Whirlwind

Chapter 38

AT INNER INTELLIGENCE HQ: 6:42 P.M. It was barely twenty-three hours since Rakoczy had been captured, but he was already broken and babbling the third level - the truth. The first two levels were cover stories of partial truths rehearsed and rere-hearsed by all career agents until they were deeply embedded into the subconscious in the hope that these partial truths would deflect questioners from probing deeper, or make them believe they already had all the truth. Unfortunately for Rakoczy, his interrogators were expert and anxious to probe ever deeper. Their problem was to keep the torment from killing him first. His problem was how to die quickly.

When he had been caught yesterday evening, he had at once tried to get his teeth into the point of his collar where the poison vial was sewn - a trained reflex action. But his captors had forestalled him, held his head backward while they chloroformed him, then carefully stripped him, probed his mouth for a false tooth of poison and his anus for a capsule. He had expected beating and psychedelic drugs: “If they use those on you, Captain Mzytryk, you’re finished,” his teachers had said. “Nothing much to do but to try to die before giving secrets away. Better to die before they break you. Never forget we’ll avenge you. Our reach can span fifty years and we’ll get those who betrayed you.”

But he had not expected the level of agony to which they had taken him so fast, or the unspeakable things they had done to him, electrodes inside him, in his nose mouth stomach rectum, on his testicles and eyeballs - with drug injections to put him to sleep, to wake him up, minutes only between sleep wake sleep wake, disoriented, upside down, inside out.

“For Christ’s sake, Hashemi,” Robert Armstrong had said, sickened, long long ago in the beginning, “why don’t you just give him the truth drugs, you’ve got them, no need for all this shit.”

Colonel Hashemi Fazir had shrugged. “A little cruelty is good for the soul. By Allah, you’ve seen the files, you’ve seen what the KGB’s done to some of our citizens who weren’t even spies.”

“That’s no excuse.”

“We need his information quickly, by God. We need to reach the third level you’re always harping about. I’ve no time for your twisted ethics, Robert. If you don’t want to stay, leave.”

Armstrong had stayed. He had muffled his ears against the screams, loathing the brutality. No need for that, not nowadays, he had said to himself, knowing he would have died long since.

He watched the two men through the one-sided mirror as they worked Rakoczy over again in the small, well-equipped chamber, sorry for him in an oblique way - after all, Rakoczy was a professional like him, a brave man who had held out against them extraordinarily.

Abruptly the screams stopped and Rakoczy was again inert. Hashemi spoke into the mike that fed into the earphones of the man below. “Is he dead? I told you stupid sons of dogs to be careful!”

One of the two men was a doctor. The headset he wore cut out all sound except instructions from the interrogators. Irritably he lifted Rakoczy’s eyelids and peered at his eyes, then, with his stethoscope, listened to his heartbeat.

“He’s alive, Colonel. He’s … there’s still a way to go yet.” “Give him five minutes, then wake him up. And don’t kill him until I say so.” Angrily, Hashemi clicked off the mike and cursed the man. “Don’t want him dead when we’re so close to cleaning him out.” He glanced at Armstrong, eyes glittering. “He’s the best we’ve ever had, ever, eh? By God, Robert, he’s a gold mine.”

Rakoczy had babbled out his two covers long since and then his real name, KGB number, where he was educated, born, married, lived, his known superiors in Tbilisi, their involvement in Iran, the Tudeh, the mujhadin, how and where they supported the Kurdish independence movement, who his contacts were. “Who’s the top KGB Azerbaijani?”

“I… no more please … pleasestoppppp it’s Abdollah Khan of Tabriz … him, only him of importance and he… he was … is to to to be the first President when Azer… Azerbaijan be… becomes independent but now he’s too big and inde independent so… so now he’s a Section 16/a…”

“You’re not telling us all the truth - teach him a lesson!” “Oh I amlamlampleaseeeeee…”

Then reviving him and his babbling again, about Ibrahim Kyabi, Ibrahim’s father, the mullah Kowissi, who the Tudeh student leaders were, about his own wife, about his father and where he lived in Tbilisi, and about his grandfather who was in the tsar’s secret police before being a founding member of the Cheka, then OGPU, NKVD, and finally the KGB - founded in ‘54 by Khrushchev after Beria had been shot as a Western spy. “You believe Beria was a spy for us, Mzytryk?” “Yes … yes … yes he was, the KGB had proof oh yes … please stoppppp… please stopppppp I’ll tell you anythth-ingggggg…”

“How could they have proof to that lie?” “Yes it was a lie but we were to believe it we were… we had to had to had to… please stopppppp I begggggg you…”

“Stop hurting him, you devils.” Armstrong’s voice came in on cue. “No need to hurt him if he’s cooperating - how many times do I have to tell you! So long as he tells the truth don’t touch him. Give him a glass of water. Now, Mzytryk, tell us all you know about Gregor Suslev.”

“He’s … he’s a spy I think.”

“You’re not telling us the truth!” Hashemi roared at him, on cue. “Teach him a lesson!”

“No… no… noplease stopppppppppohGodplease stoppppp he’s he’s Petr Oleg Mzytryk my father my father… Suslev was his… his cover name in the in the Far East based out of Vlad … Vladivostok and and and another cover’s Brodnin… and and and he lives in in Tbilisi and he’s commissar and senior ad…

adviser Iranian affairs and con controller of Abdollah Abdollah Khan…”

“You’re lying again. How could you know such secrets? Teach him a les - ” “Please no I swearrrrrr I’m not lying I… read his secret dossier and I know it’s true… Brodnin was last and then he… Allah helppppp meeeeee…” Again he fainted again. Again they revived him.

“How does Abdollah Khan contact his controller?”

“He… my … they meet when whenever… some… sometimes at the… at the dacha sometimes at Tabriz…”

“Where in Tabriz?”

“At… at the Khan’s palace…”

“How do they arrange a meeting?”

“By code… coded telex from Tehran… from HQ…”

“What code?”

“The…G16…G16…”

“What’s Abdollah Khan’s code name?”

“Ivanovitch.”

“And his controller’s?” Armstrong was careful not to agitate the helpless man by reminding him he betrayed his father.

“Who were Brodnin’s contacts?”

“I… I don’t… I don’t rememb remember…”

“Help him remember!”

“Pleaseplease oh God oh Goddddddd wait let me think I can’t remember it was it was … wait he told me there were there were three… it was something like like like one of them was a color a color… wait, yes, Grey yes Grey that was it… and and an another was… and another was Broad something … Broad something… I think… you it was Man Broad something…” “Who else?” Armstrong asked, hiding his shock. “The third?” “I… I cant remem… no waitttttttt let me thinkkkk… there .vas there was anoth… told me there were he told me about… about four… one… one was… Ted… Ever… Ever something … Everly… and and another there were… if… I… pleaseeee if I think let me think and it was it was Peter… no Percy … Percy Smedley yes Smedey Tailler or Smidley…” The color left Armstrong’s face.

“… that was all that was all that he that he told me…” “Tell us all you know about Roger Crosse!”

No answer.

Through the mirror they saw the man writhing on the operating table, heaving against the wires as more pain was fed into him and, mixed with the moans, the words poured out again: “He he… stoppppppppppppp he was was head no assistant head of MI6 and almost our top English secret agent for for for… twenty or more years for us and… and Brodnin Brod my father found … found out he was a double… triple agent and ordered him Section 16/a… Crosse cheated us for years cheated cheated cheated…” “Who tipped Brodnin about Crosse?”

“Idontknow I swearldontknow I can’t know everything everything only what was in his dossier and and what he told me…”

“Who was Roger Crosse’s controller?”

“I don’t know, don’t know, how could I know I only know what I read secretly in my father’s doss… you’ve got to believe mmmmmmeeeeeee…” “Tell me everything in the dossier,” Hashemi said, as vitally interested now as Armstrong.

They listened, sifting the words from the screams. At times the almost incoherent mixture of Russian and Farsi as Rakoczy continued to bring forth more names and addresses and covers and ranks in answer to their questions, his memory prompted by new levels of pain, until he was spent and repeating and now confused, himself confused and no longer of value. Then mixed with the gibberish “… Pah… mud… Pah … mudi…”

“What about Pahmudi?” Hashemi said abruptly.

“I… he’s… helppp meeee…”

“What about Pahmudi? Is he a Soviet agent?”

Now only gibberish and weeping and confusion.

“Better give him a rest, Hashemi. His memory’s too good to blow - we can get what Pahmudi means tomorrow and go back over the stuff.” Armstrong was equally drained, secretly marveling at the knowledge Rakoczy had provided. “I advise a rest period, let him sleep for five hours, then we could begin again.”

In the chamber the two men were waiting for instructions. The doctor glanced at his watch. He had been at it for six hours without a break, his back ached and so did his head. But he was a long-term SAVAK specialist and very pleased that he had brought Rakoczy to the level of truth without drugs. Atheist son of a burnt father! he thought disgustedly.

“Let him sleep for four hours, then we begin again,” came over the loudspeaker.

“Yes, Colonel. Very good.” He peered at the eyes under the lids, then said carefully to his assistant who was a deaf-mute but could lip-read, “Leave him as he is - that’ll save time when we come back. He’ll need a wake-up injection.” The man nodded and, when the door was opened from the outside, both men left.

In the room behind the mirror the air was smoky and dry.

“What about Pahmudi?”

“He has to be connected with Mzytryk, Petr Oleg.” Armstrong was sifting all Rakoczy’s information, awed.

Hashemi took his eyes off the man lying on the table and switched off the cassette recorder, pressed the rewind button. In a half-opened drawer were seven other cassettes.

“Can I have copies?” Armstrong asked.

“Why not?” Hashemi’s eyes were red-rimmed and the stubble of his heavy beard showed darkly even though he had shaved only a few hours ago. “What was so important about Brodnin and those other names, Grey, Man Broad something, Ted Ever something, and Percy Smedley or Smidley Tailler?” Armstrong got up to ease the pain in his shoulders, also to give himself a little time to think. “Brodnin was a Soviet businessman, KGB, but a double agent for us. There was never a suspicion he was duping us. Man Broad something has got to mean Julian Broadhurst. We’ve never had anything on him, never a whisper, nothing. He’s a leading light of the Fabian Society, a highly respected member of the Labour party, in or out of the cabinet at his whim, adviser and confidant of prime ministers.” He added disgustedly, “Patriot.”

“So now you have him. Traitor. So put him on a table for a few hours, milk him dry, then drown him in the Thames. Grey?”

“Lord Grey, firebrand of the Left, ex - trades unionist, rabid leader of the anti-China anti-Hong Kong lobby, politely anti-Communist, sent up to the Lords a few years ago to create more trouble. We did an investigation on him a few years ago but he came up clean as a whistle - nothing except his politics.” My God, Armstrong was thinking, if they’re both spies and traitors - and we could prove it - that would rip Labour apart, let alone the explosion Percy’d cause the Tories. But how to prove it and stay alive? “We’ve had nothing on him ever.”

“So now you have him too. Traitor. Clean him out and shoot him. Ted Ever something?”

“Everly - golden boy of the TUC being groomed for high office. Impeccable centrist politics. Never a smell of pink let alone Communist.” “Now you have him. Rack him. Smedley or Smidley Tailler?” Robert Armstrong offered his cigarettes. Percy Smedley-615 Taylor: landed gentry, rich, Trinity College - an apolitical deviate who manages to keep his aberrations out of the press when he’s caught - well-known ballet critic, publisher of erudite magazines, with impeccable, untouchable connections into the highest and most delicate sources of English power. Christ Almighty, if he’s a Soviet spy… It’s impossible! Don’t be bloody silly, you’ve done too many years, know too many secrets to be surprised about anyone. “Doesn’t mean beans, but I’ll check him out, Hashemi,” he said, not wanting to share the knowledge until he had thought through what he should do.

The cassette clicked off as the rewind finished. Hashemi took it out, put it with the others in the lower drawer and locked the drawer carefully. “Then deal with them in our fashion: send an emissary to them, Robert, to them and their lousy high-blown friends. They’ll soon give you plenty of pishkesh to compensate for your loss of pension.” Hashemi laughed mirthlessly, inserting a new cassette. “But don’t go yourself or you’ll end up in a back alley with a knife in your back or poison in your beer - these high-blown bastards are all the same.” He was very tired but his elation at all the marvelous knowledge Rakoczy had given them pushed away the need for sleep. “We’ve already got enough from him to dynamite the Tudeh, control the Kurds, stop the insurrection in Azerbaijan, make Tehran safe, Kowiss safe - and cement Khomeini into power,” he said to himself.

“Is that what you want? What about Abrim Pahmudi?”

Hashemi’s face darkened. “Allah let me deal with him properly! Rakoczy’s given me a golden key perhaps even to him.” He looked at Armstrong. “Gold for you too, eh? This Suslev - Petr Oleg - who murdered the great Roger Crosse? Eh?”

“Yes. You too. Now you know who’s your top enemy.”

“What’s Mzytryk, this Suslev, to you?”

“I had a run-in with him years ago in Hong Kong.” Armstrong sipped some cold coffee, baiting the hook. “He could provide you - and me - with more gold than his son. He could peg Abrim Pahmudi, and if him, Christ only knows who else - perhaps the Revolutionary Komiteh? I’d give a lot to debrief Suslev. How can we do that?”

Hashemi tore his concentration off Pahmudi and put it back on the personal danger he himself and his family were in. “In return you will arrange me a British passport, safe passage out, and a substantial pension - if I need it?”

Armstrong put out his hand. “Done,” he said. The two men shook hands, neither believing the gesture had any value other than as a politeness, both knowing they would deliver if they could, but only so long as it was then to their own advantage.

“If we get him, Robert, I control the briefing and I ask what I want first.” “Of course, you’re the boss.” Armstrong’s eyes veiled his excitement. “Could you get him?”

“Perhaps I could persuade Abdollah Khan to arrange a meeting this side of the border. Rakoczy’s given us enough on him to make even him squirm though I’d have to be careful… he’s one of our best agents too!” “Barter the knowledge of the Section 16/a - I bet he doesn’t know they’ve betrayed him.”

Hashemi nodded. “If we get Petr Oleg over the border, no need to bring him here. We could clean him out in our place in Tabriz.”

“I didn’t know you had a place there.” “Lots of things you don’t know about Iran, Robert.” Hashemi stubbed out his cigarette. How much time have I got? he asked himself nervously, totally unused to feeling like the hunted and not the hunter. “On second thought, give me the passport tomorrow.” “How soon could you ‘persuade’ Abdollah Khan?” “We’d still have to be careful - that bastard’s all-powerful in Azerbaijan.” They both glanced at Rakoczy as he stirred momentarily, moaned, then went back into nightmare again. “Have to be very careful.” “When?”

“Tomorrow. Soon as we’ve finished with Rakoczy we’ll visit Abdollah. You provide the plane - or chopper. You’re very friendly with IHC, aren’t you?” Armstrong smiled. “You know everything, don’t you?” “Only about Tehran things, Islamic things, Iranian things.” Hashemi wondered what McIver and the other oil support foreigners would do if they knew that Deputy Minister Ali Kia, newly appointed to the ATC board, had, some days ago, recommended immediate nationalization of all foreign oil-based companies, all Iran-registered airplanes, airplane companies, and the expulsion of all foreign pilots and personnel. “How are you going to service the oil fields, Excellency Minister?” he had asked when he had been told. “We don’t need foreigners. Our own pilots will service our own fields-haven’t we hundreds of pilots who need to prove their loyalty? I presume you have secret files on all foreign pilots, executives and so on. The, er, the komiteh requires them.” “I don’t think we have anything, Excellency. Those files were SAVAK-instigated,” Hashemi had said smoothly. “I presume you know those terrible people have an extensive file on Your Excellency?”

“What file? Me? SAVAK? You must be mistaken.” “Perhaps. I’ve never read it, Excellency, but I was told of its existence. I was told it goes back over twenty years. Probably it contains nothing but lies….”

He had left a badly shaken Deputy Kia with the promise that he would try to obtain the file secretly and give it to him and had laughed all the way back to Inner Intelligence HQ. The file on Ali Kia - his file - really did go back twenty years and contained unshakable proof of all sorts of smelly business deals, usury, pro-Shah voting and informing, together with highly ingenious - photographed - sexual practices that would send conservative fundamentalists into a frenzy.

“What’s the joke?” Armstrong asked.

“Life, Robert. A couple of weeks ago I had at my disposal a whole air force if need be, now I must ask you to arrange the charter. You arrange the charter, I’ll arrange the clearance.” He smiled. “You’ll give me the British passport, very bloody valid, as Talbot might say, prior to takeoff. Agreed?” “Agreed.” Armstrong stifled a yawn. “While we’re waiting, can I hear the last cassette?”

Hashemi reached for his key, stopped at the knock on the door. Tiredly he got up and opened it. His fatigue vanished. Four men were outside. One of his own men, white-faced, and three Green Bands. Armed. He knew the oldest of them. “Salaam, General,” he said politely, his heart grinding. “Peace be upon you.”

“Salaam, Colonel. Peace be upon you.” General Janan was hard-faced with a thin line for a mouth. SAVAK. He looked at Armstrong coldly, then took out a paper, offered it to Hashemi. “You are to hand over the prisoner Yazernov to me at once.”

Hashemi took the paper, thanking God he had risked everything to capture Rakoczy and ram him through to the third level fast. “To Colonel Hashemi Fazir, Inner Intelligence. Immediate. By authority of the Revolutionary Komiteh: The Department of Inner Intelligence is disbanded and all personnel absorbed into this organization at once under the command of General Janan. You are suspended from all duties pending further orders. You will hand over to General Janan the prisoner Yazernov and all interrogation tapes at once. [signed] Abrim Pahmudi, Director, SAVAMA.” “The spy’s still on the second level and you’ll have to wait. It’s dangerous to remove him an - ”

“He’s no longer your responsibility.” The general motioned to one of his men who went out, beckoned to others in the corridor, then walked down the steps and into the chamber below, the doctor, white-faced and very nervous, now with them. When the Green Bands saw the naked man on the table and the instruments and the way he was wired, their eyes glittered. The doctor began to unwire him.

In the interrogation room above, Hashemi looked back at the general. “I formally tell you it’s dangerous to move him. You’re responsible.” “Insha’Allah. Just give me the tapes.” Hashemi shrugged and unlocked the top drawer and gave him the dozen, almost useless tapes from the first and second level. “And the others! Now!” “There aren’t any.” “Open the other drawer!”

Again Hashemi shrugged, selected a key, and used it carefully. If turned correctly, the key set the magnetizer into operation and wiped the tapes. Only he and Armstrong knew the secret - and about the secret installation of duplicate cassette recorders: “You never know, Hashemi, when you might be betrayed or by whom,” Armstrong had told him years ago when, together, they had installed the devices. “You might want to wipe tapes, then use the secret ones to barter for your freedom. You can never be too careful in this game.”

Hashemi slid the drawer open, praying that both devices were operating. Insha’Allah, he thought, and gave over the eight cassettes. “They’re empty, I tell you.”

“If they are, accept my apologies, if they’re not… Insha’Allah!” The general looked at Armstrong, his eyes granite. “Better you leave Iran quickly. I give you a day and a night for past services.”

AT THE BAKRAVAN HOUSE, NEAR THE BAZAAR: 8:57 P.M. Sharazad was lying on her stomach on the bed, being massaged, and she groaned with pleasure as the old woman caressed oil into her bruises and into her skin. “Oh, be careful, Jari…”

“Yes, yes, my princess,” Jari crooned, her hands softly strong, easing the pain away. She had been nursemaid and servant to Sharazad ever since her birth, and had given her suck when her own baby, bom a week earlier, had died. For two years she suckled Sharazad and then, because Jari was a quiet and gentle woman, now widowed, she had been given full charge of her. When Sharazad married Emir Paknouri she accompanied her into his house and then, the marriage finished, happily they had returned home. Stupid to marry such a flower to one who prefers boys, however much money he has, Jari had always thought but never said out loud. Never never never. Dangerous to go against the head of the house - any head of a family - even more so with a money-grubbing miser like Jared Bakravan, she thought, not sorry he was dead. When Sharazad had married the second time, Jari had not gone to stay in the apartment. But that did not matter, for Sharazad spent the days here when the Infidel was away. All the household called him that and tolerated him because of her happiness that only women understood.

“Eeeee, what devils men are,” she said and hid her smile, understanding very well. They had all heard the screams last night and the sobbing, and though they all knew a husband was entitled to beat his wife and that God had allowed the Infidel’s blows to shake their mistress out of her fit, she herself had heard the different cries, just before dawn this morning, the cries of her and him in the Garden of God.

Never had she been there herself. Others had told her about being transported, so had Sharazad, but the few times her own husband had lain with her had been for his pleasure and not hers. Her share had been pain and six children before she was twenty, four dying in infancy. Then him dying to release her from the childbirth death that she knew, for her, would otherwise have been inevitable. As God wants! Oh, yes, she told herself so contentedly, God rescued me and made him die and now, surely, he burns in hell, for he was a foul blasphemer who barely prayed once a day. God also gave me Sharazad!

She looked down on the beautiful, satin body and long, dark-dark hair. Eeeee, she told herself, how blessed to be so young, so moist, so resilient, so ready to do God’s work at long last.

“Turn over, Princess, an - ”

“No, Jari, it hurts so.”

“Yes, but I must knead your stomach muscles and condition them.” Jari chuckled. “They must be very strong soon.”

At once, Sharazad turned and looked up at her, pain forgotten “Oh, Jari, are you sure?”

“Only God is sure, Princess. But have you ever been late before? Isn’t your time overdue - and a son long overdue?”

The two women laughed together, then Sharazad lay back and gave herself to the hands and to the future and to the happy time she would have when she told him: Tommy, I’m honored to tell … no, that’s no good. Tommy, God has blessed us… no, that’s no good either though it’s true. If only he was Muslim and Iranian it’d be so much easier. Oh, God, and Prophet of God, make Tommy Muslim and so save him from hell, make my son strong and let him grow up to have sons and daughters and them sons … oh, how blessed we are by God…

She let herself drift. The night was calm, still a little snow falling and not much gunfire. Soon they would have their evening meal and then she would play backgammon with her cousin Karim or with Zarah, her brother Meshang’s wife, then to sleep contentedly, the day well spent.

The morning when Jari had awakened her the sun was up, and though she had wept a little from the pain, oil and massage soon took most of it away. Then the ritual washing and first prayer of the day, kneeling in front of the little shrine in a corner of the bedroom and its sajadeh, the small square of lovely wrought tapestry with its bowl of sacred sand from Cabella and, beyond that, the string of prayer beads and her copy of the Koran, beautifully decorated. A quick breakfast of tea, fresh bread still hot from the kiln oven, butter and honey and milk, a boiled egg as always - rarely a shortage even during the bad troubles - then quickly to the bazaar, veiled and chadored, to see Meshang, her adored brother.

“Oh Meshang, my darling, you look so tired. Did you hear about our apartment?”

“Yes, yes, I did,” he said heavily, dark shadows around his eyes. The four days since their father had gone to Evin Jail had aged him. “Sons of dogs, all of them! But they’re not our people. I heard they’re PLO acting on instructions of this Revolutionary Komiteh.” He shuddered. “As God wants.” “As God wants, yes. But my husband said a man called Teymour, the leader, this man said we had until afternoon prayer today to take our things away.” “Yes, I know. Your husband left a message for me before he left this morning for Zagros. I’ve sent Ali and Hassan and some of the other servants, told them to pretend they were movers and to collect everything they could.”

“Oh, thank you, Meshang, how clever you are.” She was greatly relieved. It would have been unthinkable for her to have gone herself. Her eyes filled with tears. “I know it’s the Will of God but I feel so empty without Father.”

“Yes, yes, it’s the same for me… Insha’Allah.” There was nothing more he could do. He had done everything correctly, overseeing the washing of the body, binding it with the best muslin, and then the burial. Now the first part of mourning was over. On the fortieth day would be another ceremony at the cemetery when once more they would weep and rend their clothes and all would be inconsolable. But then, as now, each would once more take up the weight of living, there was the Shahada to say five times a day, the Five Pillars of Islam to obey to ensure you went to heaven and not to hell - your only important reason for life. I will certainly go to Paradise, he thought with total confidence.

They sat silently in the small room over the shop that such a short time ago was the private domain of Jared Bakravan. Was it only four days since Father was negotiating with Ali Kia for the new loan - that we still somehow have to provide - and Paknouri burst in and all our troubles began? Son of a dog! It’s all his fault. He led the Green Bands here. Yes, and he’s been a curse for years. If it hadn’t been for his weakness, Sharazad would have had five or six children by now and we wouldn’t be saddled with the Infidel who makes us the butt of a thousand bazaari sneers.

He saw the bruise around her left eye and did not comment. This morning he had thanked God and agreed with his wife that the beating had brought her out of her fit. “No harm to a good beating from time to time, Zarah,” he had said with relish, and thought, All women need a good beating now and then with their constant nagging and nattering and crying and bickering, and jealousies and interference and all this ungodly talk of voting and marches and protests. Against what? Against the laws of God!

I’ll never understand women. Still, even the Prophet, whose Name be praised, he, the most perfect man that ever lived, even he had problems with women and ten more wives after Khadija, his first, had died after having given him six children - how sad that no sons survived him, only his daughter Fatima. Even after all this experience with women it’s written that even the Prophet, even he, would have to take himself aside for peace from time to time.

Why can’t women be content to stay in the home, be obedient, keep quiet, and not meddle?

So much to do. So many threads to pick up and to find, secrets to unlock, accounts and promissory notes and debts to uncover, and so little time. All our property stolen, villages, the estate on the Caspian, houses and apartments and buildings all over Tehran - all the ones the devils know about! Devils! The Revolutionary Komiteh and mullahs and Green Bands are devils on earth. How am I going to deal with them all? But I must, somehow. I must, then next year I will make the pilgrimage to Mecca. “As God wants,” he said and felt a little better. And it’s as God wants that I am put in charge long before I expected it, even though I’m as well trained as any son could be to take over an empire, even the Bakravan empire.

It’s also as God wants that I already know where most of the secrets are, whispered to me by Father over the last few years when he discovered I was to be trusted, cleverer than he had ever expected. Didn’t I suggest the numbered Swiss bank accounts nearly seven years ago, and explain about U.S. Treasury bills, real-estate investment in America, and most of all about the Seven Sisters? We made millions, all of it safe from these sons of dogs, thanks be to God! Safe in Switzerland in gold, land, blue chips, dollars, deutsche marks, yen, and Swiss francs…

He saw Sharazad looking at him, waiting. “The servants will do everything before sunset, Sharazad, don’t worry,” he said, loving her though wanting her to leave so that he could continue his work. But it was time to gather in other strings: “This husband of yours, he agreed to become a Muslim, didn’t he?”

“How kind of you to remember, dear Meshang. My husband agreed to consider it,” she said defensively. “I’ve been teaching him whenever I can.” “Good. When he returns please tell him to come to see me.” “Yes, of course,” she said at once. Meshang was head of the family now, and, as such, was to be obeyed without question.

“The year and a day is overdue, is it not?”

Sharazad’s face lit up. “I’m honored to tell you, darling Meshang, that perhaps God has blessed us, I am overdue one or two days.” “God be praised. Now that is worth celebrating! Father would have been so pleased.” He patted her hand. “Good. Now, what about him - your husband? This would be the perfect time to divorce, wouldn’t it?”

“No! Oh, how could you say such a thing?” she burst out before she could stop herself. “Oh, absolutely not, oh, no, that would be terrible, I would die, it would be terr - ”

“Be quiet, Sharazad! Think!” Meshang was astonished by her bad manners. “He’s not Iranian, not Muslim, he has no money, no future, he’s hardly worthy to be part of the Bakravans, wouldn’t you agree?”

“Yes, yes, of course I… I agree to everything you say but if I may add…” she said hastily, keeping her eyes lowered to cover her shock, cursing herself for not being aware how much Meshang was opposed to her Tommy, that therefore he was enemy, to be guarded against. How could I have been so naive and so stupid? “I agree there may be problems, my darling, and agree with everything you say…” she heard herself tell him in her most honeyed voice, her mind working with the speed of light, analyzing, discarding, trying to make a plan - for now and for the future - for without Meshang’s benevolence, life would be very difficult. “You’re the wisest man I know… but perhaps I may be allowed to say that God put him into my path, Father agreed to my marriage, so until God takes him out of my path and guides m - ”

“But now I am head of the family and everything’s changed - the Ayatollah’s changed everything,” he said curtly. He had never liked Lochart, resented him as an Infidel, the cause of all their present and past troubles, despised him as an interloper and an unwarranted expense, but because he had had no power to interfere and because of their father’s tacit agreement he had always kept it hidden. “Don’t worry your pretty little head, but the revolution’s changed everything. We live in a different world, and in the light of this I must consider your future and the future of your son.” “You’re perfectly right, Meshang, and I bless you for thinking of me and my child, how wonderful you are and how fortunate that you’re here to take care of us,” she said, back in control now. She continued to flatter, cajole, being penitent for her lack of manners, using all of her guile, allowing him no opening and turning their conversation to other things. Then at the perfect time she said, “I know you must be very busy.” She got up, smiling. “Will you and Zarah be home for dinner? Cousin Karim’s coming if he can get away from the base, won’t that be fun? I haven’t seen him since…” She stopped herself in time. “For at least a week, but most important, Meshang, cook is making your favorite horisht, just the way you like it.” “Oh? He is? Oh, well, yes, yes, we will - but tell him not to use too much garlic - now concerning your husb - ”

“Oh that reminds me, darling Meshang,” she said, playing her last card - for the moment. “I heard that Zarah now has your permission to go on the Women’s March, the day after tomorrow, how sensitive of you.” She saw the sudden flush and laughed to herself, knowing that Zarah was as adamant about going as he was adamant against it. His fury soared. She listened patiently, her eyes guileless, nodding in agreement from time to perfect time. “My husband agrees with you totally, darling Meshang,” she said with suitable fervor. “Yes, totally, dearest brother, and I’ll certainly remind Zarah, if she asks me, about your feelings…” Not that this will make the slightest difference to her, or to me, because on this protest march we will go. She kissed him lightly. “Good-bye, my darling, try not to work too hard. I’ll make sure about the horisht.”

Then she had gone at once to Zarah and had warned her that Meshang was still furious against the march: “Ridiculous! All our friends will be there, Sharazad. Does he want us shamed before our friends?” Together they had made a plan. By this time it was late afternoon and she had rushed home to command horisht, “just as the Master likes it and if you use too much garlic and it’s not perfect I’ll… I’ll get old Ashabageh the Soothsayer to put the evil eye on you! Go to the market and buy the melon he adores!” “But, mistress, there haven’t been any melons for s - ”

“Get one!” she had screeched and stamped her foot. “Of course you can get one!”

Then supervising Jari tidying away all her clothes and Tommy’s clothes, shedding a tear now and then, not for the loss of their apartment that he had wanted and enjoyed more than she, but only from happiness to be home again. A rest, last prayer, and then a bath and now the massage. “There, Princess,” Jari said, her arms tired. “Now you should dress for dinner. What would you like to wear?”

Wearing the dress that would please Meshang the most, the multicolored woolen skirt and blouse he admired. Then once more checking on the horisht and the polo - the golden-crusted, mouth-watering Iranian way of cooking rice - and the other Meshang specialty, the melon, sweet-smelling and juicy and perfectly sculptured.

Waiting for her cousin Karim Peshadi to arrive - loving him, remembering their lovely times growing up, their families always intermingled, summers on their Caspian estates, swimming and sailing and, in the winter, skiing near Tehran, nothing but parties and dances and laughter, Karim tall like his father, the colonel commandant at Kowiss, and as fine. Always associating Karim with that first September evening she had seen the strange tall foreigner with the blue-gray eyes - eyes that had glowed with the heavenly fire the ancient poets wrote about, the instant he had seen her…

“Highness, His Excellency your cousin Captain Karim Peshadi requests permission to see you.”

Joyfully running to greet him. He was staring out of a window in the smaller of the reception rooms, the walls all small mirrors and windows set into an artistic Persian design, the only furniture the usual low, continuous sofa around the walls, a few inches off the close-sheared carpet, soft-padded and upholstered with the finest Persian fabric - like the backrest that was attached to the walls.

“Darling Karim, how wonder - ” She stopped. This was the first time she had seen him since the day, a week ago, when they had gone together to the riot of Doshan Tappeh, and now she was looking at a stranger - stretched skin over the high cheekbones, the dreadful pallor, dark rings around his eyes, stubbled beard, untidy clothes when usually he was impeccably dressed and groomed. “Oh, Karim, what is it?”

His lips moved but no sound came out. He tried again. “Father’s dead, shot for crimes against Islam, I’m suspect and suspended and may be arrested any moment,” he said bitterly. “Most of our friends are suspect, Colonel Jabani’s vanished, accused of treason - you remember him, the one who led the people against the Immortals and had most of his hand blown off…” Numbed, she sat listening, watching him. “… but there’s worse to come, darling Sharazad. Uncle… Uncle Valik and Annoush and little Jalal and Setarem are all dead, killed trying to escape to Iraq in a civilian 212…” Her heart seemed to stop and doom began. “… they were intercepted and shot down near the Iraqi border. I was at HQ today, waiting to answer our komiteh’s questions when the telex came in from our base at Abadan - those komiteh sons of dogs can’t read so they asked me to read it out, not knowing I had any connection with Valik, that we were related. The telex was marked secret and it said the traitors General Valik and a General Seladi had been identified in the 212’s wreckage from identity cards, along with others and… and a woman and two children… and asked us to check out the chopper, supposedly one of Tom’s company that’d been hijacked, EP-HBC…” She fainted.

When she came to, Jari was patting her forehead with a cold towel, other servants anxiously grouped around, Karim, white-faced and apologetic in the background. Blankly she stared at him. Then what he had said flooded back, what Erikki had said flooded back, and Tommy’s strangeness. And once again the three mixed, another wave of terror started to engulf her. “Has … has Excellency Meshang arrived yet?” she asked weakly.

“No, no, Princess. Let me help you to bed, you’ll feel bett - ” “I’m… no, thank you, Jari, I’m… I’m fine. Please leave us alone.” “But, Prin - ”

“Leave us alone!”

They obeyed. Karim was filled with anguish. “Please excuse me, darling Sharazad, I shouldn’t have worried you with all these problems, but I’m… I only discovered about… about Father this morning, I’m so sorry, Sharazad, it’s not a woman’s place to worry about wh - ”

“Karim, listen to me, I beg you,” she interrupted with growing desperation. “Whatever you do, don’t mention about Uncle Valik, don’t mention to Meshang about him and… and the others, not yet, please, not yet! Don’t mention about Valik!”

“But why?”

“Because… because …” Oh God oh God what do I do? she was thinking, wanting to cry out, I’m sure Tommy was flying HBC, oh God let me be wrong but I’m sure that’s what Erikki said when I asked him how long Tommy’d be away. Didn’t Erikki say: “Don’t worry, Tommy’s charter’s to Bandar Delam - HBC with spares - that shouldn’t take but a day or two.” Isn’t Bandar Delam beside Abadan that’s beside the border? Didn’t Uncle Valik come to see Tommy late at night, much too late unless the matter was very urgent, and then, after he’d left, wasn’t Tommy changed, in misery, staring into the fire? “Family must look after family,” wasn’t that what he muttered? Oh God help me…

“What is it, Sharazad, what is it?”

I daren’t tell you, Karim, even though I’d trust you with my life, I’ve got to protect Tommy… if Meshang finds out about Tommy that’ll be the end of us, the end of everything! He’ll denounce him, he won’t risk any more trouble… or crimes against God! I can’t oppose the family, Meshang will make me

627 divorce. God help me, what shall I do? Without Tommy I’ll… I’ll die, I know I will, I’ll… what was it Tommy said about taking a helicopter on a ferry? A ferry to Al Shargaz? Was it there or to Nigeria? I daren’t tell you, Karim, I daren’t…

But when her eyes saw the enormity of his concern, her mouth opened, and she blurted out everything that she had not dared to tell.

“But it’s impossible,” he stuttered, “impossible, the telex said there were no survivors, impossible he should be flying it.”

“Yes, but he was he was, I’m sure of it, I’m sure of it. Oh, Karim, what am I going to do? Please help me, please, I beg you, please help meeeeee!” The tears were running down her cheeks and he held her, trying to comfort her. “Please don’t tell Meshang, please help me, if my Tommy … I’d die.” “But Meshang’s bound to find out! He’s got to know.” “Please help me. There must be something you can do, there must be som - ”

The door opened and Meshang hurried in, Zarah with him. “Sharazad, my dear, Jari said you fainted, what happened, are you all right? Karim, how are you?” Meshang stopped, astonished at Karim’s ill-kempt appearance and pallor. “What on earth’s happened?”

In the silence Sharazad put her hand to her mouth, petrified she would blurt everything out again. She saw Karim hesitating. The silence worsened, then she heard him say in a rush, “I’ve terrible news. First… first about my… my father. He’s been shot, shot for… for crimes against Islam…” Meshang burst out. “That’s not possible! The hero of Dhofar? You must be mistaken!”

“Excellency Jared Bakravan wasn’t possible but he’s dead and Father’s dead like him, and there’s other news, all bad…”

Helplessly Sharazad began to cry, Zarah put her arms around her, and Karim’s heart went out to her and he buried Valik and his wife and children for others to bring forth.

“Insha’Allah,” he said, loathing the excuse that he could no longer accept for blasphemous crimes committed by men in the Name of God that such men would never know. The Ayatollah’s truly a gift from God. We need only to follow him to cleanse Islam of these foul blasphemers, he thought. God will punish them after death as we, the living, must punish them into death. “My news is all bad, I’m suspect, most of my friends, the air force’s being put on trial. Foolishly I told Sharazad… I wanted you to know, Meshang, but foolishly I told her and that was the reason she… she fainted. Please excuse me, I’m so sorry, I won’t stay, I can’t, I’ve got to… got to get back. I just came to tell you about… I had to tell someone…”

AT MCIVER’S OFFICE: 10:20 P.M. McIver was alone in the penthouse offices, sitting in his creaking chair, feet comfortably on his desk, reading - the light good and the room warm thanks to their generator. The telex was on, and the HF. It was late but there was no point in going home yet where it was cold and damp and no Genny. He looked up. Footsteps were hurrying up the outside stairs. The knock was nervous. “Who is it?”

“Captain McIver? It’s me, Captain Peshadi, Karim Peshadi.” Astonished, McIver unlocked the door, knowing the young man quite well, both as a helicopter student and favored cousin of Sharazad. He stuck out his hand, covering his further surprise at the youth’s appearance. “Come in, Karim, what can I do for you? I was terribly sorry to hear about your father’s arrest.”

“He was shot two days ago.”

“Oh, Christ!”

“Yes. Sorry, none of this is going to be pleasant.” Hurriedly Karim closed the door and dropped his voice. “Sorry, but I’ve got to hurry, I’m already hours overdue but I’ve just come from Sharazad - I went to your apartment but Captain Pettikin said you were here. Tonight I read a secret telex from our base in Abadan.” He told him what it said.

McIver was appalled and tried to cover it. “Did you tell Captain Pettikin?” “No, no, I thought I should tell only you.”

“Far as we know HBC was hijacked. None of our pilots were invol - ” “I’m not here officially, I just came to tell you because Tom’s not here. I didn’t know what else to do. I saw Sharazad tonight and found out, also quite by chance, about Tom.” He repeated what Sharazad had told him. “How could Tom be alive and them all dead?”

McIver felt the hurt in his chest begin again. “She’s mistaken.” “In the Name of God, tell me the truth! You must know! Tom must’ve told you, you can trust me,” the young man exploded, beside himself with worry. “You’ve got to trust me. Perhaps I can help. Tom’s in terrible danger, so’s Sharazad and all our families! You’ve got to trust me! How did Tom get out?”

629 McIver felt the knot tightening around them all - Lochart, Pettikin, him. Don’t lose your wits, he ordered himself, be careful. You daren’t admit anything. Don’t admit anything. “Far as I know Tom was nowhere near HBC.” “Liar!” the young man said enraged and spilled out what he had concluded all the way here, walking, fighting on a bus, walking again, snow falling and cold and desperate - the komiteh still to appear before. “You must’ve signed the clearance, you or Pettikin, and Tom’s name’s got to be on the clearance - I know you all too well, you and your hammering into us about flying by the book, signing forms, always have a form signed. You did, didn’t you? Didn’t you?” he shouted.

“I think you’d better go, Captain,” McIver said curtly.

“You’re as involved as Tom, don’t you see? You’re in trouble as mu - ” “I think you’d better leave it. I know you’re overwrought and it’s terrible about your father,” he said kindly. “I’m truly, terribly sorry.” There was no sound but the gentle hum of the HF and the generator that was above on the roof. McIver waited. Karim waited. Then the young man half nodded. “You’re right,” he said crestfallen, “why should you trust me? Trust’s gone away from us. Our world’s become hell on earth and all because of the Shah. We trusted him but he failed us, gave us false allies, muzzled our generals, ran away and left us in the pit, shamed, left us to false mullahs. I swear by God you can trust me but what difference does that make to you or anyone? Trust’s gone from us.” His face twisted. “Perhaps God’s gone from us.” The HF in the other room crackled gently, static from an electrical storm somewhere. “Can you get Zagros? Sharazad said Tom went back this morning.”

“I tried earlier but can’t raise them,” McIver said truthfully. “This time of the year it’s almost impossible but I heard they arrived safely. Our base in Kowiss relayed a report just after noon.”

“You’d… you’d better tell Tom, tell him what I told you. Tell him to get out.” Karim’s voice was dulled. “You’re all blessed, you can all go home.” Then his despair burst and tears spilled down his cheeks. “Oh, laddie…” Compassionately McIver put an arm around his shoulders and gentled him, the youth of an age with his own son safe in England, safely born English, safe on the ground, a doctor and nothing to do with flying, safe… God in heaven, who the hell is ever safe?

In a little while he felt the heaving of the youth’s chest lessen. To save Karim’s face, he backed off and turned and looked at the kitchenette. “I was just going to have some tea, will you join me?”

“I’ll…just have some water and then, then I’ll go, thank you.” At once McIver went to fetch some. Poor lad, he was thinking, how terrible about his father - such a wonderful fellow, tough, hard-line but straight and loyal and never a fiddle on the side. Terrible. God Almighty, if they’ll shoot him, they’ll shoot anyone. We’ll all be dead soon, one way or another. “Here,” he said, sickened, giving Karim the glass.

The youth accepted it, embarrassed that he had lost control in front of a foreigner. “Thank you. Good night.” He saw McIver staring at him strangely. “What is it?”

“Just a sudden idea, Karim. Could you get access to Doshan Tappeh Tower?” “I don’t know. Why?”

“If you could, without anyone knowing what you wanted, maybe you could get HBC’s clearance - it’s got to be in the takeoff book, if they were using one that day. Then we could see, couldn’t we, who was flying her. Eh?” “Yes, but what good would that do?” Karim watched the pale eyes set in the craggy face. “They’d have the automatic tape recorders on.” “Maybe, maybe not. There’d been fighting there - maybe they were not so efficient. Far as we know, whoever took HBC didn’t have verbal clearance to or from the tower. He just took off. Maybe in all the excitement they didn’t even record any clearance.” McIver’s hope grew as he developed his thought. “Only the book’d tell, the takeoff clearance book. Wouldn’t it?” Karim tried to see where McIver was leading him. “And what if it says Tom Lochart?”

“I don’t see how it could, because then it’d have my signature on it, and then it’d, er, it’d have to be a forgery.” McIver loathed the falsehoods, his hastily made-up story sounding weaker every minute. “The only clearance I signed was for Nogger Lane to take some spares to Bandar Delam but canceled it and him before he could go. The spares were unimportant and what with one thing and another, by that time HBC’d been hijacked.” “The clearance’s the only proof?”

“Only God knows that for certain. If the clearance says Tom Lochart and it’s signed by me, it’s a forgery. A forgery like that

could cause lots of troubles. As such it shouldn’t exist. Should it?” Slowly Karim shook his head, his mind already taking him to the tower, past the guards - would there be guards? - finding the book and the right page and seeing… seeing the Green Band in the doorway but killing him, taking the book and hurrying away, as silently and secretly as he had entered, going to the Ayatollah, telling him about the monstrous crime committed against his father, the Ayatollah wise and listening and not like the dogs who abused the Word, at once ordering revenge in the Name of the One God. Then going to Meshang and telling him the family was saved, but more important, knowing the Sharazad he loved to distraction and wanted to distraction but never possible in this life - first cousin and against Koranic law - was also saved.

“The clearance shouldn’t exist,” he said, very tired now. He got up. “I’ll try. Yes, I’ll try. What happened to Tom?”

Behind McIver the telex began to chatter. Both jumped. McIver put his attention back on Karim. “When you see him ask him, that’s the right thing to do. Isn’t it? You ask Tom.”

“Salaam.”

They shook hands and he left and McIver relocked the door. The telex was from Genny in Al Shargaz: “Hello number one child. Talked at length with Chinaboy who arrives tomorrow night, Monday, and will be on the 125 to Tehran, Tuesday. He says imperative you meet him for conference at airport. All arrangements made here for repairs on the 212s and fast turnaround. Acknowledge. Talked to kids in England and all’s well. I’m having a wonderful time here, whooping it up and on the town, glad you’re not here, why aren’t you? MacAllister.”

MacAllister was her maiden name and she used it only when she was very pissed off with him. “Good old Gen,” he said aloud, the thought of her making him feel better. Glad she’s safe and out of this mess. Glad she called the kids, that’ll make her happy. Good old Gen. He reread the telex. What the hell’s imperative with Andy? I’ll know soon enough. At least we’re in touch through Al Shargaz. He sat at the secretary chair and began to type out the acknowledgment.

At dusk he had got a telex from HQ in Aberdeen, but it had arrived garbled. Only the signature was legible: Gavallan. At once he had telexed for a repeat and had been waiting ever since. Tonight radio reception was also bad. There were rumors of big snowstorms in the mountains and the BBC World Service, fading badly and worse than usual, told of huge storms across all of Europe and the East Coast of America, terrible floods in Brazil. News had been generally rotten: strikes continuing in Britain, heavy fighting inside Vietnam between Chinese and Vietnamese armies, a Rhodesian airliner coming in to land shot down by guerrillas, Carter expected to order gasoline rationing, Soviets testing a fifteen-hundred-mile cruise missile, and in Iran, “Chairman Yasir Arafat met Ayatollah Khomeini in a tumultuous welcome, the two leaders embraced publicly, and the PLO took over Israeli Mission Headquarters in Tehran. Four more generals were reported shot. Heavy fighting continues in Azerbaijan between pro-and anti-Khomeini forces, Prime Minister Bazargan ordered the U.S. to close two radar listening posts on the Iran-Soviet border, and arranged a meeting with the Soviet ambassador and Ayatollah Khomeini in the next few days to discuss outstanding differences …”

Depressed, McIver had turned the set off, the strain of trying to sift the news from the static had given him a worse headache. He had had one all day. It had started after his meeting this morning with Minister Ali Kia. Kia had accepted the notes on a Swiss bank, “license fees” for the three 212 departures, and also for six landings and takeoffs for the 125 and had promised to find out about the Zagros expulsions: “Tell the Zagros komiteh meanwhile their order is overruled by this department pending investigation.”

Fat lot of good that’ll do when you’re looking down the barrel of a gun! he thought. Wonder how Erikki and Nogger are doing now? This afternoon a telex relayed by Tabriz ATC from Iran-Timber had come in: “Captains Yokkonen and Lane are required here for emergency work for three days. Usual terms for the charter. Thanks.” It was signed as usual by the area manager and a normal request. Better for Nogger than sitting on his butt, McIver had thought. Wonder what Azadeh’s father wanted her for?

Promptly at 7:30 P.M. Kowiss had come through but transmission was barely two by five, just enough to be partially audible, and heterodyning badly. Freddy Ayre reported that Starke had returned unharmed.

“Thank God for that!”

“Say ag… I’m read… g you one by five, Cap… … ver.” “I say again,” he said slowly and carefully. “Tell Starke I’m very glad he’s back. He’s okay?”

“……. tain Starke… swered ques…… iteh…… orily.” “Say again, Kowiss.”

“I say again, Capt….. arke answ…. . uestions of the …. iteh sa…” “You’re one by five. Try again at 9:00 A.M.; even better I’ll be here late and I’ll try around eleven.”

“Understand yo… … . ry later .. ound .. leven tonight?” “Yes. Around eleven tonight.”

“Capt… … hart and JeanLuc arriv … Zagro…. ree safely…”

The rest of the transmission was incomprehensible. Then he had settled back to wait. While he waited he slept a little and read a little and now, sitting at the telex machine, again he glanced at his watch: 10:30 P.M. “Soon as this’s done, I’ll call Kowiss,” he said out loud. Carefully he finished the telex to his wife adding for Manuela’s sake that everything was fine at Kowiss - it is, he thought, so long as Starke’s back and he’s okay, and the lads okay.

He fed the hole-punched tape into the cogged sender, typed the number for Al Shargaz, waited interminably for the answer back, then pressed the transmit button. The tape chattered through the cogs. Another long wait but the Al Shargaz accept code came up.

“Good.” He got up and stretched. In the desk drawer were his pills and he took the second of the day. “God-cursed blood pressure,” he muttered. His pressure was 160 over 115 at his last medical. The pills brought it down to a comfortable 135 over 85: “But listen, Mac, that doesn’t mean you can swill the whisky, wine, eggs, and cream - your cholesterol’s up too…” “What bloody whisky and cream, for Christ’s sake, Doc? This’s Iran…” He remembered how foul-tempered he had been and when Genny said, “How was it?” “Great,” he had said, “better than last time and don’t bloody nag!” The hell with it! Nothing I can do that I’m not doing but I certainly could use a large whisky and soda and ice and then another one. Normally there would be a bottle in the safe and ice and soda in the little refrigerator. Now there was none. Supplies zero. He made a cup of tea. What about Karim and HBC? I’ll think about that later: 11:00 P.M.

“Kowiss, this is Tehran, do you read?” Patiently he called and recalled and then stopped. In a quarter of an hour he tried again. No contact. “Got to be the storm,” he said, out of patience now. “To hell with it, I’ll try from home.”

He put on his heavy coat and went up the spiral staircase to the roof to check the level of generator fuel. The night was very black and quiet, hardly any gunfire and what there was was deadened by the snow. No lights anywhere that he could see. Snow still fell gently, almost five inches since dawn. He brushed it off his face and shone the flashlight on the gauge. The level of fuel was all right but somehow they’d have to get another supply in the next few days. Bloody nuisance. What about HBC? If Karim could get the book and the book could be destroyed, there’d be no evidence, would there? Yes, but what about Isfahan, refueling at Isfahan?

Lost in thought, he went back, locked up, and, using the flash to light his way, started down the five flights of stairs. He did not hear the telex chatter into life behind him.

In the garage he went to his car and unlocked it. His heart leaped as he saw a tall figure approaching. SAVAK and HBC jumped into his head; he almost dropped the flash but the man was Armstrong, dark raincoat and hat. “Sorry, Captain McIver, I didn’t mean to startle you.”

“Well, you bloody did,” he said furiously, heart still pounding. “Why the hell didn’t you announce yourself or come up to the office instead of hiding in the bloody shadows like a bloody villain?”

“You might have had more visitors - I saw one come out so I thought I’d just wait. Sorry. Please put the flash down.”

Angrily McIver did as he was asked - since Gavallan had pinpointed Armstrong, he had searched his own memory but had no recollection of ever meeting him. “Special Branch and CID” did nothing to ease his dislike. “Where the hell’ve you been? We expected you at the airport but you didn’t show.”

“Yes, sorry about that. When does the 125 come back to Tehran?” “Tuesday, God willing. Why?”

“Approximately when?”

“Noon, why?”

“Excellent. That would be perfect. I need to go to Tabriz; could I and a friend charter her?”

“No way. I could never get a clearance and who’s the friend?” “I’ll guarantee the clearance. Sorry, Captain, but it’s very important.” “I heard there’s heavy fighting in Tabriz; it was on the news tonight. Sorry, couldn’t authorize that, it’d be an unnecessary risk to air crew.” “Mr. Talbot will be glad to add his request for assistance,” Armstrong said in the same quiet, patient voice.

“No. Sorry.” McIver turned away but was stopped at the sudden venom. “Before you go shall I ask you about HBC and Lochart and your partner Valik and his wife and two children?”

McIver was shock-still. He could see the chiseled face and the hard mouth and eyes that glittered in the reflected light from the flash. “I - I don’t know what you mean.”

Armstrong reached into his pocket and pulled out a piece of paper and held it up to McIver’s face. McIver directed the circle of light onto it. The paper was a photocopy of an entry in a clearance book. The writing was neat. “EP-HBC cleared at 0620 for an IHC charter to Bandar Delam, delivery of spares; pilot Captain T. Lochart, flight authorized by Captain McIver.” The lower half of the paper was a photocopy of the actual clearance, signed by him with Captain N. Lane crossed out “sick,” and Captain T. Lochart substituted. “A present, with my compliments.”

“Where did you get it?”

“When the 125 gets into Tehran airspace, radio Captain Hogg that he’s got an immediate charter to Tabriz. You’ll have the clearance in good time.” “No. I’ll not se - ”

“If you don’t arrange everything happily, and keep it all rather quiet - just between us,” Armstrong said with such finality that McIver was quite frightened, “the originals of these go to SAVAK - renamed SAVAMA.” “That’s blackmail!”

“It’s barter.” Armstrong shoved the paper into his hand, began to leave. “Wait! Where - where are the originals?”

“Not in their hands, for the moment.”

“If - if I do what you say, I get them back, all right?”

“You must be joking! Of course you get nothing.”

“That’s not fair - that’s not bloody fair!”

Armstrong came back and stood over him, his face a mask. “Of course it’s not fair. If you get these back you’re out of the vise, aren’t you? All of you. So long as these exist, you will do what’s required of you, won’t you?” “You’re a bloody bastard!”

“And you’re a fool who should look after his blood pressure.” McIver gasped. “How d’you know about that?”

“You’d be astounded what I know about you and Genevere MacAllister and Andrew Gavallan and the Noble House and lots of other things that I haven’t begun to use yet.” Armstrong’s voice became rougher, his tiredness and anxiety taking away his control. “Don’t you bloody understand there’s the very strong probability of Soviet tanks and aircraft permanently stationed this side of Hormuz and Iran a bloody Soviet province? I’m tired of playing silly buggers with you ostriches - just do what I ask without arguing and if you don’t I’ll shop the bloody lot of you.”

Tuesday - February 20

Chapter 39

TABRIZ: 5:12 A.M. In the small hut on the edge of the Khan’s estate, Ross was suddenly awake. He lay motionless, keeping his breathing regular but all of his senses concentrated. Seemingly nothing untoward, just the usual insects and closeness of the room. Through the window he could see that the night was dark, the sky mostly overcast. Across the room on the other pallet, Gueng slept curled up, breathing normally. Because of the cold, both men had gone to bed with their clothes on. Noiselessly Ross went to the window and searched the darkness. Still nothing. Then, close to his ear, Gueng whispered, “What is it, sahib?”

“I don’t know. Probably nothing.”

Gueng nudged him and pointed. There was no guard in the seat outside on the veranda.

“Perhaps he’s just gone to take a leak.” There had always been at least one guard. By day or night. Last night there had been two so Ross had made a mock dummy in his bed and left Gueng to divert them and had slipped out of the back window and gone to see Erikki and Azadeh alone. Coming back he had almost stumbled into a patrol but they had been sleepy and unattentive so he had passed them by.

“Take a look out the back window,” Ross whispered. Again they watched and waited. Dawn in about an hour, Ross thought.

“Sahib, perhaps it was just a spirit of the mountain,” Gueng said softly. In the Land Atop the World it was a superstition that by night, spirits visited the beds of sleeping men and women and children, for good purposes or ill, and that dreams were the stories they whispered.

The little man kept his eyes and ears feeling out the darkness. “I think perhaps we’d better pay attention to the spirits.” He went back to his bed and pulled on his boots, put the talisman he had kept under his pillow back into his uniform pocket, then put on the tribesman robes and turban. Nimbly he checked his grenades and carbine and settled the rough backpack that contained ammunition, grenades, water, and a little food. No need to check his kookri, that was never out of reach, always oiled and cleaned nightly - and sharpened nightly - just before sleep.

Now Ross was equally ready. But ready for what? he asked himself. It’s hardly five minutes since you awoke and here you are, kookri loose in the scabbard, safety catch off and for what? If Abdollah meant you harm, he would’ve already taken away your weapons - or tried to take them. Yesterday afternoon they had heard the 206 take off and shortly afterward Abdollah Khan had visited them. “Ah, Captain, sorry for the delay but the hue and cry is worse than ever. Our Soviet friends have put a very large price on your heads,” he had said jovially. “Enough even to tempt me, perhaps.” “Let’s hope not, sir. How long will we have to wait?” “A few days, no more. It seems the Soviets want you very much. I’ve had another deputation from them asking me to help capture you, the first was before you arrived. But don’t worry, I know where the future of Iran lies.” Last night Erikki had confirmed about the reward: ‘Today I was near Sabalan, cleaning out another radar site. Some of the workers thought I was Russian - lots of Russian speakers among the border people - and said they hoped they’d be the ones to catch the tall British saboteur and his helper. The reward’s five horses and five camels and fifty sheep. That’s a fortune, and if they know about you that far north you can bet they’re looking here.” “Were Soviets supervising you?”

“Only Cimtarga, but even then he didn’t seem to be in charge. Just of me and the aircraft. The Russian speakers kept asking me when we were coming over the border in strength.”

“My God - did they have anything to base that on?”

“I doubt it, just more rumors. People here feed on them. I said, ‘Never,’ but this man scoffed and said he knew we had ‘leagues’ of tanks and armies waiting, that he’d seen them. I can’t speak Farsi so I don’t know if he was another KGB plant disguised as a tribesman.”

“The ‘stuff’ you’re carrying? Is it anything important?”

“I don’t know. Some computers and lots of black boxes and papers - they keep me away from it but none of it’s dismantled by experts, just pulled out of walls, wires cut, and hanging loose and stacked carelessly. The only thing the workers’re interested in is stores, cigarettes particularly.” They had talked about escaping. Impossible to make plans. Too many imponderables. “I don’t know how long they want me to keep flying,” Erikki had said. “This bastard Cimtarga told me Prime Minister Bazargan has ordered the Yanks out of two sites, far to the east, near Turkey, the last they’ve got here, ordered them to evacuate at once and to leave the equipment intact. We’re supposed to fly up there tomorrow.”

“Did you use the 206 today?”

“No. That was Nogger Lane, one of our captains. He came here with us - to take the 206 back to Tehran. Our base manager told me they’ve co-opted Nogger to look at some places where fighting’s going on. When McIver doesn’t hear from us he’ll go into shock and send out a search party. That might give us another chance. What about you?”

“We might sneak off. I’m getting very nervous in that rotten little hut. If we evacuate, we might head for your base and hide out in the forest. If we can, we’ll contact you - but don’t expect us. All right?” “Yes - but don’t trust anyone at the base - except our two mechanics, Dibble and Arberry.” “Anything I can do for you?” “Could you leave me a grenade?” “Of course, have you ever used one?” “No, but I know how they work.” “Good. Here. Pull the pin and count to three - not four - and heave it. Do you need a gun?”

“No, no thanks. I’ve my knife - but the grenade might come in handy.” “Remember they can be rather messy. I’d better be going. Good luck.” Ross had been looking at Azadeh when he had said it, seeing how beautiful she was, so very aware that their time was already written among the stars or on the wind or in the chimes of the bells that were as much a part of the summer High Country as the peaks themselves. Wondering why she never replied to his letters, then the school telling him she had gone. Gone home. Gone. On their last day she had said, “All this that has come to pass may not come to pass again, my Johnny Brighteyes.”

“I know. If it doesn’t, I can die happy because I know what love is. Truly. I love you, Azadeh.”

Last kiss. Then down to his train and waving good-bye, waving until she was lost. Lost forever. Perhaps we both knew that it was forever, he thought, waiting here in the darkness of the little hut, trying to decide what to do, to wait more, to sleep or to flee. Maybe it’s as the Khan said and we’re safe here - for the moment. No reason to mistrust him completely. Vien Rosemont was no fool and he said to trust h - “Sahib!”

He had heard the stealthy footsteps at the same instant. Both men moved into ambush, one covering the other, both of them glad that the time for action had arrived. The door opened quietly. It was a ghoulish spirit of the mountain standing there peering into the greater darkness of the hut - a shape and vague face. To his astonishment he recognized Azadeh, the chador blending her with the night, her face puffy from crying.

“Johnny?” she whispered anxiously.

For a moment Ross did not move, gun still leveled and expecting enemies. “Azadeh, here, beside the door,” he whispered back, trying to adjust. “Quick, follow me, you’re both in danger! Hurry!” At once she ran off into the night.

He saw Gueng shake his head uneasily and he hesitated. Then he decided, grabbed his backpack. “We go.” He slid out of the doorway and ran after her, the moonlight small, Gueng following, flanking, automatically covering him. She was waiting beside some trees. Before he reached her, she beckoned him to follow, unerringly led the way through the orchard and around some farm buildings. The snow muffled their way but left tracks and he was very aware of them. He was ten paces behind her, watching the terrain carefully, wondering what danger and why had she been crying and where’s Erikki?

Clouds were toying with the moon, hiding it mostly. Whenever it came clear, she would stop and motion him to stop and to wait, then she would move on again, using cover well, and he wondered where she had learned woodsmanship then remembered Erikki and his great knife and Finns and Finland - land of lakes and forests and mountains and trolls and hunting. Concentrate, fool, time enough to let your mind wander later, not now when you’re endangering everyone! Concentrate!

His eyes searched, expecting trouble, wanting it to begin. Soon they were near the perimeter wall. The wall was ten feet high and made of hewn stone, with a wide, empty swath between it and the trees. Again she motioned him to stop in cover and walked forward into the open, seeking a special place. Finding it without trouble, she beckoned him. Before he was beside her she was already climbing, her feet fitting easily into the notches and cracks with sufficient handholds, some natural, some cleverly embedded to make the climb easy. The moon came into a bare patch of sky and he felt naked and climbed more quickly. When he reached the top she was already halfway down the other side. He slithered over and found some footholds, ducked down to wait for Gueng. His anxiety mounted until he saw the shadow darting over the ground, reaching the wall safely.

The climb down was more difficult and he slipped and fell the last six feet, cursed and looked around to get his bearings. She was already across the boundary road and heading for a rocky outcrop on the steep mountainside two hundred yards away. Below and to the left he could see part of Tabriz, fires on the far side of the city near the airport. Now he could hear distant guns.

Gueng landed neatly beside him, grinned and motioned him onward. When he reached the outcrop she had vanished.

“Johnny! Here!”

He saw the small crack in the rock and went forward. Just enough room to squeeze through. He waited until Gueng came up, and then went through the rock into darkness. Her hand came out and guided him to one side. She beckoned Gueng and did the same for him, then moved a heavy leather curtain across the crack. Ross reached into his pack for his flash but before he could pull it out the match flamed. Her hand was cupped around it. She was kneeling and lit the candle that was in a niche. Quickly he looked around. The curtain over the entrance seemed lightproof, the cave spacious, warm and dry, some blankets, old carpets on the ground, a few drinking and eating utensils - some books and toys on a natural shelf. Ah, a child’s hideout, he thought, and looked back at her. She had stayed kneeling by the candle, her back to him, and now, as she pulled the chador away from her head, she became Azadeh again.

“Here.” He offered her some water from his water bottle. She accepted it gratefully but avoided his eyes. He glanced at Gueng and read his mind. “Azadeh, do you mind if we put the light out - now that we see where we are - then we can pull the curtain back and keep watch and hear better. I’ve a flash if we need it.”

“Oh, oh, yes… yes, of course.” She turned back to the candle. “I… oh, just a minute, sorry…” There was a mirror on the shelf he had not noticed. She picked it up and peered at herself, hated what she saw, the streaks of sweat and puffy eyes. Hastily she brushed away some smudges, picked up the comb and tidied herself as best she could. A final check in the mirror and she blew out the candle. “Sorry,” she said.

Gueng moved the curtain away and went through the rock and stood there listening. More gunfire from the city. A few buildings burning beyond the single runway of the airfield below and to the right. No lights there and very few on in the city itself. A few car headlights in the streets. The palace still dark and silent and he could sense no danger. He came back and told Ross what he had seen, speaking Gurkhali, and added, “Better I stay outside, safer, there’s not much time, sahib.”

“Yes.” Ross had heard disquiet in his voice but did not comment. He knew the reason. “You all right, Azadeh?” he asked softly.

“Yes. Yes I am now. It’s better in the dark - sorry I looked such a mess. Yes, I’m better now.”

“What’s this all about - and where’s your husband?” He used the word deliberately and heard her move in the darkness.

“Just after you left last night, Cimtarga and a guard came and told Erikki he had to dress at once and leave - this man Cimtarga said he was sorry but there’d been a change of plan and he wanted to leave at once. And I, I was summoned to see my father. At once. Before I went into his room I overheard him giving orders for you both to be captured and disarmed, just after dawn.” There was a catch to her voice. “He was planning to send for you both to discuss your departure tomorrow, but you would be led into ambush near the farmhouses and bound up and put into a truck and sent north at once.”

“Where north?”

“Tbilisi.” Nervously she hurried onward: “I didn’t know what to do, there was no way to warn you - I’m watched as closely as you and kept away from the others. When I saw my father, he said Erikki wouldn’t be back for a few days, that today he, my father, he was going on a business trip to Tbilisi and that… that I would be going with him. He… he said we would be away two or three days and by that time Erikki would be finished and then we would go back to Tehran.” She was almost in tears. “I’m so frightened. I’m so frightened something’s happened to Erikki.”

“Erikki will be all right,” he said, not understanding about Tbilisi, trying to decide about the Khan. Always back to Vien: “Trust Abdollah with your life and don’t believe the lies about him.” And yet here was Azadeh saying the opposite. He looked across at her, unable to see her, hating the darkness, wanting to see her face, her eyes, thinking that perhaps he could read something from them. Wish to Christ she’d told me all this the other side of the bloody wall or at the hut, he thought, his nervousness increasing. Christ, the guard! “Azadeh, the guard, do you know what happened to him?”

“Oh, yes, I… I bribed him, Johnny, I bribed him to be away for half an hour. It was the only way I could get… it was the only way.” “God Almighty,” he muttered. “Can you trust him?”

“Oh, yes. Ali is… he’s been with Father for years. I’ve known him since I was seven and I gave him a pishkesh of some jewelry, enough for him and his family for years. But, Johnny, about Erikki… I’m so worried.” “No need to worry, Azadeh. Didn’t Erikki say they might send him near to Turkey?” he said encouraging her, anxious to get her back safely. “I can’t thank you enough for warning us. Come on, first we’d better get you back an - ”

“Oh, no, I can’t,” she burst out. “Don’t you understand? Father‘11 take me north and I’ll never get away, never - my father hates me and he’ll leave me with Mzytryk, I know he will, I know he will.”

“But what about Erikki?” he said shocked. “You can’t just run away!” “Oh, yes, I have to, Johnny, I have to. I daren’t wait, I daren’t go to Tbilisi, it’s much safer for Erikki that I run away now. Much safer.” “What’re you talking about? You can’t run away just like that! That’s madness! Say Erikki comes back tonight and finds you gone? Wh - ” “I left him a note - we made an arrangement that in an emergency I’d leave a note in a secret place in our room. We had no way of telling what Father would do while he was away. Erikki‘11 know. There’s something else. Father’s going to the airport today, around noon. He has to meet a plane, someone from Tehran, I don’t know who or what about but I thought perhaps you could … you could persuade them to take us back to Tehran or we could sneak aboard or you… you could force them to take us.”

“You’re crazy,” he said angrily. “This’s all crazy, Azadeh. It’s madness to run off and leave Erikki - how do you know it’s not just as your father says, for God’s sake? You say the Khan hates you - my God, if you run off like this, whether he does or doesn’t he’ll blow a gasket. Either way you put Erikki into more danger.”

“How can you be so blind? Don’t you see? So long as I’m here Erikki has no chance, none. If I’m not here he has to think only of himself. If he knows I’m in Tbilisi he’ll go there and be lost forever. Don’t you see? I’m the bait. In the Name of God, Johnny, open your eyes! Please help me!” He heard Her crying now, softly but still crying, and this only increased his fury. Christ Almighty, we can’t take her along. There’s no way I could do that. That’d be murder - if what she says about the Khan’s true the dragnet’ll be out for us in a couple of hours and we’ll be lucky if we see sunset - the dragnet’s already out for God’s sake, think clearly! Bloody nonsense about running away! “You have to go back. It’s better,” he said. The crying stopped. “Insha’Allah,” she said in a different voice. “Whatever you say, Johnny. It’s better you leave quickly. You’ve not much time. Which way will you go?”

“I - I don’t know.” He was glad for the darkness that hid his face from her. My God, why must it be Azadeh? “Come on, I’ll see you safely back.” “There’s no need. I’ll… I’ll stay here for a while.”

He heard the falsehood and his nerves jangled even more. “You’re going to go back. You’ve got to.”

“No,” she said defiantly. “I can never go back. I’m staying here. He won’t find me, I’ve hidden here before. Once I was here two days. I’m safe here. Don’t worry about me. I’ll be all right. You go on. That’s what you’ve got to do.”

Exasperated, he managed to control his urge to drag her to her feet, and instead sat back against the wall of the cave. I can’t leave her, can’t carry her back against her will, can’t take her. Can’t leave her, can’t take her. Oh you can take her with you but for how long and then, when she’s captured, she’s mixed up with saboteurs and Christ only knows what else they’d accuse her of and they stone women for that. “When we’re found missing - if you are too - the Khan‘11 know you tipped us off. If you stay here, eventually you’ll be found and anyway the Khan‘11 know you gave us the tip and that’ll make it worse than ever for you, and worse for your husband. You must go back.”

“No, Johnny. I’m in the Hands of God and not afraid.”

“For God’s sake, Azadeh, use your head!”

“I am. I’m in God’s hands, you know that. Didn’t we talk about that in our High Country a dozen times? I’m not afraid. Just leave me a grenade like the one you gave to Erikki. I’m safe in God’s hands. Please go now.” In the other time they had talked about God often. On a Swiss mountaintop it was easy and ordinary and nothing to be shy about - not with your beloved who knew the Koran and could read Arabic and felt very close to the Infinite and believed in Islam absolutely. Here in the darkness of the small cave it was not the same. Nothing was the same.

“Insha’Allah it is,” he said and decided. “We’ll go back, you and I, and I’ll send Gueng on.” He got up.

“Wait.” He heard her get up too and felt her breath and nearness. Her hand touched his arm. “No, my darling,” she said, her voice as it used to be. “No, my darling, that would destroy my Erikki - and you and your soldier. Don’t you see, I’m the lodestone to destroy Erikki. Remove the lodestone and he has a chance. Outside my father’s walls, you too have a chance. When you see Erikki, tell him… tell him.”

What should I tell him? he was asking himself. In the darkness he took her hand in his and, feeling its warmth, was back in time again in the darkness together in the great bed, a vast summer storm lashing the windows, the two of them counting the seconds between the lightning flashes and the thunder that bounced off the sides of the high valley - sometimes only one or two seconds, oh, Johnny it must be almost overhead, Insha’Allah if it hits us, never mind we’re together - holding hands together just like this. But not like this, he thought sadly. He put her hand to his lips and kissed it. “You can tell him yourself,” he said. “We’ll give it a go - together. Ready?” “You mean go on - together?”

“Yes.”

After a pause she said, “First ask Gueng.”

“He does what I say.”

“Yes, of course. But please ask him. Another favor. Please?” He went to the neck of the cleft. Gueng was leaning against the rocks outside. Before he could say anything Gueng said softly in Gurkhali, “No danger yet, sahib. Outside.”

“Ah, you heard?”

“Yes, sahib.”

“What do you think?”

Gueng smiled. “What I think, sahib, has no weight, affects nothing. Karma is karma. I do what you say.”

AT TABRIZ AIRPORT: 12:40 P.M. Abdollah Khan stood beside his bulletproof Rolls on the snow-covered concrete apron near the airport terminal. He was flushed with rage, watching the 125 turn onto final, praying it would crash. Yesterday a telex relayed through police HQ had been brought by his nephew, Colonel Mazardi, the chief of police. “Please meet jet G-ETLL, ETA 1240 tomorrow Tuesday, [signed] Colonel Hashemi Fazir.” The name had sent an immediate shudder through him and everyone else who had access to the message. Inner Intelligence had always been above the law and Colonel Hashemi Fazir its grand inquisitor, a man whose ruthlessness was legend even in Iran where ruthlessness was expected and admired.

“What does he want here, Highness?” Mazardi had asked, very afraid. “To discuss Azerbaijan,” he had said, hiding his dread and seething at the curtness of the telex, completely thrown by this unexpected and unwanted arrival. “Of course to ask how he can assist me - he’s been a secret friend for years,” he added, lying automatically.

“I’ll order an honor guard and welcoming komiteh and ma - ” “Don’t be a fool! Colonel Fazir likes secrecy. Do nothing, don’t go near the airport, just make sure the streets are quiet and… ah, yes, increase pressure on the Tudeh. In fact, implement Khomeini’s orders to crush them. Bum their headquarters tonight and arrest their known leaders.” That will be a perfect pishkesh should I need one, he had thought, delighted with his cleverness. Isn’t Fazir fanatically anti-Tudeh? God be thanked that Petr Oleg gave his approval.

Then he had sent Mazardi away and cursed everyone near him and sent them away too. Now what does that son of a dog Fazir want with me? Over the years they had met several times and had exchanged information, to their mutual advantage. But Colonel Hashemi Fazir was one of those who believed that Iran’s only protection lay in absolute centralized government, ruled from Tehran, and that tribal chieftains were archaic and a danger to the state - and also Fazir was a Tehrani with the power to uncover too many secrets, secrets that could be used against him. God curse all Tehranis and send them to hell. And Azadeh, and her God-cursed husband! Azadeh! Did I truly sire that demon? It’s not possible! Someone must have… God forgive me that I suspect my Beloved Napthala! Azadeh’s Satan-possessed. But she won’t escape, oh no, I swear I’ll take her to Tbilisi and I’ll let Petr use her…

Blood began roaring in his ears again and the clawing started in his chest again, a grasping pain. Stop it, he told himself desperately, calm yourself. Put her aside, you’ll get your revenge later. Stop it or you’ll kill yourself! Stop it and put her aside and think of Fazir, you’ll need all your cunning to deal with him. She can’t escape.

When, just after dawn, petrified guards had rushed in to tell him the two prisoners had vanished and, almost at the same time she was also discovered missing, his violence had known no bounds. At once he had sent men to search her hiding place in the rocks that he had known about for years and ordered them not to come back without her or the saboteurs. He had had the nose of the night guard cut off, the rest of the guards flogged and shoved into jail, charged with conspiracy, her maids whipped. At length he had stormed off to the airport, leaving a pall of terror over the whole palace. God curse them all, he thought, making a great effort to calm himself, his eyes never leaving the jet. The sky was patchy blue with ominous clouds and a bad wind that swept the snow-covered runway. He wore an Astrakhan hat and fur-collared winter coat and fur-lined boots, the cold misting his glasses. In his pocket was a small revolver. Behind him, the small terminal building was empty but for his men who had secured it and the access road beyond. Above, on the roof, he had put a sniper into ambush with instructions to shoot Fazir if he took out a white handkerchief and blew his nose. I’ve done all I can, he thought, now it is up to God. Crash, you son of a burnt father!

But the 125 made a perfect touchdown, snow flaring from her wheels in a vast spray. His dread increased. And the sound of his own heartbeat. “As God wants,” he muttered and got into the back of the car, partitioned from the chauffeur and Ahmed, his most trusted counselor and bodyguard, by the movable, bulletproof glass. “Intercept it,” he ordered and checked the revolver, leaving the safety off.

The 125 came off the far end of the runway into the feeder area, turned into the wind and stopped. It was bleak here, just snowdrifts and empty space. The big black Rolls pulled up alongside, and the door of the jet swung open. He saw Hashemi Fazir standing there, beckoning him, “Salaam! Peace be upon you, Highness, come aboard.”

Abdollah Khan opened the window and called back, “Salaam, peace be upon you, Excellency, join me here.” You must think me a fool to put my head in such a trap, he thought. “Ahmed, go aboard, go armed and pretend you don’t speak English.”

Ahmed Dursak was a Muslim Turkoman, very strong, very quick with a knife or gun. He got out, the submachine gun loose in one hand, and ran nimbly up the steps, the wind pulling at his long coat. “Salaam, Excellency Colonel,” he said in Farsi, standing outside on the top step. “My Master begs you to please join him in the car - cabins of small jets make him disquieted. In the car you can talk in private and in peace, totally alone if you wish. He asks if you will honor his poor house and stay with him during your stay here.”

Hashemi was shocked that Abdollah had had the effrontery - and confidence - to send the emissary armed. Going to the car did not suit him either, too easy to be bugged, or booby-trapped. “Tell His Highness I sometimes have car sickness and I beg him to come here. Here we can speak in private, be alone also and it would be a favor to me. Of course you should search the cabin in case a foul alien sneaked aboard.”

“My Master would prefer, Excellency, that you j - ” Hashemi came closer to him and now his lips were a thin line and his voice as tight. “Search the airplane! Now! And do it quickly, Ahmed Dursak, three times murderer - one a woman called Najmeh - and do what I order or you will not last one more week on this earth.”

“Then all the sooner I will be in Paradise because serving the Khan I do God’s work,” Ahmed Dursak said, “but I will search as you wish.” He stepped through the doorway and saw the two pilots in the cockpit. In the cabin was Armstrong. His eyes narrowed but he said nothing, just went past politely and opened the lavatory door making sure it was empty. There was nowhere else that anyone could hide. “Should what you suggest be possible, Excellency, the pilots will leave?”

Earlier Hashemi had asked the captain, John Hogg, if he would oblige, should it become necessary.

“Sorry, sir,” Hogg had said, “but I don’t like that idea at all.” “It would only be for a few minutes. You can take the ignition key with you - and the circuit breakers,” Robert Armstrong had said. “I will personally guarantee no one gets into the cockpit or touches anything.” “I still don’t like that idea, sir.”

“I know,” Armstrong had said. “But Captain McIver told you you were to do what we asked. Within reason. And this’s within reason.”

Hashemi saw the arrogance in Ahmed’s face and he wanted to smash it off. That comes later, he promised himself. “The pilots will wait in the car.” “And the Infidel?”

“This Infidel speaks better Farsi than you, lice, and if you’re wise, lice, you’ll be polite to him and call him Excellency for I can assure you and your dog Turkoman ancestors he has as long a memory as me and can be more cruel than you can imagine.”

Ahmed’s mouth smiled. “And His Excellency, the Infidel, he waits on the runway also?”

“He stays here. The pilots wait in the car. Should His Highness want one guard with him - to make sure no assassins wait in ambush - he is of course welcome. If this arrangement does not suit him, then perhaps we should meet in police headquarters. Now take your foul manners away.” Ahmed thanked him politely and strode back and told the Khan what had been said, adding, “I think that dog’s turd must be very sure of himself to be so rude.” And in the airplane Hashemi was saying in English, “Robert, that son of a dog must be very sure of himself to have such arrogant servants.” “You’d really haul the Khan of all the Gorgons down to police HQ?” “I could try.” Hashemi lit another cigarette. “I don’t think I’d succeed. His nephew Mazardi’s still chief of police and police here still hold most of their power - Green Bands and komitehs aren’t dominant. Yet.” “Because of Abdollah?”

“Of course Abdollah. For months, on his orders, the Tabrizi police covertly supported Khomeini. The only difference from Shah days to Khomeini days is that Shah pictures have been replaced with Khomeini pictures, Shah emblems taken off all uniforms, and now Abdollah’s grasp is tighter than ever.” A chill draft came through the half-open door. “Azerbaijanis are a treacherous breed, and cruel - the Qajar Shahs came from Tabriz - so did Shah Abbas, who built Isfahan and tried to ensure his longevity by murdering his eldest son and blinding another…”

Hashemi Fazir was watching the car out of the window, willing Abdollah Khan to concede. He was feeling better now and more confident that he would see Holy Day this week than he had been on Sunday evening when General Janan had burst into his HQ with orders for the dissolution of Inner Intelligence and had taken possession of the cassettes and Rakoczy. All that night he had been at his wits’ end, then at dawn yesterday when he had left his house he had found men tailing him and, during the morning, his wife and children were jostled on the streets. It had taken him until early afternoon to lose those who followed him. By that time one of his secret Group Four leaders was waiting at a safe house and that evening when General Janan got out of his bulletproof limousine to go into his home, a nearby parked car filled with plastic explosive blew him and two of his most trusted assistants to pieces, totally wrecking his house, obliterating his wife and three children and seven servants - and his elderly, bedridden father. Men shouting leftist mujhadin slogans were heard running away. In their wake they left crudely written pamphlets: “Death to SAVAK now SAVAMA.”

In the early hours of this morning, half an hour after Abrim Pahmudi had discreetly left the bed of his very secret mistress, cruel men had paid her a visit. More leftist slogans were heard and the same message daubed on her walls, using her blood and vomit and feces for paint. At nine this morning he had gone by appointment to give his condolences to Abrim Pahmudi for both tragedies - of course Inner Intelligence had informed him of them. As a pishkesh he brought part of Rakoczy’s testimony as though it was information that had come into his hands from another source - just enough to be of value. “I’m sure, Excellency, if I were allowed to resume my work I could gather much more. And if my department was to be honored with your confidence and allowed to operate as before - but to report solely to you and no other power - I could prevent such foul deeds and perhaps smash these terrorist dogs off the earth.”

While he was there an aide had rushed in, distraught, to say that more terrorists had assassinated one of the most important ayatollahs in Tehran - another car bomb - and the Revolutionary Komiteh required Pahmudi’s immediate presence. At once Pahmudi had got up but before he left he rescinded his previous order. “I agree, Excellency Colonel. For thirty days. You have thirty days to prove your value.”

“Thank you, Excellency, your confidence overwhelms me, you may be sure of my loyalty. May I have Rakoczy back, please?”

“That dog, General Janan, allowed him to escape.” Then he had gone to the airport and joined Robert Armstrong at the 125, and, once airborne, had laughed and laughed. It was the first time that a car bomb with a remote detonator had been used in Iran. “By God, Robert,” he had said jovially, “it’s totally efficient. From a hundred yards away you wait until you’re sure it’s him, then you just touch the switch on the sender that’s no bigger than a pack of cigarettes and… boom! another enemy gone forever - and his father!” He wiped the tears out of his eyes, his laughter infectious. “That’s what really got to Pahmudi. Yes, and without Group Four it would’ve been me and my family.”

Group Four had grown out of a suggestion of Armstrong’s that he had taken and elaborated: small teams of very select bands of men and women, highly trained in the most modern antiterrorist tactics, very highly paid and carefully protected - all non-Iranian, none of whom knew any of the other cells - and all known and loyal only to Hashemi. Their anonymity meant that some could be used against the others if necessary, individually they were expendable and easily replaceable - in the Middle and Near East there was too much poverty, too many betrayed causes, too much hatred, too many beliefs, too many homeless not to provide a ready ocean of men, and women, desperate for such a job.

Over the years his Group Four team had prospered, its coups secret, the vast majority secret even from Armstrong. He looked at him and smiled. “Without them I’d be dead.”

“Me too, probably - I was very bloody frightened when that bugger Janan said, ‘I give you a day and a night for past services.’ That bugger’d never’ve let me get out.”

“True.” A few thousand feet below them the land was deep in snow and the jet already high over the mountains, the journey to Tabriz little more than half an hour.

“What about Rakoczy? You believe what Pahmudi said about him escaping?” “Of course not, Robert. Rakoczy was a trade, a pishkesh. When Pahmudi found the tapes empty and the state Rakoczy was in he had no value - other than as a payment for past favors - he couldn’t possibly know the connection with your Petr Oleg Mzytryk. Or could he?”

“Not likely - I’d say impossible.”

“It’s probable he’s in Soviet HQ - if he’s not already dead. Soviets’d want to know what he gave away… could he tell them anything?” “I doubt it - he was on the brink.” Armstrong shook his head. “Doubt it. What’ll you do now that you’re Mr. Big again? Feed Pahmudi more of his info within the thirty days - if he’s alive in thirty days.”

Hashemi smiled thinly and did not reply. I’m not your Mr. Big yet, he thought, or even safe until Pahmudi’s in hell - with many others. I may still have to use your passport. Armstrong had given it to him before takeoff. He had checked it very carefully.

Then he had closed his eyes and settled back, enjoying the luxury and convenience of the private jet that was already over Qazvin, just a quarter of an hour out of Tabriz. But he did not nap. He spent the time considering what to do about SAVAMA, Pahmudi, and Abdollah Khan, and what to do about Robert Armstrong who knew too much.

Through the cabin window, he continued to watch the Rolls, big, immaculate, and possessed by so few on earth. By God and the Prophet, what riches, he thought, awed at this proof of the Khan’s position and power. What power to flaunt such a possession so fearlessly in the faces of the komitehs, and mine. Abdollah Khan won’t be easy to bend.

He knew that here in the airplane they were dangerously exposed - easy targets if Abdollah ordered his men to fire on them - but he had dismissed that possibility, certain that even Abdollah Khan would not dare such an open murder of three Infidels and one jet, and him. But just in case the Khan arranged an “accident,” two Group Four teams were already en route by road, one for Abdollah personally, the other for his family, to be stopped only by code word from him personally. He smiled. Once Robert Armstrong had told him that a Chinese punishment for an important person in olden days was “death - and all his generations.”

“I like that, Robert,” he had said. “That has style.”

He saw the front side door of the car open. Ahmed got out, carrying the submachine gun oddly, then walked to the back door and opened it for Abdollah.

“You win the first round, Hashemi,” Armstrong said and went forward as agreed. “All right, Captain. We’ll be as quick as we can.” Reluctantly the two pilots squeezed out of the little cockpit, pulled on their parkas, and hurried out into the cold and down the steps. They saluted the Khan politely. He motioned them into the back of the car, began to climb the gangway, Ahmed following him.

“Salaam, Highness, peace be upon you,” Hashemi said warmly, greeting him at the door, a concession that Abdollah noted at once.

“And upon you, Excellency Colonel.” They shook hands. Abdollah walked past him into the cabin, his eyes on Armstrong, and sat in the chair nearest the exit.

“Salaam, Highness,” Armstrong said. “Peace be upon you.”

“This is a colleague of mine,” Hashemi said, sitting opposite the Khan. “An Englishman, Robert Armstrong.”

“Ah, yes, the Excellency who speaks Farsi better than my Ahmed and is famous for his memory - and cruelty.” Behind him Ahmed had closed the heavy curtain over the outside door and stood with his back to the cockpit, on guard, gun ready but not impolitely so. “Eh?”

Armstrong smiled. “That was a pleasantry of the colonel, Highness.” “I don’t agree. Even in Tabriz we’ve heard of the Special Branch expert, twelve years in service of the Shah, and running dog of his running dogs,” Abdollah said scornfully in Farsi. The smile vanished from Armstrong’s face, and both he and Hashemi tensed at the blatant bad manners. “I’ve read your record.” He turned his black eyes on Hashemi, completely sure that his plan would work: Ahmed would kill them at his signal, booby-trap the airplane, send the pilots back aboard and into a hasty takeoff and fiery death - nothing to do with him, as God wants, and he, himself, after such a wonderful discussion where he had promised “complete support for the central government,” would be filled with sadness.

“So, Excellency,” he said, “we meet again. What can I do for you - I know your time is, unfortunately, short with us.”

“Perhaps, Highness, it is what I can do for you? Per - ”

“Come to the point, Colonel,” the Khan said harshly, now in English, totally sure of himself. “You and I know each other, we can dispense with flattery and compliments and get to the point. I’m busy. If you’d had the courtesy to come to my car, alone, I would have been more comfortable, we could have spoken in private, leisurely. Now come to the point!”

“I want to talk to you about your controller, Colonel General Petr Oleg Mzytryk,” Hashemi said as harshly, but suddenly petrified that he’d been trapped and that Abdollah was a secret Pahmudi supporter, “and about your long-term KGB connection through Mzytryk, code name Ali Khoy.” “Controller? What controller? Who’s this man?” Abdollah Khan heard himself say, but his head was shrieking, You can’t know that, impossible, not possible. And through the torrent of his own heartbeat he saw the colonel’s mouth open and say other things that made everything worse, much worse, and worst of all it tore his plan to shreds. If the colonel spoke such secrets so openly in front of this foreigner and Ahmed, the secrets would be recorded elsewhere in a safe place to be read by the Revolutionary Komiteh and his enemies in case of an “accident.”

“Your controller,” Hashemi slammed at him, seeing the change, and pressed home his advantage. “Petr Oleg, whose dacha is beside Lake Tzvenghid in the Place of Hidden Valley, east of Tbilisi, code name Ali Khoy, yours is Iv - ” “Wait,” Abdollah said throatily, his face livid - not even Ahmed knew that, must not know that. “I - I - give me some water.”

Armstrong began to get up but froze as Ahmed’s gun covered him. “Please sit, Excellency. I will get it. Fasten your belt, both of you.” “There’s no n - ”

“Do it,” Ahmed snarled and waved the gun, aghast at the Khan’s change in face and tactic, and quite prepared to put the other plan into operation himself. “Fasten them!”

They obeyed. Ahmed was near the water fountain and he filled a plastic cup and gave it to the Khan. Hashemi and Armstrong watched unbalanced. Neither had expected such an immediate capitulation from the Khan. The man seemed to have shrunk before their eyes, his pallor and breathing bad. The Khan finished the water and looked at Hashemi, his small eyes bloodshot behind his glasses. He took them off and polished them absently, trying to regain his strength. Everything seemed to be taking more time than normal. “Wait for me beside the car, Ahmed.”

Uneasily, Ahmed obeyed. Armstrong unsnapped his belt and closed the curtain again. For a moment the Khan felt better, the chill air that came in momentarily helping to clear his head. “Now, what do you want?” “Your code name’s Ivanovitch. You’ve been a KGB spy and helper since January 1944. In that time y - ”

“All lies. What do you want?”

“I want to meet Petr Oleg Mzytryk. I want to question him seriously. In secret.”

The Khan heard the words and considered them. If this son of a dog knew Petr’s code name and his own code name and about Hidden Valley and January ‘44 when he went secretly to Moscow to join the KGB, he would know other more punishable matters. That he himself was playing both sides for the good of his Azerbaijan would make little difference to the assassins of the Right or of the Left. “In return for what?”

“Freedom to maneuver in Azerbaijan - so long as you do what is good for Iran - and a firm working relationship with me. I will give you information that will put the Tudeh, the leftists, and the Kurds into your hands - and give you evidence how the Soviets are thwarting you. For example, you’re declared Section 16/a.”

The Khan gaped at him. His ears began roaring. “I don’t believe it!” “Immediate. Petr Oleg Mzytryk signed the order,” Hashemi said. “Pr… proof, I… I want proof,” he choked out.

“Entice him this side of the border, alive, and I’ll give you proof - at least he will.”

“You’re… you’re lying.”

“Haven’t you planned to go to Tbilisi today or tomorrow, at his invitation? You would never have returned. The story would be that supposedly you had fled Iran. You’d be denounced, your possessions confiscated and family disgraced - and fed to the mullahs.” Now that Hashemi knew he had Abdollah in his grasp, the only thing that worried him was the state of the man’s health. His head now had a slight twitch to it, the normally swarthy face was pallid with a strange reddishness around the eyes and temples, the vein in his forehead prominent. “You’d better not go north, and double your guards. I could barter Petr Oleg - even better I could allow you to rescue him and… well, there are many solutions if I had possession of him.” “What… what do you want with him?”

“Information.”

“I would… I would be party to it?”

Hashemi smiled. “Why not? Then it’s agreed?”

The Khan’s mouth moved soundlessly. Then he said, “I will try.”

“No,” the colonel said roughly, judging the time for the coup de grace had come. “No. You have four days. I will return Saturday. At noon Saturday I will be at your palace to take delivery. Or if you prefer, you can deliver him secretly to this address.” He put the piece of paper on the table between them. “Or, third, if you give me the time and place he comes over the border I will take care of everything.” He unsnapped his seat belt and stood up. “Four days, Ivanovitch.”

Abdollah’s rage almost burst his eardrums. He tried to get up but failed. Armstrong helped him to stand and Hashemi went to the curtain but before he opened it, he took his automatic out of his shoulder holster. “Tell Ahmed not to trouble us.”

Weakly the Khan stood in the open doorway and did as he was ordered. Ahmed was at the foot of the steps, his gun leveled. The wind had changed direction, now blowing toward the far end of the runway, and had picked up considerably.

“Didn’t you hear His Highness?” the colonel called down. “Everything’s all right but he needs help.” He kept his voice reassuring. “He should perhaps see his doctor as soon as possible.”

Ahmed was flustered, not knowing what to do. There was his Master, clearly worse than before, but here were the men who caused it - who were to be killed.

“Help me into the car, Ahmed,” the Khan said with a curse and that settled everything. At once he obeyed. Armstrong took his other side and together they went down the stairs. Hastily the pilots got out and hurried into the airplane as Armstrong helped the sick man into the backseat. Abdollah settled himself with difficulty, Armstrong feeling more naked than he had ever been, him out in the open alone, Hashemi standing up there safely in the cabin door. The jet’s engines fired up.

“Salaam, Highness,” he said. “I hope you’re all right.” “Better you leave our land quickly,” the Khan said, then to the driver, “Go back to the palace.”

Armstrong watched the car hurrying away, then turned. He saw Hashemi’s strange smile, the half-concealed automatic in his hand, and for a moment thought the man was going to shoot him. “Hurry up, Robert!” He ran up the steps, his legs chilled. The copilot had already stabbed the Steps Retract button. The steps came up, the door closed, and they were moving. In the warmth and closeness he came to life again. “It’s cold out there,” he said.

Hashemi paid no attention to him. “Quick as you can, Captain, take off,” he ordered, standing behind the pilots.

“I’ll have to taxi back, sir. I daren’t take off this way with this wind up our tails.”

Hashemi cursed and peered through the cockpit windows. The other end of the runway looked a million miles away, the wind whisking snow off the drifts. To use the proper exit ramp would take them close to the terminal parking area. They would have to cross it and use the opposite ramp to the takeoff point. Over toward the terminal the Rolls was speeding along. He could see armed men collecting to meet it. “Taxi back along the runway and do a short-field takeoff.”

“That’s highly irregular without tower clearance,” John Hogg said. “Would you prefer a bullet in your head or a SAVAK jail? Those men there are hostiles. Do it!”

Hogg could see the guns. He clicked on his transmit button. “ECHO TANGO LIMA LIMA requesting permission to backtrack,” he said, not expecting any answer - after they had cleared Tehran airspace there had been none all the way here, and no contact with this tower. He swung the jet back onto the runway, skidding, and opened the throttle some more, keeping to the left side, paralleling their landing tracks. “Tower, this is Echo Tango Lima Lima, backtracking.” Gordon Jones, the copilot, was checking everything, setting up for their Tehran inbound. The wind was tugging at them, their wheels uncertain. Over at the terminal he saw the Rolls stop and men surround it. “Quick as you can - turn around, there’s plenty of runway,” Hashemi said. “Soon as I can, sir,” John Hogg said politely, but he was thinking, bloody twit, Colonel whoever you are, I’m more than a little anxious to be up in the Wild Blue myself but I’ve got to get a run at it. He had seen the hostility of the men in the car and, at Tehran, McIver’s nervousness. But Tehran Tower had cleared him instantly, given him priority as though he were carrying Khomeini himself. Bloody hell, what we do for England and a pint of beer! His hands and feet were feeling the snow and the ice and the slipperiness of the surface. He eased off the throttles a little. “Look!” the copilot said. A jet helicopter was crossing the airspace, low down a mile or so ahead. “A 212, isn’t she?”

“Yes. Doesn’t look like she’s inbound here,” Hogg said, his eyes sweeping constantly. At the terminal another car had joined the men near the Rolls; ahead to the left was a glint of light; now the 212 had gone behind a hill; to the right was a flock of birds; all needles safe in the Green; more men near the Rolls and someone on the roof of the terminal building; fuel fine; snow not too deep, sheet ice underneath; watch the drift ahead; go right a little; radio’s correctly tuned; wind’s still up our tail; thunderclouds building up to the north; back a hair on the left engine! Hogg corrected the lurching swing, the airplane overresponsive on the icy surface. “Perhaps you’d better go back to your seat, Colonel,” he said. “Get airborne as fast as possible.” Hashemi went back. Armstrong was peering out of the windows toward the terminal. “What’re they doing there, Robert? Any problem?” he asked.

“Not yet. Congratulations - you handled Abdollah brilliantly.” “If he delivers.” Now that it was over, Hashemi felt a little sick. Too close to death that time, he thought. He fastened his seat belt, then undid it, took the automatic from his side pocket, put the safety on, and slipped it into the shoulder holster. His fingers touched the British passport in his inner pocket. Perhaps I won’t need it after all, he thought. Good. I’d hate having to disgrace myself by using it. He lit a cigarette. “Do you think he’ll last till Saturday? I thought he was going to have a fit.”

“He’s been that fat and that foul for years.” Armstrong heard the violent undercurrent. Hashemi Fazir was always dangerous, always on the edge, his fanatic patriotism mixed with his contempt for most Iranians. “You handled him wonderfully,” he said and looked out of the window again. The Rolls and the other car and the men surrounding them were quite far and half-hidden by the snow dunes, but he could see many guns among them and from time to time someone would point in their direction. Come on, for God’s sake, he thought, let’s get aloft.

“Colonel” - Hogg’s voice came over the intercom - “could you come forward, please?”

Hashemi unlocked his belt and went to the cockpit.

“There, sir,” Hogg said pointing off to the right, past the end of the runway, to a clump of pines in front of the forest. “What do you make of that?” The tiny fleck of light began winking again. “It says SOS.” “Robert,” Hashemi called out, “look ahead and to the right.” The four men concentrated. Again the light repeated the SOS. “No mistaking it, sir,” Hogg said. “I could signal them back.” He pointed to the heavy-duty signal flash that was for emergency use to give a Green or a Red light in case their radios failed.

Hashemi called back into the cabin. “What do you think, Robert?” “It’s SOS all right!”

The 125 was hurrying down the runway toward the signal. They waited, then saw three tiny figures come out from the trees, two men and a woman in chador. And they saw their guns.

“It’s a trap,” Hashemi said at once, “don’t go any closer, turn around!” “I can’t,” Hogg said, “haven’t got enough runway.” He eased the throttles a little more open. The jet was taxiing very fast, paralleling their landing tracks. They could see the figures waving their guns.

Armstrong called out, “Let’s get to hell out of here!”

“Soon as I can, sir. Colonel, perhaps you’d better get back to your seat, this might be kind of bumpy,” Hogg said, his voice nerveless, then dismissed them both from his mind. “Gordon, keep your eye on those buggers out there and on the terminal.”

“Sure. No sweat.”

The captain turned momentarily to check the other end of the runway, judged they were not quite far enough yet, but eased back on the throttle and touched the brakes. The skid began so he loosed them, keeping the jet as straight as he could, the wind shifting. The figures near the trees were larger now.

“They look a ropy lot, tribesmen, I’d say. Two automatic carbines.” Gordon Jones squinted at the terminal. “Rolls’s gone but a car heading our way along the ramp.”

Pulling off the throttles now. Still too fast to turn.

“Christ, I think… I think one of the tribesmen fired a gun,” Jones said, his voice picking up.

“Here we go,” Hogg said into the intercom mike, braked, felt her slide, held it, then began his right turn onto the width of the runway, their momentum skidding them and the wind still hostile.

In the cabin Armstrong and Hashemi were hanging on grimly, peering out of the windows. They could see one of the figures running toward them, brandishing his gun. Armstrong muttered, “We’re bloody sitting ducks.” He felt the jet sliding in the turn, no traction, and he cursed. In the cockpit Hogg was whistling tonelessly. The jet surged over their landing tracks, still skidding, the far side of the runway banked by solid, heavy dunes. He did not dare to gun her yet and waited, mouth dry, willing her to come around faster and into the wind. But she didn’t, just continued to slide, wheels useless, brakes dangerous, engines growling, the subsurface ice.

Inexorably the snow dunes came closer and closer. He could see the jagged ice edges that would tear their thin skin asunder. Nothing to do but wait. Then a gust took her tail section and buffeted it around and now, though she was still sliding, she faced into the wind. Delicately he gunned both engines, felt the slide slowing, and at once began inching the throttles forward until he had some forward speed, more open and faster, and more control and now complete control and he shoved the throttles hard against the gate. The 125 surged ahead, his wheels left the surface, he touched the undercart retract, and they were soaring.

“You may smoke if you wish,” he said laconically into the intercom, totally pleased with himself.

On the airfield, not far from the trees, Ross had stopped running and waving, his chest hurting him. “Bloody bastard,” he shouted at the airplane. “Haven’t you any bloody eyes?”

Bitterly disappointed, he started walking back to the others who had obediently waited on the edge of the forest. Over all of them was a deep gloom. So near, he thought. Through his binoculars he had seen the Khan arrive, then go aboard, then, later, Armstrong come down the steps with the Khan, helping him. “Oh, let me look, Johnny.” Azadeh had said anxiously and refocused the lenses to suit her eyes. “Oh, dear, Father looks sick - I hope he’s all right,” she had said. “The doctor’s always telling him to diet and take his life easier.”

“He’s doing just fine, Azadeh,” he had said, trying to keep the sarcasm out of his voice. But she had heard it and flushed and she said, “Oh so sorry, I didn’t mean… I know he’s…”

“I meant nothing,” he had said and refocused on Armstrong, ecstatic that it was Armstrong, devising a plan how to get aboard. So easy. An S-G airplane - easy to see the decal - and Armstrong. We’re safe! But now we’re not safe, we’re in a mess, he told himself even more bitterly, trudging back in the snow, feeling filthy and wanting a bath and helpless with rage. They’ve got to have seen the SOS. Were their heads in their arses? Why the hell didn’t th - He heard Gueng’s keening danger signal and he whirled. A car was a few hundred yards away, heading their way. He ran back and pointed into the forest. “That way!”

Earlier he had made a plan. First the airport, then, if that didn’t work, they would head for Erikki’s base. The base was about four miles away, southeast of Tabriz. Covered by the trees, he paused and looked back. The car stopped at the end of the runway and men got out, started after them, but found the going too heavy through the drifts. They climbed back into the car and headed away. “They won’t catch us now,” Ross said. He led the way deeper into the forest, of necessity keeping to the crude path. On the edge of this clump of forest were frozen fields that in the summer would be abundant with crops, most of them belonging to a few landowners, in spite of the Shah’s land reforms. Beyond the fields were the outlying slums of Tabriz. They could see the minarets of the Blue Mosque and smoke from many fires, pulled away by the wind. “Can we skirt the city, Azadeh?” “Yes,” she said, “but it’s… it’s quite a long way.”

They heard her underlying concern. So far she had moved quickly and without complaint. But she was still a hazard. They wore their tribesmen’s clothes over their uniforms. Their scrubby boots would pass. So would their weapons. And her chador. He looked at her, still not used to the ugliness that it made of her. She felt his glance and tried to smile. She understood. Both about the chador and about being a burden.

“Let’s go through the town,” she said. “We can stay in the side streets. I have some… some money and we can buy food. Johnny, you could pretend to be Caucasian from, say, from Astara, I could pretend to be your wife. Gueng, you speak Gurkhali or a foreign tongue and be rough and arrogant like the Turkomans from the north - you’d pass for one of them - they were descended from the Mongols, many Iranians are. Or perhaps I could buy some green scarves and make you Green Bands… That’s the best I can do.” “That’s good, Azadeh. Perhaps we’d better not stay bunched up. Gueng, you tail us.”

Azadeh said, “In the streets Iranian wives follow their husbands. I… I will stay a pace behind you, Johnny.”

“It’s a good plan, memsahib,” Gueng said. “Very good. You guide us.” Her smile thanked him. Soon they were in the markets and the streets and alleys of the slums. Once a man shoved into Gueng carelessly. Without hesitation Gueng slammed his fist into the man’s throat, sending him sprawling into the joub senseless, cursing him loudly in a dialect of Ghurkali. There was a moment’s silence in the crowd, then noise picked up again and those nearby kept their eyes down and passed onward, a few surreptitiously making a sign against the evil eye that all those who came from the north, the descendants of the hordes who knew not the One God, were known to possess.

Azadeh bought food from street vendors, fresh bread from the kilns, charcoaled lamb kebab and bean and vegetable horisht, heavy with rice. They sat on rough benches and gorged, then went on again. No one paid any attention to them. Occasionally someone would ask him to buy something but Azadeh would intervene and protect him well, coarsening her voice and talking the local Turkish dialect. When the muezzins called for afternoon prayer, she stopped, afraid. Around them, men and women searched for a piece of carpet or material or newspaper or cardboard or box to kneel on and began to pray. Ross hesitated, then following her pleading look, pretended to pray also and the moment passed. In the whole street only four or five remained standing, Gueng among them, leaning against a wall. No one bothered those who stood. Tabrizi came from many races, many religions. They continued onward, making their way southeast and now were in the outlying suburbs, shantytowns filled with refuse and mangy, half-starved dogs, the joub the only sewer. Soon the hovels would end, the fields and orchards would begin, then the forest and the main Tehran road that curled upward to the pass that would lead them to Tabriz One. What he would do when they got there, Ross did not know, but Azadeh had said that she knew of several caves nearby where they could hide until a helicopter landed.

They went through the last of the slums, out onto the crude, snowbanked track. The snow of the surface was stained from mule and donkey droppings, pitted and treacherous, and they joined others who trudged along, some leading burdened donkeys, others bent over under the weight of their loads, others relieving themselves, men and women and children - a handful of snow with the left hand, then on again - a polyglot of people, tribesmen, nomads, townspeople - only their poverty in common, and their pride. Azadeh was feeling very tired, the strain of crossing the city heavy on her. She had been afraid she would make a mistake, afraid they would be spotted, frantic with worry over Erikki and worried how they would get to the base and what then? Insha’Allah, she told herself, over and over. God will look after you and after him and after Johnny.

When they came near the junction of the track and the Tehran road they saw Green Bands and armed men standing beside a makeshift roadblock, peering into vehicles and watching the people filing past. There was no way to avoid them.

“Azadeh, you go first,” Ross whispered. “Wait for us up the road - if we get stopped, don’t interfere, just go on - head for the base. We’ll split up, safer.” He smiled at her. “Don’t worry.” She nodded, her fear making her face more pale, and walked off. She was carrying his rucksack. Coming out of the town she had insisted: “Look at all the other women, Johnny. If I don’t carry something, I’ll stand out terribly.”

The two men waited, then went to the side of the track and urinated into the snowbank. People plodded by. Some noticed them. A few cursed them as Infidels. One or two wondered about them - unknowingly, they were relieving themselves toward Mecca, an act no Muslim would ever do.

“Once she’s through, you next, Gueng. I’ll follow in ten minutes.” “Better you next,” Gueng whispered back. “I’m a Turkoman.” “All right, but if I’m stopped - do not interfere. Sneak by in the fracas and get her to safety. Don’t fail me!”

The little man grinned, his teeth very white. “Don’t you fail, sahib. You have much yet to do before you’re a Lord of the Mountain.” Gueng looked past him toward the roadblock, a hundred yards away. He saw that Azadeh was in line now. One of the Green Bands said something to her, but she kept her eyes averted, replied, and the man waved her through. “Don’t wait for me on the road, sahib. I may cross the fields. Don’t worry about me - I’ll track you.” He pushed through the pedestrians and joined the stream going back toward the town. After a hundred yards or so, he sat on an upturned crate and unlaced his boot as though it was hurting him. His socks were in shreds but that did not matter. The soles of his feet were like iron. Taking his time, he relaced his boots, enjoying being a Turkoman.

At the roadblock Ross joined the line of those leaving Tabriz. He noticed police standing around with the Green Bands, watching the people. The people were irritable, hating any authority as always and any infringement of their right to go where and how and when they pleased. Many were openly angry and a few almost came to blows. “You,” a Green Band said to him, “where are your papers?”

Angrily Ross spat on the ground. “Papers? My house is burned, my wife burned, and my child burned by leftist dogs. I have nothing left but this gun and some ammunition. God’s will - but why don’t you go and burn Satanists and do the Work of God instead of stopping honest men?” “We’re honest!” the man said angrily. “We’re doing the Work of God. Where do you come from?”

“Astara. Astara on the coast.” He let the anger come out. “Astara. And you?” The next man in line and the one behind him began cursing and telling the Green Band to hurry up and not cause them to wait around in the cold. A policeman was edging over toward them, so Ross decided to chance it and he shoved past with another curse, the man behind followed, and the next, and now they were out in the open. The Green Band sullenly shouted an obscenity after them, then went back to watching others file through. It took Ross a little while to breathe easier. He tried not to hurry and his eyes searched ahead. No sign of Azadeh. Cars and trucks were passing now, grinding up the incline or coming down too fast, people scattering from time to time with the inevitable stream of curses. The man who had been behind him at the roadblock came up alongside, pedestrians thinning out now, turning off into the side paths that led to hovels beside the road or to villages within the forest. He was a middle-aged man with a lined, very strong face, poorly dressed, his rifle well serviced. “That Green Band son of a dog,” he said with a thick accent. “You’re right, Agha, they should be doing God’s work, the Imam’s work, not Abdollah Khan’s.” Ross was instantly on guard. “Who?”

“I come from Astara and from your accent I know you don’t come from Astara, Agha. Astaris never piss toward Mecca or with their backs to Mecca - we’re all good Muslims in Astara. From your description you must be the saboteur the Khan’s put a price on.” The man’s voice was easy, curiously friendly, the old Enfield rifle over his shoulder.

Ross said nothing, just grunted, not changing his pace. “Yes, the Khan’s put a good price on your head. Many horses, a herd of sheep, ten or more camels. A Shah’s ransom to ordinary folk. The ransom’s better for alive than dead - more horses and sheep and camels then, enough to live forever. But where’s the woman Azadeh, his daughter, the daughter that you kidnapped, you and another man?”

Ross gaped at him and the man chuckled. “You must be very tired to give yourself away so easily.” Abruptly the face hardened, his hand went into the pocket of his old jacket, pulled out a revolver and shoved it into Ross’s side. “Walk ahead of me a pace, don’t run or do anything or I shall just shoot you in the spine. Now where’s the woman - there’s a reward for her too.”

At that moment a truck coming down from the pass careened around the bend ahead, lurched to the wrong side of the road, and charged them, hooting loudly. People scattered. Ross’s reflexes were faster and he sidestepped, shoved his shoulder into the man’s side and sent him reeling into the truck’s path. Its front wheels went over the man and the back wheels. The truck skidded to a stop a hundred feet below.

“God protect us, did you see that?” someone said. “He lurched into the truck.”

Ross dragged the body out of the road. The revolver had vanished into the snow.

“Ah, is the sacrifice of God your father, Agha?” an old woman said. “No… no,” Ross said with difficulty, everything so fast, in panic. “I… he’s a stranger. I’ve never seen him before.”

“By the Prophet, how careless walkers are! Have they no eyes? Is he dead?” the truck driver called out, coming back up the hill. He was a rough, bearded, swarthy man. “God witness that he moved into my path as all could see! You,” he said to Ross, “you were beside him, you must have seen it.” “Yes … yes, it is as you say. I was behind him.”

“As God wants.” The trucker went off happily, everything correct and finished. “His Excellency saw it. Insha’Allah!”

Ross pushed away through the few who had bothered to stop and walked up the hill, not fast, not slow, trying to get himself together, not daring to look back. Around the bend in the road, he quickened his pace, wondering if it was right to react so quickly - almost without thought. But the man would have sold her and sold them. Put him away, karma is karma. Another bend and still no Azadeh. His anxiety increased.

Here the road was twisting, the grade steep. He passed a few hovels half hidden in the forest edge. Mangy dogs were scavenging. The few that came near him he cursed away, rabies usually rampant among them. Another bend, sweat pouring off him, and there she was squatting beside the road, resting like any of a dozen other old crones. She saw him at the same moment, shook her head cautioning him, got up, and started off up the road again. He fell into place twenty yards behind her. Then there was firing below them. With everyone else, they stopped and looked back. They could see nothing. The roadblock was far behind, around many corners, half a mile or more away. In a moment the firing ceased. No one said anything, just began climbing more hurriedly.

The road was not good. They walked on for a mile or so, stepping aside for traffic. Occasionally a bus groaned past but always overloaded and none would stop. These days you could wait a day or two even at a correct stop before there was space. Trucks sometimes would stop. For payment. Later one chugged past him and as it came alongside Azadeh, it slowed to her pace. “Why walk when those who are tired can ride with the help of Cyrus the trucker - and God,” the driver called out, leering at her, nudging his companion, a dark-bearded man of his own age. They had been watching her for some time, watching the sway of her hips that not even a chador could hide. “Why should a flower of God walk when she could be warm in a truck or on a man’s carpet?”

She looked up at him and gave him a gutter curse and called back to Ross, “Husband, this leprous son of a dog dared to insult me and made lewd remarks against the laws of God…” Ross was already alongside her, and the driver found himself looking into the barrel of a gun. “Excellency … I was asking if… if you and she would… would like to ride,” the driver said in panic. “There’s room in the back… if his Excellency would honor my vehicle…”

The truck was half filled with scrap iron, but it would be better than walking. “On your head, driver, where do you go?”

“To Qazvin, Excellency, Qazvin. Would you honor us?”

The truck did not stop but it was easy for Ross to help her climb up over the tailgate. Together they ducked down out of the wind. Her legs were shaking and she was chilled and very nervous. He reached out and put his arms around her and held her.

“Oh, Johnny, if you hadn’t been there…”

“Don’t worry, don’t worry.” He gave her of his warmth. Qazvin. Qazvin? Isn’t that halfway to Tehran? Of course it is! We’ll stick with the truck until Qazvin, he told himself, gathering strength. Then we can get another ride, or find a bus, or steal a car, that’s what we’ll do.

“The turnoff to the base is two or three miles ahead,” she said, shivering in his arms. “To the right.”

Base? Ah, yes, the base. And Erikki. But more important, what about Gueng? What about Gueng? Get your mind working. What are you going to do? “What’s the… what’s the land like there, open and flat or a ravine or what?” he asked.

“It’s fairly flat. Our village is soon, Abu Mard. We pass our village, then shortly afterward, the land flattens into a kind of wooded plateau where our own road is. Then the main road climbs again up to the pass.” Ahead he could see the road curling away, occasionally coming into view as it wound precariously along the mountainside. “We’ll get off the other side of the village, before the flat, circle through the forest, and get to the base. That possible?”

“Yes. I know the country very well. I… I taught in the village school and used to take the children for… for walks. I know the paths.” Again she trembled.

“Keep down out of the wind. You’ll soon be warm.”

The old truck was laboring on the incline not much faster than walking but better than walking. He kept his arm around her and in time she stopped trembling. Over their tailgate, he noticed a car overtaking them fast, gears shrieking, followed by a mottled green semi. The driver of the car kept his hand on the horn. There was nowhere for their truck to pull over, so the car swung over to the wrong side of the road and charged ahead. Hope you bloody kill yourself, he thought, angered by the noise and the incredible stupidity. Idly he had noticed that it had been filled with armed men. So was the following semi, though all these men stood in the back, hanging onto metal stanchions, the tailgate down and banging wildly. As it roared past, he caught a glimpse of a body slumped under their feet. At first he thought it was the old man. But it wasn’t. It was Gueng. No mistaking the remains of the uniform. Or the kookri one of the men had stuck in his belt. “What is it, Johnny?”

He found himself beside her, not feeling her or anything, only that he had failed the second of his men. His eyes were filled with tears. “What is it, what’s the matter?”

“Nothing. It’s just the wind.” He brushed the tears away, then knelt and looked ahead. Curling away, the road disappeared and appeared again. So did the car and semi. He could see the village now. Beyond it the road climbed again, then flattened, just as she had said. The car and semi went through the village full tilt. In his pocket were his small but very powerful binoculars. Steadying himself against the rocking of the truck, he focused on the car. Once the car came up onto the flat it speeded up, then turned right onto the side road to the base and disappeared. When the semi reached the intersection it stopped, blocking most of the road outward bound. Half a dozen of the men jumped down, spread out across the road, and stood facing Tabriz. Then, the semi turned right and vanished after the car. Their truck slowed as the driver shifted noisily into bottom gear Just ahead was a short, steeper grade, a path nearby, no pedestrians on this section of road. “Where does that go, Azadeh?”

She got onto her knees and looked where he pointed. “Toward Abu Mard, our village,” she said. “It wanders this way and that but that’s where it ends.” “Get ready to jump out - there’s another roadblock ahead. At the right moment he slipped over the side, helped her down, and they scrambled into hiding. The truck did not stop nor the driver look around. Soon it was well away. Hand in hand, they fled into the trees.

Chapter 40

AT ZAGROS THREE: 4:05 P.M. Lochart leaned against the cockpit of the 212 waiting to go again to Rig Rosa with another load of pipe - sky cloudless, the mountains so clean and sharp he felt he could almost reach out and touch them. He was watching Rodrigues, his mechanic, who knelt in the snow and peered into a belly inspection panel. “It’s an afternoon for skiing or tobogganing, Rod, not grinding away.”

“It’s a day to get the hell outta here, Tom.”

“Maybe we won’t have to,” Lochart said. Since Sunday when he had had his confrontation with Nitchak Khan he had heard nothing more from him or anyone in the village. “Maybe the komiteh will change their minds or Mac‘11 get the order canceled. Crazy for us to be shoved out when they need all the oil they can get and Rosa’s new well’s a bonanza - Jesper Almqvist said he figured it’d pump eighteen thousand barrels a day when it was put on stream. That’s almost $360,000 a day, Rod.”

“Mullahs don’t give a shit for oil or anything but Allah, the Koran, or Paradise, you said it a million times.” Rodrigues wiped an oil streak away. “We should’ve all gone with Jesper to Shiraz - then out. We’re not wanted. Nasiri got his head blown off, right? For what? He was one nice guy. Never hurt no one. We’ve been told to get out - what the hell’re we waiting for?” “Maybe the komiteh changed its mind. We’ve eleven rigs to service.” “The rigs are down to minimums, crews all itchy to get the hell out and anyway they’ve had no replacements for weeks.” Rodrigues got up, knocked the snow off his knees, and began wiping the oil off his hands. “Crazy to stay where you’re not wanted. Young Scot’s acting mighty strange - so’re you, come to think of it.”

“Bull,” Lochart said. He had told no one what Scot said had really happened in the village square. His anxiety returned - for Scot, the base, Sharazad, HBC, and always back to Sharazad again.

“Bull nothing,” Rodrigues was saying, “you’ve been itchy as hell since you got back from Tehran. You wanna stay in Iran, Tom, okay, that’s different - you’re married to Iran. Me, I want out.”

Lochart took his mind off Sharazad. He saw the fear in his friend’s face. “What’s the problem, Rod?”

The heavyset man pulled his belt over the beginnings of his paunch, and closed his parka again. “I’m nervous as all hell about my false IDs, Tom. Shit, soon’s I open my mouth, they gotta know I’m not a Brit. All my permits’re outta date. So it’s the same with some of the other guys, but I’m the only American here, I gave a talk in the school on the States, and goddamn mullahs and Khomeini say I’m Satan - me a goddamn good Catholic for crissake! I’m not sleeping nights.”

“Why the hell didn’t you say so before? No need for you to stay, Rod. The 212’s due out tomorrow. How about going with Scot? Once you get to Al Shargaz you can transfer to Nigeria, Kenya, or where the hell ever.” For a moment Rodrigues said nothing, his face bleak. “I’d like that, Tom. Sure, if you can okay it, that’d be one helluva load off my back.”

“It’s done. We’ve got to send a mechanic - why not you, you’re senior.”

“Thanks. Yeah, thanks, Tom.” Rodrigues beamed. “I’ll just tighten the foot pedal, and then you’re as good as new.”

Down by the supply helipad Lochart saw that the load of pipe was ready for pickup. Two Iranian laborers were waiting to guide the skyhook into the ringbolt. He began to get into the cockpit, stopped on seeing two men striding up the village path a hundred yards away, Nitchak Khan, and another man carrying a carbine. Even from this distance it was easy to see the green armband.

Lochart went to meet them, preparing his mind to think and speak Farsi. “Salaam, Kalandar, salaam, Agha,” he said to the other man, also bearded but much younger.

“Salaam,” Nitchak said. “You have been granted until the fifth sunset.” Lochart tried to hide his shock. Today was Tuesday, the fifth day would be Sunday. “But, Excellency, th - ”

“Until the fifth sunset,” the Green Band said without politeness. “You may not work or fly on Holy Day - better you give thanks to God - and on the fifth sunset from tonight if all foreigners and their airplanes have not left, the base will be fired.”

Lochart just looked at him. Behind the man was the cookhouse and he saw JeanLuc come out, then walk over toward them. “Four working days will be very difficult, Agha, and I don’t th - ”

“Insha’Allah.”

“If we go, all the rigs will have to stop. Only we can supply them and their men. That will hurt Iran, that w - ”

“Islam does not need oil. Foreigners need oil. Five sunsets. Be it on your own heads if you stay.”

Nitchak Khan looked sideways at the man. Then to Lochart he said, “Agha, I wish to go with this man to see the kalandar of the Italian foreigners. I would like to go now, please.”

“It is my honor, Kalandar,” Lochart said, and he was thinking, Mimmo Sera’s been in the mountains for years, he’ll know what to do. “I’ve a load of pipe to deliver to Rig Rosa; we can go at once.”

“Pipe?” the youth said rudely. “No need for pipe. We go straight. No pipe.” “IranOil says pipe and the pipe goes or you don’t,” Lochart said angrily. “Ayatollah Khomeini ordered oil production to come back to normal - why does the komiteh disobey him?”

Sullenly the youth looked at the Khan, who said quietly, “As God wills. The Ayatollah is the Ayatollah, komitehs obey only him. Let us go, Agha.” Lochart took his eyes off the youth. “All right. We will go at once.” “Salaam, Kalandar,” JeanLuc said, joining them. “Tom, what’s the answer?” he asked in English.

“Sunset Sunday. We have to be out by then and can’t fly Friday.” JeanLuc swallowed a curse. “No negotiation?”

“None. Unless you want to argue with this mother.”

Insolently the youth with the gun stared back at JeanLuc. “Tell this son of a dog he smells vile.”

Lochart had caught a faint whiff of the garlic. “He says your cooking smells great, JeanLuc. Listen, they want to go to see Mimmo Sera - I’ll be back as quick as I can, then we’ll decide what to do. Kalandar, we will go now,” he said in Farsi and opened the cabin door.

“Lookit!” Rodrigues said suddenly and pointed northward high into the mountains. Smoke was billowing into the sky. “That Maria?” “Might be Bellissima,” JeanLuc said.

Nitchak Khan was squinting into the distance. “That is near where we should go. Yes?”

“Not far off course, Kalandar.”

The old man appeared very worried. “Perhaps it would be better to take the pipe on your next flight, pilot. For days now we heard that leftists were infiltrating the hills, wanting to sabotage and create trouble. Last night one of my shepherds had his throat cut and genitals hacked off - I have men out searching for the murderers.” Grim-faced, he got into the cabin. The Green Band followed.

“Rod,” Lochart said, “get the 206 out. JeanLuc, stand by on the HF - I’ll radio you.”

“Oui. Pas problčme.” JeanLuc looked back at the smoke.

Lochart left the load of pipe at the base and hurried northward. It was Bellissima and it was on fire. From quite far out he could see flames spouting thirty feet from one of the trailers that, tinder dry in the moisrureless air, was now almost gutted. Off to one side near the drilling rig was another fire, near the dynamite shed a body lay in the snow. Above the base, the snowcap of the mountain, reformed by Pietro’s explosion and the resultant avalanche, was benign. Below, the ravine fell seventy-five hundred feet.

As he got closer he noticed half a dozen figures running down the winding path that led at length into the valley - all of them armed. Without hesitation he banked and went after them, seeing them ahead now, directly ahead, cursing that he wasn’t a gunship 675 - no problem to blast them all. Six men, bearded, in nondescript tribesman clothes. Then he saw one man stop and aim and then the familiar sparks from the muzzle of the gun and he peeled away, taking evading action, and when he was around again, higher and safer, the figures had disappeared. He looked back into the cabin. Nitchak Khan and the Green Band were staring down out of the side windows, noses pressed against them. He shouted but could not make himself heard, so he banged the side of the cabin to attract their attention and beckoned Nitchak Khan. The old man came forward, holding on, ill at ease flying.

“Did you see them?” he shouted.

“Yes - yes,” Nitchak Khan shouted back. “Not mountain people - they’re the terrorists.”

Lochart went back to flying. “JeanLuc, do you read?”

“Loud and clear, Tom, go ahead.”

He told him what he had seen and to stay on the radio, then concentrated on the landing - in over the immensity of the ravine as usual, updrafts bad and a stiff wind today. This was the first time he had been to Bellissima since he had come back from Tehran. With the death of Guineppa, Bellissima was down to a minimum, one shift only. As he touched down he saw Pietro, now senior in Guineppa’s place, leave the fire near the rig and hurry toward them.

“Tom! We need help,” he shouted into the pilot’s window, almost in tears. “Gianni’s dead and a couple hurt in the fire…”

“Okay. No sweat.” Lochart began shutdown. “Nitchak’s in the back with a Green Band - don’t worry, okay?” He twisted in his seat again and pointed at the door. The old man nodded. “What the hell happened, Pietro?” he asked, his fingers finding the switches.

“Don’t know… I don’t know, amico.” Pietro put his head close to the cockpit window. “We were having lunch when this stronzo bottle with gasoline and a burning rag came through the stronzo window and we were on fire…” He looked back as flames caught a half-full oil drum and leaped into the sky, choking black smoke billowing. The four men fighting the fire backed off. “Si, we were on fire quickly in the dining room and when we rushed out there were these men, tribesmen, banditos… Mamma mia, they started shooting so we scattered and took cover. Then later Gianni saw them starting a fire in the generator room, near where the dynamites are and… and he just ran out to warn them but one of them shot him. Mamma mia, no reason to shoot him! Bastardi, stronzi bastardi…”

Quickly Lochart and the others climbed out of the airplane. The only sound was that of the wind and the flames and the single fire pump - Pietro had cut the generators and pumps and done an emergency closedown of the whole rig. The roof of the trailer collapsed and sparks and embers soared, many falling on nearby roofs, but these were heavy with snow and no danger to them. The fire was still out of control near the rig, fed by waste oil and oil fumes, and highly dangerous. The men sprayed foam, but flames still reached toward the dynamite shed, licking a corrugated iron wall. “How much is in there, Pietro?”

“Too much.”

“Let’s get it out.”

“Mamma mia…” Pietro followed Lochart, their hands over the faces against the flames, and forced the door open - no time to find the key. The dynamite was in neat boxes. A dozen of them. Lochart picked up a box and went out, felt the blast of heat, and then he was clear. One of the other men took the box from him and hurried it to safety while Lochart returned for another. Near the helicopter Nitchak Khan and the Green Band stood in the lee of the wind out of danger. “As God wants.”

“As God wants,” the Green Band echoed. “What shall we do now?” “There are the terrorists to consider. And the dead man.” The young man looked across the snow at the figure lying like a broken doll. “If he hadn’t come to our hills he would not be dead. It’s his fault he’s dead - no one else’s.”

“True.” Nitchak Khan watched the fire and the men fighting it and by the time Lochart and Pietro had cleared the shed of dynamite, the others had the fire contained.

Lochart leaned against a trailer wall to catch his breath. “Pietro, we’ve only got till Sunday sunset. Then it’s get out or else.”

Pietro’s face closed. He glanced at the Green Band and Nitchak Khan who was near the helicopter. “Five days? That saves me a decision, Tom. We evacuate to Shiraz - via Rig Rosa or direct.” Pietro gestured at the fire with his clenched left fist, his other hand on the bicep. “For the moment Bellissima is ruined. I’ll need Almqvist to plug the wells. Mamma mia, that’s a lot of men to transport. What a waste! I’m glad old Guineppa’s not here to see the foulness of the day. Best I come to see Mimmo.”

“At once, with those who’re hurt. What about Gianni?”

Pietro glanced at the body. “We’ll leave him until last, my poor blood brother,” he said sadly. “He won’t rot.”

AT RIG ROSA: Mimmo Sera was sitting opposite Nitchak Khan and the Green Band in the mess hall, Lochart, Pietro, and the three senior riggers also at the table. For half an hour Mimmo, who spoke good Farsi, had tried to persuade the komiteh Green Band to extend the time, or to allow him to leave skeleton crews while he and Lochart went with him to see the chief of IranOil in Shiraz.

“In the Name of God, enough!” the Green Band said irritably. “But Excellency, without the helicopters we’ll have to shut down the whole field and start evacuating at once. Surely, Excellency, because the Ayatollah, bless him, and your Prime Minister Bazargan want oil production back to normal we should consult IranOil in Sh - ”

“Enough! Kalandar,” the Green Band added to Nitchak Khan, “if these mosquito brains disobey, it’s on your head, you’re finished, Yazdek is finished and all your people! If one foreigner or one flying machine remains on the fifth sunset and you haven’t fired the base, we will! Then we will burn the village, by hand or by air force. You,” the Green Band snarled at Lochart, “start up the airplane. We go back. Now!” He stormed out. They all stared after him dismayed. Lochart felt sad for all those who had found the oil and developed the field and put so much energy, money, talent, gamble, and risk into it. Scandalous, he thought, but we’ve no option. Nothing else to do. We evacuate. I cancel Scot leaving and use all airplanes and do the job. We work like hell for five days and forget Tehran and Sharazad and that today’s the day of the Protest March she’s forbidden. “Kalandar,” he said. “Without your benevolence, and assistance, we must leave.”

Nitchak Khan saw all the eyes turn to him. “I have to choose between the base and my village,” he said gravely. “That is no choice. I will try to find the terrorists and bring them to justice. Meanwhile, best that you take no chances. These hills are full of hiding places.”

With great dignity he got up and walked out, quite sure that now he would not have to burn the base, though, if God wanted, he knew he would do it without a moment’s hesitation, whether it be full or empty. He allowed himself the shadow of a smile. His plan had worked impeccably. All the foreigners had accepted Hassan the Goatherd as a genuine Green Band whose pretended arrogance and temper were marvelous to see; the foreigners had swallowed his fabrication about “terrorists” murdering a shepherd and he had seen their fear; these same “terrorists” had mutilated the oil rig, the most difficult to reach of all eleven and, in the black hours tonight, these same “terrorists” would fire part of the Rig Rosa and then would vanish forever - back into the village life stream from which they came. And by dawn tomorrow, he thought with satisfaction, terror will be widespread, all foreigners will be falling over themselves to leave, their evacuation is assured, and peace will come to Yazdek.

Fools to play games where only we know the rules! But there is still the problem of the young pilot. Was he a witness, or wasn’t he? The elders have advised an “accident” to be safe. Yesterday would have been perfect when the young man was hunting alone. So easy to slip and fall on your gun. Yes. But my wife advised against an “accident.” “Why?”

“Because the schoolhouse was a marvelous thing,” she had said. “Wasn’t it the first we have ever had? Without the pilots it would never have been. But now we know and can easily build another of our own; because the pilots have been good for us, without them we would not know much that we now know, nor would we have such a rich village; because I think that young man told the truth. I commend that you should let him go, don’t forget how that young man made us laugh with his fairy stories about this place called Kong in the land called China, where there are a thousand times a thousand times a thousand times a thousand people, where all their hair is black, all eyes black, and they eat with pieces of wood.”

He remembered how he had laughed with her. How could there be so many people in one land, all the same? “There is still the danger he lied.” “Then test him,” she had said. “There’s still time.” Yes, he thought, there are four days to uncover the truth - five including Holy Day.

Chapter 41

TEHRAN: 5:16 P.M. Now the Women’s March was over.

It had begun that morning with the same air of expectancy that had enveloped Tehran for two days - when incredibly, for the first time in history, women by themselves as a group were about to take to the streets in protest, to show their solidarity against any encroachment of their hard-earned rights by the new rulers, even by the Imam himself.

“The proper dress for a woman is the hijab that requires them to cover their hair and arms and legs and zinaat - their enticing parts.” “I chose to wear the chador as a protest against the Shah, Meshang,” Zarah, his wife, had screeched at him. “I chose it! I did! I’ll never wear a veil or chador or scarf against my will, never never never…” “Coeducation introduced by the Satan Shah a few years ago will cease as in practice it has turned many of our schools into houses of prostitution.” “Lies, all lies! Ridiculous!” Sharazad had told Lochart. “The truth must be shouted from the rooftops. It’s not the Imam saying these things, it’s the zealots surrounding him…”

“The Satan Shah’s heinous Marriage Protection Act is disapproved.” “Surely that’s a mistake, Hussain,” the mullah’s wife had said carefully. “The Imam can’t be saying that. It protects us against rejection by a husband, against polygamy, and grants us the right of divorce, gives us the vote and protects a wife’s property…”

“In our Islamic nation everyone will be governed only by the Koran and the Sharia. Women should not work, they must return to the home, stay in the home, to do their blessed, God-ordained duty to bear and bring up children and look after their Masters.”

“By the Prophet, Erikki, as much as I wish to have your children and be the best wife to you,” Azadeh had said, “I swear I cannot sit idly by and watch my less fortunate sisters be forced back into the Dark Ages without any freedom, or rights. It’s the fanatics, the zealots, not Khomeini, who are trying to do this. I will march wherever I am…”

All over Iran women had prepared sympathy marches - in Qom, Isfahan, Meshed, Abadan, Tabriz, even small towns like Kowiss - but never in the villages. All over Iran there had been arguments and quarrels between most fathers and their daughters, most husbands and their wives, most brothers and their sisters, the same fights, pleadings, cursing, demands, promises, beggings, forbiddings and, God protect us, even rebellions - covert and overt. And all over Iran was the same secret resolve of the women.

“I’m glad my Tommy’s not here, that makes it so much easier,” Sharazad had told her reflection in the mirror this morning, the march due to begin at noon. “I’m glad he’s away because whatever he said, eventually I’d disobey him.” A tremor of excitement, pleasing and at the same time painful. She was checking her makeup in the mirror a last time, just to make sure that the bruise around her left eye was well covered with powder. It hardly showed at all now. She smiled at herself, pleased with what she saw. Her hair was curled and flowing and she wore a warm green sweater and green skirt and nylons and Russian suede boots, and when she went out she had decided to wear a matching fur-lined coat and hat. Isn’t green the color of Islam? she thought happily, all her soreness forgotten.

Behind her the bed was littered with ski clothes and other clothes that she had considered and discarded. After all, women have never protested as a group before so we should certainly look our best. What a pity it’s not spring, then I could wear my light yellow silk dress and yellow hat and… A sudden sadness took her. Her father had given her that dress for her birthday present last year, and the lovely pearl choker necklace. Poor dear Father! she thought, her anger welling. God curse the evil men who murdered him. God cast them into the pit forever! God protect Meshang and all the family and my Tommy and let not zealots take away our freedoms. Now there were tears in her eyes and she brushed them away. Insha’Allah, she thought. Father’s in Paradise where the Faithful belong so there’s no real reason to mourn. No. Only the wish to see justice done to the foul murderers. Murder! Uncle Valik. HBC. Annoush and the children. HBC! How I hate those letters! What’s happened to Karim? She had heard nothing since Sunday and did not know if he was denounced, dead or free, or anything more about the telex - nothing to do but pray.

So she did. Again. And swept those problems out of her mind onto the shoulders of God and felt cleansed. As she put on her little fur-lined hat, the door opened, and Jari hurried in, also dressed in her best. “It’s time, Princess. Her Highness Zarah has arrived, oh, how pretty you look!” Filled with excitement, Sharazad picked up her coat and ran down the corridor, skirts flying, down the stairs to greet Zarah who waited for her in the hallway. “Oh, you look beautiful, Zarah darling,” she said embracing her. “Oh, I thought Meshang’d stop you at the last minute!” “He never had a chance,” Zarah said with a laugh, a cute fur hat jauntily on her head, “I started on him yesterday at breakfast and continued all day and all night and this morning about the new sable coat that was absolutely necessary, that I absolutely must have or I would die of shame in front of my friends. He fled to the bazaar to escape and forgot all about the march. Come along, we mustn’t be late, I’ve a taxi waiting. It’s stopped snowing, the day promises to be fair, though it’s chilly.”

There were already three other women in the taxi, friends and cousins, two proudly wearing jeans and high heels and ski jackets, hair free, one with a ski hat, and they were all as excited as if they were going to a barbecue picnic in the old days. None of them noticed the muttering disapproval of the taxi driver, or cared about him. “To the university,” Zarah ordered, and then they all chattered together like so many birds. When they were still two streets away from the university gates where the march was to assemble, the taxi had to stop, the crush was so huge.

Where a few hundred had been expected, there were thousands and more arriving every minute from all points of the compass. Young old, highborn lowborn, literate illiterate, peasant patrician, rich poor - jeans, skirts, pants, boots, shoes, rags, furs - and over all the same fervor, even from those who had come wearing chador. Some of the more militant were already making speeches and a few were shouting slogans: “No chador by force …” “Unity, struggle, victory…”

“Women unite, we refuse to be forced into purdah or chador…” “I was at Doshan Tappeh against the Immortals - we didn’t fight and suffer to give ourselves over to despotism…” “Death to despotism by any name…” “Yessssss! Hooray for women,” Sharazad shouted, “down with enforcing the chador and veils and scarves!” Like the others she was caught up in the excitement. Zarah paid the man and gave him a good tip, turned back joyfully, linking arms with Sharazad and Jari, and none of them heard the taxi driver call out, “Whores, all of you,” as he drove away. The crowds were milling around, not knowing what to do, most of them overwhelmed by the enormous numbers and variety of women and costumes and ages - even a few men joining them enthusiastically. “We’re protesting, Zarah, we’re really here, aren’t we?”

“Oh, yes, Sharazad! And there’re so many of us…” Shouting in the noise, listening to a well-dressed woman, a well-known Tehrani lawyer and activist and champion of women’s rights, Namjeh Lengehi - a few groups of men, students and teachers, for and against, along with a few mullahs, all against, also listening: “Some mullahs say we women can’t be judges, should not be educated and must wear chador. For three generations we have been unveiled, for three generations we have had the right of education and for one generation the right to vote. God is Great…”

“God is Great,” a thousand echoed her. “Some of us are more fortunate than others, some better educated than others, some even better educated than some men. Some of these know modern law better, even Koranic law better than some men - why shouldn’t those women be judges? Why?” “No reason! Those women for judges,” Zarah called out with a hundred others, drowning the mullahs and their supporters who shouted, “Sacrilege!”

When she could make herself heard, Namjeh Lengehi continued: “We supported the Ayatollah with all our hearts…” More cheers interrupted her, a great outpouring of affection. “We bless him for what he did and we fought as best we could, side by side with men, shared their suffering and the prisons and helped win the revolution and threw out the despot and now we are free, Iran is free from his yoke and from foreign yoke. But that does not give anyone, mullahs, even the Ayatollah, the right to turn back the clock…” Huge cries of, “No! No! No! No despots. Votes for women! No to despotism under any cover! Lengehi for the Majlis! Lengehi for minister of education!” “Oh, Zarah, isn’t this wonderful?” Sharazad said. “Have you ever voted?” “No, darling, of course not. But that doesn’t mean I don’t want the right to if I wanted to. A hundred times I told Meshang that of course I’d ask him who to vote for, but I still want to go into the booth myself, by myself, if I choose to!”

“You’re right!” Sharazad turned and shouted, “Up the revolution. God is Great! God is Great! Lengehi for the High Court! Women for judges! We insist on our rights …”

Teymour, the PLO-trained Iranian who had taken over Sharazad’s apartment and had been sent to monitor the march and identify the militants, recognized her from photographs he had seen there. His anger increased. “Women to obey God’s law,” he shouted. “No women judges! Women to do God’s work!” But he was drowned by the thousands and no one paid any attention to him. No one knew how the march began. They just seemed to set off and soon they massed the avenues, wall to wall, stopping all traffic, surging happily along, an irresistible force. Those at the stalls and at the windows and balconies of houses adjoining stared at the marchers open-mouthed. Most men were shocked. “Look at that one, the young whore with the green coat that flaps open in the front to show her cleft, look, look there! God curse her for tempting me…”

“Look at that one with the pants like an outer skin.”

“Where! Ah, I see her, the blue pants! God protect us! You can see every ripple of her zinaat! She’s inviting it! Like the one she’s linking arms with - the green coat! Harlot! Hey, harlot down there, you just want a cock - that’s what you all want…”

Men watched and seethed. Lust followed the march. Women watched and wondered. More and more forgot their shopping or their stalls and joined their sisters, aunts, mothers, grandmothers, fearlessly removing their head scarves and veils and chador - wasn’t this the capital, weren’t they Tehranis, the elite of Iran, no longer villagers? It was different here, not like back in the village where they would never have dared to shout slogans and pull away veils and scarves and chadors. “Women unite, God is Great, God is Great! Victory, unity, struggle. Equality for women! The vote! No to despotism, any despotism…”

Ahead of the marchers, behind them, around them, on highways and in the side streets, groups of men began forming. Those for and those against. Arguments became more and more violent - Koranic law demanded that Muslims resist any attempt against Islam. A few scuffles began. One man pulled a knife and died, another man’s knife in his back. A few guns and woundings. Many clashes. Scattered riots between liberals and fundamentalists, between leftists and Green Bands. A few heads broken, another man dead and, here and there, children caught in the crossfire, some dead, others cowering behind parked cars.

Ibrahim Kyabi, the student Tudeh leader who had escaped the ambush the night Rakoczy had been caught, ran into the street and picked up one of the petrified children while his friends gave him covering fire. He made the safety of the comer. Once he was sure the little girl was unhurt, he shouted to his friends, “Follow me,” knowing they were outnumbered here, and took to his heels. There were six of them and they ran into the alleys and side streets. Soon they were safe and heading for Roosevelt Avenue. The Tudeh had been ordered to avoid open clashes with Green Bands, to march with the women, to infiltrate the ranks and to proselytize. He was glad to be active again after being in hiding.

Within half an hour of Rakoczy’s being captured, he had reported the betrayal to his controller at Tudeh HQ. The man had told him not to go home, to shave off his beard and keep out of sight in a safe house near the university: “Do nothing until the Women’s Protest on Tuesday. Join that with your cell as planned, then leave for Kowiss the next day - that should keep you safe for a while.”

“What about Dimitri Yazernov?” - the only name he knew Rakoczy by. “Don’t worry, we’ll get him away from the scum. Tell me again what the men looked like.”

Ibrahim had told them the little he had remembered about the Green Bands and the ambush. And then he had asked, “How many men will come with me to Kowiss?”

“You and two others should be enough for one rotten mullah.” Yes, he thought again, but I don’t need anyone - soon my father will be avenged. His hands tightened on the M16 that had been stolen a week ago from Doshan Tappeh’s armory. “Freedom!” he shouted, and hurried into Roosevelt to join the front ranks of the protest, his friends spreading out. A hundred yards farther back, an open truck filled with youths trundled along slowly, surrounded by the thousands, waving and shouting encouragement. These were airmen out of uniform. Among them was Karim Peshadi. For hours he had been searching the marchers for Sharazad but had not seen her. He and the others were stationed at Doshan Tappeh where order and discipline were almost nonexistent, komitehs holding sway, issuing orders and counterorders, others coming from the High Command subservient to Prime Minister Bazargan, others from the Revolutionary Komiteh - and others over the radio where, from time to time, Ayatollah Khomeini would speak and set the law.

As all other pilots and officers throughout the land, Karim had been ordered before a komiteh to be cross-examined on his record, his political beliefs, and his pre-revolutionary connections. His record was good, and he could truthfully swear he supported Islam, Khomeini and the revolution. But the specter of his father hung over him and he had carefully buried his desire for revenge in his most secret heart. So far he had been untouched. The night before last he had tried to sneak into the Doshan Tappeh Tower to find the HBC clearance book but had been turned back. Tonight he was going to try again - he had sworn to himself not to fail. I mustn’t fail, he thought, Sharazad depends on me… oh, Sharazad, thou who gives my life meaning even though thou art forbidden.

Anxiously he hunted for her among the marchers, knowing she was somewhere here. Last night he and a group of his friends heard a violently incendiary broadcast by an ayatollah fundamentalist, opposing the Women’s Protest and demanding there be counterprotests by “Believers.” He had become gravely concerned for Sharazad, his sisters, and relations who he knew would also be marching. His friends were equally concerned for theirs. So this morning they had taken the truck and had joined the protest. With guns. “Equality for women,” he shouted. “Democracy forever!

Islam forever! Democracy and law and Islam forev - ” The words died. Ahead of the march men had formed a thick barrier across the road now, barring progress. The women to the forefront saw their anger and raised fists. Instinctively the women in the first half-dozen ranks tried to slow but could not. The swell of the thousands pushed them inexorably forward. “Why’re those men so angry?” Sharazad asked, her happiness evaporating, the crush increasing.

“They’re just misguided, villagers mostly,” Namjeh Lengehi said bravely. “They want us as slaves, slaves, don’t be afraid! God is Great…” “Link arms,” Zarah shouted, “they can’t stop us! Allahhhh-u Akbarrr…” Among the men blocking the road was the man who had, at Evin Jail, led Jared Bakravan to slaughter. He had recognized Sharazad in the vanguard. “God is Great,” he muttered in ecstasy, his words drowned by the shouting, “God made me an instrument to send the evil bazaari to hell and now God has given into my hands the harlot daughter.” His eyes gloated over her, seeing her naked on the couch, spread, breasts proud, eyes filled with lust, mouth moist, lips moist, hearing her begging him, “Take me, take me, quick, for you no money, let me have it, all of it, quick, quick, fill me, stretch me, for you anything, quick quick… oh, Satan, help me suck God out of his organ…” He jerked out his knife, loins throbbing, manhood proud, and hurled himself at her, “God is Greatttt…” His rush was sudden and he went across the space separating him from the women, knocked down half a dozen, reaching for her, but slipped and fell in his excitement, his knife flailing. Those he wounded were screaming and he fought to his feet and groped for her, seeing only her, her eyes wide, terror-stricken, knife in his fist ready to gut her, now only three paces away, two paces, one… his head filled with her perfume, the stench of the Devil Incarnate. The death blow began but never touched her and he knew Satan had sent an evil djinn his way - there was a monstrous burning in his chest, his eyes became sightless, and he died with the Name of God on his lips.

Sharazad stared down at the crumpled figure, Ibrahim beside her now, the gun in his hand, shouts and more screams and a roar of rage from a thousand women pressing behind them.

Another shot, another man fell screaming. “Forward for God!” Lengehi cried over her own fear, her shout taken up by Ibrahim who tugged at Sharazad: “Don’t be afraid, forward for women…” She saw his confidence and for a moment mistook him for her cousin Karim so similar in height and build and face, then her terror and hatred at what had happened burst and she shouted, “Forward for my father… Down with zealots and Green Bands … down with murderers!” She grabbed Zarah. “Come on! Forward!” and she linked arms with her and with Ibrahim, her savior, so like Karim they could be brothers, and they started off again. More men were running to the front in support, the truck with the airmen among them. Another knife wielder came at them screaming. “God is Great…” Sharazad shouted, the horde with her, and before he was neutralized the screaming youth had slashed Namjeh Lengehi’s arm. Inexorably, the front ranks pressed forward, both sides roaring “God is Great,” both sides equally sure they were right. Then the opposition crumpled.

“Let them march,” a man shouted. “Our women are there too, some of them, there’re too many of them… too many…” Those men in the way backed off, others stood aside and now the way was clear. A roar of triumph from the marchers: “Allahhh-u Akbarrr… God is with us, sisters!” “Forward,” Sharazad shouted again and the march continued again. Those who were wounded were carried or helped to the side, the others streaming onward. Now the protest became orderly again. No more opposition barred their way though many men watched sullenly from the sidelines, Teymour and others photographing the militants.

“It’s a success,” Namjeh Lengehi said weakly, still walking in the front rank, a scarf staunching the flow of blood from her arm. “We’re a success - even the Ayatollah will know of our resolution. Now we can go home to our husbands and families. We’ve done what we wanted and now we can go home.” “No,” Sharazad said, her face pale and dirt-stained, not yet over her fright. “We must march tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow until the Imam agrees publicly to no enforced chador and to our rights.” “Yes,” Ibrahim said, “if you stop now the mullahs will crush you!” “You’re right, Agha, oh how can I thank you for saving us?” “Yes,” Zarah said, still shaken. “We will march tomorrow or those… those madmen will destroy us!”

The march proceeded without more trouble and this was the pattern in the cities, initial trouble then the peaceful protest continuing. But in the villages and small towns the march was stopped before it began and far to the south, in Kowiss, there was silence in the town square except for the sound of the lash and the screams. When the march had formed the mullah Hussain had been there. “This protest is forbidden. All women not dressed according to the hijab are liable to sentencing for public nakedness against the dictates of the Koran.” Only half a dozen women among two hundred were dressed in overcoats and Western dress.

“Where does it say in the Koran we disobey God if we don’t wear chador?” one woman shouted. She was the bank manager’s wife, and had been to Tehran University. Her appearance was modest, she wore an overcoat and a skirt but her hair was free.

‘“Oh, Prophet, say to thy wives and daughters and believing women, that they draw their veils closer to them…’ Iran is an Islamic state … the first in history. The Imam has decreed hijab. It is hijab. Go and dress properly at once!”

“But Believers in other lands aren’t required chador, nor do their leaders or husbands force them into it.”

“ ‘Men are managers of the affairs of women, for that God has preferred in bounty one of them over another… righteous women are therefore obedient… Those that you fear may be rebellious, admonish; banish them to their couches and beat them. If they then obey you, look not for any way against them.’ Go and cover your hair!”

“I will not. For more than forty years Iranian women have been unveiled an - ”

“Forty lashes will curb your disobedience! God is Great!” Hussain motioned to one of his acolytes. Others grabbed the woman and pinioned her. The whip soon ripped through the material on her back to the jeers of the men who watched. When it was over, the senseless woman was carried away. By other women. The rest went back to their homes. In silence.

There Hussain looked at his wife, her stomach huge with child. “How dare you join a protest of harlots and loose women?”

“It… it was an error,” she said, petrified. “It was a great error.” “Yes. You will have no food, only water for two days to remind you. If you weren’t with child you would have had the same, in the square.” “Thank you for being merciful, God bless you and keep you. Thank you …”

AT TEHRAN AIRPORT: 6:40 P.M. With Andrew Gavallan beside him, McIver drove out of the freight area onto the feeder road heading for their 125, ETLL, that was parked on the freight apron a quarter of a mile away. She had been back from Tabriz for about an hour and was refueled and ready for the return flight across the Gulf. When she had landed, Armstrong had thanked them profusely for allowing them the use of the airplane. So had Colonel Hashemi Fazir.

“Captain Hogg says the 125 returns on Saturday, Mr. Gavallan,” Hashemi had said politely. “I wonder if you’d be kind enough to give us a ride to Tabriz. Just one way this time, no need to wait, we can make our own way back.”

“Of course, Colonel,” Gavallan had said pleasantly, not feeling pleasant about either of the men. When he had arrived from Al Shargaz this morning McIver had told him at once, in private, why it was necessary to cooperate. “I’ll deal with that right smartly with Talbot, Mac,” he had said, furious at the blackmail. “CID or Special Branch notwithstanding!” They all held their hands over their ears as a giant USAF transport taxied past on its way to the distant takeoff point - one of the many U.S. government charters arranged to evacuate remaining American service and embassy personnel except for a skeleton staff. Superheated air from the jets tore up snow and washed over them. When Gavallan could make himself heard, he said, “Talbot left a message for you, Mr. Armstrong, and asked if you’d see him as soon as possible.” He saw the glance between the two men and wondered what it meant.

“Did he say where, sir?”

“No, just to see him as soon as possible.” Gavallan was distracted by a big black limo hurrying toward them, the official Khomeini flag on the fender. Two hard-faced men got out and saluted Hashemi deferentially, held the door open for him.

“Until Saturday - thank you again, Mr. Gavallan.” Hashemi got into the back. “How do we contact you, Colonel - in case there’s a change in plan?” “Through Robert. He can get a message to me. Is there anything I can do for you? Here at the airport?”

McIver said quickly, “About refueling - thanks for arranging it - if you could see we get the same rapid service every time I’d appreciate it. And also our clearances serviced.”

“I’ll take care of it. You will have priority for Saturday’s flight. If there’s anything else, please ask Robert. Come on, Robert!” Robert Armstrong said, “Thanks again, Mr. Gavallan, see you Saturday, if not before.”

When Talbot had come by earlier to find out Armstrong’s arrival time back from Tabriz, Gavallan had taken him aside and almost howled with rage over the blackmail. “Bless my soul,” Talbot had said, shocked. “What a ghastly accusation, terribly un-British, Andrew, if I may say so! I understand Robert went to a considerable amount of trouble to try to extricate you, your company, Duncan, and Lochart - good man that, lovely wife, sad about her father - from a disaster that can raise its ugly head at any moment. Couldn’t it?” He smiled sweetly. “I understand Robert asked, only asked for a modest favor, easy to provide, no skin off the old nose, Andrew.” “He’s Special Branch, ex-CID Hong Kong, isn’t he?”

Talbot’s smile had never lost its sweetness. “I wouldn’t know. But he does seem to want to do you a favor. Rather nice of him. Isn’t it?” “Does he have the clearance book?”

“I wouldn’t know anything about that sort of thing.”

“Who’s this Colonel Fazir anyway?”

Talbot had lit a cigarette. “Just a friend. Good man to have as a friend.” “I can see that. He arranged refueling and immediate priority clearance as though he was God All bloody Mighty.”

“Oh, he’s not, by no means not. Near it, but not God. God’s English,” Talbot had chuckled. “And a woman. No masculine intelligence could balls up the world so satisfactorily. A word to the wise, old chap: I hear, following the advice of your fellow board member, Ali Kia, they intend nationalizing all foreign aircraft companies, particularly yours, if ever they can get the piece of paper together.”

Gavallan was shocked. “Who’re ‘they’?”

‘“Does it matter?”

After Talbot had driven off, Gavallan had stalked back into the office that was well staffed today. Not back to normal yet but getting there - radio op, telex op, office manager, stores men and some secretaries, no women present today as all had requested permission to go on the Protest March. “Mac, let’s take a walk.”

McIver glanced up from a pile of reports. “Sure,” he said, seeing the gravity.

They had had no time to talk privately yet, impossible in or near the office, the walls all thin and ears wide open everywhere. From the moment Gavallan had arrived hours ago, the two of them had been busy going through the cash ledgers, contracts still in service, contracts held up or canceled, and the current status of each base - all of them reporting, guardedly, minimum work and maximum harassment - the only good piece of news McIver’s permission to export the three 212s and even that was not sure. Yet. The two men went out onto the freight apron. A JAL jumbo roared into the sky. “They say there’re still two to three thousand Japanese techs kicking their heels at Iran-Toda,” McIver said absently.

“Their consortium’s taking a hell of a beating. Today’s Financial Times said their override’s already half a billion dollars, no way they can get finished this year and no way to pull out - that and the world shipping glut must be hurting Toda badly.” Gavallan saw there was no one near. “At least our capital investment’s mobile, Mac, most of it.”

McIver looked up at him, seeing the craggy face, gray bushy eyebrows, brown eyes. “That’s the reason for the ‘imperative conference’?” “One of them.” Gavallan told him what Talbot had said. “‘Nationalized’! That means we lose the lot - unless we do something about it. Genny’s right, you know. We’ve got to do it ourselves.”

“I don’t think it’s possible. Did she tell you that?”

“Of course, but I think we can. Try this on for size: Say today’s Day One. All nonessential personnel begin to quit Iran for reassignment or on leave; we get out all the spares we can - either by our 125 or on regular airlines when they start up again - as obsolete, redundant, for repair or as personal baggage. Zagros Three retreats to Kowiss, Tabriz closes ‘temporarily’ and Erikki’s 212 goes to Al Shargaz, then to Nigeria along with Tom Lochart from Zagros, and one 212 from Kowiss. You close HQ in Tehran and relocate at Al Shargaz to run operations and control our three remaining bases of Lengeh, Kowiss and Bandar Delam ‘pending return to normality’ from there - we’re all still under our government orders to evacuate all nonessential personnel.” “Right, but th - ”

“Let me finish, laddie. Say we can do the prep and planning and all that in thirty days. Day Thirty-one’s D day. At an exact time on D day - or D plus one or two depending on weather or Christ knows what - we radio a code word from Al Shargaz. Simultaneously all remaining pilots and choppers take off, head across the Gulf for Al Shargaz. There we remove the rotors, stow the choppers into 747 freighters I’ve chartered from somewhere, they’ll fly to Aberdeen and Bob’s your bloody uncle,” Gavallan ended with a beam. McIver stared at him blankly. “You’re crazy! You’re stark raving bonkers, Chinaboy. It’s got so many holes in it… you’re bonkers.” “Name one hole.”

“I can give you fifty, firs - ”

“One at a time, laddie, and remember your bloody pressure. How is it by the way - Genny asked me to ask?”

“Fine, and don’t you bloody start. First, the same takeoff time: choppers from the different bases’ll take vastly different times because of the distances they have to go. Kowiss’ll have to refuel - can’t make it in one hop, even across the Gulf.”

“I know that. We make separate subplans for each of the three bases. Each base commander makes his own plan how to get out - we’re responsible for them on arrival. Scrag can zip across the Gulf easily, so can Rudi from Bandar De - ”

“He can’t. Neither Rudi from Bandar Delam nor Starke from Kowiss can make it in one hop all along the Gulf to Al Shargaz - even if they can get across the Gulf in the first place. They’ll have to go through Kuwait, Saudi, and Emirate airspace and God only knows if they’d impound us, jail, or fine us - Al Shargaz too, no reason why they should be any different.” McIver shook his head. “The sheikdoms can’t do anything without proper Iranian clearances - rightly they’re all scared fartless Khomeini’s revolution’ll spread to them, they’ve all got big Shi’a minorities, they’re no match for Iranian armed forces if he decides to get mean.”

“One point at a time,” Gavallan said calmly. “You’re right about Rudi’s and Starke’s planes, Mac. But say they have permission to fly through all those territories?”

“Eh?”

“I telexed all Gulf ATC’s individually for permission and I’ve got telex confirms that S-G choppers in transit can go through.”

“Yes, but - ”

“But one point at a time, laddie. Next, say all our planes were back on British registry - they are British, they are our planes, we’re paying for them, we own them whatever the partners try to pull. On British registry they’re not subject to Iran or anything to do with them. Right?” “Once they’re out, yes, but you won’t get Iran Civil Aviation Authority to agree to the transfer, therefore you can’t get them back to British.” “Say I could get them onto British registry regardless.” “How in the hell would you do that?”

“Ask. You ask, laddie, you ask the registry lads in London to do it. In fact I did before I left London. ‘Things are kind of ropy in Iran,’ says I. ‘Totally snafu, old boy, yes,’ says they. ‘I’d like you to put my birds back on British registry, temporarily,’ says I, ‘I may bring them out until the situation normalizes - of course, the powers that be in Iran’d approve but I can’t get a bloody piece of paper signed there at the moment, you know how it is.’ ‘Certainly, old boy’, says they, ‘same with our bloody government - any bloody government. Well, they are your kites, no doubt about that, it’s a tiny bit irregular but I imagine it might be all right. Are you going to the Old Boys’ beer-up?’”

McIver had stopped walking and stared at him in wonder. “They agreed?” “Not yet, laddie. Next?”

“I’ve got a hundred ‘nexts’ but!” Irritably McIver started walking again, too cold to stand still. “But?”

“But if I give them one at a time, you’ll give me an answer - and a possible solution but they still won’t all add up.” “I agree with Genny, we have to do it ourselves.” “Maybe, but it has to be feasible. Another thing: We’ve permission to take three 212s out, maybe we could get out the rest.” “The three aren’t out yet, Mac. The partners, let alone ICAA, won’t let us out of their grasp. Look at Guerney - all their choppers are impounded. Forty-eight, including all their 212s - maybe $30 million rotting, they can’t even service them.” They glanced at the runway. An RAF Hercules was landing. Gavallan watched it. “Talbot told me by the end of the week all British army, navy, and air force technicians and training personnel’ll be out and at the embassy they’ll be down to three, including him. It seems that in the fracas at the U.S. embassy - someone sneaked in under cover of it, blew open safes, grabbed ciphers …” “They still had secret stuff there?” McIver was appalled.

“Seems so. Anyway, Talbot said the infiltration caused every diplomatic sphincter in Christendom - and Sovietdom - and Arabdom - to palpitate. All embassies are closing. The Arabs are the most fractured of all - not one of the oil sheiks wants Khomeinism across the Gulf and they’re anxious, willing and able to spend petro dollars to prevent it. Talbot said: ‘Fifty pounds against a bent hat pin that Iraq privately now has an open checkbook, the Kurds likewise, and anyone else who’s Arab, pro-Sunni and anti-Khomeini. The whole Gulf’s poised to explode.’”

“But meanwhile th - ”

“Meanwhile, he’s not so bullish as he was a few days ago and not so sure that Khomeini’s going to quietly retire to Qom. ‘It’s jolly old Iran for the Iranians, old boy, so long as they’re Khomeini and mullahs,’ he said. ‘It’s in with Khomeinism if the leftists don’t assassinate him first and out with the old. That means us.’” Gavallan banged his gloved hands together to keep the circulation going. “I’m bloody frozen. Mac, it’s clear from the books we’re in dead trouble here. We’ve got to look after ourselves.” “It’s a hell of a risk. I think we’d lose some birds.”

“Only if luck’s against us.”

“You’re asking a lot from luck, Andy. Remember those two mechanics in Nigeria who’ve been jailed for fourteen years just for servicing a 125 that was flown out illegally?”