The Fist of God
Encyclopedia
The Fist of God is a 1994 novel
Novel
A novel is a book of long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern romance and in the tradition of the novella. The latter supplied the present generic term in the late 18th century....

 by Frederick Forsyth
Frederick Forsyth
Frederick Forsyth, CBE is an English author and occasional political commentator. He is best known for thrillers such as The Day of the Jackal, The Odessa File, The Fourth Protocol, The Dogs of War, The Devil's Alternative, The Fist of God, Icon, The Veteran, Avenger, The Afghan and The Cobra.-...

, mixing known fact with fiction to tell a story of the coalition forces in the Persian Gulf War
Gulf War
The Persian Gulf War , commonly referred to as simply the Gulf War, was a war waged by a U.N.-authorized coalition force from 34 nations led by the United States, against Iraq in response to Iraq's invasion and annexation of Kuwait.The war is also known under other names, such as the First Gulf...

 racing against time to discover the true nature of Saddam Hussein
Saddam Hussein
Saddam Hussein Abd al-Majid al-Tikriti was the fifth President of Iraq, serving in this capacity from 16 July 1979 until 9 April 2003...

's secret weapon, 'The Fist of God.'

The story begins with the assassination of Dr. Gerald Bull
Gerald Bull
Gerald Vincent Bull was a Canadian engineer who developed long-range artillery. He moved from project to project in his quest to launch economically a satellite using a huge artillery piece, to which end he designed the Project Babylon "supergun" for the Iraqi government...

, a real Canadian
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

 space researcher, who developed a supergun
Supergun
A supergun is an extraordinarily large artillery piece. This size may be due to a large bore, barrel length or a combination of the two. While early examples tended to have a fairly short range more recent examples sometimes had an extremely high muzzle velocity resulting in a very long...

 for the Iraq
Iraq
Iraq ; officially the Republic of Iraq is a country in Western Asia spanning most of the northwestern end of the Zagros mountain range, the eastern part of the Syrian Desert and the northern part of the Arabian Desert....

i nuclear weapons project. It then continues with various covert and overt missions by Israel
Israel
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...

i, American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 and British
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 military to uncover and destroy the Iraqi nuclear capability.

The story features the brothers Mike and Terry Martin who also appear in Forsyth's 2006 novel The Afghan
The Afghan
The Afghan is a 2006 thriller novel by Frederick Forsyth, and concerns a planned Al Qaeda terrorist attack to take place against an unspecified target. As with other Forsyth novels, the full details of the plot are not revealed until the end...

.

Plot

Dr. Gerald Bull
Gerald Bull
Gerald Vincent Bull was a Canadian engineer who developed long-range artillery. He moved from project to project in his quest to launch economically a satellite using a huge artillery piece, to which end he designed the Project Babylon "supergun" for the Iraqi government...

 designs a supergun codenamed Project Babylon
Project Babylon
Project Babylon was a project commissioned by the Iraqi president Saddam Hussein to build a series of superguns. The design was based on research from the 1960s Project HARP led by the Canadian artillery expert Gerald Bull...

 for Iraq. He believes that it is for launching Arab satellites into space and that it could serve no military purpose since it could only fire once and then would be located, targeted and destroyed. He realizes the true reason shortly before being assassinated by his Iraqi paymasters.

Iraq then invades Kuwait and the British and Americans need top level intelligence on the ground. Major
Major
Major is a rank of commissioned officer, with corresponding ranks existing in almost every military in the world.When used unhyphenated, in conjunction with no other indicator of rank, the term refers to the rank just senior to that of an Army captain and just below the rank of lieutenant colonel. ...

 Mike Martin
Mike Martin (SAS-officer)
Mike Martin is the protagonist in two novels The Fist of God and The Afghan by Frederick Forsyth.Martin is an Englishman who looks remarkably Arab because his maternal grandmother was Indian. He grew up in Baghdad, becoming fluent in Arabic and English...

 of the Special Air Service
Special Air Service
Special Air Service or SAS is a corps of the British Army constituted on 31 May 1950. They are part of the United Kingdom Special Forces and have served as a model for the special forces of many other countries all over the world...

 is seconded to SIS
Secret Intelligence Service
The Secret Intelligence Service is responsible for supplying the British Government with foreign intelligence. Alongside the internal Security Service , the Government Communications Headquarters and the Defence Intelligence , it operates under the formal direction of the Joint Intelligence...

 to work with the Kuwaiti resistance. Not only does Major Martin speak fluent Arabic, but with his jet black hair and dark complexion, he can actually pass for an Arab
Arab
Arab people, also known as Arabs , are a panethnicity primarily living in the Arab world, which is located in Western Asia and North Africa. They are identified as such on one or more of genealogical, linguistic, or cultural grounds, with tribal affiliations, and intra-tribal relationships playing...

. His brother, Terry Martin, an expert in Arab military studies, is asked to advise a joint Anglo-America
Anglo-America
Anglo-America is a region in the Americas in which English is a main language, or one which has significant British historical, ethnic, linguistic, and cultural links...

n committee on possible Iraqi Weapons of Mass Destruction
Weapons of mass destruction
A weapon of mass destruction is a weapon that can kill and bring significant harm to a large number of humans and/or cause great damage to man-made structures , natural structures , or the biosphere in general...

.

The CIA does not have any assets in the Iraqi government, so they ask the Israelis; Mossad
Mossad
The Mossad , short for HaMossad leModi'in uleTafkidim Meyuchadim , is the national intelligence agency of Israel....

 deny they have any active assets in Iraq. This is not strictly true as they did have an asset, codenamed Jericho, but he remained anonymous and they were never able to identify him. They have paid $2 million into his Viennese
Vienna
Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...

 bank account for information about Iraq's military strength, but he has gone to ground since the invasion. However, one of the team who helped run him, a man who feels the truth is most important, tells the Americans, and Israel is forced to admit the truth or face repercussions in Washington. As Israel is forced to stay out of this war—for political reasons, so as not to alienate the Arab nations taking part—they agree to let the Americans run Jericho—if they can find him. Mike Martin is recalled from Kuwait and sent into Iraq to run Jericho through a series of dead drop
Dead drop
A dead drop or dead letter box is a method of espionage tradecraft used to pass items between two individuals by using a secret location and thus does not require them to meet directly. Using a dead drop permits a Case Officer and his Agent to exchange objects and information while maintaining...

s. His cover is as house gardener to the Soviet embassy in Baghdad
Baghdad
Baghdad is the capital of Iraq, as well as the coterminous Baghdad Governorate. The population of Baghdad in 2011 is approximately 7,216,040...

. Meanwhile, the Mossad Director is furious over the American actions regarding Jericho, but quickly comes up with a plan called "Operation Joshua" to be staged in Vienna that will resolve Jericho's situation from his end in the Mossad's favor.

The committee on WMD
Weapons of mass destruction
A weapon of mass destruction is a weapon that can kill and bring significant harm to a large number of humans and/or cause great damage to man-made structures , natural structures , or the biosphere in general...

 concludes that Iraq's biological weapons capability
Biological warfare
Biological warfare is the use of biological toxins or infectious agents such as bacteria, viruses, and fungi with intent to kill or incapacitate humans, animals or plants as an act of war...

 is not a threat and, though it has a plentiful supply of yellowcake
Yellowcake
Yellowcake is a kind of uranium concentrate powder obtained from leach solutions, in an intermediate step in the processing of uranium ores. Yellowcake concentrates are prepared by various extraction and refining methods, depending on the types of ores...

, it has not had enough time with its limited underground centrifuges to spin it out into weapons grade uranium to make an atomic bomb. They decide that gas is the real threat, so the Americans make an unequivocal threat to the Iraqi government to nuke Baghdad if gas is used. However, an overeager American F-15E
F-15E Strike Eagle
The McDonnell Douglas F-15E Strike Eagle is an all-weather multirole fighter, derived from the McDonnell Douglas F-15 Eagle. The F-15E was designed in the 1980s for long-range, high speed interdiction without relying on escort or electronic warfare aircraft. United States Air Force F-15E Strike...

 pilot, angry at an aborted bombing run, drops his bomb on a building not on his target list and reconnaissance photographs reveal strange large metal discs underneath the roof. Terry Martin takes the photographs to Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
The Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory , just outside Livermore, California, is a Federally Funded Research and Development Center founded by the University of California in 1952...

 in California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...

 to see if they can identify the discs. It is a retired veteran of the Manhattan Project
Manhattan Project
The Manhattan Project was a research and development program, led by the United States with participation from the United Kingdom and Canada, that produced the first atomic bomb during World War II. From 1942 to 1946, the project was under the direction of Major General Leslie Groves of the US Army...

 who is able to tell him - they are Calutrons, California Cyclotrons, a low-tech solution to refining uranium, but ideal for Third World
Third World
The term Third World arose during the Cold War to define countries that remained non-aligned with either capitalism and NATO , or communism and the Soviet Union...

 nations wanting to develop their own nuclear capability. If used in conjunction with Iraq's existing centrifuges, Iraq would already have made a nuclear bomb.

Jericho reveals the location of the factory where the atomic bomb was put together and it is bombed. But he later reveals that the bomb had been moved hours earlier to its new site. Despite the $5 million already paid to him, Major Martin offers him $3 million more to reveal the bomb's new location. The Americans believe Jericho is bluffing. One problem is delivery—such a bomb would be too heavy to attach to a Scud
Scud
Scud is a series of tactical ballistic missiles developed by the Soviet Union during the Cold War, and exported widely to other countries. The term comes from the NATO reporting name SS-1 Scud which was attached to the missile by Western intelligence agencies...

 missile and the USAF will destroy any fighter plane that tries to sneak past their air supremacy. The solution is a supergun, hidden in the desert. It will fire, just once, a single atomic weapon—“The Fist of God”—into Saudi Arabia the moment the Americans invade Iraq. 100,000 soldiers will die and the radioactive fallout will be carried into Iran
Iran
Iran , officially the Islamic Republic of Iran , is a country in Southern and Western Asia. The name "Iran" has been in use natively since the Sassanian era and came into use internationally in 1935, before which the country was known to the Western world as Persia...

. Jericho reveals the location of the supergun and Major Martin volunteers to HALO jump into Iraq to destroy it. The Americans agree to delay the invasion by two days, citing weather conditions as the reason. Martin and his SAS
Special Air Service
Special Air Service or SAS is a corps of the British Army constituted on 31 May 1950. They are part of the United Kingdom Special Forces and have served as a model for the special forces of many other countries all over the world...

 team lase
Laser-guided bomb
A laser-guided bomb is a guided bomb that uses semi-active laser homing to strike a designated target with greater accuracy than an unguided bomb. LGBs are one of the most common and widespread guided bombs, used by a large number of the world's air forces.- Overview :Laser-guided munitions use a...

 the target and a single F-15 destroys the Supergun in a bombing run. General Norman Schwarzkopf is told the mission has been successful and orders the land invasion of Iraq.

In "Operation Joshua", a Mossad agent seduces the secretary to the Viennese banker who handles Jericho's account; she reveals how he keeps details of the accounts in a secret compartment of his desk. The Mossad break into the bank and secretly photocopy the account details. They then transfer the entire $10 million out of his account into one owned by the Mossad, known as the "Fun Fund". Edith Hardenburg, the secretary, commits suicide when she realized that her "lover" has used her to obtain the information. Jericho - who turns out to be Brigadier Omar Khatib (the Tormentor), the head of the AMAM - is picked up by Mossad agents pretending to be American intelligence. He is flown out of Iraq, drugged, and his body thrown into the sea from 10,000 feet.
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