“So Moses and Aaron did it; as the Lord commanded them, thus they did. Moses was eighty years old and Aaron eighty-three, when they spoke to Pharaoh.
“Now the Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron, saying, ‘When Pharaoh speaks to you, saying, “Work a miracle,” then you shall say to Aaron, “Take your staff and throw it down before Pharaoh, that it may become a serpent.”’
“So Moses and Aaron came to Pharaoh, and thus they did just as the Lord had commanded; and Aaron threw his staff down before Pharaoh and his servants, and it became a serpent.
“Then Pharaoh also called for the wise men and the sorcerers, and they also, the magicians of Egypt, did the same with their secret arts. For each one threw down his staff and they turned into serpents. But Aaron’s staff swallowed up their staffs. Yet Pharaoh’s heart was hardened, and he did not listen to them, as the Lord had said.”
“It’s a pattern,” Sheyda said softly when Najjar had finished reading.
“What do you mean?” Najjar asked.
“Sometimes false prophets and ungodly rulers can do signs and wonders. Sometimes they can do tricks that look like miracles of God, but they are really tapping the power of the devil. But we should not fear because God is greater, and in due time, He will swallow the enemy and thwart the enemy’s plans.”
“That makes sense,” Farah said. “But do you think the Lord is saying the Twelfth Imam is like Pharaoh?”
“Maybe so,” Sheyda said, “but let’s keep reading.”
Taking turns reading a chapter at a time, they backed up to chapter 1 of Exodus, read all forty chapters, and discussed them for hours. Was the Lord going to raise up a Moses to lead the Iranian people out of Islam?
It was almost two in the morning when they finally turned out the lights. But as Najjar lay his head on the pillow next to his wife and heard her begin to snore softly almost immediately, he found he could not sleep. His mind swirled with new thoughts and ideas he’d never even heard of before, much less considered seriously.
He was completely captivated by the person of Moses. In Islam, Moses was certainly considered a prophet, but Najjar was enthralled by the richness of the biblical details of Moses’ life and interaction with the One True God. Moses had been chosen by God from birth. He had been taken from his home as an infant but by God’s grace given a great education. His character had been shaped in the halls of power of the mightiest empire of the day, until one day the Lord God called him out. It didn’t make sense at first. God required Moses to give up all that he had, all that was important to him. But God had a plan for the man of God, Najjar realized, and that captured his thoughts.
As the clock kept ticking into the wee hours of the morning, Najjar began wondering what plan God had for him. He loved Sheyda’s new passion and her conviction that perhaps God was calling Najjar, of all people, to speak for Him, to reach Iran with the message of Christ’s love and forgiveness. He was by no means convinced she was right. It seemed too lofty a role. But there was a more immediate question: What were they supposed to do next? They couldn’t stay in a motel on the edge of Tehran for too many more days. They couldn’t go back to Hamadan.
Where, then? Was the Lord going to take Najjar and his family out of Iran, the way He took Moses out of Egypt to prepare him for his future role? He hoped so. He couldn’t imagine staying and living under this bloodthirsty regime and now under a false messiah. But the only thing more difficult to imagine than staying in Iran was getting out alive. Millions of Iranians were heading to Mecca. The traffic jams all around them, so close to the airport, were proof of that, as were the constant reports on radio and television. Maybe they should join them? Maybe they should head to Saudi Arabia under the pretense of going to Mecca, then find a way to slip into Jordan or even Egypt.
Najjar suddenly felt thirsty and got up to get a glass of water in the kitchenette. As he did, he noticed his phone and realized he had forgotten to check his messages earlier. Powering up the phone, he was shocked to see twenty-three voice messages, all from Dr. Saddaji’s secretary.
The first message instantly sent terror into his heart. The defense minister was looking for him? Why would Faridzadeh want to see him immediately? It was a trap, Najjar thought. What else could it be? Yet what could he do? Each message proved progressively more ominous than the last, but the final voice mail was the most terrifying of all. Najjar was supposed to have reported to the defense minister’s office several days before. From there, he was to have been taken to a private meeting at the palace with the Twelfth Imam. Najjar had been instructed to tell no one about the invitation and bring no one else and nothing but his ID. No briefcase. No camera. No notebook. Nothing. The Mahdi and the minister were looking forward to seeing him, Saddaji’s secretary said, and they were eager to give him some “good news” that they promised would “cheer him and his family.” Najjar had no idea what that meant, nor did he want to find out. He quickly powered down the phone and set it back on the table.
What was he supposed to do? Moses had gone back to Egypt and confronted Pharaoh and his magicians directly, hadn’t he? Then again, hadn’t Jesus specifically said that when a false messiah comes-especially one who performs “great signs and wonders, so as to mislead, if possible, even the elect”-and someone says to you, “Behold, He is in the inner rooms,” that you should not go?
Najjar was chilled with fear. Sheyda and the baby were asleep. So was Farah. He had no friends he could call. He had no family to whom he could reach out. So he did the only thing he knew. He got down on his knees and begged the Lord for mercy.
82
David paced his tiny hotel room.
He stared out the window at the traffic beginning to build up and tried not to panic. It was Tuesday, March 1. He’d spent most of the last several days searching for Najjar Malik on the Internet, in Iranian phone directories, through real-estate transaction records, and on Iranian newspaper and magazine databases, all to no avail. He had dozens of analysts back at Langley searching every intelligence database they could and data-mining all other materials toward the same end, but with no results. He had the NSA feverishly translating and transcribing intercepted calls, whose frequency were growing exponentially and beyond the Agency’s capacity to keep up.
None of the transcripts indicated Faridzadeh or his men had found Najjar yet, but they were definitely closing in. According to the tidbits Eva had relayed, the Iranians now knew Najjar was in Tehran. They’d even gotten a momentary ping from his cell phone in the middle of the night somewhere on the west side of the city.
In desperation, David thought about calling Mina and saying he had urgent business at Iran Telecom. Could he persuade her to let him in the building this early in the morning? Even if the answer were yes, could he persuade her to let him break into the company databases and search Malik’s phone records to see whom he had called in the last twenty-four to forty-eight hours? Maybe there was someone in Tehran, someone with an address, someplace David could focus his attention? But he quickly dismissed the notion. Faridzadeh and the chief of VEVAK certainly already had that information, and there would be agents at any of those locations. David’s showing up at any one of them would only raise suspicions he couldn’t afford. And he wasn’t sure Mina would help him anyway. She was no fan of her boss, Esfahani, but she seemed loyal to the company. David believed he could eventually turn her into an asset. But he hadn’t yet, and he concluded she’d be no help now.