The medics that were summoned to the restaurant confirmed his death. Later laboratory tests showed that some strange, unidentified substance was found in the oysters that remained untouched on his plate. Genevieve was nowhere to be found. When other members of the French delegation were questioned no one knew who the tall good looking dark woman was.
Hassan Sadeq had been looking forward to his long awaited ski vacation in the beloved French Rhone-Alps. Two decades earlier, as a young agent of the IRG he had been posted in Grenoble and was in charge of keeping an eye on the Iranian scientists who were attending graduate courses at MaNuEn — Materials science for Nuclear Energy — and at the Master EMINE — European Master in Nuclear Energy. His job was to make sure that none of them chose to stay in Europe as that would be considered as defection, or even treason, by the Iranian Islamic Republic of Iran. Hassan was told to use any approach he found the most effective to achieve this goal. In some cases he appealed to their patriotic sense, in others he reminded them that they had a moralistic debt to the country that paid for their education, others were promised good jobs and highly respectable positions on their return to Iran. In some cases, where nothing else appeared to work he threatened them that their families would be harmed. In the most extreme case, when a student who liked the French women, wine and weather (the three W's), refused to return to Iran he simply cut his throat, trying to stage a foiled robbery. After that he had to leave France in a hurry just one step ahead of the police that suspected that the Iranian student's murder was not a simple robbery that was thwarted.
Hassan was in Chamonix, under an assumed name and a new identity. He was looking forward to taking the lift up to the panoramic view point at Aiguille de Midi from which the majestic peak of the Mont Blanc could be seen on a clear day. He had been staying in a small three-star hotel near the center of the village waiting for the skies to clear and for the cable car to resume operations that had been suspended due to the weather conditions. Meanwhile he enjoyed the food and wine and thought that he could now better understand the student who refused to return to Iran.
At long last the weather cleared and he purchased a one-way ticket up to the panoramic view veranda. He planned to return back down to the village on his skis. He was confident in his ability to negotiate the steep decline although he knew that he was a bit out of practice as he didn't have many opportunities to go skiing in Iran. He was now a very senior member of the IRG given the responsibility of taking care of the physical security of Iran's nuclear facilities in Natanz, Isfahan and Arak. He surmised that there were other secret facilities that were not under supervision by the IAEA but these were not part of his mandate.
The cable car was very crowded, especially as several passengers had carried their skiing equipment, and everyone was wearing bulky warm clothes. Hassan didn't pay special attention to the young couple that appeared to be totally engrossed with each other. With their free hands they were holding on to their professional looking ski equipment. All passengers exited at the view point terrace and took a few minutes to get acclimatized to the depletion of oxygen at 3842 meters above sea level. Nobody was in a rush to start the descent and the people simply stood on the veranda enjoying the view and taking photographs. After some 30 minutes Hassan felt that he was ready for the downhill skiing exercise and walked slowly to the exit that led to the slopes. He saw that the couple of lovebirds were just ahead of him and were already moving slowly on the downhill track. Within a few minutes he caught up with them. As he pulled up level with them and tried to pass them the young man extended his hand and slapped the back of Hassan's head with a short lead filled pipe. Hassan lost his balance and veered off the path straight down a 300 meter deep abyss. The young couple continued on their way down the mountain and reached the village an hour later. Both were sure that no pathologist in the world would find evidence of the head injury in a post-mortem operation, even if any part of the head will remain recognizable after the fall.
The small Hyundai travelled along the broad Chahar Bagh E Bala Avenue that was one of the main thoroughfares of the beautiful city of Isfahan. The driver was the Senior Engineer at the nuclear facility that converted uranium bearing ores into feed material for the nearby enrichment plant and his two passengers were his junior colleagues. Traffic was quite heavy as they approached Ayineh Khaneh Boulevard which was quite normal during the morning rush-hour. The queue of cars waiting to turn left at the T-junction was long and traffic was almost at a standstill. Small mopeds and large motorcycles passed the waiting cars on the left and on the right, ignoring all traffic rules and regulations that in any case were merely regarded as recommendations for good behavior. The noise from the exhaust pipe of the truck ahead of them and of the motorcycles overtaking the Hyundai was loud so none of the occupants were aware of the metallic sound made when a powerful pipe-bomb was attached with a strong magnet to the car's roof. Seconds later the sound of a loud explosion reverberated and echoed from the surrounding building. Car parts and pieces of human organs flew up in the air and the ball of fire ignited the vehicles in front of and behind the Hyundai. Fatal wounds were received not only by the driver and passengers of the Hyundai but also by a young couple with their baby son that were crossing the avenue just behind the car. Over a dozen people were injured. An alert policeman that was stationed at the road junction noticed a motorbike speeding away from the explosion but all he could see that it was driven by a large young man wearing a black leather jacket and a helmet with its visor down and a similarly attired smaller passenger, probably a woman, was clinging onto the driver's hips.
Chapter 2
The small gathering was attended by the Senior Assistant of the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran, by General Aslawi who was the commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards and by the head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI). Imam Mourtashef was also present in his special capacity as the liaison between the clandestine laboratory in Basement S of Evin Prison and the Supreme Leader. The general presented the findings of the committee that investigated the untimely deaths of the senior scientists and intelligence officers that were all intensely involved in Iran's nuclear weapons program. The investigation had taken a long time because the deaths in Vienna, Barcelona, Taormina, London, Stockholm and Chamonix were apparently unrelated. But the general who lived and breathed conspiracies knew better and searched for the guiding hand that directed these events. The mysterious explosion in the heart of Isfahan was especially challenging as similar incidents had occurred before and in those cases the culprits were assumed to be Iranian opposition groups in cohorts with Mossad or some other foreign intelligence agency. The Imam was particularly concerned about the deaths of the scientists that were involved with the secret laboratory that he oversaw as part of his responsibilities to the Supreme Leader.