June 19, 2025 • 20 mins
Colonel Darius Karimi leads Iran's hunt for the warehouse thieves, but he's been working for Israel all along. Marcus coordinates the recruitment of a network spanning from Tehran to Tel Aviv—twenty-three Iranian intelligence officers who choose conscience over country. Dr. Ahmad Tehrani discovers his peaceful research feeds weapons development and faces an impossible choice.
As the network grows, so does the risk of exposure. When Iran's chief nuclear scientist is assassinated using intelligence the network provided, the human cost becomes undeniable. Marcus learns that preventing nuclear war requires sacrificing the very people trying to prevent it from a different direction. Some betrayals serve the greater good. Others just add names to his private file of the dead.
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As the network grows, so does the risk of exposure. When Iran's chief nuclear scientist is assassinated using intelligence the network provided, the human cost becomes undeniable. Marcus learns that preventing nuclear war requires sacrificing the very people trying to prevent it from a different direction. Some betrayals serve the greater good. Others just add names to his private file of the dead.
To become a premium subscriber (no ads and no feed drops) visit caloroga.com/plus. For Apple users, hit the banner on your Apple podcasts app which seays UNINTERRUPTED LISTENING. For Spotify or other players, visit caloroga.com/plus. You also get 25+ other shows on the network ad-free!
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Operation Rising Lion is a fictional series based on real
world events. Any similarities between persons living or dead is
purely coincidental. Calaruga Shark Media.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
My name is Marcus Cole, and I need to tell
you about the man who made everything possible. Three months
after we stole Iran's nuclear secrets from that warehouse in Shaabad,
I received an encrypted message that changed the course of
the Shadow War. It came through channels so secure I
didn't even know they existed a single line of texts
(00:50):
that appeared on my screen at three seventeen am Tehran
time Archive Control. The Wolf sends his regards. We need
to talk. This is episode two. The double Agent, The Wolf.
(01:20):
Colonel Darius Karimi, head of Iran's Counterintelligence division, the man
tasked with finding the operatives who had robbed that warehouse,
The man who had been hunting us for months with
methodical precision that impressed even our analysts. What we didn't know,
what I couldn't have calculated in any equation, was that
Colonel Kareimi had been working for us all along. But
(01:41):
I'm getting ahead of myself to understand how a senior
Iranian intelligence officer became our most valuable asset. You need
to understand what the archive heights set in motion, and
you need to meet doctor Ahmad Tarani, the brilliant physicist
whose life we were about to destroy. Doctor TEHRANI worked
at the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, housed in a
(02:04):
gleaming complex in northern Tehran for fifteen years. He dedicated
his life to what he believed was peaceful nuclear research,
uranium enrichment for power generation, isotope production for medical applications.
His daughter, Mariam was studying medicine in London, planning to
return to Iran to build hospitals in rural provinces. Ahmad
(02:24):
was proud of his work, proud of serving his country,
proud of the future he was helping build. But as
I sat in my Tel Aviv control center reviewing the
documents we'd stolen, I knew Ahmad's world was about to collapse.
His meticulous calculations, his careful research notes, his detailed technical drawings,
they weren't feeding Iran's civilian nuclear program. They were providing
(02:47):
the foundation for fifteen nuclear weapons. The stolen archive contained
videos of meetings where senior officials discussed Project one ten,
code for nuclear warhead production. Ahmad's uranium enrichment research was
being used to produce weapons grade material. His centrifuge designs
were being modified for military applications. His dreams of peaceful
(03:10):
atomic energy were feeding a program designed to incinerate cities.
We had to tell him more accurately. I had to
calculate whether telling him would serve our operational needs. The
mathematics were brutal but clear. Doctor Ahmad Tehrani represented a
potential intelligence asset worth more than his weight in enriched uranium.
(03:30):
But first we had to survive Colonel Karemi's investigation. Karemi
was everything Iranian intelligence should have been. Methodical, brilliant, utterly
dedicated to protecting his homeland. In the weeks following the
warehouse heist, he'd coordinated a man hunt involving tens of
thousands of personnel. He'd identified three of our extraction routes.
(03:54):
He'd arrested a tea house owner who'd provided cover for
our operatives. He was closing in on the network that
had made the heist possible. What he wasn't doing was
sharing everything with his superiors. The first clue came in
April twenty nineteen, two months After that midnight message, one
of our deep cover assets in Tehran reported unusual activity
(04:16):
in Karremi's investigation. Files were being moved, witnesses were being
questioned privately. Evidence was disappearing from official reports archive control.
The asset reported, something's wrong with the wolf's hunt. He's
tracking prey, but not the prey they think. I spent
weeks trying to understand the pattern. Kremi was conducting two
(04:38):
parallel investigations, one visible to Iranian leadership, another hidden in
classified channels they couldn't access. The visible investigation was making
steady progress toward dead ends. The hidden investigation was making
disturbing discoveries about the scope of our penetration. The breakthrough
came when Karemi himself requested a meeting. The encrypted message
(05:01):
appeared on my screen on a Tuesday morning in May.
The wolf knows his pack has been compromised. Time to
choose sides. Director Cohen authorized the contact. If this is
a trap, he warned, we lose more than an operation,
We lose you. Marcus. I understood the calculation. If Karemi
(05:21):
was legitimate, he represented unprecedented access to Iranian intelligence. If
he was running a counter operation, my capture would give
Ron everything they needed to roll up our networks, but
the mathematics were compelling. The intelligence Kareemi could provide was
worth the risk, and frankly, after twenty years of calculating
human lives like variables and equations, I was curious to
(05:44):
meet the man who'd been hunting us with such impressive precision.
The meeting took place in Istanbul, in the basement of
a carpet shop owned by one of our Turkish assets.
I arrived first, carrying a briefcase containing documents that would
prove our sincerity or get me killed if this was
a trap. Koremi entered alone, precisely on time. Tall, gray haired,
(06:08):
with the measured movements of someone accustomed to command. He
looked exactly like what he was, a career intelligence officer
who'd spent decades serving his country with distinction. Mister Cole,
he said, in accent to English, settling into the chair
across from me, we need to discuss the future of
the Middle East. For the next three hours, Colonel Darius
(06:30):
Kreimi told me a story that redefined everything we thought
we knew about Iranian intelligence. Kareimi had joined Iran's intelligence
service in nineteen ninety five, motivated by genuine patriotism and
a desire to protect his homeland from foreign interference. He'd
risen through the ranks during years when Iran faced real
threats American invasion plans, Israeli assassination campaigns, terrorist attacks by
(06:54):
opposition groups. But somewhere in the darkness of intelligence work,
Kareimi had begun to question whether protecting Iran meant protecting
its government. I've watched my country's leadership march toward nuclear war,
he said, his voice carrying the weight of impossible decisions.
They speak of weapons as if they were firecrackers. They
(07:15):
calculate acceptable casualties in the millions. They've convinced themselves that
nuclear deterrence requires nuclear weapons, not nuclear restraint. The turning
point came in twenty eighteen, when Karemi was tasked with
investigating our warehouse heist. As he reviewed the stolen documents,
the ones we'd left behind to obscure the scope of
(07:36):
our operation, he realized he was looking at evidence of
a nuclear weapons program far more advanced than Iranian leadership
had admitted. I spent my career protecting Iran from foreign threats.
He continued, but the greatest threat to my country isn't
Israeli bombs or American sanctions. It's Iranian leadership that believes
nuclear weapons will make us safer instead of making us targets.
(07:59):
Karemi had made his choice months before our meeting. He
would help Israel prevent Iran from building nuclear weapons, not
because he supported Israeli policy, but because he understood the
mathematics of nuclear war better than his own government. How
many others, I asked, twenty three in my division alone,
he replied, Analysts, technicians, operatives who joined to serve Iran
(08:23):
and discovered they were serving a regime that will destroy
Iran to maintain power. Twenty three Iranian intelligence officers working
secretly for Israel. The scope of the penetration was staggering
and terrifying. If Iranian leadership discovered the network, the executions
would make headlines for weeks. But Karremi wasn't finished. There's
(08:46):
something else you need to know. Doctor Ahmad Tehrani has
been asking questions about his research applications. He's starting to
understand what Project one ten really involves. This was the
moment I'd been calculating for months. Irani represented both an
opportunity and a risk. If we could recruit him, he'd
provide unprecedented access to Iran's nuclear program. If he discovered
(09:09):
the truth and reported it, he'd trigger security reviews that
could expose Karemi's network. What do you recommend, I asked,
Tell him the truth, Karimi said, show him what his
research is feeding. Give him the choice his government has
taken away. Three weeks later, I authorized an operation that
(09:36):
still haunts my private file of names and faces. Doctor
Ahmad Trani received an unmarked envelope at his Tehran apartment,
inside photographs from the stolen archive showing his research being
used for weapons development, technical specifications for nuclear warheads incorporating
his uranium enrichment calculations, video footage of military officials discussing
(09:58):
delivery systems for atomic weapon and a handwritten note, if
you want to save your country from nuclear war, someone
needs to know you're asking questions. The response came faster
than we'd calculated. TEHRANI requested a meeting through channels that
proved he understood operational security better than most trained intelligence officers.
(10:19):
The meeting location a medical conference in Vienna, where his
attendance would seem routine. I didn't go myself. The operational
risk was too high, and I had twenty three Iranian
double agents to coordinate from Tel Aviv. Instead, we sent
doctor Sarah Rosen, the linguistics professor who'd spent months in
Tehran preparing for the warehouse heist. Sarah had volunteered for
(10:42):
the assignment despite the psychological cost. She had already betrayed
Iranian hospitality once by conducting reconnaissance under academic cover. Now
she would recruit an Iranian scientist by destroying his faith
in everything he'd work to build. He looked like my grandfather,
she reported after the Vienna meeting, intelligent dedicated, completely convinced
(11:03):
he was serving the greater good. When I showed him
the evidence of what his research really fed he aged
ten years and ten minutes. Doctor Alma Tarani made his
choice that night in Vienna. He would provide Israel with
intelligence about Iran's nuclear program. Not because he supported Israeli policy,
but because he understood that preventing nuclear wars sometimes requires
(11:24):
betraying your government to save your country. The network grew
through twenty nineteen. In twenty twenty, Karemi's initial twenty three
operatives became fifty seven. Tarani recruited colleagues who shared his
concerns about weapons development. We established communication channels that could
survive Iranian counterintelligence investigations, but networks built on moral complexity
(11:48):
are inherently unstable. Every operative carried the weight of betraying
their homeland to serve their principles. Every meeting risked exposure
that would result in execution. Every intelligence report brought us
closer to preventing nuclear war and closer to triggering conventional war.
The first casualty came in November twenty twenty. Doctor Mosen Rahimi,
(12:11):
Iran's chief nuclear scientist, was assassinated while traveling with his
wife near Tehran. The operation used a remote controlled machine
gun mounted in a truck, precision that was only possible
with intelligence provided by our network. I coordinated that assassination
from my Tel Aviv control center, calculating angles and timing
while watching satellite feeds of Iranian security forces discovering Rahimi's
(12:36):
body another name for my private file. Another human cost
in the equation of preventing nuclear war. Doctor Tehrani attended
Rahimi's funeral. He watched colleagues grieve for a man who'd
been developing weapons capable of destroying cities. He calculated the
moral mathematics of assassination one scientist's death to prevent millions
(12:59):
of civilian cares casualties. But attending that funeral cost Tehrani
something irreplaceable. He began drinking, He stopped calling his daughter
in London. He started questioning whether any of US Iranian,
Israeli American deserved to survive the wars we were fighting
in the shadows. I'm not sleeping, he reported in a
message transmitted through Koremi's network. I see Rahimi's face. I
(13:23):
know his research was feeding weapons development, but he had grandchildren,
He coached youth soccer, He donated blood to disaster victims.
We killed a human being, not just a nuclear scientist.
That message reached my desk on a December morning, when
Tehran was covered in snow. I read it three times.
Calculating the psychological breakdown of an asset worth more than
(13:45):
most military divisions, Doctor Ahmad Trani was questioning the moral
foundation of everything we'd built. The mathematical solution was clear,
replace a compromised asset with fresh recruitment. The human cost
was equally clear. Ahmad Tehrani would likely be executed if
Iranian counterintelligence discovered his communications with Israel. But sometimes the
(14:09):
calculations make themselves. We needed Tehrani's intelligence to prevent nuclear war.
His psychological state was a variable we had to manage,
not a reason to abandon the operation. Three months later,
Karimi reported disturbing news. Iranian leadership had discovered inconsistencies in
nuclear program security. They suspected foreign intelligence penetration. They were
(14:33):
conducting interviews with personnel who had access to sensitive research.
The wolf says, the hunt is turning inward. Came the
encrypted message. Time to be very careful. Iranian paranoia was intensifying.
(14:54):
Security reviews were expanded. Personnel with foreign contacts were being questioned.
Network that had taken three years to build was under
pressure that could collapse it in weeks. But the greater
pressure was coming from Iranian nuclear development itself. Intelligence provided
by our network indicated that Iran was accelerating weapons research.
(15:14):
They were months away from producing weapons grade uranium and
quantity sufficient for multiple nuclear devices. Time was running out
for preventing nuclear war through intelligence operations. Military action was
becoming inevitable. The final message from Colonel Koremi came in
May twenty twenty five. Archive Control the Wolf reports that
(15:36):
Tehran has decided to complete the weapons program regardless of
international pressure. They believe nuclear deterrence requires nuclear weapons, not
nuclear negotiations. Recommend immediate action to prevent irreversible escalation. I
forwarded that message to Director Cohen, who forwarded it to
Prime Minister Weiss, who authorized the operation the world would
(15:58):
know as Rising Line. But as I write this now,
seven years after that warehouse heist in Shabad, I have
to reckon with the human cost of the network we built.
Colonel Karimi was executed by hanging in Tehran last week
after being convicted of treason. Doctor Ahmad Tehrani died in
Israeli air strikes during the opening hours of Rising Lion,
(16:20):
killed by the very military action his intelligence had helped
make possible. Twenty three Iranian intelligence officers who chose conscience
over country, fifty seven nuclear scientists and technicians who risked
everything to prevent nuclear war, dozens of support personnel who
believed they were serving the greater good. All of them
are gone now, some executed by Iranian authorities who discovered
(16:44):
their betrayal. Others killed in military strikes they helped plan.
The network that prevented nuclear war was consumed by the
very conflict that tried to prevent, But their sacrifice accomplished
something unprecedented in the mathematic of modern warfare. The intelligence
they provided enabled precision strikes that destroyed Iran's nuclear weapons
(17:06):
program while minimizing civilian casualties. The war they helped trigger
prevented the nuclear war their research would have made inevitable.
Doctor Ahmad Trani's daughter graduated medical school in London last month.
She'll never return to Iran to build hospitals and rural provinces,
but she'll live in a world where Iranian nuclear weapons
don't threaten to incinerate those hospitals. Colonel Koremi's family believes
(17:30):
he died serving Iranian security. They don't know he spent
his final years betraying his government to save his country.
That's probably for the best. And somewhere in Tehran there
are families mourning nuclear scientists who died in Israeli air strikes.
They don't know those scientists were developing weapons capable of
starting regional nuclear war. They just know their fathers and
brothers and sons are gone. The mathematics of preventing nuclear
(17:55):
war are brutal but clear. Sometimes saving the world requires
destroying the people trying to save it from a different direction,
Sometimes preventing catastrophe means becoming complicit in tragedy. I keep
a photograph of Colonel Koremi on my desk, not his
official Iranian intelligence portrait, but a picture Sarah took during
that Istanbul meeting. He's looking directly at the camera with
(18:18):
the expression of someone who's calculated impossible decisions and chosen
to live with the consequences. Next to it, I keep
doctor Ahmad Trani's final message. Tell my daughter I was
trying to build something beautiful. Tell her the world is
worth saving, even when saving it requires sacrificing everything we love.
(18:39):
The network is gone now. The double agents, the scientists,
the support personnel who made Rising Line possible, all consumed
by the operation they enabled. But their intelligence prevented nuclear
war in the Middle East and prevented regional conflict from
becoming global catastrophe. Was it worth it? The lives saved
versus the live sacrife, the nuclear war prevented versus the
(19:03):
conventional war triggered. I still don't know but I know
Colonel Karemi and doctor Ahmad Tarani made their calculations with
full knowledge of the cost. They chose to betray their
government to serve their principles. They chose to sacrifice their
lives to prevent nuclear war, and they chose to trust
Marcus Cole with coordinating operations that would determine whether their
(19:25):
sacrifices meant something or just added more names to my
private file of people who died believing they were saving
the world. Next time, I'll tell you about Captain Reza Ami,
the Iranian security officer who started hunting our network after
Rahimi's assassination. What we didn't know was that Captain Amiri
was more brilliant than we'd calculated, and more dedicated than
(19:46):
we'd anticipated. The man who would spend five years tracking
down every operative, every safe house, every communication channel we'd
use to prevent nuclear war. The man who would die
defending Tehran from the very air strikes his investigation had
made possible. Some hunts take years to complete, some hunters
(20:06):
become the prey, and some calculations balance only after everyone
who made them is gone.
Speaker 1 (20:19):
This episode is a production of Caloroga Shark Media executive
producers Mark Francis and John McDermott. For more shows like
this based on real world events, please go to Caloroga
dot com. The link is in the show notes. AI
production assistance may have been used in this series.
Operation Rising Lion is a fictional series based on real
world events. Any similarities between persons living or dead is
purely coincidental. Calaruga Shark Media.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
My name is Marcus Cole, and I need to tell
you about the man who made everything possible. Three months
after we stole Iran's nuclear secrets from that warehouse in Shaabad,
I received an encrypted message that changed the course of
the Shadow War. It came through channels so secure I
didn't even know they existed a single line of texts
(00:50):
that appeared on my screen at three seventeen am Tehran
time Archive Control. The Wolf sends his regards. We need
to talk. This is episode two. The double Agent, The Wolf.
(01:20):
Colonel Darius Karimi, head of Iran's Counterintelligence division, the man
tasked with finding the operatives who had robbed that warehouse,
The man who had been hunting us for months with
methodical precision that impressed even our analysts. What we didn't know,
what I couldn't have calculated in any equation, was that
Colonel Kareimi had been working for us all along. But
(01:41):
I'm getting ahead of myself to understand how a senior
Iranian intelligence officer became our most valuable asset. You need
to understand what the archive heights set in motion, and
you need to meet doctor Ahmad Tarani, the brilliant physicist
whose life we were about to destroy. Doctor TEHRANI worked
at the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, housed in a
(02:04):
gleaming complex in northern Tehran for fifteen years. He dedicated
his life to what he believed was peaceful nuclear research,
uranium enrichment for power generation, isotope production for medical applications.
His daughter, Mariam was studying medicine in London, planning to
return to Iran to build hospitals in rural provinces. Ahmad
(02:24):
was proud of his work, proud of serving his country,
proud of the future he was helping build. But as
I sat in my Tel Aviv control center reviewing the
documents we'd stolen, I knew Ahmad's world was about to collapse.
His meticulous calculations, his careful research notes, his detailed technical drawings,
they weren't feeding Iran's civilian nuclear program. They were providing
(02:47):
the foundation for fifteen nuclear weapons. The stolen archive contained
videos of meetings where senior officials discussed Project one ten,
code for nuclear warhead production. Ahmad's uranium enrichment research was
being used to produce weapons grade material. His centrifuge designs
were being modified for military applications. His dreams of peaceful
(03:10):
atomic energy were feeding a program designed to incinerate cities.
We had to tell him more accurately. I had to
calculate whether telling him would serve our operational needs. The
mathematics were brutal but clear. Doctor Ahmad Tehrani represented a
potential intelligence asset worth more than his weight in enriched uranium.
(03:30):
But first we had to survive Colonel Karemi's investigation. Karemi
was everything Iranian intelligence should have been. Methodical, brilliant, utterly
dedicated to protecting his homeland. In the weeks following the
warehouse heist, he'd coordinated a man hunt involving tens of
thousands of personnel. He'd identified three of our extraction routes.
(03:54):
He'd arrested a tea house owner who'd provided cover for
our operatives. He was closing in on the network that
had made the heist possible. What he wasn't doing was
sharing everything with his superiors. The first clue came in
April twenty nineteen, two months After that midnight message, one
of our deep cover assets in Tehran reported unusual activity
(04:16):
in Karremi's investigation. Files were being moved, witnesses were being
questioned privately. Evidence was disappearing from official reports archive control.
The asset reported, something's wrong with the wolf's hunt. He's
tracking prey, but not the prey they think. I spent
weeks trying to understand the pattern. Kremi was conducting two
(04:38):
parallel investigations, one visible to Iranian leadership, another hidden in
classified channels they couldn't access. The visible investigation was making
steady progress toward dead ends. The hidden investigation was making
disturbing discoveries about the scope of our penetration. The breakthrough
came when Karemi himself requested a meeting. The encrypted message
(05:01):
appeared on my screen on a Tuesday morning in May.
The wolf knows his pack has been compromised. Time to
choose sides. Director Cohen authorized the contact. If this is
a trap, he warned, we lose more than an operation,
We lose you. Marcus. I understood the calculation. If Karemi
(05:21):
was legitimate, he represented unprecedented access to Iranian intelligence. If
he was running a counter operation, my capture would give
Ron everything they needed to roll up our networks, but
the mathematics were compelling. The intelligence Kareemi could provide was
worth the risk, and frankly, after twenty years of calculating
human lives like variables and equations, I was curious to
(05:44):
meet the man who'd been hunting us with such impressive precision.
The meeting took place in Istanbul, in the basement of
a carpet shop owned by one of our Turkish assets.
I arrived first, carrying a briefcase containing documents that would
prove our sincerity or get me killed if this was
a trap. Koremi entered alone, precisely on time. Tall, gray haired,
(06:08):
with the measured movements of someone accustomed to command. He
looked exactly like what he was, a career intelligence officer
who'd spent decades serving his country with distinction. Mister Cole,
he said, in accent to English, settling into the chair
across from me, we need to discuss the future of
the Middle East. For the next three hours, Colonel Darius
(06:30):
Kreimi told me a story that redefined everything we thought
we knew about Iranian intelligence. Kareimi had joined Iran's intelligence
service in nineteen ninety five, motivated by genuine patriotism and
a desire to protect his homeland from foreign interference. He'd
risen through the ranks during years when Iran faced real
threats American invasion plans, Israeli assassination campaigns, terrorist attacks by
(06:54):
opposition groups. But somewhere in the darkness of intelligence work,
Kareimi had begun to question whether protecting Iran meant protecting
its government. I've watched my country's leadership march toward nuclear war,
he said, his voice carrying the weight of impossible decisions.
They speak of weapons as if they were firecrackers. They
(07:15):
calculate acceptable casualties in the millions. They've convinced themselves that
nuclear deterrence requires nuclear weapons, not nuclear restraint. The turning
point came in twenty eighteen, when Karemi was tasked with
investigating our warehouse heist. As he reviewed the stolen documents,
the ones we'd left behind to obscure the scope of
(07:36):
our operation, he realized he was looking at evidence of
a nuclear weapons program far more advanced than Iranian leadership
had admitted. I spent my career protecting Iran from foreign threats.
He continued, but the greatest threat to my country isn't
Israeli bombs or American sanctions. It's Iranian leadership that believes
nuclear weapons will make us safer instead of making us targets.
(07:59):
Karemi had made his choice months before our meeting. He
would help Israel prevent Iran from building nuclear weapons, not
because he supported Israeli policy, but because he understood the
mathematics of nuclear war better than his own government. How
many others, I asked, twenty three in my division alone,
he replied, Analysts, technicians, operatives who joined to serve Iran
(08:23):
and discovered they were serving a regime that will destroy
Iran to maintain power. Twenty three Iranian intelligence officers working
secretly for Israel. The scope of the penetration was staggering
and terrifying. If Iranian leadership discovered the network, the executions
would make headlines for weeks. But Karremi wasn't finished. There's
(08:46):
something else you need to know. Doctor Ahmad Tehrani has
been asking questions about his research applications. He's starting to
understand what Project one ten really involves. This was the
moment I'd been calculating for months. Irani represented both an
opportunity and a risk. If we could recruit him, he'd
provide unprecedented access to Iran's nuclear program. If he discovered
(09:09):
the truth and reported it, he'd trigger security reviews that
could expose Karemi's network. What do you recommend, I asked,
Tell him the truth, Karimi said, show him what his
research is feeding. Give him the choice his government has
taken away. Three weeks later, I authorized an operation that
(09:36):
still haunts my private file of names and faces. Doctor
Ahmad Trani received an unmarked envelope at his Tehran apartment,
inside photographs from the stolen archive showing his research being
used for weapons development, technical specifications for nuclear warheads incorporating
his uranium enrichment calculations, video footage of military officials discussing
(09:58):
delivery systems for atomic weapon and a handwritten note, if
you want to save your country from nuclear war, someone
needs to know you're asking questions. The response came faster
than we'd calculated. TEHRANI requested a meeting through channels that
proved he understood operational security better than most trained intelligence officers.
(10:19):
The meeting location a medical conference in Vienna, where his
attendance would seem routine. I didn't go myself. The operational
risk was too high, and I had twenty three Iranian
double agents to coordinate from Tel Aviv. Instead, we sent
doctor Sarah Rosen, the linguistics professor who'd spent months in
Tehran preparing for the warehouse heist. Sarah had volunteered for
(10:42):
the assignment despite the psychological cost. She had already betrayed
Iranian hospitality once by conducting reconnaissance under academic cover. Now
she would recruit an Iranian scientist by destroying his faith
in everything he'd work to build. He looked like my grandfather,
she reported after the Vienna meeting, intelligent dedicated, completely convinced
(11:03):
he was serving the greater good. When I showed him
the evidence of what his research really fed he aged
ten years and ten minutes. Doctor Alma Tarani made his
choice that night in Vienna. He would provide Israel with
intelligence about Iran's nuclear program. Not because he supported Israeli policy,
but because he understood that preventing nuclear wars sometimes requires
(11:24):
betraying your government to save your country. The network grew
through twenty nineteen. In twenty twenty, Karemi's initial twenty three
operatives became fifty seven. Tarani recruited colleagues who shared his
concerns about weapons development. We established communication channels that could
survive Iranian counterintelligence investigations, but networks built on moral complexity
(11:48):
are inherently unstable. Every operative carried the weight of betraying
their homeland to serve their principles. Every meeting risked exposure
that would result in execution. Every intelligence report brought us
closer to preventing nuclear war and closer to triggering conventional war.
The first casualty came in November twenty twenty. Doctor Mosen Rahimi,
(12:11):
Iran's chief nuclear scientist, was assassinated while traveling with his
wife near Tehran. The operation used a remote controlled machine
gun mounted in a truck, precision that was only possible
with intelligence provided by our network. I coordinated that assassination
from my Tel Aviv control center, calculating angles and timing
while watching satellite feeds of Iranian security forces discovering Rahimi's
(12:36):
body another name for my private file. Another human cost
in the equation of preventing nuclear war. Doctor Tehrani attended
Rahimi's funeral. He watched colleagues grieve for a man who'd
been developing weapons capable of destroying cities. He calculated the
moral mathematics of assassination one scientist's death to prevent millions
(12:59):
of civilian cares casualties. But attending that funeral cost Tehrani
something irreplaceable. He began drinking, He stopped calling his daughter
in London. He started questioning whether any of US Iranian,
Israeli American deserved to survive the wars we were fighting
in the shadows. I'm not sleeping, he reported in a
message transmitted through Koremi's network. I see Rahimi's face. I
(13:23):
know his research was feeding weapons development, but he had grandchildren,
He coached youth soccer, He donated blood to disaster victims.
We killed a human being, not just a nuclear scientist.
That message reached my desk on a December morning, when
Tehran was covered in snow. I read it three times.
Calculating the psychological breakdown of an asset worth more than
(13:45):
most military divisions, Doctor Ahmad Trani was questioning the moral
foundation of everything we'd built. The mathematical solution was clear,
replace a compromised asset with fresh recruitment. The human cost
was equally clear. Ahmad Tehrani would likely be executed if
Iranian counterintelligence discovered his communications with Israel. But sometimes the
(14:09):
calculations make themselves. We needed Tehrani's intelligence to prevent nuclear war.
His psychological state was a variable we had to manage,
not a reason to abandon the operation. Three months later,
Karimi reported disturbing news. Iranian leadership had discovered inconsistencies in
nuclear program security. They suspected foreign intelligence penetration. They were
(14:33):
conducting interviews with personnel who had access to sensitive research.
The wolf says, the hunt is turning inward. Came the
encrypted message. Time to be very careful. Iranian paranoia was intensifying.
(14:54):
Security reviews were expanded. Personnel with foreign contacts were being questioned.
Network that had taken three years to build was under
pressure that could collapse it in weeks. But the greater
pressure was coming from Iranian nuclear development itself. Intelligence provided
by our network indicated that Iran was accelerating weapons research.
(15:14):
They were months away from producing weapons grade uranium and
quantity sufficient for multiple nuclear devices. Time was running out
for preventing nuclear war through intelligence operations. Military action was
becoming inevitable. The final message from Colonel Koremi came in
May twenty twenty five. Archive Control the Wolf reports that
(15:36):
Tehran has decided to complete the weapons program regardless of
international pressure. They believe nuclear deterrence requires nuclear weapons, not
nuclear negotiations. Recommend immediate action to prevent irreversible escalation. I
forwarded that message to Director Cohen, who forwarded it to
Prime Minister Weiss, who authorized the operation the world would
(15:58):
know as Rising Line. But as I write this now,
seven years after that warehouse heist in Shabad, I have
to reckon with the human cost of the network we built.
Colonel Karimi was executed by hanging in Tehran last week
after being convicted of treason. Doctor Ahmad Tehrani died in
Israeli air strikes during the opening hours of Rising Lion,
(16:20):
killed by the very military action his intelligence had helped
make possible. Twenty three Iranian intelligence officers who chose conscience
over country, fifty seven nuclear scientists and technicians who risked
everything to prevent nuclear war, dozens of support personnel who
believed they were serving the greater good. All of them
are gone now, some executed by Iranian authorities who discovered
(16:44):
their betrayal. Others killed in military strikes they helped plan.
The network that prevented nuclear war was consumed by the
very conflict that tried to prevent, But their sacrifice accomplished
something unprecedented in the mathematic of modern warfare. The intelligence
they provided enabled precision strikes that destroyed Iran's nuclear weapons
(17:06):
program while minimizing civilian casualties. The war they helped trigger
prevented the nuclear war their research would have made inevitable.
Doctor Ahmad Trani's daughter graduated medical school in London last month.
She'll never return to Iran to build hospitals and rural provinces,
but she'll live in a world where Iranian nuclear weapons
don't threaten to incinerate those hospitals. Colonel Koremi's family believes
(17:30):
he died serving Iranian security. They don't know he spent
his final years betraying his government to save his country.
That's probably for the best. And somewhere in Tehran there
are families mourning nuclear scientists who died in Israeli air strikes.
They don't know those scientists were developing weapons capable of
starting regional nuclear war. They just know their fathers and
brothers and sons are gone. The mathematics of preventing nuclear
(17:55):
war are brutal but clear. Sometimes saving the world requires
destroying the people trying to save it from a different direction,
Sometimes preventing catastrophe means becoming complicit in tragedy. I keep
a photograph of Colonel Koremi on my desk, not his
official Iranian intelligence portrait, but a picture Sarah took during
that Istanbul meeting. He's looking directly at the camera with
(18:18):
the expression of someone who's calculated impossible decisions and chosen
to live with the consequences. Next to it, I keep
doctor Ahmad Trani's final message. Tell my daughter I was
trying to build something beautiful. Tell her the world is
worth saving, even when saving it requires sacrificing everything we love.
(18:39):
The network is gone now. The double agents, the scientists,
the support personnel who made Rising Line possible, all consumed
by the operation they enabled. But their intelligence prevented nuclear
war in the Middle East and prevented regional conflict from
becoming global catastrophe. Was it worth it? The lives saved
versus the live sacrife, the nuclear war prevented versus the
(19:03):
conventional war triggered. I still don't know but I know
Colonel Karemi and doctor Ahmad Tarani made their calculations with
full knowledge of the cost. They chose to betray their
government to serve their principles. They chose to sacrifice their
lives to prevent nuclear war, and they chose to trust
Marcus Cole with coordinating operations that would determine whether their
(19:25):
sacrifices meant something or just added more names to my
private file of people who died believing they were saving
the world. Next time, I'll tell you about Captain Reza Ami,
the Iranian security officer who started hunting our network after
Rahimi's assassination. What we didn't know was that Captain Amiri
was more brilliant than we'd calculated, and more dedicated than
(19:46):
we'd anticipated. The man who would spend five years tracking
down every operative, every safe house, every communication channel we'd
use to prevent nuclear war. The man who would die
defending Tehran from the very air strikes his investigation had
made possible. Some hunts take years to complete, some hunters
(20:06):
become the prey, and some calculations balance only after everyone
who made them is gone.
Speaker 1 (20:19):
This episode is a production of Caloroga Shark Media executive
producers Mark Francis and John McDermott. For more shows like
this based on real world events, please go to Caloroga
dot com. The link is in the show notes. AI
production assistance may have been used in this series.
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