The Tehran Initiative

by Joel C. Rosenberg

  “This is Javad Nouri. I just got back to Tehran and got your message.”

  A surge of adrenaline instantly woke David up. “Hey, good to hear from you.”

  “I hope it’s not too late to call you, but whatever you’ve got, we could use.”

  “It’s no problem,” David replied. “Thanks for getting back to me. I expect to have a hundred of what we were discussing by late in the afternoon tomorrow—er, I guess today. They’re being shipped to me in Qom. That’s where I’m heading now to meet some of my tech team later this morning at some switching station that’s having a problem. Are you guys going to be in Qom by any chance?”

  “No, we’re not,” Javad said. “But I have a better idea. Could you bring them directly to us? Our mutual friend has heard many good things about you and would like to meet you in person. Would that be acceptable?”

  David was stunned. The only mutual friend they could possibly have was the Twelfth Imam. Was he really being invited to meet with him in person?

  “Of course. That would be a great honor; thank you,” David replied.

  “Wonderful,” Javad said. “Our friend is deeply grateful for your help, and he personally asked me to apologize for the vetting process you were subjected to. He hopes you understand that we cannot be too careful at this stage.”

  “I understand,” David said, trying not to sound as ecstatic as he felt. “Abdol Esfahani explained everything. I’ll survive.”

  “Good,” Javad said. “Be in Tehran tonight at eight o’clock at the restaurant where we met before. Come by cab. Don’t bring anyone or anything else with you, just the gifts. I’ll have someone meet you there and bring you to us. Okay?”

  “Yes, of course. I’m looking forward to it.”

  “So are we. I’ve got to go now. Good-bye.”

  Thrilled, David hung up the phone. He had to call this in to Langley. But just as he was about to, he suddenly remembered Dr. Birjandi’s stern warning that the Twelfth Imam was a dangerous false messiah. Birjandi believed the Mahdi was possessed by Satan and was “certainly guided by demonic forces” to deceive the unsuspecting. He had even gone so far as to quote some End Times prophecy from the Bible, saying, “‘If anyone says to you, “Behold, here is the Messiah,” or “There He is,” do not believe him.’ And ‘if they say to you, “Behold, He is in the wilderness,” do not go out, or, “Behold, He is in the inner rooms,” do not believe them. For just as the lightning comes from the east and flashes even to the west, so will the coming of the Son of Man be.’”

  A chill ran through David’s body as a deep sense of foreboding came over him. No one knew more about the Twelfth Imam than Dr. Alireza Birjandi, and Birjandi had been adamant that he would not meet with the Mahdi under any circumstances, fearful that even a man of his wisdom and experience could be drawn to the Mahdi and lose his reasoning. But this was an intelligence operative’s dream come true—and in many ways it was the very reason he had been sent to Iran.

  * * *

  Arlington, Virginia

  Marseille finally got back to her hotel room in Crystal City.

  She showered and changed and ordered room service for an early dinner, then checked the latest headlines from Iran. The New York Times and Washington Post websites were filled with the latest rumors of war, plus full coverage of the Mahdi’s speech in Tahrir Square and analysis of why Egypt had unexpectedly joined the Caliphate. The Wall Street Journal noted oil and gas prices were both up significantly again in overnight trading as the crisis in the Middle East worsened, while the Dow had plunged 11 percent in the last week and the NASDAQ was being hit even harder. The Jerusalem Post website covered CIA director Roger Allen’s visit to Jerusalem and Amman and Prime Minister Naphtali’s photo op with an American Patriot missile battery in the Jezreel Valley, noting the US was rushing additional Patriot batteries to both Israel and Jordan. One headline read, “Tens of Thousands Gather at Wailing Wall to Pray for Peace As Crisis with Iran Heats Up.” The more she read, the more worried she became for David and for Lexi and Chris. That reminded her to check her e-mail. One from Lexi caught her eye.

  Dear Marseille,

  Thanks so much for your very sweet note and for all your prayers! Chris and I so appreciate them. Keep them coming! I know the whole world thinks there’s going to be a war over here soon, but aren’t they always saying that? I mean, my parents have refused to go to Israel—and refused to take us kids—all of our lives because “it’s just not safe.” I can’t tell you how blessed I am to have married Chris.

  His motto: Fear not.

  So we’re trying not to read the papers, and we can’t understand most of what’s on the radio anyway. But we’ve been everywhere—all through Jerusalem and Bethlehem and Jericho, to the ruins of Caesarea, to a beautiful church on the top of Mount Carmel, to the Church of the Annunciation in Nazareth, to the McDonald’s just down the road from Armageddon. (I’m not kidding! I’ve attached a picture of Chris and me in front of it. It’s hilarious!) I even bought you some wine in Cana—a bottle of red and one of white!

  I’m taking a bazillion pictures and writing furiously in my journal. I’ll post everything on my Facebook when I get a chance, but Chris and I are having too much fun to post photos just now!

  We just arrived in Tiberias and are staying at an amazing hotel on the shores of the Sea of Galilee. You have to come here. YOU HAVE TO!

  Tomorrow, we’re taking a boat ride on the Sea of Galilee—they call it the Kinneret here—and then going to the Mount of Beatitudes.

  Anyway, the embassy is texting all Americans, encouraging us to leave the country immediately. But Chris and I don’t want to miss a single minute, and everything goes so much faster when there aren’t so many tourists here! So, Lord willing, we’re staying through Sunday and should get back on Monday.

  Sorry for such a long message. Did you get a flight back to Portland yet, or are you still stuck in DC? Go see the monuments and the art galleries!

  Love you lots.

  See you soon!

  Lexi

  * * *

  Langley, Virginia

  Tom Murray knew he wasn’t going home that night.

  He ordered a sandwich and soup from the commissary and sent his secretary downstairs to get it. Just then, his phone rang. It was the watch commander in the Global Operations Center.

  “They’re leaving now?” Murray asked, instantly alert. “How many? . . . Do you have the coordinates? . . . Hold on, let me grab a pen. . . . Okay, go ahead. . . . Got it. Do you have a Predator anywhere close that can keep tracking them? . . . Do it now and keep me posted. We’ll get this to our man on the ground and let you know. Good work.”

  * * *

  En Route to Qom

  David took Zalinsky’s call on the first ring.

  Increasingly conflicted about the meeting with the Twelfth Imam, he had hesitated to call it in, but now he figured this was as good a time as any. Zalinsky, however, had his own news. “You need to turn around,” he ordered.

  “Why?” David asked. “What are you talking about?”

  Zalinsky explained the Mahdi’s intercepted call from Javad’s phone to Faridzadeh and the order to put final details in place. Then he explained that an NSA Keyhole satellite had just picked up a convoy leaving Hamadan, an 18-wheeler flanked by two SUVs.

  “We need you to intercept the convoy and follow it.”

  “Can’t you task a Predator to do that?”

  “We don’t have one over Hamadan right now.”

  Incredulous, David asked why not.

  “The one we had there was having mechanical problems,” Zalinsky said. “I sent it back to Bahrain to be checked out. We’ve got another one going in, but it’s going to take a few hours to get there.”

  David briefly explained his situation.

  “Really, a meeting with the Mahdi?” Zalinsky said. “That’s huge.”

  “I know,” David said. “So shouldn’t I stay on track for that?”

  “When
do you need to be back in Tehran?”

  “By eight tonight.”

  “Then you should have plenty of time. Find the convoy, follow it, and report back every half hour. That’s priority one right now. Then we’ll make sure you’re back to Tehran by eight.”

  “Are you really sure it’s carrying warheads?” David asked.

  “No, but the convoy left Facility 278 in the dead of night, and the fact that this is the first convoy to leave the facility at all since the nuclear test seems significant. There are several military bases along the main highway south, and we need to know for certain where they’re headed. Anyway, this is our best lead right now. Actually, this is our only lead. We need to see where it takes us.”

  “Fine, but let’s say the convoy does have a warhead. What am I supposed to do about it? I’m unarmed and alone. Is there a special forces team nearby?”

  “I’m sending in two paramilitary teams,” Zalinsky replied, “one to the safe house in Karaj and the other to the safe house in Esfahān. But they are HALO jumping into the country and won’t be there until lunchtime at best.”

  David was startled. “I thought you already had teams on the ground. That’s what you told me.”

  “We did. The White House had us recall them.”

  “When?”

  “After the president heard from the Mahdi.”

  “But why?”

  “All I can say is that the Agency is under enormous pressure not to do anything too provocative.”

  David couldn’t believe what he was hearing. He was furious and felt hung out to dry. He was risking his life inside Iran, and the administration didn’t want to do anything too provocative? What was wrong with them? Didn’t they see what they were facing? There were times he wished he worked for the Mossad.

  “Look,” Zalinsky said, “I know how you must feel right now.”

  “Do you?”

  “Yes, but I need you to do this for me. I’m sending the paramilitary teams in without the director’s permission. I haven’t even told Murray. I will when the time is right, but not now.”

  “Why?”

  “I made you a promise. I told you I’d back you up, and I will. But in the meantime, I need you to get on this target and stay on it until we get more people into place and figure out what to do next.”

  David held his tongue. He had plenty to say, but there was no use unleashing on the one guy who was helping him.

  “So,” Zalinsky said, “can I count on you?”

  David took a deep breath. “Sure. Which way are they heading?”

  “South on 37.”

  “That’s directly parallel with me, but ninety minutes away,” David said, adjusting his GPS system to get a wider view of the area. “If I turn around, I’ll never find them. I’d be better off taking a right on 56, cutting through Arak, and trying to intercept them at Borujerd.”

  “How long will that take you?”

  “An hour and a half, maybe less if I hit the gas. An hour fifteen if I’m lucky.”

  “Do it,” Zalinsky said. “And keep me posted.”

  44

  Syracuse, New York

  Nasreen Shirazi abruptly stopped breathing.

  Her husband frantically began giving her CPR and screamed for help. Azad had just stepped into the hallway to take a call from Saeed, but when he heard his father’s yells and an urgent Code Blue message over the hospital’s loudspeakers, he came rushing back in. Seconds later, a team of doctors and nurses rushed in as well. They took over from Mohammad Shirazi and worked feverishly to save Nasreen. But nothing they did worked.

  Twenty minutes later, Mrs. Shirazi was pronounced dead. Her husband collapsed in a chair in the corner sobbing while Azad tried in vain to comfort him.

  * * *

  Junction of Routes 56 and 37, outside Borujerd, Iran

  It was 2:30 a.m. in Iran when David reached the junction of 56 and 37.

  He pulled his Peugeot to the side of the road, put on the parking brake, grabbed a flashlight from the glove compartment, got out, and popped the hood as if he were having car trouble. He had not passed the convoy coming through the city of Arak or any of the smaller towns and villages along Route 56, so there were now only two possibilities. His best-case scenario was that they had not reached the junction yet. If that was the case, they should be coming through any minute, and he could pick up their trail. If they had just passed through, then he was in trouble. It meant they were still heading south on 37 until they hit a fork. At that point, they could either go west through Khorramabad, a city with about a third of a million people, or continue south on 62 toward Esfahān, Iran’s third-largest city with more than a million and a half people. At that point, it would take a miracle to find them.

  David called Zalinsky to report that he had nothing to report except that he was freezing. Strong winds were gusting across the western plains and making the already-chilly March air even colder. David promised to check in again soon, hung up, then opened the trunk and pulled out his coat. The moon was just a sliver, and there were no streetlights or houses or shops to be seen for miles, so it was dark and barren and David felt a stab of deep sadness. He was anxious to find the convoy, to be sure, and worried all his efforts so far would be for naught if the Iranians launched their War of Annihilation against Israel or against his own country. But it was more than that. He felt very much alone, as if something precious to him had just been ripped away.

  He thought about praying. He sensed that God might have the answers that he so desperately needed. But he felt guilty turning to God now, when he had been resisting Him for so long. For weeks, it seemed, God had been trying to get his attention—years, actually, but especially in the past few weeks. Through Marseille. Through Najjar Malik. Through Dr. Birjandi, and now through meeting his six secret disciples. Through one near-death experience after another. The car crash. The gun battle. The waterboarding. Through it all, God had been protecting him, watching out for him, providing for him even though he didn’t deserve it. Yet had he taken time to really process what he thought about God, what he thought about Jesus? He knew the answer, and his guilt became all the more crushing.

  Just then, David heard a truck coming south. He whipped around, but it was only a pickup, and it was alone. He went back to tinkering with his engine.

  As he did, he began to ponder all that he had seen and heard and wrestled with in recent weeks. He did believe in God, he decided. Actually, he was pretty sure he always had. How could he not? He knew deep in his soul that God had been revealing Himself in ways large and small ever since he was a child.

  What if his parents had stayed in Iran and he had been born here? He’d never have known freedom, never have met Marseille, never have had the incredible opportunities he had today. He might even be serving in the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps at this very moment, he realized. He might be serving the Twelfth Imam and be a full participant in the great evil now unfolding. Hadn’t God spared him from all that?

  Or what if Jack Zalinsky had never come to see him in the Onondaga County juvenile detention center when he was sixteen? What if he’d been sentenced for a more serious crime, given a longer sentence? What if his record hadn’t been expunged and he’d never gone to college? Wasn’t God’s hand rescuing him then, too?

  Yes, David was sure that a God existed, one who had a plan for him and was trying to get his attention. He was certain of this now. But he was also certain of something else: the god of Islam was not Him. David wasn’t naive enough to think that Muslims were the only people to do horrific violence in the name of their god. Throughout history, people calling themselves Christians had done terrible things too. The difference, David concluded, was that the Muslims waging violent jihad were actually obeying the Qur’an’s commands to kill the infidels, while people who said they were Christians but killed or mistreated Jews, Muslims, and others were explicitly disobeying the teachings of Jesus.

  It was Muhammad, after all, who told his followers th
ings like “Jews and Christians are the ones whom God has cursed, and he whom God excludes from His mercy, you shall never find one to help and save him” and “Kill them wherever you may come upon them, and seize them, and confine them, and lie in wait for them at every conceivable place.”

  Yet it was Jesus who told His disciples, “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.”

  A few more cars passed. No military convoy.

  David began to think more about Najjar. He still couldn’t believe how radically the man had changed in just a month or so. He had grown up a devout Twelver. Over the course of his life, Najjar had even met the Mahdi several times and had seen him do signs and wonders, for crying out loud. Yet now he had turned his back not just on Shia Islam and the Twelvers but on all of Islam. Now he was telling his story on worldwide television, preaching the gospel, and telling his people that “Jesus Christ is calling you to Himself because He loves you—so receive Him by faith while you still have time.”

  Was Najjar right? Was it true? Did Christ really love him? Was Jesus really calling him to follow?

  David had read the transcripts of Najjar’s conversations with Eva three times, and now he’d even watched on the Christian satellite channel as Najjar told the story of meeting Jesus on the road to Hamadan. He practically knew the story by heart, but had he really thought about what it meant?

  Najjar said he’d seen a man wearing a robe reaching to his feet. Across his chest was a gold sash. His hair was white like the snow that surrounded them. His eyes were fiery. His face shone. At that point, Najjar said he fell at the man’s feet like a dead man, but the figure had said, “Do not be afraid.”