“How can you be so sure?”
“I’m not,” Zalinsky admitted. “It’s a hunch. Call it a gut instinct. But Omid’s mother, Shirin, isn’t a Muslim. She’s Zoroastrian. Eva actually met her at an embassy party in Berlin a few years ago when General Jazini was assigned as the defense attaché to Germany. In fact, she tracked her for several months, and there was a point at which Eva thought she might actually be able to recruit Shirin, but suddenly they moved back to Tehran when Mohsen was promoted to commander of the IRGC. But Eva says Shirin wasn’t religious and certainly not an ideologue. She never went to a mosque, even though her husband did. She didn’t like to talk about religion. She preferred shopping and socializing.”
“So how do we know Omid isn’t more like his father?”
“We don’t,” said Zalinsky. “But that’s the plan. And it’s an order.”
“What am I supposed to do with Javad Nouri?”
“Have Mays drop him at the safe house and secure him. We’ll have someone pick him up, probably even before Mays rejoins the rest of you at Omid’s apartment. Now get moving.”
President Ahmed Darazi stood at the conference room door for a moment, making certain he was in full control of his composure. He reminded himself that at least the Mahdi had agreed to come down into the blastproof underground bunker. Then he knocked twice.
“Come,” said the Mahdi.
Darazi opened the door, entered quickly, closed it behind him, and bowed low.
“Yes?” the Mahdi asked, an edge of exasperation in his voice.
“My Lord, I’m not sure why, but Daryush Rashidi, the head of Iran Telecom, is upstairs in the lobby and says he is here to see you,” Darazi began. “He says you summoned him and that everything you asked for is ready. The security team told him there must be a mistake, that we would certainly have known if you requested any nonmilitary or nonpolitical personnel to come to the command center to meet with you. But he absolutely insisted, and eventually they requested that I intervene because Daryush and I have known each other such a long time. Anyway, I went up to see him, and—”
“Yes, yes, I know all this,” the Mahdi said. “I did summon him here, and he is right on time. Did he give you a password?”
“Well, uh, he—”
“Did he or did he not give you a password?” the Mahdi repeated.
“He did have something he wanted me to say to you, but I—”
“Then don’t stand there blabbering like a fool, Ahmed. Say it.”
“Yes, Your Excellency, of course. He… uh… he told me to say, ‘The fire has begun.’”
At that the Twelfth Imam arose instantly. “Excellent. Did he bring a trunk?”
“Uh, well, yes — several, actually.”
“Good. Bring him — and them — down here immediately,” said the Mahdi. “We don’t have a moment to spare.”
“But I don’t understand,” Darazi said. “What is this all—?”
“Just do what I have commanded you, Ahmed,” the Mahdi bellowed, his countenance darkening. “And do it well and quickly.”
“Yes, my Lord,” Darazi sputtered, bowing again. “As you wish.”
“I have come to reestablish the Caliphate.”
The haunting words of Muhammad Ibn Hasan Ibn Ali spoken during a phone call just a few days before still echoed in Iskander Farooq’s ears as he stood beside the landing pad in the immense dust storm created by the descending military chopper that had come to whisk him away on a last-minute, unplanned, ill-timed trip to certain disaster.
“I have come to bring peace and justice and to rule the earth with a rod of iron,” the Mahdi had said that day. “This is why Allah sent me. He will reward those who submit. He will punish those who resist. But make no mistake, Iskander; in the end, every knee shall bow, and every tongue shall confess that I am the Lord of the Age.”
It was hard to believe, but it had only been a week since the so-called Promised One had threatened Farooq, his family, and his government, demanding that he acquiesce. Farooq remembered waking up that Sunday, the sixth of March, dreaming up many interesting projects to discuss with his advisors. Then, in an instant, everything had changed.
Every fiber of his being told him to resist. But more than a quarter of a million Pakistanis were demonstrating outside the gates of the palace. “Give praise to Imam al-Mahdi!” they had shouted again and again. “Give praise to Imam al-Mahdi!” He had feared they would overrun the place. And there was the Mahdi, pushing, pushing.
“What say you?” the Mahdi had asked. “You owe me an answer.”
What was he supposed to have done? He was horrified that Tehran had suddenly become the seat of a new Caliphate. Neither he nor his father nor his father’s father had ever trusted the Iranians. The Persian Empire had ruled his ancestors, stretching in its day from India in the east to Sudan and Ethiopia in the west. Now the Persians wanted to subjugate them all over again.
Everyone he knew, it seemed — everyone but him — had been bewitched. They all believed this Mahdi was the messiah, the savior of the world.
The chopper landed, and several members of the Pakistani Air Force helped the president inside and into his seat. As Farooq put on his seat belt and prepared to take off for the short hop to New Islamabad International Airport in Fateh Jang, west of the palace, he stared out the window, unable to believe this was really happening. The world had gone mad. The crowds had grown daily. Now his palace guard estimated upwards of half a million Pakistanis surrounded the presidential compound, clogging traffic for miles in every direction. They were still chanting, “Blessed be Imam al-Mahdi,” and “Join the Caliphate now.” They were even threatening to burn the palace to the ground if he didn’t move fast to form an alliance with the Mahdi. His Sunni-dominated Cabinet, meanwhile, had actually threatened to have him arrested and tried for treason if he didn’t immediately join the Caliphate and hand Pakistan’s launch codes over to this Shia “messiah.”
Farooq had resisted, argued, and delayed as long as he could, but to no avail. Even his wife and children had begged him to make the deal and get it over with before they all met their grisly deaths. What more could he do? He was set to meet the Twelfth Imam face-to-face at half past midnight tonight.
The day of reckoning was at hand.
“… so, Father, we pray for our dear friend and brother Dr. Birjandi, that you would protect him and that you would fill him with your Holy Spirit and that you would use him to say whatever you want him to say and do whatever you want him to do, no matter what the cost. We pray these things in the name of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, who was and is and is to come. Amen.”
Dr. Birjandi, packed and dressed in the black robes and black turban he used to wear when he taught at the seminary in Qom, reluctantly lifted his head as Ali and Ibrahim finished praying with him. Even now he could hear the faint echo of a helicopter approaching in the distance. He loved these men so much. He didn’t want to leave them and certainly not for an “emergency meeting” with the Twelfth Imam. But despite all his protestations that he would never go to such a meeting, the die now seemed to be cast. He had pleaded with the Lord to let this cup pass from him, but short of a miracle, in the next few minutes he would be picked up by Revolutionary Guards with orders to take him to some secure, undisclosed location for a face-to-face meeting with the personification of evil.
And yet now, strangely, after so much prayer and angst, Birjandi actually did not feel anxious. Rather, he felt a peace that surprised him. He knew the Lord had a good and perfect plan for his life, and maybe these boys were right. Maybe the Lord was about to give him the opportunity to share the gospel with Hosseini and Darazi.