Defiance: A Chronicle of Courage

By Chance DeWitt

In 1978, Zahra had all that a woman could want. Her father, a general in the army of the Shah of Iran, had amassed a billion dollar fortune in land deveopment projects in the burgeoning city of Tehran. Once a month she shopped with her mother by private jet in Rome, Paris and London.
Extravagant parties for world leaders were almost a weekly event, and she had a wonderful husband and a beautiful infant daughter.
But all that changed in the drop of a hat. With the Aytollah Khomeini's return to Iran, the Shah fell, and with him, his generals and any others who were percieved as "rich". In a matter of months her father had lost his mansion, and all of his businesses and most of his fortune, as he narrowly escaped with his life. Zahra, his eldest child was left behind to try to save whatever was left, but was met with abuse and arrest.
Finally, after years of hiding from Khomeini's henchmen, she manage to secure a fake passport for herself and her two children. She could now escape through the brutal desert of eastern Iran. But,instead of a two-day journey by SUV, she was forced to walk through the unforgiving wasteland, abandoned by the one who was supposed to deliver to safety. Could she and her small children survive or would the desert take them as it had done to so many others?
And, even if she could survive, how would she be treated by any other government? Was she to receive the same abuse?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Chance DeWitt
• Release date: Feb 16, 2011
• ISBN: 9781458005557

Chance DeWitt

Because of the controversial nature of his works, Chance DeWitt provides no information on himself, preferring to allow the readers to focus on the content of his books. That content, whether fiction or non-fiction, is gleaned from decades of his interaction with governments as both an advocate and a victim.

Book preview

Chapter One

It was unusually chilly for a September morning, a precursor of what was to unfold. The dark shadow of Sonoma Mountain began to melt into the foothills as the morning sun peeked over the summit. A cascade of the new day’s light splashed against the green shuttered windows of the white, plantation-style home sequestered among the oaks and bay trees. But it was not the sun’s morning greeting that awakened her as she rolled over to touch the now cold side of the bed where her husband had laid just an hour before. It was shattering wood, cracking in a staccato-like cadence as it hit the pavement in the otherwise soundless air. Was someone cutting a tree down? Where was the antecedent howl of a chain saw? Then she heard the roar of an engine, or maybe two and abruptly sat up. As she crawled out of bed searching for a robe to cloak her half-naked body, the strident shouts of several men and the exploding crash of the downstairs entry doors trumpeted the onslaught. A stampede of boots stomping up the marble stairs reminded her of a giant centipede coming for her.

Before she could reach her robe, the bedroom door burst open, and three helmeted men, garbed in black military uniforms, aimed their automatic weapons at her. One of the storm troopers lurched forward and flung her onto the cold marble floor. He put a boot on her shoulders, smashing her face into the floor and warned her not to move as he held his rifle to her head.

Zahra Gilak? he snarled like a wolf ready to pounce.

What do you want? came the rebellious reply from the small body lying on the floor in a silk teddy now bunched around her stomach.

Are you Zahra Gilak? he sneered.

I am. What do you want? Who are you? she managed to ask in spite of the ever increasing pressure of the boot on her back. She turned her head sideways and saw three others in uniform aiming their weapons at her. Without responding to her, he violently twisted her arms behind her back, as her face crushed against the cold stone below her. The assailant gripped her forearm and manacled her with a handcuff. A sharp pain shot through her right shoulder, broken years age in an auto accident He repeated the same procedure with her left arm, but she refused to scream in pain or even give any indication that she was terrified and hurting. She had been the victim of government terror before and knew that any sign of fear only increased the likelihood of further abuse by those who had had the propensity to do so.

Without answering her question, he yelled at her, Stand up!

As she struggled to rise, two sets of arms abruptly jerked her up. Still, no one said a thing. In other rooms of the house, she heard the sounds of shouting, doors banging and the constant reverberation of boots on the marble floors.

As her captor began to shackle her ankles, she heard her daughter, Maryam, scream.

You can’t do this! Maryam yelled. I’m an attorney and this is completely uncalled for.

I don’t care if you’re the Pope, came back a mocking shout, stay in that room or I’ll arrest you for obstruction of justice and conspiracy. We have a warrant.

Let’s see it, Maryam demanded.

No one replied as the marauding squad of over twenty intruders continued their rampage throughout the house.

You’re the Department of Justice? Maryam continued to shout. What an oxymoron. You wouldn’t know justice if it bit you in the ass.

She was shoved back into the room by two of the intruders.

Zahra’s focus on her daughter was disrupted by the warm breath of the man shackling her. He was spending far too much time squatting in front of her, his mouth only inches from her uncovered pubic area. As she read the loud yellow letters, FBI, emblazoned on his dark vest, she realized most people were shackeled from behind. Enjoying the scenery, his helmet grazed her pubic hair several times. Finally, out of earshot of his cohorts, he muttered, Nice bush, smirking as he breathed out.

Get your face away from there! she shrieked indignantly as she kicked her left knee forward. She would have caught him squarely in the face if the chains on her hobbled ankles had not pulled tightly from her motion and pitched her backwards. With her hands cuffed behind her, she was unable to break the fall and toppled towards the floor. She tried to twist sideways to use her shoulder for cushioning but the unforgiving floor came up too soon. She heard a thud, felt a smothering sensation and then everything went black. She did not move.

She wasn’t aware that she had lost consciousness because the pain in her head seemed to have remained with her from the time her head had slammed to the floor. Yet she couldn’t explain how there had been just the one captor and now five or six stood there like a group of surreal heads floating above her, seemingly miles away. Some of them had removed their face shields and she could see groups of eyes staring at her with looks of concern—not for her, but how they could explain her fall to their superiors.

Resisting arrest, she heard some fuzzy voice say in the anonymous crowd.

She felt a blanket over her. Certainly she didn’t remember that.

She’s come to now, one of them said in a coldly indifferent tone. No one asked how she was feeling. Downstairs, she could hear the sound of dishes clanking, tables being shoved across the room, and the muffled thunks of sofa pads hitting the floor. Someone was shouting about rolling up the Persian rugs that appointed the house’s marble floors. From the kitchen came sounds of drawers being opened and their contents spilled on the floor. It was as if a platoon of madmen had been unleashed to plunder and pillage her home. The clamor was punctuated by the incessant sound of the intruders’ trampling boots blitzing through her home as if they feared their prey would soon vanish. It was orchestrated chaos.

Her head throbbed with a dull pain that fogged her thoughts. As she staggered to stand up, her preoccupation with the pandemonium in her home abruptly ended when the cinching metal restraints rudely reminded her that she was no longer free to move. She stumbled, but regained her balance, quickly adapting to her bondage.

Guess we should let her get dressed before taking her away, one of her captors grunted as if she were not there. The one that had cuffed her smiled , muttering, Yeah, probably not a good idea to advertise all that bush. Several of the group laughed. The handcuffer walked around behind her and grabbed her ample breasts and squeezed. Then he uncuffed her hands. Zahra turned to slap him and someone grabbed her hand.

Bill, that’s enough of that, came the voice of someone who was obviously in command.

Just making sure she’s not hiring any weapons in those boobs, Bill laughed. Maybe I should do a body cavity search also.

The man holding her hand said nothing, but when he released his grip, Zahra slapped Bill with a loud crack.

You bitch, he said as he shoved her, still shackled, to the floor. This time, her restrained hands could not break the fall.

That’s enough, Bill, the man said, this time with more intensity.

Did you see that? She hit me, Bill whined.

I didn’t see anything. Then he looked at the other men, Did you gentlemen see anything?

They looked away.

In spite of his apparent gallantry, he did not allow Zahra to dress alone. No woman was among the troop of invaders, so he stood in the large master bathroom as Zahra hurriedly put on her panties, a bra, an electric blue jogging suit and a pair of white Keds. As she dressed, he made no attempt to avert his eyes and insisted that she face him. She put on no makeup but in the mirror she could see a large bluish knot on the right side of her forehead. That’s going to be quite a bruise, she said to herself as she touched the tender area. Once she was dressed, he recuffed her and shackled her, this time from behind.

I guess there’s nothing much to see now, Zahra said defiantly. She sensed the leader was concerned about the possible repercussions if she talked and, more importantly, could prove what had happened in her arrest, but he said nothing. There were no witnesses. It was her word against six of his men, twenty, if necessary.

What is this all about? Why are you searching my home? Zahra asked, still defiant, with her resolve only heightened by what had just happened. No one said a word. Zahra repeated her questions, this time even louder. Finally, a man about forty-five years of age with dark hair, graying at the temples, a hawkish angular face and black angry eyes stepped toward her.

We have a warrant to arrest you on charges of securities fraud and we also have a warrant to search your home for jewelry that might have been purchased with the proceeds from illegal sales of stock.

Zahra immediately recognized his voice with that slight mid-eastern accent. It was the voice of the FBI Agent Ben Amadolan, to whom she had spoken several times by telephone during this past year. Amadolan was a Palestinian Jew who seemed to carry a grudge against Muslims in general. He had admitted to Zahra that it was his mission to put as many Muslims behind bars as he could. They are a bunch of no good, lying, dishonest camel jockeys who have no right to inhabit this planet, he had pontificated. She wasn’t sure if he knew that she herself was Muslim, but he had warmed up to her after she had told him that she had journeyed to Haifa in 1976 and had found it to be one of the most beautiful cities in the world. However, when she had added that her visit originated from her home in Tehran, he became chillingly silent. After asking her if she was among the many Jews who lived in Iran, because she had told him that she had arranged bar mitzvahs for many of her Jewish friends, she replied that she was not. Abruptly he ended the conversation and never spoke to her again until today.

You know, Mr. Amadolan, we hired attorneys almost a year ago when the investigation began, Zahra said to him.

He was obviously surprised that she had recognized him.

We told the U.S. Attorney’s office that if it became necessary we would peacefully turn ourselves in. It hardly seems necessary to send in a gang of thugs like this to crash through our doors and drag me out of bed as they point their automatic rifles at me. I guess that with my threatening height of 5’1, I was a physical menace to all your big husky agents—all twenty plus of them."

We’ll decide what’s necessary, he sneered, his accent thicker. I think you need to be taught a lesson as to who is really in control around here.

As Zahra was unceremoniously herded down the curved stairway into the foyer below, she could hear Maryam screaming, What are you doing? My mother has done nothing wrong! She has done nothing wrong!

They were words Zahra had heard before in another place in another time.

As she continued down the stairs, she was confronted by a flurry of activity, agents still scurrying about in a frenetic search, dumping out drawers, cutting seat cushions in the antique couches and chairs, tossing books off the library shelves onto the floor. In less than thirty minutes, she observed the horde of those enforcing the law had ransacked her home with such dispatch that Genghis Khan himself would have been pleased. What Zahra didn’t know that it would be another twelve hours before the twenty-two agents left logging about $50,000 worth of jewelry on their report. What they would neglect to account for and what disappeared forever after their search was some $250,000 worth of ancient Persian jewelry, family heirlooms dating back hundreds of years, Zahra had kept with her under intensely trying circumstances.

Those who searched were clever. They knew that no receipts could be provided for the heirlooms and hence were untraceable. Zahra could not prove that she had the jewelry or what it was worth, let alone that they had stolen it. To a person, the agents would lie under oath that they had not taken it. Zahra could not prove otherwise. After all, who would believe someone charged with a crime of securities fraud? The only legacy of significance that she saved for her children disappeared in the raid. But Zahra did not know this as she hobbled to the bottom of the stairs.

She was quickly led through the shattered double entry doors, minutes before a highly polished walnut, but now not much more than scattered splinters among shards of glass. Once outside, she peered across the expansive front lawn and beautiful landscaping and discovered what all the noise outside was about. Five SUVs, along with a white, windowless van had crashed through the first gate of their quarter mile U-driveway, obliterating the white picketed gate that served to keep the uninvited from entering the promises.

Methodically and slowly, so that the few gawking neighbors could observe the full force of the law raining down upon her, she was escorted to the van. In view of the public, the agents now feigned concern, helping her into the van, shielding her bruised forehead from any slight bump against the door jamb.

The van pulled out, driving back toward the splintered picket gate scattered in broken pieces on the driveway and lawn by the impact of their intrusion . As the driver sped over some of the remains of the destroyed gate Zahra said, You know, you didn’t need to crash the gate. At the other end of the U-drive, the gate was not only unlocked, but open. Anyone who knows us comes through that entrance.

In the front passenger seat, the agent who had originally handcuffed her turned around with a snicker, We’re like Frank Sinatra. We do it our way.

I don’t think a sand nigger like her even knows who Frank Sinatra was, the driver laughed.

Zahra, straining to control a response, sat back and said nothing, gazing at the onset of the fall colors in the Acacia trees lining the road. She reflected on times past, of memories not distant enough, before this government had intruded into her life with the force and impunity of today.

Chapter Two

In 1955, the city of Tehran was undergoing staggering change. Nestled in the fertile foothills of the Elbuaz Mountains and only sixty-two miles from the shores of the Caspian Sea, it has for centuries been one of the jewels of Iran. With its two rivers, the Jazrud and the Kaja flanking the ancient city’s boundaries, it was a natural site for human habitation. A venerable city, whose name in ancient Persian means warm place, its origins extend back to Rayy, a bustling metropolis where Alexander the Great (referred to as only Alexander by the Iranians) bivouacked in 330 B.C. while pursuing the Persian ruler, Darius.

Although named the capital of Persia in 1788 by Agha Mohammed Khan, the founder of the Quajar Dynasty, it was not until the reign of Reza Shan Pahlavi in 1925 that the Terhan began to flourish. To accommodate a booming petroleum industry, his son, Mohammed Reza Shah Pahlavi, who ruled from 1941 to 1979, rapidly modernized the city with wide, tree-lined streets, Western-style apartment buildings and choking automobile traffic. From 1955 until the Shah’s overthrow in 1979, the city’s population burgeoned from 500,000 to over 5,000,000. Tehran was truly a blend of the modern and the ancient.

Among those who took advantage of the explosive growth was Nasser Rahimzadeh, whose family had emigrated from the Caspian Sea area of Azerbijan to Tehran over a century earlier. An imposing man, who parlayed his strength and massive 6’6" frame into a national wrestling championship in the heavyweight division, he was noticed by the Shah’s staff and engaged as one of his bodyguards. Before long it was obvious that Nasser’s intelligence matched his brawn and he was sent to Princeton University to study engineering as a part of the Shah’s program to Westernize and modernize Iran. Nasser graduated from Princeton with degrees in both engineering and architecture. Not surprisingly, others often observed that he, himself, was an impressive example of human engineering and architecture.

Upon his return to Iran, he was conscripted into the Iranian Army and quickly rose to the level of Lieutenant. Ironically, the uniforms of Iran’s Army were copied exactly from those of the U.S. Army, so dedicated was the Shah then to Westernize Iran and curry favor with the United States.

Nasser continued his assignment as a member of the Shah’s elite bodyguard squad, but he also taught mathematics to civilians as part of the Pahlavi’s program to interact with and educate the people of Iran. One of Nasser’s students was a striking but petite, honey-blond woman named Noori nestled in the back corner of the room. From the first time he saw her, he was unable to take his eyes off her, distracted to such a point that other students became embarrassed for him. Noori couldn’t help but notice the attention she received and became withdrawn and self-conscious to such an extent she quit class after attending only three days.

But Nasser would not accept her absence and pursued her to her home in the southern area of Tehran. When he knocked on the door, he was met by a small but dignified woman who told him that she was Noori’s mother and demanded to know what his intentions were.

Nasser, not known for publicizing his feelings in words, blurted, I am here to talk to your daughter. From the first time I saw her face, her piercing eyes and her beautiful hair, I knew that I must have this woman as my wife. But I also knew that the feeling I have for her will have to be mutual if we are to be happy in our lives. I am here to let her get to know me, to find out who Nasser Rahimzadeh is and to convince her that we can be happy together in this life and the next.

Perhaps it was the sincerity and vulnerability that Nasser radiated, perhaps it was his sad but resolute eyes, or his distinguished yet accommodating stature, but the older lady knew that he was a man of principle, of commitment and of honor. She nodded to him and invited him to come in.

Once inside, Nasser saw a home that spoke volumes. It was neat, clean, not elaborate but reflective of the pedigree of one who once had wealth. The older woman extended her hand and spoke.

I am Mahdi Shebani, Noori’s mother. Please sit down and we will talk. Her tone was firm but friendly almost as if she knew that Nasser was the man for her daughter. Over naan, a Persian flat bread, and several cups of tea poured into antique china from a golden samovar, the two talked for almost two hours. Noori did not appear.

Nasser talked of his family history, his great-grandfather’s move from the shores of the Caspian Sea to start a new life in Tehran, the merchant rug business of his grandfather, passed on to his younger brother when Nasser was summoned by the Shah’s staff to guard him. He spoke of his dreams to stay in the Army and become a general, but also, with the army’s permission, to engage in the business of architecture and engineering, to bring buildings out of the ground for people to live in, and to develop great commercial centers for people to buy almost anything that this earth provides. Finally, he talked of his dreams of having a large family, to share his life with a loving and supportive wife, and to laugh at the gray hair, flabby skin wrinkles that would insinuate themselves into their later lives.

Mahdi, responding to Nasser’s straightforward manner, and admiring the courage that it must have taken to be so frank, shared with Nasser some of her family’s history. She and the Shah had the same great-grandparents, but her grandfather had angered the family with his independent spirit and his desire to see the world. The long term results were loss of most of the family legacy. She, herself, was unconcerned with wealth, having worked in the State Department of Iran since a girl of eighteen. During the years, she rose through the ranks to become second only to the political appointee State Department Chief, where she still held that position.

It is quite an accomplishment, especially in those times, for a woman, Nasser observed.

Yes, it was, Mahdi said, dispensing with any false modesty. Our family has always had independent women and we value our independence, she added, scrutinizing Nasser for any signs of resentment. She inwardly smiled as she saw none. Then she continued, I was divorced after Noori was born. I refused to put up with the abuse many Iranian men inflict upon their wives. Not so much physical, but the mental abuse that comes with their concept of marriage—a man owns his wife, she is nothing more than a possession …. Do you share that belief Mr. Rahimzadeh?

Nasser looked at her, perplexed, almost as if embarrassed. "Anything I say to you, Mrs. Shebani, would only be words. Those