“I don’t know, sir. I have never seen a storm that big.”
They were heading straight into it.
“I thought you said we had clear skies ahead, Commander.”
“We did, sir. Ten seconds ago, that storm was not there.”
“This is CNN Breaking News.”
Dmitri Galishnikov and his wife, Katya, huddled in the bomb shelter under their home. Desperate for the latest news, they were glued to three television sets all linked to the Medexco satellite system.
“CNN has received unconfirmed reports that Russian and coalition forces in Lebanon are beginning to advance toward the Israeli border. Israeli radio is reporting that a column of some five hundred Russian and Iranian battle tanks is heading south from Beirut and is expected to link up with another two thousand tanks positioned just east of Tyre and Sidon.”
Katya began to sob.
She and Dmitri had left the Soviet Union to give their sons better lives, not this. Uri, their youngest, was part of an Israeli tank battalion on the border of Lebanon. Moishe, their oldest, was in a paratrooper unit guarding the Golan Heights.
She cursed herself for listening to Dmitri. He was the Zionist in the family, not her. When they’d finally been given exit visas out of Russia, she’d begged him to take her to the United States, “the true Promised Land.” But he had refused. He’d insisted on making his life a Jewish life, and making his fortune in the land of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. In Israel, and nowhere else. And where had it gotten them?
It was a death sentence.
What she didn’t know was that a Russian ICBM was already inbound toward Tel Aviv and only eight minutes from impact.
Suddenly the walls and floor began to shake.
One of the television sets slid off the table and crashed to the floor. The lights began to flicker, then went out, and Katya’s sobs turned to screams.
MacPherson felt it first.
But an instant later everyone in the Situation Room was on his or her feet. The room was shaking violently. Files, coffee mugs — anything that wasn’t bolted down — crashed to the floor. It felt like an earthquake, but that didn’t make sense. Washington, D.C., almost never had earthquakes. Neither did Maryland or Virginia.
Was it an attack? Had a bomb just gone off?
Six Secret Service agents burst into the room. They grabbed MacPherson and Vice President Oaks and raced them down to the Presidential Emergency Operations Center deep underneath the White House. Costello and the NSC team were right behind them. But even there the room convulsed. Lights flickered. Several television monitors blew out. The sound was almost deafening, like the roar of a freight train.
“Get me NORAD,” shouted MacPherson. “Find out what’s going on.”
Corsetti pressed a cell phone to his ear.
“Interior just confirmed,” he shouted back. “It is a massive earthquake. The epicenter is just outside of Jerusalem, but it’s being felt all over the world.”
“That’s impossible,” said MacPherson, trying to brace himself against the conference table.
“That’s what they’re saying, sir. FEMA’s getting reports from L.A., Chicago, Orlando — everywhere, sir. State’s getting flash traffic reports from all our embassies. Everyone’s getting hit, and damage is severe.”
Mordechai’s first thought was that they’d been hit.
The command bunker’s ceiling seemed ready to collapse. Chunks of concrete and plaster fell like rain. The ground beneath them continued to heave and sway.
Though the overhead lights were gone, the backup generators kicked in immediately, keeping the computers running. The room now was devoid of light but for the eerie green and red glow of the computer displays and the video monitors displaying live satellite feeds from over the borders.
Mordechai uncovered his head and looked at the computer tracking the ICBM. It said they still had six minutes. Was it wrong? What else but a Russian nuclear warhead could have caused something like this in the most secure location in the whole of Israel?
But then he knew. It wasn’t any man-made weapon.
He heard the prime minister calling out in the darkness. “Was that it? Did we just get hit?”
Modine had an open line to six of his top field commanders. On the speakerphone, Mordechai heard all of them reporting a horrendous earthquake and massive devastation, but none of them could see any signs of bomb or missile damage.
“No, sir,” Modine said. “Not yet. We still have time. But you need to order the counterstrike now, sir.”
“No!” shouted Mordechai. “Don’t you see, David; it is coming true. The prophecy is coming true.”
“Five minutes to impact, sir,” Modine said. “There’s no more time.”
Mordechai tried to find his friend in the shadows.
“What are you talking about, Eli?” Doron shouted. “We’re all about to die.”
“No, no, this is Ezekiel 38:19 and 20 coming true—‘In My zeal and in My blazing wrath,’ says the Lord, ‘I declare that on that day there will surely be a great earthquake in the land of Israel…. And all the men who are on the face of the earth will shake at My presence.’ All men, sir, everywhere — even you.”
Costello stared at the monitors in disbelief.
It was happening. It wasn’t a dream. This was real. Which meant Bennett and Mordechai had been right. Which meant that he’d been right. Which meant… what?
The world as he had known it all his life was about to change forever. Nothing would ever be the same again. He knew the prophecy cold by now. He knew what was coming next. The judgment of Russia. The destruction of radical Islam. The realignment of nations and fortunes, unprecedented in human history. But what did it really mean — for him, for his wife, for the future they had planned for themselves?
Costello knew what he had to do, the choices he now had to make. He just didn’t know if he had the courage he needed, or the stamina to see it through.
Ruth Bennett cowered under a table.
The walls were crumbling. Beams crashed down from the ceiling. Electrical wires sizzled and popped and sparked in the darkness. She screamed for help, but no one could hear her. She could barely hear herself. Something smashed into the table right above her head.
Terrified, she cried out in the darkness, “Lord Jesus, forgive me.”
For a moment she was startled by her own words. She had not said Protect me. Not Save me. She had cried Forgive me. And in that moment she suddenly knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that what Jon had told her was the truth. She knew the judgment of God had begun. And more than physical protection, more than a peaceful feeling of security, she knew she needed forgiveness. She suddenly realized she was in danger of dying without ever having accepted Christ’s free gift of love and forgiveness. What’s more, she knew that the only thing stopping her from getting right with God was her stubborn, foolish pride — and there was no more time for that.
Weeping now, as her world crashed down around her, Ruth Bennett opened her heart to God.
“Lord Jesus, I need you. I’m so sorry for not coming to you sooner. Forgive me, Lord, for everything. Thank you for dying on the cross to pay for my sins. And thank you for rising from the dead to give me eternal life. Please come into my life and be my Savior and my Lord. Have mercy on me, Lord Jesus. Show me how to follow you, and let me be with you forever. Please. Amen.”
And in that instant, her life changed. The terror was suddenly gone. In its place was an overwhelming sense of peace that surpassed any possible understanding, and it began to dawn on her that nothing she knew would ever be the same.