3. The Scientist

November 27, 2020. A one-ton remote-controlled machine gun, smuggled into Iran piece by piece, waits on the Absard highway for Dr. Mohsen Rahimi—Iran's nuclear weapons architect and a grandfather who coaches youth soccer.

The assassination takes sixty-three seconds and triggers a five-year manhunt by Captain Reza Amiri, who will stop at nothing to find his childhood friend's killers. As Marcus coordinates the most sophisticated elimination in intelligence history, Dr. Ahmad Tehrani attends the funeral and refuses to provide intelligence for targeting other Iranians.

Some hunts are personal. Some friendships transcend politics. And sometimes the mathematics of prevention and cure become indistinguishable. The network that prevented nuclear war is about to be destroyed by the pursuit of justice.

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Episode Transcript

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 (00:35):
My name is Marcus Cole, and I need to tell
you about the morning we crossed a line we could
never uncross. It was eight fifteen am on a Friday
in November when doctor Mohsen Rahimi's armored sedan rounded the
curve on the Absurd Highway, thirty kilometers east of Tehran.
He was traveling with his wife Mariam, returning from their

(00:56):
weekend house in the mountains, where they'd hosted his grandchildren
for an early birthday celebration. This is episode three The Scientist.

(01:17):
What doctor Rahimi didn't know was that we'd been tracking
his movements for thirteen years. What he couldn't have calculated
was that a one ton remote controlled machine gun, smuggled
in Iran piece by piece over eight months, was waiting
for him at precisely that curve. And what I couldn't
have anticipated was that Captain Rasami would dedicate the next

(01:39):
five years of his life to hunting down everyone responsible
for what happened in the following sixty three seconds. But
I'm getting ahead of myself. To understand why eliminating doctor
Mohsen Rahimi became inevitable in our calculations, you need to
understand what Colonel Karimi's network had revealed about iran nuclear

(02:00):
weapons program in the two years since we'd stolen those
archives from Shoabad. Doctor Rahimi was Iran's j Robert Oppenheimer,
the brilliant physicist who transformed theoretical nuclear research into practical
weapons development. Since two thousand and seven, he'd led Project
Amod's evolution from paper blueprints to functional warhead designs. The

(02:21):
intelligence provided by doctor Tarani and other assets in Karimi's
network painted a disturbing picture. Iran was months away from
producing weapons grade uranium and quantity sufficient for multiple nuclear devices,
but Rahemi represented more than technical expertise. He was the
institutional memory of Iran's nuclear weapons program, the man who

(02:42):
understood not just how to build atomic bombs, but how
to build them efficiently, reliably, in in quantity. Eliminating him
wouldn't stop Iran's nuclear program, but it would set it
back years and force a complete reorganization of their research priorities.
The mathematics were brutal, but clear one man's life against

(03:03):
millions of potential casualties in nuclear war. I'd coordinated targeted
eliminations before terrorists in Damascus, weapons dealers in Beirut, rocket
engineers in Gaza. But doctor Rahimi was different. He wasn't
a battlefield combatant or a criminal operative. He was a
scionist working for his government, a grandfather who coached youth

(03:26):
soccer and donated blood during natural disasters. The psychological profile
we'd developed painted him as a genuinely decent man caught
in the machinery of state policy. He believed his research
served Iran's defensive needs. He had no idea his calculations
were feeding weapons designed to incinerate Israeli cities. But belief

(03:48):
doesn't alter mathematical reality. Doctor Rahimi's continued research represented an
existential threat to Israeli survival. The operation took eighteen months
to plan and execute. We called its scholar's End, a
designation that felt appropriately academic for targeting someone who'd spent
his career in pursuit of knowledge. However destructive, the weapon

(04:11):
itself was a masterpiece of engineering psychology, a modified Belgian
fnmag machine gun mounted on an advanced robotic platform equipped
with facial recognition software and satellite communication systems. The entire
apparatus weighed approximately one ton and had been smuggled into
Iran through commercial channels over eight months. Our operatives used

(04:34):
legitimate business relationships to import industrial equipment, electronic components, and
mechanical parts that seemed innocuous individually but formed a sophisticated
assassination system when assembled. The machine gun components entered Iran
disguised as mining equipment. The robotic platform arrived as agricultural
automation technology. The artificial intelligence systems were embedded in consumer

(04:57):
electronics shipments. The assembly took place in a safe house
outside Tehran, a facility Koremi's network had identified and secured
without Iranian counterintelligence detection. Three Masad technical specialists operating under
commercial cover identities spent six weeks integrating the components into

(05:17):
a weapon system that could be operated remotely from our
Tel Aviv command center. Doctor Rahimi's security team had advised
against the weekend trip to absard intelligence indicated elevated threat levels,
and his protection detail recommended postponing travel until security assessments
could be completed, but Rahimi insisted on maintaining his family commitments.

(05:40):
His grandson's birthday party was more important to him than
abstract security concerns. He'd survived previous assassination attempts, car bombs
in twenty ten, motorcycle gunmen in twenty fifteen, and believed
his security protocols were adequate protection That confidence would prove faith.

(06:00):
The killing zone was a curve on the Absard Highway
where terrain features limited escape routes, and sitelines provided optimal
targeting angles. Our surveillance teams had identified the location months
earlier and positioned the weapon system in an abandoned Nissan
pickup truck parked strategically along the roadside from my control

(06:21):
center in Tel Aviv. I watched satellite feeds as Rahimi's
four vehicle convoy approached the ambush site. The lead security car,
Rahimi's armored sedan, a follow vehicle with additional bodyguards and
a rear guard maintaining overwatch standard Iranian VIP protection protocol
meticulously documented by Karemi's network. At eight seventeen am, the

(06:45):
convoy entered the killing zone. The weapon system activated automatically,
using facial recognition software to identify doctor Rahimi through the
Sedan's windows. Thirteen bullets, fired in controlled bursts over thirty
sive seven seconds, struck the vehicle with surgical precision. The
bullets were designed to penetrate standard armored glass. Intelligence about

(07:08):
the Sedan's protection specifications had been provided by our network
months earlier. Doctor Rahimi died instantly. Four additional rounds struck
his security chief, who had attempted to shield the scientists
with his own body. Mariam Rahimi, sitting beside her husband,
was unharmed. The weapons targeting algorithms had been programmed to

(07:29):
avoid collateral casualties. The entire engagement lasted less than one minute.
By the time Iranian security forces reached the scene, the
weapons system had self destructed, destroying evidence while leaving enough
debris to suggest a sophisticated foreign intelligence operation. But something
went wrong with our extraction planning. The Nissan pickup truck

(07:51):
was registered to a man who had fled Iran three
days before the assassination, a detail that immediately suggested foreign
involvement to Iranian investigators. More critically, the technical complexity of
the weapons system indicated resources and capabilities beyond those of
typical opposition groups. Within hours, Iranian security services had concluded

(08:12):
they were dealing with an Israeli operation. That's when Captain
Ressa Amiri entered our calculations. Captain Amiri was a twenty
year veteran of Iran's intelligence ministry, specializing in counterintelligence operations

(08:35):
against foreign services. He'd spent his career tracking Israeli operatives
in Iran with methodical precision that had earned respect even
from Massad analysts who studied his work, But the Rahimi
assassination transformed Ami from professional investigator into personal nemesis. Amir
had grown up in the same Tehran neighborhood as doctor Rahimi.

(08:56):
They'd attended the same elementary school, played soccer on the
same youth teams, maintained a friendship that transcended their different
career paths. When Amir learned that his childhood friend had
been assassinated by foreign operatives, the investigation became a personal
mission for justice. The Wolf report's unusual activity in counterintelligence

(09:16):
channels came an encrypted message from Karemi three days after
the assassination. Captain Amiri has been assigned lead investigative authority.
He's asking uncomfortable questions about security protocols and communication intercepts.
Amir's investigation began with forensic analysis of the weapons system debris.
Iranian technical specialists concluded that the assassination required intelligence about

(09:41):
Rahimi's travel schedule, security protocols, and vehicle specifications that could
only have been provided by sources within Iran security apparatus.
The mathematical implications were terrifying. If Israeli intelligence had penetrated
Iran's security services deeply enough to coordinate such a sophisticated
assassin nation, the entire Iranian leadership was vulnerable to similar operations.

(10:05):
But Amiri's investigation went beyond technical forensics. He began conducting
psychological profiles of Iranian personnel with access to classified information
about Rahimi's movements. He reviewed communication patterns, travel records, financial transactions,
and personal relationships of anyone who might have provided intelligence

(10:26):
to foreign services, and he was getting closer to discovering
Karimi's network archive control. The wolf advis's extreme caution came
another encrypted message in December, Captain Amir has identified communication
anomalies in my department. He's requesting authorization to conduct polygraph
examinations of senior staff. This was the nightmare scenario we'd calculated,

(10:50):
but hoped to avoid a competent investigator with personal motivation
and institutional support systematically unraveling the network that had taken
three years to build. The pressure was mounting on doctor
Tehrani as well. Rahimi's death had triggered security reviews throughout
Iran's nuclear program. Personnel with foreign contacts were being questioned,

(11:11):
research projects were being audited for security compliance. I attended
Mosen's funeral, Tehrani reported through ENCRYPTI channels. His grandsons asked
me why bad people had killed their grandfather. His wife
asked if the research we were doing was worth men
dying for it. I couldn't answer either question. Doctor Ahmad

(11:31):
Tehrani was breaking down under the psychological strain of betraying
his homeland, while morning colleagues killed by the intelligence he provided.
The funeral had been a breaking point seeing Rahimi's family
grieve for a man whose death Trani had helped enable
through his cooperation with Israeli intelligence. But the intelligence Tehrani
continued to provide was too valuable to lose. His access

(11:54):
to nuclear research data enabled precision targeting that minimized civilian
casualties while maximizing operational impact. Replacing him would take years
in risk, exposing additional assets to Amri's investigation. The calculations
were becoming increasingly complex. Maintained Tehrani's cooperation while managing his

(12:15):
psychological deterioration, continue Karemi's network operations while avoiding Amir's investigation,
eliminate Iranian nuclear capability while preventing broader regional war. Every
variable depended on variables we couldn't control. Amir's investigation expanded
throughout twenty twenty one. In twenty twenty two, he arrested

(12:36):
a tea house owner who had provided safehouse services during
our archive operation. He identified three communication channels used by
our operatives during the Rahemi assassination. He even discovered the
shipping records for some of the equipment components we'd use
to build the weapon system. But he was also discovering
corruption within Iran security services that had nothing to do

(12:56):
with Israeli intelligence operations. Ranian officials were embezzling funds, selling
classified information to criminal organizations, and using their positions for
personal enrichment. Amir's investigation was uncovering systemic problems that threatened
the entire Iranian security establishment. The Wolf says Amir has

(13:17):
identified significant corruption in intelligence services. Koremi reported his investigation
is expanding beyond foreign penetration to include domestic criminal activity.
This provides cover for our network, but also increases security
scrutiny across all departments. Iranian leadership was facing an uncomfortable

(13:38):
choice support Amir's investigation and risk exposing widespread corruption, or
limit his authority and risk leaving foreign intelligence networks intact.
They chose a middle course that satisfied no one. Amir
was given expanded investigative authority but limited resources. He could
pursue foreign intelligence operations, but not corruption in cases that

(14:00):
implicated senior officials. He could arrest low level operatives, but
not senior personnel without explicit authorization. The bureaucratic constraints frustrated Amri,
but didn't stop his investigation. He simply worked around administrative
limitations with the dedication of someone pursuing personal justice rather
than professional advancement. By twenty twenty three, Amri had identified

(14:24):
most of the support network we'd use for the Rahemi assassination. Safehouses,
communication channels, equipment suppliers, transportation assets, the entire infrastructure that
had enabled our operation was being systematically exposed and eliminated.
But he still hadn't discovered the source of the intelligence
that made the assassination possible. He didn't know about doctor

(14:46):
Tehrani's cooperation with Israeli intelligence. He hadn't identified Kareemi as
a double agent. The core network remained intact even as
its operational capabilities were degraded. That's when we made a
decision that would haunt my calcul relations for years. Rather
than risk AMII discovering our most valuable assets, we decided
to eliminate him. The operation was designated Scholar's Justice, a

(15:19):
reference to his investigation of the Rahemi assassination. It would
look like retaliation by criminal elements whose corruption he'd exposed,
providing plausible deniability while removing the threat to our network.
But doctor Tehrani refused to provide intelligence for targeting Amir.
I won't help you kill another good man, came his
encrypted message. Raisa Ami is trying to protect Iran from

(15:42):
foreign infiltration. He's doing his job with honor and dedication.
If you want to eliminate him, find another source for
targeting intelligence. Tehrani's refusal created an operational crisis. We needed
his access to Iranian security protocols to plan Amir's assassination,
but he wouldn't cooperate with operations targeting Iranian personnel. He

(16:03):
respected the psychological profile we developed of Tehrani indicated this
was likely. He'd agreed to provide intelligence about nuclear weapons
development because he opposed proliferation, but he wouldn't participate in
operations targeting individual Iranians unless they were directly involved in
weapons research. His moral boundaries were limiting our operational flexibility

(16:26):
at precisely the moment when eliminating a Miri had become
strategically necessary, MARCUS Director Cohen said during a briefing in
early twenty twenty four, we need to resolve the Ami problem.
His investigation is getting too close to assets. We can't
afford to lose Sir without Tehrani's cooperation. We don't have

(16:47):
the intelligence required for precise targeting, and forcing his cooperation
risks losing him entirely. Then we need to decide which
asset is more valuable, Tehrani's continued intelligence provision or a
limitating the threat Amri represents. The mathematics were cruel, but clear.
Doctor Tehrani provided ongoing intelligence about Iran's nuclear program. Captain

(17:11):
Amir represented a growing threat to the network that enabled
that intelligence collection. But eliminating Amri without Tehrani's cooperation would
require broader operations that risked exposing other assets. We chose
to maintain Tehrani's cooperation and manage the Amir threat through
operational security rather than elimination. It was the right decision morally,

(17:32):
in the wrong decision strategically. Over the following year, Amir's
investigation continued closing in on our network. He identified communication
patterns that suggested systematic intelligence sharing between Irani and personnel
and foreign services. He developed psychological profiles of potential double
agents that included accurate assessments of several network members, and

(17:56):
in March twenty twenty five, he finally identified doctor Ahmad
Tehrani as a probable Israeli intelligence asset. Archive control the
Wolf Reports emergency status came Koremi's final encrypted message. Captain
AMII has requested authorization to arrest doctor Tehrani for questioning.

(18:16):
He has compiled evidence of irregular communication patterns and suspicious
research access recommend immediate extraction protocols, but doctor Tehrani refused extraction.
I won't abandon my country or my colleagues, he transmitted.
If Captain Ami arrest me, I'll deny everything and accept
the consequences, but I won't let my cooperation with Israel

(18:37):
destroy other people's lives. Tehrani's refusal to flee Iran meant
his arrest would inevitably lead to interrogation, confession, and identification
of other network members. The carefully constructed intelligence operation that
had enabled precision targeting of Iranian nuclear facilities was about
to collapse under pressure from one dedicated investigator seeking justice

(19:00):
for his murdered friend. The network that had prevented nuclear
war was being destroyed by the pursuit of justice for
preventing nuclear war. Three months later, Iranian intelligence reported that
they were accelerating nuclear weapons development in response to security
breaches in their program. They'd concluded that foreign intelligence penetration

(19:21):
was so extensive that only rapid completion of nuclear capability
would provide adequate deterrence against further attacks. Iran's pursuit of
nuclear weapons was being accelerated by our success in preventing
nuclear weapons. The equations were balancing in ways we'd never calculated.
On June thirteenth, twenty twenty five, Israeli forces launched Operation

(19:45):
Rising Lion. Among the first targets struck were Iran's nuclear
research facilities, where doctor Ahmad Tehrani had spent his career
trying to build something beautiful for his country while secretly
preventing something terrible from being built for the world. Doctor
Tehrani died in the initial air strikes, killed by the
military operation his intelligence had helped plan. Captain Ami died

(20:09):
defending Tehran from precision strikes that were only possible because
of the network he'd spent five years trying to expose,
and somewhere in the rubble of Iranian nuclear facilities, the
research that could have led to fifteen nuclear weapons was
destroyed by operations coordinated from my control center in Tel Aviv.

(20:29):
The assassination of doctor Mohsen Rahemi in November twenty twenty
had been designed to prevent nuclear war. Instead, it triggered
an investigation that exposed our intelligence network, accelerated Iranian weapons development,
and led to the military conflict we'd hope to avoid.
Sometimes preventing catastrophe creates the conditions for different catastrophe. Sometimes

(20:51):
eliminating threats generates new threats. Sometimes the mathematics of prevention
and cure become indistinguishable. I keep a photograph of Captain
Amri on my desk, not his official Iranian intelligence portrait,
but a picture from a childhood's soccer team he'd played
on with Doctor Rahimi. Two boys who would grow up

(21:12):
to serve their country in different ways, united by friendship
and separated by the wars their nations fought. In the
shadows next to it, I keep doctor Rahimi's final research notes,
recovered from the scene of his assassination, Calculations for uranium
enrichment processes that could have powered Iranian cities or destroyed

(21:33):
Israeli ones, the same equations dependent only on the intentions
of the people using them. Captain Emir spent five years
seeking justice for his friend's murder. He never discovered that
his friend had been developing weapons capable of murdering millions.
He just knew that good men were dying for reasons
he needed to understand. Next time, I'll tell you about

(21:54):
the infiltration networks we built while Amiri was hunting us.
How we smuggled weapons and operative indo Iran piece by piece,
preparing for the operation that would ultimately consume everyone who
made it possible. Some hunts take years to complete, some
hunters become the prey, and some equations balance only after
everyone who calculated them as gone. But the real mathematics

(22:17):
of Operation Rising Lion were just beginning.

Speaker 1 (22:31):
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.