Nothing. Again he tried Rashidi, then Esfahani, and again he came up empty. This particularly infuriated him, since these were the two who had insisted David take enormous risks to find, buy, and smuggle into Iran several hundred of these satphones for the Mahdi and his key men so they could be reached at all times. Rashidi and Esfahani were both members of the Group of 313, the Twelfth Imam’s most elite warriors, operatives, and advisors. They were personally responsible for overseeing the creation and smooth functioning of the Mahdi’s own private communications system both here in Iran and in whatever foreign countries he traveled to. And now neither of them were answering their satphones.
In desperation, David decided to try calling Esfahani’s secretary at Iran Telecom. Mina wasn’t exactly in the Mahdi’s inner circle. Though she was smart and sweet and highly effective at her job, Esfahani practically treated the woman like a slave. He cursed at her and threw things at her and made her life miserable, though she never complained and still worked hard and professionally every day. Then again, she wasn’t likely to be at work today with Israeli bombs falling all throughout Tehran. David scrolled through his contacts list and realized he no longer had her home number. He called her work number anyway, on the off chance that she had her work calls forwarded to her home number. But even as he dialed and hit Send, he realized how stupid that was. Most of the mobile phone system in the country was down, and what were the chances that Esfahani had given Mina, of all people, a satphone? Sure enough, the call went to voice mail. David didn’t bother to leave a message. What was the point?
David shoved the phone in his pocket and started jogging again, heading for the safe house. He had taken only a few steps when the phone rang. He stopped, pulled out the phone, and was surprised to see Mina’s name on the caller ID.
“Hello? Mina? Is that you?”
“Yes, it’s me,” Mina said. “Is this Reza? Reza Tabrizi? Are you okay?”
“Yes, it’s Reza, and I’m safe, thank you, Mina,” he said. “And you? How are you and your mother?”
“Praise Allah, we are okay,” she replied, though her voice was trembling. “We’ve been living in the basement of our apartment. I just came upstairs to get some more food and water, and the satphone rang. But when I picked up, you’d already hung up.”
“Abdol gave you a satphone?”
“In case he needed me to help him.”
“Are you helping him?”
“A little, here and there,” Mina said. “But no, not much.”
“Where is he now?” David asked. “I’m trying to find him and Mr. Rashidi.”
“I don’t know where Mr. Rashidi is. Mr. Esfahani has been trying to find him too.”
“Okay, but where is Abdol? It’s urgent, Mina. I must talk to him.”
“I just spoke to him about twenty minutes ago,” she replied. “He’s heading to Qom.”
“Qom?” David asked. “Why Qom? The Israelis are bombing the daylights out of the nuclear sites and military bases there.”
“That’s why he went.”
“I don’t understand.”
“His parents live in Qom,” Mina said. “Near one of the bases. His mother is terrified of all the bombing. She wants to leave, but his father, as you know, is a big mullah there. He won’t leave the seminary. He says leaving would show a lack of faith in Allah.”
“So why’s Abdol going?”
“To get them out of there before they are killed.”
David suddenly realized his best chance — maybe his only chance — to reconnect with Esfahani, or anyone inside the Mahdi’s Group of 313, was in Qom.
“Mina, I need an address,” he said, his mind already made up.
“For what?”
“For Abdol’s parents.”
“No, Mr. Tabrizi, please, you cannot go,” Mina said.
“I have to.”
“But why? It’s a suicide mission.”
“No, it’s not. It’s to help a friend.”
There was a long silence.
“Mina? Are you still there?”
“Yes,” she said softly.
“Please, I cannot let Abdol go alone,” David insisted, trying to come up with a plausible-sounding rationale for what clearly seemed to Mina an act of insanity. “Abdol’s life is too valuable to the Mahdi to let him die in Qom. I must help him get his parents to safety and then get him to safety as well. The fate of this war may very well depend upon it.”
It was silent again for a few moments, and then Mina relented and gave him the address.
“Haifa is a confirmed target,” the IDF watch commander said urgently. “I repeat, Haifa is a confirmed target.”
“And the second target?” Shimon pressed. “You’re sure it’s Jerusalem?”
“No,” the watch commander said.
“Then where’s it headed?” Shimon demanded, moving quickly to the watch commander’s side to get a closer view of the images on the laptop.
“The computer says the second target is Dimona, sir — and now three more Shahabs have been fired and are heading toward Dimona as well.”
“No — you can’t be… Are you positive?”
“Computer puts it at a 97 percent confidence level, sir.”
Shimon felt physically ill. This couldn’t be happening. Dimona was a desert town, not even a city. Thirty-some kilometers south of Beersheva, it certainly wasn’t a major population center. Only about 33,000 Israelis lived there — nothing like the three and a half million who lived in and around metropolitan Tel Aviv. But Dimona had something Tel Aviv didn’t — Israel’s only nuclear power plant. The Iranians were gunning for Dimona, and if they hit it with ballistic missiles as powerful as the Shahab…
Shimon grabbed the orange phone on the console in front of him, chose a secure line, and hit number one on the speed dial.
“Get me the prime minister.”
Dr. Alireza Birjandi was startled by loud knocking on his front door.
He wasn’t expecting anyone. How could he be? He heard neither the sounds of cars on the streets nor the laughter of children in yards. He had, however, been woken up repeatedly by the sounds of fighter jets roaring overhead. He had heard explosions, one after another, and had felt the ground shake. The Israelis were here. They had bombed the nuclear facilities in the mountains just a few miles away. They had returned multiple times to make certain the job was finished. And from what he had heard on TV, before the networks were knocked off the air, a full-scale war of rockets and missiles had erupted.
Who, then, would be crazy enough to be pounding at his door?
The knocking grew louder and more insistent, but Birjandi would not be rushed. Now eighty-three, the internationally renowned theologian and scholar of Shia Islamic eschatology was in remarkably good health — aside from being blind — but he was growing slower in his old age and increasingly felt it every year. Groaning at the aches and pains in his knees and ankles and back and hips, he laboriously forced himself up from his recliner and, feeling for his cane and grabbing its handle tightly, slowly padded to the door as the knocking intensified still more.
“Dr. Birjandi? Dr. Birjandi? Are you okay?”
Birjandi smiled to himself as he reached the door and began to undo all the locks. He knew that voice and loved it dearly.
“Ali!” he said warmly as he finally got the door open. “What a joy! But what are you doing here, my son? Do you want to get yourself killed?”