Whirlwind

Later a rough hand shook him awake. “Bakravan, you’re wanted. Come on!” “Yes, yes,” he mumbled, and groped to his feet, finding it hard to talk, recognizing Yusuf, the leader of the Green Bands who had come to the bazaar last night. He stumbled after him, through the others, out of the room and into the corridor, up steps and along another heatless corridor lined with cells, peepholes in the doors, past guards and others who eyed him strangely, someone crying nearby. “Where - where are you taking me?” “Save your strength, you’ll need it.”

Yusuf stopped at a door, opened it, and shoved him through. The room was small, claustrophobic, crammed with men. In the center was a wooden table with a mullah and four young men seated on either side of him, some papers and a large Koran on the table, a small barred window high up in the wall, a shaft of sunlight against the blue of the sky. Green Bands leaned against the walls.

“Jared Bakravan, the bazaari, the moneylender,” Yusuf said. The mullah looked up from the list he had been studying. “Ah, Bakravan, Salaam.” “Salaam, Excellency,” Bakravan said shakily. The mullah was fortyish, with black eyes and black beard, white turban and threadbare black robes. The men beside him were in their twenties, unshaven or bearded, and poorly dressed, guns propped behind them. “How - how can I - I help you?” he asked, trying to be calm.

“I am Ali’allah Uwari, appointed by the Revolutionary Komiteh as a judge, and these men are also judges. This court is ruled by the Word of God and the Holy Book.” The mullah’s voice was harsh and his accent Qazvini. “You know this Paknouri, known as Miser Paknouri?”

“Yes, but may I say, Excellency, according to our Constitution and to ancient bazaari law th - ”

“Better you answer the question,” one of the youths interrupted, “we’ve no time to waste on speeches! Do you know him or don’t you?” “Yes, yes, of cour - ”

“Excellency Uwari,” Yusuf interrupted from the doorway. “Please, who do you want next?”

“Paknouri, then…” The mullah squinted at the list of names. “Then Police Sergeant Jufrudi.”

One of the others sitting at the tables said, “That dog was judged by our other revolutionary court last night and shot this morning.” “As God wills.” The mullah drew a line through the name. All the names above had lines through them. “Then bring Hassen Turlak - from cell 573.” Bakravan almost cried out. Turlak was a highly respected journalist and writer, half-Iranian-half-Afghani, a courageous and zealous critic of the Shah’s regime who had even spent some years in jail because of his opposition.

The unshaven young man beside the mullah irritably scratched at the skin blemishes on his face. “Who’s Turlak, Excellency?”

The mullah read from the list. “Newspaper reporter.”

“It’s a waste of time seeing him - of course he’s guilty,” another said. “Wasn’t he the one who claimed the Word could be changed, that the Words of the Prophet weren’t correct for today? He’s guilty, of course he’s guilty.” “As God wills.” The mullah turned his attention to Bakravan. “Paknouri. Did he ever practice usury?”

Bakravan dragged his mind off Turlak. “No, never, and he w - ” “Did he lend money at interest?”

Bakravan’s stomach churned. He saw the cold black eyes and tried hard to get his brain working. “Yes, but in a modern society int - ”

“Isn’t it written clearly in the Holy Koran that lending money at interest is usury and against the laws of God?”

“Yes. Usury is against the laws of God but in modern soc - ” “The Holy Koran is blemishless. The Word is clear and forever. Usury is usury. The law is the law.” The mullah’s eyes flattened. “Do you uphold the law?”

“Yes, yes, Excellency, of course, of course I do.”

“Do you practice the Five Pillars of Islam?” These were obligatory to all Muslims: the saying of the Shahada; ritual prayer five times a day; the voluntary giving of Zakat, a year tax, a tenth part; fasting from dawn to dusk during the Holy Month of Ramadan; and last, making the Hajj, the ritual journey to Mecca once in a lifetime.

“Yes, yes, I do, except - except the last. I - I haven’t yet made the pilgrimage to Mecca - not yet.”

“Why not?” the young man with spots on his face asked. “You have more money than a dung heap has flies. With your money you could go in any air machine, any! Why not?”

“It’s - it’s my health,” Bakravan said, keeping his eyes down and praying the lie sounded convincing. “My - my heart is weak.”

“When were you last in the mosque?” the mullah said.

“On Friday, last Friday, at the mosque in the bazaar,” he said. It was true that he was there, though not to pray but to have a business conference. “This Paknouri, he practiced the Five Pillars as a true Believer?” one of the youths asked.

“I - I believe so.”

“It’s well known he didn’t, well known he was a Shah supporter. Eh?” “He was a patriot, a patriot who financially supported the revolution and supported Ayatollah Khomeini, the Blessings of God upon him, financially supported the mullahs over the years an - ”

“But he spoke American and worked for Americans and the Shah, helping them exploit and steal our wealth from the soil, didn’t he?”

“He, he was a patriot who worked with the foreigners for the good of Iran.” “When the Satan Shah illegally formed a party, Paknouri joined it, served the Shah in the Majlis, didn’t he?” the mullah asked. “He was a deputy, yes,” Bakravan replied. “But he worked for the rev - ” “And he voted for the Shah’s so-called White Revolution that took away land from the mosques, decreed equality of women, implanted civil courts and state education against the dictates of the Holy Koran…” Of course he voted for it, Bakravan wanted to scream, the sweat trickling down his face and back. Of course we all voted for it! Didn’t the people vote for it overwhelmingly and even many ayatollahs and mullahs? Didn’t the Shah control the government, the police, the gendarmerie, SAVAK, the armed forces and own most of the land? The Shah was ultimate power! Curse the Shah, he thought, beside himself with rage, curse him and his White Revolution of ‘63 that started the rot, sent the mullahs mad, and continues to plague us, all his “modem reforms” that were directly responsible for the rise of the then obscure Ayatollah Khomeini to prominence. Didn’t we bazaaris warn the Shah’s advisers a thousand times! As if any of the reforms mattered. As if any of the reforms w - “Yes or no?”

He was startled out of his reverie and cursed himself. Concentrate! he thought in panic. This vile son of a leprous dog is trying to trap you! What did he ask? Be careful - for your own life be careful! Ah, yes, the White Revolution! “Emir Pak - ”

“In the Name of God, yes or no!” the mullah overrode him harshly. “He - yes - yes, he voted for the, the White Revolution when he was a deputy in the Majlis. Yes, yes, he did.”

The mullah sighed and the youths shifted in their seats. One yawned and scratched his groin, absently playing with himself.

“You are a deputy?”

“No - no, I resigned when Ayatollah Khomeini ordered it. The - ” “You mean when Imam Khomeini, the Imam ordered it?”

“Yes, yes,” Bakravan said flustered. “I resigned, the, er, the moment the Imam ordered it, I - I resigned at once,” he said, and did not add, We all resigned at Paknouri’s suggestion when it was safe and certain the Shah had decided to leave and to pass over power to the moderate and rational Prime Minister Bakhtiar, but not for power to be usurped by Khomeini, he wanted to shriek, that was never the plan! God curse the Americans who sold us out, the generals who sold us out, the Shah who’s responsible! “Everyone knows - knows how I supported the Imam, may he live forever.”

“Yes, the Blessings of God on him,” the mullah echoed with the others. “But you, Jared Bakravan of the bazaar. Have you ever practiced usury?” “Never,” Bakravan said at once, believing it, though fear racked him. I’ve loaned money all of my life but the interest’s always been fair and reasonable, never usury, he thought, never. And all the times I acted as adviser to various people and ministers, arranging loans, private and public, transferring funds out of Iran, private and public, making money, a great deal of money, that was good business and not against the law. “I opposed the - I opposed the White Revolution and the Shah, wherever I could - it was well known that I opp - ”

“The Shah committed crimes against God, against Islam, against the Holy Koran, against the Imam - God protect him - against the Shi’a faith. All those who helped him are equally guilty.” The mullah’s eyes were relentless. “What crimes have you committed against God and the Word of God?” “None,” he cried out, almost at the limit. “In God’s name I swear, none!” The door swung open. Yusuf came into the room with Paknouri. Bakravan almost fainted again. Paknouri’s hands were manacled behind him. Muck and urine stained his trousers and vomit was on the front of his coat. His head was twitching uncontrollably, his hair matted and filthy, his mind gone. When he saw Bakravan, his face twisted into a grimace. “Ah, Jared, Jared, old friend and colleague, Excellency, have you come to join us all in hell?” He shrieked with laughter for a moment. “It’s not like I imagined, the devils haven’t arrived yet, nor the boiling oil or flames but there’s no air and just stink and you press against others and you can’t lie down or sit so you stand and and then the screaming begins again and the firing and, all the time you’re on an egg, packed like a caviar egg but but but - ” The half-incoherent raving stopped as he saw the mullah. Terror swamped him. “Are you … are you God?”

“Paknouri,” the mullah said gently, “you are charged with crimes against God. This witness against you says y - ”

“Yes, yes, I’ve crimed against God, I’m guilty,” Paknouri screamed. “Why else am I in hell?” He fell on his knees in a flood of tears, raving. “There is no God but God is no God there is no God and Mohammed is his Prophet of no God and…” Abruptly he stopped. His face was even more twisted when he looked up. “I’m God - you’re Satan!”

One of the youths broke the shocked silence. “He’s a blasphemer. He’s possessed by Satan. He declared himself guilty. As God wants.” All the others nodded agreement. The mullah said, “As God wants.” He motioned to a Green Band who pulled Paknouri to his feet and took him out and looked at Bakravan who stared after his friend, horrified how fast - just overnight - he had been destroyed. “Now, Bakravan, you w - ” “I’ve got this Turlak waiting outside,” Yusuf said, interrupting him. “Good,” the mullah said. Then he turned his eyes back onto Bakravan and Bakravan knew he was as lost as his friend Paknouri was lost and that the sentence would be the same. The blood was rushing in his ears. He saw the lips of the mullah moving, then they stopped and everyone was looking at him. “Please?” he asked numbly. “I - I’m sorry, I didn’t hear what you - what you said.”

“You can leave. For the moment. Do God’s work.” Impatiently the mullah glanced at one of the Green Bands, a tallish, ugly man. “Ahmed, take him out!” Then to Yusuf, “After Turlak, Police Captain Mohammed Dezi, cell 917 …”

Bakravan felt a tug on his arm and turned and went out. In the corridor he almost fell, but Ahmed caught him and, strangely kind, propped him against the wall.

“Catch your breath, Excellency,” he said.

“I’m - I’m free to go?”

“I’m certainly as surprised as you, Agha,” the man said. “Before God and the Prophet I’m as surprised as you, you’re the first to be let go today, witness or accused.”

“I - is there - is there any water?”

“Not here. There’s plenty outside. Best you leave,” Ahmed dropped his voice even more. “Best to leave, eh? Lean on my arm.”

Thankfully, Bakravan held on to him, hardly breathing. Slowly they went back the way he had come. He hardly noticed the other guards and prisoners and witnesses. In the corridor that led to the waiting room, Ahmed shouldered the way through a side door, out into the western space. The firing squad was there, three men tied to posts in front of them. One post was empty. Bakravan’s bowels and bladder emptied of their own volition. “Hurry up, Ahmed!” the man in charge said irritably.

“As God wants,” Ahmed said. Happily, he half-carried Bakravan to the empty post that was next to Paknouri who was raving, lost in his own hell. “So you’re not to escape after all. That’s right, we all heard your lies, lies before God. We all know you, know your ways, know your lack of godliness, how you even tried to buy your way to heaven with gifts to the Imam, God protect him. Where did you get all that money if not through usury and theft?”

The volley was not accurate. The man in charge leisurely used a revolver to silence one of the condemned, then Bakravan. “I wouldn’t have recognized him,” the man said shortly. “It shows how foul and what liars newspapers are.”

“This isn’t Hassen Turlak,” Ahmed said, “he comes next.”

The man stared at him. “Then who’s this one?”

“A bazaari,” Ahmed said. “Bazaaris are usurers and godless. I know. For years I worked there for Farazan, collecting night soil like my father before me, until I became a bricklayer with Yusuf. But this one …” He belched. “He was the richest usurer. I don’t remember much about him except how rich he was, but I remember everything about his women; he never curbed or taught his women who never wore chador, flaunting themselves. I remember everything about his devil daughter who’d visit the Street of the Moneylenders from time to time, half naked, skin like fresh cream, her hair flowing, breasts moving, buttocks inviting - the one called Sharazad who looks like the promised houris must look. I remember everything about her and how I cursed her for putting evil in my head, maddening me, how we all did - for tempting us.” He scratched his scrotum, feeling himself hardening. God curse her and all women who disobey God’s law and create evil thoughts in us against the Word of God. Oh, God, let me penetrate her or make me a martyr and go straight to heaven and do it there. “He was guilty of every crime,” he said, turning away.

“But - but was he condemned?” the man in charge of the firing squad called out after him.

“God condemned him, of course He did. The post was waiting and you told me to hurry. It was the Will of God. God is Great, God is Great. Now I will fetch Turlak, the blasphemer.” Ahmed shrugged. “It was the Will of God.”

Chapter 28

NEAR BANDAR DELAM: 11:58 A.M. It was the time of noon prayer and the ancient, rickety, overladen bus stopped on the shoulder of the road. Obediently, following the lead of a mullah who was also a passenger, all Muslims disembarked, spread their prayer mats and now were committing their souls to God. Except for the Indian Hindu family who were afraid of losing their seats, most of the other non-Muslim passengers had also disembarked - Tom Lochart among them - glad for the opportunity to stretch their legs or to relieve themselves. Christian Armenians, Oriental Jews, a nomadic Kash’kai couple who, though Muslim, were precluded by ancient custom from the need of the noonday prayer, or their women from the veil or chador, two Japanese, some Christian Arabs - all of them aware of the lone European. The day was warm, hazy, and humid from the nearby waters of the Gulf. Tom Lochart leaned tiredly against the hood that was steaming, the engine overheated, head aching, joints aching, muscles aching from his forced march out from the Dez Dam - now almost two hundred miles to the north - and from the cramped, bone-grinding, noisy discomfort of the bus. All the way from Ahwaz where he had managed to talk himself past Green Bands and onto the bus, he had been squeezed into a seat with barely enough room for two, let alone three men, one of them a young Green Band who cradled his M14 along with his child for his pregnant wife who stood in the narrow corridor crammed against thirty others in space for fifteen. Every seat was equally packed with men, women, and children of all ages. The air fetid, voices babbling in a multitude of tongues. Overhead and underfoot, bags and bundles and cases, crates packed with vegetables or half-dead chickens, a small, undernourished, hobbled goat or two - the luggage racks outside on the roof equally laden. But I’m damned lucky to be here, he thought, his misery returning, half listening to the lilting chant of the Shahada.

Yesterday, near sunset, when he had heard the 212 take off from Dez, he had come out from under the little wharf, blessing God for his escape. The water had been very cold and he was trembling, but he had picked up the automatic, checked the action, and then gone up to the house. It was open. There was food and drink in the refrigerator that still hummed nicely, powered by a generator. It was warm inside the house. He took off his clothes and dried them over a heater, cursing Valik and Seladi and consigning them to hell. “Sonsofbitches! What the hell’d I do to them but save their goddamn necks?” The warmth and the luxury of the house were tempting. His tiredness ached him. Last night at Isfahan had been almost sleepless. I could sleep and leave at dawn, he thought. I’ve a compass and I know the way more or less: skirt the airfield Ali Abbasi mentioned, then head almost due east to pick up the main Kermanshah-Ahwaz-Abadan road. Should be no trouble to get a bus or hitch a ride. Or I could go now - the moon’ll light my way and then I won’t be trapped here if the air base has sent a patrol - Ali was just as nervous about that as Seladi and we could easily have been spotted. Easily. But either way, when you get stopped, what’s your story?

He thought about that while he fixed himself a brandy and soda and some food. Valik and the others had opened two half-kilo cans of the best beluga gray caviar and had left them carelessly on the sitting-room table, still partially full. He ate it with relish, then threw the cans into the garbage pail that was outside the back door. Then he locked the house and left. The forced march over the mountains had been bad but not as bad as he had expected. Just after dawn he had come down to the main Kermanshah-Ahwaz-Abadan road. Almost at once he had been given a ride by some Korean construction workers evacuating the steel mill they were building under contract at Kermanshah - it was almost custom that expats helped expats on the road. They were heading for Abadan Airport where they had been told transport to fly them back to Korea would be waiting for them. “Much fighting at Kermanshah,” they had told him in halting English. “Everyone guns. Iranians killing each others. All mad, barbarians - worse than Japanese.” They had dropped him off at the Ahwaz bus terminal. Miraculously he had managed to talk his way onto the next bus that went past Bandar Delam.

Yes. But now what? Gloomily he remembered how, after throwing the empty caviar cans into the garbage, on reflection he had retrieved them and buried them, then gone back and wiped the glass that he had used and even the door handle. You need your head examined, as if they’d check for fingerprints! Yes, but at the time I thought it best not to leave traces I’d been there. You’re crazy! You’re on the flight clearance at Tehran, there’s your unauthorized pickup of Valik and his family, the breakout from Isfahan, and flying “enemies of the state and helping them escape” to account for - whether it’s from SAVAK or Khomeini! And how does S-G or McIver account for a missing Iranian helicopter that ends up in Kuwait or Baghdad or where the hell ever that’s bound to be reported?

What a goddamn mess!

Yes. Then there’s Sharazad…

“Don’t worry, Agha,” broke into his thoughts, “we’re all in God’s hands.” It was the mullah and he was smiling up at him. He was a youngish man, bearded, and he had joined the bus at Ahwaz with his wife and three children. Over his shoulder was a rifle. “The driver says you speak Farsi and that you’re from Canada and a person of the Book?”

“Yes, yes, I am, Agha,” Lochart replied, collecting his wits. He saw that prayer had finished and now everyone crowded the bus doorway. “Then you too will go to heaven as the Prophet promised if you are found worthy, though not to our part.” The mullah smiled shyly. “Iran will be the first real Islamic state in the world since the time of the Prophet.” Again the shy smile. “You’re - you’re the first person of the Book that I’ve met or spoken to. You learned to speak Farsi at school?”

“I went to a school, Excellency, but mostly I had private teachers.” Lochart picked up his flight bag that he had taken off with him for safety and moved to join the line. His own seat was already taken. Beside the road several passengers were relieving themselves or defecating, men, women, and children.

“And the Excellency works in the oil business?” The mullah moved into line beside him, and at once people stepped aside to let him take preference. Inside the bus passengers were already quarreling, a few shouting to the driver to hurry.

“Yes, for your great IranOil,” Lochart said, very conscious that those nearby were listening also, jostling to get closer to hear better. Not long to go now, he thought, the airport can’t be more than a few miles ahead. Just before noon he had caught a glimpse of a 212 heading in from the Gulf. She was too far away to see if she was civilian or military but she was heading in the general direction of the airport. It’ll be great to see Rudi and the others, to sleep and…

“The driver says you were on holiday near Kermanshah?”

“In Luristan, south of Kermanshah.” Lochart concentrated. He retold the story he had decided upon, the same that he had told the ticket seller at Ahwaz, and the Green Bands who also wanted to know who he was and why he was in Ahwaz. “I was on a hiking holiday north of Luristan, in the mountains, and got trapped there in a village by a snowfall - for a week. You are going to Shiraz?” This was the final destination of the bus.

“Shiraz is where my mosque is and the place of my birth. Come, we will sit together.” The mullah took the nearest seat beside an old man, put one of his children on his knee, cradled his gun, and left Lochart just enough room on the aisle. Reluctantly Lochart obeyed, not wanting to sit beside a talkative and inquisitive mullah, but at the same time thankful for a place. The bus was filling up quickly. People shoved past, trying to get space or to move farther back. “Your country Canada borders the Great Satan, does it not?”

“Canada and America have common borders,” Lochart said, his bile rising. “The vast majority of Americans are People of the Book.”

“Ah, yes, but many are Jews and Zionists, and Jews and Zionists and Christians are against Islam, the enemy of Islam, and therefore against God. Isn’t it true that Jews and Zionists rule the Great Satan?” “If you mean America, no, Agha, no it is not.”

“But if the Imam says it, it is so.” The mullah was quite

confident and gentle and quoted from the Koran, ” ‘For God is angry with them, and in torment shall they abide forever.’” Then he added, “If the Im - ”

There was a flurry in the back of the bus, and they turned to see one of the Iranians angrily rug the turbaned Indian out of his seat to take his place. The Indian forced a smile and stayed standing. By custom it was always the first one seated who had the right to stay seated unharmed. The torrent of voices began again and now another man, jammed in the aisle, began cursing all foreigners loudly. He was roughly dressed, armed, and stood alongside the two Japanese who were crammed into a seat with a ragged old Kurd and glared down at them.

“Why should foreigner Infidels sit while we stand? With the Help of God, we’re no longer lackeys of Infidels!” the man said even more angrily and jerked his thumb at them. “Move!”

Neither Japanese moved. One of them took off his glasses and smiled at the man. The man hesitated, began to bluster but thought better of it, then turned and shouted at the driver to hurry up. Just before the Japanese put back his glasses he caught Lochart’s eye, nodded and smiled. Lochart smiled back. At Ahwaz, while they were all pushing their way onto the bus, one of the Japanese had said to Lochart in passable English, “Follow us, sir, at rush hour Tokyo buses and trains are much worse.” With a great display of politeness the two quickly cleared a path, found him a seat and places at the back for themselves. During the noon stop they had chatted briefly, telling him they were engineers coming back from leave, heading for Iran-Toda.

“Ah,” the mullah said happily, seeing the driver squeeze back into his seat, “now we continue, thanks be to God.”

With a great flourish the driver started the engine and the bus lumbered on its way. “Next stop Bandar Delam,” he called out. “God willing.” “God willing.” The mullah was very content. Once more he turned his attention to Lochart and shouted above the noise, “Agha, you were saying about the Great Satan?”

Lochart had his eyes closed and he pretended not to hear. The mullah touched him. “You were saying, Agha, about the Great Satan?” “I was saying nothing, Agha.”

“What? I didn’t hear you.”

Lochart kept his face polite, knowing the danger he was in, and said louder, “I was saying nothing, Agha. Traveling is tiring, isn’t it?” He closed his eyes again. “I think I will sleep a little.”

“Why say nothing?” a young man standing alongside in the aisle shouted down at him over the grinding engine. “America is responsible for all our troubles. If it wasn’t for America, there’d be peace in the whole world!” Grimly Lochart kept his eyes closed and tried to shut his ears, knowing he was near snapping - half of him wishing he had the automatic in his pocket, the other half thankful it was in his bag. He felt the mullah shake him. “Before you sleep, Agha, don’t you agree the world would be much better without the American evil?”

Lochart fought down his anger and just kept his eyes closed. Another shake, much rougher, this time from the aisle, and the man shouted in his ear, “Answer His Excellency!”

He was suddenly sick to death of all the anti-American propaganda and lies continually fed to them. White with rage, he opened his eyes and shoved the man’s hand away and exploded in English. “Well, I’ll tell you, mullah, you’d better thank God America exists because without it there’d be goddamn nothing in the world and we’d all be in a goddamn gulag or under the goddamn ground, you, me, this jerk, and even Khomeini!”

“What?”

He saw the mullah gaping at him - and realized he had been speaking English. Taking a tight rein on his mouth, he said in Farsi, knowing there was no way he could explain logically, “I was quoting the Holy Bible in English,” he said, making it up. “I was quoting Abraham when he was very angry. Didn’t Abraham say: ‘Evil stalks the earth in many guises - it is the duty of the Believer to… to guard against evil, any evil - all evil!’ Isn’t it?” The mullah was looking at him strangely and quoted from the Koran: ” ‘And God said to Abraham, I will make you a leader to mankind, and Abraham said, of my offspring also! God said, My covenant embraceth not the evildoers.’” “I agree,” Lochart said. “And now I must think about God - the One God, the God of Abraham and Moses and Jesus and Mohammed, whose Name be praised!” Lochart closed his eyes. His heart was pounding. Any moment he expected the angry youth’s rifle butt in his face or the mullah to shout for the bus to stop. He expected no mercy. But the moment passed and they left him to his supposed prayers.

The mullah sighed, lack of space pressing him against this Infidel. I wonder how an Infidel prays, he was thinking. What does he say to God - even a person of the Book? How pitiful they are!

AT BANDAR DELAM AIRPORT: 12:32 P.M. The Iranian Air Force car swung past the sleepy guards on the gate, its green Khomeini flag fluttering, and pulled up in a swirl of dust outside Rudi’s office trailer. Two smartly uniformed officers got out. With them were three Green Bands.

Rudi Lutz went out to meet the officers - a major and a captain. When he recognized the captain, his face lit up. “Hello, Hushang. I’ve been wondering how you were do - ”

The older officer interrupted him angrily. “I’m Major Qazani, Air Force Intelligence. What’s an Iranian chopper under your control doing trying to leave Iranian airspace, repeatedly disobeying instructions from an intercept, and totally disregarding orders from ground control?” Rudi stared at them blankly. “There’s only one of my choppers airborne, and she’s on a CASEVAC requested by Abadan radar control.”

“What’s her registration?”

“EP-HXX. What’s this all about?”

“That’s what I want to know.” Major Qazani walked past him into the trailer and sat down. His Green Bands waited. “Come on!” the major said irritably. “Sit down, Captain Lutz.”

Rudi hesitated, then sat at his desk. A few bullet holes in the wall let in light behind him. The Green Bands and the other officer came in and shut the door.

“What’s HXX? A 206 or 212?” the major asked.

“It’s a 206. What’s th - ”

“How many 212s have you here?”

“Two. HXX and HGC. Abadan radar cleared HXX on a CASEVAC yesterday to Kowiss with wounded from the fedayeen attack at dawn yester - ”

“Yes, we heard about that. And that you helped the Guards blow them to the hell they deserve, for which many thanks. Is EP-HBC an S-G 212 registration?”

Rudi hesitated. “I don’t know offhand, Major. I don’t have records here of all our 212s, but I could find out - if I can raise our base in Kowiss. Radio’s been out for a day. Now, please, I’ll help all I can, but what’s this about?”

Major Qazani lit a cigarette, offered one to Rudi who shook his head. “It’s about a 212, EP-HBC, we believe an S-G-operated 212, with an unknown number of persons aboard that went over the Iraqi border just before sunset last night - with no clearances, disregarding, as I’ve said, disregarding explicit radio orders to land.”

“I don’t know anything about it.” Rudi’s mind was racing. Got to be someone making an escape, he thought. “She’s not our bird. We can’t even start engines without Abadan Control’s okay. That’s SOP.”

“How would you explain HBC then?”

“She could be a Guerney aircraft taking some of their personnel away, or Bell, or any one of the other chopper companies. It’s been hard, sometimes impossible, to file a flight plan recently. You know how, er, how fluid radar’s been the last few weeks.”

“Fluid’s not a good word,” Captain Hushang Abbasi said. He was a lithe, very handsome man with a clipped mustache and dark glasses, and wore wings on his uniform. All of last year he had been based at Kharg where he and Rudi had got to know each other. “And if she was an S-G aircraft?” “Then there’ll be a correct explanation.” Rudi was glad that Hushang had weathered the revolution - particularly as he had always been an outspoken critic of mullahs meddling in government. “You’re sure she was illegal?” “I’m sure legal airplanes have clearances, legal airplanes obey air regulations, and legal airplanes don’t take evading action and rush for the border,” Hushang said. “And I’m almost sure I saw the S-G emblem on my first pass, Rudi.”

Rudi’s eyes narrowed. Hushang was a very good pilot. “You were flying the intercept?”

“I led the flight that scrambled.”

The silence grew in the trailer. “Do you mind if I open a window, Major. The smoke - it gives me a headache.”

The major said irritably, “If HBC’s an S-G chopper someone’s going to have more than a headache.”

Rudi opened the window. HBC sounds like one of our registrations. What the hell’s going wrong? We seem to be under a spell the last few days - first it was that psychopath Zataki and the murder of our mechanic, then poor old Kyabi, then the God-cursed leftist fedayeen dawn attack yesterday, damn nearly killing us and wounding Jon Tyrer - Christ, I hope Jon’s all right! - and now more trouble!

He sat down again, feeling very weary. “Best I can do is to ask.” “How far north do you operate?” the major asked.

“Normally? Ahwaz. Dezful’d be about our extreme ra - ” The base phone intercom rang. He picked it up and missed the look between the two officers. “Hello?”

It was Fowler Joines, his chief mechanic. “You okay?”

“Yes. Thanks. No sweat.”

“Shout if you need help, old sport, and we’ll all come arunning.” The phone clicked off.

He turned back to the major, feeling better. Since he had stood up to Zataki, all of his men and pilots had treated him as though he were Laird Gavallan himself. And since yesterday when the fedayeen were beaten off, even the komiteh Green Bands had been deferential - all except Base Manager Yemeni who was still trying to give him a hard time. “Dezful’s extreme range - one way. Once we flew…” He stopped. He had been going to say, Once we flew our area manager to Kermanshah. But then the memory of the brutal and senseless way Boss Kyabi had been murdered welled up and again he was sickened.

He saw the major and Hushang staring at him. “Sorry, I was going to say, Major, once we flew a charter to Kermanshah. With refueling, as you know, we’re mobile.”

“Yes, Captain Lutz, yes, we know.” The major stubbed out his cigarette and lit another. “Prime Minister Bazargan, with of course the prior approval of Ayatollah Khomeini,” he added cautiously, not trusting Abbasi or the Green Bands who also might secretly understand English, “has issued strict orders about all aircraft in Iran, particularly choppers. We’ll call Kowiss now.” They went to the radio room. At once Yemeni protested that he could not approve the call without permission of the local komiteh, of which he had appointed himself a member as the only one who could read or write. One of the Green Bands went to fetch them but the major overrode Yemeni and got his way. Kowiss did not answer their calls.

“As God wants. It’ll be better after dark, Agha,” radio operator Jahan said in Farsi.

“Yes, thank you,” the major said.

“What is it you need, Agha?” Yemeni said rudely, hating the encroachment, the Shah uniforms almost whipping him into a frenzy. “I will get it for you!”

“I don’t need you for anything, son of a dog,” the major shouted angrily, everyone jumped, and Yemeni was paralyzed. “If you give me trouble I’ll haul you in front of our Tribunal for interfering with the work of the prime minister and Khomeini himself! Get out!”

Yemeni fled. The Green Bands laughed and one of them said, “Shall I beat his head in for you, Agha?”

“No, no, thank you. He’s no more important than a fly eating a camel’s turd.” Major Qazani puffed his cigarette, surrounded with smoke, and glanced at Rudi thoughtfully. The news of how this German had saved Zataki, the most important Revolutionary Guard commander in this area, had flooded their air base.

He got up and went to the window. Beyond he could see his car and the green Khomeini flag and the Green Bands lolling around. Scum, he thought. Sons of dogs, all of them. We didn’t get rid of American restraints and influence and help sack the Shah to give over control of our lives and beautiful planes to lice-covered mullahs, however brave some of them may be. “You wait here, Hushang. I’ll leave two Guards with you,” he said. “Wait here and make the call with him. I’ll send the car back for you.”

“Yes, sir.”

The major looked at Rudi, his eyes hard. In English he said, “I want to know if HBC’s an S-G chopper, where it was based, how it got to this area, and who was aboard.” He gave the necessary orders and left in a swirl of dust. Hushang sent the Guards to tell the others what was going on. Now the two of them were alone. “So,” he said, and smiled and held out his hand. “I’m pleased to see you, Rudi.”

“Me too.” They shook hands warmly. “I wondered how you, er, how you fared.” Hushang laughed. “You mean if I’d been liquidated? Oh, don’t believe all those stories, Rudi. No. Everything’s great. When I left Kharg I spent a little time in Doshan Tappeh, then came down to Abadan Air Base.” Rudi waited. “And then?”

“And then?” Hushang thought a moment. “And then, when His Im - when the Shah left Iran, our base commander paraded us, everyone, and told us he considered our oath of allegiance canceled. All of us in the forces swore allegiance to the Shah personally but when he left, our oaths seemed repudiated somehow. Our commander asked us all to choose what we wanted to do, officers and men, to stay or to leave - but, he said finally, ‘On this base the transfer of power to the new legal government will be orderly.’ We were given twelve hours to decide.” Hushang frowned. “A few left - they were mostly senior officers. What would you have done, Rudi?”

“Stayed. Of course. Heimat ist immer Heimat.”

“What?”

“Your homeland is always your homeland.”

“Ah, yes. Yes, that’s what I thought.” A shadow went over Hushang. “After we had all chosen, our commander called in Ayatollah Ahwazi, our chief ayatollah, and formally made the transfer of power. Then he shot himself. He left a note saying, ‘All my life I have served Mohammed Reza Shah, as my father served Reza Shah, his father. I cannot serve mullahs or politicians, or live with the stench of betrayal that pervades the land.’” Rudi hesitated. “He meant the Americans?”

“The major thinks he meant the generals. Some of us think he meant… the betrayal of Islam.”

“By Khomeini?” Rudi saw Hushang looking at him, brown eyes guileless, chiseled face, and for a second Rudi had the uneasy feeling that this was no longer his friend, but someone wearing the same face. Someone who might be ready to trap him. Trap him into what?

“To think that would be treason. Wouldn’t it,” Hushang said. It was a statement, not a question, and another shaft of caution went through Rudi. “I’m frightened for Iran, Rudi. We’re so exposed, so valuable to either superpower, and hated and envied by so many nearby.”

“Ah, but your forces are the biggest and best equipped around - you’re the power in the Gulf.” He went to the small built-in refrigerator. “How about splitting an ice-cold bottle of beer?”

“No thanks.”

Usually they would share one with relish. “You on a diet?” Rudi asked. The other shook his head, smiled strangely. “No. I’ve quit. It’s my gift to the new regime.”

“Then we’ll have tea, like old times,” Rudi said without missing a beat, went into the kitchen, and put on the kettle. But he was thinking, Hushang really has changed. But then, if you were him, you’d’ve changed too, his world’s upside-down - like West Germany and East Germany but not as bad as that. “How’s Ali?” he asked. Ali was Hushang’s adored elder brother, a helicopter pilot, whom Rudi had never met but Hushang was always talking about, laughing about his legendary adventures and conquests in Tehran, Paris, and Rome in the old days - the good old days, he thought emphatically.

“Ali the Great’s fine too,” Hushang said with a delighted smile. Just before the Shah had left they had secretly discussed their options and had agreed, whatever happened, they would stay: “We’re still the elite force, we’ll still have leaves in Europe!” He beamed, so proud of him, not envious of his successes but wishing he could be a tenth as successful. “But he’ll have to slow down now - at least he will in Iran.”

The kettle began boiling. Rudi made the tea. “Mind if I ask you about HBC?” He glanced through the doorway into the other room. His friend was watching him. “That all right?” “What do you want to know?” “What happened?” After a pause Hushang said, “I was leader of the duty flight. We were scrambled and told to intercept a helicopter that had been sported sneaking through the area. It turned out to be civilian, ducking in and out of the valleys around Dezful. She wouldn’t answer radio calls in Farsi or in English. We waited, trailing her. Once she was out in the open I buzzed her, that’s when I thought I recognized the S-G emblem. But she completely disregarded me, just turned for the border and poured on the coals. My wingman buzzed her but she took more evading action.”

Hushang’s eyes narrowed as he remembered the excitement that had possessed him, hunter and hunted, never having hunted before, his ears filled with the sweet scream of his jets, with static and with orders: “Arm missiles!” Hands and fingers obeying.

Pressing the trigger, the rocket missing the first time as the chopper pirouetted, darting this way and that, nimble as a dragonfly, his wingman also firing and missing by a fraction - the missiles not heat-seekers. Another miss. Now she was over the border. Over the border and safe but not safe from me, from justice, so going in with cannons blazing, impression of faces at the windows, seeing her dissolve into a ball of fire and when I came out of the G-wrenching turn to look again she had vanished. Only a puff of smoke remained. And the pleasure. “I plastered her,” he said. “Blew her out of the sky.” Rudi turned away to hide his shock. He had presumed HBC had escaped - whoever was flying. “There were no… no survivors?” “No, Rudi. She exploded,” Hushang said, wanting to keep his voice calm. And professional. “It was… it was my first kill - I never thought it would be so difficult.”

Not much of a contest, Rudi thought, enraged and disgusted. Missiles and cannons against nothing, but I suppose orders are orders and HBC was in the wrong whoever flew her, whoever was aboard. She should have stopped - I would have stopped.

Would I? If I’d been the fighter pilot and this was Germany and the chopper was fleeing toward the enemy-controlled border with God knows what aboard and I was on orders to… Wait a minute, did Hushang do it in Iraqi airspace? Well, I’m not going to ask him. As sure as God doesn’t speak to Khomeini, Hushang wouldn’t tell me if he did - I wouldn’t. Gloomily he filled the teapot from the kettle and was reminded of the other one from his childhood, then glanced out of the window. An old bus was stopping on the road outside the airport perimeter. He saw the tall man get out. For a moment he did not recognize him. Then, with a whoop of delight, he did, and said on the run, “Excuse me a moment…”

They met at the gate, Green Bands watching curiously. “Tom! Wie geht’s? How are you? What the hell’re you doing here? Why didn’t you tell us you were coming? How’s Zagros and JeanLuc?” He was so happy he did not notice Lochart’s fatigue, or the state of his clothes - dusty, torn, and travel-stained.

“Lot to tell, Rudi,” Lochart said. “Lot to tell, but I’m bushed. I badly need some tea… and some sleep. Okay?”

“Of course.” Rudi beamed at him. “Of course. Come on, and I’ll open my last, secret bottle of whisky I even pretend to myself I haven’t got and we’ll h - ” All at once he noticed the state of his friend and his smile left him. “What the hell’s happened to you? You look like you’ve been dragged through a bush backward.” He saw Lochart glance imperceptibly at the guards who stood nearby, listening.

“Nothing, Rudi, nothing at all. First a wash, eh?” he said. “Sure - yes, of course. You, er, you can use my trailer.” Very perturbed he walked alongside Lochart, heading into the airport. He had never seen him so old and so slow. He looks shaken up, almost - almost as though he’s had an emergency and pranged badly…

Down by the hangar he saw Yemeni peering at them out of the office windows. Fowler Joines and the other mechanic had stopped work and were beginning to stroll over. Then, down at the far end of the encampment, he saw Hushang come out onto the step of his trailer and Rudi’s head seemed to explode. “Oh, Christ,” he gasped. “Not HBC?”

Lochart jerked to a stop, all color out of his face. “How the hell you know about her?”

“But he said HBC was plastered - blown out of the skies! How’d you get out? How?”

“Plastered?” Lochart was in shock. “Jesus, who - who said that?” Reflexes helped Rudi, and without being obvious he turned his back on Hushang. “The Iranian officer in the doorway - don’t look, for Christ’s sake - he flew the intercept, F14 - he blew her out of the sky!” He put a glassy smile on his face, grabbed Lochart by the arm, and again trying not to be obvious, steered him toward the nearest trailer. “You can bed down in Jon Tyrer’s place,” he said with forced joviality, and the moment he had closed the door behind them, he whispered in a rush, “Hushang said he shot down HBC near the Iraqi border at sunset yesterday! Totaled her. How’d you get out? Who was aboard? Quick, tell me what happened. Quick!”

“I - I didn’t fly the last leg, I wasn’t in her,” Lochart said, trying to get his mind working and also keeping his voice down, for the walls of the trailer were very thin. “They left me at Dez Dam. I backpac - ” “Dez Dam? What the hell you doing there? Who left you?”

Lochart hesitated. Everything was happening so fast. “I don’t know if I should… should say beca - ”

“For Christ’s sake, they’re onto HBC, we’ve got to do something fast. Who was flying her, who was aboard?”

“All Iranians evacuating Iran - all air force from Isfahan - General Seladi, eight colonels and majors from Isfahan - I don’t know their names - and General Valik, his wife and…” Lochart could hardly bring himself to say it, “and his two children.”

Rudi was appalled. He had heard about Annoush and the two kids and he had met Valik several times. “That’s terrible, terrible. What the hell’m I going to say?”

“What? About what?”

The words tumbled out, “Major Qazani and Hushang, they arrived barely half an hour ago - the major’s just gone but I’ve been ordered to find out if HBC’s S-G, where she was based, and who was aboard. I’ve been ordered to call Kowiss and find out and Hushang’s going to be listening in and he’s no fool, no fool, and he was sure he saw the S-G decal before he blew her to pieces. Kowiss‘11 have to say she was our bird, and they’ll call Tehran and that’s the end.”

Lochart sat on one of the built-in bunks. Numb. “I warned them - I warned them to wait for nightfall! What the hell am I going to do?” “Run for it. Maybe y - ” A knock on the door and they froze. “Skipper, it’s me, Fowler. I brought you some tea, thought Tom could use some.”

“Thanks, just a moment, Fowler,” he said, then dropped his voice. “Tom, what’s your story - do you have one?”

“Best I could do was I’m just coming back from a hiking holiday in Luristan, south of Kermanshah. I got caught in a village by a snowfall for about a week and eventually just hiked out.”

“That’s good. Where’s your base?”

Lochart shrugged. “Zagros.”

“Good. Anyone ask for your ID yet?”

“Yes. The ticket seller at Ahwaz and some Green Bands:”

“Scheisse!” Rudi bleakly opened the door.

Fowler Joines brought the tea tray in. “How you doing, Tom?” he said with his toothless beam.

“Good to see you, Fowler. Still cursing?”

“Not as bad as Effer Jordon. How is my old mate?”

Tiredness enveloped Lochart and he leaned back against the wall. Zagros and Effer Jordon, Rodrigues, JeanLuc, Scot Gavallan, and the others seemed so far away. “Still wearing his hat,” he said with a great effort, accepted the tea gratefully, and swallowed it. Hot, thick, heavy, with sweet condensed milk - the greatest pick-me-up in the world. What did Rudi say? Run for it? I can’t, he thought as sleep took him. Not without Sharazad… Rudi finished telling Fowler Lochart’s cover story. “Spread the word.” The mechanic blinked. “A hiking holiday? Tom Lochart? On his bleeding tod? With you know who in bleeding Tehran? Are you looped, Rudi, old cock?” Rudi looked at him.

“Just as you say, old sport.” Fowler turned to talk to Lochart but he was already asleep, his face sagged with exhaustion. “Cor! He’s…” His shrewd blue eyes, set deep in the gnarled face, looked back at Rudi. “I’ll spread the word like it was bleeding Genesis itself. “He left.

Just before the door closed Rudi caught a glimpse of Hushang waiting by the trailer and he was sorry he had left him alone so long. He glanced at Lochart. Poor old Tom. What the hell was he doing in Isfahan? God in heaven what a mess! What the hell do I do now? Carefully he took the cup out of Lochart’s hands, but the Canadian awoke startled.

For a moment Lochart did not know whether he was awake or in dream. His heart was pounding, he had a blinding headache, and he was back at the dam at the water’s edge, Rudi standing against the light just like Ali, Lochart not knowing whether to dive at him or risk the water, wanting to shout, Don’t shoot don’t shoot…

“Christ, I thought you were Ali,” he gasped. “Sorry, I’m all right now. No sweat.”

“Ali?”

“The pilot, HBC’s pilot, Ali Abbasi, he was going to kill me.” Half asleep Lochart told him what had happened. Then he noticed Rudi had gone chalky. “What’s the matter?”

Rudi jerked his thumb outside. “That’s his brother - Hushang Abbasi - he’s the one who totaled HBC….”

Chapter 29

TEHRAN: 4:17 P.M. Both men were staring anxiously at the telex machine in the S-G penthouse office. “Come on for God’s sake!” McIver muttered and glanced again at his watch. The 125 was due at five-thirty. “We’ll have to leave soon, Andy, you never know about traffic.”

Gavallan was rocking absently in a creaky old chair. “Yes, but Genny’s not here yet. Soon as she arrives we’ll leave. If worst comes to worst I can call Aberdeen from Al Shargaz.”

“If. Johnny Hogg makes it through Kish and Isfahan airspace, and the clearance holds in Tehran.”

“He’ll arrive this time, I’ve a good feeling our mullah Tehrani wants the new glasses. Hope to God Johnny’s got them for him ”

“So do I.”

This was the first day the komiteh had allowed any foreigners back into the building. Most of the morning had been spent cleaning up and restarting their generator that had, of course, run out of fuel. Almost at once the telex machine had chattered into life: “Urgent! Please confirm your telex is working and inform Mr. McIver I have an Avisyard telex for the boss. Is he still in Tehran?” The telex was from Elizabeth Chen in Aberdeen. “Avisyard” was a company code, used rarely, meaning a top classified message for McIver’s eyes only and to operate the machine himself. It took him four tries to get the Aberdeen callback.

“So long as we haven’t lost a bird,” Gavallan said with an inward prayer. “I was thinking that too.” McIver eased his shoulders. “Any idea what could merit an Avisyard?”

“No.” Gavallan hid his sadness, thinking about the real Avisyard, Castle Avisyard, where he had spent so many happy years with Kathy, who had suggested the code. Don’t think about Kathy now, he told himself. Not now. “I hate bloody telex machines - they’re always going wrong,” McIver was saying, his stomach churning, mostly because of the row that he had had last night with Genny, insisting that she go on the 125 today, also because there was still no news from Lochart. Added to that, again none of the Iranian office staff had reported for work, only the pilots who had come in this morning. McIver had sent them all away except Pettikin whom he had put on standby. Nogger Lane had wandered in around noon, reporting that his flight with the mullah Tehrani, six Green Bands, and five women went well. “I think our friendly mullah wants another ride tomorrow. He expects you 5:30 P.M. sharp at the airport.”

“All right. Nogger, you relieve Charlie.”

“Come on, Mac, old chap, I’ve worked hard all morning, above and beyond the call, and Paula’s still in town.”

“How well I know, ‘old chap,’ and the way things look she’ll be here for the week!” McIver had told him. “You relieve Charlie, you get your hot little tail into a chair, bring our aircraft ledgers up to date, and one more bloody word out of you I’ll post you to bloody Nigeria!”

They had waited, grimly conscious that telexes had to go part of the way through phone lines. “Bloody lot of wire between here and Aberdeen,” McIver muttered.

Gavallan said, “Soon as Genny arrives we’ll leave. I’ll make sure she’s all right in Al Shargaz before I go home. You’re quite right to insist.” “I know, you know, and the whole of Iran knows but she bloody doesn’t!” “Women,” Gavallan said diplomatically. “Anything else I can do?” “Don’t think so. Squeezing our two remaining partners helped a lot.” Gavallan had tracked them down, Mohammed Siamaki and Turiz Bakhtiar - a common surname in Iran for those from the rich and powerful and multitudinous Bakhtiar tribe of which the ex-prime minister was one of the chiefs. Gavallan had extracted 5 million rials in cash - a little over $60,000, a pittance against what the partners owed - with promises for more every week, in return for a promise, and a handwritten note, to reimburse them personally “outside the country, should it be necessary, and passage on the 125 should it be necessary.”

“All right, but where’s Valik - how do I get hold of him?” Gavallan had asked, pretending to know nothing about his escape.

“We already told you: he’s on vacation with his family,” Siamaki had said, rude and arrogant as always. “He’ll contact you in London or Aberdeen - there’s the overdue matter of our funds in the Bahamas.”

“Our joint funds, dear partner, and there’s the matter of almost $4 million owing on work already completed, apart from our aircraft lease payments overdue, long overdue.”

“If the banks were open you’d have the money. It’s not our fault the Shah’s pestilential allies ruined him and ruined Iran. We are not to blame for any of the catastrophes, none. As to the monies owed, haven’t we paid in the past?”

“Yes. Usually six months late, but I agree, dear friends, eventually we have extracted our share. But if all joint ventures are suspended as the mullah Tehrani told me, how do we operate from now on?”

“Some joint ventures, not all - your information is exaggerated and incorrect, Gavallan. We are on notice to get back to normal as soon as possible - crews can leave once their replacements are safely here. Oil fields must be returned to full production. There will be no problems. But to forestall any trouble, once more we have bailed out the partnership. Tomorrow my illustrious cousin, Finance Minister Ali Kia, joins the board a - ”

“Hold on a minute! I have prior approval of any change in the board!” “You used to have that power, but the board voted to change that bylaw. If you wish to go against the board you can bring it up at the next meeting in London - but under the circumstances the change is necessary and reasonable. Minister Kia has assured us we’ll be exempt. Of course Minister Kia’s fees and percentage will come out of your share….”

Gavallan tried not to watch the telex machine but he found it difficult, trying to think a way out of the trap. “One moment everything seems okay, the next it’s rotten again.”

“Yes. Yes, Andy, I agree. Talbot was today’s clincher.” This morning, early, they had met Talbot briefly. “Oh, yes, old boy, joint ventures are definitely persona non grata now, so sorry,” he had told them dryly. “The ‘On High’ have decreed that all joint ventures are suspended, pending instructions, though what instructions and from whom, they didn’t impart. Or who the ‘On High’ are. We presume the Olympian decree is from the dear old Komiteh, whoever they are! On the other side of the coin, old chap, the Ayatollah and Prime Minister Bazargan have both said all foreign debts will be honored. Of course Khomeini overrides Bazargan and issues counterinstructions, Bazargan issues instructions which the Revolutionary Komiteh overrules, the local komitehs are vigilantes who’re taking their own version of law as gospel, and not one rotten little urchin has yet handed in a weapon. The jails are filling up nicely, heads are rolling - and apart from the tumbrils it all has a jolly old tediously familiar ring, old boy, and rather suggests we should all retire to Margate for the duration.” “You’re serious?”

“Our advice to evacuate all unessential personnel still stands the moment the airport opens which is God knows when but promised for Saturday - we’ve got BA to cooperate with chartered 747s. As to the illustrious Ali Kia, he’s a minor official, very minor indeed, with no power and a good-weather friend to all sides. By the way, we’ve just heard that the U.S. ambassador in Kabul was abducted by anti-Communist, Shi’ite fundamentalist mujhadin who tried to exchange him for other mujhadin held by the pro-Soviet government. In the following shoot-out he was killed. Things are heating up rather nicely….” The telex clicked on, their attention zeroed, but the machine did not function. Both of them cursed.

“Soon as I get to Al Shargaz I can phone the office and find out what’s the problem…” Gavallan glanced at the door as it opened. To their surprise it was Erikki - he and Azadeh had been due to meet them at the airport. Erikki was smiling his usual smile but there was no light behind it. “Hello, boss, hi, Mac.”

“Hi, Erikki. What’s up?” McIver looked at him keenly.

“Slight change of plan. We’re, er, well, Azadeh and I are going back to Tabriz first.”

Yesterday evening Gavallan had suggested that Erikki and Azadeh take immediate leave. “We’ll find a replacement. How about coming with me tomorrow? Perhaps we could get Azadeh replacement papers in London…” “Why the change, Erikki?” he asked. “Azadeh’s had second thoughts about leaving Iran without Iranian papers?”

“No. An hour ago we got a message - I got a message from her father. Here, read it for yourself.” Erikki gave it to Gavallan, who shared it with McIver. The handwritten note said: “From Abdollah Khan to Captain Yokkonen: I require my daughter to come back here at once and ask you to grant her permission.” It was signed, Abdollah Khan. The message was repeated in Farsi on the other side.

“You’re sure it’s his handwriting?” Gavallan asked.

“Azadeh’s sure, and she also knew the messenger.” Erikki added, “The messenger told us nothing else, only that there’s lots of fighting going on there.”

“By road’s out of the question.” McIver turned to Gavallan. “Maybe our mullah Tehrani’d give Erikki a clearance? According to Nogger, he was like a dog-eating wallah after his joyride this morning. We could fit Charlie’s 206 with long-range tanks, and Erikki could take her, maybe with Nogger or one of the others to bring her right back?”

Gavallan said, “Erikki, you know the risk you’re taking?” “Yes.” Erikki had not yet told them about the killings.

“You’ve thought it through - everything? Rakoczy, the roadblock, Azadeh herself? We could send Azadeh back alone and you could get on the 125 and we’d put her on Saturday’s flight.”

“Come on, boss, you’d never do that and neither will I - I couldn’t leave her.”

“Of course, but it had to be said. All right. Erikki, you take care of the long-range tanks, we’ll try for the clearance. I’d suggest you both come back to Tehran as quickly as possible and take the 125 on Saturday. Both of you. It might be wise for you to transfer and do a tour somewhere else - Australia, Singapore, perhaps - or Aberdeen, but that might be too cold for Azadeh, you let me know.” Gavallan cheerfully stuck out his hand. “Happy Tabriz, eh?”

“Thanks.” Erikki hesitated. “Any news of Tom Lochart?”

“No, not yet - still can’t raise Kowiss or Bandar Delam. Why? Sharazad’s getting anxious?”

“More than that. Her father’s in Evin Jail an - ”

“JesusChrist,” McIver exploded, Gavallan equally shocked, knowing the rumors of arrests and firing squads. “What for?”

“For questioning - by a komiteh - no one knows what for or how long he’ll be held.”

Gavallan said uneasily, “Well, if it’s only for questioning… what happened, Erikki?”

“Sharazad came home half an hour or so ago in tears. When she went back last night after dinner to her parents’ house all hell had broken loose. Apparently some Green Bands went into the bazaar, grabbed Emir Paknouri - you remember, her ex-husband - for ‘crimes against Islam’ and ordered Bakravan to appear at dawn for questioning - for what reason no one knows.” Erikki took a breath. “They went with him to the prison this morning, she, her mother, sisters, and brother. They got there just after dawn and waited and waited and would be still waiting if they hadn’t been told to clear off around 2:00 P.M. by Green Bands on guard there.”

There was a stunned silence.

Erikki broke it. “Mac, try Kowiss. Get them to contact Bandar Delam - Tom should know about Sharazad’s father.” He noticed the look between the two men. “What’s going on with Tom?”

“He’s on a charter to Bandar Delam.”

“Yes, you told me that. Mac’s told me that and so has Sharazad. Tom told her he’d be back in a few days.” Erikki waited. Gavallan just looked back at him. “Well,” he said, “you must have good reasons.”

“I think so,” Gavallan said. Both he and McIver were convinced that Tom Lochart would not willingly have gone on to Kuwait, whatever bribe Valik offered him - both equally afraid that he had been forced. “All right - you’re the boss. Well, I’ll be off. Sorry for bringing bad news but I thought you’d better know.” Erikki forced a smile. “Sharazad wasn’t in good shape. See you in Al Shargaz!”

“Sooner the better, Erikki.”

McIver said, “If you bump into Gen - don’t mention about Sharazad’s father, eh?”

“Of course.”

After Erikki had left, McIver said, “Bakravan’s a pretty important bazaari to summarily arrest.”

“I agree.” After a pause Gavallan said, “Hope to God Erikki’s not going into a trap. That message bit’s very smelly, very sm - ”

The telex chattering made them both jump. They read the telex, line by line, as it came through. Gavallan began cursing

and continued to curse until the machine stopped. “God curse Imperial Helicopters to hell!” He ripped the telex out, Mac sent their call sign back and “Standby One.” Gavallan reread it.

Again it was from Liz Chen: “Dear Boss, we’ve tried you every hour on the hour since we heard from Johnny Hogg you stayed in Tehran. Sorry to bring bad tidings but early Monday morning Imperial Air and Imperial Helicopters jointly announced ‘new financial arrangements to revitalise their competitive position in the North Sea. IH has been allowed to write off 17.1 million sterling of taxpayers’ money and have capitalised another 48 million of their 68 million debt by issuing paper to the head company in lieu of the debt.’ We’ve just heard secretly that 18 of our 19 North Sea contracts due to be renewed by various companies have been awarded to IH under real cost. Thurston Dell of ExTex urgently needs to talk to you. Our ops in Nigeria urgently need 3 repeat 3 212s - can you provide from Iran redundancies? Presume you will go to Al Shargaz or Dubai with John Hogg today. Please advise! Mac - if Himself has already left, please advise. Love to Genny.” “We’re buggered!” Gavallan said. “It’s highway bloody robbery with taxpayers’ money.”

“Then, then take them to court,” McIver said nervously, shocked at Gavallan’s color. “Unfair competition!”

“I can’t, for God’s sake,” then even louder and more angry, “unless the government screams there’s bugger all I can do! Without having to service their legitimate debt they can bid way under even our cost! Dew neh loh moh on Callaghan and all his pinkos!”

“Come on, Andy, they’re not all pinkos!”

“I know that, for God’s sake,” Gavallan roared, “but it sounds right!” Then his good nature overcame his fury and he laughed though his heart was still working hard. “Bloody government,” he added sourly, “they don’t know their arse from a hole in the ground.”

McIver could feel his own hands shaking. “Christ, Andy, I thought you were going to bust a blood vessel.” He was well aware of the implications of the telex. All his own nest egg was in S-G stocks and shares. “Eighteen contracts out of nineteen, that dents our whole North Sea ops!” “It dents us everywhere. With those amounts of write-offs IH can undercut us worldwide. And Thurston wanting me to call urgently? That’s got to mean ExTex‘11 back out, the very least renegotiate, because of a new ‘adjusted’ IH bid and I’ve signed

the contract for our X63s.” Gavallan took out his handkerchief and mopped his brow. Then he saw Nogger Lane gaping from the doorway. “What the hell do you want?”

“Er, er, nothing, sir, I thought the place was on fire….” Nogger Lane hurriedly closed the door.

“Andy,” McIver said softly when it was safe, “Struan’s. Won’t they pick up the slack for you?”

“Struan’s could, though not easily mis year - but Linbar won’t.” Gavallan kept his voice down equally. “When he hears about all this he’ll dance a bloody jig. The timing couldn’t be more perfect for him.” He smiled wryly, thinking about Ian Dunross’s call and his warnings. He had not told McIver about them - McIver was not part of Struan’s though an old friend of Ian’s too. Where the devil does Ian get his information?

He smoothed out the telex. This was the culmination of a number of problems with Imperial Helicopters. Six months ago IH had deliberately headhunted one of his senior executives who had taken with him many S-G secrets. Only last month Gavallan had lost a very important North Sea Board of Trade tender to EH - after a year of work and huge investment. The board of trade specifications were to develop electronic equipment for a helicopter air-sea rescue operation in all weather conditions, day or night, so that choppers could safely go out a hundred miles over the North Sea, hover, pick eight men out of the sea, and return safely - in zero-zero conditions and gale-force winds - fast. In winter months, even with a sea survival suit, about an hour was maximum life expectancy and endurance in those seas. With Ian Dunross’s private enthusiasm: “Don’t forget, Andy, such knowledge and equipment would also fit perfectly into our projected China Seas endeavors,” Gavallan had committed half a million pounds and a year of work developing the electronics and guidance systems with an electronics company. Then, on the great day, the official test pilot had found he couldn’t work the equipment, even though six of S-G’s line pilots, including Tom Lochart and Rudi Lutz, later had had no trouble. Even so, S-G could not get the necessary certification in time. “The unfairness of the whole rotten business,” he had written McIver, “is that IH’s got the contract using a Guerney 661 with noncertificated Danish equipment aboard. We get the runaround and they get dispensations. It’s a bastard - by the way, of course I can’t prove it, but I’d bet real money the test pilot was got at - he’s been sent ‘on a long rest.’ Oh, we’ll get the money back and the contract in a year or so because our equipment’s better, safer, and British built. Meanwhile Imperial’s operating at safety levels, I think, that can be improved.”

That’s what really counts, he thought, rereading the telex, safety - safety first and safety last. “Mac, would you send Liz a reply for me: ‘Leaving for Al Shargaz now and will phone on arrival.’ Telex Thurston and ask what deal he would offer if I double the number of X63s presently on order. S - ” “Eh?”

“Well, it costs nothing to ask; IH’s bound to hear about our problems here and I’m not going to let those buggers start giving us the finger - better to keep them off-balance. In any event we could use two X63s here to service all the Guerney contracts - if things were different. Finish the telex, see you soon.”

“Okay.”

Gavallan sat back in the easy chair and let his mind drift, collecting his strength. I’m going to have to be very strong. And very clever. This is the one that can bury me and S-G and give Linbar everything he needs - this and Iran together. Yes, and it was stupid to lose your temper like that. What you need is Kathy’s Shrieking Tree…. Ah, Kathy, Kathy.

The Shrieking Tree was an old clan custom, a special tree chosen by the oldest of the clan, somewhere nearby, that you could go out to, alone, when the deevil - as old Granny Dunross, Kathy’s grandmother, called it - “when the deevil was upon you and there you could curse and rant and rave and curse some more until there were no more curses left. Then there would always be peace in the home and never a need to really curse a husband or wife or lover or child. Aye, just a wee tree, for a tree can bear all the curses even the deevil himself invented.”

The first time he had used Kathy’s Shrieking Tree was in Hong Kong. There it was a jacaranda in the garden of the Great House, the residence of the taipan of Struan’s. Kathy’s brother, Ian, was taipan then. Gavallan knew the date exactly: it was Wednesday, August 21, 1963, the night she told him. Poor Kathy, my Kathy, he thought, loving her still - Kathy, born under an ill-set star. Swept off your feet by one of the Few - John Selkirk, flight lieutenant, DFC, RAF - married at once, not yet eighteen, widowed at once, not yet three months older, him torched out of the skies and vanished. Rotten war years and more tragedy, two beloved brothers killed in action - one your twin. Meeting you in Hong Kong in ‘46, at once in love with you, hoping with all my heart that I could make up for some of the unluck. I know Melinda and Scot did - they’ve turned out won404 derfully, so grand. And then, in ‘63, before your thirty-eighth birthday, the multiple sclerosis.

Going home to Scotland as you’d always wanted - me to put Ian’s plans into effect, you to regain your health. But that part not to be. Watching you die. Watching the sweet smile you used to cover the hell inside, so brave and gentle and wise and loving, but going, plateau by plateau. So slowly, yet so fast, so inexorably. By ‘68 in a wheelchair, mind still crystal, voice clear, the rest a shell, out of control and shaking. Then it was ‘70. That Christmas they were at Castle Avisyard. And on the second day of the new year when the others had gone and Melinda and Scot were skiing in Switzerland, she had said, “Andy, my darling, I cannot endure another year, another month, or another day.”

“Yes,” he said simply.

“Sorry, but I’ll need help. I need to go and I… I’m ever so sorry that it’s been so long… but I need to go now, Andy. I have to do it myself but I’ll need help. Yes?” “Yes, my darling.”

They had spent a day and a night talking, talking about good things and good times and what he should do for Melinda and Scot, and that she wanted him to marry again, and she told him how wonderful life had been with him and they laughed, one with another, and his tears did not spill till later. He held her palsied hand with the sleeping pills and held her shaking head against his chest, helped her with the glass of water - a little whisky in it for luck - and never let her go until the shaking had stopped. The doctor had said kindly, “I don’t blame her - if I’d been her I would have done it years ago, poor lady.”

Going then to the Shrieking Tree. But shrieking no words, nothing - only tears. “Andy?” “Yes, Kathy?”

Gavallan looked up and he saw it was Genny, McIver by the door, both of them watching him. “Oh, hello, Genny, sorry, I was a million miles away.” He got up. “It - I think it was the Avisyard that set me thinking.” Genny’s eyes widened. “Oh, an Avisyard telex? Not a bird down?” “No, no, thank God, just Imperial Helicopters up to their old tricks.” “Oh, thank God too,” Genny said, openly relieved. She was dressed in a heavy coat and a nice hat. Her large suitcase was in the outer office where Nogger Lane and Charlie Pettikin waited. “Well, Andy,” she said, “unless you override Mr. McIver, I suppose we should go. I’m as ready as I’ll ever be.”

“Come on, Gen, there’s no n - ” McIver stopped as she imperiously held up her hand.

“Andy,” she said sweetly, “please tell Mr. McIver that battle is joined.” “Gen! Will y - ”

“Joined, by God!” Imperiously she waved Nogger Lane away from her suitcase, picked it up, staggered a little under its weight, and swept out with an even more imperious, “I can carry my own suitcase, thank you very much.” There was a big hole in the air behind her. McIver sighed. Nogger Lane had a hard time keeping the laughter off his face. Gavallan and Charlie Pettikin thought it best to be noncommittal.

“Well, er, no need for you to drive out with us, Charlie,” Gavallan said gruffly.

“I’d still like to, if it’s all right,” Pettikin said, not really wanting to but McIver had asked him privately for support with Genny. “That’s a cute hat, Genny,” he had told her just after a delightful breakfast with Paula. Genny had smiled sweetly. “Don’t you try to butter me up, Charlie Pettikin, or I’ll give you what for too. I’ve had men generally - in fact I’m very pissed off indeed….”

Gavallan put on his parka. He picked up the telex and stuck it into his pocket. “Actually, Charlie,” he said and some of his concern showed now, “if you don’t mind I’d rather you didn’t - I’ve got some unfinished stuff to chat with Mac about.”

“Sure, of course.” Pettikin stuck out his hand and hid the beam. Not going out to the airport would give him a few bonus hours alone with Paula. Paula the Fair, he had thought of her since breakfast even though she was brunette. To McIver he said, “I’ll see you at home.”

“Why not wait here - I want to raise all the bases as soon as it’s dark and we can go back together. I’d like you to hold the fort. Nogger, you can quit.” Nogger Lane beamed and Pettikin cursed silently.

In the car McIver drove, Gavallan was beside him, Genny in the back. “Mac, let’s talk about Iran.”

They went through their options. Each time they came back to the same gloomy conclusion: they had to hope the situation came back to normal, the banks reopened, they got the money owing to them, that their joint venture was exempt and they weren’t nailed.“You just have to keep going, Mac. While we can operate, you’ll have to continue, whatever the problems.” McIver was equally grave. “I know. But how do I operate without money - and what about the lease payments?”

“Somehow I’ll get you operating money. I’ll bring cash from London in a week. I can carry the lease payment on your aircraft and spares for another few months; I may even be able to do the same with the X63s if I can reschedule payments but, well, I hadn’t planned on losing so many contracts to IH - maybe I can get some of them back. Whichever way, it’ll be dicey for a while but not to worry. Hope to God Johnny gets in; just have to get home now, there’s so much to do. …”

McIver narrowly avoided a head-on collision with a car that charged out of a side street, almost went into the joub, and came back onto the roadway again. “Bloody twit! You all right, Gen?” He glanced into the rearview window and winced, seeing her stony face.

Gavallan felt the icy blast too, started to say something to her but thought better of it. Wonder if I could get hold of Ian - perhaps he could guide me out of the abyss - and, thinking of that, reminded him of David MacStruan’s tragic death. So many of them, the Struans, MacStruans, Dunrosses, their enemies the Gornts, Rothwells, Brocks of ancient days, had died violent deaths or vanished - lost at sea - or died in strange accidents. So far Ian’s survived. But how much longer? Not many more times. “I think I’m up to my eighth, Andy,” Dunross had said the last time they met. “What now?”

“Nothing much. Car bomb went off in Beirut just after I’d passed by. Nothing to worry about, I’ve said it before, there’s no pattern. I just happen to have a charmed life.”

“Like Macao?”

Dunross was an enthusiastic racer and had driven in many of the Macao Grand Prix. In ‘65 - the race still amateur then - he had won the race but the right front tire of his E Type blew out at the winning post and shoved him into the barricade and sent him tumbling down the track, other cars taking evading action, one careening into him. They had cut him out of the wreckage, everything intact, unhurt but for his left foot missing. “Like Macao, Andy,” Dunross had said with his strange smile. “Just an accident. Both times.” The other time his engine had exploded but he had been unscathed. Whispers had it that his engine had been tampered with - the finger pointed at his enemy Quillan Gornt, but not publicly.

Quillan’s dead and Ian’s alive, Gavallan thought. So am I. So’s Linbar; that bastard will go on forever…. Christ Almighty, I’m getting morbid and stupid - got to stop it. Mac’s worried enough as it is. Got to figure a way out of the vise. “In an emergency, Mac, I’ll send messages through Talbot, you do the same. I’ll be back in a few days without fail and by then I’ll have answers - meanwhile I’ll base the 125 until further notice - Johnny can be a courier for us. That’s the best I can do for today….” Genny, who had not uttered a word and had politely refused to be drawn into the conversation though she listened attentively, was also more than a little worried. It’s obvious there’s no future for us here, and I’d be quite very glad to leave - provided Duncan comes too. Even so, we can’t just meekly run away with our tails between our legs and let all of Duncan’s work and life’s nest egg be stolen, that’d kill him as certainly as any bullet. Ugh! I do wish he’d do what he’s told - he should have retired last year when the Shah was still in power. Men! Bloody stupid, the whole lot of them! Christ Almighty! What fools men are!

Traffic was very slow now. Twice they had to divert because of barricades erected across the roads - both of them guarded by armed men, not Green Bands, who angrily waved them away. Bodies here and there among the piled refuse, bumed-out cars and one tank. Dogs scavenging. Once there was sudden firing nearby and they took a side street, avoiding a pitched battle between what factions they never found out. A stray bazooka shell plastered a nearby building but without danger to them. McIver eased his way around the burned hulk of a bus, more than ever glad that he had insisted that Genny evacuate Iran. Again he glanced at her in the rearview mirror and saw the white face under the hat and his heart went out to her. She’s damn good, he thought proudly, so much guts. Damn good, but so bloody-minded. Hate that bloody hat. Hats don’t suit her. Why the hell won’t she do what she’s told without arguing? Poor old Gen, I’ll be so relieved when she’s not in danger. Near the airport, traffic almost came to a standstill, hundreds of cars crammed with people, many Europeans, men, women, and children, going there on the rumor that the airport had been reopened - enraged Green Bands turning everyone away, crude signs scrawled in Farsi and misspelled English nailed to trees and to walls: AIRPRT FORBIDUN NOW. AIRPRT OPEN MONDAY - - IF TICKUT AND EXIT PURMIT.

It took them half an hour to talk their way through the barrier. It was Genny who finally managed it. Like most of the wives who had to shop and to deal with servants and day-to-day living, she could speak some Farsi - and though she had not said a word all the way, she leaned forward and spoke to the Green Bands pleasantly. At once they were waved through. “My God, Gen, that was wonderful,” McIver said. “What did you tell that bastard?”

“Andy,” she said smugly, “please tell Mr. McIver I told them he was a suspected smallpox carrier who was being sent out of the country.” More Green Bands were on the gate that led to the freighting area and their office, but this time it was easier and clearly they were expected. The 125 was already on the runway, surrounded by armed Green Bands and trucks. Two motorcycle Green Bands motioned them to follow and roared off onto the tarmac, leading the way.

“Why are you late?” the mullah Tehrani said irritably, coming down the 125’s steps, two armed revs following. Both Gavallan and McIver noticed he was wearing new glasses. They caught a glimpse of John Hogg inside the cabin, one of the revs at the head of the steps with a leveled submachine gun. “The aircraft must take off instantly. Why are you late?”

“So sorry, Excellency, the traffic - Insha’Allah! So sorry,” McIver said carefully. “I understand from Captain Lane your work for the Ayatollah, may he live forever, was satisfactory?”

“There was not enough time to complete all my work. As God wants. It is, er, it is necessary to go tomorrow. You will arrange it please. For 9:00 A.M.” “With pleasure. Here is the passenger crew manifest.” McIver gave him the paper. Gavallan, Genny, and Armstrong were on it, Armstrong as going on leave.

Tehrani read the paper easily now, openly ecstatic with his glasses. “Where is this Armstrong?” “Oh, I presumed he was aboard.”

“There’s no one aboard but the crew,” the mullah said irritably, the vast pleasure of being able to see overcoming his nervousness at having allowed the 125 to land. But he was glad he had, the glasses were a gift of God and the second pair promised by the pilot next week a protection against breakage and the third pair just for reading… Oh, God is Great. God is Great, all thanks to God for putting the thought into the pilot’s head and for letting me see so well. “The aircraft must leave at once.”

“It’s not like Mr. Armstrong to be late, Excellency,” Gavallan said with a frown. Neither he nor McIver had heard from him since yesterday - nor had he come to the flat last night. This morning Talbot had shrugged, saying that Armstrong had been delayed, but not to worry, he would be at the airport on time. “Perhaps he’s waiting in the office,” Gavallan said. “There is no one there who should not be there. The aircraft will leave now. It will not wait. Aboard, please! The aircraft will leave now.” “Perfect,” Gavallan said. “As God wants. By the way we’d like clearance for the 125 to come back Saturday and clearance for a 206 to go to Tabriz tomorrow.” With great formality he handed him the papers, neatly filled out. “The, er, the 125 may return but no flights to Tabriz. Perhaps Saturday.” “But, Excellency, don’t y - ”

“No,” the mullah said, conscious of the others watching him. He ordered the truck blocking the runway out of the way and looked at Genny as she got out of the car and nodded approvingly. Gavallan and McIver were surprised to notice that now she had tucked her hair into the scarf part of her hat so none of her hair was showing and, with her long coat, almost gave the impression of being in chador. “Please to get aboard.”

“Thank you, Excellency,” she said in adequate Farsi that she had been rehearsing with the help of a dictionary all morning, with the necessary perfect amount of seriousness, “but with your permission I will stay. My husband is not as healthy in the head as he should be, temporarily, but you - being a man of such intelligence - you would understand that though a wife cannot go against her husband’s wishes, it is written that even the Prophet himself had to be looked after.”

“True, true,” the mullah said and looked at McIver thoughtfully. McIver stared back perplexed, without understanding. “Stay if you wish.” “Thank you,” Genny said, with great deference. “Then I stay. Thank you, Excellency, for your agreement and your wisdom.” She hid her glee at her cleverness and said in English, “Duncan, the mullah Tehrani agrees I should stay.” She saw his eyes cross and added hastily, “I’ll wait in the car.” He was there before her. “You bloody get aboard that kite,” he said, “or I’ll bloody put you aboard.”

“Don’t be silly, Duncan, dear!” She was so solicitous. “And don’t shout, it’s so bad for your bloody pressure.” She saw Gavallan coming over and some of her confidence vanished. Around her was rotten snow and rotten sky and sour youths gaping at her. “You know I really do love this place,” she said brightly, “how could I leave?”

“You - you’re bloody leaving an - ” McIver was so angry he could hardly talk and for a second Genny was afraid she had gone too far.

“I’ll leave if you leave, Duncan. Right now. I’m not repeat not going without you and if you try to force me I’ll throw such a tantrum that it’ll blow the 125 and the whole airport to kingdom come! Andy, explain to this - this person! Oh, I know you can both drag me aboard but if you do you’ll both lose total face and I know you both too well! Andy!” Gavallan laughed. “Mac, you’ve had it!”

In spite of his rage, McIver laughed too, and the mullah watching and listening shook his head with disbelief at the antics of Infidels. “Gen, you…you’ve been planning this all along,” McIver sputtered.

“Who me?” She was all innocence. “Perish the thought!”

“All right, Gen,” McIver said, his jaw still jutting, “all right, you win, but you haven’t just lost face, you’ve lost tail as well.” “Aboard!” the mullah said.

“What about Armstrong?” McIver said.

“He knows the rules and the time.” Gavallan gave Genny a hug and shook hands with McIver. “See you soon and take care.” He went aboard, the jet took off, and during the long drive back to the office neither Genny nor Duncan McIver noticed the time passing. Both were preoccupied. Genny sat in the front. She was very tired but very satisfied. “You’re a good woman, Gen,” he had said the moment that they were alone, “but you’re not forgiven.” “Yes, Duncan,” she had said meekly, as a good woman does - from time to time.

“You’re not bloody forgiven at all.”

“Yes, Duncan.”

“And don’t yes Duncan me!” He drove on for a while, then he said gruffly, “I’d rather have you safe in Al Shargaz but I’m glad you’re here.” She said nothing, wisely. Just smiled. And put her hand on his knee. Both of them at peace now.

It was another foul drive, with many detours, more shootings, and more bodies and dogs and angry crowds, and garbage, the streets not cleaned for months now, the joubs long since clogged. Night came swiftly and the cold increased. Odd cars and some army trucks screamed by, careless of road safety, packed with men. “Are you tired, Duncan. Would you like me to drive?”

“No, I’m fine, thanks,” he said, feeling very tired, and very glad when at length they turned into their street, dark and ominous like all the rest, the only light coming from their penthouse office. He would have preferred to leave the car on the street but he was sure by the time he came back the gasoline would have been siphoned out even though there was a lock on the tank - if the car itself was even still there. He drove into their garage, locked the car, locked the garage, and they climbed the stairs. Charlie Pettikin met them on the landing, his face pasty. “Hi, Mac. Thank God y - ” Then he saw Genny and he stopped. “Oh, Genny! What, what happened? Didn’t the 125 get in?”

“She came in,” McIver said. “What the hell’s happened, Charlie?” Pettikin closed the office door after them, glanced at Genny who said wearily, “All right, I’m going to the loo.”

Christ Almighty, she thought, it’s all so bloody stupid - will they never learn? Duncan‘11 tell me as soon as we’re alone so I’ll hear it anyway and I’d much rather have it from the source. Tiredly she plodded for the door. “No, Gen,” McIver said and she stopped, startled. “You chose to stay so…” He shrugged. She noticed something different in him and did not know if it was good or if it was bad. “Let’s have it, Charlie.”

“Rudi came in on the HF less than half an hour ago,” Pettikin said in a rush. “HBC’s been shot down, blown out of the skies, no survivors b - ” Both Genny and McIver went white, “Oh, my God!” She groped for a chair. “I don’t understand what’s going on,” Pettikin said helplessly. “It’s all crazy, like a dream, but Tom Lochart hasn’t been clobbered, he’s at Bandar Delam with Rudi. H - ”

McIver came back to life. “Tom’s safe?” he burst out. “He got out?” “You don’t get out of a chopper if she was ‘blown out of the skies.’ Nothing makes any sense unless it’s a cover-up. Tom was flying spares, no passengers, but this officer said she was full of people, and Rudi said, ‘Tell Mr. McIver that Captain Lochart’s back off leave.’ I even talked to him!”

McIver gaped at him. “You talked to him? He’s safe? You’re sure? Off what leave, for God’s sake?”

“I don’t know but I did talk to him. He came on the blower.” “Wait a minute, Charlie. How’d Rudi reach us? Is he at Kowiss?” “No, he said he was calling from Abadan Air Traffic Control.” McIver muttered an obscenity, so relieved about Lochart and at the same time appalled about Valik and his family. Full of people? Should’ve been only four! There were fifty questions he wanted answered at once and knew there was no way out of the trap that he and Tom were in. He had told no one of Lochart’s real mission or his own dilemma authorizing it, other than Gavallan. “Let’s have it from the beginning, Charlie, exactly.” McIver glanced at Genny who was frozen. “You all right, Gen?”

“Yes, yes. I - I’ll make a cuppa.” Her voice seemed very small to both of them and she went over to the kitchenette.

Shakily Pettikin sat on the edge of the desk. “As exactly as I can remember, Rudi said, ‘I’ve got an officer from the Iranian Air Force here and have to know officially…’ Then this other voice came over the loudspeaker. ‘This is Major Qazani, Air Force Intelligence! I require answer at once. Is HBC an S-G 212 or isn’t it?’ To give myself time I said, ‘Hang on a minute I’ll get the file.’ I waited, hoping for a lead from Rudi but there wasn’t one so I figured it was all right. ‘Yes, EP-HBC’s one of our 212s.’ At once Rudi blew his stack and cursed as I’ve never heard him before and said something like, ‘By God, that’s terrible because HBC tried to escape into Iraq and the Iranian Air Force rightly shot the ship down, blew her and all aboard to the hell she deserved - who the hell was flying her and who the hell was aboard?’”

Pettikin wiped away a dribble of sweat. “I think I swore myself, fell apart a bit, can’t remember exactly, Mac, then said something like, ‘That’s terrible! Hold on - I’ll get the flight book,’ hoping like hell my voice sounded more or less okay. I got it and saw Nogger’s name crossed off, with ‘reported sick’ alongside, then Tom Lochart’s, and your signature authorizing the charter.” He looked up at McIver helplessly, “Clearly Rudi didn’t want me to say Tom so I just said, ‘According to our flight book she’s not checked out to anyone McIver went red. “But if you s - ”

“It was the best I could do at the time, for God’s sake. I said, ‘She’s not checked out to anyone.’ Rudi began cursing again but I thought his voice sounded different now, more relieved. ‘What the hell’re you talking about?’ he said.

“ I’m just telling you, Captain Lutz, according to the records here, HBC’s still hangared at Doshan Tappeh. If she’s gone she must’ve been hijacked,’ I said, hoping my voice sounded convincing. Mac, I was groping and I still don’t understand what the problem is. Then this other voice said, ‘This matter will be taken up through channels at once. I require your flight clearance book at once.’ I told him okay, where should I send it. That threw him a little because of course there’s no way we can get it to him at once. Eventually he said to keep our records safely and we’d get instructions later. Then Tom came on and said something like: “‘Captain Pettikin, please give my apologies to Mr. McIver that I’m late off leave but I was trapped by a snowfall in a village just south of Kermanshah. Soon as I can I’ll head for home.’” Pettikin exhaled, glanced at Genny then back at McIver. “That’s it. That’s all. What do you think?” “About Tom? I don’t know.” McIver went over to the window heavily and both Pettikin and Genny saw the weight on him. Snow was on the sill and the wind had picked up a little. Sporadic gunfire sounded from the distance, rifle and automatic, but none of them noticed it.

“Genny?”

“I - it doesn’t make any, any sense, Charlie, any sense at all about Tommy.” Weakly she poured the boiling water into the teapot, the cups already laid out, glad to have had something to do with her hands, feeling helpless and wanting to cry, wanting to shout at the injustice of everything, knowing that Tom and Duncan were trapped - her Duncan had signed the flight plan - knowing she could not mention anything about Annoush or the children or Valik - if they were aboard, they must be aboard, but then who was flying if it wasn’t Tommy? “The hijack… well, obviously Tommy’s on the clearance here and so is Duncan. The authorities in Tehran still have the clearance. The clearance has Duncan’s name on it so a hijack isn’t… it doesn’t make much sense.”

“I can see that now but at the time the story sounded good.” Pettikin felt awful. He picked up the clearance book. “Mac, how about if we lose this, get rid of it?”

“Tehran Control’s still got the original, Charlie. Tom refueled, there’ll be a record.”

“In normal times, sure. Now? With all this mess going on?” “Perhaps.”

“Maybe we could retrieve the original?”

“Come on, for God’s sake, not a hope till hell freezes.”

Genny started pouring the tea into the three cups. The silence tightened. In misery Pettikin said, “I still don’t see how if Tom started off from Doshan Tappeh and then… unless she was hijacked en route, or when he was refueling.” Irritably he ran his fingers through his hair. “It’s got to be a hijack. Where did he refuel? Kowiss? Maybe they could help?” McIver did not answer, just stared out at the night. Pettikin waited, then leafed through the clearance book, found the right duplicate, and looked at the back. “Isfahan?” he said surprised. “Why Isfahan?”

Again McIver did not answer.

Genny added condensed milk to the tea and gave one cup to Pettikin. “I think you did very well, Charlie,” she said, not knowing what else to say. Then she took the other cup to McIver.

“Thanks, Gen.”

She saw the tears and her own tears spilled. He put an arm around her, thinking about Annoush and the Christmas patty he and Genny had given for all the kids of their friends, such a short time ago - little Setarem and Jalal, the stars of all the games, such wonderful kids, now cinders or meat for scavengers.

“It’s good about Tommy, dear, isn’t it?” she said through her own tears, Pettikin forgotten. Embarrassed, Pettikin went out and shut the door behind him and neither of them noticed his going. “It’s good about Tommy,” she said again. “That’s one good thing.”

“Yes, Gen, that’s one good thing.”

“What can we do?”

“Wait. We wait and see. We hope to God they didn’t buy it but… somehow I know they were aboard.” Tenderly he brushed away her tears. “But come Sunday, Gen, when the 125 goes you’re on it,” he told her gently. “I promise only until we sort this all out - but this time you must go.” She nodded. He drank the tea. It tasted very good. He smiled down at her. “You make a damn good cuppa, Gen,” he said, but that did not take away her fear or her misery - or her fury at all the killing and uselessness and tragedy and the blatant usurping of their livelihood, or the age that it was putting on her husband. The worry’s killing him. It’s killing him, she thought with growing rage. Then all at once the answer came to her. She looked around to make sure Pettikin wasn’t there. “Dun-can,” she whispered, “if you don’t want those bastards to steal our future, why don’t we leave and take everything with us?”

“Eh?”

“Planes, spares, and personnel.”

“We can’t do that, Gen, I’ve already told you fifty times.” “Oh, yes, we can if we want to and if we have a plan.” She said it with such utter confidence it swept him. “There’s Andy to help. Andy can make the plan, we can’t. You can carry it out, he can’t. They don’t want us here, so be it, we’ll leave - but with our planes and our spares and our self-respect. We’ll have to be very secretive but we can do it. We can do it. I know we can.”

BOOK TWO

Saturday - February 17

Chapter 30

AT KOWISS: 6:38 A.M. The mullah Hussain was sitting cross-legged on the thin mattress checking the action of the AK47. With a practiced movement he snapped the new magazine into place. “Good,” he said.

“Will there be more fighting today?” his wife asked. She was across the room, standing beside a wood-burning stove that was heating a pan of water for the first coffee of the day. Her black chador rustled as she moved, masking that she was heavy with child again.

“As God wants.”

She echoed him, trying to hide her fear, afraid of what would become of them when her husband had obtained the martyrdom he sought so relentlessly, wanting in her most secret heart to scream from the minarets that it was too much to bear that God required such sacrifice of her and their children. Seven years of marriage and three live children and four dead children and the deep poverty of all those years - so great a contrast to her previous life with her own family who had owned a butcher’s stall in the bazaar, always enough to eat and laughter and going out without chador, picnics, and even going to the cinema - had etched lines on her once attractive face. As God wants but it’s not fair, not fair! We’ll starve - who will want to support the family of a dead mullah?

Their eldest son, Ali, a little boy of six, squatted beside the door of this one-room hut that was beside the mosque, attentively following his father’s every movement - his two little brothers, three and two years old, asleep on their straw mattress on the dirt floor, wrapped in an old army blanket. They were curled up like kittens. In the room was a rough wooden table and two benches, a few pots and pans, the big mattress and a small one on old carpets. An oil lamp for light. The joub outside was for washing and for waste. No decorations on the whitewashed, dried-mud walls. A tap for water that sometimes worked. Flies and insects. And in a niche, facing Mecca, the place of honor, the well-used Koran.

It was just after dawn, the day chill and overcast, and Hussain had already called for morning prayer in the mosque and had wiped the dirt off the gun and oiled it carefully, cleaned the barrel of spent cordite, and refilled the magazine. Now it’s as good as ever, he thought contentedly, ready to do more of God’s work and there’s plenty of use for such a gun - the AK47 so much better than the M14, simpler, more nigged, and just as accurate at close quarters. Stupid Americans, stupid as ever to make an infantry gun that was complex and accurate at a thousand yards when most fighting was done at nearer to three hundred and you could drag the AK47 in the mud all day and it would still do what it was supposed to do: kill. Death to all enemies of God!

Already there had been clashes between Green Bands and the Marxist-Islamics and other leftists in Kowiss, and more at Gach Saran, a nearby oil refinery town to the northwest. Yesterday, after dark, he had led Green Bands against one of the secret Tudeh safe houses - the meeting betrayed by one of the members in return for the hope of mercy. There would be none. The battle was sudden, short, and bloody. Eleven men killed, he hoped some of the leaders. So far the Tudeh had not yet come out into the open in strength, but a mass demonstration had been called by them for tomorrow afternoon in support of the Tudeh demonstration in Tehran even though Khomeini had expressly warned against it. The confrontation was already planned. Both sides knew it. Many will die, he thought grimly. Death to all enemies of Islam! “Here,” she said, giving him the hot, sweet black coffee nectar, the one luxury he allowed himself except on Fridays - Holy Days - and other special days and all the Holy Month of Ramadan when he gave up coffee gladly.

“Thank you, Fatima,” he said politely. When he had been appointed mullah here, his father and mother had found her for him and his mentor, Ayatollah Isfahani, had told him to marry so he had obeyed.

He drank the coffee, enjoying it very much, and gave her back the little cup. Marriage had not distracted him from his path, though from time to time he enjoyed sleeping against her, her buttocks large and warm in the chill of winter, sometimes turning her, joining, and then sleeping again, but never really at peace. I will only be at peace in Paradise, only then, he thought, his excitement growing, so soon now. God be thanked that I was named after Imam Hussain, Lord of the Martyrs, Imam Ali’s second son, he of the Great Martyrdom, thirteen centuries ago at the Battle of Karbala. We will never forget him, he thought, his ecstasy growing, reliving the pain of Ashura, the tenth day of Muharram - only a few weeks ago - the anniversary of that martyrdom, the Shi’as’ most holy day of mourning. His back still bore the weals. That day he had been in Qom again, as last year and the year before that, taking part in the Ashura processions, the cleansing processions, with tens of thousands of other Iranians - whipping themselves to remind themselves of the divine martyrdom, scourging themselves with whips and chains, mortifying themselves with hooks. It had taken him many weeks to recover, to be able to stand without pain. As God wants, he told himself proudly. Pain is nothing, this world is nothing, I stood against Peshadi at the air base and took over the air base and subdued it and brought him to Isfahan in bonds as I had been ordered. And now, today, first I will go again to the base to investigate the foreigners and curb them and this Sunni Zataki who thinks he’s Genghis Khan, and this afternoon again I will lead the Faithful against the atheist Tudeh, doing God’s work in obedience to the Imam who obeys only God. I pray that today I will gain admittance to Paradise, “there to recline on couches lined with brocade, and the fruit of the two gardens shall be within easy reach,” the so familiar words of the Koran etched on his brain.

“We’ve no food,” his wife said, interrupting his thought pattern. “There will be food at the mosque today,” he said, and his son Ali became even more attentive - momentarily distracted from scratching the fly sores and other insect bites. “From now on you and the children will not be hungry. We will be giving out daily meals of horisht and rice to the needy as we have done throughout history.” He smiled at Ali, reached over, and tousled his head. “God knows we are among the needy.” Since Khomeini had returned, the mosques had begun again this ancient role of giving daily meals of plain but nourishing food, the food donated as part of Zakat - the voluntary alms tax that all Muslims were subject to - or bought with money from Zakat that was now again the sole prerogative of the mosques. Hussain heaped more curses on the Shah who had canceled the yearly subsidy to mullahs and mosques two years ago, causing them such poverty and anguish. “Join the people waiting at the mosque,” he told her. “When they are all fed, take enough for you and the children. Daily you will do this.” “Thank you.” “Thank God.” “I do, oh, yes I do.”

He pulled on his boots and shouldered the gun. “Can I come with you, Father?” Ali asked in his thin, piping voice. “I want to do God’s work too.” “Of course, come along.”

She closed the door after them and sat down on a bench, her stomach rumbling from hunger, feeling sick and weak, too tired to wave the flies away that settled on her face. She was eight months with child. The midwife had told her that this time would be harder than before because the baby was in a wrong position. She began to weep, remembering the tearing, screaming agony of the last birth and the one before and all of them. “Don’t worry,” the old midwife had said, complacently, “you’re in the Hands of God. A little fresh camel dung spread on your stomach will take the pains away. It’s a woman’s duty to bear children and you’re young.”

Young? I’m twenty-two years old, and old, old, old. I know it, and know why, and I’ve a brain and have eyes and can even write my own name and know we can have better, as the Imam knows, once foreigners are expelled and the evil of foreign ways torn out. The Imam, God protect him, is wise and good and talks to God, obeys only God, and God knows that women are not chattel to be abused and cast back into the days of the Prophet as some fanatics want. The Imam will protect us from extremists, and won’t allow them to repeal the Shah’s Family Act that gave us the vote and protection against summary divorce - he won’t allow our votes and rights and our freedoms to be taken away or our rights to choose if we want to wear chador or not, never when he sees how strongly we are against it. Not when he sees our staunch resolve. Throughout the land.

Fatima dried her tears and felt happier at the thought of the planned demonstrations in three days, and some of the pain left her. Yes, we women’ll demonstrate through the streets of Kowiss, proudly supporting our sisters in the great cities of Tehran and Qom and Isfahan, except I shall of course wear chador by choice, because of Hussain. Oh, how wonderful to be able to show our solidarity both as women and for the revolution. The news of the planned marches in Tehran had rushed throughout Iran, by what means no one was sure. But all women knew. Everywhere women decided to follow suit, and all women approved - even those who did not dare to say so.

AT THE AIR BASE: 10:20 A.M. Starke was in the S-G tower watching the 125 come in with full flaps to touch down and turn on full reverse thrust. Zataki and Esvandiary were also there with two Green Bands - Zataki cleanshaven now.

“Turn right at the end of the runway, Echo Tango Lima Lima,” Sergeant Wazari, the young USAF-trained air traffic controller said throatily. He had on rough civilian clothes in place of his neat uniform. His face was badly bruised, nose mashed, three teeth missing, and his ears swollen from the public beating Zataki had given him. Now he could not breathe through the nose. “Park in front of main base tower.”

“Roger.” Johnny Hogg’s voice came back over the loudspeaker. “I repeat we are cleared to pick up three passengers, to deliver urgently required spares, with immediate turnaround and departure for Al Shargaz. Please confirm.”

Wazari turned to Zataki, his fear open. “Excellency, please excuse me but what should I say?”

“You say nothing, vermin.” Zataki picked up his stubby machine gun. To Starke he said, “Tell your pilot to park, to stop his engines, then to put everyone in the aircraft onto the tarmac. The aircraft will be searched and if cleared by me, it may go onward, and if it is not cleared it will not go onward. You come with me, and you too,” he added to Esvandiary. He went out. Starke did as he was ordered and turned to follow, but for a second he and the young sergeant were alone. Wazari caught him by the arm and whispered pathetically, “For the love of God, help me get aboard her, Captain, I’ll do anything, anything…”

“I can’t - it’s impossible,” Starke said, sorry for him. Two days ago Zataki had paraded everyone and beaten the man senseless for “crimes against the revolution,” brought him around, made him eat filth, and beat him senseless again. Only Manuela and the very sick had been allowed to stay away. “Impossible!”

“Please… I beg you, Zataki’s mad, he’ll k - ” Wazari turned away in panic as a Green Band reappeared in the doorway. Starke walked past him, down the stairs, and out onto the tarmac, masking his disquiet. Freddy Ayre was at the wheel of a waiting jeep. Manuela was in it, along with one of his British pilots, and Jon Tyrer, a bandage around his eyes. Manuela wore loose pants, long coat, and her hair was tied up under a pilot’s hat. “Follow us, Freddy,” Starke said and got in beside Zataki in the back of the waiting car. Esvandiary let out the clutch and sped off to intercept the 125 that now was turning off the main runway, an accompanying swarm of trucks of Green Bands and two motorcyclists weaving around dangerously. “Crazy!” Starke muttered.

Zataki laughed, his teeth white. “Enthusiasts, pilot, not crazy.” “As God wants.”

Zataki glanced at him, no longer bantering: “You speak our language, you’ve read the Koran, and you know our ways. It is time you said the Shahada before two witnesses and became Muslim. I would be honored to be a witness.” “I, too,” Esvandiary said at once, also wanting to help save a soul though not for the same reasons: IranOil would need expert pilots to get full production going while replacement Iranians were trained and a Muslim Starke could be one. “I too would be honored to be a witness.”

“Thank you,” Starke told them in Farsi. Over the years the thought had occurred to him. Once, when Iran was calm and all he had to do was fly as many missions as he could and look after his men and laugh with Manuela and the children - was that only half a year ago? - he had said to her, “You know, Manuela, there’s so much in Islam that’s great.”

“Were you thinkin’ of four wives, darlin’?” she had said sweetly and instantly he was on guard.

“C’me on, Manuela, I was being serious. There’s a lot in Islam.” “For men, not for women. Doesn’t the Koran say: ‘And the Faithful’ - all men by the way - ‘will lie on silken couches and there will be the houris whom neither man nor djinn hath touched’ - Conroe, honey, I never could work that out, why should they be perpetual virgins? Does that do somethin’ for a man? And do women get the same deal, youth and as many horny young men as they want?”

“Would you listen, for crissake! I meant that if you lived in the desert, the deep Saudi or Sahara desert - remember the time we were in Kuwait and we went out, just you and me, we went out into the desert, the stars as big as oysters and the quiet so vast, the night so clean and limitless, us insignificant, you remember how touched we were by the Infinite? Remember how I said, I can understand how, if you were a nomad and born into a tent, you could be possessed by Islam?”

“And remember, darlin’, how I said we weren’t born in no goddamn tent.” He smiled, remembering how he had caught her and kissed her under the stars and they had taken each other, their fill of each other, under the stars. Later he had said, “I meant the pure teaching of Mohammed, I meant how with so much space, so terrifying in its vastness, that you need a safe haven and that Islam could be such a haven, maybe the only one, his original teaching, not narrow, twisted interpretations of fanatics.”

“Why, sure, darlin’,” she had said in her most honeyed voice, “but we don’t live in no desert, never will, and you’re Conroe ‘Duke’ Starke, helicopter pilot, and the very moment you start afiguring on those four wives I’m off, me and the kids, and even Texas won’t be big enough to escape the roasting you’ll get from Manuela Rosita Santa de Cuellar Perez, honey sugar baby lamb. …”

He saw Zataki staring at him and inhaled the raw smell of gasoline and snow and winter. “Perhaps I will one day,” he told Zataki and Esvandiary. “Perhaps I will - but in God’s time, not mine.”

“May God hurry the time. You’re wasted as an Infidel.”

But now all of Starke’s concentration was on the 125 that was coming into its parking slot, and on Manuela who must leave today. Difficult for her, goddamn difficult, but she has to go.

This morning, early, McIver in Tehran had told Starke by HF they had permission for the 125 to stop off at Kowiss, provided it was also approved in Kowiss, that she would be bringing spares, and there’d be space for three passengers outbound. At length Major Changiz and Esvandiary had agreed but only after Starke had irritably told them in front of Zataki, “You know our crew changes are long overdue. One of our 212’s waiting for spares, and two of the 206s are ready for their fifteen-hundred-hour checks. If I can’t have fresh crews and spares, I can’t operate, and you’ll be responsible for not obeying Ayatollah Khomeini - not me.”

The car stopped beside the 125, the engines whining down. The door was not yet open and he could see John Hogg peering out of the cockpit window. Trucks and guns ringed her, excitable Green Bands milling around.

Zataki tried to make himself heard, then, exasperated, fired a burst into the air. “Get away from the airplane,” he ordered. “By God and the Prophet only my men will search it! Get away!” Sullenly the other Green Bands moved back a little. “Pilot, tell him to open the door quickly, and get everyone out quickly before I change my agreement!”

Starke gave the thumbs-up to Hogg. In a moment the door was opened by the second pilot. The steps came down. At once Zataki leaped up them and stood at the top, machine gun ready. “Excellency you don’t need that,” Starke told him. “Everybody out, quick as you can, okay?”

There were eight passengers - four of them pilots, three mechanics, and Genny McIver. “My God, Genny! I didn’t expect to see you.”

“Hello, Duke. Duncan thought it best and… well, never mind. Is Manuela going to co - ” She saw her and went over to her. They embraced and Starke noticed the age on Genny.

He followed Zataki into the empty, low-ceilinged aircraft. Extra seats had been lashed in. At the back, near the toilet, were several crates. “Spares and the spare engine you needed,” Johnny Hogg called out from the pilot’s seat, handing him the manifest. “Hello, Duke!”

Zataki took the manifest and jerked a thumb at Hogg. “Out!” “If you don’t mind, I’m responsible for the aircraft, sorry,” Hogg said. “Last tune. Out.”

Starke said, “Get out of your seat a moment, Johnny. He just wants to see if there are any guns. Excellency, it would be safer if the pilot was allowed to stay in place. I will vouch for him.” “Out!”

Reluctantly John Hogg eased himself out of the small cockpit. Zataki made sure nothing was in the side pockets, then waved him back into the seat and studied the cabin. “Those are the spares you need?”

“Yes,” Starke said, and politely made room on the landing where Zataki shouted for some of his men to carry the crates onto the tarmac. The men did this carelessly, banging the sides of the doorway and the steps, making the pilots wince. Then Zataki searched the aircraft carefully, finding nothing that irritated him. Except the wine on ice and the liquor in the cabinet. “No more liquor into Iran. None. Confiscated!” He had the bottles smashed on the tarmac and ordered the crates opened. One jet engine and many other spares. Everything on the manifest. Starke watched from the cabin doorway, trying to make himself inconspicuous.

Zataki said, “Who are these passengers?” The second officer gave him the list of names. It was headed in English and Farsi: “Temporarily redundant pilots and mechanic, all overdue leave and replacement.” He began to scrutinize it, and them.

“Duke,” Johnny Hogg said cautiously from the cockpit, “I’ve some money for you and a letter from McIver. Is it safe?”

“For the moment.”

“Two envelopes in my inside uniform pocket, hanging up. The letter’s private, Mac said.”

Starke found them and stuffed them into his inner parka pocket. “What’s going on in Tehran?” he asked out of the side of his mouth. “The airport’s a madhouse, thousands trying to get on the three or four planes they’ve allowed in so far,” Hogg said rapidly, “with at least six jumbos stacked in a holding pattern aimlessly waiting for permission to land. I, er, I just jumped the queue, peeled in without a real clearance, and said, Oh, so sorry, I thought I was cleared, picked up my lot, and scarpered. Hardly had time to chat with McIver - he was surrounded by trigger-happy revs and an odd mullah or two - but he seems okay. Pettikin, Nogger, and the others seemed okay. I’m based at Al Shargaz for at least a week to shuttle back and forth as I can.” Al Shargaz was not far from Dubai, where S-G had its HQ that side of the Gulf. “We’ve permission from Tehran ATC to bring in spares and crew to match those we intend to take out - looks like they’re going to keep us more or less one for one and up to strength - with flights scheduled Saturdays and Wednesdays.” He stopped for breath. “Mac says for you to find excuses for me to come here from time to time - I’ m to be kind of a courier for him and Andy Gavallan till normality re - ” “Watch it,” Starke said, behind his hand, seeing Zataki glance up at the airplane. He had been watching him inspect the passengers and their documents. Then he saw Zataki beckon him and he went down the stairs. “Yes, Excellency?”

“This man has no exit permit.”

The man was Roberts, one of the fitters, middle-aged, very experienced. Anxiety etched his already-lined face. “I told him I couldn’t get one, Cap’n Starke, we couldn’t get one, the immigration offices’re still all closed. There was no problem at Tehran.”

Starke glanced at the document. It was only four days past expiration. “Perhaps you could let it go this time, Excellency. It’s true that the off - ”

“No correct exit permit, no exit. He stays!”

Roberts went white. “But Tehran passed me and I’ve got to be in Lon - ” Zataki grabbed him by the parka and jerked him out of line to send him sprawling. Enraged, Roberts scrambled to his feet. “By God, I’m cleared an - ” He stopped. One of the Green Bands had a rifle in his chest, another was behind him, both now ready to pull the triggers.

Starke said, “Wait by the jeep, Roberts. Goddamnit, wait by the jeep!” One of the Green Bands roughly shoved the mechanic toward it as Starke tried to cover his own worry. Jon Tyrer and Manuela did not have up-to-date exit papers either.

“No exit permits, no exit!” Zataki repeated venomously and took the next man’s papers.

Genny, next in line, was very frightened, hating Zataki and the violence and the smell of the fear surrounding her, sorry for Roberts who needed to be back in England as one of his children was very ill, polio suspected, and no mail or phones and the telex sporadic. She watched Zataki slowly going through the pilot’s papers next to her. Rotten bastard! she thought. I’ve got to get on that plane, got to. Oh, how I wish we were all leaving. Poor Duncan, he simply won’t look after himself, won’t bother to eat properly and he’s bound to get his ulcers back. “My exit permit’s not current,” she said trying to sound timid, and let some tears glisten her eyes. “Nor mine,” Manuela said in a small voice.

Zataki looked at them. He hesitated. “Women are not responsible, men are responsible. You two women may leave. This time. Go aboard.” “Can Mr. Roberts come too?” Genny asked, pointing to the mechanic, “He’s rea - ”

“Get aboard!” Zataki shouted in one of his sudden, maniacal rages, blood in his face. The two women fled up the stairs, everyone else in momentary panic, and even his own Green Bands shifted nervously.

“Excellency, you were right,” Starke said in Farsi, forcing himself to be outwardly calm. “Women should not argue.” He waited and everyone waited, hardly breathing, the dark eyes boring into him. But he kept his gaze level. Zataki nodded and, sullenly, continued examining the papers in his hand. Yesterday Zataki had come back from Isfahan and Esvandiary had authorized a flight for tomorrow afternoon to carry him back to Bandar Delam again. The sooner the better, Starke thought grimly. And yet he felt sorry for Zataki. Last night he found him leaning against a helicopter, his hands pressed to his temples, in great pain. “What is it, Agha?”

“My head. I - it’s my head.”

He had persuaded him to see Dr. Nutt and taken him privately to the doctor’s bungalow.

“Just give me aspirin, or codeine, Doctor, whatever you have,” Zataki had said.

“Perhaps you’d let me examine you and th - ”

“No examine!” Zataki had shouted. “I know what’s wrong with me. SAVAK is wrong with me, prison is wrong with me…” And later, when the codeine had taken away some of the pain, Zataki had told Starke that about a year and a half ago he had been arrested, accused of anti-Shah propaganda. At the time he was working as a journalist for one of the Abadan newspapers. He had been jailed for eight months and then, just after the Abadan fire, released. He had not told Starke what they had done to him. “As God wants, pilot,” he had said bitterly. “But since that day, I bless God every day for one more day of life to stamp out more SAVAKs and Shah men, his lackey police and lackey soldiers and any and all who assisted his evil - once I supported him, didn’t he pay for my education, here and in England? But he was to blame for SAVAK! He was to blame! That part of my vengeance is just for me - I still haven’t started on my revenge for my wife and sons murdered in the Abadan fire.”

Starke had held his peace. The how or why or who of the arson that had caused almost five hundred deaths had never come to light. He watched Zataki work slowly and laboriously down the line of would-be passengers - how many more with incomplete or not current papers Starke did not know, everyone tense, a brooding pall over them. Soon it would be Tyrer’s turn and Tyrer must go. Doc Nutt had said to be safe Tyrer should be examined at Al Shargaz or Dubai as soon as possible where there were marvelous hospital facilities. “I’m sure he’s all right, but it’s best for him to rest his eyes for the time being. And listen, Duke, for the love of God, keep out of Zataki’s way and warn the others to do the same. He’s ripe to explode and God only knows what’ll happen then.” “What’s the matter with him?”

“Medically, I don’t know. Psychologically he’s dangerous, very dangerous. I’d say manic-depressive, certainly paranoiac, probably caused directly by his prison experiences. Did he tell you what they did to him?” “No. No, he didn’t.”

“If it was up to me, I’d recommend he be under sedatives and absolutely nowhere near firearms.”

Great, Starke thought helplessly, how the hell do I get that organized? At least Genny and Manuela’re aboard and soon they’ll be in Al Shargaz which’s a paradise comp - A warning shout distracted him. Beyond the 125, coming from behind the main tower exit was the mullah Hussain with more Green Bands and they looked very hostile.

At once Zataki forgot the passengers, unslipped his machine gun, and, carrying it loosely in one hand, moved between Hussain and the airplane. Two of his men moved alongside him, and the others moved nearer the airplane into defensive positions, covering him.

“Stone the bloody crows,” someone muttered, “what’s up now?” “Get ready to duck,” Ayre said.

“Cap’n,” Roberts whispered brokenly, “I’ve got to get on that plane, I’ve got to, my little girl’s sicker than anything, can you do something with that bastard?”

“I’ll try.”

Zataki was watching Hussain, hating him. Two days ago he had gone to Isfahan, invited there to consult with their secret komiteh. All eleven members had been ayatollahs and mullahs, and there, for the first time, he had found the real face of the revolution he had fought so hard to achieve and suffered so much for. “Heretics will be stamped into oblivion. We’ll have only Revolutionary Courts. Justice will be quick and final with no appeal….” The mullahs were so sure of themselves, so sure of their divine right to rule and administer justice as they alone interpreted the Koran and Sharia. Carefully Zataki had kept his horror and his thoughts to himself, but he knew that he was again betrayed.

“What do you want, mullah?” he said, the word a curse word. “First I want you to understand that you have no power here - what you do in Abadan is up to the ayatollahs of Abadan - but here you have no power on this base, over these men, or this airplane.” Surrounding Hussain were a dozen armed, hard-faced youths, all Green Bands.

“No power, eh?” Contemptuously Zataki turned his back and shouted in English, “The airplane will take off at once! All passengers get aboard!” Angrily he motioned at the pilot, waving 493 him away, then faced Hussain again. “Well? What’s second,” he said as, behind him, the passengers hurried to obey and because the Green Bands were concentrating on Zataki and Hussain, Starke ordered Roberts to get aboard, then motioned to Ayre to help cover the escape of the mechanic. Together they helped Tyrer out of the jeep.

Zataki toyed with his gun, all his attention on Hussain. “Well? What’s second?” he asked again.

Hussain was nonplussed, his men equally aware of the guns trained on them. The jets came to life. He saw the passengers hurrying aboard, Starke and Ayre helping a man with bandages over his eyes up the steps, then the two pilots beside the jeep again, the jet engines building, and the instant the last man was inside, the steps came up and the airplane taxied away. “Well, Agha, what’s next?”

“Next… next the komiteh of Kowiss orders you and your men to leave Kowiss.”

Scornfully Zataki shouted to his men above die roar of the engines, his feet planted in the concrete, ready to fight if need be and die if need be, the superheated air from the fans passing him as the airplane moved toward the runway. “You hear, we are ordered to leave by the komiteh of Kowiss!” His men began laughing, and one of Hussain’s Green Bands, a beardless teenager on the far edge of the group, raised his carbine and died, at once, almost cut in half by the accurate burst of gunfire from Zataki’s men that neatly culled him. The silence was broken only by the distant jets. Momentarily Hussain was bewildered by the suddenness and by the pool of blood that flowed out onto the concrete.

“As God wants,” Zataki said. “What do you want, mullah?” It was then that Zataki noticed the petrified little boy peering out at him, hiding behind the mullah’s robes, clutching them for protection, looking so much like his own son, his eldest, that for a moment he was taken back to the happy days before the fire when all seemed right and there was some form of a future - the Shah’s White Revolution wonderful, the land reforms, curbing the mullahs, universal education, and other things - the good days when I was a father but never again. Never. The electrodes and pincers destroyed that possibility.

A violent stab of pain in his loins soared into his head at the remembrance and he wanted to scream. But he did not, just shoved the torment back, as usual, and concentrated on the killing at hand. He could see the implacability on the mullah’s face and he readied.

Killing with the machine gun pleased him greatly. The hot staccato, the gun alive in short stabbing bursts, acrid smell of cordite, the blood of the enemies of God and Iran flowing. Mullahs are enemy, and most of all Khomeini who commits sacrilege by allowing his photograph to be worshiped and his followers to call him Imam, and puts mullahs between us and God - against all the Prophet’s teachings. “Hurry up,” he bellowed, “I’m losing patience!” “I - I want that man,” Hussain said, pointing.

Zataki glanced around. The mullah was pointing at Starke. “The pilot? Why? What for?” he asked, perplexed.

“For questioning. I want to question him.”

“What about?”

“About the escape of the officers from Isfahan.”

“What should he know about them? He was with me in Bandar Delam hundreds of miles away when that happened, helping the revolution against the enemies of God!” Zataki added venomously, “Enemies of God are everywhere, everywhere! Sacrilege is everywhere, idol worship practiced everywhere - isn’t it?” “Yes, yes, enemies abound, and sacrilege is sacrilege. But he’s a helicopter pilot, an Infidel was the pilot of the escape helicopter, he could know something. I want to question him.”

“Not while I’m here.”

“Why? Why not? Why won’t y - ”

“You won’t, not while I’m here, by God! Not while I’m here! Later or tomorrow or the next day, as God wills, but not now.”

Zataki had gauged Hussain and saw in his face and eyes that he had conceded and was no longer a threat. Carefully he looked from face to face of the Green Bands surrounding the mullah but no longer detected any danger - the quick and sudden death of one, he thought without guilt, as usual controls the others. “You will want to go back to your mosque now, it is almost time for prayer.” He turned his back and walked to the jeep, knowing his men would be guarding him, beckoned Starke and Ayre, and got into the front seat, machine gun ready but not as overt as before. One by one his men retreated to their cars. They drove off.

Hussain was ashen. His Green Bands waited. One of them lit a cigarette, all of them conscious of the body at their feet. And the blood that still seeped.

“Why did you let them go, Father?” the little boy asked in his piping voice. “I didn’t, my son. We have more important things to do immediately, then we will return.”

Chapter 31

AT ZAGROS THREE: 12:05 P.M. Scot Gavallan was staring down the barrel of a cocked Sten gun. He had just landed the 212 after the first trip of the day to Rig Rosa delivering another full load of steel pipe and cement, and the moment he had cut the engines, armed Green Bands had rushed out of the hangar to surround him.

Hating the fear that possessed him, he tore his gaze off the gun and looked at the black, malevolent eyes. “What’s - what d’you want?” he croaked, then said it in halting Farsi, “Cheh karbareh?”

A flood of angry incomprehensible words came from the man with the gun. He pulled off his headset. “Man zaban-e shoma ra khoob nami danam, Agha!” he shouted over the whine of the engines - I don’t speak your language, Excellency - biting back the obscenity he wanted to add. More angry words and the man motioned him out of the cockpit. Then he saw Nasiri, the IranOil base manager, disheveled and bruised, being frog-marched out of the office toward the 212 by more of the Revolutionary Guards. He leaned out of the window a little. “What the hell’s going on?”

“They - they want you out of the chopper, Captain,” Nasiri called back. “They - please hurry!”

“Wait till I shut down!” Nervously Scot finished the procedure. The barrel of the Sten gun had not moved, nor had the enmity around him lessened. The rotors were slowing fast now, and when it was correct to leave, he unbuckled and got out. At once he was half shoved out of the way. Excited, shouting men pulled the cockpit door open farther, peered in, while others hauled the main cabin door open and scrambled aboard. “What the hell happened to you, Agha?” he asked Nasiri, seeing the extent of the bruises. “The - the new komiteh made an error,” Nasiri said, trying to maintain his dignity, “thinking I was… a Shah supporter and not a man of the revolution and the Imam.”

“Who the hell’re these men - they aren’t from Yazdek.” But before Nasiri could answer, the Green Band with the Sten gun elbowed through the pack. “In office! NOW!” the man said in bad English, then reached out and grabbed Scot by the flight jacket sleeve to hurry him up. Automatically Scot jerked his arm away. A gun went into his ribs. “All right, for crissake,” he muttered and stalked off toward the office, his face grim.

In the office Nitchak Khan, kalandar of the village, and the old mullah stood alongside the desk, their backs to the wall beside the open window. Both were set-faced. He greeted them and they nodded back, ill at ease. Behind him, many Green Bands crowded into the room after Nasiri. “Cheh karbareh, Kalandar?” Scot asked. What’s happening? “These men are… claim to be our new komiteh,” Nitchak Khan replied with difficulty. “They are sent from Sharpur to take over our… our village and our… airfield.” Scot was perplexed. What the village leader had said didn’t make any sense. Though Sharpur was the nearest town and had nominal jurisdiction over the area, custom had always left the Kash’kai tribesmen of the mountains to govern themselves - so long as they acknowledged the suzerainty of the Shah and Tehran, obeyed the laws, and remained unarmed and peaceful. “But you always govern - ”

“Quiet!” the leader of the Green Bands said, waving his Sten gun, and Scot saw Nitchak Khan flush. The leader was bearded, in his thirties, poorly dressed, with dark eyes that had something bad about them. He dragged Nasiri to the front of the group and rattled off more Farsi.

“I - I am to interpret, Captain,” Nasiri said nervously. “The leader, Ali-sadr, says you are to answer the following questions. I’ve answered most but he wants…” Ali-sadr cursed him and began the questioning, reading from a prepared list, Nasiri translating.

“Are you in command here?”

“Yes, temporarily.”

“What is your nationality?”

“British. Now what the h - ”

“Any Americans here?”

“Not to my knowledge,” Scot said at once and kept his face bland, hoping Nasiri, who knew that Rodrigues, the mechanic, was American with a false English ID, had not been asked that question. Nasiri translated without hesitation. One of the other Green Bands was writing down his answers. “How many pilots are here?”

“At the moment I’m the only one.”

“Where are the others, who are they, and what is their nationality?” “Our senior pilot, Captain Lochart, Canadian, is in Tehran - he’s on a charter out of Tehran, I think, expected back any day. The other, second in command, Captain Sessonne, French, had to go on an urgent charter for IranOil today to Tehran.”

The leader looked up, his eyes hard. “What so urgent?”

“Rig Rosa’s ready to log a new well.” He waited while Nasiri explained what this meant and that the oil drillers needed the urgent help of Schlumberger experts, now based in Tehran. This morning JeanLuc had called their local ATC at Shiraz on the off chance for clearance to go to Tehran. To his astonishment and delight Shiraz ATC gave an immediate approval. “The Imam has decreed that oil production will begin,” they had said, “so it will begin.”

JeanLuc had been airborne within minutes. Scot Gavallan smiled to himself knowing the real reason why JeanLuc did three cartwheels into the 206’s cockpit was that now he could sneak an overdue visit to Sayada. Scot had met her once. “Has she got a sister?” he had said hopefully.

The leader listened impatiently to Nasiri, then cut in again and Nasiri flinched. “He, Ali-sadr, he says in future all flights will be cleared by him, or this man - ” Nasiri pointed at the youthful Green Band who had been writing down Scot’s answers. “In future all flights will have one of their men aboard. In future no takeoffs without advance permission. In about one hour you will take him and his men to all the rigs in the area.” “Explain to him that it’s not possible to do that because we have to deliver more pipe and cement to Rig Rosa. Otherwise when JeanLuc conies back tomorrow they won’t be ready in time.”

Nasiri began to explain. The leader interrupted him rudely, and got up. “Tell the Infidel pilot to be ready in about an hour and then … even better, tell him to come with us to the village where I can watch him. You come too. And tell him to be very obedient, for though the Imam wants oil production started quickly, all persons in Iran are subject to Islamic law if they’re Iranian or not. We don’t need foreigners here.” The man glanced at Nitchak Khan. “Now we will return to our village,” he said and strode out. Nitchak Khan flushed. He and the mullah followed.

“Captain, we are to go with him,” Nasiri said, “to the village.” “What for?” “Well, you’re the only pilot here and you know the countryside,” Nasiri said readily, wondering what the real reason was. He was very afraid. There had been no warning of any impending changes, nor were they even aware in the village that the road was open from the last snowfall. But this morning the truck with twelve Green Bands had arrived in the village. At once the leader of the “komiteh” had produced the piece of paper signed by the Sharpur Revolutionary Komiteh giving them jurisdiction over Yazdek and “all IranOil production and facilities and helicopters in that area.” When, at Nitchak Khan’s request, Nasiri had said he would radio IranOil to protest, one of the men had started beating him. The leader had stopped the man but had not apologized, nor had he shown Nitchak Khan the respect due to him as kalandar of this branch of the Kash’kai. More fear rushed through Nasiri and he wished he was back in Sharpur with his wife and family. God curse all komitehs and fanatics and foreigners and the Great American Satan who caused all our problems. “We’d… we’d better go,” he said.

They went outside. The others were already well down the track that led to the village. As Scot passed the hangar, he saw his six mechanics collected under the watchful gaze of an armed guard. The guard was smoking and a twinge went through him. Signs in Farsi and English were everywhere: NO SMOKING - DANGER! To one side their second 212 was in its final stages of the fifteen-hundred-hour check, but without the two 206s that made up their present complement of airplanes the hangar seemed empty and forlorn. “Agha,” he said to Nasiri, nodding back at their own guards, “tell them I’ve got to make arrangements about the chopper, and order that bugger not to smoke in the hangar.”

Nasiri did as he was asked. “They said all right, but to hurry up.” The guard who was smoking lazily flicked his cigarette onto the concrete. One of the mechanics hastily ground it out. Nasiri would have stayed but the guards motioned him onward. Reluctantly he left.

“Tank up FBC and ground-check her,” Scot said carefully, not sure if any of the guards understood English. “In an hour I’m to take our komiteh for a state visit to the sites. It seems we’ve a new komiteh from Sharpur now.” “Oh, shit,” someone muttered.

“What about the gear for Rig Rosa?” Effer Jordon asked. Beside him was Rod Rodrigues. Scot could see his anxiety.

“That’ll have to wait. Just tank FBC, Effer, and everyone check her out. Rod,” he said to encourage the older man, “now that we’re getting back to normal, you’ll soon get your home leave in London, capito?” “Sure, thanks, Scot.”

The guard beside Scot motioned him to go on. “Baleh, Agha - yes, all right, Excellency,” Scot said, then added to Rodrigues, “Rod, do a careful ground check for me.”

“Sure.”

Scot walked off, his guards following. Jordon called out anxiously, “What’s going on, and where’re you going?”

“I’m going for a stroll,” he said sarcastically. “How the hell would I know? I’ve been flying all morning.” He trudged off feeling tired and helpless and inadequate, wishing that Lochart or JeanLuc were there in his place. Bloody komiteh bastards! Bunch of bloody thugs.

Nasiri was a hundred yards ahead, walking quickly, the others already vanished around the bend in the track that meandered through the trees. It was just below freezing and the snow crunched underfoot, and though Scot felt warm in his flight gear, walking was awkward in his flying boots and he clomped along moodily, wanting to catch Nasiri but unable to. Snow was banked beside the path and heavy on the trees, clear skies above. Half a mile ahead, down the curling pathway was the village.

Yazdek was on a small plateau, nicely protected from the high winds. The huts and houses were made of wood, stone, and mud bricks and grouped around the square in front of the small mosque. Unlike most villages it was prosperous, plenty of wood for warmth in winter, plenty of game nearby, with communal flocks of sheep and goats, a few camels, and thirty horses and brood mares mat were their pride. Nitchak Khan’s home was a two-story, tile-roofed dwelling of four rooms, beside the mosque and bigger than all the others.

Next door was the schoolhouse, the most modem building. Tom Lochart had designed the simple structure and had persuaded McIver to finance it last year. Up to a few months ago the school had been run by a young man in the Shah’s Teaching Corps - the village was almost totally illiterate. When the Shah left, the young man had vanished. From time to time Tom Lochart and others from the base had given talks there - more question-and-answer sessions - partially for good relations and partially for something to do when there was no flying. The sessions were well attended by adults as well as by children, encouraged to do so by Nitchak Khan and his wife. As he came down the rise, Scot saw the others go into the schoolhouse. The truck that had brought the Green Bands was parked outside. Villagers were collected in groups, silently watching. Men, women, and children, none of them armed. Kash’kai women wore neither veils nor chador but multicolored robes.

Scot went up the stairs into the school. The last time he was here, just a few weeks ago, he had given a talk on the Hong Kong he knew when his father still worked there and he would visit from English boarding school during the holidays. It had been hard to explain what Hong Kong was like, with its teeming streets, typhoons, chopsticks and character writing, and foods and freebooting capitalism, the immensity of China overall. I’m glad we came back to Scotland, he thought. Glad the Old Man started S-G that I’m going to run one day.

“You are to sit down, Captain,” Nasiri said. “There.” He indicated a chair at the back of a low-ceilinged, crowded room. Ali-sadr and four other Green Bands were seated at the table where the teacher would normally sit. Nitchak Khan and the mullah sat in front of them. Villagers stood around. “What’s going on?” “It’s a…ameeting.”

Scot saw the fear pervading Nasiri and wondered what he would do if the Green Bands started to beat him. I should’ve been a black belt or boxer, he thought wearily, trying to understand the Farsi that poured out of the leader.

“What’s he saying, Agha?” he whispered to Nasiri.

“I… he’s … he’s saying… he’s telling Nitchak Khan how the village will be run in future. Please, I will explain later.” Nasiri moved away. In time the tirade stopped. Everyone looked at Nitchak Khan. He got up slowly. His face was grave and his words few. Even Scot understood. “Yazdek is Kash’kai. Yazdek will remain Kash’kai.” He turned his back on the table and began to leave, the mullah following.

At an angry command of the leader, two Green Bands barred his way. Contemptuously, Nitchak Khan brushed them aside, then others grabbed him, tension in the room soared, and Scot saw one villager slip out of the room unnoticed. Those Green Bands holding Nitchak Khan turned him around to face Ali-sadr and the other four who were on their feet, enraged, and shouting. No one had touched the old man who was the mullah. He held up his hand and began to speak, but the leader shouted him down and a sigh went through the villagers. Nitchak Khan did not struggle against the men pinioning him, just looked back at Ali-sadr, and Scot felt the hatred like a physical blow. The leader harangued all the villagers, then pointed an accusing finger at Nitchak Khan and once more ordered him to obey and once more Nitchak Khan said quietly, “Yazdek is Kash’kai. Yazdek will remain Kash’kai.” Ali-sadr sat down. So did the four others. Again Ali-sadr pointed and said a few words. A gasp went through the villagers. The four men beside him nodded their agreement. Ali-sadr said one word. It cut through the silence like a scythe. “Death!” He got up and walked out, villagers and Green Bands frog-marching Nitchak Khan after him, Scot forgotten. Scot ducked down to one side, trying to make himself scarce. Soon he was alone.

Outside, the Green Bands dragged Nitchak Khan to the wall of the mosque and stood him there. The square was empty now of villagers. As the other villagers came out of the schoolhouse into the square, they too hurried off. Except the mullah. Slowly he walked over to Nitchak Khan and stood beside him, facing the Green Bands who, twenty yards away, readied their guns. On Ali-sadr’s orders, two of them pulled the old man away. Nitchak Khan waited by the wall silently, proudly, then he spat in the dirt. The single rifle shot came out of nowhere. Ali-sadr was dead before he slumped to the ground. The silence was sudden and vast, and the Green Bands whirled in panic, then froze as a voice shouted, “Allah-u Akbarr, put down your guns!” No one moved, then one of the firing squad jerked his gun around at Nitchak Khan but died before he could pull the trigger. “God is Great, put down your guns!”

One of the Green Bands let his gun clatter to the ground. Another followed suit, another rushed for the truck but died before he got ten yards. Now all other guns were on the ground. And all who stood stayed motionless. Then the door of Nitchak Khan’s house opened and his wife came out with the leveled carbine, a young man following, also with a carbine. She was fierce in her pride; ten years younger than her husband, the jingling of her earrings and chains and the swish of her long tan and red robes the only sound in the square.

Nitchak Khan’s narrow eyes in his high-cheekboned face narrowed even more, and the deep lines at the comers crinkled. But he said nothing to her, just looked at the eight Green Bands who remained. Mercilessly. They stared back at him, then one of them grabbed for his gun, and she shot him in the stomach and he screamed, writhing on the snow. She left him to howl for a moment. A second shot and the screaming stopped. Now there were seven. Nitchak Khan smiled silently. Now, out of the houses and huts, the grown men and women of the village came into the square. All were armed. He turned his attention back to the seven. “Get in the truck, lie down, and put your hands behind you.” Sullenly the men obeyed. He ordered four of the villagers to guard them, then he turned to the young man who had come out of his house. “There’s one more at the airfield, my son. Take someone with you and deal with him. Bring his body back but cover your faces with scarves so the Infidels won’t recognize you.”

“As God wants.” The young man pointed at the schoolhouse. The door was still open, but no sign of Scot. “The Infidel,” he said softly. “He’s not of our village.” Then he went off quickly.

The village waited. Nitchak Khan scratched his beard thoughtfully. Then his eyes went to Nasiri who cowered beside the schoolhouse stairs. Nasiri’s face drained. “I - I saw - I saw nothing, nothing, Nitchak Khan,” he croaked, and got up and stepped around the bodies. “I’ve always - for the two years I’ve been here I’ve always done everything I could for the village. I - I saw nothing,” he said louder, abjectly, then his terror crested and he took to his heels out of the square. And died. A dozen had fired at him. “It’s true the only witness to these men’s evil should be God.”

Nitchak Khan sighed. He had liked Nasiri. But he was not one of their people. His wife came up beside him and he smiled at her. She took out a cigarette and gave it to him and lit it for him, then put the cigarettes and matches back in her pocket. He puffed thoughtfully. Some dogs barked among the houses and a child cried, quickly to be hushed.

“There will be a small avalanche to break the road where it was swept away before, to keep all others out until the thaw,” he said at length. “We will put the bodies into the truck, and pour gasoline over it and them and let it fall off the road into the Ravine of the Broken Camels. It seems that the komiteh decided we could govern ourselves as always and that we should be left in peace as always, then they went away and took Nasiri’s body with them. They shot Nasiri here in the square, as all saw, when he tried to escape justice. Unfortunately they had an accident going back. It is a very dangerous road as all know. Probably they took Nasiri’s body to prove they had done their duty and cleansed our mountains of a known Shah supporter and shot him as he tried to escape. Certainly he was a Shah supporter when the Shah had power and before the Shah ran away.” The villagers nodded agreeably and waited. All wanted to know the answer to the final question: what about the last witness? What about the Infidel still in the schoolhouse? Nitchak Khan scratched his beard. It always helped him to make difficult decisions.

“More Green Bands will come soon, drawn by the magnet of the flying machines, made by foreigners and flown by foreigners for the benefit of foreigners because of the oil that is gathered from our earth for the benefit of enemy Tehranis and enemy tax collectors and more foreigners. If there were no wells there would be no foreigners, therefore there would be no Green Bands. The land is rich in oil elsewhere, easy to gather elsewhere. Ours is not. Our few wells are not important and the eleven bases difficult of access and dangerous - did they not have to explode the mountaintop to save one from avalanche only a few days ago?”

There was general agreement. He puffed the cigarette leisurely. The people watched him confidently - he was kalandar, their chief who had ruled wisely for eighteen years in good times and bad. “If there were no flying machines there could be no wells. So if these foreigners departed,” he continued in the same gruff, unhurried voice, “I doubt if other strangers would venture here to repair and reopen the eleven bases, for surely the bases would quickly fall into disrepair, perhaps even be looted by bandits and damaged. So we would be left in peace. Without our benevolence no one can operate in our mountains. We Kash’kai seek to live in peace - we will be free and ruled by our own ways and own customs. Therefore the foreigners must go, of their own free will. And go quickly. So must the wells. And everything foreign.” Carefully he stubbed his cigarette into the snow. “Let us begin: Burn the school.”

He was obeyed at once. A little gasoline and the tinder dry wood soon made it into a conflagration. Everyone waited. But the Infidel did not appear, nor when they searched the rubble did they find any remains.

Chapter 32

NEAR TABRIZ: 11:49 A.M. Erikki Yokkonen was climbing the 206 through the high pass that led at length to the city, Nogger Lane beside him with Azadeh in the back. She wore a bulky flight jacket over her ski clothes, but in the carryall beside her was a chador: “Just for safety,” she had said. On her head was a third headset that Erikki had rigged for her.

“Tabriz One, do you read?” he said again. They waited. Still no answer and well within range. “Could be abandoned, could be a trap, like with Charlie.” “Best take a jolly good look before we land,” Nogger said uneasily, his eyes scanning the sky and the land.

The sky was clear. It was well below freezing, the mountains heavy with snow. They had refueled without incident at an IranOil depot just outside Bandar-e Pahlavi by arrangement with Tehran ATC. “Khomeini’s got everything by the short and curlies, with ATC helpful and the airport opened up again,” Erikki had said, trying to shove away the depression that sat heavily on all of them.

Azadeh was still badly shaken by the news of Emir Paknouri’s execution for “crimes against Islam” and by the even more terrible news about Sharazad’s father. “That’s murder,” she had burst out, horrified, when she had heard. “What crimes could he commit, he who has supported Khomeini and mullahs for generations?”

None of them had had any answer. The family had been told to collect the body and now were in deep and abject mourning, Sharazad demented with grief - the house closed even to Azadeh and Erikki. Azadeh had not wanted to leave Tehran but a second message had arrived from her father to Erikki, repeating the first: “Captain, I require my daughter in Tabriz urgently.” And now they were almost home.

Once it was home, Erikki thought. Now I’m not so sure.

Near Qazvin he had flown over the place where his Range Rover had run out of gas and Pettikin and Rakoczy had rescued Azadeh and him from the mob. The Range Rover was no longer mere. Then over the miserable village where the roadblock had been, and he had escaped to crush the fat-faced mujhadin who had stolen their papers. Madness to come back, he thought. “Mac’s right,” Azadeh had pleaded with him. “Go to Al Shargaz. Let Nogger fly me to Tabriz and fly me back to get on the next shuttle. I’ll join you in Al Shargaz whatever my father says.”

“I’ll take you home and bring you back,” he had said. “Finish.” They had taken off from Doshan Tappeh just after dawn. The base was almost empty, with many buildings and hangars now burned-out shells, wrecked Iranian Air Force airplanes, trucks, and one fire-gutted tank with the Immortals emblem on its side. No one cleaning up the mess. No guards. Scavengers taking away anything burnable - still hardly any fuel oil for sale, or food, but many daily and nightly clashes between Green Bands and leftists.

The S-G hangar and repair shop were hardly damaged. Many bullet holes in the walls but nothing had been looted yet and it was operating, more or less, with a few mechanics and office staff about their normal work. Some back salary from the money McIver had squeezed from Valik and the other partners had been the magnet. He had given some cash to Erikki to pay the staff at Tabriz One: “Start praying, Erikki! Today I’ve an appointment at the Ministry to iron out our finances and the money we’re owed,” he had told them just before they took off, “and to renew all our out-of-date licenses. Talbot at the embassy fixed it for me - he thinks there’s a better than good chance Bazargan and Khomeini can get control now and disarm the leftists. We’ve just got to keep our bottle, keep our cool.” Easy for him, Erikki thought.

Now they crested the pass. He banked and came down fast. “There’s the base!” Both pilots concentrated. The wind sock was the only thing that moved. No transport parked anywhere. No smoke from any of the cabins. “There should be smoke.” He circled tightly at seven hundred feet. No one came out to greet them. “I’ll take a closer look.”

They whirled in quickly and out again. Still nothing moved so they went back up to a thousand feet. Erikki thought a moment. “Azadeh, I could set her down in the forecourt of the palace or just outside the walls.” At once Azadeh shook her head. “No, Erikki, you know how nervous his guards are and how, how sensitive he is about anyone arriving unasked.” “But we’re asked, at least you are. Ordered is the real word. We could go over there, circle, and take a look, and if it seems all right, we could land.”

“We could land well away and walk in t - ”

“No walking. Not without guns.” He had been unable to obtain one in Tehran. Every damned hooligan has as many as he wants, he thought irritably. Have to get one. Don’t feel safe anymore. “We’ll go and look and then I’ll decide.” He switched to the Tabriz Tower frequency and called. No answer. He called again, then banked and went for the city. As they passed over their village of Abu Mard, Erikki pointed downward and Azadeh saw the little schoolhouse where she had spent so many happy hours, the glades nearby and there, just by the stream, was where she had first seen Erikki and thought him a giant of the forest and had fallen in love, miracle of miracles, to be rescued by him from a life of torment. She reached forward and touched him through the small window.

“You all right? Warm enough?” He smiled at her.

“Oh, yes, Erikki. The village was so lucky for us, wasn’t it?” She kept her hand on his shoulder. The contact pleased both of them.

Soon they could see the airport and the railroad that went north to Soviet Azerbaijan a few miles away, then on to Moscow, southeast it curled back to Tehran, three hundred and fifty miles away. The city was large. Now they could pick out the citadel andtrying to shove away the depression that sat heavily on all of them.

Azadeh was still badly shaken by the news of Emir Paknouri’s execution for “crimes against Islam” and by the even more terrible news about Sharazad’s father. “That’s murder,” she had burst out, horrified, when she had heard. “What crimes could he commit, he who has supported Khomeini and mullahs for generations?”

None of them had had any answer. The family had been told to collect the body and now were in deep and abject mourning, Sharazad demented with grief - the house closed even to Azadeh and Erikki. Azadeh had not wanted to leave Tehran but a second message had arrived from her father to Erikki, repeating the first: “Captain, I require my daughter in Tabriz urgently.” And now they were almost home.

Once it was home, Erikki thought. Now I’m not so sure.

Near Qazvin he had flown over the place where his Range Rover had run out of gas and Pettikin and Rakoczy had rescued Azadeh and him from the mob. The Range Rover was no longer mere. Then over the miserable village where the roadblock had been, and he had escaped to crush the fat-faced mujhadin who had stolen their papers. Madness to come back, he thought. “Mac’s right,” Azadeh had pleaded with him. “Go to Al Shargaz. Let Nogger fly me to Tabriz and fly me back to get on the next shuttle. I’ll join you in Al Shargaz whatever my father says.”

“I’ll take you home and bring you back,” he had said. “Finish.” They had taken off from Doshan Tappeh just after dawn. The base was almost empty, with many buildings and hangars now burned-out shells, wrecked Iranian Air Force airplanes, trucks, and one fire-gutted tank with the Immortals emblem on its side. No one cleaning up the mess. No guards. Scavengers taking away anything burnable - still hardly any fuel oil for sale, or food, but many daily and nightly clashes between Green Bands and leftists.

The S-G hangar and repair shop were hardly damaged. Many bullet holes in the walls but nothing had been looted yet and it was operating, more or less, with a few mechanics and office staff about their normal work. Some back salary from the money McIver had squeezed from Valik and the other partners had been the magnet. He had given some cash to Erikki to pay the staff at Tabriz One: “Start praying, Erikki! Today I’ve an appointment at the Ministry to iron out our finances and the money we’re owed,” he had told them just before they took off, “and to renew all our out-of-date licenses. Talbot at the embassy fixed it for me - he thinks there’s a better than good chance Bazargan and Khomeini can get control now and disarm the leftists. We’ve just got to keep our bottle, keep our cool.” Easy for him, Erikki thought.

Now they crested the pass. He banked and came down fast. “There’s the base!” Both pilots concentrated. The wind sock was the only thing that moved. No transport parked anywhere. No smoke from any of the cabins. “There should be smoke.” He circled tightly at seven hundred feet. No one came out to greet them. “I’ll take a closer look.”

They whirled in quickly and out again. Still nothing moved so they went back up to a thousand feet. Erikki thought a moment. “Azadeh, I could set her down in the forecourt of the palace or just outside the walls.” At once Azadeh shook her head. “No, Erikki, you know how nervous his guards are and how, how sensitive he is about anyone arriving unasked.” “But we’re asked, at least you are. Ordered is the real word. We could go over there, circle, and take a look, and if it seems all right, we could land.”

“We could land well away and walk in t - ”

“No walking. Not without guns.” He had been unable to obtain one in Tehran. Every damned hooligan has as many as he wants, he thought irritably. Have to get one. Don’t feel safe anymore. “We’ll go and look and then I’ll decide.” He switched to the Tabriz Tower frequency and called. No answer. He called again, then banked and went for the city. As they passed over their village of Abu Mard, Erikki pointed downward and Azadeh saw the little schoolhouse where she had spent so many happy hours, the glades nearby and there, just by the stream, was where she had first seen Erikki and thought him a giant of the forest and had fallen in love, miracle of miracles, to be rescued by him from a life of torment. She reached forward and touched him through the small window.

“You all right? Warm enough?” He smiled at her.

“Oh, yes, Erikki. The village was so lucky for us, wasn’t it?” She kept her hand on his shoulder. The contact pleased both of them.

Soon they could see the airport and the railroad that went north to Soviet Azerbaijan a few miles away, then on to Moscow, southeast it curled back to Tehran, three hundred and fifty miles away. The city was large. Now they could pick out the citadel and the Blue Mosque and polluting steel factories, the huts and hovels and houses of the six hundred thousand inhabitants.

“Look over there!” Part of the railway station was smoldering, smoke billowing. More fires near the citadel and no answer from Tabriz Tower and no activity on the airfield apron, though some small, feeder airplanes were parked there. A lot of activity at the military base, trucks and cars coming and going, but as far as they could see, no firing or battles or crowds in the streets, the whole area near the mosque curiously empty. “Don’t want to go too low,” he said, “don’t want to tempt some trigger-happy crackpot.” “You like Tabriz, Erikki?” Nogger asked, to cover his disquiet. He had never been here before.

“It’s a grand city, old and wise and open and free - the most cosmopolitan in Iran. I’ve had some grand times here, the food and drink of all the world cheap and available - caviar and Russian vodka and Scottish smoked salmon and once a week, in the good times, Air France brought fresh French breads and cheeses. Turkish goods and Caucasian, British, American, Japanese - anything and everything. It’s famous for its carpets, Nogger, and the beauty of its girls…” He felt Azadeh pinch his earlobe and he laughed. “It’s true, Azadeh, aren’t you Tabrizi? It’s a fine city, Nogger. They speak a dialect of Farsi which is more Turkish than anything else. For centuries it’s been a big trading center, part Iranian, part Russian, part Turkish, part Kurd, part Armenian, and always rebellious and independent and always wanted by the tsars and now the Soviets…”

Here and there knots of people stared up at them. “Nogger, see any guns?” “Plenty, but no one’s firing at us. Yet.”

Cautiously Erikki skirted the city and headed eastward. There the land climbed into close foothills and there was the walled palace of the Gorgons on a crest with the road leading up to it. No traffic on the road. Many acres of land within the high walls: orchards, a carpet factory, garages for twenty cars, sheds for wintering herds of sheep, huts and outhouses for a hundred-odd servants and guards, and the sprawling main cupolaed building of fifty rooms and small mosque and tiny minaret. A number of cars were parked near the main entrance. He circled at seven hundred feet. “That’s some pad,” Nogger Lane said, awed.

“It was built for my greatgrandfather by Prince Zergeyev on orders of the Romanov tsars, Nogger, as a pishkesh,” Azadeh said absently, watching the grounds below. “That was in 1890 when the tsars had already stolen our Caucasian provinces and once more were trying to split Azerbaijan from Iran and wanted the help of the Gorgon Khans. But our line has always been loyal to Iran though they have sought to maintain a balance.” She was watching the palace below. People were coming out of the main house and some of the outhouses - servants and armed guards. “The mosque was built in 1907 to celebrate the signing of the new Russian-British accord on their partitioning of us, and spheres of infl - Oh, look, Erikki, isn’t that Najoud and Fazulia and Zadi… and, oh, look, Erikki, isn’t that my brother Hakim - what’s Hakim doing there?”

“Where? Oh, I see him. No, I don’t th - ”

“Perhaps… perhaps Abdollah Khan’s forgiven him,” she said excitedly. “Oh, wouldn’t that be wonderful!”

Erikki peered at the people below. He had only met her brother once, at their wedding, but he had liked him very much. Abdollah Khan had released Hakim from banishment for this day only, then sent him back to Khoi in the northern part of Azerbaijan near the Turkish border where he had extensive mining interests. “All Hakim has ever wanted was to go to Paris to study the piano,” Azadeh had told him. “But my father wouldn’t listen to him, just cursed him and banished him for plotting…”

“It’s not Hakim,” Erikki said, his eyes much better than hers. “Oh!” Azadeh squinted against the wind. “Oh.” She was so disappointed. “Yes, yes, you’re right, Erikki.”

“There’s Abdollah Khan!” There was no mistaking the imposing, corpulent man with the long beard, coming out of the main door to stand on the steps, two armed guards behind him. With him were two other men. All were dressed in heavy overcoats against the cold. “Who’re they?”

“Strangers,” she said, trying to get over her disappointment. “They haven’t guns and there’s no mullah, so they’re not Green * Bands.” “They’re Europeans,” Nogger said. “You have any binoculars, Erikki?” “No.” Erikki stopped circling and came down to five hundred feet and hovered, watching Abdollah Khan intently. He saw him point at the chopper and then talk with the other men, then go back to watching the chopper again. More of her sisters and family, some wearing chador, and servants had collected, bundled against the cold. Down another hundred feet. Erikki slipped off his dark glasses and headset and slid the side window back, gasped as the freezing air hit him, stuck his head out so they could see him clearly, and waved. All eyes on the ground went to Abdollah Khan. After a pause the Khan waved back. Without pleasure.

“Azadeh! Take your headset off and do what I did.”

She obeyed at once. Some of her sisters waved back excitedly, chattering among themselves. Abdollah Khan did not acknowledge her, just waited. Matyeryebyets, Erikki thought, then leaned out of the cockpit and pointed at the wide space beyond the mosaic, frozen pool in the courtyard, obviously asking permission to land. Abdollah Khan nodded and pointed there, spoke briefly to his guards, then turned on his heel and went back into the house. The other men followed. One guard stayed. He walked down the steps toward the touchdown point, checking the action of his assault rifle. “Nothing like a friendly reception committee,” Nogger muttered. “No need to worry, Nogger,” Azadeh said with a nervous laugh. “I’ll get out first, Erikki, safer for me to be first.”

They landed at once. Azadeh opened her door and went to greet her sisters and her stepmother, her father’s third wife and younger than she. His first wife, the Khanan, was of an age with him but now she was bedridden and never left her room. His second wife, Azadeh’s mother, had died many years ago. The guard intercepted Azadeh. Politely. Erikki breathed easier. It was too far away to hear what was said - in any event, neither he nor Nogger spoke Farsi or Turkish. The guard motioned at the chopper. She nodded then turned and beckoned them. Erikki and Nogger completed the shutdown, watching the guard who watched them seriously.

“You hate guns as much as I do, Erikki?” Nogger said.

“More. But at least that man knows how to use one - it’s the amateurs that scare me.” Erikki slipped out the circuit breakers arid pocketed the ignition key.

They went to join Azadeh and her sisters but the guard stood in the way. Azadeh called out, “He says we are to go to the Reception Room at once and wait there. Please follow me.”

Nogger was last. One of the pretty sisters caught his eye, and he smiled to himself and went up the stairs two at a time.

The Reception Room was vast and cold and drafty and smelled of damp, with heavy Victorian furniture and many carpets and lounging cushions and old-fashioned water heaters. Azadeh tidied her hair at one of the mirrors. Her ski clothes were elegant and

511 fashionable. Abdollah Khan had never required any of his wives or daughters or household to wear chador, did not approve of chador. Then why was Najoud wearing one today? she asked herself, her nervousness increasing. A servant brought tea. They waited half an hour, then another guard arrived and spoke to her. She took a deep breath. “Nogger, you’re to wait here,” she said. “Erikki, you and I are to go with this guard.”

Erikki followed her, tense but confident that the armed peace he had worked out with Abdollah Khan would hold. The touch of his pukoh knife reassured him. The guard opened a door at the end of the corridor and motioned them forward.

Abdollah Khan was leaning against some cushions, reclining on a carpet facing the door, guards behind him, the room rich, Victorian, and formal - and somehow decadent and soiled. The two men they had seen on the steps were seated cross-legged beside him. One was European, a big, well-preserved man in his late sixties with heavy shoulders and Slavic eyes set in a friendly face. The other was younger, in his thirties, his features Asiatic and the color of his skin yellowish. Both wore heavy winter suits. Erikki’s caution soared and he waited beside the doorway as Azadeh went to her father, knelt in front of him, kissed his pudgy, jeweled hands, and blessed him. Impassively her father waved her to one side and kept his dark, dark eyes on Erikki who greeted him politely from the door but stayed near it. Hiding her shame and fear, Azadeh knelt again on the carpet, and faced him. Erikki saw both of the strangers flick their eyes over her appreciatively, and his temperature went up a notch. The silence intensified.

Beside the Khan was a plate of halvah, small squares of the honey-rich Turkish delicacies that he adored, and he ate some of them, light dancing off his rings. “So,” he said harshly, “it seems you kill indiscriminately like a mad dog.”

Erikki’s eyes narrowed and he said nothing.

“Well?”

“If I kill it’s not like a mad dog. Whom am I supposed to have killed?” “One old man in a crowd outside Qazvin with a blow from your elbow, his chest crushed in. There are witnesses. Next, three men in a car and one outside it - he an important fighter for freedom. There are more witnesses. Farther down the road five dead and more wounded in the wake of the helicopter rescue. More witnesses.” Another silence. Azadeh had not moved though the blood had left her face. “Well?”

“If there are witnesses you will know also that we were peacefully trying to get to Tehran, we were unarmed, we were set upon by a mob and if it hadn’t been for Charlie Pettikin and Rakoczy, we’d probably be - ” Erikki stopped momentarily, noticing the sudden glance between the two strangers. Then, even more warily, he continued, “We’d probably be dead. We were unarmed - Rakoczy wasn’t - we were fired on first.”

Abdollah Khan had also noticed the change in the men beside him. Thoughtfully, he glanced back at Erikki. “Rakoczy? The same with the Islamic-Marxist mullah and men who attacked your base? The Soviet Muslim?” “Yes.” Erikki looked at the two strangers, hard-eyed. “The KGB agent, who claimed he came from Georgia, from Tbilisi.”

Abdollah Khan smiled thinly. “KGB? How do you know that?” “I’ve seen enough of them to know.” The two strangers stared back blandly; the older wore a friendly smile and Erikki was chilled by it. “This Rakoczy, how did he get into the helicopter?” the Khan said. “He captured Charlie Pettikin at my base last Sunday - Pettikin’s one of our pilots and he’d come to Tabriz to pick us up, Azadeh and me. I’d been asked by my embassy to check with them about my passport - that was the day most governments, mine too, had ordered nonessential expats out of Iran,” he said, the exaggeration easy. “On Monday, the day we left here, Rakoczy forced Pettikin to fly him to Tehran.” He told briefly what had happened. “But for him noticing the Finnish flag on the roof we’d be dead,” The man with Asiatic features laughed softly. “That would have been a great loss, Captain Yokkonen,” he said in Russian.

The older man with the Slavic eyes said, in faultless English, “This Rakoczy, where is he now?”

“I don’t know. Somewhere in Tehran. May I ask who you are?” Erikki was playing for time and expected no answer. He was trying to decide if Rakoczy was friend or enemy to these two, obviously Soviet, obviously KGB or GRU - the secret police of the armed forces.

“Please, what was his first name?” the older man asked pleasantly. “Fedor, like the Hungarian revolutionary.” Erikki saw no further reaction and could have gone on but was far too wise to volunteer anything to KGB or GRU. Azadeh was kneeling on the carpet, stiff-backed, motionless, her hands at rest in her lap, her

lips red against the whiteness of her face. Suddenly he was very afraid for her.

“You admit killing those men?” the Khan said and ate another sweetmeat. “I admit I killed men a year or so ago saving your life, Highness, an - ” “And yours!” Abdollah Khan said angrily. “The assassins would have killed you too - it was the Will of God we both lived.”

“I didn’t start that fight or seek it either.” Erikki tried to choose his words wisely, feeling unwise and unsafe and inadequate. “If I killed those others it was not of my choosing but only to protect your daughter and my wife. Our lives were in danger.”

“Ah, you consider it your right to kill any time you consider your life to be in danger?”

Erikki saw the flush in the Khan’s face, and the two Soviets watching him, and he thought of his own heritage and his grandfather’s stories of the olden days in the North Lands, when giants walked the earth and trolls and ghouls were not myth, long long ago when the earth was clean and evil was known as evil, and good as good, and evil could not wear the mask. “If Azadeh’s life is threatened - or mine - I will kill anyone,” he said evenly. The three men felt ice go through them. Azadeh was appalled at the threat, and the guards who spoke neither Russian nor English, shifted uneasily, feeling the violence.

The vein in the center of Abdollah Khan’s forehead knotted. “You will go with this man,” he said darkly. “You will go with this man and do his bidding.”

Erikki looked at the man with the Asiatic features. “What do you want with me?”

“Just your skills as a pilot, and the 212,” the man said, not unfriendly, speaking Russian.

“Sorry, the 212’s on a fifteen-hundred-hour check and I work for S-G and Iran-Timber.”

“The 212 is complete, already ground-tested by your mechanics, and Iran-Timber has released you to… to me.”

“To do what?”

“To fly,” the man said irritably. “Are you hard of hearing?” “No, but it seems you are.”

Air hissed out of the man’s mouth. The older man smiled strangely. Abdollah Khan turned on Azadeh, and she almost jumped with fright. “You will go to the Khanan and pay your respects!”

“Yes… yes… Father,” she stuttered and jumped up. Erikki moved half a step but the guards were ready, one had him covered and she said, near tears, “No, Erikki, it’s… I… I must go…” She fled before he could stop her.

The man with the Asiatic face broke the silence. “You’ve nothing to fear. We just need your skills.”

Erikki Yokkonen did not answer him, sure that he was at bay, that both he and Azadeh were at bay and lost, and knowing that if there were no guards here he would have attacked now, without hesitation, killed Abdollah Khan now and probably the other two. The three men knew it.

“Why did you send for my wife, Highness?” he said in the same quiet voice, knowing the answer now. “You sent two messages.”

Abdollah Khan said with a sneer, “She’s of no value to me, but she is to my friends: to bring you back and to make you behave. And by God and the Prophet, you will behave. You will do what this man wants.” One of the guards moved his snub-nosed machine gun a fraction and the noise he made echoed in the room. The Soviet with the Asiatic features got up. “First your knife. Please.”

“You can come and take it. If you wish it seriously.”

The man hesitated. Abruptly Abdollah Khan laughed. The laugh was cruel, and it edged all of them. “You will leave him his knife. That will make your life more interesting.” Then to Erikki, “It would be wise to be obedient and to behave.”

“It would be wise to let us go in peace.”

“Would you like to watch your copilot hung up by his thumbs now?” Erikki’s eyes flattened even more. The older Soviet leaned over to whisper to the Khan whose gaze never left Erikki. His hands played with his jeweled dagger. When the man had finished, he nodded. “Erikki, you will tell your copilot that he is to be obedient too while he is in Tabriz. We will send him to the base, but your small helicopter will remain here. For the moment.” He motioned the man with the Asiatic features to leave.

“My name is Cimtarga, Captain.” The man was not nearly as tall as Erikki but strongly built with wide shoulders. “First we g - ”

“Cimtarga’s the name of a mountain, east of Samarkand.

What’s your real name? And rank?”

The man shrugged. “My ancestors rode with Timour Tamburlaine, the Mongol, he who enjoyed erecting mountains of skulls. First we go to your base. We will go by car.” He walked past him and opened the door, but Erikki did not move, still looked at the Khan. “I will see my wife tonight.”

“You will see her when - ” Abdollah Khan stopped as again the older man leaned forward and whispered. Again the Khan nodded. “Good. Yes, Captain, you will see her tonight, and every second night. Providing.” He let the word hang. Erikki turned on his heel and walked out.

As the door closed after them, tension left the room. The older man chuckled. “Highness, you were perfect, perfect as usual.” Abdollah Khan eased his left shoulder, the ache in the arthritic joint annoying him. “He’ll be obedient, Petr,” he said, “but only as long as my disobedient and ungrateful daughter is within my reach.”

“Daughters are always difficult,” Petr Oleg Mzytryk answered. He came from north of the border, from Tbilisi - Tiflis.

“Not so, Petr. The others obey and give me no trouble but this one - she infuriates me beyond words.”

“Then send her away once the Finn has done what’s required. Send them both away.” The Slavic eyes crinkled in the good face and he added lightly, “If I were thirty years younger and she was free I would petition to take her off your hands.”

“If you’d asked before that madman appeared, you could have had her with my blessing,” Abdollah Khan said sourly, though he had noted the underlying hope, hid his surprise, and put it aside for later consideration. “I regret giving her to him - I thought she’d drive him mad too - regret my oath before God to leave him alive - it was a moment of weakness.” “Perhaps not. It’s good to be magnanimous, occasionally. He did save your life.”

“Insha’Allah! That was God’s doing - he was just an instrument.” “Of course,” Mzytryk said soothingly. “Of course.”

“That man’s a devil, an atheist devil who stinks of bloodlust. If it hadn’t been for my guards - you saw for yourself - we would be fighting for our lives.”

“No, not so long as she’s in your power to be dealt with… improperly.” Petr smiled strangely.

“God willing, they’ll both be soon in hell,” the Khan said, still infuriated that he had had to keep Erikki alive to assist Petr Oleg Mzytryk, when he could have given him to the leftist mujhadin and thus been rid of him forever. The mullah Mahmud, one of the Tabriz leaders of the Islamic-Marxist mujhadin faction that had attacked the base, had come to him two days ago and told him what happened at the roadblock. “Here are their papers as proof,” the mullah had said truculently, “both of the foreigner who must be CIA and of the lady, your daughter. The moment he returns to Tabriz we will stand him before our komiteh, sentence him, take him to Qazvin and put him to death.”

“By the Prophet you won’t, not until I give you approval,” he had said imperiously, taking their papers. “That mad dog foreigner is married to my daughter, is not CIA, is under my protection until I cancel it, and if you touch so much as one foul red hair or interfere with him or the base until I approve it, I’ll withdraw all my secret support and nothing will stop the Green Bands from stamping out the leftists of Tabriz! He’ll be given to you in my time, not yours.” Sullenly the mullah had gone away and Abdollah had at once added Mahmud to his list of imperatives. When he had examined the papers carefully and found Azadeh’s passport and ID and other permits, he had been delighted, for these gave him an added hold over her, and her husband.

Yes, he thought, looking up at the Soviet, she will do whatever I require of her now. Anything. “As God wants, but she may be a widow very soon.” “Let’s hope not too soon!” Mzytryk’s laugh was good and infectious. “Not until her husband’s finished his assignment.”

Abdollah Khan was warmed by the man’s presence and wise counsel and pleased that Mzytryk would do what was required of him. But I’ll still have to be a better puppeteer than ever before, he thought, if I’m to survive, and Azerbaijan to survive.

All over the province and in Tabriz the situation now was very delicate, with insurrections of various kinds and factions fighting factions, with tens of thousands of Soviet soldiers poised just over the border. And tanks. And nothing between them and the Gulf to hinder them. Except me, he thought. And once they possessed Azerbaijan - with Tehran indefensible as history’s proved time and time again - then Iran will fall into their hands like the rotten apple Khrushchev forecast. With Iran, the Gulf, the world’s oil, and Hormuz.

He wanted to howl with rage. God curse the Shah who wouldn’t listen, wouldn’t wait, hadn’t the sense to crush a minor mullah-inspired rebellion not twenty years ago and send Ayatollah Khomeini into hell as I advised and so put into jeopardy our absolute, unstoppable, inevitable stranglehold over the entire world outside of Russia, tsarist or Soviet - our real enemy. We were so close: the U.S. was eating out of our hands, fawning and pressing on us their most advanced weapons, begging us to police the Gulf and so dominate the vile Arabs, absorb their oil, make vassals of them and their flyblown, foul Sunni sheikdoms from Saudi to Oman. We could have overrun Kuwait in a day, Iraq in a week, the Saudi and Emirate sheiks would have fled back to their deserts screaming for mercy! We could get whatever technology we wanted, whatever ships, airplanes, tanks, arms for the asking, even the Bomb, by God! - our German-built reactors would have made them for us!

So close to doing God’s will, we Shi’as of Iran, with our superior intelligence, our ancient history, our oil, and our command of the strait that must eventually bring all the People of the Left Hand to their knees. So close to gaining Jerusalem and Mecca, control of Mecca - Holy of Holies. So close to being First on Earth, as is our right, but now, now all in jeopardy, and we have to start again, and again outmaneuver the satanic barbarians from the north and all because of one man.

Insha’Allah, he thought, and that took some of his anger away. Even so, if Mzytryk had not been in the room he would have ranted and raved and beaten someone, anyone. But the man was here and had to be dealt with, the problems of Azerbaijan arranged, so he controlled his anger and pondered his next move. His fingers picked up the last of the halvah and popped it into his mouth.

“You’d like to marry Azadeh, Petr?”

“You’d like me, older than you, as a son-in-law?” the man said with a deprecating laugh.

“If it was the Will of God,” he replied with the right amount of sincerity and smiled to himself, for he had seen the sudden light in his friend’s eyes, quickly covered. So, he thought, the first time you see her you want her. Now if I really gave her to you when the monster’s disposed of, what would that do for me? Many things! You’re eligible, you’re powerful, politically it would be wise, very wise, and you’d beat sense into her and deal with her as she should be dealt with, not like the Finn who fawns on her. You’d be an instrument of revenge on her. There are many advantages… Three years ago Petr Oleg Mzytryk had taken over the immense dacha and lands that had belonged to his father - also an old friend of the Gorgons - near Tbilisi where, for generations, the Gorgons also had had very important business connections. Since then Abdollah Khan had got to know him intimately, staying at the dacha on frequent business trips. He had found Petr Oleg like all Russians, secretive, volunteering little. But, unlike most, extremely helpful and friendly - and more powerful than any Soviet he knew, a widower with a married daughter, a son in the navy, grandchildren - and rare habits. He lived alone in the huge dacha except for servants and a strangely beautiful, strangely venomous Russian-Eurasian woman called Vertinskya, in her late thirties, whom he had brought out twice in three years, almost like a unique private treasure. She seemed to be part slave, part prisoner, part drinking companion, part whore, part tormentor, and part wildcat. “Why don’t you kill her and have done with her, Petr?” he had said when a raging violent quarrel had erupted and Mzytryk had physically whipped her out of the room, the woman spitting and cursing and fighting till servants hauled her away.

“Not… not yet,” Mzytryk had said, his hands trembling, “she’s far… far too valuable.”

“Ah, yes … yes, now I understand,” Abdollah Khan had said, equally aroused, having almost the same feeling about Azadeh - the reluctance to cast away such an object until she was truly cowed, truly humbled and crawling - and he remembered how he had envied Mzytryk that Vertinskya was mistress and not daughter so the final act of revenge could be consummated. God curse Azadeh, he thought. Curse her who could be the twin of the mother who gave me so much pleasure, who reminds me constantly of my loss, she and her evil brother, both patterns of the mother in face and manner but not in quality, she who was like a houri from the Garden of God. I thought both of our children loved me and honored me, but no, once Napthala had gone to Paradise their true natures came to pass. I know Azadeh was plotting with her brother to murder me - haven’t I the proof? Oh, God, I wish I could beat her like Petr does his nemesis, but I can’t, I can’t. Every time I raise my hand against her I see my Beloved, God curse Azadeh to hell… “Be calm,” Mzytryk said gently.

“What?”

“You were looking so upset, my friend. Don’t worry, everything will be all right. You will find a way to exorcise her.”

Abdollah Khan nodded heavily. “You know me too well.” That’s true, he thought, ordering tea for himself and vodka for Mzytryk, the only man he had ever felt at ease with.

I wonder who you really are, he thought, watching him. In years gone by, in your father’s time at the dacha when we met, you used to say you were on leave, but you’d never say on leave from what, nor could I ever find out, however much I tried. At first I presumed it was the Soviet army, for once when you were drunk you told me you’d been a tank commander during World War II at Sebastopol, and all the way to Berlin. But then I changed my mind and thought it more likely you and your father were KGB or GRU, for no one in the whole USSR retires to such a dacha with such lands in Georgia, the best part of the empire, without very particular knowledge and influence. You say you’re retired now - retired from what? Experimenting to find out the extent of Mzytryk’s power in the early days, Abdollah Khan had mentioned that a clandestine Communist Tudeh cell in Tabriz was plotting to assassinate him and he would like the cell stamped out. It was only partially true, the real reason being that a son of a man he hated secretly and could not attack openly was part of the group. Within the week all their heads were stuck on spikes near the mosque with a sign, THUS WILL ALL ENEMIES OF GOD PERISH, and he had wept cold tears at the funeral and laughed in privacy. That Petr Mzytryk had the power to eliminate one of their own cells was power indeed - and also, Abdollah knew, a measure of his own importance to them.

He looked at him. “How long will you need the Finn?”

“A few weeks.”

“What if the Green Bands prevent him flying or intercept him?” The Soviet shrugged. “Let’s hope he will have finished the assignment. I doubt if there would be any survivors - either him or Cimtarga - if they’re found this side of the border.”

“Good. Now, back to where we were before we were interrupted: you agree there’ll be no massive support for the Tudeh here, so long as the Americans stay out and Khomeini doesn’t start a program against them?” “Azerbaijan has always been within our frame of interest. We’ve always said it should be an independent state - there’s more than enough wealth, power, minerals, and oil to sustain it and…” Mzytryk smiled, “and enlightened leadership. You could lift the flag, Abdollah. I’m sure you’d get all the support you need to be president - with our immediate recognition.” And then I’d be assassinated the next day while the tanks roll over the borders, the Khan told himself without venom. Oh, no, my fine friend, the Gulf is too much temptation even for you. “It’s a wonderful idea,” he said earnestly, “but I would need time - meanwhile I can count also on the Communist Tudeh being turned on the insurrectionists?”