“Mr. Esfahani!” David shouted at the top of his lungs. “Can you hear me? Where are you? Hello?”
The house began to rumble and shake. Burning sheetrock was now falling from the walls, and behind him a ceiling light fixture fizzled and popped and then crashed to the floor. He took another few breaths, then jumped to his feet and headed to a second bedroom, where again he felt his way through the smoke-filled darkness for what he now presumed was the unconscious if not lifeless body of an eightysomething-year-old man. But he was nowhere to be found in this room either.
David made it back to the hallway and dropped to his stomach. He put his head as low to the floor as he possibly could, but there was almost no good air left. He began choking. His eyes were watering. The heat was unbearable. His clothing was soaked with sweat. But he started crawling forward, groping with his hands in the darkness as he held his breath and prayed for mercy and God’s favor.
Suddenly he hit a door, a closed wooden door. He cautiously reached up and felt for the knob with the back of his hand. He found it and winced, as it was blazing hot. He pulled the end of his long-sleeved shirt over his hand and, using that as a sort of oven mitt, turned the knob and fell into what felt like a porcelain-tiled bathroom. He worked his way across the floor and found the bathtub, and there, within it, he found Esfahani’s father. The man was unconscious and covered in wet towels, Abdol’s apparent effort to keep him as safe as possible until he got back. But Abdol was not coming back. No one was coming up those stairs. And if David didn’t get out of this house soon, he was never getting out.
His air supply was nearly depleted. His lungs were burning. His temples pounded. Sweat poured down his body. But he kept telling himself that as desperately as he needed to inhale, if he did so, he would pass out and die a grisly, fiery death moments later. David willed himself to his feet, pulled the towels off the man, heaved him out of the tub, and slumped him over his shoulder. And then the blazing ceiling collapsed on top of them.
Dr. Mohammad Shirazi came down the creaky stairs and padded into the living room in his pajamas, bathrobe, and slippers. He looked around the first floor and, seeing no one, shrugged. Not wanting to trudge all the way back up to his room yet, he lowered himself slowly into his recliner beside the embers of a dying fire. Then he drew from his bathrobe pocket his favorite pipe and some rum-and-maple tobacco, lit up, and soon was leaning back and puffing away, hoping to decompress in the first few minutes he had truly had to himself since his wife’s death.
It had been such a long day, and it felt good, even at this late hour, to get off his feet and just savor the quiet. He was grateful for all the people who had come to the service. It had been a beautiful one at that, one that truly honored Nasreen for the remarkable wife and mother and friend she had been. She would have liked it, he thought, though she wouldn’t have admitted it. Rather, she would have complained he was making too much of a fuss.
He was surprised that David had not called, but he didn’t begrudge that. He was proud of his son, off fighting the mullahs of Iran and trying to take down the Mahdi, that wretched beast. Indeed, the only thing that had made this week bearable was the knowledge that his youngest son was fighting the good fight. He was sticking it to the regime in Tehran, and his father couldn’t have been more proud. He just wished he could actually say that to David — even say it face-to-face.
Dr. Shirazi studied the pipe in his hands and enjoyed the sweet aroma of the smoke. Then he put it back in his mouth and looked at the rows of photographs on the side table near the window and around at all the special decorating touches his wife had added to the room over the years. He smiled at the memories and the faces in the frames, thankful for a very happy marriage. What a history they’d had together. What adventures. But neither he nor Nasreen had ever dreamed that their youngest son would be on an adventure such as this. What would she have said? he wondered. But he knew. He knew all too well, and in a way, there was a part of him that was glad she did not know. She would have been horrified to learn that David was back in the nation they had turned their backs on long, long ago. She had never wanted to go back, and neither had he — not that they could have, of course. They were both wanted criminals in Tehran.
Dr. Shirazi shuddered to think of the darkness surrounding David. He hoped with every fiber in his being that his boy was safe. In his heart, he knew David was making a difference, and he felt a sense of honor he had never before felt about any of his sons — that his family might be a part of bringing justice to an unjust place, of bringing redemption for millions of people trapped under an evil leadership. For a moment, he considered turning on the television to see the latest news out of the Middle East, wondering if his heart and his imagination could handle what he’d see. Not yet, he thought. He’d check a few headlines later. Perhaps it was best to take the news in small doses.
Just then he heard the toilet in the first-floor bathroom flush. Then he heard the door open and the creak of floorboards behind him. He set down his pipe and turned his head to see Marseille Harper standing there, a yellow notebook in hand.
“Oh, Marseille, I was afraid you had left,” he said. “Indeed, I was sure of it. But I’m so glad you’re still here. I came down specifically to see you.”
14
This was longer than the “quick discussion” Murray had expected. It was more of a negotiation, actually, and when it was over, he had what Director Allen wanted: a document signed by Eva Fischer absolving the Central Intelligence Agency of all culpability in unfairly detaining her and denying her access to even a phone call, not to mention a lawyer.
Eva, in turn, got what she wanted:
• a $100,000 settlement — twice what Allen had initially offered;
• a letter signed by Murray apologizing for “unfair treatment” of her; and
• a transfer to the National Security Agency in Fort Meade, Maryland, where she would be promoted to senior Iran analyst.
On this last point, Murray had resisted, but Eva had made it clear she wanted no part of working under Jack Zalinsky’s supervision. For her, this was nonnegotiable. Given the fact that the Middle East was in a hot war, she told Murray, she wasn’t inclined to leave government service altogether. But she wanted to work directly for the NSA, translating intercepts of Iranian satellite phone calls and providing analysis of the most important transcripts. In that capacity, she would be willing to interface with the CIA and, when needed, talk to Zalinsky — though she made it clear she preferred to work through Murray — but she wasn’t going to work directly for Zalinsky, she didn’t want to see him, and the less she could hear his voice, or even his name, the better.
In the end, Murray capitulated to every demand. He was under orders from the director of Central Intelligence to get this deal done, and fast. So he swallowed his pride and signed on the dotted line, and it was finished.
Another grisly story out of Syria caught Najjar’s attention. On the website of the German magazine Der Spiegel, he found an article headlined “Inside the Syrian Death Zone,” detailing the brutality of the Mustafa regime.