Damascus Countdown (20 page)

DAMASCUS, SYRIA

“Is everyone here—all your family and friends?” the priest asked.

Hanna’s father turned and scanned the faces, recognizing most and beaming at them all. “Yes, I think this is all of us.”

“Wonderful! Let us begin.”

But no sooner had the words fallen from his lips than Hanna heard the unmistakable sound of gunfire, followed by bloodcurdling screams. Hanna instinctively turned to see where the noise was coming from but
suddenly felt his father pulling him and his mother and his sisters to the floor. Bodies were falling everywhere. The gunfire didn’t stop. It came in short, quick bursts. Again and again and again.

Hanna tried to scream as he saw more people cut down, row upon row, but he couldn’t make a sound. He could hear bullets whizzing over his head and heard them drilling into the stone wall behind him. Terrified, he turned to his mother, desperate to hold her, to cling to her for comfort and protection, but as he did, his heart stopped. His mother’s eyes were open, but they were glassy and lifeless. Hanna looked down and saw a pool of crimson growing beneath her.

“No, no!” he screamed, and the gunfire ceased, almost on cue.

Hanna turned and saw three men in long, black leather coats and thick black boots—but no hats, no masks—stepping over bodies to enter the little church. Two of them carried automatic rifles, like the kind he had seen on television, their barrels hot and smoking. But the third carried a small black pistol. He walked slowly and paused to kick each person with his boot. If they flinched, if they were alive, he aimed the pistol and pumped a bullet into their skull.

He went one by one, killing them all, until he stopped at Hanna’s father. Hanna knew he should look away, but he was paralyzed with fear. He knew he should close his eyes, but he couldn’t believe this was happening. And then it did happen. The man put not one bullet but two into the back of his father’s head and then turned the pistol on little Hanna.

KARAJ, IRAN

David took a long, hot shower. Then he toweled off, put on some clean clothes, and—inspired by his conversation with Birjandi—took ten minutes to read the first three chapters of the Gospel of Matthew. He desperately wanted to read more. He had a hunger for God’s Word that he’d never experienced before. It finally made sense to him, and he wanted to lock himself away and read through the entire New Testament, even if it took all night. But he couldn’t. Not now. His team was waiting for him, and he had to do his job.

He stepped into the living room to check on his team. Torres and Crenshaw were hunched over computers, returning e-mails and scanning headlines while the two other members of their team, Steve Fox and Matt Mays, were cleaning an MP5 machine gun and a Glock 9mm pistol, respectively.

“How’s it going?” he asked.

“We’re okay, boss,” Torres said. “How ’bout you?”

“Better than I deserve,” David replied, deeply relieved that he had been able to tell Birjandi about his decision to trust Christ and deeply encouraged by Birjandi’s reaction.

“Does that mean you’ve got a lead?” Torres asked, brightening.

“No, it doesn’t,” David admitted.

“No one’s answering?” Mays asked.

“Not so far,” David replied. “I did reach Javad Nouri and Dr. Birjandi, but don’t get too excited. Javad sounds horrible, and Birjandi
doesn’t know anything new. He’s got no new leads. And he absolutely refuses to reach out to Hosseini and Darazi.”

“Why?”

“Says it’s against his convictions.”

“Bringing down a nuclear-armed tyrant is against his convictions?”

“Normally, no—but going to visit false messiahs is,” David explained. “But what can I say? The guy is the real deal. He believes what he believes. He’s not going to be moved one way or the other. Period. End of story.”

“Maybe we should pay him a visit,” Fox suggested. “You know, a little one-on-one, a little personal persuasion.”

“Steve, I’m telling you, he’s not persuadable. We need to find another source.”

“Where?”

“I don’t know. How about you guys? Any progress?”

“Nothing,” Torres said. “We’ve tried every source, every operative, every foreigner we know in the country. They either aren’t answering their phones, or they don’t know squat.”

“Have you talked to Langley? Are the drones picking up anything? Are we getting any good intercepts?”

“All the satellites and drones are pretty much tied up doing bomb damage assessments,” Torres said. “They’re not trolling for two missing nukes. Not at the moment, at least. Zalinsky assures me he’ll redirect assets to us if we pick up a lead. But not if we’re just spitting in the wind.”

Then David had an idea. He couldn’t take this anymore. All this sitting around, waiting around, making calls, sending text messages was getting them nowhere. They needed a target. They needed to make something happen.

HAMADAN, IRAN

“Ali, my son, I’m not afraid of being arrested or tortured or dying for my Savior,” Birjandi replied gently. “The only thing I fear is doing anything to displease the Lord. Now, you’re right—I do have a special opening
with our nation’s leaders. For years they have invited me for meals or even for weekend retreats. I go when I can, and we chat, and I mostly listen to all that they want to say. But believe me, I have wanted to explain the gospel to them each time. I long to do so. I hate what these men are doing to our country, but I love them as Christ loves them, and I want them to repent. I want them to know the joy and the peace that I have found. I tell you boys in all honesty, I pray and fast for these men for hours and days at a time before I go to meet them. I lay prostrate before the Lord and seek his will before I go. I plead for wisdom and discernment and courage. But each time the Lord has told me to be quiet, to say nothing, to trust him alone, and to listen.”

“But why?” Ibrahim asked. “That doesn’t make sense. Why would Jesus tell you not to share the gospel? Doesn’t he command us at the end of Mark’s account to go and ‘preach the gospel to all creation’? Doesn’t he command us at the end of Matthew’s account to go and ‘make disciples of all the nations’?”

“Yes, he does,” Birjandi said. “And to be honest, I don’t know why the Lord has covered my mouth each time. It has bothered me. I have come home wondering if I had failed him by being disobedient. But then I remember the life of Paul, how the Holy Spirit forbade him to preach in Asia in Acts 16:6 and in Bithynia in verse 7.”

Both young men quickly found the passage.

“Now, why would the Holy Spirit forbid Paul from preaching the gospel?” Birjandi asked. “Twice in two verses the Lord prevented Paul and his team from going where they thought they should go and saying what they thought they should say. Why?”

It was quiet for a few moments; then Ibrahim spoke up. “To obey is better than sacrifice,” he said.

“Yes. Why?” Birjandi pressed.

“Well, Jesus also said, ‘Why do you call Me, “Lord, Lord,” and do not do what I say?’ I guess it’s always more important to do what Jesus says on a tactical, moment-to-moment basis, than to just do whatever you want, even if it seems like the right thing to do.”

“Very good, Ibrahim.” Birjandi smiled. “You are truly becoming a disciple of our Lord. Yes, we are to tell everyone the gospel. Unless
the Lord tells you for whatever reason to keep your mouth shut. He knows better than we do. His thoughts are higher than our thoughts. We should also err on the side of boldness, I believe. But if the Lord says to be quiet, then we must obey. But now I ask you boys to pray for me. Maybe the Lord will open a door to share the Good News with the Ayatollah and the president and be able to avoid meeting with the Mahdi. Nothing is impossible with God. Amen?”

“Amen,” they replied.

“Good. Now, let us get back to our study.”

FORT MEADE, MARYLAND

Eva Fischer glanced at her watch. It was 4:17 in the morning. She had been awake for only a few hours, and she was still trying to make sense of the stunning turn of events. She had gone to sleep in a basement cell in the CIA detention center in Langley. Now she was staring out the rear window of a black Lincoln Town Car driving through Maryland, exiting Route 295, and driving past a large green sign marked
NSA Employees Only
.

She was still fuming over her “discussions” with Tom Murray, though she didn’t hold him personally responsible. All that had happened in the last few days had been Zalinsky’s fault, not Murray’s. It was probably too much to expect that Zalinsky would be seriously reprimanded, much less fired, for what he had put her through, but a girl could dream, couldn’t she?

But Eva didn’t really want to waste her time thinking about Zalinsky. Her thoughts turned instead to David Shirazi, aka Reza Tabrizi. She had helped craft his cover story. She had been with him on his first trip inside Iran. She wasn’t technically David’s handler—that was Zalinsky’s role—but she had been one of David’s closest allies. It was she who had supplied him with much of the research he needed in the field. It was she who had secured the satphones he’d needed and personally brought them to him in Munich. It was she who typically maintained direct communication with him, she whom he had turned to when he
needed a Predator drone to save his life. True, she had hesitated at the time, but in the end she had done what she thought was right, and she’d do it again.

It had almost cost her job. It could have put her in prison for several years. She was glad to have been exonerated and compensated, but the whole experience had left a bitter taste in her mouth. She had answered all of Murray’s questions. She had signed all the documents. She had, in the process, cleared the CIA of all wrongdoing. But she was not going back to Langley. That was out of the question. Still, she couldn’t abandon David now. His life was in extreme danger. He needed her now more than ever.

She asked her driver to turn up the heat a bit, which he did. Soon they were clearing through a guard station and a 100 percent ID check and entering the grounds of the sprawling National Security Agency campus, less than an hour north of Washington, D.C., and about half an hour southwest of Baltimore.

It was a dark and moonless night, bitterly cold, with a howling easterly wind. A fresh blanket of snow lay on thousands of cars still parked in the 18,000-car parking lot, and Eva realized these people had not gone home, probably in several days. Nearly every light in every building was on. The Middle East was in a full-blown war, and Eva was encouraged to see the NSA humming with activity.

Three men were waiting for her at a side entrance. As the Lincoln came to a stop, one of them opened her door and shook her hand.

“Eva, hi. I’m Warren McNulty, chief of staff for General Mulholland. Welcome to the Puzzle Palace.”

“Good to meet you, Warren. Sorry to keep you up so late.”

“Believe me, we’ve been here and awake the last few days,” McNulty replied, helping her out of the car. “Never a dull moment, I’m afraid.”

He introduced her to the two armed guards at his side. One was assigned to him full-time. The other, he explained, would be assigned to her whenever she was inside NSA headquarters.

“Expecting trouble?” she asked.

“Wartime protocol,” he explained. “Come on, let’s get you inside, where it’s warm.”

McNulty—who Eva guessed was in his midforties and likely a former Marine, well built, in good shape, with a closely cropped haircut and piercing blue eyes—handed her a temporary badge and a hot cup of coffee and gave her a quick briefing on security protocols as they stepped on an elevator.

“General Mulholland will want to see you when he gets in around six,” he said, pushing the button for the top floor. “I’ve cleared out an office just down the hall from his, right next to mine. It’s nothing fancy, of course. We didn’t have much heads-up that you were coming. But it’s clean and quiet and secure, and I don’t have to tell you what a high priority we’ve given your work.”

“Thanks; that’s very kind,” Eva said, taking her first sip of coffee and finding herself surprised that it was a Starbucks dark roast with a hint of hazelnut creamer, just the way she liked it. Someone had done his homework.

A moment later, they passed through two more security checks—one getting off the elevator, the other as they approached the suite of offices of the NSA director, General Brad Mulholland, and his senior staff—before arriving at Eva’s new office.

McNulty was right—it was nothing fancy. Indeed, Eva half suspected it had been a supply closet an hour earlier. It was small and cramped, and it had no window. But there was a desk with a lamp and a computer workstation, a phone, and a stack of files at least three feet high. Eva opened the top file. It was a transcript of an as-of-yet-untranslated Farsi satphone call, intercepted less than an hour earlier.

“All of these are untranslated?” she asked in disbelief.

“I’m afraid so.”

“Don’t you have other Farsi translators?”

“Five—though one is in the hospital with a burst appendix, so four, really.”

“Are they here, in the building?”

“Of course,” McNulty said. “Downstairs. Their names and extension numbers are all on that sheet by the phone.”

“Why aren’t they working on these?”

“Because they’re working on stacks even higher than this.”

“You’re kidding me,” said Eva, feeling completely overwhelmed.

“Wish I were,” McNulty said. “Listen. I’ll tell you what I told them. There’s no way you’ll be able to translate all of this word for word, type it up, proof it, and transmit it to Langley, much less do that with all the other intercepts that are coming in hour by hour. So at this point the general is asking that you simply start scanning these as fast as you can. Make notes in English on any that stand out. If something is hot, call me or one of my deputies. Again, names and numbers are on that sheet. You’ve got to triage this stuff. Top priority is anything that refers to the warheads, anything that references a possible strike on the U.S. or Israel or any other regional target, and anything that comes from the troika at the top—the Mahdi, the Ayatollah, or President Darazi. Got it?”

Eva took a deep breath and another sip of coffee and found herself wishing—at least for a moment—that she was back in her cell in the detention center at Langley, sleeping soundly and relieved from such an enormous burden. “Got it.”