Fordow. Prisoner’s Dilemma

23 Khordad 1404 (June 13, 2025)

The car tore away, leaving behind a cloud of dust and two small figures shrinking in the rearview mirror, like a past we try to forget but which always follows. Zahra didn’t turn around. She didn’t look in the mirror. She sat straight, staring at the ribbon of road disappearing into the red-hot haze. Her profile was sharp and cold, like the profile on a coin withdrawn from circulation.

They had driven sixty meters when Amirkhan slammed on the brakes. The Dena dipped its nose, as if stumbling over an invisible barrier.

“What happened?” Zahra asked without changing her posture. There was no fear in her voice, only weary irritation.

Amirkhan didn’t answer. He reached under the seat and pulled out a thick plastic folder. Inside were papers—a ragged stack held together by a paperclip already showing signs of rust.

“I should have shown you this a long time ago,” he said, extending the folder. His hand trembled, but his voice was steady. “I think the time has come. If we are going to hell, it is better to go without baggage.”

Zahra took the folder. She opened it slowly, as one opens a last will and testament.

First sheet. Surveillance report. Subject: R. Yezdi. Date: April 2023. Performer: Municipality Security Service.

Second sheet. Interrogation protocol of A. Mousavi. Suspicion of organizing murder. Conclusion: “No direct evidence. Actions qualified as abuse of authority.”

Third sheet. The most terrifying one. Report to the Head of the IRGC Counterintelligence Directorate. Excerpt. “Citizen A. Mousavi voluntarily reported an attempted recruitment by unidentified persons (presumably Mossad agents). During the operational game, he agreed to the role of a ‘passive source’ under Directorate control. Objective: disinformation of the enemy and identification of communication channels.”

Zahra read. Her eyes darted across the lines, snatching the essence from the bureaucratic delirium. Surveillance. Jealousy. Murder? Recruitment. Double game.

As they passed the checkpoint, Zahir, that same young soldier, stood up from his folding chair and saluted. Zahra, without looking up from the papers, smiled faintly—just the corner of her lips, reflexively, like children smile in their sleep. It wasn’t a smile for him, but for some inner thought of her own.

She closed the folder. Placed it on her knees. Looked at her husband. There was neither anger nor contempt in her gaze. Only infinite, profound surprise.

“Why didn’t you say this before?” she asked quietly.
“I didn’t know how to start,” Amirkhan stared at the road. “Fear is a bad storyteller. Alavi advised me to talk to you a long time ago. He said: ‘Truth is bitter medicine, but lies are poison.’”
“Alavi…” she shook her head. “What a fool you are, Amirkhan.”

She moved closer to him and rested her head on his shoulder.

And in that moment, in the middle of the desert, beneath the howl of distant sirens, time looped back on itself. Amirkhan smelled her hair—that same scent of river water and jasmine that had driven him crazy twenty years ago. She was once again that sophomore girl he used to skip lectures with to drink tea under the arches of the Allahverdi Khan Bridge, listening to the Zayandeh River whisper its eternal stories. The wall they had been building for two years collapsed.

But the idyll didn’t last long. Tenderness in Zahra was always just a prelude to action. Like potential energy before a kinetic explosion.

She straightened up. Her eyes became the eyes of a physicist solving a problem again.

“How did Rezai know about the bombings?” she asked.
“I don’t know. He said he had his sources.”
“His sources…” she frowned. “He claims the Americans will strike after Israel? With bunker busters?”
“Yes. He spoke of GBU-57s. They penetrate sixty meters of concrete.”
“So maybe he works for them?” she asked directly. “Maybe he is that very source leaking coordinates?”
“I don’t know, Zahra. In this world, no one knows anything for sure. We are all blind in a cave.”
“Do you understand how dangerous this is?” her voice hardened. “If they hit Fordow when it’s at full capacity… It’s not just an explosion. It’s dispersion. The cloud will go south. To Qom. To Isfahan. It will be a new Chernobyl. Or Fukushima, only in the desert.”

She pulled an old laptop from her bag. The same one she had once used to search for the tank player. Opened the lid. The screen lit up with a cold blue glow.

“I need to talk to Alavi,” Amirkhan said. “He needs to know.”
“No,” Zahra cut him off. “I will talk to him. He knew my father. He knew my uncle. He will understand. I will talk to him myself.”

She began to type. Quickly, furiously. She was running calculations. Wind rose. Half-lives. Critical mass. Impact zones.

Amirkhan drove, occasionally glancing at his wife. In the glare of the scorching sun, her face looked like the mask of an ancient heroine deciding to challenge the gods. He thought about what would happen next. About what would happen to their children, left behind in a clay house with the mother of a murdered man.

He thought about how they—the Mousavi family—had become hostages of an equation with too many variables and not a single correct solution.

But now, at least, they were in this equation together. And that gave a ghostly, irrational hope.

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