‘Who are you working for?’ Mostofi slapped Hosseini so hard that the student fell off the chair and lay on the floor.
The prison cell had ten-feet-high walls, a thick steel door with a barred window. A bulb hung from the ceiling emitting dim light. The pervasive smell of damp, urine and sweat.
It was ideal for interrogation, with the right atmospherics, which was why Mostofi had asked the NAJA officers to bring the student there.
The head of the police hadn’t objected nor had he asked any questions. He was from the IRGC, and had been mentored by Mostofi. While he was of the same rank as the Quds commander, there was no doubt who was superior and which organization was more powerful in Iran.
Mostofi and Nassour had arrived to find the student bound and seated. The Quds leader had nodded at the police officers and had asked them to leave.
That had been half an hour ago.
He had started lightly. Body blows and slaps. Ten minutes later, he started questioning.
Hosseini hadn’t cracked. He had volunteered his name and that he was a student at MUT.
‘I don’t work for anyone. It was a mistake. I ran because I was scared. Those guards were looking at me angrily.’
He had stuck to that story.
Mostofi sighed. He leaned down and grabbed the captive by his hair and yanked him up and shoved him on the chair.
An evil smile on his lips when Hosseini screamed.
‘We checked your phone. There was nothing on it. How’s that possible? There’s no one in the world that carries a phone but has no contacts, no history on it. You erased it. Why?’
‘I didn’t do anything, agha. I swear. Please let me go.’
Mostofi punched him in the gut and followed up with an elbow strike to his jaw. The student’s lips split. Blood spurted and droplets landed on the commander’s uniform.
‘Habib,’ he looked up in disgust.
‘Yes, agha.’ His aide straightened.
‘Get me a wet towel and bottles of water. And a pair of pliers. Yes,’ he told the prisoner who shuddered. ‘It’s going to get a little harder now.’
An hour later Hosseini lay in the cell. His whole body throbbed. His hands were mangled, bleeding.
Mostofi had pulled out all ten nails while his aide held the captive firmly. All the while, above the sounds of Hosseini’s screams and sobs, the Quds boss had kept up his questioning. The student lost consciousness several times and when he came to, his torturers were still there.
I didn’t break. How his mind was still working, he didn’t know, but he was still capable of thought.
He hadn’t confessed. He hadn’t given up Reza Zarhagi, a man whom he revered.
He hadn’t even mentioned the camera pen. He didn’t know where it was. Perhaps it had rolled away out of sight when the guards had pounced on him. It didn’t matter.
What was important was that his phone had been wiped clean. That meant Syed, the electronics expert, had done the job. He hoped the camera had captured everything and the phone had relayed it to the cloud.
Hosseini spat weakly and drew breath torturously. He knew Mostofi wasn’t done. He would return and resume and this time he would go harder.
The student moaned and shivered. He had been strong until that point, but would he be able to withstand further agony? He guessed what the Quds leader would do. He will go after my testicles, then my eyes.
He lay on his back, summoning all his energy, trying to think clearly through the fog of agony. His eyes fell on the cold walls and an idea came to him.
He struggled to rise, fell. Tried again and got to all fours. A cry escaped him as his fingers bore his weight and fire shot through them.
He got to his feet unsteadily and looked down. His trousers were soiled from urine and water. His shirt stuck to him. Blood splatters. That white object on the floor was a tooth. He staggered and regained his balance. Didn’t allow himself to think.
Mehdi Hosseini didn’t think of himself as a hero. That was Reza Zarhagi who had survived brutality and had joined the activists and organized them into a potent force.
No. The PhD student was just following in the footsteps of the man he admired.
He lowered his head and ran as fast as he could at the concrete wall.
Mostofi and Nassour returned after dinner and a change of clothes to find a clutch of guards in the cell.
Faces turned towards them when they arrived. Some of them anxious, a few angry, but most of them bewildered.
‘What happened?’ the Quds boss thundered when he spotted Hosseini’s battered body on the floor.
‘We didn’t do anything, agha. We found him like this.’
Nassour nudged him and it was then he noticed the student’s crushed skull.
He stared in shock. He had meted out the most painful torture to prisoners. He had witnessed death in all its forms, and yet he couldn’t comprehend the sight.
‘How did he die?’ he exclaimed.
‘We think he smashed his head against the wall.’