We bring all the ammunition to the airport in a taxicab. The taxi guy is nice at first, but when he finds out we've got arms he gets livid. There's three of us (I forget who the third guy is), and the taxi driver makes the third guy kneel and holds one of the rifles up to his face. He squeezes the trigger in anger because we didn't inform him we were carrying arms in his cab. But he says he also wants to ensure the bullet chamber is empty.
Up until the very last moment I'm not sure about this stupid idea of smuggling arms, but somehow it must be done. Inside the airport, third guy leaves us and Nikhil and I are figuring out ways to get the arms on the airplane. Nikhil disappears for a while, and comes back some time later saying he's asked our cab driver to take the arms straight up to the flight along with our passports.
He asks me to be cool and just walk straight through immigration. If we're cool, we won't get caught.
I don't know how all this will be done, but I agree anyway. There's this camera type system to which you need to show your passport as you enter the check-in area. Nervously we walk down the pathway lined by Iranian immigration officers suspiciously scanning everyone who's coming in. I'm trying hard to blend in and be cool, but it's very difficult. Just then, out of nowhere, one officer comes and grabs me by the arm. "Where are you going?" he asks me. I start crying almost immediately. Another officer grabs Nikhil and takes him away.
I say to the officer I'm a journalist, and am in Iran only to do a story. The officer asks if the story is on how we travelled back from Iran to India considering there aren't any direct flights between the two countries (or something)? I'm already repenting getting into this, but also thinking it's too late now. If these guys find out what we've been up to, we're screwed.
The officer seems to be easing up looking at my face, and I'm hoping he doesn't ask for my passport seeing as I don't have it on me. Just then Nikhil appears out of nowhere with our passports and puts them down on a table in front of the officers who caught us. I'm so relieved but also confused about where the arms might have gone. The officers look at our passports and let us go. We have to exit the airport as soon as possible. I'm super glad we've aborted the mission.
As we're driving out from the airport, a bunch of kids from a nearby village look at us and run alongside our car with happy faces. I'm thinking we need to get out of here by flight. But I don't know where the arms are, and Nikhil won't tell me. I'm thinking if the authorities find out that the arms are already on the flight, we're screwed. But if the flight (probably a different one) takes off before that, then we're safe. It all depends on what that taxicab driver did with them before he disappeared.
I'm left wondering.
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