Whirlwind

  “Perhaps we’re in for another bad one,” she said.

  For weeks now every day had been bad. First it was martial law in September when public gatherings had been banned and a 9:00 P.M. to 5:00 A.M. curfew imposed by the Shah had only further inflamed the people. Particularly in the capital Tehran, the oil port of Abadan, and the religious cities of Qom and Meshed. There had been much killing. Then the violence had escalated, the Shah vacillating, then abruptly canceling martial law in the last days of December and appointing Bakhtiar, a moderate, prime minister, making concessions, and then, incredibly, on January 16 leaving Iran for “a holiday.” Then Bakhtiar forming his government and Khomeini—still in exile in France—decrying it and anyone who supported it. Riots increasing, the death toll increasing. Bakhtiar trying to negotiate with Khomeini, who refused to see him or talk to him, the people restive, the army restive, then closing all airports against Khomeini, then opening them to him. Then, equally incredibly, eight days ago on February 1, Khomeini returning.

  Since then the days have been very bad, she thought.

  That dawn she, her husband, and Pettikin had been at Tehran’s International Airport. It was a Thursday, very cold but crisp with patches of snow here and there, the wind light. To the north the Elburz Mountains were white-capped, the rising sun blooding the snow. The three of them had been beside the 212 that was standing on the airport apron, well away from the tarmac in front of the terminal. Another 212 was on the other side of the airfield, also ready for instant takeoff—both ordered here by Khomeini’s supporters.

  This side of the terminal was deserted, except for twenty or so nervous airport officials, most of whom carried submachine guns, waiting near a big black Mercedes and a radio car that was tuned to the tower. It was quiet here—in violent contrast to the inside of the terminal and outside the perimeter fence. Inside the terminal building was a welcoming committee of about a thousand specially invited politicians, ayatollahs, mullahs, newsmen, and hundreds of uniformed police and special Islamic Guards with green armbands—nicknamed Green Bands—the mullahs’ illegal revolutionary private army. Everyone else had been kept away from the airport, all access roads blocked, guarded, and barricaded. But just the other side of these barricades were tens of thousands of anxious people of all ages. Most women wore the chador, the long, shroud-like robe that covered them from head to foot. Beyond these people, lining the ten-mile route, all the way to Behesht-Zahra Cemetery where the Ayatollah was to make his first speech, were five thousand armed police, and around them, crammed together on balconies, in windows, on walls, and in the streets was the biggest gathering of people Iran had ever known, a sea of people—most of Tehran’s population. Nearly five million lived in and around the city. All anxious, all nervous, all afraid that there would be a last-moment delay or that perhaps the airport would be closed once more against him or that perhaps the air force would shoot him down—with or without orders.

  Prime Minister Shahpur Bakhtiar, his cabinet, and the generals of all the armed services were not at the airport. By choice. Nor were there any of their officers or soldiers. These men waited in their barracks or airfields or ships—all equally anxious and impatient to move.

  “I wish you’d stayed at home, Gen,” McIver had said uneasily.

  “I wish we’d all stayed at home,” Pettikin said, equally ill at ease.

  A week before, McIver had been approached by one of Khomeini’s supporters to supply the helicopter to take Khomeini from the airport to Behesht-Zahra. “Sorry, that’s not possible, I haven’t the authority to do that,” he had said, aghast. Within an hour the man was back with Green Bands, McIver’s office and the outer offices jammed with them, young, tough, angry-looking men, two with Soviet AK47 automatic rifles over their shoulders, one with a U.S. M16.

  “You will supply the helicopter as I have said,” the man told him arrogantly. “In case crowd control becomes too difficult. Of course all Tehran will be there to greet the Ayatollah, the Blessings of God be upon him.”

  “Much as I would like to do that, I can’t,” McIver had told him carefully, trying to buy time. He was in an untenable position. Khomeini was being allowed to return, but that was all; if the Bakhtiar government knew that S-G was supplying their archenemy with a chopper for a triumphal entry into their capital, they would be very irritated indeed. And even if the government agreed, if anything went wrong, if the Ayatollah was hurt, S-G would be blamed and their lives not worth a bent farthing. “All our aircraft are leased and I don’t have the necessary authority to g—”

  “I give you the necessary authority on behalf of the Ayatollah,” the man had said angrily, his voice rising. “The Ayatollah is the only authority in Iran.”

  “Then it should be easy for you to get an Iranian Army or Air Force helicopter t—”

  “Quiet! You have had the honor to be asked. You will do as you are told. In the Name of Allah, the komiteh has decided you will supply a 212 with your best pilots to take the Ayatollah to where we say, when we say, as we say.”

  This was the first time McIver had been confronted by one of the komitehs—small groups of young fundamentalists—that had appeared, seemingly miraculously, the moment the Shah had left Iran, in every village, hamlet, town, and city to seize power, attacking police stations, leading mobs into the streets, taking control wherever they could. Most times a mullah led them. But not always. In the Abadan oil fields the komitehs were said to be left-wing fedayeen—literally “those who are prepared to sacrifice themselves.”

  “You will obey!” The man shook a revolver in his face.

  “I’m certainly honored by your confidence,” McIver had said, the men crowding him, the heavy smell of sweat and unwashed clothes surrounding him. “I will ask the government for perm—”

  “The Bakhtiar government is illegal and not acceptable to the People,” the man had bellowed. At once the others took up the shout and the mood became ugly. One man unslung his automatic rifle. “You will agree or the komiteh will take further action.”

  McIver had telexed Andrew Gavallan in Aberdeen, who gave immediate approval provided S-G’s Iranian partners approved. The partners could not be found. In desperation McIver contacted the British embassy for advice: “Well, old boy, you can certainly ask the government, formally or informally, but you’ll never get an answer. We’re not even certain they’ll really allow Khomeini to land, or that the air force won’t take matters into their own hands. After all the bloody fellow’s an out-and-out revolutionary, openly calling for insurrection against the legal government that everyone else recognizes—Her Majesty’s Government to boot. Either way, if you’re silly enough to ask, the government will certainly remember you embarrassed them and you’re damned either way.”

  Eventually McIver had worked out an acceptable compromise with the komiteh. “After all,” he had pointed out with enormous relief, “it would look very strange if a British aircraft ferried your revered leader into town. Surely it would be better if he was in an Iranian Air Force plane, flown by an Iranian. I’ll certainly have one of ours standing by, two in fact, in case of accidents. With our best pilots. Just call us on the radio, call for a CASEVAC and we’ll respond at once…”

  And now he was here, waiting, praying that there was no CASEVAC to which they would have to respond.

  The Air France 747 jumbo jet appeared out of the pink haze. For twenty minutes she circled, waiting for clearance to land.

  McIver was listening to the tower on the 212’s radio. “Still some problem about security,” he told the other two. “Wait a minute…she’s cleared!”

  “Here we go,” Pettikin muttered.

  They watched her come on to final. The 747 was gleaming white, the French colors sparkling. She inched her way earthward on a perfect approach, then, at the last moment, the pilot put on full power, aborting the landing. “What the hell’s he playing at?” Genny said, her heart fluttering.

  “Pilot says he wanted to take a closer look,” McIver told
her. “I think I would too—just to make sure.” He looked at Pettikin who would fly any CASEVAC call from the komiteh. “I hope to Christ the air force don’t do anything crazy.”

  “Look!” Genny said.

  The jet came on to final and touched down, smoke belched from the tires, her massive engines roaring into reverse thrust to slow her. At once a Mercedes rushed to intercept her, and as the news spread to those in the terminal, thence to the barricades, thence to the streets, the multitudes went berserk with joy. The chant began: “Allah-u Akbar… Agha uhmad,” God is Great…the Master has returned…

  It seemed to take forever for the steps to arrive and the doors to open and the stern-faced, black-turbaned, heavily bearded old man to come down the steps, helped by one of the French stewards. He walked through the hastily assembled honor guard of a few mullahs and the Iran Air France crew, to be surrounded by his top aides and the nervous officials and quickly bundled into the car which headed for the terminal. There he was greeted by bedlam as the cheering, screaming, frenzied guests fought with one another to get near him, to touch him, newspapermen from all the world fighting each other for the best position with their barrage of flash cameras, TV cameras—everyone shouting, Green Bands and police trying to protect him from the crush. Genny could just see him for a moment, a graven statue among the frenzy, then he was swallowed up.

  Genny sipped her martini, remembering, her eyes fixed on the radio, trying to will the broadcast to continue, to blot out the memory of that day and Khomeini’s speech at Behesht-Zahra Cemetery, chosen because so many of those massacred on Bloody Friday—martyrs he called them—were buried there.

  To blot out the TV pictures they had all seen later of the raging sea of bodies surrounding the motorcade as it inched along—all ideas of security gone—tens of thousands of men, women, and young people shouting, struggling, shoving to get closer to him, scrambling all over the Chevy van that he was in, trying to reach him, to touch him, the Ayatollah sitting in the front seat in seeming serenity, occasionally raising his hands at the adulation. People clambering on the hood and on the roof, weeping and shouting, calling to him, fighting to keep others off—impossible for the driver to see, he at times braking hard to shake people off, at others simply accelerating blindly. To blot out the memory of a youth in a rough brown suit who had scrambled onto the hood but could not get a proper grip and slowly rolled off and under the wheels.

  Dozens like the youth. Eventually Green Bands had fought their way around and onto the van and called down the helicopter and she remembered the way the helicopter carelessly plummeted down onto the mob that scattered from the blades, bodies everywhere, injured everywhere, then the Ayatollah walking in the center of his pack of Islamic Guards to be helped into the copter, stern-faced, impassive, then the helicopter taking off into the skies to the never-ending torrent of “Allah-uuuuu Akbar… Agha uhmad…”

  “I need another drink,” she said and got up to hide a shiver. “Can I fix yours, Duncan?”

  “Thanks, Gen.”

  She went toward the kitchen for some ice, “Charlie?”

  “I’m fine, Genny, I’ll get it.”

  She stopped as the radio came back strongly: “…China reports that there have been serious border clashes with Vietnam and denounces these attacks as further evidence of Soviet hegemony: In Fran—” Again the signal vanished, leaving only static.

  After a moment Pettikin said, “I had a drink at the club on the way here. There’s a rumor amongst the journalists that Bakhtiar’s readying a showdown. Another was that there’s heavy fighting in Meshed after a mob strung up the chief of police and half a dozen of his men.”

  “Terrible,” she said, coming back from the kitchen. “Who’s controlling the mobs, Charlie, really controlling them? Is it the Communists?”

  Pettikin shrugged. “No one seems to know for certain but the Communist Tudeh’ve got to be stirring it up, outlawed or not. And all the leftists, particularly the mujhadin-al-khalq, who believe in a sort of marriage between the religions of Islam and Marx, Soviet sponsored. The Shah, the U.S., and most Western governments know it’s them, aided and heavily abetted by the Soviets north of the border, so of course all the Iranian press agree. So do our Iranian partners, though they’re scared out of their pants, not knowing which way to jump, trying to support the Shah and Khomeini equally. I wish to God they’d all settle down. Iran’s a great place and I don’t plan to move.”

  “What about the press?”

  “The foreign press’re mixed. Some of the Americans agree with the Shah as to who is to blame. Others say it’s pure Khomeini, purely religious, and led by him and the mullahs. Then there’re those who blame the left-wing fedayeen, or the hard-core fundamentalist Muslim Brotherhood—there was even one sport, I think he was French, who claimed Yasir Arafat and the PLO’re…” He stopped. The radio came in for a second then went back to emitting static. “It must be sunspots.”

  “Enough to make you want to spit blood,” McIver said. Like Pettikin, he was ex-RAF. He had been the first pilot to join S-G, and now as director of Iran operations, he was also managing director of IHC—Iran Helicopter Company—the fifty-fifty joint venture with the obligatory Iranian partners that S-G leased their helicopters to, the company that got their contracts, made their deals, held the money—without whom there would be no Iranian operations. He leaned forward to adjust the tuning, changed his mind.

  “It’ll come back, Duncan,” Genny said confidently. “I agree Callaghan’s a twit.”

  He smiled at her. They had been married thirty years. “You’re not bad, Gen. Not bad at all.”

  “For that you can have another whisky.”

  “Thanks, but this time put some in with the wat—”

  “—partment of Energy spokesman says that the new 14 percent OPEC hike will cost the U.S. $51 billion for imported oil next year. Also in Washington, President Carter announced, because of the deteriorating situation in Iran, a carrier force has been ordered to proceed from the Philip—” The announcer’s voice was drowned by another station, then both faded.

  In silence they waited, very tense. The two men glanced at each other, trying to hide their shock. Genny walked over to the whisky bottle that was on the sideboard. Also on the sideboard, taking up most of the space, was the HF radio, McIver’s communicator with their helicopter bases all over Iran—conditions permitting. The apartment was big and comfortable, with three bedrooms and two sitting rooms. For the last few months, since martial law and the subsequent escalating street violence, Pettikin had moved in with them—he was single now, divorced a year ago—and this arrangement pleased them all.

  A slight wind rattled the windowpanes. Genny glanced outside. There were a few dim lights from the houses opposite, no streetlamps. The low rooftops of the huge city stretched away limitlessly. Snow on them, and on the ground. Most of the five to six million people who lived here lived in squalor. But this area, to the north of Tehran, the best area, where most foreigners and well-to-do Iranians lived, was well policed. Is it wrong to live in the best area if you can afford it? she asked herself. This world’s a very strange place, whichever way you add it up.

  She made the drink light, mostly soda, and brought it back. “There’s going to be a civil war. There’s no way we can continue here.”

  “We’ll be all right, Gen. Carter won’t let…” Abruptly the lights died and the electric fire went out.

  “Bugger,” Genny said. “Thank God we’ve the butane cooker.”

  “Maybe the power cut’ll be a short one.” McIver helped her light the candles that were already in place. He glanced at the front door. Beside it was a five-gallon can of gasoline—their emergency fuel. He hated the idea of having gasoline in the apartment, they all did, particularly when they had to use candles most evenings. But for weeks now it had taken from five to twenty-four hours of lining up at a gas station and even then the Iranian attendant would more than likely turn you away because you were a foreigner. Many
times their car had had its tank drained—locks made no difference. They were luckier than most because they had access to airfield supplies, but for the normal person, particularly a foreigner, the lines made life miserable. Black-market gasoline cost as much as 160 rials a liter—$2 a liter, $8 a gallon, when you could get it. “Mind the iron rations,” he said with a laugh.

  “Mac, maybe you should stand a candle on it, just for old times’ sake,” Pettikin said.

  “Don’t tempt him, Charlie! You were saying about Carter?”

  “The trouble is if Carter panics and puts in even a few troops—or planes—to support a military coup, it will blow the top off everything. Everyone’ll scream like a scalded cat, the Soviets most of all, and they’ll have to react and Iran’ll become the set piece for World War Three.”

  McIver said, “We’ve been fighting World War Three, Charlie, since ’45…”

  A burst of static cut him off, then the announcer came back again. “…for illicit intelligence work: It is reported from Kuwait by the chief of staff of the armed forces that Kuwait has received shipments of arms from the Soviet Union…”

  “Christ,” both men muttered.

  “…In Beirut, Yasir Arafat, the PLO leader, declared his organization will continue to actively assist the revolution of Ayatollah Khomeini: At a press conference in Washington, President Carter reiterated the U.S. support for Iran’s Bakhtiar government and the ‘constitutional process’: And finally from Iran itself, Ayatollah Khomeini has threatened to arrest Prime Minister Bakhtiar unless he resigns, and has called on the people to ‘destroy the terrible monarchy and its illegal government,’ and on the army ‘to rise up against their foreign-dominated officers and flee their barracks with their weapons.” Throughout the British Isles exceptionally heavy snow, gales, and floods have disrupted much of the country, closing Heathrow Airport and grounding all aircraft. And that ends the news summary. The next full report will be at 1800, GMT. You’re listening to the World Service of the BBC. And now a report from our international farm correspondent, ‘Poultry and Pigs.’ We begin…”