20

RESIDENCE OF THE SUPREME LEADER, TEHRAN, IRAN

From inside the bedchamber rose a wail that pierced the eerie silence.

The wail became a shriek. A scream of utter despair. It did not seem human.

General Mahmoud Entezam had never heard anything like it. Yet the commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps knew exactly what it meant. He looked up from the text messages pouring into his phone and stared down the empty hallway. The third door on the left was closed but not locked. Bracing himself for what was coming, he stood erect and smoothed out the creases in his uniform.

A moment later, Yadollah Afshar, president of the Islamic Republic, came rushing around the corner. Right behind him was Dr. Haydar Abbasi, a member of Iran’s National Security Council and a recent addition to the Supreme Leader’s inner circle. The three men converged in front of the door but said nothing. What was there to say? They had all known that this moment was coming. Indeed, they had expected it for well over a year. Somehow, the inevitable had been forestalled. But no longer.

General Entezam looked at Abbasi, then at President Afshar. The latter—wearing a crisp white shirt and freshly pressed French cuffs, his three-piece navy suit having just been immaculately tailored and newly dry-cleaned, his chartreuse silk tie in a classic Windsor knot—reached for the door handle, took a deep breath, and then turned the knob and entered first.

What Entezam witnessed at that moment took his breath away. The Supreme Leader’s wife, Sayyida Farideh Ansari, shrouded in her black chador, had collapsed to the floor. She was weeping uncontrollably. Her entire body was shaking. She was gasping for air. Yet there was no one to help her. None of the men were permitted to touch her. Where was the doctor? Where were the nurses?

The IRGC commander picked up the receiver of the phone on the nightstand and barked a series of orders. Moments later, the Supreme Leader’s medical team arrived, followed by his security detail. Two nurses rushed to the widow’s side. They tried to pull her out of the room, but she began shrieking all the louder. She clutched at the bed, then at the body. More nurses arrived. It took five women to gain control of the hysterical widow. One jabbed her neck with a needle. Then they carried her away to another room to be cared for properly and discreetly.

The chief physician, an elderly man in his eighties, now entered the room. Asking the others to step away from the bed, he put on his stethoscope and examined the Supreme Leader. He checked for a heartbeat but found nothing. He lowered his head, his eyes welling with tears. It was finished.

The time of death was recorded as 1:47 in the afternoon in Tehran.

12:17 p.m. in Moscow and al-Quds.

5:17 a.m. in Washington.

Entezam couldn’t help but stare at the Grand Ayatollah’s gray, gaunt, cold, emaciated body. The man had always been a somewhat-frail, bespectacled figure. But the last eighteen months had been beyond cruel to the eighty-six-year-old Hossein Ansari. The pancreatic cancer that had seized his body had metastasized rapidly and ravaged every organ. The doctors had tried their best to manage his suffering, but there was only so much morphine a man could take.

All of Ansari’s hair had fallen out. His beard, once thick and chest-length, was gone. Ghastly sores had broken out all over his body. The man was mostly covered by blankets. Yet the oozing, open blisters on his face and neck were visible. Worst of all, thought Entezam, was that Ansari’s eyes were still open. The general had expected the nation’s revered shepherd to slip away peacefully in the night. Instead, the man looked haunted.

Why? Entezam wondered. Wasn’t Ayatollah Ansari now resting in paradise? Wasn’t he being attended to by the heavenly virgins the Holy Qur’an promised? Why, then, did he look so terrified? What exactly had he seen in his final moments?

“Perhaps we could clear the room,” the chief physician whispered to President Afshar. “The Supreme Leader’s body must be prepared for burial.”

Afshar nodded, then turned to his colleagues. “Come,” he said quietly.

The president exited the bedroom, followed by Dr. Abbasi, after which General Entezam exited as well. Last came the security detail. The group headed down a long corridor and through two security checkpoints, finally reaching the Supreme Leader’s private office. They were saluted by two armed guards in ceremonial uniforms standing to each side of a door that resembled the hatch of a submarine.

Once the three principals had entered and taken their seats on the thick Persian carpets, silk pillows, and cushions, the president insisted that they were not to be disturbed for any reason. A steward offered them tea, but Afshar waved him off. Then the hatch was closed and sealed. They were alone.

The magnitude of the moment was not lost on any of them. The last Supreme Leader to die had been the Grand Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. That was June 3, 1989. Entezam remembered the date well. He had recently graduated from university and was then the youngest officer in the IRGC, just beginning his long and storied career. He remembered how he had wept—not because Khomeini was gone, but because at the time Entezam could not imagine a successor more unworthy than Hossein Ansari.

Over the years, Entezam had been promoted up the ranks of the Revolutionary Guard Corps. The higher he rose, the closer he had the opportunity to observe the new Supreme Leader. Eventually the two had met and developed a cautious working relationship. In recent years, having risen to the role of commander of the IRGC, Entezam had begun meeting regularly with Ansari and was drawn into his personal orbit. Along the way, the general’s view of the ayatollah had changed. Entezam had grown impressed with Ansari’s spiritual depth, and even more with the man’s strategic acumen and geopolitical instincts. Together, they had forged a rare and close alliance, dramatically advancing the Islamic Revolution and extending the reach of the regime. In this very room, in fact, they had mapped out strategies to seize effective control of four Arab capitals—Baghdad, Beirut, Damascus, and Sana’a. Here in this office they had praised Allah for the successes he had uniquely bestowed upon them, time after time.

Entezam had developed a deep love and warm affection for the old man. It was now as surreal as it was grievous to have to say goodbye to the Supreme Leader.

And with an acute, if nauseating, sense of irony, Entezam realized that he could not imagine someone more unworthy to replace Hossein Ansari than the man sitting across from him.