Now, sitting in Bennett’s West Wing office, he sifted through the books that had been sent over from the Library of Congress. Had Bennett even seen them before he’d quit? They were all still neatly packed in the box in which they had arrived.
He picked up a copy of Dead Souls, written in 1842 by Nikolai Gogol. He’d read it a long time ago — along with Crime and Punishment, Demons, and The Brothers Karamazov—in one of his many graduate-school courses on Russian art, literature, and philosophy.
Clipped to the front was a note on stationery from the office of the chief librarian. It read simply “96, 397.” Costello flipped to page 96. Sure enough, there was a reference to Gog and Magog, followed by a footnote leading him to page 397. Costello read: “In Ezekiel (38:2, 3, 18; 39:11, 15) Gog is named as prince of Meschech and Tubal, in some unclear relation with ‘the land of Magog.’… But in the popular [Russian] mind, the rhyming names suggest two evil monsters.”
The Gog and Magog myth permeated Russian children’s books and folklore. Was it more than myth?
At first Bennett thought it was a dream.
Until Hamid shook him awake.
The satellite phone was ringing, and only Bennett was authorized to answer it. He glanced at his watch. He’d been asleep for less than two hours.
He stared at the caller ID. It was Mordechai.
“Tell me you have good news.”
Mordechai’s voice was sober. “How far away are you?”
Bennett had no idea. He turned to Hamid for their ETA.
“Two hundred miles, give or take,” said Hamid.
Bennett passed the news along to Mordechai.
“Why? What’s up?”
“You’re not going to believe it.”
“What?”
“I just heard from Rahab.”
He certainly knew the man’s reputation.
Holocaust survivor. Jewish philosopher and novelist. Winner of Congressional Gold Medal in 1985. Nobel Peace Prize winner in 1986.
But Costello had never read any of Elie Wiesel’s work. What fascinated Costello now were the references to Ezekiel 38 and 39 he found laced throughout Wiesel’s writings, similar in many ways to the work of the Jewish mystic Martin Buber, author of an entire novel called Gog and Magog, also sitting in Bennett’s in-box.
Wiesel was a serious man, deeply respected in Jewish society. He certainly wasn’t a right-wing, “born again,” religious fundamentalist. Yet in Souls on Fire, he wrote of rabbis awaiting “the gigantic, apocalyptic war” of Gog and Magog as a prelude to the coming of the Messiah. What’s more, in his memoir, All Rivers Run to the Sea, Wiesel wrote of his longing for the coming “climactic battle of Gog and Magog,” the defeat of Israel’s enemies, and “the Savior’s triumph.”
In Elie Wieseclass="underline" Conversations, a series of previously published interviews edited by Robert Franciosi, Wiesel was asked, “Is mystical Jewish thought unhappy?” To which he responded, “On the contrary, it is very happy since it develops a theory according to which history progresses, thanks to messianism, and leads us to redemption. Messianism is the gift of the Jew to the world, but in our tradition we believe that before redemption there will be a huge catastrophe. We call it the war of Gog and Magog.”
“What have you got?”
Jack Mitchell and Marsha Kirkpatrick stood in the Oval Office, briefing the president. “NSA just intercepted a satellite call from a highway two hours south of Moscow,” said Mitchell. “We think it was Bennett. The call cut off before we could get it all. But we’ve tagged the satellite account. Next time he makes a call, we’ll know it.”
MacPherson almost swore. “You’ve got to be kidding. Bennett’s heading to Moscow? He’s going to get himself killed.”
“Actually, Mr. President, it could be worse than that,” said Kirkpatrick.
“How?”
“We have to assume Russian intelligence intercepted the same call. Who knows how quickly they can process it, but it’ll be flagged top priority because it was obviously coming from inside Russia, and Bennett and whomever he was talking to were speaking in English. I can’t tell you how long it will take for Gogolov’s people to determine the voice is Bennett’s. But once they do, the danger is that Gogolov will suspect that Bennett’s part of some kind of CIA or Mossad plot.”
“Worst-case scenario?” the president asked.
Mitchell took that one. “Gogolov could suspect we’re preparing for an assassination attempt or a preemptive strike.”
“What would that mean?”
“There’s no way to know for sure, sir, but it’s possible that if Gogolov feels threatened he could move up his plans to strike Israel.”
She was alive, and she was safe.
Bennett knew he should feel elated. But for the moment he simply felt numb. McCoy had escaped. She’d made contact with Mordechai. She knew Bennett was on his way to rescue her, and they had even roughed out the beginning of an extraction plan.
He had so many questions. How had she gotten away from Jibril’s clutches? And how in the world had she gotten hold of a satellite phone?
As his mind reeled, Bennett’s emotions forced their way to the surface, and his eyes welled up with tears.
“What?” Hamid asked. “Good news or bad?”
Costello knew he had to get back to work.
But he simply couldn’t pull himself away. It was as if he had stumbled onto a secret code whose clues were hidden throughout the ages — from the Dead Sea Scrolls to the pages of great Russian and Jewish literature — that only now were coming together.
And yet, perhaps because he was a political animal by nature, it was the Reagan quotes that intrigued him most. Reagan’s fascination with the End Times and the return of Christ was common knowledge. Costello vividly remembered Reagan telling a reporter during the 1980 campaign, “We may be the generation that sees Armageddon.” But until the story on the Drudge Report, Costello had never heard of Reagan’s fascination with Ezekiel.
Costello skimmed through the Gore Vidal book. Sure enough, Drudge’s quotes were accurate. Now he flipped through Dutch: A Memoir of Ronald Reagan by Edmund Morris. On page 632, he found the story of Reagan telling Howard Baker, Colin Powell, and Morris that he believed Ezekiel 38 was going to happen, that Gog was the leader of Russia, and that Meshech was the “the ancient name for Moscow.”
He flipped to the endnotes. There was more. On page 835, Morris described Ezekiel as “RR’s favorite book of prophecy” and explained that Reagan’s “reference to Meshech connotes Mushku, the ancient Phyrigian kingdom in Anatolia, from which the name Moscow might possibly be derived.”
Was it really possible that the man who had rightly designated the Soviet Union the Evil Empire had been basing his conclusions on biblical prophecies?
Then something else caught Costello’s eye. Under the pile of books there was a plain brown envelope. He opened it and pulled out a sheaf of papers. It was a photocopy of a speech of some kind, with a handwritten note from the chief librarian attached to it.
Jon — Sorry about the guard. Just doing his job. I’d better do mine, too. I see you’re hunting for material on Gog and Magog. Thought you’d be interested in this address, delivered by the Rev. F. E. Pitts before Congress back in 1857.
Costello set the note aside and began reading.
It had to be a joke. Here was a nineteenth-century pastor warning Congress that Russia would emerge as a horrific new world threat — and doing so a full sixty years before the Russian Revolution, using only the book of Ezekiel as his source of intelligence. That wasn’t possible.