young women. They jumped on them and began beating them mercilessly.
Charlie’s anger boiled. But there was nothing he could do. He was alone. He was unarmed. And again he thought of Claire back in their apartment—alone, terrified, and three and a half months pregnant.
2
The twenty-minute journey home took two hours.
Cautiously working his way through the clogged streets—and purposefully taking a circuitous route, checking constantly to see if anyone was following him—Charlie eventually made it back to apartment 902 in the upscale high-rise with the spectacular views of the Tehran skyline. He burst through the door, quickly locked it behind him, and hearing the AM radio still on in the bedroom, headed there to find his wife.
“Charlie, are you okay?” Claire said breathlessly, jumping up to embrace him.
“Yes,” he whispered, holding her close. “But what about you?”
“I’ve been terrified about you,” she whispered back, beginning to cry. “I thought I’d never see you again.”
“Sweetheart, I’m sorry,” he said as quietly and lovingly as he could. “But I’m fine. Don’t worry. I’m all right, just a little shaken up.”
It was a lie. He wasn’t fine. He was scared and unsure what to do next. But as guilty as he felt about lying to the woman he loved, he worried for her and the precious life growing within her.
“Are you still bleeding?” he asked.
“A little,” she said. “But I’ll be fine.”
It was Claire’s first pregnancy, and it hadn’t been easy. She’d suffered with violent morning sickness for the first couple of months and had lost nearly twenty pounds from an already-slight frame. More stress wasn’t exactly what the doctor had ordered for her or the baby.
Claire took a few deep breaths and tried to steady herself. Then pressed harder against him and spoke into his ear. “They’re saying a firefight has erupted outside the compound; they’re saying several people are dead and that dozens more are wounded. Is that true?”
“I don’t know,” Charlie said. “Everything’s so chaotic. I wouldn’t know what to believe at this point.”
No sooner had the words left his lips than came a special bulletin over Radio Tehran.
“We have a woman on the line who claims to have important news on the student uprising downtown,” the announcer said. “Okay, you’re on the air. What is your name?”
“I am one of the Muslim Student Followers of the Imam’s Line.”
“Yes, I understand, but what’s your name?”
“That doesn’t matter. What matters is our movement.”
“Fine,” the announcer said. “Where exactly are you calling from, and what is it that you want to say?”
“I am calling you from inside the American Embassy.”
There was a long, uncomfortable pause. The announcer seemed flustered. “What? Inside the . . . That doesn’t make any . . . Repeat what you just said. Is this a joke?”
“It is not a joke. We have occupied the American Embassy, the den of espionage. We have occupied every building. Every floor. I am presently standing behind the desk of the ambassador.”
“Come now,” the announcer said, incredulous. “We know the students have penetrated the outer walls and are protesting on the grounds of the compound. We’ve been reporting this for several hours. But we have no reports of any students getting inside one of the buildings.”
“Now you do.”
“But you cannot be in the ambassador’s office. You must be kidding.”
“I am not.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“I can prove it.”
“How?”
“Look in the telephone directory and find the embassy number,” the woman directed. “Then dial extension 8209 for the ambassador’s office.”
There was a long pause. Charlie turned to Claire to see how she was doing. But she didn’t return his gaze. She was fixated on the radio, almost as if in a trance. A moment later, the radio announcer could be heard flipping through a directory, then dialing the phone. It rang. And then . . .
“You have reached the United States Embassy in Tehran,” a woman’s voice said, first in English, then in Farsi. “The embassy is presently closed. Our office hours are from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., Sunday through Thursday. The consulate is open for visa requests from 9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m., Sunday through Thursday. If you know the number of the person you are trying to reach . . .”
A moment later, the announcer had dialed through to the ambassador’s office and got the same woman back on the line.
“So it is true,” he said, astonished.
“So it is.”
“This is serious news. Okay, what is your message?”
“I have a communiqué,” the young woman said calmly.