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in prison that Dariush was de-programmed, and it was in prison where he learnt the truth about his country, and learnt the lies that the MEK had fed him. He claims that in prison he was never tortured.
    Nobody knows why the government did not kill Dariush, why he got such a light sentence. The most likely explanation is that he cut a deal: his freedom for his knowledge of the inner workings of the MEK. The lranian love for a conspiracy theory went into overdrive; some said that Dariush was a regime spy all along. Whatever the truth, it was a cunning move by the government; when the Islamic Republic announced an amnesty on all deserters, dozens returned to the motherland. After Saddam Hussein’s fall, the MEK was no longer welcome in Iraq and conditions in Camp Ashraf deteriorated. Dariush was paraded as a member who had been pardoned by the Islamic Republic of Iran and used as bait to lure others away, a perfect ploy to weaken the Group. As soon as Dariush was released from prison, he helped set up a government-backed charity rescuing MEK recruits and reuniting them with their families.
    Once the families leave the office, Dariush locks up and heads home. He is meeting his mother at Yekta on Vali Asr, a café where she used to have milkshakes and burgers in her youth. The place has hardly changed: the same yellow sign and seventies interior. She flew to Tehran after his release, and he persuaded her to stay.
    Arezou denounced him as a traitor, as did the rest of the Group. He tried to contact her, to convince her to leave them, but she never spoke to him again.

SOMAYEH
    Meydan-e Khorasan, south Tehran
    The day that Somayeh witnessed a miracle was the hottest day of the year. The shade under the sycamore trees on Vali Asr gave no sanctuary. The sun scorched the dark green leaves, burning the road below. The trees’ roots ached with thirst, the
joobs
running above them dusty and dry.
    Somayeh wiped bubbles of sweat from her top lip that kept popping up despite the best efforts of the ancient, juddering air-conditioning unit. Her damp fingers fiddled with the combination lock on the briefcase. With six rows of numbers, this was an impossible mission, but she was stubborn. She cried to God and to her favourite imam for help.
    ‘Oh God, Oh Imam Zaman, I beg you to help me open this case, and I swear to you that I will sacrifice a lamb for the poor every year until I die,’ she said her
nazr
prayer out loud, bruising her fingertips against the metal digits. Somayeh’s
nazr
prayer was in keeping with tradition; she knew that for her wish to be granted she must vow to help those less well off than herself. She always channelled her prayers through Imam Zaman, even though so many believe that the patient and peaceful Abol Fazl, half-brother of Imam Hossein (the Prophet’s grandson), responds to requests the quickest.
    And then something extraordinary happened. At that precise moment the numbers snapped into alignment – a gentle click as the lock and God and Imam Zaman all acquiesced. The briefcase popped its mouth ajar.
    It was a miracle. Of that, there was no doubt.
    It had all started on an equally hot summer’s day a few years earlier. Somayeh was seventeen and in the neighbourhood of her birth, Meydan-e Khorasan, east of the bazaar in south Tehran and as old as the city itself. The day had begun like any other, at six in the morning with her daily prayers. She breakfasted with her beloved father, Haj Agha, sipping her tea as he read the conservative daily
Kayhan
newspaper that he bought on his way back from the baker’s. The
sangak
bread was still warm and pitted with crispy indents where the hot stones that lined the furnaces had cooked it; on it they slathered home-made cherry jam, sweet and sour and red as fresh blood. She then wrapped her black chador round her and walked to school with her younger brother, Mohammad-Reza.
    They wound their way through the snaking alleys to the main road. The city was already at full