59: Chapter 56 Muhammadi's Gun

September 28, 1978, a private club in Tehran.

Reza went to meet Lieutenant Colonel Mohammadi in person.

It was not in Ahvaz, nor at any official location; it was a private club Karimi had found in the suburbs of Tehran. The owner was a contact Karimi had made in the business world years ago. It usually hosted wealthy people for cards and tea, and the privacy was excellent.

Reza entered in disguise, having changed into plain clothes. He brought no guards, only Hassan followed him, and the two looked like ordinary guests out for some leisure.

Mohammadi was already waiting in the private room. He was a bit younger than Reza had imagined—forty-two or forty-three, with a military physique and a straight sitting posture. However, his face held something Reza had seen many times recently: the look of a person who, after something inside them has shattered, maintains their original framework on the surface, but the inside of that framework is empty.

Seeing Reza enter, he stood up and instinctively wanted to salute, but stopped himself, choosing instead to offer a simple nod.

"Your Highness."

"Sit," Reza sat down opposite him. "We don't need those things here."

Mohammadi sat back down, hands on the table, and did not beat around the bush:

"Your Highness, I am the deputy brigade commander of the Second Armored Brigade. The brigade commander, Brigadier General Ibrahimi, is a staunch royalist. Before Black Friday, he had requested permission from his superiors to lead his troops into Tehran to conduct a full clearing operation against the protesters if the situation required it."

Reza listened quietly.

"His request was approved," Mohammadi said, with a tremor in his voice that he likely hadn't realized was there. "I am the deputy brigade commander; I saw that approval document."

"And then?"

"Then I thought about it all night in the barracks," Mohammadi said. "When I joined the army, I swore to defend this country and its people, not to point my gun at them." He looked up, staring directly at Reza. "On the day of Jaleh Square, it wasn't our brigade that carried out the mission, but if that order falls on us in the future, I cannot pretend not to know what I am doing."

This was not a man seeking permission, nor was he looking for someone to help him escape; it was a man who had pushed himself to the edge of a choice, seeking a direction he could convince himself to follow.

Reza asked him:

"What is your assessment of the current regime?"

Mohammadi was silent for a few seconds: "It won't hold."

"How much longer can it last?"

"Based on the information I have, morale within the military has clearly diverged. Lower-ranking soldiers with religious backgrounds are privately circulating Ayatollah Khomeini's cassette tapes. A significant portion of mid-level officers are taking a wait-and-see approach. The only ones truly and firmly supporting the royal family are a group of high-ranking officials and those whose wealth and status are tied to the royal family." He paused. "I estimate, no more than a year."

"If I said," Reza spoke slowly, "that after this upheaval ends, Iran needs a true national army—not a religious guard, nor the remnants of the old royal family—would you be willing to participate in building that army?"

Mohammadi looked at Reza, something shifting in his eyes.

"What are you trying to do, Your Highness?" he asked directly, without any circumlocution.

"The result I want," Reza said, just as directly, "is an independent Iran that does not kneel to the United States, is not controlled by any external forces, and has the ability to protect its own people and land. As for how to get there, that is a step-by-step process. This is all I can tell you for now."

Mohammadi lowered his head, tapping his fingers lightly on the tabletop—a gesture of contemplation.

"What can I do now?"

"You don't need to do anything," Reza said. "Continue in your current position, continue being the deputy brigade commander. I only need you to be able to stand up at some point in the future when I need someone clear-headed within the military."

"Is that all?"

"That's all. For now, that's all."

Mohammadi looked up again. The empty space inside that framework seemed to have been filled with something—not full, but no longer completely empty.

"I need to know what position Your Highness is taking," he said. "You are a member of the royal family, but what you are saying is not in the same direction as the royal family."

"I am Persian," Reza said. "The royal family is just my current status, not my position."

Mohammadi clearly hadn't fully digested this statement, but he didn't press further. He sat there for a moment, then said:

"Very well. I will remember what Your Highness has said."

The two finished their tea and left separately, with no written documents or any agreements that could leave a trace.

Reza and Hassan walked out of the club and waited on the roadside for a while, waiting for the car picking them up to pull around.

Hassan whispered: "Is this man reliable?"

"I don't know yet," Reza said. "But he is truly in pain, truly undergoing a fission. This kind of fission cannot be faked." He paused. "A person who can fake this state would be an even more terrifying opponent than Mousavi."

The car arrived, and the two got in. Reza leaned back against the seat and wrote a line in his notebook:

"Mohammadi, deputy brigade commander of the Second Armored Brigade, usable. Timing to be determined. Do not develop a deep relationship for now. Observe periodically."

He closed the notebook and ran through the gains of this trip to Tehran in his mind.

Regarding Mousavi's side, judging from the news passed on later by Najjari, the conclusion of the report was most likely: "The actions of the governor of Khuzestan Province are within a controllable range; the motivation is primarily personal political advancement; no need for focused attention in the short term." This conclusion gave Reza a window of at least two to three months.

The line with Mohammadi had just been planted; now he had to wait. Waiting for the right time.

The stronghold Karimi left in Tehran had made contact with two new people in the last two weeks: one was a mid-level liaison in Ayatollah Khomeini's camp named Bakhtiar, and the other was an administrator of an influential mosque who controlled religious mobilization resources in the southern part of Tehran. Reza instructed Karimi to continue cultivating these two lines—no rush to use them, but keep them warm.

There was one more thing.

Reza listed it separately in his mind, burying it at the very bottom: Ayatollah Khomeini himself.

This was the most complex piece in the entire chess game, because he was not a piece; he was another player, and a player Reza was not entirely confident he could calculate.

In the original history, Ayatollah Khomeini won—won thoroughly, clearing out all potential competitors and establishing a political system with his theological concepts at the core. The resilience of that system far exceeded everyone's expectations.

In this life, what Reza wanted to change was not Ayatollah Khomeini's existence, but his position—let him exist, but do not let him occupy that core position.

Reza knew the difficulty of this better than anyone.

The car wove through the streets of Tehran. Reza looked at the city in the night outside the window; on those streets, one could sporadically see a few nearly extinguished bonfires, the remnants left by the day's demonstrations.

There was less than five months left until the revolution in history.