Joshua

About the Book

Joshua Goldberger, an engineer from Toronto of Jewish background, finds himself caught up in the challenging world of Middle East politics and espionage shortly after arriving in Iran. To avoid a brutal imprisonment, he deceives his captors and plunges into the Karun River, which flows out of the Zagros Mountains into the Persian Gulf.

The Iranian government fears a Jewish supremacy group, consisting of Jewish bankers and business men, with ties to the US and high officials in the UN, are clandestinely preparing for a new-world financial order which will relegate them to carpet weavers when their oil runs out in a couple of decades. To maintain control of its destiny and its sovereignty, Iran believes it must develop nuclear weapons.

An international military group, called the Alliance, consisting of Canadian, British and American intelligence, have created a special project of cyberstrategists to 'chip' nuclear warheads under construction in Iran and insert computer viruses and logic bombs into various Iranian computer systems. The Alliance has engaged the Mujahedeen-e-Khalq Iran, an insurgent or terrorist group that resists the current regime, to meet its objectives. The Americans provide American-Iranian SEALS supported by the Mujahedeen to attack the Bushehr nuclear power plant to collect a spent fuel sample and to create a diversion for the 'chipping' of the nuclear warheads.

Major Benjamin, code name Aaron Solomon, is also a Jew, works for CSIS, and is the Alliance's officer who befriends Joshua and asks him to carry the computer chips, disguised as Canadian collar pins, to Iran and to deliver them as a gift to a friend there.

Joshua leaves Canada grappling with a self-identity complex, a subliminal guilt about his Jewish past and a crazed-concept that the world may be heading rapidly into a prophetic embattlement which is promoted by Aaron Solomon and Joshua's mother-in-law, typifying beliefs promoted by Christian and Jewish soothsayers at the end of the millennium. Joshua, unaware of his participation in the 'cold war' type espionage games, departs for Iran where upon arrival is asked to open the gift by the Iranian customs. He innocently decides to wear a collar pin on his jacket lapel to demonstrate its use to the customs officer. Later, Joshua is approached by his Aaron Solomon's contact and is spoken to in an aggressive and challenging way, and he reluctantly surrenders the gift, less one collar pin, to him.

The attack on the Bushehr power plant goes ahead and the 'chipping' of the nuclear warheads is completed except for one warhead since one collar pin is still with Joshua.

The Iranians blame the Americans for the attack on the Bushehr power plant. To avoid bad press against the US, Aaron Solomon is compelled by other members of the Alliance to recover the missing chip and to tip off Sepah, the Iranian secret police, through the Mujahedeen, that Joshua is the carrier of the spent fuel sample. Joshua's arrest by the Iranians is released by the Alliance, through their Tehran contact, to The Times of London, wanting to put the spotlight on Iran, win world opinion against Iran and re-direct world attention from the US to Iran. An impetuous Canadian journalist makes the connection between Joshua's arrest and the attack on the Bushehr power plant and seeks out and airs Joshua's story.

Joshua, after a severe beating, lures Sepah to the Karun River and begins his escape by plunging into the river. The action on the river is driven by the Iranian military that believes Joshua is a Zionist spy. He survives death on the river with the help of a local Bakhtiari man, Dariosh Nassanpour. Dariosh lost his natural son during the Revolution and in remembrance of his son and out of objection to the present regime, he helps Joshua.

Joshua's struggle to survive on the river leads him on a journey of self. His subliminal guilt is brought to consciousness and Joshua reconciles a childhood trauma and accepts his Jewish identity when forced to look deep within himself to survive.

Joshua experiences a dramatic escape through the Persian Gulf with the help of the Mujahedeen, the SEALS and the US Seventh Fleet. His escape climaxes in a total eclipse of the sun on August 11 -- a possible prophetic sign to the commencement of the evil age of darkness promoted by Joshua's mother-in-law months earlier.

About the Author

The spelling of a surname is important, and whereas the author's name may appear unusual and uncommon, it in itself is a story that transcends time and the Atlantic Ocean, and thus a short explanation is in order. The author is of French ancestry, and bloodline of a one Francis Besson who lived in Holyrood in Newfoundland starting in1792, coming from Port St. Malo, Normandy, France. James, the son of Francis moved to the Port au Port Peninsula on the west coast of the island where the anglicized, present-day spelling of the surname, Besaw, is used. The descendants of Francis, who remained in Holyrood, currently spell their anglicized name Besso, i.e., without the 'n'.

The author was born in 1949, delivered by a midwife, in an isolated and remote community of several hundred people, called Three Rock Cove, on the Port au Port Peninsula, Newfoundland, Canada. Three Rock Cove is a picturesque recess in the shoreline facing the Gulf of St. Lawrence and you've guessed it -- the cove had three rock islands in it. Yes, had -- one island is now eroded and hidden below water during high tide.

By the age of five the author had moved 7 km to a larger center, Lourdes, and spent his formative years growing up clamming on the sandy beaches of beautiful Port au Port Bay. He presently resides with his family in Niagara Falls, Ontario where he works as a geologist employed with an international engineering company.

Beginning in 1980, his professional career developed into an international travelling life-style and since then has worked in East Africa on the Nile and its tributaries, in Central and South America, Iran and parts of Asia on hydro-development related work. It is from the overseas exposure he has developed an interest in the antiquities, the mysteries of the bible, the early white explorers in east Africa, Ethiopia - the land of Prestor John, the major rivers of the world - the Nile River, the Amazon River and the rivers of Mesopotamia. His international background has provided the experience to write the fictional story, Joshua, a book in which conflict and motivation stem from history.