lochart had his headset on and was watching the needles climbing, willing them to hurry. "come on, god damnit," he muttered, hands and feet ready on the controls, the scream of the jets growing, the captain beside him praying openly. he could not hear annoush sobbing in the back or the petrified children who had scrambled out of their hiding place to bury themselves in her skirts, or valik and the major raging at him to hurry.
needles climbing. still climbing. still climbing. almost in the green. now! his left hand started to raise the collective lever but the car whirled around the hangar and came at them head-on to stop fifteen yards away. five men jumped out of it one rushed directly at the cockpit and pointed an automatic rifle at him, the others went for the cabin door. he was almost airborne but knew he was a dead man if he went the extra inches and he saw the man angrily motion him to stop. he obeyed, then swung around to look into the back. the other men were clambering in. they were all officers, valik and the major were embracing them and being embraced, then he heard, "take off, for crissake!" in his headset and felt a shove in the ribs. it was ali, the captain, beside him.
"take off!" ali said again, his english american-accented, and gave a thumbs-up to the man outside still aiming at them. the man rushed for the door, got in, and slammed the door closed. "hurry, god damnit, look over there!" he pointed at the other side of the runway. more cars were heading their way. sparks of machine-gun fire from someone leaning out of a window. in seconds lochart was airborne, all senses concentrating on escape.
behind him some of the of ricers cheered, hung on as the chopper took evading action, and sorted themselves into seats. most were colonels. some were shaken, particularly general seladi who sat between valik and the major. "i wasn't sure it was you, general excellency," the major was saying, "so i fired high just as a warning. praise be to god the plan worked so well."
"but you were going to take off. you were going to leave us! you w "
"oh, no, excellency uncle," valik interrupted smoothly, "it was the british pilot, he was panicking and didn't want to wait! they've no balls, britishers! never mind him," he added, "we're armed, we've food, and we're safe! praise be to god! and more praise that i had time to plan." yes, he thought, if it hadn't been for me and my money we'd all be dead money to bribe the man who released us and you, and the major and captain to release lochart whom i need just a little longer.
"if we'd been left we'd've been shot!" general seladi was enraged, his face purple. "god curse that pilot to hell! why did you waste time releasing him? all can fly a 212!"
"yes. but lochart has more experience and we need him to get through the maze."
valik smiled encouragingly at annoush who sat across the aisle facing him, the little girl trembling in her arms his son sitting on the floor dozing, his head in her lap. weakly she smiled back, shifting the weight of the child to ease the aches that pervaded her. he reached over and touched her, then settled more comfortably in his seat and closed his eyes, very tired but most content. you're a very clever man, he told himself. in his most secret heart he knew that without his stratagem of pretending to mclver that savak was going to arrest him and particularly his family neither mclver nor lochart would have helped them to escape. you measured them perfectly as you have gavallan.
fools! he thought contemptuously.
and as for you, seladi, my stupid and rapacious uncle who bartered safe refueling at isfahan which you failed to provide in return for a safe passage out for yourself and eleven of your friends, you're worse. you're a traitor. if i hadn't had an informant of long standing in the general staff hq i would never have heard of the generals' great betrayal in time to escape and we'd've been caught like flies in a honey pot in tehran. loyalists may still prevail, the battle's not lost yet, but meanwhile my family and i will watch events from england, st. moritz, or new york.
he let himself go into the exciting, wonderful power of the jets that were carrying them to safety, to a house in london, a country house in surrey, another in california, and to swiss and bahamian bank accounts. ah, yes, he told himself happily, and that reminds me about our blocked s-g joint account in the bahamas, another $4 million to enrich us and easy now to pry from gavallan's grubby paws. more than enough to keep me and my family safe whatever happens here until we can return. khomeini won't live forever even if he wins god curse him! soon we'll be able to return home, soon iran will be normal again, meanwhile we have everything we need.
his ears heard seladi still muttering about lochart and almost being left behind. "calm yourself, excellency," he said, and took his arm, gentling him, and thought, you and your running dogs still have a value, a temporary value. perhaps as hostages, perhaps as bait who knows? none are family except you and you betrayed us. "calm yourself, my revered uncle, with the help of god the pilot will get what he deserves."
yes. lochart should not have panicked. he should have waited for my order. disgusting to panic.
valik closed his eyes and slept, very satisfied with himself.
c~hi ta.b rl z. ~ d iraq ~ qazv~n *tehran baghdad: ~ i r a n ~ ~ ~'z dam ado isfa~ ~
at the iran-toda refinery, bandar delam: 12:04 p.m. scragger was whistling tonelessly, hand-pumping fuel into his main tanks from big barrels that were lined up in a small japanese semi beside the freshly washed 206, sparkling in the sun. nearby was a young green band who squatted in the shade, leaning on his mid, half asleep.
the noonday sun was warm and the light breeze made the day pleasant and took away the constant humidity, here on the coast. scragger was dressed lightly, white shirt with captain's epaulets, summer-weight black trousers and shoes, the inevitable dark glasses and peaked cap.
now the tanks were brimming. "that's it, me son," he said to the japanese assigned to assist him.
"hal, anjin-san" yes, mr. pilot the man said. like all employees at the refinery he wore white, spotless overalls and gloves, with iran-toda industries emblazoned on the back, then the same thing in farsi politely above, with equivalent in japanese characters beneath it.
"hal, it is," scragger said, using one of the words that he had picked up from kasigi enroute from lengeh yesterday. he pointed. "next our long- range
tanks, and then we'll fill the spares." for the journey that de plessey had grandly authorized sunday night to celebrate their victory over the saboteurs scragger had taken out the backseat and lashed in place two 40-gallon drums, "just in case, mr. kasigi. i've connected them to the main tanks. we can use a hand pump and can even refuel in the air, if we have to if you do the pumping. now we won't have to land for fuel. you can never tell with weather in the gulf, there's always sudden storms or squalls, fog, winds can play tricks. our best bet's to stay a little out to sea."
"and jaws?"
scragger had laughed with him. "the old hammerhead of kharg? with any luck we might see him if we get that far and don't get diverted."
"still no callback from kish radar?"
"no, but it doesn't matter. they've cleared us to bandar delam. you're sure you can refuel me at your plant?"
"yes, we've storage tanks, captain. helipads, hangar, and repair shop. those were the first things we built we had a contract with guerney."
"yes, yes, i knew about that, but they've quit, haven't they?"
"yes, they did, a week or so ago. perhaps your company would take over the contract? perhaps you could be put in charge there's work for three 212s and perhaps two 206s constantly, while we're building."
scragger had chuckled. "that'd make old andy and gav happy as a cat in a barrel of fish sticks and dirty dunc fart dust!"
"please?"
scragger tried to explain the joke about mciver. but when he was through kasigi had not laughed, just said, oh, now i understand.
they're a rum lot, scragger thought.
when he finished refueling he did another ground check engine, rotors, airframe though he did not expect to leave today. de plessey had asked him to wait for kasigi, to fly him where he needed to go, and to bring him back to lengeh on thursday. the 206 checked out perfectly. satisfied he glanced at his watch, then he pointed at his stomach and rubbed it. "grub time, had?"
"hal!" his helper smiled and motioned to the small truck nearby, then pointed at the main, four-story office building two-hundred-odd yards away where the executive offices were.
scragger shook his head. "i'll walk," he said and waggled his two fingers to parody walking so the young man half bowed and got into the truck and drove off. he stood there for a moment, watching and being watched by the guard. now that the truck had left and the tanks were closed, he could smell the sea and the rotting debris of the nearby shore. it was near low tide there was only one tide a day in the gulf, as in the red sea, because it was shallow and landlocked but for the narrow strait of hormuz.
he liked the sea smell. he had grown up in sydney, always within sight of the sea. after the war he had settled there again. at least, he reminded himself, i was there between jobs and the missus and the kids stayed there and still stay there, more or less. his son and two daughters were married now with children of their own. whenever he was on home leave, perhaps once a year, he saw them. they had a friendly, distant relationship.
in the early years his wife and children had come to the gulf to settle. within a month they had gone home to sydney. "we'll be at bondi, scrag," she had said. "no more foreign places for us, lad." during one of his two-year stints in kuwait she had met another man. when scragger had returned the next time, she said, "i think we'll divorce, lad. it's best for the kids and thee and me," and so they did. her new husband lived a few years, then died. scragger and she drifted back into their pattern of friendliness not that we ever left off, he thought. she's a good sort and the kids're happy and i'm flying. he still sent her money monthly. she always said she didn't need it. "then put it into savings against a rainy day, nell," he always told her. so far, touch wood, they've not had rainy days, she and the kids and their kids.
the nearest wood was the butt of the rifle the revolutionary had in his lap. the man was staring at him malevolently from the shade. shitty bastard, you're not going to spoil my day. he beamed at him, then turned his back, stretched, and looked aroma.
this's a great site for a refinery, he told himself, close enough to abadan, to the main pipelines joining the north and south oil fields great idea to try to save all that gas being burned off, billions of tons of it all over the world. criminal waste, when you think of it.
the refinery was on a promontory, with its own dredged wharfing setup that stretched out into the gulf for four hundred yards, that kasigi had told him would eventually be able to handle two super tankers at the same time of whatever size could be built. around the helipads were acres of complex cracking plants and buildings, all seemingly interconnected with miles of steel and plastic pipes of all sizes, mazes of them, with huge cocks and valves, pumping stations, and everywhere cranes and earth movers and vast piles of all manner of construction materials, mountains of concrete and sand, reinforcing steel mesh scattered around along with neat dumps the size of football fields, of crates and containers protected with plastic tarpaulins and half-finished roads, foundations, wharves, and excavations. but almost nothing moving, neither men nor machines.
when they had landed, a welcoming committee of twenty or thirty japanese had been at the helipad, hastily assembled, along with a hundred-odd iranian strikers and armed islamic guards, some wearing iplo armbands, the first scragger had ever seen. after much shouting and threatening and examining
their papers and the inbound kish radar clearance, the spokesman had said the two of them could stay but no one could leave or the chopper take off without the komiteh's permission.
enroute to the office building, chief engineer watanabe, who could speak english, had explained that the strike komiteh had been, for all intents and purposes, in possession for almost two months. in that time almost no progress had been made and all work had ceased. "they won't even allow us to maintain our equipment." he was a hard- faced, tough, grizzle-haired man in his sixties with very strong working hands. he lit another cigarette from his halfsmoked one.
"and your radio?"
"six days ago they locked the radio room, forbidding its use, and took away the key. phones of course have been out for weeks and the telex for a week or more. we've still about a thousand japanese personnel here dependents of course were never permitted food supplies are very short, we've had no mail for six weeks. we can't move out, we can't work. we're almost prisoners and can do nothing without very great troubles indeed. however, at least we are alive to protect what we have done and wait patiently to be allowed to continue. we are very indeed honored to see you, kasigi-san, and you, captain."
scragger had left them to their business, feeling the tension between the two men, however much they tried to hide it. in the evening he had eaten lightly, as always, allowed himself one ice-cold japanese beer, "bugger me, it's not as good as foster's," then had done his eleven minutes of canadian air force exercises and had gone to bed.