41: Chapter 41 The Fire of Ma Jinong

May 1978 was coming to an end.

The waves of demonstrations in Tehran were consuming the foundations of the old empire at every moment.

Reza knew that the current calm was just an illusion.

The moment that "Persia-1 Type" missile, polished and loaded with high-energy explosives by Fatima herself, took off at the test site would be the moment he truly laid his cards on the table for this era.

"The script of history has already been written, and I am the only reviser." Reza whispered to himself.

The wind blew from the plains in the west, carrying the smell of gunpowder from the border of Iraq.

The dragon flag of Persia was quietly waiting deep underground for the second it would break through the soil.

Three o'clock in the morning.

On the west bank of the Shatt River, eighteen kilometers inside Iraq.

There was no moon.

Hassan lay in a dried-up ditch, pressing his face against the scorching sand, and used hand signals to order the fifty-two men behind him to stop moving.

This team had no uniform markings; the camouflage they wore was a mix of Soviet Union gear and American gear modified for their use, and everyone had thick greasepaint on their faces. If captured, they would have only one identity—Kurdish armed bandits inside Iraq.

This was an identity insurance policy designed personally by Reza.

"Two hundred meters ahead, there are four heat sources on the thermal imager, sitting posture, they are sentries." Hassan's deputy, Javid, reported in a hushed voice, holding an AN/PVS night vision device scavenged from the corpse of a CIA agent, "There is also a BTR-60 on the left, the engine is cold; it must have been stopped for two or three hours."

Hassan did a quick mental calculation.

The target—the oil dispatch center at the southern end of the Majnoon oil field—was a single-story concrete structure housing the flow control systems and communication equipment for six major oil wells in southern Iraq. Blowing it up wouldn't ignite the oil field, but it would paralyze the entire southern oil pipeline network for at least three months.

Reza's orders were very clear: destroy the equipment, do not kill civilian technicians, leave leaflets, and then disappear.

"Split into three groups." Hassan gestured, "I will take the first group to deal with the sentries, Javid's second group is responsible for planting explosives, and Ali's third group will provide perimeter security while preparing those leaflets. Timing: evacuate within twelve minutes."

The operation began.

The seven men in the first group merged into the darkness like ghosts.

The sentries didn't hear a sound. They only felt a sudden chill on their necks, and then their consciousness cut out. Hassan's men had all undergone "Close Quarters Subjugation" training personally designed by Reza—no daggers, just specially modified carotid artery pressure locks. Subdue, do not kill; this was Reza's requirement: dead men would become the fuse for war, but unconscious sentries would only become a point of suspicion.

Javid led the second group into the dispatch center.

Inside were two night-shift technicians playing cards. One of them looked up, saw the black-faced masked man pointing a gun at him, and was so scared he scattered his cards.

"Get down, close your eyes, don't make a sound." Javid said in Arabic, his voice as calm as if he were reciting an evening prayer.

The two technicians obediently lay on the ground, hugging their heads, not daring to even breathe loudly.

Javid scanned the console; it was full of old equipment aided by the Soviet Union, with dense knobs and indicator lights. He didn't touch the precision instruments but walked straight to the core of the dispatch center—six parallel electronic flow control modules and two sets of backup communication transmitters.

He took out the "simplified timed sabotage device" designed by Reza from his backpack.

It wasn't military explosive, but a high-temperature melting device modified by Reza based on industrial sabotage principles. After being powered on, the internal thermite would generate a temperature of 2,500 degrees within two minutes, completely melting any metal equipment it touched into a puddle of scrap iron. There would be no explosion, no flames, only a puff of thick white smoke.

This was designed by Reza specifically for this operation—without an explosion, there would be no news effect of a "military attack," and Iraqi intelligence agencies would initially only think it was an equipment malfunction. By the time they reacted, those leaflets would have already spread.

"Equipment installed." Javid reported in a low voice.

Ali's third group at this time scattered hundreds of leaflets within a three-hundred-meter radius outside the dispatch center. The leaflets were printed with the royal lion-eagle emblem of the Pahlavi Dynasty and a line of Persian:

"Khuzestan is the land of Persia. No matter where the invaders come from, they will become ashes on this land—Iran Royal Guard Khuzestan Special Operations Detachment."

"Withdraw!"

Eleven minutes and forty seconds.

When Hassan disappeared into the darkness of the desert with his fifty-two men, the dispatch center's console began to emit thick white smoke silently. The night-shift technicians climbed up from the ground, looked at the instruments and equipment slowly melting, and were stunned for a full thirty seconds before they remembered to sound the alarm.

Two days later, Baghdad.

Saddam Hussein's Republican Guard headquarters received the accident report from the Majnoon oil field and a sample of those leaflets.

The reconnaissance report showed—no explosions, no traces of gunfights, only four sentries silently subdued and two technicians scared to the point of incontinence, along with a ground full of Persian leaflets.

Saddam Hussein's intelligence minister, Tariq Aziz, looked at the leaflet and was silent for a long time.

"Royal Guard Special Operations Detachment?" He pushed the leaflet in front of Saddam Hussein, "This doesn't look like Pahlavi's style. His Royal Guard are all fancy dress-up dolls who wear uniforms and parade in Tehran."

"Then who is it?" Saddam Hussein lowered his head, his fingers tapping slowly on the desktop, a habit he had when thinking.

"The investigation results only point in one direction—Khuzestan, Prince Reza." Aziz said, "Our 'Saleh Squad' went missing on his turf, and now he has come to 'visit' our turf. This person... is not simple."

Saddam Hussein raised his head, something complex surging in his eyes.

For the first time, he regarded Reza as a chess player who truly needed to be taken seriously.

"Keep an eye on him." Saddam Hussein said, "Tell the Soviet Union advisors that I need more T-72 Tank."

May 28, Ahvaz Governors Mansion.

Reza sat in his study with two letters in front of him.

Both were received today, delivered through two completely different channels.

The one on the left had no sender on the envelope, and the postmark was from Paris. Unfolded, it was written in French, the handwriting neat, and translated it read:

"Mr. Reza, I have heard of everything that happened in Khuzestan. What you are building in the desert is far more than water pumps. I hold the same concern for the future of Persia. If you are willing, we can talk. — A friend from Najaf."

The date on the letter was May 20th.

Reza held this letter in his hand for a long time.

Najaf—that was where Ayatollah Khomeini was in exile, right inside Iraq. This letter transited through Paris, indicating that the writer's liaison network had already crossed the intelligence blockades of multiple countries.

The only people who could contact him at this time node, using this wording, were one type of person—the pragmatists in Ayatollah Khomeini's camp who were not satisfied with a purely "theocratic" path.

Reza quickly searched his historical memories from his previous life.