“What is it, Sharazad, what is it?”
I daren’t tell you, Karim, even though I’d trust you with my life, I’ve got to protect Tommy…if Meshang finds out about Tommy that’ll be the end of us, the end of everything! He’ll denounce him, he won’t risk any more trouble…or crimes against God! I can’t oppose the family, Meshang will make me divorce. God help me, what shall I do? Without Tommy I’ll… I’ll die, I know I will, I’ll…what was it Tommy said about taking a helicopter on a ferry? A ferry to Al Shargaz? Was it there or to Nigeria? I daren’t tell you, Karim, I daren’t…
But when her eyes saw the enormity of his concern, her mouth opened, and she blurted out everything that she had not dared to tell.
“But it’s impossible,” he stuttered, “impossible, the telex said there were no survivors, impossible he should be flying it.”
“Yes, but he was he was, I’m sure of it, I’m sure of it. Oh, Karim, what am I going to do? Please help me, please, I beg you, please help meeeeee!” The tears were running down her cheeks and he held her, trying to comfort her. “Please don’t tell Meshang, please help me, if my Tommy… I’d die.”
“But Meshang’s bound to find out! He’s got to know.”
“Please help me. There must be something you can do, there must be som—”
The door opened and Meshang hurried in, Zarah with him. “Sharazad, my dear, Jari said you fainted, what happened, are you all right? Karim, how are you?” Meshang stopped, astonished at Karim’s ill-kempt appearance and pallor. “What on earth’s happened?”
In the silence Sharazad put her hand to her mouth, petrified she would blurt everything out again. She saw Karim hesitating. The silence worsened, then she heard him say in a rush, “I’ve terrible news. First…first about my…my father. He’s been shot, shot for…for crimes against Islam…”
Meshang burst out. “That’s not possible! The hero of Dhofar? You must be mistaken!”
“Excellency Jared Bakravan wasn’t possible but he’s dead and Father’s dead like him, and there’s other news, all bad…”
Helplessly Sharazad began to cry, Zarah put her arms around her, and Karim’s heart went out to her and he buried Valik and his wife and children for others to bring forth.
“Insha’Allah,” he said, loathing the excuse that he could no longer accept for blasphemous crimes committed by men in the Name of God that such men would never know. The Ayatollah’s truly a gift from God. We need only to follow him to cleanse Islam of these foul blasphemers, he thought. God will punish them after death as we, the living, must punish them into death.
“My news is all bad, I’m suspect, most of my friends, the air force’s being put on trial. Foolishly I told Sharazad… I wanted you to know, Meshang, but foolishly I told her and that was the reason she…she fainted. Please excuse me, I’m so sorry, I won’t stay, I can’t, I’ve got to…got to get back. I just came to tell you about… I had to tell someone…”
AT McIVER’S OFFICE: 10:20 P.M. McIver was alone in the penthouse offices, sitting in his creaking chair, feet comfortably on his desk, reading—the light good and the room warm thanks to their generator. The telex was on, and the HF. It was late but there was no point in going home yet where it was cold and damp and no Genny. He looked up. Footsteps were hurrying up the outside stairs. The knock was nervous. “Who is it?”
“Captain McIver? It’s me, Captain Peshadi, Karim Peshadi.”
Astonished, McIver unlocked the door, knowing the young man quite well, both as a helicopter student and favored cousin of Sharazad. He stuck out his hand, covering his further surprise at the youth’s appearance. “Come in, Karim, what can I do for you? I was terribly sorry to hear about your father’s arrest.”
“He was shot two days ago.”
“Oh, Christ!”
“Yes. Sorry, none of this is going to be pleasant.” Hurriedly Karim closed the door and dropped his voice. “Sorry, but I’ve got to hurry, I’m already hours overdue but I’ve just come from Sharazad—I went to your apartment but Captain Pettikin said you were here. Tonight I read a secret telex from our base in Abadan.” He told him what it said.
McIver was appalled and tried to cover it. “Did you tell Captain Pettikin?”
“No, no, I thought I should tell only you.”
“Far as we know HBC was hijacked. None of our pilots were invol—”
“I’m not here officially, I just came to tell you because Tom’s not here. I didn’t know what else to do. I saw Sharazad tonight and found out, also quite by chance, about Tom.” He repeated what Sharazad had told him. “How could Tom be alive and them all dead?”
McIver felt the hurt in his chest begin again. “She’s mistaken.”
“In the Name of God, tell me the truth! You must know! Tom must’ve told you, you can trust me,” the young man exploded, beside himself with worry. “You’ve got to trust me. Perhaps I can help. Tom’s in terrible danger, so’s Sharazad and all our families! You’ve got to trust me! How did Tom get out?”
McIver felt the knot tightening around them all—Lochart, Pettikin, him. Don’t lose your wits, he ordered himself, be careful. You daren’t admit anything. Don’t admit anything. “Far as I know Tom was nowhere near HBC.”
“Liar!” the young man said enraged and spilled out what he had concluded all the way here, walking, fighting on a bus, walking again, snow falling and cold and desperate—the komiteh still to appear before. “You must’ve signed the clearance, you or Pettikin, and Tom’s name’s got to be on the clearance—I know you all too well, you and your hammering into us about flying by the book, signing forms, always have a form signed. You did, didn’t you? Didn’t you?” he shouted.
“I think you’d better go, Captain,” McIver said curtly.
“You’re as involved as Tom, don’t you see? You’re in trouble as mu—”
“I think you’d better leave it. I know you’re overwrought and it’s terrible about your father,” he said kindly. “I’m truly, terribly sorry.”
There was no sound but the gentle hum of the HF and the generator that was above on the roof. McIver waited. Karim waited. Then the young man half nodded. “You’re right,” he said crestfallen, “why should you trust me? Trust’s gone away from us. Our world’s become hell on earth and all because of the Shah. We trusted him but he failed us, gave us false allies, muzzled our generals, ran away and left us in the pit, shamed, left us to false mullahs. I swear by God you can trust me but what difference does that make to you or anyone? Trust’s gone from us.” His face twisted. “Perhaps God’s gone from us.” The HF in the other room crackled gently, static from an electrical storm somewhere. “Can you get Zagros? Sharazad said Tom went back this morning.”
“I tried earlier but can’t raise them,” McIver said truthfully. “This time of the year it’s almost impossible but I heard they arrived safely. Our base in Kowiss relayed a report just after noon.”
“You’d…you’d better tell Tom, tell him what I told you. Tell him to get out.” Karim’s voice was dulled. “You’re all blessed, you can all go home.” Then his despair burst and tears spilled down his cheeks.
“Oh, laddie…” Compassionately McIver put an arm around his shoulders and gentled him, the youth of an age with his own son safe in England, safely born English, safe on the ground, a doctor and nothing to do with flying, safe… God in heaven, who the hell is ever safe?
In a little while he felt the heaving of the youth’s chest lessen. To save Karim’s face, he backed off and turned and looked at the kitchenette. “I was just going to have some tea, will you join me?”
“I’ll…just have some water and then, then I’ll go, thank you.”
At once McIver went to fetch some. Poor lad, he was thinking, how terrible about his father—such a wonderful fellow, tough, hard-line but straight and loyal and never a fiddle on the side. Terrible. God Almighty, if they’ll shoot him, they’ll shoot anyone. We’ll all be dead soon, one way or another. “Here,” he said, sickened,
giving Karim the glass.
The youth accepted it, embarrassed that he had lost control in front of a foreigner. “Thank you. Good night.” He saw McIver staring at him strangely. “What is it?”
“Just a sudden idea, Karim. Could you get access to Doshan Tappeh Tower?”
“I don’t know. Why?”
“If you could, without anyone knowing what you wanted, maybe you could get HBC’s clearance—it’s got to be in the takeoff book, if they were using one that day. Then we could see, couldn’t we, who was flying her. Eh?”
“Yes, but what good would that do?” Karim watched the pale eyes set in the craggy face. “They’d have the automatic tape recorders on.”
“Maybe, maybe not. There’d been fighting there—maybe they were not so efficient. Far as we know, whoever took HBC didn’t have verbal clearance to or from the tower. He just took off. Maybe in all the excitement they didn’t even record any clearance.” McIver’s hope grew as he developed his thought. “Only the book’d tell, the takeoff clearance book. Wouldn’t it?”
Karim tried to see where McIver was leading him. “And what if it says Tom Lochart?”
“I don’t see how it could, because then it’d have my signature on it, and then it’d, er, it’d have to be a forgery.” McIver loathed the falsehoods, his hastily made-up story sounding weaker every minute. “The only clearance I signed was for Nogger Lane to take some spares to Bandar Delam but canceled it and him before he could go. The spares were unimportant and what with one thing and another, by that time HBC’d been hijacked.”
“The clearance’s the only proof?”
“Only God knows that for certain. If the clearance says Tom Lochart and it’s signed by me, it’s a forgery. A forgery like that could cause lots of troubles. As such it shouldn’t exist. Should it?”
Slowly Karim shook his head, his mind already taking him to the tower, past the guards—would there be guards?—finding the book and the right page and seeing…seeing the Green Band in the doorway but killing him, taking the book and hurrying away, as silently and secretly as he had entered, going to the Ayatollah, telling him about the monstrous crime committed against his father, the Ayatollah wise and listening and not like the dogs who abused the Word, at once ordering revenge in the Name of the One God. Then going to Meshang and telling him the family was saved, but more important, knowing the Sharazad he loved to distraction and wanted to distraction but never possible in this life—first cousin and against Koranic law—was also saved.
“The clearance shouldn’t exist,” he said, very tired now. He got up. “I’ll try. Yes, I’ll try. What happened to Tom?”
Behind McIver the telex began to chatter. Both jumped. McIver put his attention back on Karim. “When you see him ask him, that’s the right thing to do. Isn’t it? You ask Tom.”
“Salaam.”
They shook hands and he left and McIver relocked the door. The telex was from Genny in Al Shargaz: “Hello number one child. Talked at length with Chinaboy who arrives tomorrow night, Monday, and will be on the 125 to Tehran, Tuesday. He says imperative you meet him for conference at airport. All arrangements made here for repairs on the 212s and fast turnaround. Acknowledge. Talked to kids in England and all’s well. I’m having a wonderful time here, whooping it up and on the town, glad you’re not here, why aren’t you? MacAllister.”
MacAllister was her maiden name and she used it only when she was very pissed off with him. “Good old Gen,” he said aloud, the thought of her making him feel better. Glad she’s safe and out of this mess. Glad she called the kids, that’ll make her happy. Good old Gen. He reread the telex. What the hell’s imperative with Andy? I’ll know soon enough. At least we’re in touch through Al Shargaz. He sat at the secretary chair and began to type out the acknowledgment.
At dusk he had got a telex from HQ in Aberdeen, but it had arrived garbled. Only the signature was legible: Gavallan. At once he had telexed for a repeat and had been waiting ever since. Tonight radio reception was also bad. There were rumors of big snowstorms in the mountains and the BBC World Service, fading badly and worse than usual, told of huge storms across all of Europe and the East Coast of America, terrible floods in Brazil. News had been generally rotten: strikes continuing in Britain, heavy fighting inside Vietnam between Chinese and Vietnamese armies, a Rhodesian airliner coming in to land shot down by guerrillas, Carter expected to order gasoline rationing, Soviets testing a fifteen-hundred-mile cruise missile, and in Iran, “Chairman Yasir Arafat met Ayatollah Khomeini in a tumultuous welcome, the two leaders embraced publicly, and the PLO took over Israeli Mission Headquarters in Tehran. Four more generals were reported shot. Heavy fighting continues in Azerbaijan between pro- and anti-Khomeini forces, Prime Minister Bazargan ordered the U.S. to close two radar listening posts on the Iran-Soviet border, and arranged a meeting with the Soviet ambassador and Ayatollah Khomeini in the next few days to discuss outstanding differences…”
Depressed, McIver had turned the set off, the strain of trying to sift the news from the static had given him a worse headache. He had had one all day. It had started after his meeting this morning with Minister Ali Kia. Kia had accepted the notes on a Swiss bank, “license fees” for the three 212 departures, and also for six landings and takeoffs for the 125 and had promised to find out about the Zagros expulsions: “Tell the Zagros komiteh meanwhile their order is overruled by this department pending investigation.”
Fat lot of good that’ll do when you’re looking down the barrel of a gun! he thought. Wonder how Erikki and Nogger are doing now? This afternoon a telex relayed by Tabriz ATC from Iran-Timber had come in: “Captains Yokkonen and Lane are required here for emergency work for three days. Usual terms for the charter. Thanks.” It was signed as usual by the area manager and a normal request. Better for Nogger than sitting on his butt, McIver had thought. Wonder what Azadeh’s father wanted her for?
Promptly at 7:30 P.M. Kowiss had come through but transmission was barely two by five, just enough to be partially audible, and heterodyning badly. Freddy Ayre reported that Starke had returned unharmed.
“Thank God for that!”
“Say ag… I’m read…g you one by five, Cap… …ver.”
“I say again,” he said slowly and carefully. “Tell Starke I’m very glad he’s back. He’s okay?”
“……tain Starke…swered ques …… iteh …… orily.”
“Say again, Kowiss.”
“I say again, Capt …… arke answ …… uestions of the …… iteh sa…”
“You’re one by five. Try again at 9:00 A.M.; even better I’ll be here late and I’ll try around eleven.”
“Understand yo …… ry later …… ound…leven tonight?”
“Yes. Around eleven tonight.”
“Capt …… hart and Jean-Luc arriv… Zagro …… ree safely…”
The rest of the transmission was incomprehensible. Then he had settled back to wait. While he waited he slept a little and read a little and now, sitting at the telex machine, again he glanced at his watch: 10:30 P.M.
“Soon as this’s done, I’ll call Kowiss,” he said out loud. Carefully he finished the telex to his wife adding for Manuela’s sake that everything was fine at Kowiss—it is, he thought, so long as Starke’s back and he’s okay, and the lads okay.
He fed the hole-punched tape into the cogged sender, typed the number for Al Shargaz, waited interminably for the answer back, then pressed the transmit button. The tape chattered through the cogs. Another long wait but the Al Shargaz accept code came up.
“Good.” He got up and stretched. In the desk drawer were his pills and he took the second of the day. “God-cursed blood pressure,” he muttered. His pressure was 160 over 115 at his last medical. The pills brought it down to a comfortable 135 over 85: “But listen, Mac, that doesn’t mean you can swill the whisky, wine, eggs, and cream—your cholesterol’s up too…”
“What bloody whisky and cream, for Christ’s sake, Doc? This’s Iran…”
/> He remembered how foul-tempered he had been and when Genny said, “How was it?” “Great,” he had said, “better than last time and don’t bloody nag!” The hell with it! Nothing I can do that I’m not doing but I certainly could use a large whisky and soda and ice and then another one. Normally there would be a bottle in the safe and ice and soda in the little refrigerator. Now there was none. Supplies zero. He made a cup of tea. What about Karim and HBC? I’ll think about that later: 11:00 P.M.
“Kowiss, this is Tehran, do you read?” Patiently he called and recalled and then stopped. In a quarter of an hour he tried again. No contact. “Got to be the storm,” he said, out of patience now. “To hell with it, I’ll try from home.” He put on his heavy coat and went up the spiral staircase to the roof to check the level of generator fuel. The night was very black and quiet, hardly any gunfire and what there was was deadened by the snow. No lights anywhere that he could see. Snow still fell gently, almost five inches since dawn. He brushed it off his face and shone the flashlight on the gauge. The level of fuel was all right but somehow they’d have to get another supply in the next few days. Bloody nuisance. What about HBC? If Karim could get the book and the book could be destroyed, there’d be no evidence, would there? Yes, but what about Isfahan, refueling at Isfahan?
Lost in thought, he went back, locked up, and, using the flash to light his way, started down the five flights of stairs. He did not hear the telex chatter into life behind him.
In the garage he went to his car and unlocked it. His heart leaped as he saw a tall figure approaching. SAVAK and HBC jumped into his head; he almost dropped the flash but the man was Armstrong, dark raincoat and hat.
“Sorry, Captain McIver, I didn’t mean to startle you.”
“Well, you bloody did,” he said furiously, heart still pounding. “Why the hell didn’t you announce yourself or come up to the office instead of hiding in the bloody shadows like a bloody villain?”
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