Thunder of Heaven: A Joshua Jordan Novel

  Abigail placed her hand softly on his back. “I’ll do whatever needs to be done. How can I help?”

  “The attached document says that Michael Wooling, director of the MDA, apparently wants me over there stat. He’s a rock-steady guy, so if he thinks this is an emergency, sees smoke, it’s not just from a burned pot roast … he must believe the house is on fire. He’s also close to Admiral Patch, the national security advisor. The two are clones on the need for strong national defense. I’m wondering …”

  “Maybe they know something we don’t.”

  “Remember the intel that Pack McHenry gave us a year ago?”

  “That the United States and Israel were both at risk?”

  “Yes. And our briefing a few days ago. Evidence that Iran is closing in on a nuclear strike against Israel, just as Russia and North Korea are moving toward a nuke attack against us.”

  Joshua was thinking out loud, his head bobbing as he dissected the problem. “So where does that leave us? Abby, you could run the Roundtable for me, of course. But is it really a defense-system question that the Roundtable has to answer? Or could it be something else? Something like — ”

  “A critical failure in the executive branch?”

  Joshua nodded, his face showing a granite resolve. “Exactly. The fact that the attack might be successful is really secondary to a constitutional implosion that’s preventing the Feds from intervening to protect us. I guess it’s really more a political crisis, which is where you come in. That’s your skill set.” Joshua looked up. The decision was made. “Okay. I go to Israel. Abby, you stay here and lead the Roundtable discussions about what we can do here on the home front.”

  They looked at each other, and as they did they recognized the familiar expression. The silent acknowledgment that they were not only lovers and friends but also partners. And they were facing once again a crisis that was so titanic that it dwarfed who they were even when they were together.

  Abby spoke it, but Josh felt it too. “Josh, we’ll do what we have to do, what we’re called to do. But I’m heartsick that we have to be away from each other, separated by thousands of miles, an ocean, and by whatever danger is out there, pulling us apart.”

  For a moment, Abby looked as though she was about to say more but didn’t. As Joshua gazed at his wife he couldn’t get his mind off the deadly gravity of their mission. As Abby kissed him on his square jaw, she noticed that he’d rushed out without shaving that morning. She half smiled, then kissed him on the lips. She pulled back to look him in the eye, to remember his face and everything about him and quietly whispered.

  “God help us.”

  THIRTY-TWO

  John Gallagher had returned to Hawk’s Nest on Sunday night so he could make the meeting the next morning at 10:30. Some of the members would be joining in by conference call. Others, like him, had decided to make the trip to the Jordans’ Rocky Mountain retreat.

  That night, by phone, Joshua had directed Gallagher and the others to make themselves at home in the guest wing; while he had urgent business overseas, Abigail would act as the group’s temporary chair. Of course, no one objected. Joshua also gave Gallagher a briefing of what the “Patriot” would reveal to the Roundtable the next day.

  Each of the guestrooms at Hawks’ Nest had a name. Gallagher laughed when he saw the plaque over the door of his room: The Roy Rogers Room.

  He smiled. “This is great.” The retired FBI agent had always been accused by his stiff-necked, rule-book supervisor of “playing cowboy” in his pursuit of bad guys. So for John Gallagher this was the perfect room.

  Hungry, he wandered down the spiral staircase at the west end of the lodge, past a row of antelope antlers over doorways. He caught a glimpse of himself in a full-length mirror, his belly hanging slightly over his belt. Boy, I’ve got to get to the gym.

  He recalled that the Jordans had a full-size Nautilus workout room, including a treadmill and a stair climber. Maybe I’ll work out a little … man-up with a good sweat. Then the next thought. But only after I feed my face.

  He sauntered into the restaurant-sized kitchen. Carletta, the Jordans’ chef, had been working on the food for the Roundtable meeting the next day. She was cleaning up.

  “Señor Gallagher, can I fix something for you?”

  “I don’t suppose you have any chili dogs?”

  She shook her head.

  “Just a sandwich would be fine. Just point me in the right direction. I’ll fix it.”

  A moment later Cal walked into the kitchen and greeted him as “Agent Gallagher.”

  “Come on, Cal, you know I’ve retired from the Bureau. I’m just plain John now.” Cal gave a hearty nod. “After all,” said Gallagher, “you and I were partners in battling evil last year, fighting for truth, justice, and the American way. Right?”

  Cal grinned at Gallagher’s loose, good-buddy approach.

  As Gallagher threw a club sandwich together, he got serious. “You know, you were the one in the closet with duct tape over your mouth and a bomb around your neck. And where was I? In a surveillance truck on the street eating donuts. Who had the tougher job that day?”

  “Yeah, well, you saved my life.”

  “Naw. Your dad did that. I was strictly an FBI bystander, trying hard not to screw things up.”

  “You’re still one of my heroes.”

  Gallagher gave a half smile and felt a little embarrassed. As he crunched on a dill pickle, a jolting thought occurred to him.

  Cal noticed the change in Gallagher’s face and gambled that he and the former special agent were thinking the same thing. “You ever get any news on Atta Zimler after he slipped away from Grand Central Station?”

  Gallagher chewed slowly and swallowed. “Listen, kid, now that I’m sort of officially part of your family, if that scumbag ever comes within a hundred miles of you, I’ll take care of business.” Gallagher wondered aloud about an unrelated thought. “Shouldn’t you be at college?”

  “Got a few days off. No classes for a while.”

  “So then why aren’t you going off on a date with some pretty coed?”

  “I wanted to be here. I’m interested in this Roundtable stuff. Would love to be involved.”

  Gallagher sat down and hunched over the table, taking a huge bite of his sandwich. With a full mouth he managed to say, “Youth … man, it’s wasted on the young. So what’s your interest in the Roundtable?”

  “I just want to be part of what my dad and mom are doing.”

  John Gallagher sat up a little straighter. “Boy, to have my son say that … that’d be great.”

  “You have a son?”

  “Yup. I’m not sure where he is right now. Maybe with his mom.”

  “So …,” but Cal didn’t finish the thought.

  “That’s okay. You can ask. Yes. I’m divorced. My wife says I was a jerk to live with. One of the few things she ever said that was absolutely accurate. The divorce was finalized years ago. Water under the bridge.” Then he added. “Though now that I think of it, my wife got the bridge in the divorce settlement too.”

  Cal tried not to laugh, but he couldn’t help it.

  “A good laugh is a healthy thing now and then.”

  Cal smiled.

  Gallagher added, “Especially for you guys. Man, you have one intense family.”

  “Copy that.” Now Gallagher was laughing.

  “So you want to be involved in the Roundtable, huh?”

  “Yeah. Anything, really. Doesn’t have to be big.”

  “What’s your expertise? Everybody in the group’s got a specialty.”

  “Well, I’ve changed majors to poli-sci. Up to now I’ve got straight A’s in all my classes, dean’s list.”

  “Gee, with two genius parents, I’m shocked. I guess you could do research.”

  “Sure. Certainly.”

  Gallagher paused and looked Cal in the eye. “And your dad is okay with this?”

  Cal was caught. He knew his father didn’t want
him involved, but on the other hand, just doing some research, that wasn’t really being involved, was it?

  “I’m sure it won’t be a problem.”

  “Okay. So here’s a hypothetical. Let’s see what you come up with. Pretend that one day the Russians sit down and decide to bring some small nuclear weapons into the United States …”

  Cal blurted out, “You’re kidding! That’s what you guys are dealing with?”

  “Whoa, hold your horses. I said this was a story, a hypothetical. Got it? Not real life, just a mental exercise. A pop quiz.”

  Cal nodded.

  “So go along with the assumption. Now do some research on that. Ask yourself, where would they bring portable nukes, what would their targets be? Show me what you can do.”

  “Where do I start?”

  Gallagher grinned. “You figure it out. You’re the straight-A student, aren’t you?”

  The former special agent settled back in to his sandwich. He figured that he’d placated Joshua’s son sufficiently. He liked Cal, but he also knew that Josh probably wanted to keep him out of too much of the sensitive stuff. The assignment he had just given him — the hypothetical — should do the trick. By his estimate it would keep the kid busy for the next year.

  THIRTY-THREE

  Dr. Korstikoff was driving a midsized loaner. It had been rented by a third party with an absolutely clean background check who then handed over the keys to the Russian physicist. Korstikoff had flown into Richmond International Airport to avoid Reagan National as well as Dulles, where security was usually ramped up.

  He was now heading north on Interstate 81, up the western edge of Virginia. The rounded peaks of West Virginia were on his left, and in the distance to his right were the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia. In between, straight up the valley where he was cruising in his Ford sedan, was the Shenandoah Valley. The land was green and rolling, dotted with farms, small towns, and horses grazing along wooden fences.

  It was perfect in its bucolic isolation. The whole county had less than fifty thousand inhabitants in its five hundred square miles of woods and meadows — minimizing the risk of nosey neighbors. And there were only small local police forces. The state patrol would stick to the interstate and wouldn’t be likely to venture into the countryside.

  Perfect for the final phase of the deadly operation.

  Korstikoff flipped his turn signal and moved onto an exit ramp. After making a careful stop at the traffic sign, he clicked his stopwatch and drove till he came to a small county road. He turned left and drove two and a half miles until he saw a sign that read “Mountain Pass Machine Parts Co.” hanging from a post. He turned onto the dirt and gravel drive. A quarter mile down the road, he came to a security fence. He reached out the window and tapped in the security code on the pad; the gate opened. Korstikoff drove through a wooded area for a hundred yards until he came to a metal barn in the middle of a clearing. Several cars and a rental truck were parked outside. Off to the side were two long trailers with sleeping quarters. When Korstikoff slowed his rental car to a stop at the barn, he clicked his stopwatch off. He read the elapsed time. Eight minutes and forty seconds from Interstate 81 to the place of assembly. Perfect.

  He smiled and walked into the barn that housed the assembly shop.

  They were all there waiting. The Muslim Pakistani scientist who had worked on his own country’s nuclear weapons program and had been apprenticed to the notorious A. Q. Khan, the dreaded arms dealer. There was the Canadian transplant from Iraq who had once been in charge of an electrometallurgical plant, which had been a useful cover for Saddam’s fledgling WMD program. Also several technicians who were the “nuts, bolts, and wrenches” guys who would finally clamp together the updated version of the RA-115 portable nuclear bomb and help load it onto the truck.

  Last but not least, there were four Middle Eastern men with automatic weapons assigned to drive the completed weapon to its final destination.

  The team broke into applause when Korstikoff entered.

  He smiled and shook hands all around. He stepped over to the empty metal shell that would soon contain the nuke. He placed his hand on the titanium steel casing.

  In his deep Russian baritone, he began singing loudly and mockingly, in celebration of their deadly project and the quiet valley where it would be prepared:

  Oh, Shenandoah,

  I long to see you,

  And hear your rolling river …

  The room erupted in coarse laughter. When it subsided, everyone found themselves looking with excitement at the mechanical nightmare that lay on the floor — the nuclear weapon that was awaiting final assembly.

  In her office in the West Wing, Vice President Tulrude was reading the recent fed-secure-telex message from the secretary of energy. It read:

  Jessica: Heard that you, and not POTUS, are meeting with Ambassador Portleva from the Russian Federation. I heard POTUS had a “scheduling conflict” today. Have you seen the news today? A truck driver in Indianapolis couldn’t get gas because of the oil rationing, so he opened fire on the gas station owner and bystanders. Three dead. This makes the third incident like this in the last forty days. Hope you can make headway with Portleva to help us out.

  Within the hour, Ambassador Andrea Portleva was escorted into the Yellow Oval Room of the White House where Tulrude had decided to entertain her guest. It was a classy room, beautifully historic.

  When the Russian ambassador entered, she flashed a gracious smile and shook Tulrude’s hand. She took a sweeping look around at the gold-tinted china on display and the graceful, arching walls. “Such a wonderful room,” she said with a smile. “And it was, I believe, first used by your president John Adams, correct? Whose own son was an ambassador to Russia!”

  “You’re an astute historian!”

  Inwardly Tulrude was muzzling some mild resentment. The younger, glamorous Portleva was even more beautiful than her pictures. Tulrude didn’t spend much time dwelling on her own looks, except to take the advice of Teddy, her dresser, so she could look “both competent and feminine,” in his words. She knew she’d never win a beauty contest. But there was another contest she planned on winning, and Portleva was going to help her win it.

  After some chitchat and a cup of tea, Tulrude suggested that they meander over to the Treaty Room. “Let’s discuss,” she said, “the possibility of increased shipments of oil from Russia to the United States.”

  As they walked in, Portleva pointed out the obvious, that Russia had already been generous in diverting certain increased petroleum allotments to help the beleaguered U.S.

  “Certainly,” Tulrude acknowledged, “but not enough. Unlike your country, we’ve been unable to expand offshore drilling platforms.”

  Portleva nodded. She understood all too well. “Yes, ever since your British Petroleum disaster in the Gulf so many years ago, followed by all of those most unfortunate political squabbles, and another oil spill …”

  Tulrude had calculated that the Treaty Room would send a message to her visitor, since it was the president’s private study. Clearly Virgil Corland wouldn’t be meeting with Portleva that day. Tulrude would meet with her instead. Corland had no “scheduling problem.” He was having another one of his attacks and had blacked out. When Tulrude first heard about the president’s illness, and that she’d have to meet with Portleva that day, she looked up at the sky and uttered a pronouncement: “There is a God!”

  Of course, she didn’t really believe that, but she did feel as if some supernatural force was putting the wind to her back and aiding her advancement. Now, if she could wrangle enough oil from Russia to lift the rationing order on American consumption, she’d be on her way to becoming a national hero.

  And all that would make her earlier conversation with Attorney General Hamburg even more important. She’d asked him at the time about Corland’s absurd order to investigate a possible Russian conspiracy against the U.S.

  Hamburg had asked her, “Where did Corland’s orde
r come from? His fear about the Russians, I mean?”

  Tulrude didn’t waste time spitting it out. “It came from that nutcase defense contractor, Joshua Jordan. He met with Corland personally, filled his head with some crazy scenario.”

  “How’d you find out?”

  Tulrude was not about to share the fact that she was using the president’s own chief of staff as a spy. “Reliable source, Cory. Trust me.”

  “On the other hand,” said Hamburg, “I don’t want to be accused of countermanding the president …”

  “You aren’t. You can just say that the supposed Russian plot has been looked into and found totally wanting in substance. Period.”

  Now, as Tulrude sat in the president’s chair in the Treaty Room, with Portleva in the armchair across the antique oak table from her, she was proud of herself, that she had defused any embarrassing investigation into the Russians. She was free now to really push the oil issue.

  “Ambassador, we need a substantial increase in oil imports. We need evidence of further goodwill from Russia.”

  Portleva smiled. They talked some more, and when the meeting ended, they shook hands, with the ambassador promising to recommend to Moscow that Tulrude’s demands be “fully met.” All the while, Tulrude was thinking about her political future. It was bright and beautiful.

  At that moment, Jessica Tulrude certainly wasn’t thinking about history. If she had, she might have realized that this was the very same room where, in 1941, President Roosevelt had received an urgent bulletin.

  Telling him Pearl Harbor had just been attacked.

  THIRTY-FOUR

  While Abby traveled back to Hawk’s Nest, Joshua had flown to their New York penthouse to get ready for his international trip. He had just finished packing. He wondered where his passport was, but he dug around and finally found it. That was the last detail.

  He had thanked the Pentagon for offering to fly him to Israel but had decided to use his personal pilot, Billy, and Jeff, his copilot, instead. They had wrapped up the checks on Joshua’s own private jet; it was fueled and ready to go. Maybe it was a sign of getting older, but Joshua found his own jet more comfortable than even the cushy ones the top brass used.