“I received a very uncomfortable call from the director.”
“What about?”
“Apparently President Jackson just got off the phone with Prime Minister Naphtali. Naphtali won’t say whether the Israelis took out Mohammed Saddaji or not. But he did say Israeli intelligence is detecting significant radiation emanating from a mountain west of Hamadan. What do you know about this?”
“Nothing concrete, sir,” Zalinsky answered, not exactly lying but not quite telling the whole truth either.
“You have a man in Hamadan right now, don’t you?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Does he have indications that the Iranians may have just conducted a nuclear test there?”
“He’s hearing rumors, sir, but nothing solid.”
“Rumors?”
“Speculation,” Zalinsky said. “Hearsay. But there’s nothing to back it up.”
“The Israelis are requesting a Constant Phoenix pass over the city,” Murray said. “The president was blindsided by the request. He’s furious that no one gave him a heads-up that there was even a possibility that the earthquake could have been triggered by a nuclear weapons test. Not us, not DIA, not the Pentagon.”
“We’re working on it, sir,” Zalinsky assured the DDO.
“It’s not enough,” Murray fumed. “You need to do better, Jack. The president is ordering Constant Phoenix to head to Iran, but we won’t have data for another twenty-four hours. You need to get me something more, and fast.”
“We’re on it, sir.”
But Murray wasn’t finished. “What’s all this commotion about the coming of the Twelfth Imam?” he demanded to know. “Naphtali said the arrival of the Twelfth Imam could mean the Iranians are close to launching a strike against Israel. The Saudi ambassador was just at the White House and told the president the Iranians say the Twelfth Imam is going to give a major address in Mecca, and the king is afraid the Iranians are planning to overthrow his regime by flooding the country with Shias from Iran. Quite frankly, until today, neither the president nor I had even heard of the Twelfth Imam except as some vague Muslim concept.”
“My people are working on all that, too, sir,” Zalinsky said. “But we need more time.”
At that, Murray lost it. “We don’t have more time. You’re supposed to keep me ahead of the game. I needed something yesterday. I gave you all the money you requested-black box, no congressional oversight-and what have you given me in return? Nothing, Jack. Nothing I can use.”
Murray was right, and it made Zalinsky ill. He was failing his boss and his country at a critical moment, something that had never happened in his life. He tried to stay calm. All he had new on the Twelfth Imam was Zephyr’s memo. He cringed at the thought of sending that up the chain of command but wasn’t sure what else to do.
“I’ll get you something soon,” Zalinsky promised.
“You’ve got six hours,” Murray said. “I want a backgrounder on the Twelfth Imam and hard new intel on what’s happening in Hamadan on my desk. And I want an update every six hours after that. You need to squeeze your people, Jack. All of them. The director said he’s never seen the president so livid. He’s afraid the Israelis are going to launch any minute. You have got to get ahead of this, or there will be hell to pay.”
80
Zalinsky called Eva into his office.
“What’s wrong?” she asked, startled by his ashen face.
“Tell me we have something new-anything-on the Iranian weapons program and the Twelfth Imam,” he demanded.
“We do, Jack,” Eva said. “I was about to bring all this in, but you were on the phone.”
“What do you have?”
“The data is starting to come in from the international monitoring sites near Iran.”
“And?”
“It looks like Zephyr was right. The seismic activity around Hamadan is consistent with a nuclear weapons test, not a natural earthquake-unbelievably intense at first but then slowing down rather than building.”
If only I’d had that information an hour earlier. “Anything else?” Zalinsky asked, steeling himself for more “good news.”
“Actually, there is, though I’m not exactly sure what yet,” Eva said, showing Zalinsky the latest transcripts of intercepted calls from the NSA. “Zephyr has delivered the satellite phones, and the phones, in turn, have been delivered to senior Iranian officials. They’ve apparently already been scrubbed for bugs and given the Good Housekeeping seal of approval, because they’re starting to crackle.”
“Are we getting anything on Hamadan?” Zalinsky asked.
“Indirectly,” Eva said. “No one’s talking about a nuclear test, per se. They seem quite cautious about what they say on the phones, even if there aren’t any bugs that they can detect. But there is a firestorm of interest in some guy named Najjar Malik. The Twelfth Imam is asking for him personally, but they can’t seem to find him.”
“This Twelfth Imam is a real person, not a fable or a myth of some kind?”
“They’re talking about him like he’s flesh and blood, boss.”
“Unbelievable.”
“I know.”
“Do you have any background on who the religious scholars say this guy is and what he’s supposed to do when he appears?”
“Actually, I do.”
“Fine-I need you to write a fast backgrounder on all that for the president,” Zalinsky said.
“Sure. By when?”
“I need it in four hours. Murray needs it in six.”
“Done.”
“Good. Now, who is Najjar Malik?”
“We don’t know,” Eva conceded. “We’re running the name through all of our databases and haven’t come up with anything yet. But the search is being directed out of the defense minister’s office. Look at these transcripts.”
Zalinsky scanned the documents she handed him.
“Both mention Malik in context with Saddaji,” Eva noted. “And see, in both he’s referred to as Dr. Malik. My best guess at this point is that he’s a nuclear scientist. He probably worked for Saddaji on the weapons program, very likely as a deputy or at some other senior level. What’s curious is that when you look at all the calls, it becomes clear that they’re looking for Dr. Malik in Hamadan. They’re afraid he might be dead because his apartment was destroyed in the earthquake and no one in the building survived.”
There it was again, Zalinsky thought-the city of Hamadan.
There was no question about it now, he realized. Zephyr was right. There was a secret nuclear facility in Hamadan, and the CIA had totally missed it. What’s more, Zephyr and the Israelis were also right that the earthquake to the west of the city had been triggered by an underground nuclear blast. Which meant Eva had to be right, as well. Dr. Najjar Malik had to be a nuclear scientist, probably a big shot in the program if he worked for Saddaji. Iran’s defense minister wanted to see him urgently. The Twelfth Imam, whoever he was, was asking for him. The evidence was circumstantial, but for Zalinsky, the next step was clear. If Najjar Malik was still alive, he was now a high-priority target. The Agency needed to pull out all the stops to hunt him down and capture him before the Iranians or the Israelis got to him.
Zalinsky looked up from the transcripts. “Get Zephyr on the phone; I need to talk to him-now.”
Tehran, Iran
There was a knock at the door.
“Come in,” Defense Minister Faridzadeh said, exhausted and growing more anxious by the hour.
“We found his secretary,” an aide said.
“Whose?”
“Dr. Saddaji’s.”
“Where’s she been all this time?”
“She’s been going from hospital to hospital and to the morgue, trying to identify Facility 278 employees.”
“Does she know anything about Dr. Malik?”
“Yes, she knows he’s alive, sir. She spoke to Mrs. Saddaji by phone. She says they went as a family to Tehran to mourn in solitude.”