“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?”