The Ares Decision

21

Mehrak Omidi paused in front of the closed door, a trickle of adrenaline making him vaguely nauseous. Only Ayatollah Amjad Khamenei had the power to make him feel this way.

They had known each other since Omidi was a young man serving in the Revolutionary Guard and Khamenei was an imam living in the remote northeastern part of the country. The holy man had seen Omidi’s potential and taken him under his wing, counseling him spiritually, watching over his career — even paying for him to study abroad.

When Khamenei became supreme leader, Omidi had gone with him, starting as his personal assistant and then moving to various other posts before being put in charge of the Ministry of Intelligence. Despite his undeniable success and the respect he commanded throughout Iran, he had never felt worthy. But those feelings were changing. They had to.

Khamenei was getting old and nostalgic. His vision was perfectly clear when looking backward but increasingly hazy when trying to see into the future. Omidi considered the man more of a father than his biological one and found himself in the uncomfortable role reversal that all sons eventually suffered. Over the coming years, he would have to become his teacher’s guide to a world that was quickly closing in on them.

He knocked gently and entered when he heard a muffled call welcoming him. There was no furniture or decoration in the office, only tapestry-covered cushions strewn across the floor.

“Excellency,” Omidi said, bowing deeply.

When they’d first met, Khamenei’s long beard had been deep black and his eyes almost magical in their intensity. Now he’d gone completely gray beneath his turban and wore a pair of glasses thick enough to distort his regal features.

The man sitting on a cushion next to him started to leap to his feet, hatred etched deeply into his face, but sank obediently back to the floor when the aging cleric touched him on the arm.

“Mehrak. It is good to see you. Please come sit next to me.”

Omidi did as he was told, bowing his head contritely to avoid acknowledging the furious stare of the clean-shaven man across from him.

His name was Rahim Nikahd and he was a powerful moderate voice in parliament, a cunning and ambitious man straddling the fence between what Iran was and what the mob wanted it to become.

It was infuriating that a man as great as Amjad Khamenei had to grovel at the feet of an insect like Nikahd, but those were the complex realities of politics. No leader was great or powerful enough to forget from where their power truly flowed.

“Why is this man here?” Nikahd said finally. “Why does he still have a place of authority in this government? I—”

“Shh.” Khamenei touched the man’s arm again. “Calm yourself, my old friend.”

Unfortunately, beyond being a member of parliament, Nikahd was also the father of the young man Omidi had arrested the day before.

“Mehrak has been given a great weight of responsibility,” Khamenei continued. “And it was his belief that your son was Farrokh.”

“Farrokh? But this is idiocy!” the man protested. “How could he make such a stupid mistake?”

Omidi stayed respectfully silent despite his anger at being discussed — and insulted — as though he weren’t there.

“It is my understanding that Farrokh used his vast technical knowledge to route his communications through your son’s home. Clearly he planned for this to happen and believed that it would turn you away from me. Turn you away from God.”

“My son’s wife — the mother of my grandchildren — is in a coma from being hit with a rifle butt. This is competence? He couldn’t make a phone call and check whose house he was attacking?”

“There was no time, Rahim. Farrokh has slipped through our fingers too many times. And to answer your question, Mehrak is here because he insisted on coming personally to beg your forgiveness.”

It wasn’t exactly true — in fact, it wasn’t true at all — but Omidi dipped his head even farther, taking a posture of complete subservience.

“I’m asking you a personal favor,” Khamenei said. “I’m asking you to forgive both of us for our hand in what happened to your family.”

Omidi kept his eyes on the floor, grateful that the fury in them would be invisible to the fat parliamentarian sitting across from him. In the world of politics, there were always strings attached. One day Khamenei would have to repay the debt that Omidi had created. He’d let Farrokh outsmart him. Just as he had so many times in the past.

Nikahd didn’t answer immediately, undoubtedly considering his position. He had to be very careful not to move so far left as to put himself in danger from the establishment but also not to move so far right that he wouldn’t be embraced by the youth movement should it prevail.

“For you, Excellency, of course.”

Khamenei put out a hand and Nikahd kissed it. “I’m grateful to have men like you around me, Rahim. Men still loyal to Islam.”

Knowing he had been dismissed, Nikahd stood, but not before giving Omidi a glare that spoke volumes. If he should come out on top in this prolonged power struggle, he would see to it that Omidi and his family disappeared.

They watched him go, and Khamenei waited until the door was fully closed before he spoke again.

“That was very difficult, Mehrak. He is a powerful man, and make no mistake: I’ve made an enemy of him today.”

“Yes, Excellency.”

“You defied my orders and failed to fire on the crowd — emboldening them, making them think we’re weak and afraid. And then this…”

“I will step down immediately.”

Khamenei smiled thinly. “A hollow offer, Mehrak. You know there’s no one else I trust implicitly. Not any longer.”

Mehrak acknowledged the compliment with a nod. “I serve at your pleasure, Excellency.”

Khamenei recognized that enemies of the revolution were everywhere, but he didn’t fully comprehend the extent to which the cancer had taken hold — Western fashion and video games, the Internet. Every day the tide grew stronger and the guardians of the faith grew older.

Support for the government was crumbling. The popularity of the nuclear program that was so broad a year ago had succumbed to the pressure of the outside world. Iran’s youth would rather have portable music players and political freedom than strength and faith.

“I’ve known you since you were a child, Mehrak. You have more to say.”

He pondered his words for a moment before speaking. “I am beaten, Excellency.”

“What? I don’t understand.”

“Farrokh and his people have an inherent understanding of technology that I can’t replicate.”

“I don’t expect you to personally understand everything, Mehrak — that’s for God alone. What I expect you to do is build a team who can defeat him.”

“How, Excellency? The people with that kind of expertise in our own country are sympathetic to the resistance. I could bring in consultants from outside, but how can I trust them? With the rest of the world and America lined up against us, how can I give someone that kind of access without knowing if they’re being paid by the CIA? No, we can’t outplay him at his own game. There is no barrier I can erect that can stop Western ideas and values from flooding us.”

“But you can stem the tide.”

“Today, yes. Somewhat. Tomorrow? No.”

The confusion on Khamenei’s face was painful to watch. But this had to be done.

“What are you saying to me, Mehrak? That we should give up? That God is powerless against America’s seduction? You should have fired into the crowd. You should have shown the resolve of our faith.”

“Shooting into the crowd was impossible, Excellency.”

“Impossible? Why?”

“Because I can’t guarantee the loyalty of the police and military.”

“If you suspect traitors, find them and arrest them.”

“It’s not as simple as traitors. These men love their country, but many of them come from a new generation — they don’t remember the shah; they weren’t alive during the revolution. They don’t understand what the Islamic Republic represents. What they see is thirty percent inflation, isolation from the rest of the world, and double-digit unemployment. If some of them were to join the protesters, we could be firing the first shots in a civil war.”

“It is Farrokh. If we—”

“It’s not Farrokh,” Omidi said, daring to allow the volume of his voice to rise. “He’s important, but ultimately he’s just a figurehead. Even if we capture him — and I have no confidence that we will — he will have people who can carry on in his name.”

The old man’s confusion deepened, and Omidi once again cast his gaze down. It was hard to see him this way.

“Farrokh is an agent of America, of the CIA. We just have to make people understand that—”

“No one believes it anymore, Excellency. President Castilla has been very clever in his policy of noninterference. The West is responsible — but only through its existence and attractiveness to our youth. There is no direct intervention. And even if there were, it wouldn’t matter. Farrokh portrays himself as a nationalist with no great love for America.”

“You’re telling me I am powerless in my own country, Mehrak.”

“No, Excellency. Not powerless.”

“And what weapon have you left me?”

Omidi once again focused on the cleric. “Caleb Bahame.”

They’d spoken of it before, but Khamenei had been noncommittal.

“The Ugandan.”

Omidi nodded, pulling an envelope from his pocket and arranging the photos it contained on the floor. “The dead white men were killed by Bahame’s people near his camp. The other photos are from an American newspaper article about a training accident that recently killed a group of special forces operatives.”

Khamenei squinted through his glasses. “They’re the same men.”

“Yes, Excellency. The Americans sent them to assassinate or capture Bahame, and when they failed, they lied about the circumstances of their deaths.”

“Then they know something. What?”

“We’re not certain. I don’t believe they understand the potential of Bahame’s discovery, but they soon will. We have to act now or face the possibility of losing our ability—”

“To bring down the Americans and Jews,” Khamenei said, finishing his thought.

“Not just to bring them down, Excellency. To unleash hell on them for all the world to see. To make people remember the terrible power of God.”

The holy man sank into thought a moment. “I want you to go personally.”

“Of course,” Omidi said, hiding his elation at Khamenei’s change of heart and attributing it to the hand of God. As with all great things, this path had significant risks. The rewards, though, were nearly infinite. Nineteen seventy-nine had been nothing. The real revolution — the one that would re-create the earth in God’s image — had finally begun.