“Whirlwind?” he asked, having to hurry to keep alongside.
“Yes, Andy pressed the button on the dot at 0700 as planned, Scrag and Rudi copied and are probably already on their way,” McIver said, the words tumbling over one another, not noticing Lochart’s sudden despair. Now they reached Ayre and the mechanics. “Whirlwind!” McIver croaked and to all of them the word sounded like a clarion call.
“Jolly good.” Freddy Ayre kept his voice flat, holding his excitement inside. The others did not. “Why the delay? What happened?”
“Tell you later, start up, let’s get on with it!” McIver headed for the first 212, Ayre the second, the mechanics already jumping into the cabins. At that moment a staff car with Colonel Changiz and some airmen swung into the compound and stopped outside the office building. All the airmen carried guns, all wore green armbands.
“Ah, Captain, you’re flying Minister Kia back to Tehran?” Changiz seemed a little flustered, and angry.
“Yes, yes, I am, at ten, ten o’clock.”
“I had a message that he wants to bring his departure forward to eight o’clock but you’re not to leave until ten as your clearance states. Clear?”
“Yes, but th—”
“I would have phoned but your phones are out again and there’s something wrong with your radio. Don’t you service your equipment? It was working then went off.” McIver saw the colonel look at the three choppers lined up, begin to go toward them. “I didn’t know you had revenue flights today.”
“Just ground-testing one and the other has to test avionics for tomorrow’s crew change at Rig Abu Sal, Colonel,” McIver said hastily and to further divert him, “What’s the problem with Minister Kia?”
“No problem,” he said irritably, then glanced at his watch and changed his mind about inspecting the helicopters. “Get someone to fix your radio and you come with me. The mullah Hussain wants to see you. We’ll be back in good time.”
Lochart got his mouth moving. “I’d be glad to drive Captain McIver over in a minute, there’re a few things here he sho—”
“Hussain wants to see Captain McIver, not you—now! You deal with the radio!” Changiz told his men to wait for him, got into the driver’s seat, and beckoned McIver to sit beside him. Blankly, McIver obeyed. Changiz drove off and his driver wandered toward the office, the other airmen spread out, peered at the choppers. Both 212s were crammed with the last of the important spares, loaded last night. Trying to be nonchalant, the mechanics closed the cabin doors, started polishing.
Ayre and Lochart stared after the departing car. Ayre said, “Now what?”
“I don’t know—we can’t leave without him.” Lochart felt nauseous.
AT BANDAR DELAM: 7:26 A.M. The four 212s were out of the hangar parked for takeoff. Fowler Joines and the other three mechanics were pottering in the back of the cabins, waiting impatiently. Unwieldy forty-gallon drums of reserve gasoline were lashed in place. Many crates of spares. Suitcases hidden under tarpaulins.
“Com’ on, for effs sweet sake,” Fowler said and wiped the sweat off, the air of the cabin heavy with gasoline.
Through the open cabin door he could see Rudi, Sandor, and Pop Kelly still waiting in the hangar, everything ready as planned except for the last pilot, Dubois, ten minutes late and no one knowing if Base Manager Numir or one of the staff or Green Bands had intercepted him. Then he saw Dubois come out of his door and almost had a fit. With Gallic indifference, Dubois was carrying a suitcase, his raincoat over his arm. As he strolled passed the office, Numir appeared at the window.
“Let’s go,” Rudi croaked and went for his cabin as calmly as he could, clipped on his seat belt, and stabbed Engines Start. Sandor did likewise, Pop Kelly a second behind him, their rotors gathering speed. Leisurely, Dubois tossed his suitcase to Fowler, laid his raincoat carefully on a crate, and got into the pilot’s seat, at once started up, not bothering with his seat belt or checklist. Fowler was swearing incoherently. Their jets were building nicely and Dubois hummed a little song, adjusted his headset, and now, when all was prepared, fastened his seat belt. He did not see Numir rush out of his office.
“Where are you going?” Numir shouted to Rudi through his side window.
“Iran-Toda, it’s on the manifest.” Rudi continued with the start-up drill. VHF on, HF on, needles coming into the Green.
“But you haven’t asked Abadan for engine start an—”
“It’s Holy Day, Agha, you can do that for us.”
Numir shouted angrily, “That’s your job! You’re to wait for Zataki. You must wait for the col—”
“Quite right, I want to make sure my chopper’s ready the instant he arrives—very important to please him, isn’t it?”
“Yes, but why was Dubois carrying a suitcase?”
“Oh, you know Frenchmen,” he said, saying the first thing that came into his head, “clothes are important; he’s sure he’s going to be based at Iran-Toda and he’s taking a spare uniform.” His gloved thumb hovered over the transmit switch on the column. Don’t, he ordered himself, don’t be impatient, they all know what to do, don’t be impatient.
Then, behind Numir, through the haze, visibility down to a few hundred yards, Rudi saw the Green Band truck lumber through the main gate and stop, its noise covered by their jets. But it wasn’t Zataki, just some of their normal Green Band guards and they stood there in a group watching the 212s curiously. Never before had four 212s been started up at once.
In his headphones he heard Dubois, “Ready, mon vieux,” then Pop Kelly, then Sandor, and he clicked the send switch and said into the boom mike, “Go!,” leaned closer to the window, and beckoned Numir. “No need for the others to wait, I’m waiting.”
“But you were ordered to go in a group and your clearances…” The base manager’s voice was drowned by the mass of engines shoved to full power, emergency takeoff procedure, conforming to the plan the pilots had secretly agreed on last night, Dubois going right, Sandor left, Kelly straight ahead like a covey of snipe scattering. In seconds they were airborne and away, staying very low. Numir’s face went purple, “But you were told th…”
“This is for your safety, Agha, we’re trying to protect you,” Rudi called over the jets, beckoning him forward again, all his own needles in the Green; “this way’s better, Agha, this way we’ll do the job and no problem. We’ve got to protect you and IranOil.” In his earphones he heard Dubois break mandatory radio silence and say urgently, “There’s a car almost at the gates!”
At that instant Rudi saw it and recognized Zataki in the front seat. Maximum power. “Agha, I’m just going to take her up a few feet, my torque counter’s jumping…”
Whatever Numir was screaming was lost in the noise. Zataki was barely a hundred yards away. Rudi felt the rotors biting into the air, then lift off. For a moment it looked as though Numir were going to jump onto a skid but he ducked out of the way, the skid scraping him, and fell as Rudi got forward momentum and lumbered away, almost bursting with excitement. Ahead, the others were in station over the marsh. He waggled his chopper from side to side as he joined them, gave them the thumbs-up, and led the rush for the Gulf four miles distant.
Numir was choked with rage as he picked himself up, and Zataki’s car skidded to a halt beside him. “By God, what’s going on?” Zataki said furiously, jumping out, the choppers already vanished into the haze, the sound of the engines dying away now. “They were supposed to wait for me!”
“I know, I know, Colonel, I told them but they…they just took off an—” Numir screamed as the fist smashed him in the side of the face and felled him. The other Green Bands watched indifferently, used to these outbursts. One of the men pulled Numir to his feet, slapped his face to bring him around.
Zataki was cursing the sky and when the spasm of rage had passed, he said, “Bring that piece of camel’s turd and follow me.” Storming past the open hangar he saw the two 206s parked neatly in the back, spares laid out here and there, a fan drying some
new paintwork—all Rudi’s painstaking camouflage to give them an extra few minutes. “I’ll make those dogs wish they’d waited,” he muttered, his head aching.
He kicked the door of the office open and stormed over to the radio transmitter and sat down near it. “Numir, get those men on the loudspeaker!”
“But Jahan, our radio operator isn’t here yet and I do—”
“Do it!”
The terrified man switched on the VHF, his mouth bleeding and hardly able to talk. “Base calling Captain Lutz!” He waited, then repeated the order, adding, “Urgent!”
IN THE AIRPLANES: They were barely ten feet above the marshland and a few hundred yards away when they heard Zataki’s angry voice cut in: “All helicopters are recalled to base, recalled to base! Report in!” Rudi made a slight adjustment to the engine power and to the trim. In the chopper nearest to him he saw Marc Dubois point at his headset and make an obscene gesture. He smiled and did likewise, then noticed the sweat running down his face. “ALL HELICOPTERS REPORT IN! ALL…”
AT THE AIRFIELD: “…HELICOPTERS REPORT IN.” Zataki was shrieking into the mike. “ALL HELICOPTERS REPORT IN!”
Nothing but static answered him. Suddenly Zataki slammed the mike onto the table. “Get Abadan Tower! HURRY UP!” he shouted and the terrified Numir, blood trickling into his beard, switched channels, and after the sixth call, this time in Farsi, got the tower. “Here is Abadan Tower, Agha, please go ahead.”
Zataki tore the mike out of his hand. “This is Colonel Zataki, Abadan Revolutionary Komiteh,” he said in Farsi, “calling from Bandar Delam airfield.”
“Peace be upon you, Colonel,” the voice was very deferential. “What can we do for you?”
“Four of our helicopters took off without approval, going to Iran-Toda. Recall them, please.”
“Just a moment, please.” Muffled voices. Zataki waited, his face mottled. Waiting and waiting, then, “Are you sure, Agha? We do not see them on the radar screen.”
“Of course I’m sure. Recall them!”
More muffled voices and more waiting, Zataki ready to explode, then a voice in Farsi said, “The four helicopters that left Bandar Delam are ordered to return to their base. Please acknowledge you are doing this.” It was transmitted ineptly and repeated. Then the voice added, “Perhaps their radios are not functioning, Agha, the blessings of God upon you.”
“Keep calling them! They’re low and heading toward Iran-Toda.”
More muffled voices, then more Farsi as before, then a sudden voice cut in in American English, “Okay, I’ll take it! This is Abadan Control. Choppers on a heading of 090 degrees, do you read?”
IN DUBOIS’S COCKPIT: His compass heading was 091 degrees. Again the crisp voice in his earphones: “This is Abadan Control, choppers on a heading of 090 degrees one mile from the coast, do you read?” A pause. “Abadan Control, choppers on a heading of 090 switch to channel 121.9…do you read?” This was the emergency channel that all aircraft were supposed to listen in on automatically. “Choppers on a heading of 090 degrees one mile from the coast return to base. Do you read?”
Through the haze Dubois saw that the coast was approaching fast, less than half a mile away, but flying this low he doubted if they could possibly be on radar. He looked left. Rudi pointed at his earphones and then a finger to his lips meaning silence. He gave him the thumbs-up and passed the message to Sandor who was on his right, turned to see Fowler Joines climbing in from the cabin to sit beside him. He motioned to the spare headset hanging above the seat. The voice was more brittle now: “All choppers outward bound from Bandar Delam to Iran-Toda return to base. Do you read?”
Fowler, connected now through the headset, said into their intercom, “Hope the effer drops dead!”
Then again the voice and their smiles faded: “Abadan Control to Colonel Zataki. Do you read?”
“Yes, go ahead.”
“We picked up a momentary radar trace, probably nothing, but it could have been a chopper or choppers tightly bunched, heading 090 degrees”—the transmission was weakening slightly—“this would take them direct…”
AT THE AIRFIELD: “…Iran-Toda. Not requesting engine start and not being in radio contact is a serious violation. Please give us their call signs and names of the captains. Iran-Toda’s VHF is still inoperative otherwise we would contact them. Suggest you send someone down there to arrest the pilots and bring them before the ATC Abadan komiteh at once for contravening air regulations. Do you copy?”
“Yes…yes, I understand. Thank you. Just a moment.” Zataki shoved the mike into Numir’s hands. “I’m going to Iran-Toda! If they come back before I get them, they’re under arrest! Give Traffic Control what they want to know!” He stormed out, leaving three men on base with machine guns.
Numir began, “Abadan Control, Bandar Delam; HVV, HGU, HKL, HXC, all 212s. Captains Rudi Lutz, Marc Dubois…”
IN POP KELLY’S COCKPIT: “…Sandor Petrofi, and Ignatius Kelly, all seconded from IranOil by Colonel Zataki’s order to Iran-Toda.”
“Thank you, Bandar Delam, keep us advised.”
Kelly looked right and gave an enthusiastic thumbs-up to Rudi who acknowledged…
IN RUDI’S COCKPIT:…and did the same to Dubois who also acknowledged. Then he peered into the haze once more.
The closely bunched choppers were almost over the coastline. Iran-Toda was to their left, about half a mile away, but Rudi could see none of it through the haze or mist. He accelerated slightly to get ahead, then turned from his heading of due south to due east. This gave them a deliberate direct course over the plant and he increased altitude only enough to clear the buildings. The complex rushed past but he knew that those on the ground would be well aware of their flight because of the howling suddenness of its appearance. Once past, he went down low again and held this same course, now heading inland for a little more than ten miles. Here the land was desolate, no villages nearby. Again, according to their plan, he turned due south for the sea.
At once visibility began to deteriorate. Down here at twenty feet, visibility was barely a quarter of a mile with a partial whiteout where there was no demarcation between sky and sea. Ahead, almost directly in their path, sixty-odd miles away, was Kharg Island with its immensely powerful radar and, beyond that, another two hundred and twenty miles, their landfall Bahrain. At least two hours of flying. With this wind more, the thirty-five southeasterly becoming a relative twenty-knot headwind.
Down here in the soup it was dangerous. But they thought they should be able to slip under radar if the screens were manned—and should be able to avoid fighter intercept, if any.
Rudi moved the stick from side to side waggling his chopper, then touched his HF Transmit button momentarily. “Delta Four, Delta Four,” he said clearly, their code to Al Shargaz that all four Bandar Delam choppers were safe and leaving the coast. He saw Dubois point upward asking him to go higher. He shook his head, pointed ahead and down, ordering them to stay low and keep to the plan. Obediently they spread out and together they left the land and went into the deepening haze.
AT AL SHARGAZ HQ: Gavallan was on the phone to the hospital: “Quickly. Give me Captain Starke, please… Hello, Duke, it’s Andy, I just wanted to tell you we received ‘Delta Four’ from Rudi a minute ago, isn’t that marvelous?”
“Wonderful, great! Fantastic! Four out and five to go!”
“Yes, but it’s six, don’t forget Erikki…”
LENGEH: 8:04 A.M. Scragger was still waiting in the outer office of the police station. He sat disconsolately on a wooden bench in front of the gendarme corporal who looked down on him from a tall desk behind a chest-high partition.
Once again Scragger checked his watch. He had arrived at 7:20 in case the office opened early but the corporal had not arrived until 7:45 and waved him politely to the bench and invited him to wait. It was the longest wait he had ever had.
Rudi and the Kowiss lads must be airborne by now, he thought miserably, just like we’d’ve been if
it wasn’t for the bloody passports. Another minute then that’s it. Daren’t wait any longer—daren’t; it’ll still take us an hour or more to get away and sure to God there’ll be a slipup somewhere between the three bases, bound to be some nosy parker who’ll start asking questions and set the airwaves afire—apart from that burk, Siamaki. Last night Scragger had been on the HF and had monitored Siamaki’s petulant calls to Gavallan at Al Shargaz, also to McIver at Kowiss telling him that he would meet him today at Tehran Airport.
Bloody burk! But I still think I was right not to call Andy and abort. Hell, we’ve got the easiest shot of all and if I’d put Whirlwind off until tomorrow there’d be something else, either with us or with one of the others, and there’d be no way old Mac could avoid flying back to Tehran today with bloody Kia. Can’t risk that, just can’t. Easy to hear Mac was as nervous as an old woman out to sea in a bucket.
The door opened and he looked up. Two young gendarmes came in, dragging a bruised young man between them, his clothes ripped and filthy. “Who’s he?” the corporal asked.
“A thief. We caught him stealing, Corporal, the poor fool was stealing rice from the bazaari Ishmael. We caught him during our patrol, just before dawn.”
“As God wants. Put him in the second cell.” Then the corporal shouted at the youth, startling Scragger who did not understand the Farsi, “Son of a dog! How can you be so stupid to be caught? Don’t you know it’s no longer a simple beating now! How many times do you all have to be told? It’s Islamic law now! Islamic law!”
“I… I was hungry…my…”
The terrified youth moaned as one of the gendarmes shook him roughly. “Hunger’s no excuse, by God. I’m hungry, our families’re hungry, we’re all hungry, of course we’re hungry!” They frog-marched the youth out of the room.
The corporal cursed him again, sorry for him, then glanced at Scragger, nodded briefly, and went back to his work. How stupid for the foreigner to be here on a Holy Day but if the old one wants to wait all day and all night until the sergeant comes tomorrow he can wait all day and all night.
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