The First Hostage: A J. B. Collins Novel Read online

  PRAISE FOR JOEL C. ROSENBERG

  “His penetrating knowledge of all things Mideastern—coupled with his intuitive knack for high-stakes intrigue—demand attention.”

  PORTER GOSS

  Former director of the Central Intelligence Agency

  “If there were a Forbes 400 list of great current novelists, Joel Rosenberg would be among the top ten. . . . One of the most entertaining and intriguing authors of international political thrillers in the country. . . . His novels are un-put-downable.”

  STEVE FORBES

  Editor in chief, Forbes magazine

  “One of my favorite things: An incredible thriller—it’s called The Third Target by Joel C. Rosenberg. . . . He’s amazing. . . . He writes the greatest thrillers set in the Middle East, with so much knowledge of that part of the world. . . . Fabulous! I’ve read every book he’s ever written!”

  KATHIE LEE GIFFORD

  NBC’s Today Show

  “Fascinating and compelling . . . way too close to reality for a novel.”

  MIKE HUCKABEE

  Governor of Arkansas

  “[Joel Rosenberg] understands the grave dangers posed by Iran and Syria, and he’s been a bold and courageous voice for true peace and security in the Middle East.”

  DANNY AYALON

  Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister

  “Joel has a particularly clear understanding of what is going on in today’s Iran and Syria and the grave threat these two countries pose to the rest of the world.”

  REZA KAHLILI

  Former CIA operative in Iran and bestselling author of A Time to Betray: The Astonishing Double Life of a CIA Agent Inside the Revolutionary Guards of Iran

  “Joel Rosenberg is unsurpassed as the writer of fiction thrillers! Sometimes I have to remind myself to breathe as I read one of his novels because I find myself holding my breath in suspense as I turn the pages.”

  ANNE GRAHAM LOTZ

  Author and speaker

  “Joel paints an eerie, terrifying, page-turning picture of a worst-case scenario coming to pass. You have to read [Damascus Countdown], and then pray it never happens.”

  RICK SANTORUM

  Former U.S. senator

  Visit Tyndale online at www.tyndale.com.

  Visit Joel C. Rosenberg’s website at www.joelrosenberg.com.

  TYNDALE and Tyndale’s quill logo are registered trademarks of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc.

  The First Hostage: A J. B. Collins Novel

  Copyright © 2015 by Joel C. Rosenberg. All rights reserved.

  Cover photograph of seal copyright © Ironman Stabler Imagery/Getty Images. All rights reserved.

  Designed by Dean H. Renninger

  Scripture quotations are taken from the New American Standard Bible,® copyright © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission.

  The First Hostage is a work of fiction. Where real people, events, establishments, organizations, or locales appear, they are used fictitiously. All other elements of the novel are drawn from the author’s imagination.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Rosenberg, Joel C., date.

  The first hostage : a J. B. Collins novel / Joel C. Rosenberg.

  pages ; cm

  ISBN 978-1-4964-0615-6 (hc)

  I. Title.

  PS3618.O832F57 2015

  813'.6—dc23 2015029997

  ISBN 978-1-4964-0628-6 (International Trade Paper Edition)

  Build: 2015-10-12 16:02:32

  To our son Jacob, a brave and steady soul in dark and troubled times.

  “Blessed is the man who fears the LORD, who greatly delights in His commandments. . . . He will not fear evil tidings; his heart is steadfast.”

  PSALM 112:1, 7

  CONTENTS

  Cast of Characters

  Preface

  Part One

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Part Two

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Part Three

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Part Four

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Chapter 61

  Chapter 62

  Chapter 63

  Chapter 64

  Chapter 65

  Chapter 66

  Chapter 67

  Chapter 68

  Chapter 69

  Chapter 70

  Chapter 71

  Chapter 72

  About the Author

  Acknowledgments

  CAST OF CHARACTERS

  JOURNALISTS

  J. B. Collins—foreign correspondent for the New York Times

  Allen MacDonald—foreign editor for the New York Times

  AMERICANS

  Harrison Taylor—president of the United States

  Martin Holbrooke—vice president of the United States

  Marco Ramirez—lieutenant general, commander of Delta Force

  Jack Vaughn—director of the Central Intelligence Agency

  Robert Khachigian—former director of the CIA

  Arthur Harris—special agent with the Federal Bureau of Investigation

  Matthew Collins—J. B.’s older brother

  JORDANIANS

  King Abdullah II—the monarch of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan

  Prince Marwan Talal—uncle of the king of Jordan and a senior advisor

  Prince Feisal bin al-Hussein—brother of the king of Jordan and deputy supreme commander of the Jordanian armed forces

  Abdul Jum’a—lieutenant general, head of the army

  Ibrahim al-Mufti—major general, head of the air force

  Yusef Sharif—colonel and senior advisor to and chief spokesman for the king

  Mohammed Hammami—the king’s personal physician

  Ali Sa’id—chief of security for the Royal Court

  TERRORISTS

  Abu Khalif—leader of the Islamic State in Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS)

  Jamal Ramzy—commander of ISIS rebel forces in Syria and cousin of Abu Khalif

  ISRAELIS

  Daniel Lavi—Israeli prime minister

  Ari Shalit—deputy director of the Mossad

  Yael Katzir—Mossad agent

&
nbsp; PALESTINIANS

  Salim Mansour—president of the Palestinian Authority

  Youssef Kuttab—senior aide to President Mansour

  EGYPTIANS

  Amr El-Badawy—general, commander of Egyptian special forces

  PREFACE

  from The Third Target

  AL-HUMMAR PALACE, AMMAN, JORDAN

  Two Jordanian F-16s caught my eye.

  They were flying combat air patrol, keeping any stray aircraft—Jordanian or otherwise—out of this corridor, away from the palace and away from the peace summit. Both were quite a ways off in the distance, but what seemed odd was that while they had been flying from left to right across the horizon, heading from south to north, one of them was now turning right and banking toward the palace. Was that normal? It didn’t seem so. Several pairs of fighter jets had been crisscrossing the skies over Amman for the last half hour or so in the same predictable manner. So why the deviation?

  The jet was still several miles away, but there was no question it was headed in our direction. I turned and whispered to Ali Sa’id, chief of security for the Royal Court.

  “What’s going on with that F-16?” I asked. “He’s broken off from his wingman.”

  Sa’id had been scanning the crowd, not the skies, so he didn’t immediately respond. But a moment later, he said something in Arabic over his wrist-mounted radio. Then he whispered back, “Stay calm, but come with me, both of you.”

  Startled, I had a hard time taking my eyes off the plane, but when I saw Sa’id get up and walk toward the doorway from which we had come, I followed his lead. Yael Katzir was right behind me. The band was playing again.

  “Where are we going?” I asked Sa’id.

  “The command center.”

  “Why? What do you think’s going on?”

  “I’m not sure,” he conceded. “But I’m not bringing His Majesty out here until I know.”

  As he said this, I turned and took one last look at the F-16 before going inside. And at that very moment I saw a flash of light and a contrail. The pilot had just fired a missile.

  A moment later we felt the explosion.

  * * *

  Inside the palace’s security command center, I turned to check on Yael.

  The Mossad agent had a large gash on her forehead and was bleeding profusely. I called for a first aid kit, and one of the watch commanders rushed to my side with one. As I bandaged her up, though, Yael gasped. At first I thought I had hurt her further. But when I saw her eyes grow wide, I turned to see what she was looking at.

  On the video monitors in the command post, I could now see dump trucks and cement trucks loaded with explosives making speed dashes for the outer gates of the royal compound. I watched as soldiers fired automatic weapons at them, but one by one the trucks were hitting their targets and erupting in massive explosions. Huge gaps appeared in the perimeter fences, and hundreds of fighters in black hoods and ski masks rushed through to engage in brutal gun battles with Jordanian soldiers fighting desperately to save themselves and their beloved king.

  Just then the vault door opened behind us. Suddenly King Abdullah was coming out of the safe room and directly toward us.

  “Ali,” he said, “we need to go now.”

  * * *

  Outside the palace, I could hear bullets whizzing over my head.

  I could hear them smashing into the side of the armor-plated trucks. I could see round after round hitting the bulletproof windows, though fortunately they refused to shatter. But as I came around the far side of one of the U.S. president’s Suburbans, I froze in my tracks. Prime Minister Lavi and President Mansour were lying side by side, surrounded by several more dead agents.

  The king was crouched over them. I couldn’t see what he was doing. Was he trying in vain to revive them or just mourning over them? Either way, it was no use. They were gone. Nothing was going to bring them back. We had to go. We couldn’t stay out in the open like this.

  At that moment, I went numb. I could feel myself beginning to slip into shock, and I couldn’t help it, couldn’t stop it. And then, as if through a tunnel, I thought I heard the sound of someone calling my name.

  “Collins, they’re alive!” the king yelled. “They’re unconscious, but they’re still breathing. They both have a pulse. But we need to get them into the Suburban. Cover us!”

  I couldn’t believe it. They weren’t dead? They looked dead. They weren’t moving. But at the very thought, I snapped to.

  Sa’id opened the back of the truck and put down the rear seat to make space while Yael covered his right flank. Then Sa’id helped the king lift the Israeli prime minister and gently set him inside the SUV.

  Reengaged, I pivoted hard to my left and followed my orders. Firing the MP5 in short bursts in multiple directions, I had no illusions I was going to kill many rebels. But I was determined not to let them get to the king or his family or these other leaders. All I had to do was buy time. The question was whether it would possibly be enough.

  As the king and Sa’id put the Palestinian leader in the back, I continued firing. Then I heard one of the other SUVs roar to life. For a moment I stopped shooting. I looked to my right and saw a Suburban peeling off without us with two American agents in the front seat.

  The Secret Service wasn’t waiting. They’d gotten their man into a bulletproof vehicle and now they were getting him to the airport. We had to move too, and fast.

  * * *

  The king directed me onto Route 40—the Al Kodos Highway—and soon we were heading southwest out of Amman. We were now going nearly a hundred miles an hour, and we had a new problem. The king was on the satphone with his brother, who informed us that there was a police checkpoint at the upcoming interchange with Route 35, the Queen Alia Highway. The checkpoint itself wasn’t the issue. The problem, the king said, was that it had apparently been overrun by ISIS rebels, and they were waiting for us with RPGs and .50-caliber machine guns.

  “How long to the interchange?” I asked.

  “At this rate, two minutes, no more,” the king replied.

  “What do you recommend, Your Majesty?” I asked, not sure if I should try to go any faster or slow down.

  “Do you believe in prayer, Collins?” he said. “Because now would be a good time to start.”

  “I’m out of ammunition,” Yael said. “Does anyone have more?”

  “There’s a full mag in my weapon,” I replied.

  “Where’s that?” she asked.

  “Here,” the crown prince said from the backseat. He picked up my machine gun from the floor, removed the magazine, and handed it to Yael.

  In the distance, I could see the interchange approaching. Were we going to try to blow through this checkpoint? That, it seemed, was a suicide mission. And I wasn’t ready to die.

  A second later the issue was moot. Rising over a ridge off to our right were two Apache helicopter gunships coming low and fast. Yael noticed them first and pointed them out to the rest of us. Now we were all riveted on them, and one question loomed over everything, though no one spoke it aloud: which side were they on?

  The checkpoint was fast approaching. So were the Apaches.

  And then in my mirror I saw the 30mm open up.

  “They’re shooting at us!” I shouted.

  I saw a flash. I knew what it was. I’d seen it a hundred times or more, from Fallujah to Kabul. Someone had just fired an RPG. I could see the contrail streaking down the highway behind us. The queen screamed. I hit the gas and swerved to the right just in time. The RPG knocked off my side mirror and sliced past. It hadn’t killed us.

  But the next one might.

  I saw another flash, this one from the lead Apache. He too had just fired, and this wasn’t a mere RPG. This was a heat-seeking Hellfire missile. There was no swerving or avoiding it. It was coming straight for us, and there was nothing we could do about it. We were about to die in a ball of fire. It was all over.

  But to my relief, the missile didn’t slam int
o us. Instead, we watched it strike one of the Humvees at the checkpoint ahead. In the blink of an eye, the entire checkpoint was obliterated in a giant explosion. Stunned—mesmerized by the fireball in front of me—I forgot to exit. I just kept driving. Then we were crashing through the burning remains of the checkpoint, racing through the interchange, and getting on Route 35, bound for the airport.

  None of us cheered. We were relieved beyond words, but we all knew this was not of our doing. Forces beyond us were keeping us alive and clearing the way for us.

  Soon we saw one squadron after another of Jordanian F-16s and F-15s streaking across the sky. I had to believe they were headed to Amman to bomb the palace and crush the rebellion. I couldn’t imagine how difficult a decision that must have been for the king, but I also knew he had no choice. He was the last of the Hashemite monarchs, and he seemed determined not to go down like those before him.

  As we sped along Highway 35, against all odds, strangely enough I actually began to feel a sense of hope again. We were still alive. We were safe for now. And I had the strongest sense that the king was going to prevail. He had been blindsided, to be sure. But he had enormous personal courage. He had an army ready to fight back, and he had the Americans and the Israelis ready to fight with him. But when we arrived at the airport, those feelings instantly evaporated.

  As I surveyed the devastation around us, all hope disappeared.

  The gorgeous new multimillion-dollar terminal was a smoking crater. The roads and runways were pockmarked with the remains of mortars and artillery shells that apparently had been fired not long before we arrived. Jumbo jets were on fire. Dead and dying bodies lay everywhere. Fuel depots were ablaze. The stench of burning jet fuel was overwhelming.

  And Air Force One was gone.

  “Virtuous motives—trammeled by inertia and timidity—are no match for armed and resolute wickedness.”

  WINSTON CHURCHILL

  IN THE GATHERING STORM

  1

  AMMAN, JORDAN

  “The president of the United States . . . is missing.”

  Even as the words came out of my mouth, I could hardly believe what I was saying. Neither could my editor.