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The driver slammed it into reverse before the tires stopped rolling forward , adding a squeal to the bass and the smell of burnt rubber to the air . Italian climber Alessandro Beltrami peers out from the ledge where we bivouacked during our ascent . The bush pilots who fly humanitarian aid into Sudan are a varied lot , ranging from shady buccaneers to airborne do-gooders to workaday aviators like Potyok , a 59-year-old Canadian and a veteran of the African skies . Her father 's work as an economic consultant to public and private institutions alike , and his brief term as undersecretary to the Cuban ambassador , meant the Montgomerys had an array of personal friends and professional colleagues , and the family 's elegant town house was a gathering place for what she 'd been raised to think of as the best of Beacon Hill society . Under a grant from the National Geographic Expeditions Council , I've arrived in Tehran at a time when the United Nations Security Council is attempting to entice Iran with economic incentives to discontinue its nuclear program . I probably have a number of strikes against me , coming as I do from a family of hard-core atheists who have always viewed belief in such matters as an egregious character flaw .