your own,” Lochart had told him, “I won’t check the cabin, I’ll just take off.”
“God help us all, Captain.”
Chapter 63
AT BAHRAIN AIRPORT: 11:28 A.M. JeanLuc and Mathias Delarne were standing beside a station wagon near the helipad watching the incoming 212, shading their eyes against the sun, still unable to recognize the pilot. Mathias was a short, thickset man, with dark wavy hair, half a face, the other half badly bum-scarred when he had bailed out on fire not far from Algiers. “It’s Dubois,” he said.
“No, you’re wrong, it’s Sandor.” JeanLuc waved, motioning him to land crosswind. The moment the skids touched, Mathias rushed under the rotors for the left cockpit door - paying no attention to Sandor who was shouting across at him. He carried a large paintbrush and a can of quick-drying airplane paint and he slapped the white paint over the Iran registration letters just below the door’s window. JeanLuc used the stencil they had prepared and black paint and his brush, then carefully peeled the stencil off. Now she was G-HXXI and legal.
Meanwhile, Mathias had gone to the tail boom and painted out IHC, ducked under the boom to do the same on the other side. Sandor just had time to move his arm out of the way of the door as, enthusiastically, JeanLuc stenciled the second G-HXXI.
“Voila!” JeanLuc gave his material back to Mathias who went to the station wagon to stash it under a tarpaulin, while JeanLuc wrung Sandor Petrofi’s hand and told him about Rudi and Kelly and asked about Dubois. “Don’know, old buddy,” Sandor said. “After the pileup” - he explained about the near miss - “Rudi waved us off to head here independently. I never saw any of them again. Me, I put her into minimum consumption, stuck to the waves, and prayed. I’ve been on empty, warning lights on, for maybe ten goddamn minutes and crapping for twenty. What about the others?” “Rudi and Kelly landed on Abu Sabh beach - Rod Rodrigues’s looking after them - nothing yet on Scrag, Willi, or Vossi, but Mac’s still at Kowiss.”
“Jesusss!”
“Oui, along with Freddy and Tom Lochart, at least they were, ten or fifteen minutes ago.” JeanLuc turned to Mathias who came up to them, “Are you tuned into the tower?”
“Yes, no problem.”
“Mathias Delarne, Sandor Petrofi - Johnson, our mec.”
They greeted each other and shook hands. “How was your trip - merde, best you don’t tell me,” Mathias added, then saw the approaching car. “Trouble,” he warned.
“Stay in the cockpit, Sandor,” JeanLuc ordered. “Johnson, back in the cabin.”
The car was marked OFFICIAL and it stopped broadside to the 212 twenty yards away. Two Bahraini men got out, a uniformed Immigration captain and an officer from the tower, the latter wearing a long-flowing white dishdasha and headcloth with a twisted black coil holding it in place. Mathias went to meet them. “Morning, Sayyid Yusuf, Sayyid Bin Ahmed. This is Captain Sessonne.”
“Morning,” both said politely, and continued to study the 212. “And the pilot?”
“Captain Petrofi. Mr. Johnson, a mechanic, is in the cabin.” JeanLuc felt sick. The sun was glistening off the new paint but not the old, and the bottom of the / had a dribble of black from each corner. He waited for the inevitable remark and then the inevitable question, “What was her last point of departure?” and then his airy, “Basra, Iraq,” as the nearest possible. But so simple to check there and no need to check, just walk forward and draw a finger through the new paint to find the permanent letters below. Mathias was equally perturbed. Easy for JeanLuc, he thought, he doesn’t live here, doesn’t have to work here.
“How long will G-HXXI be staying, Captain?” the Immigration officer asked. He was a cleanshaven man with sad eyes.
JeanLuc and Mathias groaned inwardly at the accent on the letters. “She’s due to leave for Al Shargaz at once, Sayyid,” Mathias said, “for Al Shargaz, at once - the very moment she’s refueled. Also the others who, er, ran out of fuel.”
Bin Ahmed, the tower officer, sighed. “Very bad planning to run out of fuel. I wonder what happened to the legal thirty minutes of reserve.” “The, er, the headwind, I expect, Sayyid.”
“It is strong today, that’s certain.” Bin Ahmed looked out into the Gulf, visibility about a mile. “One 212 here, two on our beach, and the fourth… the fourth out there.” The dark eyes came back onto JeanLuc. “Perhaps he turned back for… for his departure point.”
JeanLuc gave him his best smile. “I don’t know, Sayyid Bin Ahmed,” he answered carefully, wanting to end the cat-and-mouse game, wanting to refuel and backtrack for half an hour to search.
Once more the two men looked at the chopper. Now the rotor stopped. The blades trembled a little in the wind. Casually Bin Ahmed took out a telex. “We’ve just received this from Tehran, Mathias, about some missing helicopters,” he said politely. “From Iran’s Air Traffic Control. It says, ‘Please be on the lookout for some of our helicopters that have been exported illegally from Bandar Delam. Please impound them, arrest those aboard, inform our nearest embassy which will arrange for immediate deportation of the criminals and repatriation of our equipment.” He smiled again and handed it to him. “Curious, eh?”
“Very,” Mathias said. He read it, glazed, then handed it back. “Captain Sessonne, have you been to Iran?”
“Yes, yes, I have.”
‘Terrible, all those deaths, all the unrest, all the killing, Muslim killing Muslim. Persia’s always been different, troublesome to others who live in the Gulf. Claiming our Gulf as the Persian Gulf as though we, this side, did not exist,” Bin Ahmed said, matter-of-factly. “Didn’t the Shah even claim our island was Iranian just because three centuries ago Persians conquered us for a few years, we who have always been independent?” “Yes, but he, er, he renounced the claim.”
“Ah, yes, yes, that is true - and occupied the oil islands of Turns and Abu Musa. Very hegemonistic are Persian rulers, very strange, whoever they are, wherever they come from. Sacrilege to plant mullahs and ayatollahs between man and God. Eh?”
“They, er, they have their way of life,” JeanLuc agreed, “others have theirs.”
Bin Ahmed glanced into the back of the station wagon. JeanLuc saw part of the handle of a paintbrush sticking out from under the tarpaulin. “Dangerous times we’re having in the Gulf. Very dangerous. Anti-God Soviets closer every day from the north, more anti-God Marxists south in Yemen arming every day, all eyes on us and our wealth - and Islam. Only Islam stands between them and world dominance.”
Mathias wanted to say, “What about France - and of course America?” Instead he said, “Islam‘11 never fail. Nor will the Gulf states if they’re vigilant.”
“With the Help of God, I agree.” Bin Ahmed nodded and smiled at JeanLuc. “Here on our island we must be very vigilant against all those who wish to cause us trouble. Eh?”
JeanLuc nodded. He was finding it hard not to look at the telex in the man’s hand; if Bahrain had one, the same would have gone to every tower this side of the Gulf.
“With the Help of God we will succeed.”
The Immigration officer nodded agreeably. “Captain, I would like to see the pilot’s papers, and the mechanic’s. And them. Please.”
“Of course, at once.” JeanLuc walked over to Sandor. “Tehran’s telexed them to be on the lookout for Iran registereds,” he whispered hastily and Sandor went pasty. “No need for panic, mon vieux, just show your passports to the Immigration officer, volunteer nothing, you too, Johnson, and don’t forget you’re G-HXXI out of Basra.”
“But, Jesus,” Sandor croaked, “we’d have to’ve been stamped outta Basra, Iraq, and I got Iranian stamps over most every page.”
“So you were in Iran, so what? Start praying, mon brave. Come on.” The Immigration officer took the American passport. Punctiliously he studied the photograph, compared it to Sandor who weakly took off his sunglasses, then handed it back without leafing through the other pages. “Thank you,” he said and accepted Johnson’s British passport. Again the studious look at the photograph only. Bin Ahmed went a pace nearer the chopper. Johnson had left the cabin door open.
“What’s aboard?”
“Spares,” Sandor, Johnson, and JeanLuc said together.
“You’ll have to clear customs.”
Mathias said politely, “Of course he is in transit, Sayyid Yusuf, and will take off the moment he’s refueled. Perhaps it would be possible to allow him to sign the transit form, guaranteeing he lands nothing and carries no
