James Clavell - Whirlwind

by Whirlwind(Lit)

  "on y va, let's go," jean-luc said.

  "of course, sayyid." the driver turned up the volume of the intercom, and with one smooth movement started the engine, got into gear, and was in motion.

  he was a slim, young palestinian christian wearing dark glasses and company overalls. "where should we go?"

  "you know abu sabh beach?"

  "oh, yes, sayyid."

  "two of our choppers've landed there out of fuel. let's go!"

  "we are almost there!" the driver did a racing change and increased speed. over his intercom loudspeaker came: "alpha four?" he picked up the hand mike and continued to drive flamboyantly one-handed. "this is alpha four."

  "give me captain sessonne."

  jean-luc recognizedthe voice of mathias delarne, the gulf air de france manager for bahrain an old friend from french air force days and algeria. "this's jean-luc, old friend," he said in french.

  in french, delarne said quickly, "the tower called me to say another chopper's just come into the system on your expected heading, dubois or petrofi, eh? tower keeps calling her but cannot make contact yet."

  "just one?" jean-luc was abruptly concerned.

  "yes. she's on a correct vfr approach for helipad 16. the problem we discussed, eh?"

  "yes." jean-luc had told his friend what was really happening and the problem of the registrations. "mathias, tell the tower for me she's g- htte in transit," he said, giving the third of his four allocated call signs. "then phone andy and tell him i'll send rodrigues to deal with rudi and kelly. we'll deal with dubois or sandor you and me bring the second batch of stuff. where do we meet?"

  "my god, jean-luc, after this lot we'll have to join the foreign legion. meet me in front of the office."

  jean-luc acknowledged, hung the mike back on its hook. "stop here!" the truck stopped instantly. rodrigues and jean-luc almost went through the windshield. "rod, you know what to do." he jumped out. "off you go!"

  "listen i'd rather walk an " the rest of it was lost as jean-luc ran back and the truck rushed off again with a screech of tires, out through the gate and onto the road that led to the sea.

  at kowiss, in the tower: 11:17 a.m. lochart and wazari were watching mciver's distant 206 climbing up into the zagros mountains. "kowiss, this is hcc," mciver was saying over the vhf, "leaving your system now. good day."

  "hcc, kowiss. good day," wazari said.

  over the hf loudspeaker, in farsi: "bander delam, this is tehran, have you heard from kowiss yet?"

  "negative. al shargaz, this is bandar delam, do you read?" static, then the call repeated, now silence again.

  wazari wiped his face. "you think cap ayre'd be at your rendezvous yet?" he asked, desperately anxious to please. it was not hard to sense lochart's dislike of him, or his distrust. "huh?"

  lochart just shrugged, thinking about tehran and what to do. he had told mciver to send both mechanics with ayre: "lust in case i get caught, mac, or wazari's discovered or betrays us."

  "don't do anything stupid, tom, like going to tehran in the 212, with or without wazari."

  "there's no way i could sneak back to tehran without alerting the whole system and screwing whirlwind. i'd have to refuel and they'd stop me."

  is there a way? he asked himself, then saw wazari watching him. "what?"

  "is cap mciver gonna give you a sign or call when he's dumped kia?" when lochart just looked back at him, wazari said bleakly, "goddamnit, don't you see you're my only hope to get out..."

  both men whirled, feeling eyes. pavoud was peering at them through the stair banisters.

  "so!" he said softly. "as god wants. you're both caught in your betrayals."

  lochart took a step toward him. "i don't know what's bothering you," he began, throat parched. "there's noth "

  "you're caught. you and the judas! you're all escaping, running off with our helicopters!"

  wazari's face contorted and he hissed, "judas, eh? you get your commie ass up here! i know all about you and your tudeh comrades!"

  pavoud had gone white. "you're talking nonsense! you're the one who's caught, you're th "

  "you're the judas, you lousy commie bastard! corporal ali fedagi's my roommate and he's commissar on the base and he's your boss. i know all about you he tried to get me to join the party months ago. get your ass up here!" and when pavoud hesitated, wazari warned, "if you don't i'm calling the komiteh and blowing you, fedagi, along with mohammed berani and a dozen others an' i don't give a shit..." his fingers went to the vhf send switch but pavoud gasped out, "no," and came onto the landing and stood there shakily. for a moment nothing happened, then wazari grabbed the whimpering, petrified man and shoved him down into a corner, picked up a spanner to smash his head in. lochart caught the blow just in time.

  "why're you stopping me, for crissake?" wazari was shaking with fear. "he'll betray us!"

  "no need... no need for that." lochart had difficulty talking for a moment. "be patient. listen, pavoud, if you keep quiet, we'll keep quiet."

  "i swear by god, of course i'll ke "

  wazari hissed, "you can't trust these bastards."

  "i don't," lochart said. "quick. write it all down! quick! all the names you can remember. quick and make three copies!" lochart shoved a pen into the young man's hand. wazari hesitated then grabbed the pad and began to scribble. lochart went closer to pavoud who cringed from him, begging mercy. "shut up and listen. pavoud, i'll make a deal, you say nothing, we'll say nothing."

  "by god, of course i won't say anything, agha, haven't i faithfully served the company, faithfully all these years, haven't i been ev "

  "liar," wazari said, then added to lochart's shock, "i've overheard you and the others lying and cheating and slobbering after manuela starke, peeping at her in the night."

  "lies, more lies, don't belie "

  "shut up, you bastard!" wazari said.

  pavoud obeyed, petrified by the venom, and huddled back into the corner.

  lochart tore his eyes off the quaking man and took one of the lists, put it into his pocket. "you keep one, sergeant. here," he said to pavoud, shoving the third into his face. the man tried to back away, couldn't, and when the list was thrust into his hand, he moaned and dropped it as though it were on fire. "if we get stopped i promise you before god this goes to the first green band and don't forget we both speak farsi and i know hussain! understand?" numbly pavoud nodded. lochart leaned down and picked the list up and stuffed it into the man's pocket. "sit down over there!" he pointed to a seat in the corner, then wiped his sweating hands on his trousers and switched on the vhf, picked up the mike.

  "kowiss calling inbound choppers from bandar delam, do you read?" lochart waited, then repeated the call. then, "tower, this is base, do you read?"

  after a pause a weary, heavily accented voice said, "yes, we hearing you."

  "we're expecting four inbound choppers from bandar delam that're only equipped with vhf. i'm going to get airborne and try to raise them. we'll be off the air until i get back. okay?"

  "okay."

  lochart switched off. from the hf came: "kowiss, this is tehran, do you read?"

  lochart asked, "what about him?" both of them looked at pavoud who seemed to shrink into his chair.

  the stabbing pain behind wazari's eye was the worst it had ever been. i'm gonna have to kill pavoud, that's the only way i can prove i'm on lochart's side. "i'll deal with him," he said and got up.

  "no," lochart said. "pavoud, you're taking the rest of the day off. you

  walk downstairs, you tell the others you're sick, and you're going home. you say nothing else and leave at once. we can see you and hear you from here. if you betray us, by the lord god, you and every man on this list'll be betrayed too."

  "you swear you... you'll..." the words started to pour out, "you swear you'll tell no one, you swear?"

  "get out and go home! and it's on your head not ours! go on, get out!" they watched him totter away. and when they saw him on his bicycle pedaling slowly
down the road toward the town, they both felt a little easier.

  "we should have killed him... we should have, cap. i'd've done it."

  "this way's just as safe and... well, killing him wouldn't solve anything." nor help me with sharazad, lochart thought.

  again over the hf, again the nagging: "kowiss, this is bandar delam, do you read?"

  "it's not safe to leave those bastards broadcasting, cap. tower's gotta pick 'em up, however untrained and inefficient they are."

  lochart put all his mind on the problem. "sergeant, get on the hf for an instant, pretend you're a radio mec who's pissed off with having his holiday screwed up. tell 'em in farsi to shut up, to stay the hell off our channel until we're repaired, that this lunatic lochart's gone aloft to raise the four choppers on the vhf, perhaps one of them had an emergency and the others are with him on the ground. okay?"

  "got it!" wazari did it all, perfectly. when he switched off he held his head in his hands a moment, pain blinding him. then he looked up at lochart. "you trust me now?"

  "yes."

  "i can come with you? honest?"

  "yes." lochart put out his hand. "thanks for the help." he pulled the company hf frequency crystal out, mutilated it, and put it back, then pulled out the breaker of the vhf and pocketed it. "come on."

  in the office downstairs he stopped a moment. "i'm going aloft," he told the three clerks who stared at him strangely. "i'm going to try to raise the bandar choppers on the vhf." the three men said nothing, but lochart felt they knew the secret too. then he turned to wazari. "see you tomorrow, sergeant."

  "hope it's okay to quit. my head hurts like hell."

  "see you tomorrow." lochart pattered in the of rice, conscious of the scrutiny, to give wazari enough time to pretend to saunter off, actually to go around the hangar and sneak aboard: "once you're out of the office you're on your own," lochart had told him, "i won't check the cabin, i'll just take off."

  "god help us all, captain."

  ~16121l l

  at bahrain airport: 11:28 a.m. jean-luc and mathias delarne were standing beside a station wagon near the helipad watching the incoming 212, shading their eyes against the sun, still unable to recognizethe pilot. mathias was a short, thickset man, with dark wavy hair, half a face, the other half badly burn-scarred when he had bailed out on fire not far from algiers.

  "it's dubois," he said.

  "no, you're wrong, it's sandor." jean-luc waved, motioning him to land crosswind. the moment the skids touched, mathias rushed under the rotors for the left cockpit door paying no attention to sandor who was shouting across at him. he carried a large paintbrush and a can of quick-drying airplane paint and he slapped the white paint over the iran registration letters just below the door's window. jean-luc used the stencil they had prepared and black paint and his brush, then carefully peeled the stencil off. now she was g-hxxi and legal.

  meanwhile, mathias had gone to the tail boom and painted out ihc, ducked under the boom to do the same on the other side. sandor just had time to move his arm out of the way of the door as, enthusiastically, jean-luc stenciled the second g-hxxi.

  "voila!" jean-luc gave his material back to mathias who went to the station wagon to stash it under a tarpaulin, while jean-luc wrung sandor petrofi's hand and told him about rudi and kelly and asked about dubois.

  "don'know, old buddy," sandor said. "after the pileup" he explained about the near miss

  "rudi waved us off to head here independently. i never saw any of them again. me, i put her into minimum consumption, stuck to the waves, and prayed. i've been on empty, warning lights on, for maybe ten goddamn minutes and crapping for twenty. what about the others?"

  "rudi and kelly landed on abu sabh beach rod rodrigues's looking after them nothing yet on scrag, willi, or vossi, but mac's still at kowiss."

  "jesusss!"

  "out, along with freddy and tom lochart, at least they were, ten or fifteen minutes ago." jean-luc turned to mathias who came up to them, "are you tuned into the tower?"

  "yes, no problem."

  "mathias delarne, sandor petrofi johnson, our mec."

  they greeted each other and shook hands. "how was your trip merde, best

  you don't tell me," mathias added, then saw the approaching car. "trouble," he warned.

  "stay in the cockpit, sandor," jean-luc ordered. "johnson, in the cabin."

  the car was marked official and it stopped broadside to the 212 twenty yards away. two bahraini men got out, a uniformed immigration captain and an officer from the tower, the latter wearing a long-flowing white dishdasha and headcloth with a twisted black coil holding it in place. mathias went to meet them. "morning, sayyid yusuf, sayyid bin ahmed. this is captain sessonne."

  "morning," both said politely, and continued to study the 212. "and the pilot?"

  "captain petrofi. mr. johnson, a mechanic, is in the cabin." jean-luc felt sick. the sun was glistening off the new paint but not the old, and the bottom of the i had a dribble of black from each corner. he waited for the inevitable remark and then the inevitable question, "what was her last point of departure?" and then his airy, "basra, iraq," as the nearest possible. but so simple to check there and no need to check, just walk forward and draw a finger through the new paint to find the permanent letters below. mathias was equally perturbed. easy for jean- luc, he thought, he doesn't live here, doesn't have to work here.

  "how long will g-hxxi be staying, captain?" the immigration of ricer asked. he was a clean-shaven man with sad eyes.

  jean-luc and mathias groaned inwardly at the accent on the letters. "she's due to leave for al shargaz at once, sayyid," mathias said, "for al shargaz, at once the very moment she's refueled. also the others who, er, ran out of fuel."

  bin ahmed, the tower of ricer, sighed. "very bad planning to run out of fuel. i wonder what happened to the legal thirty minutes of reserve."

  "the, er, the headwind, i expect, sayyid."

  "it is strong today, that's certain." bin ahmed looked out into the gulf, visibility about a mile. "one 212 here, two on our beach, and the fourth... the fourth out there." the dark eyes came back onto jean-luc. "perhaps he turned back for... for his departure point."

  jean-luc gave him his best smile. "i don't know, sayyid bin ahmed," he answered carefully, wanting to end the cat-and-mouse game, wanting to refuel and backtrack for half an hour to search.

  once more the two men looked at the chopper. now the rotor stopped. the blades trembled a little in the wind. casually bin ahmed took out a telex. "we've just received this from tehran, mathias, about some missing helicopters," he said politely. "from iran's air traffic control. it says, 'please be on

  the lookout for some of our helicopters that have been exported illegally from bandar delam. please impound them, arrest those aboard, inform our nearest embassy which will arrange for immediate deportation of the criminals and repatriation of our equipment." he smiled again and handed it to him. "curious, eh?"

  "very," mathias said. he read it, glazed, then handed it back.

  "captain sessonne, have you been to iran?"

  "yes, yes, i have."

  "terrible, all those deaths, all the unrest, all the killing, muslim killing muslim. persia's always been different, troublesome to others who live in the gulf. claiming our gulf as the persian gulf as though we, this side, did not exist," bin ahmed said, matter-of-factly. "didn't the shah even claim our island was iranian just because three centuries ago persians conquered us for a few years, we who have always been independent?"

  "yes, but he, er, he renounced the claim."

  "ah, yes, yes, that is true and occupied the oil islands of tums and abu musa. very hegemonistic are persian rulers, very strange, whoever they are, wherever they come from. sacrilege to plant mullahs and ayatollahs between man and god. eh?"

  "they, er, they have their way of life," jean-luc agreed, "others have theirs."

  bin ahmed glanced into the back of the station wagon. jean-luc saw part of the handle of a pa
intbrush sticking out from under the tarpaulin. "dangerous times we're having in the gulf. very dangerous. anti-god soviets closer every day from the north, more anti-god marxists south in yemen arming every day, all eyes on us and our wealth and islam. only islam stands between them and world dominance."

  mathias wanted to say, "what about france and of course america?" instead he said, "islam'll never fail. nor will the gulf states if they're vigilant."