Tehran Grocery Store: My Intelligence is Priced Clearly

In the south of Tehran, there is a dark alley that never sees sunlight.

The air was filled with the sour smell of sewers and the stench of cheap tobacco.

Ali leaned against the mottled brick wall, using the dim light from his phone screen to quickly scan the pictures sent by Fahad.

Thirteen names, eight addresses.

Each name was precisely labeled with its occupation, disguised identity, and daily routine.

He slowly copied this information back onto a piece of paper, then completely shredded and deleted the image.

"Let's go, time to get to work."

Ali turned his head and looked at Bale beside him.

Bale was also a young man recommended by Karimi; he had served in the border guard force before retiring from the military.

He wasn't tall, but he was extremely fast.

He didn't say anything, he just nodded.

Ali bent down, took two bulletproof vests from the canvas bag that Fahad had thrown to him, and tossed one over.

After getting dressed himself, he took out a brand-new short assault rifle and handed it to him.

He then took out the sniper rifle inside and skillfully screwed on the silencer.

"The boss's rule is that everyone on the list must disappear before dawn tonight. Not a single one will be left."

"clear."

Bale tightened the straps of his bulletproof vest, his tone indifferent.

The two men pulled back the bolts, and the "click" of the bullets being chambered was particularly crisp in the narrow alley.

Then, the two dark figures silently disappeared into the night.

Two blocks east of the South City Bazaar, there's a watch repair shop with a sign that says it's closed.

Mamed, a repairman in his thirties, was hunched over the workbench, with a dim table lamp overhead.

What he was fiddling with in his hand wasn't a watch part at all, but a tiny tracker no bigger than a fingernail.

The phone on the table suddenly vibrated.

Mamed took off his magnifying glass and glanced at it; it was a push notification from an encrypted channel.

[Reward Notice: A $50,000 reward will be given for information leading to the identification of any unfamiliar faces in the entire bazaar area today.]

Looking at the string of numbers with five zeros, Mamed couldn't help but swallow hard.

He waited for three years in this run-down place in the south of the city, enduring the smells of gasoline and mutton every day, until finally he landed a big order.

Once this deal is settled, his son's living expenses in Paris for the year will be covered.

Fingers flew across the keyboard.

As Mamade was preparing to retrieve the footage from the hidden camera at the entrance of his shop, a fine layer of goosebumps suddenly rose on the back of his neck.

A cool breeze blew in through the half-open window.

Before he could turn his head...

puff!

The silenced gun was pressed directly against the back of his head and fired.

Mamed's head slammed hard against the wooden table, his body twitched twice, and then he stopped moving.

Crimson blood mixed with a white, viscous substance flowed directly into the pile of intricate mechanical parts.

Ali lowered the muzzle of his gun, not even glancing at the corpse.

He unplugged the computer's power cord, grabbed the hard drive from the table, stuffed it into his pocket, and turned to leave through the back door the way he came.

Balai and the others waited at the alley entrance. When Ali came out, the two did not linger for a moment and went straight to their next target.

Hoddad Street, a basement disguised as a laundromat.

This is a data transfer station set up by the CIA in the south of the city.

At this moment, three Iranian informants were gathered around a table littered with cigarette butts, frantically taking screenshots and comparing them on several large screens.

"Has the section chief gone mad? Making us check tens of thousands of faces in the middle of the night?"

A man with a full beard was irritably pulling at his hair.

"Alright, stop complaining."

Another skinny guy blew a smoke ring.

"Get to work! Didn't you see the news? The American F-16DJ was shot down. It's a big deal, so it's normal to tighten things up a bit."

As soon as he finished speaking, the incandescent light bulb on the roof flickered twice and went out without warning.

The basement was plunged into darkness in an instant.

The sound of the exhaust fan also stopped abruptly.

"What's going on? Is there a power outage?"

The skinny man groped in the dark to grab his cell phone from the table for light.

"It's the middle of the night... I'll go check the power switch."

Accompanied by light footsteps, a creaking sound came from the darkness as the door was pushed open.

"Why is the door open...?"

The question hadn't been finished.

boom!

The reinforced iron door to the basement was kicked open violently.

Immediately afterwards, two blinding beams of tactical flashlights pierced the darkness, making it impossible for the three of them to open their eyes.

*Pfft! Pfft! Pfft!*

Three muffled bursts of short-haired bullets.

There were no warnings, and no nonsense.

Beneath the beam of light, blood mist exploded one after another in the air.

The three informants were shot in the chest and between the eyebrows almost simultaneously, and fell backward like tattered sacks.

Bale stepped forward, stepping on spent cartridge cases, his assault rifle as steady as a rock.

He paused for half a second next to each person, lowered the muzzle of his gun, and fired another shot.

Ali followed in from behind, carrying a red plastic bucket, and began splashing gasoline along the surrounding walls and servers.

A strong, pungent odor instantly filled the air.

"Good performance, let's withdraw."

Ali gave Bale an approving look and made a gesture.

Five minutes later, a muffled explosion came from the basement, and flames shot up more than two meters high through the sewer grate.

Time passed second by second.

Under the cover of night south of Tehran, a one-sided hunt is unfolding at breakneck speed.

1:40 a.m.

When an informant came out to urinate, a hand wearing a tactical glove covered his mouth, and a sharp military knife instantly severed his carotid artery.

The body was stuffed upside down into the stinking swill bucket next to it.

2:15 a.m.

Just as an informant posing as a taxi driver stopped his car to go home, Bale walked over from the side and started firing wildly at the driver's seat.

The car window was shattered, and the eyeliner was riddled with holes.

2:40 a.m.

Ali lay on top of an abandoned water tower, aiming at a residential building across the street.

"puff!"

A tiny burst of fire erupted from the muzzle of the sniper rifle equipped with a silencer, accompanied by a muffled, almost inaudible growl.

The residential building has 7 floors.

"Splash!"

A pane of glass shattered instantly.

Half of a head that was already fast asleep vanished into thin air, covered in a thick, red and white substance!

The basement of the grocery store.

Zhang Jian took off his coat and changed into a brand-new black training uniform, then leaned back in his recliner.

He held a half-burnt cigarette between his fingers, the ash almost overflowing.

Farhad sat on the chair next to him, intently wiping the Glock pistol he had just brought back during the day with a cotton cloth.

Every few strokes, he would look up at the clock on the wall.

"Boss."

Farhad couldn't hold it in any longer and swallowed hard.

"You've directly attacked the American intelligence network."

"If we push them too far, what if..."

Zhang Jian flicked off his cigarette ash.

"What are you afraid of? Your boss is in a job that involves offending Americans."

"If we don't kill them, they'll kill me."

"Instead of doing that, I might as well strike first and knock their eyes out."

He took a drag of his cigarette, the pale blue smoke swirling in the dim light.

"Farhad, there are some things you know better than I do."

"On your land, forbearance will not bring you a way to survive."

"Only when you punch them hard enough to make them feel the pain to the bone will they reconsider the cost of opposing you."