Book 3 in the bestselling 5-book thriller series that has sold over 1.2 million copies! “If you only read one novel this year, this is it. The Ezekiel Option is brilliantly conceived. . . . Like an episode of 24 with a supernatural twist.” ―Rush Limbaugh, #1 New York Times bestselling author “ The Ezekiel Option is an exciting, action-packed thriller based on one of the most important end times prophecies.” ―Tim LaHaye, #1 New York Times bestselling author of the Left Behind series “His novels . . . seem to be ripped from the headlines―next year’s headlines.” ― Washington Times What if the end is closer than you think? Saddam Hussein is gone. Yasser Arafat is dead. An American president is trying to spread freedom and democracy throughout the Middle East. But suddenly new evils loom on the horizon. A dictator is rising in Russia. Iran is feverishly building nuclear weapons. A new Axis of Evil is emerging, led by Moscow and Tehran. And Jon Bennett and Erin McCoy―two senior White House advisors―find themselves facing the most chilling question of their lives: Is the world rushing to the brink of an apocalypse prophesied more than 2,500 years ago? What if the end is closer than you think? Saddam Hussein is gone. Yasser Arafat is dead. An American president is trying to spread freedom and democracy throughout the Middle East. But suddenly new evils loom on the horizon. A dictator is rising in Russia. Iran is feverishly building nuclear weapons. A new Axis of Evil is emerging, led by Moscow and Tehran. And Jon Bennett and Erin McCoy―two senior White House advisors―find themselves facing the most chilling question of their lives: Is the world rushing to the brink of an apocalypse prophesied more than 2,500 years ago? THE EZEKIEL OPTION a novel By JOEL C. ROSENBERG Tyndale House Publishers, Inc. Copyright © 2005 Joel C. Rosenberg All right reserved. ISBN: 978-1-4143-0344-4 Chapter One TUESDAY, JULY 29 - 3:16 P.M. - 52 MILES SOUTHEAST OF MANHATTAN Boris Stuchenko would be dead in less than nineteen minutes. And he had no idea why. The fifty-three-year-old self-made billionaire had a long list of enemies; of this he had no doubt. Business competitors. Political rivals. Mistresses too numerous to count. But this made no sense. Was it really a hit? Was he really the target? Or was the president and CEO of Lukoil-Russia's largest oil company-simply in the wrong place at the wrong time for the first time in his life? Stuchenko gripped the leather armrests. He couldn't see the terrorists. At least one was behind him, back in business or economy class. But he didn't dare turn and look. He wasn't even supposed to be on this flight. As the richest man in Russia, he never flew commercial. His fleet of private jets, including a gleaming new Gulfstream V, was the envy of the Russian oligarchs. But over the past eighteen months, he'd become obsessed with buying Aeroflot, Russia's aging airline-her jets, her routes, her infrastructure-and turning the much-ridiculed "Aero- flop " into a world-class competitor. To seal the deal with the Wall Street crowd, his strategists were positioning him as a man of the people, willing to fly one of the most troubled airlines on the planet before turning her into a profit-making superpower. Now all that was about to change. Stuchenko tried to slow his breathing and focus his thoughts. Two hijackers were in the cockpit. He'd seen them go in. But now the door was shut, and the pilots' screams had long since been silenced. Out of the corner of his eye he could see two badly beaten flight attendants, huddled and shivering on the floor in the forward galley. Their hands and mouths were bound with duct tape. Their swollen eyes darted from face to face, silently pleading for help from anyone in the first-class cabin. No one moved. They were so young and innocent, the kind of exquisite and courteous Russian women around which he could have rebuilt this airline. He'd flirted with one for half the flight. But now Stuchenko refused even to make eye contact. The women had the air of hunted animals, and he wanted nothing to do with them. What kind of man was he? He couldn't sit here like a coward. Stuchenko had served his time in the Red Army. He'd fought in Afghanistan in the eighties against bin Laden and his demons. He'd been trained in hand-to-hand combat. And he'd have the element of surprise. Especially if he could enlist the help of his two top aides, sitting in the row behind him. The cockpit wasn't sealed shut. The terrorists had jammed the lock. He'd seen them do it. He'd seen them come in and out, and the door had swung easily every time. A quick glance to his right confirmed that no one was coming up the aisle. He reached for his fountain pen and wrote quickly in German on the napkin beside him. His aides knew German, but it was unlikely the terrorists did. "We must storm the cabin, like the Americans did on 9/11,