Brink of Chaos

  Abigail shook her head, astonished. “I knew Tulrude’s people were corrupt, but I had no idea how corrupt. And Assistant Attorney General Gowers — he was part of this?”

  “He as much as admitted to me that after Tulrude became president the gloves were off — no limits — Joshua Jordan was to be destroyed. Your Roundtable and your media outlet, AmeriNews, has made life a nightmare for Tulrude, with all of your investigative reports, starting with her longstanding objections to your husband’s RTS system when she was vice president. Then, when President Corland had one of his blackouts and the North Korean ship launched the nukes at New York and the Pentagon utilized the RTS anyway and saved the entire city, Tulrude came out and said that yes, of course she authorized it and tried to take the credit. She even repeated that lie to Congress in the aftermath. AmeriNews was the only source that ran with that story about Tulrude’s false statement, and the exposé AmeriNews ran about Tulrude violating the law by directing A.G. Hamburg to launch politically motivated criminal prosecutions. Your husband’s, as an example.

  “Anyway, Gowers distinctly told me that word had come down from the White House through A.G. Hamburg, starting from day one, that a case had to be made against your husband — at all costs. And then, when you were able to get the case against you and all the other members of the Roundtable dismissed, all except Joshua of course, Tulrude went completely crazy and called Hamburg. She screamed at him to chase Jordan ‘to the ends of the earth if necessary — to apprehend and convict him.’ That’s a direct quote by the way. This has become very personal for President Tulrude.”

  The Jefferson Memorial was now empty of visitors, so Abigail and Collingwood strode up the steps and into the circular rotunda. Abigail had visited it a few times when she practiced law in Washington many years before. She gazed up at the huge marble panels inside, covered with quotes from Thomas Jefferson, chiseled in stone.

  “Harley, you’re an experienced prosecutor. You understand what’s going to happen now. I will take this information and present it to the U.S. District Court here in Washington, where Josh’s case is pending. This is the most shocking example of government misconduct in a criminal case that I’ve ever heard. This is what I’ve suspected but couldn’t prove — waiting for and praying for — and now it’s here at my feet. This could result in Josh’s case being dismissed. But I have to ask — what made you come here today to tell me all this?”

  Harley Collingwood tilted his head and nodded toward the inscriptions on the wall in front of him. “I was just hired by a great criminal-defense firm here in town, Draeger, Proxy, and Lugot. When they told me two days ago they wanted me not just as an associate, but as a partner, I came over here to the memorial to spend some time mulling it over.”

  Collingwood pointed to a familiar text inscribed in marble and read it aloud, word-for-word, “‘God who gave us life gave us liberty. Can the liberties of a nation be secure when we have removed a conviction that these liberties are the gift of God? Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just, that his justice cannot sleep forever.’” He turned to Abigail. “My conscience wouldn’t let me sleep. And these words of my hero, Jefferson, kept haunting me.”

  “So, because of that,” she replied, “you decided to disclose this to me?”

  “That,” Collingwood said with a half grin, “and also the fact that my new law partners can’t stand Jessica Tulrude, and they told me that I had their blessing to blow the lid off of this.”

  TWENTY-FOUR

  Jaffa Street, Jerusalem

  Chad Zadok and Dimi Eliud, Prime Minister Bensky’s top staffers, arrived at the address in Jerusalem. It was a small, nondescript office with a sign outside that read, in Hebrew, Traffic Safety Office. When they entered, they identified themselves to a secretary who then showed them to the back office. Seated at a desk, a solid-looking bald man in a black T-shirt and a tan suit instructed them to close the door and sit down.

  Zadok and Eliud were now sitting across from an operations member of Shin Bet — Israel’s domestic security service. He called himself Ram, though he never gave his last name.

  Ram asked them to confirm the reason for the meeting.

  Zadok did the talking. “As I explained on the phone, Prime Minister Bensky wants this. The official at your agency told me to come here.”

  “If you don’t mind my saying, on internal security matters like this, especially where it originates from the PM’s office, it usually comes to us from someone in the IDF or in the cabinet — not a chief of staff like yourself.”

  Zadok wasn’t flustered. “No offense taken. This is highly sensitive.”

  Ram raised an eyebrow, but his face was stone. “Everything I do here is highly sensitive. Tell me something I don’t know.”

  Zadok straightened his legs and crossed them casually. “The prime minister wants this action taken immediately. I have already made the necessary contacts with the requesting nation. This transfer can be made very quickly.”

  Ram had a thin file on his desk. He opened it just long enough to give it a quick glance. “You have anything personal in all this?”

  “No. This is strictly a matter of national security and public safety. At the prime minister’s request.”

  After flipping through a few more pages of the file, Ram looked up. “You realize that the authorization for this — the legal hook — is that you say this guy is suspected of anarchist connections. You understand that?” Zadok smiled easy and nodded. “You swear that the information you gave the intake officer is true and correct, under penalties of law?” Again Zadok nodded, a little more eagerly. “How about you, Ms. Eliud. You agree with all this information?”

  She nodded yes, but less enthusiastically.

  “Do you have a problem with my executing this order, Ms. Eliud?”

  She shook her head no and directed her gaze toward Ram’s neck.

  “Look at me when I ask you a question, please,” Ram said.

  “No,” Dimi Eliud said, looking him in the face. “No problem.”

  “Very well,” Ram said.

  Chad Zadok began to stand up.

  “Not so fast,” Ram instructed him. “One more thing.”

  “Oh?”

  “I want you two to approach my desk.”

  They followed his directive.

  He twirled the file on his desk around so it was open and facing the two of them. There was a photograph in the file.

  “Is this the anarchist you are referring to?”

  They examined the photo of Joshua Jordan. They nodded. “Yes, absolutely,” Zadok said.

  Ram pulled the file back and closed it.

  Zadok asked, “How long before Jordan is captured and turned over to the FBI for extradition back to America for trial?”

  “When it comes to this office,” Ram said, “there are no back burners.”

  In the City of David section of the Old City of Jerusalem, Joshua made his way through the buckets and shovels on the ground and ducked under metal scaffolding. He turned to Pastor Peter Campbell, walking next to him. “So, I get the feeling you’ve brought me here for a reason. And it obviously doesn’t involve our favorite sporting rivalry on the links.”

  Campbell chuckled. “When I left my church in Manhattan to set up shop here in Jerusalem, it was serious business. You know the story, Josh. I’m convinced the return of Christ is imminent. Having been the head of the American Prophecy Council of Pastors, I felt led to relocate to Israel and share the gospel right here at the epicenter of prophetic events. But on the less serious side, yes, I did look for a good golf course in Jerusalem, but there aren’t any. Up in Caesarea, yes, but that’s a long drive. You and I need to take a day trip up there just to try the course sometime. Maybe I can actually beat you for a change!”

  Joshua smiled, tipped his head, and remarked, “You just may do that, my friend. My game hasn’t been the same …”

  But he didn’t need to finish the sentence. Campbell nodded and
said, “Right. Your injuries from Iran.”

  “On the other hand,” Joshua said, “I may have lost my golf handicap, but I sure gained something even better in that hellish jail cell in Tehran.”

  Campbell patted him on the back. “Josh,” he said pointing up ahead, “that’s why I think you’re really going to appreciate this.”

  They turned a corner, still underneath the scaffolding, and suddenly Joshua was looking at a set of stone steps that had been uncovered in an archaeological dig. They led straight up to a point where they disappeared into the side of a hill.

  “I know the guys involved in this excavation. This is incredible. They tell me that during the time of Christ these very steps led up to a corner of the first century Herodian Temple.”

  “Okay,” Joshua said, “what’s the rest of the story?”

  “These steps led up to the section of the Temple where the Jews who wanted to make a sacrifice would purchase an animal. That was the area where the trades were made. The place where the tables of the moneychangers were located.”

  Joshua felt the shiver of recognition run up his spine — a feeling of awe and suspension of time, as if all the world’s activity had ceased.

  “I get it,” Joshua murmured, shaking his head in disbelief. “These are the steps?”

  Campbell nodded and pointed to the edges worn down by the feet of countless pilgrims who had made their way to the Temple. “These are the steps that would have been trod by Jesus as He climbed up to the moneychangers’ tables, where profit had become king. Up there is where He flipped the tables and declared for all to hear that the house of God should not be turned into a den of thieves.”

  Even though Joshua knew the gospel account, it took several minutes to sink in. Finally he spoke, “He shook things up, the Lord Jesus, I mean.”

  “Sometimes dramatically. Sometimes a little more quietly. But one thing about the intersection of Jesus Christ with human history — wherever and whenever He shows up, things are never the same again.”

  “I can vouch for that,” Joshua said, still gazing at the steps. “I’ve changed. Radically. Supernaturally. I’m not the same man since I received Christ.” Then he added with a smile, “Just ask Abby.”

  Joshua then turned to face Campbell. “I caught your television interview, the one with Bart Kingston, about your ministry here.”

  “I miss Eternity Church back in New York — but what is going on here is epic. I felt the Lord wanted me here. It’s almost too much to comprehend. It is getting so close.”

  “Peter,” Joshua said quietly, “I spoke to you earlier about my meeting with Prime Minister Bensky, about the U.N. proposal, giving Israel a piece of the territory on top of the Temple Mount and the building of a new Jewish temple. You said you’d give me your candid reaction. So … I’m waiting.”

  Campbell gazed at the ancient steps once more and explained, “After our Lord comes for His church and raptures us, darkness will fall on the earth. Eventually, the Evil One will be fully revealed. You know the Scripture. It tells us that when that happens, he will enter the temple of the Jews. He will declare himself to be god, and in so doing, will revile and desecrate that place. But all of that requires one thing to happen. Right up there —” Campbell pointed up the stone steps to the high plateau of the Temple Mount — “the rebuilding of the Jewish Temple. And now, from what you’ve told me, I believe it’s about to happen. Oh, how the coming of Jesus Christ for His church must be so very close …”

  TWENTY-FIVE

  Chicago, Illinois, McCormick Place Convention Center

  A dozen Hewbright campaign staffers were crowded into the greenroom adjoining the stage. Their faces revealed a positive tension, a sense of anticipation and excitement. Senator Hewbright was about to deliver a speech on the economy to the convention of small business associations, a speech that would set the tone for his entire campaign. This was his Rubicon moment.

  Senator Hewbright was seated in a semicircle of folding chairs, surrounded by his top advisors: national campaign manager, George Caulfield; his assistant, Katrena Amid; his domestic policy advisors, two of whom not only had PhDs in economics but also experience in managing Fortune 500 companies; his foreign policy guru, Winston Garvey; his assistant foreign policy advisor, Zeta Milla, and several others. In the corner was Agent Owens, detailed by the Secret Service to protect the senator.

  In another corner, a small portable Internet television was tuned to several news channels in the quadrants of its screen, but the sound had been muted.

  “Well, friends,” Hewbright led off, looking more relaxed than his staff as he lounged in the folding chair, “any last-minute advice for this old political warhorse before I deliver my five-point plan to save America from financial collapse?”

  There were a few nervous chuckles. George Caulfield spoke first. “You’ll knock ‘em dead, chief.”

  One of his economic advisors said, “Senator, this plan is wonderfully simple — voters will grasp it immediately — yet keyed to the five most important areas of our failing economy. I think we’ve got a winner on this.” Then he added with a smile, “And not just because I helped draft it …” A few polite laughs followed.

  Caulfield pointed to the door leading to the mammoth convention hall. “We’ve got media from every news outlet out there. They can’t ignore us this time. Your plan to rescue America’s financial health is going to be the tipping point. Tulrude’s going to have to really scramble after tonight.” But as he spoke, the campaign manager pointed to the portable web TV in the corner. “Hey, Tulrude’s speech in Omaha is about to begin.” He called for someone to turn the sound up. The group turned their chairs around to face the television set.

  President Tulrude was mounting the podium to an explosion of applause in the union hall. She made a few comments about her love of Nebraska and cracked a joke about the mayor of Omaha, who was seated on the dais behind her. When the laughter died down she began in earnest.

  “I know the press reports indicated that I would be talking about national security tonight, but I have something more important to discuss — the state of our national economy.”

  George Caulfield whipped around and threw a quick glance to Senator Hewbright, but the candidate looked relaxed, a little amused at the seeming coincidence.

  Tulrude continued, “Tonight I am revealing the solution for our national financial tragedy. I inherited this state of affairs when I entered the Oval Office. But no matter — I am here to fix it. I assure you,” she said, clasping her hands across her chest as if in prayer, “that my five-point plan to save America’s economy will create a new financial renaissance in our nation.”

  Caulfield thrust an index finger at the television screen and mouthed a word, but nothing came out. Then a look of fury burst over his face.

  “Hold on, George,” Hewbright said, “give our opponent a chance. We don’t know what five points she’s talking about.”

  As Tulrude delivered her version of the first two parts of her plan, it became apparent that they were the same as Hewbright’s, as if she had read it verbatim from the confidential Hewbright campaign playbook. Caulfield leaped to his feet, yanked his Allfone out of his pocket, and hit Multiple Quick-dial.

  Hewbright was frozen. In an instant, his national campaign-intelligence manager in Detroit and his two assistants in Des Moines were all conferenced in.

  Caulfield yelled into his cell. “Tell me how this happened!”

  His intel manager in Detroit screamed back. “I’m watching right now. This is outrageous. I have no idea how Tulrude stole our five-point economic speech, but we’re going to find out.”

  After clicking off his Allfone, Caulfield paced the room, waving his arms. “There’s a massive security failure in our organization. I’m telling you, there’s a strategic leak somewhere. This is criminal.”

  Hewbright was no longer lounging in his chair. He was straight-backed and leaning forward with his forearms tightly on his thighs, his fists
clenched. “No question about it, George.”

  Katrena Amid was blinking and shrugging her shoulders. “Okay, is this some kind of Watergate break-in? Did someone from Tulrude’s outfit break into one of our rooms and get hold of our notes?”

  Still stunned, Hewbright could feel the tension mounting.

  Zeta Milla laughed coarsely at Amid’s comment. “Katrena are you kidding? This is the twenty-first century. Political operatives don’t have to do burglary anymore. Wake up —”

  “Oh?” Amid shouted back, “then why don’t you tell us how they could have done this.”

  “Everything in politics is driven by new media technology. Even in the so-called Third World countries, geopolitical movements are being formed at the speed of light through Allfone links and insta-news feeds. First in the Middle East and now in South and Central America. By the way, Katrena, that’s my area of expertise.”

  Hewbright’s brow was wrinkled. He was riveted to Zeta’s every word. “So, what’s your theory?”

  “If it was up to me,” Zeta said softly, “I would have your IT chief check every one of your key media-tech devices, starting with your Allfones. Hank, did you put those five points onto the memo-memory-drive of your Allfone?”

  “Yes,” Hewbright said, finally breaking his silence, “but it’s encrypted — super secure.”

  Caulfield hit his Quick-dial again. In a second he had their traveling media-tech man on the line. He had been eating a fast-food burger out in the hallway of the convention center. In three minutes he came huffing and puffing into the greenroom, his tie loosened and the remaining half of his burger in a wrapper in his hand.

  In twenty minutes, after working on the senator’s Allfone, the IT guy summoned Hewbright and George Caulfield to the corner of the greenroom to talk. Speaking in a terse whisper, he said, “Okay. Senator, I’ve run through all the programs on your memo-memory-drive, and here’s the deal. I’m pretty sure — no, cancel that — I’m absolutely sure that your Allfone’s been hacked.”