‘Doesn’t this heat bother you?’ I asked Jahangir.
Jahangir laughed, ‘Where I come from it is like this in winter.’
I shook my head, ‘I couldn’t live in a place like this. It would drive me mad.’ Doctor Awan wobbled his head in assent.
‘We stopping here long?’
‘Just for fuel,’ Jahangir replied, ‘not more than an hour.’
‘Thank God for that.’
He winced. A battered looking fuel bowser pulled up and the driver began unravelling its hoses. He plugged one into the wing. Most of the crew were already standing a distance away dragging on cigarettes. I went to join them.
The navigator offered me a cigarette. I declined. Even when I was smoking I couldn’t have smoked in that heat.
‘You want sit in cockpit?’ he asked.
‘Sorry?’ I thought he meant right then. I couldn’t think of anything worse than sitting in his greenhouse.
‘You want sit in cockpit on way to Dubai?’
‘Oh. Yeah. Sure. Thank you.’ For a start it would get me away from those drums, and I was curious to know if there was anything to see out there.
He smiled. ‘Is good. I show you Ilyushin. Very good aeroplane.’
‘Thank you,’ I repeated. ‘How long is flight?’ (Don’t you hate it when you start speaking Pidgin English to a foreigner, parroting them: as if it might help them understand you better.)
He didn’t seem to notice, ‘Four hour.’
Four hours. Shit, I’d thought we were nearly there already.
We stood in the burning sun waiting for the refuellers to finish. As soon as the fuel hose was disconnected we all boarded again. Within minutes the engines were howling and we taxied out to the runway. It was implausibly hot inside the navigator’s compartment. He had two fans going, but they just seemed to make it even hotter.
We took off towards the north. After crossing the Nile we turned east towards the endless desert.
After a while mountains began to thrust up though the sand and then, finally, the sea. The sight of the cobalt water of the Red Sea began to revive me.
Every ten minutes the navigator meticulously plotted our position on a paper chart.
‘Haven’t you got GPS?’ I asked.
‘Da.’ He pointed to a large instrument in the middle of his panel.
‘If you’ve got satellite navigation,’ I asked, ‘why do you still plot your position on the chart?’
His face scrunched up as he dredged the necessary English. ‘GPS is American.’
We had been flying over Saudi Arabia for some time. The navigator bent over his chart to fix our position. While I watched over his shoulder I saw movement out of the corner of my eye. It came from outside the cockpit.
It’s not often that you see another airplane en-route, especially off the main air routes. I looked to see what it was. I don’t know what I expected to see: perhaps a passenger jet going in the opposite direction. But it wasn’t a passenger jet at all. There were two of them, two fighter jets in formation coming up alongside us.
The navigator was still bent over his charts, he hadn’t seen the fighters. I tapped him on the shoulder, pointed. The look on his face was comical. His jaw dropped and for a moment he just stared at them. It was almost as if he believed that if he stared at them long enough they might disappear. They didn’t and he began jabbering in Russian over the intercom.
By that time they were alongside us and everybody knew; everybody except my customers downstairs where there weren’t any windows.
The fighters were F15s – American made. But the markings weren’t American – large green letters beneath the cockpit spelled: ’Royal Saudi Air Force’.
The navigator stopped talking and held one hand to his headset, pressing it to his ear.
‘What’s going on?’ I asked.
He held up his hand: wait. I waited.
The fighters pulled slightly ahead of us. The one in front waggled its wings and extended its landing gear. It was obvious what they wanted but I waited for the navigator to tell me.
He took off his headset. ‘We must follow them.’
As he spoke the pilots throttled back and the Ilyushin began to descend. Not much point arguing with an F15.
‘Why?’ I asked.
‘They say we not have correct clearance; must land to check papers.’
Great. There goes my million dollars. I didn’t imagine that the Saudis would just let us go with half a ton of yellowcake and a suitcase full of money. I went down to tell Jahangir and Doctor Awan the bad news.
They were both dozing. I shook Jahangir gently. He woke up immediately.
‘Are we there?’
‘Not yet. The Saudis have intercepted us. We’re going to land.’
‘Intercepted? What is intercepted?’
‘Two F15s from the Saudi Air Force are flying in front of us. We are following them to an airport somewhere in Saudi Arabia.’
Jahangir went white. ‘Why?’ But he recovered quickly; when his colour returned there was a glint in his eyes. ‘We fly this route all the time. They’ve never stopped us before. Why are they stopping us now? They can’t do this. We are on official Iranian business.’
‘I’m afraid they can. We’re in their air space. They can do whatever they want.’
‘Where are they taking us?’
‘I have no idea. Probably some air base.’ Jahangir unstrapped himself, jumped to his feet, shouted at the sleeping VEVAK agents in Farsi, stepped on Doctor Awan’s toes, brushed past me, scrambled up to the cockpit. The two goons were still half asleep as Jahangir disappeared up the stairs. They looked at each other, confused. I hadn’t said a word to them since day one and didn’t think it was a good time to start.
Doctor Awan was wide-awake, massaging his toes. He looked up at me. ‘What is going on?’
I told him. He didn’t seem the slightest bit perturbed.
‘Aren’t you worried?’ I asked.
He wobbled his head. ‘Why should I be worried? We have done nothing wrong. It is probably just some small misunderstanding. I have many friends here. I will speak to them and we will be on our way.’
That gave me a glimmer of hope; I might not lose my money after all. I went back to the cockpit. It was like a Chinese laundry up there. Jahangir was shouting and waving his arms about, the pilots were furiously flipping through two big manuals while trying to answer Jahangir and fly the aeroplane at the same time. The two crew at the desk on the right were wide awake; one was talking into his headset and the other was throwing switches on his panel while trying to shout over Jahangir to get the attention of the Captain, who had taken his headset off. If we weren’t hurtling towards earth at over eight hundred kilometres per hour it might have been funny.
We weren’t very high any more. The desert was coming up to meet us. The two fighters were still in front; beyond them a long black line in the desert: our destination.
As we approached the runway the two fighters slowed slightly. We caught up with them and they flew alongside the cockpit. Both extended their landing gear, an unmistakable command for us to do the same. The Captain reached over and extended ours. That was it – game over – we were landing in Saudi Arabia. Even Jahangir accepted the inevitable and turned to return downstairs. There wasn’t enough room for him to get past me, so I went down too, sat on my blanket at the back.
We landed a short time later and the big engines were shut down for the second time that day. The door opened and we all disembarked. It was hotter than Khartoum outside. We stood next the airplane in a huddle: waited.
It was clear that we were in a military base of some sort. We were parked on a small remote apron. There were a number of transport aircraft lined up in the distance. But there was only one other airplane on our apron, a Gulfstream corporate jet. It had an American registration. No one paid it much attention. I was more interested in the large revetments nearby and what looked like hardened shelters. Off to the one side were
some low sand-coloured buildings and a control tower.
While we were standing there the two F15s landed, but they taxied away from us, to the other side of the airfield, and we soon lost sight of them.
Then there was a growl of diesel motors and a number of Humvees sped onto the apron, formed a laager around us. Still nobody moved. Soldiers spilled from the vehicles, formed a perimeter, all facing in towards us, weapons held ready. When they were all in position an officer detached himself from the rest and walked towards us.
He addressed all of us,‘Salaam aleikum.’
Some of us muttered‘Aleikum slaam’ in return.
‘I’m terribly sorry for the inconvenience, but it has been necessary to ask you to land so that your documents can be verified.’ The voice didn’t fit the Bedouin-looking man it emanated from. It was pure English public school: probably Sandhurst trained.
The Captain approached him with a folder full of papers. ‘We have all necessary landing and flight clearance here.’ He held the folder open in front of the officer.
The Saudi didn’t even look at them. ‘Yes of course. I am sure that they are all in order. Nevertheless we would like to inspect the aircraft. Captain will you please open the aft doors.’
The Captain commanded something in Russian and one of the crew ran to the rear and opened the doors.
‘It’s very hot out here and this might take some time. Perhaps you would all like to come inside and have some refreshments while we dispense with the formalities. It’s air-conditioned.’
A gap opened in the cordon and the officer led us all inside. Jahangir was puffing himself up, ready to play the indignant diplomat and the two VEVAK agents were looking jumpy. But the Russians and Doctor Awan were taking it all in their stride, as if it were nothing more than a scheduled stop.
It was cool inside the airport building. The room looked like a departure lounge at a small regional airport.
‘Please take a seat.’ The officer said. ‘There are some formalities that need to be completed. It shouldn’t take too long. Doctor Awan, would you care to come with me.’
The doctor swung around at the sound of his name. But he didn’t move; he stayed rooted to the spot. He was probably wondering how the officer knew his name, why he had been chosen first.
The officer looked puzzled, ‘You are Doctor Awan?’
Wobble.
‘Doctor Younis Awan?’
Wobble wobble.
‘Follow me please.’ It was subtle, but the pleasantries had disappeared. It wasn’t a request, it was an instruction. I could see that Doctor Awan was about to protest, about to start dropping names. But for some reason he thought better of it and meekly followed the officer from the room.
We all sat down except for Jahangir. He started pacing up and down nervously. Before long he was banging on the door, demanding to be let out, reminding anyone listening of his diplomatic status. It didn’t help. No one answered. All he managed to do was irritate the crap out of me.
‘For fuck sake Jahangir, will you please sit down and shut up!’
It worked. He was obviously not used to being addressed like that. He went all cold and controlled.
‘What did you say?’
‘Wind your neck in, it’s not helping.’
He was obviously not familiar with the idiom. ‘Wind… what… what are you talking about?’
‘You can whinge at that door all day and it won’t help. They are going to deal with us in their own good time.’
The door opened. It was the officer. He looked directly at me. ‘Mister Stark please come with me.’
I know I’m a little slow on the uptake, but it was only then that the penny dropped. It wasn’t a routine stop, it had little to do with the Saudis; they were merely the instrument. It didn’t take long for my suspicions to be confirmed.
Chapter 53
I followed the officer down a long corridor. There were wooden doors on either side at regular intervals: all closed. He stopped at a door no different from all the others and opened it, stood to one side, motioned for me to go in first.
The room was unfurnished except for three wooden chairs lined up in the middle of the small space. Doctor Awan was sitting on one of the chairs. He had a black bag over his head. I didn’t see anything else because somebody grabbed me from behind, pulled a bag roughly over my head too.
They knew what they were doing. I struggled at first, on principle, tried a few tricks I knew, tried to break free. It was more to test them than a serious attempt to get away. We were in the middle of Saudi Arabia; if I managed to free myself and escape from the room there was nowhere to go.
They anticipated all my moves. Their grip didn’t waver for an instant. Plastic flex cuffs bit into my wrists and I knew that my hand was played.
They scuttled me across the room and pushed me down onto a chair, strapped me to it. The chairs were close together; I could feel Doctor Awan’s soft warm flesh pressing against my side.
‘You two boys just sit tight. We’re going to fetch your feisty friend.’ The voice was unmistakeably American. I heard the door close and for a few minutes it was quiet in the room. Quiet except for Doctor Awan’s whimpering. I was tempted to talk to him, but knew that there was probably somebody else there with us, someone left there to listen.
The door opened again. Jahangir let out a shriek that made my hair stand on end. I guessed it was the sight of us that triggered it. He didn’t give in easily; I wished I could have seen the fight. The shriek must have put his captors off for a moment because it took them a while to subdue him.
He put up a hell of a struggle. Although I couldn’t see anything, I heard everything. A jangle of thuds, groans and the singular sounds of flesh striking flesh filled the room. But the end was inevitable.
They strapped Jahangir to the chair next to mine, still spitting and growling. Even when he was secure, without any chance of getting free, I could feel him writhing against his bonds. He wasn’t giving up.
Eventually he tired, quietened down. Doctor Awan was still whimpering on my right. Jahangir was breathing heavily. I imagined the bag sucking against his mouth as he fought to get enough oxygen into his lungs.
For a while none of us said anything, then Jahangir spoke. ‘What is happening here?’
‘We’ve been kidnapped.’ I thought that a dose of the bleeding obvious might get him going. I was right.
‘Yes I know that.’ Testy. ‘Who?’
‘Americans.’
‘Why do you say that?’
‘I heard one of them.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Well, I had a bag over my head, but he sounded American.’
That got him going. ‘They can’t kidnap me. I have a diplomatic passport. They can’t kidnap a diplomat.’
‘They just did.’ More of the bleeding obvious.
‘Yes. But it is against international law to hold a diplomat.’
‘Maybe they’re getting their own back for 1979.’
‘What?’
‘You know, the American embassy in Tehran. Didn’t you hold their diplomats hostage for a couple of years?’
There was a snigger, but not from Jahangir, nor from Doctor Awan. It came from in front of us, near the door. We weren’t alone.
Jahangir didn’t say another word after that. We stayed there for a couple of hours: silent, unmoving. At least it felt like a couple of hours. My hands were completely numb and my bum was beginning to ache from the hard wooden chair, when the door opened and a number of people entered the room. They took Doctor Awan first. He started whingeing the moment they touched him, ‘What are you doing? Where are you taking me? I am an important man. You can’t treat me like this.’ On and on. It was a reflex more than anything else. He was in shock.
They took me next. A bolt of pain shot through my leg as they lifted me. My legs were numb. I stumbled as the feeling started coming back. There was a man either side of me. They each held an arm and they shuffled me down the
corridor like a condemned man on his way to the gallows.
I felt the heat as we went outside again. The tingling was just dissipating from my legs when we stopped. I guessed we were back on the apron. There was the howl of an aircraft’s power unit nearby. Something in front of me: stairs. The men helped me up them one by one. When we reached the top they pushed my head down and I sensed that we were going inside again. The space felt cramped, cool. They lowered me into another chair, a comfortable chair: upholstered.
I sat quietly for a while, straining to listen to what was going on around me. There was a lot of activity, movement back and forth. We were on an airplane and it was getting ready to leave. Then someone clamped a set of headphones on me and all I could hear was static: white noise. Just to make sure I wasn’t peeking either, they strapped what felt like a large pair of skiing goggles over my eyes.
Satisfactorily sensorially deprived, there wasn’t much to do but think. I thought of my suitcase of money still on the Ilyushin. Trumped again. Another pile of money that I would never get to use. And I thought of Martina, wondered when I would see her again. That bothered me more than the money.
I guessed that Bob had gone back on his word. They were shipping me off to some godforsaken place where my testicles would be hooked up to the national grid for the amusement of some very sick puppies.
The joke was that I’d retired from soldiering to lead a quiet life. Quiet life! My only regret was Martina: I should have looked after her better. But it wasn’t over yet. It’s never over until you stop breathing. And I had a long way to go before that happened.
It’s difficult to tell time when you’re wearing the headphones. Some time later I felt the aeroplane move, light jostling as it taxied out. Then I was shoved back in my seat and I guessed we were on our way.
Chapter 54
The journey seemed to take forever. I tried to concentrate, keep my mind clear; but the white noise took over; I was in a huge pink pool of jelly that wouldn’t let me go.
During my initial training I was taught to resist interrogation, taught what to expect if captured. But no amount of pretending can prepare you for the real thing. In training, no matter how rough it gets, you know that they are on your side, know that they will let you go sometime; and when it’s over you can go back to your barracks and have a shower, talk to your mates about it over a beer.
Elements of Risk: A Noah Stark Thriller Page 25