David carefully looked over the document. If it was a fake, it was an awfully good one, and he wondered why anyone would go through the trouble. He had never seen Najjar Malik before. He had no idea what the man would look like. Anyone could say they were Najjar and catch his attention. But why would they, and why now?
“What do you want with me?” David asked.
“I want to leave Iran.”
“What?”
“You heard me,” the man continued. “I have information your government wants. I will give it to you in exchange for political asylum.”
“You’ve got the wrong guy,” David said cautiously. “I’m just a businessman. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“No,” the man said, “you’ve been looking for me, and now here I am. I’m offering you my help, but you must also help me.”
“You’re crazy,” David said. “Pull over the car.”
“Why?”
“Because you’re a lunatic. I’m a businessman. I sell phones. Now pull over and let me out.”
David didn’t know whom he was dealing with, but if this was some test by Esfahani or Rashidi or someone else, he was determined to pass it. Yet he could see the stranger turning white. The man was perspiring and gripping the steering wheel for dear life. If he was acting, he was good. David wondered for a moment if this could be the real deal, but he quickly banished the thought from his mind. It was impossible. There was no way that-
“I have a laptop,” the stranger blurted out.
“You need to pull over now,” David insisted.
“I have a laptop you will want,” the stranger said again. “It was Dr. Saddaji’s laptop. I am sure you know who he was.”
If this was a trap, David thought, it was becoming irresistible.
“The Israelis killed him,” the man continued. “Or maybe you did. I don’t know. Either way, I don’t regret it. The man was… Anyway, I have his laptop.”
There was a long silence as the man kept driving through increasingly congested city streets. David said nothing. He didn’t dare say anything. What the man was offering was the crime of treason.
“I haven’t had time to review all of the material on his hard drive,” the stranger said, “but some of it I have. Your government needs to see it immediately.”
“I don’t work for the German government,” David said. “I told you, I’m a businessman. I work for Munich Digital Systems. We sell-”
“Mr. Tabrizi, please,” the stranger said. “I’m not interested in talking to the German government. I want this laptop and the information I have to go to the Americans, to your government. I know you work for the Americans, and I know you want what I’m offering. So please, I don’t have time to play these games. I’m risking my life here. I’m risking my family’s life. I was told that you could help me. Can you?”
The man suddenly took a hard right on a Vahdat e-Islami Street, and then another right into Shahr Park, a quiet, wooded oasis in the middle of Tehran’s concrete jungle. When he found a parking space with no one else around, he stopped the car but kept it running.
“Let me be perfectly clear, Mr. Tabrizi,” the stranger continued, obviously trying to keep his emotions in check. “I have studied the reports on my father-in-law’s computer. Iran now has eight nuclear warheads in its possession. By the end of March, they will have fourteen. By the end of April, they will have twenty. The weapons work. Our scientists don’t yet know how to deliver them via a missile, but that’s not going to stop this regime from using them soon. Ayatollah Hosseini ordered my father-in-law, Dr. Saddaji, to write a detailed plan for how one of these warheads could be shipped to Egypt, smuggled across the Sinai desert, into Gaza through the Hamas tunnels, and then into Israel to be detonated in Tel Aviv. I have the memo. It’s on the laptop, along with dozens of e-mails to and from Hosseini’s top aides-mainly General Jazini-refining the plan and improving it significantly. But that’s not all, Mr. Tabrizi.”
David finally bit. “What else do you have?”
“I have dozens of e-mails between Jazini and my father-in-law discussing the technical challenges of transporting several of these warheads first to Venezuela, then to Cuba and Mexico, and finally into the United States. Like I said, I haven’t had time to review everything that’s on the laptop, but I can tell you there are detailed discussions on how to ship the warheads safely, how to evade international detection, how to maintain operational control over the trigger mechanisms, and so forth. I’m willing to turn it all over to your government. But my family and I want asylum and protection.”
Dubai, United Arab Emirates
Eva burst into Zalinsky’s office.
“We’ve got a problem,” she said.
“What’s wrong?”
“We’re getting all kinds of chatter on the satphones. The Iranians just found Najjar Malik. They’re sending agents to pick him up as we speak.”
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.”