The Tehran Initiative (10 page)

“How close can you get me?”

“At this point?” the heavyset woman asked, typing furiously into her computer. “Phoenix.”

“You’re kidding.”

“Wish I was, darlin’, but believe me, I have neither the time nor the energy.”

“How about San Francisco?” Marseille asked, thinking maybe she could rent a car there and drive to Portland.

“Everything’s booked. Look, dear, I can give you vouchers to stay at a hotel tonight. I can give you a free flight anywhere in the country you want to go in the next twelve months. But I can’t book you on anything right now unless you want to go south.”

“Ma’am, really, you don’t understand. I’m a teacher. I have kids waiting for me. I really need to get home.”

“You and ten thousand other people, missy. Look, it’s not going to happen. Not tonight. Now, here’s your vouchers. Pick up your luggage downstairs in the main terminal, carousel two. Then we’ve got a free shuttle bus that will take you to a hotel.”

“Then what?”

“Call this 800 number tomorrow, and we’ll try to get you home as fast as we can. But I wouldn’t hold my breath. These storms are killers. If you ask me, you’re going to be here for a few days.”

The words hit Marseille hard. She had no desire to be stuck in Washington. She didn’t know anyone here. She hadn’t been here since an eighth-grade social studies trip. And given the terrorist attacks in Manhattan just a few hours earlier, she wondered if DC might be the next target. She wanted to be home in her own bed, safe and secure, if all alone.

With no choice in the matter, however, she thanked the United rep, gathered up her vouchers, and headed for the baggage claim area. As she did, she found herself thinking about David. She’d been so anxious for weeks leading up to that day, anxious about seeing him again after so long, anxious about all she had to say to him, about how he would respond. She feared he’d be angry with her, or worse, disappointed. She feared he’d never want to see her again. But their meeting had gone better than she had hoped. He had actually seemed glad to see her. He’d been a good listener. He’d been kind and gentle when she told him about the miscarriage, about the recent death of her father, about all that she’d faced since she’d seen him last.

What meant the most to her was what David had said right before they had parted. He said he wanted her to know that he’d “like nothing more than to sit here with you for hours, take a long walk with you, even fly back to Oregon with you, for that matter.” He said that he didn’t want to be cut off from her again, that he was going to wrap up this business in Europe and then, if it was all right with her, “come to wherever you are” because there was so much more to talk about. It was true. There was so much more to say. She’d told him the truth—yes, she’d like him to come see her whenever he could. She hadn’t wanted to seem forward, but she had no desire to play coy either.

Marseille picked up the pace so she wouldn’t miss the shuttle that would take her from the United gates over to the main terminal, and as she did, she passed an advertisement on the wall that caught her eye. It was for some DC-based consulting firm. “Where are you headed next?” the copy read in big blue letters. She boarded the crowded shuttle just before the driver closed the doors, then inched her way forward and stood in the corner since there was no place to sit, pondering that question.

What did she want with David? For months since writing him to say she was coming to Syracuse for the wedding of her college friend, she had simply wanted David to agree to have coffee with her, and for their first meeting in eight years not to be a disaster. But it dawned on her in that moment that she had never really thought much beyond that. She had no idea where she wanted their relationship to go. She hadn’t seen David in so long that she didn’t really know who he was anymore. But she wanted to get to know him again and find out who he had become. She hoped they could be friends. She sensed in him a kindred spirit. She wanted to spend time with him again, to hang out with him and let him make her laugh. She wanted a friend who had known her before September 11, before she lost her mom, before her father melted down, before her world came crashing in. There was something safe about being friends with David, something nostalgic—not more than that, necessarily. For now that seemed enough.

She took a moment to pray for David. She asked the Lord to keep him safe and give him favor with his boss and his work, but most of all she prayed what she had prayed every night before she went to sleep, that the Lord would open David’s eyes and draw him to His Son. And as she did so, she felt a pang of guilt. They had talked at breakfast of so many things. Why hadn’t she talked with him about the Lord? Why hadn’t she at least shared the many changes that were under way in her life, what had happened to her in college and since? Was she afraid of what he would think? Was she afraid he might think her too religious? She remembered that David had prided himself on being an agnostic. But what did her pastor and his wife keep telling her?
“If you love someone, you need to share Christ with them.”
She believed that. Why was it so hard to do it? And so, for no particular reason, she pulled out her cell phone and dialed David’s cell phone number just to say hi, and found herself surprised by how sad she felt when she got voice mail instead of him.

* * *

Brooklyn, New York

Sean Taylor couldn’t wait for his shot at him.

In twelve years with the FBI, he had interrogated hundreds of suspects in all kinds of criminal cases. But he had never had the opportunity to grill a suspected terrorist during a real-time investigation of an attack on American soil. It was what he’d joined the FBI to do. Now he had his chance. He was under orders—and under enormous pressure—to extract as much information as he could, as rapidly as possible. The Bureau now had reason to believe that the cell that had attacked the president had at least four members, possibly as many as six. But only one had been shot dead, and only one was in custody, which meant there was still a high risk that more attacks were coming unless he could get this guy to talk.

Taylor could hear the roar of the rotors as the Bureau helicopter touched down on the roof of their Brooklyn facility. He felt a jolt of adrenaline move through his staff as the stairwell door opened and three burly agents dragged their prisoner—face covered by a black hood—through the bull pen of cubicles and desks and secretaries on phones and locked him down in Interrogation Room D. Taylor signed the paperwork acknowledging he now had custody, then quickly scanned the notes from the arresting agents.

The suspect had been captured with a Glock 9mm pistol, but he hadn’t used it or even been holding it at the time. The 1982 Plymouth Gran Fury he was captured in was stolen. He had no ID on him at the time of arrest. They had taken his fingerprints at the scene and digitally transferred them to FBI headquarters in Washington, where they were being run against the Bureau’s entire criminal and terrorist database. But that would take time, and time was not something they had much of.

Taylor asked the agents to step out of the room, then closed the door behind them. He figured the suspect for about six feet two inches tall and about 160 to 180 pounds. His hands were cuffed to the chair behind him. His feet were shackled to the floor.

“I’m going to give you one chance to cooperate, and that’s all,” he said quietly, noticing that the man’s breathing was labored and quickening. “Let’s start simple. What’s your name?”

No reply.

“Where are you from?”

Again, no reply.

“How many were part of this mission to kill our president?”

Silence.

“Where is the rest of your team heading now? Is there another team? Who are they going to attack next?”

Still nothing.

So Sean Taylor was done talking. First he began to beat the suspect with his fists until blood trickled down through the hood and all over the suspect’s shirt. When that didn’t work, he unlocked a small box on the wall about the size of a telephone book and pulled out two long wires, which he proceeded to attach to various parts of the suspect’s body. One way or another, this suspect was going to talk.

11

Langley, Virginia

David felt his phone vibrating but couldn’t take the call.

They were pulling up to the gate at CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia. Both he and Eva flashed their photo ID badges, were asked a few questions, and then were waved through.

“How’s it going with Najjar Malik?” David asked as they found a parking space. He hoped he’d be able to see the man again, under much different circumstances than the last time they’d been together. He remembered the scientist’s gentle nature and quiet bravery. He’d been practically peaceful in the midst of uncertainty and danger. Najjar intrigued him—not just because of the valuable information he possessed but because of the character and heart he’d exhibited during the chaos of escaping from Iran.

“Amazing,” Eva said. “I’m supposed to brief the director on that in a few minutes.”

“Good.”

They locked the car and hurried inside. They passed a full security checkpoint, complete with 100 percent ID check, retinal and fingerprint scans, and the passage of their personal belongings through an X-ray and themselves through a magnetometer. When he retrieved his phone, David checked and saw that there were two missed calls. One was from Zalinsky, presumably checking on their progress. The other was from Marseille. The problem was, they were now in a restricted area where all radio frequencies were jammed and no cell calls or text messages could be sent or received. David felt a pang of regret. He wished he had time to hear Marseille’s voice and make sure she was okay, but it would now be hours before that was possible.

“Hey, more good news—NSA just picked up an interesting intercept from one of the satphones your friend Esfahani asked for,” Eva said when they finally boarded an elevator and pushed the button for the seventh floor. “Somebody really high up.”

“Really?” David asked. “Who?”

He was surprised but grateful to hear that the phones were being used. Only a few weeks earlier he had been approached by Abdol Esfahani, the deputy director of technical operations for Iran Telecom, the government-run telecommunications company of Iran, to see if he could obtain twenty encrypted and totally secure satellite phones for senior members of the Iranian regime. It was a key development. The Iranians had previously purchased satellite phones from Russia, then discovered they had all been bugged. Now they wanted state-of-the-art phones that Nokia, the Finnish communications giant, and Thuraya, an Arab phone company, jointly produced. Esfahani, of course, thought David was actually Reza Tabrizi, working for Munich Digital Systems as a subcontractor for Nokia. Senior Iranian officials wanted the same “clean” phones used by members of the EU, prime ministers, and parliamentarians, and they were willing to pay top dollar. With Langley’s help, David had delivered satphones that weren’t bugged but whose numbers could be intercepted by the National Security Agency. He had been skeptical that the phones would actually be used so soon, but he was glad to be wrong.

Eva turned and looked him in the eye. “Ali Faridzadeh.”

“You’re kidding.”

“I’m not.”

“The Iranian defense minister?”

“The very same.”

“Who did he call?”

“The French defense minister. Apparently the two went to some private high school together in Switzerland, and they’ve stayed close,” Eva said.

“What did they talk about?”

“Well, that’s just it. The interesting thing was that Faridzadeh said he needed to relay a private message from the Twelfth Imam to President Jackson.”

The doors opened. They stepped off the elevator and turned left.

“The Mahdi wanted to send his personal condolences to the president for this ‘terrible tragedy’ and said he would get to the bottom of it and find out who was responsible. When I read the call transcript, I honestly didn’t believe it at first. I made the guys at NSA send me the audio of the call, but when I finally listened to it myself, they were right. Their translation was precise. And there was more. The Mahdi wanted the president to know that ‘now is the time for peace, not more bloodshed.’ He asked for a phone call with the president and said that now that the Iranians had the Bomb, they felt they were finally in a position to come back to the table and talk about a regional peace accord. He ended with what seems to be an ancient Persian saying: ‘A promise is a cloud; fulfillment is the rain.’”

“Meaning?”

“That’s what the French defense minister asked,” Eva said. “Faridzadeh told him it meant ‘The sky is full of dark clouds just now, but they hold the promise of peace. The Promised One has come to bring peace, and his peace will soon cover the earth.’”

* * *

Arlington, Virginia

All of the hotels near Dulles Airport were booked.

In fact, because of the storms in the Midwest, there were so many thousands of stranded passengers in DC that Marseille had had trouble finding a vacancy anywhere. When she finally had found a room available at the DoubleTree in Crystal City, she’d booked it instantly. She’d had no idea it was a forty-minute cab ride away from Dulles, and she’d blanched at the fare on the meter when they pulled up. But she had paid without complaining, checked in, and collapsed on the king-size bed in her room.

What was she going to do now? She’d been able to reach her principal back in Portland on his cell phone, and he’d been sympathetic. He’d make sure there was a substitute in her classroom the next morning and asked simply that she stay in touch. If it took a few days for her to get back, it was okay.

“You could use the break,” he said. “Try to enjoy it. Just stay safe.”

Grateful to have a boss who wasn’t a tyrant, she took a few deep breaths and tried to relax. She didn’t want to watch a movie or even turn on the television. The news out of New York was far too depressing, and she’d seen so much of the coverage for the last few hours, she was exhausted by all of it. She wished she could call Lexi and debrief about the wedding and the old friends who’d come. But the woman was on her honeymoon.