The Tehran Initiative

by Joel C. Rosenberg

  “How are you feeling?” she asked.

  “A little better,” he said softly, his voice hoarse, his spirit nearly broken.

  “Good,” she said and then went back to her reading, knowing all the while that he was staring at her, sizing her up, trying to understand who she was and whether he could really trust her.

  After several minutes, she lowered her magazine, looked him in the eye, and asked, “What did you love most about Rahim?”

  The question seemed to take Navid completely by surprise. He quickly turned away and closed his eyes. So Eva went back to reading. But after another few minutes, it seemed Navid couldn’t help himself.

  “Rahim was always more devout than I.”

  “Son of a . . .” Taylor said in Eva’s earpiece. “He’s desperate for human contact, just like you said.”

  Eva resisted the temptation to nod or glance at the video camera. But she was glad Taylor and his colleagues were taking notice.

  “What do you mean?” Eva asked Navid.

  “Rahim was always the strong one, always the one who submitted to Allah faster and more faithfully than I. He memorized all of the Qur’an by the age of ten. I still haven’t done it. He got straight As in the madrassa. I got Cs and Ds. When it was time to get up for morning prayers, Rahim would hear the muezzin call and jump right out of bed. Most of the time, I slept in . . . or wanted to.”

  “What was his favorite passage?”

  “In the Qur’an?”

  Eva nodded.

  Navid hesitated for a moment as if trying to determine whether she was sincere or not. He must have finally concluded that she was because all of a sudden he said, “He really loved Sura 3, verses 185 and 186.”

  “What do those say?”

  “‘Every soul is bound to taste death. So you will be repaid in full on the Day of Resurrection for whatever you have done in the world. Whoever is spared the Fire and admitted to Paradise has indeed prospered and triumphed, if you are patient, steadfast, and keep within the limits of piety.’”

  “Is your brother in paradise now, Navid?”

  “I hope so.”

  “And you?” Eva asked, pushing the envelope. “Will you see him when it’s your time?”

  There was a long pause. “I don’t know.” Another long pause. “I hope so. I miss him.”

  “I’m sure you do,” Eva said. “Were you always close?”

  “No,” Navid said, staring off into space.

  “Why not?” she asked, trying to bring him back.

  He shrugged his shoulders and stared down at the floor. “Rahim was four years older than I. So when I began junior high school, he was already in high school. When I was a freshman in high school, he was already done and in the army. When I was drafted, he was in college. It was only about six months ago that we began to connect again after so much time.”

  “What happened?”

  “I . . .”

  “What?”

  “I shouldn’t be telling you this.”

  “Why not?”

  “They told me not to say anything.”

  “Who did?”

  “The commander. He said if we were caught, we shouldn’t say anything, just keep our mouths shut.”

  “Does it really matter now what he said, Navid?” Eva asked. “You’re never going to see that commander again. He can’t hurt you. He’s half a world away.”

  “He will kill my family.”

  “You mean your parents?”

  Navid nodded, his eyes glassy and fatigued.

  “They still live in Tehran, in the apartment on Ghazaeri Street, right?” Eva asked.

  Navid nodded again.

  “It’s okay, Navid. I told you. We’ve already sent people to make sure they’re okay and to let them know that you’re safe. No one can hurt them now. No one.”

  It was another lie. But it seemed to work.

  “Really?” Navid asked.

  “I promise,” Eva said.

  Navid closed his eyes for several minutes. His breathing was light and shallow. She wondered if he had actually dozed off, but then he opened his eyes again and resumed staring at her.

  “You look a lot like her.”

  “Like who?”

  “His sister.”

  “Whose?”

  “Firouz’s sister.”

  “I do?”

  “Except her hair is dark brown, almost black, not blonde. And her eyes are brown, not blue. But your face, your hands, your smile, your mannerisms . . . you look so much like Shirin. She is very beautiful.”

  Eva didn’t know what to say. He was, after all, a prisoner, a terrorist, a murderer.

  “Is she around my age?”

  “No.”

  “Younger or older?”

  “Younger. Much younger.”

  “Younger than Firouz, too?”

  He nodded.

  “How much younger?”

  “At least ten years.”

  “So how old does that make her?”

  “She’ll be eighteen in July.”

  “Pay dirt,” Agent Taylor exclaimed. “Now we need a last name.”

  Eva ignored the request. It was a distraction. She knew what she had to do, and she knew how to get it done. She wasn’t interested in being coached by novices.

  “Is she married?” she asked.

  “Shirin?”

  “Yes.”

  “Not yet.”

  “So there’s hope.”

  “What do you mean?” Navid asked.

  “For you,” Eva said. “There’s hope for you, right?”

  He shook his head and looked back at his feet. “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “I could never win the heart of a girl like her. Not now.”

  “Why not?” Eva said. “Does she know you?”

  “A little.”

  “How does she know you?”

  “Rahim was engaged to her sister.”

  “Really?”

  “And if he had come back from this mission, they were going to marry.”

  “And now?”

  “There will be great joy in that family, and ours, over Rahim. He is a martyr. His name will be praised forever. Everyone will be so proud of him.”

  “And you?”

  “I will be cursed.”

  “Why?”

  “I am a failure. You said so yourself. And Mr. Nouri will agree with you. He will say, ‘Rahim was killed, but you were caught. Rahim gave his life to Allah. But you betrayed the regime, betrayed the Mahdi.’”

  “Who is Mr. Nouri?”

  “Mohammed Nouri, Shirin’s father. He will never let me see his daughter again or even set foot in his home. He is a mullah in Qom. He is a very hard man. He is devoted to the Mahdi. It’s all he can think about, all he can talk about. He will not allow an infidel like me to marry his daughter.”

  Firouz Nouri.

  There it was. Now she had the suspect’s name, his father’s name, his father’s profession, and the city of his birth. She had something to research, facts to check, leads to follow. It was all good, and it was a lot more than they’d had before she got there. But something wasn’t right. Something about that name bothered her, and she couldn’t figure out why.

  * * *

  Arlington, Virginia

  Marseille got up from her knees and stared out the window.

  She looked out over Washington and wondered what the president was thinking. She wondered what his advisors were thinking. What were they going to do? So many of her friends were in awe of President Jackson. They’d voted for him. They supported him enthusiastically. They couldn’t be more excited about where he was leading their country. But Marseille wasn’t one of them.

  She wasn’t especially political, but she didn’t trust Jackson. She sensed weakness in him or, more precisely, an odd combination of arrogance and indecisiveness. He acted like he understood the Muslim world, but did he really? He said he would never let US national security interests in t
he Middle East be threatened, but was that really true? Why wasn’t he doing anything to stop the rise of the Twelfth Imam? Why wasn’t he doing something decisive to stop the rise of this new Caliphate? Why hadn’t he done more to stop Iran from getting the Bomb? Now that they did have the Bomb, was he going to do something? Anything? Now that he’d almost been killed—presumably by Mideast terrorists, if the early media reports were accurate—was he going to retaliate?

  She didn’t want another war in the Middle East. Nobody she knew did. But America was under attack and being run out of the region. America’s leaders looked weak and feckless. That didn’t strike Marseille as a formula for peace. It struck her as blood in the water, and she was certain the enemies of the United States could smell it and were preparing to strike again. Was there any doubt that the Iranians were going to use the Bomb now that they had it? Not in her mind. At the very least, she figured they would give some of their nukes to Hamas or Hezbollah or al Qaeda or some other terrorist group to attack Israel and the United States. It was just a matter of time. Why wasn’t the president doing anything to stop that?

  She suddenly realized she was thinking like her father—like both of her parents, actually. That’s how they used to talk around the dinner table when she was growing up, she recalled. They were always interested in her classes and her plays and musicals and the boys that caught her eye. They always seemed to have time to listen to her, and they loved to encourage her and came to every school event or activity to which she invited them. But their world was geopolitics and economics. They were always quizzing her on the names of countries, the names of their leaders, the names of their currencies. They were forever teaching her obscure little tidbits of history. Who was the head of the KGB under Brezhnev? Yuri Andropov. Yasser Arafat claimed to be born in Jerusalem, but he wasn’t. Where was he really born? Cairo. What was another name by which Arafat was known? Abu Ammar. What world leader was recorded in the Guinness Book of World Records for having the largest funeral in history? The Ayatollah Khomeini, with nearly twelve million people attending. Where was he buried? In Qom, the religious capital of Iran. What’s the Turkish currency called? The lira. What’s the Iraqi currency called? The dinar. What’s the largest country in Africa? Sudan. What’s the most beautiful city in France? Paris, she would always say, but her parents always said Marseille.

  She wondered what her father would have been thinking if he were still alive, and she felt a lump forming in her throat. What would he have advised the president to do about the Twelfth Imam? What would he have advised the president to say to Israel? Had he ever had that chance? she wondered. Had he ever met an American president while working for the CIA under the guise of working for the State Department?

  Shifting gears, she checked her watch, then set up her laptop, logged on to the hotel’s wireless network, and clicked over to the Weather Channel’s website. The lead headline did not bode well: “Monster Storm Rips through Midwest, Northwest: 125 Million Americans Affected, 10,000 Domestic Flights Canceled, Governors of 16 States Declare Emergencies.” Portland, she read, had been hit with more than a foot and a half of snow overnight. Winds were gusting up to fifty and sixty miles an hour, making temperatures feel subzero and bringing the city to a complete standstill. Denver had more than two feet of snow, as did Chicago. Forecasters said more was coming over the next twenty-four to forty-eight hours. She wasn’t getting home. That much was clear.

  So was her next step. It was now a few minutes after 9:00 a.m. So she picked up the phone in her room, dialed nine, and then dialed Langley.

  “CIA switchboard. How may I direct your call?”

  “Yes, I’m trying to track down a gentleman who works there by the name of Jack Zalinsky.”

  “One moment, please.”

  Marseille’s pulse quickened. Was she really about to talk to the man who had saved her parents’ life? She had so many questions for him. Would he be willing to give her answers? Would he even be allowed to?

  The receptionist came back on the line. “I’m sorry, but we have no one by that name.”

  Caught off guard, Marseille tried to keep the woman on the line. “How about John Zalinsky or possibly James?”

  “I’m sorry, nothing.”

  “Could I have the personnel department?”

  “Sure, one moment and I’ll transfer you.”

  That, however, was a dead end as well. She explained who she was and how her family knew Mr. Zalinsky, but the young man in the personnel office said he was looking in the Agency’s database, and there had never been anyone there by that name.

  21

  Oakton, Virginia

  It was true, Najjar thought.

  War was coming. He didn’t know how. He didn’t know when. But the Lord was calling him to warn his people and tell them the truth. That much he knew. He also knew the Lord Jesus was coming back soon, which meant he had to move fast.

  Najjar was fully awake now. All fear had left him, as had all fatigue. He was pacing his room again, trying to come up with a plan. Was he supposed to go back to Iran? Was that what the Lord wanted? He would be arrested immediately upon arrival at Imam Khomeini International Airport. Maybe the Lord wanted to use his trial for him to speak to his nation. But what if the trial wasn’t televised? What if the war started before the trial did? Was it faith or foolishness to put his fate into the hands of the Iranian intelligence services? And what about his family? Was he really going to leave them behind? He loved Sheyda more than life itself. He was willing to obey Jesus no matter what. Still, something in his spirit didn’t feel right. He didn’t really believe the Lord was asking him to leave them. What, then? How was he supposed to proceed?

  * * *

  Arlington, Virginia

  Frustrated, Marseille googled Jack Zalinsky CIA.

  Nothing.

  She tried John Zalinsky and James Zalinsky. Still nothing. She tried J. Zalinsky and other possible spellings of Zalinsky but still found nothing. Something didn’t add up. She was absolutely certain she had the correct name. She had written it in her diary the same day David told her the story long ago when they were teenagers.

  She looked up from her laptop and out the window at a line of planes on approach to Reagan National Airport. The morning was dark and gray. A light freezing rain was pelting the capital and building up a thin sheet of ice on the roads and on her window.

  She could still recall begging David to tell her the story of how their parents had met in revolutionary Iran in 1979 and how their parents had helped each other during their escape when the Shah was toppled and Ayatollah Khomeini rose to power and the American Embassy was captured and its staff taken hostage. Her parents had been annoyingly resistant to talking about that period of their lives, even though she’d asked them time and time again for more details. At that point, she knew only the basics—that at the age of twenty-six, her father, Charlie Harper, had been a junior political officer for the State Department, fluent in Farsi, newly assigned to the US Embassy in Tehran in September 1979. She knew her mom, Claire, had been an assistant to the economic attaché at the embassy. She also knew her parents were then newlyweds in a new country, full of adventure with no kids, no debts, and lots of freedom. In the first few months in Tehran, they’d become friends with their next-door neighbors, Mohammad and Nasreen Shirazi. He was an up-and-coming cardiologist with his own clinic. Nasreen had worked for the Iranian Foreign Ministry under the Shah as a translator and later became a translator at the Canadian Embassy in Tehran. But that was it. That was all they would say.

  She’d been electrified when she discovered that the Shirazis’ youngest son knew the rest of the story, and to this day—despite all they’d been through—she still vividly recalled David’s kindness at finally telling her the story that her parents had never shared.

  He’d begun by explaining how Marseille’s mother had vetoed at least three different plans that the CIA and the State Department had drawn up, schemes that in her view ranged from the i
mpracticable to the suicidal, and to Marseille’s amazement, he explained how her father had actually devised the plan that was finally accepted and executed. The Harpers and the Shirazis, along with the other American FSOs, would be given false Canadian passports. This would take a special, secret act of the parliament in Ottawa, since the use of false passports for espionage was expressly forbidden by Canadian law. They would also be given false papers that identified them as film producers from Toronto working on a new big-budget motion picture titled Argo, set in the Middle East, in conjunction with a major Hollywood studio. Their cover story would be that they were in Iran scouting locations. The CIA would set up a front company in Los Angeles called Studio Six, complete with fully operational offices, working phone lines, and notices in the trade papers announcing casting calls and other elements of preproduction. The Americans and the Shirazis would then further develop and refine all the details of their cover stories, commit them to memory, and rehearse them continually. Eventually, the CIA would send in an operative named Jack Zalinsky to go over the final details and to see if they were ready for any interrogation they might encounter. When the time was right, Zalinsky would take the team to the airport and try to get them through passport control without getting caught—and hanged.

  “You’re saying my father came up with this idea?” Marseille remembered asking David when he was finished.

  “Actually, your mom helped quite a bit,” he’d replied.

  “That doesn’t make sense,” she protested. “How would my parents even know . . . ?”

  She closed her eyes, and it was as though she were fifteen all over again. She could hear the wind rustling through the pines and see the dark thunderclouds gathering overhead. She could still feel the temperature dropping as the next storm front came in, and she would never forget any detail of the dilapidated A-frame cabin they’d found in the woods, their own private hideaway from their fathers and David’s brothers and the others during the days they spent in the north.