The Twelfth Imam

by Joel C. Rosenberg

  Then he saw the VW bus. It was still running.

  He scooped his wife up in his arms, carried her to the VW, and set her carefully on the floor in the back. Then he jumped into the driver’s seat, locked the doors, slammed the vehicle into reverse, and gunned the engine just as the Skylark exploded into the sky.

  Charlie knew fire trucks and ambulances would be there soon. So would the police.

  Still driving backward, he got a safe-enough distance away from the raging wreckage of their Buick, then carefully slowed to a stop, did a three-point turn, jammed the VW into second gear, and sped away from the scene of the crime. He was now convinced that Claire was having a miscarriage. He needed a hospital and knew he was just blocks away from Sayeed-ash-Shohala hospital, one of the city’s best. But he couldn’t possibly take her there now. No hospital or medical clinic was safe. He couldn’t run the risk of being exposed and captured by forces loyal to Khomeini. Especially now that he’d just gunned down two student radicals. They’d hang him or put him in front of a firing squad, either of which would be merciful compared to what they’d do to his wife.

  Panicked and helpless, Charlie drove aimlessly through the streets of Tehran. He had no idea what to do, where to turn. He passed Shahr Park, one of his favorites, where he and Claire had often strolled and taken picnic lunches. He passed the Golestan Palace, one of the oldest and most beautiful complexes of historical monuments in the capital, dating back to the sixteenth century. But all the joy of being in this exotic country was now gone.

  As he drove, Charlie cursed Iran. He cursed the Ayatollah. He cursed the Revolution. His wife was dying. The fanatical followers of the imam were trying to kill him, too. Everything he believed about the efficacy of diplomacy and “building bridges of friendship among the nations of the world” had just gone up in the flames of his government-issued sedan.

  But then the name Mohammad Shirazi came to mind.

  Charlie immediately tried to banish it from his thoughts. It was crazy. The man might be his neighbor, but he was an Iranian. He was a Muslim. The man’s wife, Nasreen, might be a fantastic chef, and she seemed to have taken a real liking to Claire—even caring for Claire sacrificially on some of the worst days of her morning sickness—but the Shirazis were Shias. They were enemies now.

  Still, Mohammad was a doctor—an impressive cardiologist. He was young, to be sure—no more than thirty, Charlie guessed—but highly regarded throughout the city. His practice was not far away. Charlie and Claire had actually been there just a few weeks earlier for a little party celebrating the grand opening of Mohammad’s new, state-of-the-art medical clinic. Perhaps he should head there and ask for help. It was risky, but what choice did he have? The Shirazis might be his only hope.

  Charlie eased off the gas, downshifted, slowed to a safe speed, and did an illegal U-turn. Six blocks later, he pulled into the parking lot beside Dr. Shirazi’s clinic. He saw only three cars, one of which he knew to be his neighbor’s. Charlie glanced in his rearview mirror. A truck filled with soldiers was passing and slowed as it did. Charlie put his head down and held his breath. The truck stopped for a moment. Charlie wasn’t sure he even believed in God, but he said a silent prayer anyway, begging for mercy for himself, for his wife, and for the little life in her womb. A moment later, the soldiers sped away.

  Breathing a sigh of relief, Charlie pulled the VW close to the clinic’s back door and turned off the engine. Then he slipped inside the clinic and found himself face-to-face with a woman receptionist who was veiled and clearly devout. In the waiting room, the TV was on. Regular programming had been interrupted by news of the latest developments at the American Embassy.

  “May I help you?” the receptionist asked in Farsi.

  “I need to see Dr. Shirazi,” Charlie replied in kind.

  “Do you have an appointment?” she asked.

  “I’m sorry, I don’t,” he stammered. “But I’m a friend—a neighbor, actually. And it’s a bit of an emergency.”

  “What kind of an emergency?”

  Charlie didn’t want to say. Not to this woman. Not now. But he didn’t know what else to do. He hadn’t thought that far ahead.

  Charlie glanced at his watch. He had to move fast. Claire needed serious medical attention and quickly—before the secret police tracked down the VW. He glanced around the room. There was just one older man sitting in the waiting room to his left, watching the TV coverage and shaking his head. He didn’t look religious. He didn’t look angry. Perhaps Charlie could take a chance, he thought. Perhaps he could . . .

  Just then Charlie heard Dr. Shirazi’s voice calling to his receptionist. “Who is my next patient?”

  Charlie turned his head and saw his neighbor stepping out of his office, and surprise registered on the man’s face.

  “Charlie Harper?” he said. “What a pleasure to see you, my friend.”

  The doctor greeted Charlie with a traditional Persian hug and a kiss on both cheeks.

  “Is everything all right, Charlie?” Dr. Shirazi asked, looking at the bloodstains on his shirt and pants.

  “I must speak to you privately,” Charlie blurted out.

  The office phone started ringing.

  “Yes, of course. Is this blood? What happened?”

  Charlie shook his head and lowered his voice, hoping neither the receptionist nor the old man in the waiting room would be able to hear him, though he couldn’t help but notice the receptionist’s intensifying curiosity. The phone kept ringing.

  “It’s not me, Dr. Shirazi. It’s Claire.”

  “What’s wrong? Where is she?”

  “She’s in the car, right outside,” Charlie whispered. “Could you come for a moment and take a look at her?”

  Dr. Shirazi readily agreed, telling his receptionist to go ahead and answer the phone and take a message, and he would be right back. She finally picked up the phone as the two men moved quickly to the door.

  A moment later, Charlie watched the horrified expression on Dr. Shirazi’s face as he opened the side door of the VW bus and found Claire soaked in blood.

  Charlie quickly explained what had happened.

  “We need to get Claire to the hospital,” the doctor said.

  “No,” Charlie said. “That’s not possible.”

  “You have no choice,” Dr. Shirazi said.

  “Haven’t you been watching the coverage of the embassy this morning?”

  “No,” the doctor said, shaking his head. “I’ve been with patients all morning.”

  “The embassy has been overrun. The staff is being held hostage. Some may have been killed. The rest of us are being hunted.”

  Shirazi’s face paled. “I’m so sorry, Charlie. I had no idea. But your wife needs a blood transfusion or she’s going to die. She needs an ob-gyn. That’s not my specialty. I can’t help her.”

  “You have to,” Charlie insisted. “And then we’re leaving the country.”

  “That’s impossible. Even if you could get through security at the airport, your wife would never survive the flight.”

  “Please, Dr. Shirazi, I need you to take care of her—privately, without anyone knowing. I’ll pay whatever it costs.”

  “Charlie, you don’t understand. I’m a cardiologist. Your wife has a dying child in her womb. She is dying too. I can’t—”

  Charlie grabbed the man by his shoulders and looked deeply into his eyes. “Dr. Shirazi, listen to me. I love your country. You know I do. It was once a paradise. But something evil has happened, something neither of us understands. I’m telling you, if Claire and I are caught by this regime, they will try us, and they will kill us on statewide television for the whole country and the whole world to see. That’s not going to happen. I don’t care about myself. But so help me God, I will never let one of them lay so much as a finger on Claire. Now please, I’m begging you as my friend, help me. I don’t have anywhere else to turn.”

  5

  The two men stared into each other’s eyes.

/>   “You’re right,” the doctor finally conceded. “I’m sorry. You and Claire deserve better. So does your country. This is not the Iran I grew up in. I don’t even recognize this place anymore.”

  The back door burst open. It was the receptionist, calling for her boss.

  “I asked you to hold my calls,” Dr. Shirazi replied.

  “Yes, sir, but it’s your wife, sir. She says it’s urgent.”

  Charlie saw the conflict in his friend’s eyes. “Go,” he said. “Take the call.”

  Charlie was fast losing hope, but what else could he say? He sensed a measure of warmth and compassion in Dr. Shirazi that he deeply appreciated. The doctor seemed genuinely to want to help him. Time was running out, but Charlie didn’t want to do anything that would make his friend upset.

  A moment later, Dr. Shirazi came back to the VW. “Nasreen has been watching events on television. She says you’re right. You can’t go to a hospital. She says I should bring you there.”

  “There?” Charlie asked, perplexed. “Where’s there?”

  “The embassy.”

  Charlie just stared at the man. Was he trying to make a joke? If so, it was cruel in the extreme, yet he looked earnest.

  “Embassy?” Charlie finally asked. “What embassy?”

  “The Canadians,” Shirazi replied. “They’re preparing to evacuate most of their staff. They’re worried they might be next.”

  They heard sirens approaching.

  “Your wife works for the Canadian Embassy?” Charlie asked, wondering why he’d never heard this before.

  “Of course,” the doctor said. “I told you that.”

  “No, you said she was a translator for the U.N.”

  “Yes,” Dr. Shirazi said, “she used to work for the Foreign Ministry on U.N. issues. But she got a new job. Last month. I told you that. I’m sure I did. She began doing some contract work for the Canadians. She says there are a few more Americans who’ve just arrived. They’re hiding there now. She says if we can get there in the next fifteen minutes, she’ll have the medical unit on standby for Claire.”

  “And then?” Charlie asked.

  “What do you mean?”

  “What happens to us after that?”

  “I don’t know, my friend,” Dr. Shirazi said. “One step at a time.”

  With great care, Charlie and Dr. Shirazi lifted Claire and transferred her from the VW bus to the plush leather backseat of the doctor’s roomy Mercedes sedan. Charlie then got into the VW and followed Shirazi a few blocks away to an alley behind a small manufacturing plant that made women’s shoes. There, Charlie quickly wiped down both the interior and exterior of the vehicle to erase fingerprints and any other forensic evidence as best he could, then ditched the VW. He climbed into the backseat of the Mercedes and held his wife as Shirazi sped to the residence of the Canadian ambassador.

  Nasreen, six Canadian security officers, and a team of medics met them at the rear gate. Charlie had to surrender his pistol, but they were all quickly let inside, and Claire was whisked into surgery. Charlie started to follow but was asked to wait in the residence. The Shirazis waited with him. They were offered food but couldn’t eat. They were offered drinks but had no interest.

  As the tense and lonely hours passed with no word about Claire’s condition, four other American Embassy employees approached, introduced themselves, and said they were praying for the Harpers. Charlie, fighting a debilitating cocktail of fatigue and depression, couldn’t recall ever meeting any of them before. They all worked in the consular section, handling visa issues, and had been able to escape in the initial moments of the morning’s drama and find a safe haven with the Canadians. Charlie was grateful for their kindness.

  As the sun began to set and long shadows filled the ambassador’s personal library, where they waited, the Canadian doctor in charge of the embassy’s medical unit came in and broke the news. Claire would recover, though it would take several weeks. The baby, however, had been lost.

  Charlie was not usually a man prone to tears. He’d never seen his father cry, and today was, as far as he could remember, the first time he’d cried since he had met, courted, and married Claire. But now he slumped into the nearest chair and began to sob. At first he did his best to muffle the sound of his lamentations, but he couldn’t stop them. They emanated from somewhere so deep inside his soul, he was beyond embarrassment.

  The Shirazis gathered at Charlie’s side, put their arms around him, and held him. They, too, had tears streaming down their faces.

  Charlie awoke as if from a nightmare.

  The room was pitch-black. With a brief flash of hope, he reached for Claire, but she was not there. He rubbed his eyes and checked his Timex. It was half past three in the morning. It was Wednesday, November 7, 1979. Then a cruel realization came over him. This wasn’t a dream. All of it was bitterly true.

  Three days had passed since the nightmare had begun, and he had no earthly idea how long it would last. Claire remained in serious but stable condition. She’d been conscious for only a few hours a day, and for the rest of each dark and dismal day, Charlie had never felt so alone.

  Feeling famished and realizing he had barely eaten since Sunday, Charlie got up, put on a robe someone had lent him, and padded out of his guest room and down several flights of stairs to the kitchen. There he was startled to find Ambassador Taylor and the Shirazis. A Filipino steward was preparing soup and some sandwiches. Apparently Charlie wasn’t the only one who couldn’t sleep.

  “It’s good to see you, Charlie,” Mohammad Shirazi said.

  “Come,” Nasreen said, pulling up a chair, “sit here with us.”

  Charlie nodded his thanks and sank into the chair.

  The Canadian ambassador leaned toward Charlie. “You’ll be glad to know I’ve been in touch with your State Department. We’re working on plans to get you and Claire back to the States as soon as she’s healthy enough.”

  “Thank you,” Charlie said. “That’s very kind.”

  “We’re hoping, of course, that this whole thing blows over in the next few days,” the ambassador observed.

  “That doesn’t seem likely, does it?” Charlie asked.

  “Not at the moment, no. But you should hear the plan the CIA is cooking up in case this thing goes on for a while. It’s a bit . . . thin.”

  “What do you mean?” Charlie asked.

  For the next few minutes, the ambassador sketched out the craziest scheme Charlie had ever heard. From the looks on their faces, the Shirazis thought it was nuts too. Charlie didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. He hoped their situation wouldn’t require a solution as cockamamy as that. It would never work, he knew. The Iranians were fanatics. The secret police at the airport would never buy it. But once again, he realized he had no other choice. Clearly his fate was not in his own hands. Perhaps he ought to resign himself to that fact, he figured, for he was simply too tired to resist.

  “I just have one request, Mr. Ambassador,” Charlie said at last.

  “What’s that?”

  “You must promise me the Shirazis can come too.”

  The ambassador and the Shirazis looked stunned.

  “Charlie, that’s very thoughtful of you,” Mohammad Shirazi said, “but I don’t really think that’s possible at this point.”

  Charlie ignored him. “Mr. Ambassador, they saved the life of two Americans. The regime will kill them if we leave them here.”

  “I understand,” the ambassador said. “But it’s out of my hands. Think about it, Charlie. It’s one thing for your government to extract two of its own diplomats out of harm’s way. It’s quite another thing to—”

  But Charlie cut him off. “Put me on the phone with whomever you’re talking to at Langley,” he said firmly. “Claire and I aren’t leaving unless the Shirazis come with us. They saved our lives. The very least we can do is save theirs.”

  6

  Ten years later

  Tehran, Iran

  June 3, 1989r />
  Hamid Hosseini had been at his master’s side for three decades.

  He could not bear to see the man suffer. For the past week and a half, he had been one of only three clerics allowed to sit beside the hospital bed of Ayatollah Ruhollah Mousavi Khomeini. For eleven straight days and nights, Hosseini had gone without food, begging Allah for his master’s recovery. But relief had not come. The cancer continued to consume the eighty-eight-year-old cleric. The doctors were unable to stanch the internal bleeding. The master’s time seemed to be at hand.

  Hosseini’s eyes filled with tears. He and his master had been through so much together. They had accomplished so much. It couldn’t end now. Their mission was not yet complete.

  Hosseini got up from his prayers and quietly stepped into the hallway to compose himself. He still vividly remembered the first time the two men had met.

  The year was 1963. Khomeini’s popularity was soaring, and not just among theologians. The people of Iran were falling in love with this fiery, radical preacher, and so was Hosseini. At times Khomeini preached to crowds of a hundred thousand or more, and in June of that year, Khomeini invited Hosseini to be his guest as he delivered a major address. Hosseini eagerly accepted, sharing breakfast that morning with the master in his home, asking him a thousand questions, driving with him to the site of the speech, and sitting just a few yards away as the address began.

  Hosseini could still recite the speech in full. He had been mesmerized as Khomeini blasted the Shah as a “miserable wretch” who had allied himself with the “parasites” of Israel. He’d been enthralled as Khomeini denounced apostate Islamic clerics throughout Iran—allies of the Shah—as “impure animals.” And he’d been shocked by hearing Khomeini predict that the Shah would be forced to leave the country.

  Even so many years later, Hosseini could recall his electrification, the crowd’s swell of emotion. No one had ever spoken of the Shah that way. The masses went crazy. They were ready to overthrow the Pahlavi regime right there and then. But it was not time. Two days later, the Shah’s secret police forces decided to move, arresting Khomeini and everyone who had been on the platform. But that just generated more sympathy and support for Khomeini.