Everywhere Costello looked he saw more images of destruction.
On one small monitor he saw the thermal imaging from a U.S. spy satellite hovering over the Golan Heights. The screen was awash with hellish reds and oranges so intense Costello almost had to look away. In the lower left corner he could see the glowing outline of someone crawling through flames.
At first the body was a pale yellow — normal body temperature. But as Costello continued to stare, unable to avert his eyes, the image turned light orange, then dark orange, and then a ghastly, fiery maroon. Whoever it was had just cooked to death while he had watched in silence, half a world away.
What Mordechai saw next even he did not expect.
From the Mount of Olives, with the Old City of Jerusalem behind her, an Israeli reporter broadcast the latest stunning developments. The sound was muted, so Mordechai stared at her eyes. Was that fear? joy? disbelief? Perhaps it was all three.
Then suddenly the reporter looked up in the still-darkened sky and hit the deck as her cameraman followed. The camera itself rocked back and forth for a moment, then fell to the ground. The lens cracked. The camera was on its side. But the image it broadcast to the world was unmistakable.
Burning sulfur and massive meteorites rained down on the Temple Mount. One after another, seven balls of fire smashed into the Dome of the Rock, the Al-Aksa Mosque, and everything around them, shattering rocks and melting anything that would not burn. It was as if God Himself was cleansing the holy site.
Gogolov could see the fireball coming toward them.
But there was nothing they could do.
The pilot aimed the chopper for the ground, hoping to outmaneuver whatever this thing was. Within seconds, they had dropped from nine thousand feet to less than six thousand. Gogolov and Jibril tried in vain to grab hold of anything solid, but what was the point?
“Base Camp this is Black Star; we are going down. I repeat, we are going down. Three thousand feet and dropping fast.”
There was no reply. All they could hear over the radio were the screams of men dying in the air and on the ground.
Another explosion of thunder and a burst of wind shear rocked the helicopter from side to side. Gogolov could see the pilot fighting for their lives.
And then it hit with a deafening roar.
Through his pain, Gogolov saw Jibril burst into flames. The man’s flesh crackled and split open, melting from his bones as his eyes turned to liquid in their sockets.
Then all color drained away, as did the light of the flames. All noise faded, including the sound of his own screams. Gogolov could see nothing but a black, misty void, as if the spirits of the dead were rising from the abyss to take him away.
In that instant, Gogolov feared death. He could feel himself falling through the dark void of space. He was flailing and terrified and utterly alone. He braced for impact, but it never came. He cried for mercy he would never see. He felt the searing heat and the demons ripping at his eyes and face with claws like razors. And then, in a terrifying flash of clarity, he realized it would never end.
Out of the hellish fury emerged Bennett and McCoy.
They were running for their lives. With the inferno at their backs, they raced down to the Moskva River only to find every bridge — and every tank that had guarded it — destroyed.
Even if they could find a car or truck and get it started, how would they get out of the city? Every street and boulevard was littered with the charred wreckage of Russian police and military vehicles and the still-smoking bodies of those forces who had tried to flee. Everyone else was gone. The city had become a ghost town.
“Jon, the boats.”
McCoy was already running. Bennett scrambled to catch up.
There — about a quarter of a mile downriver — was a speedboat tied along the far bank. McCoy dived into the water as soon as she got close and swam to the other side, with Bennett right behind her. There was no one around, no one to stop them, so they clambered aboard, started the motor, and headed south.
Moscow burned as Rome once had.
Red Square was consumed by scorching winds. Explosions rocked the city, and a thousand years of bloodstained history went up in flames.
As he stared back at the smoke of her burning, Bennett felt sickened by all the death and destruction he had seen — and caused. He grieved for his friend Hamid, who had died that he might live. How was that right? Why hadn’t God taken him, instead? thought Bennett. He grieved for Nadia. Who would tell her the terrible news? No one else knew but him, he realized. But the thought of facing her, the thought of telling her she would have to raise Hamid’s baby all by herself, was almost more than he could bear.
He grieved, too, for his mother as it suddenly dawned on him: Had she lived through the earthquake? Was she hurt? Would anyone find her? His satellite phone had been destroyed. There was no way he could reach her, no way to send help, no way to tell her that he and Erin were alive, or find out if she had ever trusted Christ.
And yet amid the swirl of conflicting emotions, Bennett also felt humbled by God’s protection. He had no food, no extra fuel, and no idea what lay ahead. Still, somehow he felt at peace. The great liberation of millions had begun. Across the hard soil of so many countries, the promise of new life was finally free to grow.
And he was in the arms of the woman he loved, the woman he’d feared he’d lost forever. He held her tight. He was home. The tears began to flow, and he had no idea when they’d stop, and he didn’t care.
Epilogue
It was time.
As he sat in his palace in the heart of Iraq, watching the coverage of the events in Russia and Iran and Saudi Arabia and beyond, Mustafa Al-Hassani was a cauldron of mixed emotions. But one thought kept rising to the fore: The leaders and forces of all of his enemies had just been wiped off the face of the earth. He did not know how or why, nor did he care. He knew those answers would come in time.
For now it was clear that if he moved quickly, he could build the Babylon of his dreams — not just the city… his Empire.
Is It True?
To learn more about the research used for this book — and to track the latest political, economic, and military developments in Israel, Russia, Iran, and other countries described in The Ezekiel Option—please visit www.joelrosenberg.com.
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Acknowledgments
King Solomon once wrote, “He who walks with wise men will be wise.” I have been fortunate to walk alongside some wonderfully kind and insightful men and women in my life. To all I owe an enormous debt of gratitude. Thanks again to everyone mentioned in my previous acknowledgements, especially Lynn’s and my families, and our dear friends from McLean, Frontline, and Syracuse. Thanks, as well, to Daniel and Susan Doron, who first alerted me to the rising threat of Iran back in the early 1990s and taught me so much about the Arab- Israeli conflict; Tim and Beverly LaHaye, whose book, The Coming Peace In the Middle East, first drew my attention to the prophecies of Ezekiel 38–39; Jerry Jenkins; Tim MacDonald; Capt. Jeff Donnithorne (USAF); Wes Yoder and his team at Ambassador Agency; everyone who gave me their time and insights on my research trips to Russia, Turkey, and Israel; everyone in our Tuesday night groups; June “Bubbe” Meyers, who always goes above and beyond the call of duty; and Edward and Kailea Hunt, who have become such dear friends and done so much to help us on this book, and this book tour.