terror from bursting the dam, saw only the pockmarked face above the carving knife, the bedraggled mustache and beard, the eyes blank, the man’s thumb testing the blade absently. Then his eyes focused. He saw Azadeh come out of her spell and he remembered.
“The grenade!” he shrieked. “Azadeh, the grenade!”
She heard him clearly and fumbled for it in her side pocket as he shrieked again and again, further startling the butcher, dragging everyone’s attention to himself. The butcher came forward cursing him, took hold of his right hand firmly, fascinated by it, moved it a little this way and that, the knife poised, deciding where to slice through the sinews of the joint, giving Azadeh just enough tune to pick herself up and hurtle across the small space to shove him in the back, sending him flying and the knife into the snow, then to turn on Mahmud, pull the pin out, and stand there trembling, the lever held in her small hand.
“Get away from him,” she screamed. “Get away!”
Mahmud did not move. Everyone else scattered, trampling some, rushing for safety across the square, cursing and shouting.
“Quick, over here, Azadeh,” Ross called out. “Azadeh!” She heard him through her mist and obeyed, backing toward him, watching Mahmud, flecks of foam at the comer of her mouth. Then Ross saw Mahmud turn and stalk off toward one of his men out of range and he groaned, knowing what would happen now. “Quick, pick up the knife and cut me loose,” he said to distract her. “Don’t let go of the lever - I’ll watch them for you.” Behind her he saw the mullah take the rifle from one of his men, cock it, and turn toward them. Now she had the butcher’s knife and she reached for the bonds on his right hand and he knew the bullet would kill or wound her, the lever would fly off, four seconds of waiting, and then oblivion for both of them - but quick and clean and no obscenity. “I’ve always loved you, Azadeh,” he whispered and smiled and she looked up, startled, and smiled back.
The rifle shot rang out, his heart stopped, then another and another, but they did not come from Mahmud but from the forest and now Mahmud was screaming and twisting on the snow. Then a voice followed the shots: “Allah-u Akbar! Death to all enemies of God! Death to all leftists, death to all enemies of the Imam!” With a bellow of rage one of the mujhadin charged the forest and died. At once the rest fled, falling over themselves in their panic-stricken rush to hide. Within seconds the village square was empty but for the babbling howls of Mahmud, his turban no longer on bis head. In the forest the leader of the four-man Tudeh assassination team who had tracked him since dawn silenced him with a burst of machine-gun fire, then the four of them retreated as silently as they had arrived.
Blankly Ross and Azadeh looked at the emptiness of the village. “It can’t be… can’t be…” she muttered, still deranged.
“Don’t let go of the lever,” he said hoarsely. “Don’t let go of the lever. Quick, cut me loose… quick!”
The knife was very sharp. Her hands were trembling and slow and she cut him once but not badly. The moment he was free he grabbed the grenade, his hands tingling and hurting, but held the lever, began to breathe again. He staggered into the hut, found his kookri that had been mixed up in the blanket in the initial struggle, stuck it in its scabbard and picked up his carbine. At the doorway he stopped. “Azadeh, quick, get your chador and the pack and follow me.” She stared at him. “Quick!”
She obeyed like an automaton, and he led her out of the village into the forest, grenade in his right hand, gun in the left. After a faltering run of a quarter of an hour, he stopped and listened. No one was following them. Azadeh was panting behind him. He saw she had the pack but had forgotten the chador. Her pale blue ski clothes showed clearly against the snow and trees. He hurried on again. She stumbled after him, beyond talking. Another hundred yards and still no trouble.
No place to stop yet. He went on, slower now, a violent ache in his side, near vomiting, grenade still ready, Azadeh flagging even more. He found the path that led to the back of the base. Still no pursuit. Near the rise, at the back of Erikki’s cabin, he stopped, waiting for Azadeh, then his stomach heaved, he staggered and went down on his knees and vomited. Weakly, he got up and went up the rise to better cover. When Azadeh joined him she was laboring badly, her breath coming in great gulping pants. She slumped into the snow beside him, retching.
Down by the hangar he could see the 206, one of the mechanics washing it down. Good, he thought, perhaps it’s being readied for a flight. Three armed revolutionaries were huddled on a nearby veranda under the overhang of a trailer in the lee of the small wind, smoking. No sign of life over the rest of the base, though chimney smoke came from Erikki’s cabin and the one shared by the mechanics, and the cookhouse. He could see as far as the road. The roadblock was still there, men guarding it, some trucks and cars held up.
His eyes went back to the men on the veranda and he thought of Gueng and how his body had been tossed like a sack of old bones into the filth of the semi under their feet, perhaps these men, perhaps not. For a moment his head ached with the strength of his rage. He glanced back at Azadeh. She was over her spasm, still more or less in shock, not really seeing him, a dribble of saliva on her chin and a streak of vomit. With his sleeve he wiped her face. “We’re fine now, rest awhile then we’ll go on.” She nodded and sank back on her arms, once more in her own private world. He returned his concentration to the base.
Ten minutes passed. Little change. Above, the cloud cover was a dirty blanket, snow heavy. Two of the armed men went into the office and he could see them from time to time through the windows. The third man paid little attention to the 206. No other movement. Then a cook came out of the cookhouse, urinated on the snow, and went back inside again. More time. Now one of the guards walked out of the office and trudged across the snow to the mechanics’ trailer, an M16 slung over his shoulder. He opened the door and went inside. In a moment he came out again. With him was a tall European in flight gear and another man. Ross recognized the pilot Nogger Lane and the other mechanic. The mechanic said something to Lane, then waved and went back inside his trailer again. The guard and the pilot walked off toward the 206.
Everyone pegged, Ross thought, his heart fluttering. Awkwardly he checked his carbine, the grenade in his right hand inhibiting him, then put the last two spare magazines and the last grenade from his haversack into his side pocket. Suddenly fear swept into him and he wanted to run, oh, God help me, to run away, to hide, to weep, to be safe at home, away anywhere…. “Azadeh, I’m going down there now,” he forced himself to say. “Get ready to rush for the chopper when I wave or shout. Ready?” He saw her look at him and nod and mouth yes, but he wasn’t sure if he had reached her He said it again and smiled encouragingly. “Don’t worry.” She nodded mutely. Then he loosened his kookri and went over the rise like a wild beast after food.
He slid behind Erikki’s cabin, covered by the sauna. Sounds of children and a woman’s voice inside. Dry mouth, grenade warm in his hand. Slinking from cover to cover, huge drums or piles of pipe and saws and logging spares, always closer to the office trailer. Peering around to see the guard and the pilot nearing the hangar, the man on the veranda idly watching them. The office door opened, another guard came out, and beside him a new man, older, bigger, cleanshaven, possibly European, wearing better quality clothes and armed with a Sten gun. On the thick leather belt around his waist was a scabbarded kookri.
Ross released the lever. It flew off. “One, two, three,” and he stepped out of cover, hurled the grenade at the men on the veranda forty yards away, and ducked behind the tank again, already readying another.
They had seen him. For a moment they were stock-still, then as they dropped for cover the grenade exploded, blowing most of the veranda and overhang away, killing one of them, stunning another, and maiming the third. Instantly Ross rushed into the open, carbine leveled, the new grenade held tightly in his right hand, index finger on the trigger. There was no movement on the veranda, but down by the hangar door the mechanic and pilot dropped to the snow and put their arms over their heads in panic, the guard rushed for the hangar and for an instant was in the clear. Ross fired and missed, charged the hangar, noticed a back door, and diverted for it. He eased it open and leaped inside. The enemy was across the empty space, behind an engine, his gun trained on the other door. Ross blew his head off, the firing echoing off the corrugated iron walls, then ran for the other door. Through it he could see the mechanic and Nogger Lane hugging the snow near the 206. Still in cover, he called to them. “Quick! How many more hostiles’re here?” No answer. “For Christ sake, answer me!” Nogger Lane looked up, his face white. “Don’t shoot, we’re civilians, English - don’t shoot!”
“How many more hostiles are here?”
“There… there were five… five… this one here and the rest in… in the office… I think in the office…”
Ross ran to the back door, dropped to the floor, and peered out at ground level. No movement. The office was fifty yards away - the only cover a detour around the truck. He sprang to his feet and charged for it. Bullets howled off the metal and then stopped. He had seen the automatic fire coming from a broken office window.
Beyond the truck was a little dead ground, and in the dead ground was a ditch that led within range. If they stay in cover they’re mine. If they come out and they should, knowing I’m alone, the odds are theirs.
