Pears From Armenia

Demir arrives at the Keleshtar Waterfall to discover that the warning message came from Helga. She had been following him from Berlin. The only piece of information she had was that the Five Eyes had warned Turkey about an imminent danger. She did not know what it was.

The meeting between Helga and Demir happens at Keleshtar Waterfall, on the foothills of the Western Alborz Mountains. The waterfall lies near a village turned into a ghost town after its entire population moved into the comforts of city life. The place is hardly visited, despite its extraordinary beauty.

The constant roar of the waterfall captivated the warrior before he resumed the scrutiny of every rock, shadow, and tree. In the distance, he saw the silhouette of a person for an instant between the trees. He placed his right hand inside his jacket, gripping his pistol.

As the second visitor approached, Demir looked at his watch, then returned his gaze to the trail leading to the waterfall.

The woman was wearing a green linen shal partially covering her red hair, wrapped around her neck and over her left shoulder. As she approached, she placed her hands in her vest pockets.

Demir felt his face burn and tried to regain composure by thinking about his mission. He removed the safety of his pistol inside his pocket.

The woman stopped about five yards away and looked directly into Demir’s eyes.

“Demir; we finally meet face to face,” she said in Farsi.

“I know who you are,” Demir replied in German, still holding his pistol, angling it slightly in her direction.

“Are you going to kill me now?” Helga answered in German, her eyes flicking toward the pocket where he held the weapon.

Demir scanned her vest. If she carried a weapon, it would be small — two shots, maybe — but enough for someone like Helga to put a round through his skull.

“How did you find me?”

A few days earlier, Helga had followed Demir to the doorsteps of Freie Universität Berlin, where she learned he had a secret meeting with Professor Shakeri. After the encounter, the good professor vanished with his entire family. Helga suspected Demir had a hand in his disappearance.

But why was Demir interested in Professor Shakeri?

Helga poured over Shakeri’s course materials and the academic work of his students. Nothing stood out; he had supervised doctoral and master’s research on well‑known academic subjects sponsored by the institution: Old and Middle Iranian Philosophy, Iranian Religions in History…

What could lie underneath? What was not in plain sight?

Then she turned to Shakeri himself.

Dr. Shakeri had obtained his doctoral degree from the University of Tehran, making important contributions to the analysis of primary textual and historical materials from the antique and late‑antique eras.

“Tradition… lineage… lineage.” Helga tightened her lips, her thoughts echoing in the ordered chambers of her mind. “Lineage.”

She read the very paper young Shakeri had written recounting the Bawervan interaction with Europeans during the Late Middle Ages.

“I just follow your thoughts,” she said.

“And the call last night. How did you find that contact? I set it up myself in Ankara before I left.”

“That was a consequence — a side effect — which helped me find you. In Brussels I discovered a very sloppy spy working for a criminal organization. She was spying on the Northern Alliance. I turned her into a double agent in exchange for not blowing her cover. She opened computer ports for me to infiltrate the system, and I hopped until I accessed your network. When she had no use for me, I planted a hint in the Belgian Federal Police verification process, and she was arrested.”

“Who was waiting for me last night at Baran’s mother?”

“You’re not asking the right question, Demir. No one was.”

Demir moved his index finger into the trigger guard.

“Was Baran there?”

“No. He was taken.”

“Why did you pull me away?”

“I didn’t want you to get sidetracked. You’re chasing shadows, Demir. Ask the question that matters.”

Sometimes twenty seconds feel like twenty minutes. They looked at each other, studying body language and faces. The roar of the waterfall submerged them in its fine humid mist.

“What is your objective?” Demir asked.

“Same as yours… the Aten‑Khem cannot be turned into a weapon.”

Demir released the grip of his pistol and pulled his hand out of his jacket pocket. Helga followed, almost in synchronization.

They both exhaled.

“What now?” Demir said.

“I think I have something. I pulled some videos from the traffic cameras. I think I know where they are.”

Outside the cave, the night was dark as the mouth of a wolf.

Helga and Demir surveilled from the nearby forest, powerless. They were outnumbered by heavily armed captors. Helga carried a suppressed sniper rifle loaded with subsonic rounds, and Demir carried an old Tokarev he had bought on the black market when he entered Iran. They suspected that if they attacked, the captors would deny them their prize by murdering Baran and his mother. That was not an option.

So they waited for an opportunity, hoping it would show itself.

The captors kept a well‑protected perimeter.

With the first light of the new day, Demir woke Helga.

“Something is happening.”

Helga opened her eyes, rubbing her hand across her face and against her eyes.

“What is it?”

“Look at the defense perimeter ring — it’s closing.”

“They’re retreating to the cave?”

Looking in the opposite direction the masked men were moving, they saw a dozen lights, then two dozen, then hundreds of lights closing onto the cave’s entrance.

“The army?” Demir exclaimed.

“No… I cannot believe this… they are villagers.”

The villagers were armed only with flashlights. They were hundreds, perhaps over a thousand. They stopped their procession a few yards from the entrance of the cave. The captors stood between them and the entrance.

“We came for Aqilmendtir and his mother,” a young man’s voice called out.

Helga and Demir used the opportunity to blend into the crowd, advancing toward the front line. It was now or never.

One of the captors fired warning shots with a semiautomatic rifle into the air. The crowd did not slow.

“Hold your fire,” the leader said, raising his right hand to stop his men.

The crowd halted while a man advanced to the front, crossing the imaginary line separating the captors from the massive human wall. He stepped forward.

“We came for Aqilmendtir and his mother.”

“Leave or blood will be shed,” said the leader of the captors.

“Uncover your face,” said the young man. “You have seen mine.”

In an unprecedented move, the leader of the captors removed his mask slowly, thinking, Perhaps I should not do this.

Helga elbowed Demir, as if asking, Do you know him?

Demir shook his head very slowly. “No.” But he looked at the man intensely, searing the image of his face into memory.

“Our business here is not finished,” said the man in command.

“And we cannot return without him. And if you know anything about us, you know it will be impossible.”

“We could kill you all.”

“You might kill me,” he said, pointing at others randomly, “and him, and her — but not all of us. And you will die here… where you stand.”

The leader of the captors dropped his head, staring at the dirt under his boots, and exhaled in frustration. He stayed like that for a moment, then raised his head.

“Your Aqilmendtir does not talk much… is he mute?”

“No,” Baran said from inside the cave.

The leader of the captors laughed. No one else did. Then he kicked the ground.

“Release them.”

One of the captors stepped forward in defiance; after all they had done, they were so close.

“Release them. That’s an order.”

Steps echoed from inside the cave, and Baran and his mother emerged.

“Baran, the wolves killed one of your cows,” said the young man.

Baran and his mother stopped cold before crossing the imaginary border separating them from the captors and the villagers. Baran looked at the leader and extended his hand slowly, showing his bare palm.

The leader understood.

“Pay him.”

His order rippled through his troop like a thunderous earthquake traveling at the speed of light. For an instant, no one moved. Then a masked captor approached Baran with a backpack and began placing banknotes onto Baran’s hand, counting.

“That’s enough and fair,” Baran said.

Baran’s mother had spoken no words during the entire ordeal, but this was not the time to be silent. Turning to the captor leader, she spoke before crossing the line to freedom.

“Baran could never tell you, even if you had taken my eyes out in front of him.”

As Baran and his mother vanished into the multitude, they turned back, tracing their steps to wherever they had come from. Demir and Helga walked alongside them.

As the sun continued its journey to the highest height, Demir turned to look over his shoulder at the captors standing at the entrance of the cave and thought that these men had a moment — and understood that the day did not call for a massacre.

Demir and Helga had no intention of abandoning this human caravan. They also wanted to speak to Baran. As the procession advanced into the wooded area, a soft hand held Demir’s hand. Demir turned in amazement and discovered a familiar face.

“Do not forget my pears, Armenian.”

Helga

Demir