The Twelfth Imam (30 page)

65

Najjar struck oil.

Sitting on the desk in his father-in-law’s home office was Saddaji’s Sony VAIO laptop. Right next to it was a one-hundred-gigabyte external hard drive. Beside that was a stack of DVD-ROMs that Dr. Saddaji apparently used to back up his computer.

Najjar quickly gathered his mother-in-law’s toothbrush, makeup, and the other assorted toiletries she had requested, along with all of her husband’s electronics, and headed for his car. He didn’t dare sift through it all now, for he fully expected plant security and intelligence officials to descend on the apartment at any moment.

Just before he turned the ignition, Najjar remembered what the police had told him about how Dr. Saddaji had died. Then he recalled the words of the mysterious caller:
You’re next.
He was suddenly frightened again. Was he being followed? by his own security forces? by the Israelis? or even the Americans? Had they just planted a bomb in his car? He began trembling again.

But then he heard a voice and recognized it immediately.

“Do not fear them. There is nothing covered up that will not be revealed, nothing hidden that will not be known. What I tell you in the darkness, speak in the light; and what you hear whispered in your ear, proclaim upon the housetops.”

Najjar wasn’t sure whether he had heard an audible voice or whether the Lord had simply spoken to him in his spirit. But once again a peace he couldn’t explain immediately came over him, and Najjar was no longer afraid. He turned the ignition without hesitation. The car started without a problem.

As he drove, Najjar again heard the voice of the Lord.
“Now you must leave this city. The Lord will rescue you. He will redeem you from the grip of your enemies.”

Racing toward home, Najjar was troubled by this message.
Leave this city? Why? To where?
He had been a follower of Jesus for less than an hour, but he knew his Shepherd’s voice, and he was determined to follow Him wherever He led. Clearly Jesus wanted him to take his family and leave Hamadan. But how in the world would he explain all this to Sheyda and Farah? He had no idea, but Najjar clung passionately to the command of Jesus. He was not to succumb to fear. He was to live by faith in the One who had conquered the grave and who held the keys to death and hades in His own hands.
It will be okay,
he told himself.
Somehow it will be okay.

It was nearly four in the morning when Najjar finally got home. He decided he would take his family to Tehran—as good a destination as any, he supposed. They could find a hotel there easily enough. He knew that the distance from Hamadan to Tehran was about three hundred and fifty kilometers—a five-hour drive. He had driven it a thousand times. They could be there for breakfast if they left quickly. That was the easy part. The hard part would be persuading the women to go.

Najjar entered the apartment as quietly as he could. He expected the lights to be off, but they were on. He expected his wife and mother-in-law to be sound asleep, but to his shock, they were lying prostrate on the floor of the living room.

Upon hearing the door open, Sheyda jumped up, ran to him, and hugged him as she never had before. Her eyes were red. Her makeup was running. She had obviously been crying, but that was to be expected. What wasn’t expected were the words she spoke next.

“He appeared to us, too, Najjar,” she whispered in his ear. “We’re packed and ready to go. I’ll get the baby. Meet us in the car.”

It was 7 a.m., and Esfahani cursed Mina under his breath.

As his hired driver snaked the Mercedes through the streets of Hamadan, crowded with shopkeepers beginning their day, Esfahani wondered why in the world she had made these travel arrangements. Didn’t she ever think about the difficulty of heading to the airport in the thick of morning traffic? Didn’t he pay her to anticipate these details and make his life as comfortable as possible?

If she’d been smart and booked a later flight, he could have slept longer and waited until the roads cleared. Instead, the driver had picked him up at his family home southeast of Bu-Ali Sina University at 6:30 and was now winding along the edges of Lona Park and onto the ring road heading north and then east toward the airport. He wished he’d paid attention to the itinerary yesterday and demanded she change the ticket.
Foolish woman!
Perhaps it was time to fire her.

The previous day had been consumed with his large extended family and the business of Dr. Saddaji’s funeral. Saddaji was the brother-in-law of his friend and boss, Daryush Rashidi, and their families had known each other for generations. And given the man’s prominence in the world of science and energy, it was a fairly elaborate funeral, despite the fact that there was no body to speak of to bury. Esfahani went to the funeral in deference to Rashidi, but now he was anxious to return to Tehran and his work. He would not stay for
hafteh
, the seventh-day visitation of the grave. He wasn’t that close to the man, tragic though his death was.

The car came to a stop as it approached the northern edge of the city, and Esfahani looked out the window to see why.

“There’s a problem ahead, sir,” the driver explained. “Maybe an accident. It will take me just a few minutes to get to the turnoff, but then we’ll take an alternate route. Please forgive me, sir; I heard no warning about this delay.”

Ten minutes later they turned onto a side road and headed toward the center of the city. Esfahani hoped the driver knew what he was doing.

As if reading his mind, the man explained, “I’m going to the inner ring road and then will try to circle around to the north. The traffic should ease up, sir. I beg your forgiveness.”

“I don’t care how you get there,” Esfahani snapped. “I just don’t want to miss this flight.” He wasn’t fully awake, and the last thing he needed was a detailed description of their route.

He looked outside and sighed heavily. He was proud of his birthplace, the most ancient of Iran’s cities and a cradle of poetry, philosophy, and science. But right now, he wished he were asleep. It had been a busy few days, and time spent with his family was never peaceful. He longed for the solitude of his apartment in Tehran, far away from the domestic drama of his mother and her many siblings.

He closed his eyes and tried to remember the poetry he’d memorized as a youth. The great scientist and poet Ibn Sina, whose tomb was one of the proudest possessions of their city, had written, “Up from Earth’s Centre through the Seventh Gate, I rose, and on the Throne of Saturn sate, and many Knots unravel’d by the Road, but not the Master-knot of Human Fate.”

He had just begun to drift off when he felt a deep shudder beneath him and the car rising up and lurching forward. His eyes now wide open, Esfahani saw the earth outside his window moving like the waves of the sea. He saw an apartment building to his left rock and sway and then collapse before him.

“Hold on, sir! I don’t know what is happening! Oh, save us, Allah!” the driver cried, calling out to heaven and trying to reassure his wealthy passenger at the same time.

The Mercedes pitched and heaved on the writhing pavement and then slammed down violently, crashing headlong into a telephone pole. As if in slow motion, Esfahani saw the pole snap in two and start falling back toward the car. There was no time to run and nowhere to hide. Esfahani covered his head and face with his arms, and an instant later, the pole slammed down across the front of their car, crushing his driver and sending glass and blood everywhere.

Terrified, Esfahani scrambled out of the backseat of the car, only to hear the rumbling of the massive earthquake intensifying. The road shook violently. People were running and screaming everywhere. Esfahani searched for a place to take cover but found none. He looked to his left and saw more houses and office buildings collapsing. To his right he saw a long cement wall, roughly two meters high, gyrating wildly as if alive. And then, as he watched in horror, helpless to do anything, he saw the wall collapse atop a woman and her baby.

Finally, after what seemed like several minutes, the ground stopped shaking. But the screaming from all sides of him grew louder and wilder. The air was rapidly filling with debris and clouds of dust. People were running through the streets, crazed with panic. They looked like ghosts, covered in white powder. Esfahani pulled out his cell phone, but there was no signal. What was he supposed to do?

He felt dizzy as he walked slowly toward the side of the road and the fallen wall, choking on dust. He slumped to the ground and closed his eyes tightly to shut out the chaos around him.

“Save me, Allah, most merciful!” he cried. “Show me what to do, where to go!”

When he opened his eyes again, he saw several men from a nearby construction site trying desperately to move massive slabs of concrete off the woman and her screaming child. They were calling for help to anyone who could hear them, calling for people to help move the rubble and try to save these people’s lives.

At that moment, Esfahani felt a strong hand on his shoulder. He prayed it was a medical worker, a policeman, someone of use to him, but as he looked up, he met the eyes of a young mullah. The man had an urgency in his expression, but not fear, not confusion.

“I am here,” he said.

The mullah quickly joined the workers heaving pieces of cement and rebar from the sidewalk, and as they did, they were able to pull the baby out first and then her mother. Remarkably, the child was relatively unscathed, but Esfahani turned away in disgust when he saw the woman’s legs twisted gruesomely behind her and covered in blood. Yet the young holy man did not turn away. Rather, Esfahani watched in shock as the mullah knelt next to the woman while she wept with despair.

“You are a righteous daughter,” he said.

“Help me!” she cried. “I can’t move! I can’t feel anything below my waist!”

The mullah began to speak in what sounded to Esfahani’s ears like an ancient language, in a mesmerizing tone that seemed almost like poetry. Then the mullah took the woman’s hands in his and lifted her gently to her feet. A crowd had formed, but now—stunned—people began to back away.

“She’s walking!”
someone exclaimed.

“He healed her!”
another yelled.

Realizing it was true, that her crushed legs had suddenly been restored to normal and that even the bleeding had stopped and the ugly gashes had disappeared, the woman began crying all the more. Then she fell at the man’s feet, praising him and thanking him for saving her.

“Walk in righteousness, daughter,” the young man said, kissing her baby on the head and giving the child back to the woman. “And tell everyone you know that I am come, the long-awaited One, the Miraculous.”

“Praise to the Prince of Mercy!”
the woman cried out in ecstasy.
“It is our Imam! The Twelfth Imam! The Mahdi has come, blessed be he!”

Esfahani stared at the scene in awe. He
had
come. He was standing right before them. Esfahani began to shout praises as well, and then the Mahdi unexpectedly turned to him, smiled, and placed his hand upon Esfahani’s head, causing him to bow low in prayer. But when Esfahani lifted his eyes again, the Twelfth Imam was gone.

66

Munich, Germany

Just before dawn, David’s mobile phone rang.

He was still awake, reading Dr. Birjandi’s book cover to cover. He took the call and found Eva on the line asking him if he’d heard about the massive earthquake that had just hit northwestern Iran. David hadn’t but immediately turned on his TV.

The epicenter of the quake, he soon learned, was not far from the city of Hamadan in the north of the country. Already, officials for Iran’s Red Crescent emergency relief services were estimating at least three thousand people were dead and more than twenty thousand wounded. Yet just by watching the devastation in the early video images being beamed out of the ancient city, it was clear to David that the casualty figures were going to climb throughout the day. Eva said she was already in touch with the MDS technical crew in Tehran. None of them had been affected, and her team at the MDS operations center in Dubai was in the process of contacting their families to reassure them that they were all right.

“I have an idea,” David said.

“What’s that?”

“Find out if the muckety-mucks upstairs would be willing to set up a relief fund to care for families of the survivors in Hamadan. Maybe if Iran Telecom does something, we could provide matching funds.”

“That’s a great idea,” Eva said.

But David wasn’t done. “What if we let Rashidi and Esfahani know that if they’d be willing to run the fund—set it up, decide who gets the money, that kind of thing—that they can keep 10 percent as an administrative fee?”

“That could be hundreds of thousands of dollars,” Eva said.

“Exactly.”

“Can they be bought that easily?”

“I think they can, as long as they don’t think that they’re being bought,” David said. “They have to think it’s simply money they’re due for a job well done. What do you think?”

“It’s brilliant,” Eva said and hung up.

An hour later, she was back on the phone. She had reached the CEO of Munich Digital Systems at a conference in Singapore. He loved the idea and had already committed to put five million euros into the account. David was impressed with her persuasiveness.

Then it was David’s turn. It took several attempts, but after a few hours he reached Esfahani on his cell phone. The man seemed out of breath with what David perceived as excitement rather than the stress he had anticipated.

“Most systems are down,” Esfahani explained. “We’ve got crews working on things already, but I’m still amazed you got through. You must come to Hamadan immediately. I have seen him—he is here!”

“Who is here?” David asked cautiously.

“The Mahdi, of course! Who else? Reza, I tell you I saw him with my own eyes. He touched me; he spoke to me. I saw him do a miracle! Where are you right now?”

David explained that he was leaving Germany for Iran that afternoon. He also explained that MDS had established a fund to help the survivors of the earthquake in Hamadan.

Esfahani was deeply moved and was astonished when David suggested the generous offer of compensation. He agreed immediately, but with one condition.

“What’s that?” David asked.

“Mr. Rashidi need not be burdened with this project, as honorable as it is,” Esfahani said. “I don’t think we should ask him to administer the fund. It would be too much. It would be a great honor to handle it myself.”

It never ceased to amaze David how well hard, cold cash worked in the world of intelligence. “That’s fine with me,” he said.

“I’ll have a bank account in Tehran set up by the end of the day,” Esfahani offered, “then get you the SWIFT code so you can wire the money.”

“Great,” David said. “As for the gifts you asked me to pick up, where do you want me to bring them, and how do I get them into the country without drawing attention to myself?”

“You have twenty already?” Esfahani asked in surprise.

“You said it was important.”

“Listen, you mustn’t wait to come,” Esfahani said. “Mina will meet you at baggage claim in Tehran. She’ll clear you through customs and take you to the person who should receive the gifts. I’ll call her right now.”

En Route to Tehran

Najjar knew nothing about the earthquake.

To let the baby sleep, he and Sheyda didn’t have the radio on as they drove east along Route 48 toward Tehran. Instead, Sheyda talked nonstop about what had happened to her mother and her while Najjar had been out that night.

She began by explaining they had forced themselves to do their evening prayers, even though they were just going through the motions. With everything that had happened, she said, they had lost all faith in Allah and all faith in Islam. Then Jesus appeared to them in the living room, scaring them half to death. They compared notes with Najjar on how Jesus looked, what He sounded like, and what He told them, and it was amazing how similar their experiences had been.

“The first thing He said was, ‘Fear not, little children,’” Sheyda recalled. “Then he said, ‘I have loved you with an everlasting love. Therefore, I have drawn you with lovingkindness. I know the plans I have for you—plans for good, not for evil; plans to give you a future and a hope. Come and follow Me.’”

“What did you say?” Najjar asked.

“What could I say?” Sheyda replied. “I said yes!”

“Weren’t you scared?”

“Jesus told me not to be.”

“Weren’t you worried about what I would say?”

“A little, but what could I do? I suddenly had a mere glimpse of just how much Jesus loved me, and I couldn’t resist.”

Najjar turned to his mother-in-law. “What about you? Your husband was awaiting the Mahdi.”

“So was I,” Farah replied.

“Then what did you say to Jesus?”

“I said yes!”

“But why?”

“Why did you?” she asked.

Najjar thought about that. “I knew He was telling me the truth.”

“So did I,” Farah said. “I knew it in my soul.”

“Why do you think He came to us, of all people?”

“I don’t know,” Sheyda said. “But Jesus did say, ‘You did not choose Me, but I chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit, and that your fruit would remain, so that whatever you ask of the Father in My name He may give to you.’”

“I asked, ‘What should we do?’” Farah said, smiling at the memory and savoring each precious word. “He said, ‘Be strong and very courageous. Be careful to do all that I command you. My words shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on them day and night, so that you may carefully follow them; for then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have success. Do not tremble or be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.’”

For the next half hour, they discussed the meaning of these words. Was Jesus asking them to speak publicly about what they had seen and heard? They knew all too well the risks involved. Telling anyone in Iran that they had left Islam and become followers of Jesus Christ as the One True God—the
only
way to heaven—would lead to their arrest, torture, and possibly execution. Of this they had no doubt. Yet Farah reminded them that Jesus had told them not to be afraid but to follow His words carefully.

“We need a Bible,” Sheyda said.

Najjar agreed but wondered aloud where they were likely to find one—in Tehran of all places. The two women had no idea, but they immediately bowed their heads and asked the Lord to give them a Bible, in Farsi if possible. Then they concluded by saying, “We ask these things, O Father, in the name of Jesus Christ, our Savior and our great God and King.” They half expected a Bible—or Jesus Himself—to appear immediately, but nothing happened. Still, they all had peace that He would provide for them soon.

For now, however, Najjar had a somewhat-vexing question.

“What are we to believe about the Twelfth Imam?” he asked. “I have seen him myself. I have met him at least twice. He told me the future. He told me that I would marry you, Sheyda, when there was absolutely no prospect of that happening. He told me other things that have come true. How could the Mahdi tell the future if he is not the messiah? How could the Mahdi do miracles if he is not from God? I’m not saying I don’t believe Jesus. I do. But I admit I’m confused, and if we were ever to say any of this publicly . . .”

“You mean,
when
we speak of this publicly,” Sheyda gently corrected him.

Najjar was amazed by how deep his wife’s faith had grown so quickly. “Right—
when
we speak of this publicly, people will ask me about the Twelfth Imam, and I don’t know how to respond.”

“Jesus told us something about that,” Sheyda said.

“What do you mean?” Najjar asked.

“He said something about that,” Sheyda repeated. “What was that, Mother? You wrote it down, right?”

“I did,” Farah said, pulling a small notepad out of her pocketbook and passing it from the backseat, where she was sitting beside the baby, to her daughter, who was sitting in the front beside Najjar. “There, on the third page.”

Sheyda scanned her mother’s scribblings to find the line she was thinking of. “That’s right. Jesus told us to read Exodus chapter 7 and Deuteronomy chapter 13.”

“What are those?” Najjar asked.

“We’re not sure yet,” Sheyda admitted. “We’re guessing they’re in the Bible.”

The three continued talking about their encounters with Jesus until they reached the outskirts of Tehran. Unsure where the Lord wanted them to go, how long they were supposed to be there, or what they were supposed to do, they prayed for wisdom, then pulled into a small motel near the Mehrabad Airport. Sheyda needed to nurse the baby. Najjar decided to use the time to shower. Farah needed to rest a bit.

But no sooner had Najjar stepped into the hot shower and begun thanking the Lord for His kindness and His mercies than he heard Sheyda cry out. He scrambled to turn off the water, wrapped himself in a towel, and bolted out of the washroom. He found his wife sitting in a chair, feeding the baby, and properly covered, but she had turned on the television to discover news of an earthquake that had struck their city not long after they had left. The images were shocking. Entire buildings and neighborhoods had been flattened. Major bridges and highways had crumbled and collapsed like sand castles. Newscasters said the death toll had now risen past six thousand. Countless other people were wounded, and emergency workers were responding from all over northwestern Iran.

This was why Jesus had commanded them to leave the city immediately, Najjar knew. He was leading them as a family, just as He had promised.

Sheyda picked up her cell phone and called their next-door neighbor at their apartment building, but there was no answer. She called another neighbor. Again, no answer. She called six more neighbors. None of them answered.

Farah called Dr. Saddaji’s secretary, who lived in an apartment building around the corner from them. It took many rings, but the woman finally came to the phone. Farah put the phone on speaker so Najjar and Sheyda could hear the woman’s news. She was safe but weeping for those less fortunate. And now she rejoiced to know that Farah was still alive. She’d known Farah had decided to spend the night at Najjar and Sheyda’s, and she told Farah that the Maliks’ apartment building had completely collapsed during the quake. Not a single resident who had been in the building was thought to have survived.

“Why weren’t you asleep in your beds like everyone else when the quake struck?” the secretary asked.

Farah explained that the family had gone to Tehran for a few days to grieve in private. It wasn’t a lie, though it wasn’t the whole truth, either.

“Did you have a premonition?” the secretary asked.

Farah clearly wasn’t sure what to say to that. “We just wanted to be alone,” she finally said.

“Allah was truly looking out for you. You and your family should all be dead right now.”