Pandora's grave

“Time?” The Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Yousef Mohaymen Isfahani, asked, turning to the attendant at his side.

“Fifteen minutes until noon,” the man replied, bowing deeply. Isfahani acknowledged his words with a nod, looking northward from the portico as though fancying he could see the approaching helicopter.

Failing in that, he turned away, placing both hands on the balustrade as he glanced into the courtyard beneath him. So much had changed in the last few years. And the world had barely noticed.

Gone was the theocracy that had ruled Iran for over three decades. Not truly gone, perhaps, but gutted of all true power. Men might still call him the Supreme Leader, but he was a figurehead, little more.

This meeting had the potential to change all that. A chill ran through his aging body, despite the pounding heat of the noonday sun. It was a terrible risk.

He smiled with a grim humor. The West was too consumed with its worsening economic troubles to keep track of events in Iran. And outwardly, little had changed in the years since a military cabal had seized power in Tehran. Led by then-general Mahmoud F’Azel Shirazi, the conspirators had succeeded in corrupting large numbers of the Revolutionary Guard and regular army to their cause. The revolt had been sudden and swift, leaving the ayatollahs with no time to react.

Those few Western press agencies that had taken notice had hailed the end of Iran’s theocracy in terms of the demise of radical Islam in Iran.

The Ayatollah’s lip curled upward in a sneer of disdain at the memory. The fools! Had they bothered to investigate Shirazi and his compatriots, their blood would have run cold. Despite his apparent interest in increased openness to the West, Mahmoud Shirazi was odds-on the most radical leader Iran had ever seen.

The twelfth imam. To some Iranians the concept was more figurative than literal, just as some in the Christian world regarded the revelations of John to be allegorical in nature.

Others saw him as their messiah, who would return in the midst of apocalypse to save true believers. And still others believed that they must bring about that apocalypse to usher in his return…

Isfahani sighed at the reflection. It was a theological debate that traced its roots back to the very foundations of the Islamic faith. The world of Islam had begun to fracture before the body of its Prophet had even cooled.

On the one hand, there were those who believed that in the absence of a directly appointed successor, one should be elected from among their ranks. Their name, Sunni, clearly indicated that they felt they had chosen the “Right Path”.

On the other hand, however, a minority faction of Mohammed’s close followers and kin put forth the idea that a close relative of the Prophet should succeed him and named Hazrat Ali, a cousin and son-in-law of Mohammed, as successor.

Looking back, the ayatollah thought, the debate seemed trite, but it had split Islam in two. In the midst of a bloody civil war, Hazrat Ali, the “Lion of God”, had been slain by Sunni assassins, who then replaced him with one of their own luminaries. The partisans of Ali withdrew in defeat, to become a persecuted minority, known as the Shiah, a name taken from the Arabic word for partisan.

But they had kept the bloodline pure, through the ravages of war, persecution, and assassination. Over the following two centuries, eleven men carried the title of imam in the Shiite world. Eleven men-warriors, scholars, and theologians. Descendants of Hazrat Ali and pure of both blood and faith.

And then there were twelve.

What mark this twelfth imam might have left on the world was unknown-or rather, as Shirazi and his followers believed, yet to be seen.

He had been a lad of four years old when he disappeared down a well in the year A.D. 874, never to be seen again. But what might have been written off as a tragic accident took a different shape in the Shiite mind. The twelfth, and last, of the imams had not fallen to his death. Nay, rather, he had been occultated or hidden away by Allah until his return at the end of the world, when he would return in a flaming vengeance to cleanse the earth of unbelievers.

He heard the helicopter before he saw it, the steady drumbeat of the rotor intruding itself upon his thoughts.

The old man’s eyes brightened. “That should be Major Hossein now,” he said, turning to his attendant. “Bring him to me as soon as he lands.”

10:20 A.M. Local Time

C-141 Starlifter

Final approach to Ramstein Airbase, Germany

The small knot of men in Air Force uniforms near the back of the Starlifter’s cargo hold bore no resemblance to the men that had just spent two days deep inside hostile territory.

Hostile territory, Harry mused, running a hand over his smooth-shaven chin. Completing the job had been necessary to once again pass himself off as an Air Force colonel, despite the lack of time.