The Tehran Initiative (38 page)

“Look,” Zalinsky said, “I know how you must feel right now.”

“Do you?”

“Yes, but I need you to do this for me. I’m sending the paramilitary teams in without the director’s permission. I haven’t even told Murray. I will when the time is right, but not now.”

“Why?”

“I made you a promise. I told you I’d back you up, and I will. But in the meantime, I need you to get on this target and stay on it until we get more people into place and figure out what to do next.”

David held his tongue. He had plenty to say, but there was no use unleashing on the one guy who was helping him.

“So,” Zalinsky said, “can I count on you?”

David took a deep breath. “Sure. Which way are they heading?”

“South on 37.”

“That’s directly parallel with me, but ninety minutes away,” David said, adjusting his GPS system to get a wider view of the area. “If I turn around, I’ll never find them. I’d be better off taking a right on 56, cutting through Arak, and trying to intercept them at Borujerd.”

“How long will that take you?”

“An hour and a half, maybe less if I hit the gas. An hour fifteen if I’m lucky.”

“Do it,” Zalinsky said. “And keep me posted.”

44

Syracuse, New York

Nasreen Shirazi abruptly stopped breathing.

Her husband frantically began giving her CPR and screamed for help. Azad had just stepped into the hallway to take a call from Saeed, but when he heard his father’s yells and an urgent Code Blue message over the hospital’s loudspeakers, he came rushing back in. Seconds later, a team of doctors and nurses rushed in as well. They took over from Mohammad Shirazi and worked feverishly to save Nasreen. But nothing they did worked.

Twenty minutes later, Mrs. Shirazi was pronounced dead. Her husband collapsed in a chair in the corner sobbing while Azad tried in vain to comfort him.

* * *

Junction of Routes 56 and 37, outside Borujerd, Iran

It was 2:30 a.m. in Iran when David reached the junction of 56 and 37.

He pulled his Peugeot to the side of the road, put on the parking brake, grabbed a flashlight from the glove compartment, got out, and popped the hood as if he were having car trouble. He had not passed the convoy coming through the city of Arak or any of the smaller towns and villages along Route 56, so there were now only two possibilities. His best-case scenario was that they had not reached the junction yet. If that was the case, they should be coming through any minute, and he could pick up their trail. If they had just passed through, then he was in trouble. It meant they were still heading south on 37 until they hit a fork. At that point, they could either go west through Khorramabad, a city with about a third of a million people, or continue south on 62 toward Esfah
ā
n, Iran’s third-largest city with more than a million and a half people. At that point, it would take a miracle to find them.

David called Zalinsky to report that he had nothing to report except that he was freezing. Strong winds were gusting across the western plains and making the already-chilly March air even colder. David promised to check in again soon, hung up, then opened the trunk and pulled out his coat. The moon was just a sliver, and there were no streetlights or houses or shops to be seen for miles, so it was dark and barren and David felt a stab of deep sadness. He was anxious to find the convoy, to be sure, and worried all his efforts so far would be for naught if the Iranians launched their War of Annihilation against Israel or against his own country. But it was more than that. He felt very much alone, as if something precious to him had just been ripped away.

He thought about praying. He sensed that God might have the answers that he so desperately needed. But he felt guilty turning to God now, when he had been resisting Him for so long. For weeks, it seemed, God had been trying to get his attention—years, actually, but especially in the past few weeks. Through Marseille. Through Najjar Malik. Through Dr. Birjandi, and now through meeting his six secret disciples. Through one near-death experience after another. The car crash. The gun battle. The waterboarding. Through it all, God had been protecting him, watching out for him, providing for him even though he didn’t deserve it. Yet had he taken time to really process what he thought about God, what he thought about Jesus? He knew the answer, and his guilt became all the more crushing.

Just then, David heard a truck coming south. He whipped around, but it was only a pickup, and it was alone. He went back to tinkering with his engine.

As he did, he began to ponder all that he had seen and heard and wrestled with in recent weeks. He did believe in God, he decided. Actually, he was pretty sure he always had. How could he not? He knew deep in his soul that God had been revealing Himself in ways large and small ever since he was a child.

What if his parents had stayed in Iran and he had been born here? He’d never have known freedom, never have met Marseille, never have had the incredible opportunities he had today. He might even be serving in the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps at this very moment, he realized. He might be serving the Twelfth Imam and be a full participant in the great evil now unfolding. Hadn’t God spared him from all that?

Or what if Jack Zalinsky had never come to see him in the Onondaga County juvenile detention center when he was sixteen? What if he’d been sentenced for a more serious crime, given a longer sentence? What if his record hadn’t been expunged and he’d never gone to college? Wasn’t God’s hand rescuing him then, too?

Yes, David was sure that a God existed, one who had a plan for him and was trying to get his attention. He was certain of this now. But he was also certain of something else: the god of Islam was not Him. David wasn’t naive enough to think that Muslims were the only people to do horrific violence in the name of their god. Throughout history, people calling themselves Christians had done terrible things too. The difference, David concluded, was that the Muslims waging violent jihad were actually
obeying
the Qur’an’s commands to kill the infidels, while people who said they were Christians but killed or mistreated Jews, Muslims, and others were explicitly
disobeying
the teachings of Jesus.

It was Muhammad, after all, who told his followers things like “Jews and Christians are the ones whom God has cursed, and he whom God excludes from His mercy, you shall never find one to help and save him” and “Kill them wherever you may come upon them, and seize them, and confine them, and lie in wait for them at every conceivable place.”

Yet it was Jesus who told His disciples, “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.”

A few more cars passed. No military convoy.

David began to think more about Najjar. He still couldn’t believe how radically the man had changed in just a month or so. He had grown up a devout Twelver. Over the course of his life, Najjar had even met the Mahdi several times and had seen him do signs and wonders, for crying out loud. Yet now he had turned his back not just on Shia Islam and the Twelvers but on all of Islam. Now he was telling his story on worldwide television, preaching the gospel, and telling his people that “Jesus Christ is calling you to Himself because He loves you—so receive Him by faith while you still have time.”

Was Najjar right? Was it true? Did Christ really love him? Was Jesus really calling him to follow?

David had read the transcripts of Najjar’s conversations with Eva three times, and now he’d even watched on the Christian satellite channel as Najjar told the story of meeting Jesus on the road to Hamadan. He practically knew the story by heart, but had he really thought about what it meant?

Najjar said he’d seen a man wearing a robe reaching to his feet. Across his chest was a gold sash. His hair was white like the snow that surrounded them. His eyes were fiery. His face shone. At that point, Najjar said he fell at the man’s feet like a dead man, but the figure had said, “Do not be afraid.”

“Who are you?” Najjar had asked.

“I am Jesus the Nazarene,” the man had replied. “
I AM
the first and the last and the living One. I am the Alpha and the Omega, who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty. Come and follow me.”

Najjar said the first sentences were uttered with a measure of authority such as he had never heard before, not from any mullah or cleric or political leader in his entire life. Yet the last four words were spoken with such gentleness, such tenderness, that he could not imagine refusing the request.

Najjar went on to describe seeing the holes where spikes had been driven through Jesus’ hands. As a devout Muslim, he had never considered the possibility that Jesus had been crucified at all, much less to pay the penalty for all human sins. No Muslim believed that. At that point, Najjar’s mind had been filled with questions, and for David, Najjar’s questions were his own.

How could Jesus be appearing as a crucified Messiah? If the Qur’an were true, wouldn’t it be impossible for Jesus to have nail-scarred hands?

One thing seemed clear to David, just as it had to Najjar: Jesus wasn’t claiming to be the second-in-command to the Mahdi. He was claiming to be God Almighty.

“I am the Way, and the Truth, and the Life,” Jesus had said, “and no one comes to the Father except through Me. I am the Light of the World. He who follows me will not walk in the darkness, but will have the light of life. For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life.”

At that point, Najjar said, he had fallen to the ground and kissed the scarred feet of Jesus. He said that at that moment, something inside him had broken. “I wept with remorse for all the sins I had ever committed. I wept with indescribable relief that came from knowing beyond the shadow of a doubt that God really did love me and had sent Jesus to die on the cross and rise from the dead for me. I wept with gratitude that because of Jesus’ promise, I knew that I was going to spend eternity with Him.”

In some ways, David wanted to dismiss the story as a fairy tale, an anxiety-induced hallucination from a deeply disturbed individual. But nothing about Dr. Najjar Malik seemed mentally imbalanced or unstable. The guy was not only one of the most highly respected scientists in all of Iran but a man willing to face a $100 million bounty on his and his family’s heads to tell the world what he believed to be true. He clearly wasn’t doing it to get rich. He wasn’t doing it for power. Though it cost him everything, Najjar Malik was now a follower of Jesus, a most unlikely turn of events.

And in the darkness and the solitude of that night, David realized that he, too, believed. Najjar was right. It was all true.

David had not seen a vision or had a dream or any other sort of supernatural experience. But maybe not everyone had to. David was an intelligence operative, wasn’t he? He was supposed to hunt for the truth and follow the evidence wherever it led him. And the evidence pointed to the fact that Jesus was who He claimed to be. Not only that, David knew that Jesus was asking him to come and follow Him, whatever the cost, however high the price. In some ways, it was hard to imagine coming to this point. One moment he did not believe, and the next he did. He couldn’t explain it, but he knew with absolute, inexplicable certainty that it was true, all of it, and that he believed it.

In the stillness of the moment, David looked up into the night sky, at the twinkling stars sprinkled across the heavens. He tried to imagine what God looked like, tried to imagine meeting Jesus face to face one day. And then, feeling compelled in his spirit, he got down on his knees on the pavement of Route 56 and put his forehead on the ground.

“O God in heaven, One True God, most kind and merciful God of the universe, maker of heaven and earth, my Creator, my Master, please have mercy on me tonight. I am the worst of sinners. I have been given so much, but I have squandered it all. You have been calling me, but I have been going my own way. I have been resisting You for so long, yet You have not given up on me. Thank You, O Lord. Thank You so much. Please forgive me for everything I have done in my miserable, godless, selfish life. I am so sorry. I know You are there. I know You are calling me. My heart is racing. I can feel Your hand on my life.”

David looked up briefly as two trucks went by, but they were not the ones he was looking for. So he bowed down again to keep praying.

“But far more important than what I feel, O Lord, is that I now know that the Bible is Your Word. I know it alone contains the true words of life. And I know, too, that Jesus is Your Son and the only true Messiah. I know it because You have revealed it to me. I don’t pretend to understand it all right now. But I believe. And if You will accept me, I want to follow You. Please accept me, O God. I believe Jesus died on the cross for me. I believe He rose for me. I see what He has done—what You have done—to save my friends Najjar and Dr. Birjandi, to change them so completely, and I want what they have. I want to know that I’m going to heaven when I die. I want to know that all my sins are forgiven. I want the joy and peace and sense of purpose and direction they have, even when life is hard—especially when life is hard.”

He was quiet for a moment. All was quiet.

“I don’t know what else to pray, Lord. I just want to say that . . . well . . . I love You, and I need You. . . . And as of tonight, I promise to follow You forever, so long as You will help me and lead me all the way. Amen.”

There were no angels singing. There were no flames of fire. But David knew God was listening and had answered his prayer.

45

Suddenly three vehicles raced past, headed south.

David was so deep in thought, he almost missed them. But it was a truck with two SUVs. It was the convoy.

He slammed his hood, tossed the flashlight onto the passenger seat, removed the parking brake, and peeled out onto 37.

Once on the road, he speed-dialed Zalinsky. “Jack, I’ve got them.”