by Mark Donovan
Two men had roughly tossed her onto the bed before shutting and locking the door to the bedroom. Beside her bed, on a nightstand, was a pitcher of water with a glass, and a bowl with palm dates and walnuts. Though her mind had lost its will for survival, her body was feeling something different. That it wanted to live. Her stomach was aching with ravenous hunger, her lips were parched, and her mouth and tongue felt like sandpaper. She looked again at the food and water. Her body could no longer resist. She sat up on the bed and reached out and poured herself a glass of water. She sipped the water at first to see how it tasted. To see if it may have been poisoned. It wasn’t. The water was sweet and refreshing to her lips and mouth. She lifted the glass to her mouth a second time and drank the glass dry.
She then reached over and picked up one of the palm dates and inspected it carefully. She first took a small bite of it. It was soft and sweet. After swallowing the small bite, she finished the rest of it and poured herself a second glass of water. She consumed the entire bowl of dates and walnuts, and another two glasses of water, before she finally stopped and allowed herself to feel the renewed energy pouring into her veins and muscles.
Suddenly the door to the bedroom opened and two young and lightly skinned beautiful women walked in. They were dressed in western style clothing. However, colorful scarves covered the tops of their heads and draped down over their shoulders.
“You need to wash and dress Ms. Cogswell,” said one of the women in English. She handed Dana a set of clothing, while the other girl proceeded directly to the bedroom suite’s bathroom. Dana immediately heard water being drawn from a tub faucet.
“Mr. Zarin requires you down for dinner in one hour and expects you to be clean and properly dressed.” She stood back from Dana and wrinkled her nose while she gave her a once over look.
“Based upon how you look and smell you will need every moment to get yourself in order,” sniffed the girl. “So please, do not hesitate. Go wash up and be prepared for an escort at six o’clock, one hour from now.”
The young girl who had turned on the tub faucet stepped out from the en suite and walked out the bedroom door. Dana could hear the sound of water filling the tub.
The girl who had handed her the clothing swiveled on her heels and walked abruptly away from her, towards the bedroom’s doorway. Just before she left the room she turned to Dana and said as parting words of warning, acquired through her own personal wisdom, “For your personal health and safety, I would advise that you do not disobey Mr. Zarin’s orders.” And with her caution given, she turned and left the room. There was a large thud as the door closed behind her, followed by the sound of a turning lock. Once again, Dana found herself alone sitting in the bedroom with a sense of hopelessness in her heart.
While listening to the sound of the running bath water and contemplating heeding the young girl’s warning, she suddenly heard the loud, amplified, and eerie voice of a muezzin calling Muslims to prayer, or azan. The muezzin’s resonating voice drifted in from the streets and into the bedroom, slightly unnerving Dana due to its strange and melancholy sound.
She stood up and walked over to the window. Pulling the curtain sheers to one side, she looked out the window and saw a large alabaster white mosque off in the distance with four minarets rising from its base. Though the mosque was nearly a kilometer away, with residential buildings surrounding its perimeter, she could see men walking in the streets and making their way towards it. Just outside the mosque she also saw two shallow pools with fountains where men were performing their ablutions, or wudhu, before entering the mosque.
Dana stepped back from the window, allowing the curtain sheer to slide back into place. Turning away from the window, she glanced over at the bathroom, still hearing the running bathwater. The palm dates and water had revived her enough to give her a desire to want to wash and feel clean again. She made her way into the bathroom. Like the bedroom, it was enormous and opulent. The tub was a large sunken type made from what appeared to be marble. Its plumbing fixtures looked to be made of gold. The sink and vanity were constructed from the same types of materials, and to the side of the bathroom vanity sat a toilet and a bidet.
Dana looked down at the tub filled with water that steamed from its surface, and tried to remember when she had last had a shower or bath. She could not resist. She turned off the tub faucet and then removed her soiled clothing. Slowly, Dana lowered herself into the hot tub of water, her despair and tension almost melting away as she submerged her entire body into it.
She lay in the tub for nearly thirty minutes, allowing her body to fully relax and to enjoy the fragrant scents of jasmine and lavender, oils that the young Iranian girl must have added to the tub when drawing her bath. As she rested, she thought of Dave, and of Spencer running Dave’s vehicle off the road. Seeing it in her mind, flipping and tumbling end over end into the desert. There was no way that he could have survived that crash. No one could have.
Dana slowly turned her head sideways, her eyes coming to focus on a lit candle that sat burning on the bathroom vanity across from her. The young girl who drew her bath water must have lit it, thought Dana. As she stared at the candle, its flame dancing bright against the fading sunlight that entered the room, she could smell a cinnamon fragrance wafting from it. The smell felt comforting to her. It reminded her of pleasant memories from her past, when she was a child, in the protective cocoon of her Midwestern home with her mother and father and siblings. The smell of a warm apple pie cooling on the stove.
As she continued to stare at the burning flame, a thought suddenly began to awake in her relaxed state of mind. A piece of information, an important fact, was stirring in her consciousness that she had not considered earlier when she watched Dave die. There had been no flames, no fire, and no explosion when his SUV tumbled off the road. Her last sight of Dave’s vehicle was of it lying upside down and dust blowing away from it across an empty field.
“He could have survived,” she whispered to herself. Yes the SUV tumbled and rolled repeatedly she thought to herself. But if he was wearing his seatbelt, which she was sure he was, and there was no fire, he may have survived the horrible crash.
A second candle began to burn in the bathroom’s dimming light. This time, however, the candle burned inside Dana’s soul. The flame was small, but it was a flicker, a spark of hope.
With renewed determination and faith, Dana rose out of the bath and stepped from the tub. She looked over at the mirror above the bathroom countertop. In its reflection she saw her wet and naked body. She stared silently at herself as she watched the rivulets of water shed from her skin. And while she continued to stand, her body drying in the warm evening air, her will for survival and the desire to fight rose again from within.
Chapter 35 (April 17, Sunday 6:00pm, Tehran, Iran)
Dana heard a knock and then the sound of the lock turning on the bedroom door. She immediately stood up from the bed. She was dressed in the clothing that the young Iranian girl had given her, including the colorful scarf, the Hijab that she wore over her head and that flowed down over her shoulders and chest.
A tall dark haired man with ruddy white complexion and dressed in western clothing stepped through the doorway and into the bedroom. He was accompanied by the young girl who had given her the clothing an hour earlier.
“Good evening Ms. Cogswell,” said the man in English, but with a noticeable Farsi accent. “I will escort you to the dining room.”
Dana nodded her head in silent acquiescence and moved towards the man. He turned to exit the bedroom when he saw her willing compliance. The young girl stepped aside as Dana passed by her. As soon as Dana had passed through the threshold she heard the bedroom door close. Dana, with a sudden jolt of fear, spun her head around and saw that the girl had stayed in the room and shut the door.
The man sensing that Dana was no longer following him turned and looked back. He saw that she was looking back at the closed bedroom door. “We need to get moving Ms. Cogswell. Mr.
Zarin is expecting you.”
Dana, re-composing herself, nodded in agreement and continued to follow the tall man. He guided her through a maze of hallways and down a flight of curving stairs before they finally reached the dining room. Dana could not help but notice along the way how lovely the home was ornately decorated. Persian decor, consisting of beautiful paintings, sculptures, and metalwork seemed to adorn every wall, shelf and table along the way.
A large seventeenth century baroque style dining room table made from ancient red oak was the centerpiece of the elegant dining room. Beautiful hand carved chairs stood like guards around its perimeter. The table had been prepared for a feast. Centered on the table was a large round dish with lamb kebabs. Next to the kebabs was another large dish with Persian chicken stuffed with rice. Surrounding the two large meat dishes were various serving plates of vegetables and a basket of Barbari bread. However, Dana noticed that for all of the food, there were only two place settings at the table.
The tall man pulled back one of the chairs at the head of the table and said with a wave of his hand, “If you will Ms. Cogswell, please have a seat. Mr. Zarin will arrive momentarily.”
Dana thanked the man as she sat down in the chair.
“I will leave you now,” said the man as he began to exit the dining room. “Enjoy your dinner Ms. Cogswell.”
Dana sat quietly in the large room, at first looking around at the Persian desert paintings on the walls, and then returning her eyes to the table and the food that stretched out in front of her. She noticed steam rising from the rice dish and breathed in deeply the wonderful aroma that wafted from it. The delightful smell triggered her awareness of the hunger pangs that she still felt in her stomach, the hunger that had only been partially satisfied by the palm dates and walnuts she had eaten only an hour earlier.
Abruptly a door on the far back side of the dining room swung open, a door that she had not noticed before. A tall and physically powerful looking man, dressed in dark jeans and an open collar dark green dress shirt, walked through the door. Dana instantly analyzed his features. He had black coarse hair, and wore a trimmed beard, both of which were peppered with gray. His face was also deeply lined and he had a large protruding hooked nose. She immediately concluded that this was an extremely dangerous man.
“I am very glad you decided to join me for dinner Ms. Cogswell. I am Aref Zarin.” Aref seated himself at the opposite end of the dining room table from where she sat.
“Ever since our mutual friend Ahmad, or Spencer as you know him, told me of his capture of you I have been anticipating our meeting.”
Dana looked at him with ice cold eyes, but Aref did not seem to care or notice.
“I hope you have enjoyed the accommodations that I have provided for you.” He glanced down at the dining room table to draw her attention to the food. “Hopefully you were able to get some rest. I can see by your beautiful appearance that you were able to freshen up since your arrival.”
“Yes, thank you,” said Dana icily, but with a sense of nervousness that did not go un-noticed by Aref. He smiled ever so slightly at her response.
“You must be starved.” Aref clapped his hands together once. Immediately two servants, again young girls, came out of a kitchen side entrance and began to serve them.
“I understand Ahmad did not feed you very well or offer you many bio breaks along your way to Tehran.” He leaned back away from the table for a moment to allow one of the young girls to serve him a portion of the rice and chicken dish.
He continued speaking as the servant girl stepped away from him and moved to Dana. “Do not fault him Ms. Cogswell,” he said while waving his fork at her. “He was simply following my orders to bring you to me as soon as possible.”
The second servant girl approached his place setting and placed a lamb kebab on his plate.
“Also, in light of what you did to Abdul, it is understandable why Ahmad may have been reticent about offering you many restroom breaks.”
Dana looked away from Aref momentarily, a sense of guilt and horror rising in her throat at the memory of killing Abdul. The feeling, however, quickly passed as the two servant girls disappeared from the dining room.
Aref saw her turn her head away at the mention of Abdul. “Do not worry anymore about Abdul. He was impatient and self-serving, two traits I deplore. You did Ahmad and me a favor.”
Dana looked back at Aref, her eyes drilling deep into his. Aref could see the flaring fiery hostility in her face. “Why are you so angry Ms. Cogswell? Have I not taken care of you well since you arrived?”
“Why the hell did you have Spencer bring me here?” Dana blurted out, spit flying from her mouth.
Aref remained quiet, as if he was pondering her question. He simply stared back at her silently, watching her hatred grow as she faced him. He savored the moment.
“To help me... To help yourself… and to help your country and all of western civilization…” he responded, each word dripping slowly from his mouth.
Dana stared back at him incredibly before speaking. “What do you mean help you? You killed my husband. You killed thousands of people with your bioweapon. You are nothing but a mass murderer. I would rather rot in hell before I ever helped you.”
Aref smiled at her and said, “That can easily be arranged Ms. Cogswell.” He looked down and skewered another piece of lamb from his plate before putting it in his mouth and chewing on it slowly. As he did so, he stared back at her with a lascivious grin.
“Please eat Ms. Cogswell,” he said in between bites of his food. “Or do you mind if I just call you Dana at this point?” Aref hesitated for a second.
“They say that hate is much closer to love than indifference, or even simple friendship I might add. Based on that last outburst from you, your obvious level of hatred towards me suggests that our relationship has already progressed to a first name basis.”
Aref continued to grin at her as he chewed on the lamb.
“I don’t care what you call me. I will not help you in any capacity,” responded Dana, her voice rising in anger.
“Oh, I think you will,” said Aref. “As a matter of fact, I know you will. You Americans, and particularly western media stars like yourself, always want to save the world, or at least have others save it for you. But in this case, I am granting you the exclusive opportunity to save western civilization.”
Aref smiled again at her before raising a glass to his lips and taking a sip of water. Dana just continued to glower her eyes at him and refrained from eating any of the food on her plate.
“Dana, what you witnessed in Eberswalde, and what happened in Yemen, were only warmup demonstrations of what we have planned for western civilizations, and those who are not true followers of the Prophet of Islam, Muhammad.”
Dana listened intently, but remained silent and just stared at Aref.
“You see Dana, over the past several years we have been developing a new weapon, a weapon of such brilliance and with such power, that it renders the need for developing nuclear weapons obsolete.”
“You are referring to your new bioterrorist weapon?” asked Dana angrily.
Aref smiled again at her. “I like to affectionately refer to it as the Game Changer. However, our official code name for it is WaterKill.”
Dana nodded her head slowly. “How can you be so cavalier in killing thousands, or even millions of people? Do you lack any sense of a moral compass? Do you have any value of life? If so, how could you develop and deploy such a heinous weapon, a weapon that is indiscriminate in who it kills, be it solider, civilian, or innocent children?”
Aref sat back in his chair and stared back at her, this time himself becoming visibly angry.
“How are our actions of today any different than that of you and your country and its allies?” he seethed. “Over the decades your country and its allies have directly and indirectly killed millions of people in the Middle East, from my country of Iran, from my community of Muslim brothers and sis
ters. For decades your government supported the infidel and oppressive tyrant Mohammad Reza, the Shah of Iran, because he supported your country’s oil interests. Then later, after Khomeini led the revolution and overthrow of him, your government, along with its allies, imposed crippling sanctions on Iran, and at the same time befriended Iraq’s tyrannical leader Saddam Hussein. Do you know how many people of Iran, how many children of Iran, have suffered and died because of those sanctions Dana?”
“Many,” responded Dana slowly.
“Many!” responded Aref incredulously. “Many you say Dana. How ignorant can you people be? Try millions,” said Aref slowly. “In just the ten years between 1990 and 2000, over half a million Iranian children under the age of five years died as a direct result of the sanctions that your country and the United Nations imposed upon the Iranian people. Most died because of a lack of food and critical medicines. Today, over forty percent of Iranians live in poverty because of U.S. led sanctions.”
Aref paused for a moment to look at a clock on the wall.
“You people have never acted outraged about the mass killings that your government has inflicted on my people, my fellow countrymen and followers of Islamic faith. You just proved it Dana. You yourself, lack any understanding of the enormity of murders your country has inflicted on my people.”
“Untrue,” yelled Dana from across the table. “The American people do care about the loss of life, whether it be in the United States, from Iran, or anywhere else in the world. There is no other country on the Earth today, or in the past, that provides as much global assistance to people in need than the United States.”
