“Damascus? Why?” David asked.
“It’s for the Mahdi,” he said. “I can’t say more. I’m just supposed to go there. But I don’t have any… I guess I can… well…”
He was becoming incoherent.
“Look, Abdol, you can’t go anywhere right now,” David said. “You need to stay here. You need to finish this.”
“No. They’re dead,” Esfahani shot back. “I can’t bring them back. I’m alone now, and I must do what I can to serve Imam al-Mahdi. This is my calling. I cannot disappoint him.”
“What does he want you to do?” David asked.
Esfahani looked into his eyes, then around at David’s men. “Who are they?”
“Part of my technical team.”
Esfahani shook his head. “I’ve never seen these men.”
“You never met my entire team.”
“I thought I had.”
“You hadn’t, but never mind,” David said, trying to change the subject. “I trust them. You can too.”
“It doesn’t matter,” said Esfahani, still shaking his head. “Rashidi swore me to secrecy.”
“Even from me?”
“Well, I don’t know, but I… I have to go.”
“Can I go with you?” David asked, determined not to let this man out of his sight without extracting actionable intelligence from him. “I can help you. What do you need?”
“No, I sent a crew ahead this morning,” Esfahani said, patting his pockets as if in search of his car keys. “I have to join them. It’s very important. I’m sorry.”
David grabbed him by the arm and pulled him close. “But, Abdol, my friend, I came here to help you,” he said. “This is my war too, you know. I want to help. That’s why I haven’t fled the country. I have Persian blood. You know me. I want to serve the Mahdi. I want to know what he knows and make a difference in this country. Tell me — how can I help? What can I do?”
Esfahani looked into David’s eyes for a moment. His were dull, lifeless, drained of all color and emotion. He pulled away and started walking toward the street. “I cannot help you, Reza. Call Mina. Have her find Mr. Rashidi. Maybe he can help you. But I cannot.”
And then he broke into a sprint, disappeared around a corner, and was gone.
David stood there for a moment, looking at the burning homes before him, looking at the two dead bodies at his feet, and not believing that Esfahani had just left.
“What just happened there?” he asked, as much to himself as to his team.
“I have no idea, boss,” Torres replied. “Do you want us to stop him?”
“And do what?”
“I don’t know,” Torres said. “Maybe we grab him, take him back to Karaj, interrogate him, and find out what the Mahdi has him doing.”
“No, no, we can’t do that,” David said.
“Why not?” Crenshaw asked. “You said it yourself — he’s our only lead.”
“Then we have to find another one, and fast,” said David. “Come on. This was a complete waste of time.”
“Where are we going?” asked Torres.
“Back to the safe house,” David replied, “before we get caught.”
Ali was a desperate man. Well, perhaps desperate was not the right word, but he was a young man in a hurry. He wanted to save his country. He wanted to make a difference. He wanted to know everything Dr. Birjandi knew and how to articulate it with the same power and authority and clarity so that it would have the same impact. But how could he ever catch up?
He never ceased to be amazed by how many books Dr. Birjandi had. Every room of the house — except the kitchen — was lined with bookshelves, and every shelf was jam-packed with the most interesting books on theology and eschatology and history and poetry, and it went on and on and on. There were stacks of books in piles everywhere — on the couches and on chairs and in the corners of every room. And it wasn’t just books. There were magazines and journals and more things to read than any human being could possibly handle, even if he could see. And Birjandi could not.
It was Birjandi’s late wife, Souri, who had read it all to him, Ali had recently learned from Ibrahim, who’d had the temerity to actually ask the old man why he had so many books he couldn’t read. According to Ibrahim, Souri had been fluent in five languages. She had memorized the entire Qur’an. And when they got married fresh out of high school, Souri had helped her husband memorize the entire Qur’an as well. When he went to seminary, Souri had helped him every step of the way. She had read his textbooks to him. He had dictated his homework to her. She had typed all his papers. She had even walked him to class. And apparently, so the story went, when he graduated from seminary, he was actually first in his class. And then they started writing books together, including his doctoral thesis, which was eventually published in 1978 as his first book, The Imams of History and the Coming of the Messiah.
Ali wanted to put a memory stick in the man’s head and download everything he knew. But how?
Dr. Birjandi stirred a bit of honey into yet another cup of hot tea Ali had just placed in his hands. Then he returned the spoon to Ali and carefully took a sip.
“Ah, excellent, my son — just like Souri used to make it.”
Ali laughed. The man said the same thing every single time Ali made him a cup of tea, and he had already said it three times today. Nevertheless, Ali thanked his mentor and poured a cup each for Ibrahim and himself. Then he checked his phone and noticed a new Twitter message from Dr. Najjar Malik. “Dr. Malik just sent another tweet — actually two.”
“What do they say?” Ibrahim asked.
“The first reads, ‘Anyone notice spike in Syria killings? Not normal brutality. Something new. Pray 4 God 2 remove Mustafa from power b4 more innocents die.’”
“He seems really worked up about Syria in the last few days, doesn’t he?” Ibrahim asked.
“Yeah, he does,” Ali agreed. “He’s always been so focused on Iran. It’s out of character.”
“Maybe God is speaking through him,” Dr. Birjandi said.
“To tell us what?” Ibrahim asked.
“I don’t know yet, but we should ask the Lord to show us great and mighty things we do not know,” Birjandi replied.
Ali and Ibrahim agreed and made a note in their journals to start really praying for the people of Syria. Then Ali read them Najjar’s second tweet.
“He writes, ‘More Muslims turning 2 Christ today than any other time in history. I did, and he’s changing my life. R U ready? Call on Jesus!’”
“He’s so bold,” Ibrahim said. “I can’t believe they haven’t caught him yet. Is it because he’s in America that he speaks so bravely?”
“No,” Ali quickly disagreed. “He’s bold because he has given up everything he has for Jesus. He doesn’t have any more fear. He used to be trapped in a prison of lies. Now he knows the truth.”
“I agree,” Birjandi said. “And look how much impact you can make when you speak the truth in love and from your heart.”
“Almost nine hundred thousand people are following Dr. Malik on Twitter,” Ibrahim said. “It’s too bad most people don’t have any electricity and can’t watch TV right now. I hear the satellite networks keep replaying Najjar’s interviews explaining how he became a follower of Jesus. Until my phone stopped working, I was getting text messages from people all over Iran who saw part or all of the interviews before the Israelis shut down the power.”
“Do you think it was really the Israelis?” asked Ali. “How do we know Hosseini and Darazi didn’t order the power shut down so people couldn’t see Najjar’s interviews?”
“Well, either way, his message is getting out. People all over the country are openly debating what he’s done and what he’s saying. Some are furious at him. Some are intrigued. But they all seem to be retweeting, don’t they?”