The Aleppo Code (The Jerusalem Prophecies) (24 page)

“You no longer have any need of the Americans,” said King Abbudin. The sun was just rising over the Persian Gulf with the promise of withering heat as the Saudi king rested comfortably in the corner of a cushioned divan in the midst of Khaliffa’s Doha palace. In spite of an all-night round-trip journey to Tehran, the elderly king still looked fresh and alert. “The value of your oil fields and the lake of natural gas that extends along the borders of both our nations will rise rapidly now that Saudi oil production has been crippled.”

“Better to have the Americans as tenants than as enemies,” said Khaliffa. There were no servants present, so Khaliffa poured coffee for both the king and himself as he frantically tried to find a safe way out of the disaster King Abbudin requested. “You ask me not only to allow social unrest, but to create it in order to establish a basis for expelling ten thousand American military? Forgive me, Your Excellency, but what you request appears neither wise nor prudent. How does Qatar benefit by bringing mass demonstrations to the streets of Doha?”

He was young, perhaps, but the new sheik was no fool. King Abbudin was asking him to arrange for a popular revolt in the capital with thousands of Qataris protesting an elaborate fabrication, the destruction and defilement of Qurans at a local mosque by drunken members of the American Air Force, an affront to Islam he could stage with complete credibility. But at what cost to his peaceful, wealthy nation?

“The time is coming quickly, my young king, when all of us must choose our friends carefully. With whom would you prefer to be allied: the Americans or the Brotherhood? The military coup in Egypt that overthrew Ayet will crumble. Tourism, Egypt’s greatest source of hard-currency income, is vanishing. Hotel occupancy in Luxor and Aswan is at four percent. One hundred hotels have closed, and those that remain have cut employees’ salaries by seventy-five percent. In a choice between the military and bread, which will the Egyptians select?

“Do you believe the Brotherhood is now impotent because it is once again outlawed in Egypt?” asked Abbudin. “For eighty years the Brotherhood flourished in the shadows, growing strong among the people, spreading throughout the world beneath the unsuspecting eyes of the West. Recently the Brotherhood forced a vote in the Jordanian parliament to expel the Israeli ambassador as a show of support for the Palestinians losing their homes in Jerusalem. The Muslim Brotherhood is more than Egypt, and its power and influence stretch around the world.

“Ever since your father and I signed the defense cooperation agreement three years ago, the safety and security of Qatar has been as important to the family Saud as our own. We have much that binds us together, Your Excellency. Better to have you and me control any street demonstrations than a criminal group like Al Qaeda.”

Khaliffa felt the veiled threat. He knew how much money the Saudi king funneled into the Wahhabi clerics who steered the efforts of Al Qaeda. If both the Brotherhood and Al Qaeda were now under the control of King Abbudin, and if Abbudin’s plan to bankrupt Europe bore fruit, what hope did he—did Qatar—have of surviving on its own?

“Tell me. How would we convince the Americans this uprising was their fault?”

8:14 a.m., Tel Aviv

Yhanni Goldsmith was lining up the tables at the Zuni restaurant along the esplanade near the beach road. The sun was shining and the sky was so blue it almost hurt his eyes. Crisp white linen tablecloths rippled in the breeze off the Mediterranean, each table shaded by a large, forest-green umbrella. He was on his way to get the silverware tray, already estimating the tips that brunch would bring, when he saw the first flash of light, then more flashes walking down the esplanade, each followed by a thunderous explosion and a roiling plume of smoke, dirt, and debris.

It was the second explosion, closer than the first, that triggered Yhanni’s response—that and his regular IDF reserve training—even before he heard the whine of the rockets or the wail of the warning sirens. He raced into the restaurant, ripping off his long apron, tore through the kitchen to the waitstaff lockers. He pulled his Uzi submachine gun out of his locker and slung it over his shoulder, grabbed his uniform helmet and flak jacket, and raced out the back door, determined to reach his unit’s rallying point.

The jacket, had he been wearing it, would have saved his life. The Zuni restaurant disappeared in a roaring fireball, a shard of metal shelving piercing Yhanni’s back and driving him, lifeless, to the sand.

She left home before the sun came up. The roads were awful, the checkpoints so frequent that, had she left any later, it would be afternoon before she reached the outskirts of Kiryat Shmona. But it was her mother’s birthday. The old woman refused to move from her family home in the village of Kfar Giladi, north of Kiryat Shmona, regardless of—or in spite of—the Jewish settlements that surrounded her and the potential danger of living so close to the Lebanese border. Her mother was steadfast. She would not become just one of thousands of other Palestinians, herded into overcrowded, hopeless refugee camps by the occupying Israeli forces. She had a home where her mother and her mother’s mother had been born before her. She was not leaving.

Petra evaded the ever-growing potholes on the road from Route 90 to Kfar Giladi and tried to dismiss the devastation she had witnessed in Kiryat, where Hezbollah rockets were pounding the inhabitants. Coming around the turn near the military cemetery was when she first saw the smoke. It was rising from the southern part of the village.

Ignoring the ruts, Petra pushed on the gas pedal, urging the aged, yellow Volkswagen into a mad rush toward the village while holding both her breath and her fear.

She turned onto a dirt road, the madrassa school to her left in flames. When she came to the street of her mother’s house, she skidded to a halt. A crater blocked the middle of the dirt street, smoke rising from its pit. Down each side of the street, debris marked the location of what once were houses. Staggering from the car, she ran in a stumbling panic to the first house on the left, now a pile of broken stone and crushed mud brick. Petra sat down in the sandy grit of the road and stared at a thin, wrinkled arm pointing to the sky. It was sticking out from the bottom of a pile of rubble, her mother’s rings on its fingers.

10:02 a.m., Strait of Hormuz, Iran

Rear Admiral Chauncey “Chipper” Woods was six-four, just tall enough that he had to duck each time he passed through a door on the USS
Ingraham.
At 278 pounds, he no longer fit comfortably in the captain’s chair on the bridge of the Perry-class missile frigate. Chipper had long ago conceded he was well past his physical prime.

Too tall, too big, and too old, Chipper Woods was much like the ship he skippered. The last of fifty-three Perry-class missile frigates built by the US Navy, the USS
Ingraham
was one of the few still serving on active duty. Like most of Chipper’s old buddies, the majority of the frigates had been decommissioned. But after twenty-five years, the
Big I
still protected shipping lanes as effectively as Chipper Woods stalked the narrow passageways of this aging warship.

His rank was too senior to be piloting an old tug like the
Ingraham,
but Admiral Woods had two things he cherished: the 230 officers and crew of the
Ham,
with whom he’d served for nearly two decades, and the close friendships that come with forty years in the navy—many of those friends now top brass in US Navy Command, the men who kept Woods on the bridge of this ship—
his
ship.

Chipper stood on the forecastle of the
Ingraham,
just outside the bridge, praising his God for the smell of the sea, the warmth of the sun on his face, and the blessing of having any ship under his feet at this point in his career. These days would be few in number, so Chipper Woods celebrated every one of them.

The
Ingraham
was part of the US Navy’s Fifth Fleet aircraft carrier battle group surrounding and supporting the USS
Nimitz
nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, a floating city manned by over five thousand sailors, fliers, and fighters. The ships of the Fifth Fleet were making life unpleasant for the Iranian Navy and keeping open the Persian Gulf shipping lanes, especially those running through the tactically critical Strait of Hormuz. Today, the
Big I
was sailing point, turning fifteen knots under half power and running well in advance of the main battle group as it crested the Qatar Peninsula and turned west into the heart of the gulf.

“Got some chatter,” said his XO, standing in the doorway to the bridge. “You’ll want to hear this.”

Commander Jeff Griggs was career navy, just like Woods, but didn’t have the same kind of connections. He didn’t have an ego problem, either. So even though in other circumstances Commander Griggs would have by now skippered the
Ingraham,
he was satisfied, until his time came, to be serving with his friend. They made a good team.

“What’s cooking?” asked Woods as he turned away from the railing and his reverie.

“The airwaves just exploded with Farsi, like everybody in Iran is talking at the same time. Lieutenant Morgan is sorting it out, but this is not normal.”

Commander Griggs stepped aside as the admiral entered the bridge, but he seized the moment. “I don’t like this, Chipper,” he whispered.

Woods stopped in his tracks and cast a sidelong glance at his executive officer. Griggs was never wrong. “Sound General Quarters,” snapped Woods. “Get the birds warmed up and call—”

“Incoming!” shouted the weapons officer, and every head turned to the bank of radar and sonar monitors. “Three … six … incoming missiles, very fast, skimming the waves. I’m picking up multiple screws behind them. Thirty seconds to impact.”

Commander Griggs was on the squawk box. “We are under attack. Evasive maneuvers. Engage all defenses. Prepare for impact.”

Admiral Woods looked over the shoulder of the weapons officer. “Unlock the Phalanx system and set free the fiftys.” Then he picked up the radio to the Flag.

“We see ’em, Chipper,” said Admiral Hayes. “Maybe Phalanx …”

“Get the birds off the deck, Jeff!” called Woods.

“Twenty seconds.”

“No, Charlie, not six. Some, not all. They’re coming in low. We’ve got a ch—”

Thunder erupted from amidships as the radar-guided, .20-millimeter Gatling gun of the Vulcan Phalanx system started firing forty-five hundred rounds per minute of armor-piercing tungsten shells from its six parabolic barrels. Then everything happened too fast.

The
Ingraham
’s two Sikorsky Seahawk helicopters lifted off almost simultaneously, the roar of their rotors added to the pounding fire of the Phalanx and the two massive explosions that sent up pillars of seawater far off the
Ingraham
’s starboard side.

“Ten seconds, sir. I’ve got multiple small craft closing fast. Some corvettes on their heels, and a Kirov-class cruiser turning heavy screws.”

The
Ingraham
’s .50-caliber machine guns joined the fight, adding their jackhammer thumping to the growing roar of battle. One, then another, massive explosion—closer now—off the starboard side. Admiral Chipper Woods moved to the starboard side of the bridge. “They’re gonna be dropping mines all across the strait, Charlie. Be careful.”

Woods dropped the radio in his right hand and grabbed the railing with both hands. He could see the rooster-tails of sea spray racing toward his ship. “Hold on!”

The Perry-class had proven itself a tough ship in past engagements. Probably the other thing that saved her was that Phalanx took out the closest missile not a hundred yards from impact. The shock wave was so intense, it rocked the frigate to port. As she settled in her roll back to starboard, the last missile hit, but above her waterline. That knowledge gave Rear Admiral Chipper Woods a final moment of comfort as the missile collided with the
Ingraham
’s superstructure, just below the bridge.

2:46 a.m., Washington, DC

“How many casualties?” President Jonathan Whitestone’s long strides were quick-stepping toward the Situation Room, Bill Cartwright, his national security advisor, close on his heels. Despite the early hour, Whitestone’s mind was as sharp as his temper.

“We don’t know yet. The
Ingraham
is holding its own right now. Fires aren’t out but under control, and the magazine isn’t in danger. Looks like she’ll stay afloat.”

“Where’s the
Nimitz
?”

The doors to the Situation Room flew open at the president’s approach, and he asked the question of the massed joint chiefs. “Where’s the
Nimitz
?”

“The Nimitz Battle Group is on the other side of the peninsula, still in the Gulf of Oman, coming up from the south,” said Admiral Boyd, secretary of the navy. “Ten, twelve hours away. Too far for its planes.
Ingraham
was running point.”

“What about the
Truman
?”

“Just cleared the Suez Canal,” the secretary said of the newly deployed aircraft carrier group. “Won’t be much help.”