21: Chapter 21 The Voice of Persia

For the remainder of November, Reza divided his energy across three fronts.

The military front: Fatima and her team worked day and night to crack the inertial navigation system.

She built a prototype using eight gyroscopes and conducted over thirty bench tests within the workshop. The analog computing circuits burned out four times, and each time, she soldered them back together herself.

When the twenty-seventh bench test succeeded, Fatima stood up from behind the test bench, her mouth curving into an extremely brief, nearly invisible arc.

Then she said, "The next step is a live flight test. I need a missile body."

A Persia-1 Type body that had just come off the line at the Cyrus Workshop was pushed into the modification area.

The political front: The offset printing press purchased from Kuwait arrived in Tehran. The new printing site was set up in an old residential house in southern Tehran—the owner was a retired post office worker and an old classmate of Professor Professor Mortazavi. The old man lived alone, had no family, and the neighbors all knew him as a quiet 'good man' who never caused trouble.

The eighth issue of Voice of Persia was successfully printed at the new location. Three thousand copies.

Three times the amount of previous issues.

The report on the last page of the eighth issue—about an unnamed 'local official' in Khuzestan Province pushing for irrigation projects and grain distribution—sparked a small-scale discussion among the students at the University of Tehran.

People were whispering: Who is that 'unnamed local official'?

The seeds had been sown.

The intelligence front: Reza began to establish his own counter-intelligence system.

Although the previous 'Canary Trap' had rooted out the informant in the provincial police department, it exposed a problem—Reza lacked professional counter-intelligence talent. Hassan was an excellent executor but not an intelligence expert. Nasser was a loyal administrator but knew nothing of counter-reconnaissance.

Reza needed a true 'intelligence chief.'

In the memories of his past life, 1970s Iran had a group of former military intelligence officials who had been purged by SAVAK—members of the old military intelligence system from before Shah Pahlavi took power, replaced by SAVAK after the 1953 coup, with most forced into retirement or exile.

They had professional skills, resentment toward the Pahlavi regime, and a desire for a comeback.

Perfect recruitment targets.

Reza had Hassan begin searching for these people through tribal networks. The criteria were specific: over fifty years old, a background in the former Military Intelligence Bureau, currently residing in western provinces of Iran, and not 'completely blacklisted' by SAVAK—meaning they could still move freely.

Three weeks later, Hassan found someone.

Mahdi Karimi. Fifty-eight years old. A former Lieutenant Colonel in the Iranian Military Intelligence Bureau. Ordered to retire by SAVAK in 1954, he had since opened a grocery store in a small town in Lorestan Province, selling sugar and tea for twenty-three years.

But hidden in the back room of the grocery store were all the training manuals he had taken from the Military Intelligence Bureau twenty-three years ago—including counter-reconnaissance, encrypted communications, safehouse setup, personnel vetting, and counter-infiltration.

These manuals were written in Russian—because part of the training materials for the old Iranian intelligence system came from the Soviet Union. Before the 1953 coup, Iran's intelligence cooperation with the Soviet Union was closer than with the United States.

When Karimi was brought to the Khuzestan Governors Mansion, he was wearing a faded old military uniform—he hadn't worn it in twenty-three years, the sleeves were a bit short, and two buttons were missing. But the way he walked in made Hassan instinctively snap to attention.

It was the posture of an old soldier. Something twenty-three years of sugar and tea couldn't grind away.

"Your Highness," Karimi's voice was raspy but steady, "I have waited twenty-three years for this day."

Reza did not shake his hand.

He asked a question first.

"Do you hate SAVAK?"

"I do."

"To what extent?"

"So much that if given the chance, I would personally tear down every wall of SAVAK's Tehran headquarters."

Only then did Reza extend his hand.

"Welcome aboard. But what I want you to do isn't tear down walls—it's to build a new one. A wall to protect our own people."

Karimi shook his hand.

The grip was heavy. It carried the weight of twenty-three years.

From that day on, the security system of the Cyrus Workshop and the counter-intelligence work of Reza's entire underground network were officially handed over to Karimi.

The old Lieutenant Colonel spent a week reviewing all existing security measures—then gave Reza a twelve-page 'list of security vulnerabilities.'

"Your communication methods are too primitive—the walkie-talkies aren't encrypted; anyone with a radio tuned to the right frequency could listen to your conversations."

"Your personnel management has serious flaws—while background checks were done on the Cyrus Workshop workers, there was no cross-verification. No matter how well a person's background story is crafted, it cannot be trusted without confirmation from a second source."

"Your safehouses—if the Governors Mansion counts as a safehouse—have abysmal entry and exit records. Who came in, when they arrived, how long they stayed, and what they brought are all left to the guards' memories. This is not security; this is relying on luck."

After reading the list, Reza gave a wry smile.

He was a geostrategic expert and a defense engineer, not an intelligence officer. His previous counter-intelligence work had relied entirely on 'common sense' from his past life's memories, and it was indeed full of holes compared to a professional's standards.

"Rectify everything according to your plan. Tell Hassan directly whatever resources you need."

"I need three things," Karimi said. "First, six sets of radio encryption equipment—get them from the Soviet Union or East Germany. Second, a secure communication frequency allocation plan—to be changed at least once a week. Third, your trust."

"You already have the third."

Karimi nodded. No wasted words.

Between the old soldier and the young prince, there was no need for flashy rituals of loyalty. Karimi had waited twenty-three years not to pledge allegiance to a person—but to settle the old score from twenty-three years ago with SAVAK and the Pahlavi Dynasty.

And Reza happened to be the one who could help him settle it.

Aligned interests make for the strongest alliance.

December 1977.

Fatima completed the adaptation of the inertial navigation system.

The first Persia-1 Type missile equipped with gyroscopic guidance—designated P1-G01, with 'G' standing for 'Guided'—lay quietly in the deepest assembly workshop of the Cyrus Workshop.

The grayish-black missile body looked no different from the previous unguided version, but a new compartment had been added to the middle section—containing the gyroscopes, analog computing circuits, and four pneumatic actuators.

Fatima stood beside the missile body, holding a notebook filled with data.

"All bench tests passed. The theoretical deviation is three hundred and fifty meters. The actual deviation won't be known until the flight test."

"When is the test?"

"Anytime."

Reza checked the calendar.

December 19, 1977.

Twelve days until 1978.

Less than a year until the upheaval in Iran.

"Schedule it for December 25th," he said.

"Why choose Christmas?"

"Because the Americans are on holiday."

Fatima glanced at him.

That nearly invisible arc at the corner of her mouth appeared again.