The Last Enemy - Part 2 - 2011-2023

by Luca Luchesini

  Chapter 28

  The first winter snow was blanketing the mountains around Teheran. Alireza Gilani, the head of the foreign service of the VAJA, the Ministry of Intelligence of Iran, liked to look at them to draw inspiration when he was facing a particularly challenging situation.

  “This is a tough call,” he thought, as he read the reports received from Lebanon and the Gaza strip for the third time. He had to report to the Minister in a few hours and he had not yet figured out what type of threat his country was facing.

  The first event occurred in August 2016, when at one of the tunnel building sites in Gaza, four workers suddenly died. Then something eerily similar happened again at two other sites in Gaza and then at three secret missile caches in Lebanon, all within less than two months from the first incident.

  In total, the allies of Iran - Hamas in Gaza and Hizbullah in Lebanon - had lost nineteen members, plus three innocent people who were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time.

  Then, rumors started to spread that workers at those sites were exposed to dangerous substances that killed people, and this made recruitment much more difficult and expensive. There was a serious risk that could jeopardize the next campaign against Iran’s arch-enemy, the Zionist State of Israel.

  Alireza was sure the Israelis were behind this. In at least two cases, Israeli drones had been spotted nearby, and for him this was evidence enough. He still needed to figure out all the rest to be able to respond to the attacks, though, and after four months from the first one he still had little insight.

  According to Islamic law, all the victims had been immediately buried within the next day, and as unburying was viewed as a profanation, Alireza had ordered to bring the corpses of the victims of the next attack to Teheran for a post-mortem examination. However, this was met by the strong resistance of his allies, as Alireza was unable to guarantee that the bodies would be back in time to comply with the Muslim burial practice.

  On the contrary, Alireza knew the corpses had to stay in Teheran for a fairly long period of time.

  This was an unfair advantage their enemies had, as the Israelis and Americans would have unburied and dissected the corpse without blinking an eye.

  The situation reminded him of ‘The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Tulp’, the painting from Rembrandt he had seen in The Hague while working in the Netherlands, at the beginning of his career. For Alireza, this painting conveyed all the most dangerous Western vices that he had vowed to protect his people from. Rembrandt had been able to portray the insane curiosity to explore the border between life and death, the excitement for the discoveries of the new science, and the quiet awareness that this knowledge could be transformed into power over the world and other human beings. All things that God had clearly forbidden. This was the radical difference between him and his Western enemies, not just the fight for power over Middle East, or the different moral habits that the Islamic Republic defended.

  However, if he wanted to continue to lead his battle with a chance of success, Alireza had to turn himself into some kind of Dr. Tulp.

  “My God,” he prayed, “it is very difficult to fight an enemy that is putting you in a dilemma; either to abide by my religion and lose, or win by denying what I want to be.”

  Then he looked at the clock. There was no more time. He rehearsed his proposal for the Minister, then called his assistant and left the office to join the meeting.

  When he came back, he was relieved. The Minister, a doctor of Islam as the Iranian constitution dictated, had approved his plan. He picked up the phone, and called his chief agent in Lebanon on the secure satellite line.

  Three weeks later, Alireza was showing the results of the autopsy to the Minister. The victims had been killed by a new nerve toxin that had been injected into the bloodstream. The toxin was very similar to other poisons routinely used by the Mossad.

  The physicians ruled out the possibility of inhalation, as there were no traces of toxin in the lungs. Then, the Hamas and Hizbullah officers excluded the presence of snipers, seeing that the sites were too far from the Israeli border and there was no evidence of any bullet wound on the bodies of the victims. As no further evidence was available, Alireza instructed his allies to seal off the site of the next attacks - he was sure there would be many more - and to not touch anything before the arrival of a crime scene investigation team from Teheran. He also suggested to deliberately leave some hints on the new missile and tunnel building sites, to make them an easier target for Israel.

  At the end of his report, Alireza could see the Minister was quite satisfied with his work. Although many pieces were still missing, the method was the right one.

  “Good job, Alireza. Let me ask you one thing; did you use the fatwa I gave you last time to persuade our friends to unbury and send us the bodies?” the Minister asked.

  “Yes, Sir, it was absolutely necessary. It was not sufficient, though, as people were very reluctant to unbury the bodies. We had to hire some Lebanese Christians to do it.”

  “I see,” the Minister replied, “now, Alireza, there is another thing I would like you to investigate. It is more a matter of control, but it might have some consequences, that we need to be prepared for. It's about drugs.”

  “Drugs, Sir?” Alireza could not hide his surprise. Sure, his team was involved in the heroin dealings in Afghanistan, but it was more a way to exert influence in the area than a business concern and he was certainly not smuggling it into the Islamic Republic. The Minister handed a police report over to him.

  “It is a new type of synthetic drug that has appeared a few months ago among members of the upper class. It seems to have the same effects of cocaine but it is much more difficult to detect. We know it is being smuggled in the country, mostly through Turkey and the Arab Emirates. Given its effectiveness, it is being sold for a very high price in the market, and it looks like it is spreading among some influential members of the Pasdaran, the guardians of the revolution. We do not have a clear understanding. We have to find out who is behind this, and identify all the users in order to protect the Islamic Republic. I trust you can do this, Alireza.”

  Alireza took the report, bowed slightly to the Minister, and walked out of the office.