“Yeah, I’m still here,” Zalinsky replied.
“Why aren’t you asking me if I have any proof?”
“Do you?”
“No,” David said, “but it’s strange you’re not asking.”
“I’m not asking because I already believe you.”
“Why?”
“The president ordered the Constant Phoenix pass over Iran.”
“Really?”
“Yep.”
“And?”
“And we got the seismic report. You were right. There was a nuclear explosion in a mountain range just west of Hamadan. That’s what triggered the earthquake. So that’s it. Iran has the Bomb. The Israelis are about to launch a preemptive strike. And we’re out of time.”
David was silent for a few moments. The magnitude of what was unfolding was almost more than he could bear.
“Does this Birjandi guy know where those warheads are at the moment?” Zalinsky asked. “They can’t possibly still be in Hamadan?”
“No, you’re right,” David said. “He says they’ve been scattered all over the country. But he says our best shot is finding Najjar Malik before the Iranians do.”
“Malik knows?”
“We’ll see, but he’s our best shot.”
“So how do we find him?”
“At the moment, I have no idea,” David admitted. “Do you?”
“No,” Zalinsky said. “But I’m going to put a special ops force on standby. If you can find him, we need him alive. Get him to a private airstrip; use any means necessary. We’ll get him out. I promise.”
“Any means?” David asked, just to be clear.
Zalinsky wasn’t taking any chances. “Any means necessary,” he repeated, and the line went dead.
81
Najjar was worried as he entered the tiny motel room.
He put down the bag of groceries he was holding, then quickly locked the door behind him and pulled the drapes shut. He kept telling himself he was supposed to be “strong and courageous,” but the truth was that fear was getting the better of him. If the Israelis could get to Dr. Saddaji, they could certainly get to him. The Americans couldn’t be far behind. And how soon until Iranian intelligence began suspecting he was on the run? Maybe they knew already.
Four days had gone by since they’d arrived in Tehran. Najjar had been crisscrossing the city looking for a Bible for him to read with his wife and mother-in-law. Everywhere he went, he heard footsteps behind him. He feared someone was waiting for him around every corner. At any moment, he imagined a car would come screeching to a halt, and men with guns and masks would jump out, seizing him and putting a bullet through his skull or forcing him into the trunk to be taken somewhere and beheaded. He’d seen it happen to others. He had no doubt they could do it to him. Every time he came back to the motel room, he feared Sheyda and Farah and the baby would either be dead on the floor with their killers waiting for him or bound and waiting to be killed in front of his eyes.
Najjar was haunted by the sober, bitter truth that he was a target, and thus so was his family. And the two women he loved were still haunted by the sudden and horrific death of Dr. Saddaji, a man they practically regarded as a saint. At some point, Najjar would have to tell them the truth, but he couldn’t do so now. Sheyda and Farah were grieving. It was natural. He didn’t blame them for it. It could hardly be otherwise. But Najjar worried it was only a matter of time before they were going to ask why he wasn’t shedding tears over the loss.
Sheyda still had no idea her father had been the head of Iran’s nuclear weapons program. Farah hadn’t the foggiest notion her husband had been planning a second holocaust while working for a regime that denied the first had ever even happened. Neither of the women had any idea that Dr. Saddaji’s laptop—the one Najjar had stolen out of his home office and now had hidden in the motel closet—contained details about Iranian weapons. Was he actually going to tell them? He couldn’t imagine how.
“Did you find a charger for your phone?” Sheyda asked as Najjar unpacked fresh-baked bread, cheese, pomegranates, and some bottles of water.
“Yes,” he told her, coming over to kiss her on the forehead. “But that’s not all—look.”
He pulled out a copy of the Bible in Farsi, and his wife lit up instantly.
She immediately took the Bible from his hands, kissed it, and examined it with great reverence. After a moment, she looked at Najjar. “Where did you get this?”
He grinned. “You’ll never believe me.”
“Tell us,” Sheyda said, her face filled with joy.
“I was coming back to the motel after visiting five different bookstores. No one admitted to having a Bible, and I was becoming convinced I’d never find one. I was praying and asking Jesus to help me, but I kept getting more and more discouraged. But then I stopped by an electronics shop to pick up a charger for the phone. The owner took one look at me and said, ‘I have what you want.’ I said, ‘What do you mean?’ and he said, ‘I have what you’re looking for.’ I told him I was looking for a cell phone charger, and he said, ‘Yes, yes, but I have your other item as well.’ By now I was totally confused. He left me standing there and disappeared into the back somewhere, and when he returned, he was holding this Bible. I tell you, I almost turned around and ran out of the shop! He told me his family had been followers of Jesus for several years but had never had a Bible of their own until just a few weeks ago, when he received a shipment of electronics supplies for the store. Hidden in the bottom of the box were two Bibles. He took one home and had been praying about what to do with the other one, when just before I came into the store, he felt the Lord speaking to his heart that the next customer would be looking for a Bible. And a second later, I walked in.”
“Thank You, Jesus!” Sheyda said, tears in her eyes. “I can hardly believe it!”
“I said you wouldn’t,” Najjar said.
“Would you read to us, Mother?” Sheyda asked as the baby began to cry. Sheyda picked her up from the bed to nurse her again.
“Yes, of course,” Farah said. “Let me find those passages Jesus told us to read. Deuteronomy 14 was one of them, right?”
“Actually, it was chapter 13,” Sheyda said.
Najjar was eager to hear the words from the Bible, but he took a moment to plug in his phone, thinking he should check his voice messages. Then he sliced open several pomegranates in their little kitchenette and shared them with Sheyda and Farah. None of them had had much of an appetite for the past few days. But the fruit tasted wonderful and picked up their spirits.
Farah, meanwhile, turned to the table of contents. She had never seen a Bible in her life and had certainly never held one. None of them had. But after a few minutes of fumbling through the pages, Farah found the chapter and began reading.
“If a prophet or a dreamer of dreams arises among you and gives you a sign or a wonder, and the sign or the wonder comes true, concerning which he spoke to you, saying, ‘Let us go after other gods (whom you have not known) and let us serve them,’ you shall not listen to the words of that prophet or that dreamer of dreams; for the Lord your God is testing you to find out if you love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul. You shall follow the Lord your God and fear Him; and you shall keep His commandments, listen to His voice, serve Him, and cling to Him.”
Sheyda listened to the words and turned to her husband. “Those verses are speaking to you, don’t you think?”
“They could be,” he replied.
“Of course they are. When the Twelfth Imam appeared to you those times as a boy, he was predicting your future, right?”
Najjar nodded.
“And those predictions came true.”
Najjar nodded again.
“But that doesn’t mean the Twelfth Imam was speaking for God, right?” Sheyda continued. “Just the opposite—the Twelfth Imam was trying to take you away from the Bible, away from the One True God. But Jesus was merciful to you. He appeared to you to co
unter the Twelfth Imam, and now He’s explaining to you that He was testing you back then.”
“But I failed the test,” Najjar said. “I followed Islam all those years. I believed in the Twelfth Imam all those years.”
“But you don’t now, my love,” Sheyda said, comforting him. “Now you know the Twelfth Imam is a false prophet, because God has opened your eyes. And I think He is calling you for something very important.”
“What’s that?”
“I think you’re supposed to help people understand what’s true and what isn’t so they have the chance to be set free as well.”
Najjar wasn’t sure about that. He hoped she was right. But at the moment he was so filled with regret for the life he had lived for so many years—so many wasted, lost years—that it was hard to think of anything else.
Farah suggested they read the next passage listed in their notebook. She handed the Bible to Najjar, who found the book of Exodus and turned to chapter 7.
“Then the Lord said to Moses, ‘See, I make you as God to Pharaoh, and your brother Aaron shall be your prophet. You shall speak all that I command you, and your brother Aaron shall speak to Pharaoh that he let the sons of Israel go out of his land. But I will harden Pharaoh’s heart that I may multiply My signs and My wonders in the land of Egypt. When Pharaoh does not listen to you, then I will lay My hand on Egypt and bring out My hosts, My people the sons of Israel, from the land of Egypt by great judgments. The Egyptians shall know that I am the Lord, when I stretch out My hand on Egypt and bring out the sons of Israel from their midst.’
“So Moses and Aaron did it; as the Lord commanded them, thus they did. Moses was eighty years old and Aaron eighty-three, when they spoke to Pharaoh.
“Now the Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron, saying, ‘When Pharaoh speaks to you, saying, “Work a miracle,” then you shall say to Aaron, “Take your staff and throw it down before Pharaoh, that it may become a serpent.”’
“So Moses and Aaron came to Pharaoh, and thus they did just as the Lord had commanded; and Aaron threw his staff down before Pharaoh and his servants, and it became a serpent.
“Then Pharaoh also called for the wise men and the sorcerers, and they also, the magicians of Egypt, did the same with their secret arts. For each one threw down his staff and they turned into serpents. But Aaron’s staff swallowed up their staffs. Yet Pharaoh’s heart was hardened, and he did not listen to them, as the Lord had said.”
“It’s a pattern,” Sheyda said softly when Najjar had finished reading.
“What do you mean?” Najjar asked.
“Sometimes false prophets and ungodly rulers can do signs and wonders. Sometimes they can do tricks that look like miracles of God, but they are really tapping the power of the devil. But we should not fear because God is greater, and in due time, He will swallow the enemy and thwart the enemy’s plans.”
“That makes sense,” Farah said. “But do you think the Lord is saying the Twelfth Imam is like Pharaoh?”
“Maybe so,” Sheyda said, “but let’s keep reading.”
Taking turns reading a chapter at a time, they backed up to chapter 1 of Exodus, read all forty chapters, and discussed them for hours. Was the Lord going to raise up a Moses to lead the Iranian people out of Islam?
It was almost two in the morning when they finally turned out the lights. But as Najjar lay his head on the pillow next to his wife and heard her begin to snore softly almost immediately, he found he could not sleep. His mind swirled with new thoughts and ideas he’d never even heard of before, much less considered seriously.
He was completely captivated by the person of Moses. In Islam, Moses was certainly considered a prophet, but Najjar was enthralled by the richness of the biblical details of Moses’ life and interaction with the One True God. Moses had been chosen by God from birth. He had been taken from his home as an infant but by God’s grace given a great education. His character had been shaped in the halls of power of the mightiest empire of the day, until one day the Lord God called him out. It didn’t make sense at first. God required Moses to give up all that he had, all that was important to him. But God had a plan for the man of God, Najjar realized, and that captured his thoughts.
As the clock kept ticking into the wee hours of the morning, Najjar began wondering what plan God had for him. He loved Sheyda’s new passion and her conviction that perhaps God was calling Najjar, of all people, to speak for Him, to reach Iran with the message of Christ’s love and forgiveness. He was by no means convinced she was right. It seemed too lofty a role. But there was a more immediate question: What were they supposed to do next? They couldn’t stay in a motel on the edge of Tehran for too many more days. They couldn’t go back to Hamadan.
Where, then? Was the Lord going to take Najjar and his family out of Iran, the way He took Moses out of Egypt to prepare him for his future role? He hoped so. He couldn’t imagine staying and living under this bloodthirsty regime and now under a false messiah. But the only thing more difficult to imagine than staying in Iran was getting out alive. Millions of Iranians were heading to Mecca. The traffic jams all around them, so close to the airport, were proof of that, as were the constant reports on radio and television. Maybe they should join them? Maybe they should head to Saudi Arabia under the pretense of going to Mecca, then find a way to slip into Jordan or even Egypt.
Najjar suddenly felt thirsty and got up to get a glass of water in the kitchenette. As he did, he noticed his phone and realized he had forgotten to check his messages earlier. Powering up the phone, he was shocked to see twenty-three voice messages, all from Dr. Saddaji’s secretary.
The first message instantly sent terror into his heart. The defense minister was looking for him? Why would Faridzadeh want to see him immediately? It was a trap, Najjar thought. What else could it be? Yet what could he do? Each message proved progressively more ominous than the last, but the final voice mail was the most terrifying of all. Najjar was supposed to have reported to the defense minister’s office several days before. From there, he was to have been taken to a private meeting at the palace with the Twelfth Imam. Najjar had been instructed to tell no one about the invitation and bring no one else and nothing but his ID. No briefcase. No camera. No notebook. Nothing. The Mahdi and the minister were looking forward to seeing him, Saddaji’s secretary said, and they were eager to give him some “good news” that they promised would “cheer him and his family.” Najjar had no idea what that meant, nor did he want to find out. He quickly powered down the phone and set it back on the table.
What was he supposed to do? Moses had gone back to Egypt and confronted Pharaoh and his magicians directly, hadn’t he? Then again, hadn’t Jesus specifically said that when a false messiah comes—especially one who performs “great signs and wonders, so as to mislead, if possible, even the elect”—and someone says to you, “Behold, He is in the inner rooms,” that you should not go?
Najjar was chilled with fear. Sheyda and the baby were asleep. So was Farah. He had no friends he could call. He had no family to whom he could reach out. So he did the only thing he knew. He got down on his knees and begged the Lord for mercy.
82
David paced his tiny hotel room.
He stared out the window at the traffic beginning to build up and tried not to panic. It was Tuesday, March 1. He’d spent most of the last several days searching for Najjar Malik on the Internet, in Iranian phone directories, through real-estate transaction records, and on Iranian newspaper and magazine databases, all to no avail. He had dozens of analysts back at Langley searching every intelligence database they could and data-mining all other materials toward the same end, but with no results. He had the NSA feverishly translating and transcribing intercepted calls, whose frequency were growing exponentially and beyond the Agency’s capacity to keep up.
None of the transcripts indicated Faridzadeh or his men had found Najjar yet, but they were definitely closing in. According to the tidbits Eva had relayed, the Iranians now knew Najj
ar was in Tehran. They’d even gotten a momentary ping from his cell phone in the middle of the night somewhere on the west side of the city.
In desperation, David thought about calling Mina and saying he had urgent business at Iran Telecom. Could he persuade her to let him in the building this early in the morning? Even if the answer were yes, could he persuade her to let him break into the company databases and search Malik’s phone records to see whom he had called in the last twenty-four to forty-eight hours? Maybe there was someone in Tehran, someone with an address, someplace David could focus his attention? But he quickly dismissed the notion. Faridzadeh and the chief of VEVAK certainly already had that information, and there would be agents at any of those locations. David’s showing up at any one of them would only raise suspicions he couldn’t afford. And he wasn’t sure Mina would help him anyway. She was no fan of her boss, Esfahani, but she seemed loyal to the company. David believed he could eventually turn her into an asset. But he hadn’t yet, and he concluded she’d be no help now.
He considered calling the head of the MDS tech team in Tehran. Maybe he could help David break into Iran Telecom’s database and at least get Najjar Malik’s cell phone number. Without it, Langley and the NSA couldn’t listen in on Najjar’s calls in real time once he turned his phone back on. But once the man turned his phone on, how much time would he have before VEVAK triangulated his position and swooped in to take him down? Ten minutes? Fifteen, tops? Even if the NSA was listening in, there wouldn’t be enough time to find him before the Iranian authorities did.
David rubbed his eyes and stared in the mirror. He wondered if he should call Dr. Birjandi. The man had been extraordinarily helpful in so many ways. But to talk on an open line was too much of a risk. And what exactly would he ask? The old man didn’t have a crystal ball, though David desperately wished that he did.