Whirlwind Read online

  The front of the skid was scraped and badly dented and a little twisted but the rivets holding it to the undercarriage mounts were firm. Quickly he checked the other side, rechecked the damaged skid, then gave the thumbs-up. Gavallan eased off the throttle a hair and set her down, soft as thistledown.

  At once the three men in the back piled out. Jean-Luc Sessonne, the French pilot, ducked out of the way to let the two mechanics begin their inspection, one port, the other starboard, working back from nose to tail. The wind from the rotors tore at their clothes, whipping them. Lochart was under the helicopter now looking for oil or gasoline seepage but he could find none, so he got up and followed Rodrigues. The man was American and very good—his own mechanic who, for a year now, had serviced the 212 he normally flew. Rodrigues unclipped an inspection panel and peered inside, his gray-flecked hair and clothes tugged by the airflow.

  S-G safety standards were the highest of all Iranian helicopter operators, so the maze of cables, pipes, and fuel lines was neat, clean, and optimum. But suddenly Rodrigues pointed. There was a deep score on the crankcase where a bullet had ricocheted. Carefully they backtracked the line of the bullet. Again he pointed into the maze, this time using a flash. One of the oil lines was nicked. When he brought out his hand it was oil heavy. “Shit,” he said.

  “Shut her down, Rod?” Lochart shouted.

  “Hell no, there may be more of those trigger-happy bastards around, an’ this’s no place to spend the night,” Rodrigues pulled out a piece of waste and a spanner. “You check aft, Tom.”

  Lochart left him to it, uneasily looked around for possible shelter in case they had to overnight. Over the other side of the clearing, Jean-Luc was casually peeing against a fallen tree, a cigarette in his mouth. “Don’t get frostbite, Jean-Luc!” he called out and saw him wave the stream good-naturedly.

  “Hey, Tom.”

  It was Jordon beckoning. At once he ducked under the tail boom to join the mechanic. His heart skipped a beat. Jordon also had an inspection panel off. There were two bullet holes in the fuselage, just over the tanks. Jesus, just a split second later and the tanks would have blown, he thought. If I hadn’t shoved the collective down we’d all’ve bought it. Absolutely. But for that we’d be sprayed over the mountainside. And for what?

  Jordon tugged him and pointed again, following the line of the bullets. There was another score on the rotor column. “How the effer missed the effing blades I’m effed if I know,” he shouted, the red wool hat that he always wore pulled down over his ears.

  “It wasn’t our time.”

  “Wot?”

  “Nothing. Have you found anything else?”

  “Not effing yet. You all right, Tom?”

  “Sure.”

  A sudden crash and they all whirled in fright, but it was only a huge tree limb, overloaded with snow, tumbling earthward.

  “Espèce de con,” Jean-Luc said and peered up into the sky, very conscious of the falling light, then shrugged to himself, lit another cigarette, and wandered off, stamping his feet against the cold.

  Jordon found nothing else amiss on his side. The minutes ticked by, Rodrigues was still muttering and cursing, one arm reaching awkwardly into the bowels of the compartment. Behind him the others were huddled in a group, watching, well away from the rotors. It was noisy and uncomfortable, the light good but not for long. They still had twenty miles to go and no guidance systems in these mountains other than the small homer at their base which sometimes worked and sometimes didn’t. “Come on, for Christ’s sake,” someone muttered.

  Yes, Lochart thought, hiding his disquiet.

  At Shiraz the outgoing crew of two pilots and two mechanics they were replacing had hurriedly waved good-bye and rushed for their company 125—an eight-place, twin-engined private jet airplane for transportation or special freighting—the same jet that had brought them from Dubai’s International Airport across the Gulf and a month’s leave, Lochart and Jordon in England, Jean-Luc in France, and Rodrigues from a hunting trip in Kenya, “What the hell’s the hurry?” Lochart had asked as the small twin jet closed its doors and taxied off.

  “The airport’s only still partially operational, everyone’s still on strike, but not to worry,” Scot Gavallan had said. “They’ve got to take off before the officious, bloody little burk in the tower who thinks he’s God’s gift to Iranian Air Traffic Control cancels their bloody clearance. We’d better get the lead out too before he starts to sod us around. Get your gear aboard.”

  “What about Customs?”

  “They’re still on strike, old boy. Along with everyone else—banks’re still closed. Never mind, we’ll be normal in a week or so.”

  “Merde,” Jean-Luc said. “The French papers say Iran is me catastrophe with Khomeini and his mullahs on one side, the armed forces ready to stage a coup any day, the Communists winding everyone up, the government of Bakhtiar powerless, and civil war inevitable.”

  “What do they know in France, old boy?” Scot Gavallan had said airily as they loaded their gear. “The Fr—”

  “The French know, mon vieux. All the papers say Khomeini’ll never cooperate with Bakhtiar because he’s a Shah appointee and anyone connected with the Shah is finished. Finished. That old fire-eater’s said fifty times he won’t work with anyone Shah-appointed.”

  Lochart said, “I saw Andy three days ago in Aberdeen, Jean-Luc, and he was bullish as hell that Iran’ll come back to normal soon, now that Khomeini’s back and the Shah gone.”

  Scot beamed. “There, you see. If anyone should know it’s the Old Man. How is he, Tom?”

  Lochart grinned back at him. “In great shape, his usual ball of fire.” Andy was Andrew Gavallan, Scot’s father, chairman and managing director of S-G. “Andy said Bakhtiar has the army, navy, and air force, the police, and SAVAK, so Khomeini’s got to make a deal somehow. It’s that or civil war.”

  “Jesus,” Rodrigues said, “what the hell we doing back here anyway?”

  “It’s the money.”

  “Bullmerde!”

  They had all laughed, Jean-Luc the natural pessimist, then Scot said, “What the hell does it matter, Jean-Luc? No one’s ever bothered us here, have they? All through the troubles here no one’s really ever bothered us. All our contracts are with IranOil which’s the government—Bakhtiar, Khomeini or General Whoever. Doesn’t matter whoever’s in power, they’ve got to get back to normal soon—any government’ll need oil dollars desperately, so they’ve got to have choppers, they’ve got to have us. For God’s sake, they’re not fools!”

  “No, but Khomeini’s fanatic and doesn’t care about anything except Islam—and oil’s not Islam.”

  “What about Saudi? The Emirates, OPEC, for God’s sake? They’re Islamic and they know the price of a barrel. The hell with that, listen!” Scot beamed. “Guerney Aviation have pulled out of all the Zagros Mountains and are cutting all their Iranian ops to zero. To zero!”

  This caught the attention of all of them. Guerney Aviation was the huge American helicopter company and their major rival. With Guerney gone, work would be doubled and all expat S-G personnel in Iran were on a bonus system that was tied to Iranian profits.

  “You sure, Scot?”

  “Sure, Tom. They had a helluva row with IranOil about it. The upshot was that IranOil said, If you want to leave, leave, but all the choppers are on license to us so they stay—and all spares! So Guerney told them to shove it, closed their base at Gash, and put all the choppers in mothballs and left.”

  “I don’t believe it,” Jean-Luc said. “Guerney must have fifty choppers on contract; even they can’t afford to write off that lot.”

  “Even so, we’ve already flown three missions last week which were all Guerney exclusives.”

  Jean-Luc broke through the cheers. “Why did Guerney pull out, Scot?”

  “Our Fearless Leader in Tehran thinks they haven’t the bottle, can’t stand the pressure, or don’t want to. Let’s face it, most of Khomeini’s vitriol’s
against America and American companies. McIver thinks they’re cutting their losses and that’s great for us.”

  “Madonna, if they can’t take out their planes and spares, they’re in dead trouble.”

  “Ours not to reason why, old boy, ours just to do and fly. So long as we sit tight we’ll get all their contracts and more than double our pay this year alone.”

  “Tu en parles mon cul, ma tête est malade!”

  They had all laughed. Even Jordon knew what that meant: speak to my backside, my head is sick. “Not to worry, old chap,” Scot said.

  Confidently, Lochart nodded to himself, the cold on the mountainside not hurting him yet. Andy and Scot’re right, everything’s going to be normal soon, has to be, he thought. The newspapers in England were equally confident the Iranian situation’d normalize itself quickly now. Provided the Soviets didn’t make an overt move. And they had been warned. It was hands off, Americans and Soviets, so now Iranians can settle their affairs in their own way. It’s right that whoever’s in power needs stability urgently, and revenue—and that means oil. Yes. Everything’s going to be all right. She believes it and if she believed everything would be wonderful once the Shah was overthrown and Khomeini back, why shouldn’t I?

  Ah, Sharazad, how I’ve missed you.

  It had been impossible to phone her from England. Phones in Iran had never been particularly good, given the massive overload of too-fast industrialization. But in the past eight months since the troubles began, the almost constant telecommunication strikes had made internal and external communication worse and worse and now it was almost nonexistent. When Lochart was at Aberdeen HQ for his biannual medical he had managed to send her a telex after eight hours of trying. He had sent it care of Duncan McIver in Tehran where she was now. You can’t say much in a telex except see you soon, miss you, love.

  Not long now, my darling, and th—

  “Tom?”

  “Oh, hi, Jean-Luc? What?”

  “It’s going to snow soon.”

  “Yes.”

  Jean-Luc was thin-faced, with a big Gallic nose and brown eyes, spare like all the pilots who had serious medicals every six months with no excuses for overweight. “Who fired at us, Tom?”

  Lochart shrugged. “I saw no one. Did you?”

  “No. I hope it was just one crazy.” Jean-Luc’s eyes bored into him. “For a moment I thought I was back in Algiers, these mountains are not so different, back in the air force fighting the fellagha and the FLN, may God curse them forever.” He ground the cigarette stub out with his heel. “I’ve been in one civil war and hated it. At least then I had bombs and guns. I don’t want to be a civilian caught in another with nothing to rely on except how fast I can run.”

  “It was just a lone crazy.”

  “I think we’re going to have to deal with a lot of crazies, Tom. Ever since I left France I’ve had a bad feeling. It’s worse since I got back. We’ve been to war, you and I, most of the others haven’t. We’ve a nose, you and I, and we’re in for bad trouble.”

  “No, you’re just tired.”

  “Yes, that’s true. Andy was really bullish?”

  “Very. He sends his best and said to keep it up!”

  Jean-Luc laughed and stifled a yawn. “Madonna, I’m starving. What’s Scot planned for our homecoming?”

  “He’s got a WELCOME HOME sign up over the hangar.”

  “For dinner, mon vieux. Dinner.”

  “Scot said he and some villagers went hunting so he’s got a haunch of venison and a couple of hares ready for your tender mercies—and the barbecue’ll be all set to go.”

  Jean-Luc’s eyes lit up. “Good. Listen, I’ve brought Brie, garlic, a whole kilo, smoked ham, anchovies, onions, also a few kilos of pasta, cans of tomato puree, and my wife gave me a new amatriciana recipe from Gianni of St. Jean that is merely incredible. And the wine.”

  Lochart felt his juices quicken. Jean-Luc’s hobby was cooking and he was inspired when he wanted to be. “I brought cans of everything I could think of from Fortnums and some whisky. Hey, I’ve missed your cooking.” And your company, he thought. When they had met at Dubai they had shaken hands and he had asked, “How was leave?”

  “I was in France,” Jean-Luc had said grandly.

  Lochart had envied him his simplicity. England had not been good, the weather, food, leave, the kids, her, Christmas—much as he had tried. Never mind. I’m back and soon I’ll be in Tehran. “You’ll cook tonight, Jean-Luc?”

  “Of course. How can I live without proper food?”

  Lochart laughed. “Like the rest of the world.” They watched Rodrigues still working hard. The sound of the jets was muted, the rotors whipping him. Lochart gave a thumbs-up to Scot Gavallan waiting patiently in the cockpit. Scot returned the signal, then pointed at the sky. Lochart nodded, shrugged, then put his attention back on Rodrigues, knowing there was nothing he could do to help but wait stoically.

  “When do you go to Tehran?” Jean-Luc asked.

  Lochart’s heart quickened. “Sunday, if it doesn’t snow. I’ve a report for McIver and mail for them there. I’ll take a 206; it’ll take all tomorrow to check everything. Scot said we’re to stand by to start up full operations.”

  Jean-Luc stared at him. “Nasiri said full ops?”

  “Yes.” Nasiri was their Iranian liaison and base manager, an employee of IranOil—the government monopoly that owned all oil above and below the ground—that channeled and authorized all their flights. S-G worked under contract to this company, surveying, supplying personnel, supplies, and equipment to the oil rigs that were scattered over the mountain range, and dealing with the inevitable CASEVACs—casualty evacuations—accidents and emergencies. “I doubt if we’ll be doing much flying over the next week because of the weather, but I should be able to get out in the 206.”

  “Yes. You will need a guide. I will come too.”

  Lochart laughed. “No way, old friend. You’re next in command and on duty for the next two weeks.”

  “But I will not be needed. For three days, eh? Look at the sky, Tom. I must see that our apartment is all right.” In normal times Tehran was where all pilots with families would be based, who would fly two weeks on, one week off. Many pilots opted for two months on and one month off on leave at home, particularly the English. “It’s very important I get to Tehran.”

  “I’ll check out your apartment if you like, and if you promise to cook three nights a week, I’ll sneak you two days when I get back. You’ve just had a month’s leave.”

  “Ah, but that was at home. Now I must think of mon amie. Of course she is desolate without me in Tehran, it’s been a whole month for her without me. Of course.” Jean-Luc was watching Rodrigues. Then again he looked at the sky. “We can wait ten minutes more, Tom, then we should prepare a camp while there is light.”

  “Yes.”

  “But back to more important things. Tom, w—”

  “No.”

  “Madonna, be French and not Anglo-Saxon. A whole month, consider her feelings!”

  Rodrigues clipped the panel back in place and wiped his hands. “Let’s get the hell outta here,” he called out and climbed aboard. They followed quickly. He was still fastening his seat belt, his back and head and neck aching, when they were airborne and scudding for their base over the next range. Then he saw Jordon staring at him. “What’s with you, Effer?”

  “How’d you fix that effing pipe, sport? She was effing holed to bust.”

  “Gum.”

  “Wot?”

  “Chewing gum. Sure, goddamnit. It worked in goddamn Vietnam, so it’ll goddamn work here. Maybe. Because it was only a goddamn little bit but it was all I got so start goddamn praying. Can’t you stop cursing for crissake?”

  They landed safely at their base, snow just beginning. The ground staff had switched on the landing lights, just in case.

  Their base consisted of four trailer huts, a cookhouse, hangar for the 212—a fourteen-place passenger transport, or fr
eight helicopter—and two 206s and landing pads. Storage sheds for oil-drilling spares, sacks of cement, pumps, generators, and all manner of support equipment for the rigs, along with drilling pipe. It was on a small plateau at seventy-five hundred feet, wooded and very picturesque, in a bowl half surrounded by snowcapped peaks that soared to twelve thousand feet and more. Half a mile away was the village of Yazdek. The villagers were from a minor tribe of nomad Kash’kai who had settled here a century ago around this crossroads of two of the minor caravan routes that had crisscrossed Iran for three, perhaps four thousand years.

  S-G had had a base here for seven years under contract to IranOil, first to survey a pipeline and make topographical maps of the area, then to help build and service the rigs of the rich oil fields nearby. It was a lonely, wild, and beautiful place, the flying interesting and good, the hours easy—throughout Iran only daylight flying allowed by Iranian regulations. Summers were wonderful. Most of the winter they were snowed in. Close by were crystal lakes with good fishing, and in the forests game was plentiful. Their relations with the villagers of Yazdek were excellent. Apart from mail they were well supplied, usually, and wanted for nothing. And, important for all of them, they were well away from HQ in Tehran, out of radio contact most of the time, and left happily to their own devices.

  The moment the rotors had stopped and the airplane shut down, Rodrigues and Jordon unclipped the panel again. They were aghast. The floor of the compartment was awash with oil. With it was the heavy smell of gasoline. Shakily Rodrigues searched, then pointed the flash. In one of the seams at the edge of a gasoline tank was a tiny rupture they could not possibly have detected on the mountainside. A thin stream of fuel came out to mix with the oil below.

  “Jesus, Effer! Lookit, she’s a goddamn time bomb,” he croaked. Behind him, Jordon almost fainted. “One spark and… Effer, get me a hose for crissake, I’ll flood her out now before we go sky-high…”

  “I’ll get it,” Scot said, then added queasily. “Well, I guess that’s one of our lives gone. Eight more to go.”