137: Chapter 134 Raja's Statement

September 4, 1981, Basra.

Reza traveled by military vehicle, without notifying Rajai of his specific arrival time, driving straight to the entrance of Rajai's command post.

This was a habit he did intentionally—giving advance notice would cause everyone to prepare in advance, and what he would see would be a machine prepared for inspection, not the way the machine actually operated.

Rajai was in a meeting. Hearing the guard report, he didn't stop, but instructed someone to take Reza to wait at the door of the conference room. Reza waited in the corridor for about seven minutes without showing any dissatisfaction.

Seven minutes later, Rajai's meeting ended. He walked out and shook hands with Reza. His expression was that standard, serious look one has when meeting a superior—neither fawning nor nervous.

"Coming without notice is to see the real situation," Rajai said. This was a statement, not a complaint.

"Yes," Reza said. "Any problems on your end recently?"

"A few things."

They walked into Rajai's office, and Rajai closed the door without calling anyone else in. This was also what Reza appreciated about him—he spoke directly and didn't need an audience.

"Mahdavi," Rajai said. The first word was this name.

"What happened?"

"Nothing went wrong, but his people are recruiting local Iraqis as administrative assistants. My intelligence department discovered that two of the people he recruited have family members serving in the Iraqi army. One of them has a brother currently in the Iraqi border guard forces in Nasiriyah."

Reza thought about this for a moment.

"Does Mahdavi know?"

"I told him. His answer was that he had already done background checks on the families of those two people and didn't think it constituted a security threat, because almost all local residents in Basra still have relatives in Iraq. If we exclude them based on this standard, we wouldn't find any locals to use at all."

"He is right," Reza said.

Rajai frowned: "But the security risk—"

"The security risk is real, but you have to weigh the other side—if the administrative team is entirely staffed by outsiders brought in from Iran, how will the local residents view it? They will feel this is an occupation, not governance. Mahdavi is right to use locals. Your intelligence department is responsible for keeping an eye on these people. The two things run in parallel, not one replacing the other."

Rajai digested this answer, did not persist, and noted it down in his notebook.

"The second thing," he said. "On the southern border, there have been three suspicious border crossings in the past week, all at night. The scale was very small, one or two people. After coming in, there were no clear signs of action. Reconnaissance teams chased them twice; once they got away, and once we caught one person."

"The one caught, what is his background?"

"Interrogated for two days, confirmed to be a scout for the Iraqi army, not a civilian. He has formal training. His mission was to map the defensive layout of southern Basra."

Reza's attention tightened instantly.

Saddam Hussein was using the time gap during the ceasefire for intelligence reconnaissance—this, combined with the continued existence of the Scud Missile launchers and the timing of that proposal from Mousavi, began to form a direction in Reza's mind.

Saddam Hussein was not idle; he was accumulating his trump cards.

"Where is that scout now?"

"Locked up, hasn't been reported yet."

"Keep him locked up, do not report it," Reza said. "I need all the information he knows—his infiltration route, who his handler is, his mission briefing before departing, everything. Have your people interrogated him?"

"Yes, I've compiled a summary of what he said," Rajai pulled a document from the pile on his desk. "The route was through the waterways of the Fao Peninsula, taking the shallow water area. Our patrol boats didn't cover that section. The handler is an intelligence station in Nasiriyah, with the station chief codenamed 'Laurel'."

Laurel. Reza wrote down this codename and added an Arabic pronunciation guide in his notebook.

"What level of intelligence station is 'Laurel'?"

"According to that scout, it is directly under the Iraqi General Staff Intelligence Department, not passing through the local military district."

This specification was higher than Reza had expected—directly under the General Staff meant this was not a small local operation, but a systematic action with central authorization.

"Increase the patrol density in that section of the waterway," Reza said. "But don't let the Iraqi side realize you've discovered this route. Keep the surface density normal, but actually install sensors underwater. Fatima has acoustic sensor devices there; contact her, and I will have her coordinate to give you a batch."

"Acoustic sensors," Rajai repeated. "Will my people know how to use them?"

"Fatima will send people to train them. A week is enough," Reza said. "Before the sensors are in place, arrange a frogman team for that waterway every night. Check at set times at night, don't use searchlights, use passive thermal imaging."

"I only have two sets of passive thermal imaging equipment here."

"Two sets are enough, one for each section, divided into two checkpoints."

Rajai noted these down and raised no further objections. This was the biggest difference between him and Mahdavi—when Mahdavi encountered difficulties, he would talk about the difficulties first; when Rajai encountered difficulties, he would ask for solutions first.

"The third thing," Rajai said. "After the port restarts, is it possible for Iraqi intelligence personnel to be mixed in among the ships coming to Basra?"

"Certainly," Reza said. "That is not the problem. The problem is how you intend to deal with it."

"I intend to implement strict inspections on all incoming ships—"

"No," Reza said. "How strict? If every ship has to be opened for inspection, the ship owners won't come, and the port will die. If the port dies, Basra's commerce dies, and those seven hundred thousand people will feel there is no benefit to following Iran."

"Then just let the intelligence personnel in?"

"Let them in, and keep an eye on them," Reza said. "The port is the best intelligence trap. The more people who come in, the more we know. You set up a special port intelligence team, three to five people, not wearing uniforms, mixed in with the dock workers. Focus on fixed personnel who appear repeatedly, as well as people with abnormal behavior patterns."

Rajai was silent for three seconds, then said, "This plan requires cooperation from Karimi's side."

"I will coordinate when I go back," Reza said. "You select those three to five people first, report the candidates to me, and I will have Karimi give them specialized training."

Rajai finished noting the third thing and looked up.

"Anything else?" Reza asked.

"There is a private matter," Rajai paused. "Not military."

Reza signaled for him to speak.

"One of my subordinates, a platoon leader, broke a leg in the Fao Peninsula campaign. Now the leg is saved, but he cannot walk normally, and he cannot stay in the army," Rajai said. "He is twenty-seven years old, his home is in Shiraz, his wife has two children, and there is no income. I want to fight for a disability allowance for him, but the paperwork has been going on for two months, and it's stuck at the Ministry of Interior."

This matter was not within Reza's authority, but he understood why Rajai mentioned it—this was the first time Rajai had asked him for personal help. He was using this matter to measure the real temperature of the relationship between the two.

"Report the name to me," Reza said. "I will have Karimi go through the Ministry of Interior channels. It shouldn't take more than two weeks."

Rajai nodded, wrote the platoon leader's name on a piece of paper, and handed it over.

Reza tucked the paper into his notebook and stood up.

"You have done very well," Reza said. It wasn't polite pleasantry, it was the truth. "That Basra can be stabilized is largely due to you."

The expression on Rajai's face did not change, but he sat up a little straighter. That was a subtle physical reaction of someone who had been seen.

"Regarding Mahdavi," Reza walked to the door and turned back to say. "Whatever differences you have, talk first. If you can't talk it out, then find me. Don't let differences turn into accumulated resentment."

Rajai responded.

Reza left Rajai's command post. In the car, he forwarded the platoon leader's name to Karimi, and then noted the three things from today in his notebook:

"Waterway infiltration route, directly under General Staff, codenamed 'Laurel', intelligence specification exceeds expectations."

"Southern city defenses being reconnoitered, indicating Saddam Hussein is making attack plans, even during the ceasefire."

"Port intelligence trap, needs coordination with Karimi."

Then he added a line at the very bottom:

"Rajai is a person to whom things can be entrusted. This is more important than any weapon."

The car drove out of Basra's urban area. On both sides were streets where the market was just beginning to recover. There were sporadic vendors setting up things, and a few children running by the roadside. Everything was still in a certain transitional state between ruins and normality.

But compared to two months ago, Reza saw more things—there were a few more stalls by the road, a few more people on the street who weren't rushing but just walking idly, and the iron door of a small shop was half-open, with a little light shining out from inside.

He didn't stop to look.

But he wrote down these details, putting them next to the name of the platoon leader. On that page of the notebook, it wrote the most ordinary and most important thing:

A city, beginning to have the appearance of being alive.