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  Stella has evolved into our group's tech geek. Last year during her family's well documented court trial her dad gave Stella one of his armored Executive Lincoln TownCars with Dani as driver/bodyguard. Stella has outfitted that TownCar with all the latest and best in telecommunications gear. Most governments don't have what she's got crammed into her back seat. Which explains why we're using her car to call Jasmine. The girls decided to use the encrypted video hookup in the TownCar to guarantee us some privacy.

  Stella and I are standing outside the car watching Dani in the drivers seat as she deftly monitors everything through her dash-mounted touchscreen and keyboard. Boris is alone in the backseat having a little private face-time with Jasmine. They just met two months ago but have rapidly bonded in that short time. I guess surviving bombs and dodging bullets while sharing 24 hours of shear terror on the day they met could have something to do with it.

  It happened to them this past June.

  We had just finished our school year and were starting to enjoy our summer. I was with Boris and the rest of my teammates in Istanbul, Turkey playing in our first futbol tournament of the summer break.

  My sister Molly was with us because she was writing, filming and producing a documentary on our unique team. She wanted to show how the melting pot of nationalities and personalities that made up our team contributed to our unparalleled success on the field and in the classroom.

  Jasmine, meanwhile, had traveled with her family back to their home in Tehran, Iran so that they could all vote in her country's presidential election last week. Her dad, the Iranian Ambassador to Italy, had been ordered home to show support for his boss, the incumbent President.

  But just because Jasmine's dad had to vote for the Prez didn't mean that she did. Quite the opposite. Green is Jaz's favorite color. She, along with the majority of Iran's youthful population favor a more secular society with a less theocratic government. That's why she had secretly voted for the opposition. The Green candidate was favored to win.

  Then, to everyone's surprise, the old Prez was declared a runaway winner by the Iranian election committee.

  This past week the Iranian voters have been questioning that result. Slowly at first, but now very vocally. Which for them is a freedom-threatening endeavor under Iran's brutish theocratic authority.

  But the people just refuse to ignore the unofficial election numbers which have repeatedly come up heavily in favor of the secular challenger; with old Prez trailing a distant third among the three candidates.

  That's when the Imams, the Muslim clerics who have been running Iran's theocratic government since the 1970's, made a real blunder. Two days ago they declared that their candidate, the old Prez, was the official winner. The Imans decided to ignore the earlier polls which had warned of igniting Iran's youthful, educated and connected citizenry which had become fed up with the Imams' take on life.

  Bad move.

  We're talking Persia. A country of 75 million highly educated people, two-thirds under the age of 30, whose proud history dates back to 7000 bc. Their collective will draws from a deep and ancient well. It should not be ignored. Persia boasts a literacy rate of 83%. These people know how to make their voices heard.

  The country has been all over the news...all over the world. There have been multiple, large, angry anti-government demonstrations since the announcement. The Imams have tried to contain the voices but aren't succeeding. Blood is being shed.

  Jasmine has been calling Molly every day. Many times a day. She can't believe how stupid the Imams are for challenging the will of the country. She says that her dad's really worried about what's gonna happen. Everybody inside the government thinks that the Imams have really blown it. That they're gonna loose. Her dad wants everybody in the family to keep a low profile. He fears attracting the attention of the Revolutionary Guard, the cleric's personal army of thugs. People disappear around the Revolutionary Guard.

  But Jasmine's been going to the demonstrations anyway. She wears a scarf to hide her identity. No way is she sitting this one out.

                                                 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

  So the team's just over the border from Iran in Istanbul, Turkey for a two day tournament. Today is the first day of competition  and we have already won our morning match and are sitting around waiting to find out who we're going to play next. We finally get word that our next opponent has forfeited to us because the team we were scheduled to play has now tested positive for Covid. Yes!!

  Coach gave the team the afternoon off so we decided, Molly included, to go sightseeing in this venerable city. 1700 years ago Istanbul served as the capital of the ancient Roman Empire; there are antiquated historical reminders around every corner in this bustling city. Due to our limited time we decided to hit three of the more famous attractions because they were all in the same area; the ancient Topkapi Palace, the massive Hagia Sophia museum and the historical Blue Mosque. Normally people take days to visit these three sites but we only had the afternoon so we decided on an all-out sprint. I'm proud to say that we managed to see everything we had wanted. It was an invigorating run through history.

  By suppertime we were bone tired and ready to head back to our hotel for dinner. We could hear our hotel's sauna and jacuzzi calling us. We wanted to be fresh and relaxed for our next competition.

  We're at the curb trying to grab a taxi when Molly gets another call from Jaz. Her third in the last hour. With each call Jasmine had become more and more agitated. Apparently the Iranian security forces were really cracking down on the demonstrators. People were being picked up and taken away.

  Molly answers Jaz's latest call and stands motionless, her facial expression ranging from incredulous to stunned, as she listens to her excited friend. Molly gestures for the guys to back away from the curb and quickly gather around her so we can all hear what Jaz is saying. “They're shooting at Jasmine!” shouts Molly.

  We're all going “What?” “What'd you say?” “Shooting?” “What are you talking about?”

  Even with the traffic noise we could hear Jasmine screaming into her phone. “They're shooting at us. I just saw a girl die. Right in front of me. She was shot in the chest. All that blood. They've gone crazy here.”

  Molly turns away from the group and motions me to follow her. She's trying to calm Jasmine down while relaying to me what's being said.

  “Jaz got a call earlier from her mother screaming that there was a member of the Revolutionary Guard at their home demanding to talk to Jasmine about her demonstrating against the government.” Says Molly. “Somehow they found out she's been out there and now she's in big trouble. Her mother begged her not to come home. She'll be arrested and they might never see her again. Nobody's safe right now. Her father has been detained downtown. The government was in complete lock-down. Total martial law was being enforced. Her mother wants Jasmine out of Iran and back in Rome. Right away.”

  “Whoa.” I say. Stunned. I look towards Boris and motion for him to join us. He had lived in Tehran for six years when his dad was head of security at the Russian Embassy. Molly and I have never been to Tehran. I figured we could use his input as we try to digest all that Jaz is telling us.

  I'm trying to bring Boris up to date while at the same time listening to Molly when he cuts both of us off and asks Molly for her phone. She hands it to him and he immediately starts speaking to Jasmine in Farsi. They have never met so he takes a second to explain who he is and why he speaks her language. He then asks “what's happening?” and begins to pace in a circle while listening to Jaz explain the latest. He looks at me a couple of times and shakes his head.

  This is not good.