36: Chapter 36 Dancers on the Fish Line

In Ahvaz during May, the wind already carried a dry heat.

Reza Bahrami worked absentmindedly at his welding station in the Cyrus Workshop. Ever since being transferred to this "precast component transport and rough welding" position, he hadn't seen those core "metal cylinders" with their precision patterns again.

He knew his employer had developed a sliver of suspicion toward him.

His employer was a Level 3 SAVAK agent in Ahvaz, codenamed "Blacksmith." Two months ago, the man had pulled him behind a carpet stall in the Grand Bazaar and stuffed a stack of Rials into his hand. The request was simple: find out exactly what Prince Reza's underground workshop was building.

At first, Reza thought it was just ordinary royal smuggling; after all, everyone in the Pahlavi family was involved in that kind of business. But when he saw those composite material skins and precision gyroscope mounts, he realized this was a matter of life and death.

The greater the risk, the higher the price. Reza was greedy, but he wasn't stupid; he had to take one last piece of evidence before being moved away from the core area.

Two in the afternoon, the sweltering peak of the day in the workshop.

Fatima hurried through the corridor with two assistants, clutching a thick stack of blueprints. As she passed Reza's semi-open welding bay, a porter bumped into her, scattering documents everywhere.

"Don't you have eyes?!" Fatima snapped, her voice laced with exhaustion and anxiety.

The porter apologized repeatedly, scrambling to help her pick them up. Crouching nearby, Reza's eyes were fixed on a blueprint that had slid to his feet.

The blueprint was titled: "Khuzestan Agricultural Revitalization Plan — Core Components for 3,000-Meter Deep Well High-Power Submersible Pumps."

The annotations beside it were all tedious fluid dynamics parameters and impeller rotation speeds.

Fatima snatched the paper back, gave Reza a harsh glare, and turned into the sealed cleanroom.

Reza's heart skipped a beat.

Submersible Pumps?

He had clearly seen a nose cone similar to a missile warhead that day; although the sensors weren't installed yet, he couldn't have mistaken that curve. Could it be... that his technical skills were truly lacking, and he had mistaken a pump impeller casing for a warhead?

He wasn't satisfied. At ten in the evening, taking advantage of a ten-minute window during the guards' shift change, he slipped into the filing office that Fatima had "accidentally" left unlocked.

The office smelled of a mixture of machine oil and cheap coffee. The beam of Reza's flashlight darted across the desk like a startled snake.

He found the stack of documents.

"Funding Application Report Regarding the Localization of Irrigation Equipment for the Ahvaz Arid Zone."

Attached below was an instruction signed by Prince Reza himself: "This project concerns the livelihood of Khuzestan Province. Mass production must be achieved by year-end to address a potential food crisis."

Reza flipped through quickly; the rest were all outdated industrial pump designs. Though large-scale, they were definitely not weapons. He even saw a blueprint for "Submersible Pump casing reinforcement ribs" that was identical to the work he had been doing in the welding workshop for the past few days.

"Damn... Is it really just a pump?"

He felt a bit annoyed but also relieved. If it were a missile, he was gambling with his life; if it were a pump, he was just stealing evidence of the royal family misappropriating military funds for infrastructure. He could still collect a reward from SAVAK for that, but at least he wouldn't be secretly executed.

He didn't notice an infrared camera watching him coldly from a gap in the ceiling ventilation duct.

In the second-floor monitoring room, Reza leaned back in his chair, the glow of his cigarette flickering at his fingertips.

"He's made his move." Hassan stood in the shadows, his hand already on the Glock at his waist. "Your Highness, should we take care of him now?"

"No." Reza exhaled a plume of blue smoke. "Let him pass the information along. That Level 3 SAVAK agent, 'Blacksmith,' is just a small-timer looking for merit. People like him are most afraid of making false reports and are easily deceived by a disguised truth. If he reports that 'the Prince is building pumps to embezzle money,' SAVAK's top brass will simply categorize it as internal royal corruption and won't even bother to look at the file."

"What about Fatima?"

"Let her keep acting. Starting next week, have Karimi bring in a batch of real pump parts and mix them into the material piles. I want this workshop to look like a civilian pump factory that has to hand-forge parts due to a lack of funding to anyone conducting a surprise inspection."

Reza stood up and walked to the window.

"Remember, Hassan, true secrets are never hidden behind locks; they are hidden within people's self-righteous perceptions. They think I'm an ignorant discard who only wants to embezzle money for self-preservation, so I'll sew that skin onto myself permanently."