THE DAY: A Novel of America in the Last Days (The End of America Series) (3 page)

The
Moshe and Sophia
Guttman
Home

Petah
Tikva
, Israel

              
Virtually
every Jewish family, by necessity, had a family panic plan. The
Guttmans
’ plan was simple. If any family member heard
anything about any possible trouble, an invasion, rockets launched, bus
explosions, anything, they were to immediately return to the
Guttman
flat in east Petah
Tikva
.
Like most every housing unit built since 1990, the
Guttman
flat included a ‘safe room’. The room was built in the interior
space of the four
bedroom
flat and included a steel
locked door and doubled hardened wallboard to hopefully lessen any explosion
effects. The room was large enough for the four residents to sleep on cots and
was wired to the outside world with a telephone landline. The family had
stocked the room with several cases of dried fruit and packaged water in
plastic bottles.

              
Sophia’s
school was closest to their flat, so she was the first to arrive when Israeli
news media reported that Russian and Iranian troops had been detected by
satellite leaving southwest Damascus on Iran’s Highway 7 towards Israel.
Next were Golda and Yitzhak, who ran into the flat, asking their mother what
she had heard? Before she could answer them, her cell phone rang. The phone
showed an incoming call from Moshe’s dentist office, which was a ten
minute drive towards Tel Aviv.

              
"Yes,
Moshe,
why
aren’t you here
? Don’t you know about
the…."

              
Moshe,
generally the calmer of the two, responded, "Calm down
Sophie
, I’m calling to let you
know it’s going to be at least a half hour, maybe more, before I can get
home. I have two patients, both in their chairs, both in mid-procedure. One is
a root canal and the other is a large filling. I can’t just run out and
leave them, of course. So, we’re accelerating the work. It could be
longer than a half hour, come to think….more like an hour. Turn on the TV.
I have ours on. Let’s just keep our eyes open and see what’s
happening. It may be
nothing
. We just
heard a patient here say, supposedly quoting the White House, that the Russians
and Iranians are just doing a military exercise. Not an invasion. Just trying
to
scare us
, I guess."

              
"Moshe",
Sophie replied, "listen to yourself.
Scare
us?
Well,
Its
working,
I’m scared
. We signed a peace treaty that was supposed to
guarantee us peace and security. No more violence, no more rockets and bombs.
America, if you have forgotten, Moshe,
forced
us
to sign it….threats of U.S. and European boycotts…
.‘delegitimizing
Israel’ and all
that….remember? I don’t buy what you just heard….Finish your
patients,
quick,
Moshe….who knows how long it
will take them to start firing rockets and bombs,
or worse
? We’re vulnerable, Moshe….We’re on the
eastern edge of the Tel Aviv metropolitan area. Where do you think
they’ll hit
first
? Please,
Moshe, get home….
OK
?"

              
Moshe
checked his pulse. Sophie’s words accelerated his weakened heart. During
IDF reserve forces training Moshe suffered cardiac injuries which exempted him
from further
service,
otherwise he would have been
called up with the IDF reserve forces, now on heightened alert. It was
definitely time to get home to his family.

Hannah
and Gary’s Family Room

Birmingham,
Alabama

              
"
What was I thinking?"
Scott was
visibly upset. "Liz and Max saw what was coming, and they moved to
Central America at the end of last year. Tom and Marty were a little slower,
but they’ve been in Panama now for almost two months. We should have left
when our friends did. I can’t
believe
…."

              
Sally
interrupted her husband, "Scott. Don’t be so hard on yourself.
I
was the one who kept dragging my feet.
I studied the prophecies, like all of us in this small group, but I just
couldn’t do….that is….I couldn’t build my faith strong
enough to believe what God was trying to tell us with all those
warnings
. I’m
so
sorry, honey….I just feel so…….Hannah and
Gary, and Audrey and Beau, I’m afraid that my glaring reluctance may have
held you guys back from moving….while we all still could. It’s
my
fault….Can you
ever…."

              
Audrey,
the member of the small group with the most obvious gift of compassion,
couldn’t let Sally go on, "Sally, my dear sister in Christ,
please don’t
blame
yourself
. We’re all adults, we
all
studied the Word. We understood that God was using those two
hundred and some verses to warn us."

              
Gary,
Hannah’s husband, looking terrible, said, "Look, guys, if anyone is
to blame it should
be me
. Hannah and
I have been active in this county’s tea party for over four years. We
followed the news. We went to the rallies. We read everything coming out of
Washington, and look. Here we are in central Alabama, facing the potential
destruction of this country we love. Well….that is….we
used
to love it a lot more before all
these things starting happening."

              
Hannah
dabbing her moist eyes, said, "Gary, sweetie, I
never
supported the idea of moving out of the country. Not even
when we were pretty sure that the US was going to pressure and force Israel
into giving up its land and signing the peace treaty. When the ink was drying
on the document we should have been packing our bags. It might have been too
late to sell the house and our accumulated stuff….make that
treasures….," she smiled grimly, trying to lighten the mood a
bit…."but we could have made it out of the country and into safety.
We could have hooked up with Marty and Tom or Liz and Max. Both couples offered
to let us stay with them until we could get settled. Your question is right,
Scott,
what
were
we thinking?
"
 

              
Beau,
Audrey’s husband, finally spoke up, "It doesn’t do any of us
any good to wring our hands and cry over what we
should
have done. I’m the first to admit that I knew the
truth, the Daughter of Babylon prophecies, but, like you all, I kept putting
the decision off. When Liz and Max moved I was privately
very
skeptical. Were they over-reacting, I wondered?
Then Tom and Marty
adiosed
.
That
should have done it. I should have figured that if four bright students of the
Bible, Max was a professor at UAB, after all, decided to move offshore I should
get serious myself….but, of course,
I
didn’t
."

              
Scott
observed, "Beau, you starting out by saying that wringing our hands
won’t do any good. Then you started
wringing
your hands. The question
is
what
do we do now?"

              
"OK,
yeah, Scott, you’re right, sorry….went down a rabbit trail there.
Your question is what do we do
now
?
You saw the news last night, same as this morning. The President is continuing
to refuse to come to Israel’s assistance. The Israeli Prime
Minister….I always say his name wrong….you know who I
mean….has been all over the news, begging, even
pleading
for the US to keep our word and come to Israel’s
defense. So the White House says that the President doesn’t want to
increase tensions in a regional conflict.
Say
what?
How could you increase tensions when Russia and Iran and those other
Muslim countries are obviously headed to Tel Aviv? One guy, some retired
general type, said on Fox that Israel only has a
limited
time, maybe just a few days, before they are overwhelmed by
the invading troops."

              
Hannah,
trying to stop the flow of her tears, asked, "Guys, you do know what this
means if America
betrays
Israel….if we
don’t
come to
their defense?"

              
"Yeah,
Hannah….it’s in the Bible. In Genesis
If
we curse Israel, we will be….cursed. God is deadly serious about Israel.
He repeatedly says that He
loves
Israel and He will be its shield and protector."

              
Hannah
responded, "So….Israel won’t be totally destroyed, though the
news out of Israel, and the prophecies in the Bible, both say that there will
be
a lot
of blood that will be shed,
before God himself intervenes and destroys the invading armies."

              
"Max
studied this deeper than the rest us," Beau added, "he concluded
that the destruction of the Daughter of Babylon will happen soon….
very soon
….after America stabs
Israel in the back and breaks its word that we gave in the Camp David Accords
to come to Israel’s defense militarily if Israel is invaded."

              
Audrey
stood up and embraced Beau, asking, "Darling, that can only mean
one thing
.
Right?
How soon?"

              
Beau
hugged his wife, took his time and then said, "Audrey, my dear,
eventually the US is going to get hit….hard….cataclysmically. God
hasn’t thrown back the invaders of Israel
yet
….so we only have a short time. Once it’s too late
for the U.S. to intervene….which quite obviously the White House
doesn’t intend to do….then what the five Prophets wrote about
will happen
."

              
Weeping
almost uncontrollably, Sally gasped out, "We studied what happens next,
didn’t we
? Remember? The Daughter
of Babylon
will fall in one day….in
one hour….and in one moment.
We may be with the
Lord….soon….right?"

              
Beau
was retired military so he had some idea how the destruction of the nation
prophesied in the Bible would take place. "When we looked at those verses
we quickly concluded the obvious - that the only way to destroy an entire
country in such a short time is with nuclear weapons. You’ll recall that we
also read that the fall of this rich, influential and powerful nation will
happen like Sodom and Gomorrah. The Bible records what happened to the land
around those two destroyed cities, that is, no vegetation would grow. The limbs
of the people who died were like blackened sticks. Those are signs of
a nuclear event
. A big tip-off to what
happened was the description of smoke coming up as from a furnace. Cities
burning fill the whole sky with smoke, but a mushroom cloud looks like smoke
coming up from a furnace."

              
Sally,
her voice breaking, asked, "Will we be
nuked
?"

              
"Sally,"
Beau responded, "only God and America’s enemies know what cities
will be taken out with nuclear devices, but I
seriously doubt
if Birmingham, Alabama is high on the
Jihadists’ list. Instant incineration, though, in a nuclear blast would
be a quick and relatively painless death. If they do what that Congressional
study committee concluded, and use ten nukes in America’s major cities,
that will kill fifty or sixty million people in a moment. About the same number
of infants we’ve aborted since Roe v. Wade. Sally, I know this
isn’t a new thought, we’ve talked about it here in small group, but
those who survive the detonations will be short-termers. That same study said
that
90% of all Americans would be dead
within a year of a nuclear attack on some of its cities."

              
Scott
decided to steer the discussion back to less frightening grounds, "OK,
guys, we can’t change any of that at this point. It’s way too late
to move offshore, so let’s discuss what we
can
do, what we
will do
if the next few days result in the nuking of America."

The
Moshe and Sophia
Guttman
Home

Petah
Tikva
, Israel

              
Moshe
Guttman
finally made it home, though the streets
filled with Israelites doing the same delayed him by an additional hour. Sophia
embraced him with tears as soon as he entered their flat. After a family group
hug, Moshe gathered the four
Guttmans
around the
kitchen table. Moshe had been listening to Israeli radio on the way home, so he
had a good idea as to what was happening 150 miles northeast just outside of
Damascus. Nevertheless, Moshe asked his wife and children what they had heard
and seen on television.

              
Yitzhak,
who did not resemble either parent, being almost six feet tall and swarthy in
his dark complexion, was the first to speak, "Dad,
it’s
bad….
real bad
. Channel 10 has
been streaming from the IDF satellites. There are hundreds, thousands of
armored troop carriers, tanks and artillery racing out of Damascus….you
know
….on the southwest side of the Syrian capital,
coming down Highway 7."

              
Moshe
rubbed his forehead and said, "I know, Yitzhak, I know. I just heard on
the car radio an IDF report on
Reshet
Aleph, you
know, 104.8. It’s pretty clear that there are as many as a hundred thousand
soldiers, armed troops, maybe twice that,
storming
towards Israel
. If that’s true, that not only means that our precious
peace treaty is
worthless
, it also
means that Israel will soon be at war….
again
."

              
Sophia,
who was a bit more conservative in her political views than her husband,
replied, "I
told
you, Moshe,
when the US put a headlock on Israel and made us sign that treaty that it was
a mistake
. The U.S. President has never
liked Israel. Look at his background. He set us up to make a fake
‘peace’. Why? To give Russia and Iran, and knows what other Muslim
countries, time to get ready to
take us
out
….to shove us into the sea….as Iran promised."

              
"OK,
Sophie, OK. You were
right
, I was
wrong. But, that’s history. So, Israel got snookered again.
What’s new?
Look at the
holy scriptures
. Israel was always a sucker for a peace
agreement. God told Israel
not
to
rely on Egypt for its security. He warned them that Egypt would be like a reed,
when it counted on Egypt the reed would splinter and pierce Israel’s
hand."

              
"Why
do we Jewish folks," Golda asked, "like to depend on everybody
else,
except
the Creator?"
Golda, an attractive raven-haired beauty, was the
more
spiritual of the four
Guttmans
, telling her parents
when she was twelve that someday she wanted to teach the Torah. "As we
were leaving soccer to come home we heard that the Chief Rabbi has called for a
national fasting, prayer and mourning. He’ll lead it at the Wailing Wall.
Why don’t we pray, Dad, OK?"

              
Moshe
led the family in prayer, asking for protection for Israel and for his family.
After each
Guttman
prayed, Moshe suggested that it
was still too early to enter the family safe room. The
Guttmans
gathered around their large screen television, with Yitzhak managing the remote
control. Sophie put frozen pizza in the oven, as she didn’t want to take
the time away from breaking news to make dinner.

              
The
normally coiffed and made-up newscasters on Channel 10 didn’t look so
coiffed or made up, looking instead like they were under the pressure of
breaking news, having to report to their Israeli
viewers
news that could eventually mean their death and destruction. The male talking
head looked down at a paper just handed to him, scanned the document and looked
at the wrong camera, reading at least two octaves higher than his normal
broadcast voice.

              
 
"An undisclosed source in the IDF
is being widely quoted in Israeli media as saying that the IDF picked up a
private conversation between the Presidents of Russia and Iran. This report
suggests that the two leaders actively discussed an invasion of Israel, using
men and armaments stored in large warehouses southwest of
Damascus….Unh….What makes this report most believable is that the
day to launch the attack, the day which was supposedly discussed between the
Kremlin and Tehran,
is today
….Let
me repeat….An undisclosed source in the IDF intercepted a conversation
recently about an invasion to be launched
today
against Israel, launched from Damascus."

              
The
female newscaster was pale, her hands visibly trembling. She asked, "Ben,
do you have a degree of confidence in this report? With the troop movement that
the satellites are picking up, doesn’t that make it almost a certainty
that Israel will shortly be….
invaded
?
If so, then how do we explain the White House’s earlier claim that these
are just
joint military exercises
?"

              
Sophia
asked Yitzhak to switch channels, to channel 2, which she preferred to 10 as
she believed that the station was generally more candid with viewers on Israeli
security matters. Channel 2’s news desk was centered on the screen, with
a famous face having a discussion with the station’s lead newscaster.
Moshe said, "
Hunh
. This
must
be serious….he was the
top guy
at IDF for almost ten years. Turn it up, son."

              
The
retired IDF general was saying, "….and that would be
an accurate assessment
. This is no joint
training exercise."

              
"General,
can you tell us
why not
? The
administration in Washington initially claimed that Russia and Iran are just
engaged in some
war games
, nothing
more sinister than that. What say you?"

              
"Oh,
I agree that they’re playing
a war
game
, but the end result will be
a
real war
, not some game, not some exercise. Look, you don’t put that
many tanks, and armored personnel carriers and artillery, let alone over a
hundred thousand troops, into an exercise. Look at that satellite feed on your
wall. In an exercise you pretend you are at war by maneuvering your various
forces to simulate battle strategies and such. You do not load them onto a
highway, at full force and speed hurtling towards a target of invasion. Highway
7 is a well-known and used entry point to the nation of Israel. These troops
are heading southwest straight into Israel. Anyone who claims otherwise is
deluded
."

              
"General,
that’s strong talk. Are you going on record to claim that the White
House, that this President, was
fooled
….to
use your word….
deluded
, into
thinking that this was just a military training exercise, and not an
invasion?"

              
"I’m
just saying that it has now become
quite
clear
to the entire world that Israel has been invaded and that a major war
has erupted in the Middle East. Even if the…."

              
An
off-screen hand pushed a document across the news desk. The newscaster
apologized to his guest, saying, "General, so sorry. I’ve just been
handed a released statement from the Israeli Defense Force press office. The
Commander of IDF has just confirmed that Russian and Iranian forces have not
only
crossed the Syrian border
with
Israel, they are heading across
the Golan
Heights
. There is also an unconfirmed report that Russian saboteurs may
have disabled several air base facilities in the Negev. I repeat….
unconfirmed
. General, it looks like we
won’t have to wait any longer to find out if this is an
actual
invasion
of Israel.
Your reaction, General?"

              
"Let’s
face the facts. The
Golani
Brigade and the mechanized
elements of the IDF Northern Command were withdrawn and merged into other IDF
forces as an integral part of the U.S. brokered ‘peace agreement’.
This President made us pull back the forces that could have been used to help
stop this invasion in its tracks. The same President who originally claimed
this invasion was a training exercise had better change
his mind against getting involved here and issue the order to send
in American troops, quickly. What’s needed now….what’s
urgent
now….is for the President
to pick up his red phone and tell the Russian and Iranian Presidents that the
US military is
on its way
to the
Golan Heights….that only an
immediate
withdrawal of their invading forces will avoid their total
destruction
.
"

              
"Agreed,
General, but what do you see if the U.S. sticks with the President’s
earlier refusal? What happens if the U.S.
won’t
get involved in defending Israel?"

              
The
General at first appeared to be speechless, pondering the question. He leaned
forward and slowly said, "
If
….that
is,
if
….the US refuses to abide
by the terms of the Camp David Accord Memo of Understanding….if America
stabs Israel
in the back
and turns tail….then….well, I guess
we’ll see if Israel ends up covered in blood and shoved into the sea, or
if the IDF, weakened under US pressures, can save our country. Apart from
America and the IDF
there’s no
other power in the universe that can save us.
"