But there was a third role for Najjar, and Dr. Saddaji had strongly implied that over the long term this would be his most important mission: to help train up a new generation of Iranian nuclear scientists by eventually-within the next few years-teaching at one of the country’s premier research universities. This was Najjar’s true passion. He longed to move Sheyda and their newborn daughter away from Hamadan, buy a home, and carve out a more stable life for his family. He knew he had to pay his dues, and paying his dues meant serving his father-in-law faithfully, but now he was beginning to question everything.
A lone car drove past, splashing water onto the sidewalks. Najjar ducked out of the way just in time, then turned down a side street and picked up the pace. The more he thought about it, the more trouble he was having with the notion that a UD3 expert had been operating inside a civilian nuclear research compound. It wasn’t just that the man was an Arab, though that was bad enough. The real concern was that the Times of London had published a highly controversial story in December 2009 alleging that Iran was engaged in trying to build a trigger for a nuclear bomb. The top-secret memo exposed in that article had been partly responsible for an international firestorm of criticism against the Iranian regime. It had caused the United Nations Security Council to consider imposing new economic sanctions against Iran. Normally Najjar and his colleagues had limited access to Western newspapers and the Internet due to their sensitive positions. Yet copies of this particular article-“Discovery of UD3 Raises Fears over Iran’s Nuclear Intentions”-had been passed around by Dr. Saddaji himself as “proof,” he’d said at the time, of a “Zionist campaign of lies and slander” against Iran’s “peaceful” nuclear program.
Najjar recalled a particular section from the article with crystal clarity. “Independent experts have confirmed that the only possible use for UD3 is as a neutron source, the trigger to the chain reaction for a nuclear explosion. Critically, while other neutron sources have possible civilian uses, UD3 has only one application-to be the metaphorical match that lights a nuclear bomb.”
That was true, Najjar knew. What’s more, any test explosion using UD3 would leave behind traces that would certainly be regarded as proof that Iran was building a nuclear weapon. There was no way, he was sure, his father-in-law would take such a risk.
At the time, Najjar had fumed that the entire article was built on lies. The Times reporter had quoted a “Western intelligence source”-someone who had to be from the Israeli Mossad, Najjar was convinced. It was all a plot by the Jews to subjugate the Persian people under Western colonialism and imperialism. He had passionately echoed his father-in-law, not because it was the party line but rather because Najjar believed it to be true. As Dr. Saddaji’s chief of staff, he personally knew-or knew of and controlled the personnel files for-every single nuclear scientist in the country. All 1,449 of them. He had pored over their files. He had pored over their security clearance dossiers. He knew all of their supervisors and was in direct contact with many of them. So he knew for a fact that not one of them-not a single one-was a specialist in uranium deuteride or titanium deuteride.
Now what was he to think? Dr. Saddaji had been keeping secret from him-his own son-in-law-the presence of an Iraqi UD3 expert in the Iranian nuclear program. The man had then proceeded to order the brutal execution of that expert without a trial, without even a hearing. Why?
What else was his father-in-law hiding? Was the man really running a civilian nuclear power program, as Najjar had thought from the beginning? Or was he actually spearheading a clandestine program to build a nuclear weapon, as the Americans and the Israelis claimed? It was beginning to look as if the latter was the case. If so, was this the real project for which Dr. Saddaji had recruited him, the one that would “change the course of history”? Was this actually the project that would “make way for the coming of the Promised One”?
42
Dubai, United Arab Emirates
It was late when “Reza Tabrizi” landed in Dubai.
He couldn’t wait to get to the hotel for a hot shower, a good meal, and a real bed. To maintain the fiction he had already set into motion, he traded phone numbers with Yasmeen, giving her his number in Munich, and headed toward passport control, reminding himself again and again that he was no longer David Shirazi. He was a successful German businessman of Iranian extraction. He wasn’t coming from Syracuse, but from a trade show in Chicago that had been a waste of time. He rarely went to the U.S., he reminded himself. Indeed, he disdained doing business with the Americans. They were too loud, too pushy, and too greedy, and there were far too many Jews. He repeated this to himself again and again. CIA protocols required him to have spent the transatlantic flight refreshing himself on his cover story and getting himself fully into his alias. But his mind had been elsewhere on the flight, and he was rapidly playing catch-up.
Fortunately, he cleared passport control without being asked any questions. At that moment, his first instinct was to call Marseille and explain the delay in getting back to her. But he couldn’t use his new Nokia cell phone. It was carefully monitored by his friends back at Langley, and this was not a call he wanted Jack Zalinsky or anyone else at NSA or the CIA to track. As he headed to baggage claim, he walked past banks of pay phones and was tempted to stop and use one of them. But this, he hoped, wasn’t going to be a quick call, and Eva was waiting for him beyond customs.
Eva Fischer.
The very name suddenly confused David. For starters, of course, Eva wasn’t even her real name. It was an alias. Neither she nor Zalinsky, he realized, had ever given him her real name. So who was she? Where was she really from? What was she really all about?
Twenty-four hours earlier, Eva had been consuming an awful lot of his thoughts. He’d been looking forward to going to Starbucks with her, to attending a week of briefings with her, to going into Tehran with her, to getting to know her better. He still was, but now it was complicated. How could he even consider a relationship with her if there was a possibility of reconnecting with Marseille? Then again, was that really a possibility? He hadn’t heard from Marseille in years. Who knew what she wanted to talk about? She could be engaged. She could be married. She could have children. And what was all that about church in her note? Had she become religious? Was that why she wanted him to go to church with her back in Syracuse? It made no sense, but then again…
“Mr. Tabrizi, Mr. Tabrizi, over here!”
It took a moment for David to hear the name and realize it was supposed to be his. He turned and saw Eva smiling and waving at him through the enormous crowd in the Dubai International terminal, all waiting for their loved ones just beyond the secure doors. His first thought was that despite being much more modestly dressed than back in Virginia, she looked great, sporting a beautiful green headscarf and a full-length brown dress that covered her legs and her arms. His second thought was that this looked like a woman preparing to head into Iran, not to Starbucks. Nevertheless, he smiled and waved back and was surprised to see her eyes light up with anticipation as they met his.
“Welcome to Dubai, Mr. Tabrizi,” she said, being careful not to shake his hand or have any physical contact whatsoever since they were neither married nor related.
“Thank you, Ms. Fischer. Please, call me Reza,” he replied.