Prologue

Awareness slowly returned. Where was he? Around him, dust and darkness swirled, filled with vague shapes and senseless ghosts. Maybe he should sit up? Yes, that seemed like a good idea. He struggled for a moment, but his body didn’t cooperate. Something heavy seemed to be on his chest, pinning him to the floor and crushing his breath away. Was there a wall on his chest?

Cries and screams started to penetrate the fierce ringing in his ears. Fleeting fragments of memory emerged from the fog in his brain and reassembled themselves . . . a drive to Tehran . . . the Grand Bazaar . . . the whine of a cruise missile . . . an explosion.

Yasmin and Mina! Where were they?

Full awareness surged through his brain. He turned his head, ignoring the vertigo, and tried to see through the murk for a sign of his wife or daughter. But the air was filled with smoke, dust, and grit, stinging his eyes and nose and making it impossible to see. He struggled against the immense weight on his chest, but it was hopeless; the effort only made him gasp more.

A breath of wind swirled through the dust and smoke, clearing the murk momentarily. He looked around frantically, searching for any sign of his family. There! He could see Yasmin on the ground in the rubble, her head resting on one of the shopping bags that she’d carried just moments before. Her face was turned toward him, completely unmarked by the explosion, but her eyes were closed. It took a few seconds for his mind to register. Only half of his wife was there.

But where was his daughter? The breeze swirled again, revealing Mina lying a few meters from her mother. A pool of bright red blood spread from under her head.

With a loud crash, a shower of bricks tumbled over Yasmin and Mina’s bodies, and redoubled the weight on Zarrabian’s chest. He felt the last vestiges of air being crushed from his lungs. The ringing in his ears softened, and the sounds of cries and screams faded. The world grew dark.