hussain came out of his reverie, anguished that god had decided to leave
him alive when, again, he should have been martyred. why? why am i so cursed? and this american, impossible for the spray of bullets not to have killed him also why was he too left alive? "we'll go to your base. can you stand up?"
"i'll... sure, just a moment." starke readied. "okay, careful... oh, sweet jesus..." even so he stood, weaving slightly, pain nauseating him. "can one of your men drive?"
"yes." hussain called out to the green band kneeling beside kyabi, "firouz, hurry up!" obediently the man came back.
"just these coins in his pockets, excellency, and this. what's it say?"
hussain examined it closely. "it's a current tehran university identity card."
the photo showed a handsome youth smiling at the camera. ibrah]m kyabi, 3d year, engineering section. birth date 12 march 1955. hussain glanced at the back of the card. "there's a tehran address on it."
"stinking universities," another young green band said. "hotbeds of satan and western evil."
"when the imam reopens them, god grant him peace, mullahs will be in charge. we'll stamp out all western, anti-islam ideas forever. give the card to the komiteh, firouz. they can pass it on to tehran. komitehs in tehran will interrogate his family and friends, and deal with them." hussain saw starke looking at him. "yes, captain?"
starke had seen the photo. "i was just thinking, in a few days he'dtve been twenty-four. kind of a waste, isn't it."
"god punished his evil. now he is in hellfire."
north of kowiss: 4:10 r. m. the 206 was cruising nicely over the zagros foothills, mciver at the controls, ali kia dozing beside him. mciver was feeling very good. ever since he had decided to fly kia himself he had been light-headed. it was the perfect solution, the only one. so my medical's not current, so what? we're in a war operation, we have to take risks, and i'm still the best bloody pilot in the company.
he looked across at kia. if you weren't such a horse's arse, i'd hug you for giving me the excuse. he beamed and clicked on the sender. "kowiss, this is hoteltangox ray at one thousand, heading 185 degrees inbound from tehran with minister ali kia aboard."
"htx. maintain heading, report at outer marker."
his flight and refueling at isfahan international airport had been uneventful, except for a few minutes after landing when excited, shouting green bands had surrounded the helicopter threateningly, even though he had had clearance to land and refuel. "get on the radio and insist the station supervisor come at
once," kia had said to mciver, seething. "i represent the government!"
mciver had obliged. "the, er, the tower says if we're not refueled and away within the hour the komiteh will impound us." he added sweetly, delighted to pass on the message, "they, er, said, 'foreign pilots and foreign airplanes are not welcome in isfahan, nor running dogs of bazargan's foreign-dominated government!'"
"barbarians, illiterate peasants," kia had said disgustedly, but only when they were safely airborne again, mciver enormously relieved that he had been allowed into the civilian airport and had not had to use the air force base where lochart had refueled.
mciver could see the whole kowiss air base now. on the far side of the field near their ihc complex he saw the company 125 and his heart did a flip. i told starke to get the lads off early, he thought irritably. "ihc control, htx from tehran with minister kia aboard."
"ihc control. htx, land on helipad 2. wind's thirty to thirty-five knots at 135 degrees."
mciver could see green bands on the main gate, some near the helipad with esvandiary and the iranian staff. a group of mechanics and pilots was also collecting nearby. my reception committee, he thought, recognising john hogg, lochart, jean-luc, and ayre. no starke yet. so i'm illegal. what can they do? i outrank them but if the icaa find out they could be plenty bloody mad. he had his speech all ready, in case: "i apologize but the exigencies of minister kia's order necessitated an immediate decision. of course it won't happen again." it wouldn't have happened at all if whirlwind wasn't planned. he leaned over and shook kia awake. "we'll be landing in a couple of minutes, agha."
kia rubbed the fatigue out of his face, glanced at his watch, then straightened his tie, combed his hair and carefully readjusted his astrakhan hat. he studied the people below, the neat hangars, and all the helicopters neatly lined up two 212s, three 206s, two alouettes my helicopters, he thought with a glow. "why was the flight so slow?" he said curtly.
"we're on time, minister. we've had a bit of a headwind." mciver was concentrating on the landing, needing to make it very good. it was.
esvandiary swung kia's door open. "excellency minister, i'm kuram esvandiary, chief of iranoil in this area, welcome to kowiss. agha managing director siamaki called to make sure we were prepared for you. welcome!"
"thank you." ostentatiously kia said to mciver, "pilot, be ready to take off at 10:00 a.m. tomorrow. i may want to go around some oil sites with excellency esvandiary before going back. don't forget, i have to be in tehran for my 7:00 rm. meeting with the prime minister." he got out and was bustled off to inspect the choppers. immediately ayre, lochart, and the others ducked under
the blades and came quickly alongside mciver's window. he disregarded their faces and beamed. "hello, how're tricks?"
"let me finish the shutdown for you, mac," ayre said, "we've a s "
"thanks, but i'm perfectly capable," mciver said crisply, then into the mike, "htx closing down." he saw lochart's face and sighed again. "so i'm slightly out of whack, tom. so?"
"it's not that, mac," lochart said in a rush, "duke's been shot." mciver listened appalled as lochart told him what had happened. "he's in the infirmary now. doc nutt says his lung may be punctured."
"christ almighty! then put him aboard the 125, go on johnny, get g "
"he can't, mac," lochart overrode him with the same urgency: "hotshot's held up her departure till after kia's inspection yesterday old duke tried every which way to get her in and out before you arrived but hotshot's a sonofabitch. and that's not all, i think tehran's rumbled us."
"what?"
lochart told him about the telexes and the hf calls. "siamaki's been bending hotshot's ear, getting him worked up. i took siamaki's last call duke had gone to the mullah's and he was mad as a sonofabitch. i told him the same as duke and stuffed him off saying you'd call when you got in, but jesus, mac, he knows you and charlie've cleaned out your apartment."
"all baba! he must've been a plant." mciver's head was reeling. then he noticed the little gold st. christopher that habitually he hung around the magnetic compass when flying. it was a present from genny, a first present, a war present, just after they'd met, he in the raf, she a waaf: "just so you don't get lost, me lad," she had said. "you don't have much of a nose for north."
he smiled now and blessed her. "first i'll see duke." he could see esvandiary and kia wandering down the line of choppers. "tom, you and jean-luc see if you can chilly kia along, butter the bugger up, flatter the balls off him i'll join you as quick as i can." they went off at once. "freddy, you spread the word that the moment we get the okay for the 125 to leave, everyone's to board fast and quietly. is all the baggage aboard?"
"yes, but what about siamaki?"
"i'll worry about that bugger, off you go." mciver hurried away.
johnny hogg called out after him, "mae, a word in your ear as soon as
pose."
the underlying urgency stopped him. "what johnny?"
"urgent and private from andy: if this weather worsens he may postpone whirlwind from tomorrow till saturday. the wind's changed. it'll be a headwind now instead of a tail "
"you saying i don't know southeast from northwest?"
"sorry. andy also said, as you're here he can't give you the overriding yes or no he promised."
"that's right. ask him to give it to charlie. what else?"
"the rest can wait. i haven't told the others."
doc nutt was in the infirmary with starke. starke lay on a cot, arm in a sling, his shoulder heavily bandaged. "hello, mac, you have a good flight?" he said witheringly.
"don't you start! hi, doc! duke, we'll get you out on the 125."
"no. there's tomorrow."
"tomorrow'll take care of tomorrow and meanwhile you're on the 124 125! for christ's sake," mciver said irritably, his relief at having made the flight safely and at seeing starke alive peeled away his control, "don't act like you're deadeye dick at the alamo!"
"he wasn't at the goddamn alamo," starke slammed back angrily, "and who the hell're you to act like chuck yeager?"
doc nutt said mildly, "if you both don't slow down, i'll order the two of you bloody enemas."
abruptly both men laughed and starke gasped as pain rocked him. "for crissake, doc, don't make me laugh..." and mciver said, "duke, kia insisted i accompany him. i couldn't tell him to push off."
"sure." starke grunted. "how was it?"
"grand."
"what about the wind?"
"it's not a plus for tomorrow," mciver said carefully. "it can change back again just as quickly."
"if it stays this way it's a thirty-knot headwind or worse and we can't make it across the gulf. there's no way we can carry enough fu "
"yes. doc, what's the poop?"
"duke should be x-rayed as soon as possible. shoulder blade's shattered and there's some tendon and muscle damage, wound's clean. there might be a splinter or two in the left lung, he's lost a pint or so, but all in all he's been very bloody lucky."
"i feel okay, doc, i'm mobile," starke said. "one day won't make that amount of difference. i can still go along tomorrow."
"sorry, old top, but you're shook. bullets do that. you may not feel it now but in an hour or two you will, guaranteed." doc nutt was very glad he was leaving with the 125 today. don't want to cope anymore, he told himself. don't want to see any more fine young bodies bullet- torn and mutilated. i've had it. yes, but i'll have to stick to it for a few more days, there're going to be others to patch up because whirlwind's just not going to work. it's not,
feel it in my bones. "sorry, but you'd be a hazard on any op. even a little one."
"duke," mciver said, "it's best you go at once. tom, you take one no need for jean-luc to stay."
"and what the hell you figure on doing?"
mciver beamed. "me, i'll be a passenger. meanwhile, i'm just bloody kia's very private bloody pilot."
in the tower: 4:50 p.m. "i repeat, mr. siamaki," mciver said tightly into the mike, "there's a special conference in al sh "
"and i repeat, why wasn't i informed at once?" the voice over the loudspeaker was shrill and irritated.
mciver's knuckles were white from the grip on the mike's stem, and he was being watched intently by a green band and wazari whose face was still swollen from the beating zataki had given him. "i repeat, agha siamaki," he said, his voice tidy, "captains pettikin and lane were needed for an urgent conference in al shargaz and there was no time to inform you."
"why? i'm here in tehran. why wasn't the office informed, where are their exit permits? where?"
mciver pretended to be slightly exasperated. "i already told you, agha, there was no time phones in tehran aren't working and i cleared their exits with the komiteh at the airport, personally with his excellency the mullah in charge." the green band yawned, bored, non-english- speaking, and noisily cleared his throat. "now if you'll excu "
"but you and captain pettikin have removed your valuables from your apartment. is that so?"
"merely a precaution to remove temptation from vile mujhadin and fedayeen burglars and bandits while we're away," mciver said airily, very conscious of wazari's attention and sure that the tower at the air base was monitoring this conversation. "now if you'll excuse me, minister kia requires my presence!"
"ah, minister kia, ah, yes!" siamaki's irritability softened a little. "what, er, what time do you both arrive back in tehran tomorrow?"
"depending on the winds..." mciver's eyes almost crossed as he had a sudden, almost overwhelming, desire to blurt out about whirlwind. i must be going potty, he thought. with an effort he concentrated. "depending on minister kia, the winds, and refueling, sometime in the afternoon."
"i will be waiting for you; i may even meet you at the airport if we know your eta; there are checks to be signed and many rearrangements to be discussed. please give minister kia my best wishes and wish him a pleasant stay in kowiss. salaam." the transmission clicked off. mciver sighed, put the mike
down. "sergeant, while i'm here i'd like to call bandar delam and lengeh."