“Perhaps I could arrange it. If you saw the Imam, watched him talk, listened to him, you would find God’s peace you seek. And the truth.”
Starke was touched by the mullah’s obvious sincerity. “If I had the chance I’d sure… I’d sure take it up, if I could. You said three things, Agha?”
“This was the third. Islam. Become Muslim. There is not a moment to lose. Submit to God, accept that there is only One God and that Mohammed is His Prophet, accept it and have life everlasting in Paradise.”
The eyes were dark and penetrating. Starke had experienced them before and found them almost hypnotic. “I… I told you already, Agha, perhaps I will, in…in God’s time.” He pulled his eyes away and felt the dominating force lessen. “If we’re going back, we’d better go now. I don’t want to miss seeing my guys off.”
It was almost as though he had not spoken. “Isn’t the Imam the Most Holy of men, the most stalwart, the most relentless against oppression? The Imam is, Captain. Open your eyes and spirit to him.”
Starke heard the underlying emphasis through the fervor and once more the seeming sacrilege disquieted him. “I wait, patiently.” He looked back at the eyes that seemed to be looking through him, through the walls, into infinity. “If we’re going, we’d better go,” he said as gently as he could.
Hussain sighed. The light went out of his eyes. He shouldered his gun and led the way out. At the main door he stepped into his shoes, waited for Starke to do the same. Four more Green Bands joined them. “We’re going to the base,” Hussain told them.
“I parked my car just outside the square,” Starke said, enormously relieved to be in the open again and out of the man’s spell. “It’s a station wagon, we can go in that if you like.”
“Good. Where is it?”
Starke pointed and walked off, weaving through the stalls. He was almost a head taller than most of the crowd and now his mind was buzzing with thought and counterthought, sifting what the mullah had said, trying to plan what to do about Whirlwind.
“Goddamn,” he muttered, swamped by the danger. I hope Rudi aborts, then I will, whatever Scrag does. Automatically his eyes were scanning as they would in a cockpit, and he noticed a commotion ahead by the fountain. Because of his great height he was the first to see the youth with the gun, the crowds scattering. He stopped, frozen with disbelief, Hussain coming alongside. But there was no mistake, the shrieking, berserk youth was charging through the people directly at him. “Assassin,” he gasped, the men and women in front fleeing in terror, running, tripping, falling out of the man’s path, and now the way was clear. Blankly he saw the man skid to a stop and point the gun directly at him.
“Look out!” But before he could dive for the ground and the cover of a stall, the impact of the first bullet spun him, slammed him back against one of the Green Bands. More bullets, someone nearby screamed, then another gun opened up, deafening him.
It was Hussain. His reflexes had been very good. At once he had realized the assassin attack was against him and the moment of respite that Starke had given him was enough. With one smooth movement he had swung his gun off his shoulder, aimed, and pulled the trigger, his mind shouting, “There is no other God but…”
His fire was coldly accurate and holed Ibrahim Kyabi, thrusting the life out of him, tearing the gun from the dead hands and putting him into the dirt. Numbly the mullah stopped firing and found he was still upright, disbelieving that he was not hit, impossible for the assassin to miss, impossible that he was not martyred and on the path to Paradise. Shakily he looked around in the pandemonium, wounded being helped, others wailing and cursing, one of his Green Bands splayed out, dead, many bystanders hurt. Starke was crumpled on the ground, half under the stalls.
“Praise be to God, Excellency Hussain, you’re unhurt,” a Green Band called out.
“As God wants… God is Great…” Hussain went over to Starke and knelt beside him. He saw blood was dripping from his left sleeve, his face was white, “Where are you hit?”
“I’m… I’m not sure. It’s my… I think it’s my shoulder or chest.” It was the first time Starke had ever been shot. When the bullet had smashed him backward onto the ground, there was no pain but his mind was screaming: I’m dead, the bastard’s killed me, I’ll never see Manuela, never get home, never see the kids, I’m dead… Then he had had a blinding urge to run—to flee from his own death. He had wanted to jump to his feet but the pain tore the strength out of him and now Hussain was kneeling beside him.
“Let me help you,” Hussain said, then to the Green Band, “Take his other arm.”
He cried out as they turned him and tried to help him up. “Wait…for crissake…” When the spasm had passed he found he could not move his left arm at all, but his right worked. With his good right hand he felt himself, moved his legs. No pain there. Everything seemed to be working, except his left arm and shoulder, and his head was bleary. Gritting his teeth he opened his parka and pulled away his shirt. Blood seeped from the hole that was in the center of his shoulder but it wasn’t pumping out, and there was no unbearable discomfort in his breathing, just a stabbing pain if he moved incautiously. “It’s… I don’t think it’s…it’s in my lungs…”
“Son of a burnt father, pilot,” the Green Band said with a laugh. “Look, there’s another hole in the back of your jacket, it’s bleeding too, the bullet must’ve gone right through you.” He started to probe the hole with a dirty finger and Starke cursed him violently. “Curse yourself, Infidel,” the man said. “Curse yourself, not me. Perhaps God in his mercy gave you your life back, though why God would do that…” He shrugged and got up, looked at his dead comrade nearby and the other wounded, shrugged again, and sauntered over to Ibrahim Kyabi who lay in the dirt like a bag of old rags, and began to go through his pockets.
The crowd in the square was pressing forward, encroaching on the two of them, so Hussain got up and waved them away. “God is Great, God is Great,” he shouted. “Keep back. Help those who are hurt!” When they had space again he knelt beside Starke. “Didn’t I warn you your time was short? God protected you this time to give you another chance.”
But Starke hardly heard him. He had found his handkerchief and was stuffing it against the hole, trying to stanch the blood, feeling the warm trickle down his back, muttering and cursing, now over his black terror, but not over the fear that he would still shame himself by running away. “What the hell was that bastard trying to kill me for?” he muttered. “Son of a bitch, goddamn crazy!”
“He was trying to kill me, not you.”
Starke stared up at him. “Fedayeen, mujhadin?”
“Or Tudeh. What does it matter, he was an enemy of God. God killed him.”
Another pain knifed into Starke’s chest. He muffled a curse, hating all this God talk, not wanting to think about God but only about the kids and Manuela and normality and getting the hell out: I’m sick to death of all this madness and killing in the name of their own narrow version of God. “Sonsofbitches!” he muttered, his words swallowed in the noise. His shoulder was throbbing, the pain spreading. As best he could he balled the handkerchief, using it as a dressing, and closed his parka, muttering obscenities.
What the hell’m I gonna do now, for crissake? Goddamn crazy bastard, how the hell’m I gonna fly now? He shifted his position slightly. Pain dragged another involuntary groan from him and he cursed again, disgusted with himself, wanting to be stoic.
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, “F
irouz, 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, IBRAHIM 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’d’ve been twenty-four. Kind of a waste, isn’t it.”
“God punished his evil. Now he is in hellfire.”
NORTH OF KOWISS: 4:10 P.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, recognizing 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 P.M. 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 sluffed him off saying you’d call when you got in, but Jesus, Mac, he knows you and Charlie’ve cleaned out your apartment.”
“Ali 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 chivy 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, “Mac, a word in your ear as soon as poss.”
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, I 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.”