HOME | DD

Description
The heat outside was oppressive, but inside the Land Rover it was a comfortable 72°. The radio was playing some state religious broadcast, which was periodically interrupted by news updates explaining how the Iranian government was once again humiliating the Great Satan. This time, some Iranian motorboats had apparently captured a couple of American patrol boats and taken embarrassing pictures of the sailors. They'd forced some kind of confession from the officer in charge. It was all over state media, and the Iranians were broadcasting it across the region.

Maureen sat alone in the back seat, with Arash, her husband's chief lieutenant, up front in the passenger side. Yamin, another of her husband's retainers, was driving. Come to think of it, she wasn't sure whether Yamin was a personal employee of her husband's or a member of the Army of the Guardians of the Islamic Revolution*, but he was fiercely loyal to her husband in any case. Arash was, she was quite certain, a rather high-ranking figure in the Guardians, and each time a propaganda broadcast featuring the Americans came up he would turn to her and ask her what she thought, or simply grin smugly at her. Maureen was American, but if the news bothered her in the slightest, she gave no indication of it. Arash both hated and coveted her, and she knew it, and was uncomfortable being around him without Salim.

Salim was Maureen's husband. He was a high-ranking official in the National Iranian Gas Company. They'd met at a party in Washington, D.C. He was English-educated, handsome, charming, and incredibly wealthy. Maureen had been a financial analyst specializing in the oil and gas industry and, in particular, Iran's role in it. Salim had a thing for redheads, and Maureen had a thing for money. It initially seemed like a match made in heaven. It had been a whirlwind romance, and it was clear to Maureen that, on some level, at least, Salim loved her. But it was hard to square that with how he treated her once they were married and she returned to Iran with him. She made a token conversion to Islam, which was problematic, because Salim was also heavily tied in somehow with the Revolutionary Guard Corps, and they expected Islamic purity in all things. Her Western attitude disgusted them. But Maureen was given a little latitude, since Salim's NIGC cover required him to spend a lot of time in the West, and he frequently hosted foreign visitors at his Tehran home and his ski lodge up in Shemshak, near the capital.

The chatter on the radio turned to the captive Americans once again, and Arash turned around to give Maureen one of his leering smirks.

"Change the radio to the classical station I like," she said, staring at him impassively. He looked at her for a moment more, his smarmy grin curling into an angry scowl. But Salim expected him to do what she said, within reason, and he turned around and changed the station. She smiled inwardly as the strains of Bach's Minuet in 'G' began to flow from the Meridian audio system's seventeen speakers. She leaned to see what was going on in front of them. They had slowed to a stop, and one of the security men had exited the vehicle in front of them to yell threateningly at a shepherd as he guided his flock across the road. Arash looked a little nervous, particularly since the LR4 they were in was towing a trailer carrying $18 million dollars in gold bars and another $12 million in bonds and currency that Salim was moving from his holdings in Tehran to the ski lodge at Shemshak so that it would be more secure. Salim's family was fairly wealthy, but his father was a pauper compared to the fortune Salim had amassed. He'd worked hard stealing this additional nest egg from "enemies of the state" and skimming off the top from the NICG, and he wanted to protect it.

Maureen was supposed to fly up to Shemshak later that evening in a helicopter for a little soiree Salim was having with some people from the US State Department to celebrate the Americans releasing several million dollars in National Iranian Gas Company funds back to the Iranians....with interest. But she didn't like helicopters, and she knew Salim was going to have a some people coming up to transfer his assets, so she suggested that she ride up with the convoy, instead. In fact, she'd been the one to suggest to him that it might be a good idea to transfer some of his gold and most of his cash in the first place. The capital was full of schemers, after all, and even his position in the Guardians was no ironclad guarantee of safety. Impressed by her cunning, he readily agreed, and detailed two of his Land Rovers and a small security detail led by Arash, his most trusted subordinate, for the job. The Rovers had skis on the roofs and the trailer was inconspicuous. From the outside they'd look like some monied city folks heading up to the ski resort for the weekend. And besides, anyone who did know who the Land Rovers belonged to would be insane to mess with a man of Salim's power and connections. They could count on the whole internal security apparatus of the state coming down on their heads.

Maureen leaned back into her seat and adjusted the hem of her dress. She was dressed to the nines in a skin-tight red dress that showed plenty of cleavage, but it was a little restrictive. But it was worth it to annoy Salim's colleagues, and maybe impress that Diana Flowers woman from the State Department. She'd enjoyed Diana's company at parties and even gone skiing and done some shopping and lunching with her in Tehran a few times. It was nice to have someone from back home to talk to, and she'd felt a funny sort of spark between them. She knew she'd be meeting Diana again very soon, and was excited about it.

Arash was leaning out the window now yelling at the Guardsman who was yelling at the shepherd. Maureen rolled her eyes and ran a hand through her hair, looking it over in a mirror she'd taken from her purse. They were still a little ways from the lodge, but going by car instead of by helicopter meant she'd be arriving a little later, so she had to be ready to go as soon as they got there. She rarely got to shine anymore, to have fun, and she was looking forward to being around other Americans again.

She flipped the mirror closed and slipped it back into her purse, and as she did the Land Rover in front of them exploded, tipping up slightly onto it's right wheels before the hulk of it, flaming, bounced back down onto it's suspension. The Revolutionary Guardsman who had been outside the vehicle hectoring the shepherd was sheered in half, his legs being blown well off the road and his torso simply disappearing as it was blased into the air. The flash was blinding and the noise deafening. Shrapnel from the Rover hit their vehicle, and the engine stopped running. The windhields were armored, and the lexan was suddenly pock-marked by shrapnel, and a pall of smoke and dust obscured everything. Arash yelled for Yamin to floor it, and Yamin yelled back in a panic that he couldn't get the Rover restarted. Arash decided to get out to take a look, and as he did so Maureen screamed. Arash turned to look, and Maureen pointed forward. As he turned to look back the other way, a rifle butt was swung through his still-open window, knocking him senseless. Yamin reached for his pistol, but found himself staring down at the business end of the rifle that had just brained his boss. He sheepishly put his hands up and unlocked the vehicle when the assailant yelled at him to.

They were surrounded by several men, all dressed like desert nomads, all in black, all heavily armed. The man who had hit Arash dragged him from the Land Rover and let him fall on the ground, then kicked him in the head. Two more men dragged Yamin from the driver's side and marched him around beside Arash, then kicked his legs out from under him. Maureen screamed again as her door was opened and two hands grasped her arm and pulled her bodily from the vehicle. Her long, tight dress severely limited her ability to run, not that she had any chance to run, anyway. She was spun around and slammed hard against the side of the truck.

"Do you have any idea who you are dealing with?!?" Arash screamed, pain and rage in his voice.

"Yes, we know exactly who we are dealing with," one of the men replied. "Arash Iravani, one of the biggest murderers in the Revolutionary Guards. Torturer, killer, thief. The so-called defender of the faith who drinks, womanizes, indulges in foreign decadence. Scum. How does it feel to be on the other end of the gun, filth?"

Arash, still clutching his head, tried to raise up, only to get a boot to the face.

"And sellout," the man with the gun continued. "We appreciate you letting us know about Mr. Mazandrani's transfer of funds, Arash, but I'm afraid we've changed our minds about our arrangement. We'll be keeping Mrs. Mazandrani here for our own ends. You'll have to be content with raping your seventy-two virgin goats when you get to heaven," he chuckled. "And you're just a loose end now, we'll be keeping your share of the take."

Yamin's eyes went wide. "How could you?!?" he yelled at Arash, trying to get up and grapple with him, only to be kicked back down, himself, by the nearest of the thieves. "Traitor!!!" he shrieked at Arash.

"What are you talking about?" Arash asked, sounding genuinely confused as he tried to sidle away from Yamin and look up at the leader of the attackers simultaneously.

"Say hello to your bullshit god and your pedophile prophet," was the terse reply, followed instantly by the crack of a rifle. The bullet struck Arash right between the eyes, his limp body falling to the ground, where Yamin immediately spit upon it and kicked it.

Maureen, who had been looking back over her shoulder, winced, closed her eyes, and looked away. She hated Arash, but this was too much to handle. "Please, just let me go!" she begged. Her Farsi wasn't great, but she'd heard enough of the conversation to know she was in big trouble, although perhaps not as big as she would have been had Arash got his way. She started to sob, begging them over and over again in English and in Farsi to just leave her alone and let her go.

"Mazandrani's wife is making too much noise. Shut her ass up and get her in the trailer with the other goods," the man who had shot Arash said as another vehicle, this one a much older Range Rover, pulled up. Men were already unhooking the trailer and preparing to latch it to the newly-arrived jeep. "And you, kill the driver," he added, pointing to one of the men.

Maureen felt strong arms dragging her towards the trailer containing Salim's ill-gotten wealth. With amazing speed, the thieves had already attached it to their own vehicle. Yamin had been beaten senseless and dragged out of sight, and a gun shot rang out moments later. Maureen hung her head, crying. Two more old Rovers pulled up, and the robbers quickly loaded into them. A woman stepped out of one of them. She was in all black, from her leather pants and knee high boots to her cropped, wool, zip-up turtleneck sweater and the watch cap that hid most of her flaxen hair. She was wearing dark Wayfarers and carrying an American-made M4 carbine. "So this is Mazandrani's wife?" she asked in Farsi. "Doesn't look like much to me," she said, slinging her carbine and drawing a syringe from a case and prepping it.

"Nice dress, though, honey," she said to Maureen, this time in English, as she stabbed her in the arm with the needle and depressed the plunger. "Too bad you're not my size."

Maureen blinked a couple of times. Whatever she'd just been injected with, it worked fast. The world was starting to rock back and forth, as if she were on a boat, the frequency and severity of the rocking increasing rapidly until everything was spinning, faster and faster. She felt heavy, confused, drowsy, as if she was completely losing control. "Get her tied up, get her in the trailer, and get out of here. You know where to meet," the blonde said to Arash's killer, again in Farsi. It all sounded so distant to Maureen.

"Tie me up? They're going to....." but before Maureen could complete the thought, darkness overtook her.

She woke up an indeterminate amount of time later on the hard, wooden floor of the trailer. The doors were open and the blonde from the robbery scene was standing over her. Maureen could tell her ankles were bound, and her wrists were bound in front of her. Her mouth had been stuffed and she'd been gagged with a scarf. It felt very, very dry, both from being stuffed and probably because it seemed she'd drooled about a gallon's worth of saliva onto the bed of the trailer. The blonde helped Maureen into a seated position and slid her across the smooth bed of the trailer and helped lower her onto her feet, then stood her up. The gold and cases bearing the cash and bonds were laid out on a table. Across the room a chair was set up, with a video camera facing it. There was no one around but her and the blonde kidnapper.

"Hi honey, we're home," the blonde laughed. "Now, I know you're not looking your best right now, but that's kind of the point. We've got a ransom video to make..."

* Better known in the West as the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps or simply the "Revolutionary Guards"

===============================================================================================================

Maureen Mazandrani

The Blonde Kidnapper

Change of plans! This is now going to be a multi-part story, and all four parts are now up on my page instead of Donna's. You can see them here:


Mature Content

Description
The heat outside was oppressive, but inside the Land Rover it was a comfortable 72°. The radio was playing some state religious broadcast, which was periodically interrupted by news updates explaining how the Iranian government was once again humiliating the Great Satan. This time, some Iranian motorboats had apparently captured a couple of American patrol boats and taken embarrassing pictures of the sailors. They'd forced some kind of confession from the officer in charge. It was all over state media, and the Iranians were broadcasting it across the region.

Maureen sat alone in the back seat, with Arash, her husband's chief lieutenant, up front in the passenger side. Yamin, another of her husband's retainers, was driving. Come to think of it, she wasn't sure whether Yamin was a personal employee of her husband's or a member of the Army of the Guardians of the Islamic Revolution*, but he was fiercely loyal to her husband in any case. Arash was, she was quite certain, a rather high-ranking figure in the Guardians, and each time a propaganda broadcast featuring the Americans came up he would turn to her and ask her what she thought, or simply grin smugly at her. Maureen was American, but if the news bothered her in the slightest, she gave no indication of it. Arash both hated and coveted her, and she knew it, and was uncomfortable being around him without Salim.

Salim was Maureen's husband. He was a high-ranking official in the National Iranian Gas Company. They'd met at a party in Washington, D.C. He was English-educated, handsome, charming, and incredibly wealthy. Maureen had been a financial analyst specializing in the oil and gas industry and, in particular, Iran's role in it. Salim had a thing for redheads, and Maureen had a thing for money. It initially seemed like a match made in heaven. It had been a whirlwind romance, and it was clear to Maureen that, on some level, at least, Salim loved her. But it was hard to square that with how he treated her once they were married and she returned to Iran with him. She made a token conversion to Islam, which was problematic, because Salim was also heavily tied in somehow with the Revolutionary Guard Corps, and they expected Islamic purity in all things. Her Western attitude disgusted them. But Maureen was given a little latitude, since Salim's NIGC cover required him to spend a lot of time in the West, and he frequently hosted foreign visitors at his Tehran home and his ski lodge up in Shemshak, near the capital.

The chatter on the radio turned to the captive Americans once again, and Arash turned around to give Maureen one of his leering smirks.

"Change the radio to the classical station I like," she said, staring at him impassively. He looked at her for a moment more, his smarmy grin curling into an angry scowl. But Salim expected him to do what she said, within reason, and he turned around and changed the station. She smiled inwardly as the strains of Bach's Minuet in 'G' began to flow from the Meridian audio system's seventeen speakers. She leaned to see what was going on in front of them. They had slowed to a stop, and one of the security men had exited the vehicle in front of them to yell threateningly at a shepherd as he guided his flock across the road. Arash looked a little nervous, particularly since the LR4 they were in was towing a trailer carrying $18 million dollars in gold bars and another $12 million in bonds and currency that Salim was moving from his holdings in Tehran to the ski lodge at Shemshak so that it would be more secure. Salim's family was fairly wealthy, but his father was a pauper compared to the fortune Salim had amassed. He'd worked hard stealing this additional nest egg from "enemies of the state" and skimming off the top from the NICG, and he wanted to protect it.

Maureen was supposed to fly up to Shemshak later that evening in a helicopter for a little soiree Salim was having with some people from the US State Department to celebrate the Americans releasing several million dollars in National Iranian Gas Company funds back to the Iranians....with interest. But she didn't like helicopters, and she knew Salim was going to have a some people coming up to transfer his assets, so she suggested that she ride up with the convoy, instead. In fact, she'd been the one to suggest to him that it might be a good idea to transfer some of his gold and most of his cash in the first place. The capital was full of schemers, after all, and even his position in the Guardians was no ironclad guarantee of safety. Impressed by her cunning, he readily agreed, and detailed two of his Land Rovers and a small security detail led by Arash, his most trusted subordinate, for the job. The Rovers had skis on the roofs and the trailer was inconspicuous. From the outside they'd look like some monied city folks heading up to the ski resort for the weekend. And besides, anyone who did know who the Land Rovers belonged to would be insane to mess with a man of Salim's power and connections. They could count on the whole internal security apparatus of the state coming down on their heads.

Maureen leaned back into her seat and adjusted the hem of her dress. She was dressed to the nines in a skin-tight red dress that showed plenty of cleavage, but it was a little restrictive. But it was worth it to annoy Salim's colleagues, and maybe impress that Diana Flowers woman from the State Department. She'd enjoyed Diana's company at parties and even gone skiing and done some shopping and lunching with her in Tehran a few times. It was nice to have someone from back home to talk to, and she'd felt a funny sort of spark between them. She knew she'd be meeting Diana again very soon, and was excited about it.

Arash was leaning out the window now yelling at the Guardsman who was yelling at the shepherd. Maureen rolled her eyes and ran a hand through her hair, looking it over in a mirror she'd taken from her purse. They were still a little ways from the lodge, but going by car instead of by helicopter meant she'd be arriving a little later, so she had to be ready to go as soon as they got there. She rarely got to shine anymore, to have fun, and she was looking forward to being around other Americans again.

She flipped the mirror closed and slipped it back into her purse, and as she did the Land Rover in front of them exploded, tipping up slightly onto it's right wheels before the hulk of it, flaming, bounced back down onto it's suspension. The Revolutionary Guardsman who had been outside the vehicle hectoring the shepherd was sheered in half, his legs being blown well off the road and his torso simply disappearing as it was blased into the air. The flash was blinding and the noise deafening. Shrapnel from the Rover hit their vehicle, and the engine stopped running. The windhields were armored, and the lexan was suddenly pock-marked by shrapnel, and a pall of smoke and dust obscured everything. Arash yelled for Yamin to floor it, and Yamin yelled back in a panic that he couldn't get the Rover restarted. Arash decided to get out to take a look, and as he did so Maureen screamed. Arash turned to look, and Maureen pointed forward. As he turned to look back the other way, a rifle butt was swung through his still-open window, knocking him senseless. Yamin reached for his pistol, but found himself staring down at the business end of the rifle that had just brained his boss. He sheepishly put his hands up and unlocked the vehicle when the assailant yelled at him to.

They were surrounded by several men, all dressed like desert nomads, all in black, all heavily armed. The man who had hit Arash dragged him from the Land Rover and let him fall on the ground, then kicked him in the head. Two more men dragged Yamin from the driver's side and marched him around beside Arash, then kicked his legs out from under him. Maureen screamed again as her door was opened and two hands grasped her arm and pulled her bodily from the vehicle. Her long, tight dress severely limited her ability to run, not that she had any chance to run, anyway. She was spun around and slammed hard against the side of the truck.

"Do you have any idea who you are dealing with?!?" Arash screamed, pain and rage in his voice.

"Yes, we know exactly who we are dealing with," one of the men replied. "Arash Iravani, one of the biggest murderers in the Revolutionary Guards. Torturer, killer, thief. The so-called defender of the faith who drinks, womanizes, indulges in foreign decadence. Scum. How does it feel to be on the other end of the gun, filth?"

Arash, still clutching his head, tried to raise up, only to get a boot to the face.

"And sellout," the man with the gun continued. "We appreciate you letting us know about Mr. Mazandrani's transfer of funds, Arash, but I'm afraid we've changed our minds about our arrangement. We'll be keeping Mrs. Mazandrani here for our own ends. You'll have to be content with raping your seventy-two virgin goats when you get to heaven," he chuckled. "And you're just a loose end now, we'll be keeping your share of the take."

Yamin's eyes went wide. "How could you?!?" he yelled at Arash, trying to get up and grapple with him, only to be kicked back down, himself, by the nearest of the thieves. "Traitor!!!" he shrieked at Arash.

"What are you talking about?" Arash asked, sounding genuinely confused as he tried to sidle away from Yamin and look up at the leader of the attackers simultaneously.

"Say hello to your bullshit god and your pedophile prophet," was the terse reply, followed instantly by the crack of a rifle. The bullet struck Arash right between the eyes, his limp body falling to the ground, where Yamin immediately spit upon it and kicked it.

Maureen, who had been looking back over her shoulder, winced, closed her eyes, and looked away. She hated Arash, but this was too much to handle. "Please, just let me go!" she begged. Her Farsi wasn't great, but she'd heard enough of the conversation to know she was in big trouble, although perhaps not as big as she would have been had Arash got his way. She started to sob, begging them over and over again in English and in Farsi to just leave her alone and let her go.

"Mazandrani's wife is making too much noise. Shut her ass up and get her in the trailer with the other goods," the man who had shot Arash said as another vehicle, this one a much older Range Rover, pulled up. Men were already unhooking the trailer and preparing to latch it to the newly-arrived jeep. "And you, kill the driver," he added, pointing to one of the men.

Maureen felt strong arms dragging her towards the trailer containing Salim's ill-gotten wealth. With amazing speed, the thieves had already attached it to their own vehicle. Yamin had been beaten senseless and dragged out of sight, and a gun shot rang out moments later. Maureen hung her head, crying. Two more old Rovers pulled up, and the robbers quickly loaded into them. A woman stepped out of one of them. She was in all black, from her leather pants and knee high boots to her cropped, wool, zip-up turtleneck sweater and the watch cap that hid most of her flaxen hair. She was wearing dark Wayfarers and carrying an American-made M4 carbine. "So this is Mazandrani's wife?" she asked in Farsi. "Doesn't look like much to me," she said, slinging her carbine and drawing a syringe from a case and prepping it.

"Nice dress, though, honey," she said to Maureen, this time in English, as she stabbed her in the arm with the needle and depressed the plunger. "Too bad you're not my size."

Maureen blinked a couple of times. Whatever she'd just been injected with, it worked fast. The world was starting to rock back and forth, as if she were on a boat, the frequency and severity of the rocking increasing rapidly until everything was spinning, faster and faster. She felt heavy, confused, drowsy, as if she was completely losing control. "Get her tied up, get her in the trailer, and get out of here. You know where to meet," the blonde said to Arash's killer, again in Farsi. It all sounded so distant to Maureen.

"Tie me up? They're going to....." but before Maureen could complete the thought, darkness overtook her.

She woke up an indeterminate amount of time later on the hard, wooden floor of the trailer. The doors were open and the blonde from the robbery scene was standing over her. Maureen could tell her ankles were bound, and her wrists were bound in front of her. Her mouth had been stuffed and she'd been gagged with a scarf. It felt very, very dry, both from being stuffed and probably because it seemed she'd drooled about a gallon's worth of saliva onto the bed of the trailer. The blonde helped Maureen into a seated position and slid her across the smooth bed of the trailer and helped lower her onto her feet, then stood her up. The gold and cases bearing the cash and bonds were laid out on a table. Across the room a chair was set up, with a video camera facing it. There was no one around but her and the blonde kidnapper.

"Hi honey, we're home," the blonde laughed. "Now, I know you're not looking your best right now, but that's kind of the point. We've got a ransom video to make..."

* Better known in the West as the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps or simply the "Revolutionary Guards"

===============================================================================================================

Maureen Mazandrani

The Blonde Kidnapper

Change of plans! This is now going to be a multi-part story, and all four parts are now up on my page instead of Donna's. You can see them here:


Mature Content