The Disciple

In the silence of Khamenei’s office, Ahmadinejad was also doing some serious thinking. His strong right arm, Hazra al-Rashid, was dead, and the American spy, Carmellini, and the traitor, Larijani, were at large somewhere in the city. They had undoubtedly learned the truth about Jihad Day, and one had to assume they had communicated it to Israel and America.

Still, what could the Zionists and the Great Satan do at this stage of the game? If they could even find the backbone or political will to resist the inevitable.

No, those agents of the devil were not his most virulent threat. The most dangerous threat he faced was the ayatollah, sitting there like one of Muhammad’s sons, certain that his was the proper vision for Iran’s future. Khamenei knew the words of the Prophet, certainly, and yet he still hesitated to take up the bloody flag of martyrdom and go forth as a soldier of Allah.

However, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad thought, not for the first time, what if the Zionists were to strike the Supreme Leader down before Jihad Day? The act would infuriate Muslims worldwide, would prepare them for the great holy war to come.

Suddenly certain, Ahmadinejad knew that was the way the future should be written. He had had dedicated holy warriors willing to do the job ready for months. All he needed to do was issue the order. The time, he decided, had come.

When I called Jake Grafton that evening, he asked me to get Davar and call him back. As usual, I was in the attic of the hotel. I closed up the phone, repacked it and took it with me, just in case. The hotel was empty of guests, and the staff had been given several days off with pay, so the hallways were empty. In the basement I moved the stuff that hid the hole, wriggled through, then pulled the stuff back into place and descended the ladder to the tu

Davar was awake and alert. She was sitting up on her cot. Her swollen face showed every color of the rainbow. Still, she tried to smile when she saw me. Then she arranged a scarf over her face so that only her eyes were visible.

I reached with both hands and gently removed the scarf. “I know you look a mess,” I said, “but I want to see your face, just the same. The time for hiding behind scarves is almost over.”

“Oh, Tommy,” she murmured.

We chatted for a bit about this and that, carefully avoiding mentioning our recent adventure, or Ghasem.

Finally I said, “My boss wants to talk to you on the satellite phone. Now, if possible. We’ll have to climb clear up to the attic of the hotel that sits above this tu

“Do you mean, can I do it?”

“Yes.”

She used both hands to lever herself erect. I could tell she was one sore female. Still, she didn’t complain. I stood beside her and kissed her as gently as I could. She wrapped her arms around me and stood like that for a long moment.

Then she said, “Let’s go.” She reached behind her for the scarf, and this time I helped arrange it. If she ran into any IRGC guys, we didn’t want them to see her face.

I got Joe Mottaki to run interference. Twenty minutes later Davar and I were back in the attic, and Joe was on the floor below, ensuring we were not interrupted. Davar sat on the only chair and caught her breath as I set up the satellite phone, checked the encryption device and made the call.

I could only hear her side of the conversation, which consisted mostly of yeses and noes. After a while, she handed me the phone. Grafton’s voice sounded in my ear, distorted as usual by the encryption gear.

“I want you and G. W. to do a scouting expedition, then lay low until Jihad Day.”

“Yes, sir.”

He briefed me on what he wanted me to do. I merely sat and listened. When Jake Grafton is giving you a mission, he covers everything you need to know and most of the foreseeable contingencies. I had no questions. My face must have turned pale, however, because I felt Davar take my hand and give it a gentle squeeze. I looked down at her. Through the gap in the scarf, I saw tears leaking from her eyes.

After I severed the co

She nodded yes. “Girls I went to school with,” she whispered. “Some of them are friends.”

I took a deep breath. “If the Iranian missile forces manage to launch that missile aimed at Tehran, everyone in this city not in that bunker will be dead, cremated alive or killed by heat or radiation or fire, or crushed under the rubble. Including you and me. All twenty million of us. Once that thing is in the air, we are all dead.”

“Yes,” she whispered, so softly I almost missed it, and lowered her head. She looked so forlorn. She wasn’t telling me all of it-I could see that. “Who else will be in that bunker?” I demanded.

“My father and brother.”

I stared.

She raised her head. “My brother, Khurram, is a follower, one of the herd who follows the fundamentalists because they prey on the weak. They make him feel big.” She shook her head, then continued. “My father believes in money. He built that bunker-that obscenity-because they paid him. I asked him once what they were going to use it for, and he looked at me as if I had lost my mind. ‘In the event of an attack,’ he said, ‘the leaders must be saved.’ ‘And who else?’ I asked. ‘If Iran is attacked, who else will be saved?’

“He merely looked at me and said, ‘Don’t worry. We will be in the bunker.’

“That was his answer. We would be in the bunker.”

I went to the window and stood looking out. The part of the city I could see looked surreal, a mixture of old and new, atrocious architecture and stu

In a week I would probably be dead. Jake Grafton hadn’t minced words or tried to dress it up. As he spoke I remembered how that Hind helo had looked that afternoon, choppering off for Iraq. I wished to Christ Davar and I had been on it.

Staring at the doomed city, I realized that the best I could hope for was getting vaporized in the initial fireball.

Would I go to heaven? After all I had done? Or would I get to shake hands with the devil in hell?

Is there a heaven, or only blackness?

I turned and glanced at Davar, who was still sitting with her head lowered, lost in her own thoughts.

Maybe there was something I should say to her, but for the life of me I couldn’t think of anything.

When the Israeli ambassador called on the president, Sal Molina came to the conference room across the hall from the Oval Office and motioned to Jake Grafton, who was staring at a wall-sized chart that had been made from the photos Tommy Carmellini sent from Tehran with the burst transmitter. Other charts lay upon the table, along with sheets of paper setting forth the orders of battle.

The ambassador was speaking when Jake and Sal lowered themselves onto a couch at the side of the room.

“My government has decided on a first strike. Two missiles with nuclear warheads, each with two hundred kilotons of explosive power, are to be fired at Israel. If even one of them explodes over Israel, the population will be murdered where they stand. Israel will cease to exist. Quite simply, the risk is too great. We must act before the Iranians can fire those missiles.”

The president was standing in front of his desk, facing the ambassador, with his feet spread slightly and his hands in his pockets. His head was down, as if a great weight were pressing on him. “No,” he said.

“No?” The ambassador’s voice rose. “No? You stand here in Washington, half the world away from those madmen, and you tell us no?”