by Jim Carroll
The night was still dark when we passed through the holy city of Qom, then on to the south. We had ten more hours to go. By late afternoon we arrived at Bandar Abbas, where I had shipping connections because of my earlier job in getting the materials for the bombs. The Sunni city with its men dressed in robes and head coverings looked more like an Arab metropolis than Tehran. Heading toward the docks for smaller boats, we encountered two white and green patrolling police cars, lights blinking, sirens wailing. I wondered aloud if they would want to search what was behind our darkened windows, and Esau squirmed in his tethers, trying to place his blindfolded face against the window. Too late for him – the police were chasing others.
My friend who piloted the thirty-meter sloop Dove greeted us at the pier, and he dumped our wriggling cargo into his hold so fast that we didn’t even confer. Esau kicked the side of the craft until he was secured to the bunk. Giant Number One accompanied the Dove on the ten-hour voyage across the Strait of Hormuz to Ras Al Khaimah, and we waited in the Suburban for our large colleague to return. The two remaining giants ate pretzels and smoked Special Oshno cigarettes. I cracked the window.
When the Dove returned the next day, Giant Number One confirmed the transfer. All of Esau’s travel and identity documents had been taken and were handed to me. So much for that part of the problem.
When I arrived back in Tehran, I used my ministry computer connections to remove all evidence of his residency and even his existence in Iran, including his driver’s license, auto ownership record, banking and housing information. Esau had never lived in Iran. The fate of his two wives? No bother for now.
That one-billion-dollar portion of the problem was fixed, but there was one more issue. The bomb itself. How many times would this problem I created return to persecute me?
CHAPTER 13
THE BOMB
This job was too big for me, even with the three giants. If we recovered the weapon, what would we do with it? I needed Khadim’s resources, but I’d already excluded him from the process, regrettable but necessary.
I needed help from a faction totally outside the political/economic/religious conglomerate I was in. There could be no possibility of any unexpected connections. They had to have access to a location to dispose of the weapon too.
An odd solution came to me. I would ask my friends at the Brethren Evangelical Church to meet with me. I had encountered two of their leaders during my confinement at Evin. After three taxi rides around the city and several furtive walks to make sure I wasn’t being followed, I entered their little gray brick chapel on Fatimah Street. If I was followed, it might be the end for them too. The brethren had once told me about their sister church in Rasht near the Anzali Port to the north on the Caspian Sea. My desperate thinking led me to consider the sea as a safe place to ditch the bomb.
Six of us gathered in the prayer room, which was barren of any ornamentation except the straight-backed wooden chairs. They assumed it was serious or I wouldn’t have come to them. No smiles among us. Surely, I was there for trouble. “Brothers, I must tell you of a dire threat among us.” Now, definitely no smiles, hands folded, rigid necks. I gave few details; as too much information would expose my own role. The fact that there was a nuclear weapon set to explode in our midst was sufficient.
“Why us?”
“You’re the only ones I can trust. I know you have no connections whatsoever to the government. You also have access to the only place I can think of to dispose of the bomb, through your colleagues up on the Caspian, where we could just dump it in the water.” No green solution here. “My contacts in the ministry can’t be trusted. I don’t know where the bomb came from and I don’t know where it could end up.” Only partial truths. None of the six responded.
Only then did I explain the remainder of my plan, and they excused me to the outer room while they discussed and prayed. Loud voices, some angry, emanated from their privacy. Thirty minutes elapsed, then forty-five.
At 6 p.m., they answered, “Yes, we’ll do it.”
At 2 a.m. two days later, ten unlikely looking, balding middle-aged men and a six-meter red panel truck with no identification stopped in front of the warehouse. We exited the vehicle, and I rapped on the metal door five times, the same signal I had heard before. As the door opened, all of us swept in and overcame the two supposed bomb-sitters, who bit two of the men and spat on the rest of us. The place smelled like they were lacking a working toilet. We bound the two with ropes and gagged them with rags we had brought. Silence intervened as we began our search for the bomb. We ran from room to room, all three floors, finding nothing but the smell of excrement and cigarettes on the lower floor and dust on the upper levels. Failure overcame me, my shoulders drooped, and I couldn’t speak. Such a carefully laid plan and now no result. The warehouse had been just a decoy all the time. The brethren were too kind to speak, but we were all discouraged. A few of them didn’t make eye contact. Surely they were done with any more plans from me.
What to do with our bound captives, looking up at us with wide eyes, perhaps expecting death at our hands? Apologize? We could torture them to learn about the bomb, but none of us had the cruelty required. Brother Andrew untied the guards. “We’re very sorry for your trouble,” he told them. They scrambled for the door, and at the street one ran left and the other right. Had the bomb ever been there in the first place? I thanked the men for trying to help me, and we discussed what to do next.
And so it was that we ended up back at the apartment of Esau’s two wives. “Where have you taken our husband?” they demanded. The brethren stuck with me, but they were less confident with my scheme now.
“Where’s the bomb?” I countered. We had to know. Now.
Upon being informed that Esau was somewhere on the other side of the Gulf, headed in a direction unknown to me, perhaps trapped in the desert, both women sobbed and wailed. I was completely unprepared for their emotional response. Somehow I had thought their relationship was based on political convenience. My skewed opinion was that Esau was incapable of close relationships. Apparently I was wrong about this too.
“You must help us get to him. Then, we’ll tell you where your silly bomb is,” they answered together. The brethren remained speechless, slack-jawed that I had involved them in what had turned into such a taut and risky venture, and more so, an invasion of Esau’s family. I realized that this had gone to a new level now. I turned and thanked my friends again for helping me. We would not get any further today. They excused themselves, hands in pockets, heads down. I could not call on them again. What a crazy situation I had entangled these faithful, peaceful men in. I was more ashamed now than at any other any point in the entire mess.
The women went to their bedrooms where they put on their chadors, and the three of us sat down facing each other on the thin-cushioned chairs. They were no longer crying but leaned forward to hear my non-existent solution.
“There’s nothing I can do. The only connection I have is Kuwait. Maybe I could get you to Kuwait, but about your husband…” On the mantle I saw a picture of an older Caucasian woman. Esau’s mother?
“Well, no husband for us, no bomb for you. The bomb is under the control of our people. When we get our husband, we’ll tell you where it is,” they replied.
Was this the best deal I could make? Women supposedly had no power in the Persian government, or did they have some after all? Clearly these two women had some clout after all, my only shred of hope. As unlikely as it seemed, Esau now prevented the very destruction he had meant to produce, and I could only continue to persist in my uncertainty. I still had no idea how this drama would unfold.
I did have to report to Khadim. A group was meeting in his office. When I cracked open the door, he saw me and waved out the flotilla of suits and ties, all apparently business types. They stopped talking and looked at each other, as if to ask why.
He motioned me in but gave no invitation to sit.
“Good news, we don’t have to come up with
the money” Of course, the money would not have been a problem. “And the bomb is secure.” Close to a lie.
“Where is it?”
“I don’t know but I’m sure it’s safe.” Definitely a lie. Its safety was predicated on the word of the two women, who expected me to get them back to their husband. The only reason it had not been detonated was because they had somehow prevented that. This had become so complicated. I had backed myself into a corner, and there were no further choices open to me. I was not sure what to do next.
Khadim jumped up from his chair, which crashed against the wall behind him, and smashed the screen of his computer with a tea glass. And he was a slave to his computer. “Get out of here. We never had this conversation. I have no knowledge of any of this. This never happened.”
Khadim’s last statement raised a question in my mind I had not considered. Why didn’t he know the bomb was missing, even before I knew? Why wouldn’t he tell me the truth?
For the remainder of my “imprisonment,” I floundered in this neverland: a bomb of my making was out there, somewhere in hiding, perhaps possessed by those more dangerous than even Esau. My relationship with Khadim was done – there was no trust between us. At least he couldn’t send me back to Evin. For him to do so would be to raise the question: Why?
My stay in this setting and current mindset continued until early 2021, the time of my release. I watched those around me grow in their faith. I knew they had advanced because I saw their courage increase in the face of state vigilance. Why did I hear no more about the bomb? Was it all an empty threat? I had no idea what the bomb owners’ objective really was now.
Iran had the bomb, but other countries still speculated about their possession of it. The country had weathered the bond crisis in remarkable fashion. I could not avoid thinking: These were both my doing. My pride was stained with regret. I still couldn’t articulate what I wanted out of all this.
The gospel of Jesus spread like water, seeping into any crevice. The government was at a loss as to how to handle its advance. To even admit its success and publicly attack it, would be defeat for them, so quiet reigned. Critical mass had been reached, and the government chose to be silent about what it could not control.
With all I had done, I was still immensely relieved to get out of Iran and go home. Being thrust back to little Kuwait and whatever confusion I would encounter there was much better than living under the constant stress of my watchful keepers in Tehran.
CHAPTER 14
FACING MY FEARS
As I emerged from the Kuwait airport terminal, the dry, cool winter adorned by the blinding sun greeted me. The dust persisted. I had forgotten: No place on earth has more dust than Kuwait.
Following the Trump debacle in the first years of his presidency, the United States had calmed somewhat, and there were renewed thoughts of stability for the Middle East, a hope that had no basis in reality.
My father, whom I had not expected to make the airport trip, was there to greet me. He was 83 now, and still did not require help beyond his cane. He was dressed in the winter dark gray dishdasha and red-and-white-checkered keffiyeh head covering. As we embraced, I felt how prominent his ribs had become. The skin on his hands and wrists was thin, and easy bruising was evident.
Hibah accompanied him. She maintained her hair covering with a bright yellow scarf, just enough to pass the propriety test for a conservative Arab female. She was now a mature young woman, still unmarried and expanding her now-competitive law practice.
Binyamin was there too, now eighteen, already sporting a thick beard.
The ride home, beyond their pointing out all the building projects, was quiet. Ugly construction crane dragons swung in arcs all over the city. The building of large physical structures abounded in Kuwait. As a result of the construction contests among Gulf countries, the towering buildings, often with numerous vacancies, were all too common. Appearance counted for more than substance.
We arrived back at our old home in Ahmadi, oil wells within earshot nearby pumping away, raping the already pummeled earth. As soon as we were inside our gate, the white walls shielded us from the repulsive rhythm. My father and Hibah were kind enough not to make many inquiries about my long sojourn in Tehran, but Binyamin wanted every detail, and I acquiesced. “Little brother, there’s much to tell.” And for two hours I went on.
But I had many questions which I did not ask. What would my status be in Kuwait now? How strange that this was my first thought. Did people know the circumstances, cause, and course of my detention? As always, I inflated the importance of my own position in my mind. In point of fact, other than by my family, I had been little missed. I would have to tell the story of my time in Iran if it was to be repeated. But certainly not all of it – not the torture and not my own betrayal. And where was the bomb? In Kuwait? Yes, I had gotten rid of Esau by exporting him by force out of Iran. But now, in Kuwait, what was he up to? Perhaps he was still in possession of that bomb? I had failed to deal with his presence in Kuwait.
How had Kuwait weathered the bond crisis? The restructuring of debt among Kuwaiti entrepreneurs had taken place all too quickly and without adequate financial planning, but the inherent wealth of the country and the money in the ground were still considered sufficient by all. “The Manakh financial crisis of the early 80s is long forgotten, and even the recent bond disaster is a distant memory,” my father recalled. “The next such event will be a surprise, too.” He reminded me how he had escaped the Manakh disaster through the wisdom of my mother. He always reminded me of her. “She had no training in finance, but she knew the Manakh would collapse before anyone else.”
Liberal elements in the city competed with extreme conservative groups to the extent that there was nothing else in the news. The Kuwait Times editorial of February 26, 2021, Kuwait Liberation Day, read, “As we celebrate our liberation from Iraq in 1991, we are now our own enemy. Two extreme factions, both counter to the Kuwaiti ideal of the middle ground, conflict with each other with no logical basis for meaningful resolution. Neither side cares about the future of our nation state. The question extant is whether the opposing factions will allow the peace of Kuwait to persist as it has in our long history. With ongoing events, it seems not. The religious extremists have always shown violent tendencies, but now the same is true of the liberal elements. Where will this end?”
A subtext to this wrangling was the unfolding work of the gospel among Kuwaitis. My father and I sat in the leather-chaired study after dinner and Hibah soon joined us. Binyamin entered, eating a peanut butter sandwich. He had achieved adult status, free to listen to all the trouble. The furniture and old pictures were still the same. A photo of my great-grandfather sat on a table. Everything was old, the furniture the same as from my childhood, except for the sixty-five-inch skinny TV, whose clarity amazed me. Hibah invited Divina in with us as well. Divina had assumed the role of the senior woman of the family, formerly played by my mother, Rabea. Together, they told me their stories, and brought me up-to-date on all that had occurred during my detention.
My father leaned forward in his leather chair. “Thanks to God, the government has become even more dysfunctional. The liberal-extremist conflict has consumed all their resources, and the state expends their resources there, mainly going after the extremists. U.S. interference has only made this worse.” Another Trump residual. “The secret police infiltrates both sides, imagining they’re protecting the country. They know Christians aren’t a safety risk, and it’s deemed in the interest of the government not to even mention that there are increasing numbers of Kuwaiti Christians.”
“How many are there?” The greater the number, the higher the vulnerability.
“We avoid numerical estimates. We don’t want numbers repeated. But the number has exploded. The growth has occurred mainly by the usual means: one telling another. There have been dreams, but not many.”
“How do you worship?
My father cleared his throat and launched into t
he details. Perhaps he wanted me to ask. “There are several forms, and nothing is standardized. Some still go to the mosque. We’ve abandoned that. I couldn’t tolerate the sense of compromise I had in my heart any longer. Some just stay in their own homes for worship.” He reached over to the table and picked up a map. “Most of us meet in house churches, small with just a few families. There are other so-called house churches, but these are really large halls that have been secured for worship. As many as fifty attend. The secret service shuns them. To acknowledge them would create a third threat in the news. Probably they’re watching from a distance. Ours is right here.” He pointed out the location.
Hibah said proudly, “Your father leads the one he’s showing you.”
Now I was really concerned, “But the risk?” For years now, my main concern had been risk.
“I’m 83 years old. God can have me any time he wants. What’s the danger?”
“What does the service look like?”
“Tomorrow you’ll see.
Hibah told me of her work. “It’s been difficult with the women. They’re still subject in every way to their husbands, even though they’re Christian. We’re talking with women from all walks. Many don’t know how to respond, and they aren’t accustomed to making their own decisions. It seems easier for the more educated, but even there…” Her words were optimistic, but she cast her eyes downward periodically, and didn’t smile. Unlike me, she knew her role.