“You’re welcome, David. Now I have a gift for you.”
He padded over to a cabinet next to the refrigerator and opened the top drawer. From it he drew a slim volume with a green cover and put it in David’s hands. It was a Farsi New Testament. Internally, David recoiled. His heart started racing. He tried not to give any evidence of his anxiety to the man standing next to him, but he had never owned his own Bible. He had barely touched one in all his twenty-five years. He had been taught by the mullahs in Germany during college that to read one would sentence a Muslim to the fires of hell on the Day of Judgment. And he dared not be caught by Abdol Esfahani, or really anyone else in the country, with a New Testament, especially now with the fatwa issued against Najjar Malik and the government crackdown surely coming against the followers of Jesus Christ throughout Iran. And yet it was a gift from a man who had become a dear friend and his most important asset. David did not want to seem ungrateful or unwilling, so he simply said thank you, as sincerely as he knew how.
“I know you do not want to take this,” Birjandi said quietly, as if he could read David’s every thought. “You’re scared of the words in this book, and you should be. The apostle John wrote his letter to the secret believers and said plainly, ‘He who has the Son has the life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have the life. These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, so that you may know that you have eternal life.’ If you desire eternal life, David, you will receive Christ as your Savior, and you will read this book every moment you have the chance. If you choose to spend eternity separated from Him in hell, then reject Christ and don’t bother reading this book. It’s your choice. But I am warning you, son, you do not know when your life will be required of you or when you will stand before the Lord God Almighty. Choose well, and choose quickly.”
Faridzadeh sent an urgent secure text message to Jalal Zandi.
Are the last two cakes baked?
A few minutes later, Zandi — now the most senior nuclear scientist in Iran after Mohammed Saddaji’s assassination and Najjar Malik’s defection — replied. Baked, yes, but T has had trouble with the candles. Has been working on this around the clock for the past few days. Literally putting finishing touches on it now.
T, Faridzadeh knew, referred to Tariq Khan, Zandi’s senior deputy. Questions are being asked, the increasingly impatient defense minister texted back. Need answers immediately. When will the cake be finished?
Within the hour, T believes, came the reply.
It can then be transported to other factory and readied for delivery?
Yes.
Are you with T?
No — preparing other cakes for delivery.
How is that coming?
Delicate process. But making progress.
Why are these cakes taking so much longer than the first two?
Difficult question to answer by text.
Try.
Short version: originally told first two cakes were for special delivery. Told we had more time to get the others ready. Party date has shifted multiple times. Doing best we can.
Bottom line — will they all be ready?
Nearly two minutes passed before Zandi finally replied. If the party is Sunday, we should be ready by Saturday, midday at latest.
Faridzadeh turned to Mohsen Jazini, commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps. The two men stood in the war room in the bunker ten stories below the Ministry of Defense in downtown Tehran. Faridzadeh showed Jazini the exchange. “What do you think?”
“I pray to Allah that Zandi is right,” Jazini said. “Or heads will roll.”
“My thoughts exactly. If we don’t start this party by Sunday — and the earlier in the day the better — I fear the Zionists will beat us to the punch.”
“You don’t buy Darazi’s argument that the Americans will find a way to restrain Naphtali from launching a preemptive strike?”
Privately, Faridzadeh thought Darazi was an uneducated, pretentious fool, boastful, arrogant beyond words, and basing his case purely on emotions — on what he hoped the Americans would do — not on reason or intellect or pure facts. “President Darazi is a fine and able man,” Faridzadeh said cautiously. “But respectfully, I have a somewhat-different perspective.”
“Go on,” Jazini said.
“Look,” the defense minister said, “the Israelis almost certainly assassinated Saddaji, and they almost certainly were the ones behind the attempt to kill the Mahdi as well. Naphtali is willing to take risks. He’s proven that. But he’s running out of people to kill our nuclear program and strangle the Caliphate in its cradle. He and his air force are coming after the warheads next. You know it. I know it. The Mahdi knows it. I suspect the Ayatollah knows it as well. That’s why they’re pushing us so hard to accelerate the timetable. But what can we do? Until all the final technical glitches are resolved and the six remaining warheads are successfully attached to missiles, we are all at the mercy of the scientists and the engineers. And you know me, Mohsen — I don’t like to be at the mercy of anyone.”
41
David thanked Birjandi and his study group of young clerics.
He said good-bye, then hit the road for Qom. From Hamadan, it was a 283-kilometer journey. He estimated it would take about two and a half hours. As soon as he was under way, he put on his Bluetooth headset, pulled out his phone, and speed-dialed Eva on the secure channel.
“Hey, it’s me, checking in,” he began.
She seemed glad to hear his voice and asked him how he was feeling. It felt good to talk to a friend, and he confided he was still battling physical discomfort and flashes of panic, both from the waterboarding and from the car crash in Tehran the week before. But soon he shifted quickly to the real reason for his call. “Have you mailed the phones yet? Please say no.”
“Why?”
“I need them rerouted.”
“Well, you’re in luck,” Eva said. “The phones actually just arrived from technical, all one hundred, most of them damaged, just as you requested.”
“Do they really look like they were beat up in shipping? It has to be believable.”
“Don’t worry,” she assured him. “These guys are pros.”
“Good. Look, don’t send them to my address in Tehran.”
“Why not?”
“I’m not going to be there tomorrow. Change in plans. I’m heading to Qom right now. Can you overnight them there?”
“Of course. Where to?”
He gave her the address for the Qom International Hotel on Helal Ahmar Street.
“Done,” she said.
“Thanks. Any luck hunting down Najjar?”
“None. It’s a nightmare. He’s the gift that keeps on giving.”
“How in the world did he escape?”
“Please don’t go there.”
“I’m just asking.”
“I don’t know how it happened, all right? I wasn’t there. I was coming back from New York at the time, but I can’t tell you how many people who outrank you I’ve had that conversation with.”
“I’m not blaming you,” David said.
“You’d be the first.”
“I was just asking — really.”
“How about you? Any leads on the nuclear scientists, the location of the bombs, on any of your objectives?”
He could see he’d made a mistake asking about Najjar’s escape. “Okay. Let’s change the topic. What did you think about Egypt joining the Caliphate today?”
“I’d expected Riad and Yassin to hem and haw and tell the Mahdi they needed to think about it and they’d get back to him,” she answered.