Costello pulled out a pen and began to highlight key passages.
The voice of the prophetic Scriptures frequently and fully announces the warfare of the world. Preparation for ages has anticipated the struggle; while the clammor of its trumpets is almost heard marshaling its millions to the charge. It is true as destiny, and the gathering storm is rising….
Who leads this invasion?… This overwhelming power we shall demonstrate to be Russia…. Russia, according to the Scriptures, is the headship or leading power around which the multitudinous armies of allied monarchy shall be gathered together….
The more he read, the more impressed he was with this remarkable piece of oration. But Pitts had made one fundamental error: the target. He had ignored Ezekiel 36 and 37, in which God explicitly promised to draw the Jewish people back to their homeland, and had erroneously concluded that the United States must be the new Israel and thus the focus of a future Russian attack.
“Were all the Jews on earth restored to the small territory of Palestine,” the pastor from Tennessee had told Congress, “what temptation or provocation could they offer to arouse the allied armies of earth to invade them? No, my countrymen, it is not ancient Jewry that will witness this invasion. There is another Israel, the Israel of America.”
But Costello knew the rest of the story. It was unfolding before his very eyes. A modern, resurrected State of Israel was in the Russian crosshairs, precisely as Ezekiel had predicted. He picked up his cell phone and dialed the West Wing.
“It’s Costello. I need to see the president.”
60
Jibril slid a black folder across the table.
“What have you got?” asked Gogolov.
“Iranian intelligence in Paris thinks the Mossad sent Bennett to Turkey in a private jet on September twenty-first from a small airfield near Caen. The plane landed in a small city in northeastern Turkey. The next day, there was an explosion in Bazargan when two people tried to crash the border into Iran.”
“Were they caught?”
“They were killed, which made everyone think that was the end of the story.”
“But there is more?” Gogolov asked.
“There is, Your Excellency. A border agent says a man and a pregnant woman carrying Iranian passports entered the country just after the explosion, headed to Tabriz. On a hunch, I asked one of my colleagues to check it out. We found the pregnant woman. Her neighbors say her husband left town with another man on the night of October fifth. They have not been back since.”
“And you think it is Bennett?”
“It seems unlikely, I realize. But I thought you would want to know.”
Jibril was right. He did.
Was it Bennett? How could it be?
Gogolov considered that. What if Bennett hadn’t really quit the U.S. government? What if he hadn’t been fired? What if he was working for the CIA, and with the Mossad? But to what end? Bennett wasn’t a trained operative. He was more likely to be caught than accomplish anything of value. But what if that’s what Langley wanted all along?
What if the CIA had sent Bennett on a mission to “rescue” his fiancée, only to serve as diversion from other strike teams preparing an attack against Moscow?
It was a clever play, thought Gogolov. But the CIA was unlikely to attempt it alone. The Mossad had far more experience running agents in and out of Iran and the Caucasus. They had to be involved. Which meant Eliezer Mordechai was involved.
After all, the old man thought Israel was invulnerable to attack.
“If Bennett and the Mossad are operating inside our borders,” Gogolov said, “then we are out of time. We must strike first.”
The thought of a Russian preemptive nuclear strike against the Israelis was delicious. Gogolov had already created the pretext — the assassination attempt he had ordered against himself in order to blame it on the Jews. It had worked perfectly. He’d even been injured, and the world’s enmity against the Zionists had only intensified.
Gogolov turned back to Jibril.
“Send Bennett’s photo to every police station, intelligence officer, and military unit in Russia. Send word that Bennett is believed to be inside Russia with another Mossad or U.S. intelligence agent. He is to be considered armed and extremely dangerous. I want him found, dead or alive.”
“Of course, Your Excellency. Anything else?”
“What was done with the woman?”
“Which one?”
“The wife of the man helping Bennett?”
“She was shot twice and survived. She’s scheduled to be executed on Friday.”
The phone rang.
It had to be Bennett or McCoy, thought Mordechai. But it was neither.
“Eli, it’s David.”
Mordechai was stunned. Surely the prime minister had more pressing matters on his plate than talking with a man viewed by most of the nation as a heretic.
Instinctively, Mordechai sprang out of his living-room chair and stood to his feet. “Mr. Prime Minister,” he said. “To what do I owe this honor?”
“You’ve become quite a celebrity in recent days,” Doron said softly.
“A traitor, you mean?”
“Come, come, Eli. We’ve known each other too long. You know I’m not Orthodox, even if I sound like one in my campaigns.”
It was true. David Doron had never been a religious man. It had always been one of the reasons the two of them had gotten along so well. They were realists, pragmatists. They loved science and statistics, things you could touch and hold and quantify and contain.
“Eli,” Doron said again.
“Yes, Mr. Prime Minister.”
“Come and have coffee with a weary old man.”
They were less than sixty miles out.
Emotionally and physically exhausted, Bennett was tempted to ask Hamid to pull off the main road for a while. Both men desperately needed rest. They also needed some idea of how to get into Moscow without getting killed.
But they could not stop now. They were within striking distance of the Russian capital, and they’d continue even if they had nothing to run on but sheer adrenaline and the grace of God.
Bennett took out his pistol and made sure it was loaded as Hamid tromped on the accelerator.
A steel blast door opened electronically.
Mordechai had not descended into the prime minister’s nuclear bunker in years, and the technological upgrades caught his attention immediately.
Gone were the plastic world maps covered with pushpins and erasable marker. The walls were now covered with flat-screen monitors showing real-time feeds from Predator drones patrolling Israel’s borders and digital maps displaying Israeli forces in navy blue and enemy forces in crimson red.
And the world was now a wine-dark sea.
The two men shook hands and sat down alone.
“It is good to see you again, Mr. Prime Minister. You look well.”
Doron managed a smile. “You always had a better poker face than that, Eli.”
“I am praying for you, my friend. As are millions.”
“Millions pray that I push the button. Millions more pray that I won’t. I suspect you are all canceling each other out.”
“I am praying for your soul.”
Doron smiled again. “Now would be a good time for the Messiah to show Himself, would it not?”
Mordechai chose not to respond to the sarcasm.