Stephen Coonts - The Disciple

“They escaped,” Ahmadinejad roared and pointed in the general direction in which the tank had disappeared. “You incompetent fool-they escaped ! They’ll try again. They’ll burn this hotel to the ground with us in it if you don’t get them.” He gave the general a push toward the door, still shouting, “Go find them! Arrest them! Kill them, you incompetent fool, before they kill us !”

Of course, Ahmadinejad was wrong. Spectacularly wrong. If Hyman Fineberg could have gotten permission from his superiors to burn the hotel down with Ahmadinejad in residence, he would have done it, but the Israeli government would never approve such a plan. They wouldn’t even approve a plan that endangered any significant number of bystanders. This abortion was the best Fineberg could do in light of his instructions. As he rode the tank along the road toward the waiting escape cars, Hyman Fineberg consoled himself with the thought that the plan would have worked…

It would have worked, bad as it was, if General Darma hadn’t betrayed them.

The Zionists almost killed me!

Yet their assassination attempt failed. Obviously Allah has other plans for me. Allah knows the depth of my commitment to jihad and wants me to have the glory of martyrdom and taste the pleasures of Paradise.

The Israelis or Americans may try again to kill me, but since I am under Allah’s protection, they will not succeed.

Oh Allah, hear me. I am only one man, a mortal man, yet I wish to serve you as have the prophets and martyrs before me. I want to unite the believers in a holy war against the infidels, a final battle in which the forces of Satan shall be once and for all time destroyed, totally defeated, never to rise again. The believers shall proclaim your glory in every corner of the earth, on the land and the sea, in the great places and the small, in the plains and the mountains, in the deserts and forests. Woe to the unbelievers, who shall be utterly defeated.

I, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, pray that you help me do this thing. Help me to serve you. Let me be the agent of your triumph.

Ghasem checked his cell phone when he returned home from the desert. Davar had called and left a message.

He listened to it. “Grandfather has been arrested and taken to the headquarters of the MOIS for questioning.”

Ghasem’s hands trembled as he called his cousin. “It’s me,” he said.

“They arrested Grandfather yesterday evening. They’ve been watching his house for days-but you knew that.” Dr. Murad’s house was next to the Ghobadi residence. “It’s something about a book.”

“What book?” Ghasem asked. After all, the MOIS might be listening to this conversation.

“Some book they think he wrote. About religion. One of them let slip that Khurram has been talking to them. Khurram thinks there is a book somewhere. After they took him away, they searched Grandfather’s house.”

“Did they find this book?”

“I don’t know.”

“Have you heard anything from him?”

“No.”

“I’ll go to headquarters,” Ghasem said and broke the connection. It would be useless for Davar to go, or their unmarried aunt who took care of Grandfather; the secret police would ignore them. No, only a man could inquire. Sultani, Murad’s son-in-law, was still down in the desert. Khurram had betrayed his grandfather. Yas Ghobadi was somewhere in a bomb factory trying to get it finished or make the systems work. Ghasem’s father, Murad’s son, was dead.

So Ghasem Murad went alone to the headquarters of the Ministry of Intelligence and Security, the largest, most secretive instrument of political repression remaining on the planet. Here the enemies of the regime were interrogated, imprisoned or executed. It was a fairly new building, another architectural monstrosity, with much concrete, few windows and no humanity.

His name got him past the sergeant on the desk to see someone in an office. This man had a desk and one chair, which he sat in. He was only about forty, overweight, with an unkempt short beard and protruding eyes.

“Dr. Israr Murad, the religious scholar,” Ghasem said. “I understand MOIS agents arrested him yesterday and brought him here for questioning. I am his grandson. I am here to take him home.”

The man picked up a telephone and called for a file. He wrote in another file while waiting. Ghasem stood impassively in front of the desk and looked over the man’s head through the little, dirty window. Outside the breeze was making a tree shake. A bird sat on a limb, ignoring the wind. Ghasem tried to think of nothing but birds and trees and wind-instead of his grandfather, whose fate was in the hands of these grim, merciless men.

Eventually someone opened the door behind Ghasem and put a file on the desk of the man with protruding eyes.

“He wrote a book,” the man said after a bit, glancing at Ghasem. “A book profaning the Prophet and Islam.”

“Who told you this lie?” Ghassem asked, careful to keep his voice under control.

“Your cousin Khurram Ghobadi. He said he once read parts of it.”

“Ah, then he knows all about it, if he is telling the truth. Why are you questioning Dr. Murad, who is an old man?”

“Dr. Murad denies the book’s existence; Khurram Ghobadi swears that it exists and is blasphemy. We want this book. If indeed it does contain blasphemy, if it mocks the Prophet or Islam or the Islamic Republic, then the man who wrote it will receive the proper punishment.”

Ghasem was unimpressed. “Until you find it, if it exists, it seems to me that you might as well release Dr. Murad. He is an old man in poor health and isn’t going anywhere. If you do find a blasphemous book and can prove Dr. Murad wrote it, you will know precisely where to find him, eh?”

“I know where to find him now.”

“Perhaps you are unaware that Dr. Murad’s son-in-law, and Khurram’s uncle, is General Habib Sultani. He should be back in Tehran tomorrow. No doubt he will come to see you, demanding Murad’s release.”

“What do you know of this book?”

“Absolutely nothing. I do not believe there is a book. I suspect Khurram is lying to you for reasons of his own. If you have met him, you are well aware that he is stupid, vindictive and venal. Since he was very small he has been a paranoid cretin who likes to invent lies and tell them on others. Allah knows that he has told his share about me.”

“Wait in the hall. When I have something to tell you about Murad, I will know where to find you.”

So Ghasem found a place on a bench in the hallway with nine other people who were also waiting.

His grandfather was in the bowels of this building-somewhere in here-being interrogated. Ghasem harbored no illusions. Since the dawn of the human experience, interrogation in Iran had meant physical abuse and torture. Iran had had one tyrant after another since the first farmer planted a seed; the tyrants’ men pursued their enemies in the dark, foul places that never saw the light of day.

Israr Murad would not tell them about his book-of that Ghasem was certain, because Ghasem had read the book. It was Murad’s life’s work, a vision of man and his relationship to God that made the religious writings of the last three millennia seem small and dated. Murad’s vision took Ghasem’s breath away, filled him with awe. Perhaps the first people who heard Moses and Jesus and Muhammad had felt that way, overpowered by the vision and eloquence of the prophets. Murad’s vision shattered myths and embraced life, all of life, from the simplest organisms to the most complex.

The religious fanatics who ran Iran, with their tiny, closed minds, would think the work blasphemous. Ghasem knew that as well as he knew his own name. Of course, so would Davar’s brother, Khurram, who was a member of the Basij, the volunteer, plainclothes paramilitary task force that operated under the wing of the Revolutionary Guard. In addition to indoctrination camps touting the glories of Islam and visits to martyrs’ cemeteries and religious shrines, the Basij volunteers rode buses to prodemocracy or antiregime demonstrations and attacked the demonstrators with bicycle chains, truncheons and knives. In short, they were facist thugs. Khurram fit them like a hand fits a glove.