Joel Rosenberg - The Ezekiel Option

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The Ezekiel Option

By Joel C. Rosenberg

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The Ezekiel Option

1973, 1975, 1977 by The

Lockman Foundation. Used by permission.

This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the

author's imagination or are

used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales,

organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental and beyond the intent of either the

author or publisher.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Rosenberg, Joel C., date. The Ezekiel option : a novel / Joel C. Rosenberg.

p. cm.

ISBN-13: 978-1-4143-0343-7

ISBN-10: 1-4143-0343-2

ISBN-13: 978-1-4143-0344-4 (pbk.)

ISBN-10: 1-4143-0344-0 (pbk.)

I. Title PS3618.0832E97 2005

813'.6-dc22 2005005315

Printed in the United States of America

11 10 09 08 07 06 05 7 6 5 4 3

Dear Reader,

One morning over a decade ago I walked into my office as I'd done a thousand times before. But that

morning something was in my office that every publisher dreams about but few publishers get to

experience, some-thing that literally changed the future of our company and shook the very foundations

of the publishing industry. What caught my eye as I threw my coat across the chair was not the proposal

resting in my in-box—I see those every day. No, what grabbed my attention immediately was the title of

the proposal: Left Behind: A Novel of the Earth's Last Days.

What a great title, I thought to myself. But can the content deliver? I jumped on that proposal and

pushed every button at our publishing house to get the deal done and the book to market. The rest is

history and still making history—a series of novels that has sold an astonishing 62 million copies and will

sell millions more. The last seven books all have been #1 best-sellers on the New York Times, USA

Today, Publishers Weekly, and Wall Street journal lists.

Why do I write this here? Because I want you to know, dear reader, that recently I had a very similar

experience—a real deja vu. Not many months ago my fiction director, Becky Nesbitt, sent me a

proposal for a new novel by an author named Joel Rosenberg. I walked into my office one morning and

there it was—something every publisher dreams about but few get to experience, something I now

believe can once again shake up the publishing industry. This time it wasn't the title that caught my eye,

nor was it Becky's note that told me to lock the door until I'd finished reading the proposal; it was the

manuscript's first two sentences, which read:

Boris Stuchenko would be dead in less than nineteen minutes. And he had no idea why.

What a great opening, I thought to myself. But can the rest of the book deliver? Deliver it did! I sat

down with that manuscript, and was instantly propelled into a ride I'll never forget. Becky and I jumped

on that proposal and pushed every button at our publishing house to get the deal done and the book to

market. Now it's your turn. Fasten your seat belt because this is not just a page-turner, it's a

page-churner. You'll chum through the pages with the same heart-stopping intensity of viewing a great

thriller movie for the first time. When you get to the end, you'll be a different person than you were at the

beginning.

I have the same gut feeling about this novel as I did about Left Behind. That novel is a thrill ride bringing

to life the prophecies of the book of Revelation. The book you hold in your hand is the same kind of thrill

ride, but bringing to life the biblical prophecies leading up to the events of Revelation. So turn the page,

and enjoy the ride of your life.

RON BEERS

This book is dedicated to the Rosenberg family,

who escaped czarist persecution of the Jews in Russia

in the early years of the twentieth century;

and to my parents, Len and Mary Rosenberg,

who taught me by their love and example

the true meaning of faith and freedom.

CAST OF CHARACTERS

THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES

• James Mac MacPherson

THE VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES

• William Harvard Oaks

THE PRINCIPALS

. • Marsha Kirkpatrick, National Security Advisor

. • Jack Mitchell, Director of Central Intelligence

. • Burt Trainor, Secretary of Defense

. • Nick Warner, Secretary of State

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIALS

. • Jon Bennett, Senior Advisor to the President

. • Bob Corsetti, White House Chief of Staff

. • Ken Costello, Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs

. • Erin McCoy, Senior Advisor to the President, on loan from the CIA

. • Indira Rajiv, Director of the NAMESTAN Desk, CIA

. • Chuck Murray, White House Press Secretary

ISRAELI LEADERS

. • David Doron, Prime Minister of Israel

. • Dr. Eliezer Mordechai, Former head of Mossad

RUSSIAN LEADERS

. • Grigoriy Vadim, President of the Russian Federation

. • Aleksandr Golitsyn, Russian Foreign Minister

. • Andrei Zyuganov, Director of Presidential Administration (Chief of Staff)

. • Sergei Ilyushkin, Deputy Speaker of the Duma; Protege of Vladimir Zhirinovsky

AI-NAKBAH LEADERS

. • Yuri Gogolov, Russian Cofounder of Al-Nakbah Terrorist Movement

. • Mohammed Jibril, Iranian Cofounder of Al-Nakbah

OTHERS

. • Mustafa Al-Hassani, President of Iraq

. • Ruth Bennett, Mother of Jon Bennett

. • Salvador Lucente, European Union Foreign Minister

. • Ibrahim Sa'id, Palestinian Prime Minister

. • Ifshahan Kharrazi, President of Iran

AUTHOR'S NOTE

The journey that follows is fiction.

The prophecy upon which it is based is true.

The cryptic vision of a Hebrew scribe—writing twenty-five centuries ago—foretold one of the most

horrific periods in the future of mankind.

Yet even today it remains one of man's great unsolved mysteries.

Its central premise was once discussed in a speech before the U.S. Congress, and was believed to be

both true and increasingly close at hand by one of America's greatest presidents.

Its central characters surface throughout history, in the Tanakh and the book of Revelation, in the

journals of Marco Polo and the writings of Voltaire, in the Dead Sea Scrolls and the histories of

Josephus, in the works of Russian authors like Nikolai Vasilevich Gogol, and in the writings of Nobel

Prize winners like Elie Wiesel and Isaac Bashevis Singer.

How soon will this prophecy come to pass? Some believe that even now there are signs that the board is

being set, that the great game is about to begin. Some believe that among those signs are the fall of

Saddam Hussein and the death of Yasser Arafat.

Winston Churchill once called Russia "a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma." It is unlikely that

he understood the full magnitude of what he was saying. But it is here that our story begins. JOEL C.

ROSENBERG

Moscow, Russia September 2004

The most important failure was one of imagination.

We do not believe leaders understood the gravity of the threat.

THE 9/11 COMMISSION REPORT:

Final Report of the National Commission

on Terrorist Attacks upon the United States

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;

Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,

The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere

The ceremony of innocence is drowned;

The best lack all convictions, while the worst

Are full of passionate intensity.

W.B. YEATS

The Second Coming

TUESDAY, JULY 29 — 3:16 P.M. — 52 MILES SOUTHEAST OF MANHATTAN

Boris Stuchenko would be dead in less than nineteen minutes.

And he had no idea why.

The fifty-three-year-old self-made billionaire had a long list of enemies; of this he had no doubt. Business

competitors. Political rivals. Mistresses too numerous to count.

But this made no sense. Was it really a hit? Was he really the target? Or was the president and CEO of

Lukoil—Russia's largest oil company—simply in the wrong place at the wrong time for the first time in his

life?

Stuchenko gripped the leather armrests. He couldn't see the terrorists. At least one was behind him,

back in business or economy class. But he didn't dare turn and look.

He wasn't even supposed to be on this flight. As the richest man in Russia, he never flew commercial.

His fleet of private jets, including a gleaming new Gulfstream V, was the envy of the Russian oligarchs.

But over the past eighteen months, he'd become obsessed with buying Aeroflot, Russia's aging

airline—her jets, her routes, her infrastructure—and turning the much-ridiculed "Aero-flop" into a

world-class competitor. To seal the deal with the Wall Street crowd, his strategists were positioning him

as a man of the people, willing to fly one of the most troubled airlines on the planet before turning her into

a profit-making superpower.

Now all that was about to change.

Stuchenko tried to slow his breathing and focus his thoughts. Two hijackers were in the cockpit. He'd

seen them go in. But now the door was shut, and the pilots' screams had long since been silenced.

Out of the corner of his eye he could see two badly beaten flight attendants, huddled and shivering on

the floor in the forward galley. Their hands and mouths were bound with duct tape. Their swollen eyes

darted from face to face, silently pleading for help from anyone in the first-class cabin.

No one moved.

They were so young and innocent, the kind of exquisite and courteous Russian women around which he

could have rebuilt this airline. He'd flirted with one for half the flight. But now Stuchenko refused even to

make eye contact. The women had the air of hunted animals, and he wanted nothing to do with them.

What kind of man was he? He couldn't sit here like a coward.

Stuchenko had served his time in the Red Army. He'd fought in Afghanistan in the eighties against bin

Laden and his demons. He'd been trained in hand-to-hand combat.

And he'd have the element of surprise. Especially if he could enlist the help of his two top aides, sitting in

the row behind him.

The cockpit wasn't sealed shut. The terrorists had jammed the lock. He'd seen them do it. He'd seen

them come in and out, and the door had swung easily every time.

A quick glance to his right confirmed that no one was coming up the aisle. He reached for his fountain

pen and wrote quickly in German on the napkin beside him. His aides knew German, but it was unlikely

the terrorists did.

"We must storm the cabin, like the Americans did on 9/11," he wrote. "We have no choice. We must

retake the plane, or die. Cough if you're with me."

He set down the pen, crumpled the napkin in his right hand, then slipped it back between the seats,

hoping one of them would see it and take it.

One did. The napkin slid from his fingers. He waited.

He could hear the muffled cries of children behind him, but mostly there was an eerie quiet, save for the

roar of the jet engines. The acridstench of gunpowder still hung in the air. For the life of him he couldn't

imagine how they'd gotten weapons on board. But he could see the results. On the floor ahead of him lay

his personal bodyguard, a pool of crimson growing around his head.

M_M_M

The young air-traffic controller tried to stay calm.

"Aeroflot six-six-one-seven heavy, once again, this is New York Center;

acknowledge.

Still no response.

"Aeroflot six-six-one-seven, this is New York Center. Execute immediate course change to

three-four-five—repeat, three-four-five—and acknowledge, over."

Again, no response.

The controller took a deep breath and scanned his instruments again. He'd only been on the job for a

year, but he'd been well trained. The jumbo jet was inbound from Moscow and scheduled to land at JFK

within the half hour. But instead of heading into a landing pattern, the plane had banked sharply to the

southwest, bypassed New York City, and refused to acknowledge his radio instructions.

He picked up the phone and dialed his supervisor.

Seconds later, his call was relayed to the FAA's operations center in Virginia.

No, the transponder was still on, he told the watch officer. Yes, it appeared to be transmitting properly.

No, the jet had not squawked 7500, the international hijacking code. Or 7600, for radio malfunction. Or

7700, for a general emergency.

No, the pilots had not flashed an HJK text message for a hijacking in progress.

No, there was no evidence of depressurization.

Or reports of a fire or shots on board.

But something was seriously wrong.

The FAA watch officer now speed-dialed NORAD. He was patched through to the North East Air

Defense Sector at Griffiss Air Force Base in Rome, New York, and explained the situation. The

NEADS commander didn't hesitate. He scrambled fighter jets out of the 119th Fighter Squadron in

Atlantic City and the 121st out of Andrews Air

Force Base in Mary-land, then called the National Military Command Center at the Pentagon.

Moving at 550 miles an hour—with clear skies, unlimited visibility, and no headwinds—Aeroflot 6617

was now less than two hundred miles from Washington, D.C.

M_M_M

The briefing wasn't going well.

President James "Mac" MacPherson had just begun a meeting with his Council of Economic Advisors.

The first-quarter growth numbers were dismal. The second-quarter estimates were worse. The recovery

had stalled. Unemployment was climbing, and his approval ratings were slip-ping.

But the instant Secret Service Agent Jackie Sanchez burst into the Oval Office without warning,

MacPherson knew the meeting was over.

Sanchez leaned in and whispered, "Mr. President, you need to come with me.

"Why? What's going on?"

"Right away, sir. I'm sorry. I'll brief you on the way."

MacPherson rose and apologized to his economic team. He started to gather his papers, but gave up as

three more agents took up positions and rushed him toward the door.

"Gambit's moving," Sanchez said into her wrist-mounted radio. "What's going on?" MacPherson

demanded.

Mr. President, NORAD is presently tracking a Russian passenger jet headed for D.C. Probable

hijacking. Possible suicide mission. ETA about fourteen minutes. NMCC has initiated Noble Eagle, and

they're waiting for you, sir."

MacPherson hurried through a set of steel blast doors and down three flights of stairs to the Presidential

Emergency Operations Center, a nuclear-bomb-proof communications bunker deep underneath the

White House.

Julie and the girls?"

"They're being airlifted to Mount Weather, sir, along with the VP's wife."

"Where's the vice president?"

"Checkmate is inbound to the White House. Should be here in a few minutes.

"What about the Speaker?"

"En route to New York for a fund-raiser, Mr. President. We've re-routed his plane and are giving him a

fighter escort out of the northeast corridor. House and Senate leadership are all being secured. The Hill is

being evacuated as we speak, and the army is deploying triple-A batteries around the Capitol, the

Pentagon, and Langley."

"And your guys?"

"Were good, sir. I've got Avengers and Stingers on the roof. We've got two F-16s

scrambled out of Andrews flying CAP and four more about to go up.

The president entered the PEOC, where National Security Advisor Marsha Kirkpatrick and White

House Chief of Staff Bob Corsetti were already working the phones along with another dozen military

aides and Press Secretary Chuck Murray.

"Where are we?" asked MacPherson as he took a seat at the head of the conference table.

"Mr. President, NMCC just initiated the air threat conference," said Kirkpatrick.

"We've got all the relevant agencies on secure audio and video. The VP is still a few minutes out. The

SecDef is choppering to the Pentagon and should be in place shortly. Right now I need you to speak with

General Charlie Briggs—four star, air force, commander at NORAD. He's on one of the secure feeds."

"' "

What ve we got, General? asked MacPherson.

"Sir, on the far left screen you can see the radar track of the Russian jet." "That's real time?"

"Yes, sir—they're 163 miles outside of D.C. In a moment we'll have live video feeds from the F-16s

involved in the intercept."

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TheEzekielOption ByJoelC.Rosenberg VisitTyndalesexcitingWebsiteatwww.tyndale.comTYNDALEisaregisteredtrademarkofTyndaleHousePublishers,Inc.'TyndalesquilllogoisatrademarkofTyndaleHousePublishers,Inc.TheEzekielOptionCopyright©2005byJoelC.Rosenberg.Allrightsreserved.Coverphotocopyright©2005byMarkandAu...

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