Operation “Stray Dog”. Chapter 3

Firewall for a Kitten

11:14 EST (19:44 Tehran time). 3.5 hours before Zeynab’s call. Isfahan. Basement of the IRGC Intelligence Directorate

The basement smelled of mold, old concrete, and fear. Not the sharp, acute fear one feels before a firing squad, but a chronic, stagnant kind—the fear of people who come here to answer questions. Over thirty years, this smell had seeped into the walls so deeply that no ventilation could ever flush it out.

Amirkhan Mousavi, Deputy Chief of Internal Security for Strategic Objects, sat in a chair that creaked with his every breath, hating Zoomers. More precisely, he hated the chasm of misunderstanding that lay between his generation, raised on war and prayers, and this generation, raised on VPNs and memes.

Amirkhan examined the printout. It was a photo of a kitten. Ginger, fluffy, with saucer-eyes. The kitten was sitting on a rug. The rug was white and blue.

Sitting opposite him was a student from the Isfahan University of Arts. Skinny, with hair dyed the color of wilted lilacs, and the look of someone who couldn’t comprehend how he ended up here. He wore a wrinkled T-shirt with English writing that Amirkhan couldn’t read but strongly suspected of subversive content.

“So,” Amirkhan tapped his finger on the screenshot printout. The paper was cheap and gray, and the printer clearly needed a toner cartridge replacement. “Citizen Karimi. You ‘liked’ a post featuring a kitten. On a social network blocked within the territory of the Islamic Republic.”

“Yes, Officer. The kitten was… aesthetically pleasing. It’s a Persian Chinchilla.”

“The kitten was sitting on a rug,” Amirkhan continued in the monotone voice of a man reading this nonsense for the tenth time that day.

“Yes.”

“The rug was white and blue.”

“It’s a traditional pattern from Yazd province!”

“Uh-huh. And the two stripes on the edges?”

“That’s the border!”

“That is hidden Zionist propaganda through felinology!” Amirkhan rubbed the bridge of his nose wearily. “Do you understand, son, that in the current geopolitical situation, even cats must be ideologically consistent? Why a ginger cat? Why not a black one?”

“I’m allergic to black ones… And he looks so much like mine…”

Amirkhan’s phone, lying on the desk atop a file labeled “On Subversive Activities in Knitting Enthusiast Telegram Channels,” vibrated. The caller ID showed “Unknown.”

Amirkhan flinched. His heart skipped a beat. Only one person had called from unknown numbers so persistently in recent years. A man who was supposed to be dead. General Alavi. But Alavi died at Fordow… Or his wife.

“Hello?” he barked, not hiding his irritation.

“Amirkhan,” Zahra’s voice wasn’t just icy. It was absolute zero. The voice of a physicist observing proton decay in her own frying pan. “Where are you?”

“At work. Defending the Revolution from kittens and Zionist rugs. What happened? Did you forget to buy lavash?”

“Worse. Alavi just called me.”

Silence hung in the office. The student stopped breathing, sensing the shift in the atmosphere.

“Alavi is dead,” Amirkhan said slowly. “We buried an empty coffin two years ago. I carried the wreath myself.”

“Apparently, the reception in hell is bad, so he’s calling from North Korea.”

“Korea?” Amirkhan stood up. The student shrank into his chair. “So he’s alive…”

“That doesn’t matter anymore. Listen to me carefully. In a few hours, a missile will fly over us.”

“Whose? Israeli? American?”

“Worse. North Korean. With a nuclear engine and navigation from a robot vacuum cleaner. Alavi says it’s flying in zigzags, hugging the terrain, on an unpredictable route, and very low. We need to shoot it down. Or hijack the controls.”

“Shoot it down with what?” Amirkhan walked over to the map on the wall. “Our air defense is tuned for Tomahawks and stealth bombers, not flying vacuum cleaners! If it’s coming in under the radar, we won’t see it until it flies into the window of the Imam Mosque!”

“Amirkhan. The target is the U.S. Northeast coast. Our child is there.”

“Damn it…”

“Alavi gave the access code for the controls.”

“What is it?”

“123456.”

“Are you joking?”

“No. Alavi said Kim Jong Un considers changing factory settings a sign of weakness. The problem is something else. The control panel… is on the internet. It’s a ‘smart’ missile. IoT. Internet of Things. To enter the code, you need to connect to its server.”

“So what? We have cyber troops.”

“So what is that we have a ‘Halal Intranet,’ Amirkhan!” Zahra’s voice rose to a scream. “You guys shut down the external internet three days ago because of the protests! We are behind the firewall! We can’t hack the missile because we blocked ourselves! We need someone on the outside. Someone with fast internet, brains, and access to the World Wide Web.”

“Zeynab…” Amirkhan exhaled.

“Exactly. Call Nasrin. Have her wake Zahir. He has access to military comms; maybe he can punch through. And tell them to find Zeynab. I’ve been trying to call her, but she’s declining. She has, you see, ‘personal boundaries’ and yoga.”

“Understood.”

Amirkhan hung up. He looked at the student. The boy sat neither alive nor dead.

“Listen to me,” Amirkhan said quietly. “Get out of here. Go home. Buy your cat the most expensive food. And pray.”

“But the protocol? The non-disclosure agreement?” the boy stammered.

“To hell with the protocol. If we don’t all vaporize today, I will personally find you and force you to ‘like’ portraits of the Ayatollahs for the rest of your life. Now—scram!”

The student vanished as if teleported. Amirkhan remained alone in the empty office, which smelled of cheap coffee and expensive fear.

He dialed his eldest daughter’s number.

“Nasrin! We have an emergency. Call Zeynab. Screw her yoga. Tell her… tell her that if she doesn’t pick up the phone, I will personally fly to Boston and tattoo an Israeli flag on her forehead!.. And have Zahir call me!”

Chapter 4. Subscription to Stupidity →
← Isfahan
← Shiraz
← Fordow
← Operation “Stray Dog”