Jamshid Sharmahd made what would be his last video call to his family in a Dubai hotel room on July 28 2020.

The 69-year-old Iranian-German software engineer with permanent US residency was just hours away from a connecting flight to India, but would never reach his destination.

He couldn’t have known that the mundane details of travel – checking flight times, arranging airport transport, packing his laptop – would be his final acts of freedom.

Iranian agents were already closing in on him, transforming a simple layover into the beginning of a fatal odyssey.

His daughter, Gazelle Sharmahd, recounts those final moments with the weight of someone who has replayed them countless times and searched for ways the story might have ended differently.