Escape

by James Clavell

  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 moustache 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 towards him, watching Mahmud, flecks of foam at the corner of her mouth. Then Ross saw Mahmud turn and stalk off towards 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 towards 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 in 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, finish cutting 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 kukri 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 labouring 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 cook house. 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 half truck 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 a while 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 cookhouse, 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 M 16 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 recognised 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 towards 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 kukri 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 scabbard kukri.

  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 shock-still, then as they dropped for cover the grenade exploded, blowing most of the veranda and o
verhang away, killing one of them, stunning another, and maiming the third. Instantly Ross rushed into the open, carbine levelled, 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 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 kukri 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 towards 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 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 kukri. ‘You, see that rise there?’

  ‘Yes. . . yes, sir,’ Arberry croaked.

  ‘Go up there as 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 towards 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 back seat 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.

  Chapter 15

  At Tehran International Airport: 11:58 A.M. The cabin door of the 125 closed. From the cockpit John Hogg gave Gavallan and McIver who stood on the tarmac beside his car a thumbs-up and taxied away. Gavallan had just arrived from Al Shargaz and this was the first moment he and McIver had been alone.

  ‘What’s up, Mac?’ he said, the chill wind tugging at their winter clothes and billowing the snow around them.

  ‘Trouble, Andy.’

  ‘I know that. Tell it to me quickly.’

  McIver leaned closer. ‘I’ve just heard we’ve barely a week before we’re grounded pending nationalisation.’

  ‘What?’ Gavallan was suddenly numb. ‘Talbot told you?’

  ‘Yes.’ McIver’s face twisted, so worried that he was stumbling over the words. ‘The bastard told me with his smooth, put-on politeness, “I wouldn’t bet on more than ten days if I were you—a week’d be safe—and don’t forget, Mr McIver, a closed mouth catches no flies.” ’

  ‘My God, does he know we are planning something?’ A gust speckled them with powdered snow. They got into the car.

  ‘I don’t know. I just don’t know, Andy.’

  The windows were fogged up. McIver switched the defrost and fan to maximum, heat already at maximum, then pushed the music cassette home, jacked the sound up, turned it down again, cursing.

  ‘What else’s up, Mac?’

  ‘Just about everything,’ McIver blurted out. ‘Erikki’s been kidnapped by Soviets or the KGB and he’s somewhere up near the Turkish border with his 212, doing Christ knows what—Nogger thinks he’s being forced to help them clean out secret U.S. radar sites. Nogger, Azadeh, two of our mechanics and a British captain barely escaped from Tabriz with their lives, they got back yesterday and they’re at my place at the moment—at least they were when I left this morning. My God, Andy, you should have seen the state they were in when they arrived. The captain was the same one who saved Charlie at Doshan Tapeh, who Charlie dropped off at Bandar-e Pahlavi. . .’

  ‘He what?’

  ‘It was a secret op. He’s a captain in the Gurkhas. . . name’s Ross, John Ross, he and Azadeh were both pretty incoherent, Nogger too was pretty excited and at l
east they’re safe now back home.’ McIver’s voice became brittle. ‘Sorry to tell you we’ve lost a mechanic at Zagros, Effer Jordon, he was shot an—’

  ‘Jesus Christ! Old Effer dead?’

  ‘Yes. . . yes I’m afraid so and your son was nicked. . . not badly,’ McIver added hastily as Gavallan blanched. ‘Scot’s all right, he’s okay an—’

  ‘How badly?’

  ‘Bullet through the fleshy part of the right shoulder. No bones touched, just a flesh wound—Jean-Luc said they’ve penicillin, a medic, the wound’s clean. Scot won’t be able to ferry the 212 out tomorrow to Al Shargaz so I asked Jean-Luc to do it and take Scot with him, then come back to Tehran on the next 125 flight and we’ll get him back to Kowiss.’

  ‘You’re sure? That Scot was just nicked?’

  ‘Yes, Andy. Sure.’

  ‘What the hell happened?’

  ‘I don’t know exactly. I got a relayed message from Starke this morning who’d just picked it up from Jean-Luc. It seems that terrorists are operating in the Zagros, I suppose the same bunch that attacked the oil rigs Bellissima and Rosa, they must’ve been hiding in ambush in the forests around our base. Effer Jordon and Scot were loading spares into the 212 just after dawn this morning and got sprayed. Poor old Effer got most of the bullets and Scot just one. . .’ Again McIver added hurriedly, seeing Gavallan’s face, ‘Jean-Luc assured me Scot’s all right, Andy, honest to God!’

  ‘I wasn’t thinking just about Scot,’ Gavallan said heavily. ‘Effer’s been with us damn nearly since we started—hasn’t he got three kids?’

  ‘Yes, yes he has. Terrible.’ McIver let in the clutch and eased the car through the snow back towards the office. ‘They’re all still at school, I think.’

  ‘I’ll do something about them soon as I get back.’ Gavallan was in dismay, so many questions to ask and to be answered, everything in jeopardy, here and at home. A week to doomsday? Thank God that Scot. . . poor old Effer. . . Christ Almighty, Scot shot! Gloomily he looked out of the windshield and saw they were nearing the freight area. ‘Stop the car for a minute, Mac, better to talk in private, eh?’