Whirlwind Read online

  “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. Forty-eight, 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?” McIver 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—”

  “Mac, 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.”

  BOOK THREE

  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.”

  Since Sunday, when Erikki had begun flying for Cimtarga, he had come to like him—not that you can really like or trust any KGB, he thought. But the man had been polite and fair, had given him a correct share of all food. Last night he had split a bottle of vodka with him and had given him the best place to s
leep. They had slept in a village twenty kilometers south on carpets on a dirt floor. Cimtarga had said that though this was all mostly Kurdish territory the village was secretly fedayeen and safe. “Then why keep the guard on me?”

  “It’s safe for us, Captain—not safe for you.”

  The night before last at the Khan’s palace when Cimtarga and guards had come for him just after Ross had left, he had been driven to the air base and, in darkness and against IATC regulations, had flown to the village in the mountains north of Khoi. There, in the dawn, they had collected a full load of armed men and had flown to the first of the two American radar posts. It was destroyed and empty of personnel like this one. “Someone must have tipped them we would be coming,” Cimtarga said disgustedly. “Matyeryebyets spies!”

  Later Cimtarga told him locals whispered that the Americans had evacuated the night before last, whisked away by helicopters, unmarked and very big. “It would have been good to catch them spying. Very good. Rumor says the bastards can see a thousand miles into us.”

  “You’re lucky they weren’t here, you might have had a battle and that would have created an international incident.”

  Cimtarga had laughed. “Nothing to do with us—nothing. It was the Kurds again, more of their rotten work—bunch of thugs, eh? They’d’ve been blamed. Rotten yezdvas, eh? Eventually the bodies would have been found—on Kurdish land. That’d be proof enough for Carter and his CIA.”

  Erikki shifted on the plane’s steps, his seat chilled by the metal, depressed and weary. Last night he had slept badly again—nightmares about Azadeh. He hadn’t slept well since Ross had appeared.

  You’re a fool, he thought for the thousandth time. I know, but that doesn’t help. Nothing seems to help. Maybe the flying’s getting to you. You’ve been putting in too many hours in bad conditions, too much night flying. Then there’s Nogger to worry about—and Rakoczy to brood about and the killings. And Ross. And most of all Azadeh. Is she safe?

  He had tried to make his peace with her about her Johnny Brighteyes the next morning. “I admit I was jealous. Stupid to be jealous. I swore by the ancient gods of my forefathers that I could live with your memory of him—I can and I will,” he had said, but saying the words had not cleansed him. “I just didn’t think he’d be so…so much a man and so…so dangerous. That kookri would be a match for my knife.”

  “Never, my darling. Never. I’m so glad you’re you and I’m me and we’re together. How can we get out of here?”

  “Not all of us, not together at the same time,” he told her honestly. “The soldiers’d be better to get out while they can. With Nogger, and them, and while you’re here—I don’t know, Azadeh. I don’t know how we can escape yet. We’ll have to wait. Maybe we could get into Turkey…”

  He looked eastward into Turkey now, so close and so far with Azadeh still in Tabriz—thirty minutes by air to her. But when? If we got into Turkey and if my chopper wasn’t impounded, and if I could refuel we could fly to Al Shargaz, skirting the border. If if if! Gods of my ancestors, help me!

  Over vodka last night Cimtarga had been as taciturn as ever, but he had drunk well and they had shared the bottle glass to glass to the last drop, “I’ve another for tomorrow night, Captain.”

  “Good. When will you be through with me?”

  “It’ll take two to three days to finish here, then back to Tabriz.”

  “Then?”

  “Then I’ll know better.”

  But for the vodka Erikki would have cursed him. He got up and watched the Iranians piling the equipment for loading. Most of it seemed to be very ordinary. As he strolled over the broken terrain, his boots crunching the snow, his guard went with him. Never a chance to escape. In all five days he had never had a single chance. “We enjoy your company,” Cimtarga had said once, reading his mind, his Oriental eyes crinkling.

  Above, he could see some men working on the radar masts, dismantling them. Waste of time, he thought. Even I know there’s nothing special about them. “That’s unimportant, Captain,” Cimtarga had said. “My Master enjoys bulk. He said get everything. More is better than less. Why should you worry—you’re paid by the hour.” Again the laugh, not taunting.

  Feeling his neck muscles taut, Erikki stretched and touched his toes and, in that position, let his arms and head hang freely, then waggled his head in as big a semicircle as he could, letting the weight of his head stretch the tendons and ligaments and muscles and smooth out the kinks, forcing nothing, just using the weight. “What’re you doing?” Cimtarga asked, coming up to him.

  “It’s great for neck ache.” He put his dark glasses back on—without them the reflected light from the snow was uncomfortable. “If you do it twice a day you’ll never get neck ache.”

  “Ah, you get neck aches too? Me, I’m always getting them—have to go to a chiropractor at least three times a year. That helps?”

  “Guaranteed. A waitress told me about it—carrying trays all day gives them plenty of neck and backache, like pilots; it’s a way of life. Try it and you’ll see.” Cimtarga bent over as Erikki had done and moved his head. “No, you’re doing it wrong. Let your head and arms and shoulders hang freely, you’re too stiff.”

  Cimtarga did as he was told and felt his neck crack and the joints ease and when he raised himself again, he said, “That’s wonderful, Captain. I owe you a favor.”

  “It’s a return for the vodka.”

  “It’s worth more than a bottle of vod—”

  Erikki stared at him blankly as blood spurted out of Cimtarga’s chest in the wake of the bullet that pierced him from behind, then came a thraaakkk followed by others as tribesmen poured out of ambush from the rocks and trees, shrieking battle cries and “Allah-u Akbarrr,” firing as they came. The attack was brief and violent and Erikki saw Cimtarga’s men going down all over the plateau, quickly overwhelmed. His own guard, one of the few who was carrying a weapon, had opened up at the first bullet but was hit at once, and now a bearded tribesman stood over him and gleefully finished him with the rifle butt. Others charged into the cave. More firing, then silence again.

  Two men rushed him and he put his hands up, feeling naked and foolish, his heart thundering. One of these turned Cimtarga over and shot him again. The other bypassed Erikki and went to the cabin of the 212 to make sure no one was hiding there. Now the man who had shot Cimtarga stood in front of Erikki, breathing hard. He was small and olive-skinned and bearded, dark eyes and hair, and wore rough garments and stank.

  “Put down your hands down,” he said in heavily accented English. “I am Sheik Bayazid, chief here. We need you and helicopter.”

  “What do you want with me?”

  Around them the tribesmen were finishing off the wounded and stripping the dead of anything of value. “CASEVAC.” Bayazid smiled thinly at the look on Erikki’s face. “Many of us work the oil and rigs. Who is this dog?” He motioned at Cimtarga with his foot.

  “He called himself Cimtarga. He was a Soviet. I think also KGB.”

  “Of course Soviet,” the man said roughly. “Of course KGB—all Soviets in Iran KGB. Papers, please.” Erikki gave him his ID. The tribesman read it and nodded half to himself. And, to Erikki’s further surprise, handed it back. “Why you flying Soviet dog?” He listened silently, his face darkening as Erikki told him how Abdollah Khan had entrapped him. “Abdollah Khan no man to offend. The reach of Abdollah the Cruel very wide, even in the lands of the Kurds.”

  “You’re Kurds?”

  “Kurds,” Bayazid said, the lie convenient. He knelt and searched Cimtarga. No papers, a little money that he pocketed, nothing else. Except the holstered automatic and ammunition which he also took. “Have you full fuel?”

  “Three quarter full.”

  “I want go twenty miles south. I direct you. Then pick up CASEVAC, then go Rezaiyeh, to hospital there.”

  “Why not Tabriz—it’s much closer.”

  “Rezaiyeh in Kurdistan. Kurds are safe there, sometimes. Tabriz belong to
our enemies: Iranians, Shah, or Khomeini no difference. Go Rezaiyeh.”

  “All right. The Overseas Hospital would be best. I’ve been there before and they’ve a helipad. They’re used to CASEVACs. We can refuel there—they’ve chopper fuel, at least they had in…in the old days.”

  Bayazid hesitated. “Good. Yes. We go at once.”

  “And after Rezaiyeh—what then?”

  “And then, if serve us safely, perhaps you released to take your wife from the Gorgon Khan.” Sheik Bayazid turned away and shouted for his men to hurry up and board the airplane. “Start up, please.”

  “What about him?” Erikki pointed at Cimtarga. “And the others?”

  “The beasts and birds soon make here clean.”

  It took them little time to board and leave, Erikki filled with hope now. No problem to find the site of the small village. The CASEVAC was an old woman. “She is our chieftain,” Bayazid said.

  “I didn’t know women could be chieftains.”

  “Why not, if wise enough, strong enough, clever enough, and from correct family? We Sunni Muslims—not leftists or heretic Shi’a cattle who put mullahs between man and God. God is God. We leave at once.”

  “Does she speak English?”

  “No.”

  “She looks very ill. She may not last the journey.”

  “As God wants.”

  But she did last the hour’s journey and Erikki landed on the helipad. The Overseas Hospital had been built, staffed, and sponsored by foreign oil companies. He had flown low all the way, avoiding Tabriz and military airfields. Bayazid had sat up front with him, six armed guards in the back with their high chieftain. She lay on the stretcher, awake but motionless. In great pain but without complaining.

  A doctor and orderlies were at the helipad seconds after touchdown. The doctor wore a white coat with a large red cross on the sleeve over heavy sweaters, and he was in his thirties, American, dark rings around bloodshot eyes. He knelt beside the stretcher as the others waited in silence. She groaned a little when he touched her abdomen even though his hands were healing hands. In a moment he spoke to her gently in halting Turkish. A small smile went over her and she nodded and thanked him. He motioned to the orderlies and they lifted the stretcher out of the cabin and carried her away. At Bayazid’s order, two of his men went with her.