Did you make the flight?
Another one was exiting Iran, during the Iran-Iraq war.
'We would like you to stay in Iran'.
'That's very kind of you, but I have to be in Frankfurt on Tuesday'
'You will be very welcome. As a special treat, we will take you to the front.'
No, I
really have to be in Frankfurt...'
'... you do not understand, Mr Justapax. You
will stay in Iran!'
This was while I was taking an-antimalarial drug, Lariam (now abandoned) that gives you the horrors. You don't have to be paranoid when you're taking a drug that makes you paranoid.
A hasty discussion between one branch of the Sepah Pasdaran (Irani Revolutionary Guards) and another, one sympathetic to relations with the West, one sympathetic to keeping me in Iran. Then I was hastened into an ambulance (the only vehicles that have priority in Tehrani traffic jams) and driven up to the airstairs of the next flight out of Iran. I didn't go through customs or immigration, so I don't have an exit visa from Iran (fortunately the passport has long expired). Then a stop at the edge of Iran, Bandar Abbas, where the plane went technical. Four hours on the ground in 50C temperatures, I couldn't disembark in case the Sepah Pasdaran caught up with me and arrested me. It was a 747, the ground services weren't running, the only source of coolant was the drinking water dispenser to replace the sweat which was pouring out of us (most passengers chose not to disembark).
Going back to Iran later on another (UN) passport, I was nervous all the time.