Joel Rosenberg - The Twelfth Imam

Najjar was stunned. A lump formed in his throat. His hands trembled. “This is why you have risked your life to come back to Baghdad?”

“Yes.”

“To get me?”

“Yes.”

“To take me to Iran?”

“Nothing else could have persuaded me,” Dr. Saddaji said. “I am here to ask you to marry my only daughter-and join me on a project that will truly bring peace and prosperity to the Middle East and the entire world.”

Najjar suddenly remembered the words of the mysterious boy back in Samarra when he was a child. “You are secretly in love with Sheyda Saddaji… You will marry her before your twenty-fourth birthday.” Was this real? Could this really be happening?

“I want you to work as my assistant,” Dr. Saddaji said, seeing Najjar’s hesitation. “I am now the deputy director of the Atomic Energy Agency of Iran. We are building the most impressive civilian nuclear power system in the world. We will be the world’s first truly energy-independent country. We won’t have to rely on oil or gasoline. We will lead the world in energy efficiency and innovation. We will change the course of history. And in so doing, we will prepare the way for the coming of the Promised One. I would value your help enormously, Najjar. I understand that you have become a first-rate physicist. This would be a huge blessing to me and my work. But most importantly, my daughter loves you and simply wouldn’t stop pestering me until I promised to find you and ask you to be part of our family. So there it is. But you must decide quickly. For I am not safe here, and now neither are you.”

The driver gunned the engine, and at that moment, Najjar realized Dr. Saddaji wanted an answer immediately. Not tomorrow. Not a week or a month later. Right then. Dr. Saddaji wanted Najjar to leave behind all that he knew. His aunt and uncle. His dissertation and the honors that would come with completing his degree. All prospects for a good job and a secure future inside the nascent and highly clandestine Iraqi nuclear program. All for a woman and the chance to “change the course of history,” whatever that meant exactly.

“Yes,” Najjar said finally, surprising himself with the force of his conviction. “I can’t imagine anything I would love more than to marry Sheyda and work for you.”

Dr. Saddaji beamed. “Then what are we waiting for?” he said. “Let the adventure begin.”

Syracuse, New York

March 2002

“Rise and shine, Shirazi-you’ve got a visitor!”

David heard the words but had no desire to open his eyes, much less get out of bed. He had caught a stomach flu. He’d spent much of the last few nights puking his guts out. But the guard kept rapping his nightstick on the steel bars, and just to make him stop, David leaned over, put his glasses on, set his feet on the cold tile floor, and ran his hands through hair in desperate need of a trim. It was day thirteen of a fourteen-day sentence in juvie hall.

One more day in hell, he told himself.

His parents visited every day, looking older and grayer each time he saw them. His father said he was working on getting him admitted into a private, all-boys academy in Alabama where he could try to salvage his education and get his life back on track. David knew he should be grateful, but he wasn’t.

David quickly threw on his standard orange jumpsuit over his boxer shorts and slipped into the white tennis shoes he’d been given. When the guard ordered his cell to be electronically unlocked, David was led down a series of hallways to a small meeting room not far from the director’s office. He had expected to see his parents or his lawyer or both. Instead, he found an older gentleman in his late fifties or early sixties flipping through a magazine and fidgeting as if he badly needed a cigarette. As David entered the room, the man stood and smiled warmly. Sporting a gray beard, black-rimmed glasses, and an ill-fitting green suit, he was not anyone David had ever seen before, but David immediately had the impression that the man knew him from somewhere.

“Fifteen minutes,” the guard said.

When the guard then stepped out of the room and closed the door, the man shook David’s hand firmly and suggested that they both sit down.

“I’ve been looking forward to seeing you again for a long time, David,” he began.

“Have we met before?” David asked.

“We’ll get to that in a minute. I’ve heard you’re a pretty sharp kid.”

“And yet… here I am,” David said, looking down at his shoes.

“You made a mistake, David. You’re not the first kid to beat the crap out of a couple of morons who deserved it. I don’t suspect you’ll be the last.”

David looked up again. Who was this guy?

“Actually, they didn’t deserve it,” David confessed, suspecting that this might be someone from the DA’s office checking up on him.

“Sure they did,” the man said. “Didn’t one call you a raghead?”

“I still shouldn’t have hit them,” David answered, remembering that all their conversations were being monitored and recorded.

“Fair enough,” the man continued. “But you clearly know how to handle yourself. I’ve seen your file. You won every fight you were in at Nottingham, even when you were outnumbered.”

“Not exactly something you can put on your résumé.”

“Well, that depends, son.”

“On what?”

“On what kind of job you’re applying for.”

Then the man slid a magazine across the table to David. It was a recent issue of U.S. News & World Report. He pointed to a headline that read, “Not Your Father’s CIA.” Puzzled, David looked at the headline, then into the man’s eyes. The man nodded for David to begin reading.

Cautiously, David took the magazine and scanned it quickly.

The CIA is growing-and fast. To fend off America’s enemies and take on terrorists and other bad guys worldwide, the nation’s premier spy agency is undergoing the most rapid growth since its inception almost sixty years ago… The CIA has embarked on a nationwide ad campaign, hoping to attract a new generation of spies. For a look at its new pitch to young people, check out the agency’s online rock-and-roll recruiting ads… Trailers at movie theaters and posters at airports have tempted the adventurous with positions in the National Clandestine Service-the latest name for the agency’s fabled directorate of operations, which recruits spies, steals secrets, and runs covert operations.

Suddenly, the man grabbed the magazine back from David.

“Hey, what the…?”

But the man quickly cut David off before he could complete his sentence.

“Finish it,” he said.

“Finish what?”

“Finish the article.”

“You’re crazy! I didn’t have time.”

“You’re lying. Now, give me the rest of the article. Word for word. I know you can do it. I know all about you, David. I know you’ve tested at genius levels. I know you had a straight 4.0 average before Claire Harper died and her only daughter, Marseille, moved to Portland with her dad.”

The hair on David’s arms stood up.

“You have a photographic memory,” the man continued. “You’re only sixteen but you’re supposed to graduate early-two years early-this June. You scored a 1570 on the SATs. The Ivy Leagues were in your future before you began to implode. That’s actually where you and I were supposed to meet, a few years from now. But your little departure into self-destruction made me intervene sooner than I’d planned. Now cut the bull and recite the rest of the article for me, son. Before I walk out of here a very disappointed man.”

The room was silent for at least a minute, save the buzz from the fluorescent lamps above them. David stared at the man for a while, then at the magazine, crumpled in the man’s hand. Then he closed his eyes, leaned back in his chair, and began reciting from memory.