Chapter One

QOM, IRAN

The presidential security detail checked each attendee with a thoroughness that was at first what one would expect, then became rude and, finally, was little short of humiliating.

As a retired Iranian air force colonel, Farrokh Nassiri would have objected to the groping—not once, but twice, rubber-gloved hands manipulating his armpits and his crotch—to the confiscation of his Cross pen, and to having to remove his stockings so some over-muscled thug could inspect the soles of his feet. But an admiral beside him, still on active duty, was subjected to the same indignities, so Nassiri held his tongue.

And then like an abusive father who first strikes his child and then placates him with sweets, the captain of the security detail saluted him and led him out of the anteroom and into the lobby of Shahidayn Seminary—“Martyrs Seminary,” the name the Shiah Haghani Seminary was given after two of its founding ayatollahs were assassinated—where white-jacketed stewards were attending to an after-prayer breakfast of baked goods, figs, and cheeses.

There was an ornate silver coffee urn being warmed by a small blue-flamed burner, but no one went near it and the tray of cups at its side remained untouched. That morning, two of Tehran’s leading mullahs had commented in the newspaper that coffee, although broadly thought of as halal by most clerics, should be considered haram because of the addictive nature of caffeine.

It reminded Nassiri of the year before, when the only decent Chinese restaurant in Tehran went out of business because some cleric discovered that soy sauce, a fermented product, contained trace amounts of alcohol. In modern-day Iran, a mullah could twist the Qur’an any way he liked, make a stern pronouncement, and the population would react like chastened puppies. It disgusted Nassiri, but like his peers, he avoided the coffee urn and accepted instead a steaming cup of freshly spiced chai tea and a thin china plate with a slice of baqlava and a couple of golden, egg-shaped bamieh, sticky with honey.

The fifty or so men in the room were a mix of senior military officers and dark-suited administrators like himself, and Nassiri had worked for the government long enough to recognize most as having strategic responsibilities in the rapidly developing nuclear program.

At the far end of the room, he caught the profile of Zudi Maberi, the young Quds Force major. Nassiri had little to do with the Quds Force; it was quasi-military, quasi-police, and fully under the control of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Iranian president. And as for Maberi himself, the rumors were that he changed his name, his past was an enigma, while Iranian-born he spent most of his life elsewhere, and he was a favorite of Ahmadinejad himself. Avoiding the young major was not entirely possible; Nassiri and he had too many areas in which their responsibilities overlapped. But on this morning, Nassiri avoided eye contact. The last thing he wanted was to spend the next two hours sitting anywhere near an officer of the Quds Force.

The invitation—the emissary delivering it called it an “invitation,” although Nassiri was under no illusions that it was anything but an order—loftily proclaimed, “the Supreme National Security Council of the Islamic Republic of Iran requests the pleasure of your company.” Yet Nassiri had yet to spot a single member of the Council. Nor had he seen Ahmadinejad. No doubt the president and his council entered the seminary through another route . . . one that did not require them to have their most private areas pawed by silent, rubber-gloved minions.

It did not escape Nassiri that the president was becoming less and less a stranger to the trappings of power. When he’d first entered politics, Ahmadinejad went to great lengths to convince whoever he was speaking to that he was a common man. When campaigning in poor neighborhoods, he would talk about studying the Qur’an late at night with his father, a blacksmith. When his travels took him to middle-class neighborhoods, he would arrive in the 1977 Peugeot that he drove for years. And when speaking to academics, he would mention the fact he had a doctorate in engineering—in civil engineering, the type of engineering created to help the people.

The PhD in engineering was very much real; Nassiri’s own degrees were in engineering and physics and he found Ahmadinejad to be the first politician who could keep up with him when he was speaking about his areas of specialty—not only keep up, but ask questions that showed he was every bit Nassiri’s intellectual equal.

Still, Ahmadinejad’s early actions in office—attempting to conduct his presidency from his Tehran home and sending all the rugs from the presidential palace to a carpet museum—seemed to Nassiri to be orchestrated messages to the proletariat. In a way, he was glad the president was finally traveling in convoys, living in the palace and taking advantage of his station. The man was finally showing his true colors.

A chime sounded, doors opened, and the small crowd of men—there was not one woman among them—filed toward a large hall with richly tiled walls, verses from the Qur’an written on the cornices, and an ornate rug that covered every centimeter of the floor. It looked, at first glance, like a prayer hall and some of the attendees hesitated before entering, going in only after the stewards assured them they need not remove their shoes.

The room was set with ten rectangular tables arranged classroom style, each table set with five chairs facing the front of the hall and its platform, which was also equipped with skirted tables and chairs, as well as a rich, mahogany lectern standing to the far left of the platform. A video camera and its operator were off to one side and on the table before each chair was a leather-bound tablet. Nassiri opened his and found that it contained a tablet of blank paper, but no agenda and no pen or pencil. Around him, men were patting their jacket pockets and coming to the same realization as he; that, as their pens had been removed from them in the security check, the tablets were there for the benefit of the camera only. No one would be taking notes this morning.

The doors at the far end of the room opened and the members of the Security Council filed in, taking their seats at the table on the dais. Then the red light on the video camera winked on, Ahmadinejad entered and everyone in the room, Nassiri included, rose and applauded.

The president smiled and waved to his guests. Nassiri wondered how many of his peers were applauding because they truly admired the man and how many were simply fawning for the benefit of the videotape.

Then something unexpected happened. The president turned to face the door he just entered through and in walked a bearded man wearing a shawl and a dark turban. And now the president was applauding as well.

There was a pause, an audible gasp, all around the room. Then the applause continued anew.

It was Ali Khameini, the ayatollah for whom Ruhollah Khomeini—the leader who acquainted most of the world with the title, “ayatollah”—changed both Islamic tradition and the Iranian constitution to allow Khameini to succeed Khomeini as Supreme Leader. And it was almost unheard-of for both the president and the ayatollah to be in the same room at the same time. It was an unmistakable signal to everyone in attendance; whatever the president was about to say had the full endorsement of every level of the Iranian government.

Khameini was seated and the president stepped to the lectern. The room fell immediately silent, the assembly retaking their seats.

Ahmadinejad looked down at his notes, then up at the ten tables of listeners.

“In the name of Allah, the compassionate, the merciful,” he began in his native Farsi. “Oh, Allah, hasten the arrival of Imam al-Mahdi. Grant him good health and victory and make us his followers and those who attest to his rightfulness.”

There was no murmur of response, but the man next to Nassiri squirmed slightly in his seat.

Nassiri fully shared his discomfort. It was not unusual for Ahmadinejad to open with a prayer, but it was notable for a leader of an Islamic republic to open with a prayer that made no mention whatsoever of the prophet Muhammad.

That was especially true when it came to Ahmadinejad. Early in his presidency, he referred to and quoted Muhammad often. In interviews with the western press, whenever he mentioned the prophets of Judaism or Christianity, he would unfailingly follow that up by describing Muhammad as he is described in the thirty-third surah of the Qur’an, “the Seal of the Prophets”—the final messenger of God.

But in recent years Ahmadinejad was more and more vocal concerning al-Mahdi, the “twelfth imam” of Shiite Islam. Believed to be a direct descendant of Muhammad himself, al-Mahdi—the title was Arabic for “the guided one”—was held by Islamic tradition to have gone into hiding in AD 931 and to have stayed in hiding throughout the centuries. Shi’a believed al-Mahdi would one day return during a time of great chaos and strife and would lead the world into a period of global Muslim peace and tranquility.

And there was this nuance; by not mentioning Muhammad, Ahmadinejad was seen by some as underplaying the prophet’s importance and allowing the possibility—held by a small, but growing number of Muslim theologians in the Middle East—that Muhammad was simply the forerunner for another, greater prophet. In Nassiri’s mind, it was not so great a leap to assume, if that was the case, the prophet the president was leaving room for was either the Ayatollah Khameini or Mahmoud Ahmadinejad himself.

Nor was the omission of Muhammad a mere oversight. Nassiri remembered the video of Ahmadinejad addressing the United Nations in May of 2010, which opened in precisely the same manner. To Farrokh Nassiri, it was an obvious shift in presidential messaging.

“My brothers,” Ahmadinejad continued, “for years now, Israel has tried to pass itself off as a beleaguered nation of Jews. Nothing could be further from the truth. Judaism is a religion of prophetic tradition. They are people of The Book. They herald the truth of Allah, the one true God, and in fact they are only one step away from eternal consecration as believers. But the men who founded Israel and the men who rule Israel are not beleaguered and they are not Jews. They are criminals. They have hidden behind their Torah to justify murder and theft and the rape of land that is holy to believers and to Islam. So I ask you: what do you do when a criminal has taken over your house? Do you do nothing? Can you do nothing?”

The assembly rumbled in response.

“And that great Satan, America, protects these criminals by disarming those who would defend their homes. The American leaders say they are Christian, but again I tell you this is a lie, because Christianity too has the tradition of the prophets and The Book. Those who rule America are liars and thugs, the puppeteers of the West and the murderers of millions. They lie to the world about the Holocaust because they hope that in the supposed death of three million, they can lead us to somehow forget the deaths of sixty million. They put their boots upon our throats to suppress us. Would you have the boots of Satan on your throat . . . on your children’s throats?”

“Three million” and “sixty million”—it was typical Ahmadinejad rhetoric: understate the deaths from the Holocaust by half, and then invest some outrageous number that supposedly represented the wrongs of the West. Nassiri was tempted to roll his eyes, but he did not; he knew the cameras were watching. And all around him, the rumble of assent grew louder.

“In all the history of mankind, only one nation has ever used nuclear force in anger and they used it, not against a massed army or a fleet of ships at sea, but against cities . . . against cities crowded with women and heavy with children.”

Someone to Nassiri’s right stood up and shouted his agreement. Ahmadinejad smiled and held up his hand, urging the listener to sit.

“Your family is like my family,” he said. “Never for an instant would you stand by and do nothing while infidels defiled your sister or your daughter. There is a saying I heard growing up and it is coarse and indelicate but, my brothers, I repeat it because it is true: ‘The honor of a Muslim man lies between the legs of his women.’ My brother believers, I say to you, Israel has defiled the sacred ground of Islam. America has held their cloaks while they did it. And we as Muslim men can no longer sit by and do nothing. We must act.”

“But,” someone shouted from the back, “Israel has weapons! Nuclear weapons.”

“My brother . . .” Ahmadinejad smiled. “Just because your enemy has a knife, is that any deterrent to keep you from using a knife of your own . . . a knife of your own in an urgent matter of honor?”

The room went absolutely silent. The president just said—or at very least implied—that Iran possessed nuclear weapons.

Nassiri shivered and hoped no one around him noticed.

“Do not be afraid,” Ahmadinejad told his listeners. “We know from tradition that al-Mahdi stands at the threshold, ready to return. The signs indicate his return. He is eager to walk again among us. We have only to open the door, to complete the signs that herald his return. And in raining death and fire on Israel, we shall do just that. We shall complete those signs.”

Now more men were standing and shouting agreement and Ahmadinejad allowed them to shout.

“Prophecy,” the president said, “has led us to this place. History has led us to this place. The guiding hand of Allah has led us to this place. We have only to act. Brothers, shall we act?”

The entire room rose to its feet. Cognizant of the video camera, Nassiri joined them, his knees shaking. He put a hand on the table before him to steady himself. He could not believe what was going on around him.

He was witnessing the start of World War III.

SIXTEEN HUNDRED KILOMETERS TO the northwest, the waters of the Black Sea were clear and inviting, sapphire and emerald under a cloudless late-summer sky. Yet for a kilometer to either side, the beach north of Anapa, Russia was virtually empty. No families sunned themselves on holiday, no swimmers splashed in the gentle August waves. In the distance, only two people walked slowly on the sand and both of them were plain-clothes guards, Groza bullpup assault rifles slung discretely from their shoulders.

On the verge of the beach was a spacious cabana, pennants above it snapping softly in the gentle morning breeze. Inside the cabana, a silver pot in one hand and a strainer in the other, the president of the Russian Federation was pouring tea. He was serving it Russian-style, not in a cup but in a glass, and the glass was set in a podstakannik, an ornate tea-glass holder with a curved handle. Like the teapot, the podstakannik was made in Kolchugino, the town in Vladimir Oblast known throughout Russia for its metalsmiths. And like the teapot, the holder was embellished with the seal of the federation, a double-headed eagle wearing three crowns.

The president handed the tea glass to his guest, whose smile blossomed whitely in his dark gray beard. The old man bowed slightly in thanks, his yarmulke showing thinly, like the edge of a waning moon. While both spiced milk and cubed sugar were set out on the serving tray, the president offered neither to his guest, nor did the rabbi ask for them. It was obvious the two were old friends; each man knew how the other took his tea.

“And your family, Sergei Nikitavich,” the rabbi asked the president, continuing a conversation interrupted by the arrival of the tea. His Russian held only a trace of the accent of the south. “Your wife—she is well?”

“She is very well, Rabbi.” The president cocked his head at the older man. “You know, I have always wanted to ask you . . . you are a fine man. Responsible, levelheaded. Any man would have been proud to give his daughter to you. Yet I have never heard you mention a wife; how is that?”

The rabbi smiled. “There was a girl . . . once. She lived on a farm next to the yeshivah, when I was taking my studies. But her father wanted her to marry a man of substance, a merchant or a farmer. To him, a man who leads a congregation in a temple is little more than . . . do you know the Yiddish expression, luftmench?”

The president had studied French, English, and German at university and he worked the word out in his head: “A man of the air?”

“Precisely,” the rabbi told him. “A man with no visible means of support. This farmer had no son, this daughter was his eldest, and he was not about to let everything he worked for slip into the hands of anyone as impractical as a country rabbi.”

The president cocked his head. “What did you do?”

“We took the path of Esau,” the rabbi said, smiling again as he said it. “I spoke to Vasya—that was her name. Then, with her permission, I went to her father and told him that, if he would give me her hand in marriage, we would give up her right to the inheritance . . . allow it to pass to her younger sister.”

“So you did marry?”

“We did.” The sparkle left the rabbi’s eyes. “And in the second year of marriage, when she was expecting our first child, she died of influenza.”

“You were still a young man.”

The rabbi nodded. “But my Vasya was . . . perfect. And if such a thing is possible, she became even more perfect in my memory as the months and years wore on. There was no other woman I could wed. It would not have been fair; any second wife would always be that to me: second.”

“Rabbi . . .” The president shook his head. “You are a hopeless romantic.”

“True.” The rabbi smiled. “But at least on Tuesdays, when I lunch with the Orthodox bishop, he and I have something on which we can silently commiserate!”

He laughed as he said it, but the president shook his head.

“I cannot imagine a life such as that.”

The rabbi shrugged again. “When I was young, it was difficult, at times. But now? I will be eighty-nine next winter, my friend. Eighty-nine! Celibacy is probably the only thing keeping me alive!”

Both men laughed at that.

The rabbi set his tea on the table at his side. “So, Sergei Nikitavich, why does the president of the Russian Federation want to have tea with a poor, luftmench rabbi on this beautiful morning Hashem has given us? Surely not to discuss my misfortune in matters matrimonial.”

The president cleared his throat. “Last Wednesday, Rabbi . . . do you remember what happened five years ago, last Wednesday?”

The rabbi smiled and nodded.

“We were summering in Novorossiysk, up the coast,” the president said, as if he did not see the nod. “I was prime minister then, and my son, my Mikhail, was out on a motorboat. He was driving, and you know how it is when you are a teenager; he thought he was invincible. As he crossed the wake of a freighter . . . the boat capsized, struck him on the head. He was rescued, praise the Almighty, but fell into a deep coma. Second day in the hospital, they put him on life support; his heart was failing. Then, three weeks later, the doctors said there was no hope. They told me I should give them the order—take him off the machines. You were there in the hospital, making rounds, and I asked what you thought, whether I should allow the doctors to take away . . . take away the things keeping my only son alive. Tell me, Rabbi. Do you remember what you said?”

The rabbi nodded. “I told you the story of Abraham and Isaac: how when Hashem told Abraham to sacrifice his only son, what he was really doing was asking Abraham if he trusted Hashem—trusted him with that which meant the world to him. You told me you were born to a Jewish mother, but you abandoned Hashem because of your years as a communist leader. That not even your mother’s dying wish, that you would return to the faith that had sustained her, moved you away from that path. And I told you the law is clear; that if you are a child of a Jewish mother, then you, too, are a Jew . . . that, deny it as you may, you are one of the chosen people. I told you he who was the creator of the world is still loyal to the covenant he made with your fathers —that this is what Jews believe. And I told you that, if you trusted Hashem, truly trusted him, you should let the doctors do as they wished.”

The president nodded, tears in his eyes. “I always knew there was a God. My mother was so passionate about her faith. Yet I had to deny him in order to progress in the party.”

“And I said that perhaps Hashem was eager to show his love to you through this difficult situation.”

The president patted the rabbi’s hand. “You did more than that, old friend. You told me God loves me even more than I love my son. And when I asked if that meant God would save him, you said you could not guarantee that, but you could guarantee that, whatever the outcome was, if I did it in faith, it would be for the good.”

The rabbi nodded again.

“A great peace came over me when you said that,” the president told him. “I told the doctors to take him off the machines. And my son’s heart continued to beat. On its own. The doctors . . . they were astounded. Then, three days later—five years ago today—he awoke from his coma. And next month, he graduates from Gargarin; he will pilot a fighter-bomber, the same as I did, when I was his age.”

Neither man said a thing. The breeze had picked up, the pennants snapping more sharply in the breeze.

“My life changed that day, Rabbi,” the president finally said. He wiped his eyes with the back of his hand. “And then, once I accepted the Almighty into my life, I wanted to learn Hebrew. I studied in secrecy. You gave me my bar mitzvah—just you and me.”

The rabbi shrugged. “It was not as either of us truly wanted it, but it was as it had to be. To this day, my congregation asks me who the mysterious stranger is who so generously funds our temple. And I tell them simply that sometimes Hashem still sends angels in our midst. Sergei Nikitavich, why do you now recall in such detail that which we both remember so well?”

The president leaned forward, hands clasped. He had not touched his own tea.

“Rabbi, all my life, I have colluded against Israel. Do you know that?”

The old rabbi nodded.

“My teachers in school and even my professors at university were great supporters of Stalin,” the president continued. “I grew up ashamed of my heritage. I hid it. I thought of Judaism as undesirable, a faction to be eliminated. When we were Soviet, I served in the KGB. And once I came to power, I conspired against Israel. I armed her enemies: armed her greatest enemy.”

The rabbi nodded again slowly, his brow furrowed.

“You have told me this before. And I have told you before that Hashem spoke of this in his Psalms: As far as the east is from the west, that is how far he has distanced our rebellious acts from us.”

The president finally picked up his tea and put his hand against the glass, frowning at its coolness.

“God has distanced us, Rabbi. But me? I have not distanced myself. So I have taken steps: steps to protect Israel even from that one country which has sought most zealously to destroy her. I wanted you to know that . . . in confidence of course.”

“Of course.” The rabbi reached for his own tea and then stopped. He cocked his head. “But how, Sergei Nikitavich? If their enemy is already armed; how can you possibly protect the Jews now?”

The president sighed.

“Forgive me, my old friend, but some things must remain unsaid for now.” He smiled. “After all, you are my rabbi, not my confessor.”