12: Chapter 12 The Price of Speaking

Two living CIA agents were imprisoned in an interrogation room converted from the basement of the Governors Mansion.

It was called an interrogation room, but it was actually two cement storage rooms across from each other, originally used for storing grain. Now they had been cleared out, fitted with iron doors, a toilet placed in the corner, and a perpetually burning incandescent lightbulb hung from the ceiling.

The lightbulb was the key.

Reza gave a strict order—it was to stay on for twenty-four hours, and it was not allowed to be turned off.

The interrogation textbooks from his past life stated it very clearly: sleep deprivation is the lowest-cost, highest-efficiency method for breaking down willpower. After a person is exposed to bright light continuously for seventy-two hours, their mental defenses begin to crumble. The CIA's own "Enhanced Interrogation Techniques" manual contained this very point.

Giving them a taste of their own medicine.

The two captives were held separately, unable to hear or see each other. Reza deliberately had a guard "accidentally" say while delivering food to one of them: "The blond one next door has already said quite a lot."

A standard tactic of sowing discord. Low-level, but effective.

For the first three days, Reza did not go to the interrogation room.

He was waiting.

Waiting for that lightbulb to pull apart the nerves of the two professionally trained agents, one by one.

In the early hours of the fourth day, Hassan came to report: "The blond one has started banging his head against the wall. The dark-haired one is quiet, but his eyes have lost focus; he doesn't react when the guards go in to deliver food."

"Interrogate the dark-haired one first."

"Why not interrogate the one banging his head? Banging his head means he's about to break."

"Incorrect. Banging his head is a form of self-control—using pain to fight against mental collapse. He is still resisting, which means his willpower hasn't snapped yet. It is the quiet one who has given up resistance. People who have given up resistance are the easiest to make talk."

Hassan looked at him.

With that look of, "Just how many more skills do you have that I don't know about?"

The interrogation took place in the basement.

Reza sat on a wooden chair, with a table in front of him, on which sat a pot of black tea, two cups, and a pack of Marlboro cigarettes.

The dark-haired agent was brought in.

His hands were cuffed behind his back, his eye sockets were sunken, and his lips were so cracked they were peeling. Four days of unshaven stubble and dried bloodstains made him look like a vagrant. When he was pressed into the chair, his body swayed noticeably—his muscles were exhausted.

But the moment his eyes saw Reza, his pupils contracted.

He recognized Reza.

This meant he had seen the target's photo before setting out.

"Sit," Reza said in English, his tone as flat as if he were hosting a guest. "Tea or a smoke?"

No answer.

"I guess you are number two on the operation team—responsible for communications and the extraction route. Number one is the blond guy; he is the operations commander. The other four are execution personnel. You are responsible for reporting to Langley via satellite phone after the operation ends, and then driving the team to retreat toward the Iraq border in the direction of Basra."

The dark-haired one's eyelid twitched.

It was very slight, but Reza caught it.

"Your extraction route is from the south of Khuzestan Province through the Shalamcheh border crossing into Iraq, right? The CIA has a safe house in Basra, codenamed 'Sparrow's Nest.' You take a civilian flight from there to Amman, then transfer back to the United States."

This time, the dark-haired one's lips moved.

Not to speak, but swallowing—a physiological reaction to being so nervous that his mouth was dry.

Every detail Reza said was correct.

But these details were impossible for anyone in the world to know, except for those inside the CIA.

"Your name is Thomas Andrews," Reza continued, as if reading a shopping list. "From Virginia, dropped out of Virginia Tech in 1968 to join the army, spent two years in Vietnam, and was recruited by the CIA Special Activities Center in 1972. Your codename is 'Greyhound,' and your last mission was in Beirut, Lebanon, assisting the Christian Phalangists in establishing a communications network."

Of course, this information wasn't entirely from his past life's memories.

The name Andrews and the Vietnam War experience were things Reza saw on the dog tags he confiscated from him; the other details—codename, last mission—were "reasonable deductions" Reza made based on his overall understanding of the CIA's Middle East Operations Division in the 1970s from his past life.

Some he guessed right, some he might have guessed wrong.

But the key to interrogation isn't that every piece of information is correct—it's about making the other person believe you know everything.

When a person feels that you have already grasped eighty percent of the information, their psychological burden to confess the remaining twenty percent drops sharply—"Anyway, you already know it all; what difference does it make if I tell you or not?"

Andrews's Adam's apple bobbed.

"What do you want?" he finally spoke. His voice was as raspy as sandpaper grinding on iron.

"Very simple. You tell me three things, and I will let you go. I won't send you back to the United States—if you go back, you'll just be silenced anyway—but I can give you a new identity and let you start over in Turkey or Pakistan."

Andrews stared at him for a long while.

For someone who had been locked up for four days and was on the verge of a mental breakdown, having the option of "cooperate and live" placed in front of him—the temptation of this option was far greater than any loyalty or belief.

"What three things?"

"First, how many active-duty agents does the CIA Tehran Station currently have, who is the station chief, and what are the communication frequencies?"

"I can't—"

"Second," Reza interrupted him directly, "what is the CIA's monitoring level for Khuzestan Province, and have they developed any local informants there?"

Andrews's mouth closed again.

"Third, what is the current assessment of King Pahlavi by the US government? Specifically—has Washington already begun to consider an 'abandon' plan?"

The last question caused a crack to appear in Andrews's expression.

Not because the question was sensitive—but because he realized that the young man in front of him, dressed in Persian robes, was asking questions that in no way resembled those of an exiled prince.

This was a question only an intelligence expert would ask.

The silence lasted for nearly a minute.

Then Andrews reached out and took a cup of tea, taking a sip. The tea was already cold, but he drank it as if it were the water of life.

"There are twenty-six active-duty agents at Tehran Station. The station chief is Richard Helms—yes, the former CIA Director Helms. He was 'demoted' to Iran as ambassador by President Ford, but in reality, he still controls the operations of the entire Tehran Station. Communications use high-frequency encrypted radios; the frequency changes once a week. I don't know the pattern of the changes; that's the communications officer's business."

Reza listened while cross-verifying in his mind—the fact that Helms served as ambassador to Iran was recorded in public materials from his past life, from 1973 to 1977. It matched.

"The monitoring level for Khuzestan Province is 'moderate concern.' There are local informants, but not many—mainly a few people in the Provincial Police Department and the Provincial Oil Administration. I don't know the specific list; that's not my area of responsibility."

Reza noted it down. The Provincial Police Department and the Provincial Oil Administration—these two departments must be purged.

"The third question," he reminded.

Andrews put down the teacup, hesitating for a long time.

"...Washington's assessment of the King..."

His voice grew lower and lower.

"At the end of 1975, Secretary of State Kissinger wrote a sentence in an internal memorandum—'King Pahlavi's rule will not exceed ten years. We need to prepare alternative plans.'"

Reza's heart skipped a beat.

But his face remained unmoved.

"What alternative plans?"

"I don't know the specific details. But there is a rumor—the CIA is contacting Ayatollah Khomeini's people. Not to support Ayatollah Khomeini, but to... 'assess whether he is controllable.'"

The weight of this information was heavier than all the previous information combined.

In the history of his past life, the question of "whether the United States played a role in the Islamic Revolution" had been debated by academia for decades. One school of thought believed the United States was purely reactive, while the other believed the United States had at least begun secretly contacting Ayatollah Khomeini by the middle of the revolution to ensure that a "post-Pahlavi era" Iran would not lean toward the Soviet Union.

Now, Andrews's words confirmed the latter theory.

At least by the end of 1975, the United States had already begun to consider abandoning King Pahlavi.

And Reza knew from his past life that Ayatollah Khomeini eventually returned to Iran from France in 1979 to seize power. France—a NATO member—how could they have allowed Ayatollah Khomeini to publicly organize revolutionary activities in the suburbs of Paris without the tacit approval of the United States?

All the puzzle pieces were fitting together.

The United States was preparing to swap horses.

King Pahlavi was still kept in the dark, thinking he was an irreplaceable ally of the United States.

And Ayatollah Khomeini, in all likelihood, did not know that he had been "used" by the United States to a certain extent.

But Reza knew.

He knew the direction of every move for the next four years.

This was his greatest weapon.

"One last question," Reza said. "Who issued the order for your operation this time? Was it decided by Tehran Station itself, or was it approved by the Langley headquarters?"

Andrews shook his head: "I don't know. The operation order was issued directly by the station chief; we don't see the authorization documents."

Reza nodded.

If it was decided by Tehran Station itself, that meant Helms had his own judgment regarding the "unstable factors in Khuzestan Province"—he considered Reza a threat and decided to act first and report later. But after all six agents disappeared, what would Helms do?

Two possibilities.

The first: report to Langley, request reinforcements, and escalate the operation against Reza. This meant there would be a larger-scale threat in the short term.

The second: cover it up. With six agents missing inside Iran, if he reported it, Helms would have to take responsibility for this failed operation. He might choose to suppress the matter, telling his superiors 'operation canceled, personnel withdrawn,' and then investigate secretly.

Reza bet on the second one.

Because Helms was a political spy, not a warrior spy. What politicians fear most is not the enemy, but their own superiors. Botching a secret operation under the nose of Langley would be a fatal blow to his career.

So he would cover it up.

At least in the short term, Reza was safe.

But in the long term—Helms would eventually realize what happened. Once he discovered that those six agents were not "missing" but "captured," everything would change.

Reza needed to play all the cards in his hand before Helms realized what was going on.

After the interrogation ended, Andrews was taken back to the basement.

Reza did not break his word—he did intend to let this man go, but not yet. Once the intelligence value had been squeezed dry, giving him a new identity and throwing him into Karachi, Pakistan, would be enough.

As for the blond one—the number one commander—he never opened his mouth.