Whirlwind

by James Clavell

  The truck was half filled with scrap iron, but it would be better than walking. “On your head, driver, where do you go?”

  “To Qazvin, Excellency, Qazvin. Would you honor us?”

  The truck did not stop but it was easy for Ross to help her climb up over the tailgate. Together they ducked down out of the wind. Her legs were shaking and she was chilled and very nervous. He reached out and put his arms around her and held her.

  “Oh, Johnny, if you hadn’t been there…”

  “Don’t worry, don’t worry.” He gave her of his warmth. Qazvin. Qazvin? Isn’t that halfway to Tehran? Of course it is! We’ll stick with the truck until Qazvin, he told himself, gathering strength. Then we can get another ride, or find a bus, or steal a car, that’s what we’ll do.

  “The turnoff to the base is two or three miles ahead,” she said, shivering in his arms. “To the right.”

  Base? Ah, yes, the base. And Erikki. But more important, what about Gueng? What about Gueng? Get your mind working. What are you going to do?

  “What’s the…what’s the land like there, open and flat or a ravine or what?” he asked.

  “It’s fairly flat. Our village is soon, Abu Mard. We pass our village, then shortly afterward, the land flattens into a kind of wooded plateau where our own road is. Then the main road climbs again up to the pass.”

  Ahead he could see the road curling away, occasionally coming into view as it wound precariously along the mountainside. “We’ll get off the other side of the village, before the flat, circle through the forest, and get to the base. That possible?”

  “Yes. I know the country very well. I… I taught in the village school and used to take the children for…for walks. I know the paths.” Again she trembled.

  “Keep down out of the wind. You’ll soon be warm.”

  The old truck was laboring on the incline not much faster than walking but better than walking. He kept his arm around her and in time she stopped trembling. Over their tailgate, he noticed a car overtaking them fast, gears shrieking, followed by a mottled green semi. The driver of the car kept his hand on the horn. There was nowhere for their truck to pull over, so the car swung over to the wrong side of the road and charged ahead. Hope you bloody kill yourself, he thought, angered by the noise and the incredible stupidity. Idly he had noticed that it had been filled with armed men. So was the following semi, though all these men stood in the back, hanging onto metal stanchions, the tailgate down and banging wildly. As it roared past, he caught a glimpse of a body slumped under their feet. At first he thought it was the old man. But it wasn’t. It was Gueng. No mistaking the remains of the uniform. Or the kookri one of the men had stuck in his belt.

  “What is it, Johnny?”

  He found himself beside her, not feeling her or anything, only that he had failed the second of his men. His eyes were filled with tears.

  “What is it, what’s the matter?”

  “Nothing. It’s just the wind,” He brushed the tears away, then knelt and looked ahead. Curling away, the road disappeared and appeared again. So did the car and semi. He could see the village now. Beyond it the road climbed again, then flattened, just as she had said. The car and semi went through the village full tilt. In his pocket were his small but very powerful binoculars. Steadying himself against the rocking of the truck, he focused on the car. Once the car came up onto the flat it speeded up, then turned right onto the side road to the base and disappeared. When the semi reached the intersection it stopped, blocking most of the road outward bound. Half a dozen of the men jumped down, spread out across the road, and stood facing Tabriz. Then, the semi turned right and vanished after the car.

  Their truck slowed as the driver shifted noisily into bottom gear. Just ahead was a short, steeper grade, a path nearby, no pedestrians on this section of road. “Where does that go, Azadeh?”

  She got onto her knees and looked where he pointed. “Toward Abu Mard, our village,” she said. “It wanders this way and that but that’s where it ends.”

  “Get ready to jump out—there’s another roadblock ahead.”

  At the right moment he slipped over the side, helped her down, and they scrambled into hiding. The truck did not stop nor the driver look around. Soon it was well away. Hand in hand, they fled into the trees.

  AT ZAGROS THREE: 4:05 P.M. Lochart leaned against the cockpit of the 212 waiting to go again to Rig Rosa with another load of pipe—sky cloudless, the mountains so clean and sharp he felt he could almost reach out and touch them. He was watching Rodrigues, his mechanic, who knelt in the snow and peered into a belly inspection panel. “It’s an afternoon for skiing or tobogganing, Rod, not grinding away.”

  “It’s a day to get the hell outta here, Tom.”

  “Maybe we won’t have to,” Lochart said. Since Sunday when he had had his confrontation with Nitchak Khan he had heard nothing more from him or anyone in the village. “Maybe the komiteh will change their minds or Mac’ll get the order canceled. Crazy for us to be shoved out when they need all the oil they can get and Rosa’s new well’s a bonanza—Jesper Almqvist said he figured it’d pump eighteen thousand barrels a day when it was put on stream. That’s almost $360,000 a day, Rod.”

  “Mullahs don’t give a shit for oil or anything but Allah, the Koran, or Paradise, you said it a million times.” Rodrigues wiped an oil streak away. “We should’ve all gone with Jesper to Shiraz—then out. We’re not wanted. Nasiri got his head blown off, right? For what? He was one nice guy. Never hurt no one. We’ve been told to get out—what the hell’re we waiting for?”

  “Maybe the komiteh changed its mind. We’ve eleven rigs to service.”

  “The rigs are down to minimums, crews all itchy to get the hell out and anyway they’ve had no replacements for weeks.” Rodrigues got up, knocked the snow off his knees, and began wiping the oil off his hands. “Crazy to stay where you’re not wanted. Young Scot’s acting mighty strange—so’re you, come to think of it.”

  “Bull,” Lochart said. He had told no one what Scot said had really happened in the village square. His anxiety returned—for Scot, the base, Sharazad, HBC, and always back to Sharazad again.

  “Bull nothing,” Rodrigues was saying, “you’ve been itchy as hell since you got back from Tehran. You wanna stay in Iran, Tom, okay, that’s different—you’re married to Iran. Me, I want out.”

  Lochart took his mind off Sharazad. He saw the fear in his friend’s face. “What’s the problem, Rod?”

  The heavyset man pulled his belt over the beginnings of his paunch, and closed his parka again. “I’m nervous as all hell about my false IDs, Tom. Shit, soon’s I open my mouth, they gotta know I’m not a Brit. All my permits’re outta date. So it’s the same with some of the other guys, but I’m the only American here, I gave a talk in the school on the States, and goddamn mullahs and Khomeini say I’m Satan—me a goddamn good Catholic for crissake! I’m not sleeping nights.”

  “Why the hell didn’t you say so before? No need for you to stay, Rod. The 212’s due out tomorrow. How about going with Scot? Once you get to Al Shargaz you can transfer to Nigeria, Kenya, or where the hell ever.”

  For a moment Rodrigues said nothing, his face bleak. “I’d like that, Tom. Sure, if you can okay it, that’d be one helluva load off my back.”

  “It’s done. We’ve got to send a mechanic—why not you, you’re senior.”

  “Thanks. Yeah, thanks, Tom.” Rodrigues beamed. “I’ll just tighten the foot pedal, and then you’re as good as new.”

  Down by the supply helipad Lochart saw that the load of pipe was ready for pickup. Two Iranian laborers were waiting to guide the skyhook into the ringbolt. He began to get into the cockpit, stopped on seeing two men striding up the village path a hundred yards away, Nitchak Khan, and another man carrying a carbine. Even from this distance it was easy to see the green armband.

  Lochart went to meet them, preparing his mind to think and speak Farsi, “Salaam, Kalandar, salaam, Agha,” he said to the other
man, also bearded but much younger.

  “Salaam,” Nitchak said. “You have been granted until the fifth sunset.”

  Lochart tried to hide his shock. Today was Tuesday, the fifth day would be Sunday. “But, Excellency, th—”

  “Until the fifth sunset,” the Green Band said without politeness. “You may not work or fly on Holy Day—better you give thanks to God—and on the fifth sunset from tonight if all foreigners and their airplanes have not left, the base will be fired.”

  Lochart just looked at him. Behind the man was the cookhouse and he saw Jean-Luc come out, then walk over toward them. “Four working days will be very difficult, Agha, and I don’t th—”

  “Insha’Allah.”

  “If we go, all the rigs will have to stop. Only we can supply them and their men. That will hurt Iran, that w—”

  “Islam does not need oil. Foreigners need oil. Five sunsets. Be it on your own heads if you stay.”

  Nitchak Khan looked sideways at the man. Then to Lochart he said, “Agha, I wish to go with this man to see the kalandar of the Italian foreigners. I would like to go now, please.”

  “It is my honor, Kalandar,” Lochart said, and he was thinking, Mimmo Sera’s been in the mountains for years, he’ll know what to do. “I’ve a load of pipe to deliver to Rig Rosa; we can go at once.”

  “Pipe?” the youth said rudely. “No need for pipe. We go straight. No pipe.”

  “IranOil says pipe and the pipe goes or you don’t,” Lochart said angrily. “Ayatollah Khomeini ordered oil production to come back to normal—why does the komiteh disobey him?”

  Sullenly the youth looked at the Khan, who said quietly, “As God wills. The Ayatollah is the Ayatollah, komitehs obey only him. Let us go, Agha.”

  Lochart took his eyes off the youth. “All right. We will go at once.”

  “Salaam, Kalandar,” Jean-Luc said, joining them. “Tom, what’s the answer?” he asked in English.

  “Sunset Sunday. We have to be out by then and can’t fly Friday.”

  Jean-Luc swallowed a curse. “No negotiation?”

  “None. Unless you want to argue with this mother.”

  Insolently the youth with the gun stared back at Jean-Luc. “Tell this son of a dog he smells vile.”

  Lochart had caught a faint whiff of the garlic. “He says your cooking smells great, Jean-Luc. Listen, they want to go to see Mimmo Sera—I’ll be back as quick as I can, then we’ll decide what to do. Kalandar, we will go now,” he said in Farsi and opened the cabin door.

  “Lookit!” Rodrigues said suddenly and pointed northward high into the mountains. Smoke was billowing into the sky. “That Maria?”

  “Might be Bellissima,” Jean-Luc said.

  Nitchak Khan was squinting into the distance. “That is near where we should go. Yes?”

  “Not far off course, Kalandar.”

  The old man appeared very worried. “Perhaps it would be better to take the pipe on your next flight, pilot. For days now we heard that leftists were infiltrating the hills, wanting to sabotage and create trouble. Last night one of my shepherds had his throat cut and genitals hacked off—I have men out searching for the murderers.” Grim-faced, he got into the cabin. The Green Band followed.

  “Rod,” Lochart said, “get the 206 out. Jean-Luc, stand by on the HF—I’ll radio you.”

  “Oui. Pas problème.” Jean-Luc looked back at the smoke.

  Lochart left the load of pipe at the base and hurried northward. It was Bellissima and it was on fire. From quite far out he could see flames spouting thirty feet from one of the trailers that, tinder dry in the moistureless air, was now almost gutted. Off to one side near the drilling rig was another fire, near the dynamite shed a body lay in the snow. Above the base, the snowcap of the mountain, re-formed by Pietro’s explosion and the resultant avalanche, was benign. Below, the ravine fell seventy-five hundred feet.

  As he got closer he noticed half a dozen figures running down the winding path that led at length into the valley—all of them armed. Without hesitation he banked and went after them, seeing them ahead now, directly ahead, cursing that he wasn’t a gunship—no problem to blast them all. Six men, bearded, in nondescript tribesman clothes. Then he saw one man stop and aim and then the familiar sparks from the muzzle of the gun and he peeled away, taking evading action, and when he was around again, higher and safer, the figures had disappeared.

  He looked back into the cabin. Nitchak Khan and the Green Band were staring down out of the side windows, noses pressed against them. He shouted but could not make himself heard, so he banged the side of the cabin to attract their attention and beckoned Nitchak Khan. The old man came forward, holding on, ill at ease flying.

  “Did you see them?” he shouted.

  “Yes—yes,” Nitchak Khan shouted back. “Not mountain people—they’re the terrorists.”

  Lochart went back to flying. “Jean-Luc, do you read?”

  “Loud and clear, Tom, go ahead.”

  He told him what he had seen and to stay on the radio, then concentrated on the landing—in over the immensity of the ravine as usual, updrafts bad and a stiff wind today. This was the first time he had been to Bellissima since he had come back from Tehran. With the death of Guineppa, Bellissima was down to a minimum, one shift only. As he touched down he saw Pietro, now senior in Guineppa’s place, leave the fire near the rig and hurry toward them.

  “Tom! We need help,” he shouted into the pilot’s window, almost in tears. “Gianni’s dead and a couple hurt in the fire…”

  “Okay. No sweat.” Lochart began shutdown. “Nitchak’s in the back with a Green Band—don’t worry, okay?” He twisted in his seat again and pointed at the door. The old man nodded. “What the hell happened, Pietro?” he asked, his fingers finding the switches.

  “Don’t know… I don’t know, amico.” Pietro put his head close to the cockpit window. “We were having lunch when this stronzo bottle with gasoline and a burning rag came through the stronzo window and we were on fire…” He looked back as flames caught a half-full oil drum and leaped into the sky, choking black smoke billowing. The four men fighting the fire backed off. “Sì, we were on fire quickly in the dining room and when we rushed out there were these men, tribesmen, banditos… Mamma mia, they started shooting so we scattered and took cover. Then later Gianni saw them starting a fire in the generator room, near where the dynamites are and…and he just ran out to warn them but one of them shot him. Mamma mia, no reason to shoot him! Bastardi, stronzi bastardi…”

  Quickly Lochart and the others climbed out of the airplane. The only sound was that of the wind and the flames and the single fire pump—Pietro had cut the generators and pumps and done an emergency closedown of the whole rig. The roof of the trailer collapsed and sparks and embers soared, many falling on nearby roofs, but these were heavy with snow and no danger to them. The fire was still out of control near the rig, fed by waste oil and oil fumes, and highly dangerous. The men sprayed foam, but flames still reached toward the dynamite shed, licking a corrugated iron wall.

  “How much is in there, Pietro?”

  “Too much.”

  “Let’s get it out.”

  “Mamma mia…” Pietro followed Lochart, their hands over the faces against the flames, and forced the door open—no time to find the key. The dynamite was in neat boxes. A dozen of them. Lochart picked up a box and went out, felt the blast of heat, and then he was clear. One of the other men took the box from him and hurried it to safety while Lochart returned for another.

  Near the helicopter Nitchak Khan and the Green Band stood in the lee of the wind out of danger. “As God wants.”

  “As God wants,” the Green Band echoed. “What shall we do now?”

  “There are the terrorists to consider. And the dead man.”

  The young man looked across the snow at the figure lying like a broken doll. “If he hadn’t come to our hills he would not be dead. It’s his fault he’s dead—no one else’s.”

&nb
sp; “True.” Nitchak Khan watched the fire and the men fighting it and by the time Lochart and Pietro had cleared the shed of dynamite, the others had the fire contained.

  Lochart leaned against a trailer wall to catch his breath. “Pietro, we’ve only got till Sunday sunset. Then it’s get out or else.”

  Pietro’s face closed. He glanced at the Green Band and Nitchak Khan who was near the helicopter. “Five days? That saves me a decision, Tom. We evacuate to Shiraz—via Rig Rosa or direct.” Pietro gestured at the fire with his clenched left fist, his other hand on the bicep. “For the moment Bellissima is ruined. I’ll need Almqvist to plug the wells. Mamma mia, that’s a lot of men to transport. What a waste! I’m glad old Guineppa’s not here to see the foulness of the day. Best I come to see Mimmo.”

  “At once, with those who’re hurt. What about Gianni?”

  Pietro glanced at the body. “We’ll leave him until last, my poor blood brother,” he said sadly, “He won’t rot.”

  AT RIG ROSA: Mimmo Sera was sitting opposite Nitchak Khan and the Green Band in the mess hall, Lochart, Pietro, and the three senior riggers also at the table. For half an hour Mimmo, who spoke good Farsi, had tried to persuade the komiteh Green Band to extend the time, or to allow him to leave skeleton crews while he and Lochart went with him to see the chief of IranOil in Shiraz.

  “In the Name of God, enough!” the Green Band said irritably.

  “But Excellency, without the helicopters we’ll have to shut down the whole field and start evacuating at once. Surely, Excellency, because the Ayatollah, bless him, and your Prime Minister Bazargan want oil production back to normal we should consult IranOil in Sh—”

  “Enough! Kalandar,” the Green Band added to Nitchak Khan, “if these mosquito brains disobey, it’s on your head, you’re finished, Yazdek is finished and all your people! If one foreigner or one flying machine remains on the fifth sunset and you haven’t fired the base, we will! Then we will burn the village, by hand or by air force. You,” the Green Band snarled at Lochart, “start up the airplane. We go back. Now!” He stormed out.