Escape

by James Clavell

  The shadow of a smile. ‘You’re okay?’

  ‘Oh, yes.’ She touched his shoulder. ‘I’m ever so glad you’re better—you did give me a turn.’

  ‘I gave me a turn, Gen.’ He smiled and held out his hand and said gruffly, ‘Thanks, Mrs McIver.’

  She took it and put it to her cheek, then bent down and touched his lips with hers, warmed by the enormity of the affection in his face. ‘You did give me such a turn,’ she said again.

  He noticed the newspaper. ‘That today’s, Gen?’

  ‘Yes, dear.’

  ‘Seems years since I saw one. What’s new?’

  ‘More of the usual.’ She folded the paper and put it aside carelessly. ‘Strikes, Callaghan’s messing up poor old Britain more than ever. They say he might call a snap election this year, and if he does Maggie Thatcher’s got a good chance. Wouldn’t that be super? Be a change to have someone sensible in charge.’

  ‘Because she’s a woman?’ He smiled wryly. ‘That’d certainly set the cat among the chickens. Christ Almighty, a woman PM! Don’t know how she ever wangled the leadership away from Heath in the first place. . . she must have iron-plated knickers! If only the bloody Liberals’d stayed out of the way. . .’ His voice trailed off and she saw him look out to sea, some passing dhows beautiful, and knew he was willing the missing ones to land safely.

  Quietly she sat down and waited, wanting to let him drift back to sleep, or talk a little, whatever pleased him. He must be getting better if he’s already taking off after the Libs, she thought, bemused, letting herself drift, watching the sea. Her hair was moved by the breeze that smelled of sea salt. It was pleasant just sitting, knowing that he was all right now, ‘responding to treatment. No need to worry, Mrs McIver.’ Easy to say, hard not to do.

  There’ll be a huge change in our lives, has to be, apart from losing Iran and all our stuff there, lot of old rubbish, most of it, that I won’t miss. Now that Whirlwind’s almost over—I must have been mad to suggest it—but already most of our lads are out safely—won’t think about Marc or Fowler, Erikki and Azadeh, Sharazad and Lochart, and Scrag, though he’s almost safe—God protect them all. There’s still time for them. We’ve most of our equipment out, we’ve kept our face, and now we can stay in business. We won’t be penniless and that’s a blessing.

  ‘Duncan, going back to England won’t be bad, I promise.’

  After a pause he nodded, half to himself. ‘We’ll wait and see, Gen. We won’t make any decision yet. No need to decide what we’ll do in a month or so. Don’t worry, eh?’

  ‘I’m not worried now.’

  ‘Good, no need to worry.’ Once more his attention strayed to the sea. Come on for God’s sake, you lot out there, he was thinking, knowing she was sweating them in just as much as he was. For the love of God, you can do it, you can. . .

  England? Retire? Christ, if I stop working I’ll go mad and I’m damned if I’ll spend the rest of our lives battling the bloody English weather. . . seven out of ten birds safe already and still time. . .

  His eyes saw a tiny dot low on the sea, far out. His breathing stopped momentarily. But it was not a chopper, just a native boat. His anxiety came back and with it a twinge that increased his anxiety that brought a bigger twinge. . .

  ‘What are you thinking, Duncan?’

  ‘That it’s a beautiful day.’

  ‘Yes, yes, it is, and Whirlwind will have a happy ending,’ she said, outwardly confident.

  He took her hand and squeezed it and both hid their fear, of the future, for the others, for him and for her.

  Chapter 27

  Just Inside Turkey: 4:23 P.M. They had landed just outside the village this morning barely a mile inside Turkey. Erikki would have preferred to have gone farther into safety but his tanks were dry. He had been intercepted and ambushed again, this time by two fighters and two Huey gunships and had had to endure them for more than a quarter of an hour before he could duck across the line. The two Hueys had not ventured after him but remained circling in station just their side of the border.

  ‘Forget them, Azadeh,’ he said joyously. ‘We’re safe now.’

  But they were not. The villagers surrounded them. Police arrived. Four men, a sergeant, and three others, all in uniform—crumpled and ill fitting—with holstered revolvers. The sergeant wore dark glasses against the glare of the sun off the snow. None of them spoke English. Azadeh greeted them according to the plan she and Erikki had concocted, explaining that Erikki, a Finnish citizen, had been employed by a British company under contract to Iran-Timber, that in the Azerbaijan riots and fighting near Tabriz his life had been threatened by leftists, that she, his wife, had been equally threatened, so they had fled.

  ‘Ah, the Effendi is Finnish but you’re Iranian?’

  ‘Finnish by marriage, Sergeant Effendi, Iranian by birth. Here are our papers.’ She gave him her Finnish passport which did not include references to her late father, Abdollah Khan. ‘May we use the telephone, please? We can pay, of course. My husband would like to call our embassy, and also his employer in Al Shargaz.’

  ‘Ah, Al Shargaz.’ The sergeant nodded pleasantly. He was heavyset, close-shaven, even so the blue-black of his beard showed through his golden skin. ‘Where’s that?’

  She told him, very conscious of the way she and Erikki looked. Erikki with the filthy, bloodstained bandage on his arm and the crude adhesive over his damaged ear, she with her hair matted and dirty clothes and face. Behind her the two Hueys circled. The sergeant watched them thoughtfully. ‘Why would they dare to send fighters into our airspace and helicopters after you?’

  ‘The Will of God, Sergeant Effendi. I’m afraid that on that side of the border many strange things are happening now.’

  ‘How are things over the border?’ He motioned the other policeman towards the 212 and began to listen attentively. The three policemen wandered over, peered into the cockpit. Bullet holes and dried blood and smashed instruments. One of them opened the cabin door. Many automatic weapons. More bullet holes. ‘Sergeant!’

  The sergeant acknowledged but waited politely until Azadeh had finished. Villagers listened wide-eyed, not a chador or veil among them. Then he pointed to one of the crude village huts. ‘Please wait over there in the shade.’ The day was cold, the land snowbound, the sun bright off the snow. Leisurely the sergeant examined the cabin and the cockpit. He picked up the kukri, half pulled it out of the scabbard, and shoved it home again. The he beckoned Azadeh and Erikki with it. ‘How do you explain the guns, Effendi?’

  Uneasily Azadeh translated the question for Erikki.

  ‘Tell him they were left in my plane by tribesmen who were attempting to hijack her.’

  ‘Ah, tribesmen,’ the sergeant said. ‘I’m astonished tribesmen would leave such wealth for you to fly away with. Can you explain that?’

  ‘Tell him they were all killed by loyalists, and I escaped in the mêlée.’

  ‘Loyalists, Effendi? What loyalists?’

  ‘Police. Tabrizi police,’ Erikki said, uncomfortably aware that each question would pull them deeper into the quicksand. ‘Ask him if I can use the telephone, Azadeh.’

  ‘Telephone? Certainly. In due time.’ The sergeant studied the circling Hueys for a moment. Then he turned his hard brown eyes back to Erikki. ‘I’m glad the police were loyal. Police have a duty to the state, to the people, and to uphold the law. Gunrunning is against the law. Fleeing from police upholding the law is a crime. Isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes, but we’re not gunrunners, Sergeant Effendi, nor fleeing from police upholding the law,’ Azadeh had said, even more afraid now. The border was so close, too close. For her the last part of their escape had been terrifying. Obviously Hakim had alerted the border area: no one but he had the power to arrange such an intercept so fast, both on the ground and in the air.

  ‘Are you armed?’ the sergeant asked
politely.

  ‘Just a knife.’

  ‘May I have it please?’ The sergeant accepted it. ‘Please follow me.’

  They had gone to the police station, a small brick building with cells and a few offices and telephones near the mosque in the little village square. ‘Over the last months we’ve had many refugees of all sorts passing along our road, Iranians, British, Europeans, Americans, many Azerbaijanis, many—but no Soviets.’ He laughed at his own joke. ‘Many refugees, rich, poor, good, bad, many criminals among them. Some were sent back, some went on. Insha’Allah, eh? Please wait there.’

  ‘There’ was not a cell but a room with a few chairs and a table and bars on the windows, many flies and no way out. But it was warm and relatively clean. ‘Could we have some food and drink and use the telephone, please?’ Azadeh asked. ‘We can pay, Sergeant Effendi.’

  ‘I will order some for you from the hotel here. The food is good and not expensive.’

  ‘My husband asks, can he use the telephone, please?’

  ‘Certainly—in due course.’

  That had been this morning, and now it was late afternoon. In the intervening time the food had arrived, rice and mutton stew and peasant bread and Turkish coffee. She had paid with rials and was not overcharged. The sergeant had allowed them to use the foul-smelling hole in the ground squatter, and water from a tank and an old basin to wash in. There were no medical supplies, just iodine. Erikki had cleaned his wounds as best he could, gritting his teeth at the sudden pain, still weak and exhausted. Then, with Azadeh close beside him, he had propped himself on a chair, his feet on another, and had drifted off. From time to time the door would open and one or other of the policemen would come in, then go out again. ‘Matyeryebyets,’ Erikki muttered. ‘Where can we run to?’

  She had gentled him and stayed close and kept a steel gate on her own fear. I must carry him, she thought over and over. She was feeling better now with her hair combed and flowing, her face clean, her cashmere sweater tidy. Through the door she could hear muttered conversation, occasionally a telephone ringing, cars and trucks going past on the road from and to the border, flies droning. Her tiredness took her and she slept fitfully, her dreams bad: noise of engines and firing and Hakim mounted like a Cossack charging them, both she and Erikki buried up to their necks in the earth, hooves just missing them, then somehow free, rushing for the border that was acres of massed barbed wire, the false mullah Mahmud and the butcher suddenly between them and safety and th—

  The door opened. Both of them awoke, startled. A major in immaculate uniform stood there, glowering, flanked by the sergeant and another policeman. He was a tall, hard-faced man. ‘Your papers, please,’ he said to Azadeh.

  ‘I, I gave them to the sergeant, Major Effendi.’

  ‘You gave him a Finnish passport. Your Iranian papers.’ The major held out his hand. She was too slow. At once the sergeant went forward and grabbed her shoulder bag and spilled the contents on to the table. Simultaneously, the other policeman stalked over to Erikki, his hand on the revolver in his open holster, waved him into a corner against the wall. The major flicked some dirt off a chair and sat down, accepted her Iranian ID from the sergeant, read it carefully, then looked at the contents on the table. He opened the jewel bag. His eyes widened. ‘Where did you get these?’

  ‘They’re mine. Inherited from my parents.’ Azadeh was frightened, not knowing what he knew or how much, and she had seen the way his eyes covered her. So had Erikki. ‘May my husband please use the telephone? He wish—’

  ‘In due course! You have been told that many times. In due course is in due course.’ The major zipped up the bag and put it on the table in front of him. His eyes strayed to her breasts. ‘Your husband doesn’t speak Turkish?’

  ‘No, no he doesn’t, Major Effendi.’

  The officer turned on Erikki and said in good English, ‘There’s a warrant out for your arrest from Tabriz. For attempted murder and kidnapping.’

  Azadeh blanched and Erikki held on to his panic as best he could. ‘Kidnapping who, sir?’

  A flash of irritability washed over the major. ‘Don’t try to play with me. This lady. Azadeh, sister to Hakim, the Gorgon Khan.’

  ‘She’s my wife. How can a hus—’

  ‘I know she’s your wife and you’d better tell me the truth, by God. The warrant says you took her against her will and flew off in an Iranian helicopter.’ Azadeh started to answer but the major snapped, ‘I asked him, not you. Well?’

  ‘It was without her consent and the chopper is British not Iranian.’

  The major stared at him, then turned to Azadeh. ‘Well?’

  ‘It. . . it was without my consent. . .’ The words trailed off.

  ‘But what?’

  Azadeh felt sick. Her head ached and she was in despair. Turkish police were known for their inflexibility, their great personal power and toughness. ‘Please, Major Effendi, perhaps we may talk in private, explain in private?’

  ‘We’re in private now, madam,’ the major said curtly, then seeing her anguish and appreciating her beauty, added, ‘English is more private than Turkish. Well?’

  So, haltingly, choosing her words carefully, she told him about her oath to Abdollah Khan and about Hakim and the dilemma, unable to leave, unable to stay and how Erikki, of his own volition and wisdom, had cut through the Gordian knot. Tears streaked her cheeks. ‘Yes, it was without my consent but in a way it was with the consent of my brother who helped Er—’

  ‘If it was with Hakim Khan’s consent then why has he put a huge reward on this man’s head, alive or dead,’ the major said, disbelieving her, ‘and had the warrant issued in his name, demanding immediate extradition if necessary?’

  She was so shocked she almost fainted. Without thinking Erikki moved towards her, but the revolver went into his stomach. ‘I was only going to help her,’ he gasped.

  ‘Then stay where you are!’ In Turkish the officer said, ‘Don’t kill him.’ In English he said, ‘Well, Lady Azadeh? Why?’

  She could not answer. Her mouth moved but made no sound. Erikki said for her, ‘What else could a Khan do, Major? A Khan’s honour, his face is involved. Publicly he would have to do that, wouldn’t he, whatever he approved in private?’

  ‘Perhaps, but certainly not so quickly, no, not so quickly, not alerting fighters and helicopters—why should he do that if he wanted you to escape? It’s a miracle you weren’t forced down, didn’t fall down with all those bullet holes. It sounds like a pack of lies—perhaps she’s so frightened of you she’ll say anything. Now, your so-called escape from the palace: exactly what happened?’

  Helplessly Erikki told him. Nothing more to do, he thought. Tell him the truth and hope. Most of his concentration was on Azadeh, seeing the blank horror pervading her, yet of course Hakim would react the way he had—of course dead or alive—wasn’t the blood of his father strong in his veins?

  ‘And the guns?’

  Once more Erikki told it exactly, about being forced to fly the KGB, about Sheik Bayazid and his kidnap and ransom and the attack on the palace, having to fly them off and then their breaking their oaths and so having to kill them somehow.

  ‘How many men?’

  ‘I don’t remember exactly. Half a dozen, perhaps more.’

  ‘You enjoy killing, eh?’

  ‘No, Major, I hate it, but please believe us, we’ve been caught up in a web not of our seeking, all we want to do is be let go, please let me call my embassy. . . they can vouch for us. . . we’re a threat to no one.’

  The major just looked at him. ‘I don’t agree, your story’s too far fetched. You’re wanted for kidnapping and attempted murder. Please go with the sergeant,’ he said and repeated it in Turkish. Erikki did not move, his fists bunched, and he was near exploding. At once the sergeant’s gun was out, both police converged on him dangerously, and the major said harshly
, ‘It’s a very serious offence to disobey police in this country. Go with the sergeant! Go with him.’

  Azadeh tried to say something, couldn’t. Erikki thrust off the sergeant’s hand, contained his own impotent panic-rage, and tried to smile to encourage her. ‘It’s all right,’ he muttered and followed the sergeant.

  Azadeh’s panic and terror had almost overwhelmed her. Now her fingers and knees were trembling, but she wanted so much to sit tall and be tall, knowing she was defenceless and the major was sitting there opposite her watching her, the room empty but for the two of them. Insha’Allah, she thought and looked at him, hating him.

  ‘You have nothing to fear,’ he said, his eyes curious. Then he reached over and picked up her jewel bag. ‘For safekeeping,’ he said thinly and stalked for the door, closed it after him, and went down the passageway.

  The cell at the end was small and dirty, more like a cage than a room, with a cot, bars on the tiny window, chains attached to a huge bolt in one wall, a foul-smelling bucket in a corner. The sergeant slammed the door and locked it on Erikki. Through the bars the major said, ‘Remember, the Lady Azadeh’s. . . “comfort” depends on your docility.’ He went away.

  Now, alone, Erikki started prowling the cage, studying the door, lock, bars, floor, ceiling, walls, chains—seeking a way out.

  At the Oasis Hotel: Al Shargaz: 11:52 P.M. In the darkness the telephone jangled discordantly, jerking Gavallan out of a deep sleep. He groped for it, switching on his sidetable light. ‘Hello?’

  ‘Hello, Andrew, this is Roger Newbury, sorry to call so late but th—’

  ‘Oh, that’s all right, I said to call up till midnight.’

  ‘Good. How the hell you managed I don’t know—and I hate to bring bad tidings along with the good but we’ve just had a telex from Henley in Tabriz.’

  Sleep vanished from Gavallan. ‘Trouble?’

  ‘Afraid so. It sounds bizarre but this’s what it says.’ There was a rustle of paper, then, ‘Henley says “We hear there was some sort of attack yesterday or last night on Hakim Khan’s life, Captain Yokkonen is supposed to be implicated. Last night he fled for the Turkish border in his helicopter, taking his wife Azadeh with him, against her will. A warrant for attempted murder and kidnapping has been issued in Hakim Khan’s name. A great deal of fighting between rival factions is presently going on in Tabriz which is making accurate reporting somewhat difficult. Further details will be sent immediately they are available.” That’s all there is. Astonishing, what?’ Silence. ‘Andrew? Are you there?’