by Tony Criddle
“For what it’s worth, light us up. We’re nearly there.” There was silence for about a minute.
They had flown together long enough for the RIO to know when he could get a bit familiar. “Not too bad when I sweep at this level boss, but complete camel crap when we look at the deck. Almost total ground reflections.”
“I know son. The colonel flew these things for a lot of hours and he knows too. That’s why he sounded pissed off. Do what you can but use your eyes. It’s probably our best shot.”
Nick was near to the mountain, still eighty kilometres from the rippling, icy water, and not aware of the menacing fighter winging towards the northern edge of Lake Urmia. He knew Iranian resources were limited and he was playing it for all he could. He had only one real shot, but then again that’s all they had too.
“Maragheh will come up on your left in about ten minutes Lily. You can come right if you think you’re a bit close. There’s a second class road running from there to Mianeh, but nothing else. I’ll take over after that.”
“Are they the only towns to worry about?”
“Just Maragheh, the other one’s over forty clicks from it. Several run-offs and a few small villages cut into the mountains behind them, but there aren’t any roads, only dirt tracks. We’ll pick a spot on the western slope and have a look at the base first. That can be a quick wee break as well.”
“I can see the city Nick.” She jammed the collective with her knee like she’d seen him do, and looked at the palm of her left hand. “Half past ten.” He smiled. He’d already seen it, but there was little she hadn’t already picked up.
“Right Lil, ten degrees starboard. If you can see those two rivers ahead, about five clicks apart, fly between them.” He pointed slightly to his side.
“Got them. Going a bit lower.”
They flashed over the secondary road almost immediately, surprising a vehicle rattling towards them a mile or so away. Nick shrugged. He couldn’t do much if it did report him, but was it likely? They were gone again before it really registered anyway.
“Okay relax Lily, I have control.” She handed over and wriggled in her seat to appease a numbed back-side. They were amongst tall, dark green pines now on a steepening forested slope and he edged port to avoid being sky-lined.
Lake Urmia was huge but only part of an ever-expanding panorama. The vast, wet expanse stretched hazily westwards, most of it easily visible from half way up the slope. Further away, in the hazy distance, tall jagged mountains marked where Iran ended and Turkey began, while several small towns hugged the rivers in the basin between them. Dirt tracks linking them were little more than rudimentary, little more than narrow subdued creases on a roughened, rolling surface.
The small city of Azar Shahr stood out, particularly the modern, sealed roads and railway line looping to the west, but south of the town the buildings of the small regional airfield were barely visible. Nick headed for a ragged crag beside the broiling white cascade it overlooked.
“Okay guys, out and stretch your legs. You take over in ten minutes so I can Lil.”
The big jet was cruising at 450 knots and 10,000 feet when it reached the northern tip of the lake, about the most economical speed at that height. The pilot altered to track down the centre of the water.
“Flash it up again son. See what you get here.”
The RIO engaged the forward sweeping dish and angled it towards the lake. There was a distinctive clear return over the smooth water but flickering spikes of nothing on either side.
“The lake’s not too bad Major, especially if I don’t angle down too much.”
“Okay leave it there for now. We can’t expect to get lucky, but you never know.” The F14 thundered on until they were approaching land again and the return over the broad, flat water catchment degenerated quickly.
“I’ve lost it again boss, sorry.”
“That’s all right Habib, it was wishful thinking anyway. We’ll run in towards Sanandaj for several minutes then reverse up the western side of the lake. We don’t have enough fuel for anything else. I’ll come down a couple of thousand but that’s it.” There was an angry edge to what he said. A few miles later the major snorted in disgust. “Look at it. They could be anywhere.”
Mile after mile of multi-coloured chasms and rounded rolling peaks stretched all around them, some still bright with late shafts of sunlight, the lower tracts already dark and foreboding. Deep valleys threw dark shadow haphazardly in every direction, and patches of snow and acres of withered, pied grasses glistened spasmodically in a confusing mix. And at the speed they were flying it was gone before they could really focus or absorb it anyway.
The XO weaved gently around a base course of south-east for fifty nautical miles, but there was nothing flying below him and just one set of silver contrails heading west far above. He gave up with a disgusted shrug. He was strapped tightly into his seat, so he didn’t actually move much, but his RIO sensed his reaction. The jet pilot reversed course and headed back to the lake again, ordering radar as he tracked back north over the glistening water.
Chapter Forty-Five
The beige, sandy airfield nestled a good twenty clicks away, and only the two dark intersecting strips of tarmac were easily discernable from up there. The buildings themselves were nowhere near as obvious, but Jock had thrown in their old Zeiss binos and Nick fished them out of his bag.
A twin light aircraft took off on runway 220, and shortly after a helicopter droned in from the west. It was bigger than the machine Nick was flying, possibly a Puma, and it headed for a low complex of Nissans and prefabricated offices on the south eastern side of the airfield. The paint job was a dark grey, its shape distorted by a sun now sinking lower in the western sky, but what was important was that it was flying at all. Obviously, survey operations that weren’t American were still going ahead. A wary look at the sun reassured him. Nick couldn’t afford to be too early but he needed people to be there at the same time he was. He squinted westward.
By then the distant mountains appeared to be reaching up to drag the glowing ball down quickly, and hazy daylight was already muting into a pre-dusk dull metallic sheen. The sun hadn’t slid much lower before Nick made his decision. Even with some fuel it would be dark in parts of the mountains soon and then he’d have to stop anyway. He couldn’t risk flying through the high peaks at night and he couldn’t climb above them either.
There would be radars on both sides of the border for sure. Nick didn’t know where, and it was purely speculative but even the Turks might splash an unidentified aircraft forcing their borders with Iran. It could be running drugs or arms.
Nick took only enough time to relieve himself before he was ready to go, and fuel was his first concern. Without that they’d be walking through the mountains.
Scanning closer he saw that a significant gully, carved deep by running water, looped almost as far as the airfield. He might not be seen at all. The two small villages on the river banks below looked deserted, but probably were of no real consequence, and thick, bushy trees on the river banks provided cover almost all the way to the depot. It was the way to go.
“It’ll start getting rough from now on guys, so I need your eyes swivelled outwards, and nothing is too trivial to report. Look out for wires and fences as well Lil because I’ll be very low trying to keep the depot between us and the terminal.” He waited for their nods. “Okay. Just you out when we refuel Jock, everybody else ready to go again. Okay guys, let’s hope Sven is still there.” They all grunted. Nobody actually spoke.
Nick squeezed off the ledge and tracked down the white water cascading from the peaks above. He flew low, lower than the swaying conifer tops, the tumbling river so close he had to hop over several wayward branches that overhung it. In less than a minute his brow glistened with a wet sheen.
Minutes later they passed the first small village on the river bank. It was deserted as Nick thought it would be, but he was forced up several feet by a flock of doves breaki
ng in panic from the dense trees it nestled in. By then his brow was trickling.
When he did hurtle onto the flats beneath the broad skirts of Sahand they were only six kilometres from the base. He scrapped the chopper through the mottled, rounded boulders in the river bed, keeping himself screened all the way in, and by the time they reached the perimeter the Nissan hangers and office blocks blanked out most of the airfield.
This close Nick could see that two ground crew were wheeling in what was definitely a Puma. One was walking and one towing with a small tractor, and a tall, fair-haired male watched with hands behind his back. Shorts, sandals, a polo top and blue baseball cap didn’t disguise him either. It was the tall Swede. Nick kept his eye on him and judged his flare so that he didn’t balloon. Laleh broke into his concentration.
“High fence Nick.”
He lifted instinctively and was still running forward slightly when he ran the machine onto the concrete. The skids sparked, and the metal tubes screeched, but they were built for it. Sven turned as the steel abraded noisily, a look of incredibility on his face. Nick tugged open his sliding window.
“Nick isn’t it? What the hell are you up too?”
“I need fuel quickly Sven and I could do without a bowser being here.”
Managers in those remote areas are chosen not just because they are good man managers, but because they are fairly astute as well. The Swede knew the situation, he didn’t need a diagram.
“That hand cart’s about half full. I use it to top up after ground runs. It’s got a hand pump though, it’s a bit slow.”
He whistled to the two stowing the Puma and pointed at the ground cart. They didn’t need a diagram either. The Swede showed Jock how to operate it and Sinclair started pumping.
“I’ll keep an eye on the terminal from the hangar. If anything happens I’ll let you know.” He raced the fifty metres he needed to and the Scot pumped like a man possessed. Nick watched his fuel gauge climb agonisingly slowly.
Jock hadn’t been cranking for more than a few minutes before the Swede shouted, looked back across the flat dusty field, then ran towards them. Sinclair was still pumping furiously when he arrived.
“There’s a vehicle coming. Close your tank and get out of here.” Sinclair complied, and the ground crew dragged the cart back to the hangar. Sven looked over his shoulder.
“Go Nick. There’s a truck about 300 metres away.”
“What about you Sven?”
“I’ll be all right. I’ve thought of something to say.”
Sinclair was already dragging the door closed.
“Okay, on your way.”
As Nick lifted he yelled his thanks. The Swede heard.
“Go with your god Nick.” That was said quietly.
And the Bell was nearly a mile away, travelling fast and low, when the truck screeched to a halt, and a senior air trafficker and security guard scrambled out.
“Who was in that helicopter Mister Anderson?” The air trafficker spoke in Farsi.
“A European pilot and two Iranians in some sort of uniform,” Anderson answered in the same language.
The air trafficker’s eyes slitted. “All flights have to be cleared and he couldn’t have taken much fuel.”
“He didn’t take any. The helicopter was seconded to look for another one by Tehran. They were asking questions that’s all.”
“On whose authority?”
“I don’t know. They had a written document of some sort but nearly all of it was in Arabic and you know I can’t read that.” Anderson let himself sound uptight.
Azar Shahr hadn’t been dragged into the loop, only the larger city airfields, and the controller was fishing. He was suspicious but didn’t know why. A look across to the hangar where the ground crew were diligently polishing the Puma didn’t tell him much either. Frustrated, he gestured for security to mount the truck and drove back to the terminal, but deliberated before phoning Tabriz. The number he’d been given was for emergencies and he didn’t know if this was one or not. Tabriz was in the loop but they deliberated too before phoning Ardabil.
“We didn’t get as much fuel as I’d hoped guys, but I think we got enough. I was going around the top of the lake, but now we’ll go across it instead. That should give us enough for Turkey. There’s a large promontory with just a couple of villages on it up ahead, and our water track will only be twenty clicks.”
“Do you expect anything nasty laddie?’
“I’ve no idea Jock, but if it’s going to happen it’ll be around here.”
They were fifteen kilometres from the airfield by then and Nick could see a fertile land mass jutting out prominently into the grey, rippling lake. He swung forty degrees to his right, aiming for it, and squeezed down amongst the lighter scrub on the edge of the water.
“Okay Lily, you have control. The peninsula is about seven clicks ahead. Go due west when you hit it.” She’d done a lot of nodding on this trip.
“I don’t think they’d put helicopters this far out on an off chance, so what we should be looking for is a jet fighter. They’ll want something they can hit us with if they do find us. It won’t be low either, not initially anyway. It’s too heavy on fuel. I’ll cover port with Jock and you take starboard Fred. Yell if you see anything. You just concentrate on getting us into the foothills Lil.”
Amini unstrapped and knelt on the cabin deck, better to cover the pale, washy sky.
“We’ve reached the peninsula Nick.”
“Okay Laleh. Due west over the water, then bias right. We’ll have to get as close as we can to that valley with the road and rail in it, the mountains are too high right ahead. About 100 clicks to go people.”
Cobra Two descended to 5000 AGL as it approached Urmia, just as the Bell started across the rippling lake some forty clicks north. The young RIO had his radar sweeping but there was a lot of clutter with the water throwing back disembodied ghosts and wavering shadows.
Just when he thought he might have a paint their radio burst into a distorted crackle. They were on an operational frequency so it could only be Ardabil, and the XO immediately pushed on power and zoom climbed to 15,000 feet to check in. The RIO was too inexperienced to voice his concerns to the senior officer.
“Cobra Two, command. Tabriz reported some unusual helicopter activity at Azar Shahr but it’s at least twenty minutes old. The idiots procrastinated before they called anyone. Where are you?”
“Half way up the lake. Where was it heading?”
“Towards you from what they said.”
“We didn’t see anything. They must have changed course.”
“It’s probably them then. Find it Cobra Two.”
“Okay command, but be advised, Cobra Two is almost on bingo fuel. I’ve got a few minutes to search before I return or you’ve lost another F14.”
“Roger that. What’s the weather like?”
“The weather’s okay command, but it’s getting dark quickly. The mountains already look pretty black in places, but shafts of sunlight are still lighting up some of the canyons.”
“Shit. Do what you can Cobra Two, they haven’t got far to go.”
“Roger command. Cobra Two out.”
Laleh was really smoking. She was a bit over the maximum allowable but if she hadn’t been Nick would have told her to anyway. She was low as well, lower than she’d ever taken it before, with three pairs of eyes searching the cloudless azure for even a hint of movement. They were already half way across the twenty kilometre stretch of water and ninety clicks from the border near Orenburc, even closer if Nick risked some steeper mountains in the dark. He flicked his gaze ahead.
“Right twenty to 290 Lily. We’ll cut the corner, so there’ll be a few villages to avoid. The biggest is actually a town called Salmas so keep well to port and only swing north when we’ve passed it. It’s probably okay but we’re too close to take chances.”
Laleh complied. “Villages ahead, Nick. I’ll come a touch more left, its clearer.”
“Whatever Fred, but we’re so close we’ll try to avoid them all.” He squinted at the map. “Go for that ridge ahead Lily. It’s a false one, and the land drops beyond it again, but it’s only about ten clicks from the foothills proper. You can come to 330 when you reach it and we’ll miss Salmas by a fair bit.” Laleh nodded as she approached dry land again but their complacency was shattered by an excited yell from Sinclair.
“Fighter bomber about six miles south Nick. It’s climbing hard. I can see two exhaust plumes.”
“Fuck. I have it Lily.” The nearest cover was the isolated ridge, now less than eight clicks ahead.
He squeezed even lower, the skids virtually brushing the thorny scrub, and headed for its crevices.
“What the hell is it Jock?”
“It had swept wings, and the only delta twin they’ve got is an F14. It’s turning away at present.”
“It won’t be for long. Someone at Azar must have phoned and it’s climbing to get line of sight. It wants a radio brief and a track.”
The ridge was only a few kilometres away by then, the land already beginning to buckle and tumble. Nick angled for some eroded, jumbled gullies running down from the crest.
“We can’t take a chance with his speed and the weapon load he carries, we’re too damn close. We’ve got to land and clear the chopper just in case. I’ll shut it down and try to disguise it while you guys take what you can into the rocks. It’ll be in about a minute guys, so get ready.” His voice was up an octave, the Welsh sing-song more pronounced.
He chose a wide gully festooned with straggling trees and shrubs. A scree of large rocks nestled half way up from a mini landslide, and its irregular surrounds were wreathed in streaks of light and shadow. Nick flared hard and landed as close as he dared to some stunted trees, and the others were out as soon as the skids hit. He climbed out as the rotors stopped, stuffing his map into a pocket.
