“Actually, we’ve determined he’s the personal aide to the Twelfth Imam.”
“Wow, that’s huge.”
“He keeps popping up on the call intercepts, and we now have video of him traveling with the Mahdi in Mecca and Beirut. Now here’s the thing: do you know anything about his family?”
“No, why?”
“We believe he has a cousin, Firouz, who was the cell leader for the attack on the president at the Waldorf on Sunday night. We think he’s still in the States, probably still in New York. We have a huge manhunt under way right now. The problem is we don’t have a picture. If you can get one, we need it.”
David had to shake his head. “So I was right.”
“You were.”
“The cell was Iranian, not al Qaeda or the Brotherhood.”
“That’s true,” Zalinsky confirmed. “The guy the Secret Service shot and killed is Rahim Yazidi. He’s a member of the Revolutionary Guard Corps. The guy we have in custody is Navid Yazidi, Rahim’s kid brother, also part of the Guard. Eva got Navid to give up Firouz Nouri. His father is Mohammed Nouri. He’s a mullah in Qom, big in the Twelver community, apparently. He’s written several books on the Twelfth Imam. Anyway, see what your friend Birjandi can tell you about the family. We need everything we can get. I don’t have to tell you how much pressure the Agency is under to get this guy, Firouz. The president is off the charts about us not seeing the Manhattan attack coming. We need a success, and we need it fast.”
Eva Fischer popped her head into Zalinsky’s office.
“Got something you need to see.”
Zalinsky was typing furiously on his laptop. “Close the door,” he replied without looking up.
Eva complied and took a seat.
“Is it Malik?”
“No, but we’re doing everything we can to find him.”
“Then why haven’t we?” Zalinsky asked. “Murray’s handling this reasonably well, under the circumstances. But the director — who’s still in Israel — is furious. They haven’t told the White House yet, but they’re going to have to soon. But that’s not the worst of it.”
“What is?”
“The director is asking if there’s any chance Malik is a double.”
“Absolutely not,” Eva said categorically.
“You’re sure about that?”
“You’ve read the transcript,” Eva replied. “Does he come off as a double agent to you? I mean, the guy renounces Islam and claims he saw a vision of Jesus Christ, for crying out loud. Not exactly typical behavior of an Iranian mole.”
“Wouldn’t that throw us off all the more?”
“He’s not a double, Jack. He’s scared. He’s lonely. He misses his wife. He misses his daughter. And we had him confined to a house all alone, but for the armed guards.”
“Some good it did us.”
“Look, Jack, everything he’s told us has checked out. Everything. And we’re doing everything we can to find him. What else can we do? In the meantime, I’ve got a new intercept for you.”
Zalinsky sighed and put on his reading glasses as Eva handed him the translation of a recent call.
VOICE 1: Code in.
VOICE 2: “This ill cannot be healed, neither can the serpents be uprooted. Prepare food for them, therefore, that they may be fed, and give unto them for nourishment the brains of men, for perchance this may destroy them.”
VOICE 1: Cousin, is that really you?
VOICE 2: It’s me, Javad.
VOICE 1: Are you all right?
VOICE 2: Yes, yes, thanks to Allah, I’m safe — for now, at least.
VOICE 1: Are you alone?
VOICE 2: No, Jamshad is with me.
VOICE 1: What about Rahim and Navid? Are they safe too?
Zalinsky looked up from the transcript. “Is that really Firouz Nouri?”
“Yes.”
“So they’re actually cousins.”
“Apparently.”
“What’s the code he uses?”
“It’s a few lines from a Persian poem.”
“Which one?”
“The Epic of Shahnameh by Ferdowsi.”
“What’s the significance?”
“I don’t know yet.”
Zalinsky kept reading. “They’re in Queens?”
“So it seems.”
“Who’s Shirin?”
“Firouz’s sister. We’re working on all the connections. The point is, I just got this to the FBI, and I’m having them intensify their manhunt in Queens.”
“Okay, good work. And, Eva, make it crystal clear to the Bureau — we need this guy and Jamshad fast, and we need them alive.”
David slept for a few hours and awoke early Wednesday morning.
He showered, dressed, grabbed his phone, and headed down to the lobby, half-expecting to see an intelligence goon waiting for him. But the lobby was empty. The restaurant was still closed. All was quiet.
Heading out to the street, he hailed a cab to the Iran Telecom operations center on the south side. Given the typical but unbearable Tehran rush-hour traffic, the six-mile ride took him nearly an hour. Once there, he spent the next several hours catching up with his MDS technical team, finding out how their work was going, and answering their many questions. By no means was it what he wanted to be doing, and he didn’t feel it was the best use of his time. But he had no choice. He knew he was being watched. He had to maintain his cover. What’s more, the senior executives back in Munich, the ones who paid him a salary and generous benefits each month, had no idea he worked for the CIA. They had hired him to help them rebuild Iran’s antiquated mobile phone network, and they were expecting him to deliver.
32
The military helicopter touched down at noon.
It landed in an open field across the street from the home of Dr. Alireza Birjandi as it did once a month. The neighbors didn’t like the noise or the sight of armed men taking up positions on their street, but they certainly didn’t complain. They lived in the Islamic Republic of Iran, and they knew better.
Two soldiers knocked on Birjandi’s door. The old man was ready and waiting as always with his white cane in hand. They helped the blind, eighty-three-year-old cleric down his steps, across the street, and into the still-running chopper, without saying a word. It was routine now. Each man knew his place and did what he had to do, and soon they were airborne again, gaining altitude and airspeed en route to the Qaleh.
For Birjandi, it did not really matter where he met the Supreme Leader and the president. Their monthly luncheons had not begun in the Supreme Leader’s private mountain retreat center in the early years. They had originally occurred in Hosseini’s residence on Pasteur Street, not far from the German and British Embassies. However, six months earlier, Hosseini had invited Birjandi up to his compound in the mountains, and they’d been gathering there ever since. From what Birjandi heard, Hosseini was spending less and less time engaged in official functions in Tehran and more and more time in the mountains. Was it for security reasons? Or health reasons? Or just the peace and quiet that Mount Tochal afforded? Birjandi wasn’t entirely sure, but he had his suspicions.
Hosseini was now seventy-six years old. He was alone in the world, having murdered his wife in 2002, and having sent all three of his sons to minefields to become martyrs during the Iran — Iraq War in the eighties. He had been a loyal disciple and deputy to Ayatollah Khomeini and had been at his side when the leader of the Islamic Revolution had passed away. Though he was not the first choice of the Assembly of Experts to replace Khomeini, Hosseini had eventually gained their favor and had now been the nation’s Supreme Leader for over a decade. During that time, he had worked diligently to shore up his power base and solidify his control of the military, the Revolutionary Guard Corps, the Basij militia, and most of the ruling class, including the religious leaders in Qom and the business elite in Tehran. Now he was firmly convinced that both the end of his own days and the end of all days were rapidly drawing near. He did not seem to want to be bothered with the trivial pursuits of the mere mortals living down below. His eyes had been firmly fixed on the coming of the Twelfth Imam, and now that he was here, the Supreme Leader was consumed with pleasing the so-called Promised One. Hosseini seemed to think it was more spiritual to stay in the mountains and beneath him to attend to the needs of his people.