Damascus Countdown (6 page)

Most of his contacts, David had to assume, either were working feverishly to obey the orders of the Mahdi and Iran’s top generals to strike back at the Israelis or were huddled with their families in basements and bunkers. Those without satellite phones might not be reachable for the duration of the war, however long it took. But even the ones with satphones—the insiders—weren’t answering. Why not? Wasn’t that the point of having the satphones—so that such key men could be reached at all times regardless of the circumstances? Were they really too busy, David wondered, or was it something else? Were they avoiding him? Was he under suspicion after the near-assassination of Javad Nouri? Were they under orders not to speak to him anymore? He was burning to know the answer. He was desperate to find a lead. But for the moment, he was stuck.

WASHINGTON, D.C.

Roger Allen stepped out of the West Wing, got into the bulletproof black SUV waiting for him, and ordered they head back immediately to CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia, roughly a twenty-minute drive at this time of night with no traffic. He was furious, and someone was going to hear about it. No sooner had they pulled out of the White House gates than Allen picked up his phone and speed-dialed his deputy director for operations, who picked up on the first ring.

“Tom Murray,” said the voice at the other end.

“Tom, it’s Roger. I’m on the way back.”

“How’d it go?”

“How do you think? The president is fit to be tied. He wants to know why he’s not getting hard intel in real time, especially from these satphone intercepts.”

“What did you tell him?”

“What could I tell him? I told him of course we’d do a better job. But frankly I’m as angry as he is. Why are the translations and analyses going so slow?”

“It’s the same as we discussed before you left,” Murray replied. “The calls are a treasure trove. But we’re getting more than we expected, faster than we expected, and we’ve got every man on the project we possibly can.”

“Every man, maybe,” the director said. “But not every woman.”

There was a pause. “Sir, let’s not go there,” Murray said.

“We don’t have a choice,” Allen replied.

“You’re talking about Eva Fischer?” Murray asked.

“Of course I’m talking about Eva. Frankly it was idiotic for Zalinsky to lock her up in the first place, and it’s time to stop this nonsense, release her, and get her back to work.”

“Sir, Agent Fischer co-opted a multimillion-dollar intelligence platform. She did it without authorization. And why? To save the life of a friend.”

“No, Tom, to save the life of an agent,” the director shot back. “For crying out loud, she saved the life of Zephyr, who by your own admission is our most effective agent inside Iran, the guy who single-handedly identified the location of the warheads. Come on now, you’re telling me you don’t think Jack overreacted?”

“Jack did exactly what I would have done.”

“Really? Lock up one of our best Farsi speakers and best analysts in the middle of a war with Iran, and for what? For saving our best asset inside the regime?”

“Sir, she compromised our ability to track one of the very nuclear warheads inside Iran that we now can’t find—one that could be headed toward the United States.”

“Enough, Tom,” Allen said. “I want Fischer released immediately, with a full exoneration and a $50,000 bonus as compensation.”

“Sir, I don’t think—”

“That not a suggestion, Tom. It’s an order. I want Agent Fischer released, apologized to, fully reinstated, compensated, and sitting in my office by the time I get back. You’ve got sixteen minutes. I suggest you get cracking.”

SYRACUSE, NEW YORK

What had struck Marseille most about the memorial service was how clearly beloved Mrs. Shirazi had been throughout the Syracuse community. She hadn’t known that David’s mom had, for more than two decades, been a loyal volunteer for the American Red Cross or that she’d been a tireless—and apparently quite effective—fund-raiser for the pediatric heart center at Upstate Medical, the hospital where Dr. Shirazi worked. So many of the friends she had made in both places came to show their respects, as did several families whose lives had been touched or whose children had been saved as a result of this dear woman’s efforts. Most touching to Marseille was watching several of Mrs. Shirazi’s closest friends read tributes, some of them successfully fighting back tears, some less so.

None of it, Marseille was certain, had provided the closure the family really needed. To make matters worse, Mrs. Shirazi’s burial would have to wait until sometime in April or early May, since the ground at the cemetery was presently covered with too much snow and was far too cold and hard to dig a grave, all of which meant the family’s raw wounds would be subjected to even more pain in another few weeks when they essentially had to do this all over again.

When the service was over, Dr. Shirazi had invited everyone back to his home. Indeed, he had insisted upon hosting three days of mourning for family and friends. This, it turned out, was an Islamic tradition, which Marseille found curious, since Dr. Shirazi was not a religious man, and neither were his wife or their sons. The Shirazis had long since
abandoned Islam, but Marseille sensed that this ritual was far more about tradition than religion. This was about Dr. Shirazi operating on autopilot, doing what he had seen his parents do, and their parents before them, not trying to invent a new family tradition at a time like this. So she had followed everyone else over to the Shirazi house and offered to help serve food and run out for more ice and help in any other way she could. When she wasn’t needed, she just sat in the back of the living room and kept quiet, observing the people coming and going, and praying a lot, sometimes with her eyes open and sometimes with them closed.

She observed that this was not really dissimilar from the tradition of her Jewish friends in Portland who sat shivah for seven days following the death of a loved one. There was something simple, even sweet, about sitting in a family’s living room, saying little or nothing, but just being near them, with them, around them while they grieved for their loved one and she grieved with them. Marseille found herself wishing it was a tradition her family had practiced after the death of her mother. It would have been good, Marseille thought, for her father to sit with friends for seven days and let himself cry and weep and mourn properly. She had been only fifteen then, but she was pretty sure her father had never mourned properly. He had certainly never been able to heal from the gaping wound in his heart. Losing a spouse was obviously different from losing a parent. But maybe sitting shivah—or whatever they called it in Islam—was a good thing to do in either case.

“Loved ones and relatives are to observe a three-day mourning period,” read one website on Islamic death rituals that Marseille had looked up on her iPhone after the service. “Mourning is observed in Islam by increased devotion, receiving visitors and condolences, and avoiding decorative clothing and jewelry.”

Marseille hadn’t wanted to sit around and “observe” everyone’s mourning, however. That’s why she’d offered to help as much as possible. She’d taken special care to make sure Dr. Shirazi had a fresh cup of Persian tea by his side at all times, with a little drop of honey stirred in, just the way he liked it. She’d helped set out and arrange the food people brought. She’d refilled buckets of ice and made pot after pot of
coffee and tea. When she’d noticed that neither of the Shirazi sons were doing it, she had emptied the trash can under the sink in the kitchen, replaced it with a new Hefty bag, and taken the overflowing bag out to the can in the garage. She’d answered phone calls and taken messages when the Shirazi family members were busy. She’d washed dishes as needed and made sure there were enough forks and spoons and napkins available. Perhaps most importantly—or at least most usefully—she had continually refilled the Kleenex canisters strategically positioned all around the first floor.

All the while, however, she tried to keep a low profile, acting more like the hired help than a friend of the family. She wanted to show her love to the Shirazis, but she didn’t want to presume to be part of the family. Nor did she want others to perceive her as acting like one. She didn’t want any of the real friends of the family asking who she was or why she was there, in large part because she had no idea how to answer such questions. Who was she to these people, really? Why was she there? She couldn’t just come out and say the truth. She wasn’t even entirely sure what the truth was. Was she doing this for the purest of motives, out of genuine, sincere love for the family? Or was she doing it for David, though he probably had no idea she was even there?

She could see the enormous pain in this family, and not just because of Mrs. Shirazi’s passing. These relationships were broken. The boys were estranged from one another. Worse, they seemed estranged from their father as well. There were clearly deep tensions just under the surface, and there were moments she feared those pains might explode into the open. She prayed throughout the day that they wouldn’t and that no one else would notice.

For some families, tragedies brought them together and helped heal old wounds. This didn’t appear to be one of those families. What the Shirazis needed most, Marseille began to see, was the same thing her father had needed most but never found. Not ancient traditions or a house full of family and friends or a piping-hot cup of Persian tea. What they needed was the healing touch of God’s Son, Jesus. They desperately needed Christ’s love, his comfort, the “peace of God, which surpasses all understanding,” that he had promised to all who followed him. She
wanted them to know the love and mercy and healing she had found after her mother was killed in the Trade Center attacks. She wanted them to know the amazing truth of God’s great love.

But now didn’t seem the time to say anything, and again, who was she? Why should they listen to her? Yes, Christ had poured into her heart an everlasting, transforming love she hadn’t known existed. He had adopted her into his family and truly healed the wounds in her soul. She desperately wanted this family to know the Jesus she knew. But “there is an appointed time for everything,” she recalled from Scripture. “And there is a time for every event under heaven. . . . A time to weep and a time to laugh; a time to mourn and a time to dance. . . . A time to be silent and a time to speak.” Tonight, she knew, was a time to be silent, and so she was.

Marseille glanced at her watch. It was now well past midnight. This very long day was finally winding down. She stepped into the kitchen and took a look around. Most of the guests who had come to mourn with the Shirazi family had gone or were in the process of saying good-bye. Dr. Shirazi hugged the last few to leave and then headed upstairs without a word. He had to be exhausted. But Marseille felt a twinge of disappointment that he wouldn’t take a moment and say good-bye to her as well.

She quietly began helping Azad wrap and put away the mounds of food that people had brought over. A few moments later, Saeed stepped into the kitchen but continued out to the back deck without a word, fixated on his BlackBerry and raising not a finger to help. Marseille tried not to let it bother her. She was exhausted after such an emotional day. She needed a good night’s rest and some time to herself before packing up and finally flying back to Portland late the following evening. But as tired as she was, she couldn’t quite bear to leave. Not yet. So she began wiping down tables and then rinsing dishes and loading them into the dishwasher.

There was something special about being back in this house. She loved how it looked, how it smelled, how it felt to be here. She smiled, remembering the love and affection the Shirazi parents had for each other. They held hands. They took long walks together. They doted on
one another, and they seemed to genuinely enjoy each other. Marseille suspected they would have been deeply in love anywhere on the planet, regardless of the circumstances, for they were, at heart, classic romantics. The kind of love they’d had for each other—the kind they seemed uniquely wired for—was at once special and magical and deeply mysterious, and Marseille found herself wondering if David was wired for that kind of love as well.

Fond memories notwithstanding, she had never really expected to be standing here again after so many years. Not after how she had treated David. Yet here she was, alone with David’s family, trying to love them and comfort them in their loss, while David was somewhere far away. Life had a funny way of working out, she told herself as she rooted around on her hands and knees under the kitchen sink, looking for some dishwasher detergent.

She wondered if she would ever see David again. Surely she would, right? God hadn’t brought her all this way to reconnect with his family only to lose him all over again, possibly forever, had he? The very thought made Marseille wince. She again offered a silent prayer for David, for safety and for his speedy return. She’d been foolish to wait so long to reach out to him. He’d been so warm and encouraging when they’d met, glad to see her again after so many years. Perhaps her fears had been misplaced. Perhaps David was still her friend. Perhaps he could be more than just a friend.

She wondered where he was at that very moment. What was he doing? Whom was he with?

KARAJ, IRAN

David felt his phone vibrate, signaling an incoming message. He checked it as he kept jogging and found that it was actually a Twitter post from Najjar Malik. Where was Najjar, he wondered. And why hadn’t the FBI found him yet? The man had been Iran’s top nuclear scientist and the CIA’s top prize, and now he was gone? How was that possible? Who was the moron who had let Najjar escape?

Then again, though he couldn’t admit it to anyone on his team, David wasn’t entirely disappointed it had happened. Najjar was a transformed man. He had not only had a vision of Christ in Iran but now had the courage to tell the world about it. Najjar was fast becoming the modern-day apostle Paul of Iran, and David found himself intrigued by every tweet the man sent. And he was not alone. Najjar’s Twitter following was surging exponentially, and he was using all the sudden interest to urge his countrymen to turn away from Islam and turn to Jesus. He was linking to sites exposing the evils of the Iranian regime and warning about the dangers of the Caliphate and the Twelfth Imam, whom Najjar openly and unapologetically called a “false messiah.”

Najjar’s latest messages contained a link and the comment “Mustafa is evil, but make no mistake—the Mahdi is behind this savagery. But God will not be mocked. Judgment on Iran and Syria is coming.”

Intrigued, David clicked on the link as he rounded a corner and headed up Abu Bakr Street. The page that loaded was from the website of the
Daily Star
, a Beirut-based newspaper. The headline read, “Syrian Girl Found Mutilated.”

The horrifying story began: “A young woman was found beheaded and mutilated, and the crimes were reportedly committed by Syrian security agents. According to reports, the eighteen-year-old woman’s brother was arrested and killed earlier this month. When their mother was brought by security forces to pick up his body, which showed bruises, burns, and gunshots, she found her daughter’s body as well. The family said the girl had been decapitated, her arms cut off, and skin removed. After the burial last weekend, women held a protest . . .”

David stopped reading.

God will not be mocked. Judgment on Iran and Syria is coming.

David could only hope Najjar was right. Syrian president Gamal Mustafa was arguably the most bloodthirsty tyrant in the Middle East, and that was saying something. David wasn’t entirely sure how close Mustafa and the Mahdi were. It was odd that the Syrians weren’t yet engaged in the war with Israel, but he had little doubt they would be soon. These dictators needed to be toppled. Their people needed to be liberated. But it was going to take an act of God, David realized. For
clearly the U.S. government was no longer in the business of regime change.

David’s phone rang. His pulse quickened. Perhaps it was Birjandi or Rashidi. But then, to his surprise, he found himself wishing most that it was Marseille. And yet how could it be? She didn’t know this number, and he knew Langley wouldn’t let an unauthorized call from the States come through to his phone anyway. Unless, perhaps, it was his dad.

David read the caller ID. His heart sank. It wasn’t any of his contacts calling him back with a new lead, or Marseille or his father. It was Zalinsky at Langley. He took a break from his run to catch his breath and answer the call.

“Hey.”

“Hey—are we secure?” his handler asked.

“Absolutely. What have you got?” David wondered if his voice betrayed the level of anxiety he now felt.