The Third Target (41 page)

Joel C. Rosenberg
is a
New York Times
bestselling author with more than three million copies sold among his nine novels (including
The Last Jihad
,
Damascus Countdown
, and
The Auschwitz Escape
), four nonfiction books (including
Epicenter
and
Inside the Revolution
), and a digital short (
Israel at War
). A front-page Sunday
New York Times
profile called him a “force in the capital.” He has also been profiled by the
Washington Times
and the
Jerusalem Post
and has been interviewed on ABC’s
Nightline
, CNN
Headline News
, FOX News Channel, The History Channel, MSNBC,
The Rush Limbaugh Show
, and
The Sean Hannity Show
. You can follow him at
www.joelrosenberg.com
or on Twitter
@joelcrosenberg
.

When I started writing
The Third Target
, I had never heard of ISIS.

I knew I wanted to write a series about the threat Radical Islam poses not only to the U.S., Israel, and the West but also to our moderate Arab/Muslim allies in the Middle East and to Arab Christians in the region. I knew I wanted my main character to be a
New York Times
foreign correspondent who sees a grave new threat coming up over the horizon. I also knew I wanted to write about a serious and believable enemy. I just didn’t know which one it should be.

To determine that, as I began to sketch my outline in early 2013 I posed two sets of “What if?” questions.

First: What if Radical Islamic extremists were able to seize control of a cache of chemical weapons in Syria that were overlooked or not reported to the U.N. disarmament teams? Which terrorist group would be in a position to do that? What would they do with such weapons of mass destruction once they grabbed hold of them? Who might they use such weapons against? And how might the powers in the region and the international community respond?

Second: What if Radical Islamic extremists chose to target the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan? What if they tried to seize control of her territory and people to establish a violent caliphate on the East Bank of the Jordan River? What would be the implications for the rest of the Middle East? What would be the implications for America, Israel, Europe, and the rest of the world? And again, which Radical group might be inclined to launch such an attack and be in a position to do so?

I knew going into this project that few Americans spend much time
 
—if any
 
—thinking about the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. But over the years I have come to regard Jordan as one of the most important Arab allies the West has in the epicenter.

Since ascending to the throne in 1999, Jordan’s King Abdullah II has proven himself to be a moderate, peaceful, wise Reformer who has been a true friend of the United States, Great Britain, and NATO. He has also maintained the peace treaty with Israel and a healthy relationship with the Jewish State, a relationship that began with secret contacts between his father, the late King Hussein, and Israeli leaders as far back as the 1960s. The present king has been actively engaged in combatting the terrorist activity of Radicals via his military, police, and intelligence networks. He has also sought to combat the ideology of Radicals by building a global network of Islamic scholars and clerics who reject the takfiris, violent extremists, and heretics, and who are proactively trying to define Islam as a peaceful, tolerant religion. At the same time, he has worked hard to make Jordan a safe haven for both Muslims and Arab Christians fleeing from war and persecution in the region. What’s more, it has become increasingly clear that a safe, secure, and moderate Jordan is the absolutely essential cornerstone of any serious future comprehensive peace agreement between the Israelis and Palestinians.

As I went down the list of Radical states and terrorist organizations in the region that might be able to gain control of WMD in Syria and might choose to attack Jordan, I conferred with a range of Middle East experts, current and former intelligence officials, and retired U.S. and Israeli diplomats and military leaders. I asked who they thought was the next big threat likely to rise in the region. Without exception, they all told me, “ISIS.”

At the time, neither I nor my publisher, Tyndale House, had heard of this group. Yet the more I learned, the more convinced I became that in the following five years or so, ISIS could actually become
a global threat and a household name. Indeed, the ISIS threat has metastasized even faster. Now the whole world has heard of ISIS (the Islamic State of Iraq and al Sham), which is also known as ISIL (the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant), or simply the Islamic State.

Indeed, as I write this author’s note, events are moving quickly. The president of the United States has declared ISIS a threat to our national security. Several Sunni Muslim Arab countries have joined a military and political coalition to “degrade and defeat” ISIS. All eyes are now on the epicenter, but it remains unclear just how successful the strategies employed against ISIS by the U.S. and our allies will be. I pray the events I have written about here never take place. I fear, however, that some world leaders may still underestimate the threat. If so, the consequences could be devastating. I hope that those who are able to act will do so before it is too late.

This book is obviously a work of fiction, but I tried to set the fictional events in as realistic a framework as possible. To that end, I included references to a number of real-life people and events. Journalist A. B. Collins is a figment of my imagination, but the assassination of King Abdullah I that he witnessed in Jerusalem in 1951 is a real, historical event. Abu Khalif is a fictional terrorist, but you may see some similarities to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the real-life head of ISIS. Ayman al-Zawahiri, the real-life leader of al-Qaeda, has not been assassinated by the U.S. government
 
—yet
 
—but the tension between his terrorist organization and ISIS is real.

Of course, the most obvious real-life character in the book is King Abdullah II, Jordan’s current monarch. I considered fictionalizing him, as I did the leaders of the U.S., Israel, and the Palestinian Authority. After all, it is always sensitive to write about a current leader in dangerous times, and I certainly do not want to offend His Majesty or the Royal Court. But in the end I chose to include King Abdullah II as a character in this novel primarily because I thought it would not be as effective to write about the emerging threat to
Jordan without including him directly. People need to understand who this king is, and why he is uniquely important in Jordan’s past, present, and future. I hope readers will come to appreciate just how dangerous the region and the world would be if this king is toppled or violently overthrown. To help in this process, several of the things the king says in chapter 50 of this book, for example, are actually direct quotes (or close adaptations) from King Abdullah’s excellent 2011 book,
Our Last Best Chance: The Pursuit of Peace in a Time of Peril
. I highly recommend that nonfiction work if you are interested in a true insider’s perspective on current events in the epicenter.

Other books I used for research include:

• Uneasy Lies the Head: The Autobiography of His Majesty King Hussein I of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan
  
• Fighting Terrorism: How Democracies Can Defeat Domestic and International Terrorists
  by Benjamin Netanyahu
  
• Hussein and Abdullah: Inside the Jordanian Royal Family
  by Randa Habib
  
• Lion of Jordan: The Life of King Hussein in War and Peace
  by Avi Shlaim
  
• King’s Counsel: A Memoir of War, Espionage, and Diplomacy in the Middle East
  by Jack O’Connell
  
• Son of Hamas: A Gripping Account of Terror, Betrayal, Political Intrigue, and Unthinkable Choices
  by Mosab Hassan Yousef
  
• Once an Arafat Man: The True Story of How a PLO Sniper Found a New Life
  by Tass Saada
  
• The Second Arab Awakening and the Battle for Pluralism
  by Marwan Muasher
  
• Kill Khalid: The Failed Mossad Assassination of Khalid Mishal and the Rise of Hamas
  by Paul McGeough
  
• From Beirut to Jerusalem
  by Thomas L. Friedman
  
• The Case for Democracy: The Power of Freedom to Overcome Tyranny and Terror
  by Natan Sharansky and Ron Dermer
  
• The Fight for Jerusalem: Radical Islam, the West, and the Future of the Holy City
  by Dore Gold
  

As part of the research process I undertook for this novel, I had the incredible opportunity to travel to Jordan in the spring of 2014 to meet with several senior officials. While I have traveled to Jordan numerous times over the years, this was a particularly special trip. I have a deep love and respect for the people of Jordan. This has only grown over time, but never more so than on that trip.

Special thanks to everyone who made time for me and shared with me their perspective as I did research for this book, both on that research trip and others. Not everyone I met and spoke with will agree with what I have written here. Nevertheless, I am enormously grateful for their insights, wisdom, and kindness, and I hope the book is richer for what I learned from them. Among those to whom I would like to express my deep gratitude are:

• His Excellency Abdullah Ensour, Jordan’s prime minister
  
• His Royal Highness Prince Ghazi Bin Muhammad, senior advisor to His Majesty King Abdullah II
  
• H.E. Nasser Judeh, Jordan’s foreign minister
  
• H.E. Hussein Hazza’ Al-Majali, Jordan’s interior minister
  
• H.E. Nidal Qatamin, Jordan’s minister of labor and tourism
  
• H.E. Alia Bouran, Jordan’s ambassador to the United States
  
• James Woolsey, former director of the Central Intelligence Agency
  
• Porter Goss, former director of the Central Intelligence Agency
  
• Danny Yatom, former director of the Mossad
  
• Hon. Dore Gold, former Israeli ambassador to the United Nations and president of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs
  
• Yechiel Horev, former Israeli director of security of the Defense Establishment
  
• Robert Satloff, executive director of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy
  

I’m also deeply grateful for the aides, advisors, and colleagues of those mentioned above who were so generous with their time and insights. There are others who were enormously helpful that I am not able to mention publicly. To them, as well, I say thank you.

Writing and publishing a novel is a team effort, and I am so grateful for a number of people who have helped me on this project as with so many other books.

Many thanks to:

• My wonderful literary agent and good friend, Scott Miller, and his team at Trident Media Group
  
• My first-rate publishing team at Tyndale House Publishers, including Mark Taylor, Jeff Johnson, Ron Beers, Karen Watson, Jan Stob, Cheryl Kerwin, Todd Starowitz, Dean
  Renninger, Caleb Sjogren, Erin Smith, Danika King, and the entire sales force
   
  —and special thanks to my editor, Jeremy Taylor, who has really done an outstanding job on this one
  
• My blessed parents, Leonard and Mary Rosenberg
  
• My excellent November Communications team, June Meyers and Nancy Pierce
  
• My four wonderful sons
   
  —Caleb, Jacob, Jonah, and Noah
  
• My dear, sweet, and amazing wife, Lynn, who has blessed me every moment of every day since we first met in college at Syracuse University and has continued to bless me beyond belief through twenty-five fantastic years of marriage! What an adventure we have been on, Lynnie
   
  —may it never end!
  

Most of all, I am grateful to my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, who loves so deeply the people of Israel, and Jordan, and Iraq, and Syria, and all the people of the epicenter, and for some unfathomable reason loves me and my family, too.