Looking back, those last couple of days in Amman were probably the most dangerous, Sen. Lautenberg would later say. The king’s dramatic return had added a sense of urgency to the case, and, it seemed, made the general realize that time was running out.

It was getting very scary," Lautenberg would later say.  The Abequa family "started to describe this as an honorable killing,” and Lautenberg, back in Washington, was becoming very concerned that "if they could get this to a religious court, make the appeal based on whatever cultural  structure there is there, that we might lose the opportunity” to bring the children home.

There was also concern that the Abequa family -- with their protest marches and provocative statements -- would foment some sort of civil unrest, and that such an event might endanger the children or Dokur, authorities said at the time.

The potential for danger was not lost on the king.

He knew that he had to take drastic steps to defuse the situation before it became a crisis. The best way to do that, the king believed, was to get the children out of the Abequa family home, where there was no telling how far the general’s supporters might go to defend his claim.

Immediately upon his arrival, Hussein ordered that Lisa and Sami be removed from the Abequa home. At first they were taken to Hussein’s palace. Later they were transferred to a guarded apartment in an affluent Amman suburb.

But the king remained inscrutable. Surrounded by potential adversaries, the king kept his cards close to his vest. As late as the Tuesday night before they finally left Jordan, neither Dokur nor Feinberg had any idea what would happen next.

They got their answer before dawn the next morning when the royal body guards who had been keeping watch on them ever since their arrival in Jordan, roused them from their beds. They  loaded them into a waiting car, escorted by a carload of other armed guards, and sped off toward the safe house.

Silently, the children were loaded into one of the waiting cars, and, as the muezzin began the haunting call to morning prayers from the minaret at King Abdullah Mosque, the tiny convoy sped off, bound out of Jordan.

A few hours later, the news would leak out when Mariam Abequa said she went with her two brothers and her mother to visit the children at the safe house but found only two plainclothes policemen there.

"We asked the policemen where the children were, and they responded  that they did not know," she said.  "My mother was extremely upset and broke down.  She collapsed."

By that point, the children were gone. They landed at Frankfurt, then flew off for America and home. But even then, officials remained cautious. Fearing that General Abequa might have contacts with European  terrorist organizations, American officials would not confirm the  children's itinerary until after they landed in New York.