Twice Under the Persian Sky

Chapter Three

As nautical twilight drew close, sailors in two speedboats operated by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Naval (IRGCN) spotted our boat. Iranian law forbid civilians to own or operate high performance motorboats, but such rules did not apply to the IRGCN, which had fast boats equipped with massive high performance double Yamaha engines.

The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) is a branch of Iran's armed forces founded shortly after the revolution in 1979. At that time, the IRGC had four branches: the al-Quds Force, the Air Force, the Ground Force, and the Navy. IRGC operations are geared towards asymmetric warfare and less traditional duties than the regular military. The IRGC functions as a mafia-style organization rather than a purely military group. After the end of the Iran-Iraq war in 1988, the IRGC expanded its operations into key business enterprises, monopolizing government contracts and controlling Iran's shadow economy. IRGC duties in the Persian Gulf and Strait of Hormuz, in particular, came to include the control of smuggling, and the physical control of the Strait.

Now the IRGCN vessels caught up with us before we reached international waters. The boats had heavy machine guns pointed at us and they forced us to stop. Needless to say, the goats weren't the only animals to urinate in the boat from being scared. I had heard horror stories about people disappearing while in IRGC custody; many were never heard from again. We were in open waters some 660 feet deep. I knew the sailors easily could have killed the three of us and dumped our bodies into the water, with no one the wiser. No witnesses were present to see whatever actions the IRGCN unit might decide to take.

In Iran, the IRGC answers to no one. The IRGC technically answers to the Supreme Leader, but in practice even that "supervision" is debatable. My parents wouldn't even be able to ask IRGC officials about me. After all, I was being smuggled out of Iran. I was committing a crime and my parents were accomplices to this crime. They would get in huge trouble –if not imprisoned or worse—if they would even ask the IRGC about my whereabouts or status.

The past 16 years of my life flashed in front of my eyes in less than a minute. What was the last thing I said to my parents? What was the last thing I told my sister, my brother? I should have hugged my grandmother (my father's mom) more and spent more time with her, I thought. All these thoughts played in my head at the speed of light.

All of a sudden, I snapped out of my thoughts and noticed an IRGCN speedboat hard alongside us. The other boat maintained a distance of about 50 yards.

A bearded man in military fatigues boarded our boat and glared at the three of us. His angry eyes stopped when they focused on Ahmad, our skipper.

He asked, "I assume you are the fucking skipper and you thought you'd be able to get away?" He then asked, "What did you motherfuckers drop in the water? I saw you dropping something into the water."

We all looked at each other, but remained quiet. The IRGC officer paused for about five seconds before asking again, but the pause seemed like an eternity. We had almost made it, but "almost" wasn't good enough. Perhaps if we had been able to sail another couple of nautical miles, we would have made it to international waters. At that moment, those two miles might as well have been 100 miles.

The IRGCN officer asked again, "What did you motherfuckers drop in the water? I saw you dropping something into the water."

Ahmad, Reza and I all looked at each other, but said nothing. The navy officer then looked at Ahmad and ordered him to stand up.

At first, Ahmad refused, but the officer angrily ordered him again to get up: "Stand the fuck up."

Ahmad slowly started to rise and he wasn't even fully erect yet when the IRGCN officer kicked him hard in the chest and Ahmad fell into water.

I was terrified and looked over at Reza. I could tell he was frightened, too. My worst nightmare had come true. The IRGCN had just killed Ahmad right in front of me and I was powerless to do anything. Ahmad sank in the water and disappeared. Some 20-30 seconds passed, but we saw no sign of him. I kept thinking that the IRGCN officer had kicked Ahmad in the chest really hard and probably had broken a couple of his ribs and punctured his lung.

Like the heartless thug that he was, the IRGCN officer then ordered Reza to stand up. At first Reza refused, but the officer pulled out a collapsible baton and hit Reza's right arm. Reza held his arm as he felt a rush of pain throughout his body. We had seen or heard no sign of Ahmad for more than 30 seconds when suddenly he came out of the water a few feet away from the boat, gasping for air. The sound of Ahmad trying to catch a breath was loud enough that all of us heard it.

Reza stood up, but because he had refused to stand right away, the IRGCN officer slapped him several times and used curse words to describe his mother and sister. Then the officer grabbed Reza's right arm and twisted it behind his back and pushed him into the water. I knew that I would be next. Ahmad was holding on to the edge of the boat. He didn't want to get back into to the boat, because he didn't know what would happen next.

I could tell that the IRGCN officer had some serious psychological issues, even though I was only a teenager. He held all the cards and he was in charge; he loved the fact that he was calling the shots and he didn't have to answer to anyone. But even I could tell that he had an inferiority complex. Maybe he had abusive parents or maybe he was mentally or sexually abused as a child. It didn't matter, because at that moment, in that spot he had a God complex and he would justify all his actions in the name of Islam and the Islamic Republic.

I sat in shock and disbelief. I also knew that I had to prepare myself mentally and physically for what was coming next—getting the shit beaten out of me and getting kicked or thrown in the water by some loser with an inferiority complex.

The officer then turned to me, with his right hand he gestured for me to stand up. Crippling fear washed over me as I stood up. I felt sick to my stomach with an overwhelming urge to vomit, but I had no choice: I stood.

As I was getting up, the officer's shipmate from the IRGCN speedboat started shouting, "Hey, another boat trying to get away! Let's go! We gotta go now!" The IRGCN officer stepped back into his boat, and just like that the IRGCN boat was gone.

I stabilized our boat by sitting in the middle next to the goats while Ahmad and then Reza got back into the boat. They both looked at me and complained, "You lucky bastard! You didn't get a beating." I had been spared. Call it divine intervention or just dumb luck, whatever it was, I was relieved, at least for the moment.

We had to turn around and head back to Bandar Abbas, because just a few seconds before the IRGCN boats intercepted us, Reza had dropped a metal pipe into the waters of the Gulf. That pipe contained all of our forged documents wrapped in several layers of plastic, and we needed those phony documents to show to the UAE coast guard once we crossed their maritime border. Among the documents were 3 forged Iranian passports and 3 fake international trade identification cards—supposedly issued by the Islamic Republic of Iran's Chamber of Commerce, Industries and Mines in Tehran. The documents described Reza, Ahmad, and me as Iranian merchants transporting goats to the UAE to sell. In return, we would buy electronic goods to take back to Iran.

Reza and Ahmad had crossed the Persian Gulf countless times in the past, so they assured me that the incident with the IRGC navy was just a minor setback and that it happens from time to time. They said that we would try again the following night, but this time we would leave Bandar Abbas an hour earlier to clear Iran's maritime border and enter international waters under the cover of darkness.

Our return trip to Bandar Abbas took almost 90 minutes. Everyone's mood was somber—especially mine. No one spoke. Then Reza began to assure me again and again that the encounter with the IRGCN was just a minor setback. He told me, "We will try again tomorrow morning. We will get you to Dubai." Despite Reza's calming words, it seemed to me that the three of us felt a sense of defeat, but I felt it more then the two of them. For Ahmad and Reza, this was just business as usual. The stakes were higher for me. At stake was my chance for freedom. Although I was still physically in Iran, mentally and emotionally I had already departed. My freedom, my future, a world of opportunities was awaiting me.

The lesson I learned that night has stayed with me throughout life. The way in which we handle our failures do not define us, but rather failures mold us into the person we are meant to be. At that moment, I had to trust and have faith that I would make it to Dubai one way or another.