“And you’re sure the phones all work?”
“My team and I personally tested them this afternoon,” she said. “Langley heard everything, loud and clear. We’re good to go.”
“You’re amazing.”
“That’s true,” Eva said, smiling, “but that’s not all. I have another gift for you.”
“What’s that?”
“I booked you on the next flight back to Tehran,” she said. “I just e-mailed the itinerary to your phone. It’s time to pack, my friend. You’re going back in.”
64
Hamadan, Iran
“I am Jesus the Nazarene,” came the man’s deep voice.
Najjar felt the sound of it rattle in his chest, as though the words went through him.
“You have come?” Najjar cried. “The lieutenant to the Twelfth Imam has actually revealed himself to me?”
But at these words, the ground below Najjar shook so violently that he feared it would open and swallow him. Rocks skittered across the road from ledges above. The wind picked up strength. Najjar flattened himself on the ground, covering his head with his hands.
“I AM first and last and the living One,” Jesus said. “I am the Alpha and the Omega, who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty. I was dead, and see, I am alive forever after, and I have the keys of death and of hades. Come and follow me.”
The first sentences were uttered with authority such as Najjar had never heard before, not from any mullah or cleric or political leader in his entire life. Yet the last four words were spoken with such gentleness, such tenderness, that he could not imagine refusing the request.
Shaking, Najjar cautiously looked up. Though he was wrapped in a thick parka over his blue jeans and sweater, he felt completely naked, as if all of his private sins were exposed to the light and the elements. For as long as he could remember, he’d had a deep reverence for Jesus. Like his father and his grandfather and his great-grandfather before him, going back fourteen centuries, Najjar believed Jesus was born of a virgin. He believed Jesus was a doer of miracles and a speaker of great wisdom and thus a prophet. But not God Himself. Never. And yet . . .
Jesus stretched out His hands and motioned for Najjar to come closer. Part of him wanted to run and hide, but before he knew it, he was taking several steps forward.
As he drew closer, Najjar was astonished to see holes where spikes had been driven through Jesus’ hands. He looked away for a moment, but then, unable to keep his head turned, he looked back and stared at those hands. As a devout Muslim, Najjar had never for a moment in his life even considered the possibility that Jesus had been crucified at all, much less to pay the penalty for all human sins, as the Christians taught. He had never believed that Jesus had actually died on a cross. No Muslim believed that. It was sacrilege. To the contrary, Najjar (and everyone he had ever known) believed that at the very last moment, Allah had supernaturally replaced Jesus with Judas Iscariot, and Judas had been hung on the cross and crucified instead.
Questions flooded his mind.
How could Jesus be appearing to him as a crucified Messiah?
If the Qur’an were true, wouldn’t it be impossible for Jesus to have nail-scarred hands?
If the ancient Islamic writings about the Twelfth Imam were true, then how could Jesus, who was supposed to be the Mahdi’s lieutenant, have hands scarred by the nails of crucifixion?
Najjar kept staring at those hands. It didn’t make sense. Then he looked into Jesus’ eyes. They were not filled with anger and condemnation. They spoke of love in a way Najjar couldn’t even comprehend, much less express. And Jesus’ words echoed in his heart. He wasn’t claiming to be the second-in-command to the Mahdi. He claimed to be God Almighty.
“Forgive me; please forgive me,” Najjar said, bowing low. “But how can I know the difference between Muhammad and You?”
“You have been told, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy,’” Jesus replied. “But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.”
The words cut into Najjar’s heart like a knife. This was an enormous difference between the two.
“Don’t be angry with me, O Lord,” Najjar stammered, “but I am so confused. All my life I was raised a Muslim. How can I know which way to go?”
“I am the Way. And the Truth and the Life,” Jesus said. “No one can come to the Father except through Me.”
“But my heart is full of sin,” Najjar said. “My eyes are full of darkness. How could I ever follow You?”
“I am the Light of the World,” Jesus replied. “Whoever follows Me will not walk in darkness. That person will have the light of life.”
Najjar knew he was experiencing something extraordinary. At the same time, he was genuinely in agony. Was Jesus telling him that everything he had ever been taught was wrong? that his life had been on the wrong path up to this very moment? that it had been completely worthless? It was too much to bear. He began to formulate sentences but could not find a way to finish them.
Yet as Najjar looked into the eyes of Jesus, he sensed deep in his spirit that Jesus knew every thought he had, every fear, every question, and loved him anyway. He wanted to move toward Jesus but could not. Yet at that moment, Jesus walked toward him.
“God loved the world so much that He gave His only begotten Son,” Jesus said. “Whoever believes in Him will never die but instead have eternal life. For God did not send His Son into the world to judge it, but that the world might be saved through Him. Whoever believes in Him is not judged; but whoever doesn’t believe has been judged already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.”
Najjar just stood there in the snow. He had never read any of this in the Qur’an. But he knew it was true. And suddenly, irresistibly, Najjar fell to the ground and kissed the scarred feet of Jesus.
“O Lord, open my eyes!” Najjar sobbed. “Help me! I am a wicked and sinful man, and I am undone—lost in the darkness, lost and alone. Open my eyes that I may see.”
“Do you believe I am able to do this?” Jesus asked.
“Yes, Lord.”
“Then follow Me,” Jesus said.
At that, something inside Najjar broke. He wept with remorse for all the sins he had committed. He wept with indescribable relief that came from knowing beyond the shadow of a doubt that God really did love him and had sent Jesus to die on the cross and rise from the dead, thus proving that He really was the truth and the life and the only way to the Father in heaven. He wept with gratitude that because of Jesus’ promise, he could know that he was going to spend eternity with Jesus.
He bowed before his Savior and Lord, weeping and rejoicing all at once for what seemed to be hours. How long it really was, he had no idea. But then he heard Jesus speaking to him again.
“If you love Me, you will keep My commandments. I have many more things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. Remember, I am coming quickly!”
And with that, He was gone.
Suddenly, all was as it had been before—dark and windy and cold. Yet not all was the same. In that moment, Najjar Malik realized that he was not the same man he had been when he woke up that morning. Mysteriously, miraculously, something inside him had changed. How he would explain it to Sheyda or to his mother-in-law, he had no idea. But he felt a peace emanating from so deep within him it made no logical sense.
Najjar got back in his car, turned on the engine, and carefully headed down the mountain in the snow and ice. Only then did he realize that his fever was gone.
His mobile phone rang. It was Sheyda. She was up to feed the baby. She was asking him if he was okay, asking if he could stop by her parents’ apartment to pick up some things for her mother. Najjar was so happy to hear Sheyda’s voice, he would have said yes to almost anything she asked him.
But then a thought occurred to him. He wondered if Dr. Saddaji’s laptop was still in his home office and if it contained any of the information he was hoping to find. What??
?s more, he wondered if the authorities had been to his father-in-law’s home yet.
Najjar hit the accelerator and prayed for the first time in his life to a nail-scarred Messiah.
65
Najjar struck oil.
Sitting on the desk in his father-in-law’s home office was Saddaji’s Sony VAIO laptop. Right next to it was a one-hundred-gigabyte external hard drive. Beside that was a stack of DVD-ROMs that Dr. Saddaji apparently used to back up his computer.
Najjar quickly gathered his mother-in-law’s toothbrush, makeup, and the other assorted toiletries she had requested, along with all of her husband’s electronics, and headed for his car. He didn’t dare sift through it all now, for he fully expected plant security and intelligence officials to descend on the apartment at any moment.
Just before he turned the ignition, Najjar remembered what the police had told him about how Dr. Saddaji had died. Then he recalled the words of the mysterious caller: You’re next. He was suddenly frightened again. Was he being followed? by his own security forces? by the Israelis? or even the Americans? Had they just planted a bomb in his car? He began trembling again.
But then he heard a voice and recognized it immediately.
“Do not fear them. There is nothing covered up that will not be revealed, nothing hidden that will not be known. What I tell you in the darkness, speak in the light; and what you hear whispered in your ear, proclaim upon the housetops.”
Najjar wasn’t sure whether he had heard an audible voice or whether the Lord had simply spoken to him in his spirit. But once again a peace he couldn’t explain immediately came over him, and Najjar was no longer afraid. He turned the ignition without hesitation. The car started without a problem.
As he drove, Najjar again heard the voice of the Lord. “Now you must leave this city. The Lord will rescue you. He will redeem you from the grip of your enemies.”
Racing toward home, Najjar was troubled by this message. Leave this city? Why? To where? He had been a follower of Jesus for less than an hour, but he knew his Shepherd’s voice, and he was determined to follow Him wherever He led. Clearly Jesus wanted him to take his family and leave Hamadan. But how in the world would he explain all this to Sheyda and Farah? He had no idea, but Najjar clung passionately to the command of Jesus. He was not to succumb to fear. He was to live by faith in the One who had conquered the grave and who held the keys to death and hades in His own hands. It will be okay, he told himself. Somehow it will be okay.
It was nearly four in the morning when Najjar finally got home. He decided he would take his family to Tehran—as good a destination as any, he supposed. They could find a hotel there easily enough. He knew that the distance from Hamadan to Tehran was about three hundred and fifty kilometers—a five-hour drive. He had driven it a thousand times. They could be there for breakfast if they left quickly. That was the easy part. The hard part would be persuading the women to go.
Najjar entered the apartment as quietly as he could. He expected the lights to be off, but they were on. He expected his wife and mother-in-law to be sound asleep, but to his shock, they were lying prostrate on the floor of the living room.
Upon hearing the door open, Sheyda jumped up, ran to him, and hugged him as she never had before. Her eyes were red. Her makeup was running. She had obviously been crying, but that was to be expected. What wasn’t expected were the words she spoke next.
“He appeared to us, too, Najjar,” she whispered in his ear. “We’re packed and ready to go. I’ll get the baby. Meet us in the car.”
It was 7 a.m., and Esfahani cursed Mina under his breath.
As his hired driver snaked the Mercedes through the streets of Hamadan, crowded with shopkeepers beginning their day, Esfahani wondered why in the world she had made these travel arrangements. Didn’t she ever think about the difficulty of heading to the airport in the thick of morning traffic? Didn’t he pay her to anticipate these details and make his life as comfortable as possible?
If she’d been smart and booked a later flight, he could have slept longer and waited until the roads cleared. Instead, the driver had picked him up at his family home southeast of Bu-Ali Sina University at 6:30 and was now winding along the edges of Lona Park and onto the ring road heading north and then east toward the airport. He wished he’d paid attention to the itinerary yesterday and demanded she change the ticket. Foolish woman! Perhaps it was time to fire her.
The previous day had been consumed with his large extended family and the business of Dr. Saddaji’s funeral. Saddaji was the brother-in-law of his friend and boss, Daryush Rashidi, and their families had known each other for generations. And given the man’s prominence in the world of science and energy, it was a fairly elaborate funeral, despite the fact that there was no body to speak of to bury. Esfahani went to the funeral in deference to Rashidi, but now he was anxious to return to Tehran and his work. He would not stay for hafteh, the seventh-day visitation of the grave. He wasn’t that close to the man, tragic though his death was.
The car came to a stop as it approached the northern edge of the city, and Esfahani looked out the window to see why.
“There’s a problem ahead, sir,” the driver explained. “Maybe an accident. It will take me just a few minutes to get to the turnoff, but then we’ll take an alternate route. Please forgive me, sir; I heard no warning about this delay.”
Ten minutes later they turned onto a side road and headed toward the center of the city. Esfahani hoped the driver knew what he was doing.
As if reading his mind, the man explained, “I’m going to the inner ring road and then will try to circle around to the north. The traffic should ease up, sir. I beg your forgiveness.”
“I don’t care how you get there,” Esfahani snapped. “I just don’t want to miss this flight.” He wasn’t fully awake, and the last thing he needed was a detailed description of their route.
He looked outside and sighed heavily. He was proud of his birthplace, the most ancient of Iran’s cities and a cradle of poetry, philosophy, and science. But right now, he wished he were asleep. It had been a busy few days, and time spent with his family was never peaceful. He longed for the solitude of his apartment in Tehran, far away from the domestic drama of his mother and her many siblings.
He closed his eyes and tried to remember the poetry he’d memorized as a youth. The great scientist and poet Ibn Sina, whose tomb was one of the proudest possessions of their city, had written, “Up from Earth’s Centre through the Seventh Gate, I rose, and on the Throne of Saturn sate, and many Knots unravel’d by the Road, but not the Master-knot of Human Fate.”
He had just begun to drift off when he felt a deep shudder beneath him and the car rising up and lurching forward. His eyes now wide open, Esfahani saw the earth outside his window moving like the waves of the sea. He saw an apartment building to his left rock and sway and then collapse before him.
“Hold on, sir! I don’t know what is happening! Oh, save us, Allah!” the driver cried, calling out to heaven and trying to reassure his wealthy passenger at the same time.
The Mercedes pitched and heaved on the writhing pavement and then slammed down violently, crashing headlong into a telephone pole. As if in slow motion, Esfahani saw the pole snap in two and start falling back toward the car. There was no time to run and nowhere to hide. Esfahani covered his head and face with his arms, and an instant later, the pole slammed down across the front of their car, crushing his driver and sending glass and blood everywhere.
Terrified, Esfahani scrambled out of the backseat of the car, only to hear the rumbling of the massive earthquake intensifying. The road shook violently. People were running and screaming everywhere. Esfahani searched for a place to take cover but found none. He looked to his left and saw more houses and office buildings collapsing. To his right he saw a long cement wall, roughly two meters high, gyrating wildly as if alive. And then, as he watched in horror, helpless to do anything, he saw the wall collapse atop a woman and her baby.
> Finally, after what seemed like several minutes, the ground stopped shaking. But the screaming from all sides of him grew louder and wilder. The air was rapidly filling with debris and clouds of dust. People were running through the streets, crazed with panic. They looked like ghosts, covered in white powder. Esfahani pulled out his cell phone, but there was no signal. What was he supposed to do?
He felt dizzy as he walked slowly toward the side of the road and the fallen wall, choking on dust. He slumped to the ground and closed his eyes tightly to shut out the chaos around him.
“Save me, Allah, most merciful!” he cried. “Show me what to do, where to go!”
When he opened his eyes again, he saw several men from a nearby construction site trying desperately to move massive slabs of concrete off the woman and her screaming child. They were calling for help to anyone who could hear them, calling for people to help move the rubble and try to save these people’s lives.
At that moment, Esfahani felt a strong hand on his shoulder. He prayed it was a medical worker, a policeman, someone of use to him, but as he looked up, he met the eyes of a young mullah. The man had an urgency in his expression, but not fear, not confusion.
“I am here,” he said.
The mullah quickly joined the workers heaving pieces of cement and rebar from the sidewalk, and as they did, they were able to pull the baby out first and then her mother. Remarkably, the child was relatively unscathed, but Esfahani turned away in disgust when he saw the woman’s legs twisted gruesomely behind her and covered in blood. Yet the young holy man did not turn away. Rather, Esfahani watched in shock as the mullah knelt next to the woman while she wept with despair.
“You are a righteous daughter,” he said.
“Help me!” she cried. “I can’t move! I can’t feel anything below my waist!”
The mullah began to speak in what sounded to Esfahani’s ears like an ancient language, in a mesmerizing tone that seemed almost like poetry. Then the mullah took the woman’s hands in his and lifted her gently to her feet. A crowd had formed, but now—stunned—people began to back away.