The Third Target by Joel Rosenberg

Rosenberg’s early novels were a touch frightening because they tended to precede actual events by a year or two. Let’s hope he’s wrong this time.

 

NY Times middle east reporter JB Collins has a good rep in the region and counts as friends, and as occasional sources, intelligence chiefs and rulers of Israel, Jordan, Iraq, and the US President. A comprehensive peace deal is in the works between Israel and the Palestinians, brokered by the King of Jordan.

ISIS has run amok in Syria and has taken control of much of northern Iraq. The head of ISIS is a sociopathic Jordanian Abu Khalif and his cousin/commandant Jamal Ramzy. Collins has been trying for a year to get an interview with Ramzy and maybe even Khalif himself, currently a resident of Abu Ghraib, courtesy of the Iraqis. When Ramzy finally agrees, Collins has to hoof it overground deep into Syria and what he learns knocks him off his feet. ISIS captured a warehouse in Syria where the Syrian government was hiding sarin gas that they hid from UN inspectors. And ISIS got a lot of it. Including delivery tools.

The US President wants Collins to sit on the story until after the peace treaty is signed but Collins isn’t happy because he thinks the President is minimizing the ISIS threat. So Collins intensifies his efforts to get access to the imprisoned Khalif. The interview is chilling. Khalif says ISIS has attacked and is in the process of defeating its first two objectives: Syria and Iraq. Next up is the third target, but he won’t say what it is. Could be the US, Israel, or maybe the signing ceremony for the treaty. The big question is whether Khalif will pull the trigger on the sarin gas or attack using more conventional weaponry.

Good story and it ends with a none-too-subtle cliffhanger that his next book will pick up right where page 423 ended. I do have my issues with Rosenberg. First, it took me about 100 pages to get into the book and was dangerously close to returning it to the library, but kept plugging away and glad I did. Once it got going, the story flew at a breakneck pace. Second, I grew tired of the internal dialogues of questions and what ifs that Rosenberg had Collins playing in his head. Lastly, Rosenberg makes no secret of his Christian faith and interjects it frequently into the narrative. Problem is, for me at least, when he starts expressing his faith, it doesn’t seem to be an essential part of the story – just sort of there.

All in all (and the first 100 pages aside), Rosenberg delivers a terrific thriller based in the Middle East. When you get to the last half of the book, you’ll quickly see why I hope Rosenberg’s crystal ball has it wrong.

ECD