Whirlwind

by James Clavell

  He did not see the police car come charging out of a side turning, skid on the slippery surface, and smash into the back of them. There was no way that Mohammed could have avoided the accident, and the speed of the police car, added to his own, hurtled them broadside across the road into a street stall and the crowds, killing one old woman, decapitating another, and injuring many as the wheels fell into the joub, the momentum rolling the car over to smash it against the high walls with a howling screech of metal.

  Instinctively Scragger had put his hands over his face but the final crash bashed his head against the side, stunning him momentarily, the seat belt saving him from real damage. The driver had gone through the windshield and now was half in and half out of the car, badly injured. In the back, the seat had protected Minoru and he was the first to recover, the radio still protectively in his lap. Amid the screams and pandemonium he fought his door open and scrambled out, covered by the melee of pedestrians and injured, unnoticed as a passenger, Japanese from Iran-Toda normal in the streets here.

  At that moment the occupants of the police car that now was swiveled half across the road—its front crumpled—ran over. The police shoved their way up to the station wagon, took one look at the driver then pulled the side door open and hauled Scragger out.

  Angry shouts of “Amerikan!” and more screams and noise, Scragger still half stunned. “Tha…thanks, I’m… I’m okay…” but they held him firmly, shouting at him.

  “For Christ’s sake…” he gasped, “I wasn’t driving…what the hell happ—” Around him was a tumult of Farsi and panic and anger and one of the police snapped handcuffs on him and then they dragged him roughly to the other car, pushed him into the backseat and got in, still cursing him. The driver started up.

  On the other side of the road, Minoru was futilely trying to push through the crowd to help Scragger. He stopped, crestfallen, as the car hurtled away down the street.

  NEAR DOSHAN TAPPEH: 3:30 P.M. McIver was driving along the empty perimeter road outside the barbed-wire fence of the military airfield. The fenders were badly bent and there were many more dents than before. One headlight was cracked and roughly taped, the red glass of one taillight missing, but the engine still sounded sweet and her snow tires were firm on the surface. Snow banked the roadway. No sun came through the overcast that was barely twelve hundred feet and obscured all but the foothills of the northern mountains. It was cold and he was late.

  On the inside of his windshield was a big green permit and, seeing it, the motley group of Green Band and air force guards stationed near the gate waved him through, then crowded back around the open fire to warm themselves. He headed for the S-G hangar. Before he could reach it, Tom Lochart came out of a side door to intercept him.

  “Hi Mac,” he said, getting in quickly. He was wearing flight gear and carried his flight bag and had just flown in from Kowiss. “How’s Sharazad?”

  “Sorry to take so long, traffic was terrible.”

  “Have you seen her?”

  “No, not yet. Sorry.” He saw Lochart’s immediate tension. “I went again early this morning. A servant answered the door but didn’t seem to understand me—I’ll get you there as soon as I can.” He let in the clutch and turned for the gate. “How was Zagros?”

  “Rotten, I’ll fill you in on that in a second,” Lochart said hurriedly. “Before we can leave we’ve got to report to the base commander.”

  “Oh? Why?” McIver put on the brake.

  “They didn’t say. They left a message with the clerk that when you came in today to report to base commander. Any problems?”

  “Not that I know of.” McIver let in the clutch and swung around. Now what? he thought, holding down his anxiety.

  “Could it be HBC?”

  “Let’s hope not.”

  “What happened to Lulu? You have a prang?”

  “No, just some street vandals,” McIver said, his mind on HBC.

  “Every day it gets rougher. Any news of Erikki?”

  “Nothing. He’s just vanished. Azadeh sits by the phone all day in the office.”

  “She’s still staying with you?”

  “No, she went back to her own apartment on Saturday.” McIver was heading for the buildings on the other side of the runway. “Tell me about Zagros.” He listened without comment until Lochart had finished. “Awful, just awful!”

  “Yes, but Nitchak Khan didn’t give the signal to shoot us down. If he had he’d’ve gotten away with it. Goddamn hard to break the ‘terrorist’ story. Anyway, when we got to Kowiss, Duke and Andy had had a fracas with Hotshot.” Lochart told him about that. “But the ruse seems to be working; yesterday Duke and Pop ferried the 212 to Rudi and this morning EchoTangoLimaLima came in for Jordon’s body.”

  “Terrible. Feel very responsible for old Effer.”

  “Guess we all do.” Ahead they could see the HQ building with sentries outside it. “We all turned out and put the coffin aboard, young Freddy played a lament on the pipes, not much else we could do. Curiously Colonel Changiz sent an air force honor guard and gave us a proper coffin. Iranians’re strange, so strange. They seemed genuinely sorry.” Lochart was talking automatically, sick with anxiety at the delays—having to wait at Kowiss, then flying here and ATC harassing him, then no transport and waiting interminably for McIver to arrive and now another delay. What’s happened to Sharazad?

  They were near the office building that housed the base commander’s suite and officers’ mess where they both had spent many good times in the past. Doshan Tappeh had been an elite base—the Shah had kept some of his private jet fleet and his Fokker Friendship here. Now the walls of the two-story building were scored by bullets and broken here and there by shellfire, most windows out, a few boarded up. Outside a few Green Bands and slovenly airmen lolled around as sentries.

  “Peace be with you! Excellency McIver and Lochart to see the camp commandant,” Lochart said in Farsi. One of the Green Bands waved them into the building. “Where is the office, please?”

  “Inside.”

  They walked up the steps toward the main door, the air heavy with the smell of fire and cordite and drains. Just as they reached the top step, the main door slammed open and a mullah with some Green Bands hurried out, dragging two young air force officers between them, their hands bound and uniforms torn and filthy. Lochart gasped, recognizing one of them. “Karim!” he burst out and now McIver recognized the youth also—Karim Peshadi, Sharazad’s adored cousin, the man he had asked to try to retrieve HBC’s clearance from the tower.

  “Tom! In the Name of God tell them I’m not a spy or traitor,” Karim shouted, in English. “Tom, tell them!”

  “Excellency,” Lochart said in Farsi to the mullah, “surely there’s some mistake. This man is Pilot Captain Peshadi, a loyal helper of the Ayatollah, a supp—”

  “Who’re you, Excellency?” asked the mullah, dark-eyed, short, stocky. “American?”

  “My name is Lochart, Excellency, Canadian, a pilot for IranOil, and this is the leader of our company across the airfield, Captain McIver, an—”

  “How do you know this traitor?”

  “Excellency, I’m sure there’s a mistake, he can’t possibly be a traitor, I know him because he is a cousin of my wife and the so—”

  “Your wife is Iranian?”

  “Yes, Excell—”

  “You are Muslim?”

  “No, Excellen—”

  “Better then she divorces and so saves her soul from pollution. As God wants. There’s no mistake about these traitors—mind your own business, Excellency.” The mullah motioned to the Green Bands. At once they went on down the steps, half carrying, half dragging the two young officers who shouted and protested their innocence, then he turned back for the main door.

  “Excellency,” Lochart called out urgently, catching up to him. “Please, in the Name of the One God, I know that young man to be loyal to the Imam, a good Muslim, a patriot of Iran, I know for a fact that he was one of those who
went against the Immortals here at Doshan Tappeh and helped the revolu—”

  “Stop!” The mullah’s eyes hardened even more. “This is not your affair, foreigner. No longer do foreigners or foreign laws or a foreign-dominated Shah rule us. You are not Iranian, nor a judge, nor a lawgiver. Those men were tried and judged.”

  “I beg your patience, Excellency, there must be some mistake, there mus—” Lochart whirled as a volley of rifle shots exploded nearby. The sentries below were staring across the road at some barracks and buildings. From his position atop the steps he could not see what they saw. Then the Green Bands reappeared from behind one of the barracks, shouldering their arms. They trooped back up the steps. The mullah motioned them back inside.

  “The law is the law,” the mullah said, watching Lochart. “Heresy must be removed. Since you know his family you can tell them to beg forgiveness of God for harboring such a son.”

  “What was he supposed to have been guilty of?”

  “Not ‘supposed,’ Excellency,” the mullah said, an angry edge creeping into his voice. “Karim Peshadi openly admitted stealing a truck and leaving the base without permission, openly admitted joining forbidden demonstrations, openly declared against our forthcoming absolute Islamic state, openly opposed the abolition of the anti-Islamic Marriage Act, openly advocated acts contrary to Islamic law, was caught in suspected acts of sabotage, openly decried the total absoluteness of the Koran, openly defied the Imam’s right to be faqira—he who is above the law and final arbiter of the law.” He pulled his robes closer about him against the cold. “Peace be with you.” He went back into the building.

  For a moment Lochart could not speak. Then he explained to McIver what had been said. “‘Suspected acts of sabotage,’ Tom? Was he caught in the tower?”

  “What does it matter?” Lochart said bitterly. “Karim’s dead—for crimes against God.”

  “No, laddie,” McIver said kindly, “not against God, against their version of truth spoken in the Name of the God they will never know.” He squared his shoulders and led the way inside the building. At length they found the base commander’s office and were ushered in.

  Behind the desk was a major. The mullah sat beside him. Above them, the only decoration in the small untidy room was a big photograph of Khomeini. “I’m Major Betami, Mr. McIver,” the man said crisply in English. “This is the mullah Tehrani,” Then he glanced at Lochart and switched to Farsi. “As His Excellency Tehrani does not speak English, you will interpret for me. Your name, please.”

  “Lochart, Captain Lochart.”

  “Please sit down, both of you. His Excellency says you are married to an Iranian. What was her maiden name?”

  Lochart’s eyes hardened. “My private life is my private life, Excellency.”

  “Not for a foreign helicopter pilot in the middle of our Islamic revolution against foreign domination,” the major said angrily, “nor one who knows traitors to the state. Do you have something to hide, Captain?”

  “No, no, of course not.”

  “Then please answer the question.”

  “Are you police? By what authority do y—”

  The mullah said, “I am a member of the Doshan Tappeh komiteh—you prefer to be summoned officially? Now? This minute?”

  “I prefer not to be questioned about my private life.”

  “If you have nothing to hide you can answer the question. Please choose.”

  “Bakravan.” Lochart saw the name register on both men. His stomach became even more queasy.

  “Jared Bakravan—the bazaari moneylender? One of his daughters?”

  “Yes.”

  “Her name, please.”

  Lochart held on to his blinding rage, compounded by Karim’s murder. It is murder, he wanted to shout, whatever you say. “Her Excellency, Sharazad.”

  McIver had been watching intently. “What’s all this about, Tom?”

  “Nothing. Nothing, I’ll tell you later.”

  The major made a note on a piece of paper. “What is your relationship to the traitor Karim Peshadi?”

  “I’ve known him for about two years, he was one of my student pilots. He’s my wife’s first cousin—was my wife’s first cousin—and I can only repeat it’s inconceivable that he would be a traitor to Iran or Islam.”

  The major made another note on the pad, the pen scratching loudly. “Where are you staying, Captain?”

  “I… I’m not sure. I was staying at the Bakravan house near the bazaar. Our…our apartment was commandeered.”

  The silence gathered in the room, making it claustrophobic. The major finished writing then picked up a page of notes and looked directly at McIver. “First, no foreign helicopters may be moved in or out of Tehran airspace without air force HQ clearance.”

  Lochart translated and McIver nodded noncommittally. This was nothing new, except that the komiteh at Tehran International Airport had just issued official written instructions on behalf of the all-powerful Revolutionary Komiteh that the komiteh alone could authorize and grant such clearances. McIver had got permission to send out his remaining 212 and one of his Alouettes to Kowiss “on temporary loan” just in time, he thought grimly, concentrating on the major, but wondering what the sharp Farsi exchange with Lochart had been all about.

  “Second: we require a complete list of all helicopters under your present control, where they are in Iran, their engine numbers, and the amount and type of spares you are carrying per helicopter.”

  Lochart saw McIver’s eyes widen, his own mind locked into Sharazad and why they wanted to know where he lived and her relationship with Karim, hardly listening to the words as he translated back and forth. “Captain McIver says: ‘Very well. It will take me a little time, because of communications, but I will get it for you as soon as possible.’”

  “I would like it tomorrow.”

  “If I can get it by then, Excellency, rest assured you will have it. You will have it as soon as possible.”

  “Third: all your helicopters in the Tehran area will be assembled here starting tomorrow, and from now on will operate only out of here.”

  “I will certainly inform my superiors in IranOil of your request, Major. Instantly.”

  The major’s face hardened. “The air force is the arbiter of this.”

  “Of course. I will inform my superiors at once. Was that all, Major?”

  The mullah said, “About the helicopter.” He referred to a note on the desk in front of him. “HBC. We w—”

  “HBC!” McIver allowed his panic to explode into a righteous anger that Lochart had a hard time keeping up with: “Security’s the responsibility of the air force on the base and how they could have been so lax to allow HBC to be hijacked I don’t know! Time and again I’ve complained about laxness, sentries never appearing, no guards at night. A million dollars of theft! Irreplaceable! I am instituting a claim against the air force for negligence an—”

  “It wasn’t our fault,” the major began angrily, but McIver paid no attention and continued the offensive, allowing him no opening, nor did Lochart, who turned McIver’s tirade into apt Iranian words and phrases for an even more slashing attack on air force perfidy.

  “…unbelievable negligence—I might even say deliberate treachery and collusion by other officers—to allow some unknown American to get into our hangar under the very noses of our supposed guardians, to be given clearance to fly off by our supposed protectors, and then allowed to do damage to the great Iranian state! Unforgivable! Of course it was treachery and preplanned by ‘persons unknown holding officer rank,’ and I must ins—”

  “How dare you imply th—”

  “Of course it must have been with air force officer collusion—who controls the base? Who controls the airwaves, who sits in the tower? We hold the air force responsible and I’m registering the complaint to the highest level of IranOil demanding restitution and…and next week, next week I will apply for redress to the illustrious Revolutionary Komiteh and the Imam hims
elf, may God protect him! Now, Excellency, if you will excuse us we will go about our business. Peace be with you!”

  McIver went for the door, Lochart following, both men overloaded with adrenaline, McIver feeling terrible, his chest aching.

  “Wait!” the mullah ordered.

  “Yes, Excellency?”

  “How do you explain that the traitor Valik—who ‘happens’ to be a partner of your company and kinsman of the usurer and Shah supporter Bakravan—arrived in Isfahan in this helicopter to pick up other traitors, one of whom was General Seladi, another kinsman of Jared Bakravan—father-in-law to one of your senior pilots?”

  Lochart’s mouth was very dry as he spoke the doom-filled words but McIver did not hesitate and came back to the attack. “I did not appoint General Valik to our board, he was appointed by high-up Iranians according to your then current law—we did not seek Iranian partners, it was Iranian law that we had to have them, they were forced upon us. Nothing to do with me. As to the rest, Insha’Allah—the Will of God!” Heart thundering, he opened the door and stalked off. Lochart finished translating. “Salaam.” He followed.

  “You’ve not heard the last of this,” the major shouted after him.

  NEAR THE UNIVERSITY: 6:07 P.M. They were lying side by side on soft carpets in front of the wood fire that burned merrily in the pleasant room. Sharazad and Ibrahim Kyabi. They were not touching, just watching the fire, listening to the good, modern music from the cassette player, lost in thought, each too aware of the other.

  “Thou, gift of the Universe,” he murmured, “thou of the ruby lips and breath like wine, thou, tongue of Heaven…”

  “Oh, Ibrahim,” she laughed. “What is this ‘tongue of Heaven’?”