The Twelfth Imam (40 page)

84

Tehran, Iran

They sat in the park with the car still running.

“Why are you telling me all this?” David asked.

He was increasingly convinced he was really speaking to the actual son-in-law of Dr. Mohammed Saddaji. But to be sure he wasn’t being set up, he needed to better understand the man’s motive.

“I don’t want innocent people to die,” Najjar explained.

“All of a sudden you have a conscience?” David countered. “You’ve been working with your father-in-law on building nuclear weapons for years.”

“No, that’s not true,” Najjar said. “He hired me to help him develop civilian nuclear power plants, not to build the Bomb.”

“That’s easy for you to say now.”

“It’s the truth,” Najjar insisted. “I never even suspected what my father-in-law was up to until recently. But even then I had no proof.”

David was still skeptical. “What changed?”

“Everything has changed,” Najjar replied. “Dr. Saddaji was killed by a car bomb. I read what was on his laptop. Then there was the earthquake, which you must know was not a natural event. It was triggered by a nuclear test. There are scores of e-mails in which my father-in-law was scheduling the test and assigning tasks for the final details. It’s all on the laptop.”

David listened carefully. It was all adding up. Everything Najjar was saying was consistent with the evidence he and his team had collected so far, but far more detailed and far more dangerous. If it was all true, it certainly explained why the Iranian regime was working so hard to hunt this man down.

“Why me?” David asked.

“What do you mean?”

“Of all people, why did you come to me? And how did you know who I am or what I look like?”

David could see the hesitation in the man’s eyes.

“I’d rather not say.”

“Then no deal,” David said.

“What do you mean?”

“You heard me. I’m not making you a deal unless you explain how you found me and why.”

“What does it matter?”

David ignored the question. “How could you have even known I would be at the mosque this morning?” he demanded. “I wasn’t even sure I was going to come until just before the prayer service began.”

It was clear Najjar didn’t want to answer his question, but David wasn’t going to give up. He had to call this in to Zalinsky, but not unless he was sure, and at that moment, he still had doubts.

“We should go,” Najjar said, glancing at his watch. “We’re not safe here anymore.”

But David pulled out his phone. “I can help you, Najjar,” he said calmly. “One phone call, and I can get you and your family out of this country forever. I can get you set up in America with a new life, safe from your enemies here. But first you need to answer all of my questions.”

“I’m telling you what I know. I’ll tell you more. But not here.”

“Najjar, you came to me,” David reminded him. “You obviously believe I will help you, and I will. But I need to know—who sent you to me?”

“Please, Mr. Tabrizi,” Najjar implored. “My family is not safe. I must get back to them.”

“We will pay you. More money than you’ve ever seen.”

“I’m not doing this for money! I’m doing this for my family.”

“Then just tell me. Who sent you? It’s a simple question. Give me a name.”

“It’s not that simple,” Najjar said.

“The name, Najjar; just give me the name.”

Dubai, United Arab Emirates

Zalinsky’s phone rang.

It was Tom Murray from the CIA’s Global Operations Center.

“Talk to me, Jack. What have you got?”

“It’s not good,” Zalinsky said. “Best we can tell, the Iranians have tracked down Najjar Malik. They’ve dispatched about a dozen police and intelligence units to pick him up. They should be there any moment.”

“So what do we do now?”

“I’m working on it, sir.”

“What about your man in Tehran?” Murray asked.

“He’s been working on this nonstop,” Zalinsky explained. “But at this point, I don’t think there’s anything more he can do.”

“Call him,” Murray ordered. “We can’t let this guy slip away. The Israelis are on edge. They’re 100 percent sure now the Hamadan earthquake was triggered by a nuclear test, and the president is afraid Naphtali is going to launch a preemptive strike. If the Iranians get Malik . . .”

Murray didn’t finish his sentence, but he didn’t have to. Zalinsky promised to get back to Murray in a few minutes, then hung up and speed-dialed Eva.

“Get me Zephyr.”

Tehran, Iran

David wasn’t sure how to respond.

He’d asked for a name, and Najjar had given him a name. It just wasn’t one he could possibly have expected. In any other country, at any other time, the whole notion would have been ludicrous. But with all that had been happening in recent weeks . . .

“Let me make sure I have this straight,” David said. “You were a Twelver. But you’ve converted to Christianity because you saw a vision of Jesus. And now you’re saying that Jesus told you to come here and meet me? That doesn’t strike you as strange?”

“Not that strange. It happened in the New Testament all the time,” Najjar said.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Jesus told people things were going to happen, and they happened.”

“Really.”

“Jesus sent people to certain places and they went. Jesus told Ananias to go to Straight Street in Damascus and heal a blind man named Saul of Tarsus at the house of Judas, and Ananias did it. He didn’t know Saul. He’d never seen Saul. The Lord just led him, and he obeyed.”

“And I’m supposed to believe that Jesus sent you to me?” David asked.

“Believe it or don’t believe it; I’m sitting here, aren’t I?”

He certainly was, and David realized he had entered an entirely different dimension. He had come to Iran to engage in a clandestine geopolitical war but had come face-to-face with something else entirely. There was a spiritual battle going on for this country unlike anything he had ever heard of or imagined, and he wasn’t prepared for any of it. People were talking about visions of the Twelfth Imam and visions of Jesus as if such events were commonplace. What’s more, it was becoming clear that the people of Iran were being asked to choose sides between the two.

It occurred to David that he wouldn’t have even known the name Najjar Malik or his importance to the Iranian nuclear program if it hadn’t been for Dr. Birjandi—a brilliant octogenarian former Shia Muslim scholar who sometime in the past few years had secretly renounced Islam and become a follower of Jesus. What’s more, according to Birjandi, more than a million Shia Muslims in Iran had converted to Christianity in the past three decades. Many of them had converted after seeing dreams and visions, he said, and more were converting every day. In a strange sort of way, while Najjar Malik’s story was far outside of anything David had ever experienced, it did have a certain logic to it.

The ultimate proof, perhaps, was in the laptop, and David was eager to see it. Just then, his phone rang. It was not a welcome call. Not at the moment.

“Hey, I really can’t talk right now,” he told Eva. “I’ll call you back.”

“Actually, this can’t wait,” Eva said.

“This really isn’t a good time.”

“Too bad.”

“Why? What’s the problem?”

“It’s your expense reports, Reza. They’re still not in order. The boss wants to talk to you about them before he heads into a budget meeting.”

“Fine,” he said. “Tell him I’ll call in a few minutes.”

He hung up the phone and turned to watch a jogger running through the park. He followed the man for a moment and scanned the woods to see if there was anyone else around. For now, they were still alone. But Najjar was right; they couldn’t stay much longer. They had to keep moving or be questioned by the next patrol car that came through the park. But there was something he had to do first.

“Where is the laptop now?” David asked.

“In the trunk,” Najjar said.

“Can I see it?”

“Do we have a deal?”

“If you have what you say you have, then yes, we have a deal.”

They got out of the car, and Najjar opened the trunk. Sure enough, there, wrapped in a motel blanket, were a Sony VAIO laptop, an external hard drive, and a plastic bag filled with DVDs. Najjar powered up the laptop and briefly showed David some of the files and e-mails he’d been describing.

Thunderstruck by what was in front of him, David told Najjar to gather it all and bring it up to the front passenger seat.

“I’m going to drive,” he said. “You’re going to read to me.”

“Where are we going?” Najjar asked.

“Where’s your family?”

“In a motel near the airport.”

“We need to get them, and fast.”

85

Dubai, United Arab Emirates

For Eva’s taste, information wasn’t flowing fast enough.

It was taking too long for the NSA to transcribe and interpret the intercepted calls and get them to her and Zalinsky. So Eva called her NSA counterpart and insisted she and Jack be able to listen in to any of the intercepted calls in real time, only to be told that such a request couldn’t be made by someone at her level but had to come from at least the CIA’s deputy director for operations.

Furious, Eva slammed down the phone and drafted a memo to Tom Murray to that effect. She e-mailed it to Zalinsky for his approval, then walked over to his office to follow up, wondering as she walked how exactly they were supposed to fight and win the war on terror with such insane bureaucratic constraints. She knocked on the door and popped her head in as Zalinsky was picking up the phone.

“Code in,” he said.

“Is that Zephyr?” she whispered.

Zalinsky motioned for her to come in quickly and shut the door behind her. But rather than answer the question, he put the call on speakerphone. Zalinsky confirmed Zephyr’s passcode, then cut to the chase.

“We’ve got a problem,” he told David. “The Iranians have Malik.”

“No, sir; I’ve got him!”

“What do you mean you’ve got him?”

“He’s with me right now.”

“That’s impossible,” Zalinsky said. “VEVAK forces just stormed Malik’s motel room near the airport.”

“No, sir,” David said. “I’m telling you, he’s sitting right beside me. We’re driving to the motel now.”

Zalinsky paused. “Son, can he hear what I’m saying?” he asked quietly.

“No, sir.”

“You’re sure?”

“I’m sure,” David confirmed.

“Then listen to me very carefully,” Zalinsky said, getting to his feet. “You’ve got the wrong guy. The VEVAK team tracked Najjar Malik’s cell phone to a motel near the airport. They raided the place a few minutes ago.”

There was a pause. “Hold on.”

Eva could hear David asking the person sitting next to him if he had his cell phone with him.

“No,” they heard the man reply, “I left it at the motel.”

“Sir,” David said, “we may have a problem.”

“You’ve got the wrong guy,” Zalinsky said.

“No, I’ve got Dr. Najjar Malik, all right. I’ve got his passport. I’ve got his father-in-law’s laptop. I’ve got Saddaji’s external hard drive. I’ve got Saddaji’s memos, his e-mails. I’ve even got his backup discs. It’s real, sir. It’s all that we’ve been looking for. But Dr. Malik left his cell phone at the motel. Iranian intelligence must have triangulated the signal and tracked it down. If they just stormed his motel room, then we have another problem.”

“What’s that?”

“They now hold his wife, his daughter, and his mother-in-law.”

Ayatollah Hosseini picked up the phone.

He found the Twelfth Imam on the other end of the line.

“Do you have Malik yet?” the Mahdi demanded to know.

“No, my Lord,” Hosseini said. “Not yet.”

“I thought you had him at a motel.”

“We thought we did, too, my Lord. His cell phone was there, but he was not. We think . . .” Hosseini hesitated.

“What?”

“I hesitate to say because we’re still—”

“It’s okay, Hamid,” the Mahdi said calmly. “Just tell me what you know.”

“My people think he has defected, my Lord.”

“What makes you say this?”

“General Jazini says Dr. Saddaji’s laptop is missing from his apartment. We know that Dr. Malik went to Dr. Saddaji’s office the other night, ostensibly to get his personal effects. But the general thinks Malik might really have gone there to gather evidence of the nuclear program. He may now have what he needs.”

“To do what?”

“We don’t know, my Lord. We would just be guessing at this point.”

“Then guess.”

“Worst-case scenario?” Hosseini asked. “He could be trying to sell it to the Americans or perhaps the Israelis. We may have to accelerate our attack plans before either can launch a preemptive strike. But for the moment, there is a more urgent matter. We must stop Dr. Malik from getting out of the country.”

“What do you recommend?”

“For starters, we need to close the airports, the bus stations, the train stations. We’ll also set up police checkpoints on all the major highways leading in and out of Tehran.”

“No, that’s a mistake,” the Mahdi said, catching Hosseini off guard. “All that would stop the flow of Iranian pilgrims heading to Mecca to see me revealed to the world. And it would create a negative news story right at the moment when I am receiving excellent worldwide coverage about my imminent arrival. No, you must keep all this quiet. Don’t let the media catch wind of the manhunt or report it in any way.”

Startled, Hosseini said nothing for a moment.

But then the Twelfth Imam said one more thing. “Make no mistake: I want you to find Najjar Malik. I want you to find him, and I want you to bring him to me that I may separate the head of this infidel from his neck and rip his heart out of his body.”

Najjar Malik was rattled.

“Mr. Tabrizi, those monsters have my family. We have to find them,” he insisted.

“We‘re doing everything we can,” David promised as he drove. “We’re putting our best people at the CIA on it right now.”

“I can’t leave without them. You understand that, right? I’m not leaving this country without my family.”

Najjar didn’t seem to be panicking, but there was no question in David’s mind that his new asset had the weight of the world on his shoulders.

“I understand,” David assured him, “but for the moment we need to focus. We need to get you someplace safe. You’re no good to your family if you get captured or killed. Do you understand me?”

Najjar nodded and grew quiet.

“You guys are on Azadi Road, heading west, correct?” Eva said.

David was startled to hear her voice. For a moment, he had forgotten that he still had Fischer and Zalinsky on the line and that they were following him via the GPS tracker in his phone.

“Affirmative,” David said. “We just passed the metro station and should be at Azadi Square in a few minutes.”

“How’s traffic?” Zalinsky asked.

“Not good, and getting worse,” David said. “We’re on an eight-lane boulevard. I’m doing ten to twenty kilometers an hour at the moment, but half a klick ahead it’s all brake lights.”

“We need a plan to get you guys out of there,” Eva said.

David already had one. “Once I clear through this mess, I’m heading for Safe House Six,” he said, referring to a basement apartment the CIA owned on the outskirts of the city of Karaj, about twenty kilometers west of Tehran, in the foothills of the Alborz Mountains. “We should be there in about an hour.”

“That’s good,” Zalinsky said. “What then?”

“If the regime shuts down all the airports, we’ll hunker down at the safe house, upload all the contents of the laptop to you, and wait until things quiet down a bit. But let’s assume for a moment that they keep the airports open.”

“Why would they do that?” Eva asked.

“They might not want to stop all these Iranians from being able to get to Mecca to see the Twelfth Imam. That’s a huge deal for this regime.”

“I think you’re wrong about that,” Eva said.

“Maybe,” David conceded. “But if by some chance I’m not, I say we use this mass pilgrimage to our advantage.”

“How?” Zalinsky asked.

“Send a private plane to Karaj under the guise of a charter flight,” David said. “Report the flight as a group of wealthy pilgrims heading to Mecca to see Imam al-Mahdi. With any luck, we’ll get lost in the exodus. They can’t possibly keep tabs on everybody. State-run radio says they’re expecting another half-million Iranians to leave for Saudi Arabia in the next twenty-four hours.”

“I don’t have a private plane to send,” Zalinsky said. “I have a CIA special ops team on standby in Bahrain to extract you guys out of a site in the desert.”

“No, I don’t want to take Dr. Malik into the desert; it’s too risky,” David said. “We need to hire a plane out of Dubai and try to get it to Karaj by tonight before they think twice and really do shut down the airports. It’s our best shot, Jack. It may be our only shot.”