"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, grey 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 honkers, chinaboy. it's got so many holes in it... you're honkers."
"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. kowisstll 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?"'
mclver had stopped walking and stared at him in wonder. "they agreed?"
"not yet, laddie. next?"
"i've got a hundred 'nexts' but!" irritably mclver 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. fortyeight, 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?" mclver 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?"
"that was nigeria, the mechanics stayed behind. we'd leave no one."
"if just one expat gets left behind, he'll be grabbed, tossed into jail, and become a hostage for all of us and all the birds unless you're prepared to let him take the flak. if you're not, they'll use him to force us back and when we come back they'll be plenty bloody irritated. what about all our iranian employees?"
doggedly gavallan said, "if luck's against us it'll be a disaster whatever we do. i think we should come up with a proper plan with all the final details, in case. that'll take weeks and we'd better keep the planning super secret, just between us."
mciver shook his head. "we'll have to consult rudi, scragger, lochart, and starke, if you want to be serious."
"just as you say." gavallan's back was aching and he stretched. "once it's properly planned... we don't have to press the final tit until then."
they walked for a while in silence, snow crunching loudly. now they were almost at the end of the apron. "we'd be asking a hell of a lot from the lads," mciver said.
gavallan did not appear to have heard him. "we can't just leave fifteen years
of work, can't toss away all our savings, yours, scrag's, and everything," he said. "our iran's gone. most of the fellows we've worked with over the years have fled, are in hiding, dead or against us if they like it or not. work's at a minimum. we've got nine choppers working out of twenty-six here. we're not being paid for the little we do, or any back money. i think that's all a write-off."
doggedly mciver said, "it's not as bad as you think. the partn "
"mae, you've got to understand i can't write off the money we're owed plus our birds and spares and stay in business. i can't. our thirteen 212s are worth $13 million, nine 206s another $1.3 odd million, three alouettes another $1.5 million, and 3 million of spares $20 million give or take a few dollars. i can't write that off. ian warned me struan's needs help this year, there's no spare cash linbar's made some bad decisions and... well you know what i think of him and he of me. but he's still taipan. i can't write off iran, can't get out of the new contracts for the x63s, can't battle imperial who're presently clobbering us in the north sea with their unfair bloody bookkeeping with taxpayers' money. can't be done."
"you'd be asking a hell of a lot from the lads, chinaboy."
"and from you, mac, don't forget you. it'd be a team effort, not just for me, for them too because it's that or go under."
"most of our lads can get jobs with no problem. the market's desperate for trained chopper pilots who're oilers."
"so what? bet you all of them'd rather be with us, we look after them, pay top dollar, we've the best safety record s-g's the best chopper company on earth, and they know it! you and i know we're part of the noble house, by god, and that means something too." gavallan's eyes suddenly lit up with his irrepressible twinkle. "it'd be a great caper if we pulled it off. i'd love to shove linbar's nose in it. when the time comes we'll ask the lads. meanwhile all systems go, eh, laddie?"
"all right," mciver said without enthusiasm. "for the planning."
gavallan looked at him. "i know you too well, mac. soon you'll be raring to go and i'll be the one saying, hold it, what about so-and-so..."
but mciver wasn't listening. his mind was trying to formulate a plan, despite the impossibility of it except for the british registry. could that make the difference?
"andy, about the plan. we'd better have a code name."
"genny said we should call it 'whirlwind' that's what we're mixed up in."
thursday february 22
northwest of tabriz: 11:20 a.m. from where he sat on the cabin steps of his parked 212 high up on the mountainside, erikki could see deep into soviet russia. far below the river aras flowed eastward toward the caspian, twisting through gorges and marking much of the iran-ussr border. to his left he could see into turkey, to soaring mount ararat, 15,500 feet, and the 212 was parked not far from the cave mouth where the secret american listening post was.
was, he thought with grim amusement. when he had landed here yesterday afternoon the altimeter reading 8,562 feet the motley bunch of leftist fedayeen fighters he had brought with him stormed the cave, but the cave was empty of americans and when cimtarga inspected it he found all the important equipment destroyed and no cipher books. much evidence of a hasty departure, but nothing of real value to be scavenged. "we'll clean it out anyway," cimtarga had said to his men, "clean it out like the others." to erikki he had added, "can you land there?" he pointed far above where the complex of radar masts stood. "i want to dismantle them."
"i don't know," erikki had said. the grenade ross had given him was still
taped in his left armpit cimtarga and his captors had not searched him and his pukoh knife was still in its back scabbard. "i'll go and look."
"we'll look, captain. we'll look together," cimtarga had said with a laugh. "then you won't be tempted to leave us."
he had flown him up there. the masts were secured to deep beds of concrete on the northern face of the mountain, a small flat area in front of them. "if the weather's like today it'd be okay, but not if the wind picks up. i could hover and winch you down." he had smiled wolfishly.
cimtarga had laughed. "thanks, but no. i don't want an early death."
"for a soviet, particularly a kgb soviet, you're not a bad man."
"neither are you for a finn."