Nelson DeMille’s By the Rivers of Babylon was published in 1978. He’d had about eight books published before this, but this was his breakout novel.
Although written and published over forty years ago, it has chilling relevance even today.
A UN conference in New York is on the cusp of bringing peace to the Middle East. Two brand-new Concorde planes (01 and 02) have just been delivered to Israel to take about fifty peace delegates in each aircraft to the conference.
Onboard the 02 aircraft is Miriam Bernstein, the Deputy Minister of transportation, who was a child-survivor of the Nazi death camps. Her lover is Air Force Brigadier Teddy Laskov; he is flying an escort F14 plane. Among others on 02 are El Al’s Security Chief Jacob Hausner, an ex-intelligence man; General Benjamin Dobkin; and the pilot Captain David Becker.
A Lear private jet contacts the two Concorde planes shortly after they take off, advising their pilots that there is a bomb in the tail of both aircraft which can be activated remotely. The terrorist in the Lear plane is Rish, a man Hausner has encountered before. The terrorists’ purpose is to wreck the peace conference.
The planes are ordered to land next to the River Euphrates – by the ruins of Babylon. Waiting for them are over 150 Palestinian terrorists – Ashbals – orphans of the wars with Israel. ‘They’ve been indoctrinated with hate since the day they could comprehend. They reject all normal standards of behaviour. Hatred of Israel is their tribal religion’ (p159).
The tension never lets up as the Israelis crash land and, with a handful of weapons, make a desperate stand. There are heroes, cowards, betrayers and villains aplenty, and both good and bad people die...
Unputdownable.
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