Read Online Countdown to Mecca by Michael Savage - Free Book Online

“Dover asked me about something you asked her, Jack, and it fits with a call I got this morning. A call about a missing weapon of mass destruction, what they call ‘F.O.’ After a ballet by native son Igor Stravinsky.” The leathery old veteran turned his head toward Jack. “Firebird Ordnance.”
    Ana actually gasped. Sammy looked fearful. Jack was too busy thinking to react.
    â€œHow’re you gonna get ahead of that?” Sol asked.
    â€œI’ll tell you how,” Jack said to Sol—to all of them—in a voice that radiated certainty and growing confidence. “By doing what I do best.”
    â€œAnd what is that?” Ana blurted.
    He looked at the young woman. “By telling the truth to those who think they have the power.”

 
    6
    General Thomas Brooks sat behind the big desk he had earned, beneath the large window he had earned, and glanced at the remnants of a military career he had also earned. Awards, citations, and trophies were everywhere. But they might as well be part of the wreckage of the passenger plane they’d brought down. He actually felt bitterness toward the accolades and perks: he was being put out to pasture and all his achievements couldn’t save him. Ever since General Douglas MacArthur had made his retirement speech before the UN all those years ago they had called it “The Big ‘Fade Away.’” And he was being groomed for that by the brass.
    No matter, he thought. That was why Firebird had been set in motion. This achievement was for him, for America, not for the brass.
    The plan Brooks had been working on for nearly five years was finally nearing completion. It meant that within the foreseeable future, the world would no longer face the greatest threat since Hitler and Hirohito had threatened to divide the globe in half between them.
    It meant, too, that the United States would soon be involved in a war that it did not want, but that Brooks knew it must wage to have any hope of surviving. A war better fought now, while the odds were overwhelmingly in its favor, than in ten years, when they might not be.
    A war, also, where millions would die, Americans included, people Brooks knew and respected included. Even he might die. But what greater honor was there for a military man than to die with his boots on? He would die a patriot, keeping America in the spotlight of world history. Brooks did not want to die, but he definitely did not want to die like his hero, General George Patton, who had met his fate after the war in a meaningless car accident.
    Despite what he had been forced to do to Steven Reynolds’s foot, Brooks was content with how the main event had gone off … and where things were going.
    He checked his watch. It was time for an update. He grabbed the high security phone and called Morton.
    The lower-ranking general answered on the first ring. “Yes, sir!”
    â€œReport.”
    â€œThe men in question have arrived in Yalta, as agreed,” Morton informed him.
    â€œThe courier?”
    â€œEn route with the package.”
    The package was the remaining cash for the job. “All right,” the general said. “And my visit to the labs?”
    â€œEverything has been arranged,” he reported.
    â€œI’ll be especially interested in a walk-through on the current projects.”
    â€œOf course.” Morton’s voice regained some of its usual professionalism.
    â€œI’ve also given some thought to next week,” Brooks went on. “I’d like to visit the installation in Mt. Keren, and go on to Riyadh and say good-bye to the monitoring unit there.”
    â€œMt. Keren? In Israel?”
    â€œCorrect. I assume you can handle that.”
    â€œYes, of course, sir.”
    â€œI expect everything to be in place when I get to San Francisco,” Brooks told him.
    â€œYes, sir.”
    Brooks ended the call. However much they planned, there were always