Prologue

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Tehran, October, 2022

It is past seven o’clock in the evening. Sitting on the living room sofa, Nasser Ali is reading the newspaper, and his wife, Fatemeh, is making the dinner in the kitchen. They are both waiting for their daughter Sara to return. They always have dinner together.

Through the window of her kitchen, Fatemeh can see the sky transitioning from a brilliant orange to a deep purple, casting a warm glow over the landscape. The Alborz Mountains in the distance are silhouetted against the fading light, their rugged peaks providing a beautiful backdrop.

Usually, Sara comes back from University before six. She has just joined Tehran University to do her Masters in Psychology. But this morning, before leaving for the Uni, she told her mother that she might be a little late. Even though she did not say, Fatemeh knows why. Sara is taking part in the protests.

This is one of those protests that started a few weeks back and since then has spread like wildfire through the length and breadth of the country. This is the protest against the brutality of the morality police. This morality police have always been unpopular among liberal, educated segment of the society. Fatemeh remembers how she and her friends used to hate them when she was in college, almost thirty years back.

But this undercurrent of hatred has reached a whole new level after the death of Masha Amini, a twenty-two-year-old university student who was savagely beaten by the morality police. The government had wanted to tackle the protests heavy-handedly from the outset, as they always do. But this time it did not work well. People have literally taken to the streets. As expected, young people, especially university students, are at the forefront of this movement. But they also got a lot of support from their parents.

Even though the state-controlled media tried to suppress the news and even cracked down on social media, they have not been fully successful. #MashaAmini is trending heavily on social media and international support is pouring in. After doubling down on their acts initially, the government has also softened their stance as various officials, including the provincial government, has expressed their regrets for Masha’s death.

Yet the protesters are regularly being beaten, detained, and harassed in all possible ways, by the authorities. That is why Fatemeh started feeling a bit anxious. Sara was supposed to return by seven, now it is almost eight. Even though she supports her brave daughter, as a mother she cannot help fearing for the safety of her only child. She did not wish to talk to her husband about her anxiety, though, because even though he did not forbid his daughter to participate in the protests, as a government official, Nasser is not too supportive of these protests.

Fatemeh finished her cooking and came to the balcony. Her neighbours are enjoying family dinner in their courtyard. Fatemeh smiled and waved at them. The night sky, now a deep indigo, is dotted with stars, creating a peaceful canopy over the suburbs. The clock is showing eight-thirty. Fatemeh went to her husband and said, “Nasser, Sara is still not home. Should we call her friends?”

Nasser Ali put the newspaper aside, looked at the wall clock, frowned, shook his head and said, “I told you both not to get involved in this protest nonsense. Did you listen to me?”

“What have I done now, Nasser? It’s your daughter who wanted to go there. And it is a good thing, you know, all her friends are also going. The way they killed that girl, Masha. She is as old as our Sara, just imagine what her parents must be going through,” Fatemeh reasoned.

“Look Fatemeh, I have full sympathy for this girl, Masha Amini. What they did to her is not right. But the governor has apologized, what else do you expect them to do? They cannot bring the girl back, can they? And all these protests… US and other Western countries are fuelling this, I am telling you, they are using our gullible youths and they are playing right into their hands—"

Fatemeh’s phone rang before her husband could finish his rant. It was Zeinab, Sara’s friend. She picked it up quickly. But a minute into the call, her face turned ashen.

“What happened, Fatemeh?” Nasser was worried.

“Nasser…it is Sara… she, she is in the hospital.” Fatemeh was shaking.

“Hospital? What for? What happened? Any accident?”

Nasser held his wife to prevent her from falling.

“P-Police, they came to disperse the protesters. A few in the front line were badly beaten. Sara… our Sara…” Fatemeh could not finish her sentence as her voice choked.

Nasser and Fatemeh Ali rushed to the hospital immediately. But they never saw their daughter alive again. After waiting for two agonizing hours in the waiting room full of other anxious parents and relatives, they were finally shown the body of Sara. The white bedsheet was stained with blood, their only child’s blood. Nasser let out a cry, but Fatemeh was silent. She never spoke a word after that, until the day of Sara’s funeral.

Nasser on the other hand, was calling people fanatically. His boss, his colleagues, the government officials. He knows a lot of them, high up in the ministry. How could they do this to him? Him, a loyal employee, serving his government and his country for so many years, often taking huge, personal risks. All his sacrifices, his loyalty, don’t they have any value?

“Look, Nasser, I feel your pain, I really do. I knew Sara since she was little, she is like my own child. But what can one do? When God wants someone dead…”

Nasser’s boss, Arash Ahmed, spoke as he put his arms around Nasser’s shoulder to console him after Sara’s funeral.

“No, Sir, God did not want my child dead. It was the morality police. They killed her, savagely beat her to death. How can this happen in a civilized country, sir? Ours is one of the oldest civilizations, what has happened to us?”

“Now, Nasser, I know you are grieving, but please do not parrot those words of the US imperialists. I do not want to blame you, but you should have prevented Sara from joining those protests.”

“Sir! It was a peaceful protest. They were just a bunch of kids, University students, unarmed. How can you kill them like this?”

“Sometimes these seemingly peaceful protests cause more damage than a few armed thugs. You should know better, Nasser. The whole international media is covering it, dragging our reputation into the mud. You know how it works, Nasser. Sometimes these things happen, unintentionally, to serve a greater cause. What do they call it in English? Collateral Damage, right?”

Nasser did not say anything more. His eyes shifted from his stone-faced wife to the big, lively photo of his only daughter… the collateral damage. He has given all his adult life to serve this country. Not even his immediate family knows what he actually does for a living, they think that he is in the police. But he is not a regular police officer. He works for the secret police; he is a spy. Throughout his career, he has taken numerous risks to fulfil his duty. He has always dutifully treated the sensitive state information as sacred secrets. He has declined offers of huge bribes by the foreign agencies to act as a double agent. They call him Iranian 007 for a reason. And what does he get in return? Collateral damage.

Alright then, if he is on his own, then he will do whatever is necessary to provide justice for his murdered daughter, thought Nasser Ali, as he was looking at the starry night sky, when everyone had gone home after the funeral. Arash Ahmed has no idea what Nasser is capable of. He has troves of top-secret information which, until now, he has always treated as sacred. But not any longer.

As he looked above, a shooting star quickly streaked past across the Orion constellation. Nasser took this as a good omen, almost a nod from his dead daughter to go ahead with his idea.

That night, he devised a clear and meticulous plan. He will get hold of the most damaging information, which will show many atrocities that this government has committed, but which no one could ever prove. Now they will have proof, lethal proof. Nasser will have to send them to some western news agency, either in the US or in Europe.

But he cannot contact the news agencies directly, that will be too much of a risk. He doesn’t care for his own safety anymore, but he has to protect Fatemeh, his mother, his whole extended family. So, he has to use an intermediary.

He has such a person in mind. A University professor in London. The professor is of Iranian ancestry, but had fled the country almost thirty years back. But he still remains very critical of the government here and is also a vocal supporter of these protests against the morality police. He also wrote a strong post, accusing the government of murder after Sara’s death. Nasser doesn’t know him yet, their political views are world apart, but he can contact him. If he introduces himself as Sara’s father, then surely this professor will agree to help him. He may even suggest Nasser the best news outlet to contact.

Very well then, this will be Nasser’s mission now. Arash said Sara’s peaceful protest was dragging the country’s reputation to mud. Now they will get a taste of what dragging the reputation to mud actually looks like, when they are charged with war crimes by the UN.

It will be a difficult mission, but Nasser Ali will have to do it. He owes it to Fatemeh, he owes it to Sara.