Whirlwind

  No news was expected until noon today about the seriousness of McIver’s heart attack. “Pas problème,” Jean-Luc had said last night. “They’ve let Genny stay in the next room at the hospital, the doctor’s the best in Bahrain, and I’m here. I’ve canceled my early flight home and I’ll wait, but send me some money tomorrow to pay the bills.”

  Pettikin toyed with his coffee cup, his breakfast untouched. All yesterday and last night helping to get the helicopters ready so no chance to see Paula and she was off again to Tehran this morning, still evacuating Italian nationals, and would not be back for at least two days. Gavallan had ordered an immediate retreat of all Whirlwind participants out of the Gulf area, pending review. “We can’t be too careful,” he had told them all. “Everyone’s got to go for the time being.”

  Later Pettikin had said, “You’re right, Andy, but what about Tom and Erikki? We should leave someone here—I’d be glad to volun—”

  “For Christ’s sake, Charlie, give over,” Gavallan had flared. “You think I’m not worried sick about them? And Fowler and Dubois? We have to do it one step at a time. Everyone who’s not necessary is out before sunset and you’re one of them!” That had been about 1:00 A.M. this morning in the office when Pettikin had come to relieve Scot who was still blearily manning the HF. The rest of the night he had sat there. No calls. At 5:00 A.M. Nogger Lane had relieved him and he had come here for breakfast, Gavallan, Rudi, and Scragger already seated. “Any luck with the freighters, Andy?”

  “No, Charlie, it’s still tomorrow noon at the earliest,” Gavallan had said. “Sit down, have some coffee.” Then had come the dawn and the muezzins. Now their singsong ceased. Some of the violence left the veranda.

  Scragger poured himself another cup of tea, his stomach still upset. Another sudden chill zapped up from his bowels and he hurried to the bathroom. The spasm passed quickly with very little to show for it, but there was no blood therein, and Doc Nutt had said he didn’t think it was dysentery: “Just take it easy for a few days, Scrag. I’ll have the result of all the tests tomorrow.” He had told Doc Nutt about the blood in his urine and the pain in his stomach over the last few days. To hide it would have been an unforgivable added danger, both to his passengers and to his chopper. “Scrag, best you stay here in hospital for a few days,” Doc Nutt had said.

  “Get stuffed, old cock! There’s things to do and mountains to conquer.”

  Going back to the table he saw the brooding gloom upon everyone and hated it, but had no solution. Nothing to do except wait. No way to transit out because they would have to go through Saudi, Emirate, or Oman airspace and no possibility of a clearance for a few days. He had suggested, jokingly, they reassemble the helicopters, find out when the next British supertanker was outbound through Hormuz and then take off and land on her: “…and we just sail off into the Wild Blue and get off in Mombasa, or sail on around Africa to Nigeria.”

  “Hey, Scrag,” Vossi had said in admiration, “that’s wild-assed. I could use a cruise. How about it, Andy?”

  “We’d be arrested and in the brig before the rotors had begun.”

  Scragger sat down and waved a fly away. The sun’s birth color was less red now and all of them were wearing dark glasses against the glare.

  Gavallan finished his coffee. “Well, I’m off to the office in case I can do something. If you want me I’m there. How soon’ll you be finished, Rudi?”

  Rudi was in charge of getting the choppers ready for transshipment. “Your target was noon today. It’ll be noon.” He swallowed the last of his coffee and got up. “Time to leave, meine Kinder!” Groans and catcalls from the others but mostly good-natured through their fatigue. A general exodus to transport waiting outside.

  “Andy,” Scragger said, “I’ll come along with you if it’s okay.”

  “Good idea, Scrag. Charlie, no need for you to be on Rudi’s team as we’re ahead of schedule. Why don’t you come over to the office later?”

  Pettikin smiled at him. “Thanks.” Paula was not due to leave her hotel until 10:00 A.M. Now he would have plenty of time to see her. To say what? he asked himself, waving them good-bye.

  Gavallan drove out of the gates. The airport was still partially in shadow. Already a few jets with their navigation lights on, engines winding up. The Iran evacuation was still priority. He glanced at Scragger, saw the grimace. “You all right?”

  “Sure, Andy. Just a touch of gippy tummy. Had it bad in New Guinea—so I’ve always been careful. If I could get some of old Dr. Collis Brown’s Elixir I’d be raring to go!” This was a marvelous and highly effective tincture invented by Dr. Collis Brown, an English army surgeon, to combat the dysentery that tens of thousands of soldiers were dying of during the Crimean War. “Six drops of the old magic and Bob’s your unbloody uncle!”

  “You’re right, Scrag,” Gavallan said absently, wondering if Pan Am Freighting had had any cancellations. “I never travel without Collis…wait a minute!” He suddenly beamed. “My survival kit! There’s some there. Liz always sticks it into my briefcase. Collis Brown’s, Tiger Balm, aspirins, a golden sovereign, and a can of sardines.”

  “Eh? Sardines?”

  “In case I get hungry.” Gavallan was glad to talk to take his mind off the looming disaster. “Liz and I have a mutual friend we met years ago in Hong Kong, fellow called Marlowe, a writer. He always carried a can with him, iron rations in case of famine—and Liz and I, we always laughed about it. It became kind of a symbol to remind ourselves how lucky we really are.”

  “Peter Marlowe? The one who wrote Changi—about the POW camp in Singapore?”

  “Yes. Do you know him?”

  “No. But I read that book, not the others, but I read that one.” Scragger was suddenly reminded about his own war against the Japanese and then about Kasigi and Iran-Toda. Last night he had called other hotels to track Kasigi down and eventually had found him registered at the International and had left a message but as yet had not heard back. Probably he’s chocker I let him down, he told himself, because we can’t help him at Iran-Toda. Stone the crows! Bandar Delam and Iran-Toda seem a couple of years ago instead of just a couple of days. Even so, if it weren’t for him, I’d still be handcuffed to that bleeding bed.

  “Pity we don’t all have our can of sardines, Andy,” he said. “We really do forget our luck, don’t we? Look how lucky we were to get out of Lengeh in one piece. Wot about old Duke? Soon he’ll be fit as a fiddle. A fraction of an inch and he’d be dead but he isn’t. Scot the same. Wot about Whirlwind! All the lads’re out and so’re our birds. Erikki’s safe. Mac’ll be all right, you wait and see! Dubois and Fowler? It’s got to happen sometime, but it hasn’t yet, so far as we know, so we can still hope. Tom? Well, he chose that and he’ll get out.”

  NEAR THE IRAN-TURKISH BORDER: 7:59 A.M. Some seven hundred miles northward, Azadeh shielded her eyes against the rising sun. She had seen something glint in the valley below. Was that light reflected off a gun, or harness? She readied the M16, picked up the binoculars. Behind her Erikki lay sprawled on some blankets in the 212’s open cabin, heavily asleep. His face was pale and he had lost a lot of blood, but she thought he was all right. Through the lenses she saw nothing move. Down there the countryside was snow-locked and sparsely treed. Desolate. No villages and no smoke. The day was good but very cold. No clouds and the wind had dropped in the night. Slowly she searched the valley. A few miles away was a village she had not noticed before.

  The 212 was parked in rough mountainous country on a rocky plateau. Last night after the escape from the palace, because a bullet had smashed some instrumentation, Erikki had lost his way. Afraid to exhaust all his fuel, and unable to fly and at the same time stanch the flow of blood from his arm, he had decided to risk landing and waiting for dawn. Once on the ground, he had pulled the carpet out of the cockpit and unrolled it. Azadeh was still sleeping peacefully. He had tied up his wound as best he could, then rewrapped her in the carpet for warmth, brought out some of the guns, and
leaned against the skid on guard. But much as he tried he could not keep his eyes open.

  He had awakened suddenly. False dawn was touching the sky. Azadeh was still huddled down in the carpet but now she was watching him. “So. You’ve kidnapped me!” Then her pretended coldness vanished and she scrambled into his arms, kissing him and thanking him for solving the dilemma for all three of them with such wisdom, saying the speech she had rehearsed: “I know a wife can do little against a husband, Erikki, hardly anything at all. Even in Iran where we’re civilized, even here, a wife’s almost a chattel and the Imam is very clear on wifely duties, and in the Koran,” she added, “in the Koran and Sharia her duties are oh so clear. Also I know I’m married to a non-Believer, and I openly swear I will try to escape at least once a day to try to go back to fulfill my oath, and though I’ll be petrified and know you’ll catch me every time and will keep me without money or beat me and I have to obey whatever you order, I will do it.” Her eyes were brimming with happy tears. “Thank you, my darling, I was so afraid…”

  “Would you have done that? Given up your God?”

  “Erikki, oh, how I prayed God would guide you.”

  “Would you?”

  “There’s no need now even to think the unthinkable, is there, my love?”

  “Ah,” he said, understanding. “Then you knew, didn’t you? You knew that this was what I had to do!”

  “I only know I’m your wife, I love you, I must obey you, you took me away without my help and against my will. We need never discuss it again. Please?”

  Blearily he peered at her, disoriented, and could not understand how she could seem to be strong and have come out of the drugged sleep so easily. Sleep! “Azadeh, I’ve got to have an hour of proper sleep. Sorry, I can’t go on. Without an hour or so, I can’t. We should be safe enough here. You guard, we should be safe enough.”

  “Where are we?”

  “Still in Iran, somewhere near the border.” He gave her a loaded M16, knowing she could use it accurately. “One of the bullets smashed my compass.” She saw him stagger as he went for the cabin, grope for some blankets, and lie down. Instantly he was asleep. While she waited for the daylight she thought about their future and about the past. Still Johnny to settle. Nothing else. How strange life is. I thought I would scream a thousand times closed up in that vile carpet, pretending to be drugged. As if I would be so stupid as to drug myself in case I would have to help defend us! So easy to dupe Mina and my darling Erikki and even Hakim, no longer my darling; “…her everlasting spirit’s more important than her temporary body!” He would have killed me. Me! His beloved sister! But I tricked him.

  She was very pleased with herself and with Aysha who had whispered about the secret listening places so that when she had stormed out of the room in pretended rage and left Hakim and Erikki alone, she had scurried to overhear what they were saying. Oh, Erikki, I was petrified you and Hakim weren’t going to believe that I’d really break my oath—and frantic in case the clues I’d placed before you all evening wouldn’t add up to your perfect stratagem. But you went one better than me—you even arranged the helicopter. Oh, how clever you were, I was, we were together. I even made sure you brought my handbag and jewel bag with Najoud’s loot that I wheedled out of Hakim so now we’re rich as well as safe, if only we can get out of this God-lost country.

  “It is God-lost, my darling,” Ross had said the last time she had seen him in Tehran, just before he had left her—she could not endure parting without saying good-bye so she had gone to Talbot to inquire after him and then, a few hours later, he had knocked on her door, the apartment empty but for them. “It’s best you leave Iran, Azadeh. Your beloved Iran is once again bereft. This revolution’s the same as all of them: a new tyranny replaces the old. Your new rulers will implant their law, their version of God’s law, as the Shah implanted his. Your ayatollahs will live and die as popes live and die, some good men, some bad and some evil. In God’s time the world’ll get a little better, the beast in men that needs to bite and hack and kill and torment and torture will become a little more human and a little more restrained. It’s only people that bugger up the world, Azadeh. Men mostly. You know I love you?”

  “Yes. You said it in the village. You know I love you?”

  “Yes.”

  So easy to swoop back into the womb of time as when they were young. “But we’re not young now and there’s a great sadness on me, Azadeh.”

  “It’ll pass, Johnny,” she had said, wanting his happiness. “It’ll pass as Iran’s troubles will pass. We’ve had terrible times for centuries but they’ve passed.” She remembered how they had sat together, not touching now, yet possessed, one with the other. Then later he had smiled and raised his hand in his devil-may-care salute and he had left silently.

  Again the glint in the valley. Anxiety rushed back into her. Now a movement through the trees and she saw them. “Erikki!” He was instantly awake. “Down there. Two men on horseback. They look like tribesmen.” She handed him the binoculars.

  “I see them.” The men were armed and cantering along the valley bed, dressed as hill people would dress, keeping to cover where there was cover. Erikki focused on them. From time to time he saw them look up in their direction. “They can probably see the chopper but I doubt if they can see us.”

  “They’re heading up here?”

  Through his aching and tiredness he had heard the fear in her voice. “Perhaps. Probably yes. It’d take them half an hour to get up here, we’ve plenty of time.”

  “They’re looking for us.” Her face was white and she moved closer to Erikki. “Hakim will have alerted everywhere.”

  “He won’t have done that. He helped me.”

  “That was to escape.” Nervously she looked around the plateau and the tree line and the mountains, then back at the two men. “Once you escaped he’d act like a Khan. You don’t know Hakim, Erikki. He’s my brother but before that he’s Khan.”

  Through the binoculars he saw the half-hidden village beside the road in the middle distance. Sun glinted off telephone lines. His own anxiety increased. “Perhaps they’re just villagers and curious about us. But we won’t wait to find out.” Wearily he smiled at her. “Hungry?”

  “Yes, but I’m fine.” Hastily she began bundling the carpet that was ancient, priceless, and one of her favorites. “I’m thirsty more than hungry.”

  “Me too but I feel better now. The sleep helped.” His eyes ranged the mountains, setting what he saw against his remembrance of the map. A last look at the men still far below. No danger for a while, unless there are others around, he thought, then went for the cockpit. Azadeh shoved the carpet into the cabin and tugged the door closed. There were bullet holes in it that she had not noticed before. Another spark of sunlight off metal in the forest, much closer, that neither saw.

  Erikki’s head ached and he felt weak. He pressed the starting button. Wind up, immediate and correct. A quick check of his instruments. Rev counter shattered, no compass, no ADF. No need for some instruments—the sound of the engines would tell him when the needles would be in the Green. But needles on the fuel gauges were stuck at a quarter full. No time to check on them or any other damage and if there was damage, what could he do? All gods great and small, old and new, living or dead or yet to be born, be on my side today, I’ll need all the help you can give me. His eyes saw the kookri that he remembered vaguely shoving in the seat pocket. Without conscious effort his fingers reached out and touched it. The feel of it burned.

  Azadeh hurried for the cockpit, turbulence from the rotors picking up speed clawing at her, chilling her even more. She climbed into the seat and locked the door, turning her eyes away from the mess of dried blood on the seat and floor. Her smile died, noticing his brooding concentration and the strangeness, his hand almost near the kookri but not quite. Again she wondered why he had brought it.

  “Are you all right, Erikki?” she asked, but he did not appear to have heard her. Insha’Allah. It?
??s God’s will he is alive and I’m alive, that we’re together and almost safe. But now it’s up to me to carry the burden and to keep us safe. He’s not my Erikki yet, neither in looks nor in spirit. I can almost hear the bad thoughts pounding in his head. Soon the bad will again overpower the good. God protect us. “Thank you, Erikki,” she said, accepting the headset he handed her, mentally girding herself for the battle.

  He made sure she was strapped in and adjusted the volume for her. “You can hear me, all right?”

  “Oh, yes, my darling. Thank you.”

  Part of his hearing was concentrated on the sound of the engines, a minute or two yet before they could take off. “We’ve not enough fuel to get to Van which’s the nearest airfield in Turkey—I could go south to the hospital in Rezaiyeh for fuel but that’s too dangerous. I’m going north a little. I saw a village that way and a road. Perhaps that’s the Khoi-Van road.”

  “Good, let’s hurry, Erikki, I don’t feel safe here. Are there any airfields near here? Hakim’s bound to have alerted the police and they’ll have alerted the air force. Can we take off?”

  “Just a few more seconds, engines’re almost ready.” He saw the anxiety and her beauty and once more the picture of her and John Ross together tumbled into his mind. He forced it away. “I think there are airfields all over the border sector. We’ll go as far as we can; I think we’ve enough fuel to get over the border.” He made an effort to be light. “Maybe we can find a gas station. Do you think they’d take a credit card?”

  She laughed nervously and lifted up her bag, winding the strap around her wrist. “No need for credit cards, Erikki. We’re rich—you’re rich. I can speak Turkish and if I can’t beg, buy, or bribe our way through I’m not of the tribe Gorgon! But through to where? Istanbul? You’re overdue a fabulous holiday, Erikki. We’re safe only because of you, you did everything, thought of everything!”

  “No, Azadeh, you did.” You and John Ross, he wanted to shout and looked back at his instruments to hide. But without Ross Azadeh’d be dead and therefore I’d be dead and I can’t live with the thought of you and him together. I’m sure you lov—