Patrick McLanahan Collection #1

by Dale Brown

  Najar passed the note to the men in the back of the Black Hawk, who looked at each other in surprise, then nodded warily. Najar made a few notes of his own, showed them to Azar and Saidi, then to the men. They all nodded in assent. “It will be done, Shahdokht…insh’ Allah,” Najar said. “If it is the will of God.”

  In just a few minutes they were making an approach to Grand Rapids–Itasca County Airport and parked just outside AirWays Aviation, the lone fixed-base operator on the field. Just a few yards away was a Falcon business jet, with a Jet-A refueling truck just pulling away. The jet’s crewmembers watched the helicopter touch down, then moved to the boarding door to help the passengers aboard. Katelyn shook hands with Lawson. “Thank you for all you’ve done, Colonel,” she said.

  “Good luck to you, Lieutenant—or whoever you are,” Lawson responded.

  “Salam aleikom, agha,” Katelyn said, then shoved open the door and scrambled out.

  “The jet’s fueled up and ready,” Special Agent Hamilton said after speaking with the pilot and escorting Katelyn to the boarding door. “Weather is favorable in Minneapolis but traffic is heavy, so we’ll use Flying Cloud Airport instead of the international airport. The FBI is standing by.”

  “Wouldn’t it look less conspicuous to go to the bigger airport, Agent Hamilton?”

  “Flying Cloud is a pretty busy airport—most bizjets go there,” Hamilton replied. “The FBI thinks it’ll be safer, and you should have less interference from the media.” Within moments they were aboard, the door closed, and they were taxiing to the end of runway 16 for takeoff. With no traffic in the pattern, the jet was airborne within minutes. “Less than a hundred and fifty miles to Flying Cloud, Your Highness—no more than twenty minutes,” Hamilton said. “Are you all right?”

  “Yes, Agent Hamilton,” Azar said. “And I wanted to thank you again for all you’ve done for me. Your service is very much appreciated.”

  “My pleasure, Your Highness.”

  “So I hope you don’t take offense by what we are going to do.” Azar made a motion with her hands, and her four bodyguards leapt to their feet, guns drawn. Two headed immediately to the cockpit while Najar and Saidi stayed with Azar, their guns drawn.

  “What in hell is this?” Hamilton exclaimed. “What are you doing?”

  “No offense to you or the American State Department, Agent Hamilton,” Azar said, “but putting us into protective custody in Minneapolis is not what we need to do right now for the people of Iran.” She took Hamilton’s sidearm and backup weapon away from him, then turned to Najar and said in Farsi, “Make sure the pilots don’t make any radio calls or change the transponder codes to report a hijacking, Major. Can we file an international flight plan inflight?”

  “No, Highness,” Najar said. “We’ll have to fly low over the border and try to go under radar coverage. We risk a military pursuit, but they will not be able to respond quickly enough to find us. We will contact our agents in Canada and arrange for them to meet us at the alternate landing site.”

  “Very well.” The plane started turning, and soon the two charter pilots were heading back to the cabin, hands over their heads.

  “If you wanted to get out of the United States, Highness, why not just request that?” Hamilton asked angrily. “We would have complied.”

  “We want to avoid the media as much as possible and shield our movements from everyone,” Azar said. “Going into protective custody in Minneapolis, with the media all around us, would have wasted time and put my parents in even greater danger.”

  “Where are we going?”

  “Canada,” Azar replied. “We have agents throughout Canada waiting for precisely this moment. After we’re safely away, we’ll release you and your aircraft.”

  “This is completely unnecessary, Highness…”

  “Again, Agent Hamilton, I thank you for your concern and dedication,” Azar said sincerely. “But we have been guests of the American government for too long. It’s time the royal family went back to Iran and took our place among our people again.” Hamilton shook his head and sat back. Azar looked at Najar and Saidi and asked in Farsi, “Am I insane for doing this, Major? Lieutenant?”

  “Once we place ourselves in the hands of the Americans and their out-of-control media, Highness, we would be at their mercy,” Najar said. “We would be trusting our lives to someone else’s political agenda.”

  “What if Buzhazi made a deal for him to cooperate with Washington in forming a government favorable to them—in exchange for turning over you and your family to him, or having us placed in permanent ‘protective custody?’” Saidi asked. “The point is, Highness, that with us in the hands of the Americans, our fate is not our own—it belongs to them and whatever agenda they may have. It will be difficult for us, but at least our fate is in our hands and the hands of your loyal subjects.”

  “We are proud of you, Highness,” Najar said. “It took extraordinary courage to do this. It would have been far easier and more comfortable and perhaps safer for you to simply go along with the Americans, but you instead decided to take the initiative and plan your own escape. Now whatever happens is up to God and ourselves. That is the way it should be.”

  Azar smiled, nodded, and sat back in her seat. She looked out the window at the flat lake-strewn landscape of northern Minnesota. It was the only place she ever remembered, the only home she ever knew—and now she was leaving it, perhaps forever.

  “Are you sad to leave here, Shahdokht?” Saidi asked gently. “It is truly a beautiful land.”

  “You have grown strong and wise here, Princess,” Najar added. “There will always be a part of this land in you.”

  Azar took one last look, then resolutely closed the window shade and shook her head. “As soon as we can,” she said by way of response, removing her fatigue cap, touching her hair, and holding it out for them to see, “I want some hair coloring so I can get back to my natural-born hair color. I enjoyed being a redhead, Lieutenant, but I’m ready to be a dark-haired Persian again—now, and forever.”

  CHAPTER 5

  ARĀN, IRAN

  THE NEXT EVENING

  As the old line went: It was quiet…too quiet.

  General Mansour Sattari and his task force had captured or eliminated almost three full platoons of guards on their way to the Pasdaran warehouses outside Arān. So far the operation was going precisely as planned…

  …which made the general very, very nervous indeed. Even though the objective was in sight and so far they had suffered no casualties and met numerous but weak resistance, Sattari couldn’t suppress the feeling that something bad was going to happen.

  “I don’t like it, Babak,” Sattari said to his aide, Master Sergeant Babak Khordad, as they received the final report from the scouts. Khordad was an old crusty veteran when Sattari picked him over fifteen years ago to run his staff, and he hadn’t changed much—which was exactly the way the general preferred it. Even his name, which meant “little father” in Farsi, still accurately described him. “The reports were completely accurate: the warehouses are virtually unguarded. That has me worried—rumors and unverified reports from the field are never that accurate, unless they’re planted by the enemy.”

  “They have a large number of guards, sir,” Khordad said, “but they look to me like children. It’s as if they emptied out the conscripts’ training centers before they barely began, gave them a weapon and uniform, and put them to work guarding these warehouses.”

  “I agree,” Sattari said. “Where are the front-line Pasdaran forces, Babak?”

  “We do have reports stating that the Pasdaran is concentrating forces in the capital,” Khordad said. “Maybe the new government is pulling in all the well-trained troops to protect them at home.”

  “Maybe,” Sattari mused.

  “If you don’t feel right about this one, sir, let’s pull everyone out,” Khordad said. “If it smells like a trap, it probably is.”

  “But we’ve got two hundred men
surrounding this area checking in every three minutes, and no one has spotted any sign of the front-line Pasdaran forces,” Sattari said. “Not even one helicopter in the past hour. From where we are now, we could completely empty three warehouses and be on the rail line heading into the system before the outer perimeter scouts spotted anything.”

  “I don’t know, sir,” Khordad said. “I still say, let’s withdraw and continue monitoring.”

  “Our intel says the Pasdaran is going to start emptying these warehouses in the next two days,” Sattari said. “They have the trucks and locomotives waiting—it’s going to happen soon. So far our intel has been spot-on. Besides, we’re running low on everything back at the base. We’ve got to do this tonight or it’ll be too late.”

  “That’s when it’s the worst time to do something, sir,” Khordad said.

  Sattari peered through his low-light binoculars again, scanning for any sign of a trap, but he saw and heard absolutely nothing. He had to press on. With a dozen heavy cargo trucks filled, they had enough supplies to keep their insurgency going for another month. That could spell the difference between success and failure.

  But the “little father” was worried—there was danger here. Why couldn’t he see it? “Maybe the Pasdaran has suffered so many losses, captures, and defections that soft targets like these warehouses were being lightly guarded?” he suggested. “Maybe they really are afraid of lingering chemical weapons effects…”

  “They know as well as we do what the persistence time of those chemical agents are, sir,” Khordad said. “And their detection equipment is better than ours. If it was safe, they’d be here. Something’s happening that we don’t know about.”

  “Could the warehouses be booby-trapped?”

  “Very likely, sir, although we saw a lot of those guards going in and out rather freely,” Khordad said. “It’s usually dangerous to turn initiators on and off whenever someone walks in and out like that—you’ll soon forget if you shut it off or not.”

  Sattari swore to himself, then picked up his radio. “Spider to Wolf.”

  “Go,” General Hesarak al-Kan Buzhazi responded.

  “We’ve arrived at point ‘Kangaroo.’ ‘Bedroom’ in sight, but I’m recommending we head back to the ‘nursery.’ Our ‘album’ is incomplete. Over.”

  “Understood. Bring it on back. We’ll take better pictures later. Wolf out.”

  “Okay, Master Sergeant,” Sattari said, putting away his command radio, “let’s set up the patrols and position for exfiltration before…”

  “Shit, what is he doing?” Khordad swore. Sattari lifted his night-vision binoculars. A squad of men had broken from cover and had bolted for their assigned warehouse, while another squad was commandeering trucks.

  “Call them back, damnit!”

  Khordad was already raising his radio to his lips: “Shark, Shark, this is Spider, get back! We’re heading back to ‘nursery.’ Acknowledge right now.”

  “Spider, we’re in, we’re in!” came the reply. “It’s all here, Spider, lined up and ready to load. We can have a truck loaded in two minutes.”

  “I said get out of there!” Khordad growled through clenched teeth, trying to communicate the urgency without raising his voice. “Acknowledge!”

  “Spider, this is Bear,” another squad leader radioed. “We’re in too. We’ve started loading two carriages already and the others are moving inside. We’ve already filled our baby bottles all the way. Recommend we proceed. Over.”

  “Sir?” Khordad asked.

  “Let’s get out of here, Babak,” Sattari said. “There will be other targets. This one looks poisonous. Bring them out now.”

  “Negative! Negative! Withdraw!” Khordad radioed. “Spider’s orders. All squads, acknowledge!”

  “Spider, this is Pony, we’re in too,” yet another squad leader radioed. “Let us play for just a few minutes more. This is the real party, and we want to stay for the cake.”

  Sattari grabbed Khordad’s radio and mashed the mike button: “All squads, this is Spider, I ordered you to withdraw, and that means right now! Get your asses moving and report at point Parlor. Do not acknowledge, just move out!” He tossed the radio back to Khordad and began scrambling out of their hiding place toward the perimeter fence. “Damn them! What a time for a discipline breakdown! I know they’re hungry and running low on everything, but they should know better than to…”

  “Sir, wait!” Khordad interrupted, holding his radio close to his ear. “I thought I heard another call.”

  Sattari raised his own radio to his ear and listened intently. “Another squad?”

  “I think it was one of the scouts, sir…”

  And at that moment they heard over their radios: “Spider, Spider, this is Sparrow, reporting in the blind, I say again, warning, warning, lightning storm, lightning storm, call the children in, repeat, call the children in!”

  “Ridan!” Sattari cursed. On his radio, he and Khordad both frantically called, “All Spider units, all Spider units, lightning storm, lightning storm, take cover!” Sattari then leaped to his feet, pulling Khordad and their security guard up onto their feet and pushing them toward the hole in the outer perimeter fence about fifty meters away. “Move it, move it!” he shouted. “Shoot anyone that gets in your…!”

  Sattari didn’t hear the rest…because the entire warehouse complex erupted in a brilliant tidal wave of fire seconds later.

  From a dozen launch sites—some as far as fifteen kilometers away—multiple volleys of artillery, rockets, and guided missiles bombarded the warehouse complex all at once. Not only was every warehouse building individually targeted and completely obliterated, but the entire complex—parking lots, storage bins, loading ramps, fences, barracks, offices, and service buildings—were bracketed. Within two minutes, every square centimeter of the entire twenty-acre complex was hit multiple times.

  In moments, it was over—and not one thing was left standing in or around the complex.

  IMAM ALI MILITARY ACADEMY,

  TEHRAN, IRAN

  SEVERAL DAYS LATER

  After checking in with his supervisors by telephone, commander-in-chief of the Iranian armed forces General Hoseyn Yassini emerged from his quarters on the campus of the Imam Ali Military Academy in Tehran and began his early evening stroll across the grounds. He immediately identified at least one shadow, a young man dressed as a first-year cadet. He was far too young to be Pasdaran. More likely he was a komiteh officer, a religious-political functionary whose job it was to observe and report on any activities that might be considered a threat to the clerical regime. Like the zampolit political officers in the old Soviet Union, komiteh officers pervaded every level of Iranian life, watching and reporting on everyone from ordinary citizens on the streets to the highest levels of government. They were an abomination in a place like this military academy, but under the theocratic regime their presence was as demoralizing as it was pervasive.

  Yassini’s usual evening stroll while on restriction was down the wide sidewalks of the main cluster of buildings to the parade grounds, a couple kilometers of mostly well-lit, open areas. Formerly known as the Shah Reza Pahlavi Military Academy when Yassini attended here, it was changed to the Imam Ali Academy after the revolution. A few cadets were still on the streets. Yassini enjoyed stopping them and, after the initial shock of meeting the chief of staff wore off, speaking with them and learning about their studies and training while attending the school. For the most part, the cadets were eager, respectful, proud to be wearing the uniform, and determined to spend the next twenty to thirty years in service to the Faqih and their country. Thankfully, none of them seemed to know that he was here on house arrest or why, or if they did they didn’t show any signs of displeasure.

  After passing the main cluster of classroom buildings, Yassini came upon a large square courtyard, surrounded by the cadets’ barracks buildings. This was the Esplanade, or brigade assembly area, where the cadet units would gather and form up be
fore marching off to class, functions, drills, or parades. At other times, the assembly area was used in that age-old custom familiar to cadets from all over the world for eons—marching off demerit points. Before any cadet could graduate from the Academy, he had to spend one hour marching back and forth in the assembly area for every point he had accumulated, dressed in full uniform and carrying an assault rifle. While marching, he could be grilled by any upperclassman on the Koran, any knowledge item, or critiqued on the condition of his uniform, and additional demerit points could be awarded. Cadets marched off points at any time of the day or night, in any weather, sometimes for an entire weekend if necessary to clear away demerits before graduation.

  Hoseyn Yassini was a good student and leader, but he was a terrible cadet, and he spent many, many hours on this dark marble square, either marching the demerits off or scrubbing it clean, which was another acceptable way of working off demerits. Being out here as a young officer gave him a clearer sense of duty and honor, and also sharpened his mind in preparation for the grilling he knew he would get.

  But he was not out here because of some nostalgic wish to visit, or coming here restored his soul of any lost humility or discipline.

  The assembly area had a small booth where a cadet officer was assigned to take down the name and unit of any cadet who arrived to march off demerits and to make sure the cadets performed properly while out here, and Yassini strolled over to the booth to chat with the cadet officer on duty. The cadet snapped to his feet and saluted as soon as he saw the general approach. “Cadet Sergeant Beheshi, Company Joqd, sir.”

  Yassini returned his salute. “Good evening, Cadet Sergeant,” he said. “How are you this evening?”

  “Very well, sir, thank you,” the cadet responded. “I hope you are well tonight, sir.”