33

Hamadan, Iran

Najjar Malik awoke to the sound of his baby daughter crying.

He groaned, rolled over, and whispered to his wife, “It’s okay, princess. I’ll get her and bring her to you.”

But as he opened his eyes and tried to rub the sleep out of them, Najjar realized that Sheyda was not beside him. He glanced at the alarm clock. It was only 4:39 a.m. He still had nearly an hour before he had to be up for morning prayers. Still, he slipped out of bed and went looking for the love of his life, only to find her nursing their baby daughter.

“You okay?” he asked through a yawn.

“Yes,” Sheyda replied, smiling at him with a warmth and genuineness of which he never tired. “Go back to bed. You need your rest.”

Najjar smiled back. He could have ten more children with her, he decided, even if they were all girls.

Suddenly there was heavy knocking on the door of their high-rise flat.

“Who could that be at this hour?” an annoyed Najjar said.

To his astonishment, two Revolutionary Guard soldiers brandishing machine guns were standing in the hallway.

“What is the meaning of this?” he demanded in a whisper, trying not to wake the entire floor.

“The director says you must come immediately,” said the larger of the two, apparently a colonel.

“Dr. Saddaji sent you?” Najjar asked. “Why didn’t he just call?” The man was, after all, not just the director of Iran’s atomic energy agency but his father-in-law.

“I don’t know,” the colonel said. “He just said it was urgent.”

“Fine, I’ll be there in an hour.”

“I’m sorry, sir. The director told us to take you with us. We have a car waiting downstairs.”

Najjar turned to Sheyda, who had covered herself with a blanket.

“Go,” she said. “You know Father would never send for you if it wasn’t important.”

She was right, and Najjar loved her all the more for her support. He closed the door, leaving the soldiers in the hallway. Then he threw on some clothes, brushed his teeth, splashed some water on his face, grabbed his briefcase, and ran out the door, stopping only to give Sheyda a kiss.

On the drive, they passed dozens of mosques, and Najjar felt a strong need to pray. He had no idea what the day held. But he had never been summoned so early in the morning, and his anxiety over what was coming grew minute by minute.

As sunrise approached, Najjar finally heard the call to the Fajr, or dawn prayer, coming from the speakers of one of the many minarets adorning the skyline of Hamadan. As had become a ritual five times a day since he was a small child back in Iraq, he dutifully faced Mecca, raised his hands to his ears, and recited the Shahada—the testimony of faith—declaring he bore witness that there was no one worthy of worship except Allah and he believed with all his heart that Muhammad was the servant and messenger of Allah. Then he placed one hand to his chest and his other hand on top of the first and prayed, “In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful. Praise be to Allah, Lord of the Worlds. The Most Gracious. The Most Merciful. The Master of the Day of Judgment. You alone do we worship. You alone do we ask for help. Show us the straight path, the path of those whom you have favored, not of those who earn your anger nor of those who stray. Amen.”

As he continued reciting portions of the Qur’an, bowing toward Mecca as best he could from the backseat and continuing his morning prayers, Najjar found his anxieties multiplying, not dissipating. He desperately wanted to hear from Allah, to see him, to behold his beauty and come fully into his presence. He wanted Allah to grant him favor and wisdom and a calm reassurance that he was doing Allah’s will and pleasing him in every way. But he felt no peace. He felt no joy. When he finished, he felt further away from Allah than when he had begun.

An hour later, Najjar stood in the middle of a cavernous, empty warehouse. The concrete floor was cold and wet, as if it had been recently hosed down. Sitting several yards away was a man bound to a chair, his hands and feet shackled in iron chains. The man’s mouth was gagged, but he was not blindfolded, and Najjar could see the terror in his eyes. It was clear he had been beaten severely. His face was bruised and swollen, and blood trickled down his cheeks.

Najjar thought there was something vaguely familiar about him. “Who is he?”

“You were never supposed to meet him,” Dr. Saddaji replied not only to Najjar but to the two dozen other scientists standing around them. “But events beyond our control have forced the issue.”

Najjar watched his father-in-law staring at the man, who was silently pleading for his life. But there was nothing in Dr. Saddaji’s voice or body language that suggested mercy would be forthcoming. Indeed, Najjar had never seen him so cold, so dark, so filled with hatred.

“Gentlemen, take note of this man and remember him well,” Dr. Saddaji said. “He is an Arab—an Iraqi—and a traitor.”

Najjar was stunned. It was one thing to be from Iraq. He was, and so was Dr. Saddaji, along with several others. But they weren’t Arabs. They were all Persians.

How can there be an Arab in our midst? Who allowed it, and why?

This research facility was top secret, buried deep inside Alvand Mountain, the highest peak in the region. Of the half-million people in the surrounding area, including in Hamadan—one of the oldest cities in Iran—not a single one was Arab. Less than one-tenth of one percent of them knew this facility existed at all, much less that the future of Iran’s civilian nuclear power program was being designed and developed here. What on earth could have possessed someone to allow an enemy into the camp?

As if on cue, Dr. Saddaji took the responsibility upon himself.

“Gentlemen, I will be candid. I recruited this man. He was once a colleague at the University of Baghdad, one of the most brilliant minds of our generation, an absolute genius in the field of UD3. He was not one of us, true. But we needed his expertise. I thought I could trust him. With the blessing of the Supreme Leader, I made him an offer he couldn’t refuse. But I made a mistake. He sold us out. Now he must pay.”

Saddaji’s response generated more questions than it answered, at least for Najjar. UD3? Why in the world would Saddaji need an expert in the use of uranium deuteride? Even a junior physicist like himself knew UD3 had no civilian uses. Had Dr. Saddaji completely lost his mind? What if the IAEA caught wind of a UD3 expert—one from Iraq, at that—inside a nuclear facility the IAEA didn’t even know existed? Why take such a risk with the eyes of the international community riveted so intently on the Iranian nuclear program?

Before Najjar could raise any of these questions, however, Dr. Saddaji continued, outlining what this man had done to betray them all. He explained that the man had been caught making two unauthorized calls to Europe.

“He claims he has a girlfriend in France,” Dr. Saddaji sniffed. “He claims he had no idea his girlfriend was an agent for the Mossad.”

Najjar couldn’t believe what he was hearing. He had never met a man as careful, as thorough, as meticulous about everything—and especially about security—as his father-in-law. Whoever this person sitting before them was, his treachery was appalling. But what did his father-in-law expect? Couldn’t he have seen this coming? Something didn’t make sense.

But this “trial”—if it could be called that—was suddenly over as quickly as it had begun. No one was being invited to ask questions of the accused or of Saddaji. An executioner now entered the warehouse, carrying an ornate sword that looked several centuries old. His face was covered by a black ski mask. A moment later, the traitor’s head was rolling across the warehouse floor. Najjar became violently ill, but the point had been made—all betrayals, real or imagined, would be punished severely.