in great contrast to these were the five sparkling s-g helicopters, three 212s and two 206s lined up meticulously, being given their daily bath and final check of the day. the sun was low now and cast long shadows.
captain rudiger lutz, senior pilot, moved to the last helicopter and inspected it as carefully as he had the others. "very good," he said at length. "you can put them away." he watched while the mechanics and their iranian ground crew wheeled the airplanes back into the hangars that were also spotless. he
knew that many of the crew laughed at him behind his back for his meticulousness, but that didn't matter so long as they obeyed. that's our most difficult problem, he thought. how to get them to obey, how to operate in a war situation when we're not governed by army rules and just noncombatants in the middle of a war situation whether duncan mciver wants to admit it openly or not.
this morning duke starke at kowiss had relayed by hf mclver's terse message from tehran about the rumored attack on tehran airpon and the revolt of one of the air bases there because of distance and mountains bandar delam could not talk direct to tehran or to their other bases, only to kowiss. worriedly rudi had assembled all his expat crew, four pilots, seven mechanics seven english, two americans, one german, and one frenchman where they could not be overheard and had told them. "it wasn't so much what duke said but the way he said it kept calling me 'rudiger' when it's always 'rudi.' he sounded itchy."
"not like duke starke to be itchy unless it's hit the fan," jon tyrer, rudi's american second-in-command, had said uneasily. "you think he's in trouble? you think maybe we should go take a look at kowiss?"
"perhaps. but we'll wait till i talk to him tonight."
"me, i think we'd better get ready to do a midnight skip, rudi," mechanic fowler joines had said with finality. "yes. if old duke's nervous... we'd best be ready to scarper, to get lost."
"you're crazy, fowler. we've never had trouble," tyrer said. "this whole area's more or less quiet, police and troops disciplined and in control. shit, we've five air force bases within twenty miles and they're all elite and proshah. there's bound to be a loyalist coup soon."
"you ever been in the middle of a coup for crissake? they bloody shoot each other and i'm a civilian!"
"okay, say the stuff hits the fan, what do you suggest?"
they had discussed all sorts of possibilities. land, air, sea. iraq's border was barely a hundred miles away and kuwait within easy range across the gulf.
"we'll have plenty of notice." rudi was very confident. "mclver'll know if there's a coup coming."
"listen, old son," fowler had said, more sourly than usual, "i know companies same as bloody generals! if it gets really tough we'll be on our tod on our bloody own so we'd better have a plan. i'm not going to get my head shot off for the shah, khomeini, or even the laird-god gavallan. i say we just scarper fly the coop!"
"bloody hell, fowler," one of the english pilots had burst out, "are you suggesting we hijack one of our own planes? we'd be grounded forever!"
"maybe that's better than the pearly gates!"
"we could get shot down, for god's sake. we'd never get away with it you know how all our flights are monitored, how twitchy radar is here bloody sight worse than at lengeh! we can't get off the ground without asking permission to start engines..."
at length rudi had asked them to give him contingency suggestions in case sudden evacuation was necessary, by land, by air, or by sea, and had left them arguing.
all day he had been worrying what to do, what was wrong at kowiss, and at tehran. as senior pilot he felt responsible for his crew apart from the dozen iranian laborers and jahan, his radio op. none of whom he had been able to pay for six weeks now along with all the aircraft and spares. we were damned lucky to get out of kharg so well, he thought, his stomach tightening. the withdrawal had gone smoothly with all airplanes, all important spares, and some of their transport brought here over four days without interfering with their heavy load of contract flying and casevacs.
getting out of kharg had been easy because everyone had wanted to go. as quickly as possible. even before the troubles, kharg was an unpopular base with nothing to do except work and look forward to r and r in tehran or home. when the troubles began everyone knew that kharg was a prime target for revolutionaries. there had been a great deal of rioting, some shooting. recently more of the iplo armbands had been seen among the rioters and the commander of the island had threatened that he'd shoot every villager on the island if the rioting didn't stop. since they had left a few weeks ago the island had been quiet, ominously quiet.
and that retreat wasn't a real emergency, he reminded himself. how to operate in one? last week he had flown to kowiss to pick up some special spares and had asked starke how he planned to operate at kowiss if there was real trouble.
"the same as you, rudi. you'd try to operate within company rules which won't apply then," the tall texan had said. "we got a couple of things going for us: just about all of our guys're ex-service of some sort so there's a kinda chain of command but hell, you can plan all you want and then you still won't sleep nights because when the stuff hits the fan, it'll be the same as ever: some of the guys'll fall apart, some won't, and you'll never know in advance who's gonna do what, or even how you'll react yourself."
rudi had never been in a shooting war, though his service with the german army in the fifties had been on the east german borders, and in west germany you're always conscious of the wall, the curtain, and of all your brothers and sisters behind it and of the waiting, brooding soviet legions and satellite legions with their tens of thousands of tanks and missiles also behind it, just
yards away. and conscious of german zealots on both sides of the border who worship their messiah called lenin and the thousands of spies gnawing at our guts.
sad.
how many from my hometown?
he had been born in a little village near plauen close to the czechoslovakian border, now part of east germany. in '45 he had been twelve, his brother sixteen and already in the army. the war years had not been bad for him and his younger sister and mother. in the country there was enough to eat. but in '45 they had fled before the soviet hordes, carrying what they could, to join the vast german migrations westward: two million from prussia, another two from the north, four from the center, another two from the south along with other millions of czechs, poles, hungarians, romanians, austrians, bulgarians, of all europe all starving now, all petrified, all fighting to stay alive.
ah, staying alive, he thought.
on the trek, cold and weary and almost broken, he remembered going with his mother to a garbage dump, somewhere near nurnberg, the countryside warravaged and towns rubbled, his mother frantic to find a kettle their own stolen in the night impossible to buy one, even if they had had the money. "we've got to have a kettle to boil water or we'll all die, we'll get typhus or dysentery like the others we can't live without boiled water," she had cried out. so he had gone with her, in tears, convinced it was a waste of time, but they had found one. it was old and battered, the spout bent, and the handle loose but the top was with it and it did not leak. now the kettle was clean and sparkling and in a place of honor on the mantelpiece in the kitchen of their farmhouse near freiburg in the black forest where his wife and sons and mother were. and once a year, each new year's eve, his mother would still make tea from water boiled in the kettle. and, when he was there, they would smile together, he and she. "if you believe enough, my son, and try," she would always whisper, "you can find your kettle. never forget, you found it, i didn't."
there were sudden warning shouts. he whirled around to see three army trucks burst through the gate, one racing for the tower, the other toward his hangars. the trucks skidded to a halt and green band revolutionaries fanned out over the base, two men charging at him, their guns levered, screaming farsi which he did not understand, as others started rounding up his men in the hangar. petrified, he raised his hands, his heart pounding at the suddenne
ss. two green bands, bearded and sweating with excitement-fear shoved gun barrels at his face and rudi flinched.
"i'm not armed," he gasped. "what do you want? eh?"
neither man answered, just continued to threaten him. behind them he could
see the rest of his crew being herded out of their barrack trailers onto the apron. other attackers were jumping in and out of the helicopters, searching them, carelessly overturning gear, one man hurling neatly rolled life jackets out of their seat pockets. his rage overcame his terror. "hey, sie verruckte dummkopfe," he shouted. "lass'n sie meine verruckten flugzeuge allein!" before he knew what he was doing he had brushed the guns aside and rushed toward them. for a moment it looked as though the two iranians would shoot, but they just went after him, caught up with him, and pulled him around. one lifted a rifle by the butt to smash his face in.
"stop!"
the men froze.
the man who shouted out the command in english was in his early thirties, heavyset, wearing rough clothes, with a green armband, a stubbled beard, dark wavy hair, and dark eyes. "who is in charge here?"
"i am!" rudi lutz tore his arms out of his assailants' grasp. "what are you doing here? what do you want?"
"we are possessing this airport in the name of islam and the revolution." the man's accent was english. "how many troops are here, air staff?"
"there're none. no troops there's no tower staff, there's no one here but us," rudi said, trying to catch his breath.
"no troops?" the man's voice was dangerous.
"no, none. we've had patrols here since we came here a few weeks ago they come from time to time. but none are stationed here. and no military airplanes." rudi stabbed a finger at the hangar. "tell those... those men to be careful of my airplanes, lives depend on them, iranian as well as ours."
the man turned and saw what was happening. he shouted another command, cursing them. the men shouted back at him carelessly, then after a moment came out into the sunset, leaving chaos in their wake.
"please excuse them," the man said. "my name is zataki. i am chief of the abadan komiteh. with the help of god, we command bandar delam now."
rudi's stomach was churning. his expats and iranian staff were in a frozen group beside the low office building, guns surrounding them. "we're working for a british comp "
"yes, we know about s-g helicopters." zataki turned and shouted again. reluctantly, some of his men went to the gate and began to take up defensive positions. he looked back at rudi. "your name?"
"captain lutz."
"you have nothing to fear, captain lutz, you and your men. do you have arms here?"
"no, except very light pistols, aircraft stores. for signaling, distress signaling."
"you will fetch them." zataki turned and went nearer to the s-g group and stood there, examining faces. rudi saw the fear of his iranians, cooks, ground staff, fitters, jahan, and yemeni, the iranoil manager.
"these are all my people," he said trying to sound firm. "all s-g employees."
zataki looked at him, then came very close, and rudi had to steel himself not to flinch again. "do you know what mujhadin-al-khalq means? fedayeen? tudeh?" he asked softly, heavier than rudi, and with a gun.
"yes."
"good." after a pause, zataki went back to staring at the iranians. one by one. the silence grew. suddenly he stabbed a finger at one man, a fitter. the man sagged, then began to run frantically, screaming in farsi. they caught him easily and beat him senseless.
"the komiteh will judge him and sentence him in god's name." zataki glanced at rudi. "captain," he said, his lips a thin line, "i asked you to fetch your very pistols."
"they're in the safe, and quite safe," rudi said, just as toughly, not feeling brave inside. "you may have them whenever you want. they're only in the airplane during a mission. i... i want that man released!"
without warning, zataki reversed his machine gun and slammed the butt at rudi's head but rudi caught it with one hand, deflecting it, tore it out of the man's grasp, his reflexes perfect, and before the gun crashed to the ground, the hardened edge of his other, open hand was axing into zataki's unprotected throat. but he stopped the death blow, barely touching the man's skin. then he stepped back, at bay now. all guns were trained on him.
the silence grew. his men watched, appalled. zataki was staring at rudi enraged. the shadows were long, and a slight wind toyed with the wind sock, crackling it slightly.
"pick up the gun!"
in the bigger silence, rudi heard the threat and the promise and he knew that his life all of theirs was in balance. "fowler, do it!" he ordered and prayed that he had chosen correctly.
reluctantly fowler came forward. "yes sir, coming right up!" it seemed to take a long time for him to cover the twenty yards, but no one stopped him and one of the guards moved out of his way. he picked the gun up, automatically put the safety on, carefully handed it back to zataki, butt first. "it's not bent and, er, good as new, me son."
the leader took the gun and slipped the safety off and everyone heard the click as though it were a thunderclap. "you know guns?"
"yes... oh, yes. we... all mechanics were... we all had to have a course in the raf... royal air force," fowler said, keeping his eyes on the man's
eyes and he thought, what the fuck am i doing here, standing up to this smelly son of a whore's left tit? "can we dismiss? we're civilians, me son, we're noncombatants, begging your pardon. neutral."
zataki jerked a thumb at the line. "go back there." then he turned to rudi. "where did you learn karate?"
"in the army the german army."
"ah, german. you're german? germans have been good to iran. not like the british, or americans. which are your pilots, their names and their nationalities?"
rudi hesitated, then pointed. "captain dubois, french, captains tyrer, block, and forsyth, english."
"no americans?"
rudi had another great sinking in his stomach. jon tyrer was american and had false identity cards. then his ears heard the sound of the approaching chopper, recognised the thrunk-thrunk of a 206, and automatically he searched the skies, along with all of them. then one of the green bands let out a cry and pointed as others rushed into defensive positions, everyone scattering except the expats. they had recognized the markings.
"everyone into the hangar," zataki ordered. the chopper came over the airfield at a thousand feet and began to circle. "it's one of yours?"
"yes. but not from this base." rudi squinted into the sun. his heart picked up when he read the markings. "it's ep-hxt, from kowiss, from our base in kowiss."
"what's he want?"
"obviously to land."
"find out who's aboard. and don't try any tricks."
together they went to the uhf in his office. "hxt, do you read?"
"hxt, loud and clear. this is captain starke of kowiss." a pause, then, "captain lutz?"
"yes, it's captain lutz, captain starke," he said, knowing by the formality that there must be hostiles aboard, as starke would know something was wrong here.
"request permission to land. i'm low on gas and require refueling. i'm cleared by abadan radar."
rudi glanced at zataki. "ask who's in that airplane?" the man said.
"who've you got aboard?"
there was a pause. "four passengers. what's the problem?"
rudi waited. zataki did not know what to do. any of the military bases might be listening in. "let him land... near the hangar."
"permission to land, hxt. set her down near the east hangar."
"hxt."
zataki leaned over and switched off the set. "in future you will only use the radio with permission."
"there are routine reports to give to abadan and kharg radar. my radio ops been with us f "
blood soared into zataki's face and he shouted, "until further orders your radio's only to be used with one of us listening in. nor will any planes take off, nor land here without permission. you are responsible." then the ra
ge evaporated as quickly as it had arrived. he lifted his gun. the safety was still off. "if you'd continued the blow you would have broken my neck, my throat, and i would have died. yes?"
after a pause, rudi nodded. "yes."
"why did you stop?"
"i've... i've never killed anyone. i did not want to start."
"i've killed many doing god's work. many thanks be to god. many. and will kill many more enemies of islam, with god's help." zataki clicked on the safety. "it was the will of god the blow was stopped, nothing more. i cannot give you that man. he is iranian, this is iran, he is an enemy of iran and islam."
James Clavell - Whirlwind Page 15