an incredibly effective way to move ground forces in rough terrain and in rough weather such as what we are experiencing.
“Russian cavalry units were once the most feared ground force on the planet. Trotsky used his cavalry during the Russian Revolution. Stalin used horses against the Germans in World War II. Horses can move forces quickly and stealthily in any weather. Siberian ponies could withstand the subzero temperatures of the Russian winter, while Hitler’s panzer divisions froze up and bogged down. Nazi General Manstein once claimed that a Soviet cavalry division could move a hundred kilometers in a night, even in terrain inaccessible by tanks and artillery. In the fifties, most Soviet cavalry units were disbanded. But the cavalries have a long legacy in the history of Russian warfare, and Vadim actually began rebuilding them a few years ago. U.S. special forces even used horses in Afghanistan, as did the Northern Alliance, to great effect.”
“And you think Gogolov plans to overrun us with a million troops on horseback?”
“We are not certain what Gogolov is thinking, sir. We are simply telling you what we are seeing on the ground.”
It was another bizarre twist to a Kafkaesque nightmare, thought Doron.
Up to now he had been in crisis mode, focusing tactically on the specific tasks at hand. But here, secure under thousands of tons of reinforced steel and concrete that separated his war room from the world outside, the full picture of the horror unfolding far above them was suddenly coming into sharp and chilling focus.
Would he be the only Israeli prime minister in history to lose six million Jewish souls in less than an hour?
Not without taking sixty million others with him, Doron thought. Maybe more.
The car lurched to a stop on the absolute edge of the cliff.
They had skidded 180 degrees so that Bennett’s side of the car was nearest the drop-off. If Bennett’s door could have opened, he literally could have stepped into eternity.
Both men were afraid to move. They could hear the gravel slipping out from under the right tires and down the sheer rock face. The car teetered for several moments as sheets of rain washed over it. Hamid shut his eyes, clasped his hands, and prayed in Farsi. Bennett followed suit in English.