This, too, was true, Najjar realized, but it frightened him.
“Though eight months pregnant with you,” the boy went on, “your mother insisted that she and your father join the millions of Iranians trying to catch a glimpse of the Ayatollah as his flight touched down at Mehrabad International Airport that morning. But they never made it, did they?”
Najjar shook his head.
“Just after sunrise, your mother went into premature labor,” the stranger continued. “She delivered you on a bus on the way to the hospital. Only four pounds, fourteen ounces, you were on life support for months. The doctors said you would not survive. But your mother prayed, and what happened?”
“Allah answered her prayers,” Najjar said quietly.
“Yes, he did,” the stranger confirmed. “And then what? Your parents brought you home from the hospital just days before the students seized the American Embassy. Your mother stayed at your side night and day from that point forward. She loved you dearly, didn’t she?”
Najjar’s eyes began to well up with tears, and then the stranger moved closer and spoke nearly in a whisper.
“Your father, rest his soul, was a risk taker.”
Najjar nodded reluctantly.
“Your mother pleaded with your father not to move you and her to Iraq,” the stranger went on. “But he would not listen. He meant well. Raised by merchants, he had a passion for business, but he lacked wisdom, discernment. He had failed at exporting Persian rugs to Europe and Canada. He had failed at exporting pistachios to Brazil and had to borrow money from your uncle. He always seemed to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. And then, convinced the rise of the Ayatollah in Iran would create a boom in business with the Shias in Iraq, he brought you all here to Samarra to build a business and make a fortune. Unfortunately, he did not see the Iran–Iraq War coming. His business never took off, and your parents were killed on the twelfth of December, 1983, in a car accident in Baghdad. And aside from your aunt and uncle, you have been all alone ever since.”
The hair on the back of Najjar’s neck stood erect. His face went pale. Forgetting about the extent of his injuries, he struggled to his feet and stared back at this boy. For several minutes, there was complete silence.
Then the stranger spoke his final revelation. “You are the brightest in your class, Najjar. You are secretly in love with Sheyda Saddaji, the girl who sits next to you. You will marry her before your twenty-fourth birthday.”
“How do you . . . ?”
But Najjar could say no more. His mouth was as dry as the desert floor.
“Allah has chosen you, Najjar Hamid Malik. You will become a great scientist. You will help the Islamic world achieve ultimate power over the infidels and establish the Islamic caliphate. You will help usher in the era of the Promised One. But you must follow Allah without hesitation. You must give him your supreme allegiance. And then, if you are worthy, you shall live forever in paradise.”
Najjar hoped it was true.
“Yes, I will serve Allah with my whole heart,” he said with all the strength and sincerity he could muster. “I will devote myself to preparing for the Promised One. But who are you? Are you the One that—?”
The stranger raised his hand, and Najjar stopped talking.
“When the time is right, you will see me again.”
Najjar stared into those black eyes. And then, without warning, the stranger vanished into the crowd.
9
Syracuse, New York
Twelve years later
“Let’s go, David; we’re going to be late!”
David Shirazi heard his father calling up the stairs and moved faster. He’d been waiting for this trip as long as he could remember, and he had no intention of missing the flight.
Every fall, his father and some of his father’s doctor friends took their sons for a long weekend of camping and fishing on a remote island in Canada, accessible only by floatplane. The rule among the dads was that the boys had to be in high school or older. Both of David’s older brothers always came home brimming with stories and pictures of catching monster walleyes, roasting marshmallows by the campfire, hanging out under the stars, and eating seriously unhealthy quantities of Tim Hortons doughnuts along the way. Last year, David had finally been old enough but had come down with a brutal case of the flu at the last moment and was crushed that his parents wouldn’t let him go. Now he was almost sixteen, healthy, and completely jazzed not only to be going but to be missing a few days of physics and calculus as well.
David quickly rechecked the contents of his overstuffed backpack as he mentally reviewed their plans and checked his Timex. It was six minutes past eight in the morning. He knew they were scheduled on U.S. Air flight 4382, departing at 9:25 a.m. and arriving in Philadelphia at 10:45. From there, they’d transfer to U.S. Air flight 3940, departing at 11:25 and arriving in Montreal at exactly one that afternoon. The Montreal airport, his brothers told him, was where they loaded up on the Tim Hortons.
It seemed ridiculous to David to fly 228 miles south to Philly only to turn around and fly 400 miles north. But there weren’t any direct flights from Syracuse, so this was it. Crazier still was that once they got to Montreal, they still had a several-hour train ride farther north to a little town called Clova in upper Quebec. Only then came the floatplanes. But none of it mattered unless they made it to the airport on time.
At five feet, eleven inches tall and finally growing like a weed after being too small for too long, with jet-black curly hair, soulful brown eyes, and an always-tanned complexion, David might have looked Persian to his parents, but all he wanted was to be a normal American kid. David and his older brothers knew their parents’ colorful tales of growing up in Iran under the Shah. They could recite chapter and verse of their mom and dad’s saga of surviving the earliest days of the Revolution in ’79, taking refuge with the Harpers in the Canadian Embassy for nearly four months, and finally escaping with the help of some government guy named Zalinsky. Every year on January 28, the boys dutifully listened as their parents marked the anniversary of their harrowing journey through the Tehran airport and their nerve-racking Swissair flight out of Iranian airspace, the remarkable story of their exodus from Tehran to Geneva to Toronto, and why they had finally wound up in central New York and settled in the too-often frigid and snowbound city of Syracuse (which the boys liked to call “Zero-cuse,” “Siberacuse,” and “No-Excuse”).
The Shirazi boys knew their parents’ courageous decisions and remarkable journey had made their lives possible. But the truth was, none of it really mattered to David. He was certainly grateful for their freedom. But he didn’t want to think of himself as Iranian or a Muslim. He’d been born in the States. He’d grown up in the States. He dreamed in red, white, and blue. All he wanted to do now was fit in and excel, just like his brothers.
Azad, nineteen, was a straight-A sophomore in the premed program at Cornell. He planned to become a cardiologist like his father. He was also the best long-distance runner on the track team and could play the piano like no one David had ever heard. Not to be outdone, Saeed, seventeen, had graduated from high school a year early and was now a straight-A freshman at Harvard on a full swimming scholarship. If all went well, Saeed planned to go to Wharton or Stanford to get his MBA, unless the Harvard Business School gave him enough money to stay in Cambridge.
By comparison, David thought of himself as the black sheep of the family. While his brothers had twenty-twenty vision, he wore glasses. He was the only one of the three boys to get braces, which he still wore, embarrassing him to no end. His brothers hadn’t ever seemed to struggle with acne, but he had struggled with it for years, though it was finally beginning to clear somewhat. Girls seemed to fawn over his brothers, but David had never been on a single date, and though there were a few girls in his class he secretly liked, he dreaded the prospect of having to ask any of them to the junior prom the following year. What’s more, David hated chemistry and economics. He couldn’t
imagine becoming a doctor or a high-powered businessman, and he certainly had no interest in playing the piano.
He had, however, acquired his parents’ brilliance and his brothers’ passion for athletics. A straight-A student at Nottingham High School near the Syracuse city limits, David had scored a 1570 on his SATs and was actually on track to graduate two years ahead of schedule. He was the starting catcher on the varsity baseball team, the assistant photo editor of the school paper, the assistant editor of the yearbook, and a genius with a Nikon 35mm camera and a telephoto lens. His dream amused his professionally-minded parents, but it was his dream nonetheless: to work for Sports Illustrated, starting out on the road shooting baseball in the spring and football in the fall, and eventually working his way up to editor-in-chief.
Which reminded him . . .
David heard his father laying on the horn but turned back and grabbed the latest copy of SI off the kitchen table. Then he kissed his mother good-bye in the front yard, joined his brothers in the backseat of their Mercedes SUV, buckled up, donned his Discman, cranked up the Boss, sat back, and dove into the cover story on Roger Clemens.
They were seriously behind schedule, but David had no doubt his father would make it. And sure enough, fifteen minutes later they were parking at Hancock Field. It was high fives and laughter all around when they finally cleared through security, made it breathlessly to the gate, and found the other fathers and sons who were going with them.
David buckled himself into seat 16A, leaned back, stared out the window at the gorgeously sunny morning that was unusual for a city so often “blessed” with overcast skies, and finally relaxed. They’d made the flight. He had no homework. He had no school until the following Wednesday. And he was finally “one of the guys.” He’d been dreaming about this trip for years, it was finally here, and nothing could ruin it.
10
Philadelphia International Airport
David’s father lit up the moment he saw them.
David, on the other hand, instantly went dark. What in the world are they doing here? he privately groaned.
“Hey, over here,” Charlie Harper yelled from across the lounge area, waving them through the crowd that was waiting for the next flight.
Dr. Shirazi raced right over and gave his old friend a bear hug. “You really made it!”
“Are you kidding?” Charlie laughed, slapping his old friend on the back. “Marseille and I wouldn’t have missed this for the world!”
“Yes, thanks for inviting us, Dr. Shirazi,” added the young woman standing beside Charlie.
“Well, you’re very welcome, young lady,” Dr. Shirazi replied. “But I’m sorry—you can’t possibly be Charlie Harper’s little girl.”
She smiled.
“Look at you—you’re lovely. How could you be related to this guy?” Dr. Shirazi joshed, slapping Charlie on the back.
“Obviously I take after my mother,” she quipped.
Dr. Shirazi laughed from his belly as David winced with embarrassment.
“Well, that would explain it,” the doctor chuckled, giving her a hug. “How old are you now?”
“I just turned fifteen in June.”
Azad elbowed David in the ribs and raised his eyebrows. It wasn’t nearly discreet enough for David.
Then Saeed leaned over to his brothers and whispered, “Don’t get ideas, Bro. I saw her first.”
David felt the blood rush to his ears, his neck, and his face. The young woman before them was certainly attractive in her faded blue jeans, cream fisherman knit sweater, and worn tennis shoes, her brown hair pulled back in a black scrunchie. But she was an interloper on a guys-only fishing weekend, and now these two morons were angling for something other than walleye and northern pike.
Dr. Shirazi shook his head. “How long has it been since I’ve seen you all? Five or six years?”
“As a whole family, that’s probably true,” Charlie replied. “I think this one was still in grammar school when you last came for Thanksgiving.”
Dr. Shirazi sighed. “Please, please forgive me for letting so much time go by.”
“Oh, my friend, there’s no need,” Charlie insisted. “Life has been busy for all of us. Besides, you and I got to see each other—what?—a year ago maybe, at that conference in New York, right?”
“That’s right, that’s right; but you’re too kind, Charlie, really. I should be coming to visit you and thank you every year, and bringing my family along too. You and Claire saved us, Charlie. Nasreen and I will never forget it.”
David’s father, lost in another time, suddenly became aware of the group of men and boys observing this whole interaction with confusion.
“Oh, forgive me, guys,” he said. “I need to make some introductions. I’m getting old, my friends. But being the founder and organizer of our illustrious group, I’ve taken the liberty of this surprise. It is a great honor to introduce you to one of my dearest friends in all of the world, Charlie Harper—the man who rescued Nasreen and me out of Iran—and his daughter, Marseille.”
As everyone said hello, shook hands with the two of them, and introduced themselves, David shrank to the back of the huddle. Mortified, he watched Azad and Saeed and the other boys chatting up Marseille—trying to look harmless and friendly but skating dangerously close to shameless flirting. David, meanwhile, found himself battling varying degrees of embarrassment, anger, annoyance, and betrayal, to name just a few of the emotions colliding within him. He’d just been blindsided. This was supposed to be a guys’ trip. It always had been. That’s the way it had always been billed to him. That’s what he had been so looking forward to. And now his father had gone and blown the whole thing.
11
Baghdad, Iraq
Najjar Malik heard the screeching tires and turned to look.
He was about to cross Al Rasheed Street in downtown Baghdad and fully expected to see a major car wreck. Instead, less than fifty yards away to his right, he saw a white Mercedes swerve and narrowly miss a delivery truck whose driver had just slammed on his brakes in the middle of rush-hour traffic for no apparent reason. Blocked from going forward, the driver of the Mercedes now tried to back up but suddenly found himself cut off by a green Citroën. Just then, a minivan screeched to a halt beside the Mercedes. The side door flew open. Three masked men armed with AK-47s jumped out and surrounded the car.
“Get out! Get out!” one of the gunmen screamed at the terrified man in the driver’s seat.
Najjar knew he should run for cover, but for some reason he just stood there and stared. He could see a veiled woman in the passenger seat, presumably the driver’s wife. He could also see a small child in the backseat, shrieking with fear.
Two of the gunmen started pounding on their windows, still demanding they get out. Terrified, the family complied, their hands held high in the air, the young child—a little girl not more than four or five years old—crying all the louder. The gunmen forced the woman and the child to lie facedown on the pavement while their husband and father was smashed over the back of the head, bound quickly around his hands and feet, and thrown in the back of the minivan.
Then one of the masked men aimed his machine gun at the child and fired. The girl’s cries immediately ceased, but now the mother began screaming for her dead child. At that, the gunman shot her in the back of the head as well.
The street suddenly grew quiet.
As the gunmen turned to get back in the vehicles and make their escape with their new hostage, one of them glanced toward Najjar, and Najjar found himself staring into the kidnapper’s eyes. The two of them just stood there for a moment, seemingly frozen in time and space. Najjar wanted to bolt but couldn’t move a muscle.
The masked man raised his weapon and pointed it at Najjar’s chest. Najjar tried to scream but couldn’t make a sound. The man pulled the trigger. Najjar shut his eyes. But he heard nothing. He felt nothing.
He opened his eyes and realized the gun hadn’t gone off. The man cleared the
chamber and pulled the trigger again. Again, Najjar involuntarily shut his eyes. But again he heard nothing, felt nothing.
When he opened his eyes the second time, he found the man desperately fiddling with the magazine, then raising the weapon over his head and pulling the trigger. This time the weapon fired perfectly. Now, he lowered the machine gun, aimed it at Najjar’s face, and pulled the trigger for the third time. Najjar instantly shut his eyes and held his breath.
Nothing happened.
His eyes still shut and still holding his breath, his lungs about to explode, Najjar heard the gunman cursing. He also heard the other terrorists shouting at him to get in the car and get moving. A moment later, he heard screeching tires, and when he finally opened his eyes, the gunmen were gone.
Najjar collapsed into some bushes and began to vomit uncontrollably. He had never been so scared in all his life.
He lay on the pavement, holding his head in his hands and losing all track of time. He didn’t hear the ambulance sirens approaching, didn’t see the flashing lights of the police cars. He didn’t remember being taken to the hospital and treated for shock. He barely remembered being interrogated at length, not just by the local police but by agents of the Mukhabarat, one of Saddam’s thirteen intelligence agencies, and certainly the most feared. “Who were the gunmen?” they demanded. “Have you seen them before? Could you identify them? What kind of vehicles were they driving? What were the license plate numbers?” The questions went on and on, but Najjar was of little help. He truly didn’t recall much, and later that afternoon, the police and doctors released him.
Exhausted and still somewhat disoriented, Najjar left the hospital and saw a row of taxicabs waiting out front. The first driver in the line rolled down his window and shouted, “Where are you going? Can I help you?”