Thunder of Heaven: A Joshua Jordan Novel

  “A question.”

  “What?”

  “Oh, it can wait. At least ‘til I get some food in me.”

  “Come on, don’t keep your mother waiting. If I feed your belly, you have to satisfy my curiosity.”

  Cal stopped and set his suitcase down. “The subject’s kind of a downer.”

  “Try me.”

  “I keep thinking about it. About almost getting killed.”

  Abigail didn’t speak. She just waited, with a look that said she loved him no matter what.

  “And it’s about … him,” said Cal. “I’ve been thinking about him lately. Don’t know why. We haven’t mentioned his name for a while. I guess we’ve been trying to forget it.”

  “Which name?” she asked even though she already knew.

  His face twisted a little and his mouth was pulled tight. “Atta Zimler.”

  The name belonged to the psychopath who, for one short terrifying moment, had Cal in his grip. It was a name that the family had tried to forget as things returned to normal.

  As she looked at her son, she saw the man in him, even though, considering what he had endured in that harrowing episode, her impulse was always to coddle him a bit, try to protect him. Abigail had been a tough, no-nonsense trial lawyer, but when it came to Cal, the risk was always that she would be too soft. She never worried about being too hard on him. She didn’t have to. Josh, with all his good intentions, always played that part well.

  Cal kept talking. “I was just wondering. You know … whether Zimler is dead or not. I know the FBI told us he might have been killed, but I need to know …”

  His jaw flexed and his face tightened, but Abigail could see that this was not fear. It was a new kind of resolve that used to belong only to his father.

  He finished the thought, “… whether he’s still out there somewhere. I need to know that.”

  FIFTEEN

  Desert Palm Bank, in the Dubai World Trade Center, United Arab Emirates

  “Mr. Jorgenson, welcome.”

  The banker reached out to shake hands with the customer who was carrying a briefcase. The customer looked the part of a Swede. The man’s hair had been dyed blond. He had blue contacts in his eyes and had endured the sacrifice of staying shaded from the sun to keep his skin from tanning. While the customer had been spending the last few days on a rented yacht in the Dubai marina he had to wear long sleeves and a ball cap. What a drag.

  The banker continued. “I’m sure you remember the procedures for our safety deposit boxes.”

  The customer smiled. “Yes, I certainly do.”

  The banker would have no way of knowing how well the man with the briefcase understood the security procedures. In fact, this “customer” had visited the commercial section of the tower before — during its construction. He had cased out the bank, and particularly the safety precautions being installed, even as it was being built. He was a man who kept tabs on potential high-dollar hits like this one, targets that could help fund the lavish globe-trotting lifestyle to which he’d become accustomed. His mobility was necessary for other reasons too — like the fact that Interpol, Scotland Yard, France’s Direction Centrale de la Police Judiciaire, and the FBI were all looking for him.

  “Come this way,” the banker said. He led the customer into a frosted-glass cubicle with a soft chair and a small table. The cubicle led to a locked steel door, which, when opened, led down a dead-end hallway filled with safety deposit boxes and a video touch screen.

  “I’ll leave you to your business. If you need anything, Mr. Jorgenson, just let me know.”

  With that, the banker left the cubicle and closed the door behind him.

  The customer set down his briefcase and opened it. He took out the credit card of Rolf Jorgenson. He walked over to the big metal door and swiped the card in the locking device. A green light on the door lit up. He heard the heavy click as it unlocked, pushed it open, with the briefcase in his hand, and looked to his right at the touch screen. He tapped in the security code that Mr. Jorgenson had given him — under duress. That was before things got even uglier for the Swedish broker who dealt in precious gems.

  Now came the only part that presented a mild obstacle. The customer looked at a box on the screen that read in a dozen different languages: “Place Palm Here for Biometric Identification.”

  He reached into his briefcase and pulled out a spray can and a small plastic case. He snapped the case open and pulled out a tissue-thin polymer cutout of a right-hand palm print. It had been taken from Mr. Jorgenson in a manner that insured a painstakingly perfect duplication. The customer carefully laid the tissue-thin imprint across his own hand. Then with his left hand he used the latex spray to mist a fixative over the polymer imprint of Jorgenson’s palm, securing it temporarily to his own.

  He placed his palm onto the screen and tapped the button.

  For a few seconds nothing. Then the screen lit up. “Identification confirmed. Hello Mr. Jorgenson. You may now proceed to access your lockbox with your key.”

  He wanted to say something to the surveillance cameras in the corners of the ceiling but didn’t. Something viciously cynical like, “So sorry Mr. Jorgenson wasn’t able to be here. He would have sent his regrets, but that was impossible. They have probably found him by now with his neck broken and his right hand cut off. Who could have done such a thing?”

  Instead, he smiled at the cameras and walked past the security boxes until he came to Jorgenson’s. He slipped the key in and opened the small door. A bundle of papers and a black velvet bag were inside.

  He pulled out the bag and strolled back to the cubicle. The light was better there. He tucked a jeweler’s glass over his eye and spread the contents of the bag on the table. Two dozen large, brilliant diamonds glinted with an inner fire.

  Yes, this would do. He would get a quarter of a million, maybe a third of a million, for them if he was lucky. Usually that was chump change, but now money was tight. He had to be more discrete than usual. His last client, Caesar Demas — the international business celebrity, a friend to the vice president of the United States, and a chum of the secretary general of the U.N. — had not paid him for his last job. At least not the second half of the contracted job. That came as no surprise, of course, because the American job didn’t work out the way that he and Demas had planned.

  But for Atta Zimler, the customer in the bank’s security cubicle who was impersonating a Swedish diamond broker, there was no such thing as failure. It was just a matter of delay. He had every intention of finishing what he’d started the year before in a New York City train station. And when he was through, and he offered Demas what he still hoped to obtain, then he would get his money from Caesar Demas. Or else.

  After he had placed the bag of diamonds in his briefcase, secured the lockbox, and unlocked the frosted-glass cubicle, he strolled back, his Italian-made shoes clicking on the marble floor of the bank lobby.

  Always looking for an opportunity, he spotted some mints on the counter outside the window of a pretty bank teller. He walked over. He put his hand into the dish and pulled out a small candy.

  “I was looking for something sweet,” Zimler said to her with a smile as he lingered at the window.

  SIXTEEN

  In the Manhattan office of Jordan Technologies, Joshua and his research and development team had worked around the clock for two days on their design data for the commercial version of the RTS laser antimissile system. They had found nothing to explain the failure of RTS to stop the terrorist missile that downed the illfated 797. His engineers had theories, but no real answers.

  Joshua was in his office with Ted. As Joshua looked out the window to the New York skyline, he thought back to something his weapons physicist, Caroline, had said. So Joshua put the question to Ted. “How soon can we get the data from the black box and the voice recorder?”

  Ted said, “The FAA isn’t the problem. The real issue is getting the okay from Homeland Security to share the data with
us. That’ll be a high hurdle.”

  “I don’t understand,” Joshua complained. “We designed the system. We’re part of the team.”

  “Yes and no. Don’t forget that the Feds placed all kinds of restrictions on a pilot’s ability to hit the RTS button — like getting permission from the tower first. It’s all part of their concern about the consequences if a missile is turned around in a highly populated area. The RTS could result in huge casualties on the ground — ”

  “But we explained we were working on refinements to minimize collateral damage. Until then, our current RTS is the best thing going. They can’t blackball us.”

  Ted pulled out his handheld wireless Allfone, clicked on the headline news, and said, “Maybe this will explain.”

  Joshua looked at the screen. His stomach turned.

  The headline read: “Return-to-Sender Failure Cited for Chicago Air Disaster.”

  “You’ll notice,” Ted said, “that the media guys don’t report that terrorist crazies shot a missile at the plane and that’s why it fell from the sky.”

  Ted took his Allfone back and started searching for something else. “Like we’ve said all along,” Ted noted, “the biggest obstacle is always the politics.” He swooped his finger over the screen. After a moment, he said, “Found it. Yeah, I wanted to see what AmeriNews had to say. They’re the only ones giving you a break.”

  Joshua kept his mouth shut. If anyone on his tech team could be trusted to be discrete, it was Ted. Even so, Joshua had never shared with Ted his connection to AmeriNews. Joshua had been intimately involved with this controversial new entrant into the electronic media, the first to finally bust open the media monopoly that the White House had willingly allowed to develop and exploited for political purposes. The Roundtable was a secret group of like-minded business, political, and financial leaders with Joshua at its head. Together they had launched AmeriNews to counter the encroaching information censorship that had taken place throughout the country. Joshua had been so absorbed in receiving the RTS documents that he missed the headlines on his own news service.

  “Okay,” Ted said, “AmeriNews reports — and this is just two hours ago — that they are questioning whether the Feds are being forthright in the investigation of the Chicago air disaster.”

  “Any details?”

  “No. Not yet. Just speculation. Wish they’d give us some specific information.”

  Joshua knew why they couldn’t. Phil Rankowitz, the Roundtable’s media leader for AmeriNews, must not have been able to dig up anything either, even with the help of his high-octane team of investigative reporters.

  “Okay, Ted,” Joshua had to admit, “I dreaded finding some design flaw in our commercial RTS. Frankly, I can’t see it yet. But I don’t like not knowing either. Thanks for assembling the team and putting together all the schematics so quickly. Good effort. I’m flying back to Hawk’s Nest — as soon as Billy fuels up the jet.”

  After Ted left, Joshua called Phil Rankowitz and talked to him about the upcoming meeting of the Roundtable at his Colorado estate. “Phil, I just read your headline blurb.”

  “About the Chicago jet shootdown?”

  “Right. What do you know that I don’t? And what aren’t you able to say yet on AmeriNews?”

  “Only one thing. There’s a blogger who keeps popping up with stuff that drives the media moguls and the White House crazy. He runs something called Leak-o-paedia. Remember the old days of WikiLeaks, the blog that used to post highlevel leaks and cause all kinds of chaos? Well, this is the next generation, but with a twist. This guy is different. He doesn’t just get classified documents and dump them into the public sphere. He does the old-fashioned, high-definition kind of investigative reporting where there’s honest-to-gosh highlevel corruption, then posts his stories before he gets shut down.”

  “Who is he?”

  “A former investigative reporter named Belltether … used to work at a newspaper before print journalism went the way of the dodo bird.”

  “What’s his angle?”

  “Not sure, but one of our AmeriNews stringers says he heard from a friend of a friend who knows Belltether that he’s working on a scoop on the Flight 199 attack.”

  “I think you’ve got something up your sleeve, Phil.”

  “I do. If his story checks out, we may want to buy it as an Ameri News exclusive. Belltether doesn’t sound like he’s rolling in dollars. If he’s a former print reporter, he’s probably living off a diet of grub worms by now. I’m sure we could work a deal with him, offer him money to hire him for an exclusive, give him our platform.”

  “Sounds like a plan. I’ve got some things of my own I need to bring up at the Roundtable. See you in a couple of days at Hawk’s Nest.”

  After the call, Joshua hit speed dial on his Allfone for an encrypted number.

  It rang three times and a man picked up. “Patriot” was all he said.

  Joshua could tell it was Pack McHenry, the head of the private unit of former spies and ex-intelligence “spooks” that the Roundtable occasionally worked with.

  “Pack, we need to talk. I’ve got a crisis.”

  “By my book, you’ve got more than one. Which crisis are you calling about?”

  Joshua pondered that and said, “The missile attack on Flight 199.”

  “We’re still working on that. Nothing new. But I expect something to break any day.”

  “What other crisis are you talking about?”

  “National security. The nuke threat. The things I’d mentioned to you and the Roundtable some time ago but could never nail down. It looks like we’ll have something for you in forty-eight hours.”

  “Perfect. We’re meeting in two days.”

  “I’ll connect with you and your group via encrypted flashmail video. But be forewarned …”

  “Oh?”

  “It won’t be pretty.”

  SEVENTEEN

  At Hawk’s Nest, before the Roundtable met, Joshua took his son, Cal, aside. “I know you wanted to talk …”

  “Nothing urgent. But yeah, I’d like to talk, Dad.”

  “How about after the Roundtable conference?”

  Cal was nonchalant. “No problem.”

  Joshua nodded. He was tempted to pursue it. He loved Cal. The terror episode of the year before had made him appreciate his son even more. Even though, strangely, it hadn’t seemed to have brought them any closer together.

  He clapped Cal on the shoulder before striding into the conference room in the working wing of his lodge. Every chair around the huge table was filled. The wall of windows offered a breathtaking view of the mountains, but no one was taking in the view. They were staring at something else.

  All eyes were on the wall-sized InstantSat video screen at the end of the room. The supersecure flashmail satellite feed was about to start. The Roundtable included some of America’s most successful entrepreneurs, media executives, former politicians, judges, and retired military leaders. Most were multimillionaires; some were worth more. All were powerful influences in their fields.

  Abigail was at the table. Retired judge Fortis “Fort” Rice had insisted that she head up the group’s legal unit, although with Joshua acting as the chair, she kept a low profile.

  One new member was in attendance, a recently retired special agent from the FBI, a paunchy fellow named John Gallagher, who looked slightly out of place. He wore a crumpled suit and a golf shirt that didn’t match his jacket. While at the Bureau he had a reputation for two things: an eccentric approach that put him at odds with FBI protocol and an effective knack for cracking terrorist cells.

  Joshua stood up and addressed the group. “In a minute, you will hear the voice of one of our most trusted allies. I am one of the few people here who knows his identity.”

  Joshua gave John Gallagher a quick glance. The former special agent was the only person in the room, besides Abigail, who knew who Pack McHenry was. Gallagher had dealt with McHenry’s Patriot group, a private cad
re of security and intelligence gurus, during the nerve-rattling incident at New York’s Grand Central Station. That was where Gallagher had first come into contact with Joshua, Cal, and the rest of the Jordan family. At that time, Gallagher, as the chief of the Bureau’s New York terrorism unit, had long been tracking Atta Zimler, still number two on the FBI’s most wanted list. The episode at the train station was as close as he’d ever come to Zimler.

  But not close enough.

  Joshua continued. “Our contact’s voice will be altered and his image scrambled, but his information will be unimpeachable. You will know him only as the Patriot. He leads a group of volunteers, all of whom formerly worked in the national security system or law enforcement. His group decided, as we have, that the fate of our nation hangs perilously in the balance. Our leaders are either incapable or, worse, unwilling to take the steps necessary to save us. So the Patriots decided to take responsible action, as we have. You are about to hear about the grave threat that our country is facing.”

  The video screen lit up. In the live feed, a man was sitting at a desk, his face digitally blurred.

  “Good day,” said the image. “As I proceed, if anyone has questions, don’t hesitate to interrupt me. We have credible information that a nuclear strike inside the United States is imminent. I’m talking within American shores. I know Joshua has mentioned this to you before, but only in general terms. Today I can be more specific. Our agents have traced this threat to the Russian Federation. Reliable sources indicate that meetings orchestrated by Moscow have been held at a special location in Kyrgyzstan. We believe the two other nation states involved are North Korea and Iran. It appears that Kyrgyzstan is the strategic planning site for these attacks.”

  Former senator Alvin Leander, a short, feisty man with a bald head, shot out the first question. “Why Kyrgyzstan, for crying out loud?”

  The man on the screen was precise as he explained. “We have to start with Russia’s overthrow of Kyrgyzstan in April of 2010. In subsequent years, America retreated from its military air base there. The U.S. gave up our military base near Bishkek, which we had been using for our war in Afghanistan before we withdrew militarily from that country. As a result, it left Russia in unchallenged control of Kyrgyzstan. Russia managed to take control over the entire Collective Security Treaty Organization, the regional security coalition of all the former Soviet republics. With Kyrgyzstan firmly in Moscow’s lap, and a slow, steady process of putting all of its neighboring republics back under the Russian thumb, we see something amazing and very dangerous: the former Soviet empire has been entirely reconstructed — without any international condemnation or sanctions from the U.N. And this time without the need for a bloody revolution. Of course the current administration in Washington is aware of this but has opted to treat the rise of Russian power diplomatically. They don’t see the risks.