Escape

by James Clavell

  Hakim had tried to find the flaws. There’s none, he had thought, astonished. And it would solve most of. . . wouldn’t it solve everything if it came to pass? If Erikki was to do this without her knowledge and help. . . Kidnap her! It’s true, no one’d ever believe she’d willingly break her oath. Kidnapped! I could deplore it publicly and rejoice for her in secret, if I want her to leave, and him to live. But I have to, it’s the only way: to save her soul I have to save him.

  In the peace of the bedroom he opened his eyes briefly. Flame shadows danced on the ceiling. Erikki and Azadeh were there. God will forgive me, he thought, swooping into sleep. I wonder if I’ll ever see her again?

  Saturday

  Chapter 25

  Near the Iran-Turkey Border: 7:59 A.M. Azadeh shielded her eyes against the rising sun. She had seen something glint in the valley below. Was that light reflected off a gun, or harness? She readied the M16, picked up the binoculars. Behind her Erikki lay sprawled on some blankets in the 212’s open cabin, heavily asleep. His face was pale and he had lost a lot of blood but she thought he was all right. Through the lenses she saw nothing move. Down there the countryside was snow-locked and sparsely treed. Desolate. No villages and no smoke. The day was good but very cold. No clouds and the wind had dropped in the night. Slowly she searched the valley. A few miles away was a village she had not noticed before.

  The 212 was parked in rough mountainous country on a rocky plateau. Last night after the escape from the palace, because a bullet had smashed some instrumentation, Erikki had lost his way. Afraid to exhaust all his fuel, and unable to fly and at the same time staunch the flow of blood from his arm, he had decided to risk landing and wait for dawn. Once on the ground, he had pulled the carpet out of the cockpit and unrolled it. Azadeh was still sleeping peacefully. He had tied up his wound as best he could, then rewrapped her in the carpet for warmth, brought out some of the guns and leaned against the skid on guard. But much as he tried he could not keep his eyes open.

  He had awakened suddenly. False dawn was touching the sky. Azadeh was still huddled down in the carpet but now she was watching him. ‘So. You’ve kidnapped me!’ Then her pretended coldness vanished and she scrambled into his arms, kissing him and thanking him for solving the dilemma for all three of them with such wisdom, saying the speech she had rehearsed: ‘I know a wife can do little against a husband, Erikki, hardly anything at all. Even in Iran where we’re civilised, even here, a wife’s almost a chattel and the Imam is very clear on wifely duties, and in the Koran,’ she added, ‘in the Koran and Sharia her duties are oh so clear. Also I know I’m married to a non-Believer, and I openly swear I will try to escape at least once a day to try to go back to fulfil my oath, and though I’ll be petrified and know you’ll catch me every time and will keep me without money or beat me and I have to obey whatever you order, I will do it.’ Her eyes were brimming with happy tears. ‘Thank you, my darling, I was so afraid. . .’

  ‘Would you have done that? Given up your God?’

  ‘Erikki, oh, how I prayed God would guide you.’

  ‘Would you?’

  ‘There’s no need now even to think the unthinkable, is there, my love?’

  ‘Ah,’ he said, understanding. ‘Then you knew, didn’t you? You knew that this was what I had to do!’

  ‘I only know I’m your wife, I love you, I must obey you, you took me away without my help and against my will. We need never discuss it again. Please?’

  Blearily he peered at her, disoriented, and could not understand how she could seem to be strong and have come out of the drugged sleep so easily. Sleep! ‘Azadeh, I’ve got to have an hour of proper sleep. Sorry, I can’t go on. Without an hour or so, I can’t. We should be safe enough here. You guard, we should be safe enough.’

  ‘Where are we?’

  ‘Still in Iran, somewhere near the border.’ He gave her a loaded M16, knowing she could use it accurately. ‘One of the bullets smashed my compass.’ She saw him stagger as he went for the cabin, grope for some blankets, and lie down. Instantly he was asleep. While she waited for the daylight she thought about their future and about the past. Still Johnny to settle. Nothing else. How strange life is. I thought I would scream a thousand times closed up in that vile carpet, pretending to be drugged. As if I would be so stupid as to drug myself in case I would have to help defend us! So easy to dupe Mina and my darling Erikki and even Hakim, no longer my darling: ‘Her everlasting spirit’s more important than her temporary body!’ He would have killed me. Me! His beloved sister! But I tricked him.

  She was very pleased with herself and with Aysha who had whispered about the secret listening places so that when she had stormed out of the room in pretended rage and left Hakim and Erikki alone, she had scurried to overhear what they were saying. Oh, Erikki, I was petrified you and Hakim weren’t going to believe that I’d really break my oath—and frantic in case the clues I’d placed before you all evening wouldn’t add up to your perfect stratagem. But you went one better than me—you even arranged the helicopter. Oh, how clever you were, I was, we were together. I even made sure you brought my handbag and jewel bag with Najoud’s loot that I wheedled out of Hakim so now we’re rich as well as safe, if only we can get out of this God-lost country.

  ‘It is God-lost, my darling,’ Ross had said the last time she had seen him in Tehran, just before he had left her—she could not endure parting without saying goodbye so she had gone to Talbot to inquire after him and then, a few hours later, he had knocked on her door, the apartment empty but for them. ‘It’s best you leave Iran, Azadeh. Your beloved Iran is once again bereft. This revolution’s the same as all of them: a new tyranny replaces the old. Your new rulers will implant their law, their version of God’s law, as the Shah implanted his. Your ayatollahs will live and die as popes live and die, some good men, some bad and some evil. In God’s time the world’ll get a little better, the beast in men that needs to bite and hack and kill and torment and torture will become a little more human and a little more restrained. It’s only people that bugger up the world, Azadeh. Men mostly. You know I love you?’

  ‘Yes. You said it in the village. You know I love you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  So easy to swoop back into the womb of time as when they were young. ‘But we’re not young now and there’s a great sadness on me, Azadeh.’

  ‘It’ll pass, Johnny,’ she had said, wanting his happiness. ‘It’ll pass as Iran’s troubles will pass. We’ve had terrible times for centuries but they’ve passed.’ She remembered how they had sat together, not touching now, yet possessed, one with the other. Then later he had smiled and raised his hand in his devil-may-care salute and he had left silently.

  Again the glint in the valley. Anxiety rushed back into her. Now a movement through the trees and she saw them. ‘Erikki!’ He was instantly awake. ‘Down there. Two men on horseback. They look like tribesmen.’ She handed him the binoculars.

  ‘I see them.’ The men were armed and cantering along the valley bed, dressed as hill people would dress, keeping to cover where there was cover. Erikki focused on them. From time to time he saw them look up in their direction. ‘They can probably see the chopper but I doubt if they can see us.’

  ‘They’re heading up here?’

  Through his aching and tiredness he had heard the fear in her voice. ‘Perhaps. Probably yes. It’d take them half an hour to get up here, we’ve plenty of time.’

  ‘They’re looking for us.’ Her face was white and she moved closer to Erikki. ‘Hakim will have alerted everywhere.’

  ‘He won’t have done that. He helped me.’

  ‘That was to escape.’ Nervously she looked around the plateau and the tree line and the mountains, then back at the two men. ‘Once you escaped he’d act like a Khan. You don’t know Hakim, Erikki. He’s my brother but before that he’s Khan.’

  Through the binoculars he saw the half-hidden
village beside the road in the middle distance. Sun glinted off telephone lines. His own anxiety increased. ‘Perhaps they’re just villagers and curious about us. But we won’t wait to find out.’ Wearily he smiled at her. ‘Hungry?’

  ‘Yes, but I’m fine.’ Hastily she began bundling the carpet that was ancient, priceless, and one of her favourites. ‘I’m thirsty more than hungry.’

  ‘Me too but I feel better now. The sleep helped.’ His eyes ranged the mountains, setting what he saw against his remembrance of the map. A last look at the men still far below. No danger for a while, unless there are others around, he thought, then went for the cockpit. Azadeh shoved the carpet into the cabin and tugged the door closed. There were bullet holes in it that she had not noticed before. Another spark of sunlight off metal in the forest, much closer, that neither saw.

  Erikki’s head ached and he felt weak. For the first time in many a day he thought about McIver and the others, cursed McIver for not warning him and prayed he and all the others had escaped safely. Mac should have sent me, Take a powder, but then, how could he?

  He concentrated, and pressed the starting button. Wind up, immediate and correct. A quick check of his instruments. Rev counter shattered, no compass, no ADF. No need for some instruments—the sound of the engines would tell him when the needles would be in the Green. But needles on the fuel gauges were stuck at a quarter full. No time to check on them or any other damage and if there was damage, what could he do? All gods great and small, old and new, living or dead or yet to be born, be on my side today, I’ll need all the help you can give me. His eyes saw the kukri that he remembered vaguely shoving in the seat pocket. Without conscious effort his fingers reached out and touched it. The feel of it burned.

  Azadeh hurried for the cockpit, turbulence from the rotors picking up speed clawing at her, chilling her even more. She climbed into the seat and locked the door, turning her eyes away from the mess of dried blood on the seat and floor. Her smile died, noticing his brooding concentration and the strangeness, his hand almost near the kukri but not quite. Again she wondered why he had brought it.

  ‘Are you all right, Erikki?’ she asked, but he did not appear to have heard her. Insha’Allah. It’s God’s will he is alive and I’m alive, that we’re together and almost safe. But now it’s up to me to carry the burden and to keep us safe. He’s not my Erikki yet, neither in looks nor in spirit. I can almost hear the bad thoughts pounding in his head. Soon the bad will again overpower the good. God protect us. ‘Thank you, Erikki,’ she said, accepting the headset he handed her, mentally girding herself for battle.

  He made sure she was strapped in and adjusted the volume for her. ‘You can hear me, all right?’

  ‘Oh, yes, my darling. Thank you.’

  Part of his hearing was concentrated on the sound of the engines, a minute or two yet before they could take off. ‘We’ve not enough fuel to get to Van which’s the nearest airfield in Turkey—I could go south to the hospital in Rezaiyeh for fuel but that’s too dangerous. I’m going north a little. I saw a village that way and a road. Perhaps that’s the Khvoy-Van road.’

  ‘Good, let’s hurry, Erikki, I don’t feel safe here. Are there any airfields near here? Hakim’s bound to have alerted the police and they’ll have alerted the air force. Can we take off?’

  ‘Just a few more seconds, engines’re almost ready.’ He saw the anxiety and her beauty and once more the picture of her and John Ross together tumbled into his mind. He forced it away. ‘I think there are airfields in the border sector. We’ll go as far as we can. I think we’ve enough fuel to get over the border.’ He made an effort to be light. ‘Maybe we can find a gas station. Do you think they’d take a credit card?’

  She laughed nervously and lifted up her bag, winding the strap around her wrist. ‘No need for credit cards, Erikki. We’re rich—you’re rich. I can speak Turkish and if I can’t beg, buy, or bribe our way through I’m not of the tribe Gorgon! But through to where? Istanbul? You’re overdue a fabulous holiday, Erikki. We’re safe only because of you, you did everything, thought of everything!’

  ‘No, Azadeh, you did.’ You and John Ross, he wanted to shout and looked back at his instruments to hide. But without Ross, Azadeh’d be dead and therefore I’d be dead and I can’t live with the thought of you and him together. I’m sure you lov—

  At that moment his disbelieving eyes saw the groups of riders break out of the forest a quarter of a mile away on both sides of him, police among them, and begin galloping across the rocky space to head them off. His ears told him the engines were in the Green. At once his hands shoved full throttle. Time slowing. Creeping off the ground, no way that the attackers could not shoot them down. A million years of time for them to rein in, aim and fire, any one of the dozen men. Look, the gendarme in the middle, the sergeant, he’s pulling the M16 out of his saddle holster!

  Abruptly time came back at full speed and Erikki swung away and fled from them, weaving this way and that, expecting every second to be the last, then they were over the side, roaring down into the ravine at treetop level.

  ‘Hold your fire,’ the sergeant shouted to the overexcited tribesmen who were at the lip, aiming and firing, their horses cavorting. ‘In the Name of God I told you we were ordered to capture them, to save her and kill him, not kill her!’ Reluctantly the others obeyed and when he came up to them he saw the 212 was well away down in the valley. He pulled out the walkie-talkie and switched on: ‘HQ. This is Sergeant Zibri. The ambush failed. His engines were going before we got into position. But he’s flushed out of his hiding place.’

  ‘Which way is he heading?’

  ‘He’s turning north towards the Khvoy-Van road.’

  ‘Did you see Her Highness?’

  ‘Yes. She looked petrified. Tell the Khan we saw the kidnapper strap her into the seat and it looked as though the kidnapper also had a strap around her wrist. She. . .’ The sergeant’s voice picked up excitedly. ‘Now the helicopter’s turned eastward, it’s keeping about two or three kilometres south of the road.’

  ‘Good. Well done. We’ll alert the air force. . .’

  Chapter 26

  At the Bahrain Hospital—Across the Gulf: 1:16 P.M. ‘Good morning, Dr Lanoire. Captain McIver, is it good or bad?’ Jean-Luc asked.

  The doctor steepled his fingers. He was a distinguished man in his late thirties, trained in Paris and London, trilingual, Arabic, French and English. ‘We won’t know with much accuracy for a few days: we still have to make several tests. We’ll know the real good or bad when he has an angiogram a month from now, but in the meantime Captain McIver’s responding to treatment and is not in pain.’

  ‘But is he going to be all right?’

  ‘Angina is quite ordinary, usually. I understand from his wife he’s been under very great stress for the last few months, and even worse for the last few days on this Whirlwind exercise of yours—and no wonder. What courage! I salute him to fly all that way and make a safe landing, and I salute you and all those who took part. At the same time I’d strongly advise that all pilots and crews be given two or three months off.’

  Jean-Luc beamed. ‘May I have that in writing, please? Of course the three months’ sick leave should be with full pay—and allowances.’

  ‘Of course. What a magnificent job all of you did for your company, risking your lives—you should all get a well-deserved bonus! I wonder why more of you don’t have heart attacks. The two months is to recuperate, Jean-Luc—it’s essential you have a careful checkup before you continue flying.’

  Jean-Luc was perplexed. ‘We can all expect heart attacks?’

  ‘Oh, no, no, not at all.’ Lanoire smiled. ‘But it would be very wise to be checked thoroughly—just in case. It can happen anytime.’

  ‘It can?’ Jean-Luc’s discomfort increased. Piece of shit! It’d just be my luck to have a heart attack. Mon Dieu, Jean-Luc thought squeamishly, buck
et of shit. ‘How long will Mac be in the hospital?’

  ‘Four or five days. I would suggest you leave him today and visit tomorrow, but don’t tax him. He must have a month’s leave, then some further tests.’

  ‘What are his chances?’

  ‘That’s up to God.’

  On the veranda of a pleasant room overlooking the blue waters, Genny was dozing in a chair, today’s London Times brought by BA’s early flight open on her lap. McIver lay comfortably in the starched clean bed. The breeze came off the sea and touched him and he woke up. Wind’s changed, he thought. It’s back to the standard northeasterly. Good. He moved to see better out into the Gulf. The slight movement awakened her instantly. She folded the paper and got up.

  ‘How’re you feeling, luv?’

  ‘Fine. I’m fine now. No pain. Just a bit tired. Vaguely heard you talking to the Doc, what did he say?’

  ‘Everything seems fine. The attack wasn’t bad. You’ll have to take it easy for a few days, then a month off and then some more tests—he was very encouraging because you don’t smoke, you’re ever so fit, considering.’ Genny stood over the bed, against the light, but he could see her face and read the truth thereon. ‘You can’t fly anymore—as a pilot,’ she said and smiled.

  ‘That’s a bugger,’ he said drily. ‘Have you been in touch with Andy?’

  ‘Yes. I called last night and this morning and will check again in an hour or so. Nothing yet on young Marc Dubois and Fowler, Erikki and Azadeh, Tom—Scrag was delayed but he’s airborne now—still plenty of time. Our birds at Al Shargaz are being stripped for freighting out tomorrow. Andy was so proud of you. I talked to him this morning too.’