Whirlwind

by James Clavell

  “They’re American. You’re American. The CIA’s American. All our problems come from America. The Shah’s greed’s American. All our problems come from America. For years Iran’s been spat on by Americans.”

  “Bullshit,” Starke said in English, now equally angry, knowing the only way to deal with a bully was to come out swinging. At once. He saw the man flush. He looked back, unafraid, letting the silence hang. The seconds ticked by. His eyes held the mullah’s. But he couldn’t dominate him. Unsettled but trying to appear calm, he glanced at Peshadi who waited and watched, smoking quietly. “What’s this all about, Colonel?”

  “The mullah has asked for one of your helicopters to visit all the oil installations in our area. As you’re aware we don’t plan your routes or participate in your operations. You will arrange for one of your best pilots to do this. Today, starting at midday.”

  “Why not use one of your airplanes? Perhaps I could supply a navig—”

  “No. One of your helicopters with your personnel. At midday.”

  Starke turned to the mullah. “Sorry, but I only take orders from IranOil, through our base manager and their area rep, Esvandiary. We’re under contract to them and they’re exclus—”

  “The airplanes you fly, they’re Iranian,” the mullah interrupted harshly, his exhaustion and pain welling up again, wanting a finish. “You will provide one as required.”

  “They’re Iranian registry, but owned by S-G Helicopters Ltd of Aberdeen.”

  “Iranian registry, in Iranian skies, filled with Iranian gasoline, authorized by Iranians, servicing Iranian rigs pumping Iranian oil, by God. They’re Iranian!” Hussain’s thin mouth twisted. “Esvandiary will give the necessary flight orders by noon. How long will it take to visit all your sites?”

  After a pause Starke said, “Airtime, maybe six hours. How long do you plan to spend at each setdown?”

  The mullah just looked at him. “After that I want to follow the pipeline to Abadan and land where I choose.”

  Starke’s eyes widened. He glanced at the colonel but saw that the man was still pointedly watching the spirals of smoke from his cigarette. “That one’s more difficult, mullah. We’d need clearances. Radar’s not working, most of that airspace’s controlled by Kish Air Traffic Control and that’s, er, air force controlled.”

  “Whatever clearance is needed you will get,” Hussain said with finality and turned his eyes inflexibly on Peshadi. “In the Name of God, I come back at noon: if you stand in my way, the guns begin.”

  Starke could feel his heart pumping and the mullah could feel his heart pumping and so could Peshadi. Only the mullah was content—there was no need for him to worry, he was in the Hands of God, doing God’s work, obeying orders: “Press the enemy in every way. Be like water flowing downhill to the dam. Press against the dam of the usurper Shah, his lackeys, and the armed forces. We have to win them over with courage and blood. Press them in every way, you do God’s work…”

  A wind rattled the window and, involuntarily, they glanced at it and at the night beyond. The night was still black, the stars brilliant, but to the east there was the glimmer of dawn, the sun just under the rim of the sky.

  “I will return at noon, Colonel Peshadi, alone or with many. You choose,” Hussain said quietly, and Starke felt the threat—or promise—with all of his being. “But now, now it is time for prayer.” He forced himself to his feet, his hands still burning with pain, his back and head and ears still aching monstrously. For a moment he felt he was going to faint but he fought off the giddiness and the pain and strode out.

  Peshadi got up. “You will do as he asks. Please,” he added as a great concession. “It is a temporary truce and temporary compromise—until we have final orders from His Imperial Majesty’s legal government when we will stop all this nonsense.” Shakily he lit a cigarette from the butt of the last. “You have no problem. He will provide the necessary permissions so it will be a routine VIP flight. Routine. Of course you must agree because of course I can’t allow one of my military airplanes to service a mullah, particularly Hussain who’s renowned for his sedition! Of course not! It was a brilliant finesse on my part and you will not destroy it.” Angrily he stubbed out the cigarette, the ashtray full now, the air nicotine-laden, and he almost shouted, “You heard what he said. At noon! Alone or with many. Do you want more blood spilled? Eh?”

  “Of course not.”

  “Good. Then do what you’re told!” Peshadi stormed off.

  Grimly Starke went to the window. The mullah had taken his place near the gate, raised his arms, and, like every muezzin from every minaret at every dawn in Islam, called the Faithful to first prayer in the time-honored Arabic: “Come to prayer, come to progress, prayer is better than sleep. There is no other God but God…”

  And as Starke watched, Peshadi devoutly took his place at the head of all the men of the base, all ranks, who obediently, and with obvious gladness, had streamed out of their barracks, soldiers laying down their rifles on the ground beside them, villagers outside the fence equally devout. Then, following the lead of the mullah, they all turned toward Mecca, and began the obligatory movements, prostrations, and Shahada litany: “I testify there is no other God but God, and Mohammed is the Prophet of God…”

  When the prayer was finished there was a great silence. Everyone waited. Then the mullah called out loudly: “God, the Koran, and Khomeini.” Then he went through the gates toward Kowiss. Obediently, the villagers followed him.

  Starke shivered in spite of himself. That mullah’s so full of hate it’s coming out of his pores. And so much hate’s got to blow something or someone to hell. If I fly him maybe it’ll make him worse. If I assign someone or ask for a volunteer that’s ducking it because it’s my responsibility.

  “I have to fly him,” he muttered. “Have to.”

  OFF LENGEH: 6:42 A.M. The 212, with two pilots and a full load of thirteen passengers, was on a routine flight, outward bound into the Strait of Hormuz from her S-G base at Lengeh, heading over the placid water of the Gulf for the French-developed Siri oil field. The sun just over the horizon with the promise of another fine cloudless day, though haze, routine over the Gulf, brought visibility down to a few miles.

  “Chopper EP-HST, this is Kish radar control, turn to 260 degrees.”

  Obediently, she went on to her new heading. “260 at one thousand,” Ed Vossi answered.

  “Maintain one thousand. Report overhead Siri.” Unlike most of Iran, radar here was good, with stations at Kish Island and Lavan Island, manned by excellent USAF-trained Iranian Air Force operators—both ends of the Gulf were equally strategic and equally well serviced.

  “HST.” Ed Vossi was an American—ex-USAF, thirty-two, and built like a linebacker. “Radar’s jumpy today, huh, Scrag?” he said to the other pilot.

  “Too right. Must be their piles.”

  Ahead now was the small island of Siri. It was barren, desolate, and low-lying, with a small dirt airstrip, a few barracks for oil personnel, and a cluster of huge storage tanks that were fed by pipes laid on the seabed from rigs that were westward in the Gulf. The island lay about sixty miles off the Iranian coast, just inside the international boundary that bisected the Strait of Hormuz and separated Iranian waters from those of Oman and the United Arab Emirates.

  Directly over the oil tanks, the chopper banked smoothly, heading westward, her first stop some miles away on the oil rig called Siri Three. At present the field had six working rigs, all operated by the French semigovernment consortium, EPF, that had developed the field for IranOil against future shipments of oil. “Kish radar control, HST over Siri at one thousand feet,” Ed Vossi said into the boom mike.

  “Roger HST. Maintain one thousand,” came back instantly. “Report before you let down. You have outbound traffic ahead of you at ten o’clock, climbing.”

  “We have them in sight.” The two pilots watched the flight of four closely packed fighter jets soaring into the high skies, going past them for t
he mouth of the strait.

  “They’re in a hurry,” the older man said and shifted in his seat.

  “You can say that again. Lookit! Jesus, they’re USAF, F15s!” Vossi was astonished. “Shit, I didn’t know any were in this area. You seen any before, Scrag?”

  “No, mate,” Scrag Scragger said, equally concerned, making a slight adjustment to the volume of his headset. At sixty-three, he was the oldest pilot in S-G, senior pilot at Lengeh, a wizened little man, very thin, very tough, with grizzled gray hair and deep-set, light-blue Australian eyes that always seemed to be searching the horizon. His accent was interesting. “I’d like to know wot the hell’s up. Radar’s as itchy as a roo in a twiddle and that’s the third flight we’ve seen since we got airborne, though the first Yankee.”

  “Gotta be a task force, Scrag. Or maybe they’re escort fighters the U.S. sent to Saudi Arabia, with the AWACs.”

  Scragger was sitting in the left seat, acting as training captain. Normally the 212 used a single-pilot configuration, the pilot in the right seat, but Scragger had had this airplane fitted with dual controls for training purposes. “Well,” he said with a laugh, “so long as we don’t spot MIGs we’re in good shape.”

  “The Reds won’t send equipment down here, much as they want the strait.” Vossi was very confident. He was barely half Scragger’s age and almost twice his size. “They won’t so long as we tell them they’d better the hell not—and have airplanes and task forces and the will to use them.” He squinted down through the haze. “Hey, Scrag, lookit.”

  The huge supertanker was heavily burdened, low in the water, steaming ponderously outward bound toward Hormuz. “I’ll bet she’s five hundred thousand tons or more.” They watched her for a moment. Sixty percent of the free world’s oil went through this shallow, narrow waterway between Iran and Oman, barely fifteen miles across where the neck was navigable. Twenty million barrels a day. Every day.

  “You think they’ll ever build a million-ton tanker, Scrag?”

  “Sure. Sure they’ll build her if they want, Ed.” The ship passed below them. “She was flying a Liberian flag,” Scragger said absently.

  “You got eyes like an eagle.”

  “It’s all my clean living, sport.” Scragger glanced around into the cabin. All the passengers were in their seats, belts on, regulation Mae West life jackets on, ear protectors on, reading or looking out of the windows. Everything normal, he thought. Yes, and instruments’re normal, sounds’re normal, I’m normal and so’s Ed. Then why’m I itchy? he asked himself, turning back once more.

  Because of the task force, because of Kish radar, because of the passengers, because it’s your birthday, and most of all because you’re airborne and the only way you stay alive airborne is to be itchy. Amen. He laughed out loud.

  “What’s up, Scrag?”

  “You’re up, that’s wot. So you think you’re a pilot, right?”

  “Sure, Scrag,” Vossi said cautiously.

  “Okay. You’ve pegged Siri Three?”

  Vossi grinned and pointed at the distant rig that was barely visible in the haze, slightly east of the cluster.

  Scragger beamed. “Then close your eyes.”

  “Aw c’me on, Scrag, sure this’s a check flight but how about le—”

  “I got control,” Scragger said happily. Instantly Vossi relinquished the controls. “Now close your eyes ’cause you’re under training.” Confidently the young man took a last careful look at the target rig, adjusted his headset, took off his dark glasses, and obeyed.

  Scragger handed Vossi the special pair of dark goggles he had had made. “Here, put ’em on and don’t open your eyes till I say. Get ready to take control.”

  Vossi put on the goggles, and smoothly, still with his eyes closed, his hands and feet reached out, barely touching the controls as he knew Scragger liked. “Okay. Ready, Scrag.”

  “You got her.”

  At once Vossi took over the controls, firmly and lightly, and was pleased that the transition was smooth, the airplane staying straight and level. He was flying now with only his ears to guide him, trying to anticipate the slightest variation in engine note—slowing down or speeding up—that would indicate he was climbing or descending. Now a small change. He anticipated nicely, almost sensing it before it happened, that the pitch was rising, therefore the engines were gathering speed and therefore the chopper was diving. He made the correction and brought her level again.

  “Good on you, sport,” Scragger said approvingly. “Now open your eyes.”

  Vossi had expected the usual training glasses that excluded outside visibility but allowed you to see the instruments. He found himself in total blackness. In sudden panic, his concentration vanished and with it his coordination. For a split second he was totally disoriented, his stomach reeling as he knew the airplane would reel. But it didn’t. The controls stayed rock firm in Scragger’s hands that he had not felt on the controls.

  “Jesssus,” Vossi gasped, fighting his nausea, automatically reaching up to tear off the goggles.

  “Keep ’em on! Ed, this’s an emergency, you’re the pilot, the only pilot aboard and you’re in trouble—you can’t see. Wot’re you going to do? Take the controls! Come on! Emergency!”

  There was bile in Vossi’s mouth and he spat it out, his hands and feet nervous. He took the controls, overcorrected, and almost cried out in panic as they lurched, for he was expecting that Scragger would still be monitoring them. But he wasn’t. Again Vossi overcorrected, totally disoriented. This time Scragger minimized the mistake.

  “Settle down, Ed,” he ordered. “Listen to the bloody engine! Get your hands and feet in tune.” Then more gently: “Steady now, you’re doing fine, steady now. You can vomit later. You’re in an emergency, you’ve got to put her down, and you got thirteen passengers aft. Me, I’m here beside you but I’m not a bleeding pilot, now wot you going to do?”

  Vossi’s hands and feet were together again and his ears listening to the engine. “I can’t see but you can?”

  “Right.”

  “Then you can talk me down!”

  “Right!” Scragger’s voice edged. “Course you got to ask the right questions. Kish Control, HST leaving one thousand for Siri Three.”

  “Roger, HST.”

  Scragger’s voice became different. “My name’s Burt from now on. I’m a roustabout off one of the rigs. I know nothing about flying but I can read a dial—if you tell me proper where to look.”

  Happily Vossi hurled himself into the game and asked the right questions, “Burt” forcing him to use the limits of his knowledge of flight control, cockpit control, where the dials were, making him ask what only an amateur could understand and answer. From time to time when he was not accurate enough, Burt, with rising hysteria would screech, “Jesus, I can’t find the dial, which dial for Christ’s sake, they’re all the bloody same! Explain again, explain slower, oh, God we’re all going to die…”

  For Vossi the darkness fed on darkness. Time became stretched, no friendly dials or needles to reassure him, nothing but the voice forcing him to his own utmost limits.

  When they were at fifty feet on their approach, Burt calling out landing advice, Vossi was nauseous, terrified in the darkness, knowing that the tiny landing circle on the oil rig was coming up to meet him. You’ve still time to abort, to put on power and get to hell out of here and wait it out aloft, but for how long?

  “Now you’re ten feet up and ten yards away just like you wanted.”

  At once Vossi put her into hover, the sweat pouring off him.

  “You’re perfect, just over the dead center, just like you wanted.”

  The blackness had never been more intense. Nor his fear. Vossi muttered a prayer. Gently he eased off power. It seemed to take a lifetime and another and another and then the skids touched and they were down. For an instant he didn’t believe it. His relief was so intense that he almost wept for joy. Then, from a great distance, he heard Scragger’s real voice and fe
lt the controls taken over. “I got her, sport! That was bloody good, Ed. Ten out of ten. I’ll take her now.”

  Ed Vossi pulled off the goggles. He was soaking, his face chalky, and he slumped in his seat, hardly seeing the activity on the working rig before him, the heavy rope net spread over the landing pad that was a bare thirty yards in diameter. Jesus, I’m down, we’re down and safe.

  Scragger had put the engines to idle; no need to shut down as this was a short stop. He was humming “Waltzing Matilda” which he did only when he was very pleased. The lad did very well, he thought, his flying’s bonzer. But how fast will he recover? Always wise to know, and where his balls are—when you fly with someone.

  He turned and gave the thumbs-up to the man in the side front seat of the cabin, one of the French engineers who had to check electrical pumping equipment that had just been installed on this rig. The rest of the passengers waited patiently. Four were Japanese, guests of the French officials and engineers from EPF. Scragger had been disquieted about carrying Japanese—pulled back to memories of his war days, memories of Australian losses in the Pacific war and the thousands who died in the Japanese POW camps and on the Burma railway. Murders more like, he told himself darkly, then turned his attention to the off-loading.

  The engineer had opened the door and was now helping Iranian deck laborers take packing cases from the cargo hatch. It was hot and humid on the deck, enervating, and the air stank of oil fumes. In the cockpit it was scorching as usual, humidity bad, but Scragger was comfortable. The engines were idling and sounding sweet. He glanced at Vossi, still slumped in his seat, his hands behind his neck, gathering himself.

  He’s a good lad, Scragger thought, then the dominating voice in the cabin behind him attracted his attention. It was Georges de Plessey, chief of the French officials and EPF’s area manager. He was sitting on the arm of one of the seats, delivering another of his interminable lectures, this time to the Japanese. Better them’n me, Scragger told himself amused. He had known de Plessey for three years and liked him—for the French food he provided and the quality of his bridge which they both enjoyed, but not for his conversation. Oil men’re all the same, oil’s all they know and all they want to know, and as far as they’re concerned all the rest of us are here on earth to consume the stuff, pay through the bloody nose for it till we’re dead—and even then most crematoriums’re oil fired. Bloody hell! Oil’s skyrocketed to $14.80 a barrel, $4.80 a couple of years ago, and $1.80 a few years before that. Bloody highway robbers, the bloody lot, OPEC, the Seven Sisters, and even North Sea oil!