Why was she asking that? he wondered. And why was she asking that way?
“I’d be proud of him whatever he was doing,” he replied.
She seemed to shrug a little.
“I have no doubt you would love him no matter what,” she said at last. “But your standards were always very high, Dr. Shirazi. Somehow I don’t think you’d be proud of any old thing David was doing.”
“Perhaps,” he said, drawing on his pipe some more. “What are you trying to say, Marseille?”
She waited for a few moments, looking deeply into his eyes.
“I think you…” And then she stopped herself.
“You think I what?” he asked.
She looked away, down at the floor, and then back in his eyes. “I think you know where David really is and what he’s really doing,” she said. “I think that’s why you’re proud, and I know you can’t say it. But then again, neither can I.”
His eyes widened. “What are you saying?” he asked again, wondering if he was hearing her right.
“I’m saying I know.”
“You know?”
She nodded.
“He told you?”
“No,” she said. “He told me he was a businessman going to Europe, and of course I believed him. But I found out.”
“How?”
“I’m sworn to secrecy too, Dr. Shirazi. So I need to be careful about what I say. And you must understand that David doesn’t know that I know. But I do.”
“But I don’t understand. I—”
“I realize that, and I’m sorry,” said Marseille. “It’s just that… how can I put this?” She looked into the fireplace, searching for the right words. “The thing is, Dr. Shirazi… well, the thing is that I recently found out my father didn’t work for the State Department.”
“He didn’t?” Dr. Shirazi asked, genuinely perplexed and wondering what that had to do with David.
“Well, officially he did,” she clarified, “but in reality he didn’t.”
“Then who did he work for?”
“He was a NOC, Dr. Shirazi.”
“A what?”
“A nonofficial cover operative.”
“A NOC?”
“Right.”
“I’m sorry, but I don’t understand.”
“Sir, my father wasn’t really a political officer for the State Department. That was just his cover. In reality, he was a spy for the Central Intelligence Agency,” Marseille said bluntly.
“No, that’s not possible,” Dr. Shirazi insisted. “I knew him. We were the best of friends. He would have told me such a thing.”
“He never told me, either. But after he died, I was taking care of his papers, and I stumbled upon a safe in the back of his bedroom closet. When I finally got it open, I was stunned. Flabbergasted, really.”
“Why? What was in it?”
“Pay stubs from the CIA. The ID he used to get into Langley. A file of correspondence between him and a man named Jack Zalinsky, all on CIA stationery. I found other correspondence, too, between him and a man named Tom Murray. Do you know who he is?”
Dr. Shirazi slowly shook his head.
“He is now the CIA deputy director for operations,” Marseille explained. “I even found a letter of commendation from the CIA, praising my father for his work inside Iran during the Revolution. And part of that work was helping get you and Nasreen out of the country and saving my mother’s life when she was having a miscarriage.”
“She told you about that?”
“No,” Marseille said. “Neither of them did. I didn’t find out until my father died. I found all the medical records and a bunch of journal entries. I’ve learned a lot about my family in the last few months, things I never imagined before.” She paused for a moment, then added, “In the last few days, I’ve learned a lot about David, too, things I never knew either. Maybe that’s why I’ve come to love David so much, Dr. Shirazi. Because I loved my father so much. I couldn’t have been more proud of my dad, and I miss him so much it hurts. And, well… maybe that’s why it hurts so much to think about David. It turns out they were an awful lot alike.”
Dr. Shirazi was too stunned to speak. But she was right. She knew. And she not only knew about David; she knew things he didn’t know about his own dearest friend. His eyes began to fill with tears. He reached for her hand, and she came over and gave him a hug as they both started to cry.
“It’s nice to be able to share a secret with an old friend,” she whispered.
He held her closer and nodded. “It is indeed.”
15
Torres and Crenshaw saw the roof collapse. They saw flames licking out of every second-floor window. They had seen Esfahani run out the back door with his mother, and now, from their vantage point in a neighbor’s backyard, several houses south of the plane crash, they could see Esfahani giving his mother mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. But they did not see David emerging from the inferno.
Glancing nervously at his watch, Torres could see that it had already been more than three and a half minutes — almost four — since David had gone into the house. He couldn’t wait any longer. This was not the mission. They were here to stop nuclear warheads, not rescue elderly Iranians from burning buildings. He sprinted for the back door, shouting for Crenshaw to follow but radioing the other men to head back to the car and get it running.
The entire bathroom ceiling had collapsed on top of them.
Everything that could burn was burning. Ironically, though, with Mr. Esfahani on his back so David could save his life, the elderly man had actually saved David’s by protecting him from the immediate impact of the falling timbers and the flames. Even so, he had to move fast, or they were both going to die.
Still holding his breath, his lungs screaming and about to burst, David pushed up with his forearms and got to his knees. Though he couldn’t see through the smoke, he cleared away some of the debris in front of him and was able to pull himself to his feet. Then, knowing he was mere moments away from blacking out, David again heaved the old man onto his back and pushed his way into the hall. He bolted down the stairs and got to the living room just as Torres and Crenshaw reached him. He couldn’t have been more stunned to see their faces, and he had never felt more grateful. They moved to take Mr. Esfahani, but David shook his head. Gasping for air, he hoisted the old man again and ran out the back door, with Torres and Crenshaw close on his heels as the entire building began to rock and sway. They were no more than ten or twelve yards away when the second floor collapsed into the first and the entire home was consumed by flames.
David didn’t look back. He kept running until he reached Esfahani, then gently set the man’s father down on the grass, not far from a fire engine that had just pulled up. Emergency crews raced to their side, dousing the old man with water and then giving him CPR. Another crew worked on the man’s wife.
Five minutes went by. Then ten minutes, fifteen. After twenty minutes, the EMT chief stopped his work and told his colleagues to stop as well. He looked up, then rose and walked over to Abdol Esfahani, who stood covered in soot and drenched with sweat but emotionless.
“These were your parents?” the man asked.
Esfahani nodded.
“I’m so sorry. We did the best we could.”
Esfahani nodded again but still showed little emotion. He didn’t cry. He didn’t tear up. He stood stone-faced until the medic and his team stepped away.
“I need to go,” he said, glancing at his watch.
“No, it’s okay,” David said. “We’ll stay with you. I’m so sorry, Abdol. I only wish we’d gotten here sooner.”
“I have to be in Damascus,” Esfahani replied as though he hadn’t heard a word David said.