Escape

by James Clavell

  ‘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 mêlée 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 towards 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 towards 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 counter-cries and shots and noise and screams of this minor skirmish snapped Erikki’s paralysis. He shoved Azadeh towards 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 tyres 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 paralysed 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 recognise 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 passers, or that many cars contained revolutionaries fleeing their roadblock for Tehran.

  Chapter 4

  In the skies near Qazvin: 3:17 P.M. From the moment Charlie Pettikin had left Tabriz with Rakoczy—the man he knew as Smith—he had flown the 206 as straight and level as possible, hoping to lull the KGB man to sleep, or at least off guard. For the same reason he had avoided conversation by slipping his headset on to his neck. At length Rakoczy had given up, just watched the terrain below. But he stayed alert with his gun across his lap, his thumb on the safety catch. And Pettikin wondered about him, who he was, what he was, what band of revolutionaries he belonged to—army or SAVAK, and if so why it was so important to get to Tehran. It had never occurred to Pettikin that the man was Russian not Iranian.

  At Bandar-e Pahlavi where refuelling had been laboriously slow and had taken hours, he had done nothing to break the monotony, just paid over his last remaining American dollars and watched while the tanks were filled, then signed the official IranOil chit. Rakoczy had tried to chat with the refueller but the man was hostile, clearly frightened of being seen refuelling this foreign helicopter, and even more frightened of the machine gun that was on the front seat.

  All the time they were on the ground Pettikin had gauged the odds of trying to grab the gun. There was never a chance. In Korea they had been plentiful. And Vietnam. My God, he thought, those days seem a million years ago.

  He had taken off from Bandar-e Pahlavi and was now heading south at 1,000 feet, following the Qazvin road. East he could see the beach where he had set down Captain Ross and his two paratroopers. Again he wondered how they had known he was making a flight to Tabriz and what their mission had been. Hope to God they make it—whatever they had to make. Had to be urgent and important. Hope I see Ross again, I’d like that. . .

  ‘Why do you smile, Captain?’

  The voice came through his earphones. Automatically on takeoff this time he had put them on. He looked across at Rakoczy and shrugged, then went back to monitoring his instruments and the ground below. Over Qazvin he banked southeast following the Tehran road, once more retreating into himself. Be patient, he told himself, then saw Rakoczy tense and put his face closer to the window, looking downward.

  ‘Bank left. . . a little left,’ Rakoczy ordered urgently, his concentration totally on the ground. Pettikin put the chopper into a gentle bank—Rakoczy on the low side. ‘No more! Make a one eighty.’

  ‘What is it?’ Pettikin asked. He steepened the bank, suddenly aware the man had forgotten the machine gun in his lap. His heart picked up a beat.

  ‘There below on the road. That truck.’

  Pettikin paid no attention to the ground below. He kept his eyes on the gun, gauging the distance carefully, his heart racing. ‘Where? I can’t see anything.’ He steepened the bank even more to come around quickly on to the new heading. ‘What truck? You mean. . .’

  His left hand darted out and grabbed the gun by the barrel and awkwardly jerked it through the sliding window into the cabin behind them. At the same time his right hand on the stick went harder left, then quickly right and left-right again, rocking the chopper viciously. Rakoczy was taken completely unaware and his head slammed against the side, momentarily stunning him. At once Pettikin clenched his left fist and inexpertly slashed at the man’s jaw to put him unconscious. But Rakoczy, karate-trained, his reflexes good, managed to stop the blow with his forearm. Groggily he held on to Pettiki
n’s wrist, gaining strength every second as the two men fought for supremacy, the chopper dangerously heeled over, Rakoczy still on the downside. They grappled with each other, cursing, seat belts inhibiting them. Both became more frenzied, Rakoczy with two hands free beginning to dominate.

  Abruptly Pettikin gripped the stick with his knees, took his right hand off it, and smashed again at Rakoczy’s face. The blow was not quite true but the strength of it shifted him off balance, destroyed the grip of his knees shoving the stick left and overrode the delicate balance of his feet on the rudder pedals. At once the chopper reeled on to its side, lost all lift—no chopper can fly itself even for a second—the centrifugal force further throwing his weight askew and in the mêlée the collective lever was shoved down. The chopper fell out of the sky, out of control.

  In panic, Pettikin abandoned the fight. Blindly he struggled to regain control, engines screaming and instruments gone mad. Hands and feet and training against panic, overcorrecting, then overcorrecting again. They dropped nine hundred feet before he got her straight and level, his heart unbearable, the snow-covered ground fifty feet below.

  His hands were trembling. It was difficult to breathe. Then he felt something hard shoved in his side and heard Rakoczy cursing. Dully he realised the language was not Iranian but did not recognise it. He looked across at him and saw the face twisted with anger and the grey metal of the automatic and cursed himself for not thinking of that. Angrily he tried to shove the gun away but Rakoczy stuck it hard into the side of his neck.

  ‘Stop or I’ll blow your head off, you matyeryebyets!’

  At once Pettikin put the plane into a violent bank, but the gun pressed harder, hurting him. He felt the safety catch go off and the gun cock.

  ‘Your last chance!’

  The ground was very near, rushing past sickeningly. Pettikin knew he could not shake him off. ‘All right—all right,’ he said, conceding, and straightened her and began to climb. The pressure from the gun increased and with it, the pain. ‘You’re hurting me for God’s sake and shoving me off balance! How can I fly if y—’

  Rakoczy just jabbed the gun harder, shouting at him, cursing him, jamming his head against the door frame.

  ‘For Christ’s sake!’ Pettikin shouted back in desperation, trying to adjust his headset that had been torn off in the struggle. ‘How the hell can I fly with your gun in my neck?’ The pressure eased off a fraction and he righted the plane. ‘Who the hell are you, anyway?’

  ‘Smith!’ Rakoczy was equally unnerved. A split second later, he thought, and we would have been splattered like a pat of fresh cow dung. ‘You think you deal with a matyeryebyets amateur?’ Before he could stop himself his reflexes took his hand and backhanded Pettikin across the mouth.

  Pettikin was rocked by the blow, and the chopper twisted but came back into control. He felt the burn spreading over his face. ‘You do that again and I’ll put her on her back,’ he said with a great finality.

  ‘I agree,’ Rakoczy said at once. ‘I apologise for. . . for that. . . for that stupidity, Captain.’ Carefully he eased back against his door but kept the gun cocked and pointed. ‘Yes, there was no need. I’m sorry.’

  Pettikin stared at him blankly. ‘You’re sorry?’

  ‘Yes. Please excuse me. It was unnecessary. I am not a barbarian.’ Rakoczy gathered himself. ‘If you give me your word you’ll stop trying to attack me, I’ll put my gun away. I swear you’re in no danger.’

  Pettikin thought a moment. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘If you tell me who you are and what you are.’

  ‘Your word?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Very well, I accept your word, Captain.’ Rakoczy put the safety on and the gun in his far pocket. ‘My name is Ali bin Hassan Karakose and I’m a Kurd. My home—my village—is on the slopes of Mount Ararat on the Iranian-Soviet border. Through the Blessings of God I’m a Freedom Fighter against the Shah, and anyone else who wishes to enslave us. Does that satisfy you?’

  ‘Yes—yes it does. Then if y—’

  ‘Please, later. First go there—quickly.’ Rakoczy pointed below. ‘Level off and go closer.’

  They were at 800 feet to the right of the Qazvin-Tehran road. A village straddled the road a mile back and he could see the smoke whirled away by a stiff breeze. ‘Where?’

  ‘There, beside the road.’

  At first Pettikin could not see what the man pointed at—his mind jumbled with questions about the Kurds and their historic centuries of wars against the Persian shahs. Then he saw the collection of cars and trucks pulled up to one side, and men surrounding a modern truck with a blue cross on a rectangular white background on the roof, other traffic grinding past slowly. ‘You mean there? You want to go over those trucks and cars?’ he asked, his face still smarting and his neck aching. ‘The bunch of trucks near the one with the blue cross on its roof?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Obediently Pettikin went into a descending bank. ‘What’s so important about them, eh?’ he asked, then glanced up. He saw the man staring at him suspiciously. ‘What? What the hell’s the matter now?’

  ‘You really don’t know what a blue cross on a white background signifies?’

  ‘No. What about it? What is it?’ Pettikin had his eyes on the truck that was much closer now, close enough to see it was a red Range Rover, an angry crowd surrounding it, one of the men smashing at the back windows with the butt of a rifle. ‘It’s the flag of Finland’ came through his earphones and Erikki leaped into Pettikin’s mind. ‘Erikki had a Range Rover,’ he burst out and saw the rifle butt shatter the window. ‘You think that’s Erikki?’

  ‘Yes. . . yes it’s possible.’

  At once he went faster and lower, his pain forgotten, his excitement overriding all the sudden questions of how and why this Freedom Fighter knew Erikki. Now they could see the crowd turning towards them and people scattering. His pass was very fast and very low but he did not see Erikki. ‘You see him?’

  ‘No. I couldn’t see inside the cab.’

  ‘Nor could I,’ Pettikin said anxiously, ‘but a few of those buggers are armed and they were smashing the windows. You see them?’

  ‘Yes. They must be fedayeen. One of them fired at us. If you. . .’ Rakoczy stopped, hanging on tightly as the chopper skidded into a 180-degree turn, twenty feet off the ground, and hurtled back again. This time the crowd of men and the few women fled, falling over one another. Traffic in both directions tried to speed away or shuddered to a halt, one overloaded truck skidding into another. Several cars and trucks turned off the road and one almost overturned in the joub.

  Just abreast of the Range Rover, Pettikin swung into a sliding 90-degree turn to face it—snow boiling into a cloud—for just enough time to recognise Erikki, then into another 90 degrees to barrel away into the sky. ‘It’s him all right. Did you see the bullet holes in the windscreen?’ he asked, shocked. ‘Reach in the back for the machine gun. I’ll steady her and then we’ll go and get him. Hurry, I want to keep them off balance.’

  At once Rakoczy unbuckled his seat belt, reached back through the small intercommunicating window but could not get the gun that lay on the floor. With great difficulty he twisted out of his seat and clambered head first, half through the window, groping for it, and Pettikin knew the man was at his mercy. So easy to open the door now and shove him out. So easy. But impossible.

  ‘Come on!’ he shouted and helped pull him back into the seat. ‘Put your belt on!’

  Rakoczy obeyed, trying to catch his breath, blessing his luck that Pettikin was a friend of the Finn, knowing that if their positions had been reversed he would not have hesitated to open the door. ‘I’m ready,’ he said, cocking the gun, appalled at Pettikin’s stupidity. The British are so stupid the mother-eating bastards deserve to lose. ‘Wh—’

  ‘Here we go!’ Pettikin spun the chopper into a diving turn at maximum speed. S
ome armed men were still near the truck, guns pointing at them. ‘I’ll soften them up and when I say “fire” put a burst over their heads!’

  The Range Rover rushed up at them, hesitated, then swirled away drunkenly—no trees nearby—hesitated again and came at them as the chopper danced around it. Pettikin flared to a sudden stop twenty yards away, ten feet off the ground. ‘Fire,’ he ordered.

  At once Rakoczy let off a burst through the open window, aiming not over heads but at a group of men and women ducked down behind the back end of Erikki’s truck, out of Pettikin’s line of sight, killing or wounding some of them. Everyone nearby fled panic-stricken—screams of the wounded mingling with the howl of the jets. Drivers and passengers jumped out of cars and trucks, scrambling away in the snowdrifts as best they could. Another burst and more panic, now everyone rushing in retreat, all traffic snarled. On the road some youths came from behind a truck with rifles. Rakoczy sprayed them and those nearby. ‘Make a three-sixty!’ he shouted.

  Immediately the helicopter pirouetted but no one was near. Pettikin saw four bodies in the snow. ‘I said over their heads, for God’s sake,’ he began, but at that moment the door of the Range Rover swung open and Erikki jumped out, his knife in one hand. For a moment he was alone, then a chador-clad woman was beside him. At once Pettikin set the chopper down on the snow but kept her almost airborne. ‘Come on,’ he shouted, beckoning them. They began to run, Erikki half carrying Azadeh whom Pettikin did not yet recognise.

  Beside him Rakoczy unlocked his side door and leaped out, opened the back door and whirled on guard. Another short burst towards the traffic. Erikki stopped, appalled to see Rakoczy. ‘Hurry!’ Pettikin shouted, not understanding the reason for Erikki’s hesitation. ‘Erikki, come on!’ Then he recognised Azadeh. ‘My God. . .’ he muttered, then shouted, ‘Come on, Erikki!’

  ‘Quick, I’ve not much ammunition left!’ Rakoczy shouted in Russian.