The Twelfth Imam (34 page)

74

As the hours passed, there was one bit of good news.

Wireless service had now been restored for sections near the airport, which meant David’s phone worked and he could use it to get on the Internet. He grabbed his laptop and waited for it to boot up.

As he did, he kept thinking about Birjandi’s words. What did he mean that the earthquake wasn’t a natural event? There were only two other possibilities. One was a
supernatural
event, perhaps connected to the arrival of the Twelfth Imam. But Birjandi had seemed to dismiss that notion, which was odd, given the man’s specialty. The only other possibility was that it was a man-made event. But the only way for man to trigger an earthquake was . . .

No, David thought, surely that wasn’t possible. Birjandi wasn’t suggesting the earthquake had been triggered by an underground nuclear test, was he?

Once connected to the Internet, David did a quick search. What he found unnerved him.

On May 28, 1998, Pakistan conducted five nuclear weapons tests, triggering an earthquake that measured 5.0 on the Richter scale.

On October 9, 2006, North Korea conducted a nuclear test in the North Hamgyong province, resulting in a 4.3 seismic event.

On May 25, 2009, North Korea conducted another nuclear test, resulting in an earthquake with a magnitude of 4.7.

David was no physicist or geologist. He had no way of knowing for certain. But on its face, it did seem possible that an earthquake could be triggered by a nuclear test or a series of tests. Was that what had just happened? If so, how huge must the nuke have been to trigger an earthquake measuring 8.6 on the Richter scale?

Barred from accessing Langley’s database from inside a hostile country, David continued scouring the open-source articles on previous nuclear tests, looking for similarities and differences. The article that worried him most was an October 2006 piece by David Sanger in the
New York Times
.

North Korea said Sunday night that it had set off its first nuclear test, becoming the eighth country in history, and arguably the most unstable and most dangerous, to proclaim that it has joined the club of nuclear weapons states.

The test came just two days after the country was warned by the United Nations Security Council that the action could lead to severe consequences.

Since when has a U.N. Security Council warning ever stopped a country from building the Bomb?
David wondered.

The White House and State Department were kidding themselves. The president and the secretary of state and all their muckety-mucks could huff and puff all they wanted, but in the end, negotiations and diplomacy and high-level talks and Security Council meetings were all just words, and words weren’t going to blow the Big Bad Wolf’s nuclear house down.

David continued reading.

North Korea’s decision to conduct the test demonstrated what the world has suspected for years: the country has joined India, Pakistan, and Israel as one of the world’s “undeclared” nuclear powers. India and Pakistan conducted tests in 1998; Israel has never acknowledged conducting a test or possessing a weapon. But by actually setting off a weapon, if that is proven, the North has chosen to end years of carefully crafted and diplomatically useful ambiguity about its abilities.

“I think they just had their military plan to demonstrate that no one could mess with them, and they weren’t going to be deterred, not even by the Chinese,” a senior American official who deals with the North Koreans said. “In the end, there was just no stopping them.”

Was there any stopping Iran? Not like this, David thought. The CIA was learning too little. They were doing too little. And too much time was going by.

He did a quick search of the headlines in the last twenty-four hours. Had there been any indication by the Iranians that they were testing a bomb? He found none. If they had just tested, that may have been a key lesson they learned from the North Koreans: Why announce the test? Why confirm it? Why let the world know they had the Bomb? In this case, why let the Israelis know? Then again, David thought, maybe the Iranians were still going to announce it. Maybe they were just buying time, reviewing the technical data, making sure they really had an operational weapon—or several of them—before telling the world the apocalyptic news.

David did some more poking around the Internet to double-check his memory on the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. Sure enough, Iran was one of the 182 signatories to the pact. By signing, it had agreed with all the other signatory states to two central provisions.

First, “Each State Party undertakes not to carry out any nuclear weapon test explosion or any other nuclear explosion, and to prohibit and prevent any such nuclear explosion at any place under its jurisdiction or control.”

Second, “Each State Party undertakes, furthermore, to refrain from causing, encouraging, or in any way participating in the carrying out of any nuclear weapon test explosion or any other nuclear explosion.”

By way of enforcement, David knew, the International Monitoring System (IMS) and International Data Center (IDC) had been established. These networks included over three hundred primary and auxiliary seismic monitoring stations worldwide specifically tracking all seismic events and determining whether they were natural or triggered by a nuclear explosion. The difference was fairly simple for experts to discern. In an earthquake, seismic activity was slow at first and then steadily intensified as tectonic plates scraped against one another. But when a nuclear blast occurred, the seismic activity would be incredibly intense at first and then would slow down over a few minutes.

Which one had just happened at Hamadan? David didn’t know, but he had to get Langley checking. Taking a risk, he decided to use his Nokia to send an encrypted message back to Zalinsky and Fischer. There was a slight chance that the encrypted message would be picked up—not read but noticed—by Iranian intelligence, since it was being sent from an area so close to the epicenter of the quake. But it was a risk he had to take. He typed quickly.

FLASH TRAFFIC—PRIORITY ALPHA: Request immediate focus on Hamadan earthquake. Stop. Possible nuclear test. Stop. Check IMS/IDC data. Stop. Request immediate CP pass. Stop. Possible link to death of Saddaji. Stop. Also: indications that TTI recruiting army of 10,000 mujahideen. Stop. Source close to TTI says plan is to “annihilate” Tel Aviv, DC, New York, and LA. Stop. Working to get more details. Stop. Will call secure when I can. Stop. Out.

Dubai, United Arab Emirates

Zalinsky was getting frustrated again.

The Saddaji news had been useful. But was David Shirazi actually suggesting the Iranians had just conducted a nuclear test—the first in the country’s history—in Hamadan, of all places? The notion was ridiculous. The Iranians had their Shahrokhi Air Base about thirty miles north of the city. But they certainly didn’t have nuclear facilities in or around Hamadan.

Then came the audacity of Zephyr’s suggestion that the United States Air Force dispatch its high-tech WC-135 “nuclear test–sniffing plane”—code-named CP for Constant Phoenix—over Iran. Did he really think the secretary of defense and the joint chiefs of staff were going to authorize an expensive flyover of a hostile country amid such a delicate diplomatic dance with the Iranians? Based on what? speculation? guesses? gut instincts? Zalinsky could just imagine the dressing-down he’d receive from the higher-ups within the CIA, at the Pentagon, and at the White House when the air sample data sent from Constant Phoenix to the Air Force Technical Applications Center at Patrick Air Force Base in Florida came back negative. No radiation. No evidence of a nuclear test whatsoever. He’d be a laughingstock.

What’s more, “Reza Tabrizi’s” interest in TTI, presumably the Twelfth Imam, was a distraction. It worried Zalinsky, and it disrupted the controlled and careful tone with which he wanted this operation to be carried out. The kid seemed to think this religious fervor was going to boil over into drastic events any minute, but Zalinsky wasn’t convinced anything new was happening in the hearts of these madmen. They were on a steady course to develop nuclear weapons, and his team needed to remain on a steady course to stop them, not to act rashly.

75

It was almost 10 p.m. when Birjandi’s door finally opened.

David, devouring his third book on Shia eschatology from the old man’s shelves, watched him make his way slowly to the kitchen.

“Would you like some help?” he asked, setting a hefty tome aside.

“Yes, son, that would be very kind.”

Together, they made a pot of tea and set out a plate of naan, Iranian bread that was a favorite of David’s. He was anxious to ask his host about the Twelfth Imam, the earthquake, Iran’s weapons program, and a thousand other things. But as David carried the tray to the study and the two sat down together, he sensed the man was not quite ready to talk about such things. He had to be patient, he reminded himself. He had to pace himself. This was a source and a potentially high-value one at that. He needed to build a relationship, some camaraderie, some trust. Above all, he had to be careful not to offend the man. Birjandi had been described by many as a recluse. David needed to find a way to open him up.

He smiled as Dr. Birjandi popped a sugar cube in his mouth and then began sipping his tea. It was just the way his father used to drink tea. He hadn’t seen his father do it in many years, but somehow watching Birjandi made David feel homesick. He missed his father, worried for his mother, and felt a sudden hunger for home that surprised him. He looked out the window at the quiet suburban street and saw a young family walking past, the man a few strides ahead of the woman and several children running around them. They sat in silence for a while, and Birjandi seemed to enjoy the quiet. And then, as David took a piece of bread and began to chew it slowly, he had an idea.

“May I ask you a question, sir?” he began.

“Of course,” the old man said. “What’s on your mind?”

“Were you ever in love?”

Dr. Birjandi cleared his throat in surprise. “That was not a question I was expecting when Abdol said you wanted to come over to meet me.”

“I’m sorry. It’s just that—”

“No, no, it’s a good question,” Birjandi interrupted, “and an honest one. I appreciate a young man who is not all business.”

David had been taught at the Farm not to throw fastballs straight down the center of the plate. Curveballs and the occasional slider tended to work better, throwing the batter off a bit. It didn’t always work. But this time, he sensed it just might.

“I will tell you the truth, son,” the old man said between sips of tea. “I was in love with the same girl for sixty-seven years, and I’m still in love with her. She passed away six months ago, but I think about her every moment of every day. I have an ache in my heart that will not leave.”

“I’m so sorry,” David said.

“It’s okay,” Birjandi responded. “It hurts now, but soon enough we will walk hand in hand in paradise, reunited forever. I cannot wait.”

David was moved by the man’s devotion to his bride. “What was her name?”

“Souri.”

“A red rose,” David said. “That’s a beautiful name.”

“As was she,” Birjandi said. “Her heart, anyway. Her voice. The touch of her hands. The smell of the flowers she would pick in the morning. I never had the joy of seeing her. But then again, I didn’t need to see her to know her. All I could do was listen to her speak, but the more I listened, the more I knew her, and the more I knew her, the more I loved her. Someday, when we meet in paradise, I will finally get to see just how beautiful she really is. That will be something, won’t it?”

“It will indeed,” David said. “May I ask how old you were when you met?”

“I was sixteen; she was seventeen. My mother hired her to tutor me in Arabic, because her family was originally from Najaf, in Iraq. We married the following year.”

“It was an arranged marriage?”

“Of course, though we did our best not to seem happy about it.”

“Why’s that?”

“We were afraid if our parents knew how in love we were, they would force us to marry someone else!”

David began to laugh but quickly covered his mouth.

“It’s okay, son. I still laugh about it myself. I still savor each and every memory with that woman. I can remember our entire first conversation, the day we met. And I can remember our last. I can tell you how her hand felt as I held it at the hospital, sitting beside her cancer-ravaged body. I can tell you what it felt like the moment she breathed her last breath and slipped into eternity, leaving me all by myself. I’m not going to, but I could.” The old man’s voice had grown thick as he was overcome with emotion.

Moments passed slowly in silence. Then Dr. Birjandi asked an unexpected question. “Her name is Marseille, right?”

David’s heart stopped. “Pardon?” he said, hoping he hadn’t heard the man right.

“The girl that you love,” the old man continued, “her name is Marseille; am I right?”

In shock, David didn’t know what to say.

“Your real name is David,” Birjandi added. “David Shirazi.”

“I’m afraid I don’t know what you’re talking about,” David stammered. “You must have mistaken me for someone else.”

“So you’re not the David Shirazi who fell in love with Marseille Harper on a fishing trip in Canada, who was arrested for beating up a boy who thought you were an Arab? You weren’t recruited by a Mr. Zalinsky to be an agent for the Central Intelligence Agency?”

Stunned, David rose to his feet without thinking.
“Who are you?”
he demanded.
“Why are you accusing me of such lies?”

“You know they’re not lies,” Birjandi said gently. “And I’m not accusing you of anything. I’m just telling you what God told me to tell you.”

David’s mind was reeling. “The Twelfth Imam told you all this?”

“No.”

“Then I don’t understand.”

“I don’t follow the Twelfth Imam,” the old man said.

David was more confused than ever. “What are you talking about? No one knows him better than you.”

“That’s why I don’t follow him.”

David scanned the empty room, looking from side to side and listening carefully for any sign that they were not alone. What was going on? His mind scrambled to think how best to handle such a bizarre and dangerous breach of identity. What options did he have? If he’d been compromised at levels this high up and was about to be seized by Iranian intelligence, there wasn’t much he could do. He had no weapon, and the old man didn’t seem like a promising hostage. It was unlikely he could successfully run. In the absence of another viable alternative, maybe he should find out as much as he could and try to control his emotions. He needed to think clearly for whatever came next.

“Now, just sit down,” Birjandi said. “Take a deep breath. Be patient. You are in no danger from me. And I’ll explain everything. It will take some time, but it is vitally important that you listen until the end. I will give you the information you seek and point you in the right direction. But first I need to tell you a story.”