Negev Desert, Israel
It was blistering hot in the rocky desert plains in southern Israel, not far from the border with Egypt. Joshua Jordan was with a team of Israeli ballistic experts and weapons physicists. Earlier in the day they had arrived at an area marked by a tall stone obelisk with a warning in Hebrew and English: “ENTRANCE FORBIDDEN.” This was the IDF weapons-testing range. Joshua and the missile-defense team had just run through some tests for the Return-to-Sender system.
One of the Israeli physicists approached Joshua. “Colonel Jordan, I have a concern about the ability of RTS to handle multiple warheads, and there’s also that matter of the RTS failure in the Chicago flight — ”
“Doctor,” Joshua answered, “about the commercial jet … we’ve repeatedly requested the accident data from the NTSB so we can evaluate it ourselves. They’ve refused to cooperate. So was there an RTS failure? Or was it compromised by the pilot? By the airlines? Disengaged by a mechanic? We simply don’t know. As for the multiple warheads, the North Korean episode last year should answer that. RTS performed perfectly.”
One of the weapons engineers shook his head. “We know you are required by the Pentagon to deliver a lower-quality weapon to us. So what aren’t we getting in this package? Will it compromise our ability to stop Iranian missiles?”
Joshua dabbed the sweat from his neck. He took off his sunglasses and wiped his eyes. “Pentagon protocol requires a slightly different weapons version for our international partners. Same capabilities, but the engineering guts are a bit different, for obvious reasons. We don’t want anyone out there to be able to reverse engineer our exact design. Rest assured that the RTS system will protect Israel. As we saw today, we’re ten out of ten on the scorecard for the tests out here in … what desert is this, Clint?”
Colonel Clinton Kinney reminded him. “Paran … where God brought Moses and the children of Israel after rescuing them from bondage in Egypt. He brought them here with a pillar of cloud to lead them. This became the staging area for their entrance into Canaan.”
One of the military officers chuckled. “You’re forgetting something, Rabbi Kinney. A small matter of their wandering for forty years in the wilderness.”
“Sure,” Kinney said. “Because of their cowardice and disobedience. Gentlemen, I think we have to believe that God is able and will do what He has promised to protect Israel. When the flood comes, He will part the sea. When the missiles come, God will deflect them. When the armies roll toward us, He will shake the ground with thunder and scatter them.”
“Let’s hope,” another IDF officer quipped, “that God will make the RTS system work, because we all know that our nuclear capacity has been — ”
“Circumcised?” said another officer, evoking laughter from the group. But beneath the laughter was the sobering realization that Israel, under crippling international pressure, had been forced to dismantle its own nuclear weapons system. Now the RTS system had an even higher value to this tiny nation surrounded by enemies.
Just then, several Israeli F-16s roared overhead, swooping into the valley and leaving their white contrails behind.
Kinney stepped up to Joshua. He said in a low voice, “They’re getting ready. Israel is not going to sit back and wait for Iran to make its final gambit. We’ll strike first.”
That realization hit Joshua like a ton of bricks. He thought about Deborah and whether it had been wise to bring her here. “Thanks for having your wife, Esther, spend the day with Deborah. Much appreciated.”
“She’ll show her the sites in Jerusalem. They’re having a great time, I’m sure.”
With their work done for the day, Joshua, Kinney, and the rest headed toward their vehicles.
Just a few miles outside the testing perimeter, a small group of hikers was sitting in front of a small portable satellite monitor, watching the picture. Even though it was a little scrambled, they could make out the image of Joshua Jordan climbing into a Jeep next to Colonel Kinney.
One of the hikers, speaking in perfect Persian, said to his fellow Iranians, “There he is. Jordan is the civilian. See him?”
Then he added. “Give the command.”