Chapter 62

A secure military area within Newark International Airport, New Jersey
May 16, 2006

The US Air Force Boeing 737 aircraft rolled to a stop, stairs built onto a motorized base pulled up to the side of the aircraft, and the door opened. Men and women, mostly in uniform, descended the stairs, and boarded a pair of buses. The last passengers to descend the stairs were two men in civilian clothes. A man standing near the base of the stairs, walked forward, and offered his hand to one of the men. “Welcome to America, Mr. Razmara. I was told you have been very helpful. I hope you enjoyed the debriefing period.”

The man replied in halting uncertain English. “Yes, It was very fine. Near sea. Very nice.”

“I have a car waiting. It's a short walk.”

They had held him in a large military base beside the ocean. No one told him where it was. Razmara had never seen the ocean before, and found walking beside it a novel experience.

He was well treated and allowed to call his wife. They had interrogated him almost every day, and asked many questions about the Revolutionary Guards, weapons, training, barracks, headquarters, discipline, procedures, communications, codes, senior officers, everything, but mostly they questioned him about the operation to infiltrate into Azerbaijan.

After the first week, they brought him documents, or sometimes recordings of voices, and asked him what was meant by this word, acronym, or phrase. Often he didn't know or could only speculate on possible meanings, but what he did know he told them, and, for the most part, his questioners seemed satisfied with his answers.

They took the bird away from him after the helicopter landed, and he never saw it again. One day he asked one of his interrogators what had happened to it. They told him that before he left this place, he would be required to sign a document that committed him to never speak of certain things to anyone, including classified equipment he may have knowledge of. This specifically meant the mechanical bird.

All the people he met in the camp spoke English, and as far as he knew the only people who spoke Farsi were his interrogators. Some people spoke English with a strange accent he found hard to understand, but perhaps it was just his limited vocabulary and lack of experience in the language.

His room had a television and all the channels were in English, but most of the programs were in that hard to understand English accent, so he used his free time to practice his English using the tapes they had given him.

“Captain, did you know the Iranian government has declared you dead?”

“My wife tell me this.”

Razmara paused and then continued in his halting English.

“First time, I dead. Hope next time, is good too.”

Razmara watched the man's reaction to see if his attempt at a joke, crossed the language barrier.

“We find that dead people are often more valuable than the living. Death wipes many things from the record.”

The man continued, “Before I take you to your new home, we need to complete some paperwork in order to issue you with a green card.”

“Green card?”

“It's a pass that means you are a legal resident.”

“Like American passport?”

“It's the first step to getting an American passport.”

The man opened the car's rear door, and indicated Razmara should enter. He climbed in and sat behind the driver. The man went around the vehicle, and sat beside the driver. He turned to Razmara.

“I am here to help you adjust to your new life in America. Please ask me any questions you have.”

Razmara had only one question. “When my family come?”

“Their plane has left Frankfurt, and they will be here in five hours time.”

“Thank you.”

He looked out of the window as the car left the airport, and turned onto a wide road filled with many large cars. They passed a very long building surrounded by a huge, almost empty parking lot. He silently mouthed the name across the front of the building, 'Crossroads Mall'.

He decided he would like living in America, but unlike the old man, he would never go back.


The End

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