Patrick McLanahan Collection #1 (148 page)

“I appreciate your concern, Captain, but we should make this quick,” Lawson said. He waved, and the flight engineer helped the two out of the harnesses and out of the helicopter. Harlow escorted them away from the helicopter. Hamilton began following them, but Lawson held him back. “He's doing his job, Hamilton—let him,” he said.

Now several dozen yards away from everyone else, Harlow pulled the VanWies closer to him. “Richard? Linda? What's going on? Are you two okay?”

“Where's Katelyn?” Linda asked.

“I said, are you two okay?”

“We're fine, Ed,” Richard said. “But we need to leave right away. Where's Katelyn?”

Harlow turned and saw the squadron together around the periphery of the clearing, in front of the helicopter in full view of the pilot, as they were taught. As usual, Katelyn was mostly hidden in the back, almost out of sight. “She's right there. She's fine.” He thought for a moment, then said, “I thought you guys were at your mother's place in Duluth during the encampment.”

“It's Duquette, not Duluth, and it's Richard's brother's place, not his mother's,” Linda said. “We invited you there last spring but you came down with the flu.”

“I appreciate your caution here, Ed, testing us like that,” Richard said, “but this is urgent. We need to leave right away.”

“What's going on here?”

“We…we need to take her with us,” Richard said.

“In a military helicopter?” He motioned to the National Guard officer and civilian. “Who are those guys? Do you know them?”

“We know Hamilton, but not the military officer.”

“Hamilton's from the Defense Department?”

“State Department. Protective Liaison Division.”

Another test passed—Harlow was beginning to become convinced. “What's this about? Are you in some kind of trouble?” They didn't answer right away. “Listen, if you're under some kind of duress—if these guys aren't who they say they are—I can try to get you and Katelyn out of here. I have a satellite phone, and Katelyn and her flight are familiar with these woods and they have good escape and evasion skills. I can call for help…”

“No,” Richard said. “Those men are who they say they are.” He paused, then added, “But we're not who we said we were.”

“What? What are you saying?”

“We're not Katelyn's parents—we're her khataris, her bodyguards,” Richard said. He looked around nervously. “Something has happened, and we feel the shahdokht's life is in danger, so she needs to be evacuated immediately.”

“The who?”

“Please, Ed, can we get out of here?” Linda said, desperate pleading in her voice. “Maybe we can talk on the helicopter…”

“I've got the whole squadron out here—I can't leave!” Harlow said. “And I can't let Katelyn leave until I'm satisfied she'll be safe. If you're not the VanWies, who in hell are you?”

“I am Major Parviz Najar, and this is Lieutenant Mara Saidi,” Richard said. “We are security officers assigned to His Highness King Mohammed Hassan Qagev, pretender to the Peacock Throne of Iran.”

“What?”

“It is true, Ed,” the one who called himself Najar said. “Katelyn's real name is Princess Azar Assiyeh Qagev, eldest surviving child of the true king of Iran, may God bless him and all true believers.”

Harlow's mouth dropped open in shock. “You…are you kidding me? Is this for real? Is this some kind of
Candid Camera
crap?”

“I know it's hard to believe, Ed, but we're telling you the
truth,” Linda said. “The princess's family has been in protective custody of the U.S. State Department since Reza Khan Pahlavi took power in Iran in 1925 from the princess's great-grandfather. The princess is the last of her siblings alive—the rest have been hunted down and killed by the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, the Pasdaran.”

“But if she's safe here, why take her away?”

“Because we have lost contact with the king, the princess's father, and his court,” Najar said. “Until we can contact them, Princess Azar is the heir apparent to the Peacock Throne—the Malika, the queen of Iran.”

“Katelyn is…a friggin' queen?”

“She must make contact with her countrymen as soon as possible to assure her followers that the dynasty is intact and ready to take power should God and events in Iran allow it,” Najar said.

Harlow put a hand on his temple and shook his head, trying to make sense of all this. “I need some sort of verification,” Harlow said. “I don't know those two, and now I don't know you. I'm not going to let Katelyn or any of my cadets out of my sight until I'm satisfied everything is in order.”

“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.” Harlow 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?”