Yael had said little on the call. Rather, she had just sat beside me, holding my hand and answering any logistical questions that came up. When the call was over, she’d given me a long hug. And then she’d watched me walk out of the hotel room for the last time.
Beside me, on the passenger seat, was a brand-new satellite phone. It had never been used before. It had no phone numbers for Shalit or Dutch or Yael or anyone else in the Mossad programmed into it. I was not expecting to receive any calls on the way to the compound, nor was I planning to make any. But Shalit had insisted that I take it. It would only ring, he said, if he believed there was a technical glitch that could prevent the Syrian Kurds from firing their missile at just the right moment.
I pulled off the main east-west highway onto a dirt road that headed up into the mountains. I was following coordinates Dutch had provided for the Toyota’s GPS system, and with no traffic, I was making good time. I thought about the letter I’d written to Matt. I hoped I’d been clear enough about how grateful I was to him and how much I looked forward to seeing him on the other side. I thought, too, of the other thank-you notes I’d left in my carry-on bag—one for Yael, one for Ari, one for President Mahfouz, another for Prince bin Zayed, and the last one for King Abdullah II. Without this team and their courage, we would never have found the ISIS emir, and we could never have brought him to justice. I was sorry I’d never get to write the story of the unprecedented cooperation I’d witnessed between Israel and these Sunni Arab leaders. But I was grateful for the time I’d gotten to spend with them, for the insights and access they’d given me and the personal kindness they had shown me.
Finally I turned up a small, one-lane road. According to the map on my dashboard, I was less than half a mile from the compound. But suddenly I found myself approaching a guardhouse flying the black flag of ISIS and manned by armed fighters in black hoods. The guards, clearly stunned to see any unauthorized vehicle coming toward them, immediately pointed their AK-47s and began screaming at me in Arabic. I pulled to a stop, turned off the lights, and killed the engine. Then, as instructed, I got out of the car with my hands over my head. The screaming continued in full force. I was instructed to lie down on the ground, on my stomach, spread-eagle. Then I was promptly searched and then stripped. When I was pulled back to my feet, I was stark naked, surrounded by no fewer than six men pointing weapons at me.
“Who are you?” the leader shouted. “Why have you come?”
“My name is J. B. Collins,” I said in Arabic. “I heard the emir was looking for me. I’ve come to talk to him. I work for the New York Times.”
The expressions on their faces were priceless, and I hoped the video image being captured by my glasses was being transmitted back to Yael and the team crisp and clear. The men around me refused to believe me at first until they went through my wallet and found my driver’s license.
“You’re really J. B. Collins?” the leader said, astonished.
“I am,” I said. “As I understand it, the emir has invited me to see him. I have a source that says he is staying in a mosque just up the road. Would you please take me there? I have a deadline.”
Again, the men were nearly speechless.
“What source?” the leader finally asked.
“I really can’t say.”
“You must.”
“I will tell the emir, but no one else. I’m sorry.”
The next thing I knew, the leader was on a cell phone, presumably to his boss, and a few moments later, they ordered me to put my jeans and T-shirt back on. They did not return my shoes or socks, or my grandfather’s watch or my leather jacket, and I was freezing in the night air.
It was barely three o’clock in the morning. The temperature was somewhere below fifty degrees. But this mattered little to me. So far, the plan was working. My hands and feet were bound tightly with rope, and I was shoved into the back of the Toyota. The leader and two of his henchmen drove me to the front gate.
By the time we arrived, so had a crowd of ISIS fighters. There had to have been forty or fifty. Word was spreading rapidly through the camp as I was hustled through the main gates, across the courtyard, and into the mosque.
The hatred in these men’s eyes was unlike anything I had ever seen, yet it was mixed with a bizarre combination of curiosity and disbelief. I knew I should have been terrified. At any other time in my life, I would have been. But there was something surreal about the entire situation. It was almost as if I were outside my body, watching myself through the monitors back in the hotel in Nizip, as Yael was doing now.
And then, suddenly, I found myself standing face-to-face with Abu Khalif.
100
The predawn call to prayer wouldn’t go forth for more than an hour.
It was obvious that Khalif had just been roused from sleep. His robe was rumpled and his eyes were bleary. I, on the other hand, was all too awake. I was seated, chained to a chair. I was cold. But I was not afraid.
At first Khalif did not say a word. He just walked around me and then stopped in front of me—maybe three or four feet away. He stared at me, completely baffled. The fact that I no longer looked like I did when he first saw me in Iraq—that I no longer looked like the photograph he’d released to the world, that I was no longer bald, that I was sporting a full beard—all of it confused him.
Ahmed Baqouba walked into the mosque with some two dozen fighters. I recognized him instantly, but he too looked baffled when he saw me. Baqouba had my wallet in his hands, and he looked down several times at my Virginia driver’s license and then back at me. He handed the license to Khalif, who did the same. Finally Faisal Baqouba entered the mosque with quite an entourage around him, and now all three men were standing directly in front of me.
By God’s mercy, the plan had worked. All three men were in the same place. I prayed the missile was already in the air.
But suddenly Ahmed surged toward me. He was seething with rage and as he approached, he slammed his fist into my face. I could hear the cartilage in my nose shatter. I could feel the blood gushing down my face. My glasses were crushed against my cheek. The pain nearly made me black out.
“Who are you?” Ahmed demanded.
“Collins,” I said, willing myself to stay conscious despite the fact that my face felt like it was on fire. “James Bradley Collins.”
“That’s impossible!” the Baqouba brother roared. “Tell me the truth.”
“I heard the emir wanted to see me,” I continued, unable to see because of all the blood in my eyes. “So I came to see him. Perhaps he has something to tell the world.”
“You’re lying!”
Someone had grabbed me by the shoulders and was shaking me violently. But the voice was not the same. This was not Ahmed. Nor was it Faisal. Khalif himself was now standing in front of me, shouting.
“Who sent you? How did you know I was here?”
I tried to speak, but the pain was rapidly becoming unbearable. So I just kept silent and tried to focus my thoughts on what was coming. I could imagine the missile exploding from the mobile launcher near the Syrian border. I could picture it gaining altitude, stabilizing, arcing toward the compound.
I thought of Matt. I thought of Yael. I thought of the decision I’d made on the plane to finally accept what I already knew in my heart to be true. I thought of the verse about what true love looks like—laying down your life for others.
Khalif continued screaming at me. But I just kept imagining the inbound trajectory of the Syrian missile as it streaked across the Turkish plains at more than five times the speed of sound.
And then, suddenly, it arrived.
EPILOGUE
ST. THOMAS, U.S. VIRGIN ISLANDS—WEDNESDAY, MARCH 23
My cell phone rang just after noon local time.
I was at the hospital, visiting Annie and Katie, so I didn’t answer it. Annie had just come out of a coma. She was groggy and in pain. She couldn’t speak. But she recognized me. When I held her hand and asked her if I
was a doctor or her husband, she squeezed my fingers twice. When I asked if I was her husband or J. B., she squeezed once. I was ecstatic. Katie had already been awake for several days. She was sitting up. She was talking—not much, but she was trying, and I was overjoyed.
So when my phone rang four more times in a row, I ignored it. There was no one I wanted to talk to right then, no one I was going to interrupt these moments of miracles for. But then I heard a commotion out in the hallway. And then a nurse burst in and told me in the accent of the islands to quickly turn on the television.
“No,” I snapped. “Please, give us some privacy. We don’t want to watch TV right now.”
“But the news—it is so wonderful!”
“Why?” I asked. “What happened?”
“The leader of ISIS—they got him; they really got him!”
That, I admit, got my attention. I clicked on the television in Annie’s room and found myself watching the breaking news coverage, spellbound. All the broadcast networks and cable news networks were covering the story. I kept flipping from channel to channel. Details were sketchy so far, but the basic narrative was clear enough. After a two-month-long manhunt, Kurdish rebels, operating out of northern Syria, had hunted down and found Abu Khalif, the leader of the Islamic State, in a compound in eastern Turkey.
The missile strike had killed not only Khalif but two of his top deputies and at least a hundred of his most trusted fighters. The Turkish government denied knowing Khalif had been hiding on their territory and said they had police and military crews on the scene and a full investigation was under way. An anchor said the president of the United States was preparing to address the nation soon. Congratulations for the Kurds were pouring in from the leaders of Israel, Jordan, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, and Saudi Arabia.
My thoughts immediately shifted to my brother. I pulled out my mobile phone, suddenly hoping it was J. B. who had called. Surely he knew the details. Very likely, he’d been right in the middle of the operation. But the number showed it wasn’t J. B. It was FBI agent Art Harris instead.
I called back and after a single ring heard his voice.
“Is it true?” I asked. “Did they get him?”
“They did, Matt,” Harris said. “The president will officially confirm it when he speaks to the nation at the top of the hour, but I can tell you we are certain. Abu Khalif has been killed.”
“That’s amazing—I can hardly believe it,” I said, flooded with emotion. “And what about J. B.—did he call you? Is he okay?”
“What do you mean?” Harris asked. “Isn’t J. B. there with you?”
“No, of course not. I thought he was working with you—or maybe with the CIA.”
“Matt, what are you talking about?” Harris pressed. “You’re saying J. B. isn’t with you on St. Thomas?”
“No. J. B. left the same day you dropped us off here.”
“He left? Where?”
“He said he was going to hunt down Abu Khalif. I was against it—fought him tooth and nail on it. But in the end I figured you two had cooked up some plot together.”
Harris eventually convinced me he had no idea what this was all about, but he promised to look into it and get back to me.
Two days later, just after breakfast, there was a knock at the door of our home overlooking Magens Bay. I was alone in the house, preparing to go see Annie and Katie again. I went to the door and opened it, fully expecting to see Harris. Who else could it be?
Instead, I found a beautiful young woman wearing a pale-blue sundress and flats. She had a cast on her left arm and a number of fresh-looking scars on her face.
“May I help you?” I asked.
“I hope so,” she said. “Are you Matt Collins?”
I just stood there, mouth agape, so caught off guard to hear my real name that I had no idea how to respond.
“I’m so sorry to bother you at home,” the woman said, removing her sunglasses. “I realize you don’t know me, and this must seem very strange. But my name is Yael Katzir. I was a friend of your brother.”
“You’re Yael?” I said, even more stunned.
Then she reached into her purse, pulled out several pages of a handwritten letter, and handed the pages to me. “I have this letter for you, Matt,” she said. “It’s from J. B.—a letter and a story . . .”
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
One of the greatest joys of writing novels is seeing where they wind up being read and by whom.
Over the years, I have had the joy of meeting and hearing from readers of my books all over the world, from police officers to prisoners on death row, from rabbis and imams to pastors and priests, from students in high school and college to ministry and relief workers in remote tribal jungles, from senior government officials in world capitals to soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines on the front lines of the war on terror. I always love discovering how such varied people from such varied backgrounds hear about these books and what draws them to reading these stories when they have so many other matters pressing for their time and attention.
That said, however, I was in no way prepared for what happened last year. In January of 2016, my wife, Lynn, and I learned that Jordan’s King Abdullah II had read The First Hostage, and rather than banning me from his kingdom, he invited Lynn and me to visit him in Amman. We had never met a king before, but we were both deeply grateful for the invitation and for the tremendous hospitality His Majesty showed us when we arrived. We had the honor of spending personal time with the king and a number of his generals and advisors. We observed a live-fire military exercise, visited a refugee camp, flew in the king’s personal helicopter, visited several military bases and training centers, and saw some of the Hashemite Kingdom’s most impressive archaeological treasures and biblical sites, from Mount Nebo to Petra.
Those five days in Jordan last spring were surreal, and they made me shake my head, yet again, that I really get to do what I do. Since I was eight years old, I have always had a passion to tell stories on paper and on film, to take people on adventures, to lead them on journeys and through experiences they otherwise would never go. What I hadn’t understood when I was eight, however, was that as I wrote such stories I, too, would get to go on so many adventures and enter places previously inaccessible.
Along the way, I have had the great honor of meeting all kinds of readers, young and old, rich and poor, powerless and powerful. And I want to thank each and every one of you in the U.S., Canada, Israel, Jordan, and in dozens of countries all over the world where my books are translated and sold. Thank you for reading these thrillers. Thank you for all the kind and supportive messages you send me via e-mail, Facebook, Twitter, and good old-fashioned snail mail. Thank you for the constructive criticism and for reading my blog and for sharing it with others. Thanks, too, for constantly urging me to turn out these books faster and faster. Believe me, I’m doing my best!
I learned quickly in my writing career that dreaming up stories isn’t enough. I knew I would need an extraordinary team of professionals to help me get these stories published, marketed, and publicized. By God’s grace I have been blessed with just such a team and am deeply grateful for their passion for excellence and their personal kindness to me and my family.
Scott Miller is my literary agent, and he and his team at Trident Media Group have consistently proven to be the best in the business. Since my first novel, The Last Jihad, so many years ago, Scott has been a wise counselor and a true friend.
Mark Taylor, Jeff Johnson, Ron Beers, Karen Watson, and Jeremy Taylor at Tyndale House have been an absolutely first-rate publishing group. All but two of my books have been published by them and I count it a tremendous joy and honor to work with such hardworking, creative and fun people. They not only do their best to help me do my best, but they have built a great team around them, including Jan Stob, Cheryl Kerwin, Dean Renninger, the entire sales forces, and all the other dedicated professionals that make the Tyndale brand shine.
June Meye
rs and Nancy Pierce work with me at November Communications, Inc., and they are beyond fantastic! Year in and year out they do an outstanding job helping me keep my head above water with everything from schedules to flights to finances and so much more—and they do so with great kindness, precision, and class.
I owe so much to my family and to Lynn’s and am so thankful for their prayers, their patience, and their boundless encouragement.
I’m so thankful for the four wonderful sons the Lord has blessed us with: Caleb, Jacob, Jonah, and Noah—I love being on this remarkable journey with these boys, whatever the twists and turns and regardless of how much turbulence we encounter.
My parents, Leonard and Mary Jo Rosenberg, keep running the race with perseverance and for this I am so grateful.
Most of all I want to say thank you, thank you, thank you to my dear wife, Lynn. She continually blesses, inspires, and astounds me. She is such an amazing, creative, hardworking, and super encouraging friend and soul mate. I don’t deserve you, Lynnie, but I will stick to you like glue!
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Joel C. Rosenberg is a New York Times bestselling author with more than three million copies sold among his twelve novels (including The Last Jihad, Damascus Countdown, and The Auschwitz Escape), four nonfiction books (including Epicenter and Inside the Revolution), and a digital short (Israel at War). A front-page Sunday New York Times profile called him a “force in the capital.” He has also been profiled by the Washington Times and the Jerusalem Post and has been interviewed on ABC’s Nightline, CNN Headline News, FOX News Channel, The History Channel, MSNBC, The Rush Limbaugh Show, and The Sean Hannity Show.