10

THE RESIDENCE OF THE GRAND AYATOLLAH, TEHRAN, IRAN

“My sons, I have something very difficult to tell you.”

It was nearly midnight when Hossein Ansari dropped the bombshell.

“I am afraid my days have come to an end.”

No one spoke. The Supreme Leader’s inner circle simply stared at their octogenarian spiritual guide in disbelief. As ever, he was dressed in his signature brown flowing robe and black turban. He sat on a mound of pillows covered with thick wool blankets. He had not looked well for some time. Tonight, he looked much worse. His skin was pale and slightly jaundiced. He had lost weight in the past week. His typically neatly trimmed gray beard now looked unkempt, even a bit wild, and the pale-blue eyes behind his wire-rimmed glasses had never looked more tired.

They had assumed his health had been affected by a series of wrenching setbacks, beginning with the triple assassination in Moscow just over six weeks earlier that had taken the lives of Tehran’s three most trusted Russian allies. This had been closely followed by disaster in the East China Sea. They were all reeling from these events, and the initial shock had eventually morphed into searing rage. For none of them was this truer than for Ansari, but he was now suggesting something worse was at play.

“Over the summer I received some disappointing news,” Ansari said without emotion. “I was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. Stage four. My oncologists advised me that surgery and chemotherapy were options. But they caught it late. Neither of these measures will spare me from the inevitable. They would merely prolong my agony, and thus I have chosen to decline such treatment.”

The chamber remained eerily quiet.

Ansari continued. “My sons, I have no more than two months to live, if that. But I want you to know how deeply I cherish you all. We have been through a great deal. Together, we have carried on the Revolution in a manner, I believe, that would have made Imam Khomeini proud of us —very proud indeed.”

Ansari suddenly lapsed into a coughing fit. He waved off their efforts to assist him. Rather, he reached for a nearby cup of tea, took a sip, then set it down again and wiped his mouth with a handkerchief.

“We have accomplished more than our adversaries could have imagined,” he said softly. “Our Persian kingdom has seized no fewer than four Arab capitals. Through our Hezbollah proxies in Lebanon, we have effectively gained control of Beirut. Through our Houthi proxies in Yemen, we have all but consolidated our control of Sana’a. As a result of our strategic alliance with Moscow, we have gained operational control of Damascus. And of course, with the withdrawal of the Great Satan from Iraq, and after an enormous investment of funds into our Shia brothers there, we have come to dominate if not yet completely control the fortunes of Baghdad. Allah has granted us tremendous —tremendous —success, and these are by no means our only gains. Our investments in Hamas have paid spectacular dividends in Gaza, as have our investments in Turkey and Qatar. These, as well as our efforts to drive nearly all of the Great Satan’s forces out of Afghanistan, I consider among my greatest joys. And yet there is one more objective I long to achieve before I go.”

As commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, Mahmoud Entezam sat directly across from the Supreme Leader, and he did not like what he was hearing. Only fifty-three, Entezam was the youngest general ever to run the IRGC. He had been repeatedly promoted to reward his many operational successes, and in this, he had taken great pride, as had his bride, who happened to be the ayatollah’s highly favored niece. However, the horrific events of the last months had been the most difficult of his entire life and career. After the catastrophe in the East China Sea, Entezam had immediately offered to resign. Privately, he had even contemplated taking his own life, so profound was his humiliation and his shame. Only the absolute insistence of the Supreme Leader that he in no way considered Entezam to blame for the Americans’ perfidy —along with his robust private assurances that Ansari was grooming Entezam to one day serve in high elected office in the regime, possibly even as president —had brought the IRGC commander back from the brink of despair and given him the strength to continue in the regime’s service.

But this stunning new development could change everything. The last thing they could afford right now was a power struggle if the nation’s Supreme Leader really was dying. The country’s economy was already far too fragile. Oil prices were too low and the American economic sanctions had taken a terrible, and continuing, toll. The regime was hemorrhaging cash. Inflation was spiking, as was the unemployment rate. Protests were breaking out all over the country. The people were demanding increased subsidies for bread —subsidies the government could not afford —and sweeping political liberalization the government would never accept.

In Entezam’s assessment, it was only the moral authority and unparalleled leadership skills of Hossein Ansari, honed over decades of palace intrigue and tectonic shifts in the geopolitical sphere, that kept the regime intact and the country from exploding in a full-scale civil war. What’s more, it was only Ansari’s raw political power that had kept Entezam from losing his job and possibly his head. He had long suspected other senior officials were gunning for him, especially now. What would happen when Ansari was gone?