The Twelfth Imam

by Joel C. Rosenberg

  So despite the enormous responsibilities weighing on him and his team, Dr. Mohammed Saddaji took his precious Sheyda to his favorite restaurant in Hamadan. It was a cozy little place on Eshqi Street, best known for its savory chicken biryani and its intimate setting. It was the first restaurant he had taken his wife, Farah, to when they had moved to Hamadan years before, and Saddaji had loved it ever since.

  “Thank you so much for having lunch with me, Daddy,” Sheyda said as they sat on thick cushions and sipped tea. “I know it isn’t easy for you, with your important schedule.”

  “Come, come, sweetheart,” Saddaji replied. “I would do anything for you. You know that, right?”

  “Of course, Daddy. Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome,” Saddaji said, and then his tired, haggard eyes lit up. “Now guess what?”

  “What?”

  “I have a surprise for you.”

  “What is it?”

  “I can’t simply tell you,” he insisted. “What would be the fun in that?”

  “Can you give me a hint?”

  “For you, of course.” He smiled broadly. “As you know, my work is going very well. The Leader is very happy with what I’m doing, and we’re about to reach a major breakthrough in the next week or so.”

  He paused for a moment to let the anticipation build, and it worked. He could see it in his daughter’s eyes.

  “When that breakthrough occurs,” he continued, “your father is going to be promoted, and when I am, I’m told I am going to have the honor of meeting someone you and I have always wanted to meet.”

  Sheyda’s eyes went wide. “Daddy,” she whispered with tremendous excitement, “you don’t mean—”

  But he cut her off before she could finish the sentence. “Yes, my dear, but you may not say it aloud, even in a whisper.”

  “I promise,” she said, covering her mouth with her hands. “I’m so sorry.”

  “There’s no need to be sorry, but you must be discreet. After all, you are coming with me.”

  “I am?”

  “Of course,” Saddaji said. “How could I keep this honor all to myself?”

  “Can Mother come too? and Najjar?” Sheyda asked, barely able to contain herself.

  “Yes, yes, I’ve cleared you all. But it will be just the four of us. I’m told it will be a private meeting. We won’t even know where it will be held until the last possible moment.”

  Sheyda could barely contain herself. “He’s here?” she whispered. “He’s really here?”

  “That’s what I’m told,” he replied. “Soon the whole world will know. But they must not learn it from us.”

  “My lips are sealed; you have my word,” Sheyda promised. “And you must forgive me. I don’t even know what kind of project you’ve been working on. I hardly ever see you, and when I do, we just talk about the baby. So what is it, that you are being rewarded with such an incredible honor?”

  “That I cannot tell you, my dear. Not just yet. But when he is revealed, all shall become clear. Now, how is motherhood treating you?”

  Munich, Germany

  David checked his phone messages.

  Perhaps Marseille had called. He wanted to hear her voice again. He wanted to call her and tell her how grieved he was for her loss. But there was only one message on his voice mail, and it wasn’t from her.

  “Hi, David, it’s Dad,” the message began. “I hope you’re doing well. I hope you’re not working too hard, though I realize that may be too much to ask. But listen, I’m afraid I have some bad news. Your mother’s health has taken a turn for the worse. She’s been admitted to the hospital for tests. Could you call me? I’ll fill you in then. Love you, Son. Okay, then; bye.”

  The message was already several days old. A wave of guilt washed over David as he speed-dialed his father’s cell phone. Dr. Shirazi answered on the first ring. He was still at the hospital but was glad to hear from David and quick to forgive his son for not returning the call sooner. He told David his mother was resting just then and that it would still be several days until they got the test results.

  “They’re going to keep her here at Upstate Medical until we know more,” he said. “But it would mean a lot to her if you could take a break from all your work and all your travels to come back and see her.”

  “Dad, I was just there.”

  “I know, David, but . . .” Dr. Shirazi’s voice caught with emotion. “Your mother is a very strong woman, but . . .”

  “But what, Dad?”

  “You just never know,” Dr. Shirazi said. “Please, Son. We need you to come home for a few days. It’s important.”

  David explained that he was leaving Munich the following day for Moscow, Budapest, and Yerevan. He said he was working on major deals and couldn’t cancel those trips on such short notice. When it became clear that his father was growing upset with him, David asked if Azad or Saeed could come home to visit her until he could break free of his commitments and get back to Syracuse.

  “No,” his father said, sadder than David had ever heard him before.

  “Why not?”

  “They’re too busy,” he answered curtly. “And your mother isn’t asking for them. She’s asking for you.”

  Grieving for his mother, David promised he would find a time to come home as soon as humanly possible. Then he told his father about Marseille’s letter and about the wedding she was going to be in.

  “So I guess that’s a double incentive to get back here in the next few weeks,” his father said.

  “Mom’s all the incentive I need, Dad,” David replied. “But yes, it would be good to see Marseille after all this time.”

  “I’m sure it would,” his father said. “Did she happen to mention anything about her father? He’s never responded to my calls or letters. I haven’t heard from him in years.”

  David hesitated. He hadn’t known Charlie Harper had cut off all communication with his father, just as Marseille had with him. That was disappointing news, and from the tone of his voice, it was clear his father had been hurt. And why wouldn’t he have been? The two men had been friends for far longer than he and Marseille had been. That said, he wasn’t entirely sure it was the right time to tell his father about Mr. Harper’s death. But the man had asked a direct question, and David figured he deserved an honest answer. He told his father as gently as he could that Mr. Harper had recently passed away. He didn’t mention how.

  The news was an emotional blow. His father was silent for a long time.

  “Besides your mother, Charlie was the best friend I ever had,” his father finally said, choking back tears. “I never understood why he stopped talking to me after the funeral for Claire. I guess I’ll never know.”

  Hearing the pain in his father’s voice made David want to reconnect with Marseille even more urgently. He’d already had so many questions for her. Now he had some more.

  60

  Hamadan, Iran

  Mohammed Saddaji finished eating and paid the bill.

  He cherished every moment with his daughter, but it was time to get her home and get himself back to the office. His staff was waiting, and the moment of truth was rapidly approaching.

  “Are you ready to go?” he asked, signing the credit card slip and taking one last sip of water.

  “Do we have a second for me to freshen up?” Sheyda asked.

  The answer was no, but Saddaji couldn’t refuse his daughter’s requests. “Of course,” he said. “I’ll go get the car and pull it around front.”

  “Thanks, Daddy. I’ll meet you there in a moment.”

  Saddaji nodded and sighed, then checked his watch the moment Sheyda headed into the ladies’ room. He pulled out his cell phone and checked his messages. There was one from his brother-in-law. That would have to wait, he decided as he speed-dialed his secretary instead. “I’ll be there in twenty minutes,” he said. “Tell everyone to be ready to meet me in the conference room. We’ll go over the final checklist and give out assig
nments.” Then he tossed a few extra coins on the table for a tip and headed outside.

  For February, it was actually quite a lovely day. The sun was bright. Only a few stray clouds could be spotted. The air was warmer than usual for this time of year—about fifteen degrees Celsius, Saddaji guessed. But he didn’t care about the clouds or the sky or the temperature. He was fixated on the honors that were about to be bestowed upon him.

  The irony, he mused as he headed for his car, was that Iran had actually launched its nuclear research program with the help of the United States of America in the 1950s. It wasn’t Ayatollah Khomeini who had first fostered the notion of a nuclear-powered Iran. It was President Eisenhower and his “Atoms for Peace” program. It was, however, Khomeini who later clandestinely authorized a military track to run parallel to the civilian track. Since then, Tehran had spent hundreds of billions of rials to buy the people, parts, and plans it needed from the French, the Germans, the Russians, the North Koreans, and Pakistan’s A. Q. Khan in an effort to establish a viable nuclear weapons program. Iran had spent an even greater fortune building research and production facilities all over the country. Many of them were buried deep underground or beneath mountains, in hopes of hiding them from the prying eyes of U.S. and Israeli spy satellites as well as protecting them from a first strike by either or both.

  The crown jewel of the public version of the program—the one they allowed the International Atomic Energy Agency to inspect—was the civilian nuclear power reactor and research facility located in the city of Bushehr, not far from the eastern shoreline of the Persian Gulf. But there were scores of other facilities, from the ten uranium mines scattered across the country, to the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran’s Center for Theoretical Physics and Mathematics in Tehran, to the uranium enrichment facility in the city of Natanz, to the plutonium enrichment facility in the city of Arak, to the newly built—but not yet operational—uranium enrichment facility on a military base near Qom, to the facility in Esfahān converting yellowcake uranium into uranium hexafluoride, a critical component in the nuclear fuel cycle, to name just a few.

  Saddaji was in charge of them all, including the top-secret facility in Hamadan where the weapons were actually being built. He wasn’t doing it for money; they didn’t pay him that much. He wasn’t doing it for fame; almost no one in the country knew who he was. He was doing it, to be sure, for the intellectual challenge of it all; this was surely the most complex engineering program in which he had ever been involved. But most of all, he was doing it to help Persia once again become a great and mighty empire and to prepare the way for the Mahdi.

  Still, despite all of his hard work and sacrifice, it was difficult to imagine that he was actually living in the generation that would see the messiah arrive, much less that he was about to be honored by a personal meeting with the Promised One. As he jangled his keys in his hand, he knew he shouldn’t have said anything to Sheyda, certainly not at a public restaurant, but he simply couldn’t help himself. He was walking on air. He was dying to tell more people, including his staff. He wouldn’t, of course. He knew the risks, and he was proud of himself for his restraint thus far. But he could trust Sheyda. He always had.

  Saddaji rounded the corner and spotted his beloved black, two-door Mercedes-Benz CL63 AMG. He could never have afforded it on his director’s salary, of course. After all, the car retailed in Europe for more than 100,000 euros. He had never even dreamed of owning such a lavish treasure, but it had been a gift, and who was he to say no? It had been given to him personally the previous year by the Supreme Leader himself after Saddaji and his team had demonstrated that they had successfully brought fifty thousand centrifuges online. The faster the uranium was enriched and the purer it became, the happier and more generous the Ayatollah became, and Saddaji could still remember Hosseini putting the keys in his hands and encouraging him to take a test drive. He had trembled at the very thought and still shook his head in amazement every time he started the engine. The car was a symbol, in so many ways, of how right he had been to leave Iraq and come back home, and a symbol of how successful he had been ever since. And no one deserved such a gift more than he, Saddaji told himself.

  He unlocked the car, stepped inside, and closed the door behind him. As he sank into the soft leather seats and ran his hand across the dash, savoring the entire experience—the look, the feel, the smell of this Mercedes—he said a silent prayer, thanking Allah for giving him the great privilege and joy of helping his people, the Shias, build the Bomb.

  He sat in the sunshine for a moment and closed his eyes. He tried to imagine the ceremony that was just another week or two away now. He tried to imagine what it would be like when his eyes saw his Mahdi. But when he put in the key and turned the ignition this time, nothing happened. The car neither started nor sputtered. That was odd, he thought. He pumped the accelerator a few times, and as he turned the key again, the car erupted in a massive explosion of fire and smoke that could be heard on the other side of Hamadan.

  61

  The phone rang and wouldn’t stop.

  Najjar’s fever was still 102. His head was pounding. He was in severe pain, and he had no intention of getting out of bed to find a phone. But the constant ringing was driving him crazy. The phone would ring eight or ten times, pause for a moment, then ring another eight or ten times, pause again, and repeat the cycle. Someone was desperately trying to get him, but he could barely move. Finally summoning every ounce of energy in his body, Najjar sat up and inched himself to the edge of the bed. The phone kept ringing. He stood, wrapped himself in one of the blankets from the bed, and crawled across the room to the phone sitting on Sheyda’s dresser.

  “Hello?” he groaned, doing everything he could to suppress a wave of vomiting.

  “Is this Najjar Malik?” said a voice at the other end.

  “Yes.”

  “You’re the son-in-law of Dr. Mohammed Saddaji?”

  “Yes. Why? Who is this?”

  “You’ve been warned,” the voice said in Farsi but with a curious foreign accent. “You’re next.”

  The phone went dead.

  Suddenly Najjar heard pounding on the apartment door. His head felt like it was in a vise grip constantly being tightened. The pounding at the door wasn’t helping. He forced himself up, stumbled down the hallway past the living room, and checked the peephole. It was a police officer. Not security from the research center and not the secret police. It appeared to be a municipal police officer, so Najjar undid the several locks and opened the door.

  “Dr. Malik?” the officer asked.

  “Yes, that’s me.”

  “I’m afraid I have terrible news.”

  “What?” Najjar asked, his knees growing weak.

  “It’s about your father-in-law,” the officer said.

  “Dr. Saddaji? What about him?”

  “I’m afraid he has been killed.”

  “What? How?”

  “I know this will be hard to believe. . . .”

  “Tell me.”

  “At this point, until we complete our investigation, this cannot be repeated,” the officer continued.

  “Just tell me, please.”

  “Dr. Malik, I’m very sorry to be the one to tell you this, but I’m afraid your father-in-law was killed by a car bomb.”

  Najjar staggered backward and had to grab a chair to keep his balance. “My wife,” he cried. “She was with him. Is she okay? Dear Allah, please tell me she’s okay.”

  “Physically, she’s fine,” the officer assured him.

  “Where is she?”

  “She was taken to the hospital to be treated for shock. If you’d like, I can take you to her.”

  A surge of adrenaline coursed through Najjar’s frail body. Suddenly alert and significantly stronger than he had been a moment before, he hurried to his bedroom, dressed quickly, washed his face, brushed his teeth, and went out the door with the officer. Fifteen minutes later, the patrol car was taking a left on Mard
om Street and pulling into Bouali Hospital. Najjar ran in and quickly found Sheyda and her mother, Farah, both looking small and lost.

  A security detail from the research center was already there protecting the family and had set up a perimeter around the hospital.

  The rest of the day was a blur of tears and police investigators and well-wishers and funeral details. According to tradition, the burial had to be completed by sundown, but there was no body, the officer told Najjar privately, away from Sheyda and Farah. Only a few parts had been found, along with some bits of clothing and shoes. Those, Najjar was told, would be gathered, put in a small box, and wrapped in a white shroud.

  Soon Dr. Saddaji’s secretary arrived at the hospital and began helping Najjar e-mail and text family members, friends, and coworkers, informing them of the death and requesting their presence at the funeral. The head of Najjar’s protective detail had just one demand: for reasons of state security, there could be no mention of how Dr. Saddaji had died in any of their private conversations or public communications. Not now. Not at the funeral. Not unless the head of Iran’s nuclear power and research agency personally authorized it, and even then, Najjar was informed that Ali Faridzadeh would likely veto such an authorization.

  The defense minister? Najjar thought. Until recently, a mention of someone so high up on the food chain would have struck him as bizarre and out of place. But now the pieces of the puzzle were coming together. Najjar no longer had any doubt that his father-in-law had been one of the top nuclear-weapons scientists in Iran, and he had given his life in his ghastly pursuit of killing millions.

  Had the Israelis taken him out? Had the Americans or the Iraqis? He would probably never know. But while he mourned on the outside, inside he felt a great sense of relief. This solved a lot of problems, he realized. Maybe this would set back the entire weapons program and forestall a war that otherwise was surely coming soon.

  62

  Munich, Germany