The Aleppo Code (The Jerusalem Prophecies) (27 page)

“More likely until we knock through some brick.” Joe came up to Tom’s side as if only looking at the message made it real. “I doubt there would be any door left in Babylon that somebody hasn’t gotten through in the last two thousand years.”

Tom passed the paper to Annie, who looked at it for a split second. “What do you think ‘Lion of Babylon’ means?”

“Already looked it up,” said Rizzo, turning to Annie. “There’s no stone out that way. Almost all of Babylon was constructed of bricks made from clay dug from the banks of the Euphrates River, which ran right through the middle of the city. Plentiful supply, but the bricks don’t last forever. The bricks deteriorated in the heat, crumbled if there was any rain. So the Babylonians took to glazing the bricks. That helped, but not over thousands of years. That’s why much of Babylon was just a mound of decaying clay until Saddam started rebuilding the city on the ancient foundations.

“But there is one thing in Babylon made of granite … and after twenty-six hundred years, it’s still standing. It’s a statue of a lion standing over the body of a man. The lion is the symbol of the goddess Ishtar. It was one of the main symbols used in the decoration of Babylon. There are lions all over the walls of Babylon. At least there were until Europeans began plundering Babylon to fill their museums. This granite lion, specifically, is called the Lion of Babylon.

“The statue is located at the end of a long, wide avenue called the Street of Processions, north of the main wall. The Street of Processions continues through what was Babylon’s most famous and beautiful gate—the Ishtar Gate—and then continues south through the city, past Nebuchadnezzar’s palace and the great tower, then turns right and crosses a bridge that spans the Euphrates. The street is still there. But the Ishtar Gate isn’t.”

At that, everybody in the room looked at Rizzo.

“During the first fifteen years of the twentieth century, the German Oriental Institute conducted a dig at Babylon. The Ishtar Gate, the eighth gate in the walls of Babylon, was a double gate—a smaller one in the front with a more massive one of the same design behind it. Both were constructed from blue-glazed bricks adorned with reliefs of lions, aurochs, or bulls and dragons. The smaller one was fifty feet high, the larger one probably twice that, and thirty feet wide. The Germans took them home—or as much of them as they could find. The smaller one is reconstructed in the Berlin Museum. The bigger one? Well, they couldn’t fit that one in the museum, so they’ve got it in storage, in pieces.”

“So what’s that do to our directions?” asked Rodriguez.

Logical question, and he knew it was coming. Rizzo turned over one of the larger pieces of paper to show a rough map he had drawn earlier.

“We have the Lion of Babylon, here”—he pointed at his map—“and the Street of Processions running south. Most representations of Babylon put the Ishtar Gate about here.” He pointed to a rectangular box spanning the street. “Seven stadia are about one thousand feet shy of a mile. I figure that ends up about here … right near Nebuchadnezzar’s palace and the great tower. It would be a good spot to begin searching for ‘Daniel’s face’—whatever that means.”

Rizzo looked up from the map and stared straight at Bohannon. Tom’s stomach began to turn. Right back in his lap again.

“Well, boss, whatta we do now?”

12:06 p.m., Persian Gulf, near Larak Island, Iran

It was slippery on the metal grating along the catwalk, but that didn’t stop Lieutenant Andrew Stone from running flat out down the starboard side of the ship’s platform. The claxon horns were still wailing the call to general quarters, and Stone was late. He knew he was late. But he didn’t want to be left behind.

The USS
Ponce
was an ugly ship. Some people say a camel is a horse designed by a committee. Those people would think the USS
Ponce
was designed by a committee under the influence of some banned substance.
Ponce
looked like someone had sawn off the back half of the ship, twenty feet above the waterline, slapped a wide, flat deck on what was left, and sliced off the stern into a squat, abrupt ending. Commissioned in 1971 as an Austin-class Amphibious Transport Dock,
Ponce
was on its way to retirement at the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard when, eighteen months earlier, it escaped the floating scrap heap. Its rusted carcass underwent a rush retrofit that turned the forty-year-old relic into the navy’s newest weapon. It was the navy’s first Afloat Forward Staging Base, an old ship recreated for a new type of warfare. She was essentially a floating military base that could land attack helicopters on the rear deck, launch an amphibious marine battalion for incursion, sweep mines out of the water, or act as a forward command post or hospital. Lieutenant Stone’s navy was more flexible, more adaptable, and more lethal than two decades earlier.

The Persian Gulf wasn’t very rough this day, but the
Ponce
was running at flank speed, and spray was a constant companion, coating every surface on the aft deck and below. Lieutenant Stone held firmly to the lifelines as he raced along the catwalk at the side of the ship. He was fresh out of Annapolis. Warm-hearted, genuine, and prone to clumsiness, he was still finding his sea legs. But he wasn’t going to get left behind.

The nine thousand-ton
Ponce
carried a fairly common array of armaments, including eight .50-caliber heavy machine guns, a pair of .20-millimeter Phalanx radar-guided, rapid-fire Gatling guns that could pump out over eighteen hundred rounds a minute, along with the Typhoon Weapon System: two .25-millimeter Mk 38 Mod 2 chain-fed auto cannons with laser range-finders, big-punch guns that could deliver armor-piercing or high-explosive rounds at 180 per minute.

But it was the “Death Star” that made
Ponce
unique.

The long-awaited Laser Weapon System—shortened to LaWS—was successfully mounted and tested late in 2013, and the USS
Ponce
became the first US Navy ship to deploy what the sailors and civilian mariners aboard the ship lovingly called “Death Star.”

The navy’s newest marvel, LaWS was so fast in its targeting ability and so lethal in its accuracy that it was a deadly foe of SWARM—the favorite tactic of Iran’s navy, which involved sending dozens of small, heavily armed attack boats the size of pleasure craft against a destroyer or aircraft carrier, inflicting catastrophic damage simply because there were so many of them it was impossible to destroy them all in time.

But not, the navy hoped, with Death Star.

Lieutenant Stone’s assignment wasn’t the remote monitoring of the LaWS or any of the
Ponce
’s other fixed-weapons systems. Stone was assigned as junior officer on an inflatable amphibious assault vessel, along with a senior officer, petty officer, and a dozen marines. Amid the three hundred military and civilian mariners scrambling to their battle stations on the
Ponce,
three amphibs were trying to launch from the ship as it cut through the Persian Gulf at full power, their mission to bring wasting destruction to the Iranian small-craft naval base at Larak Island.

It was a mission they could fulfill—if they could fight their way through SWARM … and if Death Star didn’t mistake them for hostiles.

Lieutenant Stone didn’t care about the danger or uncertainty of their mission. He was going to war. This is what he trained for. This was what he secretly longed for. Fourth-generation navy, grandson of the admiral who was commander of naval forces, Far East, during the Korean War, son of a decorated Navy SEAL commander in Vietnam, this was his opportunity to walk in his ancestors’ footsteps, to prove his mettle.

His men immediately recognized his nautical skill, his unfeigned candor, and his commitment to working shoulder-to-shoulder with them in any task, at any risk. They nurtured a protective affinity for their new JG. They called him “Stoner.” He loved it, and he wasn’t going to miss this opportunity because he wasted precious moments searching for his battle helmet.

Armed with a bow-mounted light machine gun and the weapons cradled in the arms of the marines, the amphibious craft were straining at their tethers in the lee of the racing
Ponce,
away from the flotilla of attacking boats approaching on the far side of the ship. A sailor threw off the bowline just as Lieutenant Stone leaped into the stern of the
Lucky Dog.
The Typhoon system cannons thudded round after round at the attackers, and distant explosions recorded both the effectiveness of the gunners and the Death Star’s accuracy.

Stone’s boat,
Lucky Dog,
circled for a moment at full power as the other two boats were released from their moorings. They formed up into a chevron formation and threw their engines into full speed as they emerged from the protection of the
Ponce
’s stern and into the battle. Rather than try to pierce through the heart of the swarming attackers—a suicide mission at best—with Lieutenant Stone’s inflatable at point, the assault force was to flank the attackers, try to avoid direct engagement, and make, at all haste, for the short cliffs on the south shore of the naval base at Larak Island.

It took less than thirty seconds for that plan to get thrown to the wind.

With the first lieutenant at the helm and the petty officer manning the machine gun at the bow,
Lucky Dog
bounced through the wake of the
Ponce
at full speed, the marines holding fast to lifelines rigged amidships. Plowing into the
Ponce
’s last trough, Stone could see across the bow, and what he saw knocked the starch out of his socks.

Hundreds of small craft were swirling across the surface of the sea in a discordant, ever-changing dance that inexorably pressed closer and closer to the massive bulk of the aircraft carrier USS
Nimitz
and the flotilla that accompanied her. Worse for
Lucky Dog
were the four boats that were bearing down on this trio of attack boats, less than one hundred yards distant. Before Stone could shout a warning—one that would have been unheard in the maelstrom of noise that echoed across the water—the Iranian vessels opened fire with rocket launchers, machine guns, and small arms.

The first rocket hit
Lucky Dog
in the bow, at the waterline, just below the machine gun. As if the officer at the helm had slammed on the brakes,
Lucky Dog
drove her broken snout into the sea and heaved the aft up at a steep angle. Trying to make his way to the arms locker forward, Lieutenant Stone was thrown into the air and was falling back into the boat when the second rocket hit, slicing
Lucky Dog
in two. Breaking into pieces, half of the red-hot rocket skimmed the top of the boat and severed Stone’s left leg at the knee. Before he could feel any pain, Stone could see the blood, the bodies of the dead marines, and the Persian Gulf coming to embrace him.

10:40 a.m., Saudi Arabia

“I’m sorry, Mr. President. I understand what a blow this will be to your economy … the economies of other countries … but these criminals who call themselves terrorists drove into the compounds in stolen military vehicles, in full military uniforms. Our garrisons were taken completely by surprise. They attacked both pumping stations at the same time.”

King Abbudin held his son’s gaze while he listened to President Whitestone’s shocked response on the other end of the phone call.

“No, I am certain. Those two pumping stations control two-thirds of the oil that we deliver to the tanker fleet waiting in the gulf.”

Crown Prince Faisal sliced an apple with the razor-edged, curved dagger, barely concealing a smug smile. King Abbudin could not afford to be overconfident.

“We have full teams on the way to each station as we speak. But again, I don’t know how long it will take to restore full capacity. The repairs necessary will be determined by the extent of the damage and the time to complete those repairs could be hindered by any number of circumstances. But believe me, Mr. President, we will do all in our power to have those pumping stations back online as soon as possible.”

The Saudi king listened carefully to Whitestone’s response, weighing the president’s words and his tone.

“No … I did not know about this attack in the gulf. Be assured of one thing: we will take no pity on anyone who threatens the security of our nation. Yes, Mr. President, I will keep you informed as to our progress. Goodbye.”

Abbudin replaced the receiver and turned to face his son. “Well, Faisal, it appears Al Qaeda in Yemen has already claimed responsibility for the destruction of the two pumping stations. Our subterfuge appears to be working.”

8:42 a.m., London

“Nigel … have a look at this, will you?”

Quinn Barclay handed his boss, and doubles partner on the squash court, the transaction log he had just run on his computer. “What’s happening in Ireland?”

It had been a long night for Nigel Hunter, careening from club to club with Maureen, and the cobwebs clogging his brain had not yet succumbed to the massive amounts of Starbucks caffeine he was pouring into his body. At this point of the morning, he would have trouble understanding a comic book.