“Thank you so much, boys,” he told them. “I am forever grateful. But now you must go, before they get here. Please, there is not much time.”
“But we want to stay with you,” Ibrahim said. “We are not afraid.”
“I know, and I am so grateful, my son, but you must not be connected to me. Not now, not today,” Birjandi said. “Your courage is admirable, and it is from the Lord. But use it to share the gospel with your families and friends. Use it to start house churches and teach the Word throughout this nation. Use it to advance the Kingdom of Jesus, and I will see you in heaven, when all is well. Now go. Both of you. If you love me, you must leave right now.”
Birjandi could hear the chopper approaching from the northeast. By God’s grace, it was coming a little later than he had expected — later, at least, than Hosseini had said. The delay, whatever the reason, had given him a few minutes to put some clothes and a toothbrush and toothpaste in a small suitcase and to get the satellite phone David had given him and hide it under his robes. It had also given the three of them a few moments to pray together one last time, and for this he was grateful.
They stood, and Birjandi took his cane and walked them to the door. “Now, quickly, both of you, give me a kiss good-bye.”
Ali turned and gave the old man a bear hug and then kissed him on both cheeks. Ibrahim did the same, though he held on longer, despite the fact that the chopper was less than a quarter mile away and coming in fast. They said nothing. There was nothing more to say. But Birjandi could feel the tears running down their cheeks. They knew this was the last time they would see him. He knew it as well.
30
Levi Shimon and Zvi Dayan arrived in unmarked, bulletproof cars with heavy security. They were immediately ushered into the prime minister’s spacious, wood-paneled office, where Naphtali was finishing up a call with the U.N. secretary-general.
“Absolutely not,” said Naphtali, pacing the room and red in the face. “That is completely inaccurate…. No, that’s simply not true…. I… Mr. Secretary-General, I can assure you that at no time have Israeli forces purposefully attacked unarmed civilians either in Iran, Syria, Lebanon, or Gaza…. No, to the contrary, we are hitting legitimate military targets in self-defense…. How can you say that?… No, that’s — sir, we are under attack from missiles and rockets and mortars that are being fired indiscriminately at our innocent civilian populations, and yet you have not issued a condemnation of our enemies but rather persist in portraying us as the aggressors. Well, I reject that characterization…. Mr. Secretary-General, again I direct your attention to the illegal testing by Iran of a nuclear warhead a few weeks ago in direct violation of a dozen U.N. Security Council resolutions, combined with the repeated illegal statements by Iranian leaders and by the Mahdi inciting the forces of their Caliphate to genocide against my people…. No, that is precisely the point — this is cold, hard, international law — the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, which went into force on January 12, 1951, in which incitement to genocide is specifically outlawed in Article 25(3)(e) of the Rome Statute.”
The sixty-three-year-old Shimon was antsy. He took a seat when Naphtali motioned for him and Dayan to do so, but he was in no mood to sit quietly. Too much was happening and much too fast for his liking. He already hated being away from the IDF war room in Tel Aviv to come all the way to Jerusalem for a face-to-face meeting, but it couldn’t be helped. The situation was as sensitive as any in his forty-five years in public life since joining the army at the age of eighteen. He needed the prime minister’s ear, and he needed it right now, and it was all he could do to not stand up, walk over to the PM’s phone, and hang up on the secretary-general.
“You are certainly entitled to your opinion, Mr. Secretary-General,” Naphtali replied, “but you are not entitled to your own facts. We… No, again, that is not accurate. Look, that’s just… Good sir, let me make this as plain as I possibly can. My country is facing annihilation from an apocalyptic, genocidal death cult. We will defend ourselves as we see fit, as we have a right to do under the U.N. charter. Need I remind you of chapter VII, article 51? Let me quote it for you, as you have obviously forgotten either its words or its meaning. ‘Nothing in the present Charter shall impair the inherent right of individual or collective self-defense if an armed attack occurs against a Member of the United Nations, until the Security Council has taken measures necessary to maintain international peace and security.’… What do you mean we weren’t attacked first? What do you call Iran’s attack on my life in New York City last Sunday, an attack that killed President Ramzy of Egypt and nearly killed President Jackson and did kill several dozen others?… Okay, look, this isn’t going anywhere. Let me simply restate my objection to where the Security Council is headed on this and ask you, humbly, to reconsider…. Very well. I look forward to hearing from you then. Good day, sir.”
The moment the prime minister hung up the phone, Shimon could see he and Dayan were about to get an earful, but there simply wasn’t time. He stood and stepped toward the PM’s desk.
“Asher, you need to listen to me,” he said as firmly as he could. “As much as I’d like to let you vent about that call, I need you to listen to me very carefully.”
Naphtali was clearly taken aback by his defense minister’s forceful manner, but as far as Shimon could tell, he didn’t seem offended. Shimon wouldn’t really have cared if he was. Not now.
“Of course. How can I help you, gentlemen?” Naphtali replied, a bit sarcastically.
“Zvi, tell him,” Shimon said.
The Mossad director stood as well. “Mr. Prime Minister, for the last several days, my men and I were pretty confident we knew where the Twelfth Imam was,” he began. “Somewhere on the Mehrabad Air Base, just outside Tehran. That’s why we strongly recommended you authorize repeated air strikes and cruise missile strikes on the military portions of the facility, not the civilian airport.”
“Yes, of course,” said Naphtali. “I’ve read your reports. And I’ve authorized everything you’ve asked for.”
“Yes, sir, and it’s had a real impact on neutralizing the Iranian Air Force,” Dayan continued. “But I can now report to you that my men and I have pinpointed the Mahdi’s precise location.”
“Where?”
“He’s on the grounds of the air base, but not on the military side,” Dayan said. “It turns out that he and his senior team are actually working from a facility on the civilian side of the airfield. We’ve learned that the war room for the Revolutionary Guards is located beneath a three-story administrative building connected to the main terminal at Imam Khomeini Airport.”
“You’re sure?” the PM asked.
“One hundred percent,” said the Mossad chief.
“Don’t tell me you want to hit it?”
The defense minister took that one. “Absolutely, and now, sir. We’ve got an armed drone keeping surveillance on the location. We’ve got a squadron of fighter jets racing to Tehran right now, each carrying bunker-buster bombs. They should be in range in the next thirty minutes.”
“You want me to bomb Iran’s civilian airport?” Naphtali asked incredulously. “Were you not listening to that call with the secretary-general? We’re already being accused of war crimes. We’re being accused of attacking innocent civilians. We’ve got radioactive clouds spreading across Iran into civilian areas because of the strikes we’ve already made on their nuclear facilities. We can’t just hit their airport, Levi. The whole world will turn against us.”