Whirlwind Read online

  “Ever since? Goddamn!” The American peered out of the cabin door. “Where the hell are we?”

  “Kowiss—I thought I’d better get you and the rest here fast.”

  Tyrer was still astonished. “I remember nothing. Nothing. Fedayeens? For crissake, Duke, I don’t even remember being brought aboard.”

  “Hang in there, old buddy. I’ll explain later.” He turned and called out, “Freddy, get someone to carry Jon Tyrer to the doc,” adding, in Farsi, to Zataki who watched from the doorway, “Excellency Zataki, please ask men to carry your men to the infirmary.” He paused a moment. “My second-in-command, Captain Ayre, will make arrangements for feeding everyone. Would you like to eat with me—in my house?”

  Zataki smiled strangely and shook his head. “Thank you, pilot,” he said in English. “I will eat with my men. This evening we should talk, you and I.”

  “Whenever you wish.” Starke jumped out of the cabin. Men began carrying away all the wounded. He pointed at his bungalow. “That is my house, you are welcome there, Excellency.”

  Zataki thanked him and went away, shoving Sergeant Wazari in front of him.

  Ayre and Manuela joined Starke. She took his hand. “When he pulled the trigger, I thought…” she smiled weakly, switched to Farsi. “Ah, Beloved, how good the day has become now that you are safe and beside me.”

  “And thee beside me.” Starke smiled at her.

  “What happened? At Bandar Delam?” she asked in English.

  “There was a goddamn battle between Zataki and his men and about fifty leftists at the base—yesterday Zataki took over our base in the name of Khomeini and the revolution—I had a bit of a run-in with him when I first got there but now he’s kinda okay, though he’s psycho, dangerous as a rattler. Anyway at dawn the leftist fedayeen rushed the airport in tracks and on foot. Zataki was asleep with the rest of his men, no sentries out, nothing—you heard the generals capitulated and Khomeini’s now warlord?”

  “Yes, we’ve just heard actually.”

  “The first I knew of the attack was all hell let loose, bullets everywhere, coming through the walls of the trailers. Me, you know me, I ducked for cover and scrambled out of the trailer… You cold, honey?”

  “No, no darlin’. Let’s go home—I could use a drink too…oh, my God…”

  “What is it?”

  But she was already running for the house. “The chili—I left the chili on the stove!”

  “Jesus Christ!” Ayre muttered, “I thought we were about to be shot or something.”

  Starke was beaming. “We got chili?”

  “Yes. Bandar Delam?”

  “Not much to tell, Freddy.” They started walking for the house. “I evacuated the trailer—I think the attackers figured Zataki and his men would be sleeping in them but Zataki had everyone bedded down in hangars guarding the choppers—Freddy, they’re goddamn paranoid about choppers, that we’re gonna fly away in them, or use them to fly out SAVAK, generals, or enemies of the revolution. Anyway, old Rudi and me, we had our heads down in back of a spare mud tank, then some of these new bastards—you couldn’t tell one from another except Zataki’s guys were shouting ‘Allah-u Akbar’ as they died—some of the fedayeen opened up with a Sten gun on the hangars just as Jon Tyrer was evacuating his trailer. I saw him go down and I got as mad as a sonofabitch—now don’t you tell Manuela—and got a gun away from one of them and started my own little war to go get Jon. Rudi…” Starke started smiling. “That one’s a sonofabitch! Rudi got himself a gun too and we were like Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid…”

  “God Almighty, you must’ve been crazy!”

  Starke nodded. “We were, but we got Jon out of the line of fire and then Zataki and three of his guys broke out of a hangar and charged the main group, firing like the Wild Bunch. But hell, they ran out of ammo. Poor bastards just stood there and you’ve never seen anyone nakeder.” He shrugged. “Rudi and I thought what the hell, shooting a sitting duck’s not fair and Zataki’d been okay once the mullah—Hussain—had left, and we’d, er, come to an agreement. So we let off a burst over the attackers’ heads and that gave Zataki and the others time to get to cover.” Again he shrugged. “That’s about it,” he said. They were near the bungalow now. He sniffed the air. “We really got chili, Freddy?”

  “Yes—unless it’s burned. That’s all that happened?”

  “Sure, except when the shooting stopped I thought we’d best head for Kowiss and Doc Nutt. The mullah looked rough and I was scared for Jon. Zataki said, ‘Sure, why not, I need to go to Isfahan’—so here we are. The radio went out en route—I could hear you but couldn’t transmit. No sweat.”

  Ayre watched him sniff the air again, knowing that a psychopath like Zataki would never give Starke the authority he had given him—or protect him—for so little assistance.

  The Texan opened the bungalow door. At once the grand, spicy smell surrounded him, transporting him home to Texas, God’s country, and a thousand meals. Manuela had a drink poured for him, the way he liked it. But he did not drink it, just went into the kitchen area and picked up the big wooden spoon and tasted the brew. Manuela watched, hardly breathing. A second taste.

  “How ’bout that?” he said happily. The chili was the best he had ever had.

  AT THE DEZ DAM: 4:31 P.M. Lochart’s 212 was parked just outside the shed that doubled as a hangar near a well-kept landing pad that was beside the cobbled forecourt of the house. He was standing on the copter’s upperworks, checking the rotor column with its multitude of couplings, lockpins—and danger points—but he found nothing untoward. Carefully he clambered down and wiped his hands clean of grease.

  “Okay?” Ali Abbasi asked, stretched out in the sun. He was the young and very good-looking Iranian helicopter pilot who had helped release Lochart from detention at Isfahan Air Base just before dawn, and had sat up front in the cockpit with him all the way here. “Everything okay?”

  “Sure,” Lochart said. “She’s clean and all set to go.” It was a nice day, cloudless and warm. When the sun went down in an hour or so the temperature would drop twenty or more degrees but that wouldn’t matter. He knew that he would be warm because generals always looked after themselves—and those necessary to them for their survival. At the moment I’m necessary to Valik and to General Seladi, but only for the moment, he thought.

  Muted laughter came from the house and more from those sunning or swimming in the clear blue waters of the lake below. The house seemed incongruous in such desolation—a modern, single-story, spacious, four-bedroom bungalow with separate servants’ quarters. It was set on a slight rise overlooking the lake and the dam, the only habitation in this whole area. Surrounding the lake and the dam was a barren wilderness—small, rock hills jutting from a high plateau devoid of any vegetation. The only ways here were to backpack in or to come by air, by helicopter or light airplane into the very short, narrow, dirt airstrip that had been hacked out of the uneven terrain.

  Doubt if even a light twin could get in here, Lochart had thought when he first saw it. Have to be a single engine. And no way to go around again—once you commit you’re committed. But it’s a great hideaway, no doubt about that—just great.

  Ali got up and stretched.

  They had arrived here this morning, their flight uneventful. On orders and directions from General Seladi, quietly varied by Captain Ali, Lochart had hugged the ground, weaving through the passes, avoiding all towns and villages. Their radio had been open all the time. The only report they had heard was a venomous broadcast from Isfahan, repeated several times, about a 212 full of traitors that was escaping southward and should be intercepted and shot down. “They didn’t give our names—or our registration,” Ali had said excitedly. “They must’ve forgotten to write it down.”

  “What the hell difference does that make?” Lochart had said. “We must be the only 212 in the sky.”

  “Never mind. Stay at max a hundred feet and now turn west.”

  Lochart had be
en astonished, expecting to head for Bandar Delam that lay almost due south. “Where we heading?”

  “Forget compass bearings, I’ll guide you from here on in.”

  “Where’re we heading?”

  “Baghdad.” Ali had laughed.

  No one had told him their destination until they were ready to land, and by that time, a little over two hundred miles from Isfahan, flying very low all the way with adverse winds, at maximum consumption and far beyond their expected maximum duration—on empty too long—Ali was openly praying.

  “If we put down in this godforsaken wilderness we’ll never walk out, what about fuel?”

  “There’s plenty there when we arrive… God be praised!” Ali had said excitedly as they came over the rise to see the lake and the dam. “God be praised!”

  Lochart had echoed his thanks and had landed quickly. Beside the helipad was a subterranean 5,000-gallon tank, and the shed hangar. In the shed hangar were some tools and cylinders of air for tires, and racks of water skis and boating equipment.

  “Let’s put her away,” Ali said. Together they wheeled the 212 into the shed where she fitted snugly, putting chocks on her wheels. As Lochart adjusted the rotor tie-down he noticed three hang gliders in a rack overhead. They were dust-covered and in tatters now.

  “Whose are those?”

  “This used to be the private weekend place of General of the Imperial Air Force, Hassayn Aryani. They were his.”

  Lochart whistled. Aryani was the legendary head of the air force who, according to rumor, also had been like captain of the Praetorian Guard in Roman times to the Shah, his confidant and married to one of his sisters. He had been killed hang gliding two years ago. “Was this where he was killed?”

  “Yes.” Ali pointed to the other side of the lake. “They say he got into still-air turbulence and went into those cliffs.”

  Lochart studied him. “‘They say’? You don’t believe that?”

  “No. I’m sure he was assassinated. In the air force most of us’re sure.”

  “You mean his hang glider was sabotaged?”

  Ali shrugged. “I don’t know. Perhaps, perhaps not, but he was much too careful and clever a pilot and flier to get into turbulence. Aryani would never’ve flown on a bad day.” He went out into the sun. Below they could hear the voices and laughter of some of the others, and Valik’s children playing down by the lake. “He used a speedboat to take off. He’d wear short water skis, then hold on to a long rope attached to the speedboat that’d go charging down the lake and when he was fast enough he’d drop his skis and go airborne and soar up five hundred, a thousand feet, then cast off and spiral down and land within inches of the raft down there.”

  “He was that good?”

  “Yeah, he was that good. He was too good, that’s why he was murdered.”

  “By whom?”

  “I don’t know. If I did, then he or they would have died long ago.”

  Lochart saw the adoration. “You knew him, then?”

  “I was his aide, one of his aides, for a year. He was easily the most wonderful man I have ever known—the best general, the best pilot, best sportsman, skier—everything. If he had been alive now the Shah would never have been trapped by foreigners or snared by our archenemy Carter, the Shah’d never have left, Iran would never have been allowed to slide into the abyss, and the generals would never have been allowed to betray us.” Ali Abbasi’s face twisted with anger. “It’s impossible to conceive that we could be so betrayed with him alive.”

  “Then who killed him? Khomeini’s followers?”

  “No, not three years ago. He was a famous nationalist, Shi’ite, though a modern. Who? Tudeh, fedayeen or any fanatic of the right, left, or center who wanted Iran weakened.” Ali looked at him, dark eyes in a chiseled face. “There are even those who say people in high places feared his growing power and popularity.”

  Lochart blinked. “You mean the Shah might have ordered his death?”

  “No. No, of course not, but he was a threat to those who misguided the Shah. He was farmandeh, a commander of the people. He was a threat all over: to British interests, because he supported Prime Minister Mossadegh who nationalized Anglo-Iranian Oil, he supported the Shah and OPEC when they quadrupled the cost of oil. He was pro-Israel though not anti-Arab, so a threat to the PLO and Yasir Arafat. He could have been considered a threat to American interests—to any or all of the Seven Sisters because he didn’t give a good goddamn for them or anyone. Anyone. For above all he was a patriot.” Ali’s eyes had a strange look to them. “Assassination is an ancient art in Iran. Wasn’t ibn-al-Sabbah one of us?” His mouth smiled, his eyes didn’t. “We’re different here.”

  “Sorry—ibn-al-Sabbah?”

  “The Old Man of the Mountains, Hassan ibn-al-Sabbah, the Isma‘ili religious leader who invented the Assassins in the eleventh century, and their cult of political assassination.”

  “Oh, sure, sorry I wasn’t thinking. Wasn’t he supposed to be a friend of Omar Khayyám?”

  “Some legends say so.” Ali’s face was etched. “Aryani was murdered, by whom, no one knows. Yet.” Together they pulled the shed door closed.

  “What now?” Lochart asked.

  “Now we wait. Then we’ll go on.” Into exile Ali thought. Never mind, it will only be temporary and at least I know where I’m going, not like the Shah, poor man, who’s an outcast. I can go to the States.

  Only he and his parents knew that he had a U.S. passport. Goddamn, he thought, how clever of Dad: “You never know, my son, what God has in store,” his father had said gravely. “I advise you to apply for a passport while you can. Dynasties never last, only family. Shahs come and go, Shahs feed off each other, and the two Pahlavis together are only fifty-four-year Highnesses—Imperial Majesties! What was Reza Khan before he crowned himself King of Kings? A soldier-adventurer, the son of illiterate villagers from Mazandaran near the Caspian.”

  “But surely, Father, Reza Khan was a special man. Without him and Mohammed Reza Shah, we’d still be slaves of the British.”

  “The Pahlavis were of use to us, my son, yes. In many ways. But Reza Shah failed, he failed himself and failed us by stupidly believing the Germans would win the war and tried to support the Axis—and so gave the occupying British an excuse to depose him and exile him.”

  “But, Father, Mohammed Shah can’t fail! He’s stronger than his father ever was. Our armed forces are the envy of the world. We’ve more airplanes than Britain, more tanks than Germany, more money than Croesus, America’s our ally, we’re the biggest military power and policeman of the Middle and Near East, and the leaders of the outside kowtow to him—even Brezhnev.”

  “Yes. But we do not yet know what is the Will of God. Get the passport.”

  “But a U.S. passport could be very dangerous, you know how it’s said almost everything goes through SAVAK to the Shah! What if he heard, or General Aryani heard? That’d ruin me in the air force?”

  “Why should it—for of course you would tell them proudly you just got the passport, and kept it secret, against the day you could put it to use for the good of the Pahlavis. Eh?”

  “Of course!”

  “Open your eyes to the ways of the world, my son—the promises of kings have no value, they can plead expedience. If this Shah or the next, or even your great general has to choose between your life and something of more value to them, which would they choose? Put no trust in princes, or generals, or politicians, they will sell you, your family, and your heritage for a pinch of salt to put on a plate of rice they won’t even bother to taste…”

  And oh how true! Carter sold us out and his generals, then the Shah and his generals, and our generals did the same to us. But how could they be so stupid as to assassinate themselves? he asked himself, shuddering at the thought of how close he had been to death in Isfahan. They must have all gone mad!

  “It’s cold in the shade,” Lochart said.

  “Yes, yes, it is.” Ali looked back at him
and shook off his anxiety. Generals are all the same. My father was right. Even these two bastards Valik or Seladi, they’d have sold us all if need be, still will. They need me because I’m the only one who can fly them—apart from this poor fool who doesn’t know he’s in dead trouble. “Get rid of this Lochart,” Seladi had said. “Why take him to safety? He would have left us at Isfahan, why not leave him here? Dead. We can’t leave him alive, he knows us all and he’d betray us all.”

  “No, Excellency Uncle,” Valik had said. “He’s more use as a gift to the Kuwaitis, or Iraqis, they can jail him or extradite him. It was he who stole an Iranian helicopter and agreed for money to fly us out. Didn’t he?”

  “Yes. Even so, he can still give our names to the revolutionaries.”

  “By that time we will all be safe and our families safe.”

  “I say dispose of him—he would have sacrificed us. Dispose of him and we will go to Baghdad, not Kuwait.”

  “Please, Excellency, reconsider. Lochart is the more experienced pilot…”

  Ali glanced at his watch. Just thirty minutes to takeoff. He saw Lochart glance at the house where Valik, Seladi were. I wonder who won, Valik or Seladi? Is it the inside of a Kuwaiti or Iraqi jail for this poor joker, or a bullet in the head? I wonder if they’ll bury him after they shoot him or just leave him to the vultures.

  “What’s the matter?” Lochart asked.

  “Nothing. Nothing, Captain, just thinking how lucky we were to escape Isfahan.”

  “Yes, I still think I owe you my life.” Lochart was certain that if Ali and the major hadn’t released him he would have ended up before a komiteh kangaroo court. And if he was caught now? The same. He had not allowed his mind to think about Sharazad or Tehran or to make a plan. That comes later, he told himself again. Once you see how this turns out and where you end up.

  Where’re they planning to go? Kuwait? Or maybe just a quick stab over the border into Iraq? Iraq’s usually hostile to Iranians so that might be dicey for them. Kuwait’s an easy flight from here and most Kuwaitis are Sunni and therefore anti-Khomeini. Against that, to get there, you have to sneak through a lot of sensitive airspace, Iranian and Iraqi, both nervous, jumpy, and trigger-happy. Within fifty miles there must be twenty Iranian air bases, fighter operational, with planes gassed up and dozens of petrified pilots anxious to prove loyalty to the new regime.