“We all know the Zionists are descendants of apes and pigs,” he began. “They got lucky this time, but let us all remember-they are destined to be wiped off the face of the earth once and for all, and it is our destiny to make this happen. But let us not be distracted from our higher calling. The Zionists would have no power against the Muslims if it were not for the American whores and lepers. It is time for the wave of jihad to crash upon them both. The day of the Judeo-Christian empire is over. The kingdom of Allah and his servant has come. Tell me, then, how soon will we be ready to launch the War of Annihilation?”
“Soon, my Lord,” Minister Faridzadeh assured him. “But we need to replace Dr. Saddaji, and that won’t be easy to do.”
“Saddaji was the deputy director of your nuclear program,” the Mahdi said. “Why not replace him with the director?”
“The director is a political appointee, my Lord,” Faridzadeh said, choosing his words carefully. “He is a fine man, and we are deeply grateful for his service, but…”
“But he does not have the technical skills we need to run the weapons program,” the Mahdi said.
“No, my Lord. I’m afraid he does not. He is really the face of the civilian program, working with the IAEA and other international bodies.”
“But you obviously know how to move forward without Saddaji.”
“That’s true, my Lord,” the defense minister agreed. “But that’s because all the pieces were already put in place by Saddaji before he died and because the Supreme Leader wanted to send a message to his killers that they could not stop our plans.”
“Who was Saddaji’s right-hand man?” the Mahdi finally asked.
“Dr. Najjar Malik.”
“Najjar Malik from Iraq?”
“Yes, my Lord.”
“From Samarra?”
“Yes, yes, that is the one.”
The Mahdi smiled. “I know Najjar; he is a faithful servant. He is married to Saddaji’s daughter, Sheyda, is he not?”
“He is indeed, my Lord.”
“Does he know all the details of the weapons program?”
“Unfortunately, no,” the defense minister said. “He is a very able physicist, my Lord. He’s also a first-rate manager, and he was personally recruited and trained by Dr. Saddaji. But for security purposes, and at my command, Dr. Saddaji kept everything compartmentalized. Dr. Malik knows the rest of Iran’s civilian nuclear program better than anyone in the country, but we kept him in the dark about the weapons program. We operated that on a separate track.”
“Could he learn it?” the Mahdi said.
“I think he could. He is definitely someone we could trust. He would need time to get briefed. But I think he would be ideal. And of course, he would have all the scientists and staff on the weapons team who reported directly to Saddaji to help him.”
The Twelfth Imam smiled again. “Bring him to me at once.”
71
Hamadan, Iran
On the way to the car rentals, David tried to call Mina.
With so much of the network in the region down, however, getting a signal proved impossible. So he called from a pay phone and finally tracked her down. Mina provided him with directions on where to find Esfahani but apologized that she still hadn’t found him a functioning hotel. She asked him to be patient and promised to have something in the next few hours.
“No problem,” David said, figuring he could always fly right back to Tehran if she couldn’t find him any accommodations. “But I have a question to ask you.”
“What is it?”
“I’m just wondering, would it be appropriate if I called Mr. Rashidi and offered my condolences for the death of his brother-in-law?”
“Of course,” Mina said. “I think that would be very kind. Let me get you that number.”
As he waited, David asked if Mr. Rashidi’s brother-in-law was elderly or ill.
“Neither,” Mina said.
“He wasn’t killed in an accident, was he?”
“Not exactly,” Mina answered.
“Then how?”
“He was killed in a car bombing.”
“What?” David asked, not believing he had just heard her correctly. “In Hamadan? When?”
“Just a few days ago,” Mina said. “And the odd thing is that you’d think something like that would make the news. But it didn’t.”
That was strange, David thought. If his mobile phone service had been working, he’d have immediately done a search for the story on the Internet. Instead he asked for the man’s name.
“You mean Mr. Rashidi’s brother-in-law?”
“Yes, who was he?”
“His name was Mohammed,” Mina said. “Mohammed Saddaji.”
David was stunned, though he tried not to let his voice betray that fact. “You mean Dr. Mohammed Saddaji? the deputy director of Iran’s nuclear agency?”
“Yes. He was a brilliant scientist, and he and Mr. Rashidi were close. It’s very sad.”
“It certainly is. Why was Dr. Saddaji visiting Hamadan?”
“He wasn’t visiting,” Mina said innocently. “He lived there.”
David had many more questions, but he didn’t want to risk arousing suspicion. So he thanked Mina and promised to check back with her in a few hours about the hotel. Then he hung up the phone and proceeded to pick up his rental car while trying to process this new piece of information. There were no Iranian nuclear facilities in Hamadan-none that he had been briefed about, anyway. So why did such a high-ranking official in the Iranian nuclear program live there? Was Mina mistaken? Or was it possible there was a major facility in the area of which U.S. intelligence was unaware?
David found his car, pulled out of the airport grounds, and began driving south on Route 5 toward the city center. For the first ten minutes or so, he saw no serious signs of damage, confirming the news reports, which indicated the most severe impact had occurred downtown and to the west. He soon passed Payam Noor University on his right, then came through a roundabout onto the main beltway around the city, named after Ayatollah Khomeini. When he approached the neighborhood of the Besat Medical Center on the city’s south side, he began to see the full effects of the devastation.
Ambulances passed every few moments with flashing lights and sirens. Army helicopters were landing on the hospital’s roof, bringing in more casualties. All around, David could see single-family homes split in two and high-rise apartments lying toppled on their sides or crumpled into heaps of smoldering ruins.
He turned on the radio, and the news got worse. The confirmed death toll now topped 35,000 dead, with more than 110,000 wounded. Jumbo jets from the Red Crescent would be arriving soon, one reporter said, bringing tens of thousands of blankets and tents, along with desperately needed water and food. But movement on severely damaged roads was slow, the reporter explained, and rescue efforts were being hampered by the lack of reliable communications.
“It’s not just that the cell towers are down,” the newscaster reported. “Technicians from Iran Telecom are scrambling to restore wireless service, in particular, to help emergency crews of first responders rescue the wounded and care for the suffering. But thousands of landlines are down, fiber-optic lines have been severed, and even regular two-way radio service is being hampered by levels of static and blackout zones for which officials say they have no immediate explanation.”
David turned down a one-way street, then another, and then a third. He looped around in a school parking lot, then zigzagged through another residential neighborhood, trying to determine if anyone was following him. Satisfied that he was not being tailed, he pulled over to the side of the road and fired up his laptop. He opened the file with all of Esfahani’s contacts and searched for Dr. Mohammed Saddaji.
The search came up blank. Saddaji’s information wasn’t there.
Still, he knew he had to get that information back to Zalinsky as fast as possible. This wasn’t Baghdad or Mosul or Kabul. Car bombings didn’t happen every day in Iran. Certainly not in Hamadan. The Israelis were here, David concluded. They had to be. Which meant they knew more about what was going on with Iran’s nuclear program than Langley did. They wouldn’t have taken out Saddaji unless they had reason to believe that he was at the heart of Iran’s weaponization effort and that the weaponization effort was about to bear fruit.