Joel Rosenberg - The Twelfth Imam

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.”

Munich, Germany

David paced in the waiting area of the Munich airport.

He had checked his luggage and cleared through security and passport control; now he watched continuing coverage of the earthquake in Hamadan as he waited for his flight to Tehran. As boarding began, he pulled out his phone and decided to check one more time to see if there were any messages on the phone back in his apartment. There was nothing. But when he checked his AOL account, there was an e-mail from Marseille.

Hi, David,

Thanks so much for your voice mail and your kind words about my father. I thought I might not hear from you at all, so I have to say I was relieved to know that you simply hadn’t received my letter until recently. I was worried you were mad at me for not being in touch with you and your family for all these years. It must have seemed like we ceased to exist. In some ways, we did.

I’ve never been quite sure how to apologize, but I’ve come to the conclusion face-to-face would be better than e-mail or a note or a phone call. So thanks for being willing to get together with me. I feel like this wedding being in Syracuse and my friend’s insistence that I be there are part of God’s plan for you and me to meet again.

Do you ever think about those days in Canada, before the world spun out of control? Sometimes I think they were just a wonderful dream I had, but then I am reminded that they were very much real. In fact, I think they were some of the most real days of my life. How did so much time pass so quickly? Who have you become?

Well, I guess you’ve become a successful international businessman, for one. Congratulations. Even as a girl, I think I always knew you were going to be very successful at whatever you did. Thanks for taking time to call me from overseas. I know you must be very busy, but it meant so much to me that you called. It has given me a bit more courage.

Write to me, if you’d like. I miss your friendship, and I know it’s my fault. I’ll be there in Syracuse. I’ll be the one who’s shaking in her boots a bit.:)

Your friend,

Marseille

P.S. Unless you’d like to go somewhere else, let’s meet at the downtown Starbucks on M Street. I’ll be there by 8 p.m. that Thursday. See you then.

Tehran, Iran

David landed in Tehran shortly after 6 a.m.

He had spent far too much time on the flight thinking about Marseille’s e-mail. He had wanted a diversion, any diversion, from the enormous stresses upon him. But this was more than a diversion. It was a reconnection, and it stirred deep emotions long held back.

He was glad to hear from her again, of course. He wasn’t sure what to make of her idea that God had “a plan” for the two of them to meet again, but he liked the warm and even, at times, awkward tone of her e-mail. He liked that she missed their friendship and was willing to say so, and he was surprised but pleased by how much she wanted to see him again. Most of all, though, he deeply appreciated her apology and the hint that more was coming when they met in person. That meant more to him than anything else. The smiley face at the end made him chuckle; it seemed so childlike, as if the teenage Marseille were writing to him from the past.

For whatever reason, and at the most unexpected time, the ice was melting between them. And it turned out she did think about their time together in Canada. They had made a terrible mistake, he knew. They should never have gone as far as they did. He had always hoped she didn’t hold it against him. But until now, he’d never had a shred of evidence that she had cherished all their time together as he had. To the contrary, the years of silence had sown years of doubt in his mind and heart. How could he not assume that she regretted their friendship? How could he not assume she was embarrassed for having ever liked him, even for such a brief time, and had chosen to put him out of her mind and move on with her life? Why else would she have become so cold so fast? He had been certain of such things for a long time. But he’d been wrong. In the blink of an eye, he had learned that she had never regretted their friendship but had actually valued it for all these years.

David tried to gather his emotions as the plane taxied to the gate. He wished he were back in Munich and could call her again. But it was not to be-not yet, anyway. And he had no idea when the opportunity would come.

As much as he wanted to meet Marseille in Syracuse, the truth was he was having a hard time imagining a scenario that would allow that to happen. He had given his life to the Central Intelligence Agency. They had sent him to Iran. The stakes for his country and for the world couldn’t be higher. There was no guarantee he would live through today, much less until the first weekend in March. And even if he did, how exactly was he supposed to tell Jack Zalinsky and Eva Fischer he needed to take off a long weekend to see his first love?

Once again, he told himself he had to shift gears. His life depended on it. He could no longer afford to think like David Shirazi, or he would put at risk everything he had worked so long and so hard to achieve. And so, hard as it was, he forced himself to stop thinking about Marseille and instead to think about her mother. Radical Islamic mujahideen had murdered Claire Harper and 2,973 other people while the CIA slept.

He put on his game face.

Mina met him at baggage claim, as promised.

After David cleared customs, Mina introduced him to their driver, a bored young man who took David’s bag and carried it to the car.

“Have you heard from Mr. Esfahani?” David asked as they headed for the parking garage. “He and his team must have their hands full trying to get mobile service up and running again.”

“It’s been a nightmare; that’s true,” Mina said. “At least he was there when it happened.”

“Who?” David asked.

“Mr. Esfahani.”

“He was already in Hamadan?”

“Yes.”

“He went there before it happened?”

“Strange, huh?”

“It is,” David said. “Why did he go?”