“I’m ready,” the butcher said, fingering his knife.
“First the right hand,” Mahmud said to his men. “Bind him above the wrists.”
They bound strips of sacking ripped from the window tightly, villagers pressing forward to see better, and Ross used all his energy to stop his terror from bursting the dam, saw only the pockmarked face above the carving knife, the bedraggled mustache and beard, the eyes blank, the man’s thumb testing the blade absently. Then his eyes focused. He saw Azadeh come out of her spell and he remembered.
“The grenade!” he shrieked. “Azadeh, the grenade!”
She heard him clearly and fumbled for it in her side pocket as he shrieked again and again, further startling the butcher, dragging everyone’s attention to himself. The butcher came forward cursing him, took hold of his right hand firmly, fascinated by it, moved it a little this way and that, the knife poised, deciding where to slice through the sinews of the joint, giving Azadeh just enough time to pick herself up and hurtle across the small space to shove him in the back, sending him flying and the knife into the snow, then to turn on Mahmud, pull the pin out, and stand there trembling, the lever held in her small hand.
“Get away from him,” she screamed. “Get away!”
Mahmud did not move. Everyone else scattered, trampling some, rushing for safety across the square, cursing and shouting.
“Quick, over here, Azadeh,” Ross called out. “Azadeh!” She heard him through her mist and obeyed, backing toward him, watching Mahmud, flecks of foam at the corner of her mouth. Then Ross saw Mahmud turn and stalk off toward one of his men out of range and he groaned, knowing what would happen now. “Quick, pick up the knife and cut me loose,” he said to distract her. “Don’t let go of the lever—I’ll watch them for you.” Behind her he saw the mullah take the rifle from one of his men, cock it, and turn toward them. Now she had the butcher’s knife and she reached for the bonds on his right hand and he knew the bullet would kill or wound her, the lever would fly off, four seconds of waiting, and then oblivion for both of them—but quick and clean and no obscenity. “I’ve always loved you, Azadeh,” he whispered and smiled and she looked up, startled, and smiled back.
The rifle shot rang out, his heart stopped, then another and another, but they did not come from Mahmud but from the forest and now Mahmud was screaming and twisting on the snow. Then a voice followed the shots: “Allah-u Akbar! Death to all enemies of God! Death to all leftists, death to all enemies of the Imam!”
With a bellow of rage one of the mujhadin charged the forest and died. At once the rest fled, falling over themselves in their panic-stricken rush to hide. Within seconds the village square was empty but for the babbling howls of Mahmud, his turban no longer on his head. In the forest the leader of the four-man Tudeh assassination team who had tracked him since dawn silenced him with a burst of machine-gun fire, then the four of them retreated as silently as they had arrived.
Blankly Ross and Azadeh looked at the emptiness of the village. “It can’t be…can’t be…” she muttered, still deranged.
“Don’t let go of the lever,” he said hoarsely. “Don’t let go of the lever. Quick, cut me loose…quick!”
The knife was very sharp. Her hands were trembling and slow and she cut him once but not badly. The moment he was free he grabbed the grenade, his hands tingling and hurting, but held the lever, began to breathe again. He staggered into the hut, found his kookri that had been mixed up in the blanket in the initial struggle, stuck it in its scabbard and picked up his carbine. At the doorway he stopped. “Azadeh, quick, get your chador and the pack and follow me.” She stared at him. “Quick!”
She obeyed like an automaton, and he led her out of the village into the forest, grenade in his right hand, gun in the left. After a faltering run of a quarter of an hour, he stopped and listened. No one was following them. Azadeh was panting behind him. He saw she had the pack but had forgotten the chador. Her pale blue ski clothes showed clearly against the snow and trees. He hurried on again. She stumbled after him, beyond talking. Another hundred yards and still no trouble.
No place to stop yet. He went on, slower now, a violent ache in his side, near vomiting, grenade still ready, Azadeh flagging even more. He found the path that led to the back of the base. Still no pursuit. Near the rise, at the back of Erikki’s cabin, he stopped, waiting for Azadeh, then his stomach heaved, he staggered and went down on his knees and vomited. Weakly, he got up and went up the rise to better cover. When Azadeh joined him she was laboring badly, her breath coming in great gulping pants. She slumped into the snow beside him, retching.
Down by the hangar he could see the 206, one of the mechanics washing it down. Good, he thought, perhaps it’s being readied for a flight. Three armed revolutionaries were huddled on a nearby veranda under the overhang of a trailer in the lee of the small wind, smoking. No sign of life over the rest of the base, though chimney smoke came from Erikki’s cabin and the one shared by the mechanics, and the cookhouse. He could see as far as the road. The roadblock was still there, men guarding it, some trucks and cars held up.
His eyes went back to the men on the veranda and he thought of Gueng and how his body had been tossed like a sack of old bones into the filth of the semi under their feet, perhaps these men, perhaps not. For a moment his head ached with the strength of his rage. He glanced back at Azadeh. She was over her spasm, still more or less in shock, not really seeing him, a dribble of saliva on her chin and a streak of vomit. With his sleeve he wiped her face. “We’re fine now, rest awhile then we’ll go on.” She nodded and sank back on her arms, once more in her own private world. He returned his concentration to the base.
Ten minutes passed. Little change. Above, the cloud cover was a dirty blanket, snow heavy. Two of the armed men went into the office and he could see them from time to time through the windows. The third man paid little attention to the 206. No other movement. Then a cook came out of the cook-house, urinated on the snow, and went back inside again. More time. Now one of the guards walked out of the office and trudged across the snow to the mechanics’ trailer, an M16 slung over his shoulder. He opened the door and went inside. In a moment he came out again. With him was a tall European in flight gear and another man. Ross recognized the pilot Nogger Lane and the other mechanic. The mechanic said something to Lane, then waved and went back inside his trailer again. The guard and the pilot walked off toward the 206.
Everyone pegged, Ross thought, his heart fluttering. Awkwardly he checked his carbine, the grenade in his right hand inhibiting him, then put the last two spare magazines and the last grenade from his haversack into his side pocket. Suddenly fear swept into him and he wanted to run, oh, God help me, to run away, to hide, to weep, to be safe at home, away anywhere…
“Azadeh, I’m going down there now,” he forced himself to say. “Get ready to rush for the chopper when I wave or shout. Ready?” He saw her look at him and nod and mouth yes, but he wasn’t sure if he had reached her. He said it again and smiled encouragingly. “Don’t worry.” She nodded mutely.
Then he loosened his kookri and went over the rise like a wild beast after food.
He slid behind Erikki’s cabin, covered by the sauna. Sounds of children and a woman’s voice inside. Dry mouth, grenade warm in his hand. Slinking from cover to cover, huge drums or piles of pipe and saws and logging spares, always closer to the office trailer. Peering around to see the guard and the pilot nearing the hangar, the man on the veranda idly watching them. The office door opened, another guard came out, and beside him a new man, older, bigger, clean-shaven, possibly European, wearing better quality clothes and armed with a Sten gun. On the thick leather belt around his waist was a scabbarded kookri.
Ross released the lever. It flew off. “One, two, three,” and he stepped out of cover, hurled the grenade at the men on the veranda forty yards away, and ducked behind the tank again, already readying another.
They had seen him. For a moment they were stock-still
, then as they dropped for cover the grenade exploded, blowing most of the veranda and overhang away, killing one of them, stunning another, and maiming the third. Instantly Ross rushed into the open, carbine leveled, the new grenade held tightly in his right hand, index finger on the trigger. There was no movement on the veranda, but down by the hangar door the mechanic and pilot dropped to the snow and put their arms over their heads in panic, the guard rushed for the hangar and for an instant was in the clear. Ross fired and missed, charged the hangar, noticed a back door, and diverted for it. He eased it open and leaped inside. The enemy was across the empty space, behind an engine, his gun trained on the other door. Ross blew his head off, the firing echoing off the corrugated iron walls, then ran for the other door. Through it he could see the mechanic and Nogger Lane hugging the snow near the 206. Still in cover, he called to them. “Quick! How many more hostiles’re here?” No answer. “For Christ sake, answer me!”
Nogger Lane looked up, his face white. “Don’t shoot, we’re civilians, English—don’t shoot!”
“How many more hostiles are here?”
“There…there were five…five…this one here and the rest in…in the office… I think in the office…”
Ross ran to the back door, dropped to the floor, and peered out at ground level. No movement. The office was fifty yards away—the only cover a detour around the truck. He sprang to his feet and charged for it. Bullets howled off the metal and then stopped. He had seen the automatic fire coming from a broken office window.
Beyond the truck was a little dead ground, and in the dead ground was a ditch that led within range. If they stay in cover they’re mine. If they come out and they should, knowing I’m alone, the odds are theirs.
He slithered forward on his belly for the kill. Everything quiet, wind, birds, enemy. Everything waiting. In the ditch now. Progress slow. Getting near. Voices and a door creaking. Silence again. Another yard. Another. Now! He got his knees ready, dug his toes into the snow, eased the lever off the grenade, counted three, lurched to his feet, slipped but just managed to keep his balance, and hurled the grenade through the broken window, past the man standing there, gun pointing at him, and hit the snow again. The explosion stopped the burst of gunfire, almost blew out his own eardrums, and once again he was on his feet charging the trailer, firing as he went. He jumped over a corpse and went on in still firing. Suddenly his gun stopped and his stomach turned over, until he could jerk out the empty mag and slam in the new. He killed the machine gunner again and stopped.
Silence. Then a scream nearby. Cautiously he kicked the broken door away and went on to the veranda. The screamer was legless, demented, but still alive. Around his waist was the leather belt and the kookri that had been Gueng’s. Fury blinded Ross, and he tore it out of the scabbard. “You got that at the roadblock?” he shouted in Farsi.
“Help me help me help me…” A paroxysm of some foreign language then, “…whoareyou who…help meeee…” The man continued screaming and mixed with it was, “…helpmehelpmeee yes I killed the saboteur…helpme…”
With a bloodcurdling scream Ross hacked downward and when his eyes cleared he was staring into the face of the head that he held up in his left hand. Revolted, he dropped it and turned away. For a moment he did not know where he was, then his mind cleared, his nostrils were filled with the stench of blood and cordite, he found himself in the remains of the trailer and looked around.
The base was frozen, but men were running toward it from the roadblock. Near the chopper Lane and the mechanic were still motionless in the snow. He rushed for them, hugging cover.
Nogger Lane and the mechanic Arberry saw him coming and were panic-stricken—the stubble-bearded, matted-haired, wild-eyed maniac tribesman mujhadin or fedayeen who spoke perfect English, whose hands and sleeves were bloodstained from the head that only moments ago they had seen him hack off with a single stroke and a crazed scream, the bloody short sword-knife still in his hand, another in a scabbard, carbine in the other. They scrambled to their knees, hands up. “Don’t kill us—we’re friends, civilians, don’t kill u—”
“Shut up! Get ready to take off. Quick!”
Nogger Lane was dumbfounded. “What?”
“For Christ’s sake, hurry,” Ross said angrily, infuriated by the look on their faces, completely oblivious of what he looked like. You,” he pointed at the mechanic with Gueng’s kookri. “You, see that rise there?”
“Yes…yes, sir,” Arberry croaked.
“Go up there fast as you can, there’s a lady there, bring her down…” He stopped, seeing Azadeh come out of the forest edge and start running down the little hill toward them. “Forget that, go and get the other mechanic, hurry for Christ’s sake, the bastards from the roadblock’ll be here any minute. Go on, hurry!” Arberry ran off, petrified but more petrified of the men he could see coming down the road. Ross whirled on Nogger Lane. “I told you to get started.”
“Yes…yessir…that…that woman…that’s not Azadeh, Erikki’s Azadeh, is it?”
“Yes—I told you to start up!”
Nogger Lane never got a 206 into takeoff mode quicker, nor did the mechanics ever move faster. Azadeh still had a hundred yards to go and already the hostiles were too close. So Ross ducked under the whirling blades and got between her and them and emptied the magazine at them. Their heads went down and they scattered, and he threw the empty in their direction with a screaming curse. A few heads came up. Another burst and another, conserving ammunition, kept them down, Azadeh close now but slowing. Somehow she made a last effort and passed him, reeling drunkenly for the backseat to be half pulled in by the mechanics. Ross fired another short burst retreating, groped into the front seat, and they were airborne and away.
KOWISS AIR BASE: 5:20 P.M. Starke picked up the card he had been dealt and looked at it. The ace of spades. He grunted, superstitious like most pilots, but just slid it importantly into his hand. The five of them were in his bungalow playing draw poker: Freddy Ayre, Doc Nutt, Pop Kelly, and Tom Lochart who had arrived late yesterday from Zagros Three with another load of spares, continuing the evacuation but too late to fly back. Because of the order forbidding flying today, Holy Day, he was grounded here until dawn tomorrow. There was a wood fire in the grate, the afternoon cold. In front of all of them were piles of rials, the biggest in front of Kelly, the smallest Doc Nutt’s.
“How many cards, Pop?” Ayre asked.
“One,” Kelly said without hesitation, discarded, and put the four he was keeping face downward on the table in front of him. He was a tail, thinnish man with a crumpled face, thin fair hair, ex-RAF, and in his early forties. “Pop” was his nickname because he had seven children and another en route.
Ayre dealt the one card with a flourish. Kelly just stared at it for a moment, then, without looking at it, slowly mixed it with the others, then very carefully and elaborately picked up the hand, sneaked a look at the merest sliver of the top right corner, card by card, and sighed happily.
“Bullshit!” Ayre said and they all laughed. Except Lochart who stared moodily at his cards. Starke frowned, worried about him but very glad that he was here today. There was Gavallan’s secret letter that John Hogg had brought on the 125 to discuss.
“1,000 rials for openers,” Doc Nutt said and everyone looked at him. Normally he would bet 100 rials at the most.
Absently Lochart studied his hand, not interested in the game, his mind on Zagros—and Sharazad. The BBC last night had reported major clashes during the Women’s Protest marches in Tehran, Isfahan, and Meshed with more marches scheduled for today and tomorrow. “Too rich for me,” he said and threw in his cards.
“See you, Doc, and up a couple of thousand,” Starke said and Doc Nutt’s confidence vanished. Nutt had drawn two cards, Starke one, Ayre three.
Kelly looked at his straight, 4-5-6-7-B. “Your 2,000, Duke, and up 3,000!”
“Fold,” Ayre said instantly, throwing away two pairs, kings and tens.
“Fold,” D
oc Nutt said with a sigh of relief, shocked with himself for being so rash initially and threw in the three queens he had been dealt, sure that Starke had filled a straight, flush or full house.
“Your 3,000, Pop, and up 30—thousand,” Starke said sweetly, feeling very good inside. He had split a pair of sixes to keep four hearts, going for a flush. The ace of spades had made it a very busted flush but a winning hand if he could bluff Kelly to back off.
All eyes were on Kelly. The room was silent. Even Lochart was suddenly interested.
Starke waited patiently, guarding his face and hands, uneasy about the air of confidence surrounding Kelly and wondering what he would do if Kelly raised him again, knowing what Manuela’d say if she found out he was preparing to put a week’s pay on a busted flush.
She’d bust a girdle for starters, he thought and smiled.
Kelly was sweating. He had seen Starke’s sudden smile. He had caught him bluffing once but that was weeks ago and not for 30 thousand, only 4. I can’t afford to lose a week’s pay, still, the bugger could be bluffing. Something tells me old Duke’s bluffing, and I could use an extra week’s wages. Kelly rechecked his cards to make sure that his straight was a straight—of course it’s a bloody straight for God’s sake and Duke’s bluffing! He felt his mouth begin to say, “I’ll see your 30,000,” but he stopped it and said instead, “Up yours, Duke,” threw his cards in and everyone laughed. Except Starke. He picked up the pot, slid his cards into the deck, and shuffled them to make sure they could not be seen.
“I’ll bet you were bluffing, Duke,” Lochart said and grinned.
“Me? Me with a straight flush?” Starke said innocently amid jeers. He glanced at his watch. “I’ve got to do the rounds. Let’s quit, continue after dinner, huh? Tom, you wanta come along?”
“Sure.” Lochart put on his parka and followed Starke outside.
This was the best time of day for them in normal times—just before sundown, flying done, all the choppers washed and refueled ready for tomorrow, a drink to look forward to, time to read a little, write a few letters, listen to some music, eat, call home, then bed.
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