up? For God’s sake it happened two days ago!”
“I don’t decide policy, I just carry messages and anyway we’ve just heard. Besides, you’ve been difficult to track down. Everyone thought you’d left, last seen boarding a British aircraft bound for Al Shargaz. Damn it, you’ve been ordered out for almost a week and you’re still here, not on any assignment I know of, and whatever you’ve decided to do, don’t, except kindly remove yourself from Iran because if you’re caught and they get you to the third level, a lot of people are going to be very bloody peed off.” “I’ll try not to disappoint them.” Armstrong got up and put on his old raincoat with the fur collar. “See you soon.”
“When?”
“When I bloody choose.” Armstrong’s face tightened. “I’m not under your authority and what I do and when I come and go is not up to you. Just see my report’s kept in the safe until you’ve a diplomatic bag to pass it urgently to London, and keep your bloody mouth shut.”
“You’re not usually so rude, or so touchy. What the hell’s up, Robert?” Armstrong stalked out and down the steps and out into the cold of the day. It was overcast and promised to snow again. He went down the crowded street. Passersby and street merchants pretended not to notice him, presumed he was Soviet, and cautiously went about their own business. Though he was watching to see if he was being followed, his mind was sifting ways and means to deal with Hashemi. No time to consult his superiors, and no real wish to. They would have shaken their heads: “Good God, our old friend Hashemi? Send him onwards on suspicion he levitated Talbot? First we’d need proof…”
But there’ll never be any proof and they won’t believe about Group Four teams or about Hashemi fancying himself as a modern Hasan ibn al-Sabbah. But I know. Wasn’t Hashemi bursting with happiness about assassinating General Janan? Now he’s got bigger fish to skewer. Like Pahmudi. Or the whole Rev Komiteh, whoever they are - I wonder if he’s pegged them yet? I wonder if he’d go for the Imam himself? No telling. But one way or another he’ll pay for old Talbot - after we’ve got Petr Oleg Mzytryk. Without Hashemi I’ve no chance of getting him, and through him the sodding traitors we all know are operating up top in Whitehall, Philby’s bosses, the fourth, fifth, and sixth man - in the Cabinet, MI5, or MI6. Or all three.
His rage was all possessive, making his head ache. So many good men betrayed. The touch of his automatic pleased him. First Mzytryk, he thought, then Hashemi. All that’s left to decide is when and where.
BAHRAIN - AT THE INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT: 4:24 P.M. JeanLuc was on the phone in Mathias’s office. “… No, Andy, we’ve nothing either.” He glanced at Mathias who listened, and gravely made a thumbs-down to him. “Charlie’s beside himself,” Gavallan was saying. “I just got off the phone to him. Damn shame but nothing we can do but wait. Same with Dubois and Fowler.” JeanLuc could hear the great weariness in Gavallan’s voice. “Dubois will turn up - after all he’s French. By the way I told Charlie if…when,” he corrected himself hastily, “when Tom Lochart and Freddy Ayre land, to tell them to refuel at Jellet and not come here, unless there’s an emergency. Mathias put the spare fuel on Jellet himself so we know it’s there. Andy, you’d better call Charlie and add your authority because Bahrain could be difficult, I don’t want to risk another confrontation - their warning was clear whether we’re flying on British registry or not. I still don’t know how we squeaked Rudi, Sandor, and Pop through. I’m certain they’ll impound any Iran registers, and the crews - and next time they’ll check the paint and papers.”
“All right, I’ll tell him at once. JeanLuc, there’s no reason for you to come back to Al Shargaz; why not go direct to London tomorrow, then up to Aberdeen? I’m posting you to the North Sea until we get sorted out, all right?”
“Good idea. I’ll report in Aberdeen on Monday,” JeanLuc said quickly, stealing a free weekend. Mon Dieu, I’ve earned it, he thought, and changed the subject to give Gavallan no time to argue. “Has Rudi arrived yet?” “Yes, safe and sound. All three of them’re bedded down. So’re Vossi and Willi too. Scrag’s fine. Erikki’s out of danger, Duke’s mending slowly but surely… if it wasn’t for Dubois and Fowler, Mac, Tom and their lot… Hallelujah! I’ve got to go, ‘bye.”
“Au revoir.” Then to Mathias, “Merde, I’m posted to the North Sea.” “Merde.”
“What’s Alitalia’s extension?”
“It’s 22134. Why?”
“If I have to invoke the pope himself, I’m on the early flight to Rome tomorrow with the connection to Nice - I need Marie-Christene, the kids, and some decent food. Espcce de con on the North Sea!” Worriedly he looked at the clock. “Espcce de con on this waiting! Where’re our Kowiss birds, eh?”
KUWAIT - OFFSHORE: 4:31 P.M. The red fuel-warning light came on. McIver and Wazari saw it instantly and both cursed. “How much we got left, Captain?” “With this bloody wind, not much.” They were just ten feet off the waves. “How far we got to go?”
“Not far.” McIver was exhausted and feeling terrible. The wind had freshened to nearly thirty-five knots, and he had been nursing the 212, trying to eke out their fuel, but there was not much he could do at this low level. Visibility was still poor, the overcast thinning rapidly as they neared the coast. He looked out of his window across at Ayre, pointed at his instrument panel, and gave a thumbs-down. Ayre nodded. His warning light had not yet come on. Now it did.
“Bloody hell,” Kyle, Ayre’s mechanic said. “We’ll be in the open in a few minutes and sitting bloody ducks.”
“Not to worry. If Mac doesn’t call Kuwait soon, I’m going to.” Ayre peered upward, thought he glimpsed the fighters above them, but it was just two seabirds. “Christ, for a moment…”
“Those bastards wouldn’t dare follow us this far, would they?” “I don’t know.” Since leaving the coast they had been playing hide-and-seek with the two jet fighters. Abeam Kharg, happily sneaking past in the rain and haze, not varying their height over the waves, he and McIver had been spotted: “This is Kharg radar control: choppers illegally outward bound on heading 275 degrees, climb to one thousand and hold - climb to one thousand and hold.”
For a moment they were in shock, then McIver waved Ayre to follow him, turned 90 degrees due north away from Kharg, and went even lower to the sea. In a few minutes his earphones were filled with the Farsi from the fighters to air force control and back again. “They’re being given our coordinates, Captain,” Wazari gasped. “Orders to arm their rockets… now they’re reporting they’re armed…
“This is Kharg! Choppers illegally on course 270, climb to one thousand and hold. If you do not obey you will be intercepted and shot down; I repeat you will be intercepted and shot down.”
McIver took his hand off the collective to rub his chest, the pain returning, then doggedly held the course as Wazari gave him snatches of what was being said, “… the leader’s saying follow me down… now the wingman says all rockets armed… how’re we going to find them in this shit…I’m slowing down… we don’t want to miss them… Ground controller says, ‘Confirm rockets armed, confirm kill…’ Jesus, they’re confirming rockets armed and on collision course with us.”
Then the two jet fighters had come hurtling at them from out of the murk ahead but to the right and fifty feet above them and then they were past and vanished. “Christ, did they see us?”
“Jesus, Captain, I don’t know but those bastards carry heat seekers.” McIver’s heart was racing as he motioned to Ayre and went into hover, just above the waves, to throw the hunters off. “Tell me what they’re saying, Wazari, for Christ’s sake!”
“Pilots’re cursing… reporting they’re at two thousand, two hundred knots… one’s saying there’re no holes in the soup and the ceiling’s around four hundred… difficult to see the surface … Controller’s saying go ahead to international line and get between it and the pirates…. Jesus, pirates? Get between them and Kuwait … see if the cloud cover’s any thinner… stay in ambush at two thousand…”
What to do? McIver was asking himself. We could bypass Kuwait and head direct Jellet. No good - with this wind we’d never make it. Can’t turn back. So it’s Kuwait and hope we can slither past them.
At the international line the clouds were just enough to hide them. But the fighters were lurking somewhere there in a holding pattern, waiting for a window, or for the clouds to thin, or for their prey to presume they were safe and climb up into regulation and approach height. For a quarter of an hour the military channel had been silent. They could hear Kuwait controllers now.
“I’m going to cut one engine to save gas,” McIver said.
“You want me to call Kuwait, Skipper?”
“No, I’ll do that. In a minute. You’d better go back into the cabin and prepare to hide. See if you can find some sea overalls, there’re some in the locker. Use a sea safety coverall. Dump your uniform over the side and have
