Whirlwind

by James Clavell

  A hundred yards ahead was a roadblock. Groups of men surrounded it. Some were armed, all were civilians and poorly dressed. The roadblock was just this side of a nondescript village with street stalls beside the road and in the meadow opposite. Villagers, women and children, mingled with the men. All the women wore the black or gray chador. As each vehicle stopped, papers were checked and then it was allowed to pass. Several cars had been pulled off the road into the meadow where knots of men interrogated the occupants. Erikki saw more weapons among them.

  “They’re not Green Bands,” he said.

  “There aren’t any mullahs. Can you see any mullahs?”

  “No.”

  “Then they’re Tudeh or mujhadin—or fedayeen.”

  “Better get your Identity Card ready,” he said and smiled at her. “Put on your parka so you won’t catch cold when I open the windows, and your hat.” It wasn’t the cold that worried him. It was the curve of her breasts, proud under the sweater, the delicacy of her waist and her free-flowing hair.

  In the glove compartment was a small, sheathed pukoh knife. This he concealed in his right boot. The other one, his big knife, was under his parka, in the center of his back.

  When at last their turn came, the surly, bearded men surrounded the Range Rover. A few had U.S. rifles, one an AK47. Among them were some women, just faces in the chador. They peered up at her with beady eyes and grim disapproval. “Papers,” one of the men said in Farsi, holding out his hand, his breath reeking, the pervading smell of unwashed clothes and bodies coming into the car. Azadeh stared ahead, trying to dismiss the leers and mutterings and closeness that were totally outside her experience.

  Politely Erikki passed over his ID card and Azadeh’s. The man accepted them, stared at them, and passed them to a youth who could read. All the others waited silently, staring, stamping their feet in the cold. At length the youth said, his Farsi coarse, “He’s a foreigner from somewhere called Finland. He comes from Tabriz. He’s not American.”

  “He looks American,” someone else said.

  “The woman’s called Gorgon, she’s his wife…at least that’s what the papers say.”

  “I’m his wife,” Azadeh said curtly. “Ca—”

  “Who asked you?” the first man said rudely. “Your family name’s Gorgon which is a landowning name and your accent’s high and mighty like your manner and more than likely you’re an enemy of the People.”

  “I’m an enemy of no one. Pl—”

  “Shut up. Women are supposed to know manners and be chaste and cover themselves and be obedient even in a socialist state.” The man turned on Erikki. “Where are you going?”

  “What’s he say, Azadeh?” Erikki asked.

  She translated.

  “Tehran,” he said quietly to the thug. “Azadeh, tell him we go to Tehran.” He had counted six rifles and one automatic. Traffic hemmed him in, no way to break out. Yet.

  She did so, adding, “My husband does not speak Farsi.”

  “How do we know that? And how do we know you’re married? Where is your marriage certificate?”

  “I don’t have it with me. That I’m married is attested on my Identity Card.”

  “But this is a Shah card. An illegal card. Where is your new card?”

  “A card from whom? Signed by whom?” she said fiercely. “Give us back our cards and allow us to pass!”

  Her strength had an effect on him and the others. The man hesitated. “You will understand, please, that there are many spies and enemies of the People that must be caught…”

  Erikki could feel his heart pumping. Sullen faces, people out of the Dark Ages. Ugly. More men joined the group around them. One of them angrily and noisily waved the cars and trucks behind him ahead to be checked. No one was honking. Everyone waited their turn. And over the whole traffic jam was a silent brooding dread.

  “What’s going on here?” A squat man shouldered his way through the crowd. The others gave way to him deferentially. Over his shoulder was a Czechoslovakian machine gun. The other man explained and gave over the papers. The squat man’s face was round and unshaven, his eyes dark, his clothes poor and filthy. A sudden shot rang out and all heads turned to look at the meadow.

  A man was lying on the ground beside a small passenger car that had been pulled over by the hostiles. One of these men stood over him with an automatic. Another passenger was pressed against the side of the car with his hands over his head. Abruptly this man burst through the cordon and dashed away. The man with the gun raised it and fired, missed and fired again. This time the running man screamed and fell, writhing in agony, tried to scramble away, his legs useless now. Leisurely the man with the gun came up to him, emptied the magazine into him, killing him by stages.

  “Ahmed!” the squat man shouted out. “Why waste bullets when your boots would do just as well. Who are they?”

  “SAVAK!” A murmur of satisfaction swept the crowd and villagers and someone cheered.

  “Fool! Then why kill them so quickly, eh? Bring me their papers.”

  “The sons of dogs had papers claiming they were Tehrani businessmen but I know a SAVAK man when I see one. Do you want the false papers?”

  “No. Tear them up.” The squat man turned back to Erikki and Azadeh. “So it is that enemies of the People will be smoked out and done with.”

  She did not reply. Their own IDs were in the grubby hand. What if our papers are also considered false? Insha’Allah!

  When the squat man Finished scrutinizing the IDs he stared at Erikki. Then at her. “You claim you’re Azadeh Gorgon Yok… Yokkonen—his wife?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good.” He stuffed their IDs in his pocket and jerked a thumb at the meadow. “Tell him to drive over there. We will search your car.”

  “But th—”

  “Do it, NOW!” The squat man climbed onto the fender, his boots scratching the paintwork. “What’s that?” he asked, pointing to the blue cross on a white background that was painted on the roof.

  “It’s the Finnish flag,” Azadeh said. “My husband’s Finnish.”

  “Why is it there?”

  “It pleases him to have it there.”

  The squat man spat, then pointed again toward the meadow. “Hurry up! Over there.” When they were in an empty spot, the crowd following them, he slid off. “Out. I want to search your car for arms and contraband.”

  Azadeh said, “We have no guns or contr—”

  “Out! And you, woman, you hold your tongue!” The crones in the crowd hissed approvingly. Angrily he jerked a thumb at the two bodies left crumpled in the trampled slush. “The People’s justice is quick and final and don’t forget it.” He stabbed a finger at Erikki. “Tell your monster husband what I said—if he is your husband.”

  “Erikki, he says, the People’s…the People’s justice is quick and final and don’t forget it. Be careful, my darling. We, we have to get out of the car—they want to search the car.”

  “All right. But slide over and come out my side.” Towering above the crowd, Erikki got out. Protectively, he put his arm around her, men, women, and some children crowding them, giving them little space. The stench of unwashed bodies was overpowering. He could feel her trembling, as much as she tried to hide it. Together they watched the squat man and others clambering into their spotless car, muddy boots on the seats. Others unlocked the rear door, carelessly removing and scattering their possessions, grubby hands reaching into pockets, opening everything—his bags and her bags. Then one of the men held up her filmy underclothes and night things to catcalls and jeers. The crones muttered their disapproval. One of them reached out and touched her hair. Azadeh backed away but those behind her would not give her room. At once Erikki moved his bulk to help but the mass of the crowd did not move though those nearby cried out, almost crushed by him, their cries infuriating the others who moved closer, threateningly, shouting at him.

  Suddenly Erikki knew truly, for the first time, he could not protect Azadeh. He
knew he could kill a dozen of them before they overpowered and killed him, but that would not protect her.

  The realization shattered him.

  His legs felt weak and he had an overpowering wish to urinate and the smell of his own fear choked him and he fought the panic that pervaded him. Dully he watched their possessions being defiled. Men were staggering away with their vital cans of gasoline without which he could never make Tehran as all gas stations were struck and closed. He tried to force his legs into motion but they would not work, nor would his mouth. Then one of the crones shouted at Azadeh who numbly shook her head and men took up the cry, jostling him and jostling her, men closing on him, their fetid smell filling his nostrils, his ears clogged with the Farsi.

  His arm was still around her, and in the noise she looked up and he saw her terror but could not hear what she said. Again he tried to ease more room for the two of them but again he failed. Desperately he tried to contain the soaring, claustrophobic, panic-savagery and need to fight beginning to overwhelm him, knowing that once he began it would start the riot that would destroy her. But he could not stop himself and lashed out blindly with his free elbow as a thickset peasant woman with strange, enraged eyes pushed though the cordon and thrust the chador into Azadeh’s chest, spitting out a paroxysm of Farsi at her, diverting attention from the man who had collapsed behind him, and now lay under their feet, his chest caved in from Erikki’s blow.

  The crowd was shouting at her and at him, clearly telling her to put on the chador, Azadeh crying out, “No, no, leave me alone…” completely disoriented. In her whole life she had never been threatened like this, never been in a crowd like this, never experienced such closeness of peasants, or such hostility.

  “Put it on, harlot…”

  “In the Name of God, put on the chador…”

  “Not in the Name of God, woman, in the name of the People…”

  “God is Great, obey the word…”

  “Piss on God, in the name of the revolution…”

  “Cover your hair, whore and daughter of a whore…”

  “Obey the Prophet whose Name be praised…”

  The shouting increased and the jostling, their feet trampling the dying man on the ground, then someone tore at Erikki’s arm that was around Azadeh and she felt his other hand go for the big knife and she screamed out, “Don’t, don’t, Erikki, they’ll kill you…”

  In panic she pushed the peasant woman away and fought the chador into place, calling out repeatedly, “Allah-u Akbarrr,” and this mollified those nearby somewhat, their jeers subsiding, though people at the back shoved forward to see better, crushing others against the Range Rover. In the melee Erikki and Azadeh gained a little more space around them though they were still trapped on all sides. She did not look up at him, just clutched him, shivering like a frozen puppy, enveloped in the coarse shroud. A roar of laughter as one of the men held her bra against his chest and minced around.

  The vandalism went on until, suddenly, Erikki sensed a newness surrounding them. The squat man and his followers had stopped and they were looking fixedly toward Qazvin. As he watched he saw them begin to melt into the crowd. In seconds they had vanished. Other men near the roadblock were getting into cars and heading off down the Tehran road, picking up speed. Now villagers also stared toward the city, then others, until the whole crowd was transfixed. Approaching up the road, through the snarled lines of traffic, was another mob of men, mullahs at their head. Some of the mullahs and many of the men were armed. “Allah-u Akbar,” they shouted, “God and Khomeiniiiii!” then broke into a run, charging the roadblock.

  A few shots rang out, the fire was returned from the roadblock, the opposing forces clashed with staves, stones, iron bars, and some guns. Everyone else scattered. Villagers rushed for the protection of their homes, drivers and passengers fled from their cars for the ditches or lay on the ground.

  The cries and countercries and shots and noise and screams of this minor skirmish snapped Erikki’s paralysis. He shoved Azadeh toward their car, hastily picking up the nearest of their scattered possessions, throwing them into the back, and slammed the rear door. Half a dozen of the villagers began scavenging too but he shoved them out of the way, jumped into the driver’s seat and gunned the engine, jerked the car into reverse, then ahead, then roared off across the meadow, paralleling the road. Just ahead and to the right he saw the squat man with three of his followers getting into a car and remembered that the man still had their papers. For a split second he considered stopping but instantly rejected the thought and held course for the trees that skirted the road. But then he saw the squat man pull the machine gun off his shoulder, aim, and fire. The burst was a little high and Erikki’s maddened reflexes swung the wheel over and shoved his foot on the accelerator as he charged the gun. Their massive bumper rammed the man against the car broadside, crushing him and it, the machine gun firing until the magazine was spent, bullets howling off metal, splaying through the windshield, the Range Rover now a battering ram. Berserk, Erikki backed off then charged again, overturning the wreckage, killing them, and he would have got out and continued the carnage with his bare hands but then, in the rearview mirror, he saw men running for him and so he reversed and fled.

  The Range Rover was built for this sort of terrain, its snow tires gripping the surface of the rough ground. In a moment they were in the trees and safe from capture, and he turned for the road, shifted into low, locked both differentials and clambered over the deep joub, ripping the barbed-wire fence apart. Once on the road he unlocked the differentials, changed gear, and whirled away.

  Only when he was well away did the blood clear from his eyes. Aghast, he remembered the howl of the bullets spraying the car, and that Azadeh was with him. In panic he looked across at her. But she was all right though paralyzed with fear and hunched down in the seat, hanging on with both hands to the side, bullet holes in the glass and roof nearby, but all right though he did not recognize her for a moment, saw just an Iranian face made ugly by the chador—like any one of the tens of thousands they had all seen in the mobs.

  “Oh, Azadeh,” he gasped, then reached over and pulled her to him, driving with one hand. In a moment he slowed and pulled over to the side and held her to him as the sobs tore her. He did not notice that the fuel gauge read near empty, or that the traffic was building up, or the hostile looks of the passersby, or that many cars contained revolutionaries fleeing their roadblock for Tehran.

  AT ZAGROS THREE: 3:18 P.M. The four men were lying on toboggans, racing down the slope behind the base, Scot Gavallan slightly in the lead of Jean-Luc Sessonne who was neck and neck with Nasiri, their base manager, with Nitchak Khan trailing some twenty yards. This was a challenge match arranged by Jean-Luc, Iran against the World, and all four men were excitedly trying to maximize their speed. The snow was virgin powder—very light snow on top of hard pack—and trackless. They had all climbed to the crest behind the base with Rodrigues and a villager as starting marshals. The winner’s prize was 5,000 rials—about $60—and one of Lochart’s bottles of whisky: “Tom won’t mind,” Jean-Luc had said grandly. “He’s having extra leave, enjoying the fleshpots of Tehran while we have to stay on base! Me, am I not in command? Of course. This commander is commandeering the bottle for the glory of France, the good of my troops, and our glorious overlords, the Yazdek Kash’kai,” he had added to general cheers.

  It was a wonderful, sunny afternoon, here at seventy-five hundred feet, the sky cloudless and deep blue, air crisp. In the night the snow had stopped. Ever since Lochart had left to go to Tehran three days before, it had been snowing. Now the base and the bowl of mountains were a fairyland of pine and snow and crests soaring to thirteen thousand feet—with about twenty-four inches of fresh powder.

  As the racers came lower, the slope steepened even more, a few unseen moguls bouncing them from time to time. They picked up speed, sometimes almost disappearing under the spray of snowflakes, all exhilarated, flat-out, and determined to win. />
  Ahead now were clumps of pine trees. Scot braked neatly with the toes of his ski boots, his mittened hands gripping the curved front supports, and arced gracefully around the trees, banked again, and began to swoop down the last great slope toward the finish line far below where the rest of the base and villagers were cheering them on. Nasiri and Jean-Luc braked a fraction later, came around the trees just a fraction faster, banked in a cascade of snow and gained on him, now only inches between the three of them.

  Nitchak Khan did not brake at all, or make the diversion. He commended himself to God for the hundredth time, closed his eyes and went barreling into the pines. “Insha’Allahhhh!”

  He passed the first tree safely by a foot, the next by half a foot, opened his eyes just in time to avoid a head-on collision by an inch, plowed through a dozen saplings gaining speed, abruptly soared into the air over a bump to clear miraculously a fallen tree, and slam back to earth once more in a chest-aching thump that almost crushed the air out of him. But he hung on, rearing up, heeled over on one runner for a second, got his balance back and now he burst out of the forest faster than the others, straighter than the others, ten yards ahead of the others to a roar from all the villagers.

  The four racers were converging now, hugging their toboggans for just that extra little speed, Scot, Nasiri, and Jean-Luc gaining on Nitchak Khan, closer and closer. Here the snow was not so good and some small moguls bounced them, making them hold on tighter. Two hundred yards to go, one hundred—the men from the base and the villagers cheering and begging God for victory—now eighty, seventy, sixty, fifty, and then…

  The great mogul was well hidden. In the lead Nitchak Khan was the first to sail up out of control and come down broadside, the wind knocked out of him, then Scot and Jean-Luc both whirled into the air to sprawl equally helpless, their toboggans upended in clouds of spray. Nasiri desperately tried to avoid them and the mogul and wrenched his craft into a violent skidding turn but lost it and went tumbling down the mountainside to end up a little ahead of the others, gasping for breath.