Whirlwind

by James Clavell

  “Yes. But please, I cannot accept all this. Give her what you like, not me. I must be allowed to do the best I can.”

  “I’m sure you will. Meanwhile, this is all my gift to you, not to her. This makes my gift of her to you possible.”

  “Give it to her not t—”

  Jared Bakravan had said sharply, “It is the Will of God that man is the master of the house. If it is not your house then you will not be the master. I must insist. I am head of the family and Sharazad will do what I say and for Sharazad I must insist, or the wedding cannot take place. I realize your Western dilemma though I don’t understand it, my son. But here Iranian ways dominate all else, and family looks after family…”

  In the vast loneliness of the sitting room Lochart nodded to himself. That’s right and I chose Sharazad, chose to accept but…but that sonofabitch Valik threw it all in my face and made me feel dirty again and I hate him for it, hate not paying for everything, and know the only gift I can give her is freedom she would never otherwise have and my life if need be. At least she’s Canadian now and doesn’t have to stay.

  Don’t fool yourself, she’s Iranian and always will be. Would she be at home in Vancouver, B.C., with all that rain, no family, no friends, and nothing Iranian? Yes, yes, I think so; for a time I’d make up for all the other. For a while, of course not forever.

  It was the first time he had confronted the real problem looming between them. Our Iran’s gone forever, the old one, the Shah one. Never mind that perhaps the new will be better. She’ll adapt and so will I. I speak Farsi and she’s my wife and Jared’s powerful. If we have to leave temporarily, I’ll make up for the temporary parting, no problem there. The future’s still rosy and good and I love her so very much and bless God for her…

  The fire was almost finished now and he smelled the comforting, burned wood fragrance and, with it, a thread of her perfume. The cushions still held the indentations where they had lain and though he was totally satisfied and spent, he ached for her. She’s really one of the houris, the spirits of Paradise, he thought sleepily. I’m in her spell and that’s wonderful, I’ve no complaints and if I died tonight I know what Paradise is like. She’s wonderful, Jared’s wonderful, in due course her children will be wonderful and her family…

  Ah, family! Family looks after family, that’s the law, I have to do what Valik asked, like it or not. Have to, her father made that clear.

  The last of the embers spluttered and, in dying, momentarily blazed up. “What’s so important about a few spares and a few rials?” he asked the flames.

  The flames did not answer him.

  MONDAY

  February 12

  AT TABRIZ ONE: 7:12 A.M. Charlie Pettikin was fitfully asleep, curled up on a mattress on the floor under a single blanket, his hands tied in front of him. It was just dawn and very cold. The guards had not allowed him a portable gas fire and he was locked into the section of Erikki Yokkonen’s cabin that would normally be a storeroom. Ice glistened on the inside of the panes of glass in the small window. The window was barred on the outside. Snow covered the sill.

  His eyes opened and he jerked upright, startled, not knowing where he was for the moment. Then his memory flooded back and he hunched against the wall, his whole body aching. “What a damned mess!” he muttered, trying to ease his shoulders. With both hands he awkwardly wiped the sleep out of his eyes, and rubbed his face, feeling filthy. The stubble of his beard was flecked with gray. Hate being unshaved, he thought.

  Today’s Monday. I got here Saturday at sunset and they caught me yesterday morning. Bastards!

  On Saturday evening there had been many noises around the cabin that had added to his disquiet. Once he was sure he heard muffled voices. Quietly he doused the lights, slid the bolt back, and stood on the stoop, the Very pistol in his hand. With great care he had searched the darkness. Then he saw, or thought he saw, a movement thirty yards away, then another farther off.

  “Who are you?” he called out, his voice echoing strangely. “What do you want?”

  No one answered him. Another movement. Where? Thirty forty yards away—difficult to judge distances at night. Look, there’s another! Was it a man? Or just an animal or the shadow of a branch. Or perhaps—what was that? Over there by the big pine. “You! Over there! What do you want?”

  No answer. He could not make out if it was a man or not. Enraged and even a little frightened he aimed and pulled the trigger. The banggg seemed like a clap of thunder and echoed off the mountains and the red flare ripped toward the tree, ricocheted off it in a shower of sparks, sprayed into another to bury itself spluttering and spitting in a snowdrift. He waited.

  Nothing happened. Noises in the forest, the roof of the hangar creaking, wind in the treetops, sometimes snow falling from an overladen tree branch that sprang back, free once more. Making a big show he angrily stamped his feet against the cold, switched on the light, loaded the pistol again, and rebolted the door. “You’re getting to be an old woman in your old age,” he said aloud, then added, “Bullshit! I hate the quiet, hate being alone, hate snow, hate the cold, hate being scared and this morning at Galeg Morghi shook me, God curse it and that’s a fact—but for young Ross I know that SAVAK bastard would’ve killed me!”

  He checked that the door was barred and all the windows, closed the curtains against the night, then poured a large vodka and mixed it with some frozen orange juice that was in the freezer and sat in front of the fire and collected himself. There were eggs for breakfast and he was armed. The gas fire worked well. It was cozy. After a while he felt better, safer. Before he went to bed in the spare bedroom, he rechecked the locks. When he was satisfied he took off his flying boots and lay on the bed. Soon he was asleep.

  In the morning the night fear had disappeared. After a breakfast of fried eggs on fried bread, just as he liked it, he tidied the room, put on his padded flying gear, unbolted the door, and a submachine gun was shoved in his face, six of the revolutionaries crowded into the room and the questioning began. Hours of it.

  “I’m not a spy, not American. I keep telling you I’m British,” over and over.

  “Liar, your papers say you’re South African. By Allah, are they false too?” The leader—the man who called himself Fedor Rakoczy—was tough-looking, taller, and older than the others, with hard brown eyes, his English accented. The same questions over and over: “Where do you come from, why are you here, who is your CIA superior, who is your contact here, where is Erikki Yokkonen?”

  “I don’t know. I’ve told you fifty times I don’t know—there was no one here when I landed at sunset last night. I was sent to pick him up, him and his wife. They had business in Tehran.”

  “Liar! They ran away in the night, two nights ago. Why should they run away if you were coming to pick them up?”

  “I’ve told you. I was not expected. Why should they run away? Where’re Dibble and Arberry, our mechanics? Where’s our manager Dayati and wh—”

  “Who is your CIA contact in Tabriz?”

  “I haven’t one. We’re a British company and I demand to see our consul in Tabriz. I dem—”

  “Enemies of the People cannot demand anything! Even mercy. It is the Will of God that we are at war. In war people get shot!”

  The questioning had gone on all morning. In spite of his protests they had taken all his papers, his passport with the vital exit and residence permits, and had bound him and thrown him in here with dire threats if he attempted to run away. Later, Rakoczy and two guards had returned. “Why didn’t you tell me you brought the spares for the 212?”

  “You didn’t ask me,” Pettikin had said angrily. “Who the hell are you? Give me back my papers. I demand to see the British consul. Undo my hands, goddamnit!”

  “God will strike you if you blaspheme! Down on your knees and beg God’s forgiveness.” They forced him to kneel. “Beg forgiveness!”

  He obeyed, hating them.

  “You fly a 212 as well as a 206?”

 
“No,” he said, awkwardly getting to his feet.

  “Liar! It’s on your license.” Rakoczy had thrown it on the table. “Why do you lie?”

  “What’s the difference? You believe nothing I say. You won’t believe the truth. Of course I know it’s on my license. Didn’t I see you take it? Of course I fly a 212 if I’m rated.”

  “The komiteh will judge you and sentence you,” Rakoczy had said with a finality that sent a shock wave up his spine. Then they had left him.

  At sunset they had brought him some rice and soup and gone away again. He had slept hardly at all and now, in the dawn, he knew how helpless he was. His fear began to rise up. Once in Vietnam he had been shot down and caught and sentenced to death by the Viet Cong but his squadron had come back for him with gunships and Green Berets and they had shot up the village and the Viet Cong with it. That was another time that he had escaped a certainty. “Never bet on death until you’re dead. Thataway, old buddy,” his young American commander had said, “thataway you sleep nights.” The commander had been Conroe Starke. Their helicopter squadron had been mixed, American and British and some Canadian, based at Da Nang. What another bloody mess that was!

  Wonder how Duke’s doing now? he thought. Lucky bastard. Lucky to be safe at Kowiss and lucky to have Manuela. Now there’s one smasher and built like a koala bear—cuddly, with those big brown eyes of hers, and just the right amount of curves.

  He let his mind wander, wondering about her and Starke, about where were Erikki and Azadeh, about that Vietnam village—and about the young Captain Ross and his men. But for him! Ross was another savior. In this life you have to have saviors to survive, those curious people who miraculously come into your life for no apparent reason just in time to give you the chance you desperately need, or to extract you from disaster or danger or evil. Do they appear because you prayed for help? At the very edge you always pray, somehow, even if it’s not to God. But God has many names.

  He remembered old Soames at the embassy with his, “Don’t forget, Charlie, Mohammed the Prophet proclaimed that Allah—God—has three thousand names. A thousand are known only to the angels, a thousand only to the prophets, three hundred are in the Torah, the Old Testament, another three hundred in the Zabur, that’s the Psalms of David, another three hundred in the New Testament, and ninety-nine in the Koran. That makes two thousand nine hundred and ninety nine. One name has been hidden by God. In Arabic it’s called: Ism Allah ala’zam: the Greatest Name of God. Everyone who reads the Koran will have read it without knowing it. God is wise to hide His Greatest Name, eh?”

  Yes, if there is a God, Pettikin thought, cold and aching.

  Just before noon Rakoczy returned with his two men. Astonishingly, Rakoczy politely helped him to his feet and began undoing his bonds. “Good morning, Captain Pettikin. So sorry for the mistake. Please follow me.” He led the way into the main room. Coffee was on the table. “Do you drink coffee black or English style with milk and sugar?”

  Pettikin was rubbing his chafed wrists, trying to get his mind working. “What’s this? The prisoner was offered a hearty breakfast?”

  “Sorry, I don’t understand.”

  “Nothing.” Pettikin stared at him, still not sure. “With milk and sugar.” The coffee tasted wonderful and revived him. He helped himself to more. “So it’s a mistake, all a mistake?”

  “Yes. I, er, checked your story and it was correct, God be praised. You will leave immediately. To return to Tehran.”

  Pettikin’s throat felt tight at his sudden reprieve—apparent reprieve, he thought suspiciously. “I need fuel. All our fuel’s been stolen, there’s no fuel in our dump.”

  “Your aircraft has been refueled. I supervised it myself.”

  “You know about choppers?” Pettikin was wondering why the man appeared so nervous.

  “A little.”

  “Sorry, but I, er, I don’t know your name.”

  “Smith. Mr. Smith.” Fedor Rakoczy smiled. “You will leave now, please. At once.”

  Pettikin found his flying boots and pulled them on. The other men watched him silently. He noted they were carrying Soviet machine pistols. On the table by the door was his overnight bag. Beside it were his documents. Passport, visa, work permit, and Iranian CAA-issued flying license. Trying to keep the astonishment off his face, he made sure they were all there and stuck them in his pocket. When he went for the refrigerator, one of the men stood in his way and motioned him away. “I’m hungry,” Pettikin said, still very suspicious.

  “There’s something to eat in your plane. Follow me, please.”

  Outside, the air smelled very good to him, the day crisp and fine with a clean, very blue sky. To the west more snow clouds were building. Eastward, the way over the pass was clear. All around him the forest sparkled, the light refracted by the snow. In front of the hangar was the 206, windshield cleaned, all windows cleaned. Nothing had been touched inside though his map case was now in a side pocket, not beside his seat where he normally left it. Very carefully he began a preflight check.

  “Please to hurry,” Rakoczy said.

  “Of course.” Pettikin made a great show of hurrying but he didn’t, missing nothing in his inspection, all his senses tuned to find a subtle sabotage, or even a crude one. Gas checked out, oil, everything. He could see and feel their growing nervousness. There was still no one else on the base. In the hangar he could see the 212 with its engine parts still neatly spread out. The spares that he had brought had been put on a bench nearby.

  “Now you are ready.” Rakoczy said it as an order. “Get in, you will refuel at Bandar-e Pahlavi as before.” He turned to the others, embraced both of them hastily, and got into the right seat. “Start up and leave at once. I am coming to Tehran with you.” He gripped his machine gun with his knees, buckled himself in, locked the door neatly, then lifted the headset from its hook behind him and put it on, clearly accustomed to the inside of a cockpit.

  Pettikin noticed that the other two had taken up defensive positions facing the road. He pressed the Engine Start. Soon the whine and the familiarity—and the fact that “Smith” was aboard and therefore sabotage unlikely—made him light-headed. “Here we go,” he said into the boom mike and took off in a scudding rash, banked sweetly, and climbed for the pass.

  “Good,” Rakoczy said, “very good. You fly very well.” Casually he put the gun across his knees, muzzle pointing at Pettikin. “Please don’t fly too well.”

  “Put the safety catch on—or I won’t fly at all.”

  Rakoczy hesitated. He clicked it in place. “I agree it is dangerous while flying.”

  At six hundred feet Pettikin leveled off, then abruptly went into a steep bank and came back toward the field.

  “What’re you doing?”

  “Just want to get my bearings.” He was relying on the fact that though “Smith” clearly knew his way around a cockpit, he couldn’t fly a 206 or he would have taken her. His eyes were searching below for a clue to the man’s nervousness and his haste to leave. The field seemed the same. Near the junction of the narrow base road with the main road that went northwest to Tabriz were two trucks. Both headed for the base. From this height he could easily see they were army trucks.

  “I’m going to land to see what they want,” he said.

  “If you do,” Rakoczy said without fear, “it will cost you much pain and permanent mutilation. Please go to Tehran—but first to Bandar-e Pahlavi.”

  “What’s your real name?”

  “Smith.”

  Pettikin left it at that, circled once, then followed the Tehran road southeast, heading for the pass and biding his time—confident now that somewhere en route his time would come.

  AT TEHRAN: 8:30 A.M. Tom Lochart eased his old Citroën through the debris of the night’s battles, heading for Galeg Morghi. The morning was sour and freezing and he was already late though he had started out just after dawn.

  He had passed many bodies and wailing mourners, many burned-out wrecks of c
ars and trucks, some still smoldering—flotsam from the night’s riots. Knots of armed or semiarmed civilians still manned balconies or barricades and he had had to make a dozen diversions. Many men wore the Khomeini green armband now. All Green Bands were armed. The streets were ominously empty of traffic. From time to time police trucks screamed past, a few cars and trucks, but they paid no attention to him except to sound their horns, cursing him out of the way. He cursed them back, almost not caring if he ever reached the airport that would be a perfect solution to his dilemma. Only the thought of Valik’s wife and their two children in SAVAK hands forced him onward.

  How could such a wonderful woman as Annoush, who had been so kind to him since he came into the family, have married such a bastard? And how could the two wonderful kids who adored Sharazad and called him Excellency Uncle…

  He swerved to avoid a car that charged out of a side street on the wrong side of the road. The car did not stop and he cursed it, and Tehran and Iran and Valik and said, “Insha’Allah,” out loud but it did not help him.

  Overhead was a dirty, snow-filled overcast that he did not like at all, and he had hated to leave the warmth of his bed and Sharazad. Just before dawn the alarm had startled them awake.

  “I thought you weren’t going, my darling. I thought you said you were leaving tomorrow.”

  “I’ve got a sudden charter, at least I think I have. That’s what Valik came about. I’ve got to see Mac first, but if I go I’ll be away for a few days. Go back to sleep, my darling.” He had shaved, dressed hurriedly, had a quick cup of coffee, and left. Outside it was still dark with just a sullen wisp of dawn, the air acrid and smoke heavy. In the distance was the inevitable, sporadic gunfire. Suddenly he was filled with foreboding.