Whirlwind

  Then he had gone to the airport and joined Robert Armstrong at the 125, and, once airborne, had laughed and laughed. It was the first time that a car bomb with a remote detonator had been used in Iran. “By God, Robert,” he had said jovially, “it’s totally efficient. From a hundred yards away you wait until you’re sure it’s him, then you just touch the switch on the sender that’s no bigger than a pack of cigarettes and…boom! another enemy gone forever—and his father!” He wiped the tears out of his eyes, his laughter infectious. “That’s what really got to Pahmudi. Yes, and without Group Four it would’ve been me and my family.”

  Group Four had grown out of a suggestion of Armstrong’s that he had taken and elaborated: small teams of very select bands of men and women, highly trained in the most modern antiterrorist tactics, very highly paid and carefully protected—all non-Iranian, none of whom knew any of the other cells—and all known and loyal only to Hashemi. Their anonymity meant that some could be used against the others if necessary, individually they were expendable and easily replaceable—in the Middle and Near East there was too much poverty, too many betrayed causes, too much hatred, too many beliefs, too many homeless not to provide a ready ocean of men, and women, desperate for such a job.

  Over the years his Group Four team had prospered, its coups secret, the vast majority secret even from Armstrong. He looked at him and smiled. “Without them I’d be dead.”

  “Me too, probably—I was very bloody frightened when that bugger Janan said, ‘I give you a day and a night for past services.’ That bugger’d never’ve let me get out.”

  “True.” A few thousand feet below them the land was deep in snow and the jet already high over the mountains, the journey to Tabriz little more than half an hour.

  “What about Rakoczy? You believe what Pahmudi said about him escaping?”

  “Of course not, Robert. Rakoczy was a trade, a pishkesh. When Pahmudi found the tapes empty and the state Rakoczy was in he had no value—other than as a payment for past favors—he couldn’t possibly know the connection with your Petr Oleg Mzytryk. Or could he?”

  “Not likely—I’d say impossible.”

  “It’s probable he’s in Soviet HQ—if he’s not already dead. Soviets’d want to know what he gave away…could he tell them anything?”

  “I doubt it—he was on the brink.” Armstrong shook his head. “Doubt it. What’ll you do now that you’re Mr. Big again? Feed Pahmudi more of his info within the thirty days—if he’s alive in thirty days.”

  Hashemi smiled thinly and did not reply. I’m not your Mr. Big yet, he thought, or even safe until Pahmudi’s in hell—with many others. I may still have to use your passport. Armstrong had given it to him before takeoff. He had checked it very carefully.

  Then he had closed his eyes and settled back, enjoying the luxury and convenience of the private jet that was already over Qazvin, just a quarter of an hour out of Tabriz. But he did not nap. He spent the time considering what to do about SAVAMA, Pahmudi, and Abdollah Khan, and what to do about Robert Armstrong who knew too much.

  Through the cabin window, he continued to watch the Rolls, big, immaculate, and possessed by so few on earth. By God and the Prophet, what riches, he thought, awed at this proof of the Khan’s position and power. What power to flaunt such a possession so fearlessly in the faces of the komitehs, and mine. Abdollah Khan won’t be easy to bend.

  He knew that here in the airplane they were dangerously exposed—easy targets if Abdollah ordered his men to fire on them—but he had dismissed that possibility, certain that even Abdollah Khan would not dare such an open murder of three Infidels and one jet, and him. But just in case the Khan arranged an “accident,” two Group Four teams were already en route by road, one for Abdollah personally, the other for his family, to be stopped only by code word from him personally. He smiled. Once Robert Armstrong had told him that a Chinese punishment for an important person in olden days was “death—and all his generations.”

  “I like that, Robert,” he had said. “That has style.”

  He saw the front side door of the car open. Ahmed got out, carrying the submachine gun oddly, then walked to the back door and opened it for Abdollah.

  “You win the first round, Hashemi,” Armstrong said and went forward as agreed. “All right, Captain. We’ll be as quick as we can.”

  Reluctantly the two pilots squeezed out of the little cockpit, pulled on their parkas, and hurried out into the cold and down the steps. They saluted the Khan politely. He motioned them into the back of the car, began to climb the gangway, Ahmed following him.

  “Salaam, Highness, peace be upon you,” Hashemi said warmly, greeting him at the door, a concession that Abdollah noted at once.

  “And upon you, Excellency Colonel.” They shook hands. Abdollah walked past him into the cabin, his eyes on Armstrong, and sat in the chair nearest the exit.

  “Salaam, Highness,” Armstrong said. “Peace be upon you.”

  “This is a colleague of mine,” Hashemi said, sitting opposite the Khan. “An Englishman, Robert Armstrong.”

  “Ah, yes, the Excellency who speaks Farsi better than my Ahmed and is famous for his memory—and cruelty.” Behind him Ahmed had closed the heavy curtain over the outside door and stood with his back to the cockpit, on guard, gun ready but not impolitely so. “Eh?”

  Armstrong smiled. “That was a pleasantry of the colonel, Highness.”

  “I don’t agree. Even in Tabriz we’ve heard of the Special Branch expert, twelve years in service of the Shah, and running dog of his running dogs,” Abdollah said scornfully in Farsi. The smile vanished from Armstrong’s face, and both he and Hashemi tensed at the blatant bad manners. “I’ve read your record.” He turned his black eyes on Hashemi, completely sure that his plan would work: Ahmed would kill them at his signal, booby-trap the airplane, send the pilots back aboard and into a hasty takeoff and fiery death—nothing to do with him, as God wants, and he, himself, after such a wonderful discussion where he had promised “complete support for the central government,” would be filled with sadness.

  “So, Excellency,” he said, “we meet again. What can I do for you—I know your time is, unfortunately, short with us.”

  “Perhaps, Highness, it is what I can do for you? Per—”

  “Come to the point, Colonel,” the Khan said harshly, now in English, totally sure of himself. “You and I know each other, we can dispense with flattery and compliments and get to the point. I’m busy. If you’d had the courtesy to come to my car, alone, I would have been more comfortable, we could have spoken in private, leisurely. Now come to the point!”

  “I want to talk to you about your controller, Colonel General Petr Oleg Mzytryk,” Hashemi said as harshly, but suddenly petrified that he’d been trapped and that Abdollah was a secret Pahmudi supporter, “and about your long-term KGB connection through Mzytryk, code name Ali Khoy.”

  “Controller? What controller? Who’s this man?” Abdollah Khan heard himself say, but his head was shrieking, You can’t know that, impossible, not possible. And through the torrent of his own heartbeat he saw the colonel’s mouth open and say other things that made everything worse, much worse, and worst of all it tore his plan to shreds. If the colonel spoke such secrets so openly in front of this foreigner and Ahmed, the secrets would be recorded elsewhere in a safe place to be read by the Revolutionary Komiteh and his enemies in case of an “accident.”

  “Your controller,” Hashemi slammed at him, seeing the change, and pressed home his advantage. “Petr Oleg, whose dacha is beside Lake Tzvenghid in the Place of Hidden Valley, east of Tbilisi, code name Ali Khoy, yours is Iv—”

  “Wait,” Abdollah said throatily, his face livid—not even Ahmed knew that, must not know that. “I—I—give me some water.”

  Armstrong began to get up but froze as Ahmed’s gun covered him. “Please sit, Excellency. I will get it. Fasten your belt, both of you.”

  “There’s no n—”

  “Do it,” A
hmed snarled and waved the gun, aghast at the Khan’s change in face and tactic, and quite prepared to put the other plan into operation himself. “Fasten them!”

  They obeyed. Ahmed was near the water fountain and he filled a plastic cup and gave it to the Khan. Hashemi and Armstrong watched unbalanced. Neither had expected such an immediate capitulation from the Khan, The man seemed to have shrunk before their eyes, his pallor and breathing bad.

  The Khan finished the water and looked at Hashemi, his small eyes bloodshot behind his glasses. He took them off and polished them absently, trying to regain his strength. Everything seemed to be taking more time than normal. “Wait for me beside the car, Ahmed.”

  Uneasily, Ahmed obeyed. Armstrong unsnapped his belt and closed the curtain again. For a moment the Khan felt better, the chill air that came in momentarily helping to clear his head. “Now, what do you want?”

  “Your code name’s Ivanovitch. You’ve been a KGB spy and helper since January 1944. In that time y—”

  “All lies. What do you want?”

  “I want to meet Petr Oleg Mzytryk. I want to question him seriously. In secret.”

  The Khan heard the words and considered them. If this son of a dog knew Petr’s code name and his own code name and about Hidden Valley and January ’44 when he went secretly to Moscow to join the KGB, he would know other more punishable matters. That he himself was playing both sides for the good of his Azerbaijan would make little difference to the assassins of the Right or of the Left, “In return for what?”

  “Freedom to maneuver in Azerbaijan—so long as you do what is good for Iran—and a firm working relationship with me. I will give you information that will put the Tudeh, the leftists, and the Kurds into your hands—and give you evidence how the Soviets are thwarting you. For example, you’re declared Section 16/a.”

  The Khan gaped at him. His ears began roaring. “I don’t believe it!”

  “Immediate. Petr Oleg Mzytryk signed the order,” Hashemi said.

  “Pr…proof, I… I want proof,” he choked out.

  “Entice him this side of the border, alive, and I’ll give you proof—at least he will.”

  “You’re…you’re lying.”

  “Haven’t you planned to go to Tbilisi today or tomorrow, at his invitation? You would never have returned. The story would be that supposedly you had fled Iran. You’d be denounced, your possessions confiscated and family disgraced—and fed to the mullahs.” Now that Hashemi knew he had Abdollah in his grasp, the only thing that worried him was the state of the man’s health. His head now had a slight twitch to it, the normally swarthy face was pallid with a strange reddishness around the eyes and temples, the vein in his forehead prominent. “You’d better not go north, and double your guards. I could barter Petr Oleg—even better I could allow you to rescue him and…well, there are many solutions if I had possession of him.”

  “What…what do you want with him?”

  “Information.”

  “I would… I would be party to it?”

  Hashemi smiled. “Why not? Then it’s agreed?”

  The Khan’s mouth moved soundlessly. Then he said, “I will try.”

  “No,” the colonel said roughly, judging the time for the coup de grace had come. “No. You have four days. I will return Saturday. At noon Saturday I will be at your palace to take delivery. Or if you prefer, you can deliver him secretly to this address.” He put the piece of paper on the table between them. “Or, third, if you give me the time and place he comes over the border I will take care of everything.” He unsnapped his seat belt and stood up. “Four days, Ivanovitch.”

  Abdollah’s rage almost burst his eardrums. He tried to get up but failed. Armstrong helped him to stand and Hashemi went to the curtain but before he opened it, he took his automatic out of his shoulder holster. “Tell Ahmed not to trouble us.”

  Weakly the Khan stood in the open doorway and did as he was ordered. Ahmed was at the foot of the steps, his gun leveled. The wind had changed direction, now blowing toward the far end of the runway, and had picked up considerably.

  “Didn’t you hear His Highness?” the colonel called down. “Everything’s all right but he needs help.” He kept his voice reassuring. “He should perhaps see his doctor as soon as possible.”

  Ahmed was flustered, not knowing what to do. There was his Master, clearly worse than before, but here were the men who caused it—who were to be killed.

  “Help me into the car, Ahmed,” the Khan said with a curse and that settled everything. At once he obeyed. Armstrong took his other side and together they went down the stairs. Hastily the pilots got out and hurried into the airplane as Armstrong helped the sick man into the backseat. Abdollah settled himself with difficulty, Armstrong feeling more naked than he had ever been, him out in the open alone, Hashemi standing up there safely in the cabin door. The jet’s engines fired up.

  “Salaam, Highness,” he said. “I hope you’re all right.”

  “Better you leave our land quickly,” the Khan said, then to the driver, “Go back to the palace.”

  Armstrong watched the car hurrying away, then turned. He saw Hashemi’s strange smile, the half-concealed automatic in his hand, and for a moment thought the man was going to shoot him.

  “Hurry up, Robert!”

  He ran up the steps, his legs chilled. The copilot had already stabbed the Steps Retract button. The steps came up, the door closed, and they were moving. In the warmth and closeness he came to life again. “It’s cold out there,” he said.

  Hashemi paid no attention to him. “Quick as you can, Captain, take off,” he ordered, standing behind the pilots.

  “I’ll have to taxi back, sir. I daren’t take off this way with this wind up our tails.”

  Hashemi cursed and peered through the cockpit windows. The other end of the runway looked a million miles away, the wind whisking snow off the drifts. To use the proper exit ramp would take them close to the terminal parking area. They would have to cross it and use the opposite ramp to the takeoff point. Over toward the terminal the Rolls was speeding along. He could see armed men collecting to meet it. “Taxi back along the runway and do a short-field takeoff.”

  “That’s highly irregular without tower clearance,” John Hogg said.

  “Would you prefer a bullet in your head or a SAVAK jail? Those men there are hostiles. Do it!”

  Hogg could see the guns. He clicked on his transmit button. “ECHO TANGO LIMA LIMA requesting permission to backtrack,” he said, not expecting any answer—after they had cleared Tehran airspace there had been none all the way here, and no contact with this tower. He swung the jet back onto the runway, skidding, and opened the throttle some more, keeping to the left side, paralleling their landing tracks. “Tower, this is Echo Tango Lima Lima, backtracking.” Gordon Jones, the copilot, was checking everything, setting up for their Tehran inbound. The wind was tugging at them, their wheels uncertain. Over at the terminal he saw the Rolls stop and men surround it.

  “Quick as you can—turn around, there’s plenty of runway,” Hashemi said.

  “Soon as I can, sir,” John Hogg said politely, but he was thinking, bloody twit, Colonel whoever you are, I’m more than a little anxious to be up in the Wild Blue myself but I’ve got to get a run at it. He had seen the hostility of the men in the car and, at Tehran, McIver’s nervousness. But Tehran Tower had cleared him instantly, given him priority as though he were carrying Khomeini himself. Bloody hell, what we do for England and a pint of beer! His hands and feet were feeling the snow and the ice and the slipperiness of the surface. He eased off the throttles a little.

  “Look!” the copilot said. A jet helicopter was crossing the airspace, low down a mile or so ahead. “A 212, isn’t she?”

  “Yes. Doesn’t look like she’s inbound here,” Hogg said, his eyes sweeping constantly. At the terminal another car had joined the men near the Rolls; ahead to the left was a glint of light; now the 212 had gone behind a hill; to the right was a fl
ock of birds; all needles safe in the Green; more men near the Rolls and someone on the roof of the terminal building; fuel fine; snow not too deep, sheet ice underneath; watch the drift ahead; go right a little; radio’s correctly tuned; wind’s still up our tail; thunderclouds building up to the north; back a hair on the left engine!

  Hogg corrected the lurching swing, the airplane overresponsive on the icy surface. “Perhaps you’d better go back to your seat, Colonel,” he said.

  “Get airborne as fast as possible.” Hashemi went back. Armstrong was peering out of the windows toward the terminal. “What’re they doing there, Robert? Any problem?” he asked.

  “Not yet. Congratulations—you handled Abdollah brilliantly.”

  “If he delivers.” Now that it was over, Hashemi felt a little sick. Too close to death that time, he thought. He fastened his seat belt, then undid it, took the automatic from his side pocket, put the safety on, and slipped it into the shoulder holster. His fingers touched the British passport in his inner pocket. Perhaps I won’t need it after all, he thought. Good. I’d hate having to disgrace myself by using it. He lit a cigarette.

  “Do you think he’ll last till Saturday? I thought he was going to have a fit.”

  “He’s been that fat and that foul for years.”

  Armstrong heard the violent undercurrent. Hashemi Fazir was always dangerous, always on the edge, his fanatic patriotism mixed with his contempt for most Iranians. “You handled him wonderfully,” he said and looked out of the window again. The Rolls and the other car and the men surrounding them were quite far and half-hidden by the snow dunes, but he could see many guns among them and from time to time someone would point in their direction. Come on, for God’s sake, he thought, let’s get aloft.

  “Colonel”—Hogg’s voice came over the intercom—“could you come forward, please?”

  Hashemi unlocked his belt and went to the cockpit.

  “There, sir,” Hogg said pointing off to the right, past the end of the runway, to a clump of pines in front of the forest. “What do you make of that?” The tiny fleck of light began winking again. “It says SOS.”