The First Hostage: A J. B. Collins Novel by Joel C. Rosenberg Page B

from all sides, much of his government was dead or incapacitated, and ISIS had captured the leader of the free world on Jordanian soil.
    “What do you make of the video?” he asked al-Mufti.
    The general leaned back in his chair and took some time to answer. “Abdul is right,” he said at last. “Khalif is crazy like a fox. He has a plan. He’s trying to draw us into a much more dangerous war, a ground war, a war in Dabiq.”
    “You think he’s in Dabiq?” the king asked.
    “No, I don’t,” al-Mufti replied. “But I think he’s trying to draw us and the Americans into a ground war there.”
    The room grew silent again, but I couldn’t hold back any longer. “Why?” I asked. “Why Dabiq?”
    “Because that’s where he believes the last battle will be fought.”
    “The last battle?”
    “The End of Days,” said al-Mufti. “The Day of Judgment. It’s all going to consummate in Dabiq. That’s what they think.”
    “Who?”
    “Abu Khalif, ISIS, all of them,” said the general. “They believe the Prophet   —peace be upon him   —spoke of a final, catastrophic, apocalyptic battle between the Muslims and the forces of Rome that would unfold on the plains of northern Syria in a place called Dabiq.”
    “The forces of Rome? What does that mean   —the Italians, the Vatican?”
    “Maybe yes, maybe no,” said al-Mufti. “You heard Khalif call the president ‘the dog of Rome’?”
    “I did, but why? What does that mean?”
    “Some Sunnis believe the Americans are the new Crusaders, that Washington is the new Rome, that the president is the new Caesar. The ISIS crowd certainly believes it. No question that Khalif does. Believe me, they’re never going to give up the president of the United States, even if your entire country converts or pays the tax. The president is their prize. I wouldn’t be surprised if he was dead already.”

17

    The king became visibly angry, though he controlled his tongue.
    “Don’t speak like this, Ibrahim   —I will not have it,” he insisted. “We have to operate on the assumption that the president is still alive. We cannot give up this hope. There are forty-eight hours left. We need to use them wisely. We need to find the president and rescue him or help the Americans rescue him. The fate of the kingdom hangs in the balance. Now, Abdul, you think Abu Khalif and the president are in southeastern Syria?”
    “Yes, Your Majesty, I do,” Jum’a confirmed.
    “Ibrahim, what about you?”
    “Where do I think they are?”
    “Yes.”
    “I’d say Abdul is probably right   —Khalif is in Syria.”
    “And the president?”
    “If he’s still alive?”
    At this, the king’s jaws tightened. “Yes,” he said carefully.
    “I don’t think they’d keep the two together.”
    “Why not?”
    “Operational security,” Al-Mufti said. “The entire universe is now looking for the president of the United States. It’s highly unlikelyanyone finds him within forty-eight hours, but if they do   —if we do, if anybody does   —Abu Khalif is no fool. He’s not going to be in the same location.”
    “Would Khalif send the president into Iraq or just put him in a different safe house in Syria?”
    “That I can’t say, Your Majesty. But I’m happy to develop contingency plans for both scenarios.”
    “Yes, do that   —work together, both of you,” the king said to his generals. “Get your best people working on this. You’ve got an hour. I want a detailed intelligence analysis of everything we’ve got so far   —the video, the radar tracking of aircraft moving across the Syrian and Iraqi borders, the interrogations your men are doing with ISIS forces captured at the palace and at the SADAFCO plant, signals intelligence, paid informants we’ve got on the ground in Syria and Iraq   —everything. And where are we with Jamal Ramzy’s cell phone, the one Collins here pulled off his body at the palace? It turned out to be encrypted, did it