Operation “Stray Dog”. Chapter 12

The Promised Land

15:45 EST (23:45 Tehran time). Tehran. Elahiyeh District. Safe house (mansion) of Dr. Hasan Rezaei

In the living room, cluttered with antique furniture and boxes marked “Archive/Burn,” the atmosphere was reminiscent of the Titanic when the lifeboats had already run out, and the band had started playing jazz.

The Mousavi family was assembled. Zahra sat on the sofa, wrapping her arms around herself. Amirkhan paced the room, checking the magazine of his pistol (a habit useless against a nuclear explosion, but soothing). Nasrin smoked by the open window, ashing onto the manicured lawn. Zahir, her husband (they had signed the papers quietly a year ago), sat on the floor, studying a tablet with an airspace map.

“Well?” Amirkhan asked, stopping. “Zahir?”

Zahir looked up. In his eyes—the eyes of an ace pilot who feared nothing but his wife’s wrath—was hopelessness.

“No way, Father,” he said. “My F-14 is a beautiful machine. A legend. But it’s fifty years old. Its radar sees far, but this Korean junk flies below the mountains, hugging the terrain. I can take off. I can try to find it. But the chances… one in a million. It’s like catching a fly in a dark room while riding a lawnmower.”

“So, no interception,” Nasrin stated, flicking the cigarette butt away. “So, it’s triage. Sorting the wounded. ‘Greens’ survive, ‘blacks’ get morphine and are moved aside.”

She looked at her parents.

“The problem is, if this thing blows over Tehran, we’ll all be ‘blacks.’ I won’t have a job. Nor patients. Just shadows on the asphalt.”

Dr. Rezaei, former spy, traitor, and patriot (depending on the time of day), walked out of his office. He held passports in his hands.

“We can’t stay here,” he said calmly. “The basement won’t save us. We need to fly out. Right now.”

“Where?” Zahra laughed bitterly. “To Isfahan? It’s a target too. To Mashhad? To Shiraz? The missile is unpredictable.”

“No,” Rezaei put the passports on the table. “There is one place. The only place in the region that has the ‘Iron Dome,’ ‘David’s Sling,’ and ‘Arrow-3.’ A place that will shoot down this missile even if it flies backwards.”

Silence fell in the room. Amirkhan stopped clicking the slide of his gun.

“You mean…” he started, and his voice cracked.

“Israel,” said Rezaei. “Tel Aviv.”

“You’ve lost your mind,” Zahra whispered. “We are the family of an IRGC colonel. I am a centrifuge designer. They’ll shoot us right at Ben Gurion Airport. Or, worse, force us to give an interview to CNN.”

“They won’t shoot,” Rezaei pulled a business card from his pocket. A crumpled, greasy business card. “I have… a contact there. Reliable.”

“Mossad?” Amirkhan asked, clutching his heart.

“Worse. My cousin. He left in ’79. Runs a chain of falafel joints in Jaffa. ‘Hasan’s Place.’ Yes, his name is Hasan too. He owes me money. A lot of money. He’ll hide us. In the basement where he keeps the chickpeas.”

Amirkhan looked at Rezaei, then at his wife, then at the children. His entire life, his entire career, all the “Death to Israel” slogans he had heard and chanted for forty years—all of it was now being weighed on the scales against the lives of his daughters.

“A falafel joint,” he repeated. “The Deputy Chief of IRGC Intelligence will be hiding among chickpeas in Jaffa.”

“Amirkhan,” Zahra said quietly. “It’s survival.”

Amirkhan closed his eyes.

“Pack your bags,” he said. “But fast. And no hijabs. Nasrin, find something… less Iranian.”

The chaos of packing began. Everything flew into suitcases: warm clothes (why in Israel?), family albums, laptops. Zahir helped Nasrin pack her surgical instruments.

“I can’t believe we’re doing this,” Amirkhan muttered, stuffing socks into his briefcase. “If HQ finds out, I’ll be cursed to the seventh generation.”

“If the missile lands, there won’t be an HQ,” Zahra noted reasonably.

Fifteen minutes later, they stood in the hallway. Suitcases at their feet. Passports in hand. Rezaei was calling someone on a satellite phone, arranging a “private charter” via Turkey.

“All set,” he said. “Departure in one hour from the private sector of Mehrabad.”

And then Zahra’s phone rang.

BTS’s “Dynamite.” She had set it as Zeynab’s ringtone after that memorable conversation, as a sign of reconciliation.

Zahra grabbed the phone. Her hands were shaking.

“Zeynab? Honey?”

The room became so quiet you could hear the wall clock ticking.

“Mom,” Zeynab’s voice was tired but calm. “Unpack.”

“What?” Zahra slumped onto a suitcase.

“It’s over. The missile is down.”

“Where?! In Washington?”

“No. In Africa. In the Sahara. It was intercepted…” Zeynab stumbled, choosing her words, “by cybersecurity specialists. Ukrainian freelancers. They landed it. In the sand. There was no explosion.”

Zahra exhaled. The sound was like a tire deflating.

“Is it intact?.. The warhead?”

“Intact. The guys said they hid it in a shed. ‘Just in case.’ Mom, we’re alive.”

Zahra dropped the phone. She looked at her husband. At Rezaei. At the children.

“Africa,” she said. “Ukrainians. A shed.”

Amirkhan slowly sat down on the floor, right on top of his briefcase. He started laughing. Quietly at first, then louder. It was the laughter of a man who had just stared into the abyss and seen the abyss stick its tongue out at him.

“Falafel is canceled,” he said through laughter. “Praise Allah and Ukrainian freelancers.”

Rezaei, who looked disappointed (apparently, he had already set his mind on the Mediterranean climate), put his phone away.

“Well then,” he said, regaining his dignity. “Crisis averted. We can have tea.”

The family began slowly, like in slow motion, to unpack. Nasrin took out her instruments. Zahir—his tablet.

Amirkhan picked up the business card Rezaei had dropped.

“Hasan’s Falafel. Best Hummus in Jaffa. Ask for Misha.”

He turned it over in his hands. Looked at Zahra, who was neatly folding her lab coat.

“Zahra,” he called.

She turned around.

Amirkhan walked up to her and placed the card in her palm.

“Take it,” he said seriously.

“Why?” she was surprised. “We’re not going anywhere.”

“Keep it,” Amirkhan squeezed her fingers. “Put it in the pocket where you keep your biggest secrets. The world has gone mad, Zahra-jan. Today Africa, tomorrow Antarctica. But good falafel… good falafel is always hard currency. And, as Alavi used to say… it’s better to have a backup airfield than to be a hero posthumously.”

Zahra looked at him. Then at the card. And she smiled—that same smile that, thirty years ago in Isfahan, had made him lose his head.

“You’re right,” she said. “I’ll hide it. Right next to Comrade Lee’s kimchi recipe.”

Epilogue →
← Isfahan
← Shiraz
← Fordow
← Operation “Stray Dog”