by Ted Halstead
Neda had done her best to restrain her delight at this discovery, though it wasn't easy. An American passport could be her ticket out! Further conversation had revealed that Kazem had made several trips to the US and Europe after graduating from Michigan State, primarily for academic conferences. This cemented Neda's mental image of Kazem as someone who was free to travel to the West, unlike nearly all Iranians.
This, she decided on the spot, was the man she would marry.
Naturally, turning intention into reality took some time. Neda very quickly realized that Kazem would never see her as a possible candidate for marriage before she graduated, but fortunately that happened a few months later. She was also careful not to pick nuclear physics as her incoming graduate major, even though it interested her the most, because he would be even less likely to consider marrying one of his students. She could always change it later, once she knew one way or the other whether things would work out with Kazem.
Those hurdles passed, Neda approached the most important — her mother.
Fortunately, her relief at her daughter's finally having found a man she wanted for a husband overwhelmed what would have been her normal impulse to question Neda's choice. After all, in her mind the initiative should have been hers, not her daughter's.
It helped that Kazem had a completely respectable and solid job, had never been married before, and was substantially older than Neda. There was also no question that they had done anything inappropriate in coming to know each other. Her mother believed Neda when she said that they had only had coffee on campus a few times outside the classroom.
In fact, Neda had found Kazem frustratingly difficult to get to know as anything but a professor. The only reason he was willing to speak to her outside class is that she had been the only student to in any way contradict him. He thought, but didn't add to her, in a way that made me acknowledge to myself I may have been mistaken. Kazem liked Neda, but was completely absorbed in his academic work, and the plans he had not yet abandoned to make Iran a nuclear power. Of course, he would have never discussed Iran's nuclear weapons program with any student.
However, Kazem's parents were just as unhappy as Neda's that they had no grandchildren. Though less conservative than Neda's parents, they had also been patient considerably longer. Once Neda's mother contacted them, Kazem found himself swiftly at a family dinner with Neda and both sets of parents.
After his initial surprise faded, Kazem found himself shrugging internally.
He had always planned to marry someday. Neda was beautiful, intelligent, and he respected her. His parents liked her. What more did he want?
Their honeymoon in Paris had fanned the flames of Neda's desire to leave Iran into a roaring blaze. She loved everything about Paris, and would have given anything to live there and never go back to Iran. Neda had been sorely tempted to just walk out of the door of their hotel and never come back.
Only two things had stopped her. The first was that she really did like Kazem, and knew she wouldn't be able to look at herself in the mirror after leaving him on their honeymoon. The second was more practical — she had little money, and no source of income. As a married woman on a French tourist visa, she knew her old plan of marrying a Westerner would no longer work.
So, Neda decided to wait. She would get her graduate degree, get a job and save her money, and then on their next trip out of Iran make her escape.
The first part and second parts of her plan went perfectly. The third failed completely. After graduation her job as an undergraduate lecturer in nuclear physics paid quite well, and she was glad Kazem had turned out to have no objection to her decision to switch majors after their marriage. In fact, Neda thought Kazem believed she had done it out of admiration for him, and been secretly flattered. Neda was happy to let Kazem think what he liked, as long as it got her what she wanted. She had even been able to quietly convert a fair quantity of her earnings from Iranian rials to euros and US dollars.
But Kazem had no interest in traveling outside Iran.
Neda had always been a firm believer in predicting what people would do by what they had done, not what they said. That's why she had never discussed travel outside Iran with Kazem, except for planning their honeymoon. His many trips to America and Europe, including years of study in America and his US passport, all made it a given to Neda that there would be more trips outside Iran.
This was one time, though, that conversation would have served Neda well. She found out after waiting for a year to propose a vacation to Europe that he had no interest in tourist travel outside Iran. As Kazem made clear the first time she brought it up, all his travel outside Iran had been for study or work, with the sole exception of their honeymoon. When Neda suggested a few extra days after an academic conference she wanted to attend in London, the discussion became particularly unpleasant.
It turned out that once Kazem had been identified as the head of Iran's nuclear weapons program, he had become unwelcome at any related academic event. Even after the Americans walked away from the JCPOA, Kazem was still off every invitation list. Neda had never seen Kazem bitter before. It was not a good look.
So, her brilliant plan had backfired completely. Neda was married to a US citizen who could travel to America or Europe anytime he wanted to go.
Which turned out to be never.
What could she do now?
Chapter Four
Assembly of Experts Secretariat, Qom, Iran
Grand Ayatollah Sayyid Vahid Turani was a patient man. He had learned patience the hard way, waiting over thirty years for his predecessor as Iran’s Supreme Leader to finally meet his maker. The day was finally about to come, though, and once the Supreme Leader’s coma released him to Paradise then Vahid would finally be able to right the many mistakes made by the last Supreme Leader as well as Iran’s elected leadership.
Vahid had recognized long ago that Iran’s perpetual isolation, far from being seen as negative by its leaders, was actually desired for several reasons.
International sanctions were used to justify government ownership of the bulk of Iranian industry and much of its service sector. Oil and gas production accounted for most of Iran’s export earnings, and was entirely government controlled. Iran Electronics Industries was as well, producing everything from semiconductors to satellites. With over a hundred subsidiaries, the government’s Industrial Development & Renovation Organization of Iran was involved in everything from auto manufacturing to health care. The Iran Insurance Company used government backing to account for over half of the policies issued in Iran.
As well as guaranteed lifetime government salaries, isolation also justified continued repression, including suppression of legitimate complaints about the miserable living conditions for Iranians not among the lucky few with government jobs. After all, surrounded by enemies how could the authorities tolerate disorder?
Most important of all, Iran’s isolation justified its continued control by an unelected theocracy. Obviously, an Iran under continuous threat from the West could hardly afford to experiment with untried forms of government-such as genuine democracy.
Vahid was well aware of the irony of his situation. On the one hand, he would need every bit of the considerable power of the position of Supreme Leader to push through significant change. On the other, the changes he planned would end up weakening his position as Supreme Leader — and maybe even ending the clergy’s control of the government.
Vahid shrugged. He had always known he would have to move carefully to have any chance of success. Now he had to hope that the relationships he had carefully built over the previous decades he had served in the Assembly of Experts would supply him with the information he needed to make his plans reality.
The report he was reading on “temporary marriages” made Vahid’s upper lip curl, and was a perfect example of the aberrations he planned to remove from Iranian society. Literally translated as ‘pleasure marriage’ (nikah mut’aa), a temporary marriage typically laste
d for three to six months. The woman usually received a sum of money at the start of the marriage, which — incredibly — was recorded as valid by any mullah in Iran following a ceremony at a mosque.
So, Vahid thought, the man could make use of the woman and then discard her without consequence. Of course, no respectable man would ever consider her subsequently for marriage, since she would no longer be a virgin. It did not even occur to Vahid that no Iranian man would ever be held to this standard.
However, Vahid did frown impatiently when the report described the basis for permitting such marriages in Iran, when they were forbidden in most other Muslim countries. Oral tradition. Given credence in Shiite tradition and generally condemned by Sunni clerics, statements attributed to the Prophet Mohammed but nowhere to be found in the Koran were in Vahid’s view one of the primary sources of many of Iran’s current problems.
Now, if he could just figure out a way to make the case that this and other traditions needed to be ended without being branded as a Sunni sympathizer as soon as he became Supreme Leader.
Tehran, Iran
Neda Rhahbar had never given up on her dream to leave Iran. Her younger sister Azar had married right out of high school, and done it to fulfill her dream of escaping her parents' house. Azar's husband had a government job as an inspector that required him to travel around Iran frequently, which she knew before agreeing to the marriage arranged by her mother.
Azar never went with him on these trips.
Azar was also determined to avoid being tied down by children, and was helped by two factors. The first was that her husband was not particularly interested in having children. The second was that when Azar married, birth control was free and endorsed by both the government and the religious authorities. This was due to a realization that Iran's exploding population was far outstripping the government's ability to provide it with employment and services. So, without telling her husband, Azar had a tubal ligation.
Until Neda married herself, she hesitated about following suit because she thought a potential foreign spouse might balk at a marrying a woman unable to have children. Once she married Kazem, though, those concerns disappeared. Neda had the procedure just in time, before yet another policy change from the government and the religious authorities. They had decided that, even though job prospects for Iranians were still poor, they wanted a rapidly growing population after all.
Neda shook her head in disgust as she remembered a billboard that had appeared all over Iran to mark the policy change. On one side was a family with two parents and two children, looking sad and lonely. On the other was a family bursting with children, who along with the parents were all happy and smiling.
This was one area where Kazem's obsession with his job worked to Neda's advantage. Kazem had never discussed children with her, and Neda guessed correctly that he saw them as a distraction, when he thought of children at all.
Though her mother was disappointed, she did no more than make a few comments about Neda having "waited too long" to get married.
This left Neda and Azar free to use each other as alibis when they wanted to leave the house. Neither did anything that would have seemed out of the ordinary for a married woman in any Western country, and sometimes they actually did do things like shopping together. Sometimes Azar invited friends to her home, many of them women from other countries, and Neda came as well to learn about the world outside Iran. But the fact that they had to lie to even go alone to a cafe grated on both of them.
Azar had joined the thousands of Iranian women who had protested the laws requiring head coverings by walking down the street without one, but was one of the lucky few who avoided arrest. After the government crackdown intensified, Azar put her scarf back on, but picked a brightly colored one that served to symbolize her disdain for the practice. Neda sympathized with the protesters, but could not imagine spending even a minute inside an Iranian jail. Besides, she wanted far more than to leave home without a scarf, and one way or another was determined to find the freedom she had been seeking for years.
Whatever it took.
Tehran, Iran
Kazem Shirvani had run into Farhad Mokri less than a block from his apartment.
"Good!", Farhad exclaimed. "I had been worried I would be late."
Kazem shook his head. "No, as usual you are exactly on time, one of the things I've always liked about you. You'll have to give me a minute to make tea. I think I mentioned that your aunt is visiting her sister, so you'll have to put up with my brew again."
Farhad laughed. "Uncle, you know that the chance to drink tea made right is one of the things that always brings me back home."
Kazem thought Farhad was just being polite, but was still pleased.
As they entered the apartment, Kazem snapped on the lights. "It will only take me a few minutes. Please, make yourself at home."
Farhad walked around the living room, looking at the books lining the shelves across from the windows. Unsurprisingly, they were all related to Kazem's work. As he sat on the large sofa and was nearly swallowed by its cushions, Kazem came in from the kitchen holding a large silver tray full of cakes and cookies.
Farhad smiled. "Uncle, this is very nice of you. I'm beginning to believe I really am your favorite nephew!"
Kazem shrugged. "Actually, it is your aunt you have to thank for this. I called and told her you were coming, and not to cancel the visit she had promised her sister. She must have bought these before she left. Obviously, we need to be finished talking about your project before she returns."
Kazem was correct about Neda Rhahbar having visited a nearby bakery after his call, and she had planned to go to a movie while supposedly "visiting her sister." But she had a headache that Neda knew from experience would never let her enjoy the film. So, she had turned off all the lights in the apartment and crawled into bed, hoping the headache would disappear in time to let her spend some time with her nephew, who always had stories about his travels outside Iran.
Neda was still asleep when Kazem and Farhad began their conversation, which began as soon as Kazem had finished pouring their tea.
Kazem took a sip and said, "The first point I must emphasize is that these devices were never intended for use as weapons. Their primary purpose was to give our technicians experience with the challenges involved in nuclear weapons production, and to help us decide which of the three designs we would produce in larger quantities. It is also important to note that while two of the devices were built using Uranium-235, one was built using Plutonium-239."
Farhad shook his head. "I'm sorry, uncle. Why does the radioactive material used in the weapon matter?"
Kazem raised his eyebrows. "Never apologize for asking when you need knowledge. In fact, I will only be upset if you fail to ask questions. I have been immersed in this program for so long that sometimes I forget what is obvious to me is not to most others."
Kazem paused, as he thought about the best way to explain the difference between the two nuclear materials. At the same moment, Neda woke up, and reached for the switch on the lamp next to her bed. What she heard next made her hand freeze.
"If you plan to use these nuclear weapons to attack targets in Saudi Arabia, you must use the plutonium device against the one that is the farthest from a population center. That is especially true if there is a subcritical detonation,"
Kazem said.
Seeing Farhad's look of confusion, Kazem smiled. “Let me begin at the beginning. There are three possible outcomes when each of these weapons are detonated. First, it may fail altogether. Second, it may detonate as designed. Third, it may explode, but fail to perform as designed. That would be a subcritical detonation, also called a fizzle."
Farhad nodded. “I understand, uncle. But why would such a result be more dangerous to people nearby?"
Kazem shrugged. “It might not be. If the plutonium device performs exactly as designed, it would be bad enough for anyone in the area. However, a fizzle would distribute all of the p
lutonium in the device over a wide area.
The results would be far less spectacular than a successful detonation, but could result in even higher casualties."
Farhad frowned. “Is the fallout really that dangerous?".
Kazem nodded. "Yes. The basic yardstick is that five hundred grams of powdered plutonium has the potential to kill about two million people if inhaled. A fizzle is likely to both pulverize the plutonium contained in the device, and to send it airborne. Of course, prevailing winds and many other factors will play a role in exactly how much plutonium would be distributed from a fizzle."
Farhad cocked his head. "And how much plutonium is contained in your device?"
Kazem waved his hands. "I should point out that as with all such devices, the plutonium is present in an alloy with gallium for stability. However, only about one percent of the alloy is gallium. Our design uses about the same amount of plutonium as the device the Americans detonated at Nagasaki, roughly six kilograms."
Farhad winced as he thought through the figures Kazem had just given.
“So, times two million dead…"
Kazem laughed. “No, no! For a start, there aren't that many people living in the entire Saudi Eastern Province! Also, though much of the plutonium may be pulverized in a fizzle, some is likely to be ejected from the blast site in solid chunks. Depending on the winds on the day of the explosion, some powdered plutonium will be blown into uninhabited desert. Still, you see why I say the plutonium device should be used as far from a population center as possible."
Neda, listening in the bedroom upstairs, certainly saw why that was true.
What she didn’t understand was why her husband and nephew were talking about attacking Saudi Arabia with nuclear weapons. It was all the more frustrating that she had to strain to hear their conversation, since she didn't dare leave the bedroom.
Farhad frowned. “Uncle, what you say about the danger of plutonium from a fizzle deeply concerns me. Casualties are inevitable. But we must avoid deaths numbering in the millions, or abandon this plan. Is there anything else you can tell me about a plutonium release? Has it happened before?"