by Dale Brown
“Ed, it’s us—it’s still us, the people you know, even though our names have changed,” Lieutenant Saidi said. “We still love and care for Katelyn as if she is really our child. She learned as a youngster not to expect to be treated like a princess while in the United States, and she never has. But now we have to become her guardians again. Her safety is the most important thing now.”
“We appreciate all you’ve done with Katelyn over the years, Ed,” Major Najar went on, “but the charade is over. We have to move to a new location for the princess’s safety.”
“What if I don’t let you take her?” Harlow asked.
Najar looked at Saidi, then grimly at the Civil Air Patrol commander. “We have two men aboard the helicopter, Ed,” he said darkly. “We surrendered our primary weapons to the lieutenant colonel before he agreed to take us to you, but we all have hidden backup weapons which they did not discover. We are prepared to kill every one of you and take the helicopter if you resist.” Harlow was afraid that was going to be his response. He carried a Beretta pistol—loaded but not chambered—and he noticed that both Najar and Saidi glanced to his hip and had probably already decided how they were going to take it away from him. He had no doubt they could do it, too.
“If this is some kind of joke, you two, you just threatened me and all of these children who are on a required training exercise for the U.S. Air Force Auxiliary,” Harlow said seriously. “I’ll see to it that you’re thrown in prison for twenty years if this turns out to be a gag.”
“Ed, call anyone you need to call—but please, do it quickly,” Saidi pleaded. “We brought our State Department liaison and the National Guard unit commander with us—we would’ve brought another helicopter filled with officials if we had the time.”
“Ed, listen to me—we need to go, so you have to make a decision,” Najar said. “The only other fact I can tell you is that if we meant the princess any harm…”
“Stop calling her that,” Harlow protested. “She’s Katelyn, my friend, my subordinate, and out here, my responsibility.”
“…I guarantee you, we would not have hesitated to kill you and all these children to accomplish our mission. We’re out in the middle of nowhere—we could kill all of you right now and we’d be in Canada and halfway to safety before anyone discovered your bodies. That’s what the Pasdaran would have done if they found the princess first.”
“I said, stop calling her that!”
“It’s who she is, Ed,” Najar said. “I think you’ve known that for a long time now yourself, haven’t you?” Harlow said nothing, but he was perfectly correct—he had noticed she was different, and now he knew why. “You’ve seen there is something special about her. She has the courage, the intelligence, and the compassion of a princess—you’ve seen it, as have we and a handful of insightful American teachers we’ve encountered since living in protective custody in the United States.”
Harlow thought for a moment. He looked toward the Black Hawk helicopter and saw one of the two men inside peering back at him, and he knew he had to think of something to verify all this. After a moment, he withdrew his satellite phone from his pocket and dialed his home number—very relieved when he realized that Najar and Saidi, the Iranian bodyguards, allowed him to use the phone. If they were here to harm any of them, that’s the last thing they would have wanted.
“Hello?” Harlow’s wife answered.
“Hi hon, it’s me.”
“Hey. How’s it going out there? Any problems?”
“Nothing too out of the ordinary,” he replied, hoping his wife wouldn’t pick up the tension in his voice—and then again, hoping she would. “Can you do me a favor, sweetie?”
“It’ll cost you tonight, stud.” When he didn’t respond, she turned serious. “Sure, babe. Go ahead.”
“Hop on the Internet and Google something for me, would you?”
“Hold on a sec.” A moment later: “Okay, shoot.”
“We’re discussing the recent stuff happening in Iran, you know, about the military insurgency they’ve been talking about?”
“Yeah.”
“We got to talking about who was in charge of Iran before the clerics. Can you look that up?”
“Sure. One sec.” It did not take long at all: “You mean the Shah? Reza Khan Pahlavi.”
Najar was writing something down on a notepad even before Harlow asked: “How about before him?”
“Hold on.” A moment later: “Got it. Before the Pahlavi dynasty it was the Qagev dynasty, seventeen eighty to nineteen twenty-five. Before them it was the Zand dynasty, seventeen fifty to seventeen sixty-four. Before that…”
“That’s what I was looking for, hon, the Qagev dynasty,” Harlow interrupted. “We were discussing anyone still alive from the Qagev dynasty. Anything on that?”
Najar held up his notepad. It read: “Mohammed Hassan Qagev II, Dallas, Texas, 3 sons, 4 daughters.”
“Hold on,” Harlow’s wife said. “This is fun. Are you still out in the field?”
“Yes.”
“On the satellite phone? Must be costing a fortune.”
“Babe…”
“I got it right here, Mr. Impatient. Yes, there is a guy still alive from that dynasty. His name is Mohammed Hassan Qagev. And how about this? He lives in the United States—in Addison, Texas. He has a Web site where he blogs on what’s happening in Iran.”
“Anything else about him?”
“Lots. His wife looks like Angelina Jolie, big lips, big tits—you’d like her. He has seven kids…no, wait, it says here that all of them were killed by Iranian secret agents in Europe and Asia. How sad.”
“Does it say when?”
“No.”
“Anything else?”
“Wait, I’m reading…no, nothing much else…hey, this is interesting.”
“What?”
“There’s a picture of him and his wife, from several years ago, and guess what? He’s only got four fingers on each hand!”
“He what? Are you sure?”
“That’s what it looks like…yep, definitely, just four fingers. He’s not even trying to hide it. I think that’s brave of him. Hey, doesn’t one of your cadets, the red-haired girl, have only four fingers on each of her hands?”
“Katelyn. Yes. It’s called bilateral hypoplastic thumb.”
“Well, I’ll take your word for it—it doesn’t mention it here. It’s like…hey, they have a picture of Mohammed’s father, in a British World War Two uniform, and guess what?”
“He has only four fingers too.”
“It’s a little hard to be sure in this photo, but it looks like his right thumb is real short and fused to his index finger. So it must be hereditary, like a royal birthmark thing, huh?”
“I guess.”
“Hey, wouldn’t it be funny if your cadet, Katelyn, was secretly related to this Mohammed, and living in exile in the United States, hiding out from the Iranian secret police? She’d be, like…”
“An Iranian princess,” Harlow muttered.
“Exactly. How cool would that be?” No response. “Hon, you still there?”
“Thanks for the info.” He thought for a moment; then: “Stay on the line for a minute or two, sweetie, just in case anyone else has any questions.”
“Sure, babe. As long as we’re not paying that satphone bill.”
“It’ll be taken care of, don’t worry. Hold on. Don’t hang up until I tell you to, okay?”
“What’s going on, Ed?” his wife asked, but he had already lowered the phone. Najar and Saidi looked at his stunned expression, then looked at the phone but made no move to take it away from him.
This is insane, Harlow thought, completely unbelievable—but he was beginning to believe it. He turned toward his waiting cadets and shouted, “VanWie! Over here.”
Katelyn trotted over, smiled at Najar and Saidi, snapped to attention, then saluted. “Reporting as ordered, sir,” she said.
“At ease, Lieutenant. With me.” H
arlow stepped several paces away from the others.
“Why are my parents here, sir?”
“No questions now, Katelyn,” Harlow said. He turned toward the helicopter and pointed at Hamilton. “Do you know that man over there?”
“He’s a friend of my dad. They work together at the finance company, I think.”
“His name?”
“Mr. Hamilton. I’m not sure of his first name.”
“How about the guy looking out the door of the helicopter?”
Katelyn looked, swallowed hard, then looked at Harlow. “He’s a friend of my dad’s too,” she said nervously.
“A ‘friend?’”
Katelyn looked a little anguished. “What’s happening, sir? Why are my parents here?”
“Katelyn, this is very important,” Harlow said, studying her eyes carefully. “What you tell me next will determine what I’m about to do in the next few seconds, but you have to be completely honest with me or I could do the wrong thing and…and put you in very great danger.”
“Danger?” The apprehension in her face melted away, replaced by concern and steely determination. “What’s happened, sir?” Her voice had changed—markedly so.
“Katelyn, yes or no, and be honest with me: are those two people really your parents?”
“What’s happened, sir?” she repeated, almost a demand now.
“Answer me, Katelyn, or I’m going to grab you and take you and the rest of the squadron back into the woods and call for help.”
“Something’s happened to my parents,” Katelyn breathed. “Hasn’t it, sir?”
“Are these your parents, Katelyn? Yes or no. Tell me.”
Katelyn realized she wasn’t going to get the answers she wanted unless she changed her tactics. “No, they’re not,” she replied. “They are Major Najar and Lieutenant Saidi.”
“What do they do?”
“They are specially chosen members of the King’s Palace Guards, assigned to protect me,” Katelyn said. Harlow’s mouth dropped open, and a roaring sound unrelated to the Black Hawk’s idling turbines began in his ears. “Now tell me what’s happened, sir. My father…?”
“Is missing. They said they’ve come to take you away from here. They…”
“Na baba!” Katelyn shouted in a voice Harlow had never heard from her before except in instances of extreme excitement or tension. “Fori-ei! I’ve got to do something!” She dashed off toward Najar and Saidi, who snapped to attention as she approached.
“Katelyn!”
The girl turned, then stood at attention and saluted. “Pardon me, sir, but I must leave. Thank you for all the precautions you’ve taken on my behalf, and thank you for your leadership and dedication. I won’t forget it.” She dropped her salute, then ran for the helicopter, with Najar and Saidi close behind. The two men inside the helicopter scrambled out and snapped to attention on either side of the Black Hawk’s right door. The last Harlow saw of her, she was pulling a headset over her fatigue cap, gesturing for Hamilton and Lawson to get inside, and pulling the Black Hawk helicopter’s door closed herself.
After the helicopter lifted off, Harlow raised the satphone. “It’s okay, babe,” he said. “I’m heading home now.”
“Ed, I heard some of that,” his wife said anxiously. “What’s going on out there?”
“I’ll explain everything when I get home—or someone will.”
“What do you mean? Ed…?”
“I’ll be home in a few hours, babe. See you,” then reluctantly pressed the red button on the phone.
He was never certain, he thought as he turned and headed toward the other completely stunned cadets, exactly where Katelyn VanWie belonged…until now.
“What can you tell me about my parents, Agent Hamilton?” Azar Qagev asked as soon as she donned her headset.
“The Protective Liaison Division agents assigned to your mother and father found your parents’ home empty early this morning, Your Highness,” Hamilton said. “There’s been no word on any of our message lines. We executed the recovery network established for them but they have not made contact with anyone in the system.” Every foreign dignitary in the United States had a plan established where they would go to a particular city and make contact with a certain individual, usually at a hotel, airport, restaurant, or other such public place in a large metropolitan area, in case of danger. In the meantime, the area would be flooded by agents of the Diplomatic Security Services, Federal Bureau of Investigation, U.S. Secret Service, U.S. Marshals, and other federal law enforcement agencies. Unfortunately, foreign dignitaries who stayed in the United States for long periods of time rarely updated or exercised their plans until it was too late to respond to an attack. “It’s still very early, but we decided to make contact with you and take you to a safe location.”
“Thank you, Agent Hamilton,” Azar said.
“Unfortunately, because your father runs his Internet blog and frequently comments on happenings in Iran, the media is all over this development,” Hamilton went on. “It was only a matter of time before they tracked you down to Grand Rapids. And now that your parents have disappeared, you’ll be the focus of their attention. There’s already been a leak to the wire services that Iranian royalty is being protected in the United States, and the FBI and State Department have already received inquiries. I hope you understand how hectic it’s going to be. The State Department will do all it can to shield your movements from the media, but they are very persistent.”
“I understand, Agent Hamilton.” She thought for a moment, then said to Major Najar in perfect Farsi, “Major, I need to contact the Court immediately.”
“Of course, Malika,” Najar said. “I will…”
“Do not call me that yet, Major,” Azar said. “I am Shahdokht to all until the whereabouts of the King and Queen are positively determined.”
“I apologize, Shahdokht,” Najar said. “Agent Hamilton, when is the first chance we will have to access a secure telephone or Internet connection?”
“We’ll return to Grand Rapids, then take a chartered flight to Minneapolis,” Hamilton said. “The FBI office has loaned us armored vehicles, which will take you to a safe house outside the city. They should have secure communications capability in the vehicles. We’ll arrange a secure satellite Internet link in the safe house if it doesn’t already have it.”
“Very well. Thank you,” Azar said. To Najar, she asked in Farsi, “What’s the latest about the insurgency back home?”
“Confused and sketchy information, Shahdokht,” Najar replied, “but it appears that General Hesarak al-Kan Buzhazi has launched a major attack on a mosque in Qom that may have been a safe house for a good number of clerics and government officials. Speculation is that he destroyed the Khomeini Library with his captives inside.”
“Bavar nakardani!” Azar exclaimed. “Buzhazi is either completely insane or utterly ruthless—we need to find out which it is. Major, I need the latest information on Buzhazi, the Pasdaran deployments, and our resistance and intelligence networks in-country.”
“Yes, Shahdokht.”
“Buzhazi is blind with rage and power-lust, Shahdokht,” Lieutenant Saidi said. “He and his followers have narrowly managed to avoid complete destruction by the skin of their teeth. They are outnumbered at least ten to one. The Pasdaran will crush them soon enough.”
“No insurgency of any kind has had this much success—and Buzhazi has taken on the Pasdaran directly,” Azar said. “If he succeeds, or even if he ignites the passion of freedom in the people, we can use it to our advantage. We must learn everything we can about Buzhazi’s goals and plans and see if we can join forces with him.”
“Join forces?” Najar asked. “Princess, Buzhazi was the Faqih’s chief executioner not too long ago—he and his minions killed most of your family and drove us out of Europe and the Middle East. He can’t be trusted. It would be better to bide our time and see what happens with this insurgency.”
“If Buzhazi is crushed, th
e Pasdaran will only grow in power and status, perhaps eclipsing the army,” Azar said. “If the regular army or the people will follow Buzhazi in destroying the clerics, we must be sure we have a seat at the table for whatever else may happen. But we must know what is going on, up to the second.” She fell silent for a moment, then said, “I want you to activate the rud-khaneh immediately.”
Najar’s eyes widened in surprise. “Are you certain, Princess?” he asked. “The underground network is secure and has been growing for a decade. If we activate the network and the Revolutionary Guards destroy Buzhazi and discover it…”
“We must know,” Azar said. “It must be done. Our people will just need to take extraordinary precautions and be prepared to go back to ground if the insurgency fails and the Pasdaran start a new purge.”
Najar looked at the princess carefully, then said in a low voice, “Should you not wait to hear from the King, Princess?”
Azar looked at her long-time bodyguard, considering not only his words but the tone. “They’re alive, Major. I would have felt their passing.”
“Then wait a while longer before committing to activating the intelligence network, Shahdokht,” Najar said. He smiled at her. “I’m happy to see you are so ready to take charge, Princess—the lessons we taught you were not lost in the thick mud of Western decadence that you have subjected yourself to for all these years. But use caution. The situation is dangerous for you, but to our friends and supporters back home, it is deadly. When we rise up, we should do it in concert.”
“We will, Major,” Azar said. “But in order to decide when to rise, we need information. If my parents are alive, it is my responsibility to assist them in making the decisions that affect our future.” She squinted back tears, then said, “If they are dead, I’ll need the advice of the network to assess the situation and decide a course of action—whether we support Buzhazi, conduct our own insurgency alongside his, or go back into hiding and await the will of God.”
“Insh’ Allah,” Najar and Saidi said together.
“Insh’ Allah,” Azar echoed. She thought for a moment, then took out a notepad from her Civil Air Patrol battle dress uniform, wrote a note, and passed it to Najar. He took a deep breath as he read it, then passed it to Saidi, whose expression was even more incredulous. “Can you do it, Major?” she asked.