Precious memories now. She was shepherded by her guards up the rear ramp of the aircraft.

As she was taken forward in the closed cave of the aircraft the light of the morning died and the soldiers tucked in their boots and shifted their rucksacks and their weapons to allow her and her escorts to pass. They took her to the front of the aircraft to where some seats had been curtained off with sacking. The guard who fastened the seatbelt across her waist leered into her face, and his breath was heavy with chillis.

The engine pitch rose, the aircraft stumbled forward.

The flight from Tehran to Tabriz, a distance of 350 miles, took 75 minutes. She did not turn her head. She did not try to look out of the small porthole window behind her left ear.

She did not need to see the gold sun streaming from behind the great mountain of Damavand. She sat still, unmoving, unspeaking. She found a place on the cabin floor in front of her, a place amongst the ammunition boxes and the ration crates. She stared down at the place.

It was an old aircraft. She heard the rumble of the engines and sometimes the cough of a missed stroke, she heard these sounds above and dominating the reading of the Qur'an from beyond the sacking screen. Her guards talked quietly and kept their eyes from her, as if contact with her could contaminate them, taint their souls. She tried not to think. Was her short life an achievement, was it wasted? Better to shut her mind to thoughts.

The pitch of the aircraft changed. She closed her eyes. She had no God, she willed courage into her body.

The transporter rattled down onto the long strip of the Tabriz field and the interior was flooded with light and the squeal of the tail ramp going down.