FORTY-NINE

Four miles outside of Union Beach, New Jersey, three men from Pack McHenry’s team sat in a black SUV in a McDonald’s parking lot. They were waiting for the “go” authorization from their contact. All three were former special-operations agents from the U.S. Coast Guard. A fourth, Jim Yaniky, another reserve member of the Coast Guard special ops, was coming separately but had been delayed. He was still several miles away. They told him to pull over and wait. If the truck with the nuke got past them for some reason, then Yaniky could intercept it, like a “goalie” at the end line, though they all knew that was a pretty lousy Plan B. The main objective was to stop the truck before it left its assembly location, because once it was on the road, the dice became dangerously loaded against them. The team knew that the delivery vehicle would probably be rigged with a detonator that could be activated from the cab of the truck, so that if the terrorists felt themselves threatened, they could simply do a rolling detonation.

All of these civilians had been tasked by a simple call and a code number, which they knew was from McHenry’s Patriot group. They also knew they were to consider themselves working only at the behest of one person. If stopped and detained, they would deny any connection to Pack McHenry or his Patriots.

The call was placed by Jim Yaniky, who had been designated team coordinator.

At Hawk’s Nest, the phone rang. Abigail Jordan had been on a round-the-clock vigil, trying to work with Rocky Bridger to rescue her husband. Abigail picked up.

“Mrs. Jordan,” said the voice, “my name is Jim Yaniky. I’m one of four former members of the U.S. Coast Guard strike force, retired but on reserve. We understand you’d like us to perform a citizens’ action to halt suspected criminal behavior in or around Union Beach, New Jersey, namely, the transport of a truck thought to be carrying a nuclear weapon?”

“Yes, Mr. Yaniky, that’s correct.” She thought for a moment. “As former members of the U.S. Coast Guard, then you’re all exempt from the restrictions of the federal Posse Comitatus Act, which prohibits members of the other branches of the military from performing law-enforcement duties?”

“That’s pretty much it, yes.”

Abigail now understood why Pack McHenry had selected these men. If things went bad, federal prosecutors would not be able to argue that this law had been violated at least. Now she only had a dozen other federal laws to worry about.

“You understand, Mrs. Jordan, we consider you to be our principal in this action. May we proceed under your direction and advice?”

She didn’t hesitate. “I understand my responsibility, Mr. Yaniky, for this mission.” Abigail was now fully committed. She knew she was way past second-guessing, but there was still a critical part of the plan she needed to know. She couldn’t launch an armed campaign unless her soldiers knew where the enemy was.

“Have you located the cell group?”

“They’re in Union Beach, ma’am, south of New York City.”

“How’d you find them?”

“They used an electromagnetic pulse to blow out the local electronics. We figured they were doing covert communications and didn’t want to risk being picked up. We’ve got special Allfones to resist that. They were designed, by the way, by your husband’s company, Jordan Technologies, ma’am.”

Abigail felt a lump in her throat. Joshua’s work had come full circle.

Yaniky finished, “We have an EMP tracker. We pinpointed the source. We’re pretty sure they’re at that spot. Uh … one moment.” He put her on hold. Ten seconds later he came back. “Sorry ma’am, it’s go time!”

“God go with you.”

“Thanks.”

Only when Abigail clicked off her Allfone did the immensity of the challenge hit her. During his military career, her husband had been the one responsible for the lives of those ordered into harm’s way. Now she was the one shouldering that responsibility. She uttered a quivering prayer. Then she went back to her other task, waiting for Rocky Bridger’s call, which she was expecting shortly.

Before leaving the machine shop in Union Beach, Dr. Kush Mahi confirmed that the bomb was ready to load. He was now on his way to Newark Airport to catch an international flight out of the country before the nukes were detonated. The gunmen had gingerly packed the nuke into a shipping crate and had carefully lifted it onto the truck. Painted on the sides of the truck was an advertisement for Mexican food. With a large Hispanic festival going on in downtown Manhattan, the truck would blend in perfectly.

The torture team had come back for Joshua. They dragged him to the windowless cement room and strapped him down. Again they shocked him with electricity. Again and again and again. Each time the voltage got higher. Joshua groaned and whimpered with pain. He wondered how long he could withstand the excruciating jolts before he began spilling his guts about the RTS units he’d provided to Israel.

But one thought helped him keep it together: one of the last conversations he had with Abigail. He tried to conjure up her beautiful face, but he couldn’t. Was he losing his mind? Was his memory deteriorating? But he could remember what she’d said. She had told him that Israel would play a critically important part in the global scheme of things, in God’s vast plan, more than perhaps Joshua ever imagined.

That was what he was hanging on to, though he wasn’t sure why. Maybe it was just a rope to grab, to keep from giving up, to keep his focus off the pain, to help him tough it out just one more time …

When it was over, Joshua’s tormentors dumped his nearly lifeless body back into his cell.

After the Iranian guards left, Dr. Abdu waited over an hour for sounds from Joshua’s cell. Then he called out, “Joshua, my friend, are you awake? Can you hear me?”

There was no response.

“Joshua?”

The rest of the prisoners were quiet too, listening. But there was no reply.

Rocky Bridger had to do everything remotely. He didn’t like that. As a four-star general in the U.S. Army, he had always preferred to be in the presence of as many of the men whom he would send into harm’s way as possible. But the present desperate timeline didn’t allow that.

Four heavily armed men, two former Army Rangers and two retired Navy SEALs, were on a private jet heading for Baghdad, Iraq. That was the closest staging point to Iran. Rocky pulled some strings with his former Army colleagues in the Pentagon for their landing. They were cleared for entrance into Iraq as “private VIP security contractors.”

Though the mission was expensive, all the costs were covered by the Roundtable through Abigail’s quick work.

Rocky was on a video Allfone call with the team, mapping out the strategy. He had just finished a conversation with Israeli general Shapiro.

Shapiro had sounded unusually calm. “General Bridger, good to talk to you again. It’s been a long time.” No hint in Shapiro’s voice of the coming attack from Iran that they were preparing for.

Rocky reciprocated the greeting and then told Shapiro that he already knew about the White House shooting down an organized attempt to rescue Joshua. “General,” Rocky said, “I’m putting together a private team to get Joshua Jordan out of there. What can you give us in the way of support?”

“I can share our intelligence,” Shapiro said. “I’d like to promise more. Too early to say right now.”

“Anything, General Shapiro …”

“I will send you an encrypted e-file with some photos of the building in Tehran where he is being held captive. A map of the area. It’s a special prison for dissidents, that sort of thing. They have probably tortured Colonel Jordan, I’m afraid …”

“I’d assumed that,” Rocky said.

“But it’s also heavily guarded.”

“I also figured that.”

“But one additional possibility …”

“I’m listening.”

“We have an Iranian inside Tehran. He’s been cooperating with us. We are trying to regain contact with him. I’ll send you the e-file on him. Name is Yoseff Abbas. Maybe he can help, don’t know for sure. We’re also looking into air support for your team.”

Rocky thanked the general, but after he hung up, his sense of history took over. So when Rocky Bridger connected by video Allfone with his strike force of four men who were winging their way across the Atlantic, he brought it up. “You fellas are all former special ops, I know, but you’re probably too young to remember another rescue plan. Like ours, it was privately organized, and like ours, it was to save some Americans held hostage in a prison inside Tehran. They happened to be employees of Ross Perot’s company over there. So Perot hired ‘Bull’ Simmons, retired Army colonel. Simmons put together a plan.”

“What are you thinking, sir?” one of the men asked.

“I am thinking about repeating history …”