Now over the loudspeaker: “This is Kowiss, Captain Ayre speaking. I read you loud and clear, Captain McIver.”
Both men were startled and Lochart sat upright. “Something’s wrong, Mac, he can’t talk openly—someone’s listening.”
McIver clicked on the send switch. “You’re doing your own radio, Freddy,” he said deliberately to make sure there was no mistake, “as well as putting in the hours?”
“Just happened to be here, Captain McIver.”
“Everything five by five?” This meant maximum radio signal strength, or in the vernacular of pilots, Everything okay?
After a deliberate pause that told them no, “Yes, Captain McIver.”
“Good, Captain Ayre,” McIver said, to tell him at once that he understood. “Put Captain Starke on, will you?”
“Sorry, sir, I can’t. Captain Starke’s still at Bandar Delam.”
McIver said sharply, “What’s he doing there?”
“Captain Lutz ordered him to stop over and ordered Captain Dubois to complete the VIP journey requested by IranOil—and approved by you.”
Starke had managed to get through to Tehran before taking off to explain the problem of the mullah Hussain to McIver. McIver had approved the trip as long as Colonel Peshadi okayed it, and told him to keep him advised.
“Is the 125 due in Kowiss tomorrow, Captain McIver?”
“It’s possible,” McIver replied, “but you never know.” The 125 had been scheduled for Tehran yesterday, but because of the insurrection surrounding the airport, all inbound traffic had been provisionally canceled until tomorrow, Monday. “We’re working on getting clearances for a direct into Kowiss. It’s dicey because military air traffic control are…are undermanned. The airport at Tehran is, er, jammed so we can’t get any of our dependents out. Tell Manuela to stand by in case we can get a clearance.” McIver grimaced, trying to decide how much he should say over the open airwaves, then saw Lochart motioning to him.
“Let me, Mac. Freddy can speak French,” Lochart said softly.
McIver brightened and gratefully leaned over and gave him the mike. “Écoute, Freddy,” Lochart began in Canadian French that he knew even Ayre, whose French was excellent, had difficulty in understanding. “Marxists still hold the International Airport, helped by Khomeini insurgents, supposedly with some PLO, and still hold the tower. Tonight’s major rumor is that there’s going to be a coup, that the prime minister’s approved it, that troops are finally on the move all over Tehran with orders to quell the riots and shoot to kill. What’s your problem down there? Are you all right?”
“Yes, no sweat,” they heard him reply in gutter French and innuendo; “I’m under orders to say nothing, but no real problems here, bet on it, but they’re listening. At Smelly”—their nickname for Bandar Delam where the air stank constantly of gasoline—“lots of problems and Boss was sent upward before his allotted span…”
Lochart’s eyes widened. “Kyabi’s been shot,” he muttered to McIver.
“…but old Rudi’s got everything under control and the Duke’s okay. We’d better stop this, old one. They’re listening.”
“Understand. Sit tight and tell the others if you can; also that we’re okay,” adding in English without missing a beat, “and I repeat we’ll be sending down cash for your people tomorrow.”
Ayre’s voice brightened. “No shit, old chap?”
Involuntarily Lochart laughed. “No shit. Keep a duty radio op on and we’ll call back progress. Here’s Captain McIver again. Insha’Allah!” He handed the mike back.
“Captain, have you heard from Lengeh, yesterday or today?”
“No, we tried them but couldn’t raise them. Might be the sunspots. I’ll try again now,”
“Thanks. Give my regards to Captain Scragger and remind him his medical’s due next week.” McIver smiled grimly, then added, “Make sure Captain Starke calls the moment he returns.” He signed off. Lochart told him what Ayre had said. He poured himself another whisky.
“What about me, for God’s sake?” McIver said irritably.
“But, Mac, you kn—”
“Don’t you start. Make it a light one.” As Lochart poured, McIver got up, went to the window, and stared out, seeing nothing. “Poor old Kyabi. Now there was a good man if ever there was one, good for Iran and fair to us. What’d they murder him for? Madmen! Rudi ‘ordering’ Duke and ‘ordering’ Marc—what the hell does that mean?”
“Only that there was trouble but Rudi’s got it in control. Freddy would have told me if Rudi hadn’t—he’s very sharp and his French’s good so he could’ve found a way. There was plenty of time, even though ‘they’ were listening, whoever the hell ‘they’ were,” Lochart said. “Maybe it was like at Zagros.” At Zagros the villagers from Yazdek had come at dawn the day after Lochart had arrived back from leave. Their village mullah had received Khomeini’s orders to begin the insurrection against “the illegal government of the Shah,” and to take control of his area. The mullah had been born in the village and was wise in the ways of the mountains that were snow-locked in winter and only accessible with great difficulty the rest of the year. And, too, the chief of police against whom he should lead the revolt was his nephew, and Nasiri, the base manager who was also a target, was married to his wife’s sister’s daughter who now lived in Shiraz. Even more important, they were all Galezan, a minor tribe of the nomad Kash’kai who had settled protectively—centuries ago—athwart this tiny crossroads, and the chief of police whose name was Nitchak Khan was also their kalandar, their elected tribal leader.
So, correctly, he had consulted Nitchak Khan and the Khan had agreed that a revolt should take place against their hereditary enemy the Pahlavi Shah, that to celebrate the revolution any who cared to could fire their arms at the stars and that, at dawn, he would lead the necessary investiture of the foreigners’ airfield.
They had arrived at dawn. Armed. Every man in the village. Nitchak Khan no longer wore his police uniform but tribal clothes. He was much shorter than Lochart, a hard-bodied man, spare, with hands of iron and legs of steel, a cartridge belt over his chest and rifle in his hands. By prearrangement, Lochart, accompanied by Jean-Luc Sessonne—at the Khan’s request—met them at two hastily erected columns of stones that symbolized the gate to the base. Lochart saluted and agreed that Nitchak Khan had jurisdiction over the base, the two tiers of stones were formally knocked down, there were loud cheers from all sides and many guns were fired into the air. Then Nitchak Khan presented bouquets of flowers to Jean-Luc Sessonne as a representative of France, thanking him on behalf of all the Galezan-Kash’kai for succoring and helping Khomeini who had rid them of their enemy, the Pahlavi Shah. “Thanks be to God that this self-dubbed Great King of Kings who dared sacrilege to try to connect his line back to Kings Cyrus and Darius the Great, men of courage and pride—this Light of the Aryans, this lackey of foreign devils—fled like a painted paramour from his Iraqi pasha!”
Then there were brave speeches from both sides and the feast began and Nitchak Khan, the mullah beside him, had asked Tom Lochart, tribal chief of the foreigners at Zagros Three, to continue as before under the new regime. Lochart had gravely agreed.
“Let’s hope Rudi and his lads’re as lucky as you at Zagros, Tom.” McIver turned back to the windows, knowing there was nothing he could do to help them. “Things get worse and worse,” he muttered. Kyabi’s murder’s terrible, and a very bad sign for us, he thought. How the hell can I get Genny out of Tehran and where the hell’s Charlie?
They had not heard from Pettikin since he had left yesterday morning for Tabriz. From their ground staff at Galeg Morghi they had had garbled reports—that Pettikin had been kidnapped and forced to fly off with “three unknown persons,” or that “three Iranian Air Force pilots hijacked the 206 and fled for the border,” or that “the three passengers were high-ranking officers fleeing the country.” Why three passengers in every story? McIver had asked himself. He knew Pettikin must have got to the airfie
ld safely because his car was still there, though the tanks were dry, the radio torn out, and the car vandalized. Bandar-e Pahlavi, where he was to have refueled, was silent—Tabriz was hardly ever in range. He cursed silently. It had been a bad day for McIver.
All day irate creditors had arrived to harass him, the phones weren’t working, the telex got jammed and took hours to clear, and his meeting at noon with General Valik who Gavallan had promised would supply cash weekly, was a disaster.
“As soon as the banks open we’ll pay what is owed.”
“For God’s sake, you’ve been saying that for weeks,” McIver said coldly, “I need money now.”
“So do we all,” the general had hissed back, shaking with rage, but very conscious of the Iranian employees in the outer office who would be sure to be listening. “There’s civil war going on and I can’t open the banks. You’ll have to wait.” He was a rotund man, balding, with darkish skin, an ex-army general, his clothes expensive, his watch expensive. He dropped his voice even lower. “If it wasn’t for stupid Americans who betrayed the Shah and persuaded him to curb our glorious armed forces, we wouldn’t be in this mess!”
“I’m British as you well know and you brought the mess on yourself.”
“British, American, what’s the difference? It’s all your fault. You both betrayed our Shah and Iran and now you’re going to pay for it!”
“With what?” McIver asked sourly. “You’ve got all our money.”
“If it wasn’t for your Iranian partners—me particularly—you wouldn’t have any money. Andy’s not complaining. I had a telex from my revered colleague, General Javadah, that Andy was signing the new Guerney contracts this week.”
“Andy said he had a telex from you confirming that you promised him you’d provide us with cash.”
“I promised I’d try.” The general curbed his rage with an effort, for he needed McIver’s cooperation. He mopped his forehead and opened his briefcase. It was stuffed with high-denomination rials but he held the top carefully so it was impossible for McIver to see inside, then brought out a small sheaf of notes, closing the briefcase. With great deliberation he counted out 500,000 rials—about $6,000. “There,” he said with a great flourish, putting the rials on the table and the rest away again, “Next week I or one of my colleagues will bring some more. A receipt, please.”
“Thank you.” McIver signed the receipt. “When can we exp—”
“Next week. If the banks open we can settle everything. We’re always good as our word. Always. Haven’t we arranged the Guerney contracts?” Valik leaned forward and dropped his voice even more. “Now, I have a special charter. Tomorrow I want a 212, to leave sometime in the morning.”
“To go where?”
“I need to inspect some facilities at Abadan,” Valik said and McIver noticed the sweat.
“And how will I get the necessary permissions, General? With all your airspace controlled by the military and w—”
“Don’t bother with permission, just hav—”
“Unless we’ve a flight plan, approved by the military in advance, it’s an illegal flight.”
“You can always say you asked for permission and it was given verbally. What’s so difficult about that?”
“First it’s against Iranian law, General, your law, second even if cleared verbally and the aircraft got out of Tehran airspace, you’ve still got to give the next military air traffic controller your recorded number—all flight plans are recorded at your air force HQ and they’re even more twitchy about helicopters than civilians—and if you don’t have one the controller will say get your tail down at the next military base and report to the tower. And when you land, they’ll meet you very irritably—and correctly—in force, my aircraft will be impounded, and the passengers and crew put in jail.”
“Then find a way. It’s a very important charter. The, er, the Guerney contracts depend on it. Just have the 212 ready at nine o’clock, say at Galeg Morghi.”
“Why there? Why not at the International Airport?”
“It’s more convenient…and quiet now.”
McIver frowned. It was well within Valik’s authority to ask for and authorize such a flight. “Very well, I’ll try.” He pulled out the pad of blank flight plan forms, noticed that the last copy referred to Pettikin’s flight to Tabriz and again his anxiety mounted—where the devil is he? Under “passengers” he put General Valik, chairman of IHC, and handed it to him. “Please sign under authority.”
Valik shoved the form back imperiously. “There’s no need for my name to be put on it—just put four passengers—my wife and two children will be with me, and some luggage. We will be staying in Abadan for a week, then returning. Just have the 212 ready at 9:00 A.M. at Galeg Morghi.”
“Sorry, General, the names have to be on the clearance or the air force won’t even accept the flight plan. All passengers have to be named. I’ll apply for clearance but I don’t hold out much hope for you.” McIver began to add the other names.
“No, stop! No need to give our names. Just put down the trip’s to send some spares to Abadan. Surely there are some spares you need to send there.” The sweat was beading him.
“All right, but first please sign the authority, with the name of all passengers and your final destination.”
The general’s face reddened. “Just arrange it without involving me. At once!”
“I can’t.” McIver was becoming equally impatient. “I repeat, the military will want to know all the ‘who’ and the ‘where’—they’re as sticky now as flypaper. We’ll get even more searching enquiries than usual because we haven’t had any traffic in weeks going that way. Tehran’s not like in the south where we’re flying all day.”
“This is a special flight for spares. Simple.”
“It isn’t simple at all. Sentries at Galeg Morghi wouldn’t let you aboard without papers, nor would the tower. They’d see you going aboard, for God’s sake.” McIver stared at him exasperated. “Why don’t you arrange the clearance yourself, General? You’ve the best connections in Iran. You’ve certainly made that clear. For you it should be simple.”
“They’re all our planes. We own them—own them!”
“Yes, you do,” McIver said as grimly. “When you’ve paid for them—you owe us almost 4 million U.S. in back payments. If you want to go to Abadan that’s your business, but if they catch you doing it in an S-G chopper with false papers which I must countersign, you’ll land in jail, your family’ll be in jail along with me and the pilot, and they’ll impound our aircraft and close us down forever.” Just the thought of jail made him feel bilious. If a tenth of the stories about SAVAK and Iranian jails were true, they were no places to be.
Valik choked back his rage. He sat down and put a sickly smile on his face. “There’s no need for us to quarrel, Mac, we’ve been through too much together. I, I will make it very worthwhile, eh? Both to you and the pilot.” He opened the briefcase. “Eh? 12 million rials—between you.”
McIver looked at the money blankly. 12 million was about $150,000—over 100,000 pounds sterling. Numbly, he shook his head.
At once Valik said, “All right, 12 million each—and expenses—half now and half when we’re safe at Kuwait Airport, eh?”
McIver was in shock, not only because of the money but because Valik had openly said “Kuwait” which McIver had suspected but had not wished to think about. This was a complete 180-degree turn from everything that Valik had been saying for months: for months he had been bullish about the Shah crushing the opposition, then Khomeini. And even after the Shah’s unbelievable departure and Khomeini’s astonishing return to Tehran—my God, was that only ten days ago?—Valik had said a dozen times that there was nothing to worry about, for Bakhtiar and the generals of the Imperial Staff held the complete balance of power and would never permit “this Khomeini-covert Communist revolution to succeed.” Nor would the United States permit it. Never. At the right time the services would seize power and take over. On
ly yesterday Valik had confidently repeated it and said he’d heard that any hour the army was going to move in force and that the Immortals at Doshan Tappeh, putting down the small air force mutiny, was the first sign.
McIver tore his gaze off the money and looked at the eyes of the man opposite. “What do you know that we don’t know?”
“What’re you talking about?” Valik began to bluster. “I don’t know an—”
“Something’s happened, what is it?”
“I’ve got to get out, with my family,” Valik said, on the edge of desperation now. “Rumors are terrible—coup or civil war, Khomeini or not, I’m, we’re, we’re marked. Do you understand? It’s my family, Mac, I’ve got to get out, until things quiet down. 12 million each, eh?”
“What rumors?”
“Rumors!” Valik almost spat at him. “Get the clearance any way you can. I pay in advance.”
“However much money you offer I won’t do it. It has to be straight.”
“You stupid hypocrite! Straight? How have you been operating all these years in Iran? Pishkesh! How much have you yourself paid under the counter—or to customs men? Pishkesh! How do you think we get contracts, eh? The Guerney contracts? Pishkesh! By putting cash, quietly, into the right hands. Are you so stupid you still don’t know Iranian ways?”
McIver said as grimly, “I know pishkesh, I’m not stupid, and I know Iran has its own ways. Oh, yes, Iran has its own ways. The answer’s no.”
“Then the blood of my children and my wife are on your head. And mine.”
“What’re you talking about?”
“Are you afraid of the truth?”
McIver stared at him. Valik’s wife and two children were favorites of Genny’s and his. “What makes you so sure?”
“I’ve… I’ve a cousin in the police. He saw a…a secret SAVAK list. I am to be arrested the day after tomorrow along with many other prominent persons as a sop to the…the opposition. And my family. And you know how they treat…how they can treat women and children in front of the…” Valik’s words trailed off.
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