The Fist of God
Authors: Frederick Forsyth
Tags: #Persian Gulf War (1991), #Fiction, #Suspense, #War & Military, #Military, #Persian Gulf War; 1991, #Espionage, #History
PRAISE FOR
THE FIST OF GOD
“ ‘The man with ten minutes to live was laughing.’ So begins Frederick Forsyth’s
The Fist of God
—and even with just that one line you can see that he has returned to the pulse-pounding form of such books as
The Day of the Jackal
and
The Dogs of War
. Forsyth has written perhaps the first true thriller to come out of the Gulf War.”
—
Book-of-the-Month Club News
“[A] fat, layered, complex, and altogether sublime spy action novel ...
The Fist of God
is delicious yet authentic fun, the stuff of good espionage thrillers.”
—
Chicago Sun-Times
“The Gulf War is the setting of Forsyth’s brilliantly plotted ‘what if’
thriller in which historical facts are turned into gripping fiction. ... It’s the mark of master Forsyth that characters and background information are introduced so cleanly and precisely that impossibly complex events are never confusing, and the story develops its grip so surely it’s almost impossible to put the book down.”
—
Publishers Weekly
“The novel ends in a blaze of top-notch military action, finely wrought descriptions of the gadgetry of destruction, and a twisty revelation. ...
Super sleuthing.”
—
Kirkus Reviews
The Fist of God
Bantam Books by Frederick Forsyth
THE DAY OF THE JACKAL
THE DEVIL’S ALTERNATIVE
THE DOGS OF WAR
NO COMEBACKS
THE ODESSA FILE
THE FOURTH PROTOCOL
THE NEGOTIATOR
THE DECEIVER
THE FIST OF GOD
Available wherever Bantam Books are sold
FREDERICK
FORSYTH
THE FIST
The Fist of God
OF GOD
BANTAM BOOKS
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NOT ONE WORD HAS BEEN OMITTED.
THE FIST OF GOD
A Bantam Book
PUBLISHING HISTORY
Bantam hardcover edition published June 1994
Bantam export edition / February 1995
Bantam paperback edition / August 1995
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©
1994 by Bantam Books,
a division of Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group, Inc.
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©
1995 by Bantam Books.
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 93-47150.
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ISBN 0-553-57242-3
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PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
OPM 0 9 8 7 6
The Fist of God
For the widows and orphans of the Special Air Service
Regiment.
And for Sandy, without whose support this would have been
so much harder.
To those who know what really happened in the Gulf, and
who spoke to me about it, my sincere thanks. You know who
you are; let it be.
CAST OF PRINCIPAL CHARACTERS
THE AMERICANS
George Bush President James Baker Secretary of State Colin Powell Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff General Norman Commander-in-Chief, Coalition Schwarzkopf Forces, Gulf Theater Lieutenant General Commander, Coalition Air Forces, Charles (Chuck) Horner Gulf Theater Brigadier General Deputy to Chuck Horner Buster Glosson
Bill Stewart Deputy Director (Operations), CIA Chip Barber Head, Middle East Division, CIA William Webster Director of Central Intelligence, CIA Don Walker USAF fighter pilot Steve Turner USAF fighter squadron commander Tim Nathanson Wizzo to Don Walker Randy Roberts Wingman to Don Walker Jim Henry Wizzo to Randy Roberts Harry Sinclair Head of London Station, CIA Saul Nathanson Banker and philanthropist The Fist of God
“Daddy” Lomax Retired nuclear physicist
THE BRITISH
Margaret Thatcher Prime Minister John Major Thatcher’s successor as Prime Minister Lieutenant General Commander, British Forces, Gulf Theater Sir Peter de la Billière
Sir Colin McColl Chief, SIS
Sir Paul Spruce Chairman, British Medusa Committee Brigadier J.P, Lovat Director, Special Forces Colonel Bruce Craig Commanding Officer, 22nd SAS Regiment Major Mike Martin Major, SAS
Major “Sparky” Low SAS Officer, Khafji Dr. Terry Martin Academic and Arabist Steve Laing Director of Operations, Mid-East Division, SIS
Simon Paxman Head of Iraq Desk, SIS
Stuart Harris British businessman, Baghdad Julian Gray Head of Station, SIS, Riyadh Dr. Bryant Bacteriologist, Medusa Committee Dr. Reinhart Poison gas expert, Medusa Committee Dr. John Hipwell Nuclear expert, Medusa Committee Sean Plummer Head of Arab Service, GCHQ
Wing Commander Commanding Officer, 608th Squadron, RAF
Philip Curzon
Squadron Leader Pilot, 608th Squadron, RAF
Lofty Williamson
Flight Lieutenant Williamson’s navigator Sid Blair
Flight Lieutenant Pilot, 608th Squadron Peter Johns
Flight Lieutenant Johns’s navigator Nicky Tyne
Sergeant Peter SAS man Stephenson
Corporal Ben Eastman SAS man Corporal Kevin North SAS man
THE IRAQIS
Saddam Hussein President The Fist of God
Izzat Ibrahim Deputy President Hussein Kamil Saddam’s son-in-law, head of MIMI Taha Ramadam Prime Minister Sadoun Hammadi Deputy Premier Tariq Aziz Foreign Minister Ali Hassan Majid Governor-General, occupied Kuwait General Saadi Tumah Commander, Republican Guard Abbas
General Ali Musuli Commander, Engineering Corps General Abdullah Commander, Armored Corps Kadiri
Dr. Amer Saadi Deputy to Hussein Kamil Brigadier Hassan Chief, Counterintelligence Rahmani
Dr. Ismail Ubaidi Chief, Foreign Espionage Brigadier Omar Chief, Secret Police (Amn-al-Amm) Khatib
Colonel Osman Colonel, Army Engineers Badri
Colonel Abdelkarim Colonel, Iraqi Air Force Badri
Dr. Jaafar Al-Jaafar Head, nuclear program Colonel Sabaawi Secret Police Chief, occupied Kuwait Dr. Salah Siddiqui Nuclear engineer
THE KUWAITIS
Khaled Al-Khalifa Pilot, captain Ahmed Al-Khalifa Merchant Colonel Abu Fouad Head, resistance movement Asrar Qabandi Heroine of resistance
THE ISRAELIS
Itzhak Shamir Prime Minister General Yaacov Head of Mossad
“Kobi” Dror
Sami Gershon Head, Combatants Division, Mossad David Sharon Head of Iraq Desk, Mossad Benjamin Netanyahu Deputy Foreign Minister Gideon “Gidi” Mission controller, Operation Joshua The Fist of God
Barzilai
Dr. Moshe Hadari Arabist, Tel Aviv University Avi Herzog, alias Mossad agent in Vienna Karim Aziz
THE VIENNESE
Wolfgang Gemütlich Vice-president, the Winkler Bank Edith Hardenberg Gemütlich’s private secretary
Contents
The Fist of God
THE FIST OF GOD
Chapter 1
The man with ten minutes to live was laughing.
The source of his amusement was a story just told him by his personal aide, Monique Jaminé, who was driving him home that chill, drizzling evening of March 22, 1990, from his office to his apartment.
It concerned a mutual colleague in the Space Research Corporation The Fist of God
offices at rue de Stalle, a woman regarded as a real vamp, a man-eater, who had turned out to be gay. The deception appealed to the man’s lavatorial sense of humor.
The pair had left the offices in the Brussels suburb of Uccle, Belgium, at ten to seven, Monique driving the Renault 21 estate wagon. She had, some months earlier, sold her employer’s own Volkswagen because he was such a rotten driver, she feared he would end up killing himself.
It was only a ten-minute drive from the offices to his apartment in the center building of the three-building Cheridreu complex off rue François Folie, but they stopped halfway there at a baker’s shop. Both went inside, he to buy a loaf of his favorite
pain de campagne
. There was rain in the wind; they bowed their heads, failing to notice the car that followed behind them.
Nothing strange in that. Neither was trained in tradecraft; the unmarked car with its two dark-jowled occupants had been following the scientist for weeks, never losing him, never approaching him, just watching; and he had not seen them. Others had, but he did not know.
Emerging from the shop just in front of the cemetery, he tossed his loaf into the back seat and climbed aboard to complete the journey to his home. At ten minutes after seven, Monique drew up in front of the plate-glass doors of the apartment building, set fifteen meters back from the street. She offered to come up with him, to see him home, but he declined. She knew he would be expecting his girlfriend Helene and did not wish them to meet. It was one of his vanities, in which his adoring female staff indulged him, that Helene was just a good friend, keeping him company while he was in Brussels and his wife was in Canada.