51: Chapter 48 Flames

August 1978, Ahvaz.

261 meters—a reduction of nearly 20 meters from the previous 280 meters.

Reza drew a circle around that number, then wrote a line: "Continue optimizing the guidance system; the target is within 150 meters. At the same time, begin designing a mobile launch platform using a modified truck chassis, requiring a road speed of no less than 70 kilometers per hour."

After that demonstration at the University of Tehran, the suppression tactics used by SAVAK were almost identical to the original version in Reza's memory—they dispatched two battalions of plainclothes officers and arrested about thirty organizers, seven of whom were thrown into Evin Prison. Once the news got out, public opinion exploded.

It wasn't because of the arrests themselves, but because of the pamphlet.

Reza's article, "Who is Selling Out the Land of Persia," was spotted by reporters at the scene of the demonstration. Two tabloid newspapers published it in full. SAVAK immediately shut down those two newspapers, but the act of banning them only served to spread the content of the pamphlet even further—the more people are forbidden from seeing something, the more they want to see it. This was an instinct that had not changed in thousands of years of human history.

Three weeks later, handwritten copies of that article began circulating among student circles and worker enclaves in Tehran, Isfahan, and Tabriz. No one knew who the author was, and all sorts of speculations were flying around. Some said it was written by intellectuals in exile, others said it was a dissident general in the military, and there was even a version claiming it was a secret aide to Ayatollah Khomeini, because the sections in the article criticizing the United States were written so ruthlessly.

In Ahvaz, Reza watched these developments with the calmness of someone who had played a chess move and was waiting for his opponent's reaction.

But there was a thorn in that calmness.

That thorn's name was Abbas Najjari.

Abbas Najjari, the head of the Khuzestan Province branch of SAVAK, forty-seven years old, with twenty-three years of experience. He was a professional agent in the truest sense—he didn't care for money, wasn't lecherous, and his only hobby was playing Persian chess. In the Ahvaz chess scene, he had the nickname "Iron Wall" because his playing style was extremely conservative; he never took risks and won games specifically by waiting for his opponents to make mistakes.

Reza disliked dealing with people like this most, because being conservative meant he was not easy to scheme against, and not taking risks meant he was not easy to lure into a trap.

But someone like this appearing in Khuzestan was a thorn that had to be pulled out.

The problem was, when to pull it, and how to pull it.

When Hassan organized Najjari's file into a thin stack of paper and delivered it to Reza's desk, Reza flipped through it twice, pulled out one page, and stared at it for a long time.

That page was a diagram of Najjari's interpersonal relationships—family members, colleagues, superiors and subordinates—which Karimi's men had spent three months mapping out. The name Reza was looking at was on the edge of the diagram, marked with a small pencil circle—Najjari had a nephew named Daoud, who was a junior studying chemistry at the University of Tehran. He was one of the thirty people taken in for questioning by SAVAK during the demonstration. He had been released after the questioning, but he was on record.

A SAVAK branch chief, and his nephew had participated in an anti-government demonstration and been taken in for questioning by his own people.

This detail was very small, so small that it wasn't even mentioned in Najjari's file; it had been dug up separately by Karimi's men.

Reza put the paper down, wrote a few words in his notebook, tore it off, and handed it to Hassan: "Find Daoud, confirm his current situation and thoughts. Do not make contact, only observe. Report back within a week."

The results of the observation were returned eight days later.

Daoud Najjari, twenty years old, chemistry major. After the questioning, he was in low spirits, his class attendance had dropped, and he had started frequenting a used bookstore near the University of Tehran. That bookstore was a semi-public base for leftist students, selling internal publications that lacked ISBNs. His uncle Najjari had called him once after the questioning ended. According to the version relayed later by the bookstore owner, after hanging up the phone, Daoud had slammed the receiver onto the desk and then gone outside to smoke half a pack of cigarettes.

A rift had appeared between these two people.

Reza looked at this report, thought for about ten minutes, and then made a decision:

Do not move against Najjari for now.

The reason was simple—a SAVAK branch chief with a rift between him and his nephew was more useful in the future than a SAVAK branch chief who was a solid, impenetrable block. Once a person had a fracture within their family, their professional judgment would develop subtle biases, and biases were exactly what Reza was best at exploiting.

He told Hassan to file the report and wrote four words on the cover: "Keep, pending use."

In mid-August, the workshop received some unexpected good news.

Iskandari, with the fifteen-person machining team he had recruited, had completed the first batch of trial cylinder liners on an old horizontal lathe salvaged from the Isfahan used machinery market. There were twelve pieces in total, with inner diameter tolerances all controlled within ±0.06 millimeters, and three of them achieved ±0.04 millimeters.

Fatima personally tested each one, sent the data back to Ahvaz by telegram, and added one sentence at the end: "Six weeks ahead of schedule. Iskandari's group of master craftsmen really know their stuff."

Reza replied: "Give them a raise. Increase everyone's monthly salary by 30%, bonuses separate."

Then he sat alone in the room for a while.

±0.06 millimeters. What did this number mean? To use a metaphor, it was roughly this: the diameter of a strand of hair is about 0.07 millimeters, so their margin of error was already finer than a single hair. Using the industrial conditions of 1970s Iran, on a lathe that was decades old, relying on a group of machinists who had never built engine parts before, to achieve this precision—this was not a miracle; it was the limit reached by a group of truly skilled craftsmen in a state of forced focus.

Reza recalled a sentence he had read in his past life, talking about Soviet Union factories during World War II: "Machines can be moved, but the craftsman's skill grows in their hands. As long as the people are still there, the factory is still there."

He copied the test data of the twelve cylinder liners onto a card, pressed it under the glass on his desk, and placed it in a position where he could see it every day.

In late August, the situation in Tehran escalated another notch.

The Abadan cinema fire, with hundreds of victims. Rumors among the people were that SAVAK had started the fire. No one could confirm the truth, but at that point in time, the truth itself no longer mattered—what mattered was what people believed. The crowd believed SAVAK had done it, and that was enough.

Reza received the news in Ahvaz and fell silent for two minutes.

Abadan. That was in Khuzestan Province, less than two hundred kilometers from Ahvaz.

This fire didn't just burn down a cinema; it burned the last rope holding the hearts of the people to the entire dynasty.