Chapter 33 – Thief Identification
The Colonel was The Aya’s goto guy now, but it hadn’t always been so. The Colonel was in his second career, so to speak, having rehabilitated his reputation and position after a bad go round in his first career. The reason the Iranian nuclear power (weapons) program is in the state it is today goes back twenty years, which was the era of Aliaabaadi’s first career. Back then Iran had built its first nuclear reactor, a little thing that put out enough power to run a couple of toasters, on a good day. Regardless of its output, it was homemade, and a source of great pride and growing ambition for a larger and more powerful one, among the few dozen people that knew of its existence. It was located in downtown Tehran, near a large commercial bakery that made the Iranian equivalent of Wonder Bread. None of the people who knew about the reactor ever ate any of that bread. In fact, none of the higher ups ever went near the place, requiring that sacrifice of the lower downs, whom they persuaded to make such a sacrifice with lots of promises of virgins forever later on. Like, much later on, and you know what is meant by that. The reactor itself was the size of a refrigerator, but the centrifuges required to refine the crappy raw uranium the Russians gave them took up a warehouse the size of a football field.
The reactor ran for a year, powering the toasters and the ambitions of engineers, politicians, and Lesser Ayatollahs, all of whom saw it as their ticket to status and power. All they had to do was figure out how to make one big enough to run an electric plant that could power all the houses in Tehran (make hydrogen bombs with Tel Aviv painted on the side). The problem for the Colonel, who was in charge of security for the reactor, was that the Israelis also developed ambitions about the reactor, and these ambitions centered on how to destroy it, and by doing so, destroy the nuclear program in its infancy. There were more Israelis who knew about the reactor than Iranians. The Israelis had no real problem with increasing the supply of electricity to the city, but they did have a problem with those bombs and what was written on them.
Most of the Israelis thought they should just send over a few American made jets and level the place, promising there would be no damage, or maybe just a little, to the bakery. Remember, this was twenty years ago, before the Iranians had started building their nuke sites deep underground. But there was a small contingent who wanted to see the reactor in order to determine the level of technology the Iranians had developed, and in the end their view won the day. So, they stole the reactor. One day it was there, hooked up to the toasters, and the next day it wasn’t. Someone went into the building with a loaf of the Iranian version of Wonder Bread, thinking he would come out with toast for all the engineers and technicians who still could eat solid food, not yet having graduated to the last stage of radiation poisoning at which they walked around with liquid packs on their backs from which they were fed intravenously, working right up to the blessed day when they would pass over and finally meet their personal harem of forty Vs. This was forty each, remember, so if two engineers died on the same day, there were eighty of the dolls over there, waiting and ready. Anyway, the guy with the loaf went in, and there were the toasters, but the reactor was gone.
What was really impressive about this Israeli operation was that it was done before Mossad invented the stealth clothing and silent commando tunneling technology. To this day, only a handful of people know how they pulled it off, and none of them are Iranian. No one would like to know more than Colonel Aliaabaadi, who was in charge of security, and who subsequently spent ten years cleaning out camel stalls at one of the more remote border stations in the southern desert. This site is so remote even Google Earth can’t find it. How he escaped execution was of interest to a lot of people in the Revolutionary Guard Corps, but their best guess was that he had some dirt on someone really high up. In any event, after his ten years of co-habitating with the camels and dreaming of his future stock of Vs, he rejoined the Guard and worked his way back up to Colonel, and eventually, to The Aya’s goto guy. Now that’s an impressive career rehabilitation.
The Colonel was practicing on one of his own terrestrial virgins (he didn’t want to disappoint any of his celestial ones, whom everyone had heard were very demanding) when Shazam knocked on the door of his apartment. The Colonel said, “Go away. I’m working.”
Shazam said, “Sir, Colonel Sir, The Ayatollah requires your presence. And I’m just the messenger, Sir. Don’t shoot through the door.”
“Shit. Ok.” He extricated himself from his work, washed his face, squeezed into his uniform, told the V not to move, and followed the flunky down through sixteen levels of the central compound to The Big Guy’s digs. “Yes, Your Holiness. How may I serve you?”
“There has arisen an issue that requires your special level of expertise and confidence. Do you understand?”
“Yes, Your Holiness.”
“Do you remember the time you spend with the camels in the southern desert?”
“Yes, Your Holiness.” Some of the Vs thought he still smelled like a camel, all these years later.
“That outpost still exists. Would you like to go back there for the remainder of your military career?”
“No, Your Holiness.”
“Then you will keep what I am about to tell you secret, from everyone and everybody, so help you Allah?”
“Yes, Your Holiness.”
“There has been a theft from the People. A theft of money that was to be distributed to the People to ease their burden in this life, before passing on to that great land of perpetual virginity in the sky.” It was understood between The Aya and The Colonel that this had to do with the male People of the country, the females being of less, if any, consideration. The Colonel remained mute, this sounding like a very interesting and potentially lucrative secret mission. “You will investigate this theft and bring the evildoer to justice. You will tell no one what is behind your investigation, or who is behind your investigation, only that you have orders from on high and are under the strictest demand for secrecy. Do you understand?”
“Yes, Your Holiness.”
“You will report to no one other than me, do you understand?” The Colonel thought, Jesus, I get the picture, don’t worry. He nodded solemnly. “The People’s money was in a bank account, and now it's not there. You will find it and return it to me, who holds it in trust for the country, and exact revenge on that person or persons responsible for this abomination. That is your sacred mission, and I expect results. Any questions?”
The Colonel knew better than to ask much, especially not how much money had been stolen, but he did ask, “Do we have any clues, Your Holiness?”
The Big Guy yelled towards the door of the apartment, “Shazam, get your ass in here.”
Before the e in here had finished echoing off the walls, Shazam materialized in front of his master. “Yes, Your Holiness.”
“Give The Colonel the information about the People’s theft. It’s his job to find the perpetrator and missing goods. You two are the only ones who know of this miscarriage of justice and the mission to bring restitution to our holy land. Keep it that way, understood?” Both of the missives bowed down and vacuumed spots on the old carpet with their bated inhalations. All they wanted to do was get out of there while they still had breaths in their bodies. “Results, hear me? Results.”
Shazam and The Colonel dematerialized out of there and regrouped in one of the other circles of the central compound, where their heart rates returned to normal. The Colonel assumed his natural state of superiority over Shazam by saying, “What do you have for me, flunky?” Shazam didn’t say anything, just handed him the scrap of paper with the address of Laleh’s apartment on it. “That’s all? An address?”
“Yes, Sir. That is the address of the person or persons who stole The Aya’s, er, the People’s money.”
“C’mon, tell me what you know. There has to be more. I gotta have more than this to go on. It’s my neck here.”
r />
“It’s like he said, the money was in a bank account, and now it’s gone. The account is in a bank in the Caribbean, but there was a link to the Bank of Tehran, and all we know is that the person at that address went into that account and did something. We don’t know what.”
The Colonel again looked at the scrap of paper, and then back at Shazam. “If I find you’re holding out on me, it’s into one of the reactor buildings with you. No protection. You know what that means?” Shazam nodded. “You ever seen someone with Grade 4 radiation sickness?” Shazam never had seen that, but he could imagine it, so he nodded yes. The Colonel gave him one last grim stare, and walked out.
When he got back to his office he handed the paper to one of his technicians and said, “Tell me who lives at this address.” The technician sat down at his computer, opened a program, typed the address into the search bar, and waited. When the result showed on the screen, the technician wrote a name on the paper and handed it back to the Colonel, who read, “Laleh Khorram.” Laleh, Laleh, where had he heard that name recently? He walked back to his office and sat down at his desk. Laleh. And then he remembered, the family with the missing daughter, the daughter who was good with computers. His eyes narrowed.