sites, rushing to Shiraz to fetch Jesper, airlifting crews to Shiraz from dawn to dusk, spares to Kowiss - deciding what to take and what to leave, impossible to do everything at such short notice. Then the death of Jordon and Scot being clipped.
“That’s it, hold her there!” Jesper shouted, then hurried back through the snow to the cabin. Lochart watched him check the depth gauge, then stab a button. There was a muffled explosion. A puff of smoke came out of the drill hole. At once his assistant winched in the remains of the wire as Jesper went back, fought the pipe rams closed over the drill hole, and it was done - “The explosive charge blows the two cups together,” Jesper had explained earlier; “this forces the rubber seal against the steel casing and she’s capped, the seal good for a couple of years. When you want to open her, we come back and with another special tool drill out the plug and she’s as good as new. Maybe.”
He wiped his face with his sleeve. “Let’s get the hell out, Tom!” He trudged back to the cabin, turned the main electric switch off, stuffed all the computer printouts into a briefcase, closed and locked the door. “What about all the gear?”
“It Stays. The cabin’s okay. Let’s get aboard, I’m frozen to hell.” Jesper headed for the 206 that was parked on the helipad. “Soon as I get back to Shiraz I’ll see IranOil and get ‘em to get us permission to come back and pick the cabin up, along with the others. Eleven cabins’re one hell of an investment to leave lying around and not working. Weatherwise they’re good for a year, locked up. They’re designed to take a lot of weather beating, though not vandalizing.” He motioned to the wreckage around them. “Stupid!” “Yes.”
“Stupid! Tom, you should’ve seen the IranOil execs when I told them you’d been ordered out and Mr. Sera was closing down the field.” Jesper grinned, fair hair, blue eyes. “They screamed like slitted pigs and swore there were no komiteh orders to stop production.”
“I still don’t see why they didn’t come back with you and overrule the bastards here.”
“I invited them and they said next week. This’s Iran, they’ll never come.” He looked back at the site. “That well alone’s worth sixteen thousand barrels a day.” He got into the left seat beside Lochart, his assistant, a taciturn Breton, clambered into the back and pulled the door closed. Lochart started up, heat to maximum. “Next, Rig Maria, okay?”
Jesper thought a moment. “Better leave her till last. Rig Rosa’s more important.” He stifled another yawn. “We’ve two producers to cap there and the one still drilling. Poor bastards haven’t had time to tip out about seven thousand feet of pipe so we’ll have to plug her with it all in. Sonofabeetching waste.” He clipped his seat belt on and huddled closer to the heat fan.
“What happens then?”
“Routine.” The young man laughed. “When you want to open her up, we core the plug, then start fishing the pipe out piece by piece. Slow, tedious, and expensive.” Another huge yawn. He closed his eyes and was almost instantly asleep.
Mimmo Sera met the 206 at Rig Rosa. A 212 was also on the pad, engine idling, JeanLuc at the controls, men loading luggage and getting aboard. “Buon giorno, Tom.”
“Hi, Mimmo. How’s it go?” Lochart waved a greeting to JeanLuc. “These are the last of my men except for a roustabout to help Jesper.” Mimmo Sera was bleary with fatigue. “There was no time to tip pipe out of Three.” “No problem - we’ll cap her as is.”
“Si.” A tired smile. “Think of all the money you’ll make tipping it out.” Jesper laughed. “Seven thousand, eight hundred and sixty feet at - maybe we’ll make you a special price.”
Good-naturedly the older man made an expressive Italian gesture. Lochart said, “I’ll leave you two to it. When do you want me to come back for you?”
Jesper looked at his watch. It was near noon. “Come for us at four-thirty. Okay?”
“Four-thirty on the dot. Sunset’s at six-thirty-seven.” Lochart went over to the 212.
JeanLuc was muffled against the cold but still managed to look elegant. “I’ll take this batch direct Shiraz - they’re the last - except for Mimmo and your crew.”
“Good. How’s it below?”
“Chaos.” JeanLuc swore with great passion. “I smell disaster, more disaster.”
“You expect disaster all the time - except when you’re bedding. Not to worry, JeanLuc.”
“Of course to worry.” JeanLuc watched the loading for a moment - almost completed now, suitcases, knapsacks, two dogs, two cats, with a full load of men waiting impatiently - then turned back, lowered his voice, and said seriously, “Tom, the sooner we’re out of Iran the better.” “No. Zagros’s just an isolated case. Anyway, I’m still hoping Iran works out.” HBC swirled up into the front of Lochart’s brain, and Sharazad, and Whirlwind. He had told no one here about Whirlwind and his talk with Starke: “I’ll leave that to you, Duke,” he had said just before he left. “You can put the case better than me - I’m totally against it.”
“Sure. That’s your privilege. Mac approved your trip to Tehran Monday.” “Thanks. Has he seen Sharazad yet?”
“No, Tom, not yet.”
Where the hell is she? he thought, another twinge going through him. “I’ll see you at the base, JeanLuc. Have a safe trip.”
“Make sure Scot and Rodrigues are ready when I get back. I’ll have to do a quick turnaround if I’m to get to Al Shargaz tonight.” The cabin door slammed shut, JeanLuc glanced around, and got the thumbs-up. He acknowledged, then turned back again. “I’m off - make sure Scot slips aboard quietly, eh? I don’t want to get shot out of the skies - I still say Scot was their target, no one else.”
Lochart nodded bleakly, headed for his 206.
He had been en route back from Kowiss when the dawn disaster had happened yesterday. JeanLuc was getting up at the time and, by chance, had been looking out of his window. “The two of them, Jordon and Scot, were very close together, carrying spares between them, loading HIW,” he had told Lochart as soon as he had landed. “I didn’t see the first shots, just heard them, but I saw Jordon stagger and cry out, hit in the head, and Scot look off toward the trees at the back of the hangar. Then Scot bent down and tried to help Jordon - I’ve seen enough men shot to know poor Effer was dead before he touched the snow. Then there were more shots, three or four, but it wasn’t a machine gun, more like an M16 on automatic. This time Scot got one in the shoulder and it spun him around and he fell into the snow beside Jordon, half covered by him - Jordon between him and the trees. Then the bullets started pumping again… at Scot, Tom, I’m sure of it.” “How can you be sure, JeanLuc?”
“I’m certain. Effer was directly in the line of fire, directly, and took them all - the attackers weren’t spraying the base, just aiming at Scot. I grabbed my Very pistol and charged out, saw no one, but fired anyway in the general direction of the trees. When I got to Scot, he had the shakes and Jordon was a mess, hit perhaps eight times. We got Scot to the medic - he’s all right, Tom, shoulder wound, I watched him patched myself, wound’s clean and the bullet went right through.”
Lochart had gone at once to see Scot in the trailer room they called the infirmary. Kevin O’Sweeney, the medic, said, “He’s okay, Captain.” “Yes,” Scot echoed, his face white and still in shock. “Really okay, Tom.” “Let me talk to Scot a moment, Kevin.” When they were alone he said quietly, “What happened while I was away, Scot, you see Nitchak Khan? Anyone from the village?”
“No. No one.”
“And you told no one about what happened in the square?”
“No, no, not at all. Why, what’s all this about, Tom?”
“JeanLuc thinks you were the target, not Jordon or the base, just you.” “Oh, Christ! Old Effer bought it because of me?”
Lochart remembered how distraught Scot had been. The base had been filled with gloom, everyone still working frantically, boxing spares, loading the two 212s, the 206, and the Alouette for today, last day at Zagros. The only bright spot yesterday was dinner - a barbecued haunch of fresh wild goat that JeanLuc had cooked with plenty of delicious Iranian rice and horisht. “Great barbecue, JeanLuc,” he had said.
“Without French garlic and my skill this would taste like old English mutton, ugh!”
“The cook buy it in the village?”
“No, it was a gift. Young Darius - the one who speaks English - he brought us the whole carcass on Friday as a gift from Nitchak’s wife.” Abruptly the meat in Lochart’s mouth tasted foul. “His wife?” “Oui. Young Darius said she’d shot it that morning. Mon Dieu, I didn’t know she was a hunter, did you? What’s the matter, Tom?”
“It was a gift to whom?”
